#had to combine the two weeks cause i was on vacation >.<

[vixvaporub]

 February 27th to March 12th Read and Watched List:

Currently Reading:

Berserk - 314 to 325

Hirayasumi - chapters 25 to 32

Fuan no tane - volume 2, chapter 27 to 48

Qq Sweeper - chapters 3 to 5 

Updates:

A sign of affection - chapter 33

Mieruko-chan - chapter 49

Call of the night - chapter 162 and 163

Blue period - chapter 58

Witch hat atlier- chapter 67

Tamen de gushi - chapter 228

Juujika no rokunin- chapter 118 to 121

Gokurakugai- chapter 6

Bitten contract - chapter 67

Blood on the tracks - chapter 140

Spy x family - chapter 76

Shadows house - chapter 157

Completed/Caught Up:

My ultramarine sky (5 chapters + 1 extra, completed) cute bl about boys who were in the same class 5 years in a row and this is their first year in different classes 

Tasogare out focus (6 chapters + 2 chapters, completed) an ‘and then they were roommates’ bl

Meisou Senshi Nagata Kabi: Gourmet de Go! - (updating) another Kabi Nagata autobio about her struggles with an eating disorder 

Fruits basket - (136 chapters) as many of you know this is one of my favorite series that I will always hold dear to my heart, so sad to finish it >.< 

Chainsaw man - (chapter 121, updating) csm is definitely becoming one of my favorite shounen, when I read the series the first time I didn’t appreciate it as much as the second time around and after watching the anime

Tainted half - (40 chapters, completed) I was really enjoying this manhwa, felt like it was cut short but it was a good weekly read, a good historical story with some spice 

Yukemuri sanctuary- (7 chapters) anthology of oneshots about girls in a hot spring with some spice 

Hotaru no Yomeiri (6 chapters, updating) story about a lady with a heart condition that has a short time to live making an agreement to marry a professional killer

#vixupdates #had to combine the two weeks cause i was on vacation >.< #I'm hoping to read ph again now that I finish fb and csm

[yandere-romanticaa]

You sat on your bed and let the silence envelope you, the scrunched up piece of paper in your hand giving you some peace of mind but at the same time, if you took the offer, everything you knew could be changed forever. It was hard to focus on anything, not when the smile of that handsome stranger was still fresh in your memory like it was yesterday. A few weeks ago, you went on vacation to Japan for a week or so and it was by far one of the most magical things you had experienced. It was not because of the food, it was not because of the culture or anything related to that.

The absolute highlight of your trip was a mysterious man named Dazai Osamu.

Your meeting with him was accidental but he called it fate. After saving him from a near drowning incident the man stuck by your side like glue, regardless of the dirty looks your family gave him. He proclaimed himself as your make shift tour guide, claiming that who else was better qualified to show you all the amazing sights in the city than a hot blooded local?

There really was no beating that logic.

In the end, Dazai spent the week with you and your whole family as bonus baggage. Whenever he could, he would take you all for himself and have long talks, many of which were an odd combination of silly and soul touching. The man was strange, jumping from silly antics to a profound man who had seen all of the pain and suffering in the world who just wanted to give you some (perhaps not necessarily) helpful advice and show you a good time.

"I see that look in your eyes." said Dazai on your last night in Japan. The two of you were walking and stopped to rest near the river he almost drowned himself in.

How poetic.

You remember turning to him, confusion written all over your face but Dazai's gaze was focused elsewhere. His tone was flat, but not unkind.

"Tired. You look so, so tired."

That summed up your situation quite well. You were tired. Everything, everyone, it was just so much. No matter how hard you tried, nothing seemed to be going your way. College was giving you a massive migraine, in your head the upcoming exams were less like pieces of paper and more like massive tsunami waves, ready to destroy you right where you stood and leave nothing behind. Your social life was no better, having lost a good chunk of friends due to either life getting in the way or you simply drifted apart. Some things just weren't meant to be and that was okay.

When was it all going to end though?

When were you going to be allowed to finally breathe?

Your family was of no help either. The constant fighting and shouting, their words cutting deeper than knives. "You are a failure."

"You are not trying hard enough."

"Why can't you just do better?"

Without warning, you felt the soft touch of Dazai's bandaged hand on your cheek.

You didn't even realize that you had started to cry.

His soft brown eyes held nothing but pure sympathy for you, the thin smile on his lips causing the flood gates to burst wide open as you threw yourself into his arms, full on sobbing into his coat as the man said nothing. One of his hands made its way to your back while the other was still on your cheek, the wetness of it staining his white bandages but he didn't mind. He wasn't going to tell you, but you were pretty like this. In tears, broken, weak.

...In his arms.

He did not know you for long but Dazai grew fond of you over the past week. Was it love? He certainly thought so! Or, at the very least, the beginning of love. He wasn't sure what he was feeling but one thing was for certain - he wanted you to stay.

The universe was kind to him, giving him an angel whose wings were already so damaged. The moment he saw you, he knew that all you wished for was to flee and never return, to move somewhere no one knew you and start fresh, away from everything and anyone that ever hurt you.

Dazai saw the opportunity. He siezed it like a true devil would. He planted the seeds inside your head and you had no clue.

"You know, you can always just stay here." said Dazai, a slight smile on his face. "My workplace is always hiring and I'm sure you would be perfect."

Was this even real? His kindness was otherworldly.

Even so, hesitation ate you up like nothing else before. Do you choose to fight your demons head on or will you run away into the unknown? The paper in your hand was a letter of recommendation which Dazai had written for you, all that needed to be done was for you to commit to the bit.

With feeling as if there was nothing else for you to lose, you grabbed your phone and dialed the number that was written on the other side of the paper. At almost lightning speed a cheerful "Hello!~" greeted you on the other side.

With a deep inhale, you said three words which would change the course of your life from that moment forward.

"Take me away."

You couldn't see it but Dazai was grinning on the other side of the phone. With a click of his tongue, all he said was:

"Consider it done."

You hung up, a smidge of relief washing over you. You were more than ready to leave the demons which haunted you right here, in your old home.

And yet, you had no idea just how horrible the next demon which was going to follow you around was actually going to be.

🥀 TAGS: @yanroma, @oneoftheprettynerds, @misdollface, @sxy0ung, @rosemary108233, @c4xcocoa, @gettinshiggywithit, @ophticcus, @lakxcpsta, @ranposgirlboss, @robinaxolotl, @acornwinter, @enomane, @ishqani, @satohruu, @bluepeanutharmony

#this is a partial vent piece #I've not been doing well lately #yandere #yandere x reader #yancore #yandere imagines #yandere x you #yanderecore #yandere aesthetic #yandere scenarios #dazai osamu x reader #osamu dazai x reader #bungo stray dogs #bungo stray dogs x reader #yandere dazai #yandere dazai osamu #yandere bungo stray dogs #yandere bungou stray dogs #yandere bungo stray dogs x reader #bsd #bsd dazai #bsd dazai x reader #yandere bsd #yandere bsd x reader #yandere male

[outerbankies]

new light: head over heels — rafe cameron

new light masterlist

summary: You and Rafe make your first return to the Outer Banks after moving away for good, and it doesn't take either of you long to remember all of the reasons you left.

warnings: alcohol and swearing might be it?

a/n: HI HI HI!!! it's happening!!! posting this behemoth (22k-ish last i checked) and dipping immediately, because i'm still not done with season 3 and don't want to get spoiled on here. thank you SO MUCH for holding on for this one - and congratulations to everyone who voted on season 3 arriving before the thanksgiving fic lol. see u soon!!! (this takes place in new light present day)

“Are we really doing this?”

You roll your eyes, albeit fondly, as this is at least the fifth time Rafe has asked you the same question in the last two weeks. The first time was immediately after the flights were booked, the second before he formally requested the vacation time at work. He asked you for the third time when you requested his help in dragging your suitcases out of the closet, which he did begrudgingly. The next time, the fourth, was as you both waited tired and bleary-eyed at your plane’s gate, bright and early this morning at the airport. 

Now he asks you again, as the ferry between Chapel Hill and the Outer Banks starts pulling up to the dock. Passengers have already begun their descent down to the lower levels, to get their cars and queue up to disembark. But you and your boyfriend remain on the upper deck, observing your hometown as the ferry flushes itself to the dock.

“How many times do I have to tell you?” you ask, arms crossing over your chest.

“As many times as it takes for me to believe this was the right choice,” Rafe sighs, turning to look out at the coastline, back the way you came.

“We’re here now,” you point out unhelpfully. “We’re doing this. It’s only four days, baby. We’ve got this.”

“Four nights,” he corrects you, with a furrow in his brows. “Five days, if you count today.”

“Rafe, I’m not your enemy.”

He looks down at you, and you hate that you can already see all the signs of his stress. The missed signals, the tightness in his face and in his shoulders. It was an instant physical reaction to being back in town for Thanksgiving, a few measly months after you’d both left it behind. 

“I know,” Rafe says softly. He places a hand between your shoulder blades, guiding you into his hold, the beer he’d bought at concessions placed on a hightop table behind you. “Hey, c’mere. I know.”

As much as you know it’s your turn to be the strong one, you let him comfort you selfishly, just for a moment. You weren’t near the state Rafe was in, but you’d be lying if you weren’t feeling the nerves as soon as you boarded the ferry, too. It didn’t help that you’d just discovered the airline had left your bag in California, which Rafe swore was a bad omen. You don’t care what he thought it was, as long as he understood you’d be living in a combination of his clothes and whatever you left behind in your childhood bedroom until the airline could fix it.

At least you both have Captain for emotional support, sitting patiently between your legs, where he usually seems to fit himself. You’d become those people you’d always made fun of in your head, the ones that couldn’t leave their house without their dog. Sending him to the cargo hold in his crate was about as much distance as either of you could handle.

“Holy shit,” Rafe suddenly says, the hand he’d been rubbing your back with slowing to a stop. 

“What?” 

“Don’t look now, but our friends are fucking insane,” he chuckles.

Of course you look immediately—and sure enough, Kelce and Topper (plus Blythe), and Gretchen and Margot are all grouped together on the dock. You feel yourself smile involuntarily at them, tucking your face into Rafe’s chest bashfully. “They’re so embarrassing.”

He’s still laughing in disbelief, the sound resonating in your chest. “Why did they all come?” 

“‘Cause they love us,” you say simply. You have no idea how you’ll all fit in however many cars, or who’s even supposed to be driving you home, but you can’t find it in you to care as you finally disembark from the ferry with your dog, Rafe on your heels with his bag. 

“Finally,” Kelce says dramatically, once you approach the group. “I was starting to think you two were finally rain-checking my party.” 

“We’d never,” you say, just as dramatically, before you’re letting yourself get crushed in a group hug from your girlfriends.

“Can confirm,” Margot whispers conspiratorially to the group. “No baby bump.”

“You guys,” you laugh, pushing her wandering hand away from your middle. “Come on.”

“It’s a valid fear!” Gretchen cries incredulously, pressing kisses to both of your cheeks.

Then you trade spots with Rafe, to squish Topper and Blythe in your arms as well, and they squish you back just as hard. “We missed you guys so much. Please come visit.”

“You come visit,” Topper counters. 

“Tried a New England winter once, and I’m good for life, man,” Rafe says, before bringing Margot and Gretchen into his arms. “You guys have to come out.”

“Kelso,” you sigh, surprised to feel a lump in your throat when your best friend hugs you for the first time in you don’t know how long. Kelce’s career took him to Texas after college, and you’d definitely seen him the least out of all of them in the past year or so. “I missed you.”

“Missed you even more. How are you guys?” he asks, words coming out garbled through the squished cheeks you’re currently giving him. “How’s Rafe? Or do we talk later?”

“He’s good,” you tell him honestly. “On edge, you know. But good.”

“And how are you?” he says quieter, and you have to roll your eyes at his earnestness, if even just to prevent yourself from actually crying.

“I’m good, too,” you say, linking a pinky with his quickly. 

Kelce breaks out into a grin, squeezing your pinky back before bringing you into another hug. “You look a hell of a lot better than the last time I picked you up here.”

You detangle your hand from his in order to smack him on the back of his head while he just howls with laughter. It’s easy to look back on it—two years ago now—and laugh. But Kelce had been there for you and your broken heart, and sometimes you think his tough love was half the reason you and Rafe even made it back to each other. 

“Very clever,” you concede, before remembering something with a spark of excitement. “But tell me about you! When does she get here?”

Kelce’s cool demeanor fades when he becomes embarrassed immediately, reaching down to find solace in petting Captain, who seems to be just as excited about the reunion. “Wednesday morning. I’m driving out to the airport to get her.”

Therese was the first girl Kelce had actually told you about since high school, let alone brought home to meet everyone. You were so excited when he called to tell you that Rafe made you  promise to manage your expectations, but you couldn’t help it. 

“So she’ll make the party,” you realize excitedly. “Gosh, I can’t wait to meet her.”

“I’m nervous. Nervous, but excited,” he admits. “I don’t wanna overwhelm her. She’s meeting my parents, and then all of you idiots. All in one day.”

“Hey,” Rafe protests, suddenly slotting back into your side once he’s done fake boxing with Topper. “We are not.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” Kelce says, rolling his eyes. “Come on, you guys are riding with me. We have a table at the Island Club an hour from now, think you can manage that?”

You cut your eyes to Rafe, and he already looks a little loosened up after seeing everyone, and he just nods, shrugging his shoulders as if to say why not. “We can say hi to your parents and freshen up. Wheeze has school and Sarah won’t be in until tonight anyway.” 

It seems Rafe has no such plans to see his father any sooner than he has to, possibly not before Thanksgiving at all, you realize. You didn’t even bother to ask Rafe if he’d prefer to stay in his old room at Tannyhill or with you, knowing the answer already. But you’d naively hoped he’d feel comfortable enough to not avoid his father like the plague after some time away. 

“Yeah, we can do that,” you answer, looking back at Kelce with a smile to confirm. You let Captain into the backseat while Kelce takes Rafe’s bag, squealing in surprise when your boyfriend’s hands grip your waist firmly before you get in the car. 

“Hey,” he says quietly, just for you. The sea breeze has already mussed up his hair, and there’s something so comforting about coming back here with him, knowing you’ve always got someone in your corner. Rafe must agree, because he presses his forehead to yours quickly. “I love you.”

“I love you,” you say, giving him a peck modest enough that it won’t tick off Kelce or the rest of your friends piling into Topper’s Jeep beside you. “You can do this.”

“We can do this,” he corrects. “You know. I’m not letting you out of my sight.” 

— 

“I still can’t believe they put me up in the guest house,” Rafe whines, three Bloody Mary’s in, as you both exit the Island Club a few hours later. 

Kelce had given you the ride there, but you both opted for the walk back home, rather than wrangling any younger siblings for a ride. Dylan landed yesterday, but he wanted to have a talk with your parents alone and you needed to stop in at the store anyway. 

Rafe reminded you on the flight that Rose had asked you to make a pie again this year, and Captain was antsy from all of the travel; giving him a second to trot around in the fresh air seemed like a good idea.

You maybe should’ve mentioned it to Rafe sooner, that your mom had been planning to have the guest house—not even one of the guest rooms, but the actual house, which was an entire backyard away from the main property—made up when you asked to have him stay with you for the holiday. But he was already hanging on by a thread about this trip, and you knew he’d beg even harder to cancel if he found out he wouldn’t be crashing with you.

But the shocked look on his face that he quickly tried to hide as he watched your mom tell Dylan to take his bags to the house had absolutely been a little bit worth it.

The displeased grumbling all throughout lunch, maybe not so much.

“She knows we’ve lived together for almost two years now, right? And that before that, we were visiting each other in college all the time?” he prattles on, words growing soft around the edges, not yet to the point of syrupy slow. “And that before that, I was in your bedroom every other night?” 

“Everything but that last one,” you wince.

“So it’s about the house,” he realizes, the two of you now standing outside of the grocery store.  “Her house,” you correct. “Not until we’re married. Maybe she’ll let it go when we’re engaged.” 

Rafe’s face turns mischievous, and you wish that second round of mimosas hadn’t let you let that slip. 

“Noted.”

You roll your eyes, feeling heat flush your cheeks. “Stop. Are you coming in, too? I only need a few things.”

“You go,” he says, not not grinning at your flustered state. He raises your intertwined hands between you, pressing a kiss to the back of yours. Your eyes catch on his notably bare left hand. “Captain’s gonna get snatched up if we leave him tied up out here.” 

“I’m still so sad you lost that ring,” you tell him, pouting. 

Rafe didn’t seem to mind much at all when the gold cigar band went missing after a morning surf, but you were really gonna miss seeing the trademark piece glinting on his hand in the sunlight, or pressing cold into your skin. You’d been looking for replacements ever since, but he was in no rush. 

“It really wasn’t that big of a deal,” he promises, eyes leaving yours.

“It was to me. You’ve worn it forever. I loved that one,” you say, tugging on his bare finger, tracing where the indent was slowly releasing from his skin; the tan-line was pretty horrendous too.

“I know you did,” Rafe teases. “You ripped it off my hand to try on all the time. Maybe you took it.”

“Did not!” you gasp, offended.

Rafe just rolls his eyes, finally kissing the pout off of your lips. “Go, c’mon. Pie won’t bake itself.” 

You hand over Captain’s leash and walk in, still feeling flustered, like you do every time Rafe starts to talk about rings. The way you just barely dodge his ass slap—outside of the local health food store, for god’s sake—doesn’t do anything to help.

Thanksgiving wasn’t for a few days, but Rose had raved and raved about the pumpkin pie you’d brought last year, and you were feeling the pressure—you knew you needed to get a jump on the shopping, so you’d have time to fuck it up at least three or four times before deeming one acceptable.

There’s only so many options for pumpkin puree, but you discriminate over them tirelessly, half because you’re never not set on impressing Rose, and half because your mind is still distracted by Rafe and his “noted.” Things were serious between you about as soon as you started dating, but he’d really been pushing the marriage thing lately.

“Y/n?”

You drop whatever can of pumpkin you’d most recently scrutinized into your basket in near shock, thankful it lands there and not on the floor, all over the shoes of you and Rafe’s ex-girlfriend.

“Chloe,” you say, forcing a smile amid the shock. “Wow, hi.”

“Hey,” she says, pushing her cart toward you. “What a trip.”

It’s the holidays and your town is small, you were bound to see some familiar faces this week whether you wanted to or not, but you’re still in disbelief. “Yeah, um, wow. How are you?”

“Great,” she says, her voice resonating so clearly that you believe her. “I live in New York now, I don’t know if you heard.”

You don’t make a habit of keeping tabs on Rafe’s exes these days, and you and Chloe were hardly ever friends to begin with, so you can answer this truthfully. “No, I hadn’t, actually. But that’s great. Do you like it?”

“Love it,” she corrects, stepping forward to gather a few cans of the puree you’d just been eyeing. She picks them out without a second thought, mixing brands and haphazardly throwing them into her cart, lacking a care in the world, oozing self-assuredness. “I just needed that quick pace, you know? Don’t take this the wrong way, but I always felt like life was too slow around here for me. I wasn’t made for the Stepford life.”

You scratch the back of your neck awkwardly, finally deciding on a couple of cans that look like they’d pass the test to sit in Rose’s pantry that’s always oscillating between the newest diet. “Uh, yeah. No, I get it. It’s always nice to be back for the holidays though. We just got in today.”

That seems to pique her interest, and your head falls forward slightly when you realize your mistake. “You and Rafe? Last I heard you still lived in town.” 

“We did,” you nod. “For a year after grad. But we moved to California at the end of the summer, so.” 

“Wow,” she says, and a small part of you is satisfied that she looks off-balance. Chloe Merrick was never like that. Maybe your teenage mind had exaggerated it at the time in some twisted game of self-comparison, but it looks like it still rang true as she stands before you. Her heels make her stand taller than you, allowing her to look directly down her nose. Her full face of makeup and shiny hair makes you regret letting Kelce rush you out of the house with minimal primping. It’s like she reads your mind, her eyes flicking over your outfit. “Ah, now the outfit makes sense.”

You blink, looking down at your leggings and back to her in silence.

“Well, the traveling and all,” she says awkwardly, like she expected you to agree. “But California, that’s fun. I never thought I’d see Rafe leave the OBX. And it’s nice that Ward lets him work remotely.” 

You can’t hide your discontent at that, because Chloe doesn’t know Rafe well enough at all anymore—and probably never really did, for that matter—to make assumptions about where he’d end up in life, or insinuate that he’d be under Ward forever. “He doesn’t work for his dad, actually.”

When she fish-mouths, you have to look away to not let it get to your head, focusing on the rest of your grocery list on your phone. 

But she clears her throat, and that perfect smile slots back into its rightful place. “Well, we can see how long that lasts.”

The last thing you want is for Chloe to think she’d made it under your skin, or that she’s in anyway correct about you or Rafe, or that you’d care at all what she’d think about either of you. So you cock your head to the side innocently, steeling your expression as best you can. “How do you mean?”

“Oh, be serious, Y/n,” she says, pretenses officially dropped. “Rafe got the perfect, cookie-cutter Figure 8 life he always wanted. And he got it with you. I doubt he even knows how to want anything else.”

Chloe and Rafe dated for six months. Six months of avoiding him, avoiding both of them, toiling over your feelings alone, and associating way too many soundtracks to your teenage angst with the entire situation that there’s still a few songs you won’t touch to this day. 

You’ve loved him for years, and she really thinks she knows him better.

“It’s a good thing you weren’t made for that life, then, isn’t it?” you say, slowly backing away. 

She falters, again, and you know thats your cue. “Nice seeing you, Chloe.” 

—

Spring Break, 6 years ago

“Can I sit here?”

Topper’s eyebrows lift in surprise, but he gestures to the seat across from him readily, tucking his outstretched legs in. “Of course you can.”

You cast one last look at the rest of the small, private plane—Gretchen and Margot, occupying the credenza, looking at you in utter confusion when you give them a half-assed shrug, Kelce looking similarly confused in the club seat opposite the aisle from Topper when you decline a seat near him too, and Rafe and Chloe toward the back, right across from the girls. 

You meant to get to the tarmac the earliest of all of your friends to pick your seat first. But you couldn’t get to bed early enough the night before and slept through almost all of your alarms, and somehow arrived last. 

“What, didn’t wanna watch them play footsie all flight?” Topper quips, following your gaze, and you’re reminded exactly why you chose to sit next to him. 

For the last three months that Rafe had been dating Chloe, everyone in your friend group had been treating you with kid gloves. Everyone except Topper Thornton. To be completely fair, Kelce knows you best of them all, and Gretchen and Margot may or may not have witnessed a drunken breakdown at a girls’ night two weeks ago (that they swore they’d never speak of). 

But there were still the sad eyes, the wayward glances whenever Chloe walked into the room, the less than discrete subject changes and conversation redirectors. You knew it came from a good place but you were sick of them assuming they knew your feelings. And you knew Topper would never dare assume your feelings, let alone act on it. 

He was a constant, the one you’d known longest out of all of them. But that didn’t mean you were the closest, and maybe that’s what made it perfect. Maybe Topper couldn’t read through your bullshit, or maybe he just didn’t feel the need to. Either way was fine with you, if you were going to survive this week. Kelce’s parents had offered up their rental property in the Hamptons to your friends, and after just narrowly convincing Gretchen’s dad to let her go this year, the friendship group had remained in tact, even welcoming one new member.

“Not my cup of tea,” you finally answer, settling into your seat, which was perfectly facing away from the rest of your friends. You pull your hoodie up over your head anyway, tucking your legs under you and opening the window shade.

“I’m probably going to be a boring seat buddy. I got zero sleep last night,” Topper tells you around a yawn. 

You can feel your eyes begging to flutter closed after the lack of sleep you got last night, when you were already toiling over the week that lie ahead. So you settle into your seat more, resting your head against the back of your seat. “Perfect.”

—

It made sense to cling to Topper a little bit after that.

At first, you merely opted to ride in the Uber he requested from the airport, ignoring Kelce’s second betrayed look of the morning when you didn’t pile in with him. But then you also sat next to him when you stopped at the seafood shack on the way home. 

You loved Topper for his obliviousness, but later that night, he still picked up on enough to move the decorative pillow hogging the spot next to him on the loveseat when everyone was gathering around for a movie night.

Topper was quiet, calm and safe—a breath of air among the suffocation you were feeling lately, and that’s all it was. 

And when he’d gone to the gym with Kelce in the morning, you figured you could find solace in a book out on the back porch instead. Rafe and Chloe were unaccounted for, their PDA and softened tones not to be missed by you any time soon, and Margot and Gretchen were still asleep when you left your shared room that morning. 

You obviously hadn’t gone as far as bunking with Topper for the week, but you pulled a pretty good “gosh, I’m so tired” act when you finally slipped into your bottom bunk below Gretchen, turning away from Margot across the room to face the wall. Prying eyes easily ignored.

You don’t possess an ordered list of who you’d most like to be opening the screen door only two chapters into your book that morning, but Chloe Merrick was decidedly not very high on it.

Before Rafe started bringing her around, you never knew enough about Chloe to make anything of her. She wasn’t in any of your classes, but Kildare Academy was small enough that you’d heard of her here and there. She ran in other circles from what you could tell, and she was always nice. You hadn’t heard it from Rafe’s mouth first, but Kelce’s. 

He’d lobbed it out into the open during a study session, and you’d brushed it off to move to the next question, not opting to face it until you had to at the next Boneyard party, when Rafe officially brought her into the group. You aren’t proud of the decisions that you made that night, between getting over-served on beer you didn’t even like and almost macking on a pogue who was cute enough before going home and making yourself very familiar with Chloe’s Vsco account. Pictures of Rafe in the sunset, holding ice cream cones, sitting in the cab of his truck—it’s a miracle your drunken thumb didn’t slip and blow your cover. 

“Hey Y/n. Mind if I join you?” she asks. You’d never say no, but the thumb holding your book open twitches when you hear the door shut again immediately. Followed by her footsteps—she didn’t wait for an answer. 

“Of course. Are you having fun so far?” you ask her, when she settles into the chair beside you.

“So much,” Chloe says. “Kelce’s place is sick. I feel silly that I was nervous when Rafe asked me here.”

“Nervous?” you ask. “Why?”

“I guess I just always thought you and Margot and Gretchen were so… cliquey?” she says without preamble. “I mean, me—I’ll make friends with anyone.”

“We’re not really a clique,” you say, laughing lightly to mask your discomfort. “We’re close, but there are no initiation ceremonies here.”

If she could tell you were joking, she doesn’t show that she picked up on it, shrugging instead. “I don’t know, you’ve always seemed so… reserved, the group of you. Especially you. I swear, I hardly ever see you without one of the crew inside.”

“They’re my best friends,” you say, matching her shrug. “I’ve known most of them since we were kids. It’s just always been like this.”

“I’ll take your word for it that there wasn’t a group vote on bringing me here,” she says, letting you off even if she doesn’t believe you. And you don’t think she does.

An incredibly awkward silence ensues after that, and you blurt the first thing that comes to mind to eliminate it. “How are things with Rafe?”

“Good,” she says, her eyes suddenly lighting up, your stomach twisting into the knot that had made its home there recently. “Really good. I like him a lot.”

“I can tell he likes you a lot, too. You guys are great together,” you tell her. “I’ve never seen him… well, he’s never really been very serious with anyone, I don’t think.” 

“Yeah, that’s what he said,” she says. “And I was surprised, honestly, I thought… well, can I be straight up with you?” 

“Yes?” you say, maybe against your better judgment. 

Chloe’s eyes shift away from you, and she shakes her head at the thought. “I kind of always thought you guys had a thing for each other. If not dating, at least hooking up. Like, I honestly thought Rafe was lying to me when he denied it.” 

You blink slowly, waiting for a punchline to hit, waiting for her to laugh in your face. To revel in the fact that she tricked you into ever thinking anyone would think you had a chance with Rafe. That he cared about you in that way at all, to the point where other people would pick up on it. But that never comes, and Chloe finally looks at you again, prompting you to speak. 

“U-us?“ you ask, picking at the spine of your book. “Rafe and me?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, no,” you counter, catching up to the purpose of this conversation, getting past the confusing mixture of guilt, surprise, and maybe even giddiness that someone could make that mistake. Someone who likes Rafe enough to pursue him could mistake your friendship for anything beyond that. “No, we’re just friends.”

“Well, yeah, but…” she trails off. “I don’t know. I sensed a vibe, like most people at school I think.”

“Most people?” you ask, feeling your eyes bug out of your head. 

“Yeah, when I told my friend Riley—you know her?”

“I… think so?” you say, hoping not to feed into the cliquey thing, but ultimately failing. Chloe seems unsurprised, but you can’t focus on that right now.

“I dunno, I had a crush on Rafe for a while but could never really get a read on it. She told me I was crazy, that you two have basically been dating since you could walk,” she explains. The tips of your ears start burning.

“We haven’t,” you clarify. “We really, really haven’t.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” she says, a touch dramatically, almost leading you to believe that this isn’t something she’d put to rest after talking with Rafe about it.

That thought—that realization that she’d talked with Rafe about it, about you—sends you into a  quick spiral. You imagine how he must have reacted—did he laugh? Would Rafe laugh about something like that? 

You realize you’ve let the silence drag again, and as you trip over your next question, you wish you would’ve never come to read out here this morning. 

“So did he—did Rafe… Rafe must have made the first move then, right?”

Chloe scoffs, smiling like you’re naive as she places her hands behind her head. “Why? Because he’s the guy?”

“No, no,” you say in a rush. “Of course not. You can totally make the first move. I just meant, if you thought we were together…”

“Oh. Yeah,” she says, now carrying your embarrassment. “Well, I guess it doesn’t matter now, since things changed and we’re official and whatever. At first, I kind of just wanted to hook up with him.”

“Ah,” you say quietly, your book twitching in your grasp, your thumbnail digging into the hard cover. 

“We were at a party. And I think you were gone, which is probably why I even got his attention in the first place. At least in my mind, at the time,” she explains, but you don’t believe it, not entirely. How Chloe could ever feel threatened by you is beyond you, so you assume it’s something else. “And I don’t know, I just decided ‘what the heck, he’s so cute. He can tell me to fuck off if he wants to.’”

You can’t imagine Rafe talking to her like that, or you like that. Or any girl like that. But you nod along, wondering how much more of this you even want to hear. 

“But he didn’t. And he didn’t even want to hook up,” she says, shifting herself to gain a sliver more of sun. “I mean, yeah, we kissed at that party. But considering everything… I don’t know, I was confused. Like why stop there?”

“Right,” you say, finally deciding to shoot it straight. “I’m not trying to judge, Chloe. But just to clarify, when did you find out we weren’t actually dating?”

“After macking, you know I kinda asked him… like, what’s going on here? Everyone who was there saw us. And your entire group was there besides you,” she reminds you. And then she laughs. “And he was so confused.”

You fake a chuckle, your worst fear all but confirmed, feeling white-hot shame creeping up your throat. “I bet.”

“He’s like ‘I’m not with her. I wouldn’t be kissing you if I was with her,’” she imitates, making Rafe seem stoic and serious, which wasn’t very familiar to you. “‘She’s just a buddy.’”

It stings but it isn’t as horrible as you’d thought it’d be—not that Chloe would be keen to offer up anything else of interest. But you’re itching to cut your losses, pretend this conversation never happened, because Rafe is just your friend.

“Well, he’s right,” you say, opening your book again, finding that your place on the page was lost.

“That’s when I knew I wanted more with him. I could tell from the way he talked about you that he was a good guy, and that he’d be really good to me,” Chloe says.

“Yeah, Rafe’s a great guy,” you agree, the loose wicker material on the couch beneath you suddenly of interest. 

“He is,” she agrees again. “It’s weird the way things worked out, but I’m happy. And sorry I thought you two were a thing all this time.”

“It happens,” you shrug, going back to pretending to read. “I think it’s just common when girls and guys are friends. People mistake Kelce and I, too. Even my mom asked me if I had a thing with Topper.” 

You were joking, attempting to steer the conversation away from dangerous territory, but when her eyes light up you know you’re anything but home free.

“That’d be sweet,” she says, and you’re surprised by the earnestness in her voice. “You and Thornton. I’ve seen y’all attached at the hip lately.”

“Oh, no… I don’t think so,” you say, embarrassed. “Top’s just a friend, too. Our parents go way back.”

You return to your book again, still feeling thrown off by the entire conversation, especially Chloe’s admission, your mind in overdrive trying to fill in the missing pieces of that conversation she must have had with Rafe—conversations, plural? How many times had they even talked about you? The thought alone makes you want to book a flight home tonight, and hide from Rafe until you could leave for the airport.

“If not Topper, then who?” 

Your thoughts momentarily clear again, and you look back at Chloe. “What do you mean?”

“Rafe’s mine,” she reminds you, like it’s something you’d ever forget. “Kelce has that waitress at the Island Club.”

“Sidney,” you say.

“Sidney, right,” she nods. “But is there anyone for you?”

“There you are.” 

Rafe appears on the deck just then, suited up in what looks like hiking gear. You never let your eyes linger long, but you especially don’t in the presence of his girlfriend, even if you’re rather interested in the way his sky blue shirt probably accentuates his eyes. 

“You ready, Chlo?”

“Hey, almost,” she answers, standing up.

“Oh, hey, Y/n/n,” Rafe says, like he’s noticing you for the first time. “You wanna come hike with us?”

“No,” you say easily. “I’ve got my book.”

“We’re talking about who we’re gonna set Y/n up with,” Chloe says, and her arms snake around Rafe’s waist. He places a hand on her back, but he looks over at you with mirth in his eyes. 

“Oh yeah? Who?”

Chloe smiles at you. “Well, I suggested Topper.”

You cringe when Rafe laughs. “Yeah, okay.”

“Why not?” Chloe says, pouting at him. You turn away, but you can still hear the smack of their lips.

“She’s too smart for him. She’s too smart for all the guys at our school,” he says.

“And I’m not?” Chloe says, and her tone gives you goosebumps.

You stand abruptly, gathering your book and the towel you’d come out here with. 

“Have fun on your hike,” you say. “I’m gonna go read down on the sand.”

“See you when we get back,” Rafe says. “You’re playing poker tomorrow night, right?”

“Maybe,” you shrug. 

“Oh, c’mon,” Rafe goads. 

“She probably just wants to read her book,” Chloe says. 

You say nothing to that, waving them off as you turn and make your way down the path to the beach to do exactly that. 

—

The truth is, you do end up spending much of that weekend with your nose buried in books, thankful you’d had the foresight to pack extra on top of the one you’d been in the middle of when you left. And the time you don’t spend reading, avoiding rooms that both Chloe and Rafe are in, or sometimes even just one of them at a time, you spend with Topper.

“What are you gonna get?”

“You know, I’m not really that into coffee, Y/n/n,” he tells you regretfully, wincing when you give him a shocked expression.

“What? Why did you let me drag you here?” you ask, your hands fluttering around you, motioning to the coffee shop you’d found yourselves in. The coffee shop, newly opened not even a mile down the road from Kelce’s parent’s house, had been under construction last spring break. You’d driven by it every time you all went in and out of town, bummed you’d just barely miss the grand opening over that summer, but all the more excited to come back and try it next year. Rafe had been excited too, when he promised the two of you could hit it up first thing this year. But things had changed since then, and it was hard not to notice the plastic cup dangling from Chloe’s hand when she and Rafe got back from their hike.

“You didn’t drag me here,” Topper rolls his eyes, motioning for you to move forward in line. “It’s nice out. We’ll probably be stuck inside the rest of the trip when that storm rolls in, and I already feel all cooped up in the house.” 

“Tell me about it,” you sigh, your eyes scouring the menu for anything without coffee or espresso for him. “You could get a matcha?”

Topper grimaces. “Get your coffee. Don’t feel bad. We can hit that ice cream shop down the street after this if you’re not in a rush to get back to the house.”

“Fine with me. Do you know what we’re doing today?”

“Kelce is probably gonna FaceTime Sidney. Margot and Gretch are probably…” he trails off, checking his watch “…at Soul Cycle right now, and are gonna come home and nap until it’s dark. Who knows with Rafe and Chloe. I think we’re on our own until poker.”

“Mm,” you hum noncommittally. “You gonna play?”

“I’m stealing everyone’s fuckin’ money,” Topper claims. “You?”

“I don’t really know how,” you shrug.

“There’s not much to it. Once you learn the rules, you just can’t let anyone know your hand,” he explains. “You’ll have fun. And I’m sure Rafe’ll give you a crash course.”

Your smile dims, and you’re lucky that it’s your turn to order your drink. Topper waits with you, holding the door to the shop open while you take your first sip. 

“Is it everything you ever dreamed?”

“S’okay,” you shrug, swilling the milky drink around, falling into step beside him on the crowded sidewalk. 

You don’t mean to spend the entire day out of the house—honestly. But it’s easy to after you get Topper his ice cream, you take it down to the beach together, talking about your families, college, and Topper’s last surf competition and betting on when Kelce is going to give this Sidney thing an actual try. You tease Topper about Emily but he just pushes you over on the beach towel you’re sharing, and you return the favor when he commends you for your away game at the Boneyard. 

And it gets even easier when Topper convinces you to finally test your newly minted fake ID at some beach club that’s just down the shore, promising to buy the first round (of whatever “frilly rosé” you want) if you’ll just stand up straight and try your luck with the bouncer. 

“Be fucking cool, Y/n/n—act like you’ve done this before,” he laughs, ushering you toward the outdoor bar to deliver on his promise. 

You make sure to return the favor by batting your eyelashes at a group of college boys that feel inclined to buy you a drink. They must not be able to tell you aren’t old enough to have a true drink order yet, or maybe they just don’t care when they start talking about inviting you out to to their boat. That’s when you decide to give Topper the signal, where he’d already been watching you from across the beach anyway. He quickly peels you away, finding two straws for whatever god awful concoction thee boys had ended up ordered you at the bar.

And after Topper picks up the tab for a couple more rounds of frilly rosé—which might have turned into full bottles at some point—because, go figure, he starts to get nervous about one of the bottle girls eyeing you both suspiciously, a sunset swim in the ocean before the storm settles in somehow seems like the best idea you’ve had in your drunken lives. 

The French fries and onion rings you share on your walk home are an even better one though, all the way up until the sky cracks open in the down pour you’d been outrunning all day when you’re hardly a block away from the house.

After the lack of worrying you’ve done all day, you don’t think twice about drunkenly stumbling into the house with your friend. It can’t be any bigger of a deal than whatever flack you’ll get from Margot and Gretchen over it later, but you realize your tipsy giggles and wet feet slipping against the floor is so incredibly loud because the house is silent, the rest of your friends looking at you from the dining table with a variety of looks on their faces.

“Oh. Hey guys. Poker time?” Topper asks, still mowing through the rest of the food you’d picked up, the way the paper bag had gone soggy doing nothing to deter him. 

“Try an hour ago,” Kelce says, eyes flicking between the two of you. “You’re dripping all over my mom’s floor."

“Is it that late?” you wonder, leaning back to peer at Topper’s phone when he takes it out of his pocket, thankful for his hand on your back when you stumble. 

“We tried texting you, Y/n/n,” Margot says, her eyes cutting to Gretchen, who nods, a nervous smile on her face. 

“Sorry,” you say sincerely, but a hiccup gets you toward the end, and you hear Topper chuckle behind you.

“Are you guys… drunk?” Rafe asks, his tone of voice not exactly accusatory, but definitely confused. And the way he’s asking isn’t funny, because if you had a clear head you might think he’s genuinely concerned. The way Chloe’s sitting in a separate chair and still somehow practically in his lap, looking like a dog with a bone not because of that, but because of the way you and Topper are touching, is also nowhere near humorous. 

But Topper’s suddenly got the giggles, and maybe it’s how uncomfortable this entire situation is that makes them so contagious, but you can’t control your own when he finally answers, “why would you think that?” 

“Jesus Christ,” Margot mutters at the two of you, placing her cards on the table to rub at her temples. 

“Are we dealing you in or not?” Kelce says, and you can’t believe your ears when you detect disappointment. 

“Next round?” you try, already heading for the stairs, unsure of who’s eyes you even want to avoid anymore, but deciding it’s probably safest to choose all of them. “I really need to shower.”

“Same,” Topper says, already following you up. 

“Kelce,” Chloe stage whispers. “Don’t interrupt them.” 

Rafe doesn’t stage whisper, because you catch what he says even when you and Topper go your separate ways at the top of the staircase. “He’s not interrupting anything, Chlo.”

—

You don’t know if Topper rallied to join the poker game last night, because the rosé and the sun and the swimming and the running had really caught up to you in the shower, and it was all you could do to brush your teeth before climbing into bed before even drying your hair. 

Getting to bed earlier than everyone, you thought you’d enjoy the downstairs of the house to yourself the next morning, the sound of the rain against the large window panes actually soothing to your impending headache—but you have no such luck.

Rafe is already at the coffee pot, back turned, sans any semblance of a shirt, and you stop so suddenly that your foot catches on the floor loudly, accidentally alerting him to your presence. 

He twists around, assessing your pillow messy hair while rocking his own, awarding you just the tiniest smile. “She lives.” 

“Can you brew a pot?” you say in greeting, already foraging for a mug and the creamer, peeling your eyes away from golden skin.

“I got you,” he says, adding more grounds. Your head aches with every jilted step you take, and you're suddenly reminded why you should always abide by ‘wine before liquor, never been sicker.’

You’re at a loss, surveying the kitchen for some sort of medicine stash when Rafe opens a drawer, tossing you a bottle of Advil.

“Thanks,” you mumble, taking it with you when you slump into a seat at the breakfast bar, pressing your head into the cool tile of the kitchen counter. The only sound in the kitchen after that is the drip of the coffee into the pot, and you suddenly realize this is the first time you’ve been alone with Rafe this entire trip. 

“Here.”

Rafe sets a glass of water in front of you, and then to your absolute horror, leans over the counter in front of you, muscles in his arms straining. You toss back a few tablets and a gulp of water so huge your eyes sting, setting it back down before another wave of nausea hits you.

“Thanks,” you repeat. 

“This place is nuts,” Rafe says. “Can’t even imagine it in the summer.”

“Probably looks a lot like Kildare,” you mumble. “But bougier.”

“True enough. You good?” he asks, not looking appeased when you nod. “What’d you and Top get up to anyway?”

“Coffee at that place. Top wanted ice cream. Went to this beach club,” you mutter, hiding your face in your hands, stomach turning at the thought of alcohol. “He peer pressured me into that one.”

“I’m sure he did.”

“He can be very convincing. I can see why he’s thinking of law school,” you sigh, rubbing at your eyes as you recall the rest of the day. “Then, um—oh yeah, went swimming. Got dinner.” 

“Where?” Rafe asks, and you shrug, wondering when you’ll be able to take this coffee up to your room and crawl back into bed with it.

“It gets patchy after that.” 

“Right,” Rafe sighs, and you hear him shifting around, fidgeting against the counter so aggressively that you can feel it. “He should know better.” 

Your hands fall from your face, your elbows holding you up as you scrutinize him. “What?”

Rafe shrugs, head dipping. “You guys were out alone, not picking up your phones while he’s getting you drunk—probably around a bunch of dickhead frat boys at whatever stupid beach club. There was a storm coming in off the coast, we had no idea where you were and you’re drunk and swimming in the ocean. He know should better. You should, too.”

Your eyes narrow. “I told Gretchen and Margot when I left, and they have my location. Also, I know how to swim.” 

He turns to face you. “I’m just saying—”

“No,” you say, surprising yourself when you don’t let him talk. “Top’s one of my best friends, yours, too. We wanted to get out of the house and got caught up, but we were fine. We were at a bar, not jumping off of the lighthouse or at some random house party.”

Rafe smiles like you’re being ridiculous, a look you aren’t used to receiving unless it’s in jest, and it makes you feel so much smaller than you’ve already felt all week. “Just looking out, Y/n/n. People were worried.”

“People?” you ask incredulously, pushing your palms into the counter to stand-up. “Like who?”

You tear your eyes away from where Rafe has fish-mouthed, sensing someone else’s presence in the kitchen. 

“Hey, you,” Chloe singsongs, strolling into the kitchen in a shirt you recognize.

The pressure behind your eyes is building, the voice in your head screaming at you to get out of here now, coffee already forgotten. 

“Have fun with Topper?” she asks.

“Chloe,” Rafe says pointedly.

“Tons,” you answer, not waiting for either of them to respond before booking it out of there.

—

The storm in Montauk that week was nothing a couple of Outer Banks kids weren’t used to, but the same couldn’t be said for the power lines on the street where Kelce’s parents’ house sat. 

You’re reading, holed up in your room when the power flickers off, all of the appliances that had been humming suddenly silent, making the sound of the rain even clearer. 

“Shit,” you mutter to yourself, realizing you probably can’t hide out anymore.

You turn your phone flashlight on and make your way downstairs, where you’d left everyone after dinner. Things had loosened up in the group as the day wore one, but you hadn’t said a word to Rafe, and the eyes his girlfriend kept giving you and Topper were only making matters worse. 

There’s already a couple of candles lit when you make your way downstairs, shining your phone flashlight on the path in front of you so you don’t trip. 

“Can I help with anything?” you ask Kelce, who’s sitting at the kitchen table on his phone.

“My dad says there’s more flashlights in the closet by the laundry room, could you grab a few?” he asks.

“On it,” you say, putting aside whatever silent battle the two of you had been fighting since you got on the plane to come here.

Kelce’s face looks grateful, illuminated by the candles Gretchen was setting up all over the lower level. “Thanks, Y/n/n.”

It doesn’t take you long to find the closet, right by the laundry room as Kelce had said. You swing the door open to begin investigating, sighing heavily when you see a row of flashlights on the top shelf. “Mother—”

“Fuck.”

The door nearly smacks you in the face, a force pushing it back toward you suddenly where you stand in front of the closet. “What the fuck?”

“Ow,” Rafe groans. “There was a door there.”

“Oh shit, Rafe,” you whisper. “Are you okay?” 

You try to find your phone where you’d left it on one of the shelves so you can shine the light, but he grabs your arm suddenly, trying to get his bearings.

“Shit, sorry—it’s dark as fuck in here,” he says, still sounding like he’s in pain. “Kelce sent me over here to get flashlights.”

“They’re here,” you say. “In the closet.”

“Right. The closet with the door I just introduced myself to.”

“You’re sure you’re okay?” you ask. You couldn’t even tell how close Rafe is to you right now, that’s how dark it is, but his grip on your arm and the way you’re sure you can feel his body heat is enough to have you forgetting all about the conversation you’d had earlier, until he brings it up.

“Are you okay?”

“I didn’t just smack my head on a door,” you laugh lightly, using the arm he’s holding to guide him out of the way, the two of you standing in the laundry room.

“I know—fuck. I’m gonna have a mark,” he says. His touch leaves your arm suddenly, and then you see the flick of a lighter meeting the wick of a small votive candle, which he sets on the washer. 

The two of you are modestly illuminated then, and you see no mark, but you do see the regretful look he’s sporting. 

“I’m sorry. About this morning.” 

“Oh, it was no big deal,” you shrug.

“No, it wasn’t, and I shouldn’t have acted like it was.”

“S’fine,” you say. “I’ve been in a bad mood. Probably shouldn’t have even come out here this week.”

“No, what? Don’t say that—everyone wants you here.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Bad mood or not, Y/n/n—this trip wouldn’t have been the same without you. Top would be lost at sea, most likely.” 

You can’t help but laugh at that, even if Topper is the strongest ocean swimmer out of all of you. Rafe would have him beat in a pool, and he loves to remind everyone of that. 

“I was being… dumb, I don’t know—it’s…” Rafe sighs, his eyes focused on the candle flame flickering between you as he pauses. “Chloe really seems to think you and him have a thing for each other.”

“I told her we don’t,” you groan, ready to try your luck at getting those flashlights on your own, or even returning to Kelce empty handed. 

“I did too,” Rafe assures you. “But last night, I don’t know. I can tell her to cool it, if you want me to.”

You don’t know what possesses you to lean forward, your hand pushing up the hair that had fallen over Rafe’s forehead to investigate the mark forming. You underestimate how close your bodies are in the dim lighting, your midsection brushing against his.

“Am I bleeding?” he asks, his voice hushed.

“No,” you say, retracting your touch, backing into the washer, mindful of not knocking over the candle and sending the house up in flames. “Um, top shelf. Can you reach them?”

“Can I reach them?” Rafe says haughtily, passing them to you as he swipes them off of the top shelf with ease. You hope it’s bright enough in there for him to see you roll your eyes. 

“Come on,” you say, clicking one of the flashlights on.

“Wait, Y/n/n,” he says, his touch soft on your elbow when he tugs you back toward him. 

“What?” you ask, turning to face him again, the way the candle flame lights up his face no less endearing.

“We’re okay, right?” he asks, his tone almost pleading. 

He sounds so earnest, you want to drop the flashlights you’re holding and throw your arms around him, assure him that you’re always okay, always, and that you could never be angry with him for anything. You don’t though, because you almost forgot he has a girlfriend just around a corner somewhere, and you sincerely Rafe Cameron never discovers he can have you just about anyway he wants.

“Yeah,” you say, turning to keep walking back toward the living room. “We’re okay.”

—

Present day

Your parents didn’t open their home to the Outer Banks’ bustling social order often, but your mother really went all out when they did. That might be why you grew up accustomed to peers awkwardly asking you if your mom had mentioned anything about a guest list to you—like she ever would—sent to you to do their parents’ bidding around the holidays. 

Tonight was such an occasion, where you’re expected to have every hair in place, exacerbating the missing suitcase issue. 

Rafe is already splayed across your bed in his shirt and slacks, cuddled into your old throw pillows like he never left, nursing a glass of some sort of dark liquor your dad had dragged him into the study for on his way up here. “There has to be something in here you can wear.” 

“Right now,” you observe, angrily sifting through your closet in just your undergarments. “We’re down to my old school uniform or my prom dress.”

“They’re basically tied in my head,” Rafe calls.

“Neither of them fit.” 

“Even better,” he goads. 

You roll your eyes, wanting to be annoyed but failing to fully get there. You’d been distracted all day, ever since your run-in at the grocery store. Finding something wearable from the remains of your adolescent wardrobe ought to be the best distraction, but it’s nothing compared to the one taking up your bed.

The distraction walks into your closet then, setting his drink on one of the built-in shelves and taking your hips into his hands, tucking himself in firmly behind you. “Come on. There’s gotta be something.”

The door bell goes off again in the distance, and you huff in frustration. “I can’t believe she kept my deb dress.”

“She did?” he asks, reaching around you to hold the tulle in his hands. “She did. Wear this one. I was your date in this one.”

“I was also eight years younger,” you quip, unceremoniously flicking past it. “And I’m not wearing my deb dress to a cocktail party.”

“What gives, Y/l/n?” 

You whirl on Rafe, who sips lackadaisically at his drink, eyebrows raised. “What?”

“You’re being weird. You have a hundred dresses in here,” he says, shrugging. “And you don’t care what anyone downstairs thinks.”

“My mom does,” you remind him, a feeble attempt at an excuse.

“Hey,” he says softly, finger bumping your chin upward. “What is it? Really.” 

“Ugh,” you groan, pushing him aside so you can cross your closet, finding a dress that might be an actual contender. “It’s so fucking stupid, Rafe.”

“What is?” he says, slightly amused as you take it off the hanger. 

“I ran into Chloe at the store,” you say, not checking for his reaction in the full-length mirror as you slip your dress on. It wouldn’t be the most flattering fit, once you zip it up.

“Today?” Rafe asks, and you hear him set his drink down again.

“Yes, today,” you answer, turning to check your figure from the side, then dropping the dress in a huff, stepping out of it and kicking it to the side.

“Okay,” your boyfriend says, seemingly unperturbed. “How did that go?” 

“Nothing, it was nothing. It was fine,” you say, attempting flippancy as you move past him. But he grabs your elbow, pulling you to a stop. He’s a vision in his simple but handsome get-up, and you realize it’s been a while since you’ve seen him all dressed up. Lucky you, you think, scanning him from the ground up. 

“Y/n. It doesn’t sound like nothing, or that it was fine,” he says. “Why didn’t you mention it?”

“It’s not like it’s a big deal,” you say, twisting your fingers around each other. “You guys—well, it was forever ago, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” he says. “Quite a forever ago. A couple. I feel like we’ve lived a couple since then.”

Much like this conversation, there’s a dress hanging in the corner that you’d been tip-toeing around all night. You know it’d be perfect—maybe a little snug but just in all of the right places. You had it stashed here in case something like this were to ever happen. You overthought everything, and it was finally coming in handy. 

You smile up at him briefly before you move past him to take it off the hanger. It slips right over your shoulders and falls exactly how you knew it would. 

“I just got in my head about it,” you say, shifting your hair to one side once you’re standing in front of the mirror once again. Rafe takes the hint, working at the zipper dexterously. “She was always kind of a bitch, wasn’t she?”

“Babe,” Rafe laughs, shocked. You turn to look at him.

“What?”

“Nothing. You’ve just never spoken ill of her before,” he says, pushing your hair behind your shoulders. “It’s kind of refreshing.”

“Why?”

A blush dusts the high points of his cheeks, and he’s swirling his glass again before taking a long pull. “I mean, I nearly laid your ex out at family dinner.”

You bite your bottom lip, recalling that moment in the wine cellar as clearly as if it happened yesterday. You hadn’t seen or heard from Theo since then.

“We don’t have talk about it,” Rafe quickly adds.

You nod gratefully, letting the moment pass without an answer.

“But forgive me if it’s nice to see a little jealousy from you every once in a while,” he says, pressing a kiss to your head.

“Jealousy?” you say, your eyebrows furrowing. “I… that’s not…”

Rafe looks at you expectantly, smile slowly growing as you fail to vocalize what you’d actually been getting at. That seeing her again had stirred up a deep hurt in you, a hurt he was responsible for whether he knew it or not. And that no matter how much you had healed from it—or how deep you’d buried it—all it took was one run-in with her to bring it all back, memories of Kelce’s Hamptons house occupying your mind all afternoon.

“Sweetheart, it’s alright,” Rafe assures you, eyes searching your face. “I know you love it when I’m jealous, but I kinda just want to keep you up here all night.” 

A knock sounds at your bedroom door, muted from where you two stand in the closet still.

“Come on,” comes Dylan’s voice. “Mom told me to drag you out of here, and I’d rather die.”

You huff, turning off your closet light and waiting for Rafe to follow. Your jewelry is already on—you’d kept it simple with your R necklace and a tennis bracelet from your college graduation. Your shoe selection had also been bleak, and you reluctantly slip into some old wedges. It was hardly attire you’d usually wear to one of your mom’s soirées, but it would have to do for both of you.

“You look beautiful.” 

Your shoulders drop slightly, and you don’t fight your smile. “Thanks, baby.”

Rafe waves a hand as if to tell you not to even mention it as he guides you through your bedroom door. Thankfully, Dylan is nowhere to be found.

“And I’m just saying, I’m so not opposed to seeing the Academy skirt later.”

“You perv. It was standard issue.”

“You rolled it up. I know you did.”

“Everyone did,” you tell him, making your way down the stairs with your boyfriend on your heels. 

“I wasn’t looking at everyone.”

“You make me sick,” you jab, elbowing him softly in the ribs even as you feel your cheeks fill with warmth. 

“You make me sick. Lovesick.” 

“Rafe.”

Rafe’s smile drops at the sound of your father’s voice, his hand moving from where it had slipped dangerously low on your back up to the middle, before falling away entirely. “Hi Mr. Y/l/n.”

“Would you help my wife with the trash in the kitchen?” 

You jump in immediately, hand finding Rafe’s arm. “Rafe’s a guest. Can you ask Dylan to do it?”

“I’ve got it, sweetheart,” he murmurs, before leaving your side at the bottom of the stairs. 

“Thanks, son,” your dad says, patting him on the back as he goes. Rafe turns back to you briefly, a prideful look on his face, eyebrows raised in a way that makes your heart speed up faster. 

—

I’m so cold

my mom should’ve put extra blankets out?

She did. Still

suck it up buttercup

Pretty sure Cap misses you too. Whining at the door

noooooo my baby :(

What about me?

Your simple reply is a shrugging emoji, and Rafe smiles as he tosses his phone to the side on the bed. It really is cold in here, but Rafe might have exaggerated it a little. He could definitely throw some sweat pants on, but he’d rather complain until you ask him to come up. That way there’s no guilt on his part if he gets caught. 

But you don’t appear immediately interested in that, so Rafe does opt for pulling a pair of pants on. Which was a big mistake, because his dog immediately stands where he actually had been whining at the door, ever since Captain realized he wouldn’t be going back to the main house with you. 

“I know, bud,” Rafe sighs, leaning down to scratch behind his ear. “I miss her, too.”

Captain whimpers, louder this time, and Rafe realizes he won’t get much sleep tonight if he keeps him out here. It’s late enough, right? Your parents must be asleep after that party, and it’s not like Dylan would rat him out. He takes one last look at his cold bed, then looks back at his dog, who’s still swishing his tail in anticipation. 

“Alright. Let’s go.”

The pair walk through the dewy grass and back to the main house, and the back door that sits just below your room is miraculously unlocked. And it’s easy enough to keep Captain quiet, even though his excitement builds the more he’s able to realize what’s going on, far and away the noisiest thing in an otherwise dark and quiet house. 

“You’re gonna blow our cover dude,” he whispers, closing the back door as softly as possible. He can see through the house to the base of the stairs, they’re almost home free. He can figure out his escape plan in the morning if needed. 

“Rafe, how nice of you to drop in.”

Rafe cringes inwardly, feeling his shoulders drop a couple of inches as he turns toward the study, where your father leans in the doorway. “Hey, Mr. Y/l/n.” 

“A little late though, isn’t it?” Will teases, checking his wrist watch. 

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry, I just wanted to let Captain up. He’s been whining,” Rafe says, willing the blush to fade on his cheeks, and hopeful the late night light won’t catch it anyway. 

“Right,” your father says, nodding his head with a slight air of condescension, eyes narrowed. “I’ll give you five minutes.”

“That’s perfect,” Rafe lies, deflating further. “I’ll be back in no time.”

“I know,” your dad says, turning to head back into his office. 

Rafe feels himself going out on a limb before his brain can even process if that’s the best idea. But he’s cold, and he feels a little weird about things with you, and if he were a dog he’d probably be whining ten times as loud as Captain was. “Mr. Y/l/n, with all due respect—”

“This better be good.”

“We live together. We have for over a year now,” Rafe points out.

“I know.”

“And I mean,” Rafe ventures, slightly embarrassed but still willing to go the lengths. “It wouldn’t be my first time spending the night in her room.”

“As far as my wife is concerned, it would,” your dad says, raising his eyebrows significantly. 

“Okay, but—”

“Five minutes,” Will says, with finality. 

“Yes, sir,” Rafe says. 

He leads Captain up the stairs—well, Captain leads him, really, right to your door. He knocks softly, hoping you hadn’t fallen asleep in the last ten minutes. 

“Jail break,” you gasp, once Rafe pushes the door open. You smile when Captain runs to greet you, who collects the attention he desired before finding the bed in the corner of the room, curling around Wilbur. 

“Unbelievable,” Rafe says, walking toward the bed. He leans over you, not letting himself get in because he knows he won’t be able to get out. “Hi."

Your giggle settles something that had been anxious in his stomach all evening, sending you looks across the room when you were out of his reach, talking to your dad or any one of your mom’s friends. Your arms lock around his neck for a quick second, and he tucks his face into your neck. 

“Hi. Thought I heard the back door.”

“The warden downstairs gave me five minutes,” Rafe says, unable to keep himself from smiling when you laugh too. 

“How generous of him,” you say, shuffling to the side the make room. But Rafe doesn’t let you, because that’s dangerous territory. 

“No, I can’t. You’re too warm and you smell too good and I’ll never make it back downstairs in time,” he explains, burrowing his face back into your neck. He feels goosebumps form, and he fails at his only goal of not getting lost in you, pressing his lips into a spot that’s been known to drive you wild.

“Rafe,” you warn, your voice already gone slightly breathy. 

He pauses after a minute, planting one last kiss. “Question for you.”

“Mm.”

“What’s the waiting period here?” he says, propping himself up over you again. You blink slowly, and he loves witnessing the daze he put you in start to evaporate. “Like, if I proposed to you right now, would I be allowed to sleep over tonight?”

You narrow your eyes, and the moment is over, Rafe chuckling as you push him off forcefully. “I hate you.”

“No you don’t,” he says. “Not even a little.”

“I hope you freeze to death in the guest house,” you tell him, already rolling over onto your side to face away from him, the little huffs only endearing him more. “Please unplug my lights on your way out.” 

“Don’t even joke about that,” he says, leaning over you again. “That’s a real possibility.” 

“There should be a space heater in one of the closets. Or maybe you can call Chloe. I’m sure she’d love to warm you right up,” you quip. Rafe falters for a moment, until he leans over just enough and sees your wry grin.

“I have to go before your dad calls Shoupe back over to arrest me, but we’ll unpack that tomorrow morning. Bagels?” 

“Nothing to unpack,” you say. “But yes to bagels. Good night.” 

He heads back down, after unplugging your lights as he was asked to do. You flip him off when he says good night at the doorway, but still answer his ‘love you.’ 

Rafe already detests the cold that awaits him back at the guest house, can almost feel it settling into his bones again. Maybe he should’ve toughed it out with Captain in the end, because he could’ve produced some extra body heat and Rafe wouldn’t have had a chance to remind himself what he was missing in the main house.

He makes no attempt to tip-toe past Will’s office, wanting his loud footsteps to echo just so your father knows he kept his promise.

“Rafe, a word?” Will calls. 

Fuck. Rafe checks his watch, wondering if it had been longer than he thought. He pops his head inside. “Sorry. On my way out now.”

“No, I don’t care about that,” he says, waving a hand. He gestures to one of the chairs in front of him. “Have a seat.”

“Yes, sir,” Rafe agrees, dropping into the seat closest to the door. He sits quietly while Will continues working on his computer, a deep furrow in his brow.

“How was the birthday trip? To uh…” Will asks, doing the snapping thing he always does when he’s thinking out loud. “Aspen? No, that’s not right.” 

“Telluride,” Rafe corrects, nodding at Will’s ‘ah.’ “It was amazing. Y/n flew my sisters out and everything. They can’t ski to save their lives, and I’m hardly better, but we all had a great time. Y/n was very patient with them.”

Your dad smiles, and Rafe lets the silence hang there until it’s clear enough that he’s waiting to find out what this is about. 

“I know it’s late. I find it so hard to corner you when you’re over here. She hardly lets you out of her sight,” Will says after a while, leaning back in his chair, hands clasped over his middle. 

Rafe feels his spine straighten immediately, but he tries to disguise at his readjusting his position in the cushioned chair as he fumbles for a response. “Yeah, Y/n… um. You know.” 

“Mm,” Will hums noncommittally. 

“Why would you need to corner me?” 

Your dad smiles; he loves to freak Rafe out and he always succeeds. Rafe wishes he wouldn’t make it so easy for him, but he never wants to be caught out of step. “How’s the new job?” 

Rafe clears his throat before he chokes on his own spit. “Did… Y/n mention something?”

“Well, obviously that’d be between my daughter and me.”

“Right, of course,” Rafe says, feeling his right leg start to jump up and down softly. That was by far your least favorite habit of his, and he wishes you weren’t upstairs right now so you could tell him to cut it out.

“But she said you were thinking about getting out of development,” your dad clarifies. “Are you?”

“More like thinking about thinking about it,” he says, laughing awkwardly. “Um, no, yeah. Things are fine at the new place; it’s a lot of what I’m used to. Just a different market, completely different. So it’s a change of pace, and it’s good.”

“Is it fine or is it good?” Will asks, tilting his head in consideration. Rafe hasn’t had a proper job interview since his college internships, but this is beginning to remind him of that in an eerie way. 

“It’s good, for now,” he says, daring to be honest. Although he almost feels hurt that your dad even knows any of this. Rafe had merely been spitballing—merely—when he’d mentioned this to you in the past. Development was what he was good at it, it was what he knew. It was all he ever knew, but he didn’t love it. Rafe had been suspicious of that to some extent for a while, and he figured it might go away once he moved companies. But even without his dad breathing down his neck, his heart wasn’t in it. Not like yours was when it came to publishing, not like Topper’s when it came to medicine. Kelce pulled 60 hour weeks often, and Graham was entry-level at some newspaper that underpaid him criminally, to the point he walked dogs on the weekend. And you were all happier than Rafe was. 

He knew it was temporary for him, but he hadn’t made any concrete plans of when or how to get out, and where he was going to go from there. And that apparently hadn’t stopped you from divulging all of this to maybe the second person he’d rather you not, after his own father. 

“But not forever,” Will finishes for him. “So what’s next?” 

“I don’t know how much she told you…” Rafe tries. Will doesn’t budge. “But I guess she had some friends over, and she—well, I make furniture, you know? Uh, woodturning was just a hobby I had in college at first.”

“Right, I knew that.”

Rafe nods, because it shouldn’t surprise him but it still kind of does—he doesn’t even know if his own dad knows that, but he can make an educated guess.

“And then I started doing it for Y/n/n. With our porch swing we left at the old house, and then our bed frame, her bookshelf, I made both of us desks, plus a couple of side tables—”

“I get it, Rafe.” 

“Sorry, yeah,” Rafe says, message received. “But anyway, a couple of her friends were over once, and some of them asked about a few pieces.”

“To buy?” Will asks.

“Yeah, to buy,” Rafe says proudly. “And they’re friends of hers, so I’d have done it free after materials. But they all insisted. So I had to work out some pricing scales and all of that pretty quickly.” 

Will nods, and the unease at being thrown into this conversation before he’d even realized he’d have to have it one day—because of course your father is going to wonder about Rafe’s career and finances—is slightly eased by the thought he might be impressing him. 

“Good money?”

“Listen,” Rafe sighs. “I don’t want to give you the wrong idea about anything, because I don’t know the first thing about freelancing or maybe owning a business? It’s not anywhere near that yet.”

“You could figure all of that out, and I could help you,” Will says, clasping his hands together. “But would it be something you want?” 

“I’m realistic, sir. It’s not something I’d consider as anything other than a side gig,” Rafe says carefully.

“Okay,” your dad says, nodding in consideration. He leans over his desk, elbows pressing into the wood. “So that leaves your actual career… where?”  

“Well—you know, uh. I’m fine working where I am,” Rafe says, before being prompted to add more by Will’s expectant stare. “But not forever. I think the goal is to move more into the contracting side one day.”

“Hm,” your father says. “Get out from behind the desk.”

“Exactly,” Rafe breathes, relieved he seems to be understanding him now. “Maybe do things on my own, or with a couple of partners. I used to work with my hands a lot in the summers, travel to sites all the time. I don't know... I miss that.”

“I see.”

Will doesn’t give him much more than that, which leaves Rafe to fill the pause with his nerve-y internal monologue. “Mr. Y/l/n, I hope it doesn’t come as a surprise to you that I intend to be in your daughter’s life forever. And if you’re worried that one day I won’t be able to take care of her—”

“I’m not worried about that,” Will says, waving the thought away. “I won’t pretend to know the financial situation your parents have left you in, nor do I want you to feel like you should tell me. But I know hers, and she’ll never have to depend on a boyfriend for anything. Ever. That was intentional.” 

Rafe nods, because he know Sarah and Wheezie will probably receive the same treatment when that day comes. He never expected it for himself, but especially not now. 

“And to be honest, Rafe, we’re only having this conversation because I believe you when you say that’s your intention. To be in her life,” Will continues. “But you aren’t exactly… on the same playing field as her, are you?” 

��Not to my knowledge,” Rafe says quietly, looking down at his hands, fidgeting with the newly empty spot on his finger. 

“Which is perfectly alright,” your father rushes to say. “Don’t get me wrong. But that’s why I like to know these things. it’s important to me that she isn’t in a situation where she could be taken advantage of.”

Rafe looks up at that. “You have to know I’d never do that to her.” 

“But I want her to be with someone who will hold their own,” Will clarifies. “It’s only fair.”

“All of this would be settled before I made anything official,” Rafe says. Truthfully, he’d never thought this far into it, in his own head or even talking it out with you. But it’s a no-brainer that Rafe would want to feel stable before you officially joined your lives together, and especially before you brought children into it. “She doesn’t need to count on me, but I want her to be able to."

“I’m just being a father, Rafe,” Will reminds him. “If you have a daughter, or any kids one day, I hope you’ll see where I’m coming from.”

“I’m sure I will.”

Will flicks a hand toward the door, which Rafe takes as his cue to leave, the adrenaline draining from his body in a seconds. “Do what you need to do.”

Rafe shakes his hand before he leaves, stopping by to look at the landing that would take him back up the stairs to your room, wondering if he should risk the wrath of your mother so he can ask you what the hell that was about.

—

The grass crunches softly underneath your boots the next morning, and you feel a twinge of sympathy for Rafe, wondering if he hadn’t been exaggerating about the temperature out in the guest house after all. You know it can be drafty out there, but Rafe ran warm. Even still, you dig your hands even further into the pockets of the vest Rafe had loaned you as you make your way to the guest house, dogs left in the main house while the two of you just went into town to grab breakfast for your family. 

Rafe texted you that he’d come to the main house to collect you, but you opted to come out for him early, just because you wanted to and you missed him.

You make it to the door step before the front door sweeps open, Rafe’s shoulders dropping when he sees you. “I thought I was coming to get you.”

“I missed you too much,” you joke. Rafe’s lips twinge interestingly, like he might have smiled any other time but somehow wouldn’t this morning. He already has his sunglasses on so his eyes can’t give you any indication of his mood, but you still feel comforted by the easy way he slips his hand into yours, kissing the side of your head.

“You ready?”

“Let’s go,” you say, trying to muster your own smile. Rafe must not notice, because he looks like he’s a million miles from here with you as he leads you to the car. 

It isn’t like you to bring things up first usually, but with Kelce’s party tonight and Thanksgiving with both of your families tomorrow, you need to be on solid ground with Rafe. And more than that, you want to be. You want to be able to lock eyes with him across any room, nudge his foot under any table or squeeze his hand in any secluded hallway, and know that you’ll make it out alive.

“Did you want to talk about the Chloe thing?” you ask, the silence too much to handle after only five minutes in the car. 

“Chloe?” Rafe murmurs, sounding lost. “What?” 

“You said you wanted to talk about it today, so,” you shrug, grasping for nonchalance and feeling like it’s far from your reach. “We can talk about it.” 

“Oh, right,” he breathes, adjusting his grip on the steering wheel. “Alright, yeah. What did she say again?” 

“I hadn’t told you what she said yet,” you remind him. “And it wasn’t really even about what she said, honestly. Maybe a little, because she seems to think about you a lot still and definitely had something to say about it—but anyway, like I said, it was more about, like—”

“Babe,” he cuts in. “If it’s important, I need you to spit it out.” 

You recoil. “It’s important, Rafe. I wouldn’t bring it up if it wasn’t.”

“Then what was it?” he asks, no remorse in his tone, only frustration. “If she didn’t say anything, did she look at you wrong or something?”

You never expected Rafe to trivialize you or your feelings, no matter how many times you’d done it to yourself in the past few days, and the world outside of the car suddenly seems colder.

“No,” you snap. “It was more about the fact that she tried to hook up with you even when she thought we were dating, and you knew and still went out with her after the fact.” 

Rafe seems caught off-guard. “What are you—do you mean when we were kids? When we were 17?” 

“I was 16,” you add pettily. “And I didn’t say it was rational. I told you yesterday, it’s stupid.” 

“Then why are we talking about it right now?” he asks, exasperated. 

You can’t help but reciprocate his frustration, even if you don’t find his warranted. “Because yesterday, you said—”

“It was years ago, Y/n/n,” he interrupts.

“I’m not an idiot, I know it was,” you say. You’ve had enough at this point, and you’re more than suspicious of his suddenly rude behavior—a world of difference from the guy who snuck up to your room just last night just to tell you he loved you. “Why are you being like this?”

A muscle in Rafe’s jaw ticks, and that’s when you know he’s really upset about something. He pulls into the parking lot outside of the cafe, turning to look at you as soon as the car is in park. “Because I’m a little concerned that we’re spending so much time on bullshit that happened in high school when last night you were apparently telling your dad I’m about to quit my job so I can freeload off of you.”

You pull back, mind reeling at the abrupt topic change. “What? I didn’t tell him that.”

“Really?” he says, and you get the sense he isn’t waiting for an answer. “Then where did he get the idea that he needed to lecture me about not taking advantage of your trust fund?”

Rafe gets out of the car, leaving you speechless and scrambling to follow him. But he comes around before you can even get that far, waiting for you to get out of the passenger’s side with agitation radiating off of him in waves. 

“Rafe, I never—”

He shuts the door. “When I told you I was thinking about doing something different—literally just thinking about it, Y/n—I didn’t think you’d run and tell Will.” 

“We—no, Rafe,” you say, still scrambling to find your footing on the defensive. “No, we were just talking at their party. He asked about you.”

It’s hard for you to remember on the spot, and because until now it was so incredibly insignificant to you. You had a spare moment with your dad in the midst of your mom’s soiree—he asked about Rafe and his new job, so you told him. 

He stuffs his hands into his pockets, his tongue in his cheek. “So you told him I might need you to bankroll my pipe dream. Got it.”

Rafe turns to enter the restaurant, and the stubborn way he holds the door open for you just angers you even more—like he knows he’s being ridiculous. The two of you join the queue, a few inches separating you. “We’re talking about this at home. We’re not gonna be that couple fighting at the bagel shop.”

“Oh, good. Maybe we can ask your dad to join,” he bites sarcastically. “Fuck it, Dylan can come too. Might as well hear what everyone thinks.” 

“Rafe,” you warn, weary of anyone within earshot. It’s early enough that there aren’t many people around, but you can’t believe his behavior.

“We’ll talk at home,” he concedes.

You stand beside him in silence while the line inches forward, wracking your thoughts for anything you could’ve said that would sic your dad on Rafe like that. You were close to your dad and you shared a lot with him, but you’d never share something that would make Rafe uncomfortable; you knew how important that relationship was to him. You’d honestly just been proud to share something so exciting with him, that Rafe had recently turned a hobby into something more. That people saw what he was capable of and wanted to pay him for it—that he was starting to see himself outside of Ward’s web. 

“Y/n,” he calls, and he’s standing at the register, grasping a single take-out cup. “Dylan wanted almond milk, right?” 

You nod affirmatively, and he turns back to the cashier to hand it over. The rest of the order you’d called in is on the counter before him, he’d been checking it over just to make sure all of your family’s orders were correct. 

“I’m sorry about that,” he apologizes, but the employee waves him off, leaving temporarily to fix it. 

Rafe reaches for his wallet, and a thought occurs to you. Before you can think of it you’re reaching into your jacket pocket. “My dad gave me his card.”

Rafe scoffs gently, a disbelieving smile pulling at his lips. “I can pay for it.”

“Rafe, it’s all of my family’s stuff.”

“I wouldn’t have agreed to go get it if I wasn’t fine paying for it,” he insists, teeth nearly gritted. “Drop it.” 

“That’s ridiculous—” 

The cashier giving the total interrupts your bickering, and the precarious glance he casts between the two of you as he puts Dylan’s coffee back into the drink carrier makes you want to crawl out of your skin. You do the next best thing, grabbing the drinks and leaving Rafe to get the food as you stomp outside.

You’ve been pouting for a full 30 seconds before Rafe even joins you, putting the food in the back seat, and you can tell he takes one look at you and decides not to press it, not saying anything at all until you’re back in your parents’ driveway. 

“I know we were gonna spend the day together,” he says quietly. “But I think we should split up after breakfast. Cool off.”

“But your sisters…”

“Will understand,” he finishes. A sad, little smile graces his lips. “And be even more excited to see you tomorrow.”

“What about Kelce’s party?” you say, grasping at anything.

“I’ll come get you,” Rafe sighs, tugging his hat off to run a hand through his hair. “Or I can meet you there, if you wanted. I just need to clear my head, baby.”

You pull out your last defense, out of desperation but also genuine worry for him. “And you’re fine to go to your dad’s alone?”

“Mhm,” he quickly answers, twirling your keys in his grip. “Did it for like 20 years, so…” 

“Yeah,” you agree, swallowing your hurt when you realize he’s really serious—that even facing Ward alone isn’t enough to deter him from leaving you right now. “That’s fine. I should get to baking. Without distractions.”

“Good,” he says, finally stepping out of the car. You use the time it takes Rafe to come around to the passenger’s side to suck in a sharp, deep breath, bottling up tears so instinctual you hardly even realize they were coming before he opens your door for you. 

“Good,” you agree, stepping out to follow him without meeting eyes.

—

“What’s with all the pies?” 

Dylan plops unceremoniously onto the kitchen counter, almost as unceremoniously as he had strolled into the kitchen. You’d made four pies in an attempt to recreate the one Rose had loved last year, but at least you were down from your grand total of nine last year.

“Don’t ask,” you groan, rinsing the last of the dishes in the sink. Dylan sits with his side profile to you. “But take as many as you want. Just don’t touch the one in the garage fridge.”

He points at the one next to him. “What’s wrong with this one?”

“Too sweet.”

“I can live with that,” he decides fishing two forks out of the drawer beside him, passing one off to you.

“What’s up?” you ask, the two of you picking at the rejected pie.

“Nothing’s up. Why does something have to be up?”

“You don’t usually go out of your way to occupy the same space as me unless Rafe’s here. Or if I fucked up,” you add.

“Well did you? Fuck up?”

You shake your head silently, shrugging with innocence when your younger brother gives you a look. “Promise.”

He narrows his eyes, but shakes his head, too. “Your luggage came. I didn’t haul it upstairs. Rafe can get it.”

“Mm,” you murmur, distracted. “Sounds good. That it?”

He sighs roughly, a loud rush of air, tossing his fork into the pie tine. “I told Mom and Dad. About Everett.” 

Your ears immediately perk up at the mention of Dylan’s new boyfriend, but you try to contain your emotions as not to spook him. “You did?”

“Yeah,” he breathes, smiling so unabashed it makes your heart melt, your own woes temporarily forgotten. 

“And?” you push gently.

“You were right,” Dylan admits, rolling his eyes. “They were all over me about when they can meet him and what he’s like and what his parents do and… yeah, all of it.”

“Dyl,” you say. “I told you.”

“I know,” he sighs, scratching at Wilbur’s ear. “I know.”

“Does this mean he’s gonna come here? And we can double date?”

“You’re joking, right? He’s never coming here,” Dylan laughs at you, like it’s a dumb idea.

“Why not?” you pout. 

“They’re gonna run him off,” he says. “With bloodlines and prenups and just bullshit.” 

You roll your eyes, even though he’s correct. “You’ve been dating for, what, three months?” 

“It’ll be four in a few days,” Dylan admits quietly, only letting you hug him for a record three seconds before he’s pushing you away. 

“Look at you. They can be a lot, though,” you admit. “I probably would’ve waited until my wedding day if Rafe wasn’t from here.”

“Where’s the Rafester anyway?” Dylan says, suddenly peeking around the kitchen, like Rafe’s going to pop out of the pantry suddenly. 

 “Thankfully not around to hear you call him that,” you quip. “He fled.”

“Smart guy,” Dylan laughs, then looks at you in consideration. “You guys okay?”

“We’ll be alright,” you sigh, shrugging. 

“Ev’s gonna have his work cut out for him. They already love Rafe so much,” your younger brother sighs, cringing lightly. 

“Yeah, they do,” you say softly. “But they’ll love Everett, too. As long as he treats you right. And doesn’t have any tattoos.”

Dylan winces and your eyes widen. “They’re not visible. Easily. They’re not… easily visible.”

“Oh my god,” you cry, closing your hands over your ears. “Not my baby brother.”

“Oh, grow up,” Dylan says. 

Your chuckle is cut off when a couple of texts comes through on your phone, two curt messages that make your heart speed up slightly. “Fuck.”

“What is it?” your brother asks. 

“Nothing—um, nothing bad,” you amend, mind racing—any thoughts of Chloe or your dad or Dylan’s boyfriend suddenly forgotten. “I just have to get ready. Will you pretty please go get my bag?”

Dylan groans, heaving himself off of the counter anyway. “Fine.”

—

It was foolish of Rafe to think Tannyhill would offer him any kind of solace. 

It was great to see his sisters, to hear about school and their friends and Sarah’s new internship and Wheezie’s college choices for the half hour alone he had with them before Ward came home, even if it had been permeated by their disappointment and worry at your absence. Which was of no bother to Ward, who seemed more cheery than normal to have Rafe alone, to get under his skin and ask about California without you around to take over, jump in, or just hold his hand under the goddamn table so he know’s he’ll be alright when all is said and done. 

So it’s no wonder he ends up at the Lodge eventually. Topper wasn’t leaving Blythe’s side and Kelce was off to pick up his girl, and Rafe felt a little too raw to invite anyone else along. 

So he’s alone at his hometown bar on the afternoon before Thanksgiving, because in the last 24 hours he’d transformed back into the scared little boy he always felt like he was on this island, running from everything and everyone. Running from you.

And it’s foolish of Rafe to think he ever could.

Because he’s on his third round from his favorite bartender—the one who’s been serving him since he was seventeen, who took look one look at Rafe as he’d pushed open the door at this dive and poured him his calling card—when the door swings open, spilling sunlight and a breath of fresh air into the otherwise dark space.

Your suitcase clearly made it to you at some point today, if the houndstooth mini skirt is anything to go by. It’s hidden by the long coat you’re wearing, but Rafe can tell the black turtleneck you’re wearing looks just as good on you as the sheer black tights and knee-high boots you’re wearing do. The literal definition of a tall drink of water stands before him, and every sorry soul hiding out in this shithole when they ought to be home with their wives can look, but they can’t touch. 

“You found me,” Rafe starts, shifting a toothpick around in his mouth. 

“Sarah said you didn’t last an hour at Tannyhill,” you respond flippantly.

“I guess I’m more surprised you came inside,” he scoffs, shaking his head. Charlie makes his way down the bar at this point, glancing at Rafe before focusing his attention on you.

“Can I get you anything?” 

You shuck your coat and Rafe bristles—he’d been right about the top—throwing a significant arm over the back of your chair as soon as you seat yourself at the bar next to him. 

You lean forward on your elbows, surveying the contents behind the bar before glancing at Rafe’s tumbler unsurely. “Whatever he’s having.”

Charlie raises his eyebrow and Rafe lets out a chuckle, shaking his head. “No. Vodka soda, Smirnoff or better. Anything else, don’t bother. And two limes.” 

Charlie nods before he walks off to grab a bucket, and you slouch in your chair, no fight put up. “Probably shouldn’t have anything, honestly. We need to jet.” 

“Why’s that?”

You roll your eyes. “Did you check your phone once today?” 

He furrows his eyebrows, because he hadn’t. It’d been on do not disturb, but your notifications wouldn’t have been affected by that. “No, why?” 

“It’s Kelce.”

“We’re still going to that?” he asks in wonder, because he really wasn’t sure anymore. It’d be smaller than it was in year’s past, your absence definitely more noticeable. But neither of you were one for putting on appearances, and it wasn’t exactly the easiest crowd to conceal things from anyway. He checks his watch, noting the early hour. “He’s not even having people over for a few hours.”

“He called it off,” you say, finally looking at him. 

“What?” Rafe asks. Charlie comes back with your drink, and you thank him with a a sweet smile, only taking a small sip before you swirl the straw around and try to cover up a nose scrunch once his back is turned. Rafe feels something loosen in his chest, observing you sitting here in a bar you have no problem telling anyone who asks that you detest. All for him.

“Therese isn’t coming.”

Rafe leans toward you, retraining his focus on the task at hand. “To his party?”

“To the Outer Banks at all,” you say, your eyes full of emotions, ever the empath. “She cancelled her flight this morning.”

“Oh fuck,” Rafe breathes, sliding a hand over his face once it clicks. “Fuck.” 

“Yeah,” you agree quietly, taking another sip, probably just to be polite. “He’s screening my calls, but I doubt he’s taking it well. Topper and Blythe are already over there.”

“We need to get out of here,” he decides, already looking for his wallet. He throws way too many bills down between both of your unfinished drinks, checking his phone for missed texts from Kelce. From Topper too, plus a few calls. None from you. “Who’s car?”

“Dylan dropped me off,” you tell him, slipping your arms into your coat when he holds it out for you. “So mine, since you took it this morning.”

Rafe winces. “Your car’s still at my dad’s. I drove my truck here.” 

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Didn’t really plan for this scenario,” he says sheepishly.

“So, what? You were gonna drink all day and then drive yourself back to Tannyhill? And then come back over and let me get in the car with you?” you huff, turning to exit with an eye roll. Rafe races to catch up, barely catching the door when you fling it open. You stand with your arms crossed, stilling on the sidewalk, and Rafe realizes you don’t know where he parked.

Your questioning is logical, and leads Rafe to realize this is probably the only way this day would’ve ended, with you somehow making everything alright. But that’s what he’s supposed to do.

“Baby, I’m sorry,” Rafe begins, not even sure what he’s apologizing for yet. “I wasn’t thinking.”

“God, Rafe, it’s fine—I know you wouldn’t—ugh,” you sigh, aggravated. But then you reach out and take his hand. “I know we have shit going on right now, but I want to put it aside for tonight. For Kelce’s sake.”

Rafe swallows, nodding, suddenly very sober. He strokes a thumb along yours, reveling in your touch when you don’t reject him. Rafe squeezes back. “Yeah, of course.”

—

It’s a scene all too familiar to him—Kelce’s backyard, where he's sharing a short, glass-top table with Topper, the two of them lounging in a pair of matching Adirondack chairs. A few years ago, Rafe might be rolling up a joint in his lap, trying and succeeding at peer pressuring Topper into partaking with him. But things have changed, and all that sits between them is two tumblers of dark liquor, more expensive than they’d have ever spent their own money on back in the day. But both of their dads’ liquor cabinets were always fair game in both of their eyes.

And instead of perusing the backyard—discussing anyone who caught their eyes—Topper has a lapful of longterm girlfriend, while Rafe’s is just inside. 

Kelce had been in a state once you two arrived tonight—weird, quiet, shutdown. Far from his usual, especially tonight, his self-proclaimed favorite day of the year. You’d taken one look and pulled him into his parents’ living room to talk it out. That was your forte, so Rafe had quietly slipped out to the yard to find solace. Besides, he wasn’t feeling too inclined to dole out relationship advice right now.

“He wouldn’t want us to feel bad for him,” Topper says, and Rafe nods along in agreement. “But I can’t help it. This shit sucks.”

“Yeah,” Rafe sighs, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.

“She didn’t have to wait until the last second,” Blythe says, and Rafe looks over to see her shrug. “Well, it’s true. If she decided not to come today, she’d probably been hesitant for a while. She didn’t have to let him get his hopes up.”

Rafe can’t argue with that, and he wonders if this could be the end for Kelce and this girl. Because he might have a hard time moving past this one, should he ever get the chance to meet her. He knows you will.

“People get weird around the holidays,” Topper explains. “Families and whatever. It’s hard.” 

“How can I forget your first time meeting my parents?” she teases. Topper’s cheeks blush red, and Rafe would push for more details if he had the emotional energy to feel invested enough. 

“Babe,” Topper groans. 

“Rafe, you should’ve seen him on the plane, he was—”

“Babe,” Topper insists, but with a chuckle, and his arms tightening around her, not an ounce of an edge to his tone. Rafe averts his eyes and grabs his drink, swilling it around half-heartedly before taking another longish pull. 

“And what about you?” 

He looks over when he realizes the question had been meant for him. “Me?”

“Yeah,” Blythe smiles timidly. “How is it being back home?”

Rafe doesn’t cut his eyes to his friend, but he’s sure Topper is panicking. Blythe had always been a little bolder than him, and in a balancing way. “S’fine. I’m staying with Y/n/n’s parents, but I saw my sisters today.” 

“That’s fun,” she says, and her eyes find Topper’s. “How’s Y/n?”

Rafe smiles, sensing where this is going. “She’s just inside, if you’d like to ask her yourself.”

“Well, we just…” she trails off, looking to Topper. He looks to Rafe, his lips tucked into his teeth. 

Rafe sighs, feeling his shoulder drop a few inches. 

“I can leave,” Blythe offers. Rafe waves her off quickly as he downs the rest of his drink, knowing anything shared with Topper is as good as said right in front of her anyway. 

“Let it out, bud,” Topper implores, and Rafe sinks further into his chair. 

“Oh, fuck off. Her dad riled me up,” Rafe says, condensing his story as best he can. “About work stuff. Money stuff.”

“Yeesh,” Blythe cringes.

“You’d think I’m trying to put a ring on her finger, tomorrow, dude,” Rafe rants. 

“Aren’t you?” Topper laughs, taking a sip of his own drink. 

Rafe feels his eyes roll at that. “Not tomorrow.”

“Oh, sorry, next week,” he amends. 

“Dude,” Rafe laughs, feeling himself start to relax slightly, wondering if his problems might not be as big as he’d made them out to be in his head. After all, Topper’s jabs were based in truth, and maybe Rafe needed to act like he was asking you to marry him tomorrow. There probably would be a ring on your finger right now, if you asked Rafe when you first started going out. But that was before quitting Cameron Development, before California, before you helped Rafe realize he had a lot of work to do on himself if he ever wanted to be half the man you or any of your future kids deserved. You were his real deal, and maybe your dad had finally called him out for not acting like it. He already knew that’s how your mom felt.

“Y/n says her dad loves you,” Blythe says, confused. 

“He does,” Topper says. “So really? That’s what all of that tension in there was?” 

Rafe flushes at the implication that everyone could pick up on the jilted greetings you both gave upon arrival, becoming briefly concerned of any flack he might get from Kelce later, especially given the heart-to-heart taking place inside right now. He cranes his neck, trying to spot you through a kitchen window without any luck. “Most of it. And also, super random, she ran into Chloe, I guess?”

“Chloe Merrick? From high school?”

“Mm,” Rafe murmurs, distracted and already thinking about how he can smooth things over with you later tonight. The skirt will make things difficult if he lets it, so he needs to be on point.

“Well, bud—why didn’t you lead with that?” Topper laughs. 

“With what?” Rafe asks.

“With Chloe.”

“Wait, who’s Chloe?” Blythe says, her words coming out whiny.

“Rafe’s ex,” Topper supplies. “Which literally explains everything.”

Rafe furrows his eyebrows, feeling not drunk but definitely tipsy enough to render him unable to understand Topper’s reasoning. “How’s that?”

“Dude, she hates Chloe.”

“Y/n doesn’t hate anyone,” Rafe says easily, pointing at Blythe when she nods, as if to tell Topper ‘see?’

Topper scoffs. “Sometimes I forget how fucking dumb you are when it comes to Y/n/n.”

“Baby,” Blythe chides, but Rafe feels himself a disbelieving smile pulling at his own lips.

“You think I don’t know my girlfriend?” Rafe asks.

“Not all the time. Not back then,” Topper amends. “Junior year? The Hamptons?”

“Oh, don’t even fucking—”

“The Hamptons?” Blythe muses, scandalized. “What happened in the Hamptons?”

“You really wanna talk about the Hamptons?” Rafe says, taking delight in the way Topper’s cheeks burn red, like he wishes he could put the words back in his mouth.

“No, we don’t have to.”

“You brought it up, bud,” Rafe reminds him, pushing himself into a standing position. He starts winding his arms around, throwing in a stretch for the effect. “And I’ve always meant to beat the shit out of you for taking my girlfriend to dinner.” 

Topper sputters momentarily. “We did not—it was not—”

“Dinner!” Blythe gasps, before smiling wickedly. “You took Y/n/n to dinner? Did you kiss her? Did you date? Did you—”

Rafe slips away silently, taking the cue he perfectly set up for himself, but not before receiving what he hopes is a good-natured glare from his best friend. The mouthed ‘I hate you’ from over the top of Blythe’s head really seals the deal.

But Topper’s implications sit funnily in his stomach, and he doesn’t like the feeling at all. He heads back inside, hoping to a higher power you’re done talking with Kelce so he doesn’t have to rip you away, because he can’t stand another minute with so much unresolved. 

—

“I really thought… Y/n/n, I don’t know what I thought,” Kelce says dejectedly, his fingers interlaced, head bowed between his knees. “But I didn’t think this.”

You watch sadly as he swipes his beer off of the table, not even interested in drinking anymore, just needing something to hold. “I’m so sorry, Kelso.”

“I don’t know why this always happens to me. Like I finally find someone I like and who understands me and loves me—I thought. But she just runs.”

It’s difficult to give someone you don’t know the benefit of the doubt when they’ve put your friend—someone who you’ve already seen go through so much heartache, who’s seen you through your own—through something like this, but you try for his benefit anyway. “Maybe when you get back to Austin she’ll be able to explain, Kelce. Right? Didn’t she say she wanted to talk?”

“Does that sound like a good talk to you?” he deadpans. “‘I’m not coming to meet your family and friends, and I think we should talk when you get home?’”

“Kelce…” you say morosely, leaning into his side. “I don’t know what to say.”

“I just wish—I wish she’d told me, or that she’d come anyway. We could’ve talked, just us. Would’ve cancelled the whole fucking party and locked you all out if it was too much for her, seriously,” he says. “We could’ve worked it out.” 

You hear Rafe’s soft laughter filter in through the open screen door, and something tugs in your stomach. “Even when you really love someone, Kelce, sometimes it’s just easier to run.” 

He looks at you, unamused.

“I’m serious,” you say, lowering your voice. “Look at Rafe and I.”

Kelce scoffs. “Okay.”

“I mean it,” you answer, becoming impassioned. “It took us forever, and sometimes… sometimes we still fuck it up.”

“Yeah, but,” he says, actually sipping at his beer this time. “You always work it out.”

“Not always,” you murmur. 

He seems surprised. “What? You talking about Rafe’s little storm cloud?”

“His what?”

“He gets like this every time he comes home, Y/n/n. Come on,” Kelce says, like you should know what he means.

“I don’t follow,” you say, leaning back into the couch, crossing your arms over your chest.

“You know what? Of course you don’t. Because you’ve never been subjected to it,” Kelce laughs. “He’s like an angsty teenager again as soon as he steps foot on this island, especially before y’all got together.”

You think back to what Rafe had said in the car this morning, how he’d casted you off and walked right into Ward’s house without you. “Think it’s more than that this time around.”

“How so?”

There’s a knock at the entryway into the living room, and then your sheepish boyfriend stepping into the frame, leaning up against it while you both gaze upon him. “Hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Never,” Kelce says, moving to stand. “I was wondering when you’d come get her. Actually starting to worry.”

You roll your eyes but you stand to, looking for your bag and your keys because you could tell Rafe was ready to head out from one look at his face. 

“Kelce, man,” you hear him say. “You good? We’ll stay.” 

“I’ll be alright,” Kelce sighs. “And I’ve got my hands full with Top, Blythe. Girls should be here soon, too. Wouldn’t be the first time you two left my party early.” 

“Kelce,” you chastise.

“I’ll probably invite whoever didn’t make the original guest list,” he continues, returning from the kitchen with a fresh beer. “Full house. Gonna invite Sarah and John B and his friend who has a thing for Y/n. Griffin might even sniff it out. Chloe, too, since I heard she’s int own.”

“Alright,” Rafe cuts in. “We get it, Jesus.” 

“You’re sure?” you say. 

“Oh my god,” Kelce sighs, leaning into press a kiss to the top of your head. “Go. Both of you.” 

You walk away to wait awkwardly in the entryway as they say their own goodbyes, wondering a second too late if you should’ve strained your ears harder to hear once it takes a little longer than a normal parting for the two of them. 

Just as Rafe emerges into the entryway, Gretchen and Margot both pop through the front door, giggling and holding an impressive number of pink bottles in between them. They both startle when they see you, their faces transforming from glee to the opposite once they look at you for a little longer.

“Why are you wearing your coat? Take off your coat,” Gretchen demands, stomping her foot. 

“We’re heading out,” you say sadly. “Kelce is in the living room.”

“Nooo,” they chorus, leaning into fuss over you. 

Margot notices Rafe standing behind you then, narrowing her eyes. “Cameron.”

“Not tonight, Margot. And take it easy on Kelce, yeah?” he warns.

She looks called out, and you can practically hear the argument forming in her head. “Buddy—”

“For the love of god please take her,” you whisper to Gretchen. 

“We better see you guys tomorrow night. After dessert, at mine?” she pleads, smiling when you nod. “Good. Oh—let me get a picture.”

“Gretch—”

“Rafe, get over here,” she demands, interrupting whatever quiet squabble Margot has taken up with Rafe, who looks more than relieved to take your side. 

Gretchen picks up the film camera you hadn’t noticed hanging around her neck, backing up a few steps and pointing it at you both. “Pretend like you like each other, at least.”

Rafe’s arm settles around your shoulders, pulling you back into his frame, and you try your best to put a believable smile on, recalling Kelce’s words.

The flash goes off and Rafe presses a kiss into the back of your head before moving away from you, his hand falling to your back. 

“That’ll work,” Gretchen says, turning to follow Margot where she stomped off, no doubt in a beeline to a grieving Kelce. “Love you guys.”

“Let’s go home?” Rafe finally asks, his voice quiet even though nobody is around to overhear him.

“Home,” you confirm, grabbing onto his hand and leading him out the door. 

—

Rafe’s done a few dumb things in the last day or so, but this might be the dumbest.

The trellis below your window hadn’t changed at all, but Rafe’s ability to navigate it might. He hasn’t gone up this way in years, and it’s not as romantic as he remembers it being. Maybe it’s because now he’s groveling instead of trying to woo you, or maybe it’s because you’re not aware of his sojourn, not sticking your head out the window and looking down at him sweetly, hair flitting around you and ready to tug him over at the last step. Not tonight though, not after Rafe had sent you off to your room with nothing but a kiss to your forehead and loose promise to talk tomorrow before Thanksgiving dinner at Tannyhill.

And maybe Rafe’s just not as young as he used to be. Which is why he’s surprised to find the window open at all, allowing him to tug himself over and in, miscalculating the footing and landing on his ass, the box in his pocket stuffed under his hip awkwardly as he makes contact with the floor. “Ow.”

“Oh, thank god.”

“Babe—ow,” Rafe winces, realizing he’s probably gonna bruise as he gets to his feet. “I—you said—thought we were gonna talk in the morning.”

“Yeah,” you say weakly, from where you stand in the doorway of your bathroom, your hands twisting together. “I did.”

“But you left your window open for me?”

“Yeah,” you shrug, wrapping your arms around your midsection.

“Because you—baby, baby, don’t cry, no,” he says in surprise, heart breaking as he crosses the room to you and your wobbling bottom lip and big, sad eyes. “Hey, come here, pretty.”

“Rafe,” you cry, muffled in his shirt when he takes you into his arms. “I’m so tired of this shit. I don’t—I don’t wanna be mad at you anymore.”

“I don’t want you to be mad at me either,” he says, leading you to the chair that sits at your vanity table, helping you sit while he crouches down in front of you. “I don’t like it.”

“You usually don’t know,” you laugh, hiccuping slightly. 

“Can’t argue with that,” Rafe says, using the cuff of his long sleeve to pat under your eyes softly, stroking your thigh with his other hand while you calm down. “Baby girl, you’re breakin’ my heart.”

“It’s so stupid—with Chloe, and just—I’ll talk to my dad, I promise I will,” you ramble. “Because he can’t just—he can’t. Why the fuck did we even come home?”

“Hold on, hold on. Breathe for a sec,” Rafe reminds you, pleased when you follow his lead, taking in a long, shaky breath. “Good. There you go, sweetheart.”

“I’m sorry,” you say meekly, still fielding stray tears but on the whole looking better.

“You’re good, you’re good. Do you want water?”

When you shake your head, Rafe feels good to stand, leaning up against your table, still within arms length as he strokes your back through your sleep shirt of his. 

“What’s going on with Chloe?” he finally asks after a beat of silence. 

You huff, but start talking when Rafe bumps your chin with his knuckle in encouragement. “I never liked her.”

“I see that now.”

“I’m glad I did such a good job of hiding it when I was younger,” you laugh dejectedly. “Thought I was so obvious.”

“Apparently I’m the only one who didn’t catch on. Even with Topper dangling you in front of me like a carrot at the Hamptons house,” Rafe says, rolling his eyes.

“He did not,” you defend.

“Oh, he did so, baby girl,” he counters, scoffing. “Are you kidding?”

“Rafe. You had a girlfriend on that trip,” you point out. “And Topper didn’t even know…” 

“He knew.” 

You shake your head. “No, no that can’t be right. Topper? Topper Thornton? He’s like the least likely to meddle out of all of them.”

Rafe gives you a look. “That isn’t saying much when it comes to our friends.” 

You nod in consideration, your eyebrows still furrowed as you prop your head up on one of your hands.

“But, baby…” Rafe says, stroking a hand over the top of your head, his fingers digging into the hair at the nape of your neck. “You can’t still be worried about it. Not after all this time?”

“It isn’t like that anymore, Rafe. I mean, you’re a catch and I’m never gonna take that for granted,” you pause to crack a small smile when Rafe won’t let that one go so easy, tugging at the end of your ponytail, “but I’d like to think you’d never hurt me or leave me.”

“Never ever.”

“She was making comments about our lives and whatever, like she still knows you. Like she knows you better than I do,” you explain, picking at your nails. “And it pissed me off.”

“Okay,” Rafe nods, unsure if he wants to ask what she said specifically, and ultimately deciding against it. “But that wasn’t all?” 

“What do you mean?”

Rafes eyes scan your face. “These aren’t angry tears. And I know you can handle stupid island gossip.”

You groan, hiding your face in your hands again. “It’s so dumb.”

“It’s not,” Rafe insists, batting them away. “Not dumber than anything I’ve been mad about today.”

“Rafe.”

“What were you talking about in the car this morning? Seriously, baby. Let me in,” he says.

“Are you making me?”

“Yep.”

You sigh one last time, sitting back in your chair with your arms crossed. “We weren’t dating. But you were still like one of my best friends, right?”

 “Correct.”

“So it just… I don’t know. It sucked that you dated her, because she was perfectly fine going behind my back before she knew we were nothing.”

“We weren’t nothing, baby.”

Frustrated, you push at his knee. “Don’t be cute, you know what I mean.”

“I’m serious. I think a lot of people thought we were something, Y/n/n. In hindsight, I was pretty obvious at least,” Rafe says sheepishly. 

“I know, I know,” you groan. “Which is so embarrassing by the way. That that many people knew.”

“It is, but it worked out. Just a little bit,” Rafe reminds you. You bump your knee into his leg in acknowledgement. “So what gives?”

“I don’t judge you for it anymore. I got it over it so long ago,” you recall. “In probably the worst possible way.”

Rafe hums in disapproval. “So we’re even?”

“There’s no getting even, Rafe. I don’t hold anything against you from when we were like, infants.” 

“Clearly you do.”

“I don’t. I was young and emotional and just really, really confused about you,” you promise. “I don’t hold it against you, but I haven’t seen her in forever and she just got under my skin about it.” 

The image of a younger you, in anyway hurt by Rafe when he was arrogant and young and stupid and above all else still totally in love with you somewhere deep in his heart before he even knew what love was is always too much for him to bare. Even when he keeps a home with you, shares a dog with you, shares a life and all of his future plans and hopes and aspirations—and shares his heart with you. Even after all of that, it hurts. “I was such a stupid kid.”

“You weren’t,” you tell him, your hand taking a place on his knee again, maroon-painted nails digging into the skin under his shorts. “This is why I didn’t want to talk about it, because it’s just stupid teenage insecurities that I still let get the best of me sometimes. She started talking about how I’m your cookie cutter Figure 8 dream, and your dad, and then when you flipped about my dad—”

Rafe finally digs deep into his pocket, at a loss for his own words but one-thousand-percent sure he can’t sit here and listen to you doubt him or yourself anymore, setting the velvet box down on your vanity with authority.

Your words die in your throat, and you take one glance at the box before closing your eyes. “I know you’re not doing this while we’re talking about Chloe Merrick.” 

“I’m not doing that,” he says, hoping you don’t actually ever think he’d propose marriage while standing taller than you, while standing at all. “Jesus, baby.”

“Then what—” you reach your hand out, then retract it, doe eyes staring up at him timidly. “Can I?”

“Open it.”

You gently pry it open, setting it back on the desk once you can see inside, recognition crossing your features. “You found your ring?”

“I found your ring,” he says as he plucks the gold band out of the box, grabbing your hand. “Actually never lost it.” 

“What are you… wait, why does it fit me?” you wonder, once Rafe can stronghold your fidgeting enough to get it down your ring finger. On the right hand, he’s not psychotic. “Rafe, why does it fit me?” 

“You know Wren’s friend Stephen?” 

“Yeah,” you answer, flexing your hand, marveling at the ring’s new size. 

“Well, he’s a blacksmith, right? And your birthday was coming up…” he shrugs, bashful now, after all of his brevity. “We melted it down. I thought I knew your size, but I swiped that little silver twisty one you always wear when you were sleeping—just to be sure.”  

“Rafe.”

“And then it really wasn’t that hard—but it was so cool, baby, he like let me hold it and everything while he worked the metal, and I have pictures, if you want—”

“You melted your gold band.”

“Yes.”

“So I could wear it.” 

“Correct.” 

“The one you’ve been wearing since we were teenagers.”

“The very one.”

You twist the ring around on your finger, sliding it right up to your knuckle and seeing how it doesn’t give easily, how it was made to fit your finger. You work it off anyway, sliding it to the ring finger on your other hand. Your left hand. “Rafe.”

“You like it?”

“You know you can’t take this back, right? Like you can’t just—”

“I know, sweet girl, kinda the point—there’s even a seam if you really look. But it’s yours now.” 

Rafe can forgive himself for the way your eyes well up, because he surmises that this time they’re happy tears—even though he’ll always hate making you cry. “I swear I was gonna save it for your birthday. Or Valentine’s.”

You sniffle. “I love it. I’m glad you didn’t save it. You’ve just been carrying it around?”

He shrugs. “Wanted it close. I felt so bad when you were as upset as you were it was missing.”

“I should’ve known you didn’t lose it in the ocean,” you grumble.

“And now you won’t either,” he quips. “I love you. Don’t worry about the bullshit. Seriously, baby.”

You stand up then, and you two fit perfectly when your arms wrap around his waist, and his fall around your shoulders. “What about my dad?”

Rafe sighs, stroking a hand up and down your back, fingers catching on your tank top. “Let’s head to bed.”

You narrow your eyes, pulling out of his hold. 

“Okay,” you agree, reaching for a tub of lotion on your bedside table, before leaning in for a quick kiss. “I’ll see you in the morning.” 

“I scaled the wall,” Rafe explains, watching you rub lotion into your arms lackadaisically, barely paying him mind anymore. “And it's one a.m.” 

“Hm, better be careful on your way back down,” you say, moving onto your legs, tantalizing him. “You always said that one rung at the bottom is getting faulty.”

Worse and worse every time he uses it, and he won’t make it any worse tonight. “You don’t want me to stay?”

“This bed is for people who express their feelings,” you say, burrowing yourself under the covers. Rafe sighs, finally kicking off his shoes, moving them to the corner so you won’t claim a tripping hazard. 

“Shove over,” he grunts, slipping in behind you once he unplugs your lights and makes sure your window is shut.

When you remain stubborn, Rafe uses an arm around your waist to move you over himself, grinning when you squeal in delight. “Rafe.”

“I told you to shove over. You’re gonna wake up your brother,” he chastises.

“He’s probably up late. Talking to Ev,” you say, sounding swoony. “I think he’s two hours behind, maybe three? Young love.” 

Rafe presses a kiss into the back of your head, using his free hand to trace the shell of your ear, tucking a few wayward strands behind it. “We used to be like that.”

“You were so cute, pretending you weren’t falling asleep on FaceTime,” you say wistfully. “Miss that.”

“I don’t,” Rafe says. 

“No? The window entrance was a little nostalgic tonight.”

“You really didn’t think I was coming?” 

Your shrug moves your body against his, and Rafe laces his free hand through yours. “I mean, I put the dogs with Dylan so they wouldn’t bark, but I dunno. This is one of those things that just makes you shut down.” 

He hides his head between your shoulder blades. “I don’t mean to.”

“I know,” you say, struggling to turn around in his grip, getting a hand under his chin once you do. “But I hate when you push me away.” 

“I don’t mean to,” he repeats.

“I know.” 

“I think your dad was right.”

The understanding immediately leaves your face, and you pause your petting. “What?” 

He kisses your forehead slowly, buying himself time before looking back down at you. “He was. Kinda. I need to get my shit together.”

“Rafe, no…” you shake your head. “No. You don’t have to listen to him.”

To Rafe, it’s as simple as the fact that he does have to. But you wouldn’t stand to hear any of that. “It’s okay.” 

“No, it’s not. You had your entire life mapped out until a few months ago,” you say. “You don’t need to have everything figured out right now.”

“Sooner the better,” he mumbles, mind reeling as he thinks back to Topper’s sentiments from earlier, about how he pictured a different ring on your finger at this point. It makes him feel better that you’re currently tracing it with your thumb anyway, knowing you normally take your jewelry off before bed but you didn’t tonight. “He’s never gonna let me get serious with you until I do.”

“Did you discuss my dowry with him, too?”

“Y/n/n,” he sighs.

“I’m gonna wear this to dinner tomorrow,” you decide, turning to face away from him again. “Give him a fucking heart attack.”

“Just let me know so I can go to my dad’s first.”

It’s quiet between you two after that, until you clear your throat. “How was that today?”

“You found me at the Lodge.”

He can practically hear you pouting as you pull his arm tighter around you. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” Rafe reminds you. “He just… you know how he is. I shouldn’t have gone at all, ‘cause I know he’s probably thinking a million different things about us right now.”

“Who cares what he thinks? Or what my dad thinks?”

Rafe does, and he knows you do, too. Maybe not as much, so he just lets the question hang there, suspended in the air.

“I don’t want you to feel like you don’t have a home here babes,” you say quietly. “You do. My dad just… I think he really cares about you. He’s probably had the same conversation with Dylan.”

Rafe squirms. “I don’t know.”

“Do you want me to talk to him?” 

“For the love of god, no,” Rafe says, smiling a little when your laugh shakes your whole body against his. Rafe left a company for you, but he doesn’t ever want you to be in a situation like his. Because some fathers didn’t love their kids, but yours loved you. “I will.”

“Good enough for me,” you murmur, angling your chin just so to ask for a kiss. Rafe meets you halfway, but lets his head hit the pillow beneath him when you posture your own body over him, your leg slotting between his. 

“Mm, baby,” Rafe murmurs in surprise, accepting a trail of neck kisses while he guides your leg over his lap completely, your knees bracketing his hips. “Baby.”

“Hm,” you hum, pushing yourself up on your hands, gazing upon him in a way that makes his heart seize. 

“We’re in your parents’ house,” Rafe practically whispers.

You shrug, making to move off. But that’s not what Rafe wanted, not at all, so his hands flex on your hips to keep you firmly in place. “You gonna let me off?”

“Well I didn’t say that.”

—

“I could get my CPA.”

You cut your eyes to Rafe where he’s walking beside you, both of your breath visible in the early morning chill. “Do you want your CPA?”

“Good money.”

“Insane hours,” you point out. 

“Used to that,” he grunts.

“True. Well, if you want to…”

He shrugs, gripping Captain’s leash a bit harder when he almost gets tangled with Wilbur for the umpteenth time that morning. “Or I could get my MBA, too. I originally wanted to go right into it after undergrad.”

“Really?” you ask, coming to a stop when Wilbur wants to wander off and sniff for a while, Captain following behind him. “Since when?”

“Freshman year. Decided against it senior year.”

“Really?” you reaffirm, continuing when he nods. “Why? Not because of us.” 

It isn’t a question, because Rafe knows you’d never let him do something so rash.

“I didn’t wanna be away from you anymore,” Rafe says, to your surprise. “It would’ve factored into where I went, for sure. Just like it would now.”

“Rafe,” you say, confused. “Why have you never… you could’ve gone anywhere you wanted. You should, still. But why… oh.”

“You’re right though,” Rafe says, ignoring the Ward of it all completely. It’s a dead horse to him, the way Ward controlled his life for so long. Forcing him back home after graduation is child’s play. “I should still. I could.”

“Do you wanna?” you ask, shifting Wilbur’s leash behind your back when he walks further off, and eventually following after him to the bush he’s intent on investigating, still glancing back at Rafe when he speaks.

“Not right now,” he says. “I knew what I wanted to do back then. I knew why I wanted to be in school.” 

“Right, no, yeah,” you assure him. “But if we ever needed to move… way ahead of myself?” 

“Miles. Lightyears,” Rafe smiles, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of your head, eyes still bleary from a night of not enough sleep for either of you, followed by a prompt exit the minute you heard movement in the house. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

“College Rafe was such a vibe,” you sigh wistfully, reminiscing. “Bring him back.”

“Chill,” he laughs. “I could work finance anywhere. Get a job in tech on some 55th floor in the city. 401k match, stock options.”

You furrow your eyebrows at the second time he brings up money. “Do you want a job in tech?”

Another shrug. “Your dad does pretty well.” 

“Rafe…”

“I don’t have the same safety net I used to, baby. I walked away from all of this,” he says softly, almost under his breath, the old build homes you’re surrounded by suddenly feeling bigger and taller, the lawns more manicured and the cars shinier, the eyes in the windows more prying. “And I’m so happy I did. But I wanna give you everything you deserve. I wanna give it to our kids.” 

“Rafe,” you tut, stuffing Wilbur’s leash into his hand so you can wrap him in your arms, your cheek smushed into his jacket. “You’re going to. I’m gonna be here while you figure it out.” 

“I hate not having everything figured out,” he whispers. “I felt like I always did.”

“Even before you had me?” you venture, tilting your head back to look up at him. 

He smirks, looking down at you, ignoring the tug on his arm coming from the leashes. “Maybe not everything.” 

“S’what I thought,” you murmur, calves stretching with the strain to reach up and kiss him. He meets you halfway. 

“A year ago, I was telling you to quit your job,” Rafe says. “Remember that? That’s how sure everything was.”

You fake wretch, and Rafe hooks an arm around your neck, pulling you into him so he can press kisses wherever possible. 

“You’ve come so far,” you tease, batting him away half-heartedly.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket between you and Rafe groans, knowing you have to pull away in case it’s family. You do so reluctantly, reaching to tug it out of your pocket.

“How much time do we have?” Rafe sighs, assuming it’s Dylan or your parents wondering when you’ll be back. But it isn’t.

“No, it’s—Gretchen sent me our picture. From last night,” you say, eyes trailing over your faces. Rafe’s arm sits around your shoulders, where he’d half-heartedly pulled you into his body at her command. His head rests against yours, but the smiles on both of your faces don’t reach your eyes.

Rafe cranes his neck to look at it, humming a short noise before looking away. “We look…”

“A little bit miserable,” you finish, laughing lightly.

“Very,” he agrees.

You groan, your head falling to his chest as you feel the dog leashes start to tangle around you, effectively cementing you to your boyfriend. “M’so glad we moved.” 

“I kind of suck here,” Rafe admits, laughing when look up at him incredulously. “I do!”

“You better figure out how to not suck here, Rafe Leopold.”

“It’s a miracle we ever found the time to fall in love on this island,” he marvels. “We’re doing Friendsgiving in California next year, by the way."

“I know you want our kids to have OBX summers one day,” you accuse.

“They will. And we’ll pick ‘em back up from the airport in September,” he jokes. 

You push at his chest and almost send yourself falling back into the grass as you do so, forgetting your current predicament. He clutches you to him, a hand wrapped around your wrist.

“Careful, baby, Jesus,” Rafe laughs, holding your hand for balance while you attempt to untangle you both from the leashes. “You got it?”

“Think so,” you huff, sighing in relief when you’re finally freestanding, one of two separate leashes clutched in your free hand.

“Still wearing it?” Rafe says.

“Hm?” 

He tugs on your ring finger, fingers catching on the gold band you have no plan to take off soon. 

“I told you, no take-backs,” you joke, falling into step with him again while he clutches your left hand. “By the way, you know you only get one more ring, right?” 

His neck flushes pink, from the parts left uncovered by his jacket. “I think I know which one you’re talking about.”

“You do,” you tell him, bumping into him sideways. “And if the next time you pull out a velvet box, it’s not that one—”

“Oh, come on,” he says. “You didn’t actually think—in your childhood bedroom with Dylan next door—I was wearing basketball shorts.” 

You giggle. “No, no. I didn’t for more than a second.”

“Really?”

Now you get to feel embarrassed, ducking away from his mischievous eyes when you feel heat creep up your own neck. “No. I don’t know, Rafe. It’s a little velvet box. We’ve been dating for years.” 

“Sweetheart,” he coos, throwing an arm around your shoulders, pressing a kiss into the side of your head. 

“Shut up,” you mumble.

“I wasn’t even kneeling.”

#rafe cameron #rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron fanfiction #rafe cameron x you #rafe cameron x y/n #rafe cameron x reader #outer banks #outer banks imagine #outer banks fanfiction #outer banks x reader #obx

[drefear]

Hi Dre, I came here from your "Daddy Issue" story and I admit I'm addicted to this! I wonder if I can ask you some question, sorry if you feel pressured, you don't need to answer 🌹

The reader's father made some rules after everything went smooth in p2, especially rule number two, no lovey-dovey talk in front of him 🤭 But what if Miguel and reader accidentally have intimate gestures or words just like other couples in love in front of him, how will the father react? How will Miguel and reader "fix" this situation? I really want to know your idea since you're owner of this masterpiece ✨

Thank you for taking the time 💕

Ok but this is valid cause we both know Miguel is gonna slip up. He’s a little lovesick puppy

Anyway here goes nothing!

TW: pregnancy and marriage, fluff

Pregnant. You were pregnant.

And Miguel was the father.

You’d told your family, his family, and your combined friends at his birthday party, which was about a month after you had found out you were indeed pregnant.

At the time of telling everyone, many people wanted to take photos of you two and you obliged. He lifted you up and smothered your face in kisses, Gabriella snapping as many pictures as she could while your father wrinkled his nose and turned his face.

This caught your attention and you pouted.

Later that night, you all had sat on the couch together. You were sitting on Miguel’s lap and your father cleared his throat.

“What?” You asked and he made a pained expression.

“Cmon guys. Tule number two, remember?” He encouraged and gestures towards the open area directly next to Miguel.

“Das, are you joking?” You tilted your head in disbelief. He nodded.

“I am. It’s weird to see my little girl all over Miguel! It’s like seeing your parents kiss, but then also see your best friends kiss. It’s just weird.”

“Dad, I’m pregnant. You realize that-“

Your dad covered his ears, making Miguel laugh out loud. “Lalala! I can’t hear you, I’m not thinking about that!” He sang and you sighed.

“You’re a child.” You bluntly spoke as those around you giggled at the bickering.

You and Miguel had both spoken about marriage and what that would look like.

“I don’t really want something big and fancy, especially not now. I’d rather put the money into the baby or maybe a vacation once everything settles down.”

“What about a vacation before you give birth? Like a pre-honey moon.” He spoke out loud and you nodded, smiling wildly.

“I love that idea, Miguel.” You whispered, cupping his cheek as he leaned in towards you.

A few weeks later and you two travelled to Mexico, seeing as since he spoke fluent Spanish, you two would be able to get around and he could translate it to you.

You enjoyed the food, danced many nights, enjoyed beach days and just soaked up every second with him possible. It was pure bliss, never leaving his side for a week and a half. And he loved it as well, seeing how your doting and loving could escalate even more than it already was.

Your little belly peaked out of your swimsuit as you two enjoyed a walk along the beach during sunset on the last night. You stopped him as you saw the colors reflected on the water, the blues and oranges mixing together and making a collage of natures finest art pieces. Moving to hold his hand, you felt nothing where he once stood and turned nervously.

And you saw him kneeling, ring in hand, smirking up at you. Your eyes filled with tears, spilling over as your hand flew to your mouth. You’d talked about it, sure, but you thought it would be much later. You didn’t think he meant now.

You didn’t even let him speak, falling into his body and throwing your hands around his neck, nodding frantically. He just laughed as he fell backwards into the sand, holding you on top of him and feeling your tears soak into his shirt.

The days after we’re full of loving caresses and constant chatter from you, with Miguel just watching you with admiration in his eyes.

So that’s how you found yourself here, sitting in your father’s house while flipping through wedding magazines and discussing things over with both Gabi and your dad’s girlfriend, Tia.

“I think something simple would be best. I want to get marry before I give birth, but have the actual wedding after I have the baby.” You spoke, looking through different table settings and center piece options.

“There’s so much to do!” Gabriella sat, sipping a glass of wine and smiling, holding your hand and staring at the ring. “Ugh, I did a wonderful job at helping him pick the ring.”

“You better, since we used to talk about my wedding all the time as kids.” You answered, laughing as Tia smiled at the bond you two had. She fit in with your makeshift family very well.

“So have you decided when you want to go to the courthouse then? To actually get married?” Tia asked, setting down a glass of water for you. Your father walked in with Miguel at that moment, laughing about something and you felt a warm feeling in your chest. That was your man- fiancé. Your future husband.

You stood up and walked to him, stopping him from walking any further from you and pulling his face into your hands, kissing him.

“Alright, ok, no.” Your dad interrupted and you pulled away, raising a brow.

“What? Dad, we’re getting married and having a baby. Don’t you think tule number two is getting a bit old?” You spoke, a slight annoyance in your tone as Miguel just pulled you closer.

“No! Of course it’s not, I still don’t want to see you getting all mushy with Miguel.” He made a disgusted face and this made you angrier. Miguel saw this fire in you and tried to help.

“What I think she’s saying is, wouldn’t you rather be happy for her than make her feel like she can’t love me in front of you?” He makes a very obvious face behind your back, trying to reason with your father. And the man finally gives in.

“Ok ok, fine.” You smiled and held Miguel once more, pecking his lips as his hands captured your own and placed them on his chest. “Ew ok no sorry I can’t.”

This made everyone but you laugh. “Grow up, Dad!” You huffed and Miguel kissed your wrist, something that always made you feel better.

“He’s your dad, mi cielo. Be gentle with him, yeah?” He mumbled and you nodded. Your dad thanked Miguel and you poured before Miguel whispered in your ear. “We can do everything he hates to think about when we get home.”

That definitely made up for it.

#miguel spiderverse #miguel x reader #miguel o’hara smut #miguel o’hara x reader #miguel spiderman #miguel smut #miguel o’hara #miguel o'hara #fluff #miguel fluff

[bucky-bucky-bucky-bucky]

House Call | Bucky Barnes x Reader

Hi, friends! I've been wiring a lot of angst lately, so here's a nice fluffy one for you :)

If you like my stuff throw me a reblog 🥰

Warnings: fluff, mentions of medication, sleepy Bucky

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

A quaint, adorable cabin appeared almost like magic as Bucky turned down a private dirt road. The house sat secluded beneath massive sycamore trees, their leaves aglow with the colors of fall. The whole thing seemed too good to be true, too picturesque to even be real. Neither you nor Bucky could believe that Clint had such a gorgeous place, or that he was nice enough to lend the house out for the long weekend. But he’d done so without hang ups- except one.

He made you promise that your trip wouldn’t include sex on the kitchen counter of his vacation home. “Oh, come on!” Bucky elbowed Clint in the ribs, “I’ve been looking forward to kitchen counter sex for weeks!”

But after the four-hour drive, neither you nor Bucky felt like doing the deed. You’d left right after your final meeting of the day, hoping to beat the rush hour traffic- with no such luck. The two of you sat in a bumper-to-bumper nightmare that seemed to last an eternity. People honked and cursed at each other as tempers flared, but you and Bucky were in your own little world. With anyone else at the wheel, you would’ve been fed up after the first hour.

But being with Bucky only brought you happiness, even if you were trapped in gridlock traffic. You’d been missing him terribly lately, seeing him less and less as things with the Flag Smashers came to a head. But now that the situation had calmed down, Bucky was all yours. 

“Hey- gimme that”, Bucky narrowed his eyes at you with faux-annoyance and snaked your bag from your hand, “I got it, sweets”. You rolled your eyes at him like you always did, but his chivalrous tendencies made you feel special. He always insisted on carrying your things and offering you his coat as though it were still 1940. And you let him. You loved his sweet, old-fashioned nature. He was thoughtful and polite, and always always put you first.

“Thanks, Buck”. Pressing up on your tiptoes, you left a kiss on his cheek, “Such a gentleman.”

Like always, Bucky opened the door for you and insisted you enter first. When Clint had described the place as “charming”, he wasn’t kidding. It was cozy and warm with a welcoming air that drew you in immediately. Soft blankets, warm wood, and a massive brick fireplace combined to create a perfect getaway. An overwhelming sense of comfort wrapped you in a hug as you thought about sipping hot cocoa by the fire with Bucky. Laura had obviously furnished the space with heaps of love, and managed to create the perfect space for a long weekend away. 

“Oh my god, this place is adorable”, you turned to Bucky, excitement setting your eyes alight. “Can we live here? I think we should live here. I don’t think Clint will mind”.

Bucky covered his face and let out a booming laugh, “yeah, doll. I think Clint would love that.” He couldn’t wait to spend a few uninterrupted days with his best girl in the secluded cabin. He missed you so much that it actually hurt. Being away for so long caused a physical ache in his chest that he swore would kill him if he spent one more day without you. He wanted to curl up in front of the fire with you in his arms and make up for all the time he’d spent without you by his side.

“How about we change into comfy clothes and get the fire started? Let’s get cozy, Sarge”. You shot Bucky a wink and snatched your bag from his shoulder, “I’ll be back in a sec”. Once you located the perfectly decorated master bedroom, you dug through your bag for your pajamas. Nothing sounded better than shedding your work clothes and slipping into something comfortable. These days, your sleepwear consisted of old shirts of Bucky’s, and Bucky was more than happy to give them to you. He loved seeing you wear his clothes. It made him almost as happy as his dog tags resting around your neck. 

He’d been nervous to give them to you at first, fearing it was maybe too old-fashioned. But you’d accepted them without pause and threw the chain around your neck before Bucky could even blink. From then on, he never saw you without them. They rested comfortably on your chest no matter the occasion- you wore them proudly.

Just as Bucky knelt in front of the fireplace, your voice stopped him in his tracks. 

“Shit shit shit shit shit,”  he heard you mutter from the bedroom. Instant alarm set him on high alert. He flew to the bedroom with his heart in his throat, fearing he’d find you in a pool of your own blood. But when he finally burst through the bedroom door, there was no blood in sight. You sat on the edge of the bed with your bag on your lap, your hands digging through it with like a dog in search a buried bone.

“Is everything alright, doll?”

“What?” Your head snapped in Bucky’s direction, “Oh, yeah. I’m good”. You forced a smile to your face that made your cheeks ache, but Bucky saw right through you.

“Are you sure about that, sweets? Cause you just said ‘shit’ like eleven times.”

With a huff, you conceded. “It’s fine- it’s not a big deal. I just forgot one of my meds, that’s all.” You threw Bucky an overly casual shrug, “my bad”.

But Bucky wasn’t going to allow you to downplay the issue, “Which one?”

“The one for my anxiety. But it’ll be fine. We’re only gonna be here for four days- missing those doses won’t kill me.” Once again, you diminished your problem. Bucky knew how important it was for you to remember to take your meds, and how shitty you’d feel if you missed four days’ worth.

“But isn’t that the pill that gives you, um…the brain thing? When you don’t take it, I mean. It gives you ‘brain buzzes’?”

Regardless of your situation, you couldn’t help but laugh. Bucky was just so sweet, so innocent and cute. “Close!” you laughed, “Brain zaps. I get brain zaps if I go without it for too long.”

Bucky‘s brow furrowed. He’d been with you long enough to know that four days without your medication was plenty of time for the brain zaps to set in. Thousands of thoughts crowded his mind as he tried desperately to find a solution to the problem, but you were in the middle of nowhere, four hours from home. He couldn’t run to the apartment and grab your pills or pop out to CVS and speak with a pharmacist about getting you four days’ worth of meds. All he wanted was for you to enjoy your little getaway, but the brain zaps threatened to ruin everything.

“Buck, you’re getting all worried. I can see it in your jaw…” You took Bucky’s face in your hands and gently massaged the tight muscles in his jaw until he finally released the tension. “This isn’t something to get upset about, I’ll be fine. I can push through! I went like two weeks without my meds once- I’ll live through four days.”

Bucky’s arms wound around you as you leaned into his body. He was always so good to you, so dedicated to taking care of every little thing. He wanted every moment you spent together to be more perfect than the last, and if you were going to be miserable without your meds, he needed to find a way to fix it.

A strong yawn took hold of you as you flicked your eyes toward the clock. “Come on, Buck. Let’s just go to sleep, okay? It’s late and we’re both tired- we’ll do fun cabin activities tomorrow”. 

Regardless of the worry settling in Bucky’s stomach, he couldn’t help but smile when he saw you in your pajamas. You looked so perfect in his shirt, and his dog tags peeking out from beneath the collar was almost too much. He couldn’t believe how lucky he was to have you. When he’d finally made you his, he promised himself that he’d do everything in his power to make you as happy as humanly possible- and he was determined to keep that promise.

“I’m so glad we did this”, you crawled into bed and dropped a light kiss to Bucky’s lips. “You need a vacation. And I- I’ve really missed you…”

Bucky pulled you in close to his body, wrapping you in his strong, protective arms. Each time the world needed saving, it robbed him of his time with you. And while he hated the Flag Smashers for a long list of reasons, depriving him of his best girl took the number one spot. 

“I know, sweets. I hate that I was away for so long, and I know I didn’t get to talk to you much while I was gone…” Bucky sighed as a twinge of guilt crept into his chest. He did his very best to communicate with you when he could on long missions, but free time was hard to come by. And if someone tracked his phone to get his location, he’d be dead before you’d even read his text. 

“Buuuuuuuuuck…” you almost nagged him. You wriggled free from his grasp and took his face in your hands, pulling him so close that the tip of his nose brushed yours. “You don’t have to apologize- I know what to expect when you’re working. The only thing I care about is that you come home safe.”

Bucky’s forehead fell against yours, and his eyes fluttered shut as you ran your thumbs over his sharp cheekbones. These were the moments he missed most. Of course, he missed your museum dates and the long, sensual showers you shared- but nothing could quite compare to this. He missed the quiet intimacy. He missed hearing nothing but the sound of his heart and yours, beating almost in sync. Being away from you always knocked Bucky off-kilter, leaving him feeling eschew and unbalanced until he saw you again.

“I know, doll. I just- I want you to know how much I miss you when I’m gone. I don’t ever want to leave you- my job is just…different.” Bucky knew he could never make it up to you- all the time away and the days or weeks spent without contact. He knew he nearly stopped your heart every time he came home slick with blood and nearly dead. 

“I know it’s hard on you, doll”.

“It’s hard on me? Buck, I’m not the one saving the world-”

“But you worry the entire time I’m gone. And then you worry when I come home hurt. And I know you’re always wondering when I’ll have to leave next. It takes a lot out of you.” Bucky knew you too well. He saw right through the casual shrug you threw his way, the small smile that tried and failed to hide just how emotionally exhausted you were.

He knew just how hard you worked to keep things together while he was away. If the situation were reversed, he’d be incapable of carrying on as he waited for you to return home. But you managed to keep a brave face, to support him and care for him in a way he never imagined.

Bucky never let an opportunity to express his gratitude pass, “I just want you to know that I notice. And I appreciate you- so much, baby.”

Without words, you migrated your head down to his chest. If Clint allowed it, you’d permanently move into this quiet, cozy cabin with Bucky. The two of you would live out your days in the warm peace of the deep forest and the crackling fire. 

“Well, I love you, Buck. I’d do anything for you…” And with that, you drifted off to sleep. Having Bucky all to yourself in the safety of the small cabin set your anxiety as ease, ushering you to rest. For the next few days, you didn’t have to worry about Bucky’s next mission- or whether it would be his last. 

Bucky smiled down at you as his fingers gently weaved in and out of your hair. “I love you, too, doll”, he knew you couldn’t hear him, but never dared ignore a chance to tell you. He laid like that for a long while, just admiring your serene expression and your sleepy sounds. 

Just like you’d said, you’d do anything for Bucky. And he’d do the same for you. And so, with you lying fast asleep on top of him, Bucky made his move. He slowly snaked himself out from under your body, careful not to wake his best girl. He haphazardly threw on his clothes and laced up his boots before pressing a gentle kiss to your forehead- a kiss that held a wordless promise to return before you woke. A strange appreciation for his Winter Soldier training cropped up as he stalked through the cabin and arrived at the car without making a sound- at least it had been good for something.

It was only a four-hour drive to the apartment- and that was with traffic. He figured he could make it there, grab your meds, and return to the cabin before you even stirred. He could then slide back into bed with you, satisfied that the brain zaps wouldn’t prevail. 

But he underestimated just how tired he was, how long and winding the back roads near the cabin really were. And the drive simply wasn’t the same without you. He missed holding your hand and kissing at stoplights, listening you sing along to one of the many playlists you made him. But the dark, quiet ride was worth the exhaustion and boredom. He needed this long-awaited weekend to be perfect. He knew you’d been white-knuckling it for a while, watching from the sidelines as things with the Flag Smashers boiled over. You deserved to enjoy yourself.

Bucky sped through the night, determined to get you what you needed before sunrise.

Morning light bathed the bedroom in a golden glow, gently rousing you from your sleep. But you weren’t ready to get up just yet- you and Bucky promised to sleep in this weekend. With a quiet groan, you rolled away from the sun’s annoying rays, and planned to bury your face in Bucky’s chest. But after scrounging around with closed eyes for Bucky’s safe embrace, your search turned up empty. The sheets were cold and the room quiet, completely void of the quiet whirring of his arm.

“Buck?” you called into the quiet house, but received no reply. 

A familiar dread settled into your chest as you crept through the silent cabin. It didn’t happen often, but there were times in the dead of night that Rhodes or Agent Hill needed Bucky last minute. They’d land a jet nearby and abduct him from your side- at least, that’s how it felt. He’d leave you a handwritten note in his sloppy, scrawling cursive, always saying that he didn’t want to wake you. He’d give you all his love and apologize for leaving yet again, and with a broken heart, you’d add his latest letter to the pile. 

As you moved through room after room, you still hoped for the best. “Bucky?” you called again, struggling to keep it together. And just as you resolved that he’d left in the middle of the night to go save the world, a quiet whirring caught your attention. The sound instantly granted you peace.

You rushed around the corner and into the living room, only to discover a sleeping Bucky. He lay slumped in an armchair snoring quietly and wearing one unlaced boot. The other sat abandoned on the floor next to his car keys and jacket, painting a very strange picture. But as you struggled to make sense of the scene before you, a small orange bottle caught your eye.

An all-encompassing warmth eclipsed your senses as you stared down at him- the kindest person you’d ever known. Bucky’s massive hand gripped the anxiety meds you’d left behind, safely holding them to his chest. He was just too good- too sweet, too thoughtful, too selfless. No one had ever cared for you like this. No one had ever made you feel so loved, so seen. Bucky offered you all of his love, all of himself. He hated being away from you, but devoted all of his time to you when he was home. And this weekend trip was no different. It was his life’s mission to take care of you, and he’d done just that.

“Buck…” you whispered, “Bucky, baby, wake up”. Your hand cupped his cheek and traced his cheekbone with your thumb, pulling him gently out of his slumber. 

He blinked a few times as he struggled to orient himself in the unfamiliar space, but your touch brought him all the clarity he needed. “Hey, sweetheart. Good morning…” he leaned into your touch and granted you a sleepy, dopey smile. Nothing was ever as cute as Bucky in the morning, with his disheveled hair and tired eyes. 

“I um, I got you this…” Bucky presented you with your bottle of medication, “I didn’t want you to have brain zaps”. 

Sometimes, Bucky was unbelievable. He was too good to be true. But he was true, and he was yours. “This is so- thank you. Thank you so much. You’re always so good to me.”

“I just wanted you to have a perfect weekend,” Bucky dropped his head forward, resting it against your abdomen.

“With or without brain zaps, this is already the perfect weekend. All I want is to be with you, Buck”. You ran your hands gently through his hair, scratching your nails gently against his scalp. “But I can’t thank you enough for this. You didn’t have to…but I really really appreciate it.”

Bucky gazed up at you with a love drunk grin. All he ever wanted was for you to be happy and safe and comfortable. He’d drive eight hours in the dark every night if it would make you smile. He always felt like he dropped the ball, like he was abandoning you to do SWORD’s dirty work. But the look on your face said everything he needed to hear.

“Here, let’s get you to bed”. With a gentle tug, you pulled Bucky’s remaining boot from his foot. “What, did taking off the first one tire you out? Was that the straw that broke the camel’s back?”

Bucky’s groggy laugh came out a low rumble, “yeah, guess so. I was just gonna get back in bed with you, but… you wouldn’t believe how tiring it is to take off a shoe”.

With both of Bucky’s feet free from their boots, you helped your super soldier from his armchair. And even though Bucky was the one who’d only slept for a total of half an hour, he insisted on carrying you to bed. His strong arms held you close to his chest, pressing your body against his heartbeat. You knew the sound so well it sometimes felt like your personal metronome.

Bucky stripped out of his clothes and finally crawled into bed with a deep sigh of relief. He’d thought about this moment from the second he pulled away from the house. “Get over here, Barnes”, you offered your arms to Bucky and allowed himself to rest his massive body atop yours. His head fell against your sternum and before you knew it, you’d both drifted off to sleep. You remained locked together for a long while, making good on your promise to sleep in.

——————————

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[sailtomarina]

Study hard

If he read a single word more, Draco was going to explode.

It wasn’t like he needed the extra reading, or writing, or practical application. He’d read everything there was to read, written every stance imaginable, and wand waved until his arms nearly fell off. He needed a break. He deserved a break.

Shoving his chair away from the table, he made to stand up, but found himself impeded by two warm arms winding their way around his neck and a weight settling against his back.

“And where do you think you’re going?”

Granger. 

Like him, she’d returned to Hogwarts for her 8th year to finish out her N.E.W.T.s, but unlike him, she’d chosen to do so of her own free will. He was given no such choice in the manner. Draco Malfoy was to graduate from Hogwarts on court order, and spend the next decade devoting himself to the Ministry in a field of his choosing. It was a favorable outcome, all things considered. He could have been like his father, sentenced to half a century in prison. He could have had his wand revoked, or his memories of the wizarding world wiped clean. He could have been forced into house arrest for the remainder of the school year as a remote student—this was actually his first preference.

Preferences were not an option. Draco found himself bundled up onto the Hogwarts Express with a mission to graduate with honors. No exceptions.

Then she happened.

Hermione Granger—know-it-all, rival, rebel with a cause, former prefect—sauntered into his train car, sat her sweet arse down in front of him, and demanded a fresh start. No more name calling, no guilt trips. Following through on her defense of him in front of the entire Wizengamot, she declared the two of them equal. How could he refuse?

They shook on it, and she settled in for the rest of the train ride with her nose buried in a book looking as natural as a cat in a box. Draco? He was the caged canary.

The weeks that followed were some of the most challenging and invigorating weeks of his life. Obviously, he received all the derision and disregard that he deserved from most of the student body. In exchange, he found himself in a nonstop race to the top of every class with Hermione Granger, their names trading places from exam to exam. On the rare instance when Theo or Boot usurped their reign, they’d take the top spots back with a vengeance.

This is actually what prompted them into regular study sessions together. Call it a pooling together of resources, or perhaps combining forces for the greater good. Weekly meetings turned into three days a week, and then eventually into daily meetups. The sight of Draco Malfoy and Hermione Granger sitting together at their table in the back by the window became a regular, even expected, sight. Heated arguments over scholarly disagreements took place in the 8th-year common room, far from the disapproving eyes of Madam Pince.

“I’m going mental. I need a break. Or maybe a vacation.” Draco kept his voice low—they were still in the library, after all.

The arms around him tightened, and Granger nuzzled his neck like some kind of grooming cat. “If you don’t study hard, I’m bound to beat you.”

He adjusted his pants. If she kept hugging him like this, he’d be forced to drag her off somewhere private. He wasn’t sure he’d make it very far.

“I highly doubt you’ve studied any harder than I have. I just happen to know when to call it quits and take some well deserved rest.”

“Is that what you Slytherins call it? Rest?”

Sweet suffering Salazar.

“I could actually use another reference from the Restricted Section. Care to join me?” His fingers played with the buttons of her cuffs, and he dropped his head back to lock his gaze with her own.

If only his father could see him now—his only son and heir trading heated looks with the girl he’d spent the entirety of his school years reviling. It was comical, really, how Draco had mistaken his own infatuation for animosity. His eyes were clear now. He knew without a doubt that he was one lucky wizard and that, Hermione-willing, he’d spend the rest of his days living up to her high expectations.

The smirk that slid onto her face was frighteningly similar to his trademark, yet another influence their classmates noticed more frequently as each day passed. Releasing her hold on him, she held a hand out in agreement, allowing him to lead her into the stacks far from prying eyes and ears.

If anyone had asked them later who ended up snatching the top scores that cycle, they would have been hard pressed to remember. In truth, they were both winners that particular day, and every one after that. Restful, well referenced winners.

WC 822

#dramione prompt #dramione #dhr fanfiction #harry potter fanfiction #draco malfoy x hermione granger #hermione granger #draco malfoy

[reasonsmandy]

You're sleeping over

Karen Sirko x Reader

✧.* requested by anon — could you do prompt 9 with karen sirko?? 🫶🫶

✧.* summary — You are spending an afternoon with your date, teaching her different ways of painting. And she thinks it's adorable the way you talk about what you love.

✧.* warnings — none.

✧.* word count — 1.6k

✧.* 🎹 — Karen Sirko's masterlist

✧.* mandy's notes — hey my loves, how are you? I'm finally on vacation so feel free to ask me anything you want in the asks.

"This is impossible!" She exclaims dropping the brushes on her table, you let out a laugh letting your hair fall in your face. "How do you have the patience for that?"

Karen was sitting in your studio chair, a few days ago you had agreed to spend the afternoon together on her week off and there she was at your house watching you finish your orders for the week. You couldn't help but notice her disheveled hair that gave her a differentiated charm that only she kept, the way her mysterious presence was broken just with you made you feel unique in the world.

It's been a few months since you were something, something as good and natural as the instinct to look for air after leaving the womb, you connected so lightly and instinctively that moments like this were just right. You were staring at the details that drew the features of her face for a long time, but you didn't care, you wanted to capture every fraction next to her in your memory.

"I wonder if you're staring at me because you think I'm a disaster in this, or for other reasons." Her accent made your body shiver, you rest your face in one of your hands, opening a smile.

"You're not a disaster." You say, she arches her eyebrows lifting your drawing and you can't contain your laughter. "Okay, maybe you need a little more practice."

"That's why I'm a musician, my talent is for the keyboard and that's all." She shrugs letting her body relax completely into the chair.

"You're the kind of person who can be amazing at anything you put your mind to Karen." You comment and see her blush, pride grows within you when you see that you managed to cause this in her. "Trust me, get a new canvas, I'll walk you through it step by step."

She considers giving up but the smile that grows on your face at the thought is an undeniable request. She gets up and goes to the stock of white canvases you have in the corner of the studio, the dark brown walls of the place are painted with distinctive flowers and the easels are decorated with different themes.There is your refuge, your peaceful place where you recharge your strength when everything seems too much, and having her there was like the combination of everything you loved the most.

Karen brings the canvas and places it on the easel she had been using until then, you get up going to her with your apron in hand.

"Can I put it on you?" You question, Sirko lifts your blonde hair giving you access to do what you want. So you do.

She turns to you and kisses your lips, you place your hands on her waist feeling the wonderful sensations she brings you just by being close. You rest your forehead on hers and then go to your easel ready to give her instructions.

"Okay cutie, I'm ready." She says, popping her neck and preparing paints beside her.

As you gather an array of paint tubes in different colors, you turn to Karen with a mischievous smile. "Alright, Karen, get ready for some magical color alchemy! We're going to mix colors like wizards brewing potions."

Karen chuckles, her eyes gleaming with curiosity. "I'm ready to become a color magician!"

You demonstrate how to squeeze a bit of red and yellow paint onto the palette, blending them together to create a vibrant orange. "See how these colors dance together to create a whole new shade? I love replicating the vivid colors on canvas and I get so happy when I can mix and match perfectly. Now it's your turn, how about mixing these two?"

Karen carefully follows your lead, her brows furrowing in concentration. "So, I mix these two colors?" She questions you, you nod, and she watches you closely mimicking what you do. "Babes! I got it, look." She turns the canva towards you with pride in her eyes.

You applaud her with a grin. "Bravo! I told you that you could do it. Now, let's go to the next step!"

With an assortment of brushes in hand, you show Karen different brush techniques, from soft strokes to bold ones. "Okay, Karen, let's unleash our inner brush whisperers! We'll paint with confidence and let the brushes do the talking."

Karen giggles, taking a wide brush in her hand. "I feel like I have a secret weapon now!"

You guide her through various brush movements, demonstrating how to create texture and expressiveness. "Now, try making short, feathery strokes. Let the brush dance lightly across the canvas, adding a touch of magic to your artwork."

Karen experiments, her strokes becoming more confident with each attempt. "Oh, I like how this feels! It's like my painting is coming to life."

You nod with enthusiasm. "Absolutely! Your brushwork adds personality and energy to your artwork. Keep exploring, and soon your paintings will have a unique signature touch!"

As you discuss the concept of layering, Karen listens attentively, eager to dive into this technique. "So, by adding layers, we create depth and make our painting come alive?"

You nod, a twinkle in your eyes. "Exactly! Each layer adds richness and dimension to your artwork. It's like building a story with paint."

Her excitement was clear, her eyes sparkled with each instruction, with each movement of the brush, Karen loved seeing how it moved you as the music moved her. She can't contain the wide smile that grows on her face, you feel a little embarrassment rise in you, your cheeks flushing.

"I talk too much, right? I'm sorry..." You look down at your feet, trying to push away the little embarrassment.

The blonde approaches you holding your hands, she removes the hair from your neck and deposits some kisses there. "Go on tell me, I love hearing you talk about what you like" She murmurs against your skin, you feel every hair on your body stand on end.

"Doesn't get boring, does it?" Unsure you question, your voice low against her ear.

She pulls away kissing your lips briefly, you feel that connection flooding your body like a strong wave of adrenaline. "Nothing involving you is boring."

Karen gets away from you, grabs a brush and starts applying a translucent layer over her existing painting. "We were talking about layering, weren't we? What do you think of the layers of my masterpiece?"

You applaud her progress. "How can you have so many talents at the same time? It's impressive." She winks at you and blows you a kiss.

With a wet brush and a palette full of fresh paint, you introduce Karen to the wet-on-wet technique. "Okay baby, next step, get ready to witness the beauty of colors blending and dancing together."

Karen grins, dipping her brush in water before adding a splash of blue paint onto the canvas. "I'm listening, my muse!"

You join in, both of you working simultaneously, letting the wet paints mingle and merge. "Look at how the colors flow and mix on the canvas, creating a dreamy watercolor effect. It's like a dance party of pigments!"

Karen giggles as the colors swirl and intermingle. "I swear to God sweets If we never crossed paths I would never know about this stuff."

You share her excitement, reveling in the fluidity of the wet-on-wet technique. "That's what I love about this part of art, It's all about embracing spontaneity and letting the colors guide us. Remember, there are no mistakes—just happy surprises!"

When the sun goes down on the horizon and you can see the great mixture of orange, yellow and red through the window, you are already smeared with different types of paint and laughing about random things. Karen wipes her hands on her apron and then ties her hair in a bun, you lock your eyes on the beauty of her person.

"Are We finished?" You wrap your arms around her waist from behind, she caresses your arms as she closes her eyes resting her head on her torso.

"I think we are." She whispers, bringing one of your hands to her lips to kiss your knuckles.

You stay like that for a few seconds, enjoying each other's presence. There are few people who make you feel like you belong in such a unique way as Karen did from the beginning that your eyes met. There was a magnet that drew you to her from the first moment you heard that British accent for the first time, and that only intensified when you started to live with her more. And it was there in that place that was your refuge, feeling her body against yours like finding something that was so necessary, like breathing after a long swim, that you knew… You didn't want that to slip through your fingers.

"I want you to be my girlfriend." You say it all at once, not thinking of anything that could make you fear. You feel her body tense, your heart racing. "I'm in love with you Karen, I really am."

She breaks away from you, turning to look into her eyes, you weren't afraid of what she would say now, you were just afraid that your affirmation would push her away somehow. She closes her eyes tightly and you know she's thinking of a thousand different alternatives.

"Karen, you don't have to say anything—" She kisses you abruptly, clutching your neck with need and urgency trying to convey just how necessary you were.

"Fuck babes, I am in love with too." She says panting after the kiss, you open a smile hugging her and laying her on the couch in the room, kissing her once more.

"You're sleeping over." You say rubbing your nose against hers, with a huge smile.

"You are in charge." She says hugging you closer.

...

Hi, I hope you enjoyed it... If you wanted to ask for something my requests are open, and if you want to ask and don't have any ideas check out my prompt list :) xoxo

Want to be tagged when new stories come out? REASONSMANDY'S TAG LIST

#djats #daisy jones and the six #djats x reader #karen sirko #karen sirko x reader #karen sirko x you #karen sirko x fem!reader #karen sirko x y/n #karen karen #karen sirko x fem #daisy jones & the six #the dunne brothers #daisy jones and the six fanfic #daisy jones and the 6 #the six #suki waterhouse

[bonny-kookoo]

we all know you would make the saddest ✨️yoongi-kitty-flashback-scene✨️

:') [warnings for major angst, rather long drabble because I love them so much :( ]

Guilt is a heavy feeling.

Yoongi has always been an awfully private person, and so he's never really talked to anyone about what goes on at home. It's what he's been doing to keep himself sane, in a way; his work and private life have always been two separate things he never mixed up. It's also why he doesn't really let anyone of his coworkers he considers friends into his home- he keeps people at a comfortable distance, so to speak.

He cherishes his privacy. Needs that control over things.

Maybe if his friends had known about you, they could've helped. Especially Jungkook- maybe the hybrid specialist could've warned him about something, could've noticed anything he himself did not.

He remembers how angry he'd been that day.

His work had simply sucked the life out of him when he came home- two cardiac arrests he couldn't bring back during his shift in the ER, combined with the news that one of his patients in neurology had rapidly declined after barely making any improvements. It had made him feel like a failure, irritated, and frustrated about everything.

He knows you only wanted to help. He's never told you he needed you, always scoffed when you told him he'd be lost without your help.

But he does need you. And he wishes he could tell you now.

You always did that, almost with a sense of secrecy, as if he wouldn't know it's always been you. When he fell asleep on the couch, you'd get a blanket and a pillow to make it more comfortable. When he'd be too tired to make himself something to eat, you'd cook anything you knew you could while he would shower, and he always loved it, no matter how awfully simple it would be. And even though he knew you always wanted to do something with him like go on trips or vacations, you never complained when he just used his days off to sleep and laze around.

He loved you. He still loves you.

He remembers how he'd yelled at you in anger of himself and not you, how you'd just left him by himself like he wanted, the last sight of you up and walking one of faint hurt in your eyes as you'd left him on the living room couch to sleep. And when he woke up, you weren't there anymore.

He'd searched around the house for you, had panicked and ran out front to check the pool, but you were nowhere- until he found you on the kitchen floor, unmoving, unresponsive, cold to the touch.

And even in the ambulance he'd yelled at people, especially when the diagnosis fell that he himself refused to believe.

He knew it, deep down, that it was pretty cut and dry. Everything had pointed to exactly what the paramedics had suspected, and after weeks of you staying in this unresponsive state, and Jungkook continuously talking to him about your condition, he'd accepted it.

He had to.

There's no clear understanding yet as to why it happens only in hybrids. Medically, there's such limited research in it that it doesn't even have a name yet. All that's known is that similar to sudden infant death, hybrids fail to either properly wake up from deep sleep, or when awake, experience something similar to a brain stroke. But what exactly causes it isn't at all conclusive, mainly because it's extremely rare.

It's what makes it even worse to him.

No matter what treatment he comes up with, there's been almost no significant improvements. The only thing that really happened was, that you went from a coma into a persistent vegetative state- and he doesn't really know if he could really call it an improvement at all. You sometimes move, sigh, smile or even cry, and it claws at his heart every time he's witness of it.

But the worst time is when your eyes are open.

It makes him almost nauseous to see them look at nothing, dart around occasionally, without any soul behind them. They're lifeless, there's no consciousness behind them, no actual reasonable cause for them moving around. It's like your body is back, but your soul is still lost.

And he hates it. He wants you to come back.

"HR is bothering me again about taking days off." He mumbles to you, carefully brushing your hair today. It's barely becoming day outside, but he likes this time of day most. He won't be bothered until a few hours later when nurses come to care for you, check up on you and keep everything up to date. "I should maybe clean out the pool in the backyard... it's getting warmer these days now." The doctor says quietly. He does this a lot. He plays music other times, or simply talks about random things, or does things just like now- brushing your hair, touching your hand, has even brought blankets and pillows from home to you.

Jungkook said that it could help stimulate your awareness. And Yoongi is grabbing at any straw he can reach at this point.

"Remember how I hated that pool?" He chuckles, running the bristles of the pale pink brush over your scalp and through your hair- something that made you purr, before this had happened. "..I was actually scared, you know?" He admits softly. "I was scared that you might.. fall in and drown, when I'm at work. Because I dreamed it once." He shrugs, watching how you don't respond whatsoever. "I'll take more time off in the future, I promise." Yoongi tells you, exchanging the brush for his hand, fingers massaging the base of your cat ear on your head.

It's then that he notices something, against the tips of his fingers.

A soft almost unnoticeable vibration, causing him to immediately stand up from his chair, leaning in closer. If it is what he thinks it is, this might be an actual improvement worth investigating- but as soon as it was there, it's gone the moment he attempts to confirm it. "Come on, tell me you're coming back to me.." He pleads under his breath, disappointment hitting him hard as he rests his forehead against the side of yours, a kiss placed against your cheek. "I need you.."

And suddenly, it's there again, a little louder than before.

You're purring.

#bts imagine #bts fanfic #bts fic #hybrid imagine #yoongi imagine #min yoongi imagines #yoongi imagines

[giggly-squiggily]

Umm, who hurt you?! What was your reason for dropping that on us?! Wow now I got to go and read ChiKuni fluff

Blue Lock hurt me- they know what they did :;) KJKJERkjaerkjekjkjarkjar It was a thing building up, I swear! That last episode...

Speaking of- I DO have a cute Kunigiri headcanon I've shared with a friend before that I'm gonna share with y'all now :D Under the cut for length!

-Okay so: Birthdays. I know in the most realistic canon situation Blue Lock is most likely taking the course of a school semester at best given how quick the matches are with only like- a few days between. (Exception being conditioning periods where they train between selections I believe those take around 6-8 weeks or whatever) but like- here me out.

-Birthdays honestly freaking suck in Blue Lock. It's not so much they're forgotten but rather unless it falls around or on a major holiday, you're stuck there for it. Yes, if you have the points built up you could leave for the day, but it also heavily factors in where you live in comparison to where Blue Lock that makes you wonder if taking the day is even worth it.

-That's kinda Kunigami's problem; his birthday doesn't fall around any vacation time, and he town he lives a good half-day out from the Blue Lock facility so even if he were to use his points to go home, there wouldn't be much of a celebration let alone reunion. He decides to help spare him the heartache to just pretend it doesn't exist.

-And for the most part- it works. No one knows his birthday's coming up and that's how he wants it to be. No one but a certain redhead that is. The thing is- Kunigami made the mistake of mentioning it what feels like a lifetime ago when they all first met. It was part of the whole "Introduce yourself" game they did and that was one of the prompts. Chigiri committed it to memory just because (not because he had a major crush on the ginger before he even knew his name- nope not at all what are you talking about?)

-So the day is here and Chigiri's just: "It's Kunigami's birthday holy-" Of course he doesn't say it outloud yet; it'd ruin the surprise if Kunigami knew he knew. He waits until the Hero's out of the room and in the process of showering before calling a small meeting among Team Z about the day. It's a collective gasp of "His birthday's TODAY?" followed by "Shhhh, not so loud!"s and "What do we do?"s. Thankfully, Chigiri's already got an idea.

-Two groups are made: Team keep the hero distracted and team set up the surprise. The first half is fairly easy; Raichi when desired is rather good at keeping Kunigami busy; lots of "Bet I could beat you in his" and "Is that all your made of?"s. If he can't keep him at bay, the others will. Meanwhile, Chigiri and Isagi cash in points to go out the morning. Naturally they have to tell either Anki or Ego where they're going, but that's also part of the plan cause they need them.

-To their good fortune, Anki absolutely loves the idea Chigiri had in mind and helps them out both financially and with the super important part of their plan. She's getting it all going while Chigiri and Isagi head to the nearest convenient store, getting the last of what's needed ready.

-By the time everything is set up, Kunigami's in the shower exhausted. He worked extra hard today due to the strange competitiveness of his teammates- maybe they realized he was down and tried distracting him? He kinda shrugs it off and heads out fully dressed-

-SURPRISE! He almost has a heart attack when the team screams at him. "HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" The room was decorated with little party things they could find, their makeshift table a combination of convenient store goodies and hearty meals from the cafeteria. Among it all's a humble little cake with "Happy Birthday, Hero" sprawled across it (clearly in Iemon's handwriting- he's got the best in the room). A phone's playing music in the corner and everyone's got party hats because why not? He's so touched by the gesture he almost cries.

-And the party is going really well! They're all snacking and laughing, ribbing Kunigami some for not telling them, just having a great vibe all around. No one will say who's idea it was- though our Hero's got a guess.

-Then the real kicker happens. Ego's face comes up on the screen and everyone's just: "???" Until he's all: "Kunigami Rensuke, a message came for you." Before he fades out and the screen is replaced by-

-"Happy birthday Rensuke!" It's a video message from his parents! Instant tears, Kunigami's got his sweatshirt sleeve pressed against his mouth as his parents wish him a good day and remind him that they love him and miss him. They tell him how proud they are of him and what he's doing, and it's just sappy and sweet. His sisters come on next and it's even more teary when his oldest goes "Take home the gold, striker hero." And his baby sister with her little tooth gap and massive grin is waving at him with both hands going "We love you, Ren!"

-By the time the video is over the room's a mess- some more weepy than other's especially at how touched Kunigami is by it all. Isagi's joking about "It's his party, he'll cry if he wants to!" while barely fighting his own tears back and Raichi's mumbling something about onions and the room's laughing once more cause they're all just so happy for the ginger.

-It's much later in the night when Kunigami puts two and two together. He goes out to the cafeteria cause that's where he saw him go, finding the team princess filling his water bottle up and yawning sleepily after a day full of adventure. He doesn't get a chance to even greet him before Kunigami envelops him in a hug, all but lifting him off the ground. "You did all that for me."

-"It was a group effort." Chigiri says automatically, voice muffled against the warm fabric of Kunigami's sweatshirt. It's nice though, and he's suddenly hyper aware of the fact the hero smells nice and has equal parts muscle and squish along his body that feel really good to lay against and could easily pick him up and- oops he's crushing bad again.

-"I was just gonna pretend it didn't exist, my birthday." Kunigami lets him go some, eyes misty and smile so warm and kind it melt Chigiri almost immediately. "How'd you know?"

-"I guess a princess remembers his hero's special day." Chigiri just kinda shrugs but feels so stupid and cheesy with that line that he gets all embarrassed but Kunigami's living for it and hugs him again. "I know I've said this already but...happy birthday, hero."

-And Kunigami reaches out and brushes Chigiri's hair out of his face with such gentle fingers before he asks: "Thanks...hey, could I be selfish and ask for one more gift on my birthday?"

-"Sure, go for it." Chigiri doesn't know if it's midnight or not- he doesn't really care at this point.

-"Could I....could I kiss you?" He's so shy asking and Chigiri's over the moon with how bad he just wants to grab his collar and smash their faces together right now but he's gonna play it cool and make it special- fuck it.

-Some self restraint is used- Chigiri doesn't smash their faces together but he's not wasting time with slow beats either. It's like receiving a tall cold glass of water after a long hot summer day how amazing it felt to finally FINALLY kiss him. And Kunigami clearly feels the same when he's grabbing him by the waist and pulling him against him like he's the only thing keeping him leveled in a world without gravity. When they pull away, Chigiri's flushed and grinning and says against his lips "Nice enough of a gift, hero?"

-"Oh yes- can we do it again, princess?" And that's how their night goes, just two boys falling in love with each other under the cool lights of the cafeteria, water bottle forgotten and not a care in the world who walks in or is watching them in that moment.

Thanks for reading!

#blue lock #anime talks #kunigiri #kunigami rensuke #chigiri hyoma #fluff #team z #team z being the best they can be #birthdays #fluff after that painful angst sess the other night lols #I love them your honor #Kunigami deserves the world #jarkjekrjkjrakerkja #I swear the next few headcanons I write will be other fandoms lols #I'm just locked in right now to Blue Lock #cupcake-spice13 #friend :3 #Can't deny I cackled when I read your ask oakelrjaejkrjakr

[barrenclan]

WHAT.

when it was said to expect more tiny pinepaws tomorrow i just assumed that was a joke. i had no idea that there were gonna be more tiny pinepaws tomorrow, or i guess today. also i totally thought the skull on the cover was just cool symbolism, but when pinepaw found the bones the realization hit me like a truck

knowing that these were the other clans, did the dark army have enough humanity to bury them, or did time bury them itself? something tells me it’s the first, as i doubt there was enough time for sand and dirt to move to cover all of that when the clans first returned, unless they just.. denied it’s existence, much like pinepaw, which would make sense considering they’ve already been through so much, coming home to a horde of bones must be too much, if that was the case.

i just wanna give pinepaw a big hug, he’s just a little guy. he had no idea his desires to uncover the truth would lead him down a rabbit hole. finding skeletons must be awful for anyone, but with the added context he knows? geez. little guy deserves a break. maybe a bf.

speaking of potential bfs… CORMORANTPAW!!! OFFERED!! A MOUSE!! he wants pinepaw’s company!!! he’s worried for pinepaw!! he wants to make sure pinepaw eats!!!! oh my god i’m so excited about this. cormorantpaw cares for pinepaw!!! cormorantpaw seems to be opening up more, breaking down his walls and letting someone in, someone that makes him feel comfortable!! ughhh i love his development so much he’s just trying his best,,

saying that rainhaze’s effort saved the clan from more deaths than harebreeze makes me think. harebreeze was the father of him and slugpelt? i think? so i wonder if the death of his father caused a drive to make sure nobody else did. or it could be something like wanting to make sure his new nieces and nephews stay alive!! i want to know if rainhaze is okay i love him :( he’s just a silly guy. wet cat

of course u explained what shining town meant, it was a reference, but while reading i actually took it in a different way, so i’ll just throw this here too. barrenclan has a sense of this is how life is. it’s hard, but they’re safe. as long as things keep going the way they’re going, they’re be the shining town, they’ll continue being safe. however, as pinepaw finds, their territory is laced with the dead, saying how the shining town they chase for can’t be that possible if their illusion of safety lives untop of countless graves.

also daffodilpaw and redpelt were both on the same panel. 10/10 issue will issue again

EHEH I'm loving people's reactions that are just like WHAT?? WAS THAT??

When I promised tiny Pinepaws, I meant it! I just didn't share the context around them. :)

It's sort of a combination of the two that led to the bones being buried! Not to get too gruesome, but they were all basically... slaughtered en masse, which led to their bodies piling together and forming a... rotting, scavenged silt-like layer? Yech. When early BarrenClan found that and faced it? Yeah, NO one was processing that. I imagine that some cats made an attempt to bury what was left of the bodies, and dirt and wind did the rest of the work.

Pinepaw needs a freaking VACATION. I wish I could pick him up and take him to the Bahamas. Meanwhile Cormorantpaw is slowly going through his own little character development in the background. We'll learn some more about him next week!

Harebreeze was Rainhaze and Slugpelt's father yes! It was mentioned he died in Issue 4, the first issue with Rainhaze in it. The death of Harebreeze, plus the threat to his own family, definitely drove Rainhaze to prevent the famine however he could.

I LOVE your alternate interpretation of "the shining towns". :D What a great angle on it!!

I'm glad you enjoyed the issue <3

#ask #pinepaw #rainhaze #cormorantpaw #harebreeze #issue 12

[fair-fae]

Lil real life update~ mostly just incoherent rambles

I’m starting a new job in January. It’s been in the works a crazy long time now but I didn’t mention anything sooner, which I’m glad for because it has taken actually forever and anything that could possibly happen to delay the process did happen :’) But it finally paid off. I’m quitting my current job in December because it’s the only way I’ll be able to get time off to spend Christmas with my family for the first time in years (since it’s “forbidden” for us to request time off October - early January at my current job). It caused some drama with my in-laws who I guess pre-emptively assumed we were doing “Christmas” in January because “that’s what we always do” (yeah because I can’t get any other time off, not for funsies or our personal preference lol????) but whatever, that’s a whole other thing. I have finally escaped the service industry! As someone with no degree and no “marketable skills,” that’s huge lol. And I am very excited. I am little nervous since I don’t know a lot about the job or what to expect. The hours apparently vary wildly--some times of the years we are off, some times will be slow, some it will be super busy and I’ll be working a lot of hours. I’m not really sure how it will go. I don’t really have the spoons to keep up with overtime let alone fulltime work. But like? I already work 30 hours a week at an emotionally, physically, and mentally draining job. I lose two entire days every week of my life to double-shifts that leave me no time for anything but sleep and hygeine. I feel so busy and so drained I can’t even enjoy my time off or do anything with it. So like, could it really be any worse than that? It also involves some travel which I am really excited for! I do kinda wanna scream because things are going to shit with my husband’s job and he’s talking about us moving back to DC/noVA because that’s where the most job opportunities for him are now that I’ve finally got this job that I sunk a year of waiting and endless hours of paperwork into and I am so tired of moving :))))) But w/e we’ll see how things go. I am ignoring that possibility for now and just going to let myself feel excited that I can finally quit this shit job LOL I know I haven’t talked about my real job a lot here. I’m a hostess at a fine dining restaurant which is one of the nicest places in this combination tourist trap + retirement community I have the misfortune of currently residing in. Along with all the usual fun of working in the service industry, most of our regular customers are rich, entitled old people, and then we get a lot of people coming to celebrate special occasions and expecting everything to be ~*perfect*~ and business people having business meals and thinking they are more important than everyone else in the restaurant. It’s kinda horrible and to top it all off, my boss may actually be one of the worst people I have ever met. I know most people hate their bosses and like yeah, I’ve had bad bosses before, but no, this is beyond the stereotype. She incompetent. She is lazy, won’t do shit, only comes in for two “shifts” a week (by which I mean she shows up like three hours into an actual shift) but then tries to micromanage and do nothing but lecture people and refuse to help solve any actual problems or talk with customers wanting to speak with her. Her shitty attitude toward us is not even a “the customer is always right” thing; she is actively horrible to both her employees and even the customers, like almost actively malicious toward our customers who give her their money LOL. We get bad reviews about her and she upsets so many of our customers. She’s a spiteful, racist, xenophobic, Fox-news obsessed piece of MAGA shit who goes on about her shitty political views at the work place to us and bewildered customers alike. She won’t let anyone request time off for anything but she’ll take multiple vacations a year + time off for plastic surgeries and not even have someone available to cover for her in her absence. Oh and she loves to party and drink with her employees who are younger than her own children, get mixed up in all their drama, and bring her relationship drama about who is cheating on who in her marriage (well, former marriage now lol) into the workplace and like. If it weren’t for everyone else still there, I would love to see this entire business blow up in her face, but oh well. Anywho, I’m excited for the new job but definitely nervous. Even if it doesn’t work out, I’m just so relieved I can quit my current job before I actually snap. I’m really looking forward to the future now. Even if that means potentially moving yet again.

#ooc #rambles

[lacroxton]

Automatic Autonomic Automated Vending Machine

One of my favorite fics I wrote and also the first translation I tried. Inspired by Cyberpunk 2077, Death Stranding and Atomic Heart, it's a story about freedom, promises and the post apocalypse Terra with Vending Machine Exusiai & Messenger Texas.

Warning: Blood and Gore

//

Once there was a flood; A surge that gave birth to all life. Once there was a flood; A surge that selected our civilization to survive. And then there was another flood.

The flood that left nothing behind.

Later that night, Texas opened her eyes and saw two men staring at her bed, clutching a hoe and a harpoon respectively. The harpoon's tines touched both sides of her neck, and the soon-to-be murderer was tense and shaky. Texas wasn't sure whether the corners of his compressed lips were laced with excitement because the moonlight was too faint to cast a shadow.  

She and Exusiai originally came to this church to escape the sandstorm. The journey to Laterano passes through vast wastelands—places that had never been favoured by Mother Nature, and would never be transformed into mobile cities. The whole world had forgotten them, but God still allowed them to survive, so the people were left with nothing but faith. They gathered together, lingering in groups of three or five, praying. No one knew what they were praying for, but they were confident that a miracle would happen one day.

It was at this time Texas and Exusiai pushed the door in. As luck would have it, this small self-rescue community had just vacated a few beds. Last week, a man had died of a hyena's sharp teeth; a mother and her daughter had died from picking poisonous sandfruits. If the food in the warehouse didn't replenish soon, everyone here would starve to death. Exusiai hence made a proposal: to exchange three nights of safe and sound sleep with hot, yummy meals.

At first, people questioned whether this was some kind of originium arts or tricks unleashed by Texas. They had never seen anyone travel with a vending machine, let alone a talking, enthusiastic, joyful vending machine. The flashing pixels would form an image of a redhead Sankta on the machine's square screen, with up to 24 combinations of facial expressions and an excellent sense of humour beyond the human level. Of course, these extra "add-ons" were shenanigans Exusiai came up with just to sound a little bit cooler. Based on her polymeric converting system, her most crucial core function was actually INSTANT COOKING : you can put any raw materials into the ingredient slot, select the recipe and wait for a few seconds; gourmet foods full of umami will instantly drop out and ready to serve. Wilted rice cobs become hearty rice balls, and expired tuna cans become creamy bowls of tuna soup. If you put in a few shrivelled berries, even the melt-in-your-mouth desserts will no longer be a luxury. Exusiai fulfilled everybody's wishes with a big smile: the first day, and the second day, until eventually, no one questioned her or their own stomach. They praised: these are the best food we have ever eaten in our lives; these are the evidence that God has come to save us.

And that was also why they would never allow the precious happy hour to come to an end. Selfishness let greed swell and fester in their hearts, finally, on the last night, they decided to take possession of Exusiai for themselves and leave Texas to Death.

Luckily, Texas had been acquainted with Death for so many years. The harpoon that choked her could've bounced off the bed, projected back the way it came, and quickly pierced the murderer's heart whenever she wanted. The guy holding a hoe beside him was even skinnier, and wielding an unfamiliar weapon in panic could only backfire. Inertia would cause that weak body to trip over the bricks behind him, inadvertently knocking over a bright oil lamp on the way, until drowning the entire church into a roaring fire.

But before all this could happen, Exusiai's voice drilled into Texas' ears. Texas tilted her head and saw the screen of Exusiai still showing a smiling face; her voice still sounded warm and joyful. She asked those two guys, and everyone in the room who pretended to be asleep: Even if you've taken me for yourselves, how do you know they won't eradicate you the same way they eradicate Texas? How can you be so sure that the fairness everyone promises will indeed be fair?

......We can get through anything as long as the Lord stays with us! Nobody could tell who shouted first in the darkness.

Is that so? Another voice came up, however, retorted, you don't think putting on this face will help you cover the fact that YOU are the thief who steals from the warehouse every chance you get, do you?

As it turns out, people's beliefs are often more vulnerable to suspicion than they could ever imagine, just as fragile as their relationships with each other.

Like something important had suddenly dawned on him, the harpoon was removed from Texas' neck and then dragged slowly toward the tall man guarding the warehouse. The hoe guy also clenched his teeth, turned to aim at the old man lying under the window who always got pardoned from labour duties due to health conditions. Their movements ceased to tremble, so the stone effigies around the church were soon stained with blood. In the midst of yelling, cursing, and killing each other, no one bothered to care that this was a place blessed by God anymore, leaving only dead bodies and pieces of flesh twisted ugly on the floor.

Then, Exusiai selected a few freshly slaughtered tenderloin, had Texas put them in her ingredient slot, removed the bones, and grilled them on both sides to make black pepper patties: crispy outside, juicy inside. Her body wasn't equipped with a gustatory system, therefore couldn't taste anything, but she hoped Texas would like it.

Such a shame it ended so soon. Exusiai's vocal compartment created a series of chewing noises. I was kinda looking forward to watching Texas fight over me.

There was no need for that. Texas divided the patties into equally small pieces with her originium sword, then sealed and packed them into a leather pouch—which would be her sole food supply for the next two days. If you're willing to go with them, she said, I won't interfere much.

What if I'm NOT willing?

The pixels that make up Exusiai's pupils had narrowed, so that her eyes could scan every frame of Texas' movements, watching her light a cigarette by the remaining flame of the oil lamp.

The cigarette seemed to have damped too badly. Texas lowered her eyebrows in silence for a long time before finally exhaling the first puff of mist.

She thought for a moment and said to Exusiai, then I will guarantee your freedom.

*

For a long time, Texas couldn't be sure whether adding the word "freedom" to her vocabulary would be a change for the better. But, she must admit that ever since she met Exusiai, "freedom" had always been intertwining with her life.

When she thought back to that day, Texas' memory was already a little fuzzy. She hadn't eaten a full meal for probably five or six days straight, so hungry that she couldn't even spell out a word, and every breath of air she took only made her stomach emptier. Her car crashed far away, and her package was destroyed in a cave even further. At the end of the day, only half piece of hardtack was left in her pocket. But that was the last straw Texas could grasp. She couldn't eat it yet, not in such a rush. She just needed to find a roof in the ruins of this nameless city to rest for a while; so that when she woke up, the illusion sleep brings to her brain would allow her to hold on for another day.

Texas leaned against a broken wall covered in mud and dust. She knew no one would come to save her. No one would rescue a messenger who failed her mission. Not before The Silence , and sure not for fifty years after it. The only hope was the golden sunset shining on her cheeks; Texas exhaustedly shut her eyelids, wishing it would bring her a sweet dream.

Then it brought back a terrible chunk of brownie. And a very talkative vending machine.

Exusiai had so many things to say, as if she was trying to list out all the details that did and did not happen to her life in a single sentence. She said she hadn't met a living human for fifty years—spent thirty years drifting in the sea, and twenty years drying out on the land after the flood receded. The good thing for her was that Sankta's ancestors, Aggeloi, were a kind of inorganic swarming construct floating in space, which led the modern technology of Laterano to be waterproof, and not even have to rely on electricity. By solely absorbing cosmic radiation, Laterano machines could function perfectly under almost every circumstance; some newer models could also disassemble, reorganize, polymerize, and activate any substance on the molecular level. 

By conducting hundreds of millions of calculations for armageddon, Sankta's God, the supercomputer under The Basilica, had ultimately decided that the Digital Life Project was the best option with higher success rates. Even if their paradise got annihilated by the Seaborns, and their primary network connection got cut forcibly—as long as a certain number of angels' consciousness was successfully uploaded, one day, the Sanktas would return to their homeland and continue the Laterano civilization. 

Exusiai was one of them.

Her consciousness was uploaded to a vending machine, which had no mobility whatsoever, nothing but to lie on her back in the ocean currents, looking up at the sky. Therefore, Exusiai had only been to places where the wind took her. The seawater licked her metal surface and plated it white with infinite waves of salt. Time has never been slower than the years stuck between gears. The wait was too long for the Sanktas to maintain their sober soul; so far, Exusiai had received 1099 neural signals from the other machines shutting themselves down—signals of solid, mutual emotions constructed by the shared memories of Sankta, which is also the confirmation of the very faith of being alive.

Every time these signals dissipated, it felt like some dull, gloomy, lifeless light spots distantly fell across the horizon. But Exusiai was looking up at the sky still. Waiting, expecting, humming while counting the seconds, and fifty years passed just like that.

Until Texas' elbow accidentally touched her button.

Exusiai said she had nothing else to give Texas as a courtesy for their first meeting, and her ingredients, the residue of fruits and dirt dropped inside her slot during all these years, were barely enough to make a brownie. It's probably gonna taste bad as hell, Exusiai added, but at least you wouldn't die from eating that.

Texas wolfed it down almost immediately. She was so, so hungry that her tastebuds no longer distinguish between good and bad, mistaking the sweetness of blood in her saliva for a chocolate flavour. She even ripped off a couple pieces of skin on her mouth as she rolled down the grassy crumbs with her teeth.

Then she licked the corners of her dry, cracked lips and asked Exusiai why would you save me, using a voice as hoarse as broken bellows.

Simple. Said Exusiai, scrutinizing the employee name tag on Texas' chest. The plastic seal was severely scratched, and so did Texas' entire body, as it was tattered and torn, revealing scabbed wounds on her shoulders and tail. I need a messenger to get me to Laterano.

But verbal promise never equals trustworthiness, Exusiai. Texas could feel the thirst now; taking carbohydrates all of a sudden with a flimsy stomach wall apparently triggered some acid reflux up to her throat. For example, I might promise you first, then drop you in the middle of nowhere halfway through.

It's your freedom to do what you want, Texas. Just like it's my freedom to trust a starving ghost lying next to Death. Exusiai didn't tell Texas what she really trusted was a pair of eyes that couldn't lie.

Then what? Texas asked. Those eyes lit up for a rare second. After I get you to Laterano?

Then a REAL piece of strawberry shortcake, of course. Said Exusiai. But if I'm in a good mood, I might also be merciful and share half of it with you.

*

The Lupo without a home and the Sankta without a human body had been on a long journey together ever since.

The vending machine's weight was lighter than expected. Texas quickly scavenged some iron parts and fabrics from the wreckage of the surrounding buildings; Exusiai's polymeric converting system then polished them into a brand new cart with four wheels and two strong straps. Using the rest of the materials, she even tailored a new set of well-fitting clothes for Texas. It was still a long, long way from Laterano, so they spent the daytime walking in sunlight and nighttime under the tarp by a campfire. When Texas fell asleep, Exusiai would dim her screen and lay on the ground, counting the stars.

Exusiai also cooked many, many meals for Texas. From burger and soda combo to fettuccine alfredo, from apple cheese tart to creamy mushroom soup, the chef's recommendation never repeats itself. Although the truth was, these were the foods that Exusiai wanted to eat the most, and yet she couldn't, so sending Texas to collect different ingredients and cook them was the only effective placebo for her cravings. After Texas finished a dish, Exusiai would also force her to comment on it, as if she were some kind of a regular cast on a cooking show.

Texas remembered she had watched something just like this on an old VCR when she used to eat earthworm burritos and cricket jerky back at the shelters in Columbia. That show must be about 60 to 70 years old, even older than The Silence , and the person in front of the camera with a microphone, known as the host, would use a crazy amount of fancy words to describe whatever dish served to her. In the same way that "a steak without wine isn't a good steak," all of the diners captured on screen must also demonstrate an exaggerated nodding, smiling face as if the deliciousness has blown their mind away. Nobody ever found out if those foods were indeed that delicious.

However, Exusiai's 24 pixel combinations didn't allow for such precise facial expressions. Her screen would only display a progress bar below her complacent grin—accompanied by a short piece of electric punk music that runs way off-key at the end of the bar. She was clearly neither a good host nor a good singer.

Texas, on the other hand, was neither a critic nor a liar. So she simply rated every single dish Exusiai cooked her as "tasty".

Time flew by, and they met many other people along the way, leaving new stories with new encounters. Although the flood had receded for twenty years, it was still hard for people's hearts to sprout again from the barrenness. At first, they were tormented by the never-ending hunger and fear. Then, they spent countless days and nights tearing down the fortress besieged. Finally, they returned to the surface, only to find out they must work even harder to keep themselves alive. Everything else was torturous, only the stories were glamorous, so people immediately embraced a new faith. These stories then spread further and further through the winds of the wilderness.

When the neural signal of the last Sankta's death had reached Exusiai, people started praising again: a newborn God had come to this world. God is among the machinery, with a grey wolf guarding her side. Wherever they go, there will be no worries or troubles; Wherever they stay, that place shall be the home of all joy.

People voluntarily elected the talking, enthusiastic, joyful vending machine to wield the sceptre of salvation for all mankind. 

The only remaining Sankta therefore walked on earth, stretched her wings and halo, as she had become the living Laterano.

Sadly, the results of being at the center of attention were often mixed between good and bad, Texas was well aware of that. As many people accept their existence, there will only be more people coming after them, and that's how every story ends. Whenever God seems to tilt the scale to one side, those who desire to be favoured but have not been granted will automatically gather on the other side. The center of the scale is engraved with war. No one ever realized that wars have always arisen from people themselves, and have nothing to do with God, nor with Exusiai.

But Texas was not the type to guess at people's hearts. Whatever side people showed her, she would believe it until they betrayed her. That's why Texas was always covered in blood. Mostly from other people, occasionally from her own, with the crimson slicing her forehead open, drenching her hair and burying her heavy eyelids. Exusiai stood just behind her, acting as a solid wall, letting crimson handprints blend into her crimson metal. That wall was uncomfortable to lean on, and it was even colder to the touch than stone bricks, but the key selling point was that the wall could tell a lot of corny jokes. Exusiai's excellent sense of humour put Texas at ease.

While waiting for Exusiai to prepare dinner, Texas unprecedentedly had a sweet dream.

The dream was of a certain cafe recommended by another cooking show. Texas had never been to a cafe, only seen it on videotape, so the whole place was covered with an old film-like filter. But Texas did drink coffee. She remembered the coffee at the shelter as a liquid very bitter, very sour, and very astringent with no aroma at all. Not sure why it was so popular other than it keeps people awake. Thinking that maybe real coffee wasn't like this, Texas ordered another cup of brew in her dream, but it still tasted the same. She frowned, and her tail froze briefly, only to be watched by her tablemate, stifling a laugh while letting out a long gulp of air.

Texas lifted her head up. The girl on the other side of the table looked like a Sankta, with a halo, wings, striking red hair, a cheeky face and beautiful eyes. Texas didn't think she had ever met this girl before. But the subconscious reaction of the brain soon let Lupo know that the angel in front of her was indeed Exusiai. Perhaps it was because she had a delicate piece of strawberry shortcake in her hand.

Then, Exusiai took Texas's coffee cup, tore open a few small paper sacks and plastic wrappings, poured sugar and milk into it, tasted it first, and stirred it evenly with a wooden stick. This time, Texas couldn't taste the bitterness anymore. It wasn't sour, wasn't astringent, and the coffee became nutty and sweet for the first time. A sweetness that Texas could understand.

Humans are supposed to eat together. Using a mysterious tone, Exusiai in the dream scooped off the corner tip of the cake and handed it to Texas. With a voice no longer being mechanically compressed, every expression and movement of hers was so smooth. Curious about this Exusiai's touch, Texas then reached one hand out to her and realized that Exusiai's skin was much softer than her own.

If there's no one joining the table, Exusiai stopped for a while, even the best food could be unappetizing.

Texas had to admit that Exusiai was right. She realized with hindsight that her tastes had sweetened over the time being with Exusiai—she even seemed to have become a little bit like Exusiai, with a pleasant glimmer of expectation for tomorrow.

She hoped, when they arrived at Laterano, that half piece of strawberry shortcake would be just as good as the one in her dream.

*

Texas woke up, only to find herself lingering in that same dream once again. The light of dusk stung her eyes. She tried to stand up, but the sharp pain and exhaustion coming from all parts of her body kept tugging her down, making her realize that struggling was nothing more than a futile waste of time.

So she had to strain to roll her eyeballs and hold open her blood-slicked vision, looking around.

She was surrounded by broken statues and marble columns. Collapsed church steeples in her far distance; scarred stained glass windows and stone arches in her near distance. The building's unusual solid structure caused one-third of it to survive the devastating crash from The Silence , whereas the other ruined two-thirds had the setting sun spilling in, wrapped around by gravel.

Texas leaned against a pure, white forest. Her memories were finally starting to flow again, which was a good thing, but what wasn't so good was the large amount of viscous blood gushing out along with it. She looked down, and the bleeding holes in her body then followed suit, loosened and gurgled like a dying crimson brook, one bubble after another. Texas's clothes were tattered and torn again. Only this time, the murderers were more skillful than ever. They had waited with more cunning and purpose, laying an early ambush around Laterano, armed at military grade enough to suggest that the still-functioning secret government had sent them on this mission. Texas couldn't quite understand why a force of this size had still yet to be used on rebuilding mobile cities.

And of course, none of that mattered anymore. The crushed arm, the thigh impaled from the crook of the knee, the ripped-open liver and intestines brushed by the warm wind, none of those things mattered anymore. Texas moved her tongue laboriously, letting the blood slide across her tastebuds with her weak breath. What mattered was that she couldn't taste anything any longer.

She lost her mobility, lost her sense of taste, lying on her back, looking up at the sky, and became just as wretched as Exusiai. Texas apologized for the half piece of cake. She poked out a few fingers, broken but barely retaining the sensation, and started touching the ground, searching for the metallic surface that made her feel at peace. Her colour had long been redder than the paint on the vending machine. But Exusiai didn't say a word. She stood quietly beside Texas; as if she was just a solid wall.

Their story was never supposed to end like this.

The Sankta had sung all the songs she could, told all the corny jokes she had, and made all the food she was able to, but the Lupo right in front of her wasn't getting any better because of it. Even though Exusiai's screen clearly possessed 24 different combinations of expressions—no matter how often she switched these pixel arrangements, none of them could accurately convey the absurdly huge sense of powerlessness that had descended upon her. She judged that her internal programming had made an unfixable error, or how else would she have only learned by now, that waiting for someone to die had turned out to be so hard.

Let's just......go with the joyful face then. Texas said softly, sounding like a dimming bonfire.

Then the joy returned to Exusiai's screen. She saw the corners of Texas' mouth lift gently upward as well—Texas looked so pretty when she smiled. Exusiai thought to herself, that if her happiness could make Texas happy too, she wouldn't mind being happy forever. She just felt confused at the same time. If Texas actually died, but there was no empathy link between Lupo and Sankta, hence no light spot belonging to Texas falling across the horizon—then how exactly should Exusiai mourn her?

But Texas had made her choice long ago.

She held onto the vending machine's shell, fingers sluggishly climbing upwards, bit by bit until she reached Exusiai's ingredient slot. Having the ability to polymerize and reorganize any substance meant that, even without the supercomputer's core connected, Exusiai could recreate her original body anytime, free of mechanical constraints, if she just used a living human of comparable mass as blueprints and raw materials. Texas had known that from the beginning. She also knew that the fact Exusiai had never brought this up, was because they promised to go to Laterano together. For the cake, apparently.

A pair of eyes that couldn't lie and a mouth telling only the truth. The same goes for both Exusiai and Texas. So, Texas chose to honour the other promise she made to the Sankta.

......Eat me up, Exusiai. One of Texas' arms stuck into the vending machine, and the other encircled the shell. She finally managed to straighten her neck, then pressed her groggy head against the conversion button, shivering, face turning sideways. As the soft Lupo ears snugly against Exusiai's hot metal surface, all she could hear was the creaking sound of mechanical parts and the off-key music singing "now processing" to the air.

I WILL GUARANTEE YOUR FREEDOM.

The human in the story closed her eyes in relief and chose to give God a hug.

Exusiai's gears mashed through Texas' young body at full speed. Hair, flesh, organs, and all different kinds of bones. In the iteration of death and rebirth, the piercing roar flew over Texas's lightly scratched ulna, half-healed ribs, worn-out cartilages and spiderweb-cracked femur......But without any exception, every bone of her was holy white, the same colour as those sun-bathed stone tiles on the dome of the Memorial Hall. They were reduced to pieces in unison with a short notification tone, becoming sustenance for Exusiai, light and airy, just like the last bit of frosting sprinkled on a dessert.

As the remnants of the secret operation squad scoured the ruins, the bloodied Lupo with two originium swords had already disappeared. Instead, a true Sankta with wings and halo pointed a pitch-black rifle at their nose.

Sankta's hair was striking red.

Sankta's eyes were beautifully shined.

Yet in this golden sunset, no one could truly see Sankta's face.

Exusiai could never figure out, why they had such a look of fear on their faces when she simply just returned all the arrows, bullets and originium arts back to where they belonged?

Unfortunately, the only Texas who knew the answer to that question could no longer answer her. It was as if Texas had never been born on this earth—and no one, no one except Exusiai, knew about her name, her past, or her future. The last thing left to prove that she had existed, was the tattered and torn clothes on Exusiai. The gift that Texas had worn for a long, long time, and now it had finally been gifted back to the owner.

The sunset had come to an end.

In the long night, Exusiai tucked her hands into her pockets, dragging her narrow shadow forward, alone.

Ahead of her, was The Basilica of Laterano that buried the supercomputer's core; And behind her, was nothing but a silent, barren, white and lonely land.

Strawberry shortcake didn't seem so delicious all of a sudden, Exusiai said to herself, thoughts interrupted by a small, firm chunk hidden deep in her pockets.

—Exusiai found the half piece of hardtack in Texas' jacket.

Doing her best to mimic the movements of Texas, Exusiai peeled off the outer wrapping and took a bite, chewing very, very slowly. Tens of thousands of taste signals on her tongue fed back to her brain, that it was "salty with a hint of sweetness". Perhaps sesame was also on the ingredient list, but time and the poor assembly line had far grounded away its aroma. It tasted hard and certainly dry, with crumbs flying everywhere in her mouth. Definitely didn't look good enough for an appealing advertisement.

But the flavour was so familiar. Exusiai thought, fingers rubbing against the fabric.

Till she eventually realized it was the flavour of being alive.

It was the flavour of Texas.

Exusiai then shed her first tear, declaring that hardtack was the most delicious food on earth.

END.

Lacroxton

#texusiai #ektk #Texas #Exusiai #arknights #arknights texas #arknights exusiai #post apocalypse

[mchiti]

I actually dont know if Ziyech will be playing in this week but I can't wait to see him on the field soon. Okan Buruk does not want to use the new transfers immediately. (some are not fully prepared, some have injuries that need to be careful like that etc u know) Even one player not have a injury or something like that, he wants to be sure that he is full ready because he is fearing that he might be get injured in this field.

When Mauro cameback from vacation he didnt use him like 1-2 match (because Because he hadn't trained at all for 2 months.) but i think Icardi himself thought he should go out as 11, and as he was used to the team, he gave that confidence to Okan.

Tete was training with our U21 team, even he played with them on their match before he was able to join our fully training.

I think, from Okan's perspective we will wait for 1-2 weeks. Maybe we not. (I think Ziyech will be like Icardi. He's just lacking in training, but he's self-confident. He will give the confidence.) Maybe we can see him in team practice just after Molde.

That's absolutely great for the club to do that ❤️ Last year he played minutes here and there and was a starter a few times but then he was dropped completely at some point (more because of the club president's plans to start over and break with the old guard & the old ownership, you see how they bought 948372612 players and spent billions only to end up failing hard. As a player he was better than lots of them combined, he just didn't fit the club's plans anymore). So yeah, I feel like I haven't seen him in years but that's cause in the last 3-4 months of last season he wasn't playing. Also what club buys so many players to the point they leave actual players in the stands? 🙄 And he didn't do pre-season and had to train on his own so it does make sense he's training separately now. I hope Gala's fans will be as patient too bc it'll be worth it!!

I imagine when Icardi arrived it was kinda of a similiar situation for him, I remember all the shit with psg etc. I guess it's not easy neither quick for players to get back on a perfect form when stuff like this happens, but also think that Hakim did a whole world cup and played greatly without having constant time at his former club. He is a confident player for sure, always had that in him. But I think he's also an emotional player (the two things can coexist) and needs to click with the environment (which happened at ajax where felt the love and it happens with morocco cause he's always put on a pedestral by moroccans. he's vice-captain and he'll be the captain soon). I know it will happen with Gala because the vibe is just pure fire and as soon as everything clicks you (WE) will get to enjoy the best of him. 100%. But yeah I'd love to see him training with the club from next week inchallah ❤️

also ramos rumours are getting stronger right??? 👀

#asks

[appetite4savage]

A Vacation to Remember (Phil Collen)

-

I combined two requests with this one: an anon requested Phil smut/talking about the rock of ages video & @colts85 requested phil and his girlfriend on vacation. so here we are

alludes to sex but nothing too graphic. Wasn’t really feeling it for this one.

-

Y/N’s POV

Phil and I have been on vacation in California for the past week. Of course on our last full day here, it’s raining. But it’s okay, because it just means that we can spend the day inside.

Obviously, when you’re stuck inside with Phil Collen, there will be touching involved. The man can’t keep his hands to himself for five minutes.

This particular session happened amidst us watching the top videos on MTV this week.

Just as Phil climbed on top of me, the announcer stopped us in our tracks.

“And now for this week’s number one video, Def Leppard’s Rock of Ages!”

Phil groans as our lips disconnect, hanging his head down and shaking it. “You can’t be serious.”

“Come on, let’s watch it. I haven’t seen it yet.” I laugh as he rolls off of me.

“Gunter glieben glausen globen….”

I lean myself up against the bed frame and Phil wraps his arm around my shoulder.

Around 28 seconds into the video, a flash of white dances across the screen. Phil closes his eyes in embarrassment.

“Phil! What was that?” I giggle.

“I believe… I believe that was a close up shot of my bum.” He scratches behind his ear nervously.

“If your pants were any tighter they’d become part of your skin.” I teased.

“Hey now, we have to have the rockstar attire.”

“Maybe. I think you and Steve got your pants mixed up.”

“Watch yourself.”

“Or what, tight pants.”

“Is that what we’re doing today? Teasing?” He laughs as he returns to his spot above me.

“I don’t know, maybe.” Just as he’s about to kiss me, I pull away and jump off the bed, running to the bathroom.

“You’re really going to get it now.” Phil huffs, jokingly running to chase me around the bathroom.

I had begun taking off my clothes to get in the shower, causing him to raise an eyebrow once he walked in.

“What? Are you not joining me?” I joke.

We both finish taking off our clothes as soon as the water warms up.

I sigh in relief at the heat of the water hitting my chest. Not long after, I feel his lips pressed against my shoulder from behind me.

“Payback is going to be sweet.” He whispered huskily in my ear as his hands danced down my sides.

#phil collen #def leppard #def leppard fan fiction #appetite4savage writes

[never-not-ever]

It’s 8:30am and I was supposed to fall back asleep an hour and a half ago. For the past couple of days my routine has been: come home from work around midnight, watch some tv, eat some food, fall asleep around 2 (last night was 3 😒), wake up around 5:30ish and drive my girlfriend to work, come home and go back to bed til 12/12:30pm, get ready for work and leave by 2 cause traffic is horrendous and can easily change from 30 minutes to over an hour in the span of a few minutes.

But for some reason I cannot fall back asleep right now. And I just know that by the time I do fall asleep my alarm is going to go off and I’m going to feel more tired than I do now but I literally have gotten like 2 hours of sleep right now and I can’t go to work later running off if 2 hours of sleep that I got 12 hours prior 🙃 my god this is just run on after run on 😂.

So I’ve started and deleted so many posts since it’s happened.. literally the other night I was sitting on a 1:1 (still have that post in my drafts cause I forgot to actually post it) and all these memories of when I was a patient on a 1:1 for 5 days came flooding back. The other night I was so scared because this patient had two SA in the last week and I was worried they’d try something on my watch. Anyways I thought that night was hard but then the next day I had my first restraint..

And I was grateful that my first restraint wasn’t very psychiatric and like the ones my girlfriend has witnessed at her job. BUT I literally jinxed myself because the next day I had another restraint and this one was horrible. I felt horrible. I felt so bad for this patient and the things they were saying just kept repeating itself in my mind for the rest of the shift. Like I kept thinking “thank god I never had to be restrained as a patient because the whole being a patient on 1:1 and now a staff doing a 1:1 was hard but this would have been 10x harder if I had any history of restraints”.

I kept thinking how much it sucked that my therapist was/still is on vacation because my god has it been helpful having her during this part of my life going from the patient to the staff.

Another thing that’s really hard is hearing staff talking about borderline patients. Like I know they’re not being malicious, that they’ve been here a while and have seen a lot and know a lot but I’m so sick of hearing “that’s typical borderline stuff” and if the wrong staff ever says that (I’m thinking of this girl who irritates me and gets so defensive all the time) I swear I’m going to say something along the lines of “you do know borderline personality disorder can be different for everyone right?? That there’s 256 different combinations of symptoms and it can present itself in different ways…” and I hope I just don’t say too much about my history or look like a fool when the time comes. Like I’ve talked about this during my last shift with my therapist and how it’s hard sometimes hearing staff say stuff about the patients and then thinking back and wondering if the same shit was said about me.

Okay now that that’s off my chest, maybe I can fall asleep now?

I’m looking forward to tonight’s shift because 1- it’s my last shift before my 3 day weekend, 2- there’s 7 counselors and we have an outside sitter for the 1:1’s and 3- there’s a counselor working tonight who trained me for a couple shifts who I like and hardly see cause they’re per diem so when I saw their name I got excited 😂 I am so fucking lame sometimes.

✌🏻😴🙏🏻

#personal #update of sorts 🤔

[therubyreader]

My Review of These Violent Delights + Our Violent Ends

See a full list of my book reviews here

*Disclaimer: there will be spoilers later on in the review*

Hello, if you're new here then you don't know the idiotic thing I did which was reading Foul Lady Fortune (shameless review plug here) before both TVD and OVE (yes I'm still abbreviating them out of sheer laziness) but I finally got around to it a couple of weeks ago!

Ideally I would've liked to do these reviews separately and also within a couple of days of finishing the books but I read them while I was on vacation and didn't have access to a computer and I was not about to type this out on my phone for the sake of my poor fingers. Because it's been a couple of weeks since I finished reading them some of the smaller details of the books have blurred together in my brain and also see previous comment about being lazy (I still have two more book reviews to type out from when I was on vacation), I will be combining them.

On to the review!

First and foremost, shout out to these books for holding me over while I was stuck in an airport overnight because of a snow storm and there were no chairs so I had to try and sleep on the floor but I couldn't sleep so I just spent most of the night reading. Shout out part two for them keeping me entertained while I had spotty wifi when I finally reached my destination of my mom's home town in Mexico.

I will have to admit that I liked FLF (Foul Lady Fortune, I have decided to start abbreviating that one too) more than TVD and OVE which is a testament to how much Chloe Gong's writing improved in such a short amount of time. I'll be honest with you and say that I probably wouldn't have finished TVD if I had read it before FLF because there were many parts that were just slow and also minorly boring. I feel like Chloe Gong really perfected the art of writing a mystery when she got to FLF because during both TVD and OVE there were points where I honestly not interested in the mystery they were trying to solve but more in the characters.

Speaking of characters, I absolutely loved every single one of the characters, I honestly cannot pick a favorite because they were also so well written and wonderful. I know this might be a basic thing for me to say but if I had to pick a favorite it would probably be Juliette, I love the fact that she was not only girly but also deadly, being able to hide various weapons in her dresses as well as fight in them. I'm honestly quite tired of the trope in a lot of YA fiction where the main character is "not like other girls" and is more of a tom-boy that doesn't care about her looks and hates wearing dresses. Not that there is anything wrong with having those personality traits in real life but as far as YA fiction goes it is honestly over done and boring. I love the concept of a girl being able to be feminine but deadly, a femme fatal if you will. It's honestly a refreshing concept to have in YA books and I hope to see more of it in the future.

Also if you're a sucker for forbidden relationships, this is the series for you, it's very obviously a retelling of Romeo and Juliet but in 1920s China (I'll talk about the history aspect in a second) but it has layers beyond two feuding families. The Romeo and Juliette story is framed as the heirs of the two biggest gangs in Shanghai trying to protect the other from getting killed in a blood feud because of how much they love each other which inevitably causes them to hurt one another. All of this is going on alongside a monster that infects people with brain controlling lice that causes them to rip their own throats out (I know, bloody) while also talking about the political instability that was going on in China in the late 20s. As a history nerd I honestly would've liked there to be more explanation of the historical events because it was honestly a little confusing keeping up with what was going on since it was all new to me but I also understand it is a work of fiction and not a history book so I will not dock any metaphorical points for that. Like I said in my FLF review I really enjoyed being able to learn about a time period in history that isn't taught in schools in the US and I honestly want to look more into it.

There were also a lot of great one liners in the book, the one I remember off the top of my head is "I'm Russian not an alcoholic" which honestly caused me to chuckle. Also Marshall was extremely hilarious, I liked how he was not only a bad ass but had a great personality that I enjoyed from the moment he was introduced. But alongside the antics was also some really beautiful writing that was poetic at times. The way that Juliette and Roma thought about each other especially when they had to do things that would emotionally harm the other or caused them to betray their families was beautiful. Even though I personally have never been in love (because I'm a 22 year old loser but that's neither here nor there) I could honestly feel the emotions they were feeling and that is just a testament to Chloe Gong's skills as an author.

A completely unrelated side note: I didn't realize that Roman was such a popular name in eastern Europe. I genuinely thought Chloe Gong changed Romeo to Roman because it sounds less corny but no she just Russain-ized (Russified?) it to fit the character. It doesn't help that we don't learn Roma's full name until the second book, that played into me not realizing that it was an actual Russian name.

Overall I think I would recommend the book to anyone who is interested in forbidden love stories, historical fiction, and magical realism. Though the books are at times a little slow I do recommend them especially if you want to read FLF and don't want to be like me.

Spoilers For Both Books Below!

Going back to what I said earlier about how much I love the characters I do have to hand it to Chloe Gong for being able to write such likable characters. Though the main ensamble were all essentially murders I honestly could ignore that fact because I liked them so much. Of course I have to highlight Roma and Juliette specifically, their romance was my favorite part of the book and that's coming from me, someone who usually hates romance. I mean the way that they were so in love with each other that they were willing to hurt themselves and their families to keep the other safe. Honestly this might just be because I wasn't raised in a gang but I wouldn't kill my cousin over a man, like even if he's annoying and wrong (I have so many cousins like that, you would not believe) I wouldn't be able to kill him because that's family, you know, but again I was thankfully raised in a non-criminal family so I don't have to worry about that.

Going back to Roman and Juliette, I honestly can say with my whole chest that my favorite scene in the whole series was their wedding. Like it was technically not a legal wedding but they did everything they could to make it legit because it was done on a whim, everything down to them placing the yarn on each other's fingers according to their individual cultural customs was just so cute. Also the fact that Alisa was being nosy and heard their vows and took it upon herself to forge a marriage certificate for them was very sweet, so even they were married more or less legally and technically its legit. But just imagining the shocked expression on Dimitri's face when Juliette showed up to Roma, Alisa, and Marshall's execution and was like "I'm here to die with my husband", also I can bet Roma would've been so happy to hear the word husband he probably would've smiled just a tiny bit up there. I honestly reread the husband part multiple times because I was just so happy for this fictional couple.

Now I will say I haven't actually read Romeo and Juliet but because it is such a staple in society I kind of know more or less what the story entails so it was really cool seeing the references to the original play in the story despite knowing it's meant to be a retelling of the story. Things like character names, which are very obvious for some and a little less for others, and even at one point Juliette giving Roma the fake name Montague. I think the slight shifting of some of the plot elements was what made the story more unique and enjoyable than just a normal retelling. Like when Juliette fakes her own death by sending out a message that's supposed to be from her father that she stabbed herself with a dagger while actually being alive which is opposite of the Shakespeare story where she fakes her death with a potion then stabs herself to death. Also the part where Juliette kills her cousin Tyler to save Roma's life when in the play Juliet's cousin is killed by Romeo. The way that Chloe Gong has retold the story gives more agency to Juliette instead of having her be an object fought over by men, we see Juliette and Roma fighting for each other even against their own gangs and family.

Of course the ending where Roma and Juliette decide to sacrifice themselves for the greater good of Shanghai was honestly a much more interesting death scene than the Shakespeare one and really the ones of other remakes. I liked how both of them decided to die together not just because they loved each other so much they couldn't live without the other but also because they loved their city and wanted the blood feud to end and to save it from the monsters. Their death was both selfless and selfish and I think that was a great way to end the story.

That being said, since their bodies were never found there is a high possibility of them being alive, and I'm saying this right now without spoiling anything from FLF and Last Violent Call which its description has so many more spoilers. I only gave a spoiler warning for these two books and none of the other ones so I will leave this topic alone for now just in case someone hasn't read FLF. If you want to talk about Juliette and Roma being alive theories shoot me and ask because I would love to talk about it.

Other than that thanks for reading my insanely long review of these books if you got this far, this is me placing a gold star sticker on your forehead.

#val's book reviews #book review #chloe gong #these violent delights #our violent ends #foul lady fortune