#i can’t spend money for lunch since I need it for gas :(

[hbyrde36]

Caught in the Undertow (final part)

Chapter 10: At the end of the day it's you and me

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

AO3

*Steve*

Steve growls in frustration as he slides back behind the wheel of the Beemer. He and Robin had spent hours driving around Hawkins looking for work. They tried to put in applications at nearly every business in town, but it seemed like no one was hiring. The situation was so dire that they even made a stop over at Family Video to see if Keith would consider giving them their old jobs back. He wouldn’t even let them in the door. Rude.

The moment Robin gets in and closes the passenger door, he starts ranting. “It’s hopeless, Robin! We’re going to have to branch out, start looking for work in the next town over or something. That means we’ll have to commute, which means I'm going to be spending even more money on gas, and if we're only making minimum wage that’s really going to cut into our take home pay. God, this is such a disaster.”

“Babe?”

“Yeah?”

“Breathe.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay, but you sounded like me for a second there and it sort of freaked me out. What’s with the sudden bug up your butt about getting a job anyway?”

It was one thing for Steve to skate by on his meager ( and rapidly dwindling ) savings, when he was living in his parents house, but now that he’s taking up space at Eddie’s, he feels an overwhelming need to contribute. 

It’s only been two weeks, but he already feels more at home in the Munson trailer than he ever did during the 18 years he spent living in the horror mansion that is the Harrington house. Eddie had been right, Wayne welcomed Steve with open arms, not batting an eye when he came home that first morning after work to find them cuddled-up together asleep on the couch 

Of course Robin knows all about his new living arrangements, though she's the only one of their friends that does. She's also the only one who knows about their relationship. They would tell the others soon. Steve is pretty sure everyone will be fine with it, but things between him and Eddie are still so new and delicate. No one would blame them for wanting to keep it to themselves for just a little while longer. 

“I don’t want Wayne to feel like he has to support all of us on his own, it's not fair for me to put that kind of pressure on him. At least I have the option to work, Eddie still can’t leave the house without someone glaring at him or making comments.”

He knows Eddie feels the same way, like a freeloader. In a way, it was the subject of their first official fight as a couple. When Steve had brought up the prospect of finally looking for a job, Eddie said he wanted to go back to selling, since no one would hire him. He’d need to find a new supplier with Rick still in prison, but said he knew who to ask. When Steve had gently pointed out that selling wasn’t exactly safe at the best of times, let alone when half the town was out for your blood, Eddie had blown up. Steve knew it wasn’t about him, so it was easy enough to take a step back and not take it personally, even if it did hurt a little. He knew Eddie was angry at the situation, not at him.

The answer to all of it is obvious, Steve thinks. He needs to get Eddie out of Hawkins. He just doesn’t know how to swing it, or where they would even go for that matter if they had the means. 

Steve puts the car in gear and heads back towards downtown. He would love to take Robin out to lunch for putting up with him, but can’t exactly afford it right now. They’d have to settle for coffee and donuts. It's a busy Saturday afternoon, and it feels like everyone in town is out and about trying to enjoy the nice weather. After having to circle the block twice, Steve pulls into the one available parking spot on the entire street, right in front of Hawkins realty. A lightbulb goes off in his mind as he stares at the sign. 

Without a word and donuts all but forgotten, he shuts the engine off and jumps out of the car, leaving Robin to scramble after him and probably wondering what the hell was going on. 

20 minutes later Steve walks out of the real estate agency with a huge smile on his face, feeling more hopeful than he had all day. 

He’d always assumed that when his parents said they left him the house, that they just meant he could live there until he figured his life out. It never occurred to him to see if they had actually signed it over to him or anything. It couldn’t hurt to find out, right? Because if he was on the deed, then maybe he could sell it. It would make more than enough money for them to move wherever they liked, Wayne too if Steve could convince him to come along.  

The agent, Laura, said she’d be happy to help him find out, as long as he considered using her services if and when he decided to sell. He was quick to agree, and she promised to get back to him as soon as she had some answers. He left her the phone number for the trailer before dragging a stunned and silent Robin back outside. 

“You’re going to leave aren't you? If you can sell it.” Robin says.

She sounds devastated, and Steve's heart sinks. He’d been so caught up in the idea of it, he hadn’t considered all of the implications. 

“Rob, I…”

She sniffles, rubbing at her eyes as she shakes her head.

“No. no, it’s okay. You should do it, get far away from Hawkins and don’t look back. Eddie will never be able to live a normal life here. The two of you won’t be able to be openly together here either. Besides, I'll be going off to college soon, and the kids won’t be far behind.”

Steve’s lips spread into a thin line. Everything she said was true. He’d known the day was coming when their little group would be forced to separate, he just didn’t think it would be happening so soon. 

“I don’t even know if it’ll work. If the house isn’t in my name then I'm back to square one.”

“I’ve got a good feeling about it.” Robin said, managing a watery smile as they walked back to the car.

“I hope you’re right, but I don't know.” Steve shook his head. “It’d be the first decent thing they’ve ever done for me.”

“We’ll still see each other as often as we can, right?”

“I’m not ruling out you moving in with us someday, Buckley. So yes, of course we will! I may be in love with Eddie, but you’re my other half.”

*Eddie*

Eddie is going a little bit crazy sitting in his bedroom, the one he now shares with Steve, waiting. He’s a bundle of nerves. Not only is he making his first foray back into DM-ing for the kids, but he and Steve had also decided to tell them about their relationship today. He isn’t worried about their reactions, exactly. He's pretty sure their friends will be accepting, it’s just a lot of people to come out to at once. To top it all off, Steve has some kind of elaborate surprise for him lined up for today too.

The kids were unsure about it when he called and said they were moving the game to the trailer park. Dustin and Mike whined about the lack of space. Eddie couldn’t explain, since he didn’t want to tell them about Steve moving out of his house, that was his own story to tell when he was ready, but he did assure them it would be fine. 

Technically, Eddie didn’t know how it would be fine, that was all part of this supposed surprise Steve was setting up, but he trusted his boyfriend even if he didn’t know the first thing about D&D.

The thought makes Eddie smile. He trusts Steve, and isn’t that wild. Once they let their guards down and fully opened up to each other, there was no turning back, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. He’s so in love, and beyond all reason he knows Steve feels exactly the same way.

A warm presence appears behind Eddie as he pulls on his brand new Hellfire Club shirt. He doesn’t have to turn around to know that it’s Steve. 

“Hi baby, are you finally ready for me?” Eddie asks, just as his favorite pair of arms wraps themselves around his waist. 

Steve rests his chin on Eddie’s shoulder, mouth inches from his ear. “Hmm” He purrs. “Give me a minute and I can be.”

Eddie giggles, shoving Steve off even though the last thing he wants right now is space between them. “I meant for the game, sweetheart. We don't have time for all the ways i’d like to take you apart right now.”

Steve shivers, reaching over to trail a finger up Eddie’s arm. “Later then?”

“It’s a promise, big boy. Now, show me my surprise, I've been good all day.”

With a familiar heat in his eyes, Steve looks him up and down. He pouts, looking very much like he’d rather cancel the whole thing and show Eddie exactly how good he was. 

Eddie’s stomach flips, and he flushes from head to toe. He wonders if it will always be this all consuming, or if one day he won’t feel like this when Steve looks at him like that.  No, he can’t imagine a world where he doesn’t marvel at how much Steve wants him. 

Eddie leans in, pressing a chaste kiss to his boyfriend’s cheek. “If you keep looking at me like that we’re going to be late, and you know Henderson will never let us hear the end of it.”

Steve blushes, taking Eddie's hand. He laces their fingers together, and leads him out of the room.

They make their way outside, around the back of the trailer, and into the trees. Following the path that Eddie had started walking every day. 

“Steve, where…”

Before Eddie can get the full question out, the pair arrives at a clearing. He gasps at the sight. Two long picnic tables are set up end to end in the middle of the space. On top of them, everything the group needs to play is already set up. The map, everyone's character sheets, countless dice, miniatures, and even Eddie's DM screen. There were a few large benches, a smattering of mismatched chairs, and at the end of the table sat a carved wooden throne Eddie never thought he’d see again. 

Everyone is already there, smiling and talking animatedly with each other. They haven't noticed Eddie’s arrival yet. It’s not just the boys either. Max and El are in attendance too. Even Nancy and Jonathan have a place at the table. Eddie looks around for Argyle's distinct long shiny black hair, and finally spotted him up in a tree, tying off what looked like the last of many strands of Christmas lights that are hung up all around the circle. 

Eddie looks back at Steve, dumbfounded and a little speechless. Steve, for his part, looks shy and a little nervous. 

“Do you like it?” Steve quietly asks.

Eddie snorts in disbelief. “Do I like it? Steve, this is incredible! It’s perfect. I can’t believe you did all this.”

“I had a lot of help.”

“I have to ask, how did you get my throne here? Did Steve Harrington break into the school for little old me?” Eddie asks, grin threatening to take over his entire face.

“We might have helped out with that part.” A familiar voice cuts in from behind them. 

Eddie’s mouth drops open, and he whips around to see Gareth, Jeff, and Grant walking up.

The three boys pull Eddie into a crushing group hug that ends with more than one set of wet eyes.

“Man, it’s good to see you guys. I’m sorry I didn’t reach out. I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to.” Eddie studied each of their faces in turn, so grateful that they were here. He hadn’t realized how much he missed them. 

“We never believed what they said about you, Eddie. Not for a minute, and screw all those assholes that still think you’re guilty.” Grant is quick to assure him.

“Thanks, that means a lot.”

���Come on, I think the others are getting antsy. Let’s see if you’ve still got it, Munson.” Jeff teases, clapping him roughly on the back.

As they make their way over to the table, Gareth bumps his shoulder against Eddie’s. “So, that Harrington’s a pretty good friend of yours now I take it?”

Eddie cackles, if Gareth only knew! Well, he would find out soon enough, considering he and Steve were planning on coming out today. It hits Eddie then just how big of a deal it really is that Steve invited Eddie’s other friends to the game today. That's three more people he’d be coming out to. Three people that Steve didn’t even know that well. The guys in the band already knew Eddie was gay, and they were totally fine with it, which Steve was aware of, but still. Eddie is amazed at his boyfriend’s bravery.

“Well that’s about as good a transition as any, isn’t it Stevie? Do you want to do the honors or should I?” Eddie asks, turning his head to look at his love.

Steve chuckles, waving his hands in a ‘ go right ahead’ motion. 

“Thank you all for coming and for helping Steve put this together.” Eddie begins, clearing his throat loudly to get everyone’s attention. “There's just one thing I want to say before we start.” He pauses, taking a deep breath. “Steve and I…um”

Eddie trails off, suddenly at a loss for words. He's overcome with the gravity of the moment, with the love he’s come to find himself surrounded by in this group of amazing misfits, with this moment of sharing himself and his relationship with all of their favorite people. 

Steve comes to his rescue, of course, taking his shaking hand and raising it to his mouth. Eddie's eyes flutter shut as he feels the warmth of Steve's lips brush across the back of his hand. That one small gesture makes the whole clearing come alive.

Shocked gasps come from the corner of the table occupied by Dustin, Mike, and Lucas, they’re quickly drowned out by Robin’s gleeful laughter. 

“Finally!” Max and Erica shout in tandem, both leaning into El as they erupt into girlish giggles.

“Right?!” Nancy agrees, joining in with the younger girls. 

And, okay, he didn’t think they were THAT obvious before now, but it’s fine. 

There's a smattering of applause and a wolf whistle from the Corroded Coffin boys, none of whom look the least bit surprised either, and a loud “Whoop!” from Argyle. 

Jonathan and Will’s reactions are a bit more subdued than the rest, but they look no less happy for the couple than the rest. They share a small smile with each other before joining in with the others. 

Lucas is the first to recover from his shock, rising from his seat and approaching the two of them cautiously. Steve squeezes Eddie’s hand, a bit of nerves showing for the first time. He squeezes back, offering reassurance.

“I just want to say I'm happy for you guys. I think It's cool. I’m glad you found each other. I’m sorry I was so surprised. I didn’t know Steve…”

“Liked guys?” Steve prompts.

“Yeah.” Mike chimes in as he and Dustin join them at Lucas's side. 

“I didn’t know either until pretty recently.” Steve confesses.

“How did this happen?” Dustin asks, pointing a finger between the two of them.

Eddie rests a hand on Dustin’s shoulder, bending down a little so the two of them are eye to eye. “Well, when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much, sometimes they..”

“Nevermind!” Dustin screeches, wrenching himself out of Eddie’s grasp. “I don’t need all the gory details!”

Eddie shrugs. ”You asked.”

Steve chuckles, but he is still eyeing Dustin warily. “Are you okay with..us?” 

Dusrtin’s face screws up in confusion. “Of course! You’re my two favorite people. Why wouldn’t it be okay?”

Steve blinks at him. Surely the kid wasn’t this naive.

Finally it dawns on him, and Dustin flaps his hand. “Oh right, the gay thing. I’m fine with all that.”

“So what gives with the shock and awe, Henderson?” Eddie gapes.

The kid mumbles something incoherent under his breath, only repeating himself when it becomes obvious that Eddie isn’t going to let him off the hook. 

“I still thought Steve and Robin were together!”

“Jesus H. Christ! Man, we talked about this!”

“Well, the good news is I definitely believe you now.” Dustin says, sheepishly.

Steve rolls his eyes, ruffling the kid’s hair for good measure. “Well thank god for that.”

When everyone finally settles down, the game begins. Steve plays the part of host, running back and forth from the trailer to their spot with drinks and food at regular intervals. Eddie offered many times to make him a character for the occasion, but Steve was adamant that he was happy to be their goffer for the day. 

The campaign runs well into the night, so the string lights and lanterns strewn about the area really come in handy, and make the whole thing feel even more magical.

It’s approaching 10pm when things finally wrap up, which is good considering half the players are falling asleep sitting up, and the other half were already late for curfew. 

Steve turns the lights off, but leaves the rest to be dealt with tomorrow. No one ever comes back here but Eddie anyway. Everyone raves about the game all the way to the cars, and the group parts reluctantly. Eddie and Steve sit on the front step, watching as the last car full of their people pulls away. 

“I have one last surprise, but you’ll have to come inside for it.” 

Eddie knew there must be something going on, Steve had been practically vibrating at his side since they sat down. He assumed this surprise was of the carnal variety, and the idea made his palms start to sweat.

 “I know I made you a promise earlier, but Wayne is home tonight so maybe we should do something a little quieter instead.” Eddie replied, walking his fingers up and down Steve’s spine.

Steve smiles and shakes his head. “It’s not like that.” He gets up to open the door, looking down at Eddie expectantly. 

Eddie pretends to pout, and doesn’t move. 

“Oh just get in here, Munson.”

-

Apparently it really isn’t like that, Eddie realizes, as Steve sits him and uncle Wayne down at the kitchen table, wearing an awfully serious expression. He fusses over the both of them for a few minutes, offering food and drinks. All of which they decline.

It’s Wayne who finally puts a stop to it. “The suspense is killing us, son. Why don’t you just sit down and tell us what this is all about.”

Steve’s cheeks turn red as he finally takes a chair. “Sorry, I’m nervous. It’s just that this is kind of a big deal, and I'm not sure how you’re gonna take it.”

Eddie feels a pit start to form in his stomach, but does his best to ignore it. It can’t be something bad, not after the incredible day they’ve had. 

Wayne shifts in his seat. “I’m sure whatever it is is fine, go on.”

Steve blows out a long breath. “I looked into it, and It turns out that when my parents moved and ‘left’ me the house, they REALLY left me the house. I don’t even remember signing anything, but my name is on the deed. I’m going to sell it.” 

Steve turns, looking Eddie in the eyes with the same intensity he had when they finally admitted their feelings for each other. “I want us to use the money to get out of Hawkins. Wayne too if he wants to come.”

“But what about the kids? Robin?” Eddie flounders, unable to resist poking holes in something that sounds far too good to be true. 

“Robin is good with it, she agrees that it’s the best thing, and the kids will be okay. I'll miss them, but it’s not as if we can’t visit.” Steve pauses, taking both of Eddie’s hands firmly. “At some point we have to do what's best for us, and right now that means getting out of here and going somewhere where you can breathe freely. Somewhere you can walk around without having to watch your back quite so much. Where you can get a job, and you won’t be judged by small minded people who can’t think for themselves, and maybe somewhere that’s a little safer for us to be ourselves, together.”

Eddie doesn’t realize he’s crying until fat teardrops start dripping down his chin. He smiles at Steve through blurred vision and nods. “Ok.”

Steve pulls Eddie’s hands up to his face, kissing each of his palms in turn. 

Wayne clears his throat, startling them both since they had apparently completely forgotten he was there. 

“What do you think, Wayne?” Steve asks.

“That’s your money, kid. I don't know if I'd feel comfortable..”

“You took me in even though I had a perfectly fine house to live in right across town, and never even questioned why. You’re the first adult in a long time to really care about me. It’s meant so much for me to be here, and to be accepted by you. Please think about it. I don't know if Eddie could go without you.”

“He’s right, Wayne. There's nothing left for us here anyway.” Eddie adds.

Wayne sighs as if he doesn’t like it, but Eddie can see that really he’s just trying not to smile. 

“Okay fine, but just know once we get wherever we’re going i’m getting a job, and i’m gonna pay back every dollar you spent on me, understand?”

Steve nods in agreement, but Eddie knows it’s a lie. He would never take a penny from the man, even if it means he has to sneak it back to him somehow. Eddie will help, he’s on Steve's side for this one. Wayne has done more than enough for the both of them.

“How long do we have to figure out where we want to go?” Eddie asks.

 “A few weeks. The house will be listed tomorrow, and the agent thinks it will sell quickly.”

Eddie stands up, pulling Steve along with him. “Well I guess we’d better go to our room and do some…research.”

Wayne rolled his eyes at both of them. “Let me know when you figure it out, and try to keep it down during your research, boys. These walls are mighty thin.”

-

As he lays in bed with Steve’s arms wrapped around him, the two of them cuddling and nothing more because Wayne was definitely right about the thin walls, Eddie can’t help but ask the question.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” 

“Yes” He answers so quickly that Eddie is sure Steve knew he’d been lying here overthinking for a while. 

“You won’t feel like you’re stuck with me?” Eddie whispers.

Steve kisses his bare shoulder before carefully rolling him over so they can face each other. 

“I love you, Eddie. That’s kind of the whole point, I want to be stuck with you.

“Oh”

Steve smiles softly, reaching up to cup Eddie’s cheek. “Yeah, oh”

“I love you too, Stevie.”

Eddie snuggles down into the crook of Steve’s neck, sighing with contentment as he finally lets himself relax. He knows every moment of their lives won't be perfect like this. They’ll have good days and bad days. Sometimes they’ll get frustrated and fight, but that's okay, because he knows at the end of the day they will always choose to love each other through it all.

#steddie fanfic #stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie #steve harrington/eddie munson #ao3 #ao3 link #CITU

[theoncomingchaos]

Scoy Novel: Chapter 7 SKY POV!

First Nuea and now Sky, we are blessed.

His literal first words: “I’m seducing.”

Boy. Calm down.

Steps for Sky falling in love with Jao:

Step 1: This dude looks boring af.→ WHY DOESN’T HE WANT TO HANG OUT WITH ME?!

Step 2: Why...do I like that he’s ignoring me? (Sky talks a lot about Jao’s eyes shining and cursing him...)

Step 3: Ok, I’m stubborn too, let’s see who survives to the end!

Step 4: Why is this so much harder than seducing a girl?

Step 5: The Queens of the group immediately calls him out on his bs. “Is this just for the game or for real?” “I just wanna see the possibilities...” Nice excuse.

Step 6: Be mean to him and see how he likes that! (Gets ignored) → Try being nice instead. (Gets his money taken & his feelings hurt) → Realizes he is out matched and decides he’ll follow Jao’s lead. Then he "will conquer him!” A few chapters later →　“I always lose to Jao. I can’t even count to ten, then he knocks me out.”

Step 7: Stubbornly offer to do whatever he says AND MORE if you can get your way closer to him, then tease him about being short because his pouting is so good and then you both lose?

Step 8: Demand to know where he is at all times and go there. When he leaves you on read call him your boyfriend. (Gets ignored) Call him short. (Win)

Step 9: The week is almost up...but why should it end if I still want to follow him around?

Step 10: Maybe this is always what I’ve wanted, I just didn’t realize it before. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t feel serious with anyone else before.

Bonus: Book Jao is somehow impossibly even MORE stubborn than series Jao?!

Book Jao is SO FIESTY! After he takes Sky’s money to treat his whole group for lunch and basically writes him off for the day, Sky is hurt and asks, “Is this fun?” and Jao reponds: “Pleasant.”

Jao is more sensitive about his height than his weight in the book. (I’m really happy they changed this, so much more important for representation.)

Sky doing EVERYTHING to go to Jao’s room to eat including: offering to buy him bowls, sitting on the floor, and washing the dishes. A+ for effort.

Jao gave him roses at the concert: “In exchange for gas money.”

I swear, every other line with Jao is a mic drop moment.

Another interesting take is that the whole Sky was a player thing is brought up a lot more by his friends. Even Nuea sees him as a “playful guy” who doesn’t really get invested/care about people in a deep way. At first Nuea just thought Sky was the joker of their group, but once they start to talk about their feelings for Toh and Jao, their friendship also grows deeper.

Comparison to the Series:

In the series, we have to make a lot of inferences as to why Sky fell for Jao since we never really get definitive or direct evidence about it, but I do think it’s similar.

How Sky fell in love in the series:

-The series added the bathroom meeting and from that we could see that Sky was already a little starstruck. He probably already finds Jao cute which is different from the book.

-In the series we still see Sky sort of playfully competing with Jao and trying to get him to respond- particularly in the birthday party episode when they are in the car. Jao responds similarly to Book Jao by going out of his way to avoid the door Sky opens for him. This peaks Sky’s interest and competitive spirit that we see within the week of flirting.

Now, I’m not sure where Book Skyjao will go, but...

-Series Sky has some self esteem issues, and needs someone with a good heart that he can take care of and that will let him feel loved. After spending time with Jao, he sees his good heart (probably from how Jao is with his friends like when he went to the club with them even though he was sick and doesn’t like that sort of place to begin with). That’s when I think he really got serious about it. (For example, Jao didn’t know he was sitting out in the parking lot waiting for him to go to sleep. Sky did that for himself. It wasn’t about competition or the game or conquering Jao, Sky was genuinely worried and wanted to watch over him.)

-After the get together, Jao also allows Sky to drop his “Cool Guy” act and appreciates him for who he is. He doesn’t have to look “as good as Nuea” or “be as smart as Tor,” Jao will love him best, wholeheartedly and honestly. This cements their relationship and likely makes it very different from the many girls he chased around before during his life as a player.

I’m very curious if book Skyjao will still take this direction because seeing Sky’s thoughts he seems much more confident than series Sky who even in the first episode was being compared to Nuea.

Ugh I’m so curious I can’t wait for more Sky chapters! And hopefully we will get some Jao chapters eventually?

#scoy #secret crush on you #secret crush on you the novel #skyjao #Secret Crush on You the series #thai bl

[notalwaysright]

https://notalwaysright.com/?p=258854 This one’s a bit of a doozy. Idiot that I was, I managed to freeze my debit card, which required contacting my out-of-state bank to send me a new one. I am currently in school, and the address they have on file is my parent’s current address, so they say they will have to send it there. I assume my parents will send it on when it arrives. Two weeks or so go by, during which time I manage to save quite a bit of money because I can’t spend any of it, and no sign of my new card. Eventually, I remember to check my own mail, and surprisingly enough, there’s my card. So much for not being able to forward it to my apartment. I go through the drill of activating it, test it out by buying lunch at a restaurant, which works perfectly. So I assume it’s okay to go buy groceries (like I said, it’s been a while, and I’m running low). I drive a good fifteen minutes to the big store, do my shopping, and proceed to check-out. All goes well until it’s time to pay. Here’s where I should mention that I’ve had lots of trouble using the chip reader in the past, and I sometimes need to swipe. There’s also been a problem where the bank thinks I am too far from home (?) and texts me to ask if I tried a charge of ($X) at (Location). I have to text back “yes”, and then it unlocks my card. If it’s working properly of course. Inserting the card yields an error message, repeatedly. I don’t get a text, so I assume the problem is on their end. By now, it’s clear that neither the chip nor the swiper is working, so I ask a worker for help. She tries to move my transaction over to her desk (term?) to check it out, but realizes her drawer is not working, and I have to start over at a (third) counter. The next one doesn’t work, either. As I am standing there, trying to figure out why even typing the number in by hand doesn’t work, people get in line behind me. Why they couldn’t go somewhere that was not clearly having trouble, I do not know. One of them grabs my cart, empty except for my wallet and car keys, for no apparent reason. By now, my anxiety has been flaring up, and in all seriousness, I never appreciate someone invading my personal space (which includes my cart) without warning/permission. I snatch the cart away with something like “Can you not?”, which I admit wasn’t the best response. I try calling the bank at one point, and go through their whole menu to get to the debit card fix-it section, put in my number, and am politely thanked (all by machine) before it hangs up on me without any help or even asking what the problem is. I make a mental note to deal with that later. Eventually, I am starting to realize I may have to leave without groceries, wasting the gas it took to drive this far (I am on a very tight budget). One of the workers calls in the manager, who moves me to checkout station number four. I am actually having chest pains and visibly near tears since I do not do well when things that should be working are not, without explanation. As I’m standing there, the woman who grabbed my cart leaves with an audible comment on “If you didn’t snatch the cart away-“. Maybe she was saying she would have offered to pay for it, which would have been nice, but don’t start something like that by grabbing someone’s stuff. Eventually, the manager somehow makes her magic work, and tells me it’s been taken care of. I’m not sure if she put up her own money or what, but I thank her as politely as I can and go to leave. The next morning, I finally get the “Did you try a charge of $40-something at [store]”. I text back “yes”, and it tells me that I can run it again in a few minutes. Again, this is about twelve hours after I tried it originally. I call the bank, as politely as I can manage, and they tell me they’ve been having this problem with a few people. They tell me it will be fixed. I can only hope that’s true, as I have not actually used the card since. TL;DR: I screw up my debit card, the bank screws up my debit card, some customers were annoying, and the store has issues before coming through in a huge way. Not always right? Working? Hopeless? All of the above? Source: https://notalwaysright.com/?p=258854

[slopejelly46]

Knowing Which Parlor Ideal For Your New Ink

Wake up. Smoke. Breakfast. Smoke. Drive to. Smoke. Smoke break. Duh. Lunch. Use. Restroom break. Smoke. Drive back home. Smoke. And THC Cartridges for Sale - last cigarette before bedtime. It was cyclic, like some rare star constellation visible during daytime hours that lasted longer on weekends with digging in alcohol. Before I knew it I am a smoker for my entire 1st year at or perhaps.

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[sunaswife]

Mhm so the way my mom packs herself lunch and not for me says a lot. Especially when it’s food I made and bought with my money.

#[🔪.speaks] #I also pack her lunch and snacks too but I guess that doesnt count or something #i can’t spend money for lunch since I need it for gas :( #I might get a hotdog from the gas station and call it a day

[sugar-petals]

can you give us more thoughts about domestic yoongles? the taemin's one (wich I love) just made me miss the cat boy so much ;o;

i have a phd in househusband yoongi so let me fire out some ideas for ya.

myg at home headcanon

🐱 word count. 1.9k | fluff, slice of life, slight nsfw mentions, x reader, bullet points

The doorbell sound is a recording of Yoongi imitating a doorbell. He’s such a meme. Ceci n'est pas une pipe.

Seemingly, he teaches himself a new recipe every week. To perfection. Yoongi is very particular about sticking to the recipe and wielding his kitchen tools in the right way. He collects knives, olive oil, and still hates cutting onions.

He separates sleep time, work time, and couple time as the holy trinity. For each, he switches his mood.

Blushes easily no matter for how long you’ve been together.

Establishes his own radio show where he DJs at one point.

Yoongi keeps an extreme track on the garbage schedule. He knows exactly what is due when. Separating the trash is a must. That includes sorting out fake friends trying to get between your relationship. Your social circle as a couple is extremely deliberate.

Yoongi deems himself a terrible host for guests. Unless Hoseok is there to drag him out, it's true he rather stays in the kitchen or at the barbecue preparing the menu courses rather than making small talk. He leaves the hospitality bits to you, however you want to go about it.

What he lacks in conversing with guests, he makes up in bed, God is absolutely fair.

He sings and hums pretty often and has his own vernacular of extraterrestrial uwu noises. It's an alphabet that you have to yet decipher but it's incredibly cute.

Self-made paintings everywhere around his house. 

Yoongi hasn't gone clubbing since grammar school. The most he does is going to a restaurant at lunch with very close friends. And always in a work context. His private life is so secluded from everything else and paparazzi just don't spot him anywhere, Dispatch thinks he must live abroad.

Very well, he does consider his big ole house a separate country. It's a living organism with a studio, gym, trophy room, small-size basketball court, and vastly equipped kitchen. A home theater as well, he likes American movies (like Inception) and Korean action genres, and you can stream whatever you fancy in there whenever you like. 

Yes, he has underwear with cute little bears on.

There's even a little pond in the backyard. Yoongi, Pisces he is, likes fishes after all. Sometimes he sits at the edge of the 'Little Ole Min Lake (LOML)' and stares into the water for literal hours with his chin parked on his palm.

His fridge is so high-tech and futuristic, even Yoongi is rendered clueless by its AI sometimes. The washing machine, too.

Yoongi watches RuPaul’s drag race. What did you expect? He finds it so humorous.

Owns lord knows how many comic collections.

Favorite holiday destination: New York.

Christmas is basically 50% you unveiling new music equipment to him in the garage and Yoongi almost fainting at the sexiness of it. The other 50% is spent holding hands and orgasm after orgasm until the new year since you loose track of time.

Goes on long rants why he’d marry you again every weekend.

Making you presents is his specialty. Always accompanied with a hand-written note. He writes a lot of things by hand for you in general. Texting, basically never. Always on paper.

No sex without a blanket and socks on. Yoongi gets cold very very easily and just doesn’t like showing skin. You buy him a heated blanket for his birthday, he even uses it in his studio chair.

Chronically addicted to making out.

Matching black outfits and glasses.

Laughs at even your worst jokes or phrases you didn’t expect you even uttered.

Yoongi owns the phoniest, most secretive-looking black car ever and nobody knows about it. Even he forgets he owns it, in fact he genuinely acts like it just doesn’t exist. Hilarious. And that guy has a level 1 Korean driver's license. Which allows him to drive trailers and busses and fucking trucks, and construction machines, let that sink in.

It's really a genius curse. Yoongi being put to the test will always deliver but he won't choose to execute his full skillset if he doesn't have to. Well, pragmatic. He's not as phony as he thinks he is, which is even more hilarious.

He uses that behemoth of a car so scarcely because he'd rather have things delivered to his doorstep and he's stingy with gas. Also, he doesn't like traffic and driving because of the traumatic shoulder accident and his tendency to space out. Translation: You drive that thing... that monster... it really is an impressive, fast, and scary machine. 

If someone devious ever even remotely manages to invade his privacy and get past the doubly-installed security system, he has enough money to deal with it no matter what.

If it concerns your privacy, he's a red belt. And owns Jin's number if a taekwondo master is required. Jimin's if it needs someone with kendo skills.

If Yoongi needs someone to go on a complete rampage, Jungkook lives just down the block. He can sprint to Yoongi's bunker I mean mansion within 45 seconds. 30 if it's very urgent. 20 if the reward is an instant ramen splurge with Yoongi's black card.

He has a sexy, glamorous sword collection hanging on the living room wall anyways, so. Who the hell is dumb enough to mess with him and his expensive lawyer in the first place.

But just in case, who knows... Yoongi settles matters shruggingly, anonymously, and with cash and he's too exhausted for violence, but don't underestimate his deter-min-ation and network for emergencies. Also, he is Agust D after all.

He will bonk a naughty burglar or kidnapper across the head with a wooden cooking spoon or take him down by throwing a basketball if the situation requires it. Damn, his reflexes are so fast, a feral cat in motion. So, lean back and sip on your drink of choice. Things are cared for.

If Yoongi is the one being kidnapped or a highly skilled stalker invades the property at night when he's fast asleep (nothing can wake this man during certain hours, strong REM right here): Don't forget that honeyboy is a Dodgers fan. There are signed baseball bats everywhere in this damn house.

In that sense, your parents visiting you here for the first time thought you were an undercover thug couple. Not to worry mom and dad, you both just like sports very much okay.

Yoongi walks around in all black clothes and the rooms are all seemingly dark. Even if you live together, you don't know his skin care routine. It's clear to you he's some sort of vampire.

Since Yoongi always forgets to remove his makeup, you made it a habit to wipe it down when he's about to pass out. He won't lie, he enjoys that kind of affection.

Holly is your resident child. You're essentially a family.

He insists to tackle this by himself, Yoongi sees his therapist monthly. Not shifting responsibility is something he's stubborn about and he pours his emotions into writing. You will do conversation about deeper stuff, but he says it's mostly up to him and his own mind. He dislikes burdening you or opening up too much and it's something to respect rather than force him about. If he wants to share a thought, he will. It doesn’t mean he can’t trust you or sucks at communicating (we know that he’s direct). Yoongi simply can’t put that much pain in such few words nor should you alleviate it for him.

Calls from the manager faze Yoongi as much as Jimin is bothered by gravity. If he’s busy kissing your body slow mo, who the hell dares to disturb his worship. 

This man had so many let-downs and interpersonal catastrophes in his life, he's super discerning with people. Because he rolls that way, during their first meeting Yoongi uses his psychology certificate on your friends. You see him squint at them, he listens very closely. After they pass the vibe check aka meow radar, he befriends them, too.

Yoongi doodles Grammy trophies everywhere to manifest them.

Yoongi shaves his legs.

All the sex toys he’s ever bought are black. Gotta vibe in style.

He spends ridiculous amounts of time in the studio but he's yours for the remainder of the night, breakfast, and he makes a lavish lunch and dinner.

Um, consider his head parked between your legs. The Hongkong line was not a joke.

Doesn’t mind you squishing his cheeks whenever and for how long you like. 

Every other weekend he gets flowers, vouchers, and gifts — not because of fans, they don’t know where his house is, but because he donates so much.

Namjoon often drops by and cleanses the area with his crystals.

Yoongi is a photography major so you can ask him to take professional, ceiling-high black and white shots of you.

Feeding each other food lovingly. Man, this guy got lips.

He set up a library just for you, in the exact historical aesthetic you like the most. Send him the link to any book you want, it's basically in the online shopping cart already. As I said, he wants to make you presents like every week.

Sometimes he sits on the other end studying English videos and vocab while you read. And yes, he's already 95% fluent but pretends being merely intermediate. He knows technical terms even native speakers have never heard of.

He collects pajamas and earrings.

Swears on the phone.

Namjoon being the horniest member is a cover-up story. Yoongi masturbates almost unreasonable amounts of times, by himself and in your arms when going to bed. Not gonna lie, it’s a sight to see his hands at work. He’s almost equally obsessed with fingering you once you ask him.

Yoongi was the one asking you to move in and almost had a nervous meltdown before meeting up with you to tell you just that. 

He’s the little spoon and of course a sleeping burrito to hold tight.

Finds you equally attractive in any state or styling. Yoongi practices what he preaches, he always reacts the same and says the same. 

Jams out to outrageous beats Namjoon sends him by dancing in the studio. You walk in on him every time. Was embarrassed at first, now you dance along.

Has bought you a life-sized Yoongi pillow and customized you a giant Shooky to hug when he’s not at home over night.

Owned a wine cellar until he quit drinking. Turned it into a piano room instead.

Only you know Yoongi has a serpent and dagger tattoo.

Scrubs the bathroom religiously.

The house smells like restaurant food and his extravagant perfumes half of the time.

Sometimes he has to remind himself he’s married to you and not his coffee machine. He shall be forgiven. You can’t complain that he doesn’t love you enough, nor is he ever not adorable when drinking his latte.

Never wears short sleeves. It can be scorching and he’ll wear a jacket. 

Tell him and the cap stays on during sex.

He grows his hair out and puts it in a low bun. The bangs remain.

Yoongi has installed the most fire-proof building in the entire city it seems. That he wanted to be a firefighter when he was young definitely shows. Figures the house has to be protected from heat: His blasting studio music and Yoongi himself are just way too sizzling.

Still melts into a puddle when you kiss his nose.

Couple sunrise watching. 

© submissive-bangtan 2017-2021. all rights reserved. do not repost or translate. all depictions fictional.

#yoongi #yoongi hc #yoongi x reader #bts #bts x reader #bts hc #yoongi scenario

[lo-frequency]

Hey girlie!! Congrats on the new blog, I hope you have a wonderful experience with it! May I please request a reaction of Shoto, Shinso (if you’ve met him yet!), and Momo (if you write for girls!) with an s/o who is absolutely addicted to Starbucks.

This is so self indulgent of me. I get Starbucks literally every day, specifically a venti vanilla bean cream frap with strawberries and a chocolate croissant. I probably spend all my spare money on that. It’s bad. Like BAD, I’m infamous for my Starbucks addiction haha.

Please feel free to add any other characters too!! After all, it’s your blog. I’m excited to see your posts!!!

-❤️❤️🌸🌸

Hey!! Tysm for the warm welcome! I did some headcanons for everyone you asked for, plus Denki (so sorry if you don’t like him, but he’s one of my favs 😭) Hope you like them and thanks for the request :) 

Todoroki

-Shoto doesn’t usually drink coffee himself, but he would be willing to try it since you’re so enthusiastic about it. 

-Would be a little overwhelmed by the Starbucks menu and how many choices were involved in ordering a simple cup of coffee, but he’d find it fascinating how all the different flavors come together to form something so delicious. 

-So if you asked him to take a trip with you for the first time, he’d probably just order the same thing as you (which sounds delicious, by the way). 

-He definitely understands the hype, now. 

-After y’all start going together more often, he’ll eventually decide to branch out and try something on his own. His order would be basic, and then he decides that he’ll just stick with your usual because the one he got doesn’t hit the same. 

-Because Shoto is Rich, you’d never have to spend another dollar of your spare money again- he’ll cover all the expenses for the both of you. As a matter of fact, why don’t you order two croissants this time? Three, even? One for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. 

-He would really like spending time with you at Starbucks (or wherever you like to enjoy it!) and would look forward to your daily meet-ups so you could talk about anything, or just enjoy each other’s presence. 

-I can see him just walking into the hero agency with a Starbucks cup in hand, looking very boujee, just waiting for someone to ask him what he’s drinking so he can repeat your order verbatim and wow them with his impressive knowledge of coffee (not). 

-Good job for spreading your devious Starbucks habit to this man 

Shinsou 

-Has the most Starbucks points of any person you’ll ever meet. And after meeting you, he’d save them up just to treat you to free coffee like the baller he is. 

-His order is pretty simple, usually ordering just an Americano or simple cold brew since he drinks coffee for the caffeine, not so much the pleasure.

-Then why Starbucks, you might ask, if his order is so basic that any gas station brewing machine might do? For the atmosphere, of course. Add you to the mix, and this man could spend the whole day in the cafe, studying, chatting you up, and getting his daily fix. 

-The Starbucks staff would know y’all by name (not only that, but they can spell them correctly, too ;) ) 

- Shinso doesn’t have a lot of extra money himself, but he would try to pay for you both sometimes, whenever he had some to spare. 

-Memorizes your order so he could surprise you with Starbucks whenever he comes to visit or if you need a little pick-me-up 

-Y’all would look like twins carrying your Starbucks cups around or sitting together, looking at everyone else like “You can’t sit with us 💁🏾‍♀️”. I mean, they wouldn’t want to anyway because Shinsou would be mean-mugging them. He sat in the corner of the cafe for a reason. 

Momo 

-Doesn’t drink a lot of coffee herself because of the caffeine, but does enjoy the occasional frappe. She thinks it’s cute that you’re so passionate about it, tho! 

-Because Momo is also Wealthy, she always throws in a Starbucks gift card along with her other gifts for you :)

-Uses her quirk to create a specialized Starbucks cup just for you (and it’s better quality than those overpriced ones, tbh) 

-She blends right into the Starbucks atmosphere, just imagine her sitting across from you looking as well-put together as usual, sipping a cup of tea and smiling as you ramble about your week. 

-Will suggest new flavors/menu items that she thinks you would like 

-Likes to sit outside if it’s a nice day to people watch or just enjoy the breeze 

Denki 

-Also obsessed with Starbucks- but mostly because everyone else is lol 

-He’s always like “Ugh, I got a long study session coming up, time for some Starbucks” 

-Or carrying the cup around just so everyone sees he has it. Definitely the type to leave school during lunch and come back to class with it so everyone will be jealous. 

-Gets the same order every time because he does not know much about coffee at all, but pretends he does whenever you tell him about your order or what you like and dislike 

-However, he does really like their refreshers, so he tends to get those 

-Loves doing literally anything with you, so if you need a Starbucks buddy, he will be there. 

-Takes a picture of both your cups together or a selfie with you and posts it to his story like “Coffee with my babe 💕☕️” 

-Saves coupons/email offers he gets but always forgets to use them 

-Also never saves his points up, uses them as soon as he gets enough to redeem something. 

-Loves to try new things, so he’ll beg you to buy a new drink/food so y’all can try it together and he’ll split the cost. 

-Weekly Starbucks ‘study’ dates, but y’all just sit and talk for a few hours after doing like one problem.  

#bnha x reader #todoroki shouto x reader #bnha headcanons #bnha x gn!reader #shinsou x reader #bnha fluff #bnha sfw #mha x reader #denki x reader #momo yaoyorozu x reader

[woozisnoots]

svt in college! | alex edition

° pairing: ot13 x reader ° genre: fluff(?), what my stream of consciousness finds funny, college!au ° word count: 1034 ° warning: slightttt violence ° a/n: i know i have requests to write >< but i really needed to write smth fun :( act as a shot of of serotonin into my veins ahahaha [insert fratboy emoji] disclaimer tho - this was ENTIRELY SELF INDULGENT and very very catered to me which is why vernon’s is unnecessarily long SO IM SORRY !!! i still hope you guys think its fun :D

° masterlist! 

seungcheol: a business major, minoring in international relations. has the slightest crush on you but suppresses it pretty well without you realizing because he knows you like someone else. he likes to take you on what he calls bestie dates to a nearby arcade or places to eat when you’re stressed.

jeonghan: a psych major, minoring in communications, whom you oddly spend a lot of time with because he asks for homework help every other day when you’ve only taken 1-2 psych classes in your entire life :P but he’s a good listener and subs in as therapist on the weekdays so you let him stick around. 

joshua: an english major. doesn’t know why and slightly regrets it but if it means he can keep the tinie bookshelf he has in his doom to make it look like he’s smart, then that’s motivation to keep him going. you tolerate him because you guys randomly go on trips at 2am and buys you food :D

jun: a childhood education major. the friend of a friend of a friend of someone’s cousin that happen to be your friend and so you see him at parties sometimes :) actually really fun to be around when you’re not too much into the party scene and play hopscotch or bean bag toss outside the persons’ backyard. 

soonyoung: the loud dance team captain that won’t give you 5 minutes of quiet time waiting for your chem professor to open the door to the lab room because he has his speakers on at max volume dancing to kelly clarkson,,,, he’s pretty chill otherwise, he’s in my math class. claims hes the eye of the tiger when he comes to class in leopard print

wonwoo: premed that’s somehow taking enough classes to graduate with a literature minor. he and cheol talk a lot because they’re in the same broadcasting club or something of the sort. you guys acknowledge each other’s presence and share a moment of tea together sometimes with cheol.

jihoon: double majoring in music composition and theory. says he absolutely hates it because he thinks the work he does is completely pointless. but then goes on to write you like 27484737 love songs within a week for a single assignment. denies to other people that you’re his best friend and that he hates your guts but you’re the only one allowed in his private studio on school days and can fiddle with his equipment sometimes :3

minghao: an art major minoring in history. eventually wants to be a gallery director so he can hold his own. you make him drag you everyone for his work when you’re bored or have free time bc he takes pictures for the school newspaper/website. you guys strike a negotiation that you drive and he buys snacks. 

mingyu: you only know him for playing in your uni’s (american) football team. his tall ass is like linebacker or some shit you don’t even know his major. you had to take a kickboxing class for PE credit and you swept him to the ground and put him a choke hold. you never let him live that down everrr. you also steal his lunch money from his bag when he’s at practice.

seokmin: a musical theatre major, minoring in music composition. you guys met through jihoon. you were absolutely FLOORED when you heard him sing as the lead for the school’s spring musical. it is now tradition that you guys get crepes after every show and make jihoon pay B) he hangs out with you and jihoon a lot and randomly make music together. and ahahaha people think jihoon and seokmin are fighting over you!! >:( that’s absolutely preposterous, seokmin is too good of a soul (you say this as you help him kneed dough for the pizza you guys are making together)

seungkwan: an education major, minoring in music because he wants to teach music to little kiddos ^-^ THE BESTEST OF THE BESTIES!!! like if you’re not hanging out with jihoon/seokmin or cheol, you crash at seungkwan’s apartment and raids his kitchen when you run out of groceries ;D he keeps making fun of you for your car until you remind him that he can’t drive. on the weekends, you guys love to bake muffin, cookie, or cake recipes to prep for the daycare on mondays :3

vernon: okay actually, he doesn’t go to college SHDJSJSHS you met him on the side of the road once when you decided to walk instead of using your car (silly you!) and you saw vernon doing some cool graffiti art (IT WASN’T VANDALISM!!!). which was a total coincidence because at that point, you were ready to take a bus and wait right at the bus stop where he set up. since it was a long wait, you guys talked and he kept you company. you learn that this is actually a big project he’s been working on and is finally getting paid big bucks for something he really likes doing. you learn that he’s a great conversationalist and you miss the bus first bus ride home and have to wait another hour or so whoops! this becomes more and more of a daily thing, slowly getting to know each other. fast forward months later and it’s your birthday :D and you don’t expect anything at all because how would he know, you don’t really like your birthday anyways UNTIL vernon surprises you with a spray paint drawing of your favorite animal! and then asks you out on a date and you guys fall deeply in love

chan: a linguistics major. yeah, he doesn’t know why either, he’s just rolling with it. says he’s liking it so far, but no one really knows if he’s lying or not, including yourself. you drag chan to college events like club fairs and rallies because you’re too embarrassed to go alone and no one else wants to go LOL he begs you to drive him places during your three day weekends because he always wants to go off campus and do stuff with you and the guy pals, but he doesn’t like the freeway :/ its fine though because he pays for gas. 

#seventeen #caratwritersclub #seventeen fanfic #seventeen fluff #seventeen au #seventeen scenarios #seventeen angst #s.coups #seungcheol #jeonghan #joshua #joshua hong #jun #junhui #wonwoo #hoshi #soonyoung #woozi #jihoon #seokmin #dk #dokyeom #mingyu #the8 #minghao #myungho #seungkwan #hansol #vernon #chan

[be-ready-when-i-say-go]

Inspired partially by the twitter trend of The Face Vs. The Face Sitting On It and just in time for Valentine’s Day! 

Gender Neutral Reader Insert. 

Enjoy my masterlist!

Support me on KoFi!

__________________________

While sitting in the car, you watch out the window. Folks buzz around you--some folks looking content, strolling about their day. Others are flitting around, a bit of crease in their forehead. And you feel for them. You know those days where there’s just not enough hours in the day to get it all done. Or it’s when one thing sets off a spiral of all terrible things. Or when you just don’t wake up on the right side of the bed. You know that crease all too well because currently you were having a bad sleeping week. 

You were getting tired when you were supposed to but the second you put your head on the pillow your brain was hot wired--keeping you up with all the things you needed to do, hadn’t done, all the appointments you had kept pushing off. It was finding the littlest things to find that anxiety and keep you staring up at the ceiling. Calum noticed the tossing and turning and tried his best to lull you to sleep this week, fixing you tea in the evening, getting you off your phone or laptop a couple hours before bed. He even started reading to you, but your ears picked up on the white noise of everything in the house. Your brain picked up the embarrassing memory that you hadn’t even considered in decades and now holding it in front of your mind’s eye for hours on end during the week. 

Like right now, you should’ve been at home sleeping. Your work was giving you a long weekend and you really could’ve used the time to catch some extra Z’s, but you were, admittedly, a little scared to stay home. Sure maybe you did fall asleep cuddled up next to Duke. But you worried that you’d stay up, worry yourself sick some more so when Calum told you he had some errands to run you immediately tagged along. The time running around would hopefully tire you out enough that when you got home you could actually fall asleep. 

So after Calum’s personal training session in the morning, which you sort of tagged along for, but mostly went through your own routine and getting a solid breakfast, you two were now buzzing around from store to store. Calum had gotten most of the grocery the other day, but he forgot a couple things so your first objective was to grab those and bring them back up. He then had to go to the post office to mail out his mother’s birthday cards and a few other things. 

While in the line at the post office, your head tucked into his back, Calum got a phone call from a guitar shop on the other side of time about a new model that had just come in. Calum had been eying it for ages, but he didn’t want to be reckless with his money especially after getting some work on his teeth and to the house. So he asked the guitar shop to keep an eye out for when more stock arrived in case it sold out before Calum felt comfortable spending a large sum of money like that again. 

The store agreed to set one off to the side for him and could keep it on hold until the end of the day. Which was perfect--still gave the two of you time to get lunch. You didn’t need to get anything, didn’t need to do anything. But even after lunch, Calum made one more pit stop. Here now at the gas station, you sit peering through the windshield and can see a mother with her two sons walking from the doors. They boys hold brightly colored icees in their hand, each clutching a bag field with goodies. 

You aren’t entirely sure whey Calum needed to stop here for anything. It’s not like he needed stamps, since he got those at the post office. He hadn’t pulled in to get gas. Lunch had been filling, though you tried not to stuff yourself too much just because you knew that on a long car ride, the last thing you wanted to do was be uncomfortably full. 

The door opens again, Calum strutting through with his glasses covering his eyes and resting comfortably atop the chubby cheeks. Barely hanging from the crook of his fingers is a brown plastic bag. The doors click open and he climbs into the driver seat. The guitar shop wasn’t that far, but today seemed to be a busy day on the road. Took you all too long just to get to the grocery store this morning. 

“Snacks?”

“Was craving something sweet after lunch.” 

You peer into the bag as he hands it over to you. Some gummy bears, gum, a bar or two of chocolate you can’t quite tell. You set it onto the floor at your feet. “Let me know when you want something.” But he’s already tearing into a Twix bar when you glance at him. “Or not,” you laugh. 

“The other stuff is for you--if you want to indulge. Can’t forget ya,” he pushes the glasses down for just a moment to wink at you and then looks into the rearview mirror. 

“Do you think you’re going to get this one?” you asks as the SUV rolls out from the parking lot and onto the asphalt of the highway. 

“Hmm, maybe. Gotta see how it feels first.”

You nod at his question, resting your head into the cushion of the seat. And it goes quiet for a while. The radio plays softly in the background, and every so often the packaging crinkles as Calum downs more of the chocolate and caramel treat. 

“Valentine’s Day is coming up soon,” Calum states, while paused in a bit of traffic. “Got any ideas on what you want to do for it?”

You think for a moment. Valentine’s Day has never been your thing--being perpetually single does that to a person. “Restaurants are going to be a nightmare.”

“Yeah, they will be.” Another crinkle comes from the right side of the car and then his arm reaches behind your seat, finding the small bag of trash you stash there--though you have to be careful when Duke sits in the backseat. Generally though, he doesn’t mess with too much. “My mom sent me a recipe of hers. It’s really good.”

“I’d be down for cooking.”

“Nothing else? Don’t wanna go sky diving? Give me another heart attack?”

You laugh thinking about the first birthday you spent with Calum together as a couple. “You didn’t die.”

“But I did almost shit myself.”

“You can play on stage to thousands of people, but no, jumping from a plane is a no-go.”

“Yes, because I am a sane human.”

You huff out a small tuft of laughter and turn to look at him. One hand on the wheel with the stainless steel linked chain dangling from his wrist. His other arm is resting against the door, gently tapping out a beat with his long slender fingers. “Do you want to do anything?”

“Valentine’s Day,” he scoffs. “How long have we been dating? When have I ever been dying to do anything on some random day in February.” His statement doesn’t fall venomously from his mouth. He even looks over to you with a smile. “I don’t need one day out of 365 to declare my love for someone.”

And it’s true. While Calum wasn’t super accepting of love from new people, while it took you months to show Calum that you were trustworthy and not someone to keep at an arm’s length, once he cracked open, he oozed adoration and love for people. And you knew it was a defense mechanism. You knew that when someone did care as hard as Calum did it wouldn’t always be an easy thing to win over. 

Calum, when he finally let someone one, loved hard. It could be a random Tuesday in July or a Sunday in February, and he would make sure his love was known. He never needed a special occasion to send flowers, to cook dinner, to offer to drive you to doctors appointments because he knew that sometimes you got too nervous or flustered by them to drive but did manage to push through if absolutely necessary. He’d easily pick up some gloves and an extra sponge if he saw you wiping down the walls in the kitchen or wiping through the counter. He kept fridge cleaning days marked on the calendar. And when you added reminders to wash bed sheets to the shared one, he also include rest breaks for you too. 

Calum had never needed someone to force him to show appreciation. 

“I mean, there is the option to literally do nothing on Valentine’s Day. Like treat it as any other day.”

“That’s still something,” he countered, turning on his signal and switching out from the middle lane. His exit was approaching in another mile and a half. 

“Oh fuck off,” you laugh. “We can’t cease to exist that day. Bare minimum we need to convert oxygen into carbon dioxide.”

Calum laughs softly, showing some of his teeth too. “Fair, fair. There’s another Netflix documentary coming out, true crime one. I forget what it’s fully about, but I think it’s about a serial killer if you’d be down to start it then?”

“When would I ever turn down the opportunity to be a detective with you?”

“You haven’t yet,” he states with laughter in his voice. 

“And I never will.” The ramp takes the two of you down and down and soon you’re winding through streets and not too far you can see the shopping center coming into view. He pulls into the lot of the shop and the two of you step out in unison. 

The bell above the door chimes as he opens it for you and you smile often in your thanks. “Hey, Calum!” one of the guys at the register calls out. The store is fairly empty. But you’re not shocked on a Tuesday afternoon. 

“Hey, Derek. How’s it going?” Calum heads directly over to the counter and you look up to the left wall, at the records on display.

“Let me know if you need anything,” the second guy states to you, “or if you want to see anything.” He’s younger than Derek, both look to be equally tattooed from the pieces that peek out from the short sleeve work shirts, but his face is significantly brighter. 

“Thanks,” you return and go back to the displays. You can hear Calum and Derek chatting but slowly tune it out, make it background noise to the music playing through the speakers. 

You turn to walk towards the back where more instruments sit and you can see Calum leaning into the glass display of the counter. The palms of his hand pressed into the metal edge. The sunglasses sit on top of his head and you notice the younger guy glancing over at you again.

He nods again and then goes back to his computer. Nothing else is said. And you look over the stringed instruments, ukuleles, some violins and then you spin around again, done with that lap and go to head up to Calum. “See anything?” he asks. 

You shake your head. “You’re the musically talented one. I just nod and smile when you talk about it.”

Derek returns, a case in hand. He comes out from the hinged doors that separate the sales floor from the registers and back of the store. You scoot a little closer to the display as the case is transferred over. Calum takes it easily heading to the corner you just abandoned to sit and check out the instrument. It’s a beautiful deep green, almost reminds you of the thick Washington forest. The body is slender. 

“That’s a pretty cool color,” you note, watching Calum work his fingers over the frets. 

He grins up at you. “Think so?” You give another nod. He doesn’t inspect it long before you can see the desire to give in crosses his face. 

Derek’s standing close by and you turn to him and keep your voice as close to a whisper as you can while still being heard. “What’s a bass like that cost?”

He rattles off the price, one eyebrow slightly raised over the other. You know Calum will riot--he’ll pitch a fucking fit. But you reach into your wallet and slide out your card. You had been saving--for a year. You wanted to do something big for Calum. You just didn’t know what it was yet specifically though you had some ideas, a bass was top of the list.  But you didn’t want to try and go out and buy a bass without consulting him, without getting an understanding of what he liked. You thought about maybe a really good leather jacket and some more boots. He loved the ones he had, wore them as much as he could. 

And when you mentioned possibly getting him more, he told you the ones he had were still in good shape. Calum wasn’t the type to just buy clothes to buy them. He indulged here and there, but always made a point to wear something he had down before replacing it. You’d tease the subject a couple more times after that, but he never took the bait and you weren’t going to force him into a thing he didn’t want or need. 

But it’s clear to you that this is something he wants. But he’ll tussle with himself and never give in on it. It’s pricer than you thought it would be. But you too were being smart, having finally paid off the last of your car, you start moving those payments to savings and it helped a great deal. You were fine. You get insurance and the whole deal as Derek advises. By the time you slide the receipt back across the counter, Calum comes back to the registers. “I appreciate you holding it for me, man. But I don’t think I can right now.”

Derek looks at you and you look down into the glass. “It’s--it’s yours, dude.”

“What?” Calum breathes behind you. 

“They-uh, they paid for it,” Derek says, nodding at you.

You can feel the heat in your body now and spin around to face Calum in a rush. “Consider it a not Valentine’s Day gift.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Ever since I finished paying off my car, I saved the payments to do something nice for you. Didn’t know what it was going to be for sure. But I know you, Calum. You’d want something and tell yourself no. I mean you can treat yourself sometimes.”

“You-you didn’t?” His eyes are rapidly blinking, head shaking like he doesn’t want to believe you. Like he can’t believe you as his mouth mumbles out, “No,” repeatedly. 

“It’s yours,” you nod. “It’s really yours.”

If it weren’t for the weight of the bass, you’re sure Calum would’ve tipped over, maybe even rushed to Derek to hand the case back over, but instead he’s weighed down, chained to this spot in the blue speckled carpet of the store, still repeating, “No,” softly. 

“‘I hate to break it to you, but you’re gonna have to find space in your office for it now. Because I refuse to return it.” You step forward, find the handle and slip your hands around it taking it from Calum. A small grunt leaves you and then you start to the door, throwing a thanks to Derek. 

The lights to the SUV blink and you can hear the locks clicking open as you push open the door to the store. “Wait--what are you doing?” Calum asks. 

“Open the trunk please,” you ask. 

“Let me do it,” he demands, stepping in close to take the case with the bass now. “What the fuck did you do? Baby, this is expensive.”

“It’s not a Valentine’s Day gift,” you answer again. “Because I love you. On a random Tuesday.”

He gets the instrument safely into the trunk and then closes it, watching dumbly as you climb into the passenger side. He walks to the driver seat and climbs in, taking you gently by the chin. “That was absolutely reckless and unnecessary-- ”

“I am just absolutely reckless and unnecessary then,” you counter, “because I’m not returning it.”

“--but thank you. Thank you so much,” he continues as if you hadn’t interrupted him. “I love you.”

“I love you.” Then it’s silent, as the two of your gaze at each other, watching what could almost be tears well in his eyes, but they don’t fall. 

“I don’t know what I did to deserve a person like you, but whatever it was, I’m glad I did it.”

“I’m glad you did it too.” The two of you return home, Duke rushing to the front door as the two of you step through it. Calum safely places the bass in his music room/office and returns shortly after to help you decide on what to order for dinner. 

As the two of you settle onto the couch, Calum takes your hand and presses a kiss to teach knuckle. “I’m gonna teach you how to play.”

“You know we’ve done this before.”

“And you were good at it.”

“I was alright at it.”

“It’ll be your bass,” he whispers. 

“I bought it for you,” you return tossing your head back to look at him. 

He kisses your lips. “Yeah, but it’ll be the one that I teach you to play for real one and it’ll be yours--just as much as it is mine.”

“A true sap,” you laugh, but nod and return your focus back to the TV. 

In the week that follows, Calum makes sure to take an hour in the evenings to set you down and pick up on the lessons. They fizzled out as work for the both of you picked up. But now things are a bit more calm. He sits next to you, assessing what you remember from last time and correcting finger placements as needed, but they go smoothly. 

When Valentine’s Day does come, Calum pulls you back into bed for just five more minutes of sleep. And five minutes turns into half an hour. But finally you two pull yourself out from the sheets, figure out what to do in the midmorning that results in food being consumed and then you slowly gravitate towards different sections of the house. 

There’s still a bit of laundry to be done and Calum takes Duke out for just a little bit. The two of you migrate back together by mid afternoon. He finds you making a quick lunch and presses a kiss to your cheek. You turn to face him, squeezing at his. “I bought some face masks,” he offers. “Care to join me in doing the bare minimum of converting oxygen into carbon dioxide after your lunch?”

“Don’t see how I could pass up such a wonderful offer? You want anything?” He shakes head, mentioning grubbing on some of the leftovers earlier while you took a nap. 

With your lunch done and the plates cleaned, you find Calum in the bedroom and let him know you’re ready for the face masks. He shuffles to the bathroom. “I hope I got the right one for you,” he mutters. “I got them forever ago it feels, so who the hell knows what I got.” His laughter is soft as he rummages through the bins under the skin. 

“I’ll be in the office,” you tell him and he nods, still pulling bins out. You settle into the couch and spy the green bass still on the stand from yesterday. You pull it into your lap and sling your arm over it. The amp next to you is off, you know but you still pluck away at it as if it were on. 

Calum shuffles in a few minutes later. “Um, babe. It’s off.”

You don’t reply but do look up. He holds up three different packages. “Here’s to hoping one of these is worthwhile.” You place your bass back to the stand and take one that sounds like one you’re okay with using. Calum hands you a towel so you can wipe your fingers off after you get it placed onto your face. He helps get it right and then you help him with his and the two of you slip onto the couch, legs entangled and leaning into opposite ends of the couch.

You laugh at Calum’s story as you scroll mindless through app after app. In the boredom you snap a picture of Calum with the face masks on and don’t think too much of it, saving it to the album with all the silly and cute photos of him are--there are tons. 

“I mean the sun is a star. Though the ones we see have been dead for a long time.”

Calum taps your leg with his foot. “It was a simple question--to be the sun or the stars. I didn’t ask for this philosophical crisis.”

“Why would it not weigh in your decision! If you’re a star like the ones we see at night, you’re technically already dead. You wanna be dead?” You huff, sitting up. 

“I mean, no, but c’mon.”

“It’s a valid thing to consider, that’s all I’m saying!”

He laughs. “Okay, sun or the moon?”

“You first,” you return and just then your alarm on your phone goes off. The two of you shuffle back to the bathroom and take off the masks. 

“Moon, maybe,” he counters. 

You nod. “Fitting. When should we get started on that recipe of your moms? Is it super involved?”

“Nah, it’s pretty easy. Normal time should be good. I’m going to read outside if you want to join.”

“Maybe in a bit.”

Calum nods, grabbing his book as he passes through the bedroom and the patter of Duke’s claws follow behind him. You go back to the music room, turn on the amp and then actually play a little something. It’s nothing fancy--just the arrangement you put together with Calum as a practice exercise once. You play it for a bit, adding a little flair. When you phone rings, you pause to answer it. You wouldn’t normally, but the number looks semi recognizable so you answer it. 

It’s just a scam call and you hang up but then notice some other notifications. Before you realize it, you’re deep into Twitter. You’ve run across the trend of people posting pictures of themselves and their significant others with the caption, The Face Vs The Face Sitting On It. It made you laugh just a little bit at first. And then you kept going down the rabbit hole. Some are silly, most are good pictures. 

While it’s not exactly secret that you and Calum are dating, you two don’t post too much. Calum isn’t incline to post on social media in the first place and while you use it a bit more than him, you try not to post too much about him out of respect. However, as you look tap on quote retweet and bring up your photos you think maybe one silly post wouldn’t hurt. So you grab the one of him recently with the face masks and then one of yourself--it’s silly too, a little blurry too in the darkness that it was taken in. 

You hit post and watch the likes come in. Then keep scrolling. Eventually you have to put the bass away and peel yourself from the couch to find Calum and see if he’s hungry enough for dinner. Just as you round the corner to the office, you spy him stepping through the glass sliding backdoor. “Hungry?” you ask. 

He nods, “Yeah.”

The two of you, with Duke trotting ahead, make your way down the hallway and into the kitchen. “You’re funny,” he states, washing his hands first. 

“Thank you. I’ll be here until you kick me out.”

He laughs. “No, the pictures you posted. On Twitter.”

You’re shocked that he noticed it that fast. Normally it took him a bit longer to see silly stuff like that. “Hope you don’t mind.”

“Nah. What I hope you don’t mind is my reply.”

At first you’re nervous. Calum could’ve gone one of two ways--super silly and broke out even worse photos of you possibly not sober or he went super on trend with it and pulled out a photo of you done up for a date night. Not that you preferred one over the other, but sometimes you liked to keep your relationship light on social media. It was easier that way. There wasn’t any real pressure that way. Though the fans seemed to have enjoyed it when you posted more posed and serious content. 

You liked to keep it a bit more real. You and Calum didn’t do the whole nine yards a lot--you two were normal people who hated getting out of bed some days and went as well into the afternoon before showering at times and walked Duke and went to doctor’s appointments like everyone does. So you always opted for a bit of a joke, a silly Tweet or photo whenever you could. 

“What did you post?” you ask. 

He shrugs, taking up the knife to dice the onion. “I’m not telling you.”

You glance at the printed out recipe and get a pan on the aisle over medium heat before pulling out your phone. As you load the app, you listen to the snap of the knife fitting the wooden cutting board. You type Calum’s name and tap onto his profile. 

While there’s is silly--I do want to take a moment to show off my favorite person in the world. So here we go, The Face Vs. The Face Sitting On It. Below is attached a picture of him--you snapped while you two were out for lunch one day. The black t-shirt tight around his biceps as he slyly grins into the camera. The lights in the background are just barely in focus of the resturant and Calum’s glancing out of the window next to him. You remember that you were recording him, or at least you thought you were, and told him that he was handsome. Not the first time, but everytime he did, he blushed and turn away. And you captured it here too. 

The photo of you is actually one with him in it. The guys got together and did a big family dinner and the two of you posed at Crystal’s request in the slightly matching outfits. You hadn’t intended to match--though black was a staple in both your wardrobes. You were a bit different thanks to the pop of color in your shoes, but in the lighting of the street lamp, you had to admit that you did look hot. The first couple of  buttons on your shirt you were undone and with your hands tucked into the pockets, you looked like you owned shit. 

“While I hoped that you’d go with something more silly, I will take this,” you finally say. 

“That picture is literally my background for a reason,” he returns. 

You kiss his cheek and then trace over the stubble with your teeth to his ear. “Can I make a reservation for tonight?”

“The table is reserved for you literally at all times,” he returns in a breathe. 

“Good,” you laugh and then glance back to the recipe. 

#calum hood #calum hood blurb #calum hood x reader #calum hood x reader insert #calum hood imagine #calum hood smut #Calum Hood smut adjacent #5sos #5sos fanfic #5sos fic #5sos imagine #h writes #5 seconds of summer #5 seconds of summer fanfic #5 seconds of summer fic #5 seconds of summer imagine #gender netural reader

[sunsetcurvecuddles]

Road trip to nowhere in particular. Bobby just likes to drive. Reggie just likes to point out cows and horses out the windows. Maybe he counts them. Maybe he names them. Either way Bobby has to pretend to be annoyed/mildly amused even as he is experiencing SO MUCH LOVE

hi this is both sadder and longer than i intended for it to be so it is now also available to read on ao3 here. warning for allusions to child abuse.

seems like i’d take a new road | boggie | 2.1k

--

It's still barely bright outside when Bobby pulls up and parks the car a few houses down from Reggie's, so he doesn't risk waking Reggie's parents. As he gets out of the car and goes to knock on Reggie's window, Bobby rubs his eyes, wondering what kind of insanity possessed him when he suggested they leave so early.

Reggie's already sitting on his bed when Bobby comes up to the window, hands folded in his lap, backpack at his feet. The light from the lamp on his bedside table casts shadows across his face, makes him look thoughtful, and quiet. He looks up almost as soon as Bobby comes into view, like he knew, somehow, that Bobby would be there.

Or he just heard you coming, idiot, Bobby chides himself, but when Reggie grins, eyes way too bright for the hour, Bobby feels a matching smile tugging across his face without his permission.

—

"Okay, okay," Reggie says, as soon as he's plonked himself into the passenger seat, rifling through his backpack immediately, "I've got snacks, and soda, and sandwiches for lunch later, and some mix CDs, but I don't know which one we should listen to first, since—"

"Reg," Bobby interrupts him flatly, even though it's absolutely killing him not to laugh. "Seatbelt first, thanks."

"Oh." Reggie sits back, abashed, and buckles in before returning to the contents of the bag. "It's just very important that we have the right mix for the drive. It has to fit the atmosphere. That can make or break the whole trip!" He's gesturing all over the place with his free hand, still half-buried in the oversized backpack on his lap.

"Right," says Bobby, as though he's totally on board.

"So," Reggie hums, "We've got a selection, so, I'll just read them all out to you—"

"Don't worry about it," Bobby tells him, turning the key and pumping the gas a few times as the engine rolls over before it properly coughs to life, "you just pick something."

Reggie stops, looks up at him wide-eyed. "Are you sure? I know that I like weird music. Alex would die before he let me choose a CD."

"Do I look like Alex?" Bobby retorts, and Reggie's face splits into a huge smile.

"I know the perfect one. It's gonna be so good, Bobby, promise."

—

This is how Bobby spends the next half an hour listening to a burned CD of all Reggie's favourite country songs, as the sun rises over the road and he takes them out of the city. Even this early, there's traffic, because LA is a nightmare city from hell and Bobby hates it, but leaving early has definitely given them an advantage. Reggie winds his window down and rests his arms on the window edge so he can sing Tim McGraw out to the city of angels to wake her up and ready for her the day, and Bobby settles in for the drive.

They'd both been going nuts, was the thing. Bobby’s just had too much work to do, and there’s always so much noise at home, his little siblings underfoot and on top of him and exhausting, as much as he loves them.

Bobby knows Reggie doesn't have such benign reasons for wanting to get away for the day. However, Bobby also knows better than to push him on it, especially when he's in such a good mood, belting the lyrics to Memory Lane (when Bobby swats him and tells him the song sucks, Reggie just smiles bigger, belts even louder). Reggie pretty much universally refuses to acknowledge that there's a problem until it becomes impossible to ignore.

Like last week, when he'd called Bobby from his home phone, whispering a request to pick him up — please, just for a few hours, Bobby, and then I'll get out of your hair, it's just — and Bobby had been able to hear the banging and yelling even on his end of the call. Or when he'd turned up at Bobby's place with a black eye last month, had ended up sleeping in Bobby’s studio, curled up to Bobby on the couch, shivering even under the blankets Bobby brought out for them.

It's difficult to reconcile that image, of Reggie teary and silent and meek as Bobby had given him a pack of frozen peas to press over his eye, who had only shaken his head when Bobby asked him what happened, with this image, of Reggie with his head half out the window, singing and beaming in the morning sun. Tim McGraw's voice fades out, only to be replaced by more guitar (which sounds exactly the same to Bobby's ear) and Reggie's face lights up as he whoops, says, "This song is SO good, can I turn it up?"

Forget the morning sun. Reggie's brighter than it is.

Bobby makes sure his resigned sigh is extra theatrical before he says, "I guess so."

—

The next hour or so continues mostly this way, as Los Angeles becomes a more scattered, widespread set of houses and then eventually not much except desert. They share a packet of Haribo bears, Reggie insisting on giving Bobby the 'best colours' even though Bobby is almost certain they all taste pretty much the same, but he rolls his eyes and gives in when Reggie insists there's a subtle difference. At one point, the CD comes to an end, so Reggie swaps it for the next one. Which is also full of country. "Alex never lets me play any of these," he says defensively, even though all Bobby had done was glance at him out of the corner of his eye.

Bobby just shrugs and says, "I can see why."

And Reggie delightedly retorts, "Hey!"

After winding through the open, rocky expanse for awhile, things turn a little greener. Suddenly, Reggie breaks off singing to lean so far out the window that Bobby instinctively grabs the back of his shirt in his fist.

"Jesus, Peters, ass in the seat!" he huffs, mostly because his heart is still pounding.

Reggie has the decency to look a little sheepish as he sits back down, but still more excited than anything. "Sorry, Bobby, just — there's cows! Look, a whole field of them!"

There is, in fact, a whole field of cows. "Well, don't traumatise them by falling out the window."

"There's so many," Reggie continues, like Bobby didn't even speak, and then continues at a muttered volume, "one, two, three, four—"

"Are you seriously going to count all of them?" Bobby asks. This needs to stop. If Reggie's going to be this distractingly cute — no, just distracting — the whole trip, Bobby's going to crash the car, he can feel it. "You know they're going to move around and stuff."

"Oh," says Reggie, humming, "you're right. Hang on, I should name them so I can tell them apart. What are some good cow names? I think the big one up on the hill looks like a Betsy. And the brown one is totally a Buttercup."

Bobby groans, his heart growing three sizes in his chest, like he’s the Grinch or something. "Franco," he suggests at last.

"Franco?!" Reggie bursts out laughing. "You think 'Franco' is a good cow's name?"

"Is it not?" Bobby retorts, and Reggie laughs harder, throwing his head back and wrapping his arms around his stomach. The sound of him cackling almost drowns out Dolly Parton's voice still crooning from Bobby's stereo.

This Reggie. Versus the one who lives in Bobby's memory, tiny and silent, frozen peas held to his face with one trembling hand.

"Francesca," Reggie is saying, through his wheezing laughter, "now, Francesca is a good cow's name."

"Would you shut up about naming the cows and pass me a soda?"

"The calf is called Henry!" Reggie insists, as he leans to dig through his backpack. When he pulls out a can of soda and holds it out to Bobby, still flushed pretty-pink from laughing, his hair sort of a mess in his eyes, nose scrunched up extra cute, and Bobby feels his stomach softly flip over.

Well. That's a feeling he should repress.

"Thanks," he says, careful not to brush Reggie's fingers as he takes the can from him. Reggie doesn’t seem to notice. Thank god.

"You're welcome," says Reggie quietly, snuggling back down into his seat, looking out the window again. He points and says, "That one's called Oscar."

Definitely repressing, Bobby decides. Immediately. Forever. He can't have a crush on Reggie. Like, the band, and the fact that the last thing Reggie needs is for one of his friends to have feelings for him, as if he doesn’t already have enough going on. There are so many reasons he shouldn't have a crush on Reggie. Down, he tells the feeling, pushing at it in his chest, go down, stay down. "Is he?"

Reggie is oblivious, cheerfully rambling on, with no idea that he is causing Bobby a serious internal crisis. "Yeah. And that one's called—"

Bobby hopes it stays that way. He turns Dolly Parton up a little bit, and keeps driving.

—

They park and have lunch at the top of a hill looking over the valley. Reggie regales Bobby with some needlessly complicated story of the relationship between all the cows, as if they’re living a little soap opera down in the field. If Bobby’s going to be honest, he can’t follow the plot, but that doesn’t stop him staring at Reggie’s profile, the way he looks perfect here, at home among the grass and in the bright sun, how he comes alive being out here.

Bobby’s never really known what to think of the future. Before the band, he didn’t have much in his head to imagine. All his thoughts of the future were of his little siblings, what their lives would be like, but it was Luke who had first interrupted him and asked, “Well, yeah, but what about you, man? What do you want your life to be like?”

Maybe Bobby will save up and buy a farm out here, when all the band and touring stuff is done. So Reggie can come visit. Hell, maybe he’ll just buy Reggie a farm, with their millions of dollars they’re going to make when they’re all famous rock stars like Luke says they’ll be.

If we all have that much money, Reggie will buy his own farm, the voice in his head that keeps him in line sharply reminds him. Push them down. Push the feelings down.

“Here,” he says to Reggie, shoving his sandwich over. “You wanna finish this? Then we can get going.”

—

On their return drive that afternoon, Reggie is quiet. When one of the CDs loops back to the beginning, Reggie ejects it and doesn’t put in another one. The quiet is okay, Bobby thinks. It gives him a chance to catch his breath, to focus on the road, to forget all about his revelation from earlier in the day.

Winding back through the city, the sun dips lower in the sky. The city lights start to come alive as the evening sets in. Reggie starts to fiddle with the edge of his flannel, shift in his seat, like he’s nervous. A few times he breathes in, like he’s going to talk, and then doesn’t.

Bobby waits him out. He knows Reggie hates being pushed, hates stammering and fumbling for words when he doesn’t have them yet.

Still, he’s surprised when Reggie actually does break the silence. “Can I—” he starts, swallows, and then stops.

“Can you?” Bobby prompts, when Reggie doesn’t continue. His instinct is to reach for Reggie’s hand, but he does what he’s been doing all day, and pushes the thought down. God, what if Reggie’s noticed? What if that’s what he’s about to say? For a moment, Bobby feels cold, and nauseous. He sets his jaw.

“CouldImaybestayatyourplacetonight?” Reggie blurts out, all in one go.

Bobby breathes what he hopes is an imperceptible sigh of relief. Sure, it means a night of knowing Reggie’s out in the studio, probably cold. It means Bobby will inevitably climb out of bed, and out his window, bringing his extra blankets, to curl up with Reggie on the couch, to make sure he stays warm. Because that’s what always happens when Reggie sleeps over. And that’s a whole lot more complicated now that Bobby knows that he—well.

But Bobby looks at the worry on Reggie’s face, his stupid puppy eyes, and he can’t say no. Could never say no to Reggie anyway, he thinks. He needs to be there for Reggie, and that’s why his feelings have no place in this mess. “Of course, Reg. No problem.”

No problem, he tells himself, and does his best to mean it.

--

jatp taglist (lmk if you want to be added or removed!!):  @queenmolina @nickalicious @bi-reginald @jughead-is-canonically-aroace @multifandom-queer @cinnamonstickrayofsunlight @malecacidd

#chickwiththepurpleguitar #jatp #julie and the phantoms #boggie #bobby wilson #reggie peters #ask #my fic #boggie brain rot

[mrsalwayswrite]

To Call Forth Love- Chapter 4

So I planned for this chapter and the next to originally be one but as I started writing it, the words kept flowing and oops....now its really long. So I decided to split it. This means that I’m pretty much done with the next chapter so I’ll be able to get it out in a few days! Yay!

Also, Ivar is pretty manipulative in this chapter. Someone made a comment in the last chapter that I want to acknowledge. Going forward this is kind of a theme but I just want to put that warning statement- if this is triggering for you, please read with caution. There is nothing explicit or graphic but its still manipulation. 

Words:4000

Warnings: swearing, manipulation

Tag List: @youbloodymadgenius​

Series Masterlist

Sitting in the office at work, Kari sipped on her smoothie as she plugged in numbers for an inventory order. She had just finished teaching one of her morning classes and was now doing some paperwork for Lydia while on her "lunch break". 

 She jumped when her phone suddenly buzzed- a text alert. Surprised and curious as to who would be texting her at this time, she unlocked her phone to see the text from an unknown number. 

 Unknown: hey u busy 2nite?

 Kari: who is this?

 Unknown: u fav person

 Kari: OMG! Ed Sheeran?!

 She giggled quietly to herself, returning back to the laptop screen. Normally she ignored any calls or texts from unknown numbers, but it had been a good morning and she was feeling playful. When there was no return text, she shrugged the conversation off and returned to the order. Apparently, the unknown number did not get the reaction they were hoping for or realized they text the wrong person. Either way, she did not care. 

 A couple minutes later, her phone started to vibrate repeatedly. Looking down, she saw she was getting a call from the unknown number. She hesitated to answer, but by the third ring her curiosity got the better of her and she answered it. 

 "Hello?"

 "FUCKING ED SHEERAN? REALLY?"

 She sat there stunned. "Ivar?"

 "Of course, it's me. Who the fuck were you expecting?" He asked, angrily. 

 "How did you get my number?"

 He ignored her question, his voice suddenly sounding muffled. "Yeah, yeah, I'll be a second…. damn it. I know!"

 "Who is that?" 

 "My brother.” He scoffed, muttering something unintelligible under his breath, before speaking to her again. “I have to head back into a meeting now."

 "Oh, ok?"

 "You didn't answer my question."

 Her mind was still reeling from the fact that Ivar Lothbrok had her number and was calling her out of the blue. "What question?"

 He huffed, exasperation evident in his tone. "Are you busy tonight?"

 "Why?"

 "I want to take you out."

 "Ivar," she sighed, pressing a hand to her forehead, "I told you, I can't."

 "Yeah and I don't believe you, so…."

 "No. I'm sorry but the answer is still no."

 "Fine. I have to go." He snapped then abruptly ended the call.  

 Slowly, she pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it. What just happened? Before she forgot, she added his number to her contacts since she had the distinct feeling this would not be the last time he contacted her. Once done, she set her phone down and dropped her head into her hands. 

 It had been two days since he drove her home and she said they could be friends. In those two days, this was the first contact they had. She had hoped he grew bored with her since she was not playing his game, that she refused to go out with him. Maybe he finally decided she was not worth his time and moved on? Which was for the best. She could never fit into his world, there was no space for her there. Nor did she want to. She was happy, content with her life. 

 It was better for her to not allow Ivar into her life. That's what she repeated to herself as she tried to focus on the inventory order. 

 *****

 "Just put the bags right there, thank you." Kari said, placing the grocery bags, one in each hand, onto the tiled floor. The kitchen in her townhouse was small, two people could barely move around in it without bumping into one another. Thankfully, she did not spend much time in the kitchen. Cooking had never been her forte. 

 "Do you need anything else? I don't mind staying to help." The dirty-blond haired man asked, setting the two bags he carried down onto the floor. He started to shuffle forward but seemed to think better of it and leaned against the half-wall separating the kitchen from the short hallway. 

 "Erik, it's fine. If anything, I owe you. You never let me pay for gas money."

 He shrugged, and tucked his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. "It's not a big deal. I needed to shop too."

 "Still, it's not fair to you." She turned around from placing the milk in the fridge to look at him. 

 "If I think of something you can do to repay me, I'll let you know. Deal?"

 "Perfect."

 "Do you still want a ride to work tomorrow?"

 She shut the door and jokingly waved a hand at him. "See! You're too nice."

 "I'd be ‘too nice’ if I also showed up with coffee for you."

 She laughed, moving some frozen fruit into the freezer. "You're too perfect to not have a girlfriend." 

 He rubbed the back of his neck, a flush growing on his cheeks and drawing out a boyish smile. "I don't know if I'd say that. I'll let you get to it. I'll meet you outside at nine?"

 "Thank you, Erik."

 "Of course." He popped his head around the wall to look into the living room. "See you, Alana!"

 "Bye, Erik!" The response came from the living room. 

 Kari continued to put her groceries away as she heard the front door click shut behind him. Somehow, she needed to figure out a way to pay him back. 

 Erik lived in the townhouse next door alone. When he learned that Kari did not own a car, he offered to give her rides whenever it worked out for both of their schedules. At first, she had been hesitant, still not having lived in the townhouse for long but eventually gave in because he always acted like such a gentleman. Every time he saw her, he made sure to greet her and ask about her day. He always held the door open for her and anybody else close by. A negative word never passed his lips, rather choosing to focus on the positive in life. A routine soon started to form and every two weeks they would meet up outside of their townhouses and go grocery shopping together. When she did not have to work early, he would occasionally give her rides to work since the bank he worked at was only a couple blocks away. That was the extent of their interactions though. She wondered about inviting him over for dinner as to thank him but she always chickened out in asking him. Perhaps that was what she needed to do after all.  

 Once all her groceries were put away, she headed into the living room, seeing her roommate and friend sitting on the couch with the TV on to the Great British Bake-off but looking down at her phone. 

 The brunette asked, dropping onto the second couch. "How was work?"

 "Good. You?" Alana looked up, her make-up flawless like usual on her delicate features. 

 "Nothing too exciting."

 "You know, if you'd waited two hours I could have taken you to the store."

 Kari nodded, fiddling with her diamond stud earring. "I know, but you're so busy with work and school. I know you like relaxing when you come home and Erik said he was free today."

 "Did he now?" Alana asked with a smug look.

 Kari tossed a throw pillow at her. "Don't start this again."

 The blonde caught the pillow, still grinning like the Cheshire cat. "You know he likes you. He's just too shy to ask you out."

 "He's a friend, it's been like seven months, I think if he was going to ask me out, he would have done it by now."

 "He. Is. Shy." Alana enunciated, as if talking to a child. She rolled her blue eyes, leaning back against the couch. "Shit, he only started to actually talk to me this summer."

 "Cause you are intimidating."

 Alana threw the pillow back at Kari. "Bitch, it's cause I radiate sexiness and he can't handle it."

 "That is most definitely it." 

 "Well the guy I hooked up with last weekend said I radiated sexiness."

 Kari wrinkled her nose, looking over at her roommate. "I don't want to hear that. It's bad enough when you bring them here."

 "You know, it wouldn't be the worst thing for you to actually go out with Erik. He's…. sweet." She quietly stated, eyes back on the TV. 

 "Yeah."

 "I'm fairly sure he'd treat you better than that fucker of ex."

 Kari picked invisible lint off her black leggings, apprehensive about where the topic was going. Her love life, and lack of it, was something Alana liked to remind her of frequently as of late. "Honestly, I'm even sure anymore he should count as an ex."

 "Well you were supposed to be exclusive, right? And then you find out he's been fucking other girls the whole time. That counts as a shitty ex."

 She winced at the reminder of her one attempt at dating. "I don't…. I don't think I'm ready."

 The blonde pointed a finger at her roommate without turning her eyes away from the TV. "Well don't wait around forever, you'll miss out."

 "Says the woman who hooks up with a different guy almost every other weekend."

 "And I'm not missing out!"

 Kari laughed. Feeling her phone vibrate, she pulled it out of her pocket and checked it to see a new text from Ivar. 

 Ivar: hell no, if we r gng 2 see the Northern Lights thn we're gng 2 Iceland or Norway.

 She smiled at the text, quickly typing in a reply. 

 Kari: fine, we'll add that to the list. Can I please put South Africa back on the list?

 She fiddled with her diamond stud earrings, looking back at their conversation throughout the day. Just looking at all the texts, she bit her lip to try and contain the smile. 

 Ivar had texted her in the late morning, asking her out again. To which she just texted back a one-word answer- "no". Apparently undeterred, he ignored her 'no', saying how he wanted to take her to this popular restaurant. Somehow the conversation spiraled into creating overly outrageous "dates" he would take her on, each one more fantastic than the last, with her encouraging and creating her own ideas. Their texting had lasted all day, and she found herself actually looking forward to his responses. Something she never would have expected, especially after how rudely he hung up on her the prior day. 

 So far her favorite "date" involved him renting out the entire Roman Colosseum in Rome and having a candlelight dinner in the middle of the arena. The most amusing one was when she suggested they go skydiving. He shut down that idea saying they would have to be strapped to instructors and the only man she should ever be strapped to was him. 

 Her phone vibrated in her hand, alerting her to his response. 

 Ivar: u r not swimming w/ sharks 

 She giggled, trying to imagine his facial expression. She actually had no desire to do half of the stuff she suggested but it was funny to get a rise out of him. 

 Kari: African safari?

 "What are you giggling at?" Alana questioned, giving her the side-eye. 

 The smile dropped from her face. "Nothing."

 "That doesn't sound like nothing."

 "Just a funny meme." She deflected, getting to her feet. There was no way she could tell Alana she had been texting Ivar all day. "I'm going to shower."

 As she headed upstairs to her room, her phone vibrated again. 

 Ivar: do u jus luv danger?

 Kari: I'm talking to you, aren't I? 

 She headed to her bathroom, turning the shower on and checking the temperature. In a spur of the moment decision, she tossed in a eucalyptus shower bomb. 

 Just before she jumped in, she looked at her phone one last time to find his response.  

 Ivar: touche, kitten, touche 😘

 *****

 The soothing soundtrack of nature played over the speakers in the yoga studio room. A few women were already in the studio with their yoga mats out, either stretching or quietly conversing as they waited. Depending on the day, the ten am morning class could be busy but typically it averaged about fifteen to twenty women.

 Kari bent over, touching her palms to the floor. Even though she would not be continuously doing the routine along with those in her class, she still liked to be limber and have her muscles warmed up. This was a beginner class, where she spent a good portion of the time either correcting people's forms or showing how to do a certain pose. A few of her coworkers complained about teaching beginner classes since when the participants walked through the door, you never really knew what level they were at. 

 Checking the clock hanging over the door, she saw she had five minutes before her class started. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, enjoying the pull of her muscles. The door to the studio room opened but Kari continued to stretch, shifting to a downward facing dog pose, holding it. She could hear some people moving around but she focused on her breathing.  

 "Mmm, I could get used to seeing this."

 The familiar voice behind her, caused Kari to try and whip around in startled surprise, only to end up crashing onto her ass. 

 Above her stood Ivar with a devilish smile. "Hello, kitten." He softly said with smolder that instantly made her flush and a tendril of warmth curl in her belly. Standing there in his jeans and red shirt with his hair pulled back in a man bun, it was unfair how striking he looked. Even the braces over his legs did nothing to deter from his attractiveness. 

 She rose quickly to her feet, wiping her hands over her leggings and peeking at the others in the room. Most were curiously watching their interaction but remained where they were. 

 "What are you doing here?" She hissed, turning her gaze back up to meet his. "How did you find me?"

 He rolled his eyes. "You were wearing a Whole Wellness Yoga Studio shirt when I drove you home last week. Plus, hearing from Gyda that you work here…. You're not that hard to find."

 That made sense, even if she disliked the logic. "Ok, fine. Why are you here though?"

 "I want to take you out tonight."

 "Oh gods." She could not believe what she was hearing. The prior day they had spent most of the day texting and sure it was fun, but her answer had not changed. When he had not text her this morning, she assumed that was the last she had heard from him. Apparently, he decided to ask her out in person instead of over the phone like the past two times. "Ivar… No."

 "Why? You keep saying you can't but never why."

 "It's just…. look, I don't want to date."

 He took a step closer, face inches above hers. His voice dropped low, an underlying current of anger in his tone. Those piercing blue eyes challenged her. "You say that but I don't think that's the real reason. So, until you tell me the truth, your 'no' means fucking nothing. Friends tell each other things, right?"

 "You know, I don't think we should be friends anymore."

 He chuckled, still standing too close for a normal conversation. "Too late. I like you."

 "I'm still not going out with you." She placed her hands on her hips, trying to appear confident, hoping desperately he did not hear the wavering in her voice. 'This was for the best, it was best for both of them' she repeated in her mind. 

 "Fine. I'll wait for you to change your mind." He winked and stepped back. To her horror, she watched as he walked over to the side of the room where she kept her water bottle and light jacket. He grabbed a nearby chair and dragged it over before dropping down with his legs in a manspread, that stupid smirk still on his face. 

 She stomped over to him, whisper-shouting at him. "What are you doing?"

 "I'm waiting."

 "What?"

 "I'm not leaving until you agree to go on a date with me."

 "You can't...no…. Ivar." She whined. 

 "I walked all the way here to see you, even though my legs are quite painful today…. you wouldn't kick a cripple out when they just need to rest, would you?" He asked, eyes widened in mock innocence. One of his hands rubbed at his knee in exaggerated fashion as if to prove the discomfort he was in. 

 She groaned. "I hate you."

 "No, you don't." He gloated, then nodded towards the clock. "It's ten o'clock, it's time to start your class, I believe."

 Without another word, she moved to the front of the room. She refused to play this game. Her answer was 'no' and no matter what he said or did, her answer would not change. The whole time she could feel his rakish gaze on her, reminding her how tight her leggings and purple tank top were. She tried to focus on her class, smiling at the women she recognized and the ones that she assumed was new. "Let's begin. Everyone start in mountain pose. Take deep breaths, let's center ourselves."

 "Kari!" 

 She looked over at the older woman, Ingrid, who called out. The woman was easily one of Kari's favorites, doting upon those who worked at the yoga studio, and becoming the unofficial grandmother of them. Ingrid had been coming to the yoga studio for years but was forced to only take beginner level classes after a bad fall the prior year. She loudly complained about her doctor being an idiot and how she felt fine, but Lydia refused to let her attend any other class than beginner classes until otherwise said by her doctor. 

 "Yes?"

 Ingrid's hazel eyes twinkled with mischief from the front row where she stood. "You planning on introducing that handsome young man you've got over there?"

 "No, we are going to ignore his presence. He's going to be leaving soon." Kari flatly stated with a polite smile.

 "Hi! I'm Ivar!" He announced with a charming smile, his bright blue eyes alluring under the dim lights. Giving a little wave with his fingers, he continued, "I hope my presence doesn't bother all you lovely women, I just came to see my girlfriend and ask her on a date tonight."

 A chorus of "awwwws" filled the room. 

 Kari wanted nothing more than to bang her head against a wall. Or preferably, Ivar's head. She could not believe the audacity of him.

 "Where are you taking her?" One of the newer women asked in a flirty tone, pulling her shoulders back to emphasize her ample chest. 

 Ivar barely glanced at her, keeping his focus on Kari. "It's a surprise. I wanted to do something special."

 "Young man, if I were a few years younger, I would fight Kari here so you could take me on a date." Ingrid said with a laugh. 

 "I would be honored to take a lovely woman like you on a date." He sent a playful wink to Ingrid. 

 "Alright, let's get back to yoga." Kari tried to redirect the attention. Annoyed and upset did not even begin to describe how she felt. 

 "Well it was lovely to meet you, young man. Kari should have told us her boyfriend was so handsome. We might have convinced her to bring you in sooner for some eye candy." Ingrid teased. 

 "He's not my boyfriend." Kari retorted, shooting a glare at the smug raven-haired man. 

 "And that is why I'm trying to take her on a date." He placed a hand dramatically over his heart, eyes staring at her beseechingly. "Just for her to give me a chance."

 "Get her some tulips. Those are her favorite flowers." Karina called out from the back of the room. 

 "Can't go wrong with chocolate!"

 "Oh! Read her a sonnet and dance under the stars together!"

 "This is so romantic…. like something out of a movie." Someone loudly whispered, making a few others laugh. 

 Kari dropped her chin to her chest. Tears welled in her eyes. She knew those in the class meant well, that they were really just trying to help. But they were helping the wrong person. Why would Ivar not leave her alone? She told him 'no' multiple times, that should have been enough. Her tolerance for his behavior was waning rapidly and honesty she was not sure if she would fight back…. or surrender. 

 The chair scratched faintly on the floor followed by his footsteps landing audibly as he crossed the room to reach her. She refused to lift her head, her eyes squeezed shut. Not just to pretend she could not feel him standing so close to her, but to try and hide the single tear that rolled down her cheek. 

 "Kari." He whispered, the sound a caress of her name. 

 Still she did not move. 

 Gently, he tipped her chin up, forcing her to look at him. His thumb wiped away the evidence of her tear. It was those captivating eyes, the ones that could both scorch everything in view but also send flames of desire dancing across her skin, that met hers. To her surprise, there was a softness in his gaze, a vulnerability, that was reminiscent of the few times they were alone. As if with just her, for a brief moment, he let his guard down and she could glimpse the real Ivar. 

 "Go out with me." He murmured faintly, stroking her cheek with his thumb. Standing in front of her, his broad back to the class gave them a semblance of privacy. "Please."

 "Why can't you let this go?" She begged quietly, staring up at him. 

 "I told you, I'm persistent." He smiled, almost shyly. 

 In his words, it felt like there was such a depth to them she was unaware of. That he was confessing something to her in which she did not have the key to fully understand. 

 She sighed softly, closing her eyes for a moment before looking at him again. "Fine. I'll go…. But it's only as friends, ok? This isn't…. Romantic. Just…. Just friends."

 "Sure, just friends." He leaned forward and pressed a quick, chaste kiss to her cheek. "I'll pick you up at seven."

 She nodded, feeling torn apart inside. 

 After a lingering look that breathed a flame into her belly, he spun on his heel to face the women. "She said yes!"

 A few cheers and clapping reverberated in the small yoga studio room. 

 "I graciously thank you all for your sound advice and encouragement with helping me to woo the beautiful Kari. Wish me luck as I plan to thoroughly spoil her tonight." Ivar dramatically bowed, shooting a quick wink at Kari as she watched him. 

 She desperately tried to fight the small smile off her lips. No one could say that Ivar was not charming or charismatic when it suited him. 

 As he finally made his way to the door, he turned around just before pushing it open. "Wear something nice." He said, pointing a finger at Kari and then walked out like a dream where one cannot decide if it was a nightmare or not. 

 The brunette ran a hand down her face before shoving aside her emotions and plastering a customer smile on. "I'm so sorry about all of this. Let's get back to it. I promise it won't happen again, ladies."

 "Kari, dear, you have fun with that boy tonight." Ingrid spoke up, eyes darting to the now closed door and back to the yoga instructor. "And if you don't want him, let me know. I'd still jump on him in a heartbeat. That boy has the prettiest eyes, I swear."

 A few sounds of agreement echoed in the room. 

 Kari could not stop her smile from turning genuine at Ingrid. No matter the situation, the feisty, older woman always knew how to make her laugh. "I promise I'll let you know. Now, back to mountain pose please."

 Silently, she hoped tonight was not a mistake.

#vikings #vikings fandom #vikings fanfic #vikings fanfiction #vikings imagine #modern ivar #ivar x ofc #ivars heathen army #ivar romance #ivar the boneless #modern!ivar #modern!ivar x oc #to call forth love #mzwrites

[moonlit-raven-haven]

The Past III

Where the reader and Harry no longer speak.

This is unedited!

Word Count: 3.6k

Warning: angst, drinking, some language, mentions of blood

A/N: Here’s part three! Sorry it took so long to update! My personal life has been quite hectic and draining and I couldn’t find the energy to write again up until a few days ago. I hope you guys enjoy it! Information regarding tag lists at the end.

Y/N is discharged in the morning just like she had told Harry the previous day. Not having a ride home, she decides to dial Gemma who picks up after only a few rings. 

“Hey Gem, think you could pick me up and bring me some clothes please? Mark is at work right now.” Y/N asks and explains as she flips through the random TV channels on the small flat-screen television in her hospital room. 

“Hey Y/N, I actually can’t right now…” She trails off, almost as if trying to come up with an excuse not to pick her up, but she doesn’t. “I’m sure Harry can pick you up.” She adds in to her trailing sentence. Y/N stays quiet on the other end of the line. She’s going to see Harry tonight anyways, but would she be able to spend a whole day with him without it being painfully awkward?

“It’s okay...I’ll ask Anne.” Y/N replies as she huffs slightly, going through all of the television channels for the second time, but nonetheless she starts the process all over again. 

“Mum is busy with grocery shopping and whatnot.” Gemma says with an urgency to her voice, and Y/N finally concludes that Gemma, or Anne and Gemma want her to spend more time with Harry. Y/N pinches the bridge of her nose slightly before sighing. 

“I’ll ring Harry.” She finally gives up, knowing it was no use trying to tell Gemma that she could see past her lies. Y/N ponders on taking the bus, but she knows she’ll get weird and concerned  looks, having only the clothes from the previous night and dried blood on her hair. 

“Alright, I’ll see you soon!” Gemma exclaims into the phone, the smile evident in her voice as she hangs up, leaving Y/N to hear the ringing of the dead line. She pulls her phone away from her ear and takes a deep breath as she scrolls through her contacts, finally stumbling upon Harry’s name. She hadn’t deleted the number, and she knew it was the same, receiving a text from Gemma with his number attached. Y/N clicks on his contact, an old picture of the two showing up in a small circle next to the call button. The picture is one that Anne had taken at Christmas before they stopped speaking. Y/N was curled up into Harry’s side, the Santa hat she had been wearing slowly beginning to fall off her head as Harry had an arm wrapped around her sleeping form. He was looking down at her, a soft smile on his face as his own Santa hat lit up with small Christmas lights. Y/N smiles at the picture, reminiscing back at how simple things once were.

After a few minutes of hearing the television but listening to her own thoughts, she decides to tap the green button on her screen that has been taunting her for several minutes. Y/N hears the line ring, her heart beating faster with each lengthy tone, and after only the third ring she hears a click on the other end of the phone.

“Hey Y/N.” Harry greets through the phone, his comforting voice making Y/N’s once fast beating heart slow down enough for her to feel calm once again. He knew it was her, he must have saved her number after all these years, but the thought makes her heart sting; why hadn’t he tried to reach her? 

“I...Um...I was wondering if you could pick me up from the hospital?” Y/N questions through the small device in her hand as she fiddles with the rough material of the thin blanket that the hospital provided her with. 

“Yeah sure...I’ll be there in 30.” Harry says, and Y/N can hear the jingling of his keys and the opening and closing of the door. 

“Thank you...and be careful please...the roads are still pretty dangerous to drive on.” She mumbles, shivering slightly at the memory from the previous day.

“O’course...I’m always careful. See you soon.” Y/N hears the muffled sound of the car engine over the phone before hearing a soft click, only hearing the television quietly playing in the background. Over the next 20 minutes Y/N is discharged by the doctor and disconnected from the various monitors. She gathers her belongings, grimacing as she puts on her clothes from the previous day, some of it covered in dry blood still. She grabs her phone off the small hospital table and exits the fluorescent room, thanking the staff on her way out before waiting for Harry in front of the hospital. The floor is wet from the storm the previous day and the current light drizzle of water. She wraps her coat around her tightly, shivering slightly as a gust of wind passes by her.

“I should’ve waited inside.” Y/N thinks to herself as the cold wind bites at her skin, but she’s being courteous for Harry’s sake, or maybe she’s doing it for herself. What she knows is that a mob of fans wouldn’t be pleasant for either of them. So she waits for him outside, hoping that they could drive off as soon as he arrives at the hospital so they could leave.

Y/N is staring up at the gray clouds before she hears a soft calling of her name. She looks up, noticing the window of Harry’s black Range Rover is rolled down. He’s wearing a black hoodie with colorful letters that she can’t make out due to his distance, and some big sunglasses that make her let out a little laugh at their size. She gives him an awkward smile before walking towards the big car and getting in the passenger's seat, immediately engulfed by the warmth of the car and Harry’s scent. Y/N settles into the leather seat as she closes the door and secures the seat belt around her body as Harry begins to drive away from the hospital parking lot. 

“Would you like me to drive you home?” Harry questions, his eyes focused on the slick road in front of him. 

“No no…” Y/N quickly starts off. “We could go back to your place...we were meeting for dinner anyways.” She finishes her statement as Harry just hums in response. It’s silent between the two despite the words that need to be said; the words that would probably fix everything between them. The rain gently hits the windows as the heater hums in sync with the sound of the engine. The road is smooth beneath the tires as Harry drives through a series of small winding streets.

“Can I turn the radio on?” Harry is the first to speak, and now it’s Y/N’s turn to hum in response. His hand travels over to the radio, turning it on before browsing through different radio stations, but he can’t settle on anything and shuts the radio off once again, his hand settling back on the steering wheel. The car ride is filled with an almost unbearable silence, each raindrop sounding heavier than the last against the car, but finally, just as Y/N is thinking that jumping out of the car isn’t a horrible idea, they reach a small and gated house. Harry pulls up next to a small metal box, rolling down his window and quickly punching in a few numbers before rolling it up once again. The raindrops rolling off the leather interior, the sleeve of his hoodie now a darker shade of black.

The metal gates open up and Harry applies light pressure on the gas pedal of his car, causing it to move forward onto the long cement driveway, all the way to the end which connects to a house, his house. Harry presses a small clicker on the roof of his car, opening up the large garage connected to the house as he pulls into it and closes the garage door once again before turning the car off. 

“Let’s get you inside so you could get showered and changed before dinner.” Harry says softly as he gets out of the car, not looking at Y/N once. He knows that it’s still early, early enough to barely eat lunch, but he figures he could try to avoid the dreaded, but much needed conversation for a few more hours. Plus, he doubts that she wants to be in the same clothes from the day of the accident, much less have her hair matted and tangled with dried blood. 

“Oh yeah...thanks Harry.” Y/N says as she climbs out of the car, and takes a look at the garage. It’s like any other person’s garage, but emptier due to his constant moving around and barely being home. She gently closes the black car door and walks around to where Harry is standing, inserting a key to a door in the garage. He twists the key and handle, opening the door before pulling the key out. He walks in, holding the door open for Y/N as he motions for her to walk in. She complies and enters the house that’s lit up by the outdoor light. The place is a lot simpler than she had expected, since his career took off she expected him to change just like every other superstar, being taken by the fame and money, but he was not. He remained Harry Edward Styles, her friend of many years and who she always thought would be her first love. 

His house is decorated in modern and minimalist furniture, but somehow still feels like a home. Y/N can’t tell if it’s Harry’s scent or small random things laying around that make it feel like home. Picture frames of his family and friends, a random jacket here, some shoes over there, and a few random cups scattered throughout the living room and kitchen. While she looks around, she believes that Harry has moved on from their friendship, and maybe even whatever nonexistent relationship there was between them. There wasn’t a picture of her in sight, or any clue of her ever being part of his life, but what was she hoping for? For him to dwell on her for five years? That would be selfish of her, but maybe for now she wanted to be selfish. 

Harry watches Y/N intently as she looks around, noticing slight changes in her expressions, from a half smile to a small frown. Was she regretting her choice of coming with him? Would she turn around right now and ask for him to drive her home? He suddenly thinks that this is a horrible idea, and that maybe things should’ve just been left as is, but he still tries and hopes that she doesn’t want to run away like he has been wanting to do.

“Bathroom is over here.” His voice sounds a bit shaky, almost as if he is nervous. He begins walking through the house, reaching a short hallway with only two doors and some cabinets at the end. He opens the door to their left, revealing a bathroom, and then continues to take a few steps forward, opening the door to their right, revealing his room.

“There’s a bathroom in m’ room if you would like to use that one. You could change in my bedroom afterward if you would like, I’ll be in the kitchen making dinner so you don’t have to worry about me barging in...I mean not that I would barge in...just in case you were worried ‘bout that...not that you sh-” But before Harry can ramble on any further, Y/N cuts him off, a small laugh escaping her lips at his nervous behavior.

“I’ll use your bathroom, you go ahead and make dinner.” She says with a smile adorning her face, oh how much Harry missed that smile. He simply nods and exits the room, opening and closing the cabinets in the hallway before returning with a towel and handing it to Y/N.

“Thanks Harry.” She says softly as she begins walking to the bathroom door in the corner of his room. 

“O’course. I’ll leave some clothes on my bed and then I’ll leave and close the door.” Harry explains to her as he walks over to his dresser and begins to open drawers. Y/N hums in appreciation as she walks through the bathroom door and shuts it behind her. She opens the sliding glass door, letting out a small sigh of relief when she sees the water knobs are the same as the ones in her own flat, thankful she wouldn’t have to ask Harry for help. Y/N turns the water on to her desired temperature and begins to strip off her clothing before getting into the shower, sliding the glass doors shut. As she showers, she can hear the muffled opening and closing of drawers outside in the room before she hears the shutting of what she assumes is the bedroom door. 

Harry exits his bedroom, closing the door behind him as he makes his way to the kitchen. As he pulls out the necessary ingredients for spaghetti and garlic bread, his mind (once again), begins to occupy itself with unnecessary thoughts, because never in a million years did he think they would be having dinner together after five years of silence. Harry was aware of how she tried to contact him, and he saw all the missed calls and texts from her, but he was too hurt to ever pick up the phone or to even see her. Now he feels guilty, realizing that he probably caused her pain that she still hasn’t healed from. Had she moved on quickly? Did she see other people before meeting Mark? Or was Mark the person that finally allowed her to begin to move on? Harry shakes his head slightly, now beginning to serve the plates of food and pulling out a bottle of wine. Those thoughts shouldn’t make him feel jealousy, after all, he had tried to move on fast, sleeping and dating people over the past five years, and he was almost one-hundred percent sure that she saw every headline regarding his relationships, whether they were rumors or whether they were confirmed. And while Harry can’t be sure, he can only assume that it hurt to see the headlines, because when he heard of Mark’s existence in Y/N’s life, the pain he felt in his chest was too much to ignore. 

Harry is closing the bottle of wine and sitting down when he hears light footsteps in front of him, and as he looks up he sees Y/N, her cheeks are slightly flushed and there is a sheepish smile on her face as she sits down across from him.

“It smells good…” She says softly as she pics up her fork and begins to eat. She’s wearing his hoodie, boxers, sweats, and even his socks, which makes her feel quite flustered, it feels too domestic, like if they are dating, and the thought makes her heart pick up slightly in speed. 

What they both thought would be an awkward dinner was actually pleasant, their conversation flowed naturally, almost as if nothing between them had occurred, and as if they haven't spoken in five years. Once their plates are clean of food and their glasses are empty of wine, they clean up the kitchen and head to the living room, sitting down on opposite ends of Harry’s couch, their glasses of wine full again. Their conversation flows smoothly once again, eventually falling into a silence that was almost unbearable.

“Have you listened to any of my music?” Harry questions, as he sets down his wine glass on the coffee table. The question probably sounds narcissistic, but he needs to know, because there are songs that were written for her, messages that he hopes she received. Y/N sets down her glass of wine and tilts her head back before looking over at Harry.

“I only listened to your first album...I couldn’t really bring myself to listen to your second album.” She explains rather timidly, afraid that he would take offense to the statement, but he nods his head in understanding and gets up from the couch.

“We’ll start from the beginning then, so you could get the full experience.” He says jokingly as he walks over to his vinyls and record player. Harry pulls out his first album and sets it up before sitting back on the couch, this time a little closer to her. They fall into casual conversation again, but Y/N doesn’t really listen to the music, too invested in listening to Harry, that is until he puts a finger to his lips, his infamous rose ring glinting in the sunlight.

“One of my favorite songs that I’ve ever written.” Harry says softly as he looks at Y/N. She chuckles softly as “Woman” begins to play in the background. Y/N smiles at the opening line, Harry has always been one for romance, and she couldn’t help but wonder who he had asked to watch romantic comedies with on Netflix, and then the song begins.

I’m selfish, I know

But I don’t ever want to see you with him

Y/N then wonders who this man was, this man that made him selfish and want to keep someone to himself, and who is the person that he loves so much that he wrote a song about not wanting to see them with anyone else? But then these questions are answered when Harry begins to speak. 

“Y’know...when mum told me ‘bout you and Mark, I wished desperately that it was me you were with instead of him. And I wanted to go find you, and say that I fucked up, that I’m an arrogant son of a bitch who can’t admit when he’s sorry, but I didn’t. I couldn’t bear the thought of him opening the door, and while I’m selfish for wishing that I was in his place, I also can’t ruin your happiness again…” Harry trails off and sighs, he turns away from Y/N and tilts his head back until it’s resting on the couch and he’s staring up at the ceiling. 

Y/N looks at him blankly as he stares up at the ceiling. She had expected a conversation of apologies, then maybe a few words of “glad we’ve moved on,” and then things to be how they once were, but she wasn’t expecting a love confession. And as much as she wants to say that she understands, and that she forgives him, she can’t do that.

“Harry...you can’t do this to me. You can’t waltz back into my life and expect me to drop everything for you. You’re the one that left, I tried to make things right between us. I have a life of my own now, I’ve moved on from our past…” Y/N’s voice is assertive, refusing to let Harry come back into her life unannounced after everything that had occurred between them. But as assertive as she sounds, and as serious as she is about her words, she knows that her last statement isn’t true, and he knows that it isn’t true as well.

“You’re right, I left, and I know that you called...that you tried to reach me, and I blocked you out...I shouldn’t have. But I was afraid that I had ruined our friendship that night I tried to kiss you...now I reckon that I did more damage when I left unannounced.” Harry finally faces her, and while his words are directed at the girl in front of him, he knows these words are also his thoughts. When she doesn’t respond, he is fearful once again, maybe he should have left things alone. Y/N lets out a shaky breath and closes her eyes, not wanting to look at him in fear of breaking down. 

“Look Harry, it’s in the past, and I want to forgive you, but I can’t...at least not right now. I spent so long getting over you, trying to forget our friendship and that spark that we once had…” She trails off and opens her eyes once again, staring directly at Harry. “But I need time, and I need space…” Her last words are quiet as she gets up from her spot on Harry’s couch and grabs her few belongings. “I would like to go home please.” Is all Y/N can muster past her lips as she walks over to the door, the very little energy she once had now leaves her body. Harry doesn’t protest, knowing that he has caused damage to the woman he loved, once again. 

The drive back to her flat is silent, the hum of his car and the cars around him driving through the rain being the only sounds they can hear. And while the drive to her flat is short, it feels long and tense, making Y/N eager to get to the comfort of her own home and away from the current situation. Finally, the car is parked in front of her flat, and Y/N gives Harry a weak smile once she is out of his car.

“See ya around, thanks for lunch...maybe we can catch dinner another time.” She says as she closes his car door, and Harry’s heart flutters; he hadn’t fucked things up even more than before.

“I would like that.” Harry is quick with his response as he gives her a toothy grin before giving her a slight wave and driving off. Maybe things will be okay in time.

_._._._

A/N: There are two tag lists for Harry content! One for ALL future Harry Styles fics, and one for JUST this fic. Comment “All Harry fics” or “Just this Harry fic” if you would like to be added.

_._._._

All HS fanfic

@rachkon @tpwkhoney @girlboss99 @hilarydenise813 @eternalharry @tpwkxkiwis @wholesomestyles @indieslytherin @harryspirate @harrehiluvyeh

Just this fanfic

@darcysbxtch @makncheese1928 @urdadbtch

Usernames I can’t tag

@mybm1998 @marvelstudies2020 @90smessy @only1doodle

#harry edward styles #Harry Styles #solo harry #harry styles x reader #harry x reader #x reader #harry styles x you #harry x you #harry styles x y/n #harry x y/n #harry styles preference #harry styles imagine #harry imagine #harry styles one shot #harry one shot #oneshot #OneShots #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fic #harry fanfic #x reader fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic #harry styles story #miniseries #anne twist #gemma styles

[sunshineandaisies]

Tuesday

Words: ~3.3k

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Warnings: language, mentions of blood/injury, a tad bit angsty?

Note: I haven’t written anything new in the marvel fandom for 4+ years now, so this is me dipping my toes back into it before I start working on new series that I have planned. And because I hate myself sometimes, I decided to write something for a character I’ve never written for, our smol bean peter. Hopefully I did okay???

A typical Tuesday for you was, well, normal. 

You’d go to school, mildly pay attention in class, and do your best to stay out of whatever drama was currently overtaking the halls of Midtown High. When the final bell of the day rang, you walked home with your headphones in, playing loud music to drown out the sounds of the city. You’d get home from school, maybe have a less than healthy snack, and watch a random television program until your mom was trying to pull you away from the couch for dinner. After dinner was eaten - and the dishes were cleaned and drying, because you needed that weekly allowance money - you shut yourself in your room to work on homework and to subsequently procrastinate that homework by playing mobile games on your phone. Usually, you’d end up falling asleep with one of your textbooks open to the page you’d been in the middle of reading and with your phone slowly dying in your hand because Candy Crush was lighting up your screen and draining the battery.

Pretty uneventful, right?

This Tuesday, however, was anything but uneventful. 

You should’ve known from the moment that Peter Parker spilled chocolate milk on your white top at lunch that the day was going to be anything but your typical Tuesday. It only got worse when he shoved a handful of napkins onto your chest, dabbing at the stain while stammering and blushing and being so frustratingly cute that you couldn’t bring yourself to yell at him for practically pawing at your chest in the middle of the cafeteria.

It didn’t end there. 

Your locker jammed between fifth and sixth period, preventing you from grabbing the calculus assignment that you had spent hours trying to complete over the weekend and making you unable to turn it in on time. The worn strap of your backpack finally broke on your walk home from school, and you were forced to carry the heavy bag in your arms, making the limbs numb and tingly by the time you finally reached your apartment. Your mom had picked up a rare night shift at the hospital at the last minute, leaving you to fend for yourself for dinner – which, in normal circumstances, would have been fine, but the Moroccan place down the street that you ordered from had given you the wrong food and you were too hungry to call them and have the order corrected.

You figured that would be the end of it. You figured that there was absolutely no way that anything could go wrong as you spent the rest of your evening actually working on homework, sprawled lazily across your bed, and bopping your head in time to the music coming through your headphones.

Oh, how wrong you were.

It had to be nearing midnight when you were startled from your chemistry homework by the sound of banging on the fire escape outside your window. You paused your music, slightly startled and more than a little confused. Sure, there were occasionally stray cats that somehow found their way to the metal platform outside your window, and sure, sometimes those cats where assholes and pushed each other around every now and then – but this…that thump either came from a very, very large cat, or someone was outside your room.

You got your answer when a very sweaty, very tired looking Peter Parker stumbled through your window and landed face down on the floor, groaning softly. Your mouth soundlessly opened and closed, opened and closed, opened and closed as you tried to find your words, but the Spider-Man suit that he wore and the red mask clutched tightly in his hand had left you absolutely speechless.

You easily stared at him for five minutes, trying to process what had just happened. Did Peter Parker really just crawl through your window and then pass out on your floor? Was Peter Parker fucking Spider-Man? Was Spider-Man – the Spider-Man – in your bedroom? Did Spider-Man touch your boobs today?

“What the fuck?” you finally spoke, startling Peter as he looked up at you with wide chocolate eyes before panic sunk in and he jumped up to his feet abruptly, which in turn only served to startle you more and make you repeat, “What the fuck?”

“Y/N?” he asked, as if he wasn’t sure that it was truly you that sat in front of him. “Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered as he started to pace, pulling at his hair nervously. “Mr. Stark is gonna kill me.” He glanced back up you, eyes still wide. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

“It looks like you’re Spider-Man,” you countered, eyes flitting over the tight suit before focusing on the mask in his hand. “You’re Spider-Man, Peter.”

“Okay, so- so maybe it is what it looks like, but I-” He cut himself off, and you could tell that he’s struggling to explain the entire thing away. Finally, he sighed. “Okay, yes. I’m Spider-Man, but you can’t tell anyone. Please, Y/N. No one else can know about this.”

You nodded slowly, abandoning your textbook and sitting at the edge of your bed as you stared at one another awkwardly. “Don’t tell anyone. Got it. But, like… Are you- Can I ask questions?”

“Um, yeah, I- I guess.” You watched him scratch the back of his neck nervously as his checks tinted pink. “Ask away.”

“First question – why are you in my room?” It seemed like the obvious question to ask. If Peter – Spider-Man – hadn’t crawled through your window in the first place, you wouldn’t even need to ask him any questions at all.

You had to bite back a laugh as you watched his eyes widen momentarily as he finally took in his surroundings, his gaze lingering on the few photos you had of you and your friends hanging on the walls and the stack of books that sat on your desk just waiting to be read. “Your room? I, uh- To be fair, when I crawled through the window, I thought it was my room.” You opened your mouth to interject, but he continued, “I live here. Well, not here, here, but in this building. With my aunt May. We live here. In this building. I must’ve swung to the wrong fire escape.”

“Swung?” you asked, his explanation providing more questions than answers. “Like with your webs?” He nodded, his eyes never leaving yours. “And you swing around the city and fight bad guys?” Another nod. “You’re Spider-Man.”

He paused, as if thinking his answer through. “Yeah.”

“This is wild,” you commented more to yourself, leaning in closer and poking at the material of his suit. He stayed completely still as you prodded the suit some more, feeling the thick fabric beneath the pads of your fingertips. You let out a short laugh and looked up at him, repeating, “You’re Spider-Man.” You laughed freely then, and the little smile he gave you was enough to make your heart pound wildly in your chest. “Don’t worry,” you assured him once the laughter died down, “your secret’s safe with me, Parker.”

You could almost feel the tension and nervous energy leave his body, and you watched as his shoulders slumped forward, finally relaxed since he first realized that you saw him as Spider-Man. “Thank you, Y/N. I know I’m asking a lot, but I- It’s really important.”

You smiled. “Don’t worry about it, Parker. My lips are sealed.” You mimed zipping your lips and locking them before throwing away the key, and it made a small burst of laughter escape his lips. “Besides, you have more things to worry about than me telling the world that you double as a superhero after school hours. Like our Spanish test in first period tomorrow.”

“Spanish test t- Shit!” You watched his eyes widen again at the reminder of the test that you both had to take in eight hours, and you couldn’t help but laugh as he quickly scrambled towards the window. Halfway through your window, he glanced back at you with a soft smile curling his lips. “I, uh- Thanks again, Y/N.”

“You’re welcome, Spider-Man.” You winked, and he was gone, crawling up the wall to the fire escape above yours. You crouched down at your window and listened for a moment longer as the sounds of Peter hauling his body over the rails of the fire escape and the opening of a different window – presumably his – echoed through the alley between your apartment building and the building next to it. Knowing that he’d be able to hear you, you called out, “Goodnight, Peter,” and shut your window.

After that night, your typical Tuesday was anything but normal.

Your mom started to regularly work night shifts on Tuesdays, and while there were no more mishaps with incorrect takeout orders, no more chocolate milk spilt on shirts, and no more jammed lockers, there was Spider-Man.

Peter was quick to realize that every Tuesday night, you would leave your window slightly open just for him regardless of how cold the autumn air outside was. Some nights, he crawled through your window as early as eight. Other nights, you didn’t see him until nearly midnight. Some nights, you would spend hours going over chemistry and calculus homework with him – because, seriously, Peter Parker may just be the smartest sixteen-year-old you’ve ever met – and discussing his latest superhero escapades. Other nights, you simply sat together on your bed, sharing candy as you talked about school, friends, family, and everything else that happened to come up in the course of your conversation.

The easy friendship you had formed with Peter had confused a few people, to say the least.

His best friend, Ned, had openly stared at you with wide eyes the first day you sat beside Peter in the cafeteria, and your friends looked at you with confused expressions before quickly following suit and taking a seat at the table. MJ – who you thankfully already had somewhat of a tentative friendship with thanks to a history project during freshman year – simply lifted her gaze to you, shrugged her shoulders in greeting, and returned to the book she was reading. Flash was quick to make a mean comment about Peter once he noticed you and your friends sitting at the table, but after you made a passing threat of sharing his Spider-Man fanfiction with the school, he scurried back to his own table with his tail between his legs.

Peter, though. Peter looked at you with such a tender expression that made your heart flutter uncontrollably in your chest and your cheeks flood with warmth as you settled into your seat beside him. You playfully knocked your shoulder against his and made a quip about Spanish class that made him laugh before falling into easy conversation with the others, though your mind never drifted far from the way that your thigh was pressed against Peter’s or the way that his pinky finger would occasionally brush over yours.

That first day you sat with Peter in the cafeteria had a domino effect. Over the course of a few weeks, you spent an increasing amount of time with Peter, both during school and outside of school hours. You walked home from school with Peter every day (or at least every day that he didn’t disappear for Spider-Man duties); you joined him, Ned, and MJ for movie nights on Fridays; and you even had dinner with Peter and May on the rare nights that you spent hours studying in Peter’s bedroom rather than alone in yours.

But the domino effect didn’t stop at just changing how you typically spent your days.

Without any warning, you found yourself falling painfully in love with the nerdy boy that lived in the apartment above yours and that masqueraded as a crime fighting superhero in the evening and on weekends (though you knew that if he were really needed during school hours, he would find an excuse to disappear from class for as long as Spider-Man was needed).

You thought about telling Peter, you really did. Every time he crawled through your window, a wide smile on his face and his cheeks tinted pink from the exertion of swinging through the city, you thought about telling him how he made your heart race in the best way. Every time his fingers brushed against your arm as you walked home or across your fingers as you sat in the cafeteria, your thought about telling him how he made your skin tingle pleasantly with just the slightest touch. Every time he appeared at your place with sandwiches from Delmar’s and spent hours on your couch watching old sitcoms, you thought about telling him how moments like that were what made you happiest.

You thought about telling Peter, but you never found the courage to speak up.

Your friendship with Peter was too valuable to risk losing it because of your feelings, and you didn’t miss the way that he would look at MJ when she wasn’t paying attention, the way that he would go out of his way to speak to her in the halls between classes, the way that he seemed so in tuned to everything that she was doing and saying. Your feelings would fade eventually, so you kept them to yourself and told yourself you were content with just friendship.

It was only fitting that it was a Tuesday night when everything changed nearly three months after Peter mistakenly crawled through your window.

Despite the December chill and the light dusting of snow on the fire escape outside your window, you left the window cracked open just enough for Peter to easily pull it open and crawl inside. It may have made your room almost unbearably cold, but it was nothing that fuzzy socks, a comfy sweatshirt, and a heated blanket couldn’t fix.

It was later than usual when Peter finally arrived, stumbling through your window when he finally managed to open and it, and it didn’t escape your notice that his fingers had left bloody streaks on the glass pane of the window.

“Peter!” You heart leapt to your throat as you scrambled from your bed to support him, and he slumped forward, struggling to stay on his feet. “Pete, c’mon. Talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“Stabbed,” he mumbled into your shoulder. “He had a knife.”

You were not prepared for this. Absolutely not. No one had ever told you that being friends with a superhero would mean them stumbling into your apartment at two in the morning with a fucking stab wound. “Okay. Uh…” You led him to your bed, helping him lay down before scanning your eyes over his body. And just as he said, there was a large slash across his abdomen, his red suit staining an even darker red as he bled from the wound. “Shit, I- Pete what do I do? Tell me how to help you.” You tugged at his suit with shaking hands, trying – and failing – to pull the material away from his body. “How do I take this fucking thing off?”

You stepped back as his hand pressed against the spider symbol on his chest, and the suit instantly enlarged, allowing you to pull it away from his body and to bunch the material around his hips. (If it hadn’t been entirely inappropriate given the circumstances, you most certainly would have taken your time appreciating the sculpted muscles on Peter’s chest and abdomen).

You inspected the damage, your eyes burning with unshed tears and the fear you felt increasing exponentially the longer you looked at the gash that marred his skin. It wasn’t too deep, but it was deep enough to nearly send you into a panic. “We should call 911, Pete,” you told him once you found your voice, though it was still thick with fear. “I- I don’t think I can help you. I don’t know how to-”

“Hey,” he whispered, his warm hand curling around yours and squeezing reassuringly. “I know you can. I watched you stitch that pig up in biology at the end of the dissection a few weeks ago.”

“I just didn’t want to leave it cut open like that,” you defended, though you knew there was really no need to. “But a dead pig is much different than a living human, Peter. I don’t…” You took a deep breath, squeezing his hand even tighter. “I’m scared, Pete.”

“It’s okay, Y/N. I promise.” He let out a hiss of pain, his jaw clenched tightly. “Your mom has a first aid kit, right?” You nodded. “Get it.”

You did as you were told, grabbing the first aid kit from the cabinet in your mom’s bathroom before returning to Peter. You worked slowly after you had cleaned his wound as well as you could and threaded the needle. Your hands shook as you started stitching the wound back together, careful to not make it any worse than it already was. Peter hissed in pain each time you poked the needle through his skin, but he whispered reassurances to encourage you. Soon, his abdomen had been stitched together, and while it certainly wasn’t pretty and would definitely scar, it looked stable.

“Thank you, Y/N. I don’t know what I would do wi-” he began, but you cut him off.

“Don’t,” you hissed. “Do you have any idea how fucking terrified I am right now?” The tears you’d been holding back while you stitched him up finally spilled from your eyes. “Do you have any idea how much it fucking hurt to see you like this?”

He sat up on the bed, bracing himself on his elbows. You didn’t miss the way he winced in pain from the movement. “Y/N, I-”

“I’m not done talking, Peter,” you snapped, wiping your tears away with the sleeve of your sweatshirt. “I get that you’re Spider-Man, that you feel responsible to protect the city and do whatever it takes to stop the bad guys, but- Fuck, Pete! You could die!”

“But I won’t!”

“You don’t know that!” you shouted, your lip trembling as you sat next to him on the bed. You lowered your voice to a whisper and repeated, “You don’t know that, Pete. You just don’t. Tonight, you got lucky. But what if next time, instead of a knife, they have a gun, and you get shot.”

He glanced up at you sheepishly, his chocolate eyes pleading with you to stop crying. “I heal fast,” he tried to reason, but it wasn’t enough to appease you. You looked away, but a gentle hand on your cheek brought your attention back to him. “Besides, I’m pretty motivated to not die. I can’t take you on a date if I’m dead.”

You opened your mouth to argue with him before promptly snapping it shut. Did he really just say that? Was it the pain and the exhaustion talking, or did he really mean it? “Date? Did you just- What did you say?” It was definitely the pain and exhaustion talking, right? It had to be.

He leaned forward and rested his head on your shoulder, and you froze, concentrating on the way his warm breath ghosted over the skin of your neck. “A date, Y/N. Uh, if you- I mean, only if you’d want-” You giggled as he stumbled over his words, tilted your head slightly to rest atop his. The action must have soothed his nerves, because he took your hand in his and confidently said, “I wanna take you on a date, Y/N.”

Your lips curled up into a wide smile, unable to contain how absolutely giddy you felt in that moment. “I’d like that, Pete,” you told him. “But we really need to have a conversation about superhero safety.”

He laughed, but it was cut off by a groan of pain. “We can probably do that.”

And unsurprisingly, your first date was on a Tuesday.

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #peter parker x y/n #peter parker x fem!reader #spider-man x reader #spider-man x you #spider-man x y/n #peter parker fanfiction #peter parker reader insert #spider-man fanfiction #spider-man reader insert #marvel reader insert #marvel fanfiction

[pipedream-parrish]

Happy 34th birthday, Twinyards

read on AO3

i

It is Aaron’s 14th birthday and he has just found out that he has a brother - a twin brother, an identical twin brother, who looks exactly like him and might just understand him, too. His mom didn’t do anything for his birthday - she hasn’t since he was little, or maybe those long-forgotten memories were really just dreams that have managed to worm their way so deep into his psyche that he’s accepted them as truth. The kids at school sang to him, which was fine, but Aaron can’t help but think maybe now it will be different. Maybe once he meets this brother of his, then they can celebrate their birthdays together. Maybe they can give each other presents, and eat cake, and blow out the candles using the combined forces of their breath. Maybe, maybe, maybe. 

(Andrew spends this birthday choking down cake that Cas got him, trying to hide the fresh marks on his arm, and thinking about the best way to keep his mysterious brother as far away from him as possible)

((one month later, Aaron receives a letter in the mail. He couldn’t tell you everything it said - he just knows that all of these maybes have just been thrown into the middle of a busy highway to be crushed under uncaring tires.))

ii

Its Aaron’s 15th birthday and his mother has celebrated by beating the shit out of him and then throwing a random assortment of pills from the bottom of her purse in his direction as an apology, and Aaron cannot help but think that maybe it won’t have to be like this anymore. He thinks about what Andrew said (Andrew, who really does look just like him, and who seemed so angry about Tilda, and seemed to believe that Aaron didn’t deserve, that he deserved good things--) had said to him, thinks about how maybe when Andrew moves his mom will stop it, maybe it’ll be alright, maybe nothing will hurt anymore and everything will be okay and he’ll have a brother. It’ll be the two of them against the world, and Aaron may not know this other boy all that well, but he promised to protect him, so that must mean something, right? Even if before that he said he didn’t want anything to do with Aaron, he changed his mind, and thats what matters, right? Right? And so when Aaron blows out the birthday candles that he bought for himself at eh convenience store the night before, he wishes for his brother to come home soon, and for them to be a family like they were supposed to be. Like he deserves.

((Six months later, Tilda is dead and Aaron has stopped believing in family.))

iii

It is Andrews’s 16th birthday and he has not spoken more than two words to his brother for most of the year, but Nicky tries to force them to do something, to celebrate, to be normal teenagers for once. Andrew leaves halfway through the elaborate dinner that Nicky has prepared, and pretends not to see the sad look he aims at his retreating back. Pretends that he doesn’t care what Nicky thinks of him, what Aarons thinks of him. Pretends that he stopped caring about Cass, that actually he didn’t care about that, either. Pretends and pretends and pretends, and convinces everyone but himself. 

((He’s not so great at lying to himself yet. He’ll get better with age.)) 

Late that night, after he’s heard everyone else going to bed, he sneaks downstairs and steals a slice of the double-chocolate cake that Nicky got them. There are already a couple of slices out from where Nicky and Aaron had some, so hopefully, this moment of weakness will go unnoticed. 

(Aaron spends his 16th birthday sad and mourning, refusing to look his brother in the eye. When he blows out the birthday candles with no help from a magical brother, he wishes that he never met Andrew in the first place. Not that he believes in magic or wishes or anything good at all, anymore. He barely has a bite of his cake before leaving the table. He, too, pretends not to see Nicky’s teary eyes as he leaves him standing alone in the kitchen, the remnants of a wasted attempt at love scattered all around him)

((he, too, is not so great at lying to himself yet. He, too, will get better with age))

(Nevertheless, when he hears Andrew come downstairs in the dead of night, he creeps into the hallway to watch his petty theft)

((He never mentions it.))

iv

It is Andrew’s 17th birthday and he is so high off the ground that he never even realizes the date.

Or maybe he does and just forgets.

The meds are still new, and he’s not used to them yet. Not used to the loudness, and brightness, and plastered on a smile. His cheeks hurt all the time now - he is constantly working muscles that have not had much use, the last couple of years 

(the last couple of lifetimes)

Needless to say, it is Andrew’s 17th birthday and he does not even realize it, and instead, he spends it in his room, his precious room that has a lock that works, coming apart at all his frying edges. Boys like him were never meant to grow old. Boys like him were never meant to last. And so he lays there and shakes uncontrollably, and laughs, too, tells himself this is fine, he’s fine it’s all fine and knows better than to believes it. Perhaps it is a mercy, that he eventually gets used to the meds. 

Perhaps it is not.

(Aaron doesn’t celebrate his birthday, either. Instead, he picks up extra shifts at Edens and goes to bed early. 

He cannot wait to leave this fucking house)

v

It is Aaron’s 18th birthday, meaning that he is a legal adult. He finds this funny. He has always been an adult; he was an adult when he was four and creeping across the house on silent feet to steal crackers from the pantry because mom forgot to feed him; he was an adult when he was 10 and forging his mothers signature on school papers, and making excuses for why she couldn’t come into parent-teacher conference night; he was an adult when he was sitting across from his reflection in a juvenile detention facility, and promised protection. One more birthday doesn’t mean shit.

(Andrew agrees. He, too, has been an adult for as long as he can remember.)

((Still, when Nicky slips cards under each of their doors wishing them a happy birthday and telling them he’s proud of them, and that he hopes that adulthood treats them right, well. If Aaron squeezes his eyes shut as hard as he can to prevent the tears from escaping, and if Andrew tares it up into a million pieces because it almost makes him feel something, then no one needs to know))

vi

It is November 4th, and the newly-coined monsters are in Columbia, just like they are most weekends. They make the same stops as always, go to the same club, the same restaurant. 

Never once is the word birthday mentioned.

vii

It is Andrew’s 20th birthday and he is about to make one of the worst mistakes of his life. For now, he sits against the windowsill, watching his smoke dissipate into the afternoon air, absently listening to the sounds of Nicky and Aaron’s video game wash over him. He’s grinning, as is usually is these days, and if he was capable of having a long-lasting coherent thought, he would want to carve that grin off his face.

Alas, he is not capable of long-lasting coherent thought. Oh well. Perhaps it’s for the best.

Renee got him a gift. Silly Renee. Always so nice, so kind, even to monsters like him. Hasn’t she learned better than that by now? It seems not.

When Nicky receives a phone call that leaves him in a panic, it is almost enough to garner Andrew’s attention. 

Almost.

When he leaves the room in a rush only to come beach with Neil, the enigma, the hallucination, the rabbit, in tow behind him, Andrew actually does start to pay attention. Only a little though. 

When Neil pulls him aside, and asks for the unimaginable, and then manages to make it seem like a good idea, well. Andrew’s interest has been peaked, and he agrees. Why not? It might be fun. Might be, might be, might be.

(It’s not. It’s not fun at all, and if nothing else then Andrew is finally allowed to leave that smile behind for good. Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear Andrew, happy birthday to me!)

((Aaron spends his birthday playing video games and wondering why the new kid holds such sway over his brother. When he looks back on that day, he will not remember any of that. He will only remember that that was the day everything went wrong, and he was unable to fix it.))

viii

It is Andrew’s 21st birthday, and it might just be a good one. No alarm wakes him up in the morning, even though he’s sure he set it last night, meaning he gets to sleep in. When he wakes up it’s to Neil bustling about the dorm room, clearly searching for something.

“Practice?” Andrew asks and is told in no uncertain terms that they will be blowing it off for the day. Yes, today is shaping up to be a good one.

Instead, they go out driving, blazing down empty roads as fast as the mas will take them, eating up millage and gas money and caring at all. Neil rolls down the window and lets out victorious whoops into the still afternoon, the wind flushing his cheeks and tousling his hair. Andrew almost thinks something disgustingly sappy about that but is able to rain in his own brain just in time. 

They got greasy diner food for lunch, and Andrew orders a massive ice cream Sunday that Neil doesn’t comment on. They go back to Fox Tower and lounge around their dorm, kissing and smoking and playing video games. They have pancakes for dinner, and Kevin doesn’t bother them once about going to tonight’s practice. Andrew goes to bed full and sated, and almost, almost, happy. It’s a good birthday.

((the next day at therapy, Aaron complains that he didn’t get to skip practice yesterday. Andrew shrugs and says that he should take notes for next year. It’s almost an invitation. Almost, but not quite.))

ix

It is Aarons’s 22nd birthday, and he takes a leaf out of Andrew’s book and skips practice. He and Katelyn drive into town, and walk up and down the streets, popping into stores at random and picking out delightfully ugly things for the other to buy. In one shop, Katelyn shows Aaron a shirt made from a disgusting green fabric with the gaudiest floral pattern he’s ever seen. In another, Aaron finds shimmering, sparkle filled pink and purple shoes with a six-inch heel. They both nearly get sick from laughing. That night, they go out to the fanciest restaurant they can afford and get wine drunk. Aaron tells Katelyn that he loves her, which is something that he’s told her a million times before, but that doesn’t stop it from mattering. This will always matter. She will always matter. He looks at her, just looks at her, and thinks about how lucky he is to have this. And he thinks about Andrew, just for a second, curses him for keeping her from Aaron. But then, for an even shorter second, the thought occurs to him. I hope he’s as happy right now with Neil as I am with her. 

((Andrew may not show it the same way, but he is. He is.))

x

It is their 25 birthday now (which it longer than either of them thought they would live), and after years of therapy and working through their issues, Aaron has decided once again that he wants a brother. And so he books a flight to Boston, and buys a ticket to Andrews game, and watches his brother play exy on their birthday. Their birthday. Sometimes he still forgets that they are a “they” now. He'll still say my birthday, my mom, my cousin, my family. But it's not just his, and so he meets Andrew at the player’s exit after the game and forces him to go to dinner with him. And they spend their birthday together, just the two of them, for the first time since they were born. And its-

Well, it’s not bad. It's kind of nice, actually. Stilted, at first, and undoubtedly awkward, but. 

But they’re still brothers, even after everything. They share family and history and most of their DNA, so it seems right that they also share a dinner. And they talk, about Andrew’s pro team and Aarons residency, and about halfway through Aaron realizes that even though he was the one who forced this, Andrew isn’t trying to stop it. He came with him to dinner, and he’s talked more in the last hour then Aaron thinks he ever has before, and Aaron realizes that he wants this too. Andrew wants a brother too. They part ways outside - Andrew doesn’t offer to drive him back to his hotel or to let him stay at his apartment, but that’s ok.

Because Andrew wants this too. 

Andrew wants this too.

epilogue 

It is the Minyard twins’ 34th birthday, and as has become a tradition they are each awoken by a phone call from Nicky. Aaron only grumbles for a moment before Katelyn is handing his phone to him and he’s picking up. Andrew takes longer, turning over and burying his face in Neil’s neck for a second or a minute or a year, before finally grabbing his phone. To be fair, it’s about 2 hours earlier for him than for his brother. When he was younger he would hang up, and Nicky would call back, and he’d hang up again, until around the third call when he would finally give in and answer and phone. He doesn’t hang up anymore. He supposes that he’s grown. It’s a facetime call, so he’s greeted with Nicky’s over-enthusiastic smile and Aarons bedhead that looks so much like his own. He props himself up on some pillows so that he’s nearly in a sitting position, and gives a halfhearted wave. Beside him, Neil stays lying down, curling himself into Andrew’s side. Andrew absently starts carding his fingers through his hair. Nicky starts to talk, telling them about the business, and the adoption process, and the cute thing that his and Erik’s dog did. King jumps up onto Andrew’s chest, and then there’s a lot of cooing over how cute she is. She starts to lick at Andrew’s temple, which makes everyone laugh and Andrew rolls his eyes. It’s ok. He doesn’t really mind. Aaron talks about the hospital, and then his toddler (who is really more of a kid now, she’s getting so big holy shit) bursts into the room, climbing up onto the bed. She says hi to her Uncle Andy (Neil taught her to say that when she was a baby, and it tuck. Again, Andrew doesn’t really mind) and Uncle Neil, and her cousins Nicky and Erik. they talk more, Andrew waking up and partaking in the conversion, occasionally mouthing things to Neil in Russian to make him laugh. He loves it when Neil laughs (he’s not so concerned with not thinking sappy things anymore).

It’s a good start to a good day. They order take out and eat it on the floor, just like they do every year. Neil gets him a cake, and he sings happy birthday, just like they do every year. 

A plane ride away, Aaron and Katelyn hire a babysitter and go out to dinner, just like they do every year. Katelyn gets him a loudly collared tie, just like she does every year.

It’s a good day for both boys (who are now much closer to men), but more than that, it is a good day for both brothers. For that is undoubtedly what they are now. Brothers. 

That night, they both get a text from Betsy. It says Happy birthday, my lovely boys. I hope this year treats you well. 

And then it does.

It does.

thanks for reading! if you reblog i’ll love you forever :)

#everything i write is very andrew centric ig i have a brand #i just really love him and want him to be happy! #is that so wrong? #aftg #aftg fanfic #aftg fic #andrew minyard #aaron minyard #neil josten #katelyn #twinyards #andreil #tw self harm mention #tw drug abuse #tw abuse #tw neglect #its the twinyards yall what did you expect #tw medication #?? #if there's anything else please please please let me know! #oh look i wrote a thing #my writing

[boymeetsweevil]

binary stars

Grouping: Reader x Bff!Hyuck

Word Count: ~8.4k

Warnings/Themes: friends to lovers, insecurity, pining, jealous hyuck, like a teaspoon of suggestiveness, yuta is here because i love him

Prompt: “bff!hyuck + friends to lovers. college au and slightly nsfw or however nsfw u wanna make it”

A/N: This commissioned fic is part of the Changes with Luv project, hosted by FicsWithLuv. Here you can find more information about the project, cause, places to donate, and ways to commission a piece or offer your services if you are a content creator. Thank you!

The food court is crowded when you get there. It’s a bit later than ideal after morning classes followed by a study session in the library.

“What are you gonna get,” Donghyuck asks while slinging an arm around your shoulder.

While squinting up at the menu up ahead, he whispers into your ear. Just to make sure his question doesn’t get lost in the chatter around you. You still get goosebumps, though.

“All I know is that it can’t be a bagel. I’m starting to get sick of those.” You rub your arm and he mistakes it for you being cold.

Donghyuck pulls you closer while mumbling half to himself and half to you about what he’ll get.

“I heard they have this new sandwich thing. Johnny told me it has hash browns as the bread.” He peers down at you. “You could try that.”

“Did he say if it was filling or not?”

“No, but if it’s too big for you to eat, we can share it. Or you can use some of my tupperware when we get home,” he says.

When he says ‘home’, he really just means his dorm. There’s a section in the communal first floor kitchen that belongs to him, and it houses all the things his mom sent him with for survival years ago.

Home. As in ‘where you have a place too’. It’s a small difference from your classmates and other friends who say ‘the dorm’ or ‘my place’. But it’s also one of the many ways in which Donghyuck invites you in and makes you feel special. It’s one of the reasons you fell for your best friend.

“Why don’t you just get it?” You try to wriggle out of his grasp but he doesn’t notice and tightens up as the line moves up a bit. “It sounds like you’re the one who wants it, not me.”

“I would...but I think it’s one of the ‘deluxe’ sandwiches.” He pivots so he can envelope you fully from behind, puppy dog eyes out and at the ready. “And I’m in the red again this week.”

“Okay, why are you always in the red? What are you spending your money on?”

You miss the way his eyes drift down instinctively to the empty frappe cup you hold.

“I don’t know. The money just escapes me.”

“It’s a good thing you’re not an econ major, then.”

“Hey!”

He squeezes you tightly from behind and starts to shake you around like a ragdoll. A couple people in line turn at the sudden commotion while you scrabble at the tight vice his arms make around you.

Moments like these are the ones where, if you step back, you could convince yourself that Donghyuck was your boyfriend instead of just your best friend. But you know better than to think that you and he are in the same league. Even if you were, you’d probably be at the back of the line because he’s almost too easy to love.

Donghyuck is the whole package. When he’s not lighting up a room with his charisma and humor, he’s stealing everyone’s attention with his handsome face. It doesn’t help that he’s naturally flirty and generous with touch. Sometimes you think that maybe there’s some side of him that only you get to see, but other times—

“Hyuck!”

You and Donghyuck turn at the same time to see Mila, one of Donghyuck’s department-mates running towards your spot in the slow moving line. The moment stops being private and suddenly there’s a sort of shame bubbling up inside of you. Maybe it’s because you know that people think you’re an odd pair, that Donghyuck is misguided and charitable for hanging out with you. He’s never mentioned it, and the one time you did he blew up at you about it. But still, there’s something about third party appraisal that makes you feel like you’re in someone else’s spot. For all you know it could be Mila’s spot. She’s bright too. Not as bright as Donghyuck, but brighter than you. Since she started coming around Donghyuck, you’ve accepted this. The fact that she now uses your nickname for him makes you feel a whole new type of loss, though.

“Hey,” you both greet her.

She lays a hand on his forearm, squeezing lightly. “Hey, how are you? I’ve been looking for you.”

“Oh, what for?”

“You owe me a movie, silly.”

“Like a physical movie?”

You snort at his obliviousness and Mila responds with a quick glance at the way he drapes himself over you.

“No! Remember when you gave me those movie recommendations?”

“Yeah. To watch on your own time. You don’t have to watch them with me just because I mentioned them.”

“But where’s the fun in that?”

She pouts, grabs his free arm and tugs just hard enough to jostle him. With his arms wrapped around you, you stumble forward when he does.

“Oh, sorry.” Her hands come out like they’re going to steady you, but they get nowhere close enough to actually do the job. “Didn’t see you there.”

“She said ‘hi’,” Donghyuck chimes in before you can make up some excuse for why it’s okay that you almost fell on your face.

“I must have just missed you then,” she gazes down at you, “You’re so quiet.”

“Just watching the line,” you say.

The line moves forward and Mila moves with you. Clearly she’s not planning on leaving. She’s waiting you out and it’s working. You feel awkward enough that you need to get out, even if it means you cede something to Mila.

“Hyuck,” You turn and lay your hand on the back of his neck. It looks like a comfortable hand on the shoulder that went too far north, but that trajectory was calculated. He shivers like you know he will because he always does. It’s been a sensitive spot since you met him.

“Huh?” His voice is already sounding far away.

“I’m gonna go wait at a table. You can order for me.”

You make a point to pat at the arms he has wrapped around your middle still. The motion drags Mila’s eyes to the point of contact and she smirks a little. Donghyuck might only see you as a friend, but Mila mistakenly sees you as an obstacle. It’s petty, but you kind of want to make her think she has to work a little hard to get to him. Even if you don’t stand a chance.

In the end, the flash in Mila’s eyes is worth having to go find a place to sit during the lunch rush. You replay the moment over in your head, barely watching where you’re going in the crowded food court until you run into someone. If it weren’t for the quick pair of hands grabbing your upper arms at the last second, you might have taken a rather nasty fall.

“I’m sorry, that was my fault.”

“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this.”

The hands disappear once you’re stable while the voice lingers. It’s familiar but you don’t know why. When you take too long to put a name to a face, the person chuckles at you. At the very least, this mystery person is uniquely handsome with pretty teeth.

“You don’t remember me?”

“Can I have a hint?”

“What if you pretend to throw up on my shirt? Then would you remember?”

“Oh god,” you cover your face with your hands. Suddenly you recall the party last week where the pizza didn’t agree with you. “Yuta,” you groan.

“Hmm. My name sounds nice when you say it like that.”

You feel your face get hot as you peek at him from between your fingers. Last week you’d fallen face first into his lap while he was innocently sitting on a sofa. You’d proceeded to throw up onto his chest after he asked you for your name.

“Just kill me. It’d be less painful than this.”

“I don’t know. I think me still trying to hit on you afterward just for your boyfriend to send me murder eyes and whisk you away was way more painful than a little bit of vomit.”

“My boyfriend?”

“That little Hyucko guy, right?”

Yuta points behind you, and you turn to find him gesturing at Donghyuck. He’s still with Mila, but he’s clearly watching you talk with Yuta instead of engaging in small talk in line. You wave him off, hoping he’s not thinking you’re in danger.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Sucks for him, then.”

Furrowing your brows, you return your gaze back to Yuta.

“But good for me,” he continues, “I don’t have to feel bad for asking you for your number now.”

“M-my number?”

“Is there another way to get to know the girl who threw up on me?”

“Uh, sure, why not?”

Yuta hands you his phone with a smile that looks so triumphant, you have to turn away slightly. His gaze on you is a bit too open, too pleased. You’re definitely not used to this type of attention, but you can’t say you’re mad at him for it. After typing in your number and name, he takes the phone back and reads your name out loud. When you nod in confirmation, he smiles wider.

“So, what are you studying then?”

���I’m studying political science.”

Yuta lets out a low whistle. “Sounds tough.”

“Sometimes, yeah. What are you studying?”

“Astronomy.”

“That’s very romantic.” He smiles in response.

“I suppose so, yeah. I guess you’d have to be romantic to look into an abyss full of flaming gas balls and think that’s fascinating.”

“Sorry to hear about your hot balls. You should probably get that checked out. I’m studying literature.”

Donghyuck shows up with a tray full of your food and takeout containers.

Yuta raises an eyebrow. “‘Sup?”

“What are you doing here? Did you come to bully the baristas?”

“Clever,” Yuta eyes him up and down. “You know I’m a grad student in the astronomy department. How do you forget every time?”

“Ah, you’re right. How could I forget. So what are you, like, 45 now?”

“Hyuck!”

“Sorry,” he sniffs. Clearly, he’s not sorry.

He trudges off to the nearest empty table to put the food down long enough to pack it up. You follow behind, with Yuta trailing alongside you.

“I’m sorry about him. Usually he’s...well, actually he is kind of like that.”

“I don’t mind. I just wanted to say that it was nice to finally meet you officially,” he starts off.

“Oh, uh, yeah. Same.”

Something about your response must be funny because Yuta laughs again to himself before shoving his phone back in his pocket.

“Can I call you some time?”

“Me?”

He laughs again. “Yes, you.”

“Okay.”

“Cool.”

You say your goodbyes to Yuta. It’s awkwardly formal because you’re not sure how these things usually go. When you finish waving a stilted hand at him, you turn around to find the food has been packed up and Donghyuck is fuming silently behind you.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I just don’t get why he of all people decided to butt in.”

He starts walking towards the exit, long legs eating up the distance at a speed that means you have to jog a little.

“You sure something’s not up? Because I don’t really get what we were doing that was so important in the first place. Not much to butt in on anyway.”

“Well, you know.”

“No, I don’t.”

He huffs and continues speed walking. “We had plans to eat lunch at my place. And he delayed that. Now I’m even hungrier.”

“I thought we were eating at your place because you weren’t hungry enough to eat there.”

“I—I mean, yeah. But I started getting hungry in line.”

You point at the wrapped muffin in his hand. “Couldn’t you have just eaten that?”

“This...is for later.”

Normally you’d try to figure out what it is that’s making Donghyuck so pissy. But your phone starts chiming and by the time you got to his front door, the little message notification on your phone had gone off a dozen times—all of them from Yuta as you message him on and off. Donghyuck settles for sighing dramatically every time you check your phone.

“Doesn’t he have, like, blimps to stare at? This is too much.”

“Since when is there a limit on how much I text someone?”

“There’s not but—isn’t this a lot? You just met him today.”

“Technically we met last weekend.”

He scowls but admits the point with a wave of his hand and a bite of his food.

“Still. I don’t even text you that much.” Donghyuck sits back in his chair before scoffing. “And no one should text you more than me. I’m your best friend.”

“But what if he was my boyfriend?”

“He’s not,” he snaps. There’s enough intensity in his voice to surprise you both. He reels it in a bit with an apologetic tilt of his shoulders over his plate. “Sorry. But—have you heard what people say about him? He’s a complete dick to the people he sleeps with. Plus, he’s ancient.”

“He’s only turning 26 in October.”

“So you know his birthday now?”

“Yes?” You put your napkin down, hash browns nearly finished. “And maybe I’m using him too. Bet you didn’t think of that.”

“Oh,” he says after a beat.

“Anyway, I don’t get why you’re so mad about this.”

“M’not mad,” he mumbles.

“Sure.”

You continue texting Yuta as you eat your lunch. Donghyuck huffs as he discards his trash and goes to his room to change into more comfortable clothes. While he’s gone, you glance at your phone guiltily.

It’s not that you’re so engrossed with the smalltalk with Yuta that you can’t put your phone down. Honestly, you want to just put your phone down and go plaster yourself to your best friend. But standing less than 2 feet away from Donghyuck and still feeling like he was unreachable earlier at the cafeteria really knocked some sense into you. If Donghyuck was the sun, you were merely a planet caught in his pull, orbiting around him. He wasn’t meant to orbit around you.

Donghyuck emerges from his room looking only mildly pouty at this point and in a sweatshirt and joggers. Seeing him in pajamas is your favorite thing. It’s why you like hanging out at his place so much because as soon as you settle in, he changes out of his regular clothes.

“Are you staying?” There’s only a touch of petulance still lingering in his voice.

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Of course.”

He says it so matter-of-factly that you have to turn away under the guise of finishing the last bites of your lunch to hide a shy smile. The words sound so sweet coming from his lips, even when it’s not meant in the way you wish.

You settle down on the couch to get some more work done, but the hash browns sneak up on you. Donghyuck watches silently from his battered copy of Dante’s Inferno at your eyes drooping closed. He’s known you long enough to know the signs of your food comas when he sees them. He shuts his book after marking the page and gets up from his spot on the carpet.

“Come on,” he shakes your upper arm lightly.

“What? What’s going on?”

“Let’s watch some TV.”

“I’m working, I can’t just—”

“You've been on the same page for 15 minutes.

“How would you know?”

“Because I stopped reading 20 minutes ago.”

By now, any traces of his strange anger are replaced by smug amusement. You let yourself be manhandled off your seat and take the trek to his bedroom. He flips through channels while you can dig something up from his closet to change into. Donghyuck has a strict no street clothes rule when it comes to lounging.

“Sexy,” he drawls, looking at your outfit choice.

It’s one of his shirts with an oversized neckline due to an accident with the 10-year-old dryers in the basement of the dorms and a pair of ratty long johns to beat the cold of the AC. It’s not cute per se but it was all he had clean.

“Shut up.” You sit down near the arm of the couch next to him. “What are you gonna do after this? Don’t you have a department dinner?”

“Yeah, but I can skip it.”

“Hyuck, don’t skip department events.”

“I already have a rec letter from Dr. Chittaphon, though. So I don’t need to kiss ass anymore”

“He finally wrote it for you?”

In your excitement, you grab his closest hand in yours, giving a congratulatory smile. He smiles back an almost tender smile. In the privacy of his own dorm with none of his other classmates around, he nods with some enthusiasm.

“He told me about it yesterday. He said I can use it for as many lit programs as I want.”

“That’s amazing.”

Donghyuck’s cheeks flush a deep ruby as he fiddles with the knitted quilt to pull over you. True to his word he has some inane show queued up on the tiny TV he brought with him from home. But once the lights are off and the coffee table is pushed close enough to support your feet, you succumb to sleep. Donghyuck is radiating warmth and an extra something that, combined with the background noise from the TV, makes you feel like you’re floating. You shift so you’re pillowed by the arm of the couch and drift off pretend the moment is something else.

***

You wake up from the nap to the sound of your phone alerting you to a new message. The phone is resting on the coffee table, so you sit up to get it only to realize you can’t quite move. Donghyuck’s arms are wrapped tightly around your torso and his head has migrated to your shoulder from it’s resting place when he was sitting up. He’s so close that the tip of his nose grazes your neck. You test just how stuck you are by moving toward the table a bit. Donghyuck responds with a grumble and a warning nuzzle of his cheek against your clavicle.

The moment you decide to move one of his arms, he pulls you in closer and presses his open mouth to your exposed shoulder. It feels almost like a kiss, but then he lets out a snore that reminds you of your family pug and all the romance is gone. You continue to shift as best you can to reach your phone.

The notification on your screen tells you that the message is from Yuta, yet again. Donghyuck is still fast asleep when you peek down at him. Just to be sure he doesn’t wake up, you turn onto your side. Even in his sleep he follows you, readjusting his grip on you while slotting his face into your nape and his knees behind yours. Thankfully the couch is wide enough that he doesn’t push you off the edge. With the brightness and volume turned down, you open up your messages.

there’s gonna be another NKT frat party in two weeks it’ll be no fun if you’re not there

Donghyuck’s words about Yuta’s reputation ring in your head but you don’t really care. Instead his flirtation makes you feel zippy. He might be a player but you’re play the game too. You type a response out quickly.

i guess i could go...u better make it worth it my while.

After you press send you have to bite your tongue to hold in a laugh. You’re not sure why you’re having so much fun. A small smile makes it to your face and you press the phone to your chest only for it to go off once more.

“I don’t get it,” Donghyuck groans. His breath hits the side of your throat while he rubs his eyes. “He can’t be that interesting.”

Even though he’s not pleased with Yuta’s constant messaging, Donghyuck’s grip on you doesn’t let up. In fact, he tucks his face securely over your shoulder and merely plucks the phone out of your hands.

“Can I read what he sent?”

“I guess,” you mumble.

It’s hard to be annoyed at him when he’s warm and soft behind you from sleep. He hands you the phone so you can unlock it before taking it back and finding the latest message.

“He said, ‘by the end of the party, i promise it will have been worth it. how do you like your toast in the morning?’”

“Oh god. Don’t read it out loud, that makes it so unsexy.”

“That’s because he’s unsexy. Just tell him to fuck off.”

“If you don’t think he’s sexy then don’t fuck him.” He pinches at your sides and you yelp. “Plus, I don’t really have a reason to blow him off so quickly.”

“Uh, yes. Yes, you do.”

“I already told you I don’t care if he’s not the marrying type.”

“T-there are other reasons.”

“What are they?”

There’s a long pause.

“Okay, I can’t think of any right now, but I know they’re there. So just...please. You’re way out of his league, anyway.”

You snort. “Right. I’m not hot enough to get free drinks from people, so if I’m out of his league, what are you?”

From the little spoon position, you can’t see Donghyuck’s cheeks burn in embarrassment. Sophomore year you two had snuck into a bar and a few senior girls sent some drinks to your table after seeing him in a leather jacket. Since then the freebies have only increased now that he’s lost some of his baby face and invested in jeans that fit.

“Besides,” you snatch the phone back. “He’s the only one who seems to find me attractive lately.”

“There are other people who find you attractive.”

There’s a seriousness in his voice that startles you a bit. Donghyuck is a free spirit so there’s not much that makes him mad. But now his voice is a shade more gravelly than normal. When you roll onto your back you see that his brows slant heavy over his eyes. He looks truly upset. And you’re not sure why. It takes you by surprise and it must show on your face, because instantly his eyes go softer and he’s laying back down beside you.

“Even if that’s true, Hyuck, those people aren’t lining up at my door.” Donghyuck mouth purses against the back of your neck in frustration. “At least Yuta is being loud and clear. I can’t fault him for that. Just like I can’t date someone whose feelings I never know.”

“Fair enough.” He sighs finally, his words taking you by surprise. “You sure you don’t like him at least a little bit, though? This seems like a lot for someone you don’t actually care about.”

“No, I have...someone else.”

Donghyuck shoots forward to peer at you with wide eyes. “Who is it?”

“I don’t wanna say.”

“Come on, that’s not fair.”

“If I told you, I would jinx everything.”

He eyes you silently but doesn’t push much more.

“Is Yuta suddenly an option so you can get over this mystery person?”

“Maybe.”

“Then I’ll do my best to help out.”

“What does that mean?” Donghyuck sits up, probably energized by the nap.

“Yuta is the type of guy that wants what he can’t have. So you have to show him that he can’t have you.”

“Okay, I see where you’re going and I honestly kind of like the early 2000’s rom-com vibes. But how do you make someone think you’re taken when you’re single?”

“Leave it to me.”

Leaving things up to Donghyuck harebrained schemes often means that you aren’t in the loop even when you’re technically in the loop.

Yuta and you text on and off during the whole week leading up to the NKT party. Per Donghyuck’s advice, you give short answers and always take longer than an hour to open his selfies after he sends them. When you do respond with a selfie, you’re never alone in them. A picture of you coyly sipping from the straw in your iced coffee with Donghyuck’s shoulder in the background. A picture of your legs while you study in bed with Donghyuck’s hand partially cropped in the left corner. One of them was supposed to be a mirror selfie to show your outfit, but Donghyuck is fully present with a smug grin and a “friendly” arm wrapped around your waist. When your best friend first proposed the idea to you, it sounded like bro code bullshit. But it seemed to work.

While his snap stories remain full of other ‘acquaintances’, Yuta’s messages get a little more lovey dovey the more you ignore him. There’s suddenly a flood of texts telling you he can’t wait to see you and calling you baby. The act seems to be taking a toll on Donghyuck judging by his scowls after every photo you send. But you just can’t help laughing at how petty guys can be.

Friday rolls around and you’re actually debating whether or not you should bring a condom to the party. You obviously don’t know what size Yuta wears, but with the way he’s been talking over text you think maybe the evening might end well. Help-me-get-over-my-best-friend sex can still be good sex, even if it doesn’t help you get over your best friend.

So you take extra time in the shower Friday night, shimmy into something tight, and wait for Donghyuck to arrive at your place so you can leave to the party together. You had wanted to go with your classmate Jennie, since Donghyuck is a bit of a homebody. But that night he wanted to come, saying something about seeing his plan through.

When Donghyuck arrives, you’re taking a swig from one of the tiny nip bottles of vodka that you stashed in your purse. After a mere 5 seconds of having arrived, he takes one look at you and immediately groans.

“Are you sure you don’t want to just stay in? We can order Chicken Haus and watch that new show you put on my DVR. Or I could hire a stripper. I’m sure we could find one that’s way more personable than Yuta.”

“Hyuck, I need to do this. It’ll be good for everyone involved.”

“But why am I part of that everyone?”

“You said you would help me with this. And you’re forgetting that Mila is gonna be there.”

Sadly, it was also too early in the night and you hadn’t drunk nearly enough to be able to tell him that he’s involved because he’s the one you're trying to get over. You empty the first tiny bottle and begin downing the second one as you begin the trek to the NKT house.

“What does Mila have to do with anything?”

“While I’m hopefully...doing my thing, you can be doing yours. With her.”

“Why would I want to sleep with Mila?”

“You don’t want to sleep with Mila?”

“No? Who said I did?”

“Oh.”

Donghyuck scoffs at you like you’re speaking gibberish and passes around you when you stop in your tracks again. When you catch up to him, he swipes the new nip bottle out of your hand and finishes it in one gulp.

***

The party is in full swing when you arrive. You stand in the doorway of the front entrance and take in the scenery. The regular lights have all been switched out for red bulbs. It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust and be able to make out faces properly because the color is so saturated.

The music is booming loud enough for you to feel the bass in your chest and echo across the soles of your feet as you walk across the room. Donghyuck helps you part your way through the crowd of bodies swaying to the music to get to the drinks table. With a cup in your hand and liquid courage going down your throat, you feel a little less nervous. You try to be inconspicuous while you scan the room for Yuta, but you don’t find him.

“I don’t see him,” you shout over the music, “What do you wanna do in the meantime?”

“Go home,” Donghyuck scowls into his cup.

You flip him off for being a wet blanket and finish the contents of your cup. Just as you move for a refill, you happen to find Yuta in the crowd. He’s not alone either. There’s a girl with long red hair in front of him, dancing while he smiles wolfishly. You think you recognize her from one of his instagram posts. Suddenly, you’re not feeling so bold anymore.

“There he is,” you say just loud enough for Donghyuck to catch. Even over the music he can hear the resignation in your voice. He follows your gaze over to the dark corner where the girl now has herself pressed against him.

“Shit.”

“Yeah. Shit.” Donghyuck straightens up.

“It’s not too late, though.”

“How is it not? She’s practically got him in a to-go box.”

“Maybe, but he might just not know you’re here. You can still plant the seed. You know, let him know what he’s missing, at least.”

Donghyuck’s features are now angled in focus. In the red party lights, the serious expression squares off his jaw, sharpens the planes of his face. He looks handsome and he wants to help you even though he hates the guy he’s trying to help you with. You don’t know whether to be angry or feel fond. It’s not like you really want him to help you get with another guy, but the fact that he’s swallowing his own pride to do it shows he cares. He’s a good friend, you muse. And you can’t mess that up just because you caught feelings.

With vodka and spiked punch humming in your veins, you toss your shoulders back and grab your friend’s hand. Making a beeline through the crowd once more, you make sure to end up in a spot that’s directly in Yuta’s eyeline. Donghyuck falls in front of you instinctively, acting as a wall to spy behind. The music changes and you move with it to look natural. Your arms come up to wrap around your friend’s broad shoulders and your body comes up to press against his. Donghyuck looks down at you.

“Sorry,” you plead through the thumping bass of the song, “I know this is weird but I just figured if it looked like—”

“No, I get it. Keep going.”

Then, he’s locking you in with a hand on the small of your back and stepping in time with the beat of the song. You follow suit and as soon as you do, Yuta looks away from his friend for a split second. Your eyes meet, he takes in the scene, and you give him your best teasing grin. Instantly he looks intrigued. His eyes don’t return to the girl in front of him and instead he raises an eyebrow. As if to say ‘I thought you said he wasn’t your boyfriend’. You respond with a coy eye roll but also graze your hands lightly up the column of Donghyuck’s back for effect. You’re so caught up in your act that you forget yourself and go so far as to rake your nails across the nape of his neck. He shivers against you and for a moment you think you’ve crossed a line. But then he’s spinning you around.

Now your back is to Yuta while Donghyuck sizes the older man up. The plan is no longer in your control and you’re nervous.

“What are you doing,” you hiss into his ear.

“I’m just doing my part.”

Donghyuck makes sure Yuta is watching before leaning in and pressing his mouth to yours. Once the initial shock wears off, you freeze up for a different reason. On the one hand, this is what you’ve been waiting for. On the other hand, this isn’t how you had imagined your first kiss with him. You certainly don’t want it to have happened only because he was trying to get some other guy interested in.

The way his lips caress yours softly makes you pliant for a moment. You let your guard down and pull him closer with a sigh. His arms come to wrap around you completely and it feels so real then. It feels like the room is spinning. And then you realize it’s actually spinning as Donghyuck turns you both around just in time to give Yuta a glimpse of your entwined figures.

You don’t see the way the older student frowns lightly while being dragged away by his lady friend. All you see is a reminder that none of this is real. The way Donghyuck hugs you to his chest minutely as you kiss him isn’t real. The sweetness of the way he nudges his nose against you and switches the angle of the kiss isn’t real. The way he murmurs your name briefly against your lips before coming in to kiss you again, hidden from Yuta, is...not real?

You push at him roughly. He stumbles back like he’s drunk even though he drank a fraction of the amount you did.

“Donghyuck”

“Mission accomplished.” He grins at Yuta’s retreating back, passing his hand over his mouth.

“What was that?”

“Huh? Oh, that was just...it was just something to seal the deal.”

“Right.” You look down at your feet. “It was an act.”

“Yeah, no, it wasn’t real.”

He laughs but it comes out airy and broken. You try to laugh too but the sound catches in your mouth and a hitch comes out instead.

“Would it have been that awful if it were real?”

You watch as his jaw drops and he frantically looks anywhere but at you. It’s a trap of a question. A trap for the both you really, but you can’t stop yourself from asking.

“What do you mean? Like if we...if you and I were—”

“Forget it. That would be crazy, I don’t know why I even said that. I’m gonna go get some air.”

“Hey.”

The NKT house is one that you’ve visited a couple times for parties, so you’re lucky in that you know the layout well enough to be able to find a back door quickly. There’s not that many people on the porch that you find, so you don’t feel that bad about nudging some empty hard cider cans out of the way and letting out a pathetic little cry.

The rejection isn’t actually all that hard to take; you’d come to accept that Donghyuck was not for you. You hate the sound of your watery voice as you basically asked him if you had a shot only for him to act like he was being held hostage. The couple who had been making out on the other end of the porch get turned off by the weepy background music you make and head inside.

Sounds of another person walking onto the patio interrupt your crying, but you figure if you just cry louder they’ll be gone soon. When the footsteps get closer and eventually end up to your right, you wipe your nose discreetly and take a step away.

“Rough night?”

Yuta stands next to you with a smile. It’s not quite as sharp as the other times as he looks you over.

“You probably aren’t looking for this right now, but I just want to say you clean up real nice.”

“Gee, thanks.” You smooth a hand over the fabric of your clothes. “What are you doing out here?”

“I came to find you actually. Can’t stop thinking about you lately.”

You scoff. “Where’s your friend from earlier?”

“Her? She’s just a colleague.”

“She looked like she liked you,” you say quietly.

“I guess so. I’ve definitely seen that look before. Maybe that’s what it is.”

“Trust me, I know that look when I see it.”.

“I bet you do.” He pins you with an amused look.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

You cross your arms and turn to him. He chuckles at your sudden annoyance, looking oddly charmed by it.

“Easy, cowgirl.” He lays a relaxed hand on your shoulder, pulling you near. “All I meant was that you must be sick of getting that look from your little ‘not boyfriend’.”

“He’s really not my boyfriend. And he doesn’t—”

“Look, I’m an observant person. I see things. I can read people.” He puts his beer bottle down and uses the now free hand to wipe at the drying tear tracks on your cheeks. “I know when someone’s trying to make me jealous.”

“About that—”

“And I know when someone is head over heels with someone else. And that guy? He’s completely gone.”

“Yuta, I’m sorry about trying to play with your emotions like that. I’m sure you get your fair share of that.”

“Eh, it‘s whatever.” He shrugs. “I will say that you did a good job. It was fun, even if I did get a bit jealous at the end.”

“It wasn’t completely my idea,” you confess.

“I think I kinda knew that.”

You stand in what you think might be companionable silence with Yuta. He takes another swig from his beer while leaving his hand lingering on you. Not in a sleazy way, but perhaps in an attempt at being comforting. Like maybe he’s trying to be a friend.

“So, what’s the deal with your friend?”

“He’s...I think it’s one-sided. I basically confessed out there and his response was kind of bad.”

Yuta turns to lean against the porch railing. You face out into the trees behind NKT house, he faces the house, watching people pass by and stop on the patio.

“What kind of bad?”

“It was like the idea of us together froze him or something. He got so nervous, he started stuttering. I just booked it out of there after that.”

“How do you know it was because he didn’t like the idea? What if he was, like, trying to contain his excitement or something?”

“That would be amazing. But the likelihood of that is insane. I mean, you and him are kind of alike.”

“Excuse me,” Yuta bawks. You laugh a little and pat his arm reassuringly.

“I just mean that you and he are both cool guys.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“He’s super cool and funny and handsome and...warm? It’s probably just simple math or physics—how can you not love him?”

Yuta hums, eyes still trained on the partygoers passing by the porch entrance. Someone walks by the open frantically, then comes back to stand in the doorframe.

“I don’t know. Maybe you have a word for this since you’re in astronomy but isn’t that just how it works? The planets just gravitate around the sun. It’s not the other way around. He’s the sun and I’m...”

“Pluto?”

“Yeah, actually.”

You laugh because it’s a little sad but it’s perfect for your analogy. Pluto. Not even a real planet, doesn’t really belong with some of the other giants that have moons and rings of their own. But still helplessly circling the sun because the laws of the universe won’t let it go that easily.

“I’ll be right back. Don’t move,” Yuta says after a moment.

“Oh, uh, okay.”

You continue to look out at the backyard. With your eyes having adjusted a long time ago, you enjoy the dark cobalt of the night sky and the ink blot silhouettes of the trees in the forest that runs along the school’s border. The air has grown crisp and without the alcohol blanket covering you, you’re feeling a bit tired and cold.

“Hey, you misplaced this,” Yuta’s voice sounds again as he ambles back onto the porch. He hands you your bag and phone.

“Crap, you’re a lifesaver.” Oddly enough, you don’t really remember putting them down, but you suppose it was the chaos of the party that blurred the memory.

“I think I have to head out,” you say finally. “It’s clear that my head’s not really in the right place to stay out much later.”

“I get that.” Yuta leans forward and places a soft kiss on your cheek. “But I think I might actually have something related to this in some of my old notes. I’ll send it to you.”

“Oh, okay. Yeah, sure.”

Yuta waits around in a surprisingly gentlemanly fashion while you send an awkward text to Donghyuck saying that you’re catching a shared ride back to your dorm and that he doesn’t have to wait up for you.

The following day, you wake up to a knock on your door. Your head is pounding from dehydration and a too-late bedtime the previous night, but you still hobble to the door of your bedroom to see what the commotion is.

“Here.” Your roommate places a stapled book of pages into your hand. “Donghyuck came by to drop this off. He said some guy named Yuta gave it to him and that you would know what it was.”

“Oh-kay,” you yawn and blink down at the paper.

There’s a section highlighted in red on the lined paper. It says BINARY SYSTEMS in neat penmanship. You vaguely remember Yuta mentioning sending you some notes, so you put it at the foot of your bed and plan to read it when you’re more awake.

“You up for brunch tomorrow,” you follow her into the main room and find an overnight bag on the couch.

“Can’t. I’m going to visit my parents tomorrow since my Monday classes got cancelled.”

“Lucky you.”

“We can do next week though.”

“Yeah sure.”

***

Later that Sunday, when you’re stuck in a procrastination loop with your own work, you remember Yuta’s notes. You try to make some sense of them but even with coffee and an afternoon nap, it’s still too jargon-filled to bring any sense to you. So you do the next best thing and type the heading of his notes into an online encyclopedia. The first sentence for the page reads:

A binary system is a system of two astronomical bodies which are close enough that their gravitational attraction causes them to orbit each other...

You don’t really know what Yuta thought you would get from reading this. Maybe he just thought that you would be interested because you made an astronomy analogy. You pull out your phone, about to text Yuta for an explanation, when your phone rings. It’s Donghyuck.

“Hello?” You try to keep your voice neutral, free of embarrassment.

“Hey, where are you?”

“I’m actually just in my dorm.”

“I just saw Daisy. Is she—”

“She’s going home for a few days.”

“Cool. Can I...come up?”

“Yeah. Of course, yeah. I’ll be here.”

You hang up the phone and as soon as you enter the common room, there’s a knock on the door.

“That was fast, you must have—Are you okay?”

There’s dark bruises underneath Donghyuck’s eyes, a sign that he didn’t get much sleep the night before. He smiles self-deprecatingly and holds the door frame for support while taking off his shoes. You note that they’re his shower slides. He’s either more tired than you realize or he was in a hurry to get here. In his hand he holds a cardboard tray carrying two recyclable cups, one filled to the brim with whipped cream like you always ask for.

“I was looking for you,” he blurts. “Friday night. I was looking for you after you ran away.”

“Okay.”

“I was looking for you because as soon as I kissed you I knew I fucked up. But,” he puts his hands up, “not in the way you think.”

“I think I need to sit down for this conversation.”

“I—yeah, okay.”

Donghyuck follows behind you as you migrate to your breakfast table. He looks even more exhausted in the fluorescent lighting hanging above the table. He hands you your cup, and you eat some of the whipped topping thoughtfully.

“How’d you pay for this? Didn’t you say you had a negative balance?”

“I find a way,” he chuckles.

“What were you saying before?”

“I figured you wouldn’t really want to talk to me, but you left your bag and stuff with me, so I was gonna just give it back to you and then give you space, but then I saw you on the porch. With Yuta.”

“Yeah. He came and found me actually. We had a really strange conversation.”

“I know. I heard most of it.”

“Oh. Then you probably know how I feel.”

“Yeah.” He ducks his head to play with the cardboard sleeve sitting around his own cup. “Did you read Yuta’s notes? I gave them to Daisy before she left. She said she’d give them to you.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“And did you...get it?”

“Not really. I think he was just trying to convert me to astronomy”

“Well, after you guys talked, he took your purse from me. And he said he’d send me the notes too. So I read them. And then I didn’t get it so I read more, and then I thought about it and I think I got it.”

“What is it?”

“It’s you and me.”

“How is it you and me?”

“I mean, you kept talking about how I’m like the sun and you’re like Pluto. But we’re something else. It’s not you revolving around me or me revolving around you. We circle each other.”

“So, that means...”

You think back to the discussion you had with Yuta on the back porch of the NKT frat house and it starts to click into place. If hand-holding and back scratches and buying him lunch was your revolution, buying you coffee when he was broke, watching you pretend to do homework, and helping you bag another guy for your own happiness was his. Somehow you had missed so many little things because you were blinded by his light. But now, you could see clearly. Donghyuck wasn’t the sun and you were not Pluto. You were binary stars.

“Hyuck,” you whisper because your throat is suddenly tight.

You get up from your seat, nearly toppling your chair over as you make your way around the table. He opens his arms to meet you halfway and you pull his head to your stomach. Bending at the waist, you press a kiss to the top of his head. He buries his face into the fabric of your shirt and breathes out a deep sigh.

“I love you,” his voice is muffled.

“I love you too.” When he smiles up at you, you take notice of the dark circles under his eyes again. “Have you not been sleeping?”

“I spent a lot of time overthinking everything since Friday night. I kind of haven’t gone to bed since then.”

“You have to take better care of yourself.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“No, come take a nap.”

He lets you tug him to your room where your bed lays freshly made. You turn the blankets over and gesture for him to get in. He slides in to the wall and then turns to pat the free space beside him.

“Get in.”

“I’m not tired. I slept like a baby these last two days actually.”

His mouth drops open. “How? I felt like I had to read every article about brown giants just to get here.”

“Yeah, see, I didn’t do that.”

“I probably know more than Yuta by now, honestly.”

“You know,” you finally surrender to his annoying patting of the mattress and sit, “He’s not as bad as you made him seem. I actually really liked the vibe while I was talking to him.”

“Why would you tell me that while you get into bed with me?”

You pat his cheek. “I’m just wondering now if maybe some of your attitude towards him was for show.”

“It might have been. But I was feeling desperate.”

“I’ll forgive you if you just go to sleep.”

“I’m too awake to go to sleep.”

“Well, I don’t want to go out and do something just for you to fall asleep like someone’s dad at a baseball game.”

“I don’t do that.”

“You definitely do that.”

You reach a hand out to stroke his hair, making sure to graze the hair at the back of his neck. He freezes up and at first you think it’s just the area being ticklish for him. So you ignore it and continue. But he freezes up again.

“Okay, if you want me to sleep stop doing that.”

“What are you talking about—Oh.” Just as you were pulling your fingers away, you feel something press against your hip. Your eyes grow wide and he buries his face in your neck.

“Sorry, sorry. Don’t worry about me. I’ll go to sleep.”

It’s not the first time you’ve been in this situation. A fair number of times you’ve woken up first after falling asleep in front of the TV, wrapped up in him wherever you slept only to realize that he was still dreaming about ‘nice things’. Sometimes you were able to pretend you were still asleep and he’d quietly disentangle himself before going to sit in your living room until you ‘woke up’ for a second time. Other times, he’d wake up right after you and he’d say the same thing every time. ‘It’s just a reflex’.

“Just a reflex,” you ask because you're not really sure what to do.

“If you want.” He picks his head up then.

“If it’s not just a reflex, what then?”

You inch your hand under the covers at the same time that he props himself up on an elbow, pulling you closer. The sliding sound of clothes seems extra loud in the confines of your room and it makes your face feel hot. His hand appears near the hem of your shirt, grazing the sliver of exposed skin gently enough to make your breath hitch a little.

“Then we can just see where we end up.”

#nct fluff #donghyuck fluff #haechan fluff #nct fanfic #nct imagines #nct scenarios #haechan fanfic #haechan imagines #haechan scenarios #donghyuck imagines #donghyuck scenarios #donghyuck fanfic

[seasonsofeverlark]

Haunted Tour of Savannah

Author: @norbertsmom​

Prompt: Prim drags Katniss in a Haunted Tour around Savannah GA… will this be a spooky story? silly? will Peeta be a ghost? another person in the tour? what happens in this tour??? Only you know! [submitted by @alliswell21​]

Rating: T; Trigger warning for mention of murder suicide.

Author’s Note: Love this prompt, @alliswell21​. I sort of got carried away researching Savannah, and the ghost tour industry there.

Hope you enjoy! Happy Halloween!

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The sound of my bare feet hitting the cool hardwood floor echoes the pounding of my heart as I run down a dark hallway. Flashes of lightning illuminate the portraits on the wall that watch me as I pass. The booming thunder just seconds later shake the walls as if they would cave in on me.

I don’t know why, but I need to get to the door at the end of the hall, desperately, but it seems so far away. The faster I run, the farther away it gets.

When I’m finally in front of the door, I reach out to turn the knob, but just as grasp it, the door flies open. And all I can see is red.

I wake screaming, tangled in my bed sheets that stick to my sweaty skin. My heart still pounding as I try to catch my breath. I grab the bottle of water from my nights stand and take a drink. The dim red light of my alarm clock tells me it’s only just past 2 am.

I look over to my sister’s bed. Luckily, Prim is still fast asleep. Good. I’m glad I didn’t wake her. We need our rest for the trip to Savannah tomorrow, well, later today. We’re going to spend the weekend on a haunted tour of the city with some friends from college, her idea. Something fun to do before she goes off to medical school. I’ll miss her, but she’ll be to pursuing her dream. That thought helps calm me down enough to fall back to sleep.

“Katniss, wake up,” Prim says as she gently jostles me awake.

“What time is it?” I grumble, not ready to open my eyes and check.

“It’s 7 o’clock. I let you sleep an extra half hour while I got ready,” she says as she sits on the side of my bed and starts combing her fingers through my hair. “You had another nightmare, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” I don’t even try to deny it. I’ve had them ever since our father died when I was eleven. “But this one was different. It wasn’t about dad.”

“No? What was it about then?” she asks while handing me my bottle of water.

I take a sip and shake my head. “I’m not even sure. I was running, it was raining outside. I had a terrible sense of dread.”

“Maybe you’re just nervous about the road trip,” Prim suggests with a shrug, “or the haunted cemetery. Ooooo.” Prim mimics a ghost and wiggles her fingers around then gets up off my bed. “Seriously though, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I guess I’m still just a little tired.” I don’t tell her that I may be a little nervous about seeing a certain someone that I haven’t seen since he transferred to another college. He’s one of our friends that will be joining us on the haunted tour.

“Well, you can sleep in the car if you need to, but right now, you need to get up and get a shower. I’ll make us some breakfast.”

“Okay, I’m getting up,” I tell her as I swing my legs out from under the covers.

The shower and breakfast did the trick, so I don’t need to nap in the car. The four-hour drive from our small mountain town just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina to Savannah, Georgia is going by quickly. Prim and I sing along to the radio.

We are having fun, but this road trip feels like an ending of sorts. We’ve spent our whole lives together. We even went to college together at UNC Charlotte even though she’s two years younger than me. I worked for two years to save up money instead of going into student loan debt. Prim didn’t have that problem with all the scholarships she got, so we ended up as freshmen together. Now, Prim will be going to UNC Chapel Hill for medical school. Sure, it’s only 2 hours away, but medical school is very demanding. She won’t be able to come home very often.

What am I doing? We are supposed to be having fun. I’m not going to let my melancholy about her leaving spoil our weekend she spent so much time planning. I shake those thoughts away and rejoin Prim in singing along to Taylor Swift’s latest hit.

When we arrive in the historic district of Savannah, Prim directs me to pull in front of the hotel. It’s brick façade and green shutters are very distinctive. It has a wrought iron verandah around the front that creates a balcony on the second floor.

As we are getting out of the car, a valet comes out and takes the keys, and gives me a ticket before driving off to some remote lot. We hike our backpacks on and walk toward the entrance.

The emblem on the door to the hotel seems very familiar to me. It’s a small bird in flight inside of a golden circle. Upon a closer look I see that it’s a Mockingjay. That makes sense since the name of the hotel is Mockingjay House Hotel. I must have seen the logo when Prim was doing all of the planning. Still, I can’t help but think I’ve seen it before. Maybe a long time ago.

Once we are in line to check in, Prim excitedly tells me all about the tour we’ll be going on later. “We’ll take a hearse to tour the city. Our first stop is at the Moon River Brewing Company, which is supposed to be the most haunted place in the city.”

“Okay?” A hearse, what are we getting into, I wonder?

“Then onto the Colonial Park cemetery, which is also haunted,” she adds.

“Of course,” I add with a chuckle, and Prim slaps my arm.

“Then back to this hotel. Which is…”

“Let me guess,” I interrupt, “Haunted?”

“Yep,” she answers smugly.

“So, you booked us into a haunted hotel?”

 “Of course, I did,” she answers excitedly. “Why stay in the most haunted city if you can’t stay in a haunted house, or hotel in this case.” She stops and grabs my arm. “There’s supposed to be a lot of ghosts here.”

“Okay,” I tell her with a laugh. “If seeing a ghost is your idea of fun, I guess I have to go with it.”

“You’re the best sister in the world,” she tells me.

“Hey guys,” someone calls out and we turn around to see Delly Cartwright and Rye Mellark coming toward us. Prim runs over to greet our friends from college. Peeta Mellark comes in behind them.

Delly, Peeta and I went to school together. Rye is a year older. They all went away to college right out of high school. Once Prim and I got to college we were all in the same friend group. There always seemed to be something about Peeta, even when we were kids, some kind of pull toward him, but nothing really happened. I thought there might have been something after that weird Halloween party we went to, but he transferred to a school here in Savannah the next semester and I didn’t really see him again after that. Prim’s the one who kept in touch with our friends.

Hey, Katniss,” Peeta says, rubbing the back of his neck and looking up at me through his long eyelashes.

Hey, Peeta, um, did you guys just get in?” I ask because I don’t really know what to say to him.

“Well, Delly and Rye just arrived. I actually live here. I stayed after graduating. My paintings are currently on exhibit at the SCAD museum of art.”

“Wow, that’s great, Peeta. You always were a fantastic artist,” I tell him because it’s true. His art is so vivid. It really seems to come alive on the canvas.

“So, what have you been up to?” he asks me.

“I just started at the park service back in Blue Ridge.”

“That’s great, Katniss. You always seemed to live in the woods. I’m sure you’ll be very happy getting to work there every day.”

“Thanks, so you’re going on the tours with us?” I ask him, which is a silly question, really. I mean, why else would he be here.

Prim and Delly and Rye join us before he can answer. “Hey Katniss, glad you could make it,” Delly says. “Peeta here leapt at the chance to join us when he heard you would be here.”

“Delly,” Peeta grumbles as his ears turn red and Rye slaps him on the back.

I don’t know what to say, but we are spared any more embarrassment when Prim and I are called up to the desk to finally check in.

“We’ll meet you guys down here in about an hour for lunch,” Prim tells them after we are done checking in. After the others agree, I wave a weak goodbye before quickly turning away toward the staircase.

Our room is on the second floor, facing the street, so we’ll have access to the balcony as I had hoped. On our walk up the stairs, Prim tells me she and Delly booked the rooms specifically for the balcony. Only the rooms adjacent to the balcony have access to it. When we get to our room, we take turns to freshen up.

While Prim is still getting ready, I check the directory for someplace to eat. As I read down the list provided by the hotel, I find the perfect place. There’s a diner about a two-minute walk from here that I just have to take Prim to.

Prim comes out of the bathroom, as I’m entering the address into my phone. “I just got a text. Rue is here too. Ready to go get some lunch?” she asks.

“Yep, I found the perfect place.”

“Great, let’s go,” she says, and we head out the door.

We meet the others in the lobby, and Prim tells them I chose a place for lunch. Even though Peeta has been living here, he lets me lead the way.

“Hey, if we are going toward the waterfront, we should pass through Johnson Square. You’ll love it,” Peeta says.

I show him the directions on my phone, and he drags the line on our route to detour through the square.

Peeta was right. The landscaping is magnificent. “It’s beautiful,” I tell him, and he gives me a shy smile. The Spanish moss draping down from the trees creates a sort of canopy that remind me of the willow trees back home.

Once we are though the square, our stop is just around the corner. I can’t help but laugh at the look on Prim’s face when we arrive at the Little Duck Diner.

“How did you find this place?” she asks, clearly amused that there’s a restaurant that shares her nickname from when she was little. Her shirt tail used to stick out in the back when she was smaller than me and wore my hand-me-downs. I used to tell her, “Tuck in your tail, Little Duck,” and she’d give me a quack in reply.

“The name just popped out at me when I was going down the list of restaurants. We have to get a couple of glasses to take home with us, Little Duck,” I tell her.

“Definitely,” she says as we walk through the door. When we get inside, Prim and Rue sit together and start taking selfies with the menu’s and placemats. Delly and Rye, of course, sit together. Which leaves Peeta and I to awkwardly sit together as well.

After a great lunch, and some glasses to go, Peeta suggests we stop at Leopold’s for ice cream for the walk back to the hotel. It’s actually past the hotel, he explains, but we have time. Peeta leads us around, showing us the cobblestone streets, and historic buildings. We even walk down to the waterfront to see the river boats. Peeta and I are still stuck together, but he’s good company, so I don’t mind.

As we are walking back toward the hotel, Delly points out a sign for a psychic. “Let’s go there, guys,” she says, excitedly. “We can get our palms read, or whatever, you know. It should be fun!”

All that excitement in one person is hard to fathom, but Prim looks at me with her puppy dog eyes and I cave. I can’t believe we are going to see Tigris the psychic.

Tigris is a tall woman with catlike features. It’s hard to tell how old she is with all of the obvious cosmetic surgery she has had, but she has a kind soothing voice as she tells us about using her spiritual intuition to help us gain insight into our past, future and present. Whatever, she’ll just tell us what she thinks we want to hear all for the low, low price of just $30.

Delly asks is she and Rye can go together for the same $30, and Tigris agrees. Good, I don’t want to have to pay that much for some story she makes up for me.

After Delly and Rye follow Tigris into another room, Prim asks me if I mind if she goes in with Rue. “Sure, Little Duck,” I tell her. I’ll just wait for you guys to be done. I don’t need to have my future read.”

“Aw, come on, Katniss. What’s the fun of going to a psychic if we don’t all go?”

“Fine,” I grumble. That’s $30 I wasn’t planning on wasting.

“Thanks, Katniss,” Prim says with a smile as she and Rue are called back. Delly and Rye must have went out another door because they didn’t come back to the lobby with Tigris.

“I can pay for the reading for you, if you want,” Peeta tells me once we are alone.

“I don’t need your charity,” I tell him sharply. “I just don’t want to waste $30.”

 “Sorry, just trying to help,” he says. “How about we go in together and split the cost then?”

“Sure, I suppose that will be okay,” I say sheepishly. “Sorry for snapping at you.”

“No problem at all,” Peeta says with a smirk. “I like your fire.”

I don’t have time to question what he means by that when Tigris comes back. We follow her down a dark corridor into another room. This room has dark wooden paneling with no windows, and one other door besides the one we came in.

After Peeta and I each give her $15, we sit down at a wooden table. “Give me your hand,” she tells us. I’m not really sure which one of us she’s talking to, but Peeta holds out his hand to her. She grabs it between both of her slender hands and closes her eyes. She rocks back and forth for a few seconds humming to herself.

Peeta and I exchange a look before she opens her eyes and drops Peeta’s hand as if it were on fire.

“Give me your hand,” she says to me and reaches for it before I can even offer it up. She holds my hand between hers just as she did for Peeta and closes her eyes again. She doesn’t hold my hand for long before dropping it and opening her eyes.

“You two are soulmates,” she tells, and I can’t help but laugh.

“Of course, we are. That’s what you tell all of the couples who come in here, isn’t it? Soulmates,” I scoff and stand up to leave.

“No, it’s true,” Tigris defends as she and Peeta also stand. “I saw into your pasts. Both of your lives have been entwined for ages, but you were torn apart in the past. Now you have been brought together to right the wrong that was done in a previous life.”

“Sure thing, Tigris,” I tell her. “Come on, soulmate,” I tell Peeta as I grab his hand to drag him out of there. I head for the other door which opens into another corridor. Peeta stops me before we go through the last door which is probably where the others are waiting.

“Katniss hold on. Take a breath a moment. You don’t want to go out there angry. Prim will get worried, and I know you don’t want that.”

“You’re right,” I tell him as I take a deep breath. “That kind of stuff just makes me so mad.”

“I know,” Peeta says as he pushes a loose piece of hair behind my ear. “I know you don’t want to be with me, and I’m okay with that.” I shake my head and try to interrupt him, but he continues. “I know how much you love your sister. You want her to have a good time on this trip, so let’s put on smiles and forget what they psychic said.”

I plaster on what I hope looks like a smile. “Peeta, wait,” I start, but he opens the door before I can say anything. What would I tell him anyway? I never said I didn’t want to be with him, but we hardly know each other. He left school to come here. Now he lives here, and I live back home. How would it even work between us?

“How did it go?” Prim asks as we join them. She’s all smiles so she must have been happy with her reading.

“Just great, um,” I stumble for something to tell her, and I give Peeta a look that he seems to understand.

He adds, “Katniss is going to be very happy working for the parks department back home, and ‘m going to become a famous artist. How about you guys? What did she tell you?”

We all filter back outside as the others take turns telling us how Tigris told them that they would be successful in their future. I’m surprised she didn’t tell Rye and Delly they were soulmates too, but I don’t mention it.

After all that walking, we finally get back to the hotel. We all agree we’ll see each other again when it’s time for the tour to begin. Prim and I drop off our glasses from the Little Duck Diner and freshen up again. “You and Peeta seem to be getting along pretty well,” Prim says with a smirk while she’s brushing out her hair.

“What?” I ask, rebraiding my own hair. “We were just talking,” I tell her, as I try to hide the smile that comes when I think of him.

When it’s time, we meet the others in the lobby. There are a few other people milling around that must be a part of our tour. At exactly 7 pm, a pale woman with pinkish hair dressed in a spring green suit announces to the room, “Everyone who has signed up for the 7 pm ghost tour, please make your way over to me.”

Our group all share a smile and start walking over to her. We are joined by a beautiful couple: the woman with flowing dark brown hair and sea green eyes, and the man, tall, and athletic with copper hair. The man stands behind the woman with his arms wrapped around her waist, whispering in her ear, as she giggles. No one seeing them could doubt their love.  

The woman with pink hair looks around at the group and smiles. “Wonderful. You are all on time. Punctuality is a must. We have quite the tour ahead of us,” she says. “My name is Effie Trinket, and I am your tour guide. Our group must stick together for the next few hours, so please, let us go around the group. Please introduce yourself and let us know where we are from and what brought you to Savannah.

“I’ll go first. As I said, my name is Effie Trinket. I am originally from the capital, Atlanta, but I came to Savannah for a visit and fell in love with it. Now I share it with others.”

She gestures toward Prim and says, “Now you dear, please tell us, what is your name?”

Prim looks around the group, gives a little wave and says, “I’m Primrose Everdeen. I’m here with my sister Katniss,” she gestures to me and I nod to Effie. We’re here from Blue Ridge, North Carolina, just outside of Charlotte.”

“And why are you and your sister here, dear?” Effie asks.

“Oh yeah, um, we just graduated from college.” There’s a smattering of ‘congratulations’ around the group, and Prim continues, “Thanks, um, I’m going to go off to medical school soon, so we decided to take road trip together to celebrate with our friends from college.”

“Very nice,” Effie tells us. “Congratulations to the both of you. Anything you would like to add, Katniss?”

“Nope,” I tell her, and the others chuckle.

“Very well,” Effie says brightly. She motions to the other’s in our group. Delly, Rye, Peeta, and Rue all introduce themselves, then Effie moves onto the couple who are joining us. “Who is this lovely couple?”

The man speaks up, still wrapped around the woman, “Hi, I’m Finnick Odair, and this lovely lady is my wife Annie Cresta Odair.” Their eyes meet and they share a smile. Finnick continues, never taking his eyes off of Annie. “We’re from Biloxi Mississippi. We’re on our honeymoon. We’re working our way up the east coast.”

“Lovely,” Effie says. “Congratulations and thank you for spending part of your honeymoon with us.” Effie continues, “Now that the introductions are over, let get onto the tour. You may not know this, but Savannah is the most haunted city in the country. Our first stop will be the Moon River Brewing Company. Everyone please follow me.” Effie walks out of the front door on her precariously tall high heels as we follow behind her.

When we get outside, I can’t help but laugh. Our limousine is a converted hearse, just as Prim said.

Effie sits up front with the driver, as we all pile into the back. “After you,” Peeta says as he lets me get in first. I sit down next to Prim and Peeta sits down on my other side.

It’s a short drive to the Moon River Brewing Company. As we get out and congregate on the sidewalk outside, Effie explains that this location was formerly a hotel, and it has been voted the most haunted spot in Savannah. After we get our drinks at the bar – Effie recommends the smoking mirror drink, which as the name implies, smokes – she leads us down to the cellar and tells us the hotel was used as a hospital during the yellow fever epidemic. Ghosts of people who have died here have been seen wandering down here where the kept the bodies.

Next, she takes us upstairs to a roped off area that looks to be under construction. “You may be wondering why this area is part of the tour if it is in the middle of being renovated. Would you be surprised if I told you this area has been in this same condition for the past twenty years?”

We all look around, puzzled, then Effie continues, “There’s a ghost here named Coriolanus Snow who was a gambler who was killed in an altercation in that room. He is quite malevolent. He has thrown people across the room,” Someone in the group gasps, “and every time anyone has attempted to do any renovations up here, the work is destroyed when they come back in the next day. So, they have given up and left it to Mr. Snow. You may look into the area, but please do not go past the rope. We don’t want to make Mr. Snow angry.”

“Hey old Coriolanus, why don’t you tell us your secrets,” Finnick calls out as they look into the construction area. Annie shakes and grabs onto Finnick’s arm. He whispers something into her ear that makes her calm instantly.

After they go past, Delly and Rye peek in and Delly pulls Rye away rather quickly.

Peeta leans down and whispers in my ear, “Delly is such a scaredy cat. I’m surprised she agreed to go on this tour.”

The feel of Peeta’s breath on my neck makes me shiver. Peeta must notice because he asks me if I’m cold. “No,” I tell him truthfully because I’m actually feeling a little warm. Prim and Rue are all whispers and giggles as they rush past the roped area, barely looking in.

“After you,” Peeta says, as we step up to have a look. I truly do feel a chill just looking into the darkened room. I realize that we are the last two and I just want us to get out of here, but Peeta pulls me away before I can say anything. Effie is standing at the top of the stairs and directs us back down to the bar as she follows behind us.

After we each get a new drink, we are ushered back to the hearse, for our next stop on the tour, the Colonial Park Cemetery, which is according to Effie, the most haunted cemetery in the city. I sense a theme here.

Effie leads us among the head stones and goes on to explain, that burials here began in 1750, making it the final resting place of many of Savannah’s earliest residents. The numerous ghosts sightings here are believed to be the tragic victims of the Yellow Fever Epidemic that are buried here. Many people claim to have seen shadowy figures and hear voices calling out to join them.

Effie stops in front of a pair of graves with the same symbol that adorns the front of the Mockingjay House Hotel, the mockingjay inside a golden circle. “The story of this couple is quite tragic,” Effie says. “Haymitch Abernathy was a famous artist who owned quite a bit of land in the city. It was such a scandal when he married Maysilee Donner, a famous, but rebellious singer. They were both very successful, but they had their issues as most married couples do.”

Effie points to the heads stones. “You’ll notice the dates of their deaths are the same. That’s because Maysilee was murdered in her bed, and Haymitch was found dead at the bottom of the stairs.” Peeta and I share a look as Effie continues, “They now both haunt their old home.”

I just have to ask, so I speak up, “Effie, why is the symbol on their headstones the same as the one on our hotel?”

“Very observant, Katniss,” Effie tells me. “The Mockingjay House Hotel was once the Abernathy’s residence. Before it became a hotel, it was their home.”

“So, we are staying where they both died?” Annie asks incredulously, and Finnick wraps his arms tighter around her waist.

“Correct. But don’t worry, the room where Maysilee was murdered is on the fourth floor. That’s area is only open for tours, no guests stay there. It’s where we’ll be going next,” Effie tells us. “Let’s get back to the limousine so we can be on our way,” she says brightly.

After we all pack into the limousine, I notice Prim is subdued.

“What’s the matter, Prim?” I thought you liked the idea of staying at a haunted hotel?”

“That was before I knew who the ghosts were. I was just expecting some random apparition in white, not actual people with names,” she whines.

“You knew Mr. Snow’s name back at the brewery,” I remind her.

“That was different,” Rue chimes in. “We were only there for a few minutes. We got right out of there.”

“Yeah,” Prim says, “We’re staying at a place where people actually died.”

I’m at a loss for words, not sure what to say, but Peeta comes to the rescue once again. “Well, from what Effie says, the ghosts stay on the fourth floor, right?” He asks.

“Right,” both Prim and Rue answer doubtfully.

“So, they can’t get you in your rooms, or anywhere else in the hotel except on the fourth floor. And we’ll all be together when we tour the fourth floor, so you have nothing to worry about,” Peeta says, and the two seem to brighten at his words.

“Thanks, Peeta,” I tell him and give his hand a squeeze.

When we arrive back at the hotel, we all get out and Effie starts to tell us about its history. “The Mockingjay House Hotel is the oldest hotel in the city, built in 1851 as the Marshall House Hotel when Savannah’s population was booming from the new railroad coming through.” She goes on to tell us how the hotel once housed soldiers during the civil war and was used as a hospital during the yellow fever epidemic in the mid 1800’s.

“The hotel fell into disrepair in the early 1900, and was closed for some time, but Haymitch Abernathy bought it and renovated to the glory you see standing here today.” Effie starts walking around the lobby and showing us the paintings on the wall. “All of this artwork are original Abernathy’s. Haymitch was a very prolific painter, very in demand in his time. He even created sculptures.”

Effie leads us out to the courtyard. In the center is a large sculpture of the bird symbol from the door. Spotlights illuminate it from above. The bird, the mockingjay’s wings are raised up as if it is in mid-flight, surrounded by a golden circle. “Haymitch created this sculpture for Maysilee as a wedding gift. The mockingjay is her family symbol. By renaming the hotel in her honor and adding this sculpture, he showed her that the hotel belonged to her just as much as it did to him.

“Oh,” Delly sobs. “That’s so romantic,” she says and buries her face in Rye’s chest. Peeta and I give each other a smile at her reaction.

“Let’s head up to the fourth floor, shall we?” Effie says. She leads us back inside back to the lobby where we take the elevator up.

As soon as the elevator doors open, I feel that familiar sense of dread I felt last night in my dream. Effie walks us over to the windows on our left and shows us that they are facing the courtyard below. When I look down, the light reflects off of the golden bird statue and the flash reminds me of the lightning from my dream. I start to hyperventilate, and stagger back away from the windows.

I bump into Peeta, and he grabs my arms to steady me. “Are you okay?” he asks, and I’m not sure. I feel as though I’m losing my mind. I turn around to face him, but all I can see are the portraits behind him. The whole wall is covered in them, just like in my dream.

This can’t be the hallway from my dream; It can’t be, but it looks the same, right down to the hardwood floors.

Effie is leading the others down the hall, so I try to follow, but Peeta pulls me back. “Katniss, are you okay? You look like you don’t feel well.”

“Gee, thank,” I say, trying to be sarcastic, but my efforts fall flat.

“What’s the matter?” he asks.

“I’m okay, let’s just get this over with, okay?”

“Alright,” he says, but I can hear the doubt in his voice. “Just hold onto my arm.”

“Thanks,” I tell him as we turn in the direction the others have gone.

“Come on,” Peeta says as he pulls me along so we can catch up to the others.

When we catch up to the group, Effie is chattering away about the history of the people in the portraits, but I don’t pay any attention to what she has to say as my blood runs cold when see the door at the end of the hall. It’s the door from my dream. I know it is, and I feel that sense of dread all over again.  

Effie walks toward the door, and all I can think is how I don’t want to see what’s behind it.

I rush forward to stop her, but she pushes the door open just as I reach it, and all I can see is red as I scream out, “Somebody help me,” as I crumble to the floor and the world goes black.

____________

That’s the end of part one. I hope you liked it.

The diner, cemetery, brewery and ice cream shop are real places in Savannah’s historic district. Even the hotel is a real place, but I renamed it Mockingjay House Hotel.

This story will continue on AO3. 

#everlark #everlark fanfiction #autumn #autumn 2020 #norbertsmom #submission #prompt #octoberlark #octoberlark 2020