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dreamcatcherrs · 3 years

Text

august - ranboo x reader

+ disclaimer! I don't know if ranboo actually has a cat :)

𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: ranboo x f!reader

𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐚𝐫𝐲: ranboo can’t help but to blush every time you look at him, not realising that he was falling even harder for you than he realised.

𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬: 1.478

𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: none :)

song recommendation: august - taylor swift

the first time he’d spotted you was in science class, near the end of the school year. that one time you looked up and smiled at him because of something stupid he’d said to his friend, that you for some reason found funny - he couldn’t stop thinking of that smile for the rest of the day. the image of you stuck in his head.

the next time he saw you was in p.e. you were wearing those pretty red sports shorts that you always wore, but he for some reason had never noticed until now. and whenever you’d walk or run past him, the smell of vanilla would follow behind you, filling his nostrils with the scent, and it felt heavenly. from that day on, he decided that he really liked the smell of vanilla.

weeks went by before you first talked to him. you were sat behind him and had poked his shoulder to ask him if he had a spare pencil for you to borrow. he breathed in, eyes wide from surprise. were you talking to him? it was only when you tilted your head to the side with a playful smile on your face that he realised he’d been zoned out, completely forgetting that he had to respond.

“uh- yeah, sure.” he’d fumbled with his backpack, trying to fish out his pencil case only to remember… he didn't have one. he moved his hands back again, looking back up at you as you leaned over the table with a patient smile on your face. “uhm… actually, I don't have one either.”

that made you laugh, and he was just confused, cheeks turning red in embarrassment. “well, I guess I can't really complain about that,” you giggled, brushing a strand of hair out of your face. “I’m y/n, by the way. we have science together, I just don't think we ever got the chance to talk.” he grabbed the hand you’d put out to shake, staring into your bright eyes as you shook his hand. were there stars in your eyes? it looked like there was a whole other universe in there.

“I guess not-”

“hey, you two. eyes up here.” mr. jefferson, you douche-

“sorry mr. jefferson!” you apologised, before turning to send him a playful smile. as if you two had a secret that no one else knew about. he wondered if that smile was always able to get you out of trouble. he thought about it for a while as mr. jefferson explained the different historic sculptures, and then came to the conclusion, that no one could be mad at a person with such a smile for very long.

“aww, you never told me you had a kitty!”

he threw his backpack onto the arm chair in his living room, letting out an exasperated sigh as you followed behind him, or rather, followed his cat behind him. he turned around to see you crouched down beside his cat, softly petting it with the cutest smile on your face.

“yeah. pretty cute, right?” he joined you by petting the purring creature, heart bubbling with how cute the sight in front of him was. he wasn't just talking about the cat.

“well, should we get started?” you asked, shrugging your own backpack off and getting out a small notebook. he’d noticed you wrote in it a couple of times during the class before.

you’d both been assigned for a science project together - what a coincidence. he wasn't complaining though - not at all. you’d had fun times together in class since, now being sat beside each other. you’d gone to his place to put in some extra work ethic. “you’re lucky I actually like science! then we’ll get some work done.”

you plopped down on his couch, taking in the comfiness for a moment, before fishing out your computer. “are you implying something?” you giggled at his question, lifting a finger at him.

“that I do all of the work in science class while you sit and stare at me? yes.”

a wave of heat flooded over him, cheeks and ears turning red and his palms sweating up. was it that obvious?

you patted the spot on the couch beside you for him to sit down, a small smile etched onto your face. he did so, finding a comfortable way to sit in before looking over at your computer screen. you turned you head to him, scooting closer when you noticed he could barely see your screen. as if that would help his sweaty armpits and rosy cheeks…

“okay, do you remember our lesson about polar and non-polar electronegativity?” his face was blank. the words were foreign to him. was that the day you wore that pink lipstick? or did he just think that because he thought it looked so good on you?

you rolled your eyes playfully at his lack of response, proceeding to point at the screen and explain to him what it means. he listened to start off with, but then soon realised that his thoughts had drifted off to another place, eyes gazing over to look at you instead of the screen. and instead of listening, he started thinking about the way your lips moved - how cute and perfect they were. and how much he wanted to kiss them.

he lost his train of thought when you turned your head to him again, a frown on your face when noticing how lost in thought he was, clearly not paying attention, yet your look of disbelief quickly turned into a surprised expression. was he looking at you?

“you’re not listening.”

he looked bewildered for a moment, but quickly managed to clear his throat awkwardly, eyes turning to the screen again. “sorry.”

you began to explain again, and this time he only glanced over at you once when... was that blush on your cheeks?

the first time he kissed you was one month later, summer break. you were at the local park, basking in the rays of sun as the summer was soon to end. the smell of freshly mowed grass was all that filled your nostrils, and the fresh breeze every now and then was enough to keep you from melting under the heat of the sun.

you were sat at a nice waterfall, your backs turned towards it as you ate the sandwiches you had just bought. the sound of water trickling out of the different places on the statue was pleasant for your ears, peaceful really.

he’d gone to push his longer hair out of his face, and then rest his hand beside him, in the middle of the two of you. but instead of meeting a cold surface, his hand met your soft one, that was already resting right where he was about to put his hand.

he heard you gasp softly, head turning to look down at your hands. he looked back at you with wide eyes, which you quickly returned when realizing what had happened, a rosy colour spreading over your cheeks. and right then, he couldn’t help himself. he knew you hadn’t known each other for that long, but he knew you. and he for sure knew that he liked you.

as your eyes stared into his, head slightly leaning in, he kissed you. soft and sweet and short, and when he pulled back again, your eyes were closed and you didn’t look displeased at all. and that’s when he knew, you liked him, too.

“ranboo, I swear, if you rest your arm on my head one more time!”

he laughed at your small threat, removing his arm from its comfortable place on the top of your head. he ruffled your hair, just to annoy you, with a playful smirk on his face. you pouted at him, fixing your hair again and softly shoving at his chest.

“fine~ I’ll stop. you’re just so short, it’s hard not to,” he giggled, patting the top of your head lightly as he smiled down at you brightly.

“maybe you should just be shorter. then I won't have to get on my toes all the time to kiss you.” you crossed your arms, staring up at him with a smirk on your face.

he shrugged. “nah. I kinda like seeing you struggle with that.”

you rolled your eyes and let out a low grumble, acting like a kid who was just told they weren't allowed any candy. before you knew it, a dandelion was pushed back into your hair, followed suit by a quick peck on your cheek. your lips parted in surprise, eyes staring up at him again, before reaching your hand up to gently touch the flower, a small smile spreading across your face.

“now,” he started, leaning down to intertwine his fingers with yours. “shall we go out to enjoy the last day of august?”

_____________________________________

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sayonarasanity · 3 years

Text

Reverberation

Chapter V

link to AO3

Chapter 1 - 2 - 3 - 4

notes: the song that will be mentioned in this chapter is She's a Rainbow by Lola Marsh and also here is the Spotify link. I highly recommend you to listen to it especially while reading that part. it's truly an incredible song

The first year of high school passed by in the blink of an eye. Between the adjustment of classes, advanced math, and literature, teachers of idiosyncratic character treats and a variety of teens in the class he didn’t even understand the period between September and June. If he was being honest there wasn’t much noteworthy difference between middle school and high school except for the lessons and maybe some physical changes among his peers as well as himself. Save for the height part. Apparently, he wasn’t gifted like that giant Mike or the very sophisticated Erwin Smith.

There was nothing much to do during the summer break. He worked alongside his uncle in the market to at least gain some money and not spend his whole time lying on his bed, sweaty and gasping for a breath while a single leaf on a tree begged for a tiny breeze to make it wiggle. He read some books, watched some TV shows, played soccer with the other boys in class; Mike, Erwin, Oluo, Guther, Eld and even Moblit when or if they were around. Went to the beach with the same squad in addition to girls like Petra, Nifa, Nanaba and Hanji.

Most of his time was spent with Hanji, of course. On the roof, in the attic, in each other’s rooms, sometimes at the library—because the heat didn’t stop Hanji from being a complete nerd—and sometimes she helped him in the market while stuffing his mind with countless mind-blowing topics.

And so came the second year of high school.

And it took Hanji only two weeks to be late for the first class in the morning.

“I can’t believe you actually slept in,” Levi told her after she came inside the class during the break, gasping, her face flushed red possibly from running, hair dishevelled and absolutely not combed, and sat down on her desk in front of him.

She was trying to adjust her breaths as she turned over to face him. The dispersed, brown strands were covering her face, some of them had stuck on her reddened cheek and forehead. After the not so successful haircut, Levi had given her, she had also gotten bangs. Courtesy of her mother. “I was reading a book last night.”

“And?” He raised a brow.

She pushed the glasses up, and leaned in closer, putting an elbow on top of his desk. “I couldn’t sleep.”

“What kind of book could possibly make you stay awake all night?”

“It’s called The Blind Owl.” She shivered as if a chill had gone through her body. “It was the most disturbing thing I’ve ever read. And the thing is I couldn’t stop reading it because it was also ridiculously intriguing,” she sighed and rubbed her eyes under her glasses. “It cost me my sleep though.”

“That bad, huh?” Levi asked, but it was obvious from the dark circles under her eyes.

“I mean, it wasn’t that bad actually. It was masterfully written for sure. It was just—”

“Disturbing.”

“Yes. There is no other word to explain it.” She ran a hand through her dispersed hair, but her fingers got stuck between the knots. Then she looked at her wrist and groaned frustrated. “I forgot my hair tie.”

One of the things the almost six years of friendship with Hanji had thought him was to collect the items she had a habit of forgetting, mostly in his room. He had a drawer full of her lost, black hair ties. He kept a few on his pencil case or sometimes, like today, he carried one of them on his wrist. “Here,” he said extending it to her.

“What would do without you?” she whined as she took the tie from him.

“You wouldn’t survive a day,” Levi pointed out. It wasn’t even half-joke.

“Agreed,” she nodded. She had finished tying up her hair. Now her face was more on display, the flush on her cheeks was nearly gone. Levi realized that her nape was not covered with the too-short strands that couldn’t make it into her sloppy, little ponytail.

His hand moved instinctively, naturally even. “Your hair has grown long again,” he told her with a frown. And when his fingers touched her bare nape, she winced quite clearly for his frown to get deeper. He retreated his hand upon her reaction.

Her hand held the place he had barely touched seconds ago and when she noticed his expression she laughed. “God, your fingers are cold.”

Levi folded his hand as a fist, pressing his fingertips on his palm to see if his fingers were indeed cold as she had said. His body temperature was low, it was no news to him but at the moment his fingertips was not that cold for her to give such a reaction. Maybe because she had run here it was her body which was unnaturally hot, he reasoned, not really satisfied but he would accept it for the time being.

“Do you want me to cut it?”

“No,” she objected, avoiding his stare. “I’ll use it like this for a while.”

Her hand went on rubbing her neck, it seemed like an almost unintentional, absent-minded motion at this point.

“I made some research,” Hanji said when the silence got a little awkward for their standards. She then looked through her bag with both hands and slammed a wrinkled piece of paper on his desk.

“What’s this?” He examined her inelaborate handwriting but couldn’t understand the overall concept of what was written. Meanwhile, Hanji brought a pen over the page and underlined two words that were written in capital letters.

ROSE and SINA.

“These two are the best universities of the country,” she started to explain. “Both in terms of education and in terms of different opportunities for students. Student clubs are very much active also the campuses are huge.”

Levi had heard of the universities of course. They were named after the cities they were located in. Sina was almost three hours away from their town and Rose was even further in the opposite direction. But they had to leave the town at some point if they wanted to receive a good education. As Hanji had told the two of them were probably their best options and if they manage to keep their grades high enough there was a chance for both of them to make it into the same university. But, which one?

“But?”

“But” she carried the pen over the word Sina and drew a circle around it. “Since Sina is a technical university, I think it is a far better option for us considering the departments we want to study.”

Levi hummed thoughtfully. She did have a point.

“Also,” she continued, eyes glittering. “Great professors like Keith Shadis, Theo Magath and Darius Zackly are teaching there. Imagine the lectures…” she shrieked with excitement and wiggled in her seat. “It’s gonna be so fun!”

Levi shook his head at her quite early thrill and snatched the pencil out of her hand. He drew an arrow to the word Sina and wrote elegantly above: GOAL. “Sina it is then.”

Hanji took the pencil back and while nodding she scratched the word he had just written and instead, bringing the pencil a little to the crosswise she wrote: DREAM.

She looked at him then as if to confirm, with a bright smile on her lips and eyes full of the glitter of the dream she held so close to her heart. It was contagious. Levi felt his lips curling up, and maybe a tiny bit of that lustre in her eyes had reached out to his own. And he thought that maybe it wasn’t that hard after all.

How naïve, a sly, foreign voice whispered in the back of his mind. Little boy, how naïve.

“So, what’s going on between you two?”

Hanji lifted her eyebrows upon Nifa’s question and moved her stare to whom the question was directed. Nanaba gulped her bite with seemingly a little more force than necessary and blinked innocently at Nifa. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean,” Nifa wiggled her brows, smirking mischievously at their suffering friend. “You and Mike.”

Petra hid a chuckle behind her hand as Hanji bit her cheek inside to stop her smile from shaping so obviously. They were sitting in the backyard of the school on an arbour for lunch. There was still for about half an hour until their next class and from the looks of it, Nifa had decided to use it for some gossip.

“Nothing,” Nanaba answered nonchalantly then she brought the straw of her peach juice to her mouth and took a very long sip. Hanji didn’t miss the faint blush on her cheekbones. “We’re friends.”

“You’re a little too close for being friends, don’t you think?” Nifa asked with a sweet voice, dropping her chin on top of her intertwined fingers, smiling.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about?” Nanaba brushed her off, taking another bite from her sandwich.

“Stop tormenting her, Nifa,” Hanji interrupted just as Nifa was about to say something else. “She can tell us when she feels like it.” Hanji then smirked at a very pissed Nanaba, who was glaring at her so hard Hanji thought she could catch flames just by responding to her stare.

Suddenly, someone dropped something in front of her with a loud “pat” and Hanji looked down, startled, to a packet of chocolate milk, then looked up to a frowning Levi.

“Did you eat?”

“Yep!” Hanji rested her chin on her palm and smiled at him. “Did you?”

He nodded silently and gestured at the milk standing on the wooden table. “You’re gonna pay me back for that later.”

“Stingy,” she murmured as he turned his back to her. Hanji saw the other boys gathered up around a bench a little away from where she and the girls sat. And before Levi went too far away, she shouted behind him, “When shall we meet again?”

He glanced at her above his shoulder. “After school,” he said, flatly.

“Come on, Levi!” She lifted her chin from her palm, disappointed. “You should’ve said “when the hurly-burly is done”, I thought you were better than that!”

He turned his whole body to her this time, walking backwards. A smirk played on one corner of his lips, midday sun caught his eyes, and her heart skipped a beat. “And you should’ve asked, “in thunder, lightning or in rain?” I thought you were better than that , genius.”

Take him and cut him out in the little stars.

Levi was beautiful. Hanji recalled the day she had first realized it, the faint yellow leaves and the crackling sound of fire. The realization had hit hard, and she couldn’t have understood the reason why right away. It was startling that was for sure but after some thorough and logical consideration, she had decided that it was all about being a teenager.

It was that simple. Thinking a boy was beautiful was natural. Besides, it wasn’t just Levi. Erwin, for instance, was attractive. With a sharp chin, bright, blue eyes and that shiny yellow hair that always looked so soft like cotton. He wasn’t necessarily beautiful though but attractive still, handsome even.

And he will make the face of Heaven so fine.

Levi turned his back to her again and Hanji snorted, opening the straw of her chocolate milk. “He got me bad.”

When she put the straw between her lips for a long sip, she realized the silence that has settled on the table and when she took a glance above her glasses, she saw the three other girls looking at her.

“What?” she asked after gulping.

“What’s with you two?”

“Huh?”

It was Nifa again and this time the question was directed at her. “You and Levi?”

Hanji blinked, trying to reason her question. “What about us?”

“You seem close,” Petra added instead of Nifa. Her hazel eyes curious as she observed Hanji. “Like real close.”

Hanji frowned and pushed her glasses back to their proper place. “We are best friends.” They seriously hadn’t understood it for a year?

“I bet everyone thinks you’re dating,” Nifa said laughing.

Oh? “That’s ridiculous,” Hanji said, shaking her head. “Why would I date my best friend?”

Nifa shrugged, and Petra looked thoughtful. “How long have you been friends?”

Hanji didn’t know why but she felt her stomach curl. “Since we were eleven.”

Petra hummed and the conversation seemed to be over like that. Hanji chewed the plastic stick thoughtfully and with distress, she couldn’t find the reason why. The curl stayed solid in her stomach, sharp and insistent. Absently she noticed that Petra was staring somewhere with a strange expression in her eyes and when Hanji followed her stare, she saw Levi standing in front of the bench the other boys were sitting. Mike who was standing next to him had wrapped an arm around his shoulders, and he looked content, his features relaxed, his black hair looked smooth touching his forehead.

That all the world will be in love with the night.

Goddamn Juliet, she thought bitterly, frowning she took her eyes away from him. Goddamn Shakespeare.

“What did you want to talk to me about?”

It was Wednesday afternoon on a nice autumn day. Near them was a tree slowly getting peeled off its leaves, and the clouds were reflecting the orange light the sun created. It was also reflecting on her ginger hair, making it shine almost yellow.

“I, uh…” Petra cleared her throat, squeezed her hair behind her ear as the blush that had appeared on her cheeks gradually became more visible. “This is harder than I expected.”

Levi raised his brows. He had been wondering what Petra wanted to talk to him ever since she asked him if they could meet after school in the backyard this morning. He had found it a little awkward because it had felt like she wanted to talk to him in private and he couldn’t have thought of any reason why she would wish for that.

“You look nervous,” he told her.

“Well, of course, I am,” Petra laughed, not a cheerful one. “I am trying to…”

She let out a sharp breath as if she was angry at herself and she wasn’t looking at him too. Her eyes were scanning their feet, her fingers were fidgeting, brows furrowed.

And Levi was quietly getting an idea about why she wanted to talk to him.

“Just tell me,” He tried to encourage her, feeling his own heartbeat getting faster abruptly.

Finally, she looked up at him, her cheeks painted crimson and she took a long, deep breath before she said, “Would you like to go to the cinema with me?”

“Oh,” he said.

Not the kind of reaction he should’ve given apparently. Petra bit her lower lip anxiously at first, searching his eyes. He must be pretty shocked for she looked a little discouraged upon his reaction. But within seconds she gathered herself up, her shoulders held high.

“I… liked you since the seventh grade,” she said, the blush spread from her cheeks to her neck, but she continued to be resolute without looking anywhere else than him. “And I thought that there is nothing wrong with asking a boy out if that boy doesn’t seem to be doing it anytime close.”

Levi felt his own cheeks heating up. Admittedly, he had never realized Petra had such feelings for him. “Sorry.”

Petra laughed, somewhat forcefully. “It’s okay,” she gulped, and a weak smile vibrated on her lips. “Just don’t be harsh if you’re gonna say no.”

Levi considered her offer quietly. Petra had always been a good friend and she was a nice person too. Kind, tidy and even funny. She loved painting and drawing and was pretty gifted at them as well. And she smelled fresh, Levi guessed it was because of the softener she used on her clothes, her hair was soft, and her eyes were pretty.

“When do you want to go?”

Said pretty eyes glittered as she beamed at him. For a second, in the back of his mind, he saw a very similar image belonging to another girl with auburn hair and hazel-brown eyes who had a smile that reminded him of the rainbow after rain and sun.

“What about this Friday after school?” Petra asked, excitedly.

“Sure,” Levi responded, trying to smile and ignore the weird feeling in his stomach.

When he stepped into the roof, the night was chilly, the sky was full of transparent, quietly moving clouds, the stars were shining behind them, the Wanning Gibbous was hanging low on the horizon, and Hanji was standing on the edge of the roof, her head laid backwards.

Levi didn’t even know if he breathed, his heart jumped to his throat as he threw his schoolbag to the ground and walked closer to her from behind cautiously. “Hanji, what the fuck are you doing?”

“Watching the sky,” she replied, smiling.

Levi felt a muscle move on his jaw; his heart was beating so loud it almost hurt his ears. He focused on adjusting his breaths. In and out. “Don’t be ridiculous. Get back down.”

Hanji shrugged and Levi nearly had a heart attack right then and there. He felt his eyes widen, and his breath hitched. “I feel closer to the clouds like this.”

“Hanji,” he took slow, careful steps towards her. The night breeze was toying with her dispersed hair, her face was tranquil, her eyes never left the sight of the clouds. The smile that was drawn on her lips was unmoving like it was craved there by the hands of a masterful sculptor. And he watched her, his heart still beating fast and loud, his breaths irregular, and his eyes wide, and he thought about—

Stars

how free she looked at that moment like she belonged to the sky, the stars and the moon. As if they shone for her only.

hide your fires.

Brown hair and brown eyes but Hanji was luminous. She kept the colours hidden, had a brush and a palette ready in her hand. The murky night did nothing but to contrast the light, she had a way with the world which made her stood out among the dullest of sounds and faces. Even on top of a derelict building, she was—

Let not light see—

the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

He grabbed her wrist, inhaling hard and thick then he drew her back with a quick move of his arm. Her body turned and crashed against him, and he stumbled backwards a few steps, but he kept his balance, wrapping his arms around her waist securely, without any intention of letting go. He vaguely heard the surprised shriek Hanji made upon his unexpected move. And he half-expected her to push him back, to laugh it off and to say that he was being dramatic again. That nothing was going to happen anyway, it wasn’t like she was going to jump.

Yet instead, her arms circled his neck as she rested her cheek on his head and at that very moment Levi realized that he had never thought of losing her, of what would happen if she were to leave his life. Just like he had never imagined a day without the sun rising. The thought was uninvited and unwelcomed, and it cropped a fear in his heart so profound, he drew a shivering breath in before he buried his face on her neck. Then he pushed that thought deep down to the dungeon in his head never to see daylight again.

“I’m okay, you know,” Hanji spoke after seconds.

“Stupid,” he said, holding her tighter. “Stupid four-eyes.”

“Mm,” she muttered, amused. Then she started to move left and right making him follow her movements as if they were dancing. “I’m going to let all the world know that Levi Ackerman cares for me.”

Levi placed his forehead on her shoulder, pressing hard. “Someone needs to care for your sorry ass, or you’ll drop it down a goddamn building.”

She laughed, and it felt so good to hear it he immediately craved the sound soon as it faded away. Hanji stopped moving afterwards, then put her hands on his shoulder to push him slightly back. He withdrew reluctantly but kept his hands on either side of her waist not ready to let go just yet.

Her eyes were somewhat misty as she watched him, as the sharp peak of a mountain lost behind a grey fog. Levi frowned at her, searching for a sturdy branch to hold and to obtain some kind of a clue about what she was thinking. He came back empty-handed, and Hanji snapped out of it soon after, smiling at him brightly and warm. Her hair was all over her face, her glasses were askew, and he brought a hand up to fix them.

Then he flicked her forehead instead.

“Ouch!” She exclaimed, touching the slightly damaged skin.

“That was for almost giving me a heart attack,” Levi said nonchalantly and walked past her to grab his schoolbag. Then he sat down, bag between his legs as he searched for the snacks he bought after school.

“Geez, I’m sorry,” Hanji muttered as she placed herself next to him. “But you were just being dramatic. I wasn’t going to jump anyway.”

So, here was the thing, he needed to tell Hanji.

But he didn’t know how. Through all those years they had been friends, there had never been a secret among them. He knew everything about her. From the fact that she had fed a frog in her room when she was only seven without telling neither of her parents and how she accidentally killed the poor animal by forgetting to feed it properly. And to the very first crush, she secretly had on a boy who didn’t even know who she was when she was ten. Each and every detail in between had been craved in his head, everything about her was a book he had learnt by heart, and he knew that for her it was the same.

He didn’t understand why he was so unwilling now about telling her about Petra. Frankly, he was going to tell her yesterday but when he saw her standing on the edge of the goddamn roof, he had forgotten all about it in a second. Thursday, which was today, he couldn’t have found a chance to talk to her alone and tomorrow was Friday. And he had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do.

Levi traced the shadows on the ceiling with his eyes, lying on his bed. It was near eleven pm but he didn’t have any sleep. Should he call Hanji? But no. It wasn’t something he could tell on the phone. It would be absurd and out of nowhere—

His phone started to vibrate on the bedside table.

He jumped a little, surprised at hearing a sound other than the voices in his head then stared at the phone for a while until he decided that it was going to ring till he opened it. And so, he did.

“I thought you had fallen asleep,” Hanji spoke before him as he lied back down, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“I was trying to,” he lied.

“Oh, sorry,” she apologized without sounding a bit sincere. “But this is more important than your sleep so…”

He raised a brow. “What did you learn again?”

“A lot of things. But that is not the reason why I called.” Levi heard some clatter he guessed it was the pressing of the computer keys. “I found a new song.”

He exhaled, wearily. “Seriously?”

“Wait before you judge,” she said. “Do you remember the time when you said, this is going to sound weird but, I was a rainbow?”

“No.”

“I hate you,” she said, darkly. “It was our first time in the attic. I had told you about –”

“I know, Hanji.” He rolled his eyes. “Of course, I remember.”

She grunted and said some things he couldn’t quite pick clearly under her breath. “You don’t really deserve this but since I’m a nice person I’ll let you listen to it.”

He snorted, lips curling on the corners, and he waited for the song to start. And not long after, he heard the first notes, then a soft voice of a woman followed. He also heard Hanji accompanying quietly behind, murmuring the lyrics alongside. Then he closed his eyes to focus on the song properly.

Dearest, I'm broken

My body is unspoken

How could I be loved?

Wake up in the morning

Feeling uncertain

Like a burning old scar

For I remember

The joy I’ve had as a child

Various colours I’m hiding inside

She’s a rainbow

And I am

A difficult man

It was as if the song, the lyrics, the notes, the singer’s voice were each had little hooks, they captured his soul relentlessly. He felt captive, unable to move. The song made him feel way too many things, with an intensity that nearly choke him as he lied there. His throat felt tight, even after the song ended, notes faded, and all he could hear was Hanji’s regular breaths a complete opposite of how his heart pounded at the moment.

“So?” She asked when he was unable to speak. “What do you think?”

Levi cleared his throat, he needed to talk dammit. “It was nice.”

“Just nice?” She didn’t sound pleased at his response. “But you have to listen to it every day Levi so that you wouldn’t forget me.”

“Forget you?” Was she kidding?

“We don’t know where life would take us,” Hanji told him, her voice calm now. “It’s the reality of the world. I’m just guarantying myself.”

Oh, so she didn’t know? That no matter where life carried him, no matter how high and wild the waves would be it would change nothing. The sun would rise from the west, and all the world would crumble, melt and disappear. But he wouldn’t forget her.

“What if you forget me?” Levi redirected the question to her, wondering her answer.

“I wouldn’t,” she said, not hesitating.

“How do you know?”

“If I’m a rainbow then that would make you the sky, remember?” Some distinct shuffling came to his ears, and he imagined her lying on her side, the phone still on speaker resting on top of her pillow. “Whenever I look up at the sky, I will think about you.”

“Sappy,” he whispered, ignoring the aftershock her words caused.

She chuckled in response and yawned loudly. “Only for you, clean-freak.”

Friday after the last class ended Hanji gathered up her things quickly. It had been an incredibly long and tiring week. She couldn’t wait to spend some time with Levi on the roof, just talking about things that didn’t matter, things that were easy to speak of because they were still young and had years ahead to take them seriously.

She waited for Levi outside, leaning against the school building as he went to the bathroom. She busied herself with observing the exhausted students leaving the school borders, chattering between themselves. It was getting chilly and the black denim jacket she was wearing didn’t do a good job at protecting her. She pulled the sleeves of her sweater to her palms to at least cover her hands. She spotted Petra a few inches away from where she was standing. She was walking back and forth, fiddling with a piece of paper she held in her hands. Hanji found it a little strange but shrugged, deciding it wasn’t her business.

Finally, among the rain of students that walked through the school gate, Levi appeared. His face and some parts of his hair damp, indicating that he had just washed his face.

“Feeling refreshed enough?” Hanji asked, smirking.

“Yeah,” Levi murmured, and he looked around briefly.

“Come on,” Hanji pushed herself up from the wall. “Let’s go. We better grab something to eat on the way. I’m starving.”

She had taken only a few steps when she heard Levi calling out to her quietly. “Hanji.”

“Mm?”

He appeared to be uneasy as he looked at her, brows knitted, and lips pressed. Curiosity rose within her swiftly as she expected the words he was about to say.

“I can’t come to the roof with you today.”

Of all the things she thought about that was the least, she had expected to hear. Her stomach started to burn again, and she imagined a cauldron inside. Burning so fiercely and it never promised anything good. “Why?” Hanji asked, sounding just as surprised as she possibly looked.

Levi’s eyes moved to somewhere above her shoulder. She wanted to trace his stare but was too busy observing his expression, a little anxious, tense and what? Embarrassed? But why?

“Levi?”

“I… am going to the cinema,” he blurted eventually, his eyes finding her again. “With Petra.”

Cinema… with Petra?

“As a date?” She sounded bewildered again as if she couldn’t believe her ears. It wasn’t something to be that surprised about considering their age, hormones and everything. But it was Levi. Levi… It had always been the two of them, now imagining him spending time alone with someone else—she hadn’t prepared herself for that.

“I guess,” Levi rubbed his neck. Oh, he was shy about it too? Was he excited, was he looking forward to it? Was he going to hold her hand as he held hers? Did he even like her? When had this thing happened anyway?

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

He seemed guilty, and he should be too. They were best friends for a reason. If she wasn’t going to be the first one to know about his first date, what was the point to it?

“It happened just this Wednesday. I couldn’t find a proper time—”

“This Wednesday?” She tried not to reflect her disappointment in her voice. “It was two days ago, mind you. You had plenty of time.”

“Hanji—”

“Did you ask her out?” Hanji went on, not giving him any chance to speak. “How long have you liked her?”

“It’s not—” He frowned, his jaw tightened, and a blaze came to life in his eyes. “She asked me.”

“Oh? How brave!” She felt like laughing and somewhere deep inside she knew that she was exaggerating, that she should be happy for him instead. Yet the disappointment was much heavier, and it stood out so blatantly, so arrogantly that it didn’t give her any time to think reasonably.

“Hanji, don’t.” He stepped forward but she withdrew in an instant.

“Have a nice date,” she said, and she failed at hiding the sarcasm behind. And she thought she saw a flickering of hurt in his eyes but didn’t stay long enough to acknowledge it. With a final look she gave to a confused Petra, she walked out of school. And the cauldron bubbled, bubbled and it burned, and it hurt. Then Hanji wished it would turn the wildflower to ashes to its roots so that it wouldn’t spring again. Wishful thinking it was because the wildflower was already the reason why the flames come alive in the first place.

Hanji didn’t quite remember when or how but she was sitting on the swing on the park near Levi’s house, the park they had buried the dead bird all those years ago. Strange how the years passed. She felt old for some reason despite the fact that she was only sixteen and life hadn’t even started for her yet. But she yearned for that little girl now, playing snowball fight with a boy who drank a little too much tea and swore a little too much for their age. Then she cursed at herself for being so frail, for letting her emotions draw the road she would walk.

The streetlamp near the park had a weak light. It trembled from time to time, squeaking as if it was at death’s door. She pondered it was a good metaphor as to how she felt now. Exaggerating? Maybe. But Levi had become such a constant in her life, it felt like the time Jack had crashed her glasses. She remembered how blurry everything seemed and how dizzy she had felt.

“Hanji?”

She blinked and following the voice she lifted her eyes up from the ground. It was Erwin, standing in front of her, with a curious expression painted on his face. What was he doing here?

“Are you okay?”

“Huh?” Hanji shook her head, realizing that she had been blinking at Erwin absently. Then nodded, voicing a half-hearted chuckle. “Yeah, I’m fine. What are you doing here?”

He sat down on the swing next to her, dropping his school bag on the ground. It was a funny sight. A boy of Erwin’s age and height sitting on a child swing. His legs were much too long for that, but he used them to move back and forth slowly.

“I was just passing by,” he said, shrugging. “What are you doing here alone? Where’s Levi?”

She didn’t need to be reminded of the fact that whenever someone saw one of them alone, they immediately wondered where the other was. I am acting like a child. Then she started to move back and forth herself, holding the chains on either side. “He is on a date,” she informed Erwin. “With Petra.”

Then the movements of her legs fastened to the point where she had to curl them so that they wouldn’t slow her down. She used her body against the wind, it ruffled her hair, and her hair blocked her vision. And she thought about Levi who was with Petra and Petra who was kind and pretty. Petra who had shiny hair which was always combed and tidy. Petra who was funny and nice and—

“Hanji!”

Ah, her vision was blurry. Had she dropped her glasses again?

“Hey, slow down!”

She couldn’t slow down but someone, Erwin, she remembered, made her. He was holding the sides of the swing, kneeling down in front of her, he looked into her eyes. Hanji noticed his eyes were a different kind of blue not so fierce like the winter ocean, but kind and worried at the moment. Yellow, thick eyebrows knitted, “Are you okay?” Erwin asked.

It was the second time he had asked the same question and it confused her a bit. Did she look that bad? “Yeah,” she confirmed. Her voice came out cracked.

Then Erwin reached out with his hand. Hanji waited silently as he wiped her cheek with his thumb and under her chin with his knuckles. His hand shone under the shrieking light of the streetlamp when he withdrew it, with tears, she realized with a startle. She lifted her hand then, her eyes wide and touched her damp cheek.

“I can walk you home if you’d like,” Erwin offered with a voice so gentle Hanji thought she hated it. Hated because she didn’t want pity when she was the one that had brought this upon herself.

She blinked at her wet fingers, her sight getting blurry again and used her other hand to adjust her glasses. She could walk herself home, and she opened her mouth to say that much to Erwin. But words betrayed her half-way and what came out was, “I’d appreciate that,” instead, as she accepted, silently. “Thank you.”

#levihan #levihan fanfiction

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jaemincrossing · 3 years

Text

YUNHO // Stargazer

Genre: fluff

ATEEZ Yunho x GN! Reader

Word Count: 2.1k

Warning: House Party - drugs/alcohol

My part of “15 Ways To Say I Love You” collab by @kpoppwriter. Prompt 7. “Don’t move - I’ll get it for you.”

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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You stand on your toes with your arm extended fully above you, grabbing desperately for the book near the top of the bookcase. You let out a small grunt as you continue to reach for the book, your arm getting tired.

You let out an exasperated sigh as your hand drops to your side. Staring up at the book with frustration. You're about to try again when you see a hand pull it off the bookshelf.

You turn around confusedly only to be met with someone's torso. You gasp causing the torso to back away, giving you room.

"Is this what you wanted?" A deep voice asks, holding the book out in front of you. You nod, looking up to see your savior's face.

My jaw drops when my eyes land on his beautiful face. The sunlight shining through the big library windows behind him making him look ethereal. You feel butterflies in your stomach when your eyes meet his dark-brown ones.

"Wow.." You gasp out, slapping a hand over your mouth immediately after, your face heating up. You see his perfect lips curve up into a small smile just before you turn away in embarrassment. He lets out a low chuckle causing your face to flush even more. You snatch the book out of his hand and run off, unable to stay there another second.

You run to the nearest restroom, shutting the door swiftly behind you before leaning up against. You squeeze your eyes shut and let out a loud groan, slamming your face into your palms.

"Great going, Y/N!" You scold yourself, absolutely mortified. "There goes one more boy you can never talk to again."

You wallow in your frustration and embarrassment for a minute or two before walking over to the sink and staring at your beet-red face in the mirror. Wondering why you're like this.

It's not that you're completely socially inept, you're actually quite good at starting and holding a conversation with people you've only met seconds prior, but for some reason when it comes to cute boys, you become a blushing, stuttering mess, that is, if you're even able to speak. It doesn't matter how well you know the guy, if he's cute, there's no way you're able to have an actual conversation. That's why you try to avoid them as much as humanly possible, even if it means switching groups or just working alone on projects. Cute boys are kinda just one of those things that are only nice when observed from afar. Like polar bears. Cute as hell from a safe distance, but your worst nightmare up close.

You turn on the faucet and splash some water on your face to cool down. You then dry your face off and spend a few more moments calming down before exiting the restroom, peeking your head out to make sure the coast is clear. Then you hurry out of the school as fast as you can.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You stop right in front of the library doors and quickly fix your hair and clothing, all ruffled from you having to run all the way here after sleeping in and missing the bus. Once you're ready, you enter the library quietly and make your way to the tables in the middle of the giant room.

Your friend smiles and waves at you once you're there, beckoning you over to the table. You gladly walk towards them only for all that happiness to evaporate upon seeing him.

His perfect hair, his charming smile, and his dark yet warm eyes are exactly the same as the guy you saw yesterday. Even the way the sun is hitting him is the same!

It takes everything in you to not just suddenly run away. You try to not let your panic show as you sit down in the only seat available at the table, which is, unfortunately, the seat next to him.

You avoid all eye contact with him and instead look to your friend with a confused look, thinking the only people in our group was her and her boyfriend Mingi.

"Oh, I guess I forgot to tell you." She realizes upon seeing your confusion. "The TA said we need four people in our group, and since he missed class that day and he's a friend of Mingi, he's in our group now. Sorry I didn't tell you, it kinda slipped my mind. But you don't mind, right?"

You just smile and nod, not wanting to cause problems, but definitely going to tell her to ask you before making decisions like that in the future.

She smiles back at you before starting the session. You're barely able to focus, too distracted by not trying to even look at Yunho. Still too mortified from yesterday. You just play with your pencil, completely removed from the conversation.

"Y/N?"

Your head immediately turns to your name being called, and you realize the mistake you made too late.

Your eyes meet his and your breath hitches in your throat. Time seems to stop as you stare into his deep brown eyes, completely captivated by them.

"What do you think?" Yunho asks, snapping you out of your trance. You turn away, clearing your throat, and focusing your eyes on your blank notebook instead.

"Yeah. Sounds great." You say, nodding your head, not even knowing what you agreed to. You briefly look at him to see him smiling, only to look away swiftly.

"Great. Then let's do that." He says to the others who nod their heads in agreement, actually knowing what he was talking about.

The time flies slowly as you pretend you know what's going on and glance over at Yunho every once in a while. Especially appreciating when his head is down while he's writing something in his notebook, you practically drooling over his side profile and focused expression on his face. Soon, the session is over and you all gather your things to leave.

My friend stops you at the exit and pulls you aside.

"Mingi and his friends are having a party tonight, and I've noticed it's been a while since you've been to one because you're so busy studying all the time. So.. will you go to the party with me?" She asks. You think it over in your head, realizing it has been awhile since you've been to one. But if it's Mingi's party then that probably means Yunho's gonna be there.. "Pleeeaassee? I promise I won't leave without you! I'll even take you out to eat afterwards!"

"Fine! But you better not break that promise, or I'm never going to another party with you again." You say sternly, and she nods quickly, holding her pinkie out. You wrap your pinkie around hers to seal the promise and she smiles at you.

"I'll see you later then!" She waves back at you as she goes to join Mingi, who was waiting for her by the end the of the hallway.

You wave back and set off back home to get ready for the party.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You and your friend walk into the house already filled to the brim with drunk college students. You're immediately reminded of why you stopped going to parties when you spot a couple making out in the corner, and, probably a med student, chugging alcohol as if their life depends on it, as well as the unmistakable smell of weed coming from upstairs.

You could point out so much more going on at this party that you despise, but decide to just summarize it with one word. Hell.

You push through the crowd and to the alcohol table, grabbing some alcohol in a red plastic cup. You then make your way to the backyard, already feeling suffocated by all the sweaty, smelly bodies around you.

You take a seat on one of the pool chairs and watch as some of the boys play around in the pool, taking sips of the liquid in the cup.

"Shit!" You curse, your arm being knocked, causing you to spill you drink all over yourself. You stand up immediately, only to be met with someone's, very toned, bare torso.

Your eyes trail slowly up his torso and rest on his face, and of course, it's Yunho.

His hair is wet and slicked back, only a few loose strands falling over his face, and he's wearing just swim trunks. He's covered in water droplets from having just been in the pool.

"Oh- shit. Sorry." He apologizes upon seeing your angry face. You don't even say anything you just let out a sigh and sit back down on the chair. You reach out to pick up the cup but he grabs your wrist before you do. "It's my fault. I'll clean it up."

He's already squatting down and he picks it up, setting it down on the glass table next to the chair. He then looks up at me, noticing the damage he's done to your clothes.

"Wait here. I'll be right back." Yunho says, running off into the house.

While waiting for him to come back, you realize that was the first time you didn't totally freak out in front of him. Granted, you were pissed, but you weren't avoiding eye contact or a complete blushing mess.

He returns with some clothes in hand and stands in front of you.

"Here. Wear these." He says, holding the t-shirt and sweatpants out in front of you. You take it from him and cock an eyebrow at him.

"You want me to change out here?" You question. Yunho immediately gets flustered and scratches the back of his neck, wondering how that never crossed his mind.

"I- uh- n-no.." He stammers, blushing at his thoughtlessness. "Here."

He suddenly grabs your hand and pulls you up the stairs. He takes you down the hallway and to his room.

"You can change here. I'll stand watch outside." Yunho says, and you nod at him. He closes the door behind him and you quickly get changed. Once you're done, you open the door to see Yunho leaning against the wall outside, staying true to his word. He immediately perks up when seeing you and smiles at you in his clothes.

The t-shirt practically engulfed you and you had to roll up the waistband his sweatpants three times just to get them not to fall down.

"I wanna go home." You state bluntly. Yunho's face drops and he clears his throat.

"I-I can take you home if you want." He offers and you decline.

"It's just a couple blocks away. I can walk., I'll be fine."

"Then let me walk you home. It's the least I can do after spilling your drink on you." He persists. You ponder for a moment before nodding.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You stare up at the night sky, admiring all the flecks of light illuminating the otherwise dark sky.

You both decided to ditch the party and instead stargaze in your backyard. You told him about it when you noticed how visible the stars were tonight. You told him about your love for astronomy and he must be the first person to actually seem interested in what you were talking about. Usually people get annoyed after about five minutes of you talking about it, but he seemed to actually want to listen and understand what you were saying. He even asked to join you in stargazing and you happily said yes, this being the first time someone’s actually wanted to do that with you.

"It's beautiful isn't it?" You ask Yunho, who's laying beside you, staring up into the sky.

"It really is." He whispers, staring adoringly at your side profile, not once looking at the stars. The whole time, he's been focused on you. Finding you far more beautiful than any amount of stars in the sky.

You turn to look at him, surprised when you see him staring at you and not at the stars. Your eyes meet his, but this time you're able to hold his gaze.

You both stare at each other, the stars completely abandoned in favor each other’s eyes.

A single flower from the blossoming tree in your backyard lands gracefully on the side of your face. You’re about to take it off when Yunho stops you.

“Don’t move - I’ll get it for you.”

He flicks it off softly and pushes a strand of hair out of your face. Resting his hand on your cheek, caressing it softly. He slowly moves his face closer to yours and stops just a few centimeters away.

He pauses, pondering whether he should do it or not. You get impatient and make that decision for him, closing the gap between your lips.

You kiss him softly, your lips melting against his. He kisses you back just as sweetly, gently rubbing his thumb against your cheekbone. You both pull away, staring into each other’s eyes before connecting your lips again. You kiss underneath the stars, lips moving in sync. The kiss slow. Both of us taking in the dream-like moment marking the start of something new..

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bobasheebaby · 4 years

Text

Phoenix Found: Interviewing the Heir [Fluffy ABC’s]- Cordonian Ruby

Pairing: Ruby Rys x Beau Larkin; Ana DeLuca

Word count: 3,493

Warnings: pure mushy sweetness that will rot your teeth it’s all fluff

Summary: Ruby and Beau are interviewed by Ana.

A/N: Based off of @pixelburied’s fluffy ABC’s. Modeling after @blackcatkita’s Ana DeLuca interviews. With the entire country thinking the heir dead and her returning with a spouse I thought the best way to really introduce them to the public would be a sweet fluffy Ana DeLuca interview.

A/N2: A major thanks @sirbeepsalot for all your graping and prereading. I love you boo! Thank you to my snippet readers @loveellamae and @burnsoslow who screamed appropriately.

A/N3: I know this is so incredibly late and I have no excuse other than I’ve been in a crazy funk and even just pushing ‘post’ was far too much for me.

Series warnings: character death, blood, surgical procedures done by non medical personnel, may go NSFW in the future. May contain gun violence, knife violence, threats, not sure how dark this will go. By requesting to be tagged you acknowledge you are at least 18 years of age.

Let me know if you want to be added or removed from the taglist.

Disclaimer: I own Ruby, Galen, Lovett, and Beau, I’m borrowing Bastien and Olivia from PB.

A – Anger (What was their first fight about? Any big or recurring arguments?)

Ana DeLuca smiled as she sat, smoothing out her charcoal pencil skirt.

When she had first received the call from the blocked number she was positive it was nothing more than a cruel prank. By the end of that call she was one of few trusted with a secret that would change everything in Cordonia.

She stared at Ruby seated across from her, her blonde hair pulled back in a perfect braided chignon, hands folded neared in her lap. She was truly an understated vision in ivory lace shift dress.

Ana was blown away with the grace and dignity she portrayed at twenty one years of age. The way she’d greeted her and politely objected to any use of titles for both herself and her husband was impressive, looking at her now she could almost believe she had been raised in the palace instead of on the run.

Beau, Ruby’s husband and true prince regent sat next to her looking slightly less comfortable than Ruby. He didn’t look out of place per say, but the slight grimace in his smile wasn’t lost to Ana. She looked down at her tablet, quickly reading over her encrypted and password protected notes taking note they’d come from Texas; it was likely that Beau was new to the world he was thrown into. She didn’t doubt that Liam’s daughter hadn’t be able to find someone who could adapt quickly to the new life and media circus that came with it.

“Your Ma— Ruby, Beau, I’d like to once again extend my gratitude to your willingness to speak to me and allow the readers and country get a glimpse into your life.”

“Please Ms DeLuca, don’t mention it. We are honored that the same woman who interviewed my parents would be interviewing us, and traveling outside of Cordonia to do it to boot.”

Ana nodded, making a note that the country’s true queen was as modest and kind as her father and mother had been. “Please tell our readers what your first fight was about, do you have any big or recurring arguments?”

Ruby smiled, glancing at Beau, “we don’t really argue, mostly it’s just small disagreements over things that really don’t matter.

It’s usually just silly things that are easily resolved and soon forgotten.”

B – Best (What would they say is the other’s best trait?)

“What would you say is the best trait your partner possesses.” Ana queried.

“Her selflessness,” Beau said, taking her hand into his, “she was ready to break up with me so I wouldn’t have to leave my family behind.

She doesn’t like to cause anyone else pain, unless it’s on the mat, she would endure every ounce of pain so others wouldn’t have to if she could.”

“His kind and understanding heart. He listens without judgement. I don’t think there is anything I haven’t been able to tell him over five years together.”

C – Camera (How do they document their relationships? Who likes to take pictures? Or videos?)

“How do you document your relationship? Who takes the most pictures?” Ana asked.

“Beau for sure, I have a few selfies of us on my phone, a shot or two of just him. Mama and Papa didn’t really take a lot of pictures when I was growing up.”

“My parents took all the pictures and RuRu sometimes yells at me that I’m taking too many pictures.”

D – Dates (What are their dates like?)

“What do your dates look like?”

“They are pretty laid back, a picnic here and there, stargazing, he took me shooting a few times, we’ll do movie dates …”

“Movie dates at home, I learned the hard way you can’t take her to the movies.”

“Oh,” Ana arched one perfectly sculpted eyebrow, “why is that?”

Beau’s cheeks turned beet red as he realized her assumption, “nothing like that. She talks during movies, a lot, to the point we got kicked out.”

E – Early (What was the first month of dating like?)

“Please tell our readers what your first month of dating was like.” Ana requested.

“Oh god, it was awkward, at least to me.” Ruby replied, fighting the urge to bury her face in her hands.

“I was sixteen and Beau was seventeen, our first date he took me shooting on his grandparents farm.

I was tempted to downplay my skill but I didn’t.”

“She not only outshot me, she was better than my cousin’s too.

When I praised her ability she tried to deflect, something that she only did with me.”

“He called me out on it, told me I could be proud of what I could do. After that it got a little easier, but it was still nerve wracking for me.

Beau was my very first date. I was nervous as hell, but Beau was just so sweet and comforting that eventually I was dreading the day my parents would decide we needed to move and leave him behind.”

F – Friends (How is their relationship with each other’s group of friends?)

“What is your relationship with your partners friends? Do you get along with one another, or are you at odds with each other?” Ana questioned.

“I was still the new girl at school mostly sticking to myself when I met Beau. The other girls couldn’t understand why I’d purposely get sweaty so it was easier to stick to making friends at the dojo.”

“My friends were quickly won over. I think they were more afraid of Ruby kicking their ass than me if they didn’t.

But they get along well, they teased us both equally for marrying so quickly.

Thomas, my best friend, feigned being hurt that she never gave him a chance to steal her away.”

G – Gifts (Do they like giving each other gifts? What kind?)

“Do you enjoy giving each other unexpected gifts? If so what kind of things do you give each other?” Ana inquired.

“Beau gives me wildflowers out of the blue, just a few blooms, but every time I press them in a book to preserve them. I have enough that I could have used the pressed flowers for my wedding bouquet.”

“Wait, you saved them all?”

“Mmhmm, only my parents knew so when I saw that your mom incorporated pressed wildflowers into the place cards I was surprised at first.

Your mom also asked for all the ones I saved and said she’s going to use them for our wedding album.”

“I can’t believe you saved them all.”

Ruby shrugged, “they were gifts from you and I couldn’t bear to see them wither and die. Now they will live forever in our wedding album.”

H – Hugs (All things involving hugs)

Ana tapped her Stylus against her tablet as she looked at the next question. “Affection, how often do you hug one another?”

“Ruby is more of a cuddler than a hugger.”

“You are just so cozy. Beau tends to hug me from behind and rest his head on mine.”

“We aren’t overly affectionate, at least not in public, when we are at one of our houses though we are almost always touching in some way.”

I – Inside Jokes (Do they have any?)

“Do the two of you share any inside jokes?” Ana questioned.

“The only one that comes to mind includes Papa.

Beau accidentally cracked two of my ribs when we were doing duel training. So occasionally when Papa will hear Beau telling jokes he will say ‘jokes better be the only thing you’re cracking’ it’s so stupid but also funny because Beau felt so horrible after that he offered to allow me to crack his ribs.

I just brushed the injury off, if I could continue to compete with a broken nose and a bloody gi I could handle a few cracked ribs.”

J – Jealousy (Who gets jealous easier? How do they show their jealousy?)

“Who gets jealous the most often and how do you show it?” Ana asked.

Beau and Ruby shared a quick look. “I don’t think either of us has ever been jealous before.

I believe part of loving someone is trusting them. I love Beau more than anything and trust him with my life.

I truly feel if either of us ever did get jealous it would just mark the beginning of the end of us.”

K – Kiss (How do they kiss? Who usually initiates?)

“Next question, who is the one to initiate kisses more often?”

“I’d probably say Beau. He likes to kiss the top of my head, my forehead, just little reminders he loves me.”

L – Love (How do they first say those three words?)

“Love, please tell us, how did you tell the other and who said it first?” Ana requested.

“Beau did, we were stargazing in the back of his pickup truck and when he said it, I was surprised. Not because he loved me, but how nervous he was.

His palms were all sweaty and he probably was terrified I wouldn’t feel the same way, we were young, he was eighteen and I was still only seventeen.

When I said it back, he just stared at me stunned.

I don’t know why he was so shocked, he’s just this sweet, amazing guy.” Ruby tucked a stray blonde curl behind her ear. “It’s one of my favorite memories actually.”

M – Movies (What kinds of movies do they watch together? Is it a regular Netflix ritual?)

“What kind of movies do you enjoy together? Is Netflix a ritual for you?” Ana inquired.

“Beau hates watching movies with me. I’ve taken taekwondo since I was five years old and developed a passion for the martial art. I even wanted to be a stuntwoman when I was younger. I always point out any inaccuracies in the fighting scenes and it can be a lot sometimes.”

“Don’t hate watching movies with you, at least anymore. I certainly had to get used to how animated you get during action scenes, now I just think it’s cute.

Ruby likes action packed movies, I love thrillers or anything scary really. One time my younger sister AnnaBeth somehow convinced Ruby to watch some sappy chick flick, Ruby’s words, and it didn’t go well.

Mostly we just pick something that we can both enjoy and avoid the rom coms.”

N – Nicknames (Things they call each other)

“Do you have any nicknames for each other?” Ana asked.

“I call Ruby RuRu, she hates it. I only use it when she’s in her head or worrying it always makes her stop and laugh.”

“I don’t really have a nickname for him.”

“You called me honey bun.”

“Once and as a joke. I was hoping it would make him stop calling me RuRu, it didn’t.”

“You know you secretly love it RuRu.”

“I’m not dignifying that with an answer.”

O – One (Tell us about the moment they realized they were with the one.)

“Could you tell our readers the moment when you realized that your partner was the one?” Ana questioned.

“When I proposed to Ruby I told her that if I had to pinpoint exactly when she stole my heart it would probably be our first date.

When I actually realized it was much later. I actually think I realized how much I cared for her when I struck her too hard with the practice sword. She barely blinked even though you could tell it hurt like hell. I was so upset that I offered to let her injure me back.

I’m pretty sure it was then that I realized I would do anything for her, we’d only been together for a little over a year and were still young so I didn’t think about it too hard, but I just knew she would be the only woman I’d ever love.”

“I realized I loved you the same day.

You were so upset you hurt me, frantic and begging me to hit you back, I remember looking at you and just thinking that I couldn’t ever cause you harm, even accidental.

The way you worried and cared about me, I just knew I wouldn’t find anyone else I’d love the way I love you.”

P – Pizza (What is their favorite food to eat together?)

“That is just adorable.” Ana said, “what is your favorite food to eat together?”

“Ruby will eat just about anything. She’s never afraid to try something new.”

“Beau is more of a creature of habit, he will try new things but prefers his favorites. Pizza is something we share a lot, although he’s particular about his toppings.”

“Pineapple is not a pizza topping!”

“It is and it’s delicious.”

Q – Quit (Do they break up? Almost break up? What happened?)

“Was there ever a time when you broke up, or nearly broke up? What happened to make you question your relationship together?” Ana inquired.

“While I thought we would have to break up, we never did.

My parents moved us around a lot, Texas was the longest we ever stayed in one place. We moved there when I was fifteen and a half and we didn’t leave again until we came here.

My parents saw how happy Beau made me and decided that we were safe enough to stay.”

“You keep talking about moving around, how often did you do that?”

“Every two to three years or so.

When I was younger I found it exciting though I didn’t understand why we always had to move, now I know it was just to keep me hidden and safe.”

R – Rainy Days (How do they comfort each other on dark days?)

“How do you comfort each other on a dark and rainy day?” Ana asked.

“We just started living together since we left Texas. Mostly it would be little texts or if one of us was really down Beau would stop by.

We started keeping a pillow and blanket in the downstairs hall closet for when he stayed over. Sometimes I’d be in such a crappy mood that we’d fall asleep with him holding me, usually on the couch, sometimes in my bed.”

S – Soft (Something one of them did that turned the other into absolute mush)

“What is something your partner has done for you that turned you into mush?” Ana requested.

“Ruby very rarely turns to mush.”

“I really don’t,” Ruby nodded in agreement, “I’m not overly sentimental, with the exception of keeping all the wildflowers.

Your proposal, the way you refused to see my title as the end of us when all I could think about was that I couldn’t take you from your family, that turned me to mush.”

T – Texting (Do they text each other a lot? What do they usually talk about over the phone?)

“When you are apart how do you stay in touch, do you text or talk on the phone more often?”

“We started dating when we were still in high school so we spent a lot of time apart.”

“We’d send texts between classes if we couldn’t walk to the next class together.”

“We also sent a text at night if we couldn’t call.”

U – Unique (Tell us about some of their odd habits that surprised one another.)

“Do either of you have any unusual habits that may have caught the other off guard?” Ana questioned with a raised eyebrow.

“Well, we met in high school, most of the girls were all boy crazy and obsessed with the latest fashion. Ruby didn’t really care about what the other kids thought, she wore what she found comfortable, I’m pretty sure most of the time she had her hair up in a messy bun with zero makeup on and still blew all the other girls out of the water.

It was the way she didn’t allow all of the high school bullshit to change who she was that really surprised me.”

V – Vanity (Something they’re proud of in themselves and their partner)

“What is something that you are proud of in yourself and your partner?”

“The way Ruby will change her entire life just to help others.”

“Beau …”

“What? No one expected you to save an entire country, but you took on the problem without a second thought, you just care so much about people even those you haven’t met, I love that about you.”

W – Wedding (Tell us about your wedding head canon if they’ve gotten that far. Or if not, have they talked about it?)

“We know you got married before returning home, could you tell us a little about the ceremony?” Ana asked.

“It was small, very simple.”

“We held it on Beau’s grandparents farm. We were married outside under an arch of wildflowers. Only close friends and family.”

“My mom planned it.”

Ana’s piercing blue eyes widened in surprise. “You didn’t plan it together?”

“No, Mama Jo has been supportive of us going to Cordonia from the beginning, the only thing she wanted was for us to get married before we left. She knew that Beau and I would be busy trying to find any weakness to exploit so she offered to plan the wedding for us.

She took such care in weaving both of us into a laid back farm wedding — you could really see that she put all her love into planning our wedding for us.”

“Do you feel like you missed out by allowing Beau’s mother to plan it for you?”

“Absolutely not. She planned that wedding in a month, I never could have done that myself. Plus it was even more special, she really took in account both of our likes and wove them into this beautiful wedding.”

X – X (Something they hate about the other)

“Is there anything that bothers you about the other?” Ana questioned, poised to jot down the answer.

Ruby pursed her lips in thought, “Beau’s a little messy.”

“I’m not messy, you just like everything perfect and precise and I’m more casual in my cleaning.”

“I’ve seen your room! You have clothes all over the place!”

“I just forgot to put them away.”

“Oh so is that why our room in the suite looks like a hurricane came through on your side?”

“Okay, fine I’m messy. But you have to admit you are super organized and get upset if something picked something up and didn’t put it back exactly right.”

“You’re actually neater than Galen, if I can live with him living with you will be a cakewalk.”

Y – Youtube (What are they like online? Do they post about their relationship constantly?)

“You are both rather young, what is your online presence like? Do you post a lot about your relationship?”

“Ohmygod no. You would think that maybe having parents who constantly make sure your safe would make you rebel and go against them but I’m really a very private person.”

“Ruby doesn’t have any social media account. I have a private Instagram account that I barely use.”

Z – Zoo (Are they into animals? Do they want pets? What kind?)

“Okay, last question, what are your feelings on pets? Do you have any? Want pets? What kind of animal would be the perfect pet for you?”

“Ruby hates animals—”

“I don’t hate animals, I just don’t want a pet. Your golden retriever Sampson would be my only exception.

Mama and Papa never let us have any pets as children, and it never bothered me. I would probably go crazy with all the shedding.”

“Does that mean that the future princes or princesses will forgo pets?”

Ruby felt annoyance bubble up at the roundabout way Ana asked about having heirs. “We are still young, and while we do want to have a family some day we aren’t worried about it at the moment.

Personally I think the pressure put on all newly married or engaged couples to immediately have children to be ridiculous. The pressure put on royal couples is that much worse, everyone watching and waiting for that telltale bump, claiming the stability of the country is counting on a child.

My parents are proof that an heir doesn’t secure your country, they were killed because an egotistical tyrant who held a centuries old grudge couldn’t handle hearing ‘no’.

To answer your question about having pets, I would be perfectly content not having any, but I could probably be swayed to consider having one.”

“Thank you, it was wonderful to learn more about Cordonia’s heir and her husband. I’m sure our readers will love getting to know the long lost heir and her husband in such an intimate light.” Ana stated, gathering her things up to leave. She glanced down at her encrypted notes, in a few days time she would be releasing the story of the century ...

A/N: I would love to say the next chapter will be next week but I’ve been in a funk where I can’t be bothered to read or write so I can’t make any promises. I have finally been making some progress on the next chapter this past week and I hope it continues but no promises of when I’ll be posting.

Feedback fuels me, please like, comment reblog or send an ask. Feel free to scream, I promise I can take it.

Masterlist can be found in my bio.

@speedyoperarascalparty @liamxs-world @annekebbphotography @itsstillnotwhatyouthink @ao719 @stopforamoment @akrenich @gardeningourmet @daniv2278 @bella-ca @gibbles82 @choiceslife @blackcoffee85 @sirbeepsalot @cheeto-choices @dcbbw @alicars @desireepow-1986 @mfackenthal @bhavf @indiacater @drakesensworld @kingliam2019 @walkerswhiskeygirl @ladyangel70 @jovialyouthmusic @edgiestwinter @rainbowsinthestorm @janezillow @sleepwalkingelite @texaskitten30 @traeumerinwitzhelden @bbrandy2002 @jared2612 @blackcatkita @darley1101 @innerpostmentality @lolablackwrites @fullbeaumonty @hhiggs @itsalliepg @smalltalk88 @littlegreenmoo @mynameiskaylabella @bobbersb @imma-winchester-addict @cordonianroyalty @loveellamae @marshmallowsaremyfavorite @katedrakeohd @forthebrokenheartedthings @super-secret-fandom-blog @burnsoslow @queenjilian @bebepac @datynasuha @malvolari-take-my-soul @hopefulmoonobject @queen-arabella-of-cordonia

#ruby rys #beau larkin #ruby x beau #ana deluca #trh au #the royal heir au #the royal heir#phoenix found: interviewing the heir [fluffy abc’s]#cordonian ruby #CoRu #fluff #maleficent writes #long post #read more

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admiralty-xfd · 4 years

Text

cross to bear

This story first appeared in Volume 2 of the MSR Fanzine. The ending has been slightly edited.

It first meets Dana when she’s fifteen.

Braces, freckles, awkward teenage-ness. It’s comfortable against her chest, nestled against her heart, hearing it beating. Slow and steady while she sleeps, then faster when the boy with sandy hair in homeroom touches her hand as he passes back a pencil.

It’s just a small piece of gold but it stays put, constant, like her faith.

At first her faith is in Him, that ubiquitous Him she’s known since childhood. He watches over her, He keeps her safe. He is there when no one else can be. And this particular faith ebbs and flows with age.

High school, college, medical school. Worn, unworn. Sometimes she is faithful, on nights when her heart is broken by some insufficient male and she misses her mother and it’s too late to call; those nights she wears the cross, holds the cool metal between her fingers and imagines Him, protecting her, guiding her.

And other times she is not so faithful, those days where her scientific rigor is put to the test, where she knows in her mind He simply cannot be but somehow He is there on her shoulder anyway, ever-present, judging her for leaving the cross in the small dish on her nightstand.

The length of its chain changes over time, as does its vantage point from her neck (although not by much). But the cross remains: part of her, steadfast and true.

†

It first meets her partner thirteen years later.

Only from across the room at first, but it always knows him by the way Dana’s heart beats faster, like it used to when she was younger. It happens so rarely anymore.

Her faith has never been so tested in all of her life: faith that first was confronted by hard evidence in various labs that shattered it to pieces. Now, with Mulder, the reverse seems to occur: her hard evidence is continually being shattered by miracles, by doubts. It’s difficult to know what to believe anymore.

Trust is fleeting, oblique. But not with him. From the very beginning she has faith in him. And it is true faith, genuine faith, because she cannot explain or quantify it: it just is.

Perhaps it’s simply her faith transitioning naturally from Him to him, but soon she wears the cross all the time again. And just as it settles back into its comfortable place at the hollow of her throat it is ripped away from her neck, discarded onto the itchy fabric floor of a stranger’s trunk.

And she is gone.

†

Her partner’s hand is the next thing it feels. Closing around it, larger, rougher than hers.

“Scully!?”

He calls for her desperately in the chill of night, his hand clutching the cross as if it were a piece of her; his only piece of her.

He knows so little about her yet that he places the cross into the shaking hand of her mother, a piece of Scully he is not familiar with. He feels strongly the cross belongs with her family.

But Margaret Scully knows that her daughter’s faith doesn’t come from the cross; it comes from Fox Mulder. And it doesn’t belong with her.

It belongs with him.

†

Putting the necklace on is strange for him. His family was never religious so neither was he. Funny how that happens.

But he worries if he doesn’t wear it, he will lose it. He’s already lost her; he can’t bear the thought.

It’s been difficult going into the office every day. Even before her abduction it was difficult; knowing she wouldn’t be waiting with a stack of research and those reliable indulgent eyes he’d become so accustomed to. But now, it’s worse. Everything just hurts all the time. He feels solely responsible, the only person who might have prevented this and he couldn’t.

Just like Samantha. Once again, he couldn’t save her.

The responsibility of finding his partner consumes his every thought. He doesn’t realize the weight of this immediately but day after day, the cross hangs heavier around his neck, against his chest, under his shirt; a constant reminder of her absence. His heart beats but something is different; empty. He is not himself.

Head down, eyes forward, he continues the work, because it’s the only thing he can do for her.

†

Malibu Canyon. Santa Ana winds. Blazing fires that will grow out of control, much like his own judgment. A choice that becomes a mistake.

“All I know is normal is not what I feel.”

He isn’t normal, not really. It’s clear he is in a dark place, an unfamiliar place. Just like Scully.

Just like her cross, he thinks, touching it.

This stranger is dark and mysterious. He’s drawn to her, because he is Fox Mulder, and he gravitates toward darkness more often than he’d like to admit. But more likely, he feels deserving of the dark right now.

“You’ve lost someone. Not a lover, a friend.”

The stranger isn’t wrong. His devotion extends to their partnership, it's purely professional.

Or is it?

He’s barely learned to know Scully, and to uncover the precise depth of his own feelings for her. It’s a band of elasticity, constantly pushing forward and back, one feeling one day, an entirely new one the next. He doesn’t know what he’s allowed to feel for her, what he should allow himself to feel.

Perhaps that’s why he lets the stranger in tonight: to feel something, anything; to take a brief moment of pleasure within this hellscape of pain. Nearly two years into his partnership with Scully and he’s only just realizing he’s subconsciously avoided sex with anyone else.

What does this mean?

Maybe he wants to save Kristen because he wants to save Scully. Like he wanted to save Samantha.

So many different feelings are bouncing around his mind, and faced with the attractive and eager stranger he lands on sex as the answer. Fucking Kristen is not an acceptable substitute for saving Scully, not at all, but it’s what she seems to want.

And what he wants is to feel something.

The cross dangles between his sweaty chest and the stranger, making it impossible to forget his partner even for a moment. And he hates himself for doing this; for failing Scully, for the time he’s spending not searching for her, and fucking some random stranger instead.

What does this mean?

Afterwards he extracts himself from her grasp, collecting his clothes from the couch and resuming his position in her living room. The silent sentinel.

The silent, useless sentinel.

†

The cross goes back to its rightful owner. Mulder is tight-lipped, almost bashful as he places it into her palm. Scully wonders about this.

She’d felt him when she was in the white place, wherever it was, whatever they’d done to her. She’d known somehow she would see him again. It was the only thing that kept her going.

Their work, the quest, the truth. These are the things she’s convinced herself she needed to come back for. But now, as he opens her door for his second visit, she sees the face of a true friend. Her truest friend.

He is who she’s come back for.

“I watched your football video,” she greets him.

“Really?”

“No.” She smiles.

“Funny.”

“Sorry,” she smirks. “When you’ve stared death in the face your priorities tend to change.”

He chuckles. “Mark my words, one night you’ll run out of things to watch and in an act of desperation...” he trails off.

“Stranger things have happened,” she admits. He sits, gingerly, in the chair beside her bed. “Thanks for coming, Mulder.”

“Of course,” he says. His hands rest on his thighs. He appears restless, uncertain.

She thinks about her necklace, how he kept it safe for her all these weeks. Mulder isn’t the tidiest of bachelors. Was it in his pocket? Strewn across his nightstand? Dangling from the edge of the framed picture of Samantha on his desk?

“How did you manage not to lose this?” she asks, holding the chain of her necklace taut. “I’m amazed it didn’t disappear forever into one of your piles of stuff.”

His hand goes to the back of his neck, awkwardly. “I, uh… I wore it, actually.”

Surprise floods her heart. “You?”

“Yeah, I never took it off.”

She smiles, touched. “Wow, Mulder.” She doesn’t say it, but she thinks it: I never left his mind.

“I can’t believe you’re really here,” he breathes, as if the words have been bottled up inside his chest.

“Me neither.” She is reflective. “There was a moment when I felt like letting go.”

“But here you are.”

Her hand goes instinctively to the cross. “Here I am.”

“What made you change your mind?”

Does she tell him? “I felt you with me, Mulder. You believed I wasn’t ready to go, and I believed you.”

I had the strength of your beliefs.

He nods, smiles. There isn’t much else to say. She made it home, and so did the cross. Her faith in him has been rewarded.

†

A stormy night in Philadelphia. Raw, newly inked flesh. A choice that becomes a mistake.

The cross dangles between herself and a stranger. She hadn’t planned this, not at all, but it’s happening just the same.

“Sounds a little like your time has come around again.”

The stranger isn’t wrong. She’s earned attention, but isn’t getting it from Mulder. The stranger is here, though.

As unfamiliar hands grip her hips and unfamiliar eyes look into hers she instead sees Mulder, thinks of Mulder. Feels Mulder. And she hates herself for doing this; for failing him, for spending time not being honest with him, and fucking some random stranger instead.

This all began with a strong urge to prove that she is desirable, that she is wanted. That she is worthy of attention.

But she’s discovered she only wants that from Mulder.

What does this mean?

When it’s over she and the stranger lay awkwardly strewn across the floor of his sparse living room. He offers her the bed, because for now, he’s a gentleman. Her hand goes to the cross Mulder wore while he searched for her years ago.

He never leaves her mind.

†

They sit in the dim lamplight of a motel, him propped against the headboard, reading a book. She sits cross legged at the foot of the bed in his Yankees shirt, a pillow in her lap, just watching him read, which apparently serves as a legitimate activity these days.

“How many women have you been with, Mulder?”

He looks up, surprised. “Oh god, are we doing this?”

He can’t recall, he doesn’t really want to recall. But he isn’t afraid to. Being on the run from the law makes these heart to heart talks between them unavoidable. For the first time in nine years they are no longer afraid of the truth.

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours,” she grins.

He removes his glasses and sets them on the bedside table, raising an eyebrow. “Ooh, really? How many women have you been with, Scully?”

She throws the pillow at him. “You know what I mean.”

The temptation to find out if she’d actually slept with Ed Jerse is too great so he agrees. “Okay. You go first,” he says.

“Hey! This is my game, I asked first,” she grins.

“Consider it my only condition.”

She sighs, leans over, stretching herself on her stomach across their bed. As she does this, his shirt rides up her back, revealing one of his favorite views. White cotton panties have never looked so exciting. She drags her finger along his leg. “I already know, Mulder.”

“Know what?”

“Which one you want to know about.”

“Am I that transparent?”

“The answer is yes,” she says quickly, and the words sting. He knew; deep down he thinks he’s always known. But it’s always bothered him; that maybe if he hadn’t behaved the way he did none of it would have happened. The one night stand, the subsequent attack, all of it.

“Can I ask... why?”

She catches his eye. “You can ask me whatever you want, Mulder. But that’s not really part of the game.”

He searches her eyes. He has to know. “Why?”

She moves to sit up on her knees. Her fingers move to her cross and it reminds him instantly of Kristen, and why he has no reason or excuse to be angry with her about Ed Jerse.

“I was lost,” she shrugs, looking at the cross. “I didn’t know at the time how I felt about you. I was acting out, like a kid, like I was stealing my mom’s cigarettes again.”

“So… nothing to do with me, then?”

Her eyes drift up to his face and she pins him with a look. “It had everything to do with you, Mulder. I just didn’t realize it until afterwards.”

He nods, wanting to understand. He thinks maybe he does; his own situation with Kristen was surprisingly similar. He mentally prepares for the impending divulgence he hadn’t anticipated tonight.

“It feels good to tell you, though,” she says, absently fingering the necklace. “Finally.”

“It feels good not to wonder anymore.”

“Now you go,” she says. He doesn’t press her for more tonight; this feels like enough.

“Are we counting the 1-900 women?”

“No. We’d be here all night,” she laughs. It’s not as if they have anywhere else to be, anything else to do, but he’s relieved nonetheless.

“Well, a few girls at Oxford.” Post Phoebe Green.

“I had no idea you were such a player, Mulder.”

“I wasn’t,” he admits. “Bit of a self-destructive streak, you know.”

“Ah.” She’d met Phoebe. She knows. “What about after you met me?” In her haste to avoid all mention of his past with Diana she’d inadvertently put him in a position to either be completely honest about Kristen or lie to her face. He will not do the latter, not anymore.

“There was one,” he confesses. “While you were… gone.”

She is silent. She had absolutely no idea. He suddenly feels like maybe he shouldn’t have told her at all, but then where would they be? What kind of honesty, what kind of trust could they claim?

He reaches out, touching her chin, making her look at him. “I was lost, too, Scully.”

She exhales softly. “Who was she?”

“Does it matter?” he asks. “She wasn’t you.”

She smiles, seemingly satisfied. Then her expression changes slightly. “But… you said you wore my cross while I was gone. Are you telling me…?” her eyebrow goes up.

Oh… yikes. “Um.” He can feel his face turn white and knows he could never tell a lie of the same color. “I’m sorry. Are you upset?”

“Why would I be upset?” she asks, perfectly seriously.

He shakes his head, opening his mouth, but he can’t form words. His guilt exists, but he’s unable to explain it properly. His heart had been hers already, he just hadn’t known it.

“It was so many years ago, Mulder,” she reassures him. “Before us. Before any of this. Besides...” she says with a smile, touching the tiny gold cross that settles into the hollow at her throat. “I was closer to your heart than she was.”

Her words touch him: his Scully, endlessly devoted to him. Finding the good in every shitty thing he’s ever done. Will he ever deserve it?

“You were, you know.”

She nods. She knows. “We were both stupid for so many years, Mulder,” she continues. “I’m not about to make a checklist and keep score.”

He chuckles. “Well that’s a relief.”

“Because you’d lose?” she grins.

“Because I’d lose.”

She laughs in response, gazing into his eyes. “I hope you know this isn’t a contest,” she says. “It never was.”

“I still think I’d lose, Scully.”

She runs her fingers through his hair. “I think we’ve both won,” she whispers, and she's right, as usual.

He smiles, but his eyes turn serious. “I really should have been more careful with it.” He takes the cross between his fingers, softly dipping his index finger into the hollow at her throat and she shivers. Her eyes darken and she brings her hands to the back of her neck, unclasping the necklace. She then leans forward, putting it around his own neck.

"You'll be careful with it," she says. "I have faith in you."

He raises an eyebrow in question and, in answer, she draws him in for a kiss, long and decadent. He closes his eyes, savoring every last bit, and her kiss absolves him; the cross no longer feels heavy around his neck.

They move together, his hands squeezing her flesh, her fingernails embedded in his back. He whispers her name into her ear, she moans his in return.

The cross dangles between two hearts now, two hearts that beat wildly only for each other.

#txf fanfic #msr fic #msr #never again #3 #one breath #admiralty #my fic

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captainillogical · 4 years

Text

Profoundly Yours Ch.2

Amity receives a love letter in her locker. Luz wants to help figure out who it is.

Cover art by my lovely wife @firstofficertightpants

AO3 mirror

first chapter

Surprisingly enough, no one is paying attention to Amity when her locker spits the letter out at her, and she quickly stuffs the envelope into her pocket before anyone has the chance to see. It’s exactly the same as the other one, interestingly enough.

She rapidly gathers the things she needs for her next class, narrowly avoiding a few students in the halls as she makes her way to her next period. There are several students in the class chatting when she gets there, so she resides to looking at the letter later, regrettably.

She sits down at one of the empty tables next to the window, staring outside as she listens to more students fill in the class. Two students are arguing about which one’s stronger, and Amity rolls her eyes to herself when she hears them start to challenge each other to a duel later. It’s raining outside today, the clouds are completely covering the sky in large sheets of grey, and she sighs as she watches the rain pour down. Sleep didn’t come to her easy last night, she kept waking up every half hour or so. She’ll have to push through her tiredness to even be able to get through school today.

Someone sits down next to her, and she tries to ignore the presence as she waits for the teacher to come in and start the class. They place their books down pretty loudly, and she hears a pretty familiar cough.

“Were you going to ignore my presence the entire class, Blight?” Luz jokes, voice light and airy.

Amity turns her face to look at the human in surprise - she forgot she had a lesson with Luz today. Luz is smiling at her the same way she smiles at the rest of her friends - and the way it has Amity’s heart beating fast is utterly embarrassing.

“N-no,” She hears herself stutter a little, cursing herself internally for acting like some kind of fool around the human. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

Luz stares at Amity for several seconds longer than necessary, a worried expression taking up space on her face.

“You look a little tired, are you getting enough sleep?” She asks gently, and Amity thinks that Luz might be becoming a little too familiar with her. If she knows how to read her face like this, she’s going to figure out her feelings for the other girl, sooner or later. And that’s not good at all.

“I’ve been having some issues sleeping the last couple of days, it’s no big deal.” The green-haired girl answers truthfully - it’s not like she can lie about it, if Luz can see it on her face already. But she doesn’t want to talk about it, because then she’ll have to elaborate as to why, and she doesn’t want to go down that particular path. Just ‘hey Luz, can’t sleep because I think about kissing your stupidly cute face constantly, don’t worry about it!’ Yeah, that’s gonna be a no. “That’s not what's on my mind though. Here.”

Amity pulls the blank white envelope out of her pocket, and places it on the table on her books in a way that only Luz can see from this angle. Luz’s eyes go comically wide, and she shuts her mouth before she shouts in surprise at the object on the table.

“-is that another..?” She whispers to Amity, scooting her seat so close to her that she can feel her knee press against her thigh.

Amity tries so incredibly hard to not focus on the single warm point of contact she has with Luz. It might actually be the hardest thing she’s ever done in her life. She can feel her own palms getting sweaty.

“Yeah, I haven’t opened it yet though. Wanted to be discreet.” She answers, screaming at her own brain to calm the hell down. This is a lot harder than she had thought. “I wasn’t expecting another one of these at all, or so soon after the last one..”

“You’re not flattered at their insistence?” She wonders out loud, reaching over for the envelope - Amity smacks her hand from grabbing it automatically, and Luz yelps - tearing her hand away. Realizing what she just did, Amity feels her face light up in embarrassment.

“S-sorry, I didn’t mean to, I just didn’t want the other students to notice I had-”

Luz laughs, cutting her off. “Is Amity getting comfortable with me?” She says in jest, Amity wishing she could sink into her seat as she feels her face get redder.

“Don’t get used to it.” She retorts, and Luz knocks her knee against hers teasingly.

The professor walks into the room then, addressing everyone in his class, and Amity tucks the note into one of her books for safekeeping, pulling her potions book out to the front. The murmurs of the other students die down, and he starts off with some monologue about last week’s lesson theory, and Amity is already having a difficult time paying attention.

She places her chin in her hand, glancing out the window. Rain pelts against the glass, and within five minutes she’s starting to feel a bit sleepy again as the teacher’s droning voice goes on and on. Except for the fact that Luz starts to shake her leg out of misplaced, unbridled energy - the one that’s touching Amitys, and now it’s all she can pay attention to.

Is the girl not aware she’s touching the other’s leg? Or does it just not matter to her? Is it just Amity sitting here, silently freaking out about this?

Ugh, she feels so stupid.

The teacher calls on the student sitting in the front row, who gives a perfect answer - and they start heavily discussing that specific topic; Amity watches Luz pull a piece of paper out of her notebook, placing it in front of herself and shielding it from the teacher.

What the hell is she doing? Amity tries her best to not outright stare at her table partner. Luz is scribbling something onto the paper, tip of her tongue peeking out of her lips. A particularly strong gust of wind knocks a nearby tree branch at the classroom window, Luz looks up at the offending noise curiously - Amity has to tear her eyes away from the girl before she catches on.

She can’t even pretend to be a perfect, ‘straight A’ student when the object of her affections is sitting right next to her. How utterly embarrassing. Get it together. The face Luz is making reminds Amity of when she first met the human - and hoo boy has her impression of her flipped a complete 180. Not to mention how Amity herself acted around her. She tries to not think about that part too much, as she already has written extensively in her diary about all of her own regrets.

Amity’s lost in thought before she realizes Luz is staring at her, and she feels the tips of her ears heat up in embarrassment. The human gives her a look - one Amity interprets as “you’re being weird again, Blight” and she slides the piece of paper over to her.

Amity looks down to peer at the note on the table, feeling the tips of her ears heat up even more.

Luz drew herself with a bunch of sparkles around her head, and inside the speech bubble next to her face it reads: “do you wanna spend the next free period together to look at that letter?”

Ah, yeah. Amity’s got it bad. How can one single girl affect her like this? She tries to visibly remain calm as she grabs her own pencil to write her answer, feeling her own fingers shake. Spend a free period - that she normally spends alone to study - with the human? Just the two of them?

Together?

She feels her brain shut off after that specific thought, and hastily writes down “don’t you spend that with willow?” and slides it back over to Luz.

Luz reads it, scrunching her face and giving Amity a look. She writes something back, staring at Amity purposefully.

“do you not want my help?” Amity reads the paper, feeling her heart drop. She quickly tries to write out a “thats not what i meant”- but is interrupted by the professor coughing, and loudly.

“Miss Blight, are you passing notes in my class?” He asks, and Amity hastily sits up straight.

“N-No! Of course not! I was just teaching Luz here the proper way on how to write out the name of this particular fungus, sir.” She answers, heart caught in her throat. Do not come over here, do not come over here - is running in her mind on a loop.

He stares at her from the front of the classroom for a few moments, before shrugging and moving on with his lecture. Phew.

Amity relaxes in her seat, feeling like she emotionally just ran a mile. After a few minutes while the teacher isn’t paying attention, she scribbles out what she was writing on the note earlier and writes down a “of course I do.” To slide over to the human.

Luz looks down at it briefly - to not seem as suspicious to the teacher - and Amity watches as a genuine smile breaks out on her face when she reads the words. It isn't good for her heart's health, being around Luz so much like this.

The rest of the class goes by pretty quickly after that, and Amity finds herself both looking forward to, and dreading the next hour.

They were going to go to the library and sit at a secluded table together under the guise of studying, but it ended up much too crowded for Amity's taste. Even the three study classrooms that are usually empty were chock full of students today.

Eventually they end up on the third floor’s stairwell in the corner, next to all the giant windows. It’s very quiet over here, rarely do students come up or down this way since it’s much farther than any of the bathrooms or classrooms nearby. Luz takes a seat near the bottom of the steps, stretching her arms over her head and yawning.

Amity tries not to stare. She knows she’s been doing a lot of that lately. She instead looks out the large windows and the many trees beyond - the rain is coming down pretty heavy. There’s a flash of lightning out there in the far distance, and after several seconds she hears the thunder. It pours a little harder after that.

She opens the envelope in her hand, unfolding the paper and sitting next to Luz on the third step.

Her hair was like trees

Brown, green, and strong.

Stronger and more powerful than any tree I’ve ever seen

People see her beauty, I saw her roots.

“I think this one is a little better than the other one, frankly,” Luz giggles, her shoulder pressed against Amity’s as she leans in close to read. She needs her brain to focus on literally anything else other than the constant physical contact the human keeps subjecting her to.

“Should I be flattered or insulted?” Amity shakes the paper in disgust, giving Luz a look of judgement. “Mentioning my roots of all things..”

“I think it’s nice!” Luz locks eyes with the other girl, meeting her gaze. “They were definitely acknowledging your superior strength!” She pulls away to flex, and Amity almost snorts out a laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it.

“You’re supposed to be on my side, don’t defend them,” Amity tries her hardest to not let her flustered feelings show on her face as Luz leans right back into her personal space.

“I’m just admiring their choice of words,” Luz replies with a grin, bumping her shoulder with Amity's slightly. “But you know what’s bothering me? They don’t leave a name, or any way for you to reply to these.”

“While that has been bothering me, honestly, it’s not like I’d contact them even if they did.” The green-haired girl says, watching the rain pelt against the glass on the opposite side of the stairwell. God, it’s dreadful out.

Suddenly, she hears footsteps on the floor above her coming downwards, and she quickly grabs the potions book to her left, placing it on her lap and hiding the love poem between some of the pages. Luz turns to look behind them both.

“Amityyyyyyy~” The condescending voice of Boscha is heard from behind her, and Amity sighs to herself.

Of course Boscha would somehow find her. Of course.

“What are you doing with her?” The three eye-ed girl walks down the stairs next to the both of them, Skara in tow. She stops to give Amity a bewildered look, and Skara’s not even paying attention. She’s glued to her scroll, rapidly tapping the screen.

Amity doesn’t feel up for it today.

“We’re studying, if you don’t mind.” She answers, giving Boscha a defiant look, the other girl raising her eyebrows in return.

“With the human?” She says it like it’s the scum under her feet. Amity hates the tone she’s using, and is getting irritated very quickly. “Come hang out with us instead.”

“Did you not just hear her? I know you’re not deaf, sheesh,” Luz retorts, bristling next to Amity.

“Excuse me?!” Boscha scoffs, fists tightening. Skara grabs her upper arm, still tapping on her scroll screen.

“Let them study. I don’t feel like getting into it today.” She says to her three-eyed friend, nudging her a bit.

“Uggghhhh, are you serious right n-”

“Boscha.” She interrupts her with a huff.

“Fine.” The other girl retorts, and stomps away like a petulant child after a couple of seconds.

Skara finishes what she’s typing, before looking up to smile at Amity and also Luz by extension.

“See ‘ya around.” Is all she says before walking away leisurely, eventually catching up to Boscha all the way at the end of the hall.

Several long seconds pass, and Luz lets out a long breath.

“She sure has issues.” She says, finally, and Amity laughs at that.

“Thanks for speaking up back there, she would’ve been a lot worse I think if you hadn’t, Luz.” Amity says, giving the other a small smile.

“What’re friends for?” The human replies cheerily, and Amity having to mask her emotions right now is one of the hardest things she’s ever done in her entire life.

Ah, yes.

Friends.

She slept terribly this night, again, for the fifth time this week.

#lumity #luz noceda #amity blight #luz x amity #the owl house #toh #my fic #profoundly yours

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afriendlyphobia · 5 years

Text

“Got My Ion You”

pairing: Spider-man/peter parker x reader

genre: flufff

warnings: none :)

Request?

word count: 2.6k

A/n: tbh i got this idea while i was cleaning my room. so idk if it even makes sense and i haaaate itttt also this is the longest one shot fic i’ve ever written lord help me

—————————————————————————————————-

You looked up from your homework, chewing on the end of your pencil lightly. It was a habit that you had never been able to let go, but you claimed it helped you “think better”. You eyes narrowed in on your best friend who was currently lounging next to you on his phone.

“Hey Pete.” The brunette looked over at you, eyes wide with a puzzled expression.

“Exactly how does being on your phone help you with studying for finals?” You questioned him jokingly. After all, he was the one who had begged you to come over and study claiming that he couldn’t focus alone.

“I already know all the material.” He shrugged, going back to scroll through his feed.

Your eyebrows bumped together and confusion. “Then why did you beg and plead to come study with me?”

“Is there a problem with me wanting to hang out with my best friend since second grade?” He questioned you innocently, rolling onto his stomach. He placed his head on his palms and blinked at you with puppy eyes.

Okay, you had to admit he had a point. The two of you were practically inseparable. From spending almost everyday together or on video call to constantly texting, you almost considered him your brother.

Almost.

See, you happened to have a rather huge crush on none other than Peter Parker. You’d started having feelings for him nearly two years ago, and assumed that the butterflies would die in a few month. But you were wrong...so wrong.

The butterflies had seemed to multiply and now you were in love with the curly haired, starry-eyed, beautiful boy whom you called your friend...and nothing more.

But there was nothing you could do to fix your problem. You risked a lot by telling him about your feelings. Peter wasn’t the type to stop being friends with you just because you liked him, but you didn’t want to ruin things and make it awkward.

It was cliche, you knew that. But this was real life. Things don’t work like those movies and books do...right?

What you didn’t know is that Peter wasn’t much better off that you. He had liked you since, well, you first met him. He had just never said anything due to the same reasons you had.

That and recently Peter had started having a growing attraction to someone he could never tell you about in a million years.

You shook your head, coming back to reality, and rolled your eyes at him. “What are you doing anyway?”

He showed the screen of his phone to you before moving it back. “Reading science pick up lines.” He said, as if the pastime was completely normal.

“Oooooh~ Peterrr wanna tell me about her?” You cooed, mimicking a basic highschool girl while moving closer to him.

“Nahhh.” He rolled over onto his side so his back was facing you. “Don’t think I will.”

You’d be a liar if you didn’t admit that you’re heart dropped for a second. But how could you not expect him to have a crush on someone else. Honestly you were surprised he didn’t even have anyone in the first place considering how beautiful and perfect he was.

You didn’t reply, only going back to study your notes. Your answer being in the form of the sound of you writing.

“Do you wanna hear one?” His soft voice asked after a few seconds of silence.

You signed and slowly nodded without looking up, but you could just tell he was beaming at the moment.

“Ok ok... So. My love for you is like the universe.” You raised an eyebrow at him. “Never ending!”

His face almost made you laugh, but just for the spite of it, you kept a straight face and slowly shook your head in fake disapproval.

“Not feelin it?”

“Try another one, Champ.” You rolled your eyes, a tiny smile pulling at your lips.

“Fine.” He sighed, scrolling through his phone for another second before glancing at you. “Do you like science? Cuz i’ve got my ion you.”

The joke was bad enough, but Peter, being the little shit he is, added a wink into the mix. To avoid blushing madly from the tiny gesture, you picked up a pillow and threw it at him as hard as possible.

“What the—Ouch!” He flailed off the bed, exaggerating his pain and rolled around on the floor. “Oh i’m wounded!” He groaned before picking the same weapon up and chucking it back at you.

You ducked, missing his attack completely. You smiled widely at him, holding up two middle fingers innocently.

“You’re the worst.” You rolled your eyes, a tiny giggle still detectable in your voice. “You and your pick-up lines.”

“Hey, I’m just warming up.” Peter sat up, pushing the messy curls from his eyes. “You must be a 90 degree angle because to me, you look just right.”

“PETER!” You yelled, once again chucking the pillow back at him. This time however, you were giggling at his stupid self. It wasn’t long before he too joined you as a laughing mess. All which was music to your ears.

~•~

The next day was an absolute roller coaster for you. It started out like any normal day, but after getting an Avengers alert in the middle of AP Chem, things got a little crazy.

That would be your third unexcused absence that week. If you kept your side job up, your mother would start to wonder what you were doing instead.

Of course it wasn’t your fault, it was either get perfect attendance or save the world. You chose the latter.

Stumbling out of school, you ran into a abandoned alley way and began hurriedly stripping out of your school clothes, revealing the slightly armored spandex suit that was hidden beneath. You shuffled through your bag, pulling out the black, red, and silver mask.

You stuffed your school back in its normal hiding spot before running down the alley, failing to notice the webbed (in plain sight) backpack also there.

“Hey. F.R.I.D.A.Y.?” You tapped your temple.

“Yes, Ms. L/N?” The automated voice responded.

“Pick me up.”

“Already on it, look behind you.” You glanced over your shoulder, smiling under your mask as your similarly colored motorcycle approached from behind.

Doing a backflip at exactly the right moment, you landed perfectly on the seat of your ride. Gripping the handles, your sped up, moving faster towards the indicated spot on your mask’s digital map.

“Incoming call from: Spider-Man.” You raised your eyebrows at the notification but told F.R.I.D.A.Y. to answer it.

“Hey Webhead!” You greeted your partner. Without the original Avengers around to protect Manhattan, the two of you had become the next generation. The dynamic duo. Partners in fighting crime. “How’s downtown looking?”

You heard incoherent sarcastic mumbling before getting a reply. “Looks like a giant mechanic thingy.”

“Thingy? Very professional.”

“—Shut up. You’re late anyway.”

You swerved hard around a truck, leaning in order to make it in time before oncoming traffic reached you. “Sorry we live in Manhattan. Traffic isn’t always ideal.” You rolled your eyes at your partner.

“Wanna take the high route?” You could hear the ‘thwip’ sound of his webshooters, knowing that he was already in his way.

You didn’t reply, just ended the call and gave F.R.I.D.A.Y a quick command. “Hey take over for me, will you?”

“Of course.”

You let go of the handle bars, raising one arm, knowing your spider-friend wasn’t far away.

A gloved hands clasped your semi-covered one and pulled you into the air.

“Yoink!” You looked up at the hero, knowing that he was grinning behind his mask.

“Really? Every time?” Your mask’s eyes narrowed at him in faux disapproval.

He shrugged, using the momentum of swinging to pull you up against his body. You wrapped your arms around his neck, allowing him to let go of you and use both hands to swing through the city. You could feel his heart beat, and it was racing. You could only assume he was nervous about the fight; you were too.

The two of you were close, fighting crime together for almost a year now was one of the factors. However, you didn’t really know who he actually was.

It was a promise you both made when you signed up for the job. You weren’t gonna let your personal lives get mixed with your hero lives. It was sensible, but it didn’t keep you from wondering what he looked like under than mask. You’d be naive to assume he never thought the same.

Not long after, the two of you were standing on a rooftop, watching as the giant mechanical monster worked it’s way towards the heart of Manhattan.

You breathed out an exasperated breath as you watched it. “Hydra again?”

Spider-Man crossed his arms across his chest and shrugged. “I’m assuming so. Looks tougher than last time though.”

“Don’t be a whimp.” You shrugged, attempting to mask the worry in your own voice. “You ready to go, Spidey?”

He looked from you, to the machine, then back to you. “Ready as I’ll ever be.” He held out his hand, ready for your famous handshake.

You smiled, following his lead before jumping into action.

~i can’t write fight scenes help~

Nearly two hours later, you sat on the same rooftop from before as a bruised, sweaty, and bloody mess. You could feel the wounds healing due to your healing factor, but it hurt none the less.

Spider-man has dropped you off (per your command) and was dealing with the clean up and press. but you expected him to be back at any moment.

As if he had heard your thoughts, the masked web-slinger showed up. He landed on the rooftop, his body language showing how exhausted he really was.

He stumbled over to you, sliding down the same half wall you rested against.

“Back from the red carpet?” You quipped, trying to control your heaving breathing.

“Har. Har.” He mock laughed, placing a hand over the burned scar on his abdomen while wincing.

He glanced at you, one of his fiberglass eye-lenses was cracked, giving you the first look at his real eyes you had ever seen. But there was something else, the tiny part of his cheek you could seen was...pink? Was he blushing?

You shook your head. No, of course not. He was probably just worn out.

But his eyes didn’t leave your figure. They were searching you, even though most of your face was covered (except for the parts now exposed from cuts and burns).

But there was something familiar about those eyes. Something that you couldn’t put your together due to your hazy, tired mind.

Your partner seemed to be thinking something similar as you. But he gave up, resting his head back against the wall and sighed heavily.

“Hey.” He breathed, not looking at you. You didn’t verbal reply, just looking at you with tired eyes. “Do you like science?”

You raised you eyebrow, mouth moving to open as you finally began to piece two and two together.

“Cuz I’ve got my ion you.” Laughing breathlessly at his joke, the hero attempted to lighten the mood. the effort caused him to wince several times during the process.

“Wha...what the?” You slowly sat up, eyes widening. “Peter..?”

The visible eye widened in shock. “Uh, uh.” He cleared his throat, lowering his voice. “What are you talkin—“ You pulled off you mask, eyes still wide with surprise. “Y/N?!!”

Spider-man reached up and pulled up off his own mask, his eyes nearly as wide as yours.

There sat your childhood best friend, bruised from battle, with his mouth hanging wide open.

“How can this be?” He asked, his voice going an octave higher as he stuttered. “My best friend is also my hero partner? That’s crazy, i mean, what are the chances of that? And to think I stopped liking you because i thought i had no chance and I started liking your alter ego—wait, shit.” He covered his mouth with his hands.

“Peter...?” Leaning towards him, your voice fell to just barely above a whisper. “You like...me?”

“Well I...” He glanced at you and pushed back his messy curls from his forehead. “Yes...I like you. I’ve liked you ever since we met.” He admitted sheepishly.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” You asked softly, already knowing the reason.

“Because...you just seemed so out of my league.” He glanced down at his hands, fidgeting nervously with the webshooters. “You’re amazing, sweet, kind, and absolutely beautiful. Plus we have such an amazing friendship I—“ He took a deep breath when you placed your own hand over his, slowly interlocking them.

He looked up at you, a sudden wave of boldness washing through his veins. “—I don’t wanna just be your friend.”

His free hand moved up to cup your cheek; his eyes glanced from your eyes to your lips. “I want to be more.” He breathed.

You didn’t reply, your actions speaking for you as you leaned closer to him.

“Can I..?” Peter asked, unsure suddenly as doubts began to flood his mind.

You could tell he was about to say something else, but before he could say anything, you gently pressed your lips against his.

And suddenly a beautiful feeling washed over you. Those butterflies you had been holding onto seemed to burst into freedom. Your lips moved in sync, like they were made to be together.

Peter’s hands found your hips naturally, holding onto you as if you were his lifeline. You hands wrapped around his neck, fingers twirling gently in his soft hair.

Pulling back for hair, your chests heaved, but you kept your forehead pressed against his.

“Hey Pete?” You asked softly.

He hummed in response, face still red and heart pounding.

“I think...I love you.” You whispered now only a few centimeters from his lips.

Peter’s heart skipped a beat when you said those words. Those magical words he never thought he would hear you say. He bit his lips, savoring the sound of you saying it play over and over in his mind.

“Can you..” He hesitated. “Can you say that again?”

Your eyebrows bumped together as you leaned back to get a better look at him. “I love you?”

Like a giddy middle school girl, he fell backwards, nearly giggling from all the emotions that were coursing through him.

“Oh my god, Y/N!” He laughed, covering his face with his hands before jumping up.

“I love you. I love you. I love you!” He laughed, forgetting all previous pain. You looked at him, smiling at how genuinely happy he was. He reached a hand out to you, pulling you up.

He twirled you around, causing you to giggle at his pure reaction to the event. Coming back in from the twirl, you wrapped your arms around his torso, hugging him tightly.

He laughed softly, resting his head in the crook of your neck, beaming like a little kid in a candy store.

“Are you less than 90 degrees?”

“Peter, don’t you dare—“

“Cause you’re acute girl!” He laughed, and you pushed away from him, punching his chest (lightly of course). He laughed, giving you the biggest grin possible. “You know you love me.” He smirked, winking at you.

You blushed, shaking your head as you crossed your arms. “Yeah..” You huffed. “Yeah I love you..”

You smiled at each other, getting lost in the magic of the night.

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jercythesiscrying · 5 years

Text

Dumb Dumb | KageTsukki, G, 4k

NaNoWriMo Day 6: Songfic

Summary: Tobio may like Tsukishima, but that doesn’t mean he’s enjoying it.

A songfic based on Dumb Dumb (Japanese Version) by Red Velvet, which is an expanded version of a ficlet I wrote in this shuffle challenge. Main focus is on KageTsukki, but includes background poly-first years (specifically TsukkiYama and KageHinaYachi). Takes place when the first-years are second-years.

Read on Ao3

A/N: Exceptional hugs, kisses, and gratitude to @karasunovolleygays for the beta and ass-kicking (I hope I got all the epithets now???), shout-out to @omgrandomwords for throwing ideas at me, and general thank yous to Stream Team for always listening to me bitch. All other mistakes are my own.

Tobio finally notices, hilariously, at the Spring Interhigh when they’re arguing about the new quick they’ve been developing. Tsukishima had missed Tobio’s set, now furious that Tobio accused him for being at fault.

It’s late but here I am, sighing by myself Look what you’ve done, you’ve got my heart going crazy, oh

“I don’t need a pinpoint toss!” Tsukishima yells. “I’m not Hinata!”

Tobio is well aware of this fact, but he’s too proud to admit it, so he stands his ground, glaring at Tsukishima with a pout.

“Just –” Tsukishima growls, and Tobio notices his fists clenching at his side. “Just fucking toss it to me the way I keep telling you!”

“I know you keep telling me, because you won’t stop screaming in my ear about it!”

“Because it’s the only way you’d ever listen, genius!”

“Hey! Quit it!” Tobio whips his head around to see Tanaka-san yelling at them and stomping over. He tries pushing the two of them apart, but Tobio strains against his senpai’s palm, chest puffing out. He notices that Tsukishima does the same, and Tobio bares his teeth in a snarl.

Baby baby baby baby baby You play me play me play me play me play me

They always get like this: in each other’s faces if they ever want to make any progress. It’s different than when Tobio argues with Shouyou. With Shouyou, their bickering is more settled, now an almost comfortable banter about dumb things all the time. But with Tsukishima, Tobio is always on his toes, ready to push back at Tsukishima’s quick wit. Sometimes, their conversations can even be playful.

Unfortunately, in this case it means they’re chewing each other out in the middle of a match.

“I said quit it!”

The angry tone in Tanaka’s voice forces them to pause. That, and the vice-captain’s fists clenching into their uniforms.

“Keep it off the court or you’ll be benched for the rest of the season,” he warns in a low voice.

Tobio looks back at Tsukishima, who frowns at him before glaring away.

“Fine.”

They all reposition themselves on the court. Wakatani serves the ball, and Nishinoya easily receives it, volleying it to Tobio with precision. Tobio calculates the odds in the split second the ball soars in the air.

He frowns; he hates when Tsukishima’s right. He takes one look at the shithead, who answers with a nod.

Tobio sets the ball high, arching just behind the net. Tsukishima easily spikes the ball at an angle, and the crowd roars when the ref calls it as in.

“See?” Tsukishima says in a sweet, deeply sarcastic voice. “That wasn’t so bad now, was it?”

“Piss off.”

Tobio walks away, but while he does sneaks a glance at Tsukishima. He has a triumphant smirk plastered across his face, but instead of supreme annoyance Tobio feels a flicker of fondness.

He brushes off the blush creeping up his cheeks as exhaustion from the game.

Your sparkling gaze has me so dizzy My calm and collected intuition’s nowhere to be found, oh

Later that very game, Tobio notices it again. It’s a tight match against Wakutani, but Karasuno pulls through with a 28-26 win. They use the quick that Tobio begrudgingly agrees to, hollering with his senpai when it lands in Wakatani’s court for Karasuno’s winning point.

Tobio gives Tanaka-san a double high-five, then he looks at Tsukishima, who wears a pleased grin on his face, eyes alight with satisfaction.

“Yo,” Tobio says, offering a raised palm.

Tsukishima’s smile drops, but he lifts a hand to match Tobio’s.

Baby baby baby baby baby You crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy

Tobio hits Tsukishima’s hand with a satisfying smack! and when their sweaty palms meet Tobio feels an electrifying shock. He almost gasps, but manages to rein in it when their hands separate.

Tsukishima moves on to high-five Yamaguchi, leaving Tobio to stare at his open palm with confusion.

They’re all in the clubroom dressing back into their school uniforms, except Shouyou’s already finished changing and heading towards the door.

“I’m really sorry!” Shouyou whines. “Really, Tobio, we’ll go together next time, I promise!”

Standing in front of his cubby, Tobio rolls his eyes, waving his boyfriend away. “Yeah, sure, just go get your sister now.”

Shouyou gives him another distressed look but nods nonetheless. He pecks Tobio on the cheek before yelling goodbye to everyone and running out the clubroom. After Shouyou leaves, the other members begin to file out in groups, leaving Tobio and Tsukishima left to lock up as per the third year’s orders.

I’m like a mannequin Just looking at you turns me into a cringe-y mess

Tobio sneaks a peek at Tsukishima standing in front of his own cubby, clad only in his tank top and black uniform pants. He’s even taller than he was last year, his gangly frame now more toned with wiry muscle. When he lifts his arms to slip on his pullover, the tank top bares a strip of milky pale skin just above his hips. Tobio immediately averts his eyes back to his belongings.

They continue to change their clothes in silence. Tobio is normally fine with saying nothing, used to Shouyou’s loud voice filling the space so he and Hitoka don’t have to. For some reason though, he doesn’t like the silence between him and Tsukishima, and feels compelled to say something.

He purses his lips, considering his options. He tries to think of how Shouyou flirts with him, how Hitoka approaches him, if there’s any way he can possibly emulate them to extend some sort of olive branch. He comes up empty except for the one thing he hates doing: complimenting Tsukishima.

No one can stop me From dancing with awkward steps

“Y-you did good today,” he mumbles. He says it so softly he almost hopes that Tsukishima doesn’t hear him.

“What was that?”

Tobio closes his eyes, gently leaning his forehead against the cubby shelf in front of him. He clears his throat when he looks up to meet the other boy’s gaze.

“I said, ‘You did good today.’”

Sometimes, it’s difficult to tell what Tsukishima’s thinking, but now Tobio can see every emotion that passes through his face: shock, doubt, annoyance, the tiniest bit of joy, more shock.

Eventually it settles into its usual smirk. “Well,” Tsukishima croons, putting his hands on his hips, “the King himself is offering me a compliment. What, is it going to snow today too?”

Tobio glares at him, completely regretting everything. He turns back to his cubby with a huff.

“Whatever,” he grumbles. “Forget I said anything.”

Tsukishima chuckles. Tobio thinks he’s going to tease him more about being a “king” in that asshole-way he loves doing, but instead he’s met with silence. This time, Tobio doesn’t bother trying to fill it.

It’s not until the two of them exit the clubroom together, Tsukishima dutifully locking the door, that he whispers, “You too.”

He and Tsukishima are the only ones who show up in the library to study one afternoon. Normally all five of them would be together—often to tutor both him and Shouyou—but Yamaguchi apparently had to help Ennoshita-san with something, and Hitoka and Shouyou are nowhere to be found.

If Tobio had to guess, he thinks his partners are making out in some secluded, dusty corner; he has no idea if they’ll actually show up.

He doesn’t realize he sighs out loud at the thought until Tsukishima says, “What now?”

“Nothing,” he grumbles, scratching down random numbers onto his worksheet.

After a beat, Tsukishima says, “That’s wrong.”

Tobio glares up at him. “What?”

Tsukishima starts going off on a monotone rant about how he’s not going to give Tobio the answer, that Tobio should learn the material himself or else he’s not going to pass his classes again. Tobio hears none of it because he finds himself especially distracted by the way the sunlight filters through the library windows, casting Tsukishima in a partial glow. He looks back down at his homework, narrowing his eyes even more in hopes that his embarrassment doesn’t show.

I can’t help My stiff facial expressions Or the way I walk

When Tsukishima eventually finishes, Tobio huffs. “Whatever.”

Tsukishima rolls his eyes, dragging his chair closer to Tobio’s and coming into his space. Tobio, for some reason, is too stunned to stop it from happening.

“I am not going to do your homework,” Tsukishima says defiantly, “but if we’re the only two people showing up today you should at least get somethingthrough that thick skull of yours.”

Tobio can’t even bark out an annoyed reply because Tsukishima starts leaning over his worksheet. He’s so close that Tobio can feel the other boy’s body heat. He starts to write what looks like complete gibberish, none of which Tobio follows because his heart starts to race like he’s in the middle of a really good volleyball match.

Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb

It’s really weird, to say the least, feeling like this around Tsukishima. Tobio doesn’t know what to make of it so he just continues to glare at Tsukishima’s pencil dancing across his worksheet.

Then he starts to explain what he did, his voice low and somewhat soothing, and Tobio tries to relax because he really should be focusing on his homework.

Somehow, after a particularly calm and understandable explanation, Tobio begins making his way through his problem set.

The drum of my heart The giddy mood I’m in They’re already out of my control

An hour later, Tobio slams his pencil onto the table with a thunk!, raising his math sheet in the air like a trophy.

“I did it!” he says triumphantly, pushing out of his seat to stand up.

Somewhere in the distance, someone shushes him, and he blushes, taking a seat once more.

“Not yet,” Tsukishima deadpans and absolutely ruining his moment.

His hand reaches out for Tobio’s worksheet, and Tobio mumbles death threats under his breath before passing his homework to Tsukishima for corrections. He follows Tsukishima’s eyes rapidly running down the worksheet, and before long he looks up at him with a single brow raised.

“Well?”

Tsukishima hands his homework back. “Not bad, King, you finally did good for once.”

Tobio looks at him with a smug grin, chest puffing out with pride. He’s about to say something when Tsukishima cracks the tiniest of smiles.

Not a smirk either. An actual, genuine smile.

And it’s directed at Tobio.

Tobio’s brain wipes out for the rest of the tutoring session. He barely notices when Hitoka and Shouyou eventually show up dishevelled and unkempt, matching blushes on their cheeks, because he’s too busy thinking about the way Tsukishima smiled at him.

Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb...

The rest of his homework doesn’t get completed that afternoon.

Tobio twists his ankle funny during a practice match against Date Tech. It’s not bad enough to do any lasting damage, but he’s out for the remainder of the match. He’s left to pout on the bench with an icepack Hitoka hands him, their back up first-year setter subbed into the game. The kid’s not bad, Tobio knows, he just rather it’s him on the court making the plays.

He claps his hands twice, calling out Don’t mind! when the gigantic middle blocker (Aone-san, Tobio vaguely remembers) slams a spike in. The teams reset positions for Date Tech’s serve to some first-year Tobio doesn’t know the name of.

The serve messes up, hitting the top of the net, but Nishinoya-san manages to dive for the ball, saving it with his fingertips. The ball flies up at a weird angle towards Tanaka, leaving him no choice but to pass it poorly to Tsukishima.

I dream about romance movies But you have me on the edge of my seat, oh

Tobio expects Tsuksihima to bump the ball over the net, maybe hope that their opponent won’t try to pull any fast plays. Instead, he watches Tsukishima run up, sprinting towards the ball with what looks to be a hard swing. Tobio frowns, glaring at the court—it’s a shit pass (no offense to Tanaka-san), so he has no idea why Tsukishima would bother trying to spike the ball. Date Tech immediately backs up at Tsukishima’s run, calling out to watch for a hard receive.

What is this idiot doing? Tobio wonders.

Tsukishima jumps, arm swinging with rapid speed, only for his palm to lightly tap the volleyball.

“Feint!” someone shouts, but it’s too late. The libero misses the ball.

Baby baby baby baby baby You make me crazy crazy crazy crazy, yeah

“NICE KILL, TSUKISHIMA!” everyone around him begins to yell, and despite himself Tobio hollers the praise along with his teammates.

Tsukishima catches his eye at Tobio’s cheers, flashing the tiniest smile, and he blushes. Before he knows it, the game restarts, ball passed to Hinata for his serve.

Tobio repositions himself on the bench once the next play begins. He didn’t even notice that he got out of his seat.

I’m like a mannequin Just looking at you turns me into a cringe-y mess No one can stop me From dancing with awkward steps

It’s infuriating, really, how stupid Tobio feels.

Tsukishima is the most annoying person he knows. He might be even more annoying than Shouyou, which is terrifying on a whole different level.

You make me crazy Hold on a sec, I wasn’t expecting this Things have been happening so fast since the day I met you

Tsukishima makes him feel exceptionally stupid; he cannot go a day without provoking him somehow; and he literally looks down on him with every centimetre he has over Tobio.

Which is why Tobio is beyond frustrated with himself over his obviously growing crush. It’s the same way he felt—feels—about Shouyou, about Hitoka. He doesn’t know how he got into this ridiculous position, liking another one of his teammates.

You see right through me, ready to start at a moment’s notice Don’t know why I can’t read the vibe The border’s so unclear

“Oi, Your Highness,” Tsukishima calls after him, and Tobio’s heart flutters at Tsukishima’s voice. He hates this so much.

He takes a breath, looking over his shoulder to meet Tsukishima’s gaze. When their eyes meet, he can’t find any words to reply, somehow dumbstruck at how stupidly attractive Tsukishima looks when the light outside envelops him in a soft halo.

“Fine,” he snaps, pulling Tobio out of his thoughts, “don’t talk to me, but practice starts in five.” He leaves with the club door slamming shut behind him.

Tobio drops his head.

He doesn’t know how he’ll survive this.

I had my hopes up but you just keep teasing me Boy, you can’t feel me I’m here next to you hesitating at your smile And before I know it, I lose control

Practice goes by unbearably slow. Tobio is beyond relieved that he doesn’t make a fool out of himself by the time everyone breaks for free practice. He claims the net for himself so he can practice aiming while he sets.

Hitoka passes him a bunch of empty bottles when he asks for them, and after she sets them aside she leans up with her lips puckered. He meets her halfway and bends down for her to reach his cheek despite the fact he’s blushing hard. Receiving affection from both his partners is still weird for him, but it makes them happy, and he likes when they’re happy, so Tobio tries his best to let them dote on him.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, still flushed red.

Hitoka smiles at him in reply before walking away.

Tobio lines up the bottles by the net with practiced ease, and when he stands up he finds his girlfriend talking to Tsukishima at the sidelines. Hitoka easily catches his eyes and beams at him. Tsukishima just looks on with a straight face.

Then, it slowly morphs into his signature smirk.

Tobio wants to kiss the look right off his face.

That was when I went numb You’ll be my sweet love

His teammates continue to beam at him like twin suns illuminating a clear sky. Tobio turns away before he does something embarrassing like trip over the bottles he just lined up.

Shouyou and Yamaguchi are still in the baths, but Tsukishima is already in bed, fiddling with his phone with his headphones on.

Their sleeping mats are next to each other for training camp, and Tobio wants to die. He can easily ask Shouyou to switch places with him, but his idiot boyfriend is as bad as he is at picking up cues and will probably make a big scene asking why. Tobio can’t handle that tonight.

Never apart, whether we’re asleep or awake Walking a fine line between loving and hating you

He sucks up his anguish with a deep breath. He lies down, fluffing his pillow with a hard fist before tucking himself underneath his blanket. He pointedly turns his back to Tsukishima behind him when he pulls the covers up to his chin. Once he’s comfortable, he squeezes his eyes shut, trying to calm his racing heartbeat.

“Good night to you too, King,” Tsukishima says, but the pet name carries none of its usual malice or annoyance. He mumbles it so quietly that Tobio almost misses it.

I stand on my tiptoes with all my might But you treat me like a little kid again, oh

Almost. He smiles.

“Good night.”

I’m just like a robot Rigid because I need some oil My body won’t move It’s almost like I’ve forgotten how to breathe

Everyday, the five of them have lunch together. Tobio and Shouyou usually wait for Hitoka outside of her class, then the three of them meet Tsukishima and Yamaguchi in their class since they can push their desks together.

Tobio lets his partners know he’s running late, telling them not to wait and that he’ll meet up later. He checks the time on his phone, and when he realizes he doesn’t want to waste more time, he goes into a brisk walk down the hallway.

Unfortunately (or not), for some reason Tsukishima is there too.

He catches the unmistakable backside of an unfairly tall blond, ears covered by trademark white headphones.

Tobio knows he often doesn’t have time alone with Tsukishima, and because his crush is clearly here to stay, he sucks in a deep breath and catches up to him.

“Tsukishima!” he calls, jogging to his side.

Tsukishima turns to look at him with ever-judgemental eyes, but he pulls back his headphones, resting them on his neck.

“What do you want?”

Tobio frowns, glaring up at him. “I just wanted to walk next to you—is that illegal?”

Tsukishima rolls his eyes, not offering anything more. Tobio grunts, looking away. This was a stupid idea, he realizes.

“Well, what are you late for?” Tsukishima asks once they’re halfway to the classroom.

Tobio holds back a gasp, coolly answering, “Had to stay behind to talk to sensei.”

“About what?” Tsukishima furrows his brows at him. “You’re doing fine in your classes aren’t you? Or else all our tutoring is a waste.”

Tobio rolls his eyes. “I just had a question about the assignment, douchebag. I'm not failing.”

Tsukishima scoffs a laugh. “And isn’t that just a miracle?”

“Asshole.”

“Get better insults.”

“Maybe once you have better receives.”

“Shut up.”

They go back and forth in comfortable banter all the way to Tsukishima’s class, where their respective partners are waiting for them at their usual spot. Hitoka spots them first, waving them over.

“Tsukishima-kun! Tobio-kun!” she calls. “Over here!”

Tobio is a little sad to have their alone time end so soon. He slides into his seat with an internal sigh.

Usually, Shouyou and Hitoka like to sit next to each other; Tobio is fine sitting next to Yamaguchi opposite them; and Tsukishima takes the end seat at the short side of the tables. Today though, Tobio is pleasantly surprised when Tsukishima takes the seat next to him, making Yamaguchi scoot to the end where he normally sits.

I can’t help My stiff facial expressions Or the way I walk Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb

The other three give them knowing looks, but neither he nor Tsukishima say anything.

Tobio eats his bento with a blush on high on his cheeks.

Shouyou tells him to stop messing around with Tsukishima and ask him out already, so Tobio worries for almost a week trying to figure out how to confess to him.

Turns out it’s a waste because Yamaguchi and Tsukishima corner him after practice one day.

No one else is in the gym, aside from Hitoka and Shouyou discussing something at the entrance, and Tobio glares at his two teammates before him.

The drum of my heart The giddy mood I’m in They’re already out of my control Dumb dumb dumb dumb

“What?” he demands.

After a painful silence, Yamaguchi elbows Tsukishima in the side.

“Ow, Yamaguchi!”

“Not sorry, Tsukki,” he says. “Now tell Kageyama what you told me.”

Tsukishima glares at him. “You’re the worst boyfriend.”

“I am the best boyfriend,” Yamaguchi clarifies, “and you are avoiding the subject.”

The two of them return their attention back to Tobio with eerie coordination.

“You’re-you’re not that bad,” Tsukishima finally mutters, looking Tobio in the eyes. A blush blooms high on his cheeks.

Tobio frowns. What the hell is that supposed to mean?

“So?” He crosses his arms; he doesn’t have all day for this.

“He’s trying to say that he likes you,” Yamaguchi supplies with a grin.

Tobio’s stomach flips. “Oh.”

When he doesn’t add anything else, Tsukishima glares at him. “Is that all you’re going to say?”

“Well, yeah.” Tobio glares back. It’s not like Tsukishima said he liked him—Yamaguchi was the one to translate things for Tobio, so what could he possibly reply?

Tsukishima rolls his eyes. “Jeez, you suck at rejecting people.”

“And you suck at confessing.” He frowns, lip jutting out. “Besides, who said I was rejecting you?” He tilts his chin up defiantly, unfolding his arms to rest his hands on his hips.

Tsukishima rolls his eyes again. “Can you maybe not be a vague idiot?”

“Maybe you can learn to speak like a normal person.”

“That’s rich coming from you, Mr. I-Almost-Failed-English-Again.”

“Shut up, asshole!”

Tsukishima scoffs. “Maybe I should take my confession back.”

Tobio growls. “Was it even a confession? Yamaguchi was the one to say it for you.”

“Jeez, shut up and kiss already!”

Tobio doesn’t register Shouyou shouting because someone pushes him onto Tsukishima, and someone else pushes Tsukishima onto him, then they tumble into each other and their mouths meet in an awkward liplock.

Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb Dumb dumb dumb dumb...

They both gasp, eyes wide at the kiss, and Tobio immediately pushes himself away.

“Shit, sorry, I –”

Tobio doesn’t finish his sentence because Tsukishima cuts him off with another kiss—more purposeful, even softer. This time, Tobio sinks into it, eyes fluttering closed.

They break apart when Shouyou yells, “Finally!”

Tobio whips around to scowl at him. “Dumbass! Did you push me onto him?”

Shouyou’s responding laughter when he runs away is all the answer Tobio needs. He’s about to pummel his boyfriend into next week when Tsukishima grabs his hand.

“So.”

“So?”

Tsukishima looks away from Tobio’s gaze to sheepishly stare at their joined hands. Tsukishima’s other hand scratches at his neck. It’s almost unbelievable how cute Tobio finds that.

“Are we dating or not?” he finally asks.

Tobio steps into his space, pressing his chest against Tsukishima’s. When the other boy finally looks at him he leans up to press their lips together.

“Yeah,” he whispers, “we’re dating.”

They break apart again because Yamaguchi starts cheering. Tsukishima doesn’t say a word before hunting down his freckled boyfriend, and Tobio smiles after them before sprinting away to teach his own idiot a lesson.

Baby, dumb I must be... oh!

#kagetsukki #kagetsuki #tsukikage #tsukkikage #haikyuu #haikyuu!!#hq!!#kagehinayachi #tsukkiyama #yamatsukki #kagehinatsukkiyamayachi #Karasuno #nanowrimo 2018 #week 2 #writing convention #songfic #slash #jercy's fic tag

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those70scomics · 5 years

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Links to the Rest of the Story: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Outline for the End

Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC.

CHAPTER FIVE THE CIRCLE

“Honey,” Eric's mom said at the kitchen table, “what kind of food does Donna like?” Eric was halfway through his breakfast, pancakes slathered in maple syrup. He gulped down some orange juice, in preparation to give his mom a thorough answer, but his dad spoke first: “How's the boy supposed to know that? He's barely met the girl.” “I just though he'd seen what she'd eaten at lunch. Eric, you have been sitting at lunch with her, haven't you?” “Oh, yeah,” Eric said, and it wasn't a complete lie. He'd eaten lunch with her once in this life but thousands of times in his other one. “Chicken Parmesan's her favorite meal. She, uh … she told me. She also loves strawberries.” Mom smiled, and her blue eyes crinkled. “Thank you, sweetie. I'm going grocery shopping for our dinner this Saturday. I want to make sure Donna's comfortable. Her father looks like he'll eat anything, and Midge—” She twirled a finger around her temple. “She probably won't notice what she's eating.” “What you're mother's trying to say, Eric,” Red said and turned the page of his newspaper, “is that the neighbor girl's mom is a ditz.” “Red, I did not say that.” She nodded at Eric and mouthed, “That's exactly what I'm saying.”

Eric ate a bite of pancakes, and the syrup tasted sweeter than before. Even if he wasted today and tomorrow, that dinner would give him and Donna a real chance to bond. All he had to do was not alienate her further. But Coach Ferguson alienated him during gym. It was the first class of the day. Twenty-five minutes in, and Eric's second greatest wish was never to see a soccer ball again. He'd been made goalie of his team for some incomprehensible reason. The soccer ball sailed past him one too many times, and the more athletic students on his team converged on him. “Hey, quit it!” Kelso said and moved in front of Eric. “He may be a lousy goalie, but he's got it up here.” Kelso pointed to his head. “He knows stuff. Spooky stuff.” “Either take his place, Smells-so,” Kevin Oakridge shouted, “or get outta the way!” “Fine!” Kelso turned around and patted Eric on the shoulder. “Take my position. I got you covered.” Eric left the orange cones that served as goal posts. He had trouble believing what had just happened, but when he glanced back at Kelso, Kelso gave him a thumbs-up. Several minutes later, Eric blocked a kick from Fez, who was on the opposing team. The ball slammed into Eric's stomach, and he grunted. Fez had put all his strength into the shot, as if he were aiming for Eric's beanbags and not the goal. “Fez,” Eric said as Kevin took control of the ball, but Fez sprinted to another part of the gym. Gym ended, as always, with Eric covered in sweat. He had a few short minutes to towel off and change from his gym clothes. By the time he was finished, Kelso and Fez were both gone from locker room. No chance to ask them questions. During homeroom, Eric found Hyde but no answers. “Have no clue what's going on in Kelso's skull.” Hyde said. “You got history class with him next. Find out.” Eric planned on doing just that, but his shoulders stiffened as Mrs. Bridges went through the school announcements. “How did you know I have history?” Hyde's attention was on Mrs. Bridges, and he gestured for Eric to be quiet. “You're such a teacher's pet,” Eric said. “Get bent, Forman.” But Hyde seemed more annoyed than pissed, and he walked with Eric to the hallway after homeroom. “Donna's got history,” he said. Eric’s stomach hollowed out. Hyde had memorized Donna's schedule, just as Eric had done in his other life. Hyde wanted her, just as Eric did. Only, in this life, Hyde had a much better chance with her.

Eric entered history class unsure of where to sit. Donna and Kelso were already at their usual desks, with Pam Macy sitting beside Kelso. But as Eric passed by their aisle, Kelso shouted, “You!” Eric braced himself for an attack. Kelso's friendly attitude in gym class must’ve been an anomaly — or a setup — but the attack never came. “Why're you just standing there?” Kelso said and slapped Donna's desk. “Sit down.” Eric looked at Donna questioningly, but she offered him no assurances. She had her pencil out and wrote in her notebook. Kelso slapped her desk again. “Move down a seat, Donna.” She continued writing. “Knock it off, dillhole” . “Move down a seat.” Kelso shut her notebook. “Me and Eric have to talk.” She glared at him. “What?” “Kelso, leave her alone,” Eric said. “I'll go somewhere else—” “No, I'll go.” She picked up her notebook and backpack and left the aisle completely. Eric's instinct was to grab her arm and tell her to wait, but he took her desk instead. Kelso leaned in close to him and whispered, “I gotta thank you.” He hiked his thumb at Pam Macy. “Me and Pam didn't stop at making out yesterday.” “That's … fantastic, Kelso.” Eric tore a page from his notebook and began turning it into a paper football. “So why, exactly, are you thanking me?” “Because you know me better than myself. I can't be tied down to one woman, and Pam's totally cool about me fooling around with other chicks. That was your plan all along, to free me from monogamy.” Eric ripped his piece of paper in half. “Sure.” Kelso wagged a finger in Eric's face. “I see your plan now. You're here to make all our lives better, like some kind of genie. The Genie of Janesville.” Eric didn't argue. If Kelso thought Eric was supernatural, so be it. Better than having to fend off Kelso's fists everyday. “So who're you gonna help next?” Kelso said. “Hyde?” “Who knows?” Eric was folding his strip of paper into triangles. “But no hard feelings about Jackie?” “No way. She would've told me not to fool around with other girls, and Pam—” Kelso's next word was garbled. His body jerked back, and Eric spotted the cause. Pam Macy's arm was under Kelso's desk, and a smirk glided over her lips. Eric focused on finishing his paper football. Donna didn't know how lucky she was he'd taken her desk. Mr. Wilcox arrived to class late but not late enough for Kelso. Pam withdrew her hand from him, and Kelso shrieked. He pushed himself from the desk and fled the classroom, no doubt to finish Pam’s work in the bathroom. Mr. Wilcox cleared his throat and continued the week's lesson the Cold War. Kelso's absence had to be on his mind. Class disruptions were more than a pet peeve to him. He took them as a personal affront, which was why Eric behaved himself during class. Getting a detention in this life would interfere with his other life, depriving him of a precious hour to win Donna back. “People aren't property,” Mr. Wilcox said when Kelso eventually returned. “But in communist societies, everyone is treated as a slave — and you, Mr. Kelso, will see me after class.” “But I see you now,” Kelso said. “After class, Mr. Kelso.” “Fine!” Class continued with Kelso scrawling angry notes. Eric glanced at Kelso's notebook, afraid that Kelso blamed him for his trouble, but Kelso wrote about experiencing his own Cold War because of Mr. Wilcox. Eric didn't leave his desk when the bell rang. He had study hall with Donna next, with Mrs. Fletcher supervising. It would be a prime talking opportunity, but he needed to give Donna space. She had to see he wouldn't pen her in, and letting her walk the halls without him stepping on her heels was a good start. Kelso sneaked behind Pam on his way out of the row, but Mr. Wilcox called him to the front of the classroom. “I had a bathroom emergency!” Kelso shouted after a minute-and-a-half, and that was Eric's signal to leave. He strolled out of the classroom, walking slowly to give Donna even more time. If he bumped into her in the stairwell or hallway, that was fate's fault, not his. But he got to study hall without seeing her, and her red hair was like a signal fire. He found her easily among the other students already seated. The tables were full of yammering guys and chattering girls, including Jackie and her cheer-squad friends. Donna had taken a table in the corner and seemed to be actually studying. Eric curled his fingers into his palms. His hands weren't sweaty yet, but his heart beat loudly in his ears. Donna's affect on him was as frustrating as it was necessary. In his other life, those few hours without her had turned him into a breathing corpse. Having to live a lifetime without her wasn't a prospect he'd consider. “Can I sit at the table with you?” he said by her shoulder, and her head dropped to her chest, like he was intolerable to her. “I don't mean next to you.” He gestured to the other end of the table. “I'll sit over there, but I figured I'd ask your permission since you think I'm — well, since you don't like me very much.” Her head rose with a sigh. “It’s a free country.” He went to the end of the table and sat down. His blood thrummed with his pulse, with his small victory. She hadn't rejected him. She hadn't pushed him away, and he removed the triangular paper football from his backpack.

“Will you ever talk to me again?” he wrote on the football and flicked it across the table. His aim was perfect. The paper football landed on Donna's notebook, and every gaze at the table turned toward it, including Donna's.

Her hand glided over the football and pulled it closer. She must have read his message because her hair fell over her face, and she wrote on the football herself. The football sailed through the air a moment later and smacked Eric in the chin. “I haven't decided yet,” she'd written below his message. He ran his thumb over her round, feminine scrawl before writing, “I'm not an asshole.”

He tossed the paper football across the table. Hands not belonging to Donna reached for it, but they were too slow. Donna snatched the football from the table and wrote on it again. She threw it back to Eric, and her message said, “But you are creepy.” “And you're judgmental,” he wrote. “True,” her next message said. “Sorry.” “But I can see why you think I'm creepy,” he wrote and threw the paper football to her. It hit her arm; but she read his message, wrote below it, and tossed the football back. “How did you know?” her message said. The question was tiny but not illegible. That side of the paper football had run out of writing space, and he flipped it over to the other side. “I dove head-first into Kelso and Jackie's lives the first day I met them.” He chucked the football toward Donna, but someone grabbed it out of the air: Debbie Filipelli, an honors student and well-known gossip-monger. Donna stood from the table and moved menacingly toward her, and Debbie relinquished the football to Donna's custody. Donna took a moment to write her next message, and she hurled the paper football so hard it overshot the table. Eric had to get up to retrieve it. The power she put into her throw must’ve been for safety's sake, to prevent other people from getting the football. “No,” her message began. “I mean, how did you know Kelso was a cheater?” “Our first history class,” he wrote. “His eyes + Pam Macy's boobs. Simple math.” She smiled as she read his message, and he grinned at reading her next one: “So you're not a sociopath. You're just perceptive?” “Yes!” he wrote, and the tip of his pencil broke in his enthusiasm. He pulled a pen from his backpack and kept writing. “That's what I've been trying to tell you.” He'd drawn smiley-face beside the last word, but she didn't seem to appreciate his artwork or his message. She unfolded the football and refolded it, exposing a blank space to write.

“You're also a busy body,” her message said, “sticking your nose into other people's business.” “Was trying to help,” he wrote. She read his message looked over at Jackie, who was deep in conversation with her fellow cheerleaders. Jackie gestured wildly, and her voice carried but not enough for Eric to make out full sentences. Donna inhaled a heavy breath. Her shoulders drooped while she wrote, and she flicked the football back to Eric. She'd given him her longest response yet: “You probably did help Jackie, but I haven't made my mind up about you. You could still be a sociopath in a perceptive guy's body.” “Fair enough,” he wrote back, “but I promise you, Donna, I don't want anything from you other than friendship.” It was a lie. He wanted a lot more from her than friendship, but that was in his other life. In this one, all he wanted — needed — from her was a kiss. “Sociopaths lie to get what they really want,” her next message said. “Actions speak louder than words.” He turned the paper football around for a clear space to write in large letters, “What do you really want?” She read his message and stuck her pencil between her teeth. Her fingers drummed on the table, and her gaze drifted to the ceiling before writing him back. “For you not to be so damn creepy.” It was her last message to him. By the time he looked up from the football, she was on her way out of the study hall. He stuffed the paper football into his backpack. He and Donna hadn’t developed any trust between them yet, but at least she'd started to communicate with him.

But he still had plenty of work to do — and not just with her. He approached Jackie’s table, and six pairs of eyes turned toward him. They belonged to the cheer squad, and he found no kindness in them, only judgment. “Jackie,” he said, “it's time to settle up.” Jackie rose from her chair. “Not here,” she whispered and pointed to the center of the room. She strode ahead of him. He followed, but standing in the middle of all the tables made him feel exposed. Even Mrs. Fletcher glanced at him from her desk. “Can't we sit somewhere?” he said. She scoffed and clasped her hands behind her back. “Where people can't see exactly what we're doing? Please. Do you know how much damage control I had to do because of Timmy Wilson's big, fat mouth? I'm sorry, Derek, but...” She jutted out her bottom lip in what had to be false-sympathy. “You're just too skinny and weird for me to make-out with, despite that you're friends with Buddy Morgan.” “Okay, first of all, it's Eric, not Derek. Second...” A scathing burn surfaced in his mind, but she hadn't paid him yet. If he antagonized her, she could back out of their deal. “All I want from you is those tickets.” “What tickets?” He gaped at her. She couldn't have forgotten their bargain. She'd just referenced the gossipy fall-out from their negotiations. “To the Rundgren concert in Milwaukee!” “Oh.” She examined her nails, as if this conversation couldn't be more boring. “My dad left for a business trip this morning. He won't be back until Sunday night, so I can't get you any Todd Rundergament tickets.” She lookat at him again. “But I heard there's a Rush concert in two weeks. I could get you tickets for that.” He gripped the top of his hair, and his cheeks grew hot. “For the love of — I ask you to do one thing!” “Don't shout at me!” She swung her foot at him. It connected with his shin, and pain spread through his tibia. He doubled over with a grunt, and by the time he recovered, she was back at her table of cheerleaders.

Eric spent all of music class fantasizing about calling WFPP, winning the Rundgren tickets, and presenting them to Donna. He thought about it on his way to the cafeteria, about the kiss she'd give him as a reward. The angel didn't specify that the kiss be on Eric's lips. A kiss, freely given, to his cheek had to count just as much. “Gross” Edna — Hyde's mom — dropped a greasy hamburger onto Eric's tray. He grabbed a fistful of potato chips and scurried from her sight. She was known to bitch-out students if they didn't move fast enough. Eric went toward Buddy's table. The spot across from Buddy was unoccupied, but shouts of “Eric, over here!” and “Yo, Forman!” drew his attention. Kelso and Hyde were calling him to their table. This was new, and Eric grasped his tray hard enough to make his knuckles hurt. Fez was still in the lunch line, but his objections to Eric's presence would likely be ignored. Donna, though, was seated next to Hyde. She bit into a potato chip and stared at Eric, as if challenging him to sit across from her. She had no idea who she was messing with: a man with his future on the line. He changed directions and sat at her table. “So, any of you manage to bag tickets to the Rundgren concert?” he said before anyone else spoke. He had to act cool, as if Kelso and Hyde's invitation weren't a big deal. “'Cause I've had no luck.” “Been calling every night,” Hyde said. “Got through once — and was caller number eight.” “That sucks.” Eric bit into his hamburger. A mixture of grease and meat juice dribbled onto his chin, and he wiped it up with a napkin. A person had to be caller number thirteen to win tickets. “Timing is everything,” he said. “Too bad we don't have someone working there who could help us out.” Hyde angled his head toward the ceiling as he chewed his last bite of food. Eric recognized the look. Hyde was mulling over an idea. “While I'm against nepotism in any form,” he eventually said, “getting concert tickets could make me abandon my principles.” Kelso laughed. “Yeah. I'd abandon Principal Pridewell on the side of the road for Rundgren tickets.” “Principles,” Donna said, “not principals, you dink.” She picked up her hamburger but didn't bite into it. “Oh, man, I'd love to work for WFPP.” “And I'd love to work for Jackie,” Fez said. He'd arrived with a tray piled high with potato chips and sat beside Eric. “I'd be her assistant, and eventually she'd let me choose her outfits, and I'd be there while she got dressed—” “Fez, gross,” Donna said. “Could you at least try to be less skeevy?” Kelso thrust a potato chip in Fez's face. “If you go after Jackie, man, I'll shove one of these where the sun don't shine.” “Why would I care if you shove a potato chip in Sweden?” Fez snatched the chip from Kelso's fingers and ate it. “I mean it,” Kelso said. “Jackie's mine.” “But I thought you didn't want Jackie anymore,” Fez said. “Not if she's the only chick I can fool around with. But after I'm doing it with all the girls who don't care about stuff like that, I'll give Jackie a chance.” “But that could be years!” Kelso shrugged. “Thems the breaks, Fez.” Donna's nose wrinkled. “Give me a break. Kelso, Jackie can date whoever she wants, including Fez. You don't own her.” Eric instinct was to back her up. If they'd been in his other life, he would've done it without hesitation. But here, she might interpret his support as undermining her.

He kept his mouth shut, but Hyde said, “Hey, I don't want Fez dating Jackie either. We just got her out of our life, thanks to Forman.” “No, thanks to Kelso being a horny pig,” Donna said. “And, apparently, a self-entitled one.” “A self-en-what?” Kelso said. She put up her hand dismissively. “Never mind.” Fez put up his hand the same way examined it. “This feels powerful.” He held his hand steady and glared at both Kelso and Hyde in turn. “If I choose to pursue Jackie, that is my choice.” “But, Fez—” Kelso said. “My choice!” Fez put down his hand and continued to eat. “Whatever.” Hyde swiped a potato chip from Donna's tray. “Study sesh after school?” “Sure,” she said. Their easy interaction occupied Eric's mind through the rest of lunch. Donna's friendship with Hyde was impenetrable, inviolable. Trying to get between them would be a foolish endeavor. As much as the idea soured his stomach, he'd have to treat them as if they were two parts of a whole. Being on Hyde's good side had gotten him this far. If Eric concentrated on that, it might get him even farther.

OUTLINE MODE BEGINS

Chemistry class. Eric and Buddy continue the lab experiment from yesterday and write down the results.

Buddy Morgan says, “Things must have gone well yesterday because you sat with the redhead at lunch.”

Eric says yes and no. Donna thinks Eric's creepy, etc. And Jackie flaked out on giving Eric the Rundgren tickets. The bargains he's made here so far aren't panning out.

Buddy says that's too bad.

Buddy's a bit cold to Eric, and Eric wonders if it has to do with Eric not eating lunch with him.

Eric asks if Buddy wants to hang out with Eric after school. Eric says he plans on going to Donna's house, and there's no reason Buddy can't come, too. Buddy thanks him, smiling, but declines. He has plans of his own.

Eric leaves school concerned about his friendship with Buddy. He hopes he didn't lose it by not eating lunch with him one day. The Buddy in his other life isn't so sensitive or fickle. But in less than three days, this life's Buddy won’t be a concern for him anymore.

Eric cringes at that thought. It sounds so callous. Tomorrow, he’d make sure Buddy knows Eric really does appreciate him.

Eric also wants to make a peace offering to Donna and Hyde. So he buys pot from Leo at the Fotohut.

Afterward, Eric goes to Donna's with the pot in his backpack. Donna opens the front door, and Hyde's on the living room couch. His and Donna’s trig notebooks are open. They really are studying.

Eric shows them the bag of pot.

Hyde says, “Holy hell.”

Donna says, “Whoa.” Eric says, “And I've got the perfect place to smoke it.”

ERIC'S BASEMENT. Eric locks both basement doors, the one to the kitchen and the one to the outside. Donna comments on the creepiness of that, asks if Eric plans on getting them high them murdering them.

Hyde says Donna's paranoid, which Eric finds funny since Hyde's the paranoid one in Eric's other life.

Eric says it's just a safety precaution. If Eric's parents catch them down here, he's dead.

Donna says, “Some perfect place to smoke.”

Hyde tells Donna to lighten up on Eric.

DURING the circle, Eric tries to guide the conversation to women's rights. But Hyde's much better at talking about them than Eric is. Hyde, in Eric's other life, always was, too.

BY THE TIME the circle is over, Eric wonders why Donna was ever with Eric in his other life. Eric sucks, but he can do better. He prays to God that if he gets that kiss from Donna, he'll read all the Feminist books that exist.

The angel appears and says this is bargaining. “And didn't you say your bargains don't pan out?”

Eric says this whole situation is a bargain. The angel can't argue. Eric asks if he's doomed to failure. The angel says he's got a little more than three days left to figure that out.

#That 70s Show #That '70s Show #Eric Forman #Donna Pinciotti #Steven Hyde #Fanfic #One Difference: The Angel Offers Eric Another Choice #Fez #Michael Kelso #Jackie Burkhart #Eric x Donna #Eric and Donna #Buddy Morgan

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lickmeleclerc · 6 years

Text

| Last Virgin Standing | Chapter 1

AU: Highschool!Tom Holland Highschool!Harrison Osterfeild & OC!Valarie Black

Playlist: coming soon

Warnings: Cussing, mild mentions of sex

Summary: Tom Holland and Harrison Osterfeild are Lakewood High’s biggest rivals. They go head to head in anything and everything. They fight for football captain, chairman of the student union, the highest marks, you name it, they make it a competition. But one thing they’ve been tied in since junior year; how many girls’ V-cards they’ve happily cashed in. So what happens when Valarie Black starts senior year at Lakewood and just so happens to be the last virgin standing.

Teaser

“Now this school doesn’t require a uniform because there isn’t enough funds to pay for both school uniforms and soccer uniforms but maybe tomorrow you’ll consider something more...appropriate.” The headmistress scolds disapprovingly. Harrison overhears from around the corner as he has his back pressed against the bright yellow lockers that line the halls. He smiles wide, teeth clenched to hold back a laugh at the comment. He can only imagine what the new girl is wearing to have the headmistress bring it up, but then again she did act like she had a stick up her ass at all times and she desperately needs to get laid maybe then she’d lighten up, but until then she’d stick to harassing the students. Everyone already knew about this new girls arrival today the school hasn’t had a new student in ages and definitely never an American. “Thanks for the tip.” He hears the girl reply and can hear the annoyance in her voice. He’s tempted to peak around the corner and see her but holds himself back, she’s not worth getting caught skipping over. “Now your first lesson is this way.” The older woman directs and he hears the clacking of her heels heading his way. Quickly looking for an exit he takes large but soft strides on the tips of his toes across the hallway and slides between another locker and an open classroom door.

As Harrison checks if he’s discovered his eyes meet dark green ones, the kind of green like an emerald gem, they sparkled. And the headmistresses back facing him. He blinks in surprise and her eyes widen. He smirks and puts one finger to his lips to keep her quite. The headmaster moves to turn which will ultimately blow his cover and he scrunches his nose and goes to close his eyes in anticipation of the scene about to unravel. It wouldn’t be his first time getting caught for something he shouldn’t be doing but the shrill voice of the headmistress never arrives.

“Wa-wait!” The girl exclaims instead startling the headmistress and making Harrison snap his eyes open. “I-you you didn’t tell me where the restroom is! I really need to ya know...go?” Her sentence ends more like a question as she taps her head with her ring clad hand like she’d forgotten to ask before. Harrison finds himself again holding in a laugh because of this new girl. Not only did her nervous voice make him laugh but also the sentence that just left her plump lips. Harrison took a moment to look her over. Realizing why the headmaster made a comment about her attire. She was sporting a cropped sweatshirt and some leggings along with what looked like to him newly bought trainers. They’re so white it almost hurt Harrison’s eyes but what really caught his eye was the diamond stud that sparkled from her belly button. The many contrasts she had compared to the other girls that resided here intrigued him. “That wasn’t very appropriate Ms. Black. But it’s this way, come along.” The headmistress said and lead them away in the opposite direction from Harrison. Right before they rounded the next corner Valerie turned her head back quickly to see if she’d succeeded in her attempted rescue. Harrison found himself looking into those green eyes again. He mouthed a ‘thank you’ whole holding his hands together as if in prayer and sent a quick wink her way as he finished his escape through the defective emergency exit. Valerie put the pieces together after watching his actions and made a mental note about the broken emergency exit in hall B and continued following the uptight lady in front of her. But her mind still on the attractive escapee. After Valerie had finally rid herself of the headmistress’ company she has finally found herself outside the door of the appropriate class she takes a deep breath, the part of school everyone dreads. The first day introductions and especially the introduction she has to give, being the new girl and all that glory. The thought of finally getting to place the text book heavy bag off her shoulder and get to sit down willed her to turn the handle and push the wooden door open and walk in. But not before replaying in her mind how the headmistress responded to her outfit. Quickly, Valerie grabs her lucky yellow and black checkered flannel and slips it over her crop top still leaving it unbuttoned. The headmistress’ comment annoyed her, back in her old stomping grounds at Santa Monica High, Valerie regularly won best dressed of the week in the school’s newspaper and ranking top in her fashion and design elective course. But she didn’t want too much confrontation on the first day but she’s not one for conformity and if the headmistress kept making comments like today she began to think of snarky comebacks she could use on her. Finally pulling she pushed the door in and, as she expected over a dozen eyes turned and look at her. Feeling an odd sense of confidence she tilts her head up with confidence and returns their stares with a smile and forces her eyes to not fall to the floor. “Ah! Ms. Valerie Black I assume? Thank you for finally joining us today.” The young but balding teacher welcomed her and moved from his spot leaning on the front of his desk to the front of his class room ushering her to stand next to him. “Present now, but what can I say fashionably late is my forte.” Valerie shot back to his snide comment of her timing. He let out a huff mixed with a laugh and Valerie had a feeling she and him would get along over this school years time span. “Wittiness seems to be too, that’ll be helpful in this class. Well class welcome Valarie.” He instructed all that was heard was a chorus of off timed “hi Valarie.” She held a tight smile and looked over the room. Her eyes landed on a curly headed brown eyed boy. He was leaning forward in his chair chin rested on his palm and finger running over his lips absentmindedly. Obviously that was more important than greeting her. He was looking back at her probably taking in her ‘inappropriate’ outfit. She would roll her eyes at him but if she kept doing that her false lashes would surely come loose and she had enough trouble putting them on this morning. “I’m Mr. Clark your creative writing teacher for the year. And I’ll save you from the awkward ‘tell us about yourself,’we can do that tomorrow just settle in first.” The man next to her introduces himself and sticks out a sweaty palm to shake her hand. Valerie mumbles a thank you and he nods in reply. After doing so he continues “you’ll be sitting next to Eleanor, Eleanor please raise your hand.” He instructs and a girl with blonde pixie cut and freckles that are sprinkled across the bridge of her nose sticks a pale thin arm in the air. Valerie walks toward the girl and drops her bag with a thud before taking a seat, a seat that just so happens to be directly in front of curly haired brunette. “Hey” Eleanor offers a half smile to her and Valerie returns it. “So catch me up, what’d I miss?” She asks and looks down at what’s placed in front of Eleanor on the desk they now share. “Our first assignment, we have to write a children’s short story.” The girl explains and slides the paper in between them so they can both read over it. “It’s our brain storming time. Do you need some paper? A pencil?” She offer and goes to grab the items “No, no thank you. I have stuff.” Valerie refuses and grabs a notebook from the bag that’s covered in magazine cut outs and pictures of her and her friends. Eleanor eyes it in awe and looks down at her plain composition book and quickly opens it to a blank page. “Pardon me darlin’” Valerie hears behind her accompanied by a tap on her left shoulder and it halts her pens movements on the page as she turns, too quickly at that and her long ponytail flips around and whips her in the face. A wave of embarrassment sets in heating her cheeks up thankfully her darker skin tone doesn’t let it stick out like a sore thumb. The boy smiles and Valarie can’t help but smile back at him something about that smile got to her. “I just wanted to introduce myself, I’m Tom.” He finishes still smiling at her. “Nice to meet you Tom, and you already know my name, or did you forget?” She feels a corner of her mouth pulling up into a half smile at her comment. “Witty indeed you are Valerie.” He replies and smirks squinting his eyes a bit and again leaning on his hand as he had been when she first laid eyes on him. His facial expression isn’t anything less than sexy and how his muscles are flexed from his sitting position and the light material of his shirt doesn’t hide them but Tom very well knew that. Valarie feels almost flustered but remains her composure. “Okay pretty boy stop distracting me.” As the words leave her mouth and register in Toms mind he sits up and opens his mouth in shock before it stretches to a smile, he grabs his chest like he’s hurt and Valerie chuckles quietly in reaction to his actions. “Pretty boy?” The way those two words roll of his tongue mixed with his English accent emits another giggle from Valerie's lips. “You know I just met you and you’ve hurt my feelings, you’ll have to make that up to me darlin.” He says, this time Tom isn’t intentionally being a cocky asshole Valerie actually made him laugh within the first few minutes of meeting her and he’s honestly interested in her. Maybe more so since she could be the answer in beating his rival Harrison but if not maybe she could be the answer to something else missing in his life. Tom would never admit to anyone he’s secretly a hopeless romantic but based upon his actions with girls nobody would believe him anyways. Maybe because of how he treats girls he even has trouble admitting that himself but how his romantic thoughts can wonder. “We’ll see about that darlin.” Valerie replies and ends the conversation by turning back to her work. Again a sigh of laughter leaves Tom’s lips as he rolls his eyes and smirks at the back of her tight high ponytail, her black hair shines in the classroom lighting and if Tom were closer he could probably smell her mango conditioner. “Would you like to have lunch with my friends and I?” Eleanor asks out of the blue once she’s finished writing her rough draft. Valerie smiles wide thankful for the offer. “Yes please. Thank you, you’re saving me from the awkward new girl lunch scene.” She answers her new friend. Eleanor nods and laughs with her. “I’m glad you accepted, you’ll love my friends!” She adds proudly. Valarie appreciated her offer and the fact a wide smile was on her face while doing so and she believed it was genuine. And even though Eleanor’s offer was partly genuine there are arterial motives behind her kindness. During the break between lessons she met up with her other friends and filled them in. “Do you think she’ll go along with it?” The blonde asked her two friends looking between them. The period right before lunch they all shared making it a convenient time to discuss. “I don’t think it should be brought up right away.” One girl spoke as she moved the thick black frames up on the bridge of her nose. Eleanor nodded and made sure to keep that in mind. She had the tendency to not think before she spoke. “We should invite her to the party tomorrow night.” The last girl of the group spoke. She’d taken time to think of a few different ideas to help in her head. “This won’t work if just invite her for lunch and then bring it up, we need to actually have her think we’re her friends and then it’ll seem like she’s doing us a favor in a sense. And it’ll give us time to get to know her before.” She finishes as she twists the small ring on her middle finger, a nervous tick she acquired once she was gifted it. “Lily. I love your brain.” Eleanor laughs as they all agree to go with her plan of action. “Let’s just hope it works.” She responds and tries to invision all the ways it could come crashing down. As the bell rings and they pack up their textbooks and walk in a row, Eleanor in the middle, towards the mess hall. Fiona adjusts her glasses again feeling giddy to meet the American. As Eleanor eyes land on her she takes a breath in preparation to call her name but before she does a tall boys steps in front of Valarie, a boy Eleanor is all too familiar with. A boy who is charming and gentlemanly. A boy that when you run your fingers through his soft hair as he laid on your chest would pull you closer to him. A boy who seemed too good to be true and in fact was just that. While each girl looks at the new girl, Valerie is face to face with a familiar one. Eleanor halts her steps and grabs her two friends by their forearms halting their actions aswell. “Wait.” She says and looks on at the scene unfolding. She felt odd in a way watching them interact. An emotion that is mixed with too many others to define a name for it. “That’s her?” Fiona asks for confirmation and can’t help but look at awe. It’s not like Valerie is a celebrity in their eyes, she’s just so unlike the fellow students here, so unlike herself she can’t help but be intrigued. “Fancy seeing you here.” She laughs and goes to pass him. As much as she’d enjoy talking to an attractive boy and as thankful as she is that her new school even harbors hot guys from what she’s seen. Her thoughts are now on food and giving her mind a break. The curriculum here is very different and goes at a faster pace than what she’s use too. The boy takes a step back to stay in front of her holding a hand up to keep her focused on him. He smiles at her before he answers, maybe in reply to her greeting or maybe the way she smiled when she said it or how her American accent is something he could get use too. “Well that’s no way to treat someone who was going to invite you have lunch with them.” He replies and gives a sideways smile as he slowly chews his gum. The angle makes his jawline very prominent and Valerie's eyes can’t help but focus on it, but at the same time the comedic boy is focused on her bright smile how it spread to her cheeks and it light up her eyes. He appreciates the fact she doesn’t seem to take anything too seriously and even more so didn’t seem to jump at the offer, it humbled him it wasn’t a reaction he was use too. “Sorry I’m going to have to crush your dreams there buddy, I have lunch plans.” She shoots back and he clutches his chest. “That hurt. That hurt me right here.” He gestures with his pointer finger facing his heart a fake pout laid on his lips and he pulled his eyebrows down to look more innocent and sad. But something told Valarie that his expression looked too rehearsed and that he’s everything but innocent. “Well then Valerie, can you make it up to me?” He composes himself and tilts his head to the side still giving his best puppy dog eyed expression. She purses her lips together and kints her eyebrows and taps a finger to a chin before she laughs at herself. “Well I guess I’ll have too, since I obviously hurt you so bad.” A smile is still plastered across her face. He just has that effect on her. The boy hold back winking at her remembering that’s for later. “You could accompany me to the Rest in Peace Summer party tomorrow night.” Valarie holds her smile and but looks quizzically at him. “Ah! Let me explain, its a yearly party held and the whole school pretty much comes. We always have a good time. Now it might not look like it but we know how to party.” He leans in like he’s letting her in on a big secret and she nods like he just has. Valerie has a feeling agreeing to a date so soon seems like trouble but maybe doing stuff she wouldn’t normally is part of this massive change. Maybe reinventing Valerie Black is what needs to happen. “It’s a date.” She answers and this time when she goes to walk around him he lets her but not before sending a wink. He mentally high-fived himself for his skills and started to think of ways to rub this in his rivals face, especially once he wins and by that last encounter he can taste the victory.

A/N: Please leave feedback I hope this did not disapoint from the teaser! Also which boy do you think Valerie was talking to in the end?

{Taglist ask to be added}

@secretly-spider-man @beautiful-holland @lovelyh0lland @spideygeek

@starkissedtom @osterfielfhazzy @poppy-in-the-woods @spideykisses

@cutiehollands @tom-hollands-eyelash @its-livelovelife

@yoinksholland @ruined-roses @bookishpeter

{Tagging cause I asked if I could}

@upsidedownparker

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cannedapricot · 6 years

Text

spring.

a soft art student! au with pure boy renjun ft a y/n who keeps denying her feelings! i recommend listening to a couple of bolbbalgan4′s songs while reading! their songs make me soft siuvsesuvao

word count: 4.2k filled to the brim with fluff and slice of life because i can’t write anything else yikes

Spring.

The season of blue skies, cherry blossom showers and blooming flowers.

The season of red faces, sweaty palms and shy “I love you"s.

Spring was the season of affection blooming in your chest, struggling to keep itself hidden

Spring was the season of romance.

You wished you could relate to the crowds of girls that started whispering crazily whenever a certain boy walked past.

Or to your table mate, who keeps staring at the back of Lee Jeno’s head with lovestruck eyes.

But alas, as much as you wanted to fall in love, you couldn’t force your heart to beat faster for someone.

You were pulled out of your daze when a stray cherry blossom petal found it’s way into the warm, lazy classroom. Riding the spring wind for a small while before settling itself onto your long forgotten textbook. The moment it landed, the sharp familiar noise of the recess bell rang throughout the school and suddenly chairs scraping across the tiled floor cut through the sleepy silence.

Girls bunched up into groups, starting to gossip about who’s dating who and boys started to race towards the cafeteria. You blow the pink petal off of your history textbook, then proceed to attempt to stuff it into your already crowded desk.

"Yo Y/N, here’s the banana milk I owe you from the other day.” You didn’t need to look up to know who it was.

“Great, Donghyuck, it’s only been a week and a half since I gave you the answers to Mr Lee’s homework.”

The boy grinned sheepishly to your remark as you successfully squeeze the thick book into the small space.

“Look, in my defense, I was busy.” He replied, plopping himself on top of your creaky desk.

“With what? Finding a date to the spring festival?”

Ah, the spring festival. It was the festival all art students looked forward to the most. It was a festival for all the students talented in art to proudly show off their work. Artists would set up little areas where they would happily talk of their pieces to anyone interested. Musicians would be busking, whether it be with their friends or by themselves and dancers would be dancing to their heart’s content with a crowd of people cheering them on. All of this would happen under the beautiful shower of the school’s multiple cherry blossom trees.

The main event everyone would attend though, was the musical that would play on the outside stage during the afternoon. Mr Kim Dongyoung, the teacher in charge of the musical, was notorious for being picky with the students he would let on stage and it was considered a honor if you were picked to be take part in the musical.

You didn’t need a date per say, but rumor has it that if you and your special someone share a sweet kiss under the oldest cherry blossom tree, you’d be happy together forever.

You thought that it was a bunch of baloney.

Forever Together? How cheesy. You’d rather it that you and your significant other stuck together due to affection for each other, not due to some old tree. It shocked you to learn how many people believe in that stupid rumor.

Your friend, Lee Donghyuck, being one of those believers.

But of course, he’s never admitted it to your face.

“No? Come on y/n, you know I don’t believe in that! Plus, I’m in the musical this year, I don’t have time for such childish things!”

Your eyebrows raised in doubt.

“Huh. Then I guess the person I saw trying to hit on one of our underclassmen this morning wasn’t you then?”

Donghyuck’s eyes broke contact and flew away from your own as he tried to come up with a reasonable explanation as to why he had attempted to get a girl’s number this morning. His eyes met with one of the many girls who was gossiping with her friends for a hot second. She then immediately ducked back to her friends and giggles were heard soon after.

Producing sandwiches out of your bag, you watched all of this with humor sparkling in your eyes, you had to bite the inside of your mouth to prevent yourself from bursting into obnoxious laughter.

“You know Hyuck, you could always go with Mark if everything goes wrong.” You were hit with one of his famous ‘shut up or i’ll stab you with this pencil’ glares as soon as you said that. A string of giggles attempted to leave your mouth before one of the ham sandwiches you had packed was forcefully shoved onto your face.

“I hate you, y/n. Our friendship is officially over.”

“Great. Hey Jeno! You’re promoted to my best friend now! Hyuck doesn’t love me anymore.” You yelled across the room.

Jeno, who had just returned from the cafeteria with Jaemin at his side let out a hearty laugh.

“Thank god! I’ve been meaning to get rid of Jaemin for a while now!”

“Remember to finish your essay before the end of the week. Class dismissed.”

The usual high pitched noises of chairs being pushed back and chatter from your classmates started as soon as ‘class dismissed’ was heard. The sun was still high up in the sky but it had fallen from where it had been during noon and the temperature was slowing dropping along with it.

Pushing your own chair back, you lifted your arms up in a stretch before letting out a cat-like yawn. Falling back onto the hard, wooden desk, you waved lazily back at your table mate as she bid you goodbye for the day. Closing your eyes, you found yourself relaxing at the sound of cicadas calling to each other outside. The sunlight coming through the window dyed you and your desk a warm yellow. Suddenly, the urge to take a nap came over you.

“You remind me of a big, lazy cat sometimes.”

Groaning, you moved you head so that you were facing your stupid friend. He was sitting in the chair in front of you, sucking on a lollipop as he met your eyes.

“Hyuck, don’t you have rehearsals today? You told me that you were going to have them everyday until the festival.”

Acting like he was offended, Donghyuck said, “I thought that my best friend would be lonely without me so I thought that I’d check up on you before going.”

You smiled into your arm. Donghyuck had a sharp tongue and you were used to him insulting you every second sentence without actually meaning it. But it always made your day whenever he openly shows that he cares.

“I’m heading to the art room in a few, so no, I won’t be.” You said, the soft smile you had eariler being replaced with a teasing grin.

“You’ve been going there since our first year! Aren’t you tired?”

“Not at all.” Standing up, you swung your bag across your shoulder and ruffle Donghyuck’s golden locks before heading towards the classroom door.

Before stepping out, you said, “Also, I thought that we established that I’m now Jeno’s best friend?”

“Fine then, we don’t love Lee Donghyuk anymore then.” Your friend huffed out in annoyance to himself.

“Just kidding! Love you, Hyuck!” You shouted with a smile before making your way to the art room.

As Donghyuck had stated, the art room has been the place you go to everyday after school. You loved drawing. People had asked you why you didn’t just join the art club instead of going to an empty classroom. Simple. You loved the quietness of the empty classroom. You loved getting caught up in your own thoughts without having anyone interrupt you. Most of all, you loved his company.

Just thinking about the boy put a bounce in your step.

The boy who started showing up to the same classroom a week after you had. The boy who would just sit there in silence while you both worked on your own paintings. The boy who would only leave after you did. The boy who would give you the warmest smile whenever your eyes met.

That boy was Huang Renjun.

You only got to know his name during the autumn of your first year. When it was pouring and you found that you left your umbrella at home. Desperate to get home before your parents start ranting about how late you returned, you were ready to run all the way home. Until Renjun offered to share his umbrella. He had flashed a shy smile and you agreed without second thought.

From that day on, the two of you would walk home together. You’d draw in silence, comfortable with each other’s company, then make small talk on the way home.

You still couldn’t believe he was real. It was as if the spring wind had blew him into that classroom that year and he could disappear with the cherry blossom petals at anytime.

Maybe because it was spring. Maybe it was because you wanted to fall in love before graduating high school. But recently you found yourself growing more and more fond of the art room boy.

Peeking through the windows, your eyes immediately flew to the doe eyed student. He was already sitting in front of his own canvas, paintbrush in hand. Yet another smile climbed onto your face as a frown came onto his. He obviously wasn’t pleased with his painting so far. It was an adorable sight.

You knocked twice on the door to notify him of your presence. Renjun looked up from his canvas and his eyes lit up the moment he saw you. The previous pout he had sported now replaced with a smile that could rival the sun itself. Nodding as a greeting, you pull an easel out and start dying the white, blank canvas with bright, lively colors.

The sun had began to retire from standing in the sky, casting the school in orange hues. You took one look out the window, then decided that you’d stop for the day. Standing up to give your brushes a wash, you catch the attention of Renjun, who grinned to himself before also starting to pack his things away. It was always like this, one of you would deem it a good time to finish for the day and the other would follow.

You finished packing before Renjun did and leaned against the doorway, watching the dark haired boy stash his brushes back into his bag. Why Renjun didn’t have dates everyday after school was a mystery to you. Especially when he had a face carved by god himself. Shouldn’t the girls be all over him? Also, his lips looked really soft, you’d have to remind yourself to ask him what lip balm he used later on.

“Come on, stop spacing out. Let’s go home.” A gentle voice woke you from another one of your dazes.

“Ah, right.” Embarrassed that you were caught daydreaming, you scramble to follow Renjun out the door, tripping a little in the process.

Falling in step beside Renjun, you can’t help but notice how much he’s grown since you two first walked side by side together. He’s a least grown half a head taller.

“Say, y/n, are you going to be participating in the spring festival?” He asked, the small breeze ruffling his brown locks. You noted that they looked super soft and would have to ask him about the conditioner he uses later on.

“Yeah, I do so every year. Not in the musical though. I can’t sing to save myself and Mr. Kim never chooses me for backdrop design.” Renjun hummed in response, kicking a stray pebble on the side walk.

“I don’t see you around though? Do you participate or?” You’ve never seen Renjun under the pink trees exhibiting his work. You know he’s a talented artist. You’ve sneaked enough peeks at his work to know.

“I get chosen to do the backdrop design every year. Everyone says that Mr. Kim has a soft spot for me.” He lets out a soft chuckle. “But this year, I turned down his offer.”

“What? Why?”

He shrugged. “I wanted to exhibit my work like everyone else this year.”

“I can finally see your paintings without looking suspicious.” You mutter victoriously to yourself.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”

“Y/n, could you put some emotions into your acting?”

Thursday night, and you were at Donghyucks house, helping him rehearse one last time before the big day tomorrow. He had bugged you for ages before you caved in and shuffled to his house in your pajamas. And as if you weren’t already done with him, he then tells you to climb the tree up to his room because he couldn’t be bothered going down to open the door for you.

“Hyuck, I’m not an actress and I’m not going to be going on stage tomorrow.” Running your hand through your hair in annoyance. Doing so reminded you that you forgot to ask Renjun about his conditioner. “Also, why Romeo and Juliet? It’s Shakespeare's most overrated piece.”

Tutting was heard from where Donghyuck was curled up on his bed. “We made changes so that it wouldn’t be a tragedy. A happy ending to the classic would make the spring season ten folds better”

You picked a stray leaf out of your hair. “Doesn’t make it any better in my opinion.”

A familiar ping signaled an arrival of a message. A smirk climbed onto your face as you realized it was from your friend’s phone.

“Date?”

“I wish. It’s from Mark.” Donghyuck sighed, unlocking his phone.

“Oooooh, you’re going with him then?” Rising from Hyuck’s creaky chair, you launch yourself onto the bed, clambering to sit beside your best friend.

“No, he’s just coming to watch the musical. He might stay for a while afterwards though. And he’s bringing his university friends.” Donghyuck said as the messages came in.

“I hope he brings some hotties.”

“Are you planning on cheating on your boyfriend or what?” Your eyebrows flew towards your hairline at his question. Boyfriend? Who?

“Since when have I had a boyfriend?”

“Uh, the dude you walk home with?” Donghyuck mentioned as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “What was he called? Huang Renjun? Jeno and Jaemin’s friend?”

“Woah, hold up. First of all, he’s not my boyfriend, he probably doesn’t even like me that way. Secondly, Jeno and Jaemin know him? Thirdly, how do you know that we walk home together?” You had no idea that Renjun was friends with Jeno and Jaemin. Those two were loud and rowdy, different from the quiet boy you saw after school. You couldn’t imagine the three of them together.

Totally ignoring your questions, the third rowdy boy you’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting, sits up on his bed and says,

“So you like him?”

Suddenly, the room felt a few degrees hotter. Even though the windows were open and it wasn’t summer yet. You must have a fever.

“No?”

“Liar! Your face is bright red!” Donghyuck starts cackling, hands over his stomach. “So if he asked you out, you would turn him down?”

“No?” You repeated the same word from earlier. This time in a much smaller volume. Except your ass of a friend hears anyways.

“Y/n finally has a crush! I thought this day would never come! In spring too! What a perfect season to fall in love!” You felt as though Hyuck might as well be exclaiming this to the whole school. Your face and ears was burning from embarrassment and you wanted to bury yourself in a hole.

“I’m going home. Practice your lines by yourself.”

“No, I’m sorry y/n, I love you please help me.”

The love you had for Renjun was completely platonic.

Right?

You couldn’t sleep at all last night.

After returning from Donghyuck’s, all that was going through your mind was the quiet, sweet boy from the art room. Did you really like him like that? Or were you just overthinking. And, did he like you?

It drove you mad. Romance novels didn’t have anything on this situation. Romcom movies didn’t either! .

So you woke up this morning with a huge bed head from rolling around and obvious dark eye circles. Halfway to school, you also realized that you forgot to bring your paintings with you. So you had to run back to get them. You must’ve looked like a mess when you arrived because Donghyuck winced the moment he saw you. But it only took a light slap from him to bring you back to the hostile being you were when you were with your dumb friend.

You had successfully told yourself that your love for Renjun was platonic.

The sky was a bright blue with just enough cloud cover so that you could enjoy your day without the sun shining into your eyes. The spring breeze scattered pink petals across the school lawn and on top of the excited chatter from students and teachers. You couldn’t ask for better weather.

Blowing a strand of hair away from your face, you stood back to admire your little station. You had chosen a spot next to the walkway this year. All of your proud works surrounded a wooden stool on which you would sit on. You had been lucky enough to secure a place next to the trunk of a cherry blossom tree. This meant that the pastel petals would shower down onto your station whenever a breeze blew through.

You took a sip of water from your water bottle and glanced at your wristwatch, pleased to see that there was still a while before the gates opened to guests. Stretching, you scanned the area around you. Jeno and Jaemin were warming up in the open piece of grass behind the tree you were situated at while a poor first and second year, Jisung and Chenle, got their speaker ready for them. Donghyuck was probably running over his lines with the female lead behind the stage. You could imagine how nervous he was at this very second.

Across the walkway from you, was where Renjun had set up his station. Right under the old tree that was rumored to keep you and your special someone together. You giggled to yourself before jogging over and tapping the chinese boy’s shoulder.

“Hey.”

Renjun’s head snapped back to face you in shock. “Y/n! You scared me!”

You sent him an apologetic smile. Turning to look at the tree, you mentioned,

“You’re going to have a fun time watching couples make out today huh.”

“Is this the- Oh no- I chose the wrong tree.” Renjun’s hand came up to his forehead in regret. “Now I have to deal with couples shoving their tongues down the other’s throat. All day.”

Putting a hand on his shoulder in mock sympathy, you shook your head. “Look on the bright side. At least this is a nice tree.”

The festival was almost over.

The musical was a huge hit with the multiple couples that came. Even though you were still convinced that Romeo and Juliet was overrated, you were extremely proud of Donghyuck. He executed the role of Romeo perfectly and his singing nearly brought you to tears. Though he was the one who burst into tears when he stumbled off stage after the show. Jaemin and Jeno’s dancing attracted many female fans. Some of them were ready to drag them under the old cherry blossom tree.

You and Renjun’s stations were well received by the comers. You even sold a few of your pieces! You had met Renjun’s eyes at one point during the festival and burst into laughter at the look on his face. He looked super uncomfortable stuck between two couples kissing.

It was dusk and the bright blue sky had turned purple. The sun was sinking lower into the horizon, stars popping up one by one after it. Lanterns were starting to light up and even though the festival was coming to a close, it was just as lively as it was at the beginning. This was the time where students who had participated get to enjoy themselves.

Packing your last painting away, you pat yourself on the back for a successful last spring festival of your high school career. Setting the packed bag onto your wobbly stool, you turn to face the warm, spring-like boy who was waving to his last visitor. Skipping your way over, you plopped yourself on the patch of grass next to his stool, leaning on the tree trunk.

“How was your first and last festival running a station?” You asked with a bright smile adoring your face.

“Very, interesting.” He replied, a sweet smile on his own face. Abandoning his own stool, he fell down next to you on the grass. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many kissing couples in my entire life.”

Your shoulder was touching his. You’ve never really noticed how much wider his shoulders were compared to yours. Renjun rips open a coke flavored lollipop and pops it into his mouth. Then he pulls another one out of his bag and offers it to you, to which you politely decline.

The two of you sat under the blooming tree for a while, making small talk here and there while watching people come and go busily. Occasionally blocking each other’s eyes when a couple came sauntering up to the tree the two of you were under.

“I’m going to have to wash my eyes after today.” You had hissed, peeking between the boy’s slim fingers. “Why aren’t they leaving. Go make out at home dammit.” You’ve never really noticed how soft Renjun’s palm is. You’ll have to ask him about the hand cream he uses later on.

As the moon slowly rose up to take the sun’s shift, the pretty purple sky made way for the darker hues it brought. The students started yawning and the guests started bidding their goodbyes. Neither you nor Renjun moved from your spots, wanting to bathe in each other’s company for a while longer.

“Say, y/n, do you believe in the rumor surrounding this tree?” The boy next to you suddenly piped, turning to face you.

“Absolutely not.” You replied, certainty in your voice. “Why would an old tree have magical abilities? And how unsure do you have to feel about your relationship to actually kiss under this tree?”

You notice that Renjun started to fiddle with the lollipop stick, the candy on it long finished. Then he shuffled so that he was sitting cross legged, facing you.

“See, I’m probably one of those people who believe it because I’m unsure.”

Your heart dropped. Oh, he was in a relationship. That explains why he didn’t have girls all over him like Jeno and Jaemin had. But why did you feel disappointed? Surely it was because he had kept his girlfriend a secret from you.

“Oh, you have a girlfriend?” You didn’t mean for it to come out in the malicious way it did.

“Ah, no, I’m unsure about our relationship.”

Your eyes widened and you sat up from how you were leaning on the tree trunk. “Us?”

“Yeah, what are we? I would like to refer to us as friends but,” Renjun’s eyes darted to the lollipop stick in his hands. “My heart wants to refer us as a couple.”

Your heart fluttered. Heck, it wasn’t just fluttering, it was about to take off into the sky. Why was it acting like that?

“I didn’t set up under the wrong tree. I wanted to have enough courage to kiss you under the tree. I wanted us to be together forever. But it’s the end of the day and I still have yet to do it.” His voice was becoming smaller and smaller with each word, his face starting resemble a tomato by the end of his sentence.

Without thinking, you lifted his head and pressed your lips to his. You weren’t sure how to kiss properly but the way you had done it seemed right. Pulling away, you realized that his lips tasted faintly of the sugary treat he eaten earlier. Breaking into the familiar smile that you’ve grown so fond of, Renjun pulled you back into another sweet, sugary kiss.

You didn’t believe in the stupid rumor of the old cherry blossom tree in the school grounds, but this once, you were willing to think that it was real.

You were woken from your nap when a stray cherry blossom petal found it’s way into the warm, lazy classroom. Riding the spring wind for a small while before settling itself onto your cheek. Brushing the pink piece of flower away, you sat up in your seat and stretched before gazing out the window.

Spring had come early this year. Cherry blossoms were blooming much earlier than it had last year. Grey clouds were parting for the blue skies quicker than it had last year.

Arrival of the pink blooming trees were a reminder that you and Renjun’s one year anniversary was coming up.

Donghyuck had interrogated Renjun thoroughly when he found out you two were actually dating while Jeno and Jaemin both laughed at Renjun’s flustered answers. It had been smooth sailing ever since. The small disagreements you two had weren’t nearly enough to break you and the boy up.

Tearing your eyes away from the window, you rested your head on the palm of your hand, facing the rowdy boys next to you. The four of them had gotten along quite well for the past year as well. Renjun currently had Jeno and Jaemin in headlocks while Hyuck was edging your boyfriend on.

Letting out a content sigh, you looked down at your art piece you were about to submit as your graduation piece.

It was a painting of a couple sharing a sweet kiss, under a blooming cherry blossom tree, below a purple sky.

298 notes · View notes

btsfaris · 6 years

Text

Heavy Heart [P.2]

A/N: hii!! I’m so glad you guys enjoyed part 1!! I decided to be nice and post part 2 early hehe :))

Warnings: Lots of Fluff, More Angst(bc im a sad person)

Words: 2k+

P.1

You;

And there he was again, sitting beautifully in that lunch table.

It was currently lunchtime, and you were grabbing your lunch from the cafeteria like majority of the school. The place was filled with roudey teenagers, loud voices murmuring to their friends and lots of clatter from the lunch trays. Peter was sitting peacefully in his usual spot, half-way into the cafeteria, and munching on his meal.

You could always talk to him at this time, as he spent majority of his lunches with only Ned and not with a crowd. It would be so easy to just walk up to his best friend, ask him about the homework in Chemistry and casually greet Peter.. but you were a scaredy-cat.

Speaking to Peter always made you nervous. No matter what it was or even short it was, you’d become a mess. Your fingers would get antsy or your legs would start shifting in place.

Sometimes you couldn’t even look at eyes properly. You just never could build up the courage to smile at him, so it would be a complete challenge to say hi.

You always wished you could, perhaps things would be different. Maybe he would actually acknowledge you for once, and you’d grow from there. Even have the possibility of building up a relationship.

In your dreams, you think.

You’re not sure how long you’ve been staring at him, probably for a good minute now, by the way the person behind you groans for you to keep moving along the line. Can’t you see I’m enjoying the view? You want to hiss at them.

Grabbing a sandwich and some orange juice, you get out of line and slowly walk to the exit. Which is on the way to Peter’s table. Your eyes keep trained on him, watching him conversate with Ned.

His eyes suddenly shift to stare at his plate, moving his food around with the fork for a few moments before looking up. Directly on you.

Oh fuck. You look back down at the floor and a blush creeps up your neck. Hopefully, he didn’t notice you creepily gawking at him.

You count to five, still moving fairly slow across the cafeteria before glancing back up to see him still gazing at you. You blink a couple times, wondering if your eyes were playing tricks on you. You look around to see no one around you, and turn back to him, furrowing your brows.

His hand raises up and he gives you a shy smile. An actual smile. Your cheeks redden at this point, fingers slowly letting go of the tray to wave at him. As you raise up your palm, a familiar voice behind you perks up.

“Peter!” Liz calls, walking past you and towards his table. She stands in front of him, speaking inanimately and Peter’s eyes are wide, watching her talk with admiration. Something you do to him always.

Of course, he was smiling at her, not you. How stupid were you to think that he’d be waving at you like that? He was obviously looking at Liz, it was clear now.

Your hand immediately falls back down to your tray, gripping at it as you stare with jealousy at the pair. Gazing back at the floor, you turn around to take the exit near the front rather than your usual route, clearly not able to witness the scene any longer.

Peter;

“I hope I passed the exam,” I tell Ned, through a mouthful of my lunch. “Mr. Delmar said if I did, I could get a sub for free after school!”

“Let’s hope you do,” Ned agrees. “Maybe you could ask Y/N out and share half with her!”

“Going to get a free sub for our first date?” I snort. “How romantic! I might as well write cheapskate on my forehead.”

“Well, maybe she likes to be independent-“ Ned wiggles his brows, but stops mid-sentence as he looks across the cafeteria. “Speak of the devil! Peter, she’s staring at you right now!”

“What?” I still, looking at him with wide eyes.

“Yes! She’s totally giving you the googly eyes!” Ned exclaims.

I swallow the food in my mouth and glance back down at my plate casually. Okay, keep cool, keep cool.. Don’t freak out Peter. Slowly looking up, I spot her immediately and truth be told, her eyes are stuck on me.

My heart almost explodes in my chest but not a second later, she looks away as her gaze is now on the tray in her hands. I continue to look at her, wondering why she was staring at someone like me.

Could this be it? Is she finally showing interest in me? Don’t overthink this. Her eyes look back at me once more, and she flutters her pretty lashes, entrancing me in her beauty.

“Well don’t just stare at her! Do something Peter!” Ned hisses beside me, snapping me out of my thoughts.

With all my courage, I slowly smile and raise my sweaty palm at her. Shit, what if she doesn’t smile back, I think to myself. No, I must do this, I need to finally be brave without my mask.

A smile morphs on to her cute face, making me practically melt at the sight. Her dainty fingers slowly reach up, raising it up to match mine and my smile widens. It’s happening! It’s actually-

“Peter!” The voice does not come from my beloved angel, but behind her. Someone blocks my view of Y/N, revealing to be Liz Allan.

“Why didn’t you show up to the last meeting?” Liz frowns, making my eyes widen.

Shit! I completely forgot about that! I was too caught up with taking care of the city and surveilling, that it completely passed my mind.

“Jeez- I’m sorry Liz, I got caught up with studying for my Spanish exam, I totally forgot about it!” I lie through my teeth, praying that she bought it.

“Peter-“ She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose for a second, before looking back at me. “Just try to make it next time, okay? This championship really means a lot to me.”

“Definitely, I will!” I nod rapidly, and she rolls her eyes.

“Alright, bye you guys.” She leaves with a wave and I immediately turn my gaze back to Y/N.. only to see that she is no longer standing there.

My shoulders slump, a sad frown placing itself on to my face. My only chance to finally talk to Y/N.. and I blew it.

“Sorry man, maybe next time,” Ned pats my back sympathetically. I sigh, pushing away my lunch tray and place my head in hand.

You;

It’s currently after school now, and you’re sitting outside, enjoying the warm sun hitting your skin. A sketchbook in your hand, drawing your current piece of Peter. You’ve been working on it for months now, hoping to slip it in his locker one day as a gift, once complete.

You’re sitting in the middle of the bleachers, listening to students play a friendly game of football. It was nice out here, mostly quiet and gave you some time to yourself to think about things. Or time to work on your little secret project.

Humming a random tune, you are erasing a small mistake you made when the sound of a whistle startles you, causing you to drop your pencil. Great, you think, as you bend to pick it up. You look up carelessly and back down at your sketchbook before doing a double-take.

Low and behold, there was Peter, walking on the track with his backpack strapped over his shoulders. His skin and hair practically glowing under the sunlight. His big brown eyes looking at the boys playing football, before looking up at the sky.

“What is he doing here?” You whisper to yourself.

Peter never hung out by field after school, he always made his way to the nearby sandwich shop a couple blocks down. So what was he doing back here?

You look back down at your book, pretending to scribble something down. You bite your lip, placing your pencil down and glance up at him. This time, his eyes were on you and you felt your heart start to race.

He flashes you a small smile. Your eyes widen as you realize it’s directed at you, since no one else is on the bleachers.

“Hey-“ Peter waves, but is stopped short as a football hurtles towards him, hitting him square on the nose and knocking him off his feet.

“Peter!” You gasp, running down the bleachers and heading towards him.

You immediately drop your open sketchbook next to him and kneel over him. “Oh my god, are you okay?” You ask him, worried as he blinks repeatedly.

”N-Ned?” He asks, dazedly.

“No,” You whisper shyly. “It’s Y/N.”

“Oh, Y/N..” He repeats, before his eyes widen, he looks at your with big eyes and scrambles to sit up.

“Careful Peter!” You scold mildly, and notice the blood dripping from him nose. “Oh no, you’re bleeding.”

“I-It’s nothing! Just a scratch!” He attempts to play it off cooly, but winces as he touches his nose.

“Here,” You hand him a napkin from your bag.

“Thanks,” Peter mumbles, dabbing his nose with it. “This isn’t how I planned for this to go..”

“For what to go?” You ask curiously. He shakes his head and looks at you. His eyes stare into yours before scanning your face, causing you to blush.

“Hi Y/N..” He whispers.

“Hi Peter,” You stare at him back and smile lightly.

He seems to snap out of it, as he struggles to stand up and you scramble to help him.

“Uh, thanks for your help,” Peter clears his throat, trying to hide his embarrassment. He looks down and notices your book on the ground. “Oh here, you dropped this-“ He bends down to pick your sketchbook up but stops to look at it.

“Is this.. me?” He asks, looking up at you with wide eyes.

Oh no. “Um,” You bite your lip, mortified. “Y-Yes.” Now he’s really going to run!

A grin morphs on to his face instead. “That’s so cool!”

“Wait, really?” You raise your eyebrows.

“Y-Yeah.. it looks really good! Not that I’m self centered or anything, but you made me look good-it looks-you, uh, look good-“ His eyes widen. “I-I mean the drawing! Not that you don’t look good! You always do-” Peter stutters, making you crack a smile.

“Thank you Peter,” You interrupt him shyly, putting him out of his misery and take the sketchbook from him.

“No problem..” He blushes, scratching the back of his neck. “Hey, uh, are you free right now?”

“Oh, um, yeah I am.. Why?”

Instead of answering, he pulls out his phone and types into it quickly. “I passed!” Peter grins to himself and you quirk up a brow as he puts it away into his back pocket.

“Well, I’d like to repay you for your help.. So, would you like to share a sub with me right now?” He asks, looking at you with a nervous expression.

“Like, as a date?” The words come out of you before you can stop yourself.

“Uh, no! Of course not!” He snorts awkwardly causing your face to fall. “Unless you want it to be..” He shifts his gaze from the floor to you nervously and your mood skyrockets immediately.

“I’d love to..” You smile.

“Really?” He blinks rapidly and you nod.

“You sure you’re okay?” You ask again, worried as you notice the dry blood around his nose and he waves you off.

“I’ll be fine, if anything happens, you can take care of me.” He grins, and you let out a small giggle.

“Alright.. Well, shall we?” He smiles, standing beside you now and puts out his arm. You laugh a little at his gentlemanly actions and slip your arm around his.

“Also, quick question. Do you like your sandwiches flattened out?”

What a peculiar question.. “I love them.” You answer nonetheless.

“Perfect.” He grins and you both happily make your way down to the shop.

End.

a/n: this was so cute :’))) someone find me a Peter Parker pls !

#tom holland fic #tom holland fluff #tom holland angst #tom holland #thomas stanley holland #peter #peter parker #spiderman: homecoming #spiderman #spiderboy #tom holland smut #peter parker fluff #peter parker angst #peter parker smut

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adrienaline-rushed-art · 7 years

Text

Tomato Soup and Lemon Zest: Little Red Riding Hood

Rating: Teen

Chapters: 3/?

ao3 fanfic 1 - 2 - 3 - 4

Notes: Why is this getting so long?

PS. Please let me know what you think!

based on this post

Comment if you want me to tag you in the next update, otherwise check the tag #adrinathdrawingfic

@samantha-girlscout @artgirllullaby @miraculouslyme @breeeliss @itsmegan347official @deadstache @tallsuperstar @b0n3-crush3r

Also, @yourfavouritekindoftrash made a fic based on the same post, check it out under the tag #adrinathdrawingfic

It was a Friday. Normally, Nathaniel would be home after school, ready to forget about responsibilities. This thought crossed his mind and he toyed with the idea of getting up and leaving.

But his feet were heavy and he felt like he was nailed to the bench. The sun beat down hard as if to mock him for being outdoors. He could feel the top of his head heating up from being directly in the sunlight.

He sighed heavily.

His hands were getting clammy. He tried to convince himself it was merely the heat, but he knew the consistent breeze kept Paris at a relaxing 70 degrees, it was actually his nerves keeping him in this state.

“There he is. The lovely prince.”

Nathaniel looked up, the glare from familiar silver tipped boots causing him to squint. “Prince?”

“You heard me. Ready?” Chat Noir spun his staff with anticipation.

Nathaniel looked down at his sweaty hands. “I don't know-”

To Nathaniel’s dismay, Chat Noir grabbed his hand and pulled him up, undoing the spell that kept him stuck to his seat. All he could think about was his sweat pouring infinitely from his fingertips and dripping all over Chat Noir’s hand. Chat would then flick his hand in disgust and watch drops scatter, he would be gone - far, far away from Nathaniel - wishing he'd never touched him.

It wasn't until after this nightmarish daydream that Nathaniel remembered Chat Noir wore gloves - and thus would not notice the dampness in his palms - and was currently bringing his knuckles up to his mouth. Nathaniel tensed as a humid breath brushed his skin and lips pressed against the back of his hand.

Chat Noir leaned back a bit, still holding Nathaniel’s hand. Nathaniel stood frozen in front of him, lips trembling in a way that appeared to be attempting speech.

“Hey, loosen up a bit,” Chat dug his fingers into Nathaniel’s shoulders and rubbed them a bit, only making him even stiffer, “You’ll need to be a little flexible to do what we’re gonna be doing today-”

“Uh…”

“WAIT.”

“Yeah…”

“That sounded..”

“Let’s not talk about it.”

“Right,” Chat Noir took his staff and split it in two, “Let’s start with posture.”

Nathaniel took the staff Chat Noir offered him, and tried to relax when Chat pushed his hand against his back to straighten it. Chat nudged and poked at him with his staff. Wrist is too lazy, feet should be farther apart, arm should be higher, toes pointed this way… after all the instructions Nathaniel discovered the level of discomfort he could achieve. He’d never felt so unnatural, but his mind was more clouded with how many times Chat Noir had touched him.

“Looks like this is gonna take way more meetups then I thought,” Chat Noir watched in dismay at the rigid Nathaniel, who was visibly trembling to keep his pose, “This type of thing isn’t so hard if you have good posture. Your posture is terrible, you don’t move around much, do you?”

Nathaniel shook his head. “Can I stop now?”

Chat sighed. “Yeah, go ahead, you can relax.”

Nathaniel quickly dropped his arms and slouched over.

“I didn’t say you could slouch though, you have to practice starting with breaking that habit. I’ve got eyes everywhere, Nathaniel, if I see you slouch once I’ll- I’ll come right over and kick your ass.”

Nathaniel figured this wasn’t the moment to say ‘please, do’ and instead stayed silent, slowly straightening his back as best he could.

Chat ran his fingers through his hair. “Tsk, no, thats-” he rushed up to Nathaniel, “Standing straight doesn’t mean lifting your chest as much as you can. There’s a place in between that and slouching… that’s standing straight.”

There was an evident strain in Nathaniel’s face. “I have to stay like this?”

“Yes.”

Nathaniel attempted to stroll across the park. “How do you walk like this?!”

“You’re too stiff… again. When you walk you should swing your arms and your feet should move heel to toe. And for God Sake, standing straight doesn’t mean you can’t move your head.”

Chat watched Nathaniel try again. “Well… you’re doing everything I told you to but somehow you look worse,” he put his hand to his chin, “Do you have your sketchbook or phone?”

“Always,” Nathaniel gestured towards the park bench, where a bag waited patiently.

“Go get it.”

Nathaniel didn’t question him, immediately walking over to his bag - though it took him a bit longer than usual since Chat Noir scolded him for walking normally - and bringing it back to Chat. Nathaniel reached in and grabbed his sketchbook and one pencil, secretly screaming inside when Chat asked if he could use a piece of paper. He noticed and they agreed on using the inside of the back cover instead.

Chat Noir began scribbling what looked like a list of videogame power moves and indie music album titles.

He closed the book and returned it to Nathaniel. “I need you to do these exercises everyday for 5 days and I’ll meet you next week. Let me see your phone.”

Nathaniel grudgingly unlocked his phone and handed it over.

Chat opened the web browser. “For the last two exercises you’ll need a resistance band. If you can’t get one, I’ll come tomorrow to bring you one. As for right now and every time we meet up, we’ll be doing different exercises. Alright, let’s see some planking.”

“What the-” Nathaniel was pushed down to his knees and Chat Noir knelt beside him.

“Let’s see how you do with 30 seconds-”

“What makes you think I’m gonna do any of this? Especially at home?” Nathaniel looked determined to be lazy the entire week and ignore Chat Noir’s instructions.

Chat stopped and leaned in close, snatching Nathaniel’s chin. “Because if you don’t, I’ll know it, and I’ll get mad. You don’t want me mad, do you?” Chat rubbed his thumbs over Nathaniel’s lips, “I’m sure you want nothing but rewards from me.”

Nathaniel’s face turned as bright as his hair, he was motionless and speechless.

Chat snorted.

Nathaniel blinked back into reality. “W-what?”

“It’s just… you looked so small and scared just now, and I just couldn’t help but think your hair looks kinda like a hood… you’re literally Little Red Riding Hood!” Chat proceeded to laugh.

Nathaniel grumbled. “Then that makes you the wolf.”

“Yeah, and I might just bite you too, Little Red,” Chat winked.

Chat touched Nathaniel’s hot face, brushing strands of his hair away. “Now are you gonna do your best for me, or are you not up for your own challenge?”

Nathaniel thought for a moment and remembered he was the one who started this whole mess. After a few moments of internal weeping, he nodded.

“Good. Alright, Red, on the ground, 30 seconds, go!”

#miraculous ladybug #ml fanfic #ml rarepair #adrinath #adrinathdrawingfic #cass writes

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