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derangedangel · 6 months

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Killer Duo - Isaac Lahey

Summary: Lydia’s throwing a Halloween party and your costume coordinates with Isaac’s

Isaac Lahey x Reader

Word Count: 1,591

Author’s Note: Apparently this was in my drafts in 2019 and I finished it in 2020. Why it never got posted, I’m not sure. The timing of this is funny cause I’m currently at work dressed as the character Isaac is dressed as. Anyway, reblogs and comments are appreciated. Happy Halloween!

“Lydia, I haven’t dressed up for Halloween since I was 12,” you said walking around looking at all the creepy Halloween decorations.

“And this is a costume party. You have to dress up or you can’t go,” Lydia replied walking in front of you heading straight for the costumes.

“I have no idea what I should be. And most Halloween costumes for women are sexy now, which really means they’re short and inappropriate, and I am not doing that.”

The strawberry blonde rolled her eyes. “You haven’t even looked at any costumes yet and your already jumping to conclusions.”

“I’m just pointing out facts. Halloween used to be fun, then I grew up.”

“And now you’re at the age where you can dress up again,” Lydia smiled at you. “There’s just no candy this time.”

“So what’s the point,” you joked.

“Just come on,” Lydia said grabbing your arm pulling you towards the superhero costumes first.

The two of you began to look through the racks of clothes. You ran a mental checklist of everything that wouldn’t work for you.

Batgirl? No.

Iron Man? No.

Elastigirl? Hell no.

“Oh, what about Wonder Woman,” Lydia asked holding up the iconic armor for you to see.

“Ehh,” you said fidgeting on your feet, “I don’t feel comfortable having my ass out.”

“Okay,” Lydia said sighing at how difficult you were making this. She stood next to you scanning the the other costumes in the superhero section and decided you were going to like any of them.

“What about a witch,” she asked.

“I guess I could be that,” you replied halfheartedly.

“No, I don’t want you buying something you don’t love. That’s the number one rule in fashion.”

“Lydia, why don’t you just look for your costume and I’ll find mines. I don’t want you to keep pulling outfits and I hate them all.”

Lydia turned and faced you. “Honey, I bought my costume weeks ago. No one is going to be wearing the same thing as me at my own party.”

You chuckled, shaking your head. “Duh, I should have known you already had your costume ready to go.”

“Yes, so this trip is all about you, my dear,” Lydia said tapping you on the nose making you smile.

“Fine,” you replied. “Well, let’s go look at something a little more spookier then.”

_____________

“Barbie, eat your heart out.”

Lydia walked up behind you in the mirror and nodded. “You look good.”

“I look killer,” you laughed and Lydia smiled shaking her head.

You looked at yourself in the mirror admiring your white dress, leather jacket, and combat boots. You grabbed your eyeliner pencil and added the final touch. Tiffany’s mole.

Perfect.

As soon as you saw the Bride of Chucky costume, you knew you needed it. Lydia was just happy you didn’t go with Chucky so you didn’t mess up her bathroom adding all the wounds and fake blood on your face.

About an hour later, the party was well under way and you already made your first rounds with Lydia. Now she off doing other hostess duties and you were people watching against the wall.

You saw Isaac across the room and smiled to yourself. You excused yourself through the crowd as you made your way across the room.

“Hey, Isaac. Nice costume,” you greeted, looking up at the tall burette in front of you. Well, he wasn’t brunette right now. He was wearing a red wig and a pair of Good Guys overalls. You snickered to yourself. Of course the guy you had a crush on would be dressed up as Chucky. He was basically the salt to your pepper.

“Thanks,” Isaac said, a grin lining his face. “And you are a... biker bride?”

You looked at Isaac confused and shocked. “You’re kidding me, right?”

“What,” Isaac smiled confused at your response. “Should I know who you are?”

“Yes,” you said laughing. You gawked at him as you held up your plastic bloody knife and pointed to your “Tiff” necklace. His eyebrow furrowed in confusion.

“I’m Tiffany...”

Isaac shook his head still lost.

“The Bride of Chucky...”

“Sorry. Still don’t know who that is.”

“Oh my God. Isaac, how are you dressed up as Chucky but don’t know who Tiffany is?”

Isaac shrugged. “Honestly, I wasn’t planning on wearing a costume, but Lydia said I had to, then showed up to Scott’s house with this.”

You shook your head, laughing to yourself. “Of course she did.”

“Am I missing something,” Isaac asked wanting in on the joke.

“Lydia knew I was dressing up as Tiffany and she made you be Chucky... we’re basically a couple’s costume.”

“We are,” Isaac asked, his eyebrow raised and smirk slowly growing on his face.

“Uhh, I- I mean sorta,” you replied fidgeting where you stood. “Especially, now when we’re standing next to each other.”

Isaac took a step closer to you. “So I guess I better keep you close then.”

You’re eyes grew big but before you could response you were interrupted.

“There you two are,” Lydia said walking up to you and Isaac. Her blonde ponytail wig bouncing with each step she took. She definitely was the only I Dream of Jeannie here. You doubted if most of the party even knew who she was, but they all knew she looked good. “Well don’t you look cozy together.”

“Lydia,” you said a little too sweetly for anyone’s liking. “I hear we have you to thank for Isaac’s costume.”

“What,” Lydia asked like she didn’t basically have you and Isaac in a couple’s costume. “I couldn’t have him come to my Halloween party not dressed up.”

“Yeah, sure,” you scoffed crossing your arms over your chest.

“Anyway, everyone’s outside so we can take a group pic before anyone is too intoxicated to do it later.”

“Lydia,” Stiles yelped running up. “Oh, hey guys,” he said waving to you and Isaac. You smiled and waved back before he began talking to Lydia. He was dressed up as Captain Tony Nelson, the perfect couple’s costume to Lydia’s Jeannie. “Um, so, I may or may not have gotten my Captain’s hat stuck on the roof... okay I definitely did. But it was Scott’s fault!”

“Seriously, Stiles,” Lydia fumed. “God,” she whispered under her breath shaking her head before turning to you. “Give it about ten minutes before the picture so I can get his hat down.”

You laughed nodding your head. “Okay.”

The couple walked away, leaving you alone with Isaac. “Um, I’m going to go get something to drink. See you outside in ten?”

“Yeah,” Isaac said, giving you a slow and sexy smile.

You turned and headed for the kitchen, letting out a long breath as you did. Isaac’s whole existence was driving you crazy. Although you did like the blue eyed boy, and you’ve been wanting something to happen for a while, he was making you incredibly nervous. You’d rather avoid him instead of potential embarrassing yourself.

After you filled your red solo cup with the fruity punch being served, one of your classmates came up to you.

“Hey Y/N, cute costume.”

“Thanks!”

“I didn’t know you and Isaac were a thing.”

“Huh,” you asked confused.

“The couple’s costume,” they said hesitantly. “Chucky and Tiffany.”

“Ohh, duh” you said to yourself when you realized. “We’re not dating. We just happened to wear costumes that went together.”

“Oh... well, the two of you look good together,” they said shrugging then walked away.

All your friends were already outside ready to take the picture. Lydia handed her phone to the designated photographer, then went to stand next to Stiles. Scott was in the middle, with Kira next to him. Malia was next to Kira, while Stiles and Lydia were on the other side of Scott. You stood next to Malia, throwing your arm over your friend’s shoulder. Isaac stood near Stiles.

After two pics were snapped, Lydia went to check the photos. She grabbed her phone, then looked up at the group. “Somethings not right...,” she said out loud, thinking to herself. “I know!” She grabbed Isaac by his arm and pulled him over to where you were standing. “That’s better. You’re costumes go together, so it makes sense,” she said smiling. She mumbled a quick you’re welcome to you before she handed the camera back over and went back to her place next to Stiles.

The person taking the pictures counted down “3, 2, 1,” then snapped a pic. But before you got to one, Isaac grabbed you by the waist and pulled you into him. You shrieked in response then started laughing.

“Okay, now a funny one,” Scott yelled so everyone could hear.

Isaac didn’t hesitate, quickly picking you up bridal style. You yelped, then immediately stuck your tongue out at him. Lydia’s phone flashed as the picture was taken, then everyone stopped doing their poses, but Isaac didn’t put you down.

You giggled before you spoke. “You can put me down now, Isaac. The picture’s over.”

“I said I should keep you close. So that’s what I’m doing,” he said smiling down at you in his arms. “And besides, if we’re next to each other people will think we’re a couple, so no guy will ask you to dance.”

You titled your head to the side, your eyes squinted slightly. “But we’re not a couple.”

“Give it a few weeks.”

Your mouth dropped in a silent gasp, slowly turning into a huge grin. You heard Kira giggling behind you and Stiles’s “yuck.”

#Teen Wolf #isaac lahey #isaac lahey x reader #teen wolf fanfiction #teen wolf imagine #isaac lahey fanfic

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roosterforme · 1 year

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A Love You Don't Find Everyday Part 20 The Wedding | Rooster x Reader

Summary: Tradition states that you and Bradley shouldn't see each other the night before you get married. But the two of you aren't traditional, and neither is your wedding. Can you and he actually pull off the secret wedding of your dreams?

Warnings: Fluff, angst, and swearing

Length: 5600 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader

Check out my masterlist for more!

After the house was cleaned up, and your parents had been dropped back at their hotel, Bradley had you tucked against his chest in the kitchen.

"Tomorrow. Holy shit," he whispered. "I can't believe we're getting married tomorrow."

You were giddy, practically vibrating in his arms. "Let's go over the checklist. I can't believe everyone fell for our little white lie."

Bradley kissed your forehead and never stopped touching you as you and he went down the list together. "Did you call the caterer yesterday?" you asked, pen poised over item number seven.

"Yep, dinner, drinks and cake are all set," he confirmed, and you smirked to yourself, because he had also been duped. You couldn't wait to give him his last wedding gift.

"I think that's it then," you confirmed. "I filed the permits. Mav is ready. We are mostly packed for the honeymoon. And everyone else thinks it's a regular day." He scooped you up into his arms and carried you to your bedroom.

"I don't think I have ever been this excited for anything before," he said, setting you down on the bed and climbing in next to you.

"You have to go sleep in the other room," you informed him as he kissed along your collarbone.

His lips froze on you. "What are you talking about, Baby Girl?"

"It's tradition! We're not supposed to see each other the night before or at all tomorrow until we actually get married!"

"Yeah, we're not doing that, Sweetheart." He continued to kiss you as you wiggled away from him, laughing.

"Come on, Roo."

"Listen, I'm not saying we need to have sex, but I'm not sleeping in the other bedroom when you're in here."

You glared at him and kept scooting away when he tried to touch you until he heaved a deep sigh and climbed out of bed. "Fine. I'll be in the other bedroom. Banished without even fucking up. I'll consider this husband training."

You laughed and stood to give him a kiss before he left. "You're going to be the perfect husband, Roo. You already are. I love you."

"I love you, Baby Girl."

"I can't wait to marry you."

He stroked your cheek with his thumb and smiled. "Me too, Mrs. Bradshaw."

Then you shoved him out of the room and started laying out all of your lingerie for the next day. You had someone coming over to do your hair and makeup in the morning, and you wanted to be organized. When you unzipped the garment bag containing your dress for a final peek, you jumped up and down and squealed quietly. It was perfect. And Bradley was perfect. And your little scheme was working out perfectly.

You got yourself ready for bed and climbed in alone. Tramp must have followed Bradley to the other bedroom, so you settled in and tried to fall asleep. It was quiet, and the bed was comfortable, but when Bradley wasn't with you, it reminded you of his deployments. You rolled over onto your back and thought about how pretty the view would be tomorrow, but you were too cold in the bed without him. You rolled onto your stomach in his spot and pretended you were laying on him. But it wasn't working, because while his pillow smelled like him, nothing was as comfortable to lay on as Bradley's warm shoulder.

"You're ridiculous," you groaned, flipping your lamp back on and grabbing your glasses. You walked through the living room and into the other bedroom and watched Tramp and Bradley both perk up when you said, "Roo?"

"What's wrong?" he asked, propping himself up on his elbow.

You bit your lip and whispered, "I miss you. Will you come back to bed?"

He was out from under the blanket and walking toward you in just his underwear immediately, and then he scooped you up in his arms without another word. Tramp trailed behind him as he carried you back to your bed. He took off your glasses and tucked you in as Tramp curled up in his own bed. Then Bradley turned off the lamp and climbed in on his side, and you were on top of him in an instant with your head on his shoulder.

"I didn't like you being here but not being with me," you whispered, kissing his warm skin while he laced his fingers with yours.

"Please don't make me sleep alone unless I'm deployed."

You snuggled in and closed your eyes, finally feeling calm and comfortable. "Never."

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

Bradley woke up to you draped across his body, enjoying the sound of your deep, even breathing. He was going to marry you today. Tears stung at his eyes at the thought of you in a white dress putting a ring on his finger. When you started to stir, you looked up at him and smiled.

"Happy wedding day," you whispered.

"Happy best day of my life, Sweetheart."

Your sleepy laughter filled the room as you sat up and kissed him. "You need to get dressed and leave so I can get ready."

Bradley grumbled but did as he was told while you made breakfast. Then he sat at the dining room table with you on his lap wearing nothing but his UVA shirt while you ate eggs covered in hot sauce. Occasionally you tore off a bit of your toast and fed it to Tramp as he begged next to the chair. Bradley wanted his life with you to last forever. He couldn't get enough of this.

"Hey," he whispered and you turned to look at him with a piece of toast halfway to your parted lips. "It's just you and me, Baby Girl. Forever."

You smiled and set the toast down before wrapping your arms around his neck. "Me and you."

Before Bradley got changed in the extra bedroom and left, he put both wedding bands in his pocket and made sure his phone was charged and loaded with the correct playlist. Then he told you which parking spot he would be waiting in with the Bronco.

"I'll be there, Roo," you promised, kissing him so sweetly he was having a hard time making himself leave. But he knew the sooner he let you get ready, the sooner you'd meet him and everyone else in your wedding dress. So he pulled out of the driveway with a smile on his face.

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

Your hair was done. Your makeup was done. You were slipping into the outrageously expensive satin panties with Mrs. Bradshaw embroidered on the front when you caught sight of yourself in the mirror. You looked amazing. This is what Bradley was going to see later when he brought you home. You cupped your breasts in your hands and turned to really look at yourself. You weren't perfect, but he loved you.

You were wearing the new earrings Bradley had given you, and Carole's beautiful veil would be your something old. The blue Mrs. Bradshaw stitching in your lingerie would cover that element of the tradition, but you still had to figure out how to incorporate the keychain from Jake, even if he had no idea that's why you demanded he let you borrow it.

When you checked the time on your phone, you nearly screamed. You were running late. You got your dress on as quickly as you could, struggling with the zipper. Then you took the time to lace your high heels up your calves and tie the ribbons in pretty bows for Bradley to undo later. You grabbed your shoes for the reception and Jake's keychain, and then you were ready to go.

When you pulled up to the parking lot, you saw Mav and Bradley next to the Bronco with your parents. Mav came running over to move the orange traffic cones so you could pull in, and he had a huge smile on his face. Then you parked two spots down from the Bronco, leaving one empty one in between both cars.

When you opened your door, Bradley was right there with a smile on his face and tears in his eyes. "Baby Girl," he sighed, helping you out of your car and into his arms. He looked at you and then held you close, whispering, "I am so lucky." You let him hold you as you ran your red fingernails along his yellow and red tropical print shirt while he brushed your ear with his lips. "So lucky. I love you so much."

You melted against him as his big, warm hands spread across your bare back. "I love you, Roo. Forever." Then he took a step away from you and ran his hands along the fabric of your wedding dress.

"Do you know how badly I wanted to look in that garment bag for the past month? That damn thing was taunting me in the closet, but I had fun imagining what you'd look like today." He licked his lips and ran his thumb along the lace between your breasts. "God, you look amazing. I couldn't even imagine anything this perfect."

"It's just for you." Your words had a rosy color creeping along his cheeks as he ran his hand down your body to the exact location of your tattoo.

You could hear your mom crying next to the Bronco, and when you kissed Bradley one last time and glanced over at your parents, you almost laughed. Your dad was wearing an old Naval Academy shirt with his swim trunks, and your mom had on a sundress with her sunglasses perched up on top of her head. Bradley gently pushed you toward them, and then they were both pulling you into their arms.

"I'm sorry we lied and told you it was just a beach day today," you said, trying not to start crying yourself.

"That's okay. We don't mind," your dad said with a soft laugh.

Your mom held your face in both hands. "When Bradley picked us up in white linen pants, I was a little concerned. And then when he stopped at a florist and asked me to hold onto your bouquet while he drove, I started crying. And I haven't stopped since. Because I'm so happy."

When she finally released you and clung to your dad instead, you hugged Mav who whispered, "You look beautiful. Just as pretty as Carole did on her wedding day. The Bradshaw men have impeccable taste."

You tried not to cry as you ran your fingers along Carole's veil where it fell back along your shoulders. "I wish I could have met them," you told Maverick, and then you really felt like crying.

But then your dad asked, "Not that I don't love it, but why exactly did you pick a parking lot for your wedding venue?"

Bradley wrapped his arm around your waist and said, "This parking spot is where we had our first kiss."

You looked out past the front of your car at the cliffs beach and the Pacific Ocean and thought about that fateful day early last September. "I kissed you."

Bradley nodded. "You owed me after all the mixed signals, Baby Girl."

"The Bronco was parked in this spot," you said, tapping your toe on the crumbling pavement of the empty parking space.

"No. The Bronco was parked there," he replied, pointing to where it was currently parked.

"What? No, it was definitely this spot, Roo."

"You're so wrong, Sweetheart."

You opened your mouth to argue further, but then you watched an SUV pull in right over the cones, followed by Phoenix screaming your names at the top of her lungs out the driver's window.

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?!" she screeched as she jumped out of her car while it was practically still moving and ran over and right into Bradley's arms.

He hugged his best friend who was wearing a sports bra, athletic shorts, and flip flops. Then Bob hopped out of her car as well and rushed over with his nose covered in zinc sunblock and his sunglasses clipped onto his regular glasses. He looked around as your mom handed you the bouquet of red and yellow flowers you ordered. "Are you getting married? Today?" he asked quietly, wiping tears from his eyes.

"Yes!" you said, and Bob hugged you so hard, he got sunblock in your hair. And then Nat started crying as you handed her a smaller bouquet that matched yours while your mom fixed your hair.

"I literally never thought this was going to happen," Nat sobbed at you. "I was still afraid you might change your mind, because he's kind of a nightmare, but he's so fucking pussy whipped for you, I can't even think straight. Oh my god, I'm sorry about my language," she muttered to your parents while she wiped her tears on Bob's shirt. "I can't believe you said it was a beach day, and now I have to wear this in your wedding photos!" she said, hitting Bradley with the flowers.

Everything was turning into a commotion as Maverick moved the bent traffic cones for Penny and Amelia to pull in along with Payback, Fanboy and Coyote. Maverick also had to keep waving people past, even though there was a sign hanging up with the county seal that said PERMIT FOR PRIVATE EVENT- NOVEMBER 28TH 4 PM TO 9 PM.

You laughed at everyone's attire and shocked faces. Penny and Amelia were wearing matching Hard Deck tee shirts and the boys all had on bathing suits.

"It's a wedding! It's not a beach day!" Fanboy yelled when he saw you and Bradley. "It's actually a fucking wedding!"

You buried your laughter against Bradley's chest and wiped your sweaty palms on his shirt. He kissed the top of your head through the veil as the guys all made a fuss over you.

Jake, Maria, and Cam were still missing, and you nervously worked Jake's keychain in amongst your flowers as Maverick checked the time.

"Do you want to get started now?" he asked you and Bradley. "Or should we wait a bit longer?"

"We need to wait," you replied quickly while Bradley rubbed your back.

"Hey, can you call Hangman?" Bradley asked Coyote who immediately took his phone out. But then you saw Jake pull past and run directly over all the cones to get in the parking lot.

"You lied to me!" Jake shouted as he parked and walked over to the ceremony spot overlooking the ocean. "You are both liars! This is a scam! Mexico? Really?" he asked, playfully shoving Bradley before shaking his hand. And then he gave you a bear hug that had you gasping for air.

"Thanks for giving me my something borrowed," you said with a smile when he released you. Jake examined your bouquet when you held it up, and he kissed your cheek when he saw his keychain.

"I'd tell you to keep it, but I think you have to give it back now."

Everyone was shifting around a bit impatiently. Nat was putting Coyote's shirt on as the photographer got to work. You were looking up and down at every car that passed, hoping to see your friends. And Bradley kept his arm wrapped around you, reassuring you that they could all wait as long as you wanted to before starting.

When you looked up at Bradley's soppy expression and puppy dog eyes, you sighed, not wanting to wait any longer. "Let's do this," you told him, about to hand Maria's bouquet to Jake to act as your maid of honor. But your friends didn't let you down. You watched Maria drive up, and Fanboy moved the crumpled cones so she could pull in. She had Cam in the car with her, and they were both smiling.

"My flight was delayed because of snow! On your wedding day!" Cam called out, walking over to you in jeans and a flannel shirt. "Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, pulling you into a hug. "I would have flown back from Pittsburgh last night."

Maria joined in the hug as she cried. "You picked a wedding date after all." She held her bouquet and stood next to you while Nat in Coyote's shirt stood next to Bradley. Mav shuffled some papers in his hands and stood with this back to the beautiful vista as everyone else crowded into the parking space between the two cars.

But you just looked at Bradley who was very clearly on the verge of tears. Every time he swallowed, the bob of his Adam's apple had you biting your lip, probably ruining your lipstick in the process. You had more love in your heart for him than you knew what to do with, and as you took his left hand in your right one, Maverick cleared his throat.

"This is nice," Mav said, smiling at everyone. "Small and perfect. These two knew what they were doing."

"Fucking liars," Jake whispered loudly, making everyone laugh.

"Yeah, well," Mav agreed with a grin, "it somehow ended up working out. And they didn't give me anything to work with, rather they told me I could say whatever I wanted before they exchanged their vows, so I will make this brief." Mav turned to you and smiled, saying, "You and Bradley are so very lucky to have your parents here today. You are about to marry the son of the best friend I ever had. I knew Goose's opinions on every topic imaginable, because he did not know how to keep his mouth shut. And I can tell you that he would have absolutely loved you. But that love would have been a mere fraction of the unyielding adoration that Carole would have had for the wife of her only son."

You sobbed as tears filled your eyes, and Bradley leaned down to kiss your cheek. "And Bradley, I'm going to say word for word what your dad would say if he were here right now. 'You pulled off something incredible here, kid. You're following right in my footsteps. She is way too good for you. Do not fuck this up.'"

Bradley laughed as Mav reached out to shake his hand. "You're right Mav. I think he would have actually said that."

Once everyone's laughter had quieted down again, you took a deep breath and looked out at the ocean, letting the warm breeze help dry your eyes. When you looked back at Bradley, your lip was quivering a bit, but he was grinning at you. "Can I say my vows first?" he asked. "I'm really excited."

"Yeah, Roo," you whispered, handing your flowers to Maria so you could wipe your eyes with the tissue Mav handed you. "You can go first."

You handed the tissue to Maria, and Bradley took both of your hands and pulled you closer to him until your body was skimming his. He reached up and ran his thumb across your cheek, and your eyes fluttered closed for a few seconds.

"Baby Girl. It's obvious to anyone who knows me that I was alone for a really long time," he told you, and you felt like it was just the two of you, having a conversation. "I made it my lifestyle, my personality for almost two decades. It was so much a part of my identity that I couldn't even recognize that I wasn't just alone, I was also lonely."

He took a deep breath and touched your lip before returning his hand to yours. "I never thought I could have the life I have now, because I didn't appreciate what I was missing out on. And then I met you... and holy shit, Sweetheart," he sighed, kissing your forehead. "I knew immediately that there was something there for me. Something different. Something important that I needed to pay attention to. I was in love with you before our first date. It was devastating. I had no idea what to do about it. What if you didn't love me back ever? What was I going to do then? How did people deal with this wonderful and horrible feeling? The fact that you said 'I love you' first? Baby Girl, that showed some real restraint on my part."

You laughed at the look of concern on his face, and then he was smiling at you like he always did. Like he'd never seen anything as wonderful as you. "You want to know what's kind of crazy?" he asked, and you saw Nat crying silently out of the corner of your eye. "It feels like I must have known you my whole life. When I count our relationship by months or years, it feels incorrect. It should be longer than that. It feels longer than that. Because you make every day feel full now. I wake up with a purpose, and I go to sleep with a purpose, and that purpose is you, Baby Girl."

It was getting hard to look at him through the tears in your eyes, and you thought you would get a headache if you kept smiling this much, but he continued.

"I get to spend my hours with you or thinking about you. I get to fill up every minute making plans with you. Every minute is made up of seconds where I get to hear your voice and listen to your ideas. And you're so smart and it's crazy that you love my back, because you make every day now worth those decades of feeling like I didn't deserve more.

"So this is my promise to you....my wedding vow. Baby Girl, I will try to make all of your years and days and hours and minutes and seconds as perfect as you make mine. I want to fill up all of that time with my love. I will try to make every second count, but I also know that all the time in this world still won't be enough with you, Sweetheart. But I'm going to enjoy every single moment that I have."

You were crying softly as you buried your face in the collar of his floral print shirt and breathed him in. He held you tight against him as he whispered, "I love you so much," next to your ear and kissed you there.

When you finally looked up at him, he kissed your lips as you said, "You made me cry, and now I have to say my vows." With a soft smile he ran his fingers across your cheeks to clear away your tears, and you took a deep breath. "Roo. On our first date, I asked you to tell me something embarrassing about yourself."

His eyes went a little wide. "Please don't make me say it here."

You laughed at him and shook your head. "I won't. But when I asked you that night, you told me! And it was funny and charming, and I thought you were adorable. And then you let me keep asking you for more. I wanted to learn everything about you. I still do. Because you make it easy. You never make me feel like I'm bugging you. You always make me feel like you have time to talk to me. And you have always been honest with me, telling me I can ask you anything."

Bradley nodded and whispered, "I love talking to you."

You kissed his lips and then continued. "You're the most open and honest person I have ever met. I always know where I stand with you. Do you know how good that makes me feel? To always be someone's highest priority? To always be your highest priority? And you always let me know your expectations. Of course, that means I knew you intended to reach our wedding day after we'd been dating for approximately two weeks." Bradley laughed as he swiped some tears from his eyes, and you were a little started to hear your friends and family laughing as well; everyone else had drifted into the back of your mind as you focused on Bradley.

"Roo, I'd rather have that kind of transparency with you than anything else with anyone else. You make me feel like it's okay to be myself. And I believe you when you tell me something. And I love that you trust me, too."

"I do, Sweetheart," he promised. "I'd trust you with my life," he said, his voice catching on the last word as released your left hand to wipe away more tears.

You took a deep breath before saying, "I can't wait to keep learning all of the little intricacies about what makes you tick. Because for someone who has been through so much in such a short amount of time, you are a fighter when you need to be. But you never make me fight for the things I deserve. Like your love, and your patience, and your honesty. You love me so much," you whispered as Bradley covered his eyes as his shoulders shook. "You protect me, and I protect you. Because you're right, all of our minutes and hours spent walking Tramp or making dinner or just having a lazy day...they are so important, because you're with me." You voice was quiet and shaky as you took a deep breath while Bradley met your eyes with his tear filled ones.

"So, Roo, I vow to be as open and forthcoming as you are. But that's not going to be easy, since you're amazing at it, but I'll try. Because you're it for me, Bradley Bradshaw."

Bradley took your face in both of his hands and looked at you in awe. "How can you love me that much?" he asked you, his voice rough with unshed tears.

You reached up and stroked his wrists softly as he held you. "You make it so easy, Bradley." Then his lips were on your forehead and then your nose before they found yours. He kissed you so sweetly as his hands gently went to the back of your neck.

Maverick cleared his throat, and you jumped a few inches as Bradley pulled back from the kiss.

"We haven't even gotten to the kissing part yet," he said, wiping tears from his own eyes.

"Well then hurry up," Bradley told him, letting his hands slide down between your neck and the veil and along your body until he was holding your hands once again.

"Yeah, okay," Maverick agreed, and you turned to find everyone was smiling and wiping tears from their eyes. Nat was dabbing her face with Coyote's shirt and your parents were holding each other. "Do you have rings to exchange?"

"Yes," Bradley replied as he reached in his pocket and then held out his palm with both wedding bands. You carefully took his ring between your thumb and index finger with a smile.

"You can go ahead and put the rings on each other's fingers," Maverick said, and Bradley went first. The way the gold band matched up with your engagement ring had more tears coming to your eyes. "Would you like to say anything else?" Maverick asked.

Bradley softly kissed your finger where both rings were, and he told you, "I love you. I love my wife."

You smiled and slipped his ring on his hand as you told him. "I love my husband!"

Maverick rubbed his hands together and said, "Somehow the state of California has made me legally allowed to say this: I now pronounce you husband and wife! You may kiss!"

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

Bradley reached for you so fast, wrapping his hands around your waist to settle low on your back. The veil his mom wore the day she married his dad was skimming his fingers as he pulled you closer. Your eyes were wide and trusting, your lips parted in the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. The remainder of the tears you had shed while Bradley poured his love into his wedding vows to you were dry on your cheeks, and he was about to make you his wife.

"Somehow the state of California has made me legally allowed to say this: I now pronounce you husband and wife! You may kiss!"

Bradley kissed you as your palms rested on his chest before wrapping around his neck. He kissed you long and hard as everyone cheered and hollered, and when he broke the kiss because you were both smiling too much, you chased his lips for more. You pulled him close again as your fingers skimmed through his hair. So he kissed you until you were both laughing, and he held you close to his side as you turned to face everyone. Your head came to rest on his shoulder, and he kissed your forehead.

Bradley was vaguely aware of the photographer and the fact that the catering van was now running over the orange cones that Nat and Jake had previously decimated. He could feel Nat reaching up to kiss his cheek, and he watched your parents both give you a hug. But he never stopped touching you. His perfect wife.

You were holding your flowers again, and every couple seconds, you reached up, bumping him with the bouquet before giving him a kiss. This had been the perfect day for the secret parking lot wedding of Bradley's dreams. And somehow as the sun fell low on the horizon, you looked even more beautiful to him.

"I can't stop smiling, Roo," you told him, hitting his cheek again with the yellow and red flowers as you leaned up to kiss him.

"This has been the best day of my life, and it's not even over yet." Bradley ran his thumb over his wedding band as you wrapped your arms around him. "You're my wife. You're my fucking wife, Baby Girl!" You laughed against him as he announced to everyone gathered in the parking spot, "I can't believe she married me!"

"Neither can we!" Nat replied, and Bradley let everyone's hugs and words of congratulations wash over him as you held him in your arms.

Bradley watched the caterers start to carry coolers and trays of food down the rocks to the beach as if they did this every day. You had your fingers laced through his as you hugged Jake with your free arm. Bradley watched as he kissed your cheek and whispered something to you that made you laugh, and then Jake was patting him on the shoulder.

"Congratulations, Bradshaw," he drawled with a smirk. "I gotta say, I never thought I'd be so happy to have a girl choose you over me, but here we are."

"If she's too good for me, then she's way too good for you," Bradley replied with a laugh. Then he pulled you into his arms as Jake started to help your mom down the rocks to the sandy beach below the parking lot.

As everyone was heading down along with the caterers, leaving you mostly alone, Bradley pulled you in for another kiss. "I can't get enough of you, Mrs. Bradshaw," he whispered, running his hands all over you. "God, you look incredible."

You moaned softly into his mouth, and he pushed you gently against the passenger door of the Bronco. "You like my wedding dress?" you asked between kisses.

"You look like a fucking goddess, Baby Girl. I can't believe you're mine."

Your fingers trailed along the buttons of his newest Hawaiian print shirt as he kissed your neck and let his hand drift down to the slit in your dress. When his palm came to rest against your bare thigh, you sighed. "I'm all yours, Roo."

"Let's go home," he suggested, only half joking. "Get a jump start on the night?"

You laughed as he rubbed his mustache along your neck. "No way. I want my confetti cake and the little bottles of pink champagne," you told him as his hand wrapped around to the back of your thigh. "But after that...I see no reason why we can't go home. Now help me change out of these shoes."

Bradley helped you climb up into the passenger seat, and he started to untie the ribbons that wound up your calves. "These are pretty," he grunted, gently running his hands down your legs as he took your shoes off for you. "Will you put them back on for me later?"

"Will you actually take five minutes to help me lace them back up my legs just so you can fuck me in them?" you asked him sweetly, and he groaned.

"Well, maybe not for round one, Sweetheart, but for round two or three, yes."

Your eyes went wide. "How late are we staying up tonight?"

He scoffed. "We only get one wedding night."

After he retrieved your flat shoes from the backseat of your car, Bradley helped you slip them on. But instead of climbing out of the Bronco when he reached for you, he felt you pull him in closer.

"What does this remind you of, Roo?" You ran your fingers over the scars on his neck and cheek before pushing your fingers up into his hair. Then you pulled him closer and closer until you pressed your lips against his. Bradley drew little circles along your waist through your dress with his thumbs, and he parted your lips with his and tasted your tongue.

You moaned softly into his mouth as he trailed his lips across your jaw, whispering, "Our first kiss, Baby Girl. Right in this parking spot."

"Mmm," you hummed as he kissed your neck. "It was the next parking spot over, but it doesn't matter, Roo." He kissed along the tops of your breasts, as you whispered, "We did it. We pulled off the secret parking lot wedding. You're my husband."

He wrapped his hand around your waist and kissed you hard. "Let's get down there, Baby Girl. The sooner we finish celebrating here, the sooner I can celebrate with my wife at home."

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

THEY ARE MARRIED! THEY DID IT! BRADLEY AND BABY GIRL BRADSHAW! Thanks for reading, whether you've been here since the beginning or joined somewhere along the way. I really appreciate you. Next chapter is the beach reception and the wedding night. Thank you @mak-32 and @beyondthesefourwalls for helping me every step along the way.

PART 21

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#bradley rooster bradshaw x reader #rooster fanfic #rooster x you #rooster x reader #rooster x female reader #bradley bradshaw fic #bradley bradshaw imagine #bradley bradshaw x female reader #bradley bradshaw fanfiction #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley rooster bradshaw #bradley rooster x reader #rooster bradshaw x female reader #top gun fanfiction #top gun maverick fanfiction #top gun imagine #bradley bradshaw x you

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poraphia · 9 months

Text

"One Tall Coffee With Cream And Sugar."

lvjy!wilbur x manager!reader 2467 words • 8.16.23 cw ~ coffee, lovejoy, large crowds, almost falling off stage, kith mwah mwah wilbur soot masterlist!

pt. 1 ~ "Four medium-sized coffees, one big fat work crush."

After this concert, it'll be all over. So here you go, Wilbur, your last morning coffee of the tour! From me, your manager <3

♡♡♡

“Order for (y/n)!”

I smiled at the barista, placing some coins in the tip jar before taking the cardboard tray of coffee in both hands. I looked down to make sure each order was perfect: one iced coffee with mocha drizzle, one small double-shot espresso, one cappuccino, and one tall coffee with cream and sugar. After ticking down my mental checklist of Lovejoy’s coffee orders, I pushed open the glass door, feeling the breeze of the LA air on my face.

Today was Lovejoy’s last tour in America.

It’s been more than two months since I’ve been with Lovejoy and their first tour around the States along with my first time serving as a on-the-road tour manager. With all good things, they must come to an end, and I’m grateful for every moment I’ve spent with the crew and the band, but what pained me the most was a certain member having to travel across seas back home.

Every moment with Wilbur felt like I was on cloud 9. Even through difficult venue scheduling and working with different states, he was always behind me to back me up. Sometimes I would notice that before going on stage, Wilbur would be hiding in the lounge room, fumbling with his fingers while pacing back and forth. “Pre-concert nerves?” I would ask. He would look at me with a worried look painted in his eyes. He would shake his head, biting on his fingernails. I would walk up to him and hug him tight, listening to his pacing heartbeat gradually slow down.

“You got this, Will. I believe in you. Everyone is going to love you, and even if you do play the wrong chord or sing a little offkey, who cares? Just keep playing because that was what you were born to do.” I would say, rubbing his back. Five minutes later you wouldn’t even think twice about that man being nervous on the stage because he was hopping around and screaming into the microphone, occasionally shooting a look at me that said “Thank you.” I smiled, reminiscing on the memories.

“Need a hand, sweetheart?” I looked up, only to be met with the chocolate eyes of Wilbur fucking Gold. There he was, opening the door for me with his guitar strapped to his back. It felt familiar. Like the first time we met. Especially with me clutching the cardboard cup that hosted all the coffee orders for the band. I smirked at him, brushing right past. The only difference was that I was at least confident enough to even talk to him.

“I’m good, Will, but thank you.” I chimed. He chuckled before catching up to me with his hands in his pockets.

“How you feeling?” He asked. I hummed a bit as we talked together through the venue.

“I guess kind of nervous? Since we set up a lot of things for the finale of the America tour. Like all the effects and all. You know what I mean?” I said. He nodded, pushing open the backstage door so I can walk through on my own. As I walked past though, he grabbed the tall coffee from its holder before taking a sip. I looked at him, giving him a lecturing face.

“What! It’s my drink!” He exclaimed, holding his hands up in defense.

“And what if it was someone else's?” I said with a joking attitude. He shrugged, walking away so that the door may close behind him. He takes another sip, savoring the taste.

“I’m really gonna miss this coffee.” He sighed.

“It’s nothing too unique, really! Isn’t this what you would order back at home?” I said, rolling my eyes. I placed the coffee on a nearby table before turning around and leaning back. My palms supported my weight as I looked at him.

“I mean yeah but—” He was placing his guitar case down, unzipping it to retrieve his guitar. “I guess it wouldn’t come from you anymore.” He said, a bit sorrowfully. Before I could respond, Mark, Ash, and Joe walk through the door, all with their respective instruments and bags in hand.

“Hey guys, is venue all ready?” Joe asked, waving at the both of us before putting down his instrument. I walked up to him with his respective coffee in hand.

“Yup. Just waiting on you guys for soundcheck, and here’s your coffee!” I said, handing it to him. Joe smiled, taking the coffee and giving it a sip.

“Thanks, (y/n), we’re gonna miss you and the crew as our team.” He praised, giving a mini-cheer with his coffee. I smiled, noticing that Mark and Ash had already gone and grabbed their own coffees. Will was standing in the corner, staring at me. I tilted my head at him. With a cheeky smile, he tilted his head as well. I chuckled a little before turning to look at the other guys.

“Okay, so you guys just need to do some sound checking which should take roughly an hour? Then an hour after that we’ll have our final gig! The team is already onset, so just hook your instruments with everything and we should be good to go.” I explained. Ash nodded, taking a sip of his coffee while holding his bass, while the rest made some voices of approval.

We all headed out on stage, and I told them where each person would be standing. Wilbur would be in the front with the mic, Joe would be somewhat to the right of him a little bit back with Ash basically the same just on the left. Then Mark would be just behind Ash with his drumset.

Everyone plugged in their instruments and began strumming random patterns just to make sure that the audio was coming coherently. The soundcheck person adjusted accordingly. I hopped off the stage and stood in the middle of the venue, making sure that the positions were as perfect as I envisioned. After a long stare, I realized that Will was a little bit off-place. “Will!” I tried to exclaim over the noise. Wilbur looked at me, and playfully, he began to strum more violently. “Wilbur!” I tried to shout again, but he simply smiled at me.

Slightly annoyed, I hopped back on the stage, now standing directly in front of him. He looked down at me with a smirk right on his face. I grabbed him by the arms before moving him into position. He leaned down, still strumming on his guitar. I chuckled.

“What’s with that look?” I asked. He hummed a bit before responding.

“Nothing, you just look cute.” He said. Suddenly he brought his face close and planted a small kiss on my nose. Flustered, I stumbled back and nearly off the stage before Will caught me by the waist. My hands were clutching tight on his collar.

“S-Sorry!” I stuttered. I was near the edge, but with Will’s support, I was nearly floating off with one leg up. In one quick swift, Wilbur pulled me up and walked backward, landing me on a safe platform for me to stand on.

“Are you okay?” He asked. He held my arms so that I maintained my balance. After I felt steady enough, I looked up at him. I felt my breath getting caught in my throat. His face was so close to mine that I just wanted to kiss him, but I didn’t have the confidence he had.

“Y-Yeah..” I mumbled, still getting lost in those eyes. “Yeah, I’m fine..” I managed to stutter out. I stood up properly and brushed myself off. Wilbur backed away to give me some space. I wish that with my sleeves I could wipe off the embarrassing flush of red that was painted all over my face. “I’m gonna take five. Just— Stay in position for me!” I ran off the stage and to the back where I grabbed a bottle of cold water to cool down.

Oh boy. This was going to be hard.

After some time, security showed up and fans started loading into the venue. The place was somewhat massive, making it one of our biggest shows (not counting festivals) yet. I peeked from the stage curtain, seeing the rows of chairs being filled with all kinds of people. I turned back around to see the band. Mark was having a beer or two, Joe was practicing a little bit of his guitar solo, and Ash was scrolling through Instagram. “Hey guys, do you know where Wilbur is?” I asked. Mark looked up.

“Oh yeah, I think he’s in the outer lounge area? He might be just tuning his guitar though.” He said, pointing at the door with his beer.

I nodded and thanked him before pushing through the door. The room was much quieter than the previous lounge. Wilbur was sat on one of the couches with his guitar in his lap, but he wasn’t strumming or turning the knobs. It more looked as if he was deep into thought. I approached him carefully, yet he didn’t notice me until after I spoke up.

“Hey, Will?” I snapped him out of his thoughts. His hands fell into gripping his guitar defensively before frantically looking at me.

“Ah, hey (y/n), sorry I was just thinking.” He said, sighing. I raised an eyebrow before sitting next to him, crossing my legs.

“Well, thinking about what?” I asked. “Just— out of curiosity. You don’t have to tell me.”

Wilbur hummed before sitting back on the couch, moving his guitar closely to his chest. “I guess just… What’s going to happen after the tour, y’know when I get home and all? I’m going to miss all this adventuring and going to different states.” His head then turned to me. He has a soft, sort of vulnerable look on his face. Like a glass of water that was full to the very top, and just one droplet could make that brimming all come cascading down like a waterfall. “I..—”

Before he could finish his sentence, both of our ear monitors went off. “Two minutes until stage time. Please prepare your places.”

I looked over to Wilbur, who seemed a bit frustrated he wasn’t able to finish his sentence, but I had to brush it off for now. I got up and helped him up as well as we both rushed backstage, back to the screaming fans, wires, and bass-boosted speakers. Wilbur found his position next to Ash as I stood in front of them.

“Alright, guys, this is our biggest show in the States yet. I want you guys to have the whole venue jumping by the time we’re done!” I exclaimed all of them cheered with words of encouragement. “And, I’d seriously like to say this has been one of the best moments of my life. I am super proud to be your guys’ tour manager. So, please! Next time you guys are in the States, message me!”

Mark rushed to hug me with a big smile on his face. “We loved touring with you too, (y/n)! Thank you seriously for all the coffee and encouragement you’ve given us!” He beamed. Maybe it was the beer loosening up his speech, but he certainly spoke with pride and excitement. Ash came in too, wrapping his arms around us, and soon joined Joe and Wilbur. It was a tender moment for us all. A core memory that is the end of the tour for Lovejoy.

It took all of our ear monitors going off to break off the little moment. Soon enough, the boys were at the edge of the curtains, waiting for their countdown to end so they can finally step on stage. Once they did, the whole venue roared in excitement. Wilbur did his usual theatrics: talking to the crowd, and introducing the band, before counting down and playing the songs we had planned. I ran around backstage for most of the time, making sure that the lighting crew knew what was doing, and talking to soundcheck to make sure everything was going, but in those rare instances when I had a break, I would look over to Wilbur from offstage.

There he was, glowing in yellow backlights as his eyes fluttered close, plucking at his guitar and singing lyrics he would spend all day and all night revising and humming. I know moments like these are captured by our hired photographers, but my eyes saw something so much more personal. If eyes could take a screenshot, I did exactly that and stored it in the safest part of my brain’s gallery.

It felt like the concert went by too fast because, in a blink of an eye, Wilbur was finishing up his last performance of The Fall. Smoke and lights illuminated him and his band’s presence on stage and before I knew it, it was all over. The crowd cheered for Wilbur's dramatic finale as he raised his guitar high in the air. Sweat dripped off his body, soaking little bits of his clothing. The song finally came to an end as the lights cut off. Nothing but the most bittersweet smile rested on my face.

The tour

Was finally over.

Or was it?

The lights faded back on with Wilbur gripping the microphone. He had given his guitar to someone backstage before they had walked off. “Crowd,” he started. “This marks the end of our United States tour, and you have brought nothing but thrill and pure adventure.” He then turned toward me. “But there’s someone who frankly was, the cherry on top of it all. You may have seen her a little bit on our social media, maybe Ash posted her on his story once or twice. Everyone please, give it up for (y/n)!”

I stood there in shock as I heard the audience chant my name. Wilbur gestured toward me, the mic still in hand. I shook my head, snapping out of my anxiousness before stepping onto the stage. Despite being the background for it all, I’ve never been in front of a crowd. This was all so… Exhilarating.

Wilbur took me by the hand, twirling me in place before placing an arm around my waist and dipping me down. “There were so many times I’ve wanted to kiss you, to tell you how much I’ll miss you, and how we won’t be by each other’s side anymore. I just… I wanted to take this moment now.” He romanced in my ear. With a wide smile on my face, I jumped up, wrapping my arms around his neck before pulling him into a kiss.

Finally, those lips that I memorized on that tour bus—

Lips that I only dreamed of kissing.

They were finally on mine.

And faintly, I could taste his morning coffee.

♡♡♡

a/n ~ hihi! the long-awaited pt.2 of a request I did a while ago! thank you guys so much for the support I really wouldn't have written it without yall <3 ilysm!

taglist ~ @mrssabinecallas @maddiegotlost @lanaxoxoxoxoxox @imcool-rat @themonsterunderurmom

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hussyknee · 1 year

Text

Red, White & Royal Blue: Collector's Edition Henry PoV bonus chapter by Casey Mcquiston.

(transcribed from the page pictures posted)

This is the coda to the end of the book, so don't read it if you haven't read the book first. Sadly, the Collector's Edition doesn't seem to be available on Kindle so. Arrrr matey.

Download link for file at the end.

....

HENRY

“I am not asking you to believe in it, or even to like it,” Henry says stonily. It’s been a long morning already. He is beginning to perspire. “I am simply asking you to show a modicum of respect.”

“To–to your quiche?”

“Yes. To my quiche.”

Bea puts down her tape gun and wipes her eyes. “Pez!”

“Yes?”

“Henry says he’s going to make us a quiche!”

Pez’s squawk of a laugh bounces down the stairs. “Pull the other one!”

“I make them all the time for Alex,” Henry insists. “They are perfectly edible.”

“So, when you promised us breakfast if we got up early to help you.” Bea says, “you meant that you were going to make us breakfast?”

“Yes!” Henry says hotly. “Stop laughing!”

“I’m sorry!” Bea says. “It’s only that...well, Henry, the last time you cooked breakfast for me, you were twelve and you put a sausage in the microwave until it exploded.”

“That was your idea! And it’s been ages since then! I’ve studied, all right? I’m quite good now. Those pictures I send the group chat aren’t just for show.”

“Oh, aren’t they?” Bea says rudely, as if his incredibly generous offer to cook her a shallot-and-thyme quiche with mushrooms from the farmer’s market means nothing at all. As if he’s lived in this house for five entire years without learning to use its kitchen.

Perhaps if their lives weren’t so chaotic, if Henry weren’t flying out of New York every time Bea had a spare moment to fly in, he could have proven this to her earlier. But Pez, who lives mostly in the city now and visits so frequently he’s earned his own Secret Service code name (Cardinal, since Henry is Bishop), should know better.

“Percy Okonjo,” Henry says as Pez joins them, “you were here last weekend when I made mince pie. You loved it.”

“Did I?” Pez wonders aloud, with an annoyingly Bea-like lilt.

“Look at this apron!” Henry gestures to himself and the navy blue apron he’s wearing. Alex gave it to him for his birthday last year. “Would a man who can’t make a quiche have an apron like this? It’s monogrammed.”

“You’re royalty, babes,” Pez points out. “Everything you own is monogrammed.”

From the pocket of his serious-home-cook apron, his phone buzzes. Reinforcements. The FaceTime connects, and Alex says, “Good morning, love of my li–”

“Alex,” Henry interrupts, “tell them about my quiches.”

Alex pushes up his sunglasses and frowns into the camera. He looks so lovely with his faded T-shirt and jean jacket and shaggy hair. Pure American heartthrob, might as well have a cowboy hat on. Henry never does tire of it.

“Sorry?”

“Bea and Pez don’t believe I can make a quiche.”

“What? Have they seen your apron?”

“That’s what I said!”

“Henry’s quiches are great!” Alex says loudly, to the kitchen at large. “I almost never find shells in them!”

That sets Bea and Pez off again. On the screen, Alex’s face crinkles into laughter.

“Thank you very much, Alex, you’ve been a tremendous help,” Henry groans. “How are things? Florist this morning, wasn’t it?”

“Just finishing up.” Alex says with a grin. “Final approvals done. Everything looks great.”

With only one week until moving day and two until the wedding, it made sense to divide and conquer. Henry agreed to stay in New York and finish packing up the brownstone with help from Bea and Pez, while Alex, June, and Nora are ticking off the last of their checklists in Texas.

“Of all the surprises that wedding planning has brought us,” Henry says, “your ability to micromanage floral arrangements has certainly been...one of them.”

“You know I love to curate a vibe,” Alex says.

“That you do,” Henry agrees. “Where are the girls?”

“Getting donuts,” Pez answers before Alex can. He holds up his phone, open to a photo of June blowing a kiss while Nora fellates an éclair.

“Donuts!” Bea says. “Now there’s an idea!”

They spend the rest of the day drowning in cardboard boxes and bin liners, packing everything but the furniture and the downstairs television. Pez reminds him once an hour that they could pay someone to do this, but Bea is stubborn, and Henry is reluctant to let anyone else wade into all the intimate trappings of his and Alex’s life. It was bad enough explaining the contents of the trick drawer in their dresser to Pez, much less some mover he’s never met.

When it’s done, Bea puts A Knight’s Tale on in the living room and promptly falls asleep on Pez’s lap. Pez passes out too, but Henry stays awake, because Heath Ledger deserves an audience. And because he knows if he doesn't wake Bea and move her to the guest bedroom, he'll have to hear about her back spasms in the morning.

David hops up beside him on the loveseat, and Henry strokes the top of his snout until his little body relaxes into Henry's side.

"Nervous old boy," Henry hums. It still does seem like the ultimate irony that the dog he adopted for emotional support has anxiety. David has grown more and more worried all week, as more and more of his home disappeared into boxes. "We won't leave you, I promise."

The brownstone has been a good house for them. Sturdy brick walls, neighbors that actually let them be. Henry has loved it more than he ever loved Kensington, or at least as much as he loved Kensington when his parents both lived there too. Some mornings, when he comes downstairs to find Alex with the coffeepot and the kettle already on, he feels the way he did when his family all slept under one roof. This roof is quite a bit smaller than that one, but the feeling isn't.

So, perhaps David hasn't got entirely the wrong idea. It is hard to let the place go. For the past month, Alex has kept asking Henry why he's staring, and the truth is that he's been committing to memory exactly how Alex looks in every room. How the bannister fits in his hand, the place on the foyer wall where he always braces himself to pull on his shoes.

Everything that's happened in the past five years has happened, at least in part, inside this house.

…

It's seven months after Alex's mother's second inauguration, and Henry is wishing he had never even heard the word "credenza." Then he wouldn't have to decide where to put one. Alex is arriving in half an hour to help him move it, but Henry still doesn't know where. Across from the fireplace, perhaps? But what if he wants to put a sofa there? Does he want a regular sofa, or a sectional? Should it go upstairs, in his study? Or should he leave room for bookcases?

He longs to be back on a beach, sipping something from a pineapple.

It’s been a long, glorious summer since Alex packed up his White House bedroom, called Henry, and asked, "Do you want to get the fuck off the continent?" They did Dubai first, then Lagos. Rio, for old time's sake. Buenos Aires, paper lanterns in moonlight and Alex flirting with the bartender for free drinks. June through August became a lovely blur: Alex asleep against his shoulder on the plane, Alex throwing his Portuguese phrase book out the window of a speeding car, sand in unmentionable places, Alex Alex Alex. Endless runways and half-arsed disguises, swimsuits that got smaller and smaller until they simply didn't wear them anymore. Falling in love, the sequel, with fresh suntans and all the time in the world.

And now here they are in Park Slope, where Alex is renting the second floor of a brownstone two blocks from Henry's.

It's practical, they agreed, to live in the same neighborhood before they live at the same address. They've scarcely gotten a chance to date the normal way yet– if it can be called "normal" when their combined security teams are headquartered in an empty apartment down the street. Still, Henry wants this to last.

They've sprinted headlong into everything so far, but now he wants move slowly, in delicious increments. He wants to savor nights, minutes, firsts, to covet them and then let them dissolve on his tongue, like the sugar cubes he snuck off his gran's filigreed tea trays when he was small. He wants a life.

He wants someone to tell him where to put this damned credenza.

It's a vintage Broyhill Brasilia piece, walnut with clever brass drawer pulls. June helped him pick it out when she was in town with meeting her editor, but she never gave him any advice on where it should go. He hasn't ever been allowed to decide where furniture should go before.

So, it’s...there, in the center of the empty living room, the first piece in the entire house.

“Maybe you could start with a rug or two,” says Alex from the foyer.

Henry turns to find him with his keys in one hand and a paper bag in the other, smiling in a beam of mid-morning light, and, ah. Yes. There it is. That sweet, sharp gasp of nerves. The half second when he forgets how to use his mouth. If he knows nothing else, at least one certainty remains, which is that seeing Alex Claremont-Diaz in the flesh will always do this to him.

Alex in a photo is handsome, but Alex in life is a symphony. He’s refracted light with a cherry cola chaser. He’s got a Fibonacci jawline and a troublemaker smile and thick forearms built for posing in doorways with his sleeves rolled and thumbing corks out of champagne bottles. The first time Henry ever told Pez about him, he said, “God, but he’s lethal.” It’s only worse once you get to know him.

“Weird place for a credenza,” Alex comments. He kisses Henry’s cheek, then passes him a warm bundle wrapped in parchment paper. “Hope you like sausage-egg-and-cheese.”

“I don’t know where to put it.”

“Sandwich goes in your mouth, typically.”

“The credenza.”

“Ohhh, right,” Alex says, pretending to have just caught on. He winks. Henry sighs theatrically but accepts a second kiss, on the lips this time. “Why don’t you just put it right here?”

He points to his left, where a blank wall stretches from the front door to the foot of the stairs. It does, upon closer inspection, appear to be the exact right size.

“Oh,” Henry says.

This is where they overlap. Where he ends and Alex begins. Great gooey puddle of feelings, meet course of action; endless burning energy, meet point of focus. Agonies, meet your most obvious, most natural, most inevitable conclusions. It’s frightening sometimes for a person like Henry, who has spent his entire life pedaling his agonies about like baguettes in a posh little bicycle basket. What is he to do with them now?

Yes," Henry concedes, "I suppose I could," and Alex laughs.

...

It's the summer of 2022. Henry has opened his third shelter, and Alex has just finished bulldozing his first year at NYU Law.

A few boxes of books still wait at Alex's place, but otherwise, he lives in Henry's brownstone now. Their brownstone. A UT pennant beside a Chelsea scarf on the living room wall. A fridge full of Topo Chico and Bulmers. Two pairs of shoes by the front door, brown Barker derbies and Reebok trainers. Nobody could mistake it for anyone else's.

It's their first Chore Sunday (Alex's idea), and Henry has put the last of the laundry in the dryer. He's in the kitchen doorway, watching Alex unload the dishwasher.

Alex once told Henry the type of man he's typically attracted to: tall, broad-shouldered, pretty eyes, a little haunted. Bit of attitude and a smile that makes you curious. For Henry, it's never been so simple. He liked boys in his classes because they bothered with the assigned readings and fancied one of Philip's awful Eton friends because he could sail and smelled of cinnamon. The only thing all his Oxford boys had in common was that they didn't know how to speak to him. He's never had a type, and he's always been sure Alex was singular, anyway. Alex is unlike anyone he's ever met before or since.

But here, now, watching Alex bend to remove a salad bowl from the bottom rack, he is confronted with the hard truth. All those boys did, actually, share one trait.

"Are you gonna help me with this," Alex says without even an investigatory glance over his shoulder, "or are you just gonna keep staring at my ass?"

...

It’s Christmas 2022, their first since Alex officially moved in, and Henry is going to make a yule log if it kills him.

Perhaps he’s been too ambitious. He’s rather new to all. Growing up, he was rarely permitted in the kitchens, and he concentrated his uni diet on fast food and takeaway. He can make toast and boil an egg, and he’s got a deft hand with the coffee percolator and a gin swizzle from time to time. He knows about food– the finest foods, actually, he’s yet to meet an Englishman who can select a better brie– but he never learned to cook, until recently.

Recently, as in when Alex became too fanatically involved in his second-year coursework to remember to feed himself.

It began with force-feeding Alex a bacon butty twice a week. Henry’s arms suffered little constellations of grease burns, but bacon was easy. And those faded, so they didn’t deter him for long. Curiosity piqued, he taught himself the basics of pasta, how one can simmer almost anything with garlic and onion and butter and it will taste good over noodles. It bolstered his confidence enough to truly commit, and now, between hours at the shelters and video calls with his mum, he watches tutorial after tutorial on how to brown butter and roast chicken. Only half of what he makes turns out the color it’s meant to, but he loves it.

He loves walking to the market on the corner and hunting down specific ingredients from the family recipes June sends him. In fact, it’s become such a regular pastime that the paparazzi have cottoned on, which is why his mother finally forced his security team to hire an actual body double. Now some bloke named Angus with his height and build and nearly the same face goes on diversionary strolls while Henry peruses jarred chilies.

With all his independent studying, he was certain he could manage a dessert. He wanted to do something impressive, since they’ve convinced their families to let them host Christmas dinner. Only, his sponge has gone all wrong, and if he’s learned anything from Bake Off, he knows it’s not meant to have cracked in five places when he tried to roll it up. Paul Hollywood would have him pilloried.

“Think you might’ve left it in too long?” Oscar asks from across the kitchen island. He’s wearing his white elephant prize, a sweatshirt airbrushed with the slogan YOU CAN’T SPELL CONSTITUTION WITHOUT TITS. Inexplicably, Henry’s own mother brought that one. “Lookin’ kinda dry there.”

“I appreciate that you are trying to be helpful,” Henry enunciates, “but if you say one more word I may start crying, and then we’ll both lose some respect for me.”

Later, when Pez has persuaded him to “call it, mate, put it out of its misery,” he carries his disgraced platter of ganache and cake and marzipan out into the living room and lets everyone go at it with spoons. The house feels full to bursting, and not just because of the Christmas crackers. There are all three of Alex’s parents, Henry’s mum, June and Nora, Bea and Pez, Shaan and Zahra on speakerphone, occasionally an awkward Philip and Martha via FaceTime, and, because he had nowhere else to go for the holiday, Angus.

(“I don’t like him,” Alex muttered when Henry suggested inviting his own body double to Christmas dinner.

“Why not?”

“Because he looks exactly like you, but I find him deeply unattractive, and that freaks me out.”)

Ellen tells everyone the story of the year Alex got his first real bike for Christmas and knocked out his two front teeth by Boxing Day, which prompts Catherine to recite eight-year-old Henry’s letter to Father Christmas, in which he requested a leather-bound journal and a holiday to East Wittering so he could gaze at the sea. Bea pushes Henry behind the upright piano, and he takes requests for an hour. It only ends when Pez rewrites half the lyrics to “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen” to be about his own lactose intolerance. No one wants to follow “tidings of Lactaid and soy.”

After the third round of mulled wine, when Alex’s parents have called their drivers and his mum has retired to the guest room, June and Nora find themselves under the mistletoe. Everyone whoops and whistles until Nora finally pulls June in by her Christmas-light necklace and kisses her to a round of applause. June's cheeks turn red, but she looks pleased as anything.

"I can't believe it took this long for y'all to finally kiss." Alex says, to which Pez bursts into laughter. "What?"

"Alex," he says fondly. He drains his glass and pecks Alex on the forehead. "You gorgeous, stupid little turnip."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Pez just shakes his head and strolls off to the kitchen.

"Wait," Alex says.

He frowns, like he does when he's trying to recall something incredibly minute and specific from his torts textbook. Then, suddenly, a light goes on, and his own mug is clunking on the lamp table, and he's running off after Pez.

"Pez, what's that supposed to mean?"

...

It's late morning the summer before Alex's last year of law school, 2023, and Alex is the first word out of Henry's mouth.

Truthfully, that's how he begins most mornings. On a Monday morning five time zones away, "Alex" pitched low to the screen of his phone. On a Friday when Alex's early lecture is cancelled, "Alex" in F major, muffled in the pillow as his body moves and the day stretches out before them. Half three the night before an exam, a hoarse "Alex," followed by, "turn the bloody light off and come to bed."

This morning, it's because David is barking at the door. A rainstorm is brewing, and if jet lag didn't have Henry dead under the bedclothes, the gray gloom would. Alex was the one who surfaced from sleep half an hour ago and blearily ordered three entire pancake breakfasts from some 24-hour diner a few neighborhoods over. He should have to get up and answer the door.

“Alex.” Henry mumbles, turning over.

Alex has got the quilt tugged up so high he’s only a shock of wild curls on white linens.

“Nnnghh,” Alex groans from the depths.

“Breakfast is here,” Henry says. The doorbell helpfully rings again. David howls.

Alex’s face appears, pouting. There’s a crease from the pillow down one of his cheekbones, a comet’s tail in a constellation of freckles. “Can you get it?”

Henry rolls his eyes but smiles. Inevitable.

He drags himself out of bed and pulls on the joggers and hoodie from last night’s flight. It’s not until he feels the breeze on his ankles as he descends the stairs that he realizes they’re Alex’s, not his.

On their doorstep, a pink-haired delivery girl is looking bored under her bicycle helmet.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Henry says. He fishes a crumpled bill out of Alex’s pocket. “For your trouble.”

The girl pulls a face.

“Got any real money?” she asks. Her accent reminds him a bit of Alex’s mum.

He blinks down at her hand, which is holding a twenty-pound note. “Ah. Sorry again. Er.” He snatches his wallet out of the bowl on the credenza and gives her all the American dollars he has.

“She’s gone, Davey,” Henry says afterward to David, who’s now fretfully circling the living room. “You’ve protected us from another fearsome home invader. Well done.”

He lets David out into the back garden to do his business, then carries the food upstairs. Shockingly, Alex is awake and propped up against the headboard.

“I’m getting too old for red-eye flights,” Alex says, rubbing his eyes.

“Love, you’re twenty-five,” Henry reminds him. He deposits the bag on the nightstand, and Alex wastes no time tearing through the plastic and tucking in to his breakfast. “And I’m older than you.”

“Yes, you are. But like... I get why we have to go to Philip’s kids’ christenings. The cousins, though?” He sets to work smothering his pancakes in syrup. “I mean, at least my cousins would stack their baptisms. One and done, baby.”

Henry opens his mouth, prepared to answer with one of a thousand things. That the tabloids will have even more of a field day than usual if he stops doing his chores, that there will always be a church dedication or a swan upping or an appointment for a top hat fitting, that he’ll always be obligated to have one foot in London and one day they’ll have to choose where to settle down. It’s far from the first time they’ve had this conversation.

But then Alex shovels a massive bite of pancakes into his mouth and says, “Anyway, I love you. Do you wanna have June and Nora over tomorrow? We can play Mario Party again. I wanna see them get in a fistfight. Oh, and my dad’s in town next week, and he said to tell you he’s bringing that book you asked about–”

And that’s when Henry knows: He doesn’t ever want to go back.

...

It’s the end of spring 2024, and Henry is not eavesdropping, per se. He excused himself to answer a call from Shaan, which really could not be avoided. Shaan has taken to his new life as a househusband with predictable aplomb, and most of his calls these days involve Henry getting to talk to a baby who is clearly destined to become prime minister. He simply can’t send that to voicemail.

It’s the first time they’ve had room in the schedule for his mother to visit since Alex accepted his law job, which Henry understands very little about but has been assured is the most strategic next step for Alex’s career long game. When Henry left the room, Alex was still trying to explain it to Catherine. It all sounds terribly prestigious.

He is just returning to the sitting room with a fresh pot of tea when he hears his name from around the corner.

“–and the next morning Henry and Arthur vanished,” his mother is saying, “and when Uncle Algie called, I told him that Henry couldn’t go on the annual pheasant hunt because he was violently ill, but actually Arthur had taken him to Rome for two weeks on the set of that go on ridiculous car heist film he was working on, the one with, oh, what’s his name–“

“Jason Statham,” Alex says promptly, through wheezing laughter.

“That’s the one!”

“Loved that movie,” Alex says. “I can’t believe Henry got to be on set.”

“It was all Arthur’s idea, but he was right to do it. Uncle Algie is a dreadful bore, and Henry despises his son. Guilford. Did you meet Guilford at the wedding?”

“Henry made sure I avoided it.”

“Yes, that’s for the best,” Catherine says daintily. “He has matured into an absolute dickhead.”

Henry wishes he was in the room to see the way Alex sputters out, “Oh my God.” Alex always forgets that Catherine went to uni and married a commoner from Sheffield.

And then Alex sighs and says, “When Henry and I get married–”

Henry manages to recover the teapot before he drops it.

It’s not a surprise to hear Alex mention marriage. They’ve been sorting it out for years: political logistics and Alex’s child-of-divorce anxiety and a thousand questions about a royal wedding neither of them actually wants to have. He’s already bought an engagement ring, even, and judging by how tetchy Alex gets whenever Henry tries to put his underwear away for him, he’s not the only one.

But it is the first time he’s heard Alex mention it to his mother. He dropped it so casually, so matter-of-factly, as if he’s been talking to her about marrying Henry for years. Henry supposes it’s possible he has been. Is this why Alex had tea with her in London last month and told Henry he wasn’t invited? Have they been conspiring?

They’re discussing hypothetical guest lists now, which cousins secretly hate one another and who wore an inappropriately large fascinator to whose birthday tea, but Henry isn’t listening anymore. He’s thinking of a cafe table in Rome, his dad waving over a second round of gelato.

In his memory, he’s nine years old, and his father is saying, Whoever you marry, Henry, make sure they think your mum is a laugh, because she is. She really is.

He clears his throat and finally rounds the corner. “Tea, anyone?”

...

It’s 2024, and nobody knows they’re engaged.

Granted, they’ve only been engaged for about three hours, but Henry is curious to see how long they can go. It feels nice to keep a secret that doesn’t have to be a secret. It’s more that they’re keeping it like a pet, or something especially beautiful from the garden that they’ve coaxed into a jar.

A record is spinning on the turntable, one of Alex’s, maybe the Joni Mitchell he borrowed from Bea. They’ve shoved their phones under the couch cushions and ordered a pizza the size of the moon, and now they’re sitting in the center of the living room floor, demolishing it. They kiss, then eat more pizza, then get distracted kissing again. Henry licks a streak of pepperoni grease from Alex’s forearm, which is a fantasy he didn’t know he had until he’s living it. They tangle up on the rug, and Henry decides he’ll take Alex sailing next weekend, or even out to the edge of the river, just to see him against a horizon.

Four-nearly-five years in, the main thing he’s learned is that Alex is a world without end. All Henry wants is to go on with him forever. To keep finding new favorite parts, to keep turning things over and studying their soft bellies and finding the best bits.

So, he will.

...

It snows on New Year’s Eve 2024. Alex looks out the window and shrugs off his coat.

The Young America Gala may be no longer, but Nora, June, and Pez aren’t to be stopped from throwing a New Year’s party, especially now that Pez has gotten his own part-time flat in the city. They’re the three fates of New York City’s holiday social circuit: birth (June, managing invitations), life (Pez, topless), and death (Nora, also topless).

“What if,” Alex says, turning to Henry on the foot of the stairs, “we don’t go to the party?”

“Nora will murder me,” Henry says. “She told me she’s not afraid to do that now that I’ve given up my title.”

“Murder is still a crime even if you’re not officially a prince.”

“Yes, but she said, quote,” he puts on his best American accent, “They can’t put me in the Tower anymore. Who’s gonna arrest me now? Mr. Bean?”

“Why don’t we just send Angus? It’s dark. Maybe she won’t notice.”

“Where’s your double, then?”

“We live in New York, I’m sure I can find a male model somewhere.”

“As always, sounding the very bass string of humility.”

“Is that fucking Shakespeare?”

“Henry IV.”

“I’m gonna give you a wedgie, you fucking nerd.”

In the end, it doesn’t take much to convince Henry to stay in. Lately, it never does. Alex texts June a flimsy excuse, and they toe off their shoes and relax out of their button-downs.

Henry does have to admit he’s exhausted, in the way that one only can be on the last day of the year, when every other day of the year piles way up behind it. It’s been a big one: Alex’s first law job, the endless press about Henry’s decision to surrender his title, the engagement, Bea’s wedding, the incident with the croquet mallets and the Dutch ambassador at Bea's wedding.

Sometimes Alex jokes that they squeezed it all into one calendar year because no headline can stick if there's another next week, but it's only half a joke. They've been bone-tired for months.

"I'm surprised you're the one who wants to stay home," Henry says. "I remember a young lothario who lived to ruin people's lives on New Year's Eve."

"Ruin?" Alex says. "That's not how I remember it."

"It certainly felt that way at the time."

They drift to the kitchen, past all the traces of the year. The dried flowers, the new scuffs on the floorboards. The box of bound manuscripts of Henry's first finished poetry-ish short-fiction-ish essay-ish collection. The holiday cards from senators and diplomats and old Texas friends, topped off with Alex's favorite of Rafael Luna and his astonishingly fit partner in matching Christmas jumpers. Henry would think Raf had been forced into it if it hadn't come with a case of beer and a note of thanks for letting him stay over the last time he visited Alex and had one too many tequila shots at drag bingo.

Alex withdraws a bottle of Clicquot from the refrigerator and says, "We're not washed, are we?"

“We're aging," Henry points out.

"That's right," Alex says, eyes immediately sparking at the opportunity. Henry preemptively sighs. "You're almost thirty."

"Almost twenty-eight is not almost thirty."

"It basically is. You're old. You'll be thirty a whole year before me. You'll be popping antacids and I'll be in the club, popping my p-"

"You're not even in the club now."

"I could be, I'm just choosing not to, because I don't want to deal with the snow. That's not aging, it's growth."

He slides Henry a glass of champagne and adds, "It's probably time for us to start talking about what's on your Do Before Thirty list, huh?"

Henry takes the glass and chooses going with Alex's bit over pointing out that he's entering his late twenties, not dying.

“I’ve done quite well on that front so far, actually,” he says. “Wrote a book. Started a nonprofit. Engaged to the love of my life.”

“Involved in an international sex scandal.”

“Shook the hands of all five Spice Girls.”

“Best dressed at the Met Gala.”

“Cried in the Water Lilies room at the MOMA.”

“Grew your hair out, then cut it all off.“

“Taught myself to make beef Wellington.”

“That one’s, uh, still in progress,” Alex hedges. Henry gives him an affronted look. “But, yeah! Definitely. And you got really good at scones.”

“That I did.”

“Right,” Alex agrees. “So what’s left? Streaking? Dropping acid? Having sex on our kitchen island?”

Henry takes a moment with that one.

“Having sex on our kitchen island?”

When the clock strikes the new year, the house is quiet. The timer on the light over the front stoop clicks off. The champagne bottle rests between two glasses on the edge of the sink, spent and sticky around the rim, a single soggy strawberry at the bottom of each flute. Miles out from their apartment, fireworks fight the snow over the East River, but in their kitchen in Park Slope, the only sounds are the two of them.

Henry, almost twenty-eight, presses his warm body to the cool marble and gets his midnight kiss.

...

“Do you know what today is?” Alex asks on a lukewarm September.

It’s 2025. He’s in the doorway of Henry’s study, where Henry has been all evening, answering emails.

“Hm? No.”

When Alex doesn’t immediately fill the silence, Henry looks up from his laptop screen.

“What is it?”

“Five years since the story broke,” Alex says.

It takes a moment for him to realize what story Alex means; there have been so many of them. But of course, he means that gigantic, terrible one. The one that changed their lives forever.

“Oh,” Henry says. He closes his laptop, leaning back in his chair and away from it. “Well. Hated that.”

“Yeah,” Alex agrees. “Zero out of ten. Would not do again.”

His tone is light and casual, but when he folds his arms across his chest, Henry can see his glasses in the front pocket of his flannel. It’s been months and months since the last time Alex didn’t feel confident enough to wear them.

For his part, Henry can remember much of that day, but not all of it. He remembers stirring sugar into his morning tea when Shaan walked in wearing an expression Henry had never seen before. He remembers Pez arriving like the cavalry in Gucci slippers, hustling Henry away from his handlers with the same graceful disdain he used to direct at Eton classmates who stared at them too much. He remembers Bea finding them in the music parlor and refusing to hear Henry’s apology, and he remembers Alex’s call and Alex’s arrival.

The funny part, though, is he can’t remember anything between Bea and Alex. He knows that Philip was involved, and there were stories on every news channel, and he spoke to his mother at some point. But the space in his memory where those hours belong is simply blank. His psychiatrist says it’s post-traumatic stress disorder, and Henry is inclined to agree, considering the two of them spent the entire following year recalibrating Henry’s anxiety and depression medication around the event.

Those hours will always be gone. There are things he will never get back.

Most of the time, though, when he thinks of that day, the second worst thing that's ever happened to him, he thinks of Alex's hand in his under a Buckingham Palace table. He remembers, clear as a bell, Alex's voice telling him they would survive it together. It happened to Alex too. It wasn't what they would have chosen, but it was what they received, and they've done their absolute bloody best with it.

He rises from his desk, crosses to the doorway, and gathers Alex up against his chest. Their size difference isn't that pronounced—Henry is taller but lean, Alex shorter but sturdy—but in moments like this, he's thankful for the way Alex's cheek perfectly aligns with the crook of his neck. He's grateful for how effortless it is to slip a kiss to Alex's temple.

Neither of them says anything else. It's all been said a thousand times, in speeches and through official statements and in the dark when it's only the two of them. It's enough to stand here in the center of the house, in the quiet, and let it hold their weight.

...

At the end of 2025, Henry has a bad day.

There's nothing specific that causes it. The days just happen like this sometimes, even with all the therapy and medication and supportive partnership and fulfilling creative projects in the world. There are other people, he supposes, who don't spend their lives waiting for the next bad day. He's had every bloody luxury but that one.

Alex comes home from work to find him curled up on the armchair in the study, staring out the window at the light-polluted night sky over the row of brownstones across the street.

“What are you doing?" Alex asks him.

"Looking for Orion," Henry deadpans.

Alex kneels on the rug in his tailored suit pants and rolled-up sleeves and rests his cheek on Henry's knee, the way he often does when Henry's in a mood. Henry's fingers slide into his curls. They've grown a bit longer in the past few months. Lately. Alex looks quite like he did when they met, except for the glasses and the stubble dusting his jaw.

“I’m tired of big law, “ Alex confesses. It would appear he’s in a mood too. “I know it’s only been a year and a half, but...I kind of hate it.”

Henry contemplates that, along with the dark circles around Alex’s eyes.

“You don’t have to do it, you know.” Henry tells him.

Alex looks at him like he did in that hotel room in Paris the first time they woke up together, like the only thing he knows for sure about what he’s being offered is that he wants it completely. It’s an intimidating look to receive, but it’s only ever improved Henry’s life in the end.

He kisses Henry’s knuckle, just below his ring.

“I have some ideas.”

...

In February 2026, a flu sweeps through Park Slope. Neither Alex nor Henry can agree on who gave it to whom first– Henry knows it was Alex, since he’s been up late consulting with his mum about a voting rights bill in Texas, and his immune system always suffers when he gets upset about Texas—but regardless, they’re trapped in the brownstone together for a week. At least Alex doesn’t have to work through his illness the way he usually does, since he resigned from his job last month.

Somewhere around day five, Henry realizes it’s the longest consecutive amount of time they’ve both been home in years. They always seem to be leaving or returning: rushing off to appearances, climbing out of security caravans in half-undone suits, meeting Cash at the curb at three in the morning with bags over their shoulders. It’s nice, in a way, to get reacquainted with this home they’ve built together.

While Alex naps, Henry paces the entire floorplan.

The first floor, with its long living room and the original beams and mantelpiece, which Henry had restored before he moved in, because he always has been precious about the history of things. Then the kitchen and the deep blue cabinets and the wide back window over the knotty pine dining table handed down from Alex's dad. Upstairs, on the second floor, the guest bedroom with all of his mum's preferred hand creams in the attached washroom and the sitting room with the shelf of swan figurines Pez started collecting years ago in a dramatic fit of June-related yearning. One more flight up to the top floor, with his study and Alex's office and the hall with their photo from Shaan and Zahra's wedding and, at the far end, their bedroom.

The bedroom is his favorite part of the house, and not only for the obvious reasons, no matter how much Alex tries to imply otherwise with suggestive eyebrows. He loves the high ceiling and the chipped plaster medallion of roses at the center. They picked out the bed together, and every morning that he wakes up in it, he gets to turn over and see Alex's loose pens and glasses wipes scattered atop the dresser and know that this, his life, is still real. Perhaps he likes the room best because it feels separated from every other part of the house, lifted up and bundled in, which is the first time he's ever been safe in a tower.

Most importantly, of all three levels of bay windows jutting from the redbrick front of the brownstone, only the one in the bedroom has a seat. They've filled it with velvet pillows and mossy green cushions, and once or twice a year, on one of their vanishingly rare slow days, Alex will climb in and fall asleep.

That's where he finds Alex when he eases into the room with a mug of soup in each hand. He recognizes the quilt wrapped around him: they slept under it in Alex's childhood twin bed the night Ellen won her second term, and then Alex crammed it into his suitcase and brought it back to Washington.

He stirs as Henry sets the mugs down on the dresser.

“Thanks,” he says in a hoarse voice.

Henry nudges in beside him, gingerly removing Alex's glasses from beneath his elbow before they get crushed.

"You know," Henry says, "I chose this house for the bay windows."

Alex blinks at him, fully awake now. "Really?"

"I thought you might like them. You always talked about the one you grew up with. Hoped they might make the place feel like home."

Alex smiles. "They do."

Henry looks at him in his quilt, sleep-mussed and flushed from fever and overdue for a shave, and he remembers that night in the yellow house in Austin. Before Alex led them back to his old bedroom, he peeled up the cushion in the living room window seat and showed Henry pages of elementary school scribbles still hidden there. And he told Henry that he thought once of hiding a picture there too, if only he'd had the nerve to tear it out of his sister's magazine.

Love, Henry has found, has a way of growing backward. You fall in love with a person in the present, and then every person you've ever been gets to fall in love with every past version of them. A sleep-deprived Georgetown freshman falls in love with an Oxford sophomore who's testing out undoing the top button of his shirts sometimes. A ruddy-cheeked teenager with his nose in a book loves a backtalking lacrosse captain. A boy comes home from school with perfect marks and sees a picture in a magazine, and the boy from the picture pauses on a palace staircase.

The crux of it is, he loves every version of Alex to ever sleep under that quilt. Everything else is mostly set dressing

"I'm having a thought," Henry says.

"Congratulations," Alex deadpans automatically. Then, "Tell me."

"This life we have here," Henry says. "This house. It's good, yeah?"

"Yeah, of course it is."

"But we could have a good life somewhere else too."

Alex frowns. "Like where?"

"Somewhere... farther from everything, maybe? Somewhere we could slow down, and things could be quieter, and you could do the work you want to do. I think I could use some time away from it all, honestly. Maybe I wouldn't even have to have a body double anymore."

Alex considers that for a long moment. They both know where Henry means, even if he doesn't say it. Besides New York and DC, and London on its best days, there's really only one place Alex would seriously consider living. They've joked about it before, but Henry's always thought it might be nice to spend a few years somewhere completely different than he's used to. A place where he could see the stars.

At long last, Alex sniffs and says, "You're gonna fire Angus? He was just starting to grow on me.”

...

“If you don't wake Bea up, you're gonna have to hear about her back spasms in the morning,” says a voice that is most certainly not Heath Ledger's.

Henry startles awake to find Alex leaning over his shoulder from behind the loveseat, curls everywhere. The room is dark, and the end credits are rolling.

"You're not home until tomorrow," Henry mumbles.

"Moved up my flight," Alex says. He's so close to Henry's face, he's gone a bit cross-eyed. His lips bounce off the tip of Henry's nose. "I missed you."

It's only been a few days, but the truth is Henry missed him too. He supposes he should be used to empty beds and time differences by now, especially when they began that way, but he suspects he'll never stop waiting at the door. You know what will be the best part of getting married?" Henry asks Alex.

"The line dancing."

"The way I won't have to miss you nearly as often."

Alex softens, then maneuvers himself over the armrest until he's draped across Henry's lap. David climbs on top of him and curls up on Alex's left buttock.

Letting go of the house has been hard, but this particular decision was easy, once they finally said it out loud. A gradual, careful withdrawal from public life, at least for a few years. They’ve given so much of themselves to the world and had the privilege of feeling a legacy take shape beneath them, but they need rest too.

It was June who convinced them, actually. Even now, there are certain things only June can say to Alex. Early in the spring, when she was finally transitioning out of her speechwriting job for Raf, she called Alex from Colorado and told him she was moving to New York to be closer to Nora and Pez, and she wanted to sublet the brownstone. When Alex pointed out that he was still living in it, she said, "We both know you've been looking at farmhouses in Austin for six months, it's time to shit or get off the pot."

(Henry loves his particular collection of Americans. They truly do say what's on their minds.)

The new house is beautiful. Henry's only seen it in person once, but the previous owner was a reclusive tech executive with shockingly good taste, so Architectural Digest featured it last year. He's had the article open in a tab on his phone for two months, and he scrolls through all those perfectly lit photos twice a day, getting high on possibilities. Lazy mornings in the wide sunroom, midnight dives in the lake. It's easy to imagine Alex mellowing into a brisket-smoking, tamale-rolling Texas dad out there, and it's just as easy to imagine them basking under cedar trees until their mid-thirties and then deciding they're ready for another round. The wonderful thing is, they can take their time either way.

It isn't a full release from their obligations, but it is the next step after formally relinquishing his title. More boundaries, more of their own rules about what they will and won't do. No royal wedding, but a private ceremony at the lake house and a honeymoon unpacking boxes. A job for Alex at a smaller firm where he can finally get his hands in the earth. A quieter life.

"You're right," Alex says. "You know what else is gonna be awesome about married-people life? We can have actual, real-life date nights. Just imagine it: free refills and bottomless chips and salsa."

"Oh, I've got another one," Henry says. “You can finally show me how to navigate an H-E-B."

“Baby, don’t talk dirty to me in front of company.”

“Please,” says a groggy voice from the couch.

“Hi, Bea.”

“Time’s it?”

“One in the morning.”

“Ugh.”

Grumbling and tugging a blanket around herself, Bea wakes Pez and the two of them head off to wash up before bed. The odds of Pez returning to the couch for the night or availing himself of their bed so that Alex has to sleep on the couch are just about even, based on six years of Pez falling asleep at their house. It’s a comfort to know that when they leave the brownstone and June moves in, Pez will still be making himself at home in it.

Downstairs, surrounded by boxes, Alex crawls out of Henry’s lap and slides a large shopping bag out from behind the loveseat. “I brought you something.” Alex says.

Inside the bag is a box made of the sort of heavy cardboard that augurs something expensive. He imagines Alex hurling his patched-up rough-ridden leather duffle into the overhead compartment of the airplane and then sliding this bag under the seat so carefully that there’s not even a crease in the paper.

He takes the lid off the box and unwraps layers of tissue paper to reveal a hat. A cowboy hat. It’s made of gorgeous, thick felt, with a cattleman crown and a satin lining. A nearly identical one has hung in Alex’s office since he moved in, though Alex’s is midnight black and this one is a warm, pale sand. Where Alex’s hatband has a small gold buckle, this one has a silver pin in the shape of an English rose.

“It’s a Stetson,” Alex says. When Henry looks up at him, his cheeks have darkened faintly. “I know it’s not really your thing, but you ride horses, and it’s kind of a big deal where I’m from to get your first Stetson, so I wanted to be the one to give it to you since you’re about to be an honorary Texan. You don’t have to wear it if you don’t want–“

“I love it,” Henry interrupts.

Alex pauses, then breaks out in a grin. “You do? I was afraid you’d think it was a joke.”

“It’s the least ridiculous hat I’ve ever been given,” Henry tells him. “It didn’t even come with a matching tailcoat.”

“Nah, but maybe we can get you some Wranglers,” Alex says.

“Some chaps, perhaps.”

“I just told you not to talk dirty to me.”

Henry laughs and kisses him over the open box, thinking of the next year of their lives. Sunday morning fry-ups, swimming holes, a wedding cake that doesn’t wind up on the floor. Tomorrow he needs to ask if Alex checked on the bakery while he was in Austin, and if they have any more packing tape, and whether Amy’s daughter has gotten her flower girl dress yet.

Tonight, though, Alex is home a day early, and the house is making all its soft, familiar night-time sounds around them. No one sees in through the windows. No one comes in through the gate.

“Henry,” says Alex.

“Alex,” says Henry.

“You and me,” Alex says.

“You and me,” Henry agrees.

End.

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thesupreme316 · 4 months

Note

Heyyyyy I just came up with this but headcanons with the boys if their so is in college and has a bunch of missing work how and how they would deal with it (not like this is related to me rn totally DONT have have 20+ missing assignments that r do Thursday😮‍💨) if not that’s fine I just needing something to do so I felt like I was being productive cuz I don’t feel like doing work in my week off. Thought I’d submit ideas for writers so I’d be doing smt!

AEW STARS React to: Their S/O In College (and Taking Finals)

Pairings: Nick Wayne x Reader, Darius Martin x Reader, Hook x Reader, Dante Martin x Reader, Christian Cage x Reader, MJF x Reader, Eddie Kingston x Reader, Wheeler Yuta x Reader

Word Count: 1.2K

Supreme Speaks: hey yall, finals kicked my butt, but we back and packed up in here! to this lovely anon, i hope you got everything done and passed with flying colors (ik i struggled). but anyways, please remember that you are loved and appreciated, and also that you are more than a gpa.

Warnings: none i think, grammarly wasn't working so barely proofread, no gifs as tumblr don't wanna work rn

Taglist: @hooks-martin @sheinthatfandom @triscillal @cassie0sstuff @eddie-kingstons-wifey @hookerforhook @batzy-watzy @wwenhlimagines

i totally forgot to add my beautiful besties my bad

Nick Wayne

Hahaha He is the last person you should be going to for help

If anything, Nick believes that you should just leave it alone and just be in candy land with him

But he knows how hard it is for you and how important it is

So he’ll try his best to help you actually do the assignments

Like you two split up how much work you have and he does half the assignment

I think he would find it fun; pulling all nighters in the library and doing work with their S/O until like 4 am

Every night would be a new adventure

Would let you review the work before you submit it

But anything science-related

Don’t ask him shit

I see him as more of a math person

Darius Martin

I see Darius definitely as a liberal arts or literature person

Like he can edit your papers (he’s your personal chat gpt)

I think Darius would help you by creating a schedule

Like when you need to get stuff done by

BUT

He takes it a step further by allocating time limits for each assignment

Like you can only work on assignment 1 for an hour and 30 minutes each day

Something tells me he is particular with schedules

Darius will keep you on track as if he’s getting paid for it

“Y/N, your break ended 3 minutes ago. LETS GO”

Will definitely help you with researching topics cause that takes a while

Don’t ask him shit about math

Dante Martin

Doesn’t particularly understand what you are going through

But nonetheless he hates that he doesn’t see you as much anymore

I can see him just giving you gifts and words of encouragement

Will tutor you if you need help…but realize that this is not high school science

“You mean there is more than Chemistry I? CHEMISTRY VI? ORGANIC-“

He soon gives up

Stays up with you and drags you away from work if needed

IMAGINE DANTE SAYING “COME TO BED BABY” OMG MY HEART

Will help you with assignments like Nick

Will reward you for all your hard work (wink wink)

Tries to distract you and give you moments for fun/relaxation

After the dust is settled, he’s just happy that you are out of the shackles of academia and you two can hang out stress-free

Hook

MANS IS NOT BOTHERED WITH YOUR BULLSHIT

Has the constant “I told you to start on these assignments earlier” look on his face

If anything he will just supply you with food, energy drinks, and emotional support

But if you thing this man will give you any type of physical help

YOU ARE LYIN TO YOURSELF SWEETHEART

Will secretly complain about your lack of self care or wishing he could actually help in Italian

Fancanon: Hook can speak Italian

If he thinks you have been working too much

He will save your work and shut your laptop down

Will make sure you did everything on your checklist before turning the assignments in

If you need him to print stuff off, just ask, he’ll do it

Unless it’s 1 am…then he’s telling you to take your ass to sleep

Wheeler Yuta

Okay, this man can actually help you

WITH HIS CUTE ASS GLASSES

He truly understands what you are going through as he used to be in your shoes

Mans will tutor you until you are smarter than him

Loves helping you with history and shit

“No the War of 1812 didn’t happen in 1937”

Gives you helpful study and test-taking tips

Tries to make you drink healthy caffeinated drinks not Monsters or Red Bulls

Believes they are the devil and will slap them out of your hands

“What did I say? Red Bull gives you horns, not wings…no not horns for being horny”

Will give you little trinkets or treat you out to dinner when you complete your assignments/exams

He just wants you to remain healthy during this stressful time

Christian Cage

I feel like if anything Christian is a professor…with the way he be schooling those-

He’s probably very knowledge in various subjects

He just does them the old-fashioned way

“What the hell is this?…Whatcha mean this is the new way?”

But if anything he’ll adapt to it, just trying to help you

I HAVE A THEORY that he’ll stay up reading the next chapter or the directions for your next assignment and tries to figure out ways to make the process easier

So the next day you walk out to the table and you see the parts of your project laid out and labeled

“I know it’s a lot but we break it up like this, you should be able to complete by tomorrow”

Christian takes pictures of you two so he can look back and bring up times like the Vietnam war

Makes you take breaks, in which he’ll work in your place

When you get your grade back, it’s yalls grade

not yours

MJF

Straight up pays for a tutor/homework helper

But stays in the room and yells at them cause you are still confused and behind

I mean this in the nicest way

Max is no damn help

He is laughing at you while he’s putting on his scarf

“Imagine doing homework to get a little paper for a job! That’s what you get for not being born rich”

Will post you on instagram and claim that homework and exams are to test idiots

But will quickly change his tune when you place a physics worksheet in front of him

“WHY IS THE GREEK ALPHABET HERE?”

Issues you a public apology and vows to never make fun of you again

If anything MJF supplies you with emotional support, letting you know that your feelings are valid

Will buy you new shoes or something massive for surviving and passing everything

Eddie Kingston

Now when I say don’t ask him anything

DON’T ASK HIM ANYTHING! HE’LL JUST SAY

“Doll, imma be real, I have a GED. I dunno shit”

He can only laugh from afar and say “glad I don’t have to do that shit”

But if you ask him anything about English or Shakespeare, he got you

Will recite random Shakespeare quotes to provide entertainment

I think he proofreads your papers to ensure they make sense

I do think he can help with researching and giving you credible websites

Other than that, his designated role is paper weight or waterboy

He believes your every word when you groan about school

That’s all he can do but you don’t complain about it

After he loves you and you love him

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discount-shades · 1 year

Text

Contract Spouse Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Moving

A/N: I am absolutely delighted by how much everyone loved Phoenix last chapter. 😀

Pairing: Jake Seresin/Reader (nicknamed Pip)

Warning: Angst,

Length: 2100ish

Summary: Pip moves to California.

Previous Masterlist Next

You write your name on the final box and survey the apartment. Everything was packed and labeled. Half was going with Sami to her new place with her boyfriend, Matt. Some of your stuff would be going with you to California and the rest would be put into storage.

“So you and Jake?” Matt asks as he wanders back into the apartment after taking one of Sami’s boxes to his truck. “How’s that going to go?” You roll your eyes. Sami had only informed Matt about your marriage to Jake after you decided to move to California. He had been annoyingly interested in your relationship ever since he had found out.

“I don’t know Matt,” you say shortly, as you hand him another box, “it will go however it goes.” You are nervous enough as it is. You had not lived with a man other than your father, and you had gone no contact with your parents after they had kicked you out. With the added stress of the investigation you were on edge.

Logistically everything was ready to go. Utilities all canceled and mail forwarded. Sami had rolled her eyes at the moving checklist you had given her but dutifully followed it. You had notified your bosses, and had to quit one of your jobs, but the other had agreed to let you stay on. You had convinced them that having a California based liaison would help when working with companies in that time zone.

You were prepared for everything except Jake.

“It’s just that a fake marriage and moving in together is very romcom of you.” You gaze at Matt in exasperation as he continues, “what if you have to fake PDA?”

“Eww Matt, that's my brother you are talking about!” Sami walks in and shoos Matt outside, but the expression on her face is calculating as you try to hide your embarrassment by shuffling boxes into different piles.

“I’m going to miss you.” You look up from shifting boxes at Sami’s words. She has tears in her eyes. “I know I was moving out first but now you are going across the country and…” She trails off sniffling. You walk over and wrap her in a hug, her long blonde hair tickling your nose. “I’m just going to miss you is all.”

You dry her tears with your sleeve. “I’m going to miss you too,” you tell her and she lets out a watery chuckle. “Your brother is going to be a poor substitution for my best friend.”

“Ouch,” You look over as Jake walks through the door. “That hurts my feelings Pip,” he holds his hand over his heart, “all two of them.” He walks over and hugs Sami before pulling you into a hug and you can’t help but inhale the smell of his cologne.

“You’re late Jacob.” Sami sasses him as she checks her watch. “It's after eight. We've been at it since seven.”

“I slept in, Samantha.” He shrugs and you look more closely and see shadows under his eyes. “Also I got donuts.”

“You are not carrying any donuts.” Sami has her hands on her hips, “don’t lie to me about donuts.”

“I gave them to Matt downstairs.” Sami groans and goes running out the door. You both watch her go and turn to each other. “You good?” his tired eyes are searching your expression and you square your shoulders and nod.

“Are you?” He shrugs his shoulders in a non-committal way.

“Yeah, as good as anyone being criminally investigated can be,” he says and he pulls you into a hug when your face falls at his response. You relax into him, wrapping yours around his waist. Jake’s hugs are always comforting. Strong arms and a firm chest. He is solid and dependable and you can't help the feeling of safety you always find in his arms.

His voice rumbles in your ear where you have it pressed against his chest. “We have a lot of evidence to prove we are actually together and a valid reason for you to move after you got the letter.”

You nod reluctantly and go to apologize again for the both of you being in this situation but he stops you. “I knew what I was getting into, Pip. I could have divorced you years ago but I didn’t so we are in this together.”

You agree quietly as Sami walks back through the door with Matt who noisily clears his throat. You grab a donut from the box he is holding before grabbing something small you can carry in one hand and making your way out to Jake's truck, eating as you go.

It took a few hours to pack the stuff you were taking to California into the truck. The movers you hired were able to take the furniture that was yours to the storage locker before carrying on and taking the rest to Sami’s new place. Your car had been on its last legs for a few years so rather than chance it on a 1300 mile road trip you had decided to sell it and buy a new one in California.

Once everything is settled you find yourself standing outside Sami's place, her arms around you as she cries into your shoulder. Jake and Matt standing a respectful distance as you say your goodbyes. When she finally releases you she takes a shuddering breath. “God, I didn’t even cry this much when I moved out of my moms house.”

You’re not crying, but going your separate way from Sami is still hard. “It’s probably for the best.” You smile half heartedly. “Gotta break that codependency we’ve got going on.” It had been a running joke for most of your friendship, though for you, it felt like it was a little too close to the truth. Your lives were entwined so closely that you were more like twin sisters.

“I’m just realizing that we’ll never live in the same place anymore.”

“I’ll be back in the city six months or so after the charges are dropped and we can divorce.” You say as the guys begin to walk over. “Shouldn’t be more than a year.” She gives you a look that you can't place and turns to hug Jake.

“Take care of her, she may be your wife but she is my best friend.” Jake chuckles and picks her up in a hug. You hear her whisper to him but can't make out the words. You give Matt a quick hug and after he and Jake shake hands you are on the road.

– – –

Jake blinks in weariness as he drives. He had spent the last two days driving to Texas and was now leaving the state. He never slept well in hotels, or in this case motels. He actually hadn’t slept well in years. But he didn’t like to think about it. He only couldn’t sleep when he was sleeping in new places. After a week in one place he was fine. Mostly.

He glances over at you. After the letter you had started to wear your wedding band, hoping for it to leave an indentation on your finger. It had been his suggestion. He had thought of the deep groove etched in his mother’s finger when she had finally been ready to take her wedding ring off, four years after his dad had passed.

He could tell you were nervous. Your fingers constantly move as you fiddle with the band, spinning it around and around. He had bought the simple white gold infinity ring with tiny lab grown diamonds when you had married him, and until now you only had worn it for special occasions.

Looking at you, sitting beside him and completely upending your life to move across the country to make the marriage seem real, the guilt hits him. “I should have divorced you years ago.” His voice is sharp, breaking the silence that has stretched between the two of you for the past hour.

You look up at him, startled by the sudden admission. He can feel your gaze boring into him and he avoids your eyes, focusing on the road. “Careful Jake,” he can hear a wryness in your voice that tells him you are grinning, “any other woman would be insulted by an admission like that.”

He let out a grudging chuckle. “You know what I mean.”

You sigh. “It’s a two way street Jake. You won’t let me blame myself, so I won't let you blame yourself.” You straighten up in your seat and shift so you are facing him. “Jake, look at me.”

“Can’t. I’m driving.” He can practically hear your eyes roll.

“Jake.” Your voice is weary and he relaxes his shoulders with a sigh and glances at you before returning his eyes to the road without the rigid focus of avoiding your gaze. “We probably should have divorced but it was just easier not to, for both of us. It’s no use playing the ‘what if’ game.”

“Yeah,” he voices his agreement but he knows better.

The last few years he had been actively avoiding the topic of divorce when he talked to you. If he thought you were getting close to bringing it up he would change the subject. He was afraid that if he divorced you he would have to give you up.

You were his confidant. The person he talked to most. Some days he thought you knew him better than anyone. He told you things he couldn’t tell his mother who would only worry. He couldn't tell Sami either. His sister was notorious for her inability to keep a secret and would have spilled to his mother the first chance she got. Javy knew what happened but they never talked about it.

But he could talk to you. He never told you what happened, but he could tell you everything else. His thoughts, how he was feeling, but never why. You just listened. You were understanding, you would give advice and help him reframe things. You always seemed to know when he needed a distraction, but you had always been that way.

The day his father died he had been sitting in the kitchen in the middle of the night, numb to the world, wondering what the hell he was going to do. The old fashioned responsibility of being the man of the house weighed heavily on his shoulders.

His mother had gone to bed hours ago, she had ended up barely leaving her room for a month, but he didn’t know that the first night. You had spent the night with Sami in her room. It crossed his mind that he should have checked on Sami hours ago, but the lack of light coming from under her door told him it was too late and he’d buried his face in his hands feeling like a failure.

He heard a creek and looked up to see you creeping out of his sister's room. You had met his eyes as you walked into the kitchen. You grabbed two clean glasses out of the dishwasher and filled them at the sink before walking over and putting one in front of him and sitting across from him at the table with the other.

“Sami’s asleep.” Your soft voice broke the silence.

“I should have checked on her.” He said it automatically, sharing his real fears and insecurities with you. “I’m already fucking this up.”

He remembers the look on your face so clearly. Compassion, exasperation, and understanding. “You can’t mess up grief. You’re allowed to be sad too, Jake.” He stared at you thinking about how ridiculous it was that at seventeen he needed to be comforted by an eleven year old. “It's not all on you.” You sat quietly across from him for a few minutes as he thought about your words .When he eventually nodded you stood up and gave him an awkward hug before you picked up your glass and left the kitchen. “Drink some water, crying can dehydrate you.”

He watched Sami’s door close behind you before staring at the full glass you put in front of him. He picked it up, drained it, and went to bed himself.

“I didn’t know NCIS investigated marriages.” Your comment brings him abruptly back to the present.

“What?” he asks in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know, when I got the letter it surprised me,” you say, “It's just that the TV show makes me only think of them investigating murders.” Jake lets out a short laugh and he sees you smiling at him out of the corner of his eye. “I mean, if we need lawyers will JAG be involved?” There is laughter in your voice. “How many TV shows am I going to live through in this situation?”

A smile lingers at the corner of his lips as he keeps driving.

#jake seresin #jake hangman seresin #jake hangman x reader #jake seresin/reader #jake seresin x reader #hangman #hangman/reader #top gun hangman #topgun maverick #topgun hangman #hangman topgun #topgun #top gun fanfiction #top gun x reader

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allthingsfangirl101 · 2 months

Text

Rough Patch – Joe Keery

The honeymoon phase in a relationship is real. So is the reality check that always follows once you wake up. Joe and I got married a year ago. The months leading up to the wedding were incredible. I never thought I'd be happier.

When we got back from our honeymoon and things started to settle down, he went back to work and I focused on fixing up our apartment. When he went back to work, he was gone a lot more. It made the first year very difficult for us. He wasn't around and I would get overwhelmed having to take care of everything while he was gone.

I have tried to be a supportive wife, but it's getting harder and harder for me. It's gotten too hard to go months without seeing each other, barely talking on the phone. I couldn't help but get tired of the unanswered texts and missed phone calls. I am tired of celebrating things by myself.

The last time he left was a few months before our first anniversary. He swore up and down that he'd be back in time. Our anniversary is tomorrow so I called him tonight to figure out our plans. He is getting on a plane first thing tomorrow morning and will be home by lunch.

"Hey, you."

"Hey, baby. Happy Almost Anniversary!" I giggled excitedly. "I am so excited, I have the entire night planned from the minute you get home to the minute we fall asleep naked in each other's arms. I thought we could go to the restaurant we had our first date. You know, the one you also proposed to me at? What time is your flight supposed to be getting in? I could pick you up from the airport and we could get lunch and then. . ."

"Y/N," Joe cut me off.

"Yeah?"

"I'm not going to be back in time."

My stomach dropped at his words. "What are you. . . What do you mean you won't be back in town?"

"No," he sighed. "Sorry."

"But. . ."

"It's not like it's a big deal," he mumbled.

"It's our anniversary, Joe," I said, the tears I was pushing down turning to anger. "It is a big deal. It's the first anniversary of our wedding, Joe. You can't just not come home. What? Am I supposed to celebrate by myself? That's. . . That's pathetic."

"Calm down, Y/N," he sighed. "We can celebrate it when I get home."

"And when will that be?" I demanded. "We've been married a year and I don't think we've spent more than one week sleeping in the same bed. You're never home, Joe."

"I work," he said.

"I'm aware of that but. . ."

"And what am I supposed to do, Y/N?" He challenged. "Not work? Well, if I don't work then we will become homeless. I have to work, Y/N."

"I know you have to work, Joe. But I feel like you see your coworkers more than you see your wife."

"That's normal. It happens."

"It shouldn't," I corrected. "Normal people with normal jobs go home to their wives every night. I can't remember the last time you worked on a job here in town and came home every night to me."

"What are you saying?" He challenged again. "You want me to quit?"

"No," I said quickly. "You know I never want that. I just want to see you more, Joe. I'm sorry for missing my husband."

I hung up the phone, the tears I'd been fighting finally falling. I sat on our bed, tears streaming down my face as I watched my hands shake. I waited for my phone to ring but it never did. I fell asleep that night with dried tears on my face and no messages on my phone.

* * * * *

I woke up on our anniversary completely alone. I forced myself out of bed and barely got myself dressed. I wore a simple pair of leggings and a baggy T-shirt. I slowly cleaned the apartment, going in and out of crying fits.

Around noon, my phone started ringing. When I saw who was calling me, my throat tightened. I let the phone ring as I saw Joe's contact picture. I couldn't bring myself to answer it. When it finally stopped ringing, I slowly walked away from my phone.

The day continued like that. I slowly went through my normal checklist of daily things to do, ignoring my phone that kept ringing. Around 3 o'clock, a delivery man came to the door and delivered flowers. I read the card but it didn't change how I felt.

I'm really sorry about not being there today. Please take yourself out to dinner and really spoil yourself. I will spoil you as soon as I get home. I promise! I love you, Y/N.

With Regret, Your Loving Husband, Joe.

I tossed the card onto the counter and left the flowers there. I didn't have the energy to accept his apology. This is what he always did. He missed important things, sent flowers, and came home acting like nothing happened. First, it was his birthday. Then it was Thanksgiving. He barely made it home on Christmas Day. He missed Valentine's Day. And now he was missing our anniversary.

I ordered some dinner and ate it while watching one of my favorite movies. Even my comfort movie didn't cheer me up. I threw away the trash and laid down on the couch.

I was starting to fall asleep when there was a knock at the door. I slowly paused the movie and went to answer it. When I opened the door, my heart jumped into my throat.

"You're here," I said slowly.

"Hey, baby," Joe smiled weakly.

"Why did you knock on your own apartment?" I asked. "Did you lose your key?"

"No," he chuckled. "I didn't. I was just trying. . ."

"I thought you weren't getting in until late Monday night."

"I wasn't supposed to," he stuttered. "But after our fight last night and you weren't answering your phone this morning, I needed to talk to you. We need to talk about this, Y/N."

"You're missing work." I turned on my heel and walked back into our apartment.

"Y/N," he sighed as he chased after me. "Wait, hang on, baby. Please. Can we talk about this?"

"What is there to talk about?" I demanded as I turned around. "Clearly, your job is more important than our marriage."

"That's not true!" He defended.

"Really?" I challenged. "Joe, yesterday you acted like it wasn't a big deal to miss our first wedding anniversary."

"And that was wrong," he tried to interrupt.

"Do you know how many phone calls you miss? How many of my texts go unanswered? Do you know how many nights I go to sleep, wondering where my husband is and what he's doing? Wondering when I will see him? This hasn't been easy on me, Joe."

"It hasn't been easy on me either," he said.

"You have work to distract you from being alone," I cut him off. "I have nothing. I sit at home all day with nothing to do other than think about and miss my husband."

"You could always get a job." His sentence dropped when he saw the look on my face.

"You really want to go down this road?" I challenged.

"No, but. . ."

"But nothing," I cut him off again. "Joe, I can't keep doing this."

"Wait," Joe said quickly. He grabbed my hands, pulling me closer to him. He lowered his voice and whispered, "This is just a rough patch, baby. We can. . . We can work through this."

"Can we?" I asked, my voice breaking. "Because, right now, I feel like I've been doing all the work. I mean, when was the last time you called me? Joey, I don't know. . ."

Joe cut me off by pulling me closer and crashing his lips onto mine. I knew he was doing this to cut me off so I couldn't end this, but I didn't care. I missed this. I missed being in his arms. I missed being kissed by him. I missed the feeling he gave me as our lips moved in sync. I missed him.

I had tears streaming down my face as I broke the kiss. I took a step back, pulled my hands out of his, and wrapped my arms around myself.

"Joe," I whispered. "I can't be the only one in this relationship anymore. I mean. . . I feel like you don't love me anymore."

"What?" Joe gasped. "Y/N, do you really think. . . How could you. . . Y/N, baby, of course, I still love you. I never stopped. You really think that I stopped loving you?"

"Can you blame me?" My voice broke as the tears continued to stream down my face. Joe stepped up right in front of me and gently grabbed my elbows.

"I am so sorry that I made you think I didn't love you," he whispered. "I love you with all my heart, Y/N. You are the most important person in my life. I never should've made you feel like my job was more important than the love of my life. Please give me another chance. I will prove to you that you are more important. I will make sure you never go a day without knowing just how much I love you. I will do anything to make it up to you."

"I just need you around more," I said, my sob getting stuck in my throat. "I just need my husband."

Joe pulled me into his chest and wrapped his arms around my waist. I wrapped my arms around him and cried into his neck.

"I'm so sorry, baby," he whispered as he started rocking us back and forth. He reached up and started playing with my hair. He leaned down and kissed the top of my head. I didn't say anything as he led us over to the couch and sat us down, neither one of us letting go of the other.

"I have an idea," he started, his voice still soft. "Tomorrow, we are going to wake up and make breakfast together. Then, after we get ready, I'm going to take you shopping and buy you whatever you want. We'll get lunch and go see that new movie you've been dying to see. We'll get dinner, come home, and spend the rest of the night in bed."

"Joe," I giggled when he changed his voice at the end. I playfully pushed him, but he instantly pulled me back into his arms.

"I love you, Y/N," he whispered as he relaxed us into the couch. "And I am so sorry. It will never happen again. I promise, baby."

"I love you too, Joe."

#joe keery #joe keery x reader #joe keery fanfiction #joe keery imagines #joe keery husband

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bitchesgetriches · 1 month

Text

{ MASTERPOST } Everything You Need to Know about How to Pay off Debt

Understanding debt:

Let’s End This Damaging Misconception About Credit Cards

Season 2, Episode 10: “Which Is Smarter: Getting a Loan? or Saving up to Pay Cash?”

Dafuq Is Interest? And How Does It Work for the Forces of Darkness?

Investing Deathmatch: Paying off Debt vs. Investing in the Stock Market

How to Build Good Credit Without Going Into Debt

Dafuq Is a Down Payment? And Why Do You Need One to Buy Stuff?

It’s More Expensive to Be Poor Than to Be Rich

Making Decisions Under Stress: The Siren Song of Chocolate Cake

How Mental Health Affects Your Finances

Paying off debt:

Kill Your Debt Faster with the Death by a Thousand Cuts Technique

Share My Horror: The World’s Worst Debt Visualization

The Best Way To Pay off Credit Card Debt: From the Snowball To the Avalanche

The Debt-Killing Power of Rounding up Bills

A Dungeonmaster’s Guide to Defeating Debt

How to Pay Hospital Bills When You’re Flat Broke

Ask the Bitches Pandemic Lightning Round: “What Do I Do If I Can’t Pay My Bills?”

Slay Your Financial Vampires

Season 4, Episode 3: “My credit card debt is slowly crushing me. Is there any escape from this horrible cycle?”

Case Study: Held Back by Past Financial Mistakes, Fighting Bad Credit and $90K in Debt

Student loan debt:

What We Talk About When We Talk About Student Loans

Ask the Bitches: “The Government Put Student Loans in Forbearance. Can I Stop Paying—or Is It a Trap?”

How to Pay for College without Selling Your Soul to the Devil

When (and How) to Try Refinancing or Consolidating Student Loans

Ask the Bitches: I Want to Move Out, but I Can’t Afford It. How Bad Would It Be to Take out Student Loans to Cover It?

Season 4, Episode 4: “I’m $100K in Student Loan Debt and I Think It Should Be Forgiven. Does This Make Me an Entitled Asshole?”

The 2022 Student Loan Forgiveness FAQ You’ve Been Waiting For

2023 Student Loan Forgiveness Update: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Our Final Word on Student Loan Forgiveness

Avoiding debt:

Ask Not How Much You Should Save, Ask How Much You Should Spend

How to Make Any Financial Decision, No Matter How Tough, with Maximum Swag

Your Yearly Free Medical Care Checklist

Two-Ring Circus

Status Symbols Are Pointless and Dumb

Advice I Wish My Parents Gave Me When I Was 16

On Emergency Fund Remorse… and Bacon Emergencies

Should You Increase Your Salary or Decrease Your Spending?

Don’t Spend Money on Shit You Don’t Like, Fool

The Magically Frugal Power of Patience

The Only Advice You’ll Ever Need for a Cheap-Ass Wedding

The Most Impactful Financial Decision I’ve Ever Made… and Why I Don’t Recommend It

3 Times I Was Damn Grateful for My Emergency Fund (and Side Income)

Buy Now Pay Later Apps: That Old Predatory Lending by a Crappy New Name

Credit Card Companies HATE Her! Stay Out of Credit Card Debt With This One Weird Trick

Ask the Bitches: Should I Get a Loan Even Though I Can Afford To Pay Cash?

The Bitches vs. debt:

I Paid off My Student Loans Ahead of Schedule. Here’s How.

I Paid off My Student Loans. Now What?

Hurricane Debt Weakens to Tropical Storm Debt, but Experts Warn It’s Still Debt

The Real Story of How I Paid Off My Mortgage Early in 4 Years

Case Study: Swimming Upstream against Unemployment, Exhaustion, and $2,750 a Month in Unproductive Spending

That’s all for now! We try to update these masterposts periodically, so check back for more in… a couple… months??? Maybe????

#debt #mortgage #credit card debt #debt management #debt consolidation #pay off debt #student loans #student loan debt #loan #financial tips #money tips #personal finance

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steddieas-shegoes · 1 year

Note

so for the prompt thingy... i have several and you can pick any, all, or none of them! 1. Steve and Eddie getting one over Murray when he's being all you two are pining ect. 2. Uncle Wayne - anything where Wayne accepts Steve immediately and tries to get him and Eddie married. 3. Werewolf den mother steve being seduced to be eddie's mate 4. Hopper as Steve's father figure accepting Eddie immediately because he isn't a wheeler.

I have so many cause i have ideas but can't write for crap... So thank you for being so open about writing! It's really nice to know it isn't a bother to ask...

THIS WAS SO EXCITING!!!! I did end up combining 1 and 4 into one. Also, I didn't IGNORE 3, but I got another request that is somewhat related and I think I am going to work on this when I work on that, but I didn't want you to wait longer for these other ones. I hope you love these! - Mickala ❤️

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

PROMPT 1 AND 4

Murray clocked Eddie within literal seconds. That wasn’t surprising according to everyone who dealt with him before.

What was surprising was that he didn’t immediately call him out. Maybe he actually respected that some people’s secrets should stay secrets.

Or maybe he was just waiting until he figured Steve out, too.

Which apparently happened on a random Saturday at the Byers’ home.

But the thing is. The thing is that Eddie had clocked Steve within seconds, too.

So when the dust settled after Vecna, and Steve pulled Eddie from Hell, and he finally got his true love’s kiss (according to Robin), it took them about six hours before they were making out in Eddie’s hospital bed and calling each other boyfriends.

But only a handful of people were in on it, mostly to protect themselves, but also because they liked just having this for them. Too much of their lives had been out of their control, and they liked being able to have control over this one thing.

Until Murray.

They weren’t even next to each other when it happened.

Steve was helping Hopper at the grill, even though he’d been hopelessly terrible at grilling anytime he attempted it at pool parties with the kids. Eddie was pretty sure it was just to spend time with Hopper.

Eddie was with Will and Lucas, planning out a campaign that Will would DM for all of them, not even looking at Steve.

Okay, maybe he kept glancing over there occasionally, but that was just to make sure that he wasn’t catching anything on fire.

But they were always careful around everyone, and the fleeting glances he gave weren’t abnormal for him. He would do a visual checklist in his mind anytime they were all together, keeping count of everyone in his head the way Steve often did if they were all out somewhere.

“So you’re in love with Steve.”

Eddie jumped at Murray’s voice. He hadn’t even realized he was here.

Will and Lucas were staring, though Will didn’t look surprised at all. If Dustin blabbed…

“Don’t worry, nobody said anything.”

“Uh.”

“And I won’t say anything to anyone else.”

“O…kay?”

“Especially not Steve.”

Wait.

Murray didn’t know they were together, he just thought Eddie was pining.

Oh, this would be fun.

Eddie fought off a smirk, choosing to appear more worried.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Will, somehow, seemed to catch on to everything at once. Maybe his suspicions about Will were right, or maybe Will had just learned to be perceptive about things like this. Either way, he was hoping Will would play along.

“Oh, it’s fine,” Murray said with an annoying hand wave. “I don’t care about you being gay. I’ve had plenty of relations with men in my day.”

Gross, but okay. At least there’s that.

“The problem here is that Steve is so very straight.”

Oh my God, Murray was so wrong.

He shoved down the glee he felt at knowing Murray was wrong about two things.

“And so obviously still in love with Nancy. Poor guy doesn’t know how to call it quits on something that was never good for him. Gotta hand it to him, when he falls, he’s committed.”

Well, some of that was true, but he wouldn’t give Murray the excitement of being right about that.

“How long have you had these feelings? Oh wait, let me guess.” Murray pretended to think for a moment before he smirked. “Since high school when he was the King of the school and you were nobody just trying to survive your second senior year.”

It was longer than that, but he wasn’t going to give him any satisfaction from this conversation.

“You know, Steve would be fine with you coming out to him. I’m sure he’d even play wingman for you if you ask nicely.”

The plan forming in Eddie’s head was going to be so fun.

“You’re right. He’s changed a lot since high school and we’re friends now. I should tell him.”

Will’s eyes widened as he realized what was happening.

“The sooner the better. Keeping these secrets is mentally exhausting. I keep a lot of secrets for people.”

Hard to believe considering most of what came out of Murray’s mouth was something about someone else that they probably wouldn’t want other people to know.

“I’ll go tell him now.”

Eddie got up, ignoring Murray’s protests about this being a family function and isn’t responsible for if things go south.

“Hey Steve, can we talk for a second?” Eddie said loud enough for Murray to hear from across the yard.

Steve was busy flipping a burger as Hopper watched closely.

“Uh, sure. Everything okay?”

“I need you to go along with this,” he whispered. “Today’s the day.”

“Today? Right now?”

“If you’re okay with it.”

They’d discussed it recently; Coming out was something they had to do eventually, especially with how often they were almost caught kissing in the kitchen or holding hands during movie night.

As nice as it was having this for themselves, they knew they had to say something before everyone caught on and felt blindsided by it. Just having Dustin and Max knowing was a risk.

Plus, they wanted to be able to hold hands over the blanket for movie nights, not under.

“Okay.”

Hopper was watching them suspiciously, not interrupting, but clearly wanting to.

“What did you wanna talk about?”

“So you know how everyone thinks I’m into men?”

“I’ve heard the rumors.”

Steve was so good at going along with Eddie’s dramatics. God, he loved him so much.

“They aren’t just rumors. I do like men. Actually, I’ve only ever liked one girl and I was 11, so I think it’s fair to say my judgment could have been off.”

Steve smiled fondly at him, holding back a laugh as he remembered that story from the one time Eddie went to summer camp.

“So I guess now would be a good time to tell you that I also like men.”

“Oh?”

Eddie looked at Murray out of the corner of his eye, smirking at the way he was muttering to himself, disbelief written across his features.

“Yeah, one man in particular.”

“Have I met him? Is he hot?”

“You have and he’s known for fishing for compliments. He knows he’s hot,” Steve raised his eyebrow at him as he turned to take the burgers off the grill and put them on a plate Hopper was wordlessly handing him.

“Excuse me for wanting to hear it out loud in front of all our family and friends.”

“Wait! You’re…are you…you can’t be…together?!”

Murray was outraged and Eddie couldn’t help the snort he let out as he wrapped an arm around Steve’s waist, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek.

Steve blushed, like he always did when Eddie showed him affection, but kept putting burgers on the plate.

Hopper was suddenly right in front of Eddie, eyes squinting at him, calculating.

“How long have you been with Steve?”

“Uh. Since March.”

“You’re boyfriends?”

“Yes, sir.”

Eddie never called Hopper sir. Not once in his entire drug dealing and getting away with it career, not once since he came back after Vecna.

But Steve had gotten really close to him when he came back, so he did respect him. And he knew that his opinion mattered to Steve.

“I think I owe you a little conversation then.”

Steve held up the spatula, pointing it between them.

“You two behave. I’m a grown man, Hop. I don’t need you to do what I think you’re gonna do.”

“Yeah, but you’re my kid, and this is what I do for all my kids.”

Steve dropped the spatula.

Eddie’s eyes widened.

He tried to send a silent message to everyone to give them a moment, maybe find something to keep their eyes and ears busy while Steve and Hopper talked for a minute, but everyone’s eyes remained on them.

Hopper sighed.

“Look, your parents suck. That’s not a secret to anyone here, especially not you or me.” Eddie tried not to let his mind wrap around how Hopper seemed to know more details than he did about Steve’s parents. “You’ve never had someone to watch out for you like a parent should. But you’ve got me now. And if I wanna give Eddie a bit of a shovel talk, you’re gonna let me. He’s better than a Wheeler.”

“Hey!” Mike yelled from where he was sitting between El and Dustin on the porch.

“Can it, Michael!” Hopper yelled back at him. “So Eddie and I are just gonna have a quick chat inside. You know how to do the hot dogs on your own.”

“Uh.”

Hopper pulled Eddie away from Steve, guiding him back up the porch steps, passing Murray’s befuddled face.

They went into the house, keeping a good distance between them.

Eddie had never been this nervous before, not even when he had to talk to a judge about living with Wayne or when the government officials took his Upside Down statement.

“So.”

“So,” Eddie responded, clasping his hands in front of him and playing with his rings nervously.

“You and Steve? Really?”

“I-”

“No, I’m talking,” Hopper held his hand up to stop Eddie from trying to explain. “You know about Steve’s parents?”

“A little. Enough, probably.”

“It’s not my thing to share, but I will say I’ve been looking out for Steve for a lot longer than he even realizes. I’ve seen how he handles hurt. I don’t wanna see it ever again. Especially not because of some metalhead who took three years to get through his senior year. You got me?”

“Yes sir.”

“Does Wayne know?”

“What?” Eddie was still trying to parse through the first part of what Hopper said to him.

“Does Wayne know about you and Steve?”

“Yeah, he kind of walked in on a situation that left no room for hiding.”

Hopper nodded once in understanding. No further details needed on that one.

“You boys let me know if anyone out there gives you trouble, okay?”

“Okay.”

They stared at each other in silence.

“You love him?”

“More than anything.”

Hopper gave him a sincere smile. A real smile from Hopper. He got an actual smile!

“Good. You both deserve to have something good with each other.”

Eddie wasn’t going to cry. Not now, now in front of Hopper, not when he had to go back out to their little get together.

Hopper’s hand rested on his shoulder, giving it a firm squeeze.

“I know everything about you. Just remember that if you ever think about hurting him.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hopper left through the backdoor, yelling at Murray to stop mumbling to himself because he was scaring the kids. He looked out the window to see Joyce and Max hovering near Steve at the grill and he smiled to himself.

Steve was so loved by all these people, and he was so loved by all these people. It probably didn’t matter if they were obvious, if anyone knew about them from the start, if Murray was right or wrong.

The people who mattered were just happy that they were happy and he couldn’t ask for more than that.

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

PROMPT 2

“Why the hell are you cleaning the shower? Is that bleach?” Wayne scrunched his nose at the overwhelming smell of bleach coming from their shared bathroom.

“I’m having a guest over.”

“And they plan on showering here?” Wayne smiled amusedly at Eddie’s frantic scrubbing.

“It’s Steve.”

Ah. It all made sense now.

Wayne took a sip from his mug, his black coffee lukewarm from sitting on the counter for a bit too long.

“So he’s showering here? Is there somethin’ wrong with his showers?”

“It’s just in case,” Eddie huffed, finally pausing to look over at Wayne in the doorway.

“In case he spills the entire kitchen on his head?”

“Can’t I just clean the bathroom? When’s the last time we cleaned this thing?”

“Probably the last time I made you clean it as punishment for something.”

“When’s the last time you punished me for something?”

“It’s about to be now with that tone,” Wayne said as he raised his brows.

He’d never seen Eddie quite like this, not even the one time he brought a girl home for dinner. He knew he’d been kind of in love with Steve from a distance for a while, and when everything happened in March, they’d gotten close, but he didn’t realize how close.

“Sorry. I just want things to go okay.”

“Is there a reason they won’t? You spend an awful lot of time with that boy already.”

“I just don’t want him to think we’re trash, ya know? Like, we kinda are, but I don’t want him to see it.”

Wayne didn’t like that Eddie referred to himself as trash, never had. Sure, they were broke, and he was usually too busy working and trying to get some sleep to deep clean the house, and he didn’t really have nice stuff, but they had what they needed and they were safe.

“Has he ever said or done anything to make you think you’re trash? If he has, he ain’t welcome here.”

Eddie sighed.

“No, he’s been really nice.”

“So you’re worryin’ for you, then. Didn’t I tell ya to stop doin’ that?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Open the window in here, air it out. Gonna kill the boy with the smell of bleach,” Wayne said as he walked back to his chair.

His days off were few and far between, even after they got their trailer fixed up and paid off for free and Eddie’s medical bills suspiciously disappeared. He spent most of them watching TV or fixing something, but now that he knew Steve was coming, he wanted to cook dinner.

Maybe he wanted to impress him to keep him around for Eddie.

Maybe he just wanted an excuse to cook something.

But it was barely past lunch, and he wanted to relax a bit before Eddie was so high strung from stress that he couldn’t breathe.

He watched his TV, but he listened to Eddie grumbling from his room, the occasionally clatter or bump making him laugh to himself at how much effort Eddie was putting in.

“You alright?” He asked after a particularly loud bump against the wall.

“Yep!”

Wayne checked the clock and saw it was close enough to the time he needed to start making dinner.

“Eddie? How’s pork chops and mashed potatoes sound?”

“Good!”

Something falls in Eddie’s room, but Wayne just shakes his head and goes to the kitchen to start prepping everything.

His pork chops were Eddie’s favorite for years, probably because they usually only had them on special occasions or if Wayne was able to go in a little late to have dinner with him. Anytime he had his friends over, Wayne would try to make them.

And now he could make them for Steve.

Steve had been over a lot when Eddie first got out of the hospital, helping make sure he had everything he needed while Wayne was at work, making sure he was being left alone by the idiots in town.

He stopped coming by as much after a while, but anytime Eddie came in the door, he’d been with Steve. He was visiting Steve at work, or at Steve’s house, or with Steve and the kids at the arcade or the diner, or with Steve at the quarry.

Wayne wasn’t stupid.

He knew Eddie was in love with the boy.

He just didn’t know for sure if Steve loved him back.

But he’d find out tonight one way or another, even if he had to outright ask.

He got lost in the cooking, barely noticing Eddie walking in and out with dirty dishes and trash from his bedroom.

But then he heard a loud knock on the front door and Eddie’s footsteps racing to open it, and Wayne Munson almost had a heart attack.

Eddie was wearing plain blue jeans, the sneakers he got just for graduation, and a button down shirt. A nice button down shirt.

“You look nice.”

“Shut up. It’s just what I had clean.”

“Right. Sure.”

Wayne smirked down at the pan in front of him, flipping the pork chops over and drizzling more of the melted butter sauce over them as they seared.

He pretended not to listen to the exchange at the door as Eddie let Steve in, but couldn’t help it when he caught Steve planting a kiss on Eddie’s cheek.

“Hope you like pork chops. Wayne’s real good at making them.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. You look nice.”

“Oh uh, thanks. You do also. I mean, too. You look nice too.”

Wayne had never heard Eddie like this, he’d definitely never seen him like this, and he had to figure out what the hell made Steve so special that Eddie suddenly became a different person.

He turned to welcome him and was met by a Steve Harrington he almost didn’t recognize.

He seemed shy for some reason, as if he hadn’t been by Wayne’s side for hours at a time in the hospital waiting for any change with Eddie. He was dressed in similar jeans to Eddie, but was wearing a Metallica shirt that definitely belonged to Eddie.

He was also wearing Eddie’s guitar pick necklace.

So this was serious.

“Well, hey there, Steve. Nice to see you here again.”

Steve was blushing.

“Thanks for having me, Mr. Munson.”

“Steve, we agreed you can call me Wayne last year, didn’t we?”

“Oh. Right. Sorry, sir.”

“It’s okay, son,” Wayne laughed. “Dinner will be ready in a few if you boys wanna grab drinks and plates.”

They did, and Wayne watched out of the corner of his eye as Eddie placed a hand on Steve’s lower back and kissed his shoulder.

They were silently getting things out, but moving in a way that made Wayne smile.

They revolved around each other the way soulmates do, naturally being close enough to touch but not, always anticipating where the other person will be and what they’ll need, happy just to orbit each other.

Wayne watched as Eddie smiled at Steve, who was sticking his tongue out at him while he reached for the cans of soda in the fridge.

He’d never seen him so light, so happy, so content. Especially not since everything that happened with the quake.

He grabbed the plates from Eddie and served them each a hearty portion of food.

“This looks great, Wayne. Thanks for cooking.”

“No need to be so formal, Steve. I like cookin’ for you boys.”

They took a few bites in a slightly awkward silence. Eddie’s leg was shaking so badly, the whole table started moving. What the hell was this kid so nervous about?

Steve placed his hand on Eddie’s knee, probably thinking it was out of sight. Wayne watched as Eddie stopped his movements and settled completely, letting out a long breath.

“So what’s the occasion? Not that I ain’t happy to have ya over, Steve, it just seems outta nowhere.”

“We uh, actually wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh?”

Wayne knew where this was going, but he liked to keep Eddie guessing.

“Yeah. So you know how I’ve been spending a lot of time with Steve.”

“Go on.”

“Well, a few months ago, um. I told him about me. Like how I’m into men and women. And it turns out he is too! So that was a relief obviously. And we talked about how nice it was having someone else know and then he explained he’d never even kissed a guy which is just kind of silly because look at him! He’s hot! And I told him he could kiss me to get it out of the way, ya know? Because sometimes just getting the first one out of the way just makes you more confident and then he kissed me to shut me up because I was rambling like I am now, Jesus Christ, Steve, please stop me.”

“Okay, so what he’s trying to say is um. We’ve been boyfriends for a while now. And I’m.” Steve took a shaky breath, then put his hand in Eddie’s on his lap. “I’m so in love with him, Wayne. He’s been spending a lot of time at my house, but I wanted to come here and he was worried about us not being able to hide it around you so I told him we could just tell you. I hope it’s okay.”

Wayne kept his face level, no smile or frown, just waiting to see if they’d word vomit anymore.

“And like, it’s okay if you don’t want to see any PDA or anything! We won’t like make out on the couch or anything, but we just wanted you to know. I wanted you to know. And Steve knows you’re so important to me so he agreed.”

“And we’ll probably still spend a lot of time at Steve’s because that’s where the kids like to hang out since he has a pool and a lot of space for us to watch movies. So you’ll hardly even see us together here.”

“Are you boys done?”

“Yes, sir,” Steve said, head hanging down.

“Good. Who knew you both could ramble on like that?”

They stayed silent, anxiously waiting for Wayne to yell at them or kick them out.

“You love each other?”

They both nodded.

“And you make each other happy?”

They nodded with smiles growing on their faces.

“Then I want you boys here, loving each other, making each other happy, whether I’m here or not. You’re always welcome in my home.”

He felt the relief wash over them, their tense bodies relaxing in their chairs.

“Now, Steve.”

“Oh no. Don’t,” Eddie said, suddenly tense again.

“Now, wait a minute. It’s my job, Eddie.”

“No it’s really not. I’m an adult, I can take care of myself.”

Wayne turned to Steve with a small smile.

“You’ve heard the speech before, I’m sure. You hurt him, I hurt you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, if you hurt him on purpose, they’ll never find your body, you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you,” Wayne turned to Eddie. “Same goes for you. You think just because you’re my blood I won’t protect Steve if you do somethin’ stupid?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Now that that’s settled.” Wayne took a sip of his drink. “Steve, you like ice cream?”

“I love ice cream.”

“What’s your favorite flavor? I always keep Eddie’s in the freezer.”

“Oh. You don’t have to do that.”

“Stevie, you better answer him or he’ll guess.”

Steve laughed. He looked happy. Wayne liked that he looked happy.

“Mint chip.”

“We all have our flaws.”

“Hey! It’s good!”

Wayne laughed.

“Fine, fine. I’ll get some at the store this weekend.”

Wayne knew what it was like to have neglectful parents, and he knew that Steve may have had a lot of things handed to him, but never love and affection from his own parents.

So if he was someone Eddie loved, and who loved Eddie, then he was going to have to accept the love and affection Wayne had to offer.

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #wayne munson #murray bauman #jim hopper #requests #this is like a 3 in 2 but 2 in 1 #shovel talks but barely #prompt 2 is EXACTLY 2000 words which has never happened before for me #ficlets

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meowmeowmeowmeow4x · 11 days

Text

Dark Blue Moon and the Suffering Sun Chapter 20

wooo we hit chapter 20!! yeaahhh

MASTAPOST

Beautiful, sunlit beaches blanketed the coastline underneath the street level where colourful tiles crisscrossed. An umbrella kept the heat away from the rustic wooden table at which the Fenton family, minus their youngest, and Bruce Wayne sat. The SAV sat peacefully by the pier where they had disembarked.

They had been sailing for the better part of the afternoon, finally stopping to pick up lunch at Jazz’s insistence. Mr Wayne’s insisted on paying, ever the rich philanthropist.

Jazz Fenton couldn’t be more worried, although she had to hide it. Sitting opposite her, Mr Wayne idly chatted with her parents about their college days. Once she knew what she was looking for, it was painfully obvious that he was interrogating them for information on Vlad Masters, another billionaire thorn in the family’s side (not that her parents knew).

She fidgeted. Her foot tapped repeatedly on the stop, arched to not make sounds that would give her state of general anxiety away. Once she told Tucker what was happening, the boy had gotten to work right away. It would take some time to locate the files containing the specs for the newest inventions, and then more time to analyse them and pinpoint what damage she could do.

She’d need to call Sam next. Tucker had given her the number for Sam’s spare, although there was no guarantee she’d be able to answer soon.

Until then, Jazz was on her own. She picked at her sweet and sour fish broth soup, rolling the tomato chunks around. If she gave herself food poisoning somehow, that might give the boys potentially a week to get away. Then again, there was an equal chance one of her parents would stay with her while the other went with Bruce.

As it was, she could definitely malinger a stomach issue, and delay them for maybe half an hour. Sirens swam quickly, so that time could be valuable for them.

“What about you, Jasmine? What got you interested in psychology?” Came Bruce Wayne’s baritone. Shit.

Jazz was startled out of her thoughts. Before she could open her mouth, she did an awareness check. A mental checklist of where she was and what she needed to do and not do appeared in her head. If she tipped off this man, then it could very lead to her brother underneath a scalpel. No pressure at all.

“Uhm, well. Mr Wa- Bruce.” Jazz found herself stuttering when talking about psychology for the first time in her life. Dammit. She looked to the side, where her father nodded like an excited puppy. Not helping, dad.

“Well I’ve always been interested in people, you see.” Jazz kept a close eye on Bruce Wayne’s posture, studying him. “What makes them upset. What makes them happy.”

She side-eyed her parents. On one side, her mother glared viciously at her fried fish. On the other, her father arranged fries into smiling faces.

“With this family, I’ve had a lot to think about.” That was a good start, right? With any luck, he would be the one to give something away, something she could use against him.

Bruce Wayne chuckled, an easy (fake?) smile worn like a mask. “I can certainly relate. Many times my boys have left me pulling my hair out. It’s a chaotic house most days.”

That was right! Jazz recalled the preliminary research she had done earlier in the day. Bruce Wayne was known to be an endlessly kind man, but suffered several interpersonal issues over the years. One was the notorious apparent teenage tantrum thrown by an 18-year-old Dick Grayson, shortly before his second son, Jason was adopted.

The less said about Jason’s unfortunate fate, the better. Although he may have been brought back, somehow??

She wasn’t sure whether to envy his therapist or not.

It had been exhausting teasing the truth out of the myriad gossip articles on the Wayne family. If Danny were here, he’d bully her relentlessly for going back on her noted disdain towards the ‘shallow and vapid celebrity news industry dedicated to turning private interpersonal conflicts into products to be consumed.’ Oh how the mighty have fallen.

What she could be reasonably sure of was that the present-day family dynamics of the Waynes were testy, to say the least. Apparently their youngest, the Damian who had disappeared into the waves just two days ago, had been dealing with violent tendencies for some time and had no patience for entertaining the elites like his brothers used to. And that was just the public stuff.

Right. She could work with this.

“Was it difficult? In the early days, with your first son.” Jazz said, putting on tones of sympathy and empathetic connection, the kind she would use when she’d try to get Danny to open up.

A pained look came over Bruce. That was good!

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to poke any sensitive issues.” She added with false franticness. The longer the ball was in Bruce Wayne’s court, the better.

Mr Wayne waved her off. “No, it’s fine. Just old memories.”

“Are they fond memories?”

“Yes. It was the happiest time of my life. There was a lot of adjustment. I was a bachelor in my twenties, and suddenly I had an entire child in my hands. Dick had me running around like a headless chicken half the time.”

“Did it get easier?” Jazz asked. The billionaire’s eyes almost glazed over.

“Not particularly. If anything, things got harder. I learned very quickly that experience raising one child does not entirely transfer to another.”

Oh, that was good. Jazz filed this information into her mental notebook.

“But enough about me and my old man troubles.” With that endlessly disarming smile, she could tell why people fell for the playboy turned beleaguered father. “If you’re looking for a good psycho-analysis, I’m afraid I’m a bit basic compared to what Gotham has to offer.”

Drat. Was she that obvious? No, he’d just talked about her psychology interest. She could handle this easily. She just needed to be careful what she said, and didn’t say.

“I guess you could say I’m interested in non-traditional family dynamics. My parents have always been… eccentric.”

“That’s the Fenton way!” Her father shouted. Several other patrons looked at them scathingly. “Too bad Jazzpants hates siren hunting almost as much as… as…” Her father’s expression sank.

That calculating look came back in full force. Dammit dad! She needed to salvage this.

“My feelings towards my parents’ profession aside, the evidence points very strongly to Phantom being connected to my brother’s disappearance. I may not enjoy the siren hunts, but my brother comes first. What else can I do? Sit home and do nothing?”

Her father clapped her back, grinning proudly. “You wouldn’t be doing nothing, sweetie! You’d be keeping Vladdie company!”

Yeah… Jazz mustered all her will power to hide the cringe.

“And besides, have you seen my parents when they’re at work? Yesterday they spent like 36 hours straight preparing the SAV with only one single break.” Jazz’s head fell back. “They’d probably forget to eat if I weren’t here.”

“Hey that’s not true, Jazz! Your mother and I are excellent at this work-life balance you always babble about. Yesterday we took two breaks instead of one. Progress!”

Jazz gestured to her father with an exasperated sigh. “See what I mean?”

Bruce Wayne hummed. His head tilted in thought as he sampled his mackerel. “Have you always been this responsible, Jasmine?”

“Of course! Look, I may be sixteen, but I very much possess the maturity of an adult. If it’s my job to wrangle this family into healthy habits, then so be it.”

Bruce Wayne appeared to have something to say about that. Jazz’s phone buzzed at that moment, having been turned silent earlier. It was Tucker, you miracle worker.

She shot up from her chair, twisting her expression into an agonisied grimace. “Sorry I think I’m having a bathroom emergency. I’ll be right back!”

Jazz dashed away, feeling perfectly fine in the stomach, except for her nerves.

“I have questions.” Damian told him. They were well on their way south now, Danny’s tail swishing away at top speed. Mostly the boys stayed silent, enjoying each other’s company and the rushing of water.

“Shoot.” Danny said.

“Are you a male? Or is this merely an assumption that others have made?”

Danny sputtered. The question almost knocked him off course with how sudden it was. “W-What? Why would that be a question?”

Damian hummed. “My brothers have taught me not to make assumptions. In addition, siren biology seems heavily based off of fish, many of whom are hermaphroditic in some way.”

“Uhh…”

“Which leaves us with the question. What am I to call you? For most of time together, I have been thinking of you as a male. Was that incorrect of me to do so?”

Danny’s eyes subconsciously drifted to his navel. Was he actually biologically male anymore? He’d always assumed so, but being a half-siren in a siren-hating down didn’t leave much time to learn siren anatomy in and out.

Had he been a girl this entire time? No way… No, he always acted the same as he always acted. If he was a boy before being turned, and acted the same, he could be a boy now, right?

“Uhhh yes. I think I’m a boy. Maybe.”

“For that matter, I would like to inquire how sirens reproduce. Surely the turning of humans is not the only way your species increases its numbers?”

Danny’s face heated to boiling. Blue blushes crept down his cheeks and covered his neck. “Maybe you could ask your dad about human reproduction first?” He squeaked.

“I am already aware!” Damian grouched. “I believe I deserve to know the specifics of the body which I have been forced into.”

“What if I told you I didn’t even know where siren babies came from?” Which was a sad, sad lie, bullshit that Damian clearly saw through.

“Lies!”

Danny threw his hands up, which threw off his balance for a moment. “You’re tiny. Can you guarantee your dad won’t sell me to the GiW for telling you this stuff?”

“I absolutely can.”

“Not the point! Please ask something else. You ain’t getting crap out of me on that front. I am like Davy Jones’ locker. Zip. Shut. Tight. Not happening.”

Damian seethed. This close, Danny could feel the kid’s chest vibrate with growling sounds.

“Very well. What are sirens classed as?”

“Inhuman non-sentient sea monsters bent on the destruction of humans.”

His back stung as Damian slapped him with his tailfin. “Biologically!”

“I dunno! Do I look like I have a marine biology degree?” Danny shrugged.

Damian lowered his head. “So you are uneducated.”

“Hey, rude!” Biology was never Danny’s strong suit. His mother was the one with the however many PhDs. And Sam was the one campaigning for animal rights every other week. He was more of a space guy! This was not new information to Damian! “You tell me! You’re the kid with the animal obsession.”

“I shall lay out the evidence. On the one hand, we possess scales, gills and fins, like all fish do. However, the heat your blood, despite the cold water suggests warm-bloodedness. Furthermore, I have paid very close attention to you, and the female sirens we met in your cave.”

“And what did you see?” Danny tilted his head back.

“The nipples.” Damian ground out. “Which suggests breastfeeding, which is a mammalian trait. However, I am not sure if my own are because of my former status as a human. That is why I must ask you this.”

This was definitely going to be awkward. Danny preemptively suppressed the cringe reflex.

“Do sirens breastfeed?” Damian asked. Danny blanked at that one. Yeah. That question was a hard no clue. “Have you ever breastfed?”

Damian. Oh Damian. Kids just say the darnedest things. Damian. Danny’s cheeks heated up again. He squeaked out an answer. “N-no! I’ve been on my own in the ocean.”

Damian narrowed his eyes at him. Did suspicion have a smell? Because Danny felt like it did, and he was smelling it.

“Do siren parents not take care of their children?” Damian finally asked.

Danny thought back to Youngblood, how Ember basically made him her younger brother (which made her teasing of him for having Damian around totally hypocritical). It was in this moment that he realised he didn’t know any sirens outside his normal enemies. 99% of all times he had interacted with another siren. Hell, any other sea person, was when he was fighting them.

“Danny? Danny?” Damian’s voice raised.

Danny shook his head. “Sorry, I’m just thinking…”

He sounded so pitifully sad in that moment. When a series of familiar whale calls breached the surface, he eagerly welcomed the distraction.

“We’ve caught up to the whale pod!”

Damian gasped, attention turned fully away from his interrogation. “Where are they?”

Danny carried him forward, surging to greet Damian’s new friends again. However, what he saw chilled him.

About a hundred feet away there was a small boat with a flat open deck, a dingy vessel with barnacles coating its hull, and men carrying harpoons and operating cranes, pulling in a net that thrashed violently. And on the deck, tied up by rope and netting, was a baby whale.

Damian swore in a language he didn’t understand. Danny swore too.

Damian’s fins shot ramrod straight. His teeth bared with an inhuman growl. His hand went to the sword sheathed at his waist. He itched to sink it into the bodies of these treacherous men.

“Wait.” Danny said. Wait!? What a preposterous thought. They needed to save Dorothea and her pod now.

“Are you insane!?”

His companion’s voice lowered dangerously. “You realise if we attack them, then the GiW will know, right? The whalers will call for help, or get to shore and it’ll be on the news. We’ll be hunted again.”

Damian did not hesitate. “Do you intend to prioritise our own safety over that of an endangered species being poached illegally?”

Danny shook his head. “Nah. Let’s go fuck them up.”

#dpxdc #danny fenton #damian wayne #dcxdp #merman #merboy #mermaid au #gender questions #sirens #sirens are hermaphrodites #kinda like clownfish #mer!damian wayne #mer!danny #bruce wayne #jazz fenton

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roosterforme · 1 year

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A Love You Don't Find Everyday Part 19 | Rooster x Reader

Summary: Your wedding week is here, and you decide to give Bradley another one of his gifts early. In return, he fulfills a fantasy for you. When you host your parents and all of those closest to you for Thanksgiving dinner, it really sets in for Bradley that this is what the rest of his life is going to be like.

Warnings: Smut, angst, fluff, and swearing

Length: 4400 words

Pairing: Bradley "Rooster" Bradshaw x Female Reader

Check out my masterlist for more!

When Maverick cornered him at the end of the day on Monday, Bradley eyed him warily. "Don't tell me you're bringing me more papers."

Maverick shook his head and laughed. "No. Not papers. But I need everyone to complete their flight evaluation paperwork during the first week of December."

Bradley's eyes went wide. He would be in Hawaii with you. Without completed paperwork, he could end up being grounded. "Shit. Can you push it later into the month for me?"

"No. But I set you up in one of the classrooms now to take care of it."

Bradley groaned. He promised you that he would be home to help you finalize everything on the wedding checklist tonight, but this issue could literally prevent him from getting a paycheck later.

"Fuck. Okay, fine," Bradley told Mav. "Thanks for making sure I got it done in time." Bradley texted you a quick explanation while he strolled to Classroom 1 so he could get started, because this would take him about two hours.

Baby Girl Bradshaw: Take your time, Roo. But let me know before you head home, okay? I might need you to stop at the store.

At least you weren't upset. You probably didn't really need his help with the checklist, but he wanted to be there with you anyway.

He settled in and got to work, needing to log into various sites on his phone to pull up his credentials for verification. After two hours, he was finally done, but his phone battery was almost dead.

He sent you a quick text saying he was leaving shortly to find out what you needed from the store, and you wrote back immediately.

Baby Girl Bradshaw: Remember where we first met? Meet me there.

Bradley would remember until his dying day that he first set eyes on you last year on August 14th just before 9 o'clock in the morning. In Classroom 8. That was where you first spoke to each other. That was where he got to hear you lecturing them on software protocols. That was where he started to fall for you.

He was immediately rushing out of Classroom 1 and heading down the long corridor. The building was mostly deserted now that it was after dinnertime, and most of the lights had been dimmed. But when he pushed the last door open, you were perched on the edge of the desk, and Bradley could still perfectly picture how you'd looked up at the podium in your khaki uniform last summer.

But right now, you were wearing the red dress that you wore on your first date, when he had taken you to the hot sauce restaurant and silent disco in Del Mar. You had on matching red lipstick, and you had selected red polish when you got your nails done the other day.

Bradley was frozen in the doorway, looking at you as you smiled at him. "Close the door and take a seat, Lieutenant Commander Bradshaw," you instructed with a grin.

He closed the door and headed for the seat in the first row, right in front of you. "I thought you were at home, Sweetheart."

"I was," you informed him, sliding off the desk and taking the three steps until you were in Bradley's lap. "Then I thought I would come back to base and give you one of your remaining wedding gifts here." You kissed him softly, your lips barely brushing his. He let one hand come up to the back of your neck to get a deeper kiss, not caring about getting your lipstick on his mouth.

"What's my wedding gift?" he asked before dipping his lips down to your neck. "Getting to look at you in the dress you wore on our first date?"

You laughed at that and started to slide out of his grasp. Bradley tried to keep you on his lap, but you managed to slide down so you were kneeling on the floor between his legs with your hands resting on his khaki covered thighs. He was sure his eyes were bugging out.

"No. I'd let you look at me in this dress anytime, Roo. When I asked some of the guys what they would most like to get as a wedding gift from their soon to be wife, they seemed to universally agree that a blowjob was the way to go."

He briefly tipped his head back and groaned at the ceiling when your hands started to slide up his uniform pants. When you popped open his button and eased the zipper down, Bradley kept his eyes on yours. His hard dick sprang free when you pulled his pants and underwear down a little bit, and you squealed in delight. A small part of Bradley really loved that the guys all knew you were going to suck his dick for him, that you did it all the time.

"You want it sloppy, Roo?" you asked sweetly, licking your bright red lips.

"God, yes," he groaned, his eyes drifting closed as you wrapped your small hand around him and grazed his tip with your lips. "Please."

You just moaned in response, and now Bradley was wishing he'd taken a second to lock the door. "Anyone could walk in, Sweetheart," he told you, stroking your perfect cheek with his thumb while you kissed along his length.

"I know," you told him before swirling your tongue around his head and making him groan. "That's why I wanted to do it here."

You were filthy in the best way, and you were going to be his wife. "Everything you do turns me on. You know that? Everything."

You smiled up at him like he was single handedly responsible for all of the happiness in this world, and then you took the tip of his cock between your perfect, red lips.

Every inch of him was treated the the feel of your lips and your tongue as you sucked on him and took him deep. Bradley watched you take him until you were gagging, squeezing him with your throat until your eyes started to water.

"Fuck, Baby Girl," he growled, eyeing the red lipstick smears along the base of his cock as you pulled him out of your mouth. He watched you open your mouth wide and run his tip along your lips before letting him rest on your velvety tongue. "You're perfect," he praised, running his fingers along your neck. You licked and sucked just the tip of him while you played with his balls. He could already feel the pressure building, and he knew what you were capable of.

"You like that, Daddy?" you asked softly, stroking your fingers along his balls and nuzzling him with your face.

"You fucking know I do." And then his head tipped back again as you took his length deep again, and he felt the sensation through his entire body. You were sucking on him so well, as he palmed the back of your head, encouraging you to keep him in your heavenly mouth.

Bradley watched your half lidded eyes drift closed briefly as you gagged on him. And then you were sucking along his length before taking him deep again. Every time he bottomed out, he could feel the pressure of his orgasm building. You bobbed on his cock, humming and gasping as you picked up speed, and Bradley watched your saliva drip onto his khaki pants.

When you pulled him out with a loud pop, he growled your name, and your wide eyes met his. Then Bradley watched you lick along his balls and suck on him there while stroking his cock with your hands.

"Baby Girl," he groaned. You had lipstick smeared on your face, and Bradley had never seen anything prettier than you cradling his balls and sucking on his dick.

The wet sounds as you hollowed your cheeks and bobbed faster on his length had him thrusting into you. You moaned, eyes wide as he hit the back of your throat. You popped him out again, strands of saliva falling from those red lips as you took a deep breath before taking him to the hilt again.

Bradley swiped away the tears from your cheeks before digging his fingers into your scalp a little rough. "I'm close, Sweetheart," he murmured, teeth gritted in pleasure.

You just grinned around his cock and hollowed your cheeks, sucking on him until he was moaning way too loud. His balls were tense, ready to spill into your mouth, and then you pulled him out one last time. Bradley watched his cum paint your lips and tongue as you gasped and squeaked in delight. You swallowed him down in gulps, and his cum ran down your chin, mixing with your saliva. Your eyes were needy as you delicately licked and sucked every drop as it beaded out of him until Bradley watched you just kissing along his sensitive tip again.

"I love you," he promised, swiping his fingers through his cum on your chin and feeding it to you. As you licked his fingers clean, Bradley caught his breath. The front of his uniform pants was adorned with cum, saliva, and red lipstick smudges. It was almost enough to make him hard again.

After you tucked him back into his boxer briefs, you climbed back onto his lap. Bradley kissed you and licked your lips clean. "Mmm," you moaned. "Let's go home so I can feed you dinner."

"Do you still need me to stop at the store?" he asked as you pulled him to his feet and zipped his pants.

"No, I took care of it. Just wanted to get ice cream to go with the chocolate chip cookies I made."

Bradley laced his fingers through yours and kissed your ring. "For ice cream sandwiches? Are you purposely reminding me of all the things you did when we were dating that made me crazy for you?"

"Maybe," you said with a smirk.

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

"We're gonna be late," Bradley called for the third time. You just rolled your eyes in the bathroom mirror.

"Their flight doesn't even land for two more hours."

Then he appeared in the bathroom doorway with Tramp in his arms. "If you want to have time to go to the Hard Deck for a beer first, we need to leave. You look beautiful. You look perfect. Let's go."

You capped your mascara. "Fine." You had been subtly trying to make sure nobody was making plans for Friday afternoon without actually giving away any wedding information. You were getting really antsy that one of them wouldn't be there, so giving them one final reminder today would be a good idea. "I can't believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving. And then our wedding. Are we out of our minds? Planning it the way we did?"

"Nah," Bradley replied with a crooked grin. "The only thing that's bothering me is that I know for a fact that the caterers won't make the Marry Me Rooster as good as you do."

You started laughing as you grabbed a denim jacket to wear over your dress and followed him out to the driveway. "Well if that's your biggest concern, then I'm sure Friday will be a lovely day for you."

Bradley opened the passenger door of the Bronco and buckled you in. "It's going to be the best day of my life," he promised with a kiss.

When you got to the Hard Deck, you could tell you were annoying all of the aviators at this point. And when you mentioned one more time that you were hoping everyone could make it 'to hang out on Friday', they all groaned.

"Angel, yes. For the millionth time, we will be there," Jake drawled as he took a shot at the pool table. You examined his forehead where he had a scar from his deployment. He must have had the stitches removed today.

"I'm not even talking to you. I don't trust you anymore after how much you let me drink at the club."

"Here," Bradley mumbled, nudging a beer into your hand when he returned from the bar. He kissed your cheek before taking the pool cue Phoenix held out for him. You heard him double and triple checking with her that she was going to stick to the plans for Friday. You didn't even want to think about how shitty Bradley would feel if his best friend wasn't at his wedding.

"Hey, Jake?" you asked quietly.

"Angel?"

"Can I borrow your keychain? The one with the Super Hornet?"

He dug his keys out of his pocket and unclipped the beat up metal keychain that you always thought was so cool. "You thinking about getting one for Rooster?"

"Yeah," you lied smoothly. "I'm going to look for one online. I'll give it back in a few days."

You sat quietly with Bob and talked about plans for Christmas while Bradley played pool. He kept stealing little glances in your direction, and it made you smile every time. And then he started grinning, too. Then it struck you; this would be your very last time hanging out at the Hard Deck before you were married.

So much had happened here. You remembered which stool you were sitting on when Bradley initiated that first, flirtatious conversation with you by knocking your beer all over your lap. And you kept a little mental catalog of all the songs he had ever played for you on that old, out of tune piano.

"I love you," he whispered against your lips while he waited for Phoenix to take her turn.

You grabbed him by the front of his shirt and pulled him close. "Next time we hang out at the Hard Deck with everyone, we will be married."

He rested his forehead to yours and smiled against your lips. "Less than two days," he whispered, running his hands along your hips and waist. "Then I'm yours, for real. Like actually a family."

You glanced at everyone playing pool and Bob eating his peanuts. "We have a huge family, Roo."

"You're right," he said with a chuckle, kissing your nose.

Then you licked his bottom lip gently, and Bradley's demeanor immediately changed. You felt his hands tighten on your waist, drawing you closer to his warm body as he hummed. When his hands found their way to your lower back you nibbled on his lip before licking him again.

"Sweetheart." His voice had a tone of warning behind it, and you'd be lying if you said it didn't go right to your core.

"Yes, Daddy?" you replied, not even trying to be quiet. The fabric of your dress was bunched up in his hands, and his brown eyes dipped down to look at your lips.

"If you want Daddy, just say the words."

You licked your lips and said, "I want my Daddy."

Bradley took your half empty bottle of beer and set it down along with his empty one. With one hand pressed firmly to your lower back, he ushered you past the pool table. "Gotta get to the airport. See some of you tomorrow and all of you on Friday!" he called out, not even giving you a chance to say anything at all.

You turned to look at him over your shoulder. "Where are we going?"

"The Bronco." His voice was commanding. He was in Daddy mode now, but you loved to give him an attitude.

"No. Meet me in the sand. In our spot." You wove through the crowd ahead of him and out into the cool night air. There were some people out on the deck, talking and smoking, but you breezed right past them and ran down the side steps and into the darkness.

A moment later, Bradley's heavy footfalls could be heard on the steps as well, and then he found you in the dim light filtering down from the deck, your back pressed to the wooden pillar.

"Hi, Daddy," you whispered, and he reached right for the hem of your dress, pulling it up and yanking your underwear lower until the lace slipped down your legs and onto the tops of your boat shoes.

"Hi, Baby Girl." His words were soft and raspy as his fingertips teased along your wet slit.

"This is our spot." Your head tipped back against the pillar as he dipped his middle finger inside you. "But you've never fucked me here before." The voices and laughter above you on the deck had you more turned on than you'd like to admit.

"I'm about to change that," he promised. "I'll fill you up all the way. Put a baby in you."

You groaned as he withdrew his finger and spun you around so you were facing the deck post, palms planted against it. You had a visceral reaction to the sound of him unzipping his jeans, and you were instantly panting and pushing your butt back toward him.

"You're so fucking needy, Baby Girl. I love it." And then his big hands were up your dress, teasing along your ass before he guided himself inside you with a hiss.

"Bradley!"

"Quiet," he commanded, pumping into you. "I know you like this. Being out in the open. Listening to people up on the deck."

The noise that escaped you was something filthy that lived in the back of your throat. But he was driving you wild, because he was right. You loved that someone could look over the side of the deck and see Bradley fucking you. The idea that someone could hear your little whines or Bradley's grunts and come to investigate made your pussy wetter.

"That's what Daddys do, Baby Girl," his voice was low and next to your ear. "They give you exactly what you want, fuck you in public when you need it. As long as you're so sweet to Daddy the rest of the time."

"Oh my god," you groaned. Bradley's words, and the feel of his fingers on your clit, and the slapping of his thighs against yours... it was all too much. "I'm so close," you whimpered.

"I'll get you there, and then I'll take my share, too," he promised, and almost instantly you felt yourself clenching his cock with your pussy from the release of pleasure he caused with his fingers. You bucked your hips back against him, riding out your orgasm.

And then, just like he promised, he took you by both hips, his fingers digging into you, and absolutely railed you. All you could do was grip the wooden post and hang on as he rocked into you, letting you feel every inch of him in your overstimulated pussy.

You were whimpering as he growled your name, filling you up with cum. You could already feel the mess leaking out of you as he pushed your hair away from your neck and pressed his lips there. "I love you, Roo," you whispered, and he gently pulled you away from the deck post.

He whispered in your ear how much he loved you and wanted to marry you while he eased himself out of your pussy, and you could feel the wetness on your legs.

"Shit," he mumbled as he zipped up his pants. "We need to get to the airport to get your parents."

You giggled. "I'm a mess now, Roo."

"Yeah," he agreed, taking you by the hand. "And that's your fault. You always pull this Daddy stunt right before we have to go pick your parents up from the airport." He sounded firm, but when he led you into the lit up parking lot, you could see the satisfied smirk on his face.

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

Bradley and you had dropped your parents off at their expensive hotel last night, and he didn't regret a single penny he was spending. It had afforded him the ability to take a very leisurely bath with you, during which you and he sipped some beers and talked about the wedding.

Then on Thanksgiving morning, you and he were up early, drinking coffee and starting to get the kitchen organized for dinner preparations. The parade was playing on the TV, and Bradley occasionally wandered away to play along to a song on the piano.

But the best part was, you and he were in your underwear the whole time. And you agreed to take a break and ride his dick on one of the dining room chairs after he helped you peel potatoes. He was seriously hoping one of these times it did the trick, because he couldn't wait until you were pregnant.

"Mm," you hummed, kissing his lips and running your fingers through his hair. "You need to go pick them up at the hotel, and I need to take another shower. I don't think I have gone more than six hours without your cum dripping out of me since I told you I stopped using birth control."

Bradley groaned and helped you stand up. "I told you I was gonna keep you full, Baby Girl. Just wait until we're on our honeymoon."

"Oh, I have plans for you, Roo," you told him over your shoulder as you strolled naked toward the bathroom. He watched you spread the mess on your thighs with each step you took, but when he tried to follow you, he was met with your palm on his chest. "Go pick them up so my mom and I can make dinner," you said with a laugh before you disappeared into the bathroom and closed the door.

So he got dressed and went to the hotel to pick up your mom and dad. He took the scenic drive on the way back, letting them get a good look at the ocean and all the beach trails. It was a perfectly clear, sunny day, and Bradley hoped tomorrow would be just as good.

"How many are coming for dinner tonight?" your mom wondered out loud, already worried about the amount of food as Bradley pulled into the driveway.

"Should be eleven of us," Bradley replied before jumping out to open both passenger side doors for your parents. "It'll be okay. Your daughter is a kitchen wizard. She's got it all under control."

"Hi!" you called out when he led them inside. "Mom, I need help with this stuffing!"

And after that, Bradley was relegated to the couch with your dad to watch football and drink beer. The Baltimore Ravens were playing, and your dad was invested. And soon Payback arrived with some bottles of wine. And after that Coyote was there along with Jake. Pretty soon, Bradley was smashed into a spot on the couch between Nat and your dad, and everyone was talking and laughing at the same time.

Jake made his way into the kitchen with the offer to be the official taste tester. Mav, Penny and Amelia arrived with four different kinds of pies. The house was full and noisy, and Bradley knew it was all because of you. The only reason he was here and healthy and happy was because you loved him. You were the main reason he did anything now.

Bradley found you in the kitchen, laughing at Jake when he burned his tongue on some macaroni and cheese. As soon as Bradley smiled at you, there you were, in his arms. He just held you and rested his chin on your head.

Your mom turned away from the gravy she was making to look at you in his arms. "Please tell me you've decided on a wedding date."

Bradley opened his mouth to try to distract your mom, but you were already saying, "I think we should have a lot more information by tomorrow, mom. Can you help me set the table, Roo?"

"Sure, Sweetheart," he replied, reaching to gather plates and glasses for you.

You squealed at him as he followed you around the table, setting down plate after plate. "I don't think any of them know about tomorrow," you whispered with wide eyes.

"Just Mav. Just what we wanted."

"It's perfect! Seriously, Bradley. It's going to be so perfect!"

Then you were in his arms again, and Bradley's tongue was in your mouth. He was about to suggest a detour to the laundry room when your mom walked in, and Bradley tried to back away from you as he blushed.

But your mom was just laughing. "Maybe you two should just get married tomorrow. I'm surprised I don't have a grandchild already."

"Mom," you groaned, stepping out of Bradley's arms and finishing setting the table.

"What? With how beautiful you are and how handsome he is, I'll have the most adorable grandkids!"

Bradley just blushed more and mumbled, "I'm trying," before heading back to the living room.

But pretty soon dinner was ready, and you had everyone sitting at the table which was filled with food that you and your mom had made with minimal help from Jake. Bradley brought in your bottle of hot sauce, just knowing you'd probably want to dump it all over your turkey. The way your eyes lit up when he remembered to do silly little things like that, made him even more excited for tomorrow.

It was a tight fight for eleven people, and Bradley was sitting in a folding chair at the head of the table next to you. But it was actually kind of perfect. So he stood up for a beat to simply say, "We're both so happy to have all of you here. I hated holidays for a really long time, but now I like them again. So thank you."

Nat raised her wine glass and said, "To family." Everyone else raised a drink as well, and Bradley watched as your parents shared a kiss. He eased himself back into his chair and sipped his wine before setting the glass down. He reached for your hand and laced his fingers gently with yours.

"Thank you," he whispered, and your eyes met his, a puzzled look on your face.

"For what?"

He shrugged, searching for the right words as tears pricked behind his eyes. "Everything. You've made everything better."

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

WEDDING CHAPTER IS NEXT! I want to thank all of you so much, especially everyone who has been reading along with Roo and Baby Girl for a long time now. I have so much fun creating this little world that they live it, and you all make it even better! They have come so far together!

PART 20

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