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jaedore · 4 years

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BINDING BONDS | 11

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parings: jung jaehyun x reader

genre: ceo!au, arranged marriage!au, angst, asshole Jaehyun, swearing

[ ☽ smut | ◇ angst (mental health, therapy) | ☼ fluff ]

note: BB deals with themes of mental and physical abuse, which can be upsetting for some readers. If you feel uncomfortable reading these types of plots, you are advised to not continue. MINORS, READ AT YOUR OWN RISK, but I advise you to skip the sexual parts.

[ 10.7 words ]

The brisk winter wind pierces your cheeks and flows past your hair as you look at the view in front of you, the door to your balcony slightly opened. The distant image of the Eiffel Tower illuminates the city below your feet bringing bittersweet memories from long ago. It’s been five years. Five years since you felt his touch, funny how you could still feel his fingertips between other men you decided to indulge yourself in. It made it hard to stay until the sun rose. You hated yourself for it, but how else were you supposed to forget about the man who didn’t want to marry you? His ghost never left you, though. It followed you wherever you went, making you go crazy. That’s why you left the town where the love bloomed and broke, settling down in the city of love, how ironic. Your actions were always contradicting and it still is to this day.

In those five years, you quickly took over the CEO position of Audace, giving your mother the gift of early retirement. Into your first couple of years, you were listed Top 20 in Forbes Magazine, immediately gaining attention for your designs. You always reminded yourself to be humble whenever someone praises you for your work, you weren’t the only one with the hands behind the designs, of course.

Everything was the way it was supposed to be, you felt like the timeline had finally restored itself like it was your job to do so. You haven’t heard much about Jaehyun, you tried to avoid all news outlets about him as much as you could. But it was hard when the image of him would be spread across magazines, you figured that he did dip into the field of modeling, he was bound to with that beautiful face of his. You were roaming the streets of Paris when your eyes brisked over the stand that sold magazines, his face immediately catching your attention. You were proud of him, he looked like he was doing well, better. As you said, you steered away from the topic of him, afraid that maybe you still weren’t over him even if it’s been a couple of years.

News also came out that Jaehyun’s father was finally kicked out of Jung Corporations for his conviction of abuse, no matter how long ago it was, Jaehyun finally grew the courage to stand up to his father. Of course, the stocks plummeted, but with Jaehyun’s quick words of persuasion and work ethic, they soared the next year, earning Jung Corporation a spot on the Forbes Top 20, also. You remember smiling when you saw his company’s name on the same list as you, he did it.

As for the contract of your marriage, it was currently on hold, creating dust in its existence. As time moves on, your mother hopes that you can reopen the contract, but she knows that it’s more than that now, so she leaves it to you, since you’re presently the CEO of Audace and made all the decisions. You’d think that you’d shred that contract by now, but you haven’t. What’s been stopping you?

Jaehyun has made sure to spread his face on every single cover on a magazine, hoping that you’d come across it and come home to him. Ever since you left, he’s gotten no trace of you. He’d call you, text you, but got nothing. He quit trying the third year, thinking that you had blocked him or got a new phone number because he never heard an answer back. Jaehyun even reached out to Haewon and Mark, but they never got the answer he wanted because you never told your closest friends. Were you selfish to do that to them? Too bad that Haewon knew you too well to find out where you were, but trustworthy enough to seal her lips.

It took Jaehyun a long time to accept that you were gone, the memory of you felt like a dream to him. Waking up alone every morning brought anguish to him, the sun telling him that you never came back and that you probably never will. Sometimes he thinks he’s going insane because his memories of you are so distant.

That’s why he traveled to every possible country he’d assumed you’d be in, New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Shanghai, London, and even Paris. So when you heard the word of the newest, hottest bachelor was coming to Paris, you knew you’d have to go into hiding because the newest, hottest bachelor was your ex. Being on the cover of dozens of magazines sure had its perks, but for Jaehyun, all he wanted to do was find you. That’s why he left Paris after three weeks, thinking that you had for sure resided there. Which you had, you just didn’t have the courage to come out and face him. You sure did a hell of a good job erasing your existence from his world. You were stubborn, he’s always known that he just didn't know he’d have to go to these lengths to come to that conclusion.

Life went on like that, you two lived your separate lives like there wasn’t a string attached to your fingers, you felt like you two were always meant to say goodbye. Jaehyun has never dared to touch another, for you, and only you solely have his heart. He’d give it to you over and over again if it means getting hurt again. Of course, he didn’t know about your short-lived rendezvous because while you found your lust in other men, begging yourself to be open and find someone, it was never them that refused your love, it was your own doing because you could never find yourself to stay the night. Goodness, you just wanted to feel again. You wanted to love, love like how the sun goes down for the moon every start of the night.

“You’re not staying the night?”

“Not tonight, Yuta.” you gave him a small smile as you picked up your discarded dress on the floor.

The Japanese model propped himself on his elbows, whistling at your figure as you slip your dress on. You narrowed your eyes at him until you realized a few buttons to your Versace Sweetheart Cady Single-Breasted Blazer was missing.

“Really?” you sighed, falling on your knees to search the floor for those stupid buttons.

“What are you looking for?” Yuta sat up, watching you crouch below the bed.

“You ripped this too hard that the buttons popped out, Yuta,” you snapped.

“It’s fine. Go, I’ll find it. It gives me another excuse to see you again,” he smirked at you.

“Yeah,” you sighed, glancing at him, “that’s very unlikely.”

“And why is that?”

Spotting the lost buttons under the bed, you snatched them in your hand and stood up, giving him a sly look, “Because I never give a man a second chance.” Grabbing your clutch, you smiled at him before shutting the door, seeing him chuckle to himself in denial as he fell back on the bed with his hands behind his head.

That was a lie, you do give men a second chance, but the only man you’d give it to is Jaehyun. No matter how long it’s been, how old you were, how forgotten your relationship was with him, you know that he will always have you, be a part of you.

Tomorrow you were leaving to go back home. It’s been a while since you’ve been back and your parents dearly missed you. It was the annual charity ball your family always attended and they wanted you to come to create social networks with others to build Audace. You were a little hesitant because you knew Jaehyun was going to be there, you just didn't know if you were ready to face him or even to just see him.

You leave early in the morning so you could land back home by sunrise. And with your bags already packed, you wondered if tonight would finally give you the rest you needed. You spent countless nights unable to sleep, you think it’s insomnia, but your heart tells you differently. You’ve invested in useless doctors that only tell you to just take those ludicrous melatonin gummies. Of course, they never helped.

You throw your bag onto the chair next to your bed, everything was set for you to leave for tomorrow. Your passport, luggage, duffle bags were all in place at the door and for the slightest second, you felt excitement electrocute through your body.

Maybe it was just you, but the smell of home brought you wistfulness. Should I have stayed? Would everything have been better if I stayed? You had no idea where Jaehyun was or if you’d ever see him on your little trip back home. You wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t see you, you didn’t even bother coming out of your shell when he did.

“Y/n!!!” A familiar squeal was heard from the echoes of the airport.

You closed your eyes and let out a sigh with a smile on your lips. You turn around to see Haewon running to you with a lovely smile on her face, “Hey,” you embrace her in a tight hug, wafting the same perfume she wore when you two were younger.

“You haven’t changed one bit,” Haewon pulled you away by the shoulders, examining your face. You’d beg to differ, but she’d disagree, “I mean, you aged backward! Your skin is glowing and you look so beautiful and youthful. Paris must’ve done its justice on skincare!”

You laugh at her witty remarks, “No, no, no! If anything, you’ve changed! Look at you, you still look like how you did 5 years ago!

“Stop,” Haewon waves at you in disagreement, “come. Let’s get you home,” she grabs onto your arms and heads to the car as her assistants drag your things behind you two.

“So tell me all about Paris!” Haewon blinks at you with wide eyes, like a child excited to receive their favorite candy.

“What do you want to know?”

“Everything! From fashion to food to the monuments. I want to know everything, y/n,” she begs.

You tell her everything. From the fashion shows that you were able to manage, to the sweet and savory meals, even to the fountains in Paris, you told her everything that your fingers brushed past. Haewon sat in envy, wishing that she visited you more often. There was a snip of a moment where regret weighed in your heart, maybe you should’ve called her to come. As you finished telling her about your adventures, you two sat in silence, the hum of the car filling the car. It’s been a while since you saw her and she looked so satisfied to finally have you home even if it was just for a few days.

“How’s Jaehyun?” Your voice barely meets a whisper that almost misses her ears.

Thinning her lips, Haewon looked at you with sincerity but with a little pity, “he’s okay, I think. With modeling and the company, he’s been busy so he hasn’t hung out with Mark a lot. Mark says that he’s doing a lot better, he’s been going out a lot the past couple of years, but he doesn’t talk to anyone or bring them home. We both think that it’s because he’s still not over you, he also still doesn’t talk to Chaeyoung anymore.”

You nod, you weren’t necessarily expecting anything, you just wanted to check up on him, but his name still makes you miss the happier times with him. You hold Haewon’s words like a string in front of you, I hope he is doing better.

The car rolls up to the familiar view of her apartment building, more trees were added around the rectangular architecture bringing out the bareness of it due to the cold weather. As your feet patted the snow, the way up to her apartment was almost unfamiliar. You always thought you’d know the steps to specific places with your eyes closed, but it raised a question to your mind. What if you forgot the most important things? What would you do then? Would they even be important if you had already forgotten them in the first place?

When Haewon opened the door to her apartment, everything about it had changed. The couch was on the opposite side of the room, the dining table that used to be horizontal was now vertical, giving it more space, and the color scheme that was once in hues of pink and greens was now white and browns.

“Wow,” your eyes widen, taking in all the changes, “love what you’ve done with the place.”

“Thank you,” Haewon smiled proudly, “the pink and greens were getting old. Plus, I feel like this is more mature for me.” her laugh rings in your ears as you scan her kitchen, she’s even got new dishes.

You smile back at your best friend, “It’s nice.”

You sit comfortably on her couch as she makes you some warm tea. Your eyes skim through her walls, pictures of you remained nailed to it but in different frames, she’s even added new ones from when she visited you in Paris. Below them, there were green plants in grey vases, giving it the earthly vibe she always had in her.

“Here,” Haewon hands you your cup of tea as she sits beside you, “so you’re gonna stay with your parents?”

“Yeah, they miss me a lot and I miss them too, so it won’t hurt to stay.”

She pouts a little bit enough for you to notice her bottom lip jutting out, “Aw, that’s okay. Just promise that you’ll say goodbye to me before you leave. If you leave like last time, I’m gonna tell Jaehyun where you are,” Haewon threatens you.

“Hey!” your eyes enlarge in seriousness. You hope she doesn’t and you know she won’t but there’s a sliver of desire that you want her to.

“I’m just kidding, I won’t. I know you don’t want that,” she holds your hand after seeing how serious you were, “You and your little game of fate.” Haewon laughs as she strides to the kitchen to retrieve some snacks.

By the time you’ve binge-watched a series, finished a whole meal of Chinese takeout, you were drained and out of it. You know it’s getting late as the stars are the only source of light in the sky, other than the street lights.

“I should get going,” you grabbed your jacket that draped over the couch, but when you didn’t hear a peep from Haewon, you turned your head to see her asleep with her mouth opened to the ceiling. You chuckle at the amusing sight of your best friend knocked out with deranged hair and a little drool at the corner of her mouth. You turn off the tv and cover her with the cotton quilt before you kiss her forehead, “goodnight.”

As you quietly shut the door, you call for a cab knowing that you’re on the brink of almost being too late, but since no one’s out, by the time you reach the entrance, the driver is already there and waiting for you.

The night winter air hits your cheeks, turning it a crimson red along with the point of your nose. Home was always the coldest in the wintertime and hottest in the summer, there was no in-between. Puffs of grey smoke escape your mouth as you sit in the heated car, rubbing your hands together for more warmth. You tell the driver your address as you lean back in the seat, letting the drive paint your window with the outside scenery until you see the familiar sight of your home. When you do, you tip the driver with a heavier tip because it’s late at night before striding up to the front gates.

When you walk in the mansion, the lights are off darkness pooling into the large vacant home, echoing your heels. You’re quiet in your steps that lead to your room, afraid that you’d wake your parents up. The empty hallway that leads to your room is still filled with the same pictures, the smell coming from the same candles, the same flowers in the same vases, nothing has really changed around here. It’s as if you never really left, it makes your mind drift to your former shared apartment with Jaehyun. Has he changed anything since I’ve left? Is everything still the same? Does he still even live there? It’s a bittersweet memory, it really is, but you hope for the positive, your heart silently wishing things hadn't been the way it was. That you stayed that night in his arms, hearing his silent breathing as you comb your fingers through his soft, floppy hair. To have his head laying on your chest, hearing your heartbeat go at peace because he was in your arms. You got the good side of him.

You strip off your clothes, discarding them on the cream rug, and letting the warm water spill on your body. Life is a series of choices and if you are lucky enough, miracles. Your youthful mind would have disagreed and thought that you’d do things based on choices, but now, you’re convinced that if fate allows it, it shall be. Miracle or not, you will welcome it with open arms, you’ve grown accustomed to detachment and self-growth. Maybe you were saving yourself for Jaehyun because maybe you truly weren’t over him. Either way, you detach yourself from every man you’ve met because you had a sliver of hope that fate was going to lead him to you. But were you wasting your time in doing so? What if in the end, he wasn’t even yours? You dip your head, letting the water swim through your hair, giving it slight weight. I’m thinking too much. You rub your eyes, not knowing if the sting was from your developing tears or the water. Suddenly, you reach to turn off the water and give yourself a quick dry ahead of pulling your pajamas on.

And now you’re on your bed, your eyes still light as a feather. Your nights always consisted of this, unclosed eyes, frequent gazes at the ceiling or the window by your side, and sometimes tear-stained cheeks. The theory of possibly seeing Jaehyun crossed your mind the entire night, you know you were bound to see him soon so you needed to mentally prepare yourself for the moment. Thankfully for the long night Haewon provided for you, the thought of Jaehyun finally left his home in your mind and you found yourself slowly falling into slumber, anticipating another visit from him in your dreams.

“Honey, honey...honey,” Shaken awake by the sweet voice of your mother, you woke up to the image of her sitting on the edge of her bed. Just like the home, she looked like she didn’t age a day. She was as beautiful as you last remembered her.

“Morning, mother,” you yawn, stretching your limbs towards each side of the wall.

“More like afternoon,” she scoffed, pulling the sheets from you.

You instantly curl your body into a ball, cursing yourself for only wearing a long t-shirt and shorts. You peered at the clock by your bedside seeing 12:30 glancing right back at you. “Sorry, long day yesterday.”

“That’s okay. Get up now, get ready, go eat, and let’s go find a dress for you. The ball’s in a few days.”

Obeying your mother, with stiffness in your body, you were able to brush your teeth, comb your hair, and put on a presentable outfit. As you walk down the stairs to the dining room, you see your mother and father holding hands, laughing as they eat. You stopped in your tracks, standing still on the stairs as your hand gripped on the rail, watching them enjoy each other’s company. A little bit of your heart envied the sight in front of you, all you wanted was to love someone. To care for them, love them, and grow old. Most of all, you wanted to do all of those things with Jaehyun, but-

“You’re here! Come eat, we have to hit the stores before traffic gets heavy,” your mother waves you, immediately cutting you from your thoughts.

You greeted your parents as you sat down. Everything in front of you was luxurious, there were fancy sandwiches, bowls of freshly washed fruit, and cut out aged cheese, along with the bottles of wine scattered across the table. You didn’t even know where to begin, you missed everything from home, especially the food.

“Hurry, eat! I have a ton of places we have to check out,” your mother is persistent in finding you the most extravagant dress, a present for your return home for the couple of days you were here. It’s been 5 years since you’ve been back, of course, she wanted to go all out for her only daughter.

“Okay this,” your mother points at the lake green colored dress that hugs your body, the silken fabric falling at your feet, “is the one,” with wide eyes she slowly stands up and walks to you with arms open.

“Really?” you tilt your head to the side, observing your reflection.

“Pair it with some clear heels, signature earrings to elongate your neck, leaving the chest open, and voila, the perfect outfit.” the employee persuades you, as they should because that’s what you ended up purchasing.

“Oh no,” the employee waves his hand at you, dismissing your mother’s card, “that gentleman already paid for your entire attire,” he points behind you and you snap your head in his direction.

Like the time had slowed down, the most handsome man that has ever come into your life, stood across the store from you. His gentle gaze sits on your shoulders, but it embraces you instead of piercing through you. His tall physique has become lean, more muscular yet toned. His signature dark hair was styled like the last time you saw it, it was always your favorite.

“Jaehyun,” your whispered tone comes out as a gasp at the man who stood several feet from you.

A friendly smile sits on his face as the air returns to your lungs and as your brain begins to function again. What a sight you desperately missed. You longed to run to his arms and to hug him, kiss him, love him like the old times, but your feet remind you to stop as soon as you see a pair of arms slither his arm. A woman, just around your age interlocks her hand with his and smiles brightly at him. She’s as gorgeous as you can imagine, probably a model, for her body and frame compliments his.

You clear your throat, regaining poise, and give him a slight nod, careful to not look at him again as you turn yourself around to thank the cashier and scurry out of the store.

“That was Jaehyun, wasn’t it?” Your mother cautiously asks, quickly catching up to you.

“L-let's just goes mother, p-please,” you stutter as you reach the car and attempt to open the door, begging her to unlock it.

Cranking up the air conditioner, you rest your head between your hands as they rub your temples. You ask yourself again and again what just happened and if you actually saw him, but your brain knew better than your heart, you did in fact see Jung Jaehyun standing just a few feet from you.

“Are you okay?” she rubs your back as you try to steady your breathing.

“I’m fine, can we just please go home now? We have my dress,” you beg.

Your mother starts the car right away, aware of your little episode. You think that maybe you’re overreacting a little bit, but this was all physical. If you could control it, you would and you wouldn’t be in such a crouched position feeling this way.

When you finally feel your heartbeat becoming steady again, you sit up and lean back into the seat, you stare out the window, completely dazed. You feel like you didn’t even experience seeing Jaehyun. For the first time in five years, he still tugs your heart and how stupid you feel for thinking that there could be the smallest room for you in his heart when you were the one who left him, ignored him, written yourself off from his story. Of course, he already had somebody, somebody that loves him, cares for him, far better off than what you could’ve done. You were the one that left, what were you truly expecting at this point?

As the car drives up to your home, you’re quick to strip yourself and bury under the covers. The room is dark and silent, the most dangerous time for your mind to wander. Fear settles under your skin when the thought of ending up alone crosses your mind. You’ve been alone all of your life before Jaehyun even showed up, who knew how hard it’d be to go back to the forgotten feeling of being alone.

You hadn’t noticed that you’ve knocked out when a faint knock sounds from your door. Your eyes slowly open, but along with your head, it’s too heavy from your thoughts to lift itself. Slowly as the door opens, Haewon peeks her head through and suspects that you’re still asleep when she sees your body calmly fall and rise. Haewon tip-toes to your bed, lifting her heel, afraid that the clanking noise would startle you awake. Without a word, she sits on the edge of your bed and combs her fingers through your hair, removing the loose strands from your face. She hates seeing you like this, so broken. You’ve worked yourself until you were unable to stand, you’ve dismissed all opportunities to feel something from any man and anyone, most of all, you’ve denied your existing love for Jaehyun. But she knows that you know all of that, you just choose to brush it off your shoulder because that’s what you always did. You’d dust things off and shove them down until you’d combust. Five years of shoving things down have resulted in this.

You stayed that for the next few days, curled up in a ball under the mountain of blankets. You despised yourself for not spending time with your parents with the few days you had, but you could barely get up, you didn’t have the energy to even sit. Your mother brought you soup occasionally and stayed there, making sure you finished it to the last drop. She reassured you that it’s okay, to stay in bed and take your time to heal. She also told you to make time to walk around, talk to the workers in the house, or take a walk in the greenhouse, which you did when you could. Heartbreaks were never easy for you anyway.

Before you knew it, tonight was the night for the Annual Charity Ball. There you stood in front of the mirror in the Marchesa Crystal-Embellished Velvet Gown observing how the dress nestled against your body. You always wore expensive gowns like this, but you felt rather insecure for the first time in a while, maybe the reason was that you were finally home after years of never showing up and felt like you had to prove yourself.

Everyone was gathered in the dimly lit room, waves of laughter, and the clinking of champagne glasses filled the massive ballroom. One of the biggest events for the biggest international companies and here you were, not even reaching ten years of CEO experience and now forced to network with those that have been.

“You’re going to do fine,” Haewon rubs your back, “just don’t look intimidating and you’ll be fine,” she winks at you, but you playfully roll your eyes and push her towards the bar where she was already making her way.

A low voice clears behind you, “Ahem-”

You turn around to reveal an old friend, “Mark!” you jump into his arms, missing the embrace from him.

He pulls away from you with a bright smile shining on his face and carefully eyes you, “You look stunning tonight.”

“Wow,” you smiled, “you clean up very well, I must say Mr. Lee.” you gently punch his arm.

Mark playfully winces, but offers you his arm, “Come on, let me get you something to drink.” you happily take a hold of his arm as he leads you to the bar that was elegantly built, chandeliers decorating the area with white marble counters in addition to the handsome bartenders mixing the most luscious refreshments.

“I’ll have an Old Cuban please, and-” Mark glances at you, waiting for your answer.

“And I’ll have a Gin and Tonic, please.”

“Classy,” Mark cocks an eyebrow at you.

“Always have been.”

As you wait for your drinks, Mark and you take your time to catch up. The need to network and talk to others completely dissolves as you two catch up five years of each other’s lives. You avoid the opportunity to take another drink as Mark orders his second one, but time is lost when you two are immersed in each other’s stories. It makes you realize how much you’ve missed him and how much you missed everyone’s life when you left.

“So where have you been?” The burning question leaves his mouth and you hope that he’s too tipsy to even hear or wait for your answer.

“Just-” you hesitate, seeing his state of giggles and blushed cheeks, “around the globe, traveling here and there.”

Mark laughs and shakes his head, “No, but like, where have you been? You left without saying goodbye and you were gone for five years, y/n.” even though it held humor, you knew Mark enough to know he was being serious.

“I was...I was in-”

“Come on, why didn’t you tell me you were leaving? I thought we were friends.”

“We are Mark, we are!” you repeat to the male, “but I just needed to get away from all of this, I needed to leave.”

“Leave because of what? Because of Jaehyun?”

And like a fever dream, your eyes meet with the owner of the name. He’s across the ballroom, this time his gaze piercing through your chest. It’s intense and possessive, yet also holds a longing for you. A whispered gasp rolls from your throat and your eyes scatter anywhere on your lap, avoiding to look up.

“Y-yeah,” you stutter, “I have to go to the bathroom,” you leave a tipsy Mark behind as you race for the bathroom.

Dashing to the nearest bathroom, there’s a ring in your ear against the thumping in your heart, and it’s the only thing you can hear because it’s so loud. You push open the door and slam the stall door shut as you lean against the stone stall. You clutch your chest and play with your collar as you catch your breath, a gust of heat coating your body.

“Y/n?” It’s Haewon.

“Y-yeah?” your voice breaks.

“I saw you run in here, you okay, baby?” you can hear her voice becoming louder as the ring in your ears tunes out.

“I’m fine,” you slowly open the stall to see Haewon standing in front of you with a worried expression.

She gives you an absurd look, fully knowing that you are clearly not okay and she brings you into a hug. “Everything’s going to be okay. Do you want to leave? We can go back to your place and just hang out.”

Haewon’s offer sounds tempting, but you had to remind yourself you were here for a reason. You were here to talk and network, yet you let your emotions take over you. Once again. You give her a compassionate look, a small smile stretching your lips, “No, I’m okay now. Thank you for checking up on me, though. Let’s go,” you rub your forehead as she holds onto your hand, leading you back out to where everyone is.

Your eyes scan everyone in the room, seeing who’s here and who’s who, but they scan over certain someone. Someone who chased you away. Jung Jaehyun stood just a mere few feet away from you. His tall, lean physique would still tower over you if he came closer, his eyes still gleamed against the chandeliers, and he still looked handsome as ever. As soon as you see the familiar arms that belonged to the woman you saw at the store a couple days ago, wrap around his, you’re convinced that you’re just a distant memory for him now. You quickly turn your head, making sure to keep your chin lifted as you follow Haewon, who’s already talking to a bunch of businessmen. You step until you're beside her and join the conversation. Several of them were handsome, bachelors, some your age, a little older, and some a little younger.

They were all polite enough for you to jump in, they included you in their jokes, making you clutch your stomach in laughter. They were good at keeping your mind away from straying.

“So, Y/n,” Johnny Seo, a corporate bank owner speaks up, “how’s the CEO position of Audace treating you?”

“It’s great. You know life is kinda fun when you love what you do,” you reply, earning groans from a bunch of them.

“You’re lucky you were born into such a life like that,” a car enterprise CEO named Ten, speaks up.

You quickly laugh before the conversation turns into a serious one, “you’re always welcome to dream a life that you want if you have the drive for it.” You smile at him before turning your back and heading out to get air.

Outside the ballroom leads to a greenhouse, the lush trees and vibrant-hued flowers compliment the sunset that sits on the horizon outside of the warm, glass structure. Making your way on the stone steps that lead to the edge of the greenhouse that overlooks the city below you, you inhale a deep breath and slowly let it out as you gaze at the orange and pink sky.

“Stunning, isn’t it?” A voice expresses behind you.

“Yeah,” you simply reply before your eyes widen. You knew that voice, you could pick it up from anywhere at any time because it always brought you peace of mind.

The owner of the voice walks until he’s beside you, his body coming in your peripheral vision. At that moment, the familiar smell travels to your nostrils, the warmth from his body embraces your cold one, and that’s when you knew you had nowhere else to go.

“I was talking about you,” Jaehyun replied, his eyes glued to the view in front of him.

You slightly drop your head to the ground, staring at your shoes. There’s a dreading feeling that sits in your bones, anxious if he was going to ask you a series of questions of where you were or why you were gone for such a long time. You weren’t expecting him to approach you but little did you know, he’s been waiting all night to.

“Thank you,” you whisper, keeping your gaze stuck on your shoes. In the corner of your eye, you can see him shifting until he’s fully facing you, but you’re good at doing what you’ve been doing.

“Y/n, where have you been?” Jaehyun asks, his voice is tainted with sadness, yet tinted with a little bit of frustration. “You’ve been gone for five years and I haven’t seen you, talked to you ever since you left. You haven’t picked up any of my calls, you haven’t answered any of my texts. I know I blew up on you and we broke things off, but I-” he slightly pauses to calm himself down. You’re next to him, eyes on your expensive shoes and you look absolutely breathtaking to him. You haven’t aged one bit, you still look like your younger self when he met you, still youthful and beautiful. Like always, you were a literal angel. Instead of continuing to speak, Jaehyun clutched your shoulders and pulled you in his chest, tightly wrapping his arms around your frame.

You let out a surprised gasp when your body collided with Jaehyun’s. The tightness of his arms constricted you like he was trying to tell you to stay. He holds you in that moment, afraid to let you go, knowing that you weren’t going to come back for the next couple of years. Tears begin to grow in his eyes as he feels your arms wrap around his body, your gentle touch brings him to his knees, brings him to tears.

“Jaehyun, please,” you bleed, your voice broken.

He instantly pulls away to see you crying and brings his palms to your cheeks, “Please don’t cry.” he begs you because he knows that if he continues to watch you cry, he would also cry. “I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean a word back then. I wanted to marry you, I still do. I just said those words out of anger and I know I shouldn’t have. I’m so sorry. Please, y/n, will you ever forgive me?”

“I’m sorry,” you cry out, closing your eyes, letting the tears stream down your face.

“Don’t,” he shakes his head, “I am. I am sorry,” a tear leaves the corner of his eye and he rests his forehead against yours, letting his emotions take over him.

You two stay like that for a bit, holding onto each other, basking in each other’s presence with the sun setting behind you. You gently pull away, holding onto his hands, the ones that became stronger over the past few years, the ones that always set your skin to flames.

“I’m sorry,” you repeat, looking at him with bloodshot eyes. Jaehyun gives you a questioning look, “but I have to go.” you bring his hands together, pressing them against your lips before you set them beside his side.

“Please don’t leave me again.” his voice cracks, his heart is unable to bare life without you again.

Your innocent eyes catch him and before you know it, Jaehyun’s proximity is so close you can feel his breath float on your lips. Functioning on your emotions, you close the distance, gently pressing your lips on his. And it’s like you haven’t forgotten the feeling of his lips, you’d never forget it whenever you kissed, it’s like water after a marathon. It’s like sleep after a hard day, it’s everything you’ve ever wanted. But you could no longer have this kind of luxury.

You cup his face, pulling yourself from his lips, “I’m sorry Jaehyun,” you give him a sad smile before backing away, leaving him once again, alone.

As Jaehyun watches you leave, he doesn’t chase after you. He knows you still love him and he still loves you, if fate allows it, you’ll come back. You always do.

Saying goodbye was harder than you thought, but it was the hardest with Jaehyun. You never said goodbye to him, you just left him there as you did before. You were always leaving, always shoving your emotions down, never facing them head-on.

Life wasn’t always easy, but you tried to make the most of it. You missed Jaehyun dearly, although there was a big part of your heart that longed for him and wanted to go back home to him, a larger part of yourself knew that your clocks were no longer in sync. You both have given each other love and growth and taught each other how to forgive, whether it was silent forgiveness or verbal. Every day you hope that you’d have the courage in yourself to let him back in your life, you know it’s there and you’re ready, you just needed the extra push.

It’s been months since you returned home. The brisk, winter wind finally cooled you down whenever you opened your windows. The trees were a lush green, blooming with yellow flowers on the tips, and there were chatters from below your window. The people of Paris always loved coming out in the summer to attend the town marketplace, picking fresh produce and bundles of colorful bouquets to bring to their loved ones. Every Saturday you made sure to also go, it was a good way to make friends and grocery shop.

In your stay in Paris, you made a small group of friends. The five of them were always good at bringing you to tears with their jokes and spontaneous stories, it was like being a careless teenager again. Since everyone was always busy with their own lives, you guys made sure to schedule a time of the month to get dinner and catch up. Tonight was one of those nights. Since they’re more on the extemporaneous side, the reservations were always bounced around within the city, giving you the gift of tasting every fine cuisine. Tonight’s reservation was at the Le Jules Verne, the second floor of the Eiffel Tower. That place holds a special place in your heart, heck, this entire city did. You would be lying if you didn't miss Jaehyun every time you’d pass a place you passed long ago on your visit here with him.

“Hey! Y/n, you’re here!” Julian greets you from the table.

“Hi,” you hug her before sitting in your seat, “Adalene isn’t here yet?” you scan the seats as one sits vacant.

“No, you know how she is,” Estelle rolls her eyes from across the round table, “always late.”

“It’s okay, we’ll order wine first,” Diane chirps, raising her hand to the waiter.

You sit yourself down, shifting in your seat to make yourself comfortable. Conversations and giggles are exchanged from across the table, from the hottest gossip to old stories, everything was always such a good memory with these ladies. The food that was brought was slowly chomped down throughout the night, making the night go by a little faster than usual, but you weren’t complaining, you always had a good time with your friends, but something about this place just brought you nostalgia and slowed time down. After a while, the wine bottle was sipped and emptied, while blinded smiles were painted across everyone’s faces with a slight blush.

“Ma’am,” your waiter came to your side of the table.

“Yes?” You glance at him, with a questioning look, your eyes curiously staring at the beverage in his hand.

“The man from the bar brought your drink,” he nodded at the bar, but you were too busy already reaching for it and sipping it.

The glass of red wine looked all too familiar, you knew the texture of it, the smell, and the taste. You memorized on melancholy nights where you locked yourself in your apartment and looked at pictures of Jaehyun or read articles of him. It was the wine that you two had the first time you two came to Paris. It was always hard to forget several little puzzle pieces of him.

As your friends ogled at your bizarre behavior of quickly downing the drink, you finished it in a couple of gulps and set the glass down. Your eyes skimmed the bar, but no sight of Jaehyun was there. You sighed and excused yourself from the table, you were completely losing it that you needed to get fresh air. But as soon as you opened the doors to the balcony of the Eiffel Tower, there he was. His eye-catching self leaning over with his hands clasped before him.

Your forehead creased, “Jaehyun.”

He turned to you, and boy, was this man very dapper in his dark suit with his hair gelled back. You always loved that look on him and now that he’s illuminated in the moonlight, it was a sight you never thought you’d be able to see.

“Love,” his nickname makes your heart skip a beat, “you got my drink?”

You nodded, slowly making your way to him, “what are you doing here in Paris?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he mumbles under his breath, head falling forward following with a little chuckle, “but I think I know the answer.”

You stay silent beside him, looking at the dark sky that’s littered with stars. With Jaehyun by your side in Paris, it feels as if he’s always been here. It feels like your first time here with him again.

“Congratulations on your successes by the way,” he says, a sincere smile across his lips.

“Thank you, you too.” you return, “Being on Forbes list, especially. That’s a big achievement.”

“Thanks, it was hard after- all of that,” he implies to the incident of his father and how everything went crashing down after that.

“But hey-” you turn to him as he does the same to you, “-you did it. I always knew you could.”

Jaehyun smiles at you, “I got help too,” he whispers, fumbling with his fingers. He lets out a quiet chuckle, “I still am.”

“That’s good, I’m proud of you. I understand how helpful that can be, let me know if you need anything.” you silently say the last part, quietly shunning yourself because you haven’t been present in his life.

Jaehyun thanks you, but looks at you, his gaze peering at your face. Oh how much he’s missed seeing you, having you this close to him. “I’m still in love with you,” he blurts out. Your breath pauses as you turn his way. Your eyes scan his face and it tells you that he genuinely means it. “And I mean it. There hasn’t been a day where I don’t miss you, where I love you less. Hell, having you not by my side makes me love you even more. It makes me crazy.” He confesses.

You’re dead frozen in your stance, the wind gushes through both of your hair, messing yours up more. Maybe this was a sign, a sign that the world is telling you that the time is now because a large part of yourself knows that if it’s not now, it’s never. The look on his face tells you how much love the man in front of you holds for you and you know that it’ll be there forever. There’s not a question of doubt that crosses his face and nothing will stop him from leaving because he knows you feel the same way. He almost knows you more than you.

“I love you, Jaehyun. I never stopped,” you reveal, your voice slightly breaking from the river of tears you were now producing.

Jaehyun brings you into a hug, his arms find his place around your body and it feels like the last puzzle piece has been placed. He sniffles with you in his arm, he’s dreamt of this moment every night. That you’d be back in his arms and that your love is still there for him. Feeling like this is almost too good to be true, Jaehyun pulls back to see you. Your makeup is almost smeared, but your eyes are delicate as he gazes into them.

Just as you felt the wind dance through your hair once again, Jaehyun pulls you to him, his lips settling on yours, letting the familiar feeling of comfort take over him.

(a/n: lol listen to kendrick lamar’s love [slow + reverbed] it’ll set the mood hehe)

You struggle to lock your apartment door as you both enter with fumbling feet, tangling your shoes with your fingers as it pleads to be taken off. Once the last shoe hits the ground, Jaehyun pushes you against the wall, fumbling with the buttons of your blouse as he sucks onto your bottom lip. You envelop your hands over his and put it on his chest to let him take his clothes off so you can take off yours smoothly. You can feel a small smile growing on his lips and you pull slightly back.

“I just can’t believe that you’re here with me right now,” he whispers against your lips.

“And I’m here forever,” you coo, reaching for his hand. You lead him to your bedroom, occasionally looking back at him to give him a sly smile. As soon as you’re about to turn the lights on, Jaehyun stops you.

“Leave them off, I love looking at you when the moonlight is shining on your glistening skin,” his voice lowers and it makes your legs go weak.

And just like that, clothes were shed like a second skin and now Jaehyun towered above you. What a wonderful sight to see after a few years. Your fingers trailed from his chest, down to his abdominals, feeling each straining muscle against your fingertips, until it was met with his manhood. Your eyes innocently glanced up at him when you gently grabbed his cock, pressuring the tip just a bit before bringing your hand to it, rubbing it in your palm.

“Oh, baby, you always know how to make me feel good,” Jaehyun lowers himself until he’s groaning in your ear.

You know you’re doing a pleasing job when you feel the tough grip on your hips and when the other hand comes to your core. Jaehyun lets out a little scoff when he realizes how wet you already were.

“You’re so wet,” he whispers in your ear.

“Only for y-you,” you stutter, “oh shit,” your back arches when Jaehyun plunges two fingers in without any warning. Both of your hands shoot up to hold onto his arms as he finds a quick pace for his fingers, occasionally circling his thumb on your clit.

“Baby, baby,” Jaehyun hums as he lowers himself onto his free elbow to litter you with hickies across your neck, later leading to your chest.

Everything is blurred and everything is going so fast, you’re almost convinced that this isn’t even happening, that this is just another dream of yours. You struggle to relax as Jaehyun stops in his tracks, which results in you shooting up to prop yourself on your elbows to only see Jaehyun lowering himself down to your dripping, wet core.

This is definitely not a dream. You let out a loud moan when Jaehyun presses his hot tongue against your core, letting his teeth gently nip at the lips of your pussy.

“Tell me, angel,” the vibrations of his voice shoots pleasure through your spine, “did you fuck anyone while you were here?” You wince when he doesn’t hear an answer from you and harshly pats your pussy. “I don’t like being ignored, you know that, don’t you?” a smirk stretches across his face seeing you sexually frustrated, but you persistently nod.

“I-I did,” you let out another wince when he carefully slaps it again. Jaehyun shakes his head, almost in disappointment, but you pay no attention to it because you’re so aroused at this point that you just need to feel him in you.

“Bad girl,” he shakes his head as he lowers himself back down. His hot breath fans across your clit, making you involuntarily clench around nothing, and Jaehyun notices it but shakes his head.

“Please,” you groan, your fingers tangling in his hair.

“So you’ve been a busy girl, huh?” He mumbles against your pussy.

“Yes, yes, I have been. I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you’re in a frenzy. Five years and you haven’t felt his touch, at this point, you feel like he’s just mocking you at this point, “please let me feel you.”

The ability of his tongue is superior to every man you’ve decided to entangle yourself with, no one could match how well Jaehyun could make you feel. And tonight, you were ready to give all of you to him.

“J-Jaehyun,” you drag out, “I’m-”

“What do you want, baby?” Jaehyun asks, looking at you from below.

“E-eat me out.”

Jaehyun lifts himself until he’s hovering over you, there’s darkness in his eyes, foreshadowing that he won’t be gentle. “You have to ask nicely.” he snickers, bringing a hand down to rub your clit, fast.

Your eyes widen from the surprise feeling, a gasp comes out of your mouth and your back arches, your perking nipples touching his chest. Jaehyun seems to notice because he brings his other free hand and pinches it, rolling it between his fingers. You close your eyes, blinded by the feeling and the power he has over you. You’d let him ruin you any way he wants.

“Want...you to...eat. Me. Out, please, please, please,” you’re impatient as you finish your command, sounding snappy, but Jaehyun gives in because he enjoys how needy you sound.

He lowers himself until he’s face to face with your sex again, the wetness and clenching of it arouse him and he doesn’t hesitate to bring his mouth to it, instantly sucking your pussy. You release a loud whine, your hands shooting to his hair. You didn’t expect him to be so rough on you so soon. But he is and as he licks the wetness, drawing circles on your clit simultaneously.

“You taste so good, angel,” he coos, pulling away for a split second before lapping onto your sex again, this time thrusting his tongue in you. The feeling of his tongue fucking you has your stomach tightening, so close to snapping. He lets his tongue explore your walls as he pinches your nipples, forcing them to perk up more than they could.

Jaehyun knows you’re about to climax when your hips begin to rise and your legs start to close in beside his head, but knowing how sensitive you are, Jaehyun gently presses your hips down and pries your legs until they’re as far as your flexibility allows it to go before returning to his deed.

“Oh fuck, fuck, fuck,” you curse, sweat beading down your temple. Soon, your coil snaps and you’re shaking in Jaehyun’s grasps, but he gives you no time to come down from your high as he instantly thrusts his cock into you. You gasp, eyes widening as you hold onto him, your hands searching for any kind of leverage on him.

Jaehyun lowers his head into the crook of your neck, kissing it as he thrusts harshly against you. He hears your loud winces above him and he supports himself on his elbows, seeing tears on both sides of your face. “I can stop,” he whispers, afraid that he might’ve been overstimulating you too much.

You persistently shake your head, the pain is a bit overwhelming but the pleasure is worth it. “Please don’t,” you croak, bringing Jaehyun back down to you.

He fucks you like the angel you are, praises fumbling from his lips, “you’re so good, baby. You feel so fucking good.”; “No one feels good as much as you do.”; “God I fucking love you and your tight pussy.” praise after praise has you in a trance as he fucks you dumb.

Jaehyun pulls out and you whine from the empty feeling, cold air reaching your sensitive sex. But he lifts you by the hips, his grasp tight on you as he turns you over, lifting you until you’re on all fours. Jaehyun brings his hand hard on your ass, “promise me you won’t fuck anyone anymore unless he’s me,” he commands with a growl in his voice.

“I promise,” you whine, voice desert dry.

Content in your words, Jaehyun thrusts into you from behind. You let out an elongated cry, his tip reaching farther into you, hitting that sweet, sweet spot repeatedly. His grip on your hips tightens as you look forward to the bruises in your hips the next day.

“Oh baby, you feel so good,” Jaehyun hums, “still tight for me after all these years.”

You moan when he reaches for your breast, kissing your back in doing so. A moan escapes your throat, “only for you. Only for you,” you repeat, closing your eyes.

Jaehyun knows you’re dazed, your words are barely coherent, your pants are almost louder than your moans, and he knows you can barely hold yourself up, noticing at your shaking limbs. So, he wraps his arms around your hot, sweaty body and brings you up until your back is pressed against his chest. You groan from the new position that he puts you in, almost as satisfying as the previous one. Jaehyun gently kisses your shoulder and the place where it meets your neck while he rams into you, his actions contradicting. Nonetheless, it holds so much love. Vulnerable, naked bodies pressed together in the moonlight from Paris that illuminates your bedroom. You’re making love with the love of your life and how much of a roller coaster it took to finally get to this point.

“I love you,” you bring your hands around to his hair, combing your fingers through it, earning a groan from your tugging, “I love you so, so much. I love you and only you” you don’t know if your cry comes from the overwhelming feeling of your emotions or the fact that he’s vigorously ramming into you, reaching so far into you, making you feel like you could crumble in that instant.

“I’m close angel,” he moans in your ear.

“In me, come in me,” you beg, squeezing your eyes closed because you know you’re almost there too.

Jaehyun reaches down to your abused sex and draws circles around your sensitive bud, making you arch away from him, but he’s close to bringing you back to his sweating body. Soon you can feel that coil in your stomach snaps. Both of you let out a series of moans and curses and after staying like that for a bit, Jaehyun brings you down on the bed. He lays next to you catching his breath while holding you as you gasp for more, your body twitching from time to time as it calms down.

“You did well, my love,” he kisses your forehead, staying there for a few seconds, “and I love you too.”

Jaehyun doesn’t know whether or not you finally fell asleep, but he slowly pulls back to get a glance at you. In such a time like this, he thinks you’re absolutely beautiful, hair sticking out in various directions as some stuck to your forehead, your swollen lips that sit plumply on your face, the rare beads of sweat that sat on your temples, and the red flush that blushes your face. Everything about this, about you, is perfect for him. It’s a familiar feeling for him when he holds you, kisses you, makes love to you and it takes him a while until he finally realizes that you are his home.

You’re not sure what time it is when you wake up, but you know it must be around the early afternoon from the fresh sunlight that sneaks through your curtains. You remember the events from yesterday, going out to dinner with your friends, seeing Jaehyun, making love with Jaehyun and that’s when you feel the pair of arms around your waist move just a bit, which confirms that yesterday really wasn’t just another fever dream. With a smile on your face, you turn yourself until you’re facing him. What a beautiful man you managed to get involved with, again. You giggle a little bit when he stirs in his sleep, slightly pouting and you can’t help yourself but peck his lips a couple of times to wake him up.

Your fingers comb through his hair as he struggles to open his eyes, “Hey, sleepyhead,” you laugh.

“Good morning, my love,” whenever Jaehyun calls you that, it makes your heart flip. You felt ridiculous that such a word can make you feel like you're back in high school, experiencing your first, real crush.

“It’s the afternoon,” you mumble, reaching for your phone but he’s quick to wrap his strong arms around your body to keep you close to him.

It’s just like you never left like there wasn’t a whopping five years of nights where you missed being held by him. For you, everything fell back in place. For you, it felt like you were finally back home.

“Hey,” Jaehyun clears his throat and you back away because for a split second you could hear the hesitation in his voice.

“Yeah?”

With those dark chocolate orbs of his, Jaehyun looks down at you and you’ve never felt more alive in your years of living. He was only two years older than you, and you’re both still considered young, but he’s convinced that you’re the love of his life. You hope that what he says is something good, because after all of this, what would be the point?

“Will you marry me?”

You shot back, completely shocked with your mouth opened and your eyes wide. You really weren’t expecting such a proposal so soon, especially after seeing him for the first/second time in five years. You’re taken aback and completely speechless, you’re stunned and you think you’re losing it until Jaehyun calls out your name.

“Yes,” you reply, “yes, yes, yes!!! Let's get married!” You gleam, wrapping your arms around his neck to pull him in for a tight embrace.

Jaehyun pulls away from your waist and gives you a sincere look, “I know it’s not the ideal proposal, but I promise when we get back home, I’ll do it right. I’ll do everything right this time,” he declares.

“Oh honey,” you cup his cheek, “there’s nothing you did wrong, we all make mistakes and go through hard times. I’m just glad it all led me back to you.” you lean forward to kiss his forehead as he embraces you again.

It’s time, you were finally getting married to Jaehyun. And for real this time, no contract, no business, just love.

“By the power given to me, I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss each other. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to present for the first time, Mr. and Mrs. Jung!”

Cheers throughout the venue fades as Jaehyun leans into your lips, a smile adorning his face as he places a gentle kiss on your lips. Flower petals are thrown in the air and smiles are exchanged between each side of the family.

And after the reception, dinner, first dance, cutting of the cake, bouquet tossing, and after everything fate has put you through, everyone bids you goodbye as you and Jaehyun run out of the reception hall. With the sparklers in their hands, complimenting the sunset in front of you, the cheers of encouragement sing through your ears as Jaehyun opens the car door for you. As he gets in, he gives you a teasing chaste kiss, before waving off to everyone and riding into the sunset.

You always had faith in fate, each decision has its own consequences and leads you on different paths. You often think to yourself if you had chosen a different path, where would it lead you? Would it lead you to the same ending? Or would you end up in a different place? And would the person you love the most be there? Yes. The answer is yes, wherever you go, you’re convinced Jaehyun will always be there. He will follow you like the sun and the moon, he will love you like how the moon leaves to let the sun breathe. Jaehyun will love you to the best of his abilities because you taught him to love himself. He’s almost convinced that you saved his life and he couldn’t be more grateful to have someone like you by his side.

Life was always good at never going the way you wanted it to. Like your mother said, “life isn’t fair,” yet at the time she said it, you were too young and only took it as a grain of salt. Little did you know, the world will throw you in several different directions, the world will bash you, judge you, and sometimes make you feel like it hates you. But when you find love, kindness, and forgiveness within yourself and others, everything that brought darkness will complement the light, showing how sometimes bad things happen so you can grow. Life is hard and no one said it was going to be easy, but right now, life is good. Life is great when you’re with Jung Jaehyun.

Fin.

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kissinginkitchens · 3 years

Text

You Bring Me Home — Chapter One: Flightless Bird, American Mouth

a/n: I've been working on this story for mooonths now and I'm so excited to finally share it with the world! It's heavily inspired by Harry's Behind the Album mini doc, except I changed the setting to Hawai'i because I've personally spent some time there and as they say, write what you know! YBMH takes place in the period between One Direction's hiatus and Harry's first album/tour, but with that being said, this is entirely a work of fiction and some events don't follow the true timeline. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my little story, I hope you love it as much as I do! It will be updated every Friday at 5 PM PST. My inbox is open, so feel free to talk to me once you've finished reading! I'd love to hear from you :) Much love, Mel <3

Pairing: Hawai'i!Harry x Original Character

Warnings: swearing

Word Count: 5.5k

May, 2016

Harry watches LAX get smaller through the airplane window and visualizes all of his worries stuck at the terminal gate, their magnitude also diminishing as he takes flight. He sinks lower in his seat and skims through playlists on his phone when a nagging feeling at the back of his mind pulls his attention away from the screen. Looking up from the song choices, he spots a cell phone quickly lowered from his line of vision and a girl with flushed cheeks who quickly averts her gaze. Harry shoots a tight-lipped smile in her direction and goes back to his phone with a sigh. The days when he could roam the streets freely without fear of recognition—or worse, harassment—feel like an entirely different lifetime. He sometimes imagines that he’ll wake up back in his childhood bed as if the past five years had all been a dream, but he never does. In fact, his privacy and anonymity seem to dwindle with each minute of radio play that One Direction receives. It’s a bittersweet pill to swallow, but one he hopes will go down easier with some time in the Hawaiian sun.

His close friend and new manager, Jeff Azoff, had suggested the vacation as soon as the band privately agreed to take a hiatus.

“You’ll go home for a few weeks,” his voice had crackled through the speakers of Harry’s phone. “Visit your mom and Gem, lay low for a while until the smoke blows over,”

Harry mulled it over in his mind, eyes flickering over the rolling landscape outside of the tour bus window.

“Then what?”

“Then you go for a little vacation. The label offered to cover a house in Hawaii so you can start working on the album,”

“Alone?”

Jeff chuckled lightly on the other end before responding. “I mean, if that’s what you want,”

“No,” Harry corrected. “You and Tom should come. Mitch and Bhasker, too,”

“The dream team,”

“And there’ll be a studio there?”

“Yes,” Jeff started, almost hesitant. “But I don’t want you to think about that too much,”

“But you said the label—"

“I also said vacation. Look, Rob said ‘it will all happen in due time,' did he not?”

Harry twisted the rose ring around his finger, tracing over the silver petals and thinking back to his conversation with the CEO of Sony Music, Rob Stringer. Upon the proposal of his debut solo album, Rob had told him that the most important ingredient for a successful debut would be patience. The singer had agreed in the moment, but every day not spent in the studio felt like a test he hadn’t studied hard enough for.

“Yeah.”

“So you take the free vacation,” Jeff suggested. “You go out, live, get some writing material. Maybe mess around with some tunes. And then we come back to L.A. and get to work. But until then, I just want you to focus on taking it easy.”

So take it easy he had. Or at least he had tried to when he was back home in England. Harry quickly grew restless after what felt like the millionth awkward conversation with past friends and acquaintances, all of which eventually led to the topic of One Direction and it’s unexpected hiatus. After one month at home, his mind and journal were full of ideas for songs, things that he wanted to say before he lost his nerve. One night as he tossed and turned in bed, he shot Jeff a text, just two words that would kick off a three month getaway to the Big Island of Hawai'i:

I’m ready.

********

“Sounds great, I'll go put in your order.” Alani offers sweetly, trying not to overdo it with the customer service voice. After waiting on the family at her designated table, she heads back to the kitchen and finds her younger sister, Pua, crouched in the corner taking what appears to be a serious phone call.

“I don’t know, I just saw it!” Her sister cries in a hushed tone. “Where do you think he’s going?”

“Is everything okay?” Alani cuts in with concern.

Pua whispers into the speaker before bringing the phone to her shoulder.

“Harry Styles was just spotted on a plane this morning,”

“Who?”

“The guy from One Direction,” her sister explains with a hint of irritation in her voice. “The band who sings that song you secretly like, ‘Fireproof,'”

Alani vaguely recalls the melody, but she waits expectantly for Pua to elaborate. “And this is news because…”

“Because the band just broke up, so where could he possibly be going?”

"The unemployment office?”

Pua rolls her eyes and returns to her phone call while Alani envelops her in a tight hug.

“I’m just kidding!” Alani apologizes, squeezing tighter despite her sister’s attempts to break free. “I’m sure he’ll be living off of royalty checks until he’s, like, eighty,”

“Get off me, freak!” Pua cries out, finally breaking the embrace.

Alani clutches her chest and pulls out an invisible knife. “Ouch. I’m telling Harry you said that,”

“This is exactly why I don’t tell you things.” the younger sister huffs, storming out of the kitchen through the employee entrance where Alani’s best friend, Maleah, has just arrived.

“Looks like someone forgot to eat their Cheerios today,” she remarks, tying her curls into a high ponytail.

Alani shrugs and leans against the counter. “She’s going through something. Just discovered that boys in pop bands are, in fact, just regular boys.”

“Poor thing,” Maleah frowns. “We all have to learn eventually.”

********

The sky is a blend of cotton candy pink and burnt orange when Alani returns home from the café with a strawberry smoothie in tow. She empties the mailbox and sorts through the various bills and advertisements, but her stomach drops when she sees a familiar return address label. After a quick greeting to her excited dog who waits at the door, Alani bolts up the stairs and quietly shuts the bedroom door behind her. Breathe, she reminds herself before tearing into the envelope and discarding it onto the wooden floor.

Dear Ms. Hale,

We are very grateful to have received your submission to Rolling Stone magazine. However, we regret to inform you—

She doesn’t read the rest, slumping to the floor in defeat. The sixth rejection letter from Rolling Stone lies crumpled at Alani’s feet and she kicks it across the room with a frustrated grunt. She had worked for over two months perfecting her analysis of Joni Mitchell’s Big Yellow Taxi and its allusions to the environmental impact of urban development in Hawaii. As part of her initial research, Alani had even traveled to both the Royal Hawaiian hotel in Honolulu, which is the famous Pink Hotel mentioned in the song, and Foster Botanical Garden that Mitchell referred to as “the tree museum.” She was certain that her effort and persistence would result in at least a consideration. The second third time's the charm! Maleah had joked watching Alani submit the piece. Six articles in the span of two years, each one facing the same rejection despite the increased effort Alani had put in over time. The fact that the rejection letter hadn’t changed over the course of the two years brings an incredulous smile to her face, and her stomach turns when she considers that the editors probably hadn’t even read her work, anyway. All that effort, she thinks to herself, all that time, for nothing.

“It will take time,” her favorite professor, Dr. Hudson, had reassured her three months after the Joni Mitchell article was submitted. “Every great writer faced countless rejection until that one piece. Yours will come. Keep your eyes open and your pen ready.”

Alani sighs and lifts herself off the floor, choosing to crawl into her unmade bed instead of slumping onto the hardwood. She hears a soft scratching at the door before her King Charles Spaniel, Freddie, pads into the room.

“Come here, bubs,” Alani whispers. He obeys and burrows into the duvet, giving her temple a gentle lick before nuzzling into the nape of her neck.

“You still love me, right?” she asks, voice cracking. “Even if I’m a failure?”

Freddie sniffs her ear in response.

********

“Right,” Harry says, his tongue peeking from the corner of his mouth as he reads the map. “No, left, sorry,”

“Do you actually know how to read a map?” Jeff teases, correcting the turn.

Harry pouts in response, his brows furrowing. “In my defense, we’re literally in the middle of fucking nowhere,”

“There are worse places to be,” Mitch pipes up from the back seat. “England, for example, where they say things like ‘litchrally’,”

“Very well said, Mitchell,” Jeff Bhasker adds with a fake British accent of his own.

Harry turns to his friends in the back seat with a finger pointed like an agitated mother. “If you lot don’t shut up, I’m gonna lead us to a volcano and push you in,”

“Where are we even going? I forgot,” Tom complains.

“To get food,” his manager responds from the driver’s seat. “I think,”

“Why can’t we just stop there?” Mitch asks pointing to a café pulling up on their right.

Jeff merges into the turning lane quickly without a second thought. “Good enough for me, I’m starving.”

“Sorry, H.” Mitch pats his friend on the shoulder.

Harry scoffs. “You’re the one who wanted poke.”

The Aloha Nui Loa Café is much more spacious than the exterior suggests, yet it still feels cozy. The walls are painted sage green and adorned with various local art pieces, as described by the plaques that accompany them. A skylight fills the center of the room with plenty of warm lighting, leaving the space along the walls in a bit more shade for an intimate feel. In one corner, a hanging disco ball leaves freckles of sparkling light along the walls where the sunlight hits, making the whole image very idyllic in Harry’s mind. As if he couldn’t enjoy the setting more, he hears the beginning of an Otis Redding song that he’s had stuck in his head drift through the restaurant speakers.

“Welcome in!” a voice calls, which pulls him from his survey of the room. His head whips to the source—a girl around his age with wavy, dark hair and honey skin. “For here or to go?”

Harry takes a hesitant step up to the counter. “For here,”

She smiles warmly and pulls some menus from under the counter. “How many in your party?”

“Five.”

“Great, follow me.”

Harry and his friends follow the waitress to the corner of the room under the disco ball and take their seats at the round table.

“My name is Alani,” she introduces herself, setting the menus down. “I’ll be serving you today. Can I get you started with some drinks?”

Harry continues scanning the restaurant while his group orders. His eyes land on the shirt that Alani is wearing, a white tee with the words “Enjoy Health, Eat Your Honey” in blue lettering that surrounds a picture of a cartoon bee.

“Harry,” Jeff says gently, catching his drifting attention.

The singer turns to his manager, who nods to Alani waiting with a pen pressed to her notepad. Harry feels a rush of embarrassment creep across his cheeks and he clears his throat to cover it.

“Just water,” he says, eyes glued to the menu. “Thanks.”

“You got it.” Alani nods, flashing a toothy grin at the rest of the group before turning back to the kitchen. Harry. Her mind repeats, finding a hint of familiarity, though she doesn’t know why.

When Alani arrives at the drink station, she finds her sister staring at her, mouth agape, while Maleah unsuccessfully conceals her laughter.

“What?” she questions, checking herself for any embarrassing stains or smells.

“You were—and he—” Pua stammers. “He was—and then he—”

“That’s Harry Styles,” Maleah translates, her voice hushed as she peers over her friend's shoulder.

Alani turns to steal a glance at the table she just seated, but Pua and Maleah latch onto her and shake their heads frantically.

“Don’t look!” her sister hisses.

Alani smirks, amused at their reactions. “No shit. That’s One Direction?”

Maleah snorts, clasping a hand over her mouth as Pua huffs. “No, dumbass! It’s just Harry. I don’t know who the other guys are,”

“But the blonde guy? That’s not—?”

“No!” Pua and Maleah giggle in unison.

“Okay, geez,” Alani relents. She manages to steal a quick glance at the table over her shoulder, immediately searching for Harry. Her eyes scan over the long, curly hair kept out of his face by a pair of white sunglasses that she had seen on Kurt Cobain once. All of his features are sharp and striking, from his pointed nose and defined jawline to the bright blue eyes. Or maybe they were grey? Alani wonders, trying to remember the exact shade. He doesn’t look anything like the fresh-faced teeny bopper she’d had in mind, the one from a music video her sister had shown her a long time ago. She would have never guessed that the What Makes You Beautiful singer had so much dark ink trailing down his bicep and forearm, though her knowledge of One Direction was very limited.

“What did he order?” Pua questions, her eyes wide.

Alani quickly snaps back to reality and resumes filling the drinks. “A water,”

“Oh my god,” Maleah swoons. “I’m never drinking anything else ever again,”

“I didn’t even know you liked him,” Alani teases with an eyebrow raised.

Maleah sneaks another peek at the table and catches her lower lip between her teeth. “I mean, I didn’t really think so either but look at him. What a fucking dream,”

Harry was objectively handsome, this Alani could admit, but she personally didn’t see the appeal and had a strong feeling that he was just like every other male celebrity. The fact that he hadn’t even bothered to make eye contact with her only served as further proof of what she knew to be true.

“Okay, well, your dreamboat is waiting for his water. So excuse me,” Alani winks, making her way back to the table.

The singer spots Alani returning out of the corner of his eye and the sight of her causes a strange flutter in the pit of his stomach that makes him want to duck for cover. Instead, he pulls his phone from his back pocket and pretends to be occupied with something on the screen.

“Okay,” she greets, setting the drink tray down. “I have a Blue Hawaii, a Mango Mama, two Loco Cocos, and a water,”

The group graciously accepts their drinks with a chorus of “thank you," but the only one under Alani’s scrutiny is Harry. He still doesn’t meet her almond eyes, and though she figured he wouldn’t, she can’t help the inkling of disappointment that washes over her. After taking their meal orders, Alani heads back to the kitchen, checking on her other customers along the way. Harry’s eyes follow her and he observes the way customers light up at her presence, indulging her conversation with laughter. He watches as she lingers by the jukebox in one corner of the room, a detail he had missed in his initial scan, and waits anxiously to see what song she chooses. Baby I’m-a Want You begins softly and Harry feels the corner of his lip curl ever so slightly. Good choice, he thinks.

********

“He’s still here,” Pua muses, peering through the tiny window in the kitchen door. It had been nearly two hours and the five men were still seated around their table cracking jokes and doing a lot of talking with their hands.

Alani doesn’t look up from her bowl of sliced kiwis, offering a hum in response. “And what do you want me to do about that?”

“Nothing,” Pua shoots back. “Don’t bother him,”

“What kind of girls do you think he’s into?” Maleah asks, attempting to peek through the window.

Alani shrugs, bored of the conversation and of thinking about Harry. “I don’t know, but I’ll bet he’s a real sucker for the ones who stalk him while he’s eating,”

“How does he make eating a salad look hot?”

“Can we talk about something else now?” Alani whines, poking holes in a lone kiwi with her fork.

Pua tosses a wet dish rag in her sister’s direction and cheers when it lands in her face. “Go see if he wants more water, he looks thirsty.”

“I already refilled it,” Alani defends. “Twenty minutes ago. I’ve refilled it a hundred times, I’m surprised he hasn’t peed his pants.”

I’m gonna piss myself. Harry thinks, his right leg bouncing to distract himself. He really wasn’t all that thirsty, but he couldn’t stop himself from finishing each glass of water that Alani placed in front of him. He really wasn’t all that thirsty, but he couldn’t stop himself from finishing each glass of water that Alani placed in front of him. Like clockwork, she would return to fill his glass almost as soon as the last drop had been drained, and so what began as a little experiment slowly turned into a bladder hazard. But if the trend was to be trusted, she would be back any minute and he wasn’t going to miss it; afterall, there were only so many ways to casually linger in a small café without making it weird. Unable to bear it any longer, he heads to the restroom and hopes that Alani doesn’t clear their table before he has a chance to see her again.

Harry pads down the back hallway with his eyes cast down at the floor, which proves to be a mistake when he walks directly into another person.

“Sorry!” they both apologize quickly, Harry’s palm taking purchase on the other person’s upper arm.

“I wasn’t paying attention,” he offers, finally meeting the dark, mocha eyes already looking back at him.

Alani presses her lips into a tight smile. “Me either,”

Harry’s heartbeat picks up when he realizes it’s her, and he isn’t aware of how close they’re standing until he detects the faint scent of kiwi on her breath. He takes a step back and rakes a hand through his hair.

“So I guess I’ll just—”

“Yeah, sure.”

Green. Alani notes to herself. His eyes are green.

********

Shortly after Harry returned from the restroom, him and his friends settled their bill and headed out. Alani cleared their table and her eyes nearly fell out of her head when she saw the hefty tip left behind. The word mahalo was also left behind on the receipt, underlined twice, and she wondered if it was his handwriting.

Later that night, she settled into bed with her laptop and hesitantly typed his name into Google. As she expected, countless articles about the split of One Direction emerged, most of them speculating what was next for each member. To her surprise, however, Harry’s name seemed to be mentioned more than his fellow bandmates as various sources labeled him “the next Justin Timberlake” and rising star of the group. Upon further investigation, she learned that the demand for information about the elusive Harry Styles was high, especially concerning any possible solo music. No news had yet been confirmed by Styles himself, nor anyone claiming to represent him, but she still wondered if his presence in Hawaii had anything to do with a possible solo project. Almost as soon as she thought it, Alani dismissed the theory in favor of the idea that he was most likely just taking a vacation. And from the buzz that she saw surrounding the news about One Direction, she couldn’t blame him.

The more Alani read, the more she wanted to know, and something deep down told her that his was a story worth telling. Of course, the only problem was that she had hardly talked to him, and there were only so many things she could say about the fifteen glasses of water he downed. There was no way of knowing if she would ever see him again, either, or if he was merely stopping in Hilo on his way to another island or somewhere else entirely. Alani sighed, thinking back to her most recent rejection from Rolling Stone. She knew that there was no possible way she would ever see or talk to Harry ever again, and even if she did, why would he bare his entire soul to a stranger? Still, she let her mind wander through the possibility.

Dear Ms. Hale, the letter would read, we are very grateful to have received your submission to Rolling Stone magazine and are pleased to inform you that your piece on Harry Styles will be featured in next month’s issue. Additionally, we would be honored to have you on staff, effective immediately.

It was far-fetched, Alani knew this, but she dozed off that night with endless ideas swimming in her head.

********

By the third day after his visit, the only trace of Harry is in Alani’s search history. She would have completely forgotten about him if it weren’t for her sister’s constant reminiscing and multiple attempts to rename the house salad to the “Harry Special.” As a result, a part of Alani’s thoughts periodically linger back to that day and the subsequent hours spent on Google that she’d rationalized as research instead of stalking. Somehow the knowledge that she’ll never see him again only adds fuel to the questions still burning in her mind, but a customer clearing their throat while she sorts menus below the hostess podium interrupts her thoughts.

“Welcome in!” She calls, standing. “What can I—”

She stops in her tracks, unable to believe her eyes. Harry blinks and waits for her to continue.

“What can I get started for you?” Alani tries again, hoping that he hadn’t noticed her shock. Luckily for her, Harry had been too focused on choosing his next words to register her mistake.

“What’s in the Honu smoothie?” he asks, mentally kicking himself for asking such a stupid question when the menu just inches above her head clearly spells it out.

Alani hums, thinking back to the times she had made the smoothie herself. “Kiwis, spinach, mango, avocado, and a hint of lime,”

“I’ll take one of those,” Harry says, reaching for his wallet.

Alani punches in the order with trembling fingers and nods. “For here or to go?”

“To go,”

Disappointment fills her chest. Sure, she hadn’t planned on seeing him ever again, but the fact that she did felt like a sign. If she wanted to take the chance, she’d have to do it fast.

“Anything else?” she asks, weighing her options while he skims the menu.

“No thanks.”

Alani makes the smoothie quickly, head spinning. She had spent most of the night after their initial meeting planning out exactly the type of questions she hoped to ask him and what kind of article she would write. She was used to writing about what she knew—artists and music she’d admired for years— but she figured that starting fresh with someone she hardly knew would be a good challenge. Not to mention that it seemed like just the thing Rolling Stone would jump for. Alani finally works up the courage as she finishes his smoothie, but when she returns to hand it to him and hopefully strike up a conversation, his ear is pressed to his cell phone. She holds out the drink and he graciously accepts, giving her a small nod as a “thank you” and rushing out of the restaurant.

Two days later he returns and is seated at the counter, typing away on his phone. Alani feels both a rush of optimism and annoyance at the universe for dangling his presence so unexpectedly. She starts heading over to him, but Maleah cuts in.

“Trade me?” she proposes, eyes wide.

Alani blinks. “Oh, I would but I—”

“Please,” her best friend pouts. “I’m leaving to see my grandparents in stupid California for two months. Who knows when I’ll get the chance to see him again?”

Alani sighs, but gives in, reluctantly exchanging Harry for the family of four seated by the window. A strange feeling settles into the pit of his stomach when he sees that she heads in the opposite direction after a hushed conversation with another waitress. He doesn’t know why she traded him for a different customer, but he takes the hint.

A week goes by without another sighting of Harry and Alani has permanently taken on the role of greeting hostess in hopes of seeing him again. Her heartbeat temporarily speeds up when she sees a long haired customer approach the door, but her spirits quickly fall when the face doesn’t match his.

Another week brings another disappointing realization that Harry might be gone for good. One rainy morning when the restaurant is quiet and only two customers huddle together in a booth near the back, Alani hunches over the hostess podium and doodles on a stray receipt— a sunflower, a crescent moon, and two hearts. The bell above the door jingles but she doesn’t look up, too absorbed in her scribbles.

“Do you serve coffee?”

The familiar accented voice stops Alani’s pen dead in its tracks. She lifts her eyes first to confirm, and then straightens up when she sees that her ears haven’t deceived her.

“Yes,” she swallows.

“Great. I’ll take it to go,”

She slightly deflates, but Harry thinks he’s reading too much into it.

“Actually,” he corrects anyway, just in case he isn’t. “I think I’ll stay for a while,”

Alani flashes a warm smile and nods in the direction of the counter. “Right this way,”

Harry sheds his windbreaker onto the back of the seat, revealing a black and white Rolling Stones t-shirt that makes Alani’s blood pressure rise. A sign, she thinks.

“What do you want in your coffee?” she questions carefully.

“Nothing,” he responds, shaking out his damp hair gently. “Or actually, uh, butter...if you have some,”

Alani blinks, not sure if she’d heard correctly or if there had been some transatlantic miscommunication.

“Butter?”

“Yeah,”

“Like the—”

“Spread, yeah,” Harry confirms. “It’s weird, I know,”

She lets out a light-hearted laugh and nods. “It’s a...unique request,”

“I thought the same thing at first,” Harry confides. “It’s not bad, actually. But maybe I’ve just been in L.A. for too long.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

She offers a polite smile and heads to the kitchen where the cook and two other waiters talk amongst each other. Alani is grateful that the restaurant is slow this morning because she knows that it means minimal interruptions to her time with Harry. To ensure this, though, she asks one of the other waiters to cover the podium and returns to Harry with his coffee.

“One butter coffee, free of judgement,” the waitress announces, setting it down.

Harry grins softly, stirring the drink with the spoon Alani provided. “You can judge, it’s alright,”

“I just wanna know why,”

The coffee had been part of a fad diet while on tour in order to boost Harry’s energy on stage and stay trim for the hundreds of photo-ops he would be a part of. He doesn’t know how to communicate all of this to Alani, however, not sure how much she knows about that part of him, so he shrugs and tells a simplified version of the truth.

“I read about this trend a while back, it's called bulletproof coffee. Supposed to get your energy up and I needed it for my job,”

“Which is…” Alani trails off, downplaying the knowledge that she had acquired from Google.

“I make music,” is all Harry says and he takes a sip of the drink to avoid elaborating.

“Anything I would have heard?”

He swallows hard and listens to the faint rumbling of thunder outside before replying. “Possibly,”

“Try me,” Alani challenges.

He narrows his eyes and takes another sip of coffee. “Why don’t you tell me something about yourself first?”

“What do you wanna know?”

Everything, Harry responds internally, though he reigns it in. “How you got into waitressing,”

Alani sighs, resting her elbows on the counter across from him. “There’s not much to tell, it’s a family business. What I really wanna do is write,”

“Music?”

“Articles. I’m studying Journalism at UH,”

Harry hums in response, filing the detail away in the back of his mind. “Sounds interesting. You ever publish anything?”

“Not yet,” Alani shakes her head gently, toying with the sleeves of her green University of Hawaii crewneck. “Hopefully soon, though,”

Harry racks his brain for something else to say, but before he can, Alani speaks up again.

“Is it my turn to ask something now?”

He offers a curt nod and stirs his coffee.

“What kind of music do you write?”

Harry chooses to be vague again. “Different stuff. Pop, usually. Been messing with some classic rock, though,”

“Explains the shirt,”

He peers down at the design on his tee and agrees. “Yeah, I guess so,”

“Do you like it?” Alani asks, her eyes begging to make contact with his again. “Writing music, I mean,”

“Yeah,” Harry confirms, tapping his spoon against the rim of the mug. “I really do,”

Alani’s heart pounds. This is her chance, a moment to finally secure her breakthrough piece. She doesn’t know how to approach it, so she opts to dive right in without looking back. The worst he can say is no.

“Can I ask you something else?”

“That’s cheating,” Harry teases lightly. “It's my turn,”

She pouts playfully, but obliges. “Fire away,”

Harry doesn’t know which question to ask first, but when he glances down at the crescent moon inked on her wrist, he decides to start there.

“What’s with the moon tattoo?”

Alani isn’t sure what she expected him to ask and wonders what purpose such a detail could possibly serve him, but she answers anyway.

“Oh, well,” she begins, tracing her index finger over the outline. “It’s kinda the meaning of my full name. It’s Mahealani, Hawaiian for ‘heavenly moon,'”

Fitting, Harry comments to himself. Every detail he learns about her makes him want to learn that much more, from her favorite foods to the last thing she thinks about before falling asleep. Studying her expectant eyes, he suddenly remembers that it’s his turn to respond.

“That’s cool,” is all he says.

Alani doesn’t know what to make of the faraway look in his eye, but she decides to pose her most burning question while he appears to be in good spirits.

“I know this is gonna sound totally out of the blue,” she starts, working past the lump in her throat. “But when you mentioned how you write music, I was just reminded of this assignment I’m working on in my class,”

Harry waits for her to continue, nursing his now lukewarm coffee.

“I’m supposed to write a piece about someone who I don’t know that well,” she continues. “You know, to practice our interviewing skills. And, well, I was just kind of wondering if you might be interested in helping me out—being the subject, I mean,”

Alani had every intention of telling Harry the truth, about how she really planned to submit the article to Rolling Stone in hopes of securing an internship before her college graduation next Spring. But as she started speaking, she quickly realized how it would come off: a complete stranger asking for personal information to submit to a well-known publication. She knew that there was a chance he would shut down and never return, so she lowered the stakes and hoped that this route would be less risky. Was it ethical? Alani hadn’t decided yet, but she would work out the details later. After six failed articles and two years of rejection, she saw a ray of hope and wasn’t going to let it slip away.

Harry ponders her offer for a moment, which confirms that she had recognized him. Normally he would be off-put by such a request, and to a certain extent he is, but there is something sincere in her voice that he trusts deep down. Before he agrees, however, he decides to fish around a bit to test her reaction.

“You know who I am,” he says gently. “Don’t you?”

Alani’s heart drops into the pit of her stomach, not sure what to say next. She hopes with every fiber of her being that she hasn’t upset him, or worse, ruined her chances, so she decides to offer some truth to throw him off her scent.

“My sister recognized you,” she explains. “That day you came in with your friends. I thought they were your bandmates at first,”

This lets Harry know that she isn’t a total stalker, which is comforting, but he wouldn’t have been minded if she were a fan simply engaging in conversation.

“Oh,” he laughs weakly.

“I totally understand if you say no,” Alani offers quickly, trying to smooth things over. “I just thought it was worth a shot. And that it might be more interesting than interviewing our produce guy,”

Harry decides to give her one last scan for any sign of insincerity. He’d always felt that his gut instinct was strong and it hadn’t led him astray thus far.

“An interview?” he clarifies.

“Just one,” Alani promises. “An hour, tops. And you can proofread all of it once I’ve finished, too.”

Harry waits a beat, already knowing his reply, but he wants to see how she will react to his silence. She doesn’t budge, almond eyes set and determined.

“Okay.”

next chapter

#harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles writing #harry styles x oc #harry styles fluff #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fic #ybmh #she's here she's here she's here!!!!!

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all1e23 · 4 years

Text

Between the Stars [Pt.7]

Pairings: Past!Steve x Reader, Bucky x Reader

Series warnings: CHARACTER DEATH. Grief. Overall sadness. Depression. It’s pretty angsty if I’m being honest. Things mellow out as the series goes on. TW: Military/Spouse death

A/N: This might be my favorite chapter yet. Bucky is soft, and I love him. Reminder because I know the timeline for this fic is confusing with switching between readers and Bucky's POV, we are eight months past Steve's death. Bucky has been home with her for seven. Thanks to my beautiful beta @moonbeambucky for looking this chapter over for me. If you like it write me a book report, sing me a song or come scream at me.

***My fics are not to be saved or posted on any other sites without my written permission. Reblogs are my jam, though! Thanks!****

Eight months after Steve’s death, Y/n was playing again. It wasn’t on the same scale as it once was and she was no longer teaching, not that it mattered. It was a big deal, Bucky didn’t downplay just how huge this was. She had given up, threw out her dreams in search of new ones as some misguided form of punishment; maybe she thought it was her penance for some terrible crime she convinced herself she committed by living. Bucky understood that feeling better than most, he really did, but she had nothing to atone for. The only one who needed absolution was Bucky and he hoped that by helping her get her life back, he was earning a tiny bit of forgiveness for everything he had done.

Nothing would ever completely absolve him, but he prayed this would help to even the scales.

Over the last month, Y/n hasn’t mentioned Steve as much. Bucky didn’t know if that was because she was starting to heal or if it hurt too much to keep talking about him. She still slept in his room most nights, only slightly closer to him now, her foot usually wrapped around his ankle and Steve’s pillow was no longer hugging her back -- it was still there every night though. A handful of nights she fell asleep on the couch watching trashy late-night television and Bucky didn’t know if he should pick her up and carry her to bed. Was it too intimate of a gesture? Should he touch her that way? And if he did what bed would he take her to? It wasn’t something he was ready to test and he wouldn’t risk the potential hurt the wrong move could make. So he let her sleep, and stayed close by, sleeping on the small window bench nearby in case she needed him.

Things began to resemble something better, calmer and there was a bit of normalcy returning. They even started going out. It began with small outings, a trip or two to the market, or down to the Mexican restaurant twenty minutes away for takeout. A few Fridays back, they spent the entire day at one of those you-pick farms a couple of hours away from the house. She told him she wanted to go get peaches. Bucky wasn’t about to tell her no or tell her that they could pick some up at the grocery store without the hassle of having to pick them off a tree. No, he wouldn’t do that. This was a big step for her; she wanted to go out, and well, she’s so damn pretty when she’s smiling.

The farm was enormous for the area, sitting at around 200 acres. They had blueberries, pumpkins, peaches, and strawberries. Some of the produce wasn’t ready to pick, but Bucky knew Y/n was planning their next trip as soon as the seasons changed, and he really didn’t mind. They had a petting zoo they found upon arrival, at which point Y/n squealed over the baby goats, and they spent some forty-odd minutes feeding them. Then Bucky spent the next hour talking her out of having a baby goat of her own. Okay, Bucky would get her a damn goat if she really wanted one, but he was praying she would forget about it on the drive home. There was a hay maze that was still in the process of being prepped for the upcoming season but Y/n’s eyes lit up at the mere thought.

The food had to be Y/n’s favorite most of all.

There were candied peach slices that she had been so excited about. Bucky couldn’t help but laugh when Y/n had a bite with too much of the ginger that was sprinkled on top and wrinkled her nose in disgust. She glared at him, but it only made him grin wider. They both tried the vanilla scones with fresh peach jam and shared a large Mason jar full of peach iced tea because she said it was silly to spend the extra money when they could share. One sip and all Bucky could think about was the sweetness on his lips is what she would taste like.

Maybe the food had been Bucky’s favorite part, too.

The sun was starting to set, and despite being forced to leave the goats behind thanks to closing, Y/n was still smiling. Bucky followed behind her, letting her lead him to whatever tree she deemed had the best peaches. Y/n delicately placed three more peaches in the pail he was carrying and then set her eyes on him, scrutinizing and somehow still playful. She stepped towards him and flicked the bill of his NASA ball cap, causing it to pop up and sit crooked on his head, and she grinned at the feigned look of annoyance he was giving her.

“I can’t see your face when you wear a cap.”

She told him that as if it was an excuse for her assault on his favorite hat.

“Well, I’m trying to hide my stupid looking hair.”

She giggled at that.

Y/n giggled, and the little bit of his heart that didn’t belong to her became hers. She leaned in, and if he was a stupider man, he would have thought she was going to kiss him by the look in her eyes and how close their lips were. Y/n slowly reached up and pulled his hat off his head only to plop it on top of her own. If she was his, he would have pulled her close and claimed those pretty lips, savoring the honeyed peach and candied ginger he knew was still lingering on her tongue as he took his sweet time tasting her. He would have kissed her until she was smiling and giggling and sighing in that soft way she does when she’s really happy.

She wasn’t his. So he didn’t.

But he would dream about what it would be like if she was.

“Looks better on me anyway,” Y/n told him with a grin, wandering off towards the next row of trees.

Bucky could only watch as she walked away with his hat and his heart. He mumbled quietly to the peaches hanging nearby, “Yes, it does.”

After their outing, their day trips became something they both looked forward to. It wasn’t their norm. In the past, they spent a lot of their time watching movies, sitting in the quiet enjoying each other’s company, or Bucky would read while she played and worked on her music. But this new normal was good, too. It was nice to see more than the seafoam green walls of her living room, and he would do just about anything if it made her happy.

“Hey.”

Bucky looked up from his spot on the couch to find Y/n standing next to him in those black skinny jeans that make his knees weak and a plain white t-shirt. He knew she was wearing that black lace bra of hers because he could make out the imprint of the lace against the delicate fabric of her shirt, and he recognized the design from an embarrassing mix-up on laundry day. Bucky couldn’t seem to find his voice so he met her gaze, a question lingering in his own eyes as he waited for her to spill whatever she was so excited about.

“Wanna take me out?”

He laughed softly and closed the book in his hand. He found it funny that she still asked him that. The answer would always be yes. For her, it’s always yes.

“I’ll take you wherever you wanna go, Y/n.”

They went out to dinner that night. It wasn’t anything lavish, but it was the right amount of rowdy. There was a band playing out on the patio and the music carried through the open doors to where they shared a small booth inside, it was loud but not so they couldn’t talk. She ordered pasta because pasta always makes her happy, and Bucky tries his hardest to make sure she’s happy. They talked a lot, well, she talked a lot. That wouldn’t be so strange if she hadn’t been so closed off the last eight months.

Bucky let her talk about how she wanted to see if the band had any shows soon because she wanted to see them play in a better venue, and she told him she liked lights the restaurant had above the tables -- a large beam with hanging Edison bulbs wrapped around them. She talked about the funny picture of him Sam posted on Instagram. Bucky had rolled his eyes at that. Sam had the bad habit of taking candid photos of everyone, and he always posted the worst ones of Bucky. This one happened to be from the worst possible angle; the camera caught his mouth hanging wide open as Bucky took a bite out half of a cheese pizza, folded over and covered in potato chips. Some people eat pizza that way, it wasn’t weird or funny, and Bucky stood by that. The night was perfect, but even perfection has a few cracks if you look hard enough.

Someone had mistaken them for a couple that night, and Bucky was quick to correct them. He informed the older man and his wife that she was his best friend, she was taken by another lucky man. It was all platonic Bucky had said. Y/n didn’t say anything. She watched Bucky charm the older couple and gave them a friendly smile and a wave as they walked away.

“Platonic,” she muttered quietly once it was just them again.

Bucky looked up from his half-eaten burger and ketchup soaked fries, took in the furrow of her brow, and the frown sitting where a smile was beaming only a few moments ago, and his heart sank.

None of that was good.

“Yeah, Trouble.”

Bucky’s eyes dropped to the wedding band she was still wearing without meaning to, and she quickly pulled her hand under the table. The rest of dinner was quiet, and they didn’t speak about it again.

They never talked about what happened at the farm or dinner that night, but whatever bothered her the night at the restaurant hadn’t caused a setback in the healing process as Bucky had feared. It seemed forgotten. Bucky was thankful for that, and he was thankful for days like today. Y/n wanted to spend the day at home, relaxing. She informed him that today would be perfect if she could spend the day with just him. She might have said something like, “I just want to spend today curled up on the couch watching movies with you.” Not that Bucky memorized the way her voice sounded when she said that or anything.

Three movies into their marathon and Y/n declared they needed a break. She was going to figure out something to eat for dinner, and Bucky wasn’t sure how it happened, but he found himself upstairs, staring at a ghost. The letters Steve gave him have been tucked away in a drawer of the old desk that sat in the corner of his room. They caused him more heartache than Steve intended Bucky was sure. Or maybe this was exactly what Steve wanted. This was his punishment for loving her. Bucky tapped the letter on the desk and ran a hand down his face, Bucky had hoped they would disappear, and he wouldn’t have to look at them again, but there all twelve sat.

A heavy-handed fist pounded on the front door, startling Bucky out of his trance and his stomach dropped at the sound. He wasn’t down there with Y/n, not that she needed him to answer the door, and lord knows if she knew he dared to even think about babying her like that, she would chew him out for a week straight. Still, he didn’t like leaving her completely on her own, not yet. Bucky tossed the letter back in the drawer, and hastily closed it before trampling downstairs.

Bucky made out a familiar voice as he reached the bottom of the stairs. “Well, you never answer your phone anymore, and I figured you were spending all your time with-”

Her father met Bucky’s eyes, and he grinned.

“-Bucky. Well, shit, son. It’s good to see you home.”

Bucky grinned and took the hand that was extended towards him. He hadn’t expected it to be her father at the door; he thought Sam or maybe Natasha. It made sense, though. No one has come by to check on her since he’s been home. It was about time they started to get visitors, and Y/n didn’t answer her phone much anymore, so if someone wanted to talk to her showing up like this was their only choice. Bucky knew she wasn’t doing that on purpose, she had to put some things off in order to keep going, and there wasn’t any shame in that.

He was doing the very same thing.

Y/n was uncomfortable, whether her dad knew Bucky wasn’t sure. Bucky knew, though. She hates small talk, so Bucky knew when Y/n said she was starting the grill, she just wanted a moment to breathe without being judged; a minute so she could prepare mentally for a guest when she didn’t want one. Bucky could keep her dad busy until she was ready for idle chit chat and undoubtedly Invasive questions. How hard could it be to keep up a conversation and look for a small fire on the porch?

He could handle it; smoke meant they had to run. It would be fine.

“I thought you would’ve stopped by before now.”

Bucky passed over an amber-colored bottle from the fridge, taking a beer for himself and leaned against the counter. It probably wasn’t proper or how Steve would entertain him, but Bucky wasn’t Steve. He didn’t even know why he was thinking about that. This was still Steve’s house and his wife, no matter how much Bucky wished this life was his.

“Well, I knew she was in good hands. She has you.”

He smiled but shook his head. “I appreciate that. She’s probably helping me more than I’m helping her.”

“I doubt that.”

Bucky caved under the weight of his stare and grudgingly nodded his head in agreement (or cession depending on who you ask). He has yet to win an argument with her dad, and Bucky wasn't about to try to now.

"We haven't had a chance to talk since you've been home. I've meaning to come by. Y'know how much we love Steve; we always have."

Bucky tried to keep his face impassive, his grip on the bottle in his hand tightened, and he could feel his stomach-churning. Where the hell was this going?

“He was a good man and a good husband. Took care of Y/n, made sure she was happy and was always respectful.”

Bucky relaxed some when he realized he was simply praising his lost friend, and he nodded, taking a swig of his beer to wash his guilt down. Yeah, that was Steve. The polished side of the coin. The hero, not the broken sidekick.The better of the two. Bucky heard the speech before; it was one truth he knew well.

“But I always thought it was going to be you.”

Bucky froze and by some small miracle managed to keep his face blank as the older man went on, “Even up to the day of the wedding I had this feeling one of the girls were going to come running in, flowers in their hair to tell me she ran off with you and the wedding was off.”

Bucky huffed. “She would never do that.”

Her dad smiled and nodded his agreement. “She wouldn’t, but you would have.”

Bucky licked his lips and dropped his gaze to the counter, not risking the chance the truth could be seen in his eyes. He couldn’t lie and say he didn’t think about it after Steve proposed. That he didn’t let it play out like some romantic drama in his head where he got to her just in time and told her the truth, the whole real, painful truth, and she loved him back all along.

But she didn’t. She loved Steve, still did.

It was obvious any time Steve was mentioned or when something reminded her of him. He could see it written all over her how much she still loved Steve, and Bucky couldn’t blame her. He still loved Steve too. Despite everything, Bucky loved them both.

“Give her time to work through her grief, and I’m guessing you need to deal with your own. Losing someone you love is never easy. The time will come though when you both can move on. I’m not saying you’ll do that together or that I think you should, but there may be the chance to in the future. If you were looking for hope of some sort, well, that’s the best I can offer you.”

Y/n had found her way back into the kitchen, no smoke in sight and their conversation ended there. It wasn’t one Bucky wanted to continue anyway. Not when the hope he was offering didn’t exist. Bucky tried to leave them alone so she could spend alone time with her dad, but she gave him the look, the one that pleaded with him to stay and tugged on his heart. So he stayed by her side until the stars were shining brightly and they were alone once again.

Bucky had been more careful with his affection after that. He was meaningful in his touch and waited to make sure he meant each one. Not that it was that hard to do, he meant every one. When it came to Y/n, everything Bucky did had meaning, a purpose.

Y/n had started asking him to go on a walk around sunset every night. It was getting cooler out now that autumn was right around the corner, and she liked to watch how everything around them changed -- slowly almost without notice.

Their walk tonight felt different. Things had changed between them, when Bucky didn’t know. He wasn’t sure what they had changed to, but he wasn’t going to question it. He was afraid if he did, she would realize her mistake, and all these small moments between them would stop. Halfway through their walk, Y/n had let her hands hang by her side instead of staying crossed over her chest. When they were kids, she would do that when she wanted Bucky to hold her hand, or maybe he imagined that she ever truly wanted to hold his hand.

Bucky never could figure her out.

He never knew what she meant when she would lean in close to whisper something in his ear and pull away just as fast. When she would tease him and give him that giggle that had his heart stopping and restarting like an old engine that was about to give out. He could never tell if she felt something beyond what they already were; if she wanted him the way he wanted her.

Her street was just up the hill, and Bucky finally gave in to the screaming in his chest because feeling her hand in his once more was all he could think about. He slowly slid his fingertips down her forearm until he reached her palm. He risked a peek at her as he laced their fingers together and caught the smile she was trying to hide by dropping her head to gaze down to her white high-tops and his black boots.

Bucky didn’t know if Y/n wanted to hold his hand, and at this point, he wasn’t sure if he knew her as well as he thought, but he sure did love that smile.

Previous // Next

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x y/n #past!Steve Rogers x reader #alternate universe #bucky x you #bucky x y/n #tw: death of a spouse #tw: military death #military au #tw: character death

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thiswasinevitableid · 3 years

Note

For the prompt fill, number 3 for Indruck seems pretty fitting!

Here you go! Prompt 3 was “sweet” , Indrid’s design is based on a barracuda and I went with SFW on this one.

“Duck, can you do me a favor when you lock up?” Leo dumps orange taffy into a glass jar.

“Sure, what d’you need?”

“Got some locks for the garbage cans; put ‘em on after you set the alarm out back. Somethin’s been getting into our trash every damn night for the last week. It makes a god-awful mess and I’m worried we’re gonna get a fine for littering.”

Duck nods, turns his attention back to the flock of tourists approaching the window. The afternoon is swallowed up in a pit of sugar-sticky air and blasts of welcome cold from the freezer. There are worse places for a summer job than Tarkesian’s Sweets--he’s right by the water, can watch the wildlife on his lunch break, and Leo is low-maintenance boss--but after eight hours on his feet getting splashed with soda or burned on the popcorn machine, he’s ready to head home. The trash locks have other ideas.

It takes ten minutes of cursing and fumbling to get the first bin secured. He doesn’t even know how the damn things are getting overturned; they seem too heavy for a raccoon or seagull to knock to the ground.

A tiny splash behind him, probably a fish jumping.

Then a crooked, shiny pole slowly enters his periphery. In dim yellow of the streetlight, he can tell the end of it is curved. It pokes inelegantly at the wall, then the locked can, then the wall once again, and then Duck’s leg.

The hook pulls back, pauses, then pokes him again.

“The fuck?” He grabs it when it goes for another jab, pulls up only for his arms to be wrenched towards the water. Not to be outdone, he tugs harder. His opponent retaliates with enough force that he almost tumbles off the pier. He growls, braces his foot on the railing, and hauls the hook and its owner up onto worn wood with him.

It’s a guy about his age, angular face framed by a mess of silver hair and pierced ears. Figures it’s some sort of artsy punk swimming around poking people in the leg. That explains why he’s shirtless too.

It does not, however, explain why he has a tail.

“Rude.” The guy sits up on his hands, silver and black tail flicking droplets of saltwater everywhere, “I don’t go around stopping you from eating.”

“Look man, I just wanted you to stop jabbin me and knockin the trash over.” Maybe if he doesn’t mention the tail it will go away.

“How else am I supposed to get at those odd, pulpy tubs full of ‘cookies and cream’ or ‘bubblegum’?”

“The fuck--wait, you were tryin’ to get the ice cream containers out of the trash?”

“Yes? I also want more of the caramel apples” he pronounces the last word “applees” causing Duck to giggle in spite of himself.

“Look, I have to piece words together from the signs on your store. And you obviously know what I meant or you would not be laughing, so do you have any in the cans or not?”

“Nope” Duck gets his laughter under control, “sold out of caramel apples today.”

“Drat” the visitor starts scooting across the pier towards the unlocked trashcan, “I’ll see what else I can find.”

“Wait don’t fuckin knock that over, Leo’ll be pissed at me if he comes back to a mess, and I don’t feel like pickin up trash because you want a snack!”

“But I’m starving!” The merman, because at this point there’s no way he can deny that’s what’s been rooting through the garbage, whacks at Duck with his tail.

“I know for a damn fact there’s food down there.” He points at the bay.

“Only if you can catch it, and only if it is not in another mer’s territory. Which much of this area is; I am new here, young, and thus have no claim to any patch of sea.”

“You ain’t got any family?” Something pings in his chest. It’s the part of his heart that made him pick out the runt of litter when his mom let him get a cat on his thirteenth birthday, that means he always splits his lunch with Juno because she’s running track and needs it more than he does, that makes him tear up when he thinks about everything a sapling has to survive to become a tree.

“Merfolk leave home at sixteen.” The merman shrugs.

Duck sighs, grabbing his keys, “If I bring you somethin to eat, will you leave the trash alone?”

“Yes.”

He shuts off the alarm, grabs a cone and fills it with bright blue ice cream. The merman is back in the water when he returns, arms resting on the pier.

“Oooh, my favorite!” He takes the ice cream, biting huge chunks out of it as Duck re-arms the door.

Crunch

“...The container is edible!!”

He sits next to the merman’s arms, “Guess you wouldn’t have had an ice cream cone before, huh.”

“No, but it is lovely. I wish humans threw these away more often.” He polishes off the treat, licks his fingers clean with moans Duck hears in his dreams later, and smiles, “thank you for the meal. Goodnight.”

There’s a final flash of silvery tail, and then Duck’s alone in the breezy night air.

--------------------------------------------------------------

“That’s a sandwich, correct?”

“AHfuck” Duck knocks over his water bottle in surprise. He’s eating behind the candy store like usual and not expecting an aquatic dining companion.

“Apologies. I have seen you eating here before and thought you may like some company.” He sets a sea urchin on the ground and proceeds to bang on it with a rock.

“Found some lunch?”

“I followed some otters; I was mainly trying to draw them, but they led me to a kelp bed no one else was in.”

“...Wait how do you draw underwater?”

“Let me finish cracking this open and I will show you.”

Duck spends the rest of his lunch break on his belly, the merman showing him a sketchbook and enchanted pen that conjures whatever colors the illustrator envisions. The mer is genuinely excited to talk to him. He assumes the nuzzling is due to him smelling like cotton candy; he doesn’t mind, the mer’s skin is cool and he makes cute little noises whenever he touches Duck.

Before the stands, Duck asks, “You got a name?”

“Indrid.”

“Duck.”

Indrid’s eyes flick to the nearby estuary.

“Yeah, like the bird. It’s a nickname.”

“I like it.” Indrid smiles, dives, and flaps his tail once in farewell.

------------------------------------------------------

“Cutting school again?” Indrid’s voice bubbles up by his feet.

“Yep.” Duck watches the spring clouds roll by from his favorite spot on the beach. It’s secluded and far from town, meaning no one will give him shit for skipping class and nobody will see Indrid.

He worked at Leo’s until this past summer, only quitting at the start of his senior year of high school when Indrid pointed out that much of Kepler was surrounded by water and that, if Duck wanted to see him, he did not have to keep working at the candy store in order to do so.

“Not that I mind the free food.” Indrid winks.

“Just gonna bring you bulk ice cream from Safeway; no way am I missin out on that chirpin you do when you eat it.”

Duck slides the grocery bag towards the surf, “not like KCC is gonna rescind my offer. Ain’t a fuckin Ivy League or some shit.”

“And you will be happy there?”

“Yeah. They got a decent work-study program with the park, so I can still get a job as a ranger if I want to.”

“Oh. Good.”

Indrid sounds sad, and Duck sits up on his elbows. His friend’s torso is fully on land, his tail fidgeting in the foam.

“What’s up?

“I...Barclay told me his human is going to a school further inland, and I know there are many places you could got to learn. You...you did not choose to stay in Kepler because you feel the need to look after me, did you?”

“Course not.” Duck is sitting up now, aching to stroke Indrid’s hair, “I mean, I’m glad we’re still gonna be able to see each other, and I really hopin I can get a room near the beach so it’s easy to come talk. But this is the right choice for me; if I really want to, I can transfer to a different school in a few years, and I can learn a lot here without takin on a shit-ton of debt. Besides, ain’t like I think you’re helpless; I love bringin you stuff and rubbin your fin when it’s sore, but that’s because you’re my friend. Don’t think you’re helpless. I never have.”

“Not even when I was stealing trash?”

“Thought you were a fuckin nuisance, not helpless.” He playfully nudges his shoulder with his toes.

Indrid turns his head and nips his calf, “How’s that for a nuisance?”

“Not much, felt kinda nice. Uh, I mean, uh, fuck, so, where’d that worry about my stayin come from?”

The mer crawls and wiggles until they’re shoulder to shoulder, “I think my future sight is finally developing; my fathers arrived around the time he turned eighteen, so it makes sense mine would arrive at a similar point. The trouble is, I am having a hard time telling the futures from my own imaginings and worries.”

“That fuckin sucks.”

“I’ll manage. All seers struggle at the beginning. I just wish I was quicker at learning whether certain timelines are really more likely or if they are just ones that I want to be likely.”

“Like what?”

Indrid glances at him, opens his mouth, then shuts it and faces the sea.

Duck smirks, “‘Drid, there somethin you wanna ask me?”

“No. Yes. Maybe? I, I just don’t want to pressure youOOOHhhh that’s not fair” he flops on his back with a groan as Duck scritches his upper tail, “you know I’ll do anything when you touch me like this.”

“Damn right I do. And what I want is for you to tell me the truth.”

Indrid whines, covers his face with his hands.

“Do it or I’ll stop.”

“Rude” Indrid lowers his hands enough that his red eyes peer over the top, “is that any way to treat a mer who wants to kiss you?”

Duck gives his answer by pouncing on his friend, pinning narrow shoulders into the sand as he devours his mouth in kisses.

“You like that treatment better?”

“Goodness, yes.” Indrid pulls him back down, slipping his tongue between his lips and nibbling his neck when he finally stops to breathe. Then his hand flails sideways, grabbing the plastic bag and chucking it further up the beach.

“The, the tide is coming in and I, ah, foresee us working up quite the appetite.” He tugs Duck’s collar down with his teeth, nuzzling and licking across his skin with little hums of pleasure, “so I want to save those for afterwards. Who knows” he grins, “maybe we’ll need energy for round two as well.”

Duck cups his cheek, inhales the scent of the sea and the sight of his future, “I like the way you think, sweet thing.”

#Indruck #indrid cold/duck newton #mermay fills

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scandalousfemale · 4 years

Text

Falling

Y/N x Rafe Cameron

Basically a relationship timeline of y/n not expecting to fall in love with Rafe

WC: 2,670

Warnings: Cussing, falling in love, fluff, writing this made me feel v single

A/N: This is pretty much based on me listening to Queen of the Night by Hey Violet and thinking about @tomfreakinghollandneedsaoscar being fluffy and nice bf feelings. Oh, very important, in this fic (in my fictional universe) Rafe does not kill anyone, beat up pogues, nor does he snort the yayo.

You’ve been dating Rafe for a little over a year now, it started off casual, because back then you couldn’t be bothered to put any emotion into anything that could get you hurt. As for him, well, he had his own daddy issues he had to work through. You met him through mutual friends though they didn’t exactly mean for you to start seeing him.

“That’s him?” You inquired, looking at the boy in the long sleeve and the backward snap back, tilting your head as if that would help you examine him better, “he doesn’t look scary,” you finally said.

“Didn’t say he was scary,” your friend, Ashlee, said beside you.

“Yeah,” Henrietta seconded, “we said he was dangerous,” she spoke very softly as if this man would have supersonic hearing from across the golf course.

“I heard him and his friends beat up pogues for fun,” Ashlee whispered, “and that he’s super tight with a drug dealer or whatever. I know he’s eye candy but I would steer very, very far away from all three of them.” She motioned to the other two, whose name was supposedly Topper and Kelce. Rafe was the name of the boy they were speaking about, and you can’t help but think to yourself how strange their names were.

“Yeah, right. You know the rumors on the eight runs like we’re on a middle school playground,” you said as you rolled your eyes. It’s true, you had your fair share of rumors that definitely were not true. “So, are one of you going to introduce me?” You asked as you looked back to the tall beauty, laughing with his friends.

“Oh no, no way, we don’t know him. We just know of him. Come on, y/n, even if he’s not a guy with a super bad temper, interrupting a game is a major no for literally every golf player ever,” Henrietta said, already stepping back to walk away, taking Ashlee with her, expecting you to follow but you don’t.

You understood the risk of walking up to a group of guys who may or may not be drug addicts and harassers but you valued yourself in having pretty good judgement and the consequences of walking up to them seemed slim to none. So, that’s exactly what you did, despite your friends whispering curses at you. You allowed your feet to take you right up to the boys.

Keeping the smile on your face, that truly only grows when you noticed Kelce nudge Topper to look your way before whispering something to Rafe who only shook his head before taking his shot.

“Hey,” you announced your presence before waving at Kelce and Topper, making sure to single the taller boy out. Which, as you assumed it would, caught his attention. The two boys couldn’t help but smile back at you as their friend gave you a once over, as if assessing the threat and you let him. You stood there boldly until his eyes met yours, “hey you,” you finally said with a smile and raised eyebrow as if asking if you passed the inspection. Apparently, you did.

“You know it’s incredibly rude to interrupt a game, right?” Rafe’s voice could’ve stunned you right there. Not only was this boy man so attractive, his voice was velvet smooth as humor laced his tone.

“Well, what else was I supposed to do? Stand off to the side and wait for you to make a move?” You said as you crossed your arms in front of your chest, joking back at him and somehow slipping right into a level of comfort with him, even as his friends snicker.

“That’s forward,” Topper stated but your eyes don’t waver from Rafe nor his from yours.

“Who are you?” Rafe asked incredulously as if he never met a girl who knew what she wanted before.

“Your date for tonight,” you said as you stuck your hand into your pocket, fishing out your name and number that you’ve scribbled on a torn piece of paper since your friends showed you who they were talking about on social media platform before dragging you out here to see the real thing and thank goodness they did, “text me if you want to know when and where, or don’t. Ball’s in your court,” you said as you handed him the paper before waving to the stunned boys next to him and walking away.

He called you about an hour after meeting him and that was the start of figuring out that Rafe didn’t really care to do as he was told. Of course, he took you on a date that night...and every other night that came afterwards.

Before long, it was almost like you were living in each other’s houses. You were able to tell him every secret that not even your closest friends knew about, like the small tattoo you have hidden on your hips that he’s kissed a million times. Suddenly you have traded in your designer dresses for his T-shirts and your jeans, making your parents more and more angry with the arrangement because when they asked you if you were dating Rafe, you’d always say no.

Technically, at the time, you weren’t officially dating him because he never asked. He said he didn’t want to put a label on things because that’s when they disappear and honestly, you didn’t want to call him a boyfriend either because that would make your feelings, yes the feelings you said that you didn’t want to have, that much more real. Yeah, well, that changed the night that the kook kids were throwing a party over at Topper’s house.

You heard a screaming before a splash as another guy threw his girl into the pool before jumping in, himself. You found yourself sitting on the counter of the outside bar, a drink in your hand as you people watched. Ashlee was laying it on thick for Kelce tonight and you couldn’t help with smile to yourself. On one hand, you were proud that she’s finally had the nerve to talk to him but on the other hand, you’re pretty sure that that boy is completely clueless unless she straight up said that she wanted him.

“Damn,” a voice said close to you but you ignored it. Just another partygoer passing through, you thought to yourself, taking another sip of the liquor in your glass.

“Baby,” a guy appeared in front of you with a wide smile as if you were old friends and you couldn’t help but smile at his confidence. You studied him as he introduced himself; black hair, blue eyes, maybe six feet, and sort of hot. You appreciated his spirit, of course you did because it was textbook you, but you found yourself comparing him to Rafe and that’s when you knew you were screwed.

“So, what’s your name?” This guy, Chris (you think), asked.

“Y/n,” you entertained as you smirked at him, leaning back on the counter with a hand beside you, holding you up as the other brought the drink to your lips. You didn’t even think about how the position elongated your body, not until Chris (or whatever) trailed his eyes down your body. Before you could say anything else, Rafe was beside the two of you, as if suddenly inserting himself in the nonexistent conversation. It was kind of cute.

“Can I help you?” The guy in front of you, obviously annoyed with the added company, asked a looming Rafe, who is just about your height now that you’re sitting on this counter.

“Yeah, I actually just need to grab something that’s mine and I’ll be out of your way,” he said smoothly, causing your eyes to narrow but as the guy stepped back and Rafe stepped in front of you, realization clicked.

Rafe stepped in between your legs and wrapped his arms around your waist as he lifted you up, causing you to tighten your legs around his hips and wrap your arms around his neck. He walked back into the house with you as you laughed. You couldn’t help it as you laughed into his neck, hiding your blushing face from him. Maybe it’s the alcohol or maybe it’s these feelings you can’t seem but have for him, you moved your hands to have one on his face and the other grabbing his hair and before thinking too much, you pulled his hair—hard, causing him to hiss as his attention snapped at you, though he’s still walking you through the crowd. Fuck that, fuck being private, you thought as you pulled his face down to kiss you and that kiss? You felt it for days. The first of many public claims between the two of you started that night.

—

Suddenly a year has passed since that night though it felt like it’s only been a day since you’ve walked up to him at the golf course. You wondered if the dreaded end of the honeymoon stage would ever arrive and that goes without saying that though you two do argue, instead of shutting each other out like the learned behavior from parents and past relationships, somehow you and Rafe were able to swallow each other’s pride and sit down and talk. That’s right, talk. You didn’t rush into make-up sex and ignore the problems or disagreements that you had, though the make-up sex was amazing after the issues were addressed.

You didn’t know what to make of such a healthy relationship, at first you had to admit, and you even told Rafe that you almost ran. You had a tendency of running from things that were too good to be true and he was one of them. Coming from a mentality of leaving before being left, he knew the feeling all too well, and what did he do? He spent all night lying in bed with you, talking about life, the world, his love for you, and how he was scared too. He was terrified of going into this with you and yet he’s still here— you’re still here.

His kiss on your forehead snapped you out of going down memory lane of your relationship as you came back down to reality. You two were at your sister’s wedding, you wore a knee length red dress as Rafe wore a suit and tie. As the night went on and you two kept dancing, he had taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves to his forearms and you almost prayed for the strength not to take him right now on this dance floor.

“Did I tell you how incredible you look tonight? Because you do,” you told him as he held you close to his body, in a more comforting way than a possessiveness that you’re used to with your exes.

“You have but I wouldn’t mind hearing how attractive you think I am over and over again,” he smirked as he softly dipped his head to kiss your lips.

“Never mind,” your words mumbled against his lips, “I take it back. I never want to feed into your already big head,” you said before he surprised you by grabbing your arm and spinning you, causing you to laugh whole heartedly before tucking you back into his arms.

“I, on the other hand, do not mind feeding into your ego one bit because I cannot stand in front of you and not have you know that you’re the most gorgeous girl here tonight,” he said, causing you to blush and rest your face against his chest to hide the stupid smile you have on your face from him. You’re always smiling when you’re around him. Thinking back to the very first day, you couldn’t believe that people even thought he was a drug dealer or someone who beat people up for fun, he’s so far from it all. He’s the most loving, caring, and thoughtful person ever. Not just to you but to his sisters and his friends, his father just never gave him a chance and your heart broke for him in that sense but overall? You’d never change anything about him because then he wouldn’t be this man here tonight.

After the bride and groom did their goodbye ceremony, you told Rafe that you weren’t ready to go home yet. So, he said that he’d drive over to the water, knowing that the sound of the ocean relaxes you.

He draped his wrist over the steering wheel, one hand on your thigh and you couldn’t help but have your heart feel so full. You looked at the boy sitting next to you in this convertible, his hair being pushed back by the wind, his tie loose around his neck. Shit, you thought to yourself, I love him.

I love him. I love him. I love him.

You repeated to yourself and you could almost cry with how happy you are in this moment right now. You didn’t think twice when you pulled off the hair tie and bobby pins, keeping your hair together and letting it flow in the wind. Almost as if shedding the image you’ve been trying to keep for so long and finally being free. You threw your hands up in the air, closing your eyes and feeling the wind wrap around you, letting love finally wrap around you.

“You’re fucking beautiful,” you heard Rafe’s voice shouting over the wind and you smiled, eyes still closed because you swear, you’d cry if you looked at him right now. God, if this is a dream please don’t wake me up. He squeezed your thigh as if to keep you from floating away— too late.

When you feel the car slow down, you finally opened your eyes, looking over to him with the biggest smile. You couldn’t stop yourself, “Rafe,” though he was already looking at you, mesmerized, “I love you,” you declared, not scared of rejection. At this point, the moonlight shining on his face and the way that he’s looking at you, you’re not afraid of anything.

“What?” Rafe’s voice was barely audible that if you weren’t looking at him, you wouldn’t have thought he’d have said anything. Though he asked the question, his body twisted in the driver’s seat, his hand now on your face, his eyes shining and if he cried you know you would, too.

“I love you,” you repeated and you’d keep repeating it for the rest of your life if he’d allow it, “you make me the happiest that I’ve ever been and when I look at you, I feel safe. I feel like I can conquer the world with you by my side and when I look at you, I just want to protect you from all the evil in the world. I don’t even remember what it feels like to be empty anymore because with you, I feel everything. I want to feel everything all the time because if this is what love feels like, oh my God, I’m floating, I love you. I love-,” and before you could say it again, Rafe pulled your face to his, crushing his lips onto yours. You couldn’t tell if the tears you feel on your cheeks are yours or his but you don’t care. It doesn’t matter. The happiness that you feel right now, you want to capture the feeling forever. His hand came up behind your head, keeping you from coming up from air, keeping you in his arms but needing you closer. He pulled his seat back and practically pulled you over the center console as you let out a small squeal, laughing against his lips but wrapping your arms around his neck as you straddled him. He rests his forehead against yours as his eyes remained close, his cheeks stained with tears but he had a smile on his face that looks like it couldn’t be wiped off even if you tried, matching yours.

“I love you, too.”

#rafe x reader #rafe x y/n #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron x y/n #rafe cameron #drew starkey #this is literally my first fluff fic ever because i dont write fluff and i blame jessie entirely but like also thank you for showing me #a world of pretending i can be in love lol #my drabbles #my writing

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blueeyedrichie · 4 years

Note

okay as a ~*~*distraction*~*~ what part time job do you think each loser would work in the 00’s au? (or any timeline you want)

oop piggybacking off my last ask to add that I personally love Richie working at a movie theater/video rental/store like Newbury Comics (idk if that’s a national chain or not)

okay i’m not joking when i say that i read the first ask and was like “RICHIE VIDEO RENTAL STORE” and then saw your second ask and i fully screamed bc of course we would have the same brain once again :’) soooooo

richie: i’m fully thinking that like he would work at some local place when they are still living in derry, and when they move away for college he would work at blockbuster and think it’s literally the coolest thing ever. like he’s FINALLY gotten to the highest tier of video rental stores. and the other losers are like “dude you do realize that like rental stores are a dying business right” but richie works there til the bitter end, a big part of that being that all the kids that come in think his voices are super funny, like whatever movie they rent richie will talk to them in the voice of the main character or something and it’s just really fun for him. also free candy, helloooo? and the losers are all v supportive and come rent movies from him specifically. and he also tries to get eddie to go into the 18+ room, and eddie’s like “dude we literally are 20 years old, it’s not like we have to sneak in” but richie just thinks it’s funny and so sometimes they’ll run in there together only to run back out giggling like little kids because it’s fun and they can (pls ignore that my timeline here is probably way off from the actual 00′s au i’m just ~doin what i want~) and i think toward the end of working here is when he’d really start to focus more on like his rtvf degree bc i love that for him and he’d get his first dj job while he’s still in school

eddie: mechanic shop!!!!!! let that boy enjoy his love of cars!!!!!! again, he’d work at a local place until they move and tbh probably have a hard time finding a solid job because he just has the little bit of experience from derry. but with the support of his friends and his determination he finally lands a job at a pretty reputable mechanic shop in new york (i’m just going with new york but i mean they could be anywhere) and he quickly becomes one of their top mechanics. he also is taking automotive technology classes and i imagine him getting an internship or something and getting to work on really fancy cars and stuff, though he truly prefers working on like old cars and helping his friends out. he fully teaches richie how to change the oil in his truck at some point bc he gets sick of richie always taking it in for something so simple and paying for it with his ~blockbuster savings~ and he also shows everyone how to change their tires :’)

stanley: i think stan would volunteer at like zoos and animal adoption places. at first he’s mainly just like a janitor and cleans up the walking paths and runs concessions and stuff, which he’s honestly okay with because he gets to spend a lot of time just bird watching and admiring the animals and practicing his bird calls. and i think once they all move, he’d get a position at a big zoo as like a guide and he would teach lessons on how to tell different birds apart and how to do bird calls. i think even when he does get the job, he’d probably still volunteer at animal shelters on the side and he’d be the person in the room with the people who will potentially be adopting to see how the animals respond and he gets to decide if they get to adopt or not

mike: i really love the idea of mike working in antique shops. i can see him falling in love with some little shop in derry that is probably on its last legs and asking for a job, and they probably tell him they don’t need the help but he is persistent and basically ends up just working there and while they can’t afford to pay much, they let him take random things he finds home. of course, along with all the trinkets there would be tons of old literature there and he’d spend a lot of his time reading. in new york, he’d probably be in search of similar shops that he can fix up and find more cool items, and he always gifts each of the losers cool things he finds that makes him think of them. i can also definitely see him working in the university library sometimes, but i think he’d love finding old photos and books and knick knacks and learning about where they all came from

beverly: honestly i think bev would work at a movie theatre, but spend almost all of her time flipping through magazines and drawing up sketches of clothing and listening to music. she starts at concessions and moves up to box office, and she definitely sneaks the other losers in to watch movies for free. she and richie argue about whose job is better and who has the better candy (it’s literally all the same, eddie will tell them) and she also gets to bring home movie posters and distributes them amongst the losers. she definitely gets caught letting them all in for free movies and has to stay late to mop the theatre floors, but little does her boss know that the losers will continue to sneak in anyway and help her clean up. i think she’d keep working there until she gets an internship with a designer. all the losers keep the movie posters that she’d given them over the years

bill: bill works in used bookstores and libraries, and also prefers to accept his pay in the form of taking as many books home as he can. he’s usually there on his own, and he always brings notebooks (this dude can’t afford a laptop yet okay) with him so that he can write his own stories when he isn’t reading. i also can fully see one of the gifts that mike gives is a typewriter to bill that he finds in one of the antique shops :’)) the shops in derry aren’t very busy, so he gets to spend most of his time there reading not only novels, but also books on being a writer and this is where he learns a lot about becoming an author. in ny, i can definitely see him being a library aide and i just have a very vivid image of bill on one of those slidy ladder things looking through the books on the top shelf and being mesmerized by just how much there is to read. even when he isn’t actually working, he’s in a corner of the library working on his original works and just enjoying the atmosphere

ben: ben works at a comic shop, but most of his time is spent sketching buildings and rearranging the store shelves so that it’s neater and makes more sense in the aspect of ~architecture~ and his boss is like in true shock every time he comes into the store in the morning and finds not a single comic out of place like he always did with the people that worked there previously. he draws inspo for big, fancy buildings from things he sees in the comics and likes to redraw them to a realistic scale and imagine what they would look like in real life. the losers of course love to visit him here as well, and they help him choose his best sketches to create a portfolio before they go off to college where he presents it to his professor who would honestly be pretty impressed by it all (and i’m thinking would prob be like “is this the building from ~insert comic here~ and ben would be like YES) and that’s how he gets an internship in architecture

AHHHHH this got so fucking long omg thank you for sending <33333

#rchtzr #meg ily this was rly fun #the losers club #00s losers au #yeah I’ll tag that LOL #I’m having so many thoughts omfg

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halothenthehorns · 3 years

Text

All in the Family

Chapter 47: The Firebolt

Sounds of jubilation rang in Alice's ears before the rest of her senses had even caught up with her. The place smelt strongly of wood polish and she flinched in surprise when something bright red looked like it was fixing to sock her in the face. She stumbled back in surprise and managed to tip over a whole casket of something that went spinning across the floor in every direction.

"Alice?" Frank called in concern as she muscled her way around what she finally recognized as Quaffles, the projectile charmed to be spinning in place showing off its new apparent aerodynamics on display.

"Over here," she called from the corner and following the loud noise around the mess of balls she made to find herself in the store proper, Quality Quidditch Supplies.

Frank sprinted over to her in relief, still shaking wood shavings out of his hair. "Sorry love, I landed in a pile of Make-Your-Brooms, I think some little kid was in the process of carving something into the handle when I interrupted." He caught her hand as he continued to look about. "Do you know where we are? I think that's Diagon Alley past that window, but-"

"You've never been in Quality Quidditch Supplies?" Alice asked in surprise.

"Me mum never brought me in here," he shrugged. "Thought the sport was a bloody waist."

"It's no wonder you wouldn't help me practice for the Beater tryouts next year," she laughed in surprise as his chagrin grew. "Don't worry love, I'll help you learn how to ride a broom over the summer, if you want," she quickly finished.

"I, ah, could give it a try," he uneasily agreed, clearly putting more enthusiasm into his voice than he meant. "Can't be worse than Neville's first try, eh?"

The two exchanged a look of pure love and excitement, their future spanning before them in that moment as Alice's mind corrected the instance, of teaching her son all about a sport she'd loved for ages.

Lily came over to them then with a deeply annoyed expression seemingly frozen in place. "Well, no use in expecting any of them to help us find the book soon. They seem to have reconsolidated their friendship by acting like even bigger loons than usual, if you can believe it."

Alice saw a beach-ball sized Snitch now being tossed into the air at the front of the store and believed her without question. She tugged her boyfriends hand and began waving Lily off to the side, "there's a collection of Quidditch manuals and how-to's on the far wall over there, we should start there."

They found Regulus there flipping enthusiastically threw Brooms to Buy. He began jabbering without even looking up, "these designs are fantastic! I can't believe how sleek the models become in a few short years! Do you think they worked out the design flaw of-"

He did look up then and flushed in surprise to see who it was.

Alice smiled politely and encouraged him to finish, "you mean the tailwind on the Cleensweep models? I sure hope so. I've been angling to save up for a new Silver Arrow because of it."

Regulus blinked several times in confusion, before a smile slowly lit his face. "You follow Quidditch?"

"It's a thing me and my mum love," she agreed. "I was going to try out for the house-team next year."

"We might be playing against each other then," he stated, and to her surprise she saw some excitement beginning to light his usual dower expression.

"You already on then?" Frank asked, eyeing the third year, who seemed almost miniscule to them sometimes being two years older.

"Yep, though I've only been a reserve player so far. The usual Seeker has actually been in the Hospital Wing all week though, so if he didn't make it out by classes today, I got to play in the match next week!" He exclaimed in pure child-like delight, then his face clouded over as he muttered in confusion what day of the week it was supposed to be exactly.

"I hope things work out for you then," Alice told him sincerely as Lily had long since lost interest in the conversation and perused every spine along here, but between the cover of Witch Weekly being dominated by some person with a surly face and heavy dark eyebrows, and a copy of Quidditch through the ages, not finding the book they needed.

Regulus nodded, blinked again in surprise as if just realizing who he'd been talking to, and managed the most friendly smile any of them had seen as he waved them off and began flipping through the magazine again.

"He's a weird kid," Frank muttered as they went traveling aimlessly down the isles of the store now with no clue where to look next, and not in any big hurry to be done and put in a more unpleasant place to use magic to find it. "Sometimes he's so hostile I feel like I can't take my eyes off him, then other's, he's..." he struggled to put into words what they'd just seen.

"A normal kid," she offered politely. "I'm still trying to figure that out as well. Seems he really only gets defensive when his big brother starts pushing his buttons and the pureblood issues come up. Makes you wonder what his home life's like," she finished with a sigh, eyes on Lily as she watched a Bludger go sailing over their head without interest. They heard it crash somewhere in the back of the store, and they all steered clear and went to the front instead.

The Marauders were beside themselves with pure energy, clearly all that candy they'd inhaled had taken hold. Black and Pettigrew were responsible for the majority of the objects being thrown around, unable to handle one for any length of time before daring the other to throw it, and the other complying. Lupin was sitting on the counter with an indulgent smile in place, occasionally waving his wand to fix something right only so his friends could go at it again. Potter was conspicuously missing.

"You lot have no restraint!" Evans snapped as a pile of Puddlemere United towels crashed into the floor from their wild antics. "Would you have some bloody respect for one place?"

"Live a little Evans!" Pettigrew called back, before he burst into a mad fit of laughter that almost sounded like a shriek. He jumped onto the space beside his friend and began hanging from the rafters in the ceiling, scrambling madly to lift the rest of himself up there.

Alice felt a bit of pity for him, it couldn't be easy to learn of this kind of future and the lad seemed to be taking his words to heart and enjoying himself to the fullest now. His friends were clearly indulging this. She turned away, and finally spotted the book. Potter was unintentionally drooling on it and didn't even seem to realize it, as it was propped on the display next to the Firebolt.

She darted over there as well, eyeing the beautiful, sleek design with relish. It looked fast just simply sitting there in the sun, she couldn't imagine the feel of one beneath her. She was surprised Potter wasn't crashing around the store on it yet.

As if reading her mind, he groaned in pain, "it's a display model only, not the bloody real thing."

"That's almost fair," she sighed with longing. "I can't imagine any security charms in the world would stop someone from trying to steal it." Her mind was already putting together Potter discovering this by trying to take one along with him now.

He looked to her in surprise, it looked almost painful for him to drag his eyes away, but clearly hearing her tone. "You like Quidditch?"

"Why does everyone seem so surprised by this?" She pouted.

"You've barely said a thing when Harry's games were going on," he shrugged.

"I like to play it, don't have much enjoyment for listening to it," she said back, while finally and reluctantly grabbing the book.

"Enjoy the chapter then, seems we'll be getting skipped forward to one of Harry's matches," Potter gave her a genial wave and went back to panting over the broom.

Alice wasn't so sure, the timeline didn't seem right for it at all as she'd thought Harry was just starting his winter break, but opened the book curiously to read the chapter title, which gave things a little more context.

Pettigrew fell from the ceiling in surprise, and didn't even seem to notice. "Harry's going to get a Firebolt!"

Alice gazed fondly at the picture, which didn't at all do justice to the lovely bit of wood in the window.

"I guess losing his Nimbus model changed his mind about getting a new broom like that," Frank laughed at the kids indulgence. "Poor lad needs a pick me up I'm sure," he finished more quietly, eyes still on Black who looked like he was trying to do a cart wheel for reasons beyond both of them.

The excitement of this news made everything feel like there was a new energy around it, even the dampening opening reminding them all how Harry was taking this news. It was clear the Marauders were trying very hard not to even listen, the three even abandoning the front counter to join their friend at the window and talking painfully loudly about anything they could think of.

Alice couldn't do the same, and not just because she was the one telling of poor Harry's suffering turned to hatred towards Black. She watched the teen flinch and edge even closer to his best friend, throwing an arm around Lupin like he was trying to hold himself upright at his soon to be godsons feelings. She'd been wondering about her own future ever since she'd learned about Neville, worried why her son never mentioned his parents and was raised by Frank's mother. If her son hated his parents even a fraction of what Harry was feeling for someone he should have been so close with, she didn't know how she'd be able to live with that. She honestly wished she had a better answer for him rather than more accusations.

Lily listened as Harry's friends tried to cheer him up, and Harry wouldn't let them as he reminded Malfoy may have been aware of this news. She vividly remembered the brats words to Harry about the elder Black, Sirius, and how she'd wondered if somehow he and Lupin were in on that horrible murder together. Now with this new information of learning their friend was involved, she wasn't so sure, but then how had the child of a Death Eater been so informed of the event? Was it really possible they'd both turn on their friend in a few years? What of Potter? The longer she thought of this the less sense it made.

Frank hoped that Harry going to visit Hagrid would help him. He needed someone to vent at, an adult in his life who would be a solid presence in this troubled time. He'd never known his dad, but thought he'd be a lot like Hagrid if he hadn't been killed by Death Eaters.

James turned to actually watch Alice with concern and surprise of what was wrong with Hagrid, then they all muttered, "I'd forgotten about that hippogriff."

"I say we start a Quidditch team for him!" Peter said at once, breaking off and making a run for the isles. "The Hogwarts Hippogriffs!"

"I don't think they'll give a school an international team," James snorted as he followed after him.

"If they did, we'd have to form one giant team, and the body count would never end," Remus snickered as he trailed after them.

Sirius hesitated to follow, eyes still lingering on the book. His friends refused to treat him any differently no matter what came to light, but he'd noticed these three with something new on their faces from that last chapter. It had not passed his notice Regulus had been about to draw his wand on someone either, for him. He felt like he owed all of them, something. A peace offering, a thanks, an apology, he wasn't sure, but some way to show he really wasn't this mad man of the future. He'd never really cared what anyone thought of him in school before, but this was different, he didn't want anyone to think he was capable of this! Now it was clear they were reconsidering and even agreeing with the Marauders something was going on about this story, now how to reinforce this when Harry's opinion of him was lower than ever?

Harry helping his friend to save the hippogriff was too sweet, almost sickly so, Regulus wanted to laugh. Hagrid was certainly one strange person, crying over a beast. He wondered idly, as he found a nice chair to sit in and continue flipping through his magazine, how Hagrid had survived Azkaban for as long as he'd been there. Regulus froze when he even realized Hagrid and Sirius would have been in there at the same time. He shivered and was happy for the change of topic to Harry getting Christmas gifts, especially that new broom he'd already snuck a peek at.

The boys ideas of who had sent it to him all had merit, he could even hear echoes throughout the store of varying people's ideas, most of them thinking it was McGonagall or Dumbledore again. Regulus wondered if they were really missing a rather obvious person, Sirius. He was certain he cared enough about Harry to use money he claimed no right to.

There was some scattered sympathy again for Scabbers once again being chased by that cat, and quite a few mutters when Hermione only made her position worse by worrying over who sent the broom instead of just enjoying the gift! He rolled his eyes even harder when he in fact heard the other Muggleborn present voicing this same worry Harry should not just be accepting this gift without question. He'd probably agree, if he thought there was anyone out to hurt Harry that wasn't around the last two years. He'd finally had to admit to himself there was no doubt Sirius was innocent of these crimes, and there was just no reason he'd be 'going after,' Harry.

Once again nobody seemed to give much of a passing notice to Lupin being absent for his health. It was a common enough thing for him in school, seemed he never grew out of that.

Remus flushed at this being pointed out anyways, then paused in confusion as the potion Snape was apparently making for him was again mentioned with no real understanding of it all. There was just no chance it was a coincidence. Snape knew he was a werewolf, and was giving him something for it?

James and Peter froze in front of him with weary expressions as well, but dared not speak of this in such a compact store where anyone could hear. Instead they gladly took the distraction of McGonagall coming to confiscate Harry's broom, and very loudly spoke of how infuriated they were with Hermione going behind Harry's back like that.

"She was looking out for her friend!" Evans shot back from five isles over. "I'd hardly think you would complain about that Potter, considering that's what you've been doing for your friend since the beginning!"

"It's different!" James thundered back, but with that light back in his eyes of finally getting the chance to spare with her again openly. "I'm defending Sirius from false accusations, not tattling to a teacher so they can nick his stuff!"

There was no response, and James preened with satisfaction, seeming to think he'd finally gotten through to her. He even went jogging back over to them, Peter hurrying to keep up.

Remus was all for standing around and watching the show of Prongs and Evans again, but got distracted. "Oi, Padfoot, I found you a Whimborn Wasp Jersey with Bagman's numbers!"

"Moony, you're the best mate ever!" He'd spoken without thinking, all but apparating to the isle he was in, but froze when he reached for it and their hands brushed together.

There was a pause as the two just stood there for a moment gaping at each other.

It's stupid to flush like some school girl, Sirius quickly corrected himself, he knew what you meant! Their fingers were still overlapped over the bright yellow stripes.

The two hadn't found an alone moment in quite some time now, and the more this kept happening the more charged the air became between them. They'd agreed to hold off the awkward conversation of whatever this was and include James and Peter in it, but that had been when they'd thought they were just traveling through Harry's first year. Now all of this horrible new information kept coming up between them all, the two honestly just wanted an escape.

Remus cleared his throat and finally stepped back, effectively putting the conversation off again like it had never been turned back on. "Well, put it on before Smith finishes!"

Neither gave a single care to the exclaims of surprise that Sirius could have sent Harry that broom, it felt obvious to them, and it's not as if this news would change anyone's opinion of him in either way.

Sirius shucked his bag, slipped out of his school robes and threw them off without care, grinning as he exposed his top half and Remus cleared his throat again. It wasn't anything the other hadn't seen over the past five years of sharing a room in the morning, he told himself, but he still found himself preening a bit and hesitating longer than he should have before pulling it on.

Moony caught his eyes and smiled again, whispering, "perfect fit," as they were teleported away.

#Harry Potter #fanfiction #Wolfstar #Marauders #Jilly #Quality Quidditch supplies #PoA #James Potter #Remus Lupin #Sirius Black #Peter Pettigrew #Regulus Black #Lily Evans #Alice Smith #Frank Longbottom

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cindylouwho-2 · 3 years

Text

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