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rustedhearts · 16 days

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i want your things in my room (fratboy!steve harrington x fem!reader)

summary: steve harrington: resident frat boy heartbreaker. handsome, charming, good in bed—what's not to love? if only he loved you. based on this sexy thought of mine

uses she/her pronouns and female anatomy.

✶ rolly’s roller wheels blurbs commissions! ✶ blurbs!

tags: frat boy!steve, situationship, asshole-ish!steve, pining, kind of feral reader because i was feral writing this, smut.

"i want your things in my room, i miss you all of the time. i stalk myself on the internet just to see what you'll find...you look so cool, I wanna die. is it too soon to say what's on my mind?"

— in my room, julia wolf

for the lovely 🫧

wc: 2,095 (oops)

delta phi. saturday april 12th, 2009

Cords of muscle suffocated under the tight sleeve of a red cutoff—ripped while weight-lifting on the porch, you imagined. Knowing Steve, it was intentionally and meticulously cut in the bathroom mirror for a blurry cellphone image sent to another fling.

You never received texts like that. The only texts you received were late in the evening or at the crest of midnight:

you up?

coming over. unlock the back door.

The one trip-up in this eight month routine came two weekends ago at nine p.m.

coming over, brought you a surprise. want you to wear it saturday.

It was a tight white t-shirt promoting Steve for Delta Phi Senior President. You wore it like he asked, lingering in the basement corner of another Saturday party with a lukewarm beer you wanted to throw up when you saw hordes of other girls wearing the exact same thing.

He didn't even look at you that night.

But he messaged, an hour after you skulked home with a hoodie zipped over his face printed on your left tit.

didn't see you leave. can i swing by later?

He did. And you let him crawl over your naked body under a pink duvet and place his mouth wherever he liked. He didn't apologize, and you swallowed down the sharp sting of tears every time he told you how pretty you were—knowing every girl wearing his face that night received the very same treatment at one point.

You weren't special. You knew that. But he had such a way of making you feel like you were. Catching your eye through passing bodies, lifting his mouth in a sideways grin, wiggling his fingers in a tiny wave when he knew no one was looking. Cupping the back of your head in the checkout line at the coffeeshop when he passed by, because somehow he always knew when you were there. He never said a thing, but he had your heart stuttering every single time.

So, here you were. Another Saturday night in a dark Delta Phi corner, sipping a Twisted Tea and struggling to swallow past the lump of hurt in your throat when Steve's head turned to follow the path of a pretty and petite blonde. Watching his biceps flex under his sleeve, his hips turn in a pair of Levis often rumpled on your floor. You washed them once, when he came and got sick in your bathroom after a particularly intense recruitment night.

Steve lifted a wide hand and swept it through the front of his hair. You could almost smell it, the Old Spice soaked in those chestnut tresses. You used his bathroom on the second floor one time, found the red shampoo bottle resting on the edge of the tub.

And maybe you popped the cap and smelled it, closed your eyes and imagined Steve was right in front of you, pressing his cheek on your chest the way he did post-coital: panting wordlessly, letting you feel the warmth of his flesh clinging to yours, running your fingers through his hair to bring him back down.

Steve's eyes cutting your way yanked you from your warm, gut-wrenching thoughts of him. Over the swell of his own bicep: a pair of hazels fixing on your figure across the room. Your heart lurched to your throat when you locked gazes, fingers twitching to wave. He wouldn't wave back. You knew without a doubt.

But those lips quirked up in acknowledgement, and that was enough. Enough to have heat lapping at your face and coiling in your stomach. Enough to know he'd message after the party, when most of the crowd dispersed and his buddies wandered off to bed. Enough to know you'd feel his breath on your face tonight, feel his mouth over your body.

That was more than enough.

✶ ✶

You waited.

Waited—fully dressed on your bed, lamp clicked on in the darkness of the night—with the skin of your thumb between your teeth. Gnawing between glances at your phone, waiting for it to buzz with his name. The deeper the night grew, the hungrier you became. Hungry for his tongue sliding around your mouth, his fingers digging into your ribs with every pull back against his body. His palm cupped around your throat the way it often did when he took you from behind, keeping you braced against his chest so he could feel you struggle to catch your breath.

You waited. You bid your roommate goodnight through a closed door and waited. You peeled your outfit off layer by layer, checked your messages for his name, and waited. You laid back on your bed holding your phone to your faded-t-shirt-clad chest, and waited.

The hunger nestled between your legs, aching and pulsing with soreness. It was terrible how conditioned you were for Steve's attention. How horribly you craved it.

Somehow, his air of coolness made you want it more. When he avoided your eye, when your texts went unanswered, when he brushed by at a party and looped your pinkies together—you wanted him something awful.

But you wanted him most when you had him. When he was running his nose through the sweat on your neck, big hands sweeping over your stomach under the t-shirt he guided over your head. His t-shirt, always asked for in a groggy, early morning exchange before he left. When he was whispering—unwilling to wake your roommates—and promising that you were the only one he'd ever felt this close to.

"Swear nobody's made me feel so fuckin' high before," he'd say. "Love your body, baby, you're so pretty."

Tears squeezed at your lash line, burning as they spilled over. You swiped at them irritatedly, setting your phone on the nightstand and turning away from it.

And then it buzzed.

You flung your hands toward the vibration, snatching the scratched device eagerly.

coming.

missed you.

Falling back against your pillows, you let out a long, blissful sigh. He missed you. That was new.

Your phone buzzed with the long-awaited "here" text, and you had to catch yourself on the stair railing to avoid running toward the door. But the way you swung the door open and tugged him in did little to hide your excitement, and it had Steve grinning wide as you hurried back toward your room.

"Wait," he chuckled, stumbling over his sneakered feet. "Christ, you're quick to the belt tonight."

You clamped your bedroom door shut carefully, spinning around to find Steve toeing his shoes off at the end of your bed. His tongue prodded at the inside of his cheek when he turned to face you again. The smirk on his mouth was delicious.

Suddenly, all that hunger coursing through you fizzled to coyness. But Steve liked when you were shy. He thought it was cute.

"C'mere."

The way he called to you—softly, a sweeter version of his usual tone—always had your nerves tingling.

You stepped in front of him, giggling when he plucked at the faded, stained material of your bed shirt near your chest.

"Sexy 'jamas," he chuckled, swooping down to press your mouths together.

"Thought...you weren't...coming," you mumbled between detachments and quiet, wet smacks.

He said nothing this time, letting his hands drop to your hips to steer you around. He guided you onto the bed, and the pair of you moved like a well-oiled carnival ride until you reached the pillows. Two heavy palms pressed into the feathers on either side of your head, and Steve's mouth continued lapping at yours vigorously.

One thing about Steve was that he was always pleased to incorporate foreplay. He loved the art of kissing, and he knew it well.

Steve pulled away far too early, moving his lips to your cheek. Down your jaw, under the junction where nerves tingled for his attention under your ear. You fisted the thin fabric of his shirt as he dragged his nose across your jaw.

"Did ya miss me, honey?" His voice took on a low gravel that brought your hairs to their ends.

Your eyes fluttered between opened and closed, hips shifting on the bed. Your breath already shallowed.

"Mhm."

"Mhm? Tell me," he cooed, nose rubbing a small circle into your cheek, breath hot on your skin. "Tell me you missed me, pretty girl."

You blinked your eyes open, glazing over the length of his lashes and flecks of honey and emerald in his gaze. You could barely feel your own body, could barely form a sentence on your own.

"I missed you," you whispered dazedly.

Steve moved his eyes down to your stomach as he dragged the t-shirt toward your collarbones. His hand glided over your navel and between your breasts.

"Missed you, too. Take your shirt off f' me, sweetheart."

He knelt at the end of the bed and watched you undress intently, eyes tracing the curves of your body as he pressed to his knees and fumbled with the buckle of his belt. When the pair of you were bare, he returned to his place hovering above you, and you took your chance to roam your hands over his chest. Firm, warm, smooth-skinned. Lifting your back off the bed, you buried your nose in his throat and inhaled deeply. Steve's chuckle rumbled through you, but you couldn't find it in yourself to feel ashamed.

"Smell good," you remarked quietly.

Steve tipped his head away from your face until you settled back into the pillows. He grinned down at you there, hair curling over his forehead and toward his brow.

"Yeah? That's new."

You shook your head, tongue fat and dumb in your mouth. Your fingers traced down his arms bracing your head. "No...always smell good."

A swallow bobbed in his throat. The back of his finger nudged your cheek from the pillow beside you. "Yeah?"

You nodded this time, meeting his eye with what he could only call a lovestruck stare—all rounded and doe-like. "Yeah."

He wished you'd shut your eyes. He wished you'd stop looking at him like he was some sort of saint. He wished you'd stop letting him get away with all the shit he put you through.

Steve was quick to switch gears, pecking a short, painful kiss to your mouth before flipping you by the hips onto your stomach. You gasped at the quick and irritated pull of your hips upward until your ass was arched in the air. He pressed on the dip in your back and you let your stomach drop toward the mattress.

"Good," he sniffed. "Look good like this."

Because he couldn't see your eyes.

And you let him fuck you like that, pummeling so deep that you were buried in the mattress by the time he was done. You didn't cum and he knew it, and the pair of you settled flat with quiet gasps. He didn't press his cheek to your chest this time, didn't tangle your fingers together between sticky bedsheets. He laid there only a few silent moments before reaching for his pants.

"Hey," you called softly, propped up on your elbows. "You're not gonna stay?"

The broad muscles of Steve's back flexed and rolled as he hoisted his jeans over his hips and secured his belt. He pulled his shirt on without turning around, feet shoved into his sneakers before you could even sit all the way up.

"Nah," he said, turning only as he headed for the door. "Gotta...um, study."

Brows furrowing, a small giggle slipped from your mouth. "Study? You don't study."

Another swallow, noisy and paired with two eyes fixed on the floor. His voice neared a whisper when he spoke again. "Trying something new."

You watched him open the door just enough for him to fit through. You hugged your soiled sheets around your bare body and felt the hunger dim to hurt again.

Steve stepped into the doorway and turned his head an inch, but not enough to see those pretty features again. "Later."

You wanted him to miss you again. You wanted to press your nose back into his neck and breathe him in. You wanted him to bring his words down low where they belonged when he spoke to you. You wanted to be his girl for a few moments more, to feel his affection through every drag of his mouth and hands.

But the door closed, and you were left to watch him jog across the street through a sliver in the drapes instead.

Just another t-shirt. Just another girl in love with Steve Harrington.

#rolly!#steve harrington #fratboy!steve harrington #steve harrington smut #steve harrington fic #steve harrington fanfic #steve harrington fanfiction #steve harrington blurb #steve harrington au #steve harrington x female reader smut #steve harrington x fem #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x reader smut #steve harrington fluff #steve harrington imagine

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shubblelive · 7 months

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— NOT MUCH LONGER

summary : wilbur has always been dedicated to his viewers, sometimes too much. his fans are aware of this, you are aware of this, and he is aware of this. so when you go multiple days without seeing your boyfriend because of how hard he's working you take matters into your own hands, not realising that thousands of people are there watching you do it.

genre : fluff

warnings : mentions of eating/food, a few swearwords, wilbur not taking care of himself, very small panicky moment

pairing : cc!wilbur soot x fem!reader

pronouns : she/her, reader is called wilbur's girlfriend/wife

featuring : cc!wilbur soot

requested : Could you do a fic where the reader isn’t a very public person (in regards to the internet) and one day, wilbur’s streaming and she goes in and brings him some food and kisses him, not knowing he was live, and when she notices, she just gets all red and embarrassed and wilbur goes out of frame with her and its just all fluffy, and the chat goes craaazy

word count : 1.3K

note : hi lmao. i know, i know it's been nearly 2 months since i 've posted anything. school really caught p to me, i was so stressed out i was crying like multiple times a day for a few weeks. i wanna thank you guys for your patience, i have one more week of classes before spring break and then exams are right after that so i am really unsure of how much free time i'm gonna have until like mid-november.

There was a lot of things that you loved about Wilbur. Of course there was, the two of you had been together since university, nearing on 5 years. Knowing for someone that long, though, and there were obviously aspects of your boyfriend that you were less than fond of. There weren’t a lot, but the main one was the fact that he was a major workaholic.

You were completely understanding of how important his job was to him. He had been doing it longer than you’d even known each other and you’d never want to do anything to make it seem like you were anything less than supportive.

But the last couple of weeks had been driving you crazy.

He’d be out all day filming for twenty different videos or in the studio - that was fine, you had your own work and hobbies to keep you occupied. But then he’d get home and it was straight to editing, or writing, or meetings for merch, album art, new videos. It had gotten to the point where you hadn’t even seen him in two days. You knew he’d been home, you vaguely heard the shower running while you were asleep, so tired you couldn’t bring yourself to lift your head. Clothes had been added to the laundry hamper, and water glasses had been added to the sink. He’d messaged you, of course. You were high on his list of priorities, it being a no-brainer that whenever he got a free minute he was texting you to let you know where he was going, promising that he’d be home soon.

When you got home from work, you were pleasantly surprised to find his docs at the front door, neatly kicked to the side so they were out of the way along with the rest of your collective pile. You put your stuff down and practically floated around the house, searching for your boyfriend. Not in the kitchen, though the dishes had been done for you, left to dry. Not in the living room, though there was a coat draped over the back of the couch that you picked up and deposited in the bedroom (also empty, but his side of the bed was rumpled like he’d fallen straight on top of the blankets).

You were walking down the hallway when you finally heard him. He was talking softly, not outside of the norm for him. His office wasn’t soundproof, and you often heard him through the walls as you went about your day, whether that was laughing loudly as he streamed, or the muffled sound of him strumming his guitar, trying to write a new song. He was being quiet, probably editing a video. You knew he had his own room in the group office, just for him to edit, but he liked to bring them home sometimes.

You went back into the kitchen to dry the dishes for Wilbur and you noted that there weren’t any new plates added to the pile. You knew that Wilbur had eaten while he was gone, he’d texted you every time they ordered food, but you also knew that it had been a couple of days since his last home cooked meal. You, admittedly didn’t have much in the pantry, but it was made with love, which was the thought that counts.

That was the thought on the tip of your tongue as you knocked gently on the door, a plate of mac and cheese and a glass of water in hand, smile breaking out at the sight of your boyfriend at his desk.

Wilbur’s viewers had always been aware that he had a girlfriend. He mentioned you for the first time after you guys had been together for a year, and since then you were a sporadic presence in his online life, maybe a mention every couple of weeks or months. They didn’t know anything else though, not even your name. His viewers, over the past couple of years had developed their own nicknames for you. It started from one of the first streams you were mentioned in, someone in chat asked if you were Wilbur’s wife. He’d laughed, said no, and then tried to say you were not his wife, and instead pronounced it “wiff.” It got slightly out of hand over the years, with most people lovingly referring to you online as wiffleball. Wilbur had apologised profusely for the slip up, but you found it too funny to actually care. It was definitely weird for you to see, though, the phrase ‘Wiffleball’ randomly trending every couple of months.

So, they didn’t know your name, and they definitely didn’t know your face. Wilbur was usually on high alert for even your footsteps outside the door, let alone you wanting to come inside. He’d yell that he was live, and you’d wait dutifully at the door for him to come outside. It was more for your sake than his, but he cared just as much about your right to privacy as you did. But today, he was so preoccupied with the fact that he hadn’t seen you in nearly three days that he completely forgot to.

The monitor with his own face in it was tilted away from the door, and you were so entranced by the smile on his face that you didn’t notice until it was too late. He was standing to meet you, pressing a kiss to the corner of your mouth. “Hi, lovely, I’ve missed you.”

“Missed you too, Wil,” Your hands were on his arms the second you placed the food down, and you were right about to kiss him properly when you saw a fast movement out the corner of your eye. His chat was whizzing by so fast that you almost couldn’t read it. You backed out of frame immediately, almost out of instinct, wide eyes meeting Wilbur’s. “You’re streaming?”

“Fuck,” Wilbur made sure that you were definitely out of the frame before putting his stream back on the loading screen and going back to check on you.

Your breathing was much faster than usual and he could all but see your heart jumping out of your chest. “I am so sorry, darling, I was too busy being happy to see you that I completely forgot that I was even streaming. Are you okay?”

Your hands found Wilbur’s shirt, clenching it between your fists and burying your face in the fabric across his chest. His hands were securely on your back as he held you while you calmed your breathing. You weren’t crying no, he could tell you just needed to slow your breaths down and you’d be alright. He was whispering reassurances in your ear and within a few minutes your heart had calmed down. “I’m alright.”

“I’m so sorry,” Wilbur launched immediately into apologies again but your vice grip on his shirt stopped him.

“I’m alright, Wilbur.” You strangely were alright. What you could see on the chat were all nice things, they were all so excited to see you. “Never want to go back on your stream again, but I’m okay with them seeing me.”

“You don’t have to be okay, love, if you’re not. I’ll get the VOD taken down when I’m done and edit you out and say something about not circulating the video, I am so sorry-”

“I’m fine, Wilbur.” You pulled the fabric closer to your chest, the movement effectively silencing him. “Like I said. I am still good not showing up on your streams and stuff, but you can leave the video up. I’m alright with it, I promise.”

He softened at your determined face. “I love you,” he said in place of another apology. “I love you, and I am still sorry that I forgot to tell you. No more until you say so, I promise.”

“Thank you,” you said earnestly, loosening your grip on his shirt. “I’ll let you finish up now, do you think you’ll be a while?”

Wilbur kissed you softly before sitting back in his chair and looking up at you full of love. “Trust me, I definitely won’t be much longer.”

#wilbuh #wilbur soot fluff #wilbur x y/n #wilbur soot imagine #wilbur soot x reader fluff #wilbur soot headcanons #wilbur soot x y/n #wilbur soot x reader #wilbur soot fic #wilbur soot x you #wilbur soot fanfiction #wilbur soot angst

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ewanmitchellcrumbs · 7 months

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Imagine Being Loved By Me

Pairing: Billy Washington (Trigger Point) x f!reader Warnings: Self deprecation, alcohol, mild angst, semi public smut, oral sex (m receiving) Word count: ~3.2k

Summary: Loose lips sink ships - a drunken night at the pub proves catastrophic for the secret fling she's been having with her best mate's brother. Based on this request.

Author's note: I don't have a tag list. Please follow @fics-by-ewanmitchellcrumbs and turn on post notifications. Community labels are for cops.

She lays cocooned on the sofa, enveloped in the soft warmth of fluffy throw blankets. The sounds of an episode of Eastenders playing on the TV fill the small space of her living room, yet her attention is focused solely on her phone, cradled in her palm as her thumb hovers over the screen.

“Come to the pub, not seen you for ages.” Reads the text message from her best mate, Lana.

It’s true, she has seen less of Lana over the last couple of months, the sole cause of that is due to Lana’s younger brother, Billy. She had never meant for it to happen.

After Billy had been pulled from his car in Cranstead Gardens, only for it to blow up mere moments later - a bomb planted by a right wing group called The Crusaders, attempting to frame Billy for an attack on anti-fascist protestors, Billy had been in a bad way. Already plagued by struggles of self worth and identity, he was now traumatised on top of it.

Supporting Billy through all of it had taken a toll on Lana. She’d taken time off work to care for her younger brother, making sure he went to his therapy sessions, sitting up with him when his night terrors got too much for him to bear, making sure he ate and took care of himself.

She’d seen how tired Lana was becoming, the dark circles under her eyes growing more prominent every time she saw her. Spending so much time looking after Billy, she was forgetting to look after herself. Stepping in, she’d lended her own support, wanting to ease the burden on her best friend.

Countless cups of tea were made by her, she’d cooked massive pasta bakes and pots of chilli, ensuring that both Lana and Billy had dinner every day. In her bid to support her friend, she’d unwittingly become part of her brother’s life too.

It was an afternoon a week after Lana had gone back to work, she’d continued to pop round to Billy’s each day as a favour to her, just to check in on him and make sure he wasn’t letting the flat get in too much of a state.

They had been standing side by side in the kitchen, her rolling a cigarette for both of them, while Billy made tea. Their fingers had brushed as he’d passed her mug with one hand, while taking his rollie from her with the other, and for the briefest of moments their eyes had locked.

She felt as though time had stood still as she stared into his big blue eyes, and suddenly tea and cigarettes were forgotten as their lips met in a frenzied rush of passion. He’d pushed her back against the kitchen side and she’d giggled against his lips as they’d sent empty beer cans and dirty cutlery clattering to the floor.

In response, he’d lifted her, her legs wrapping around his waist as he’d carried her to the bedroom. His breath had been heavy against her neck as he’d rutted hard into her against the rumpled bed sheets, while she’d stroked her fingers through his tousled sandy hair and whispered to him how good he was making her feel.

They’d laid there breathlessly afterwards and he’d made her swear not to tell Lana. It had made sense to her at the time, she’d thought it was a one off, and Lana would probably find it weird that her best friend and her younger brother had slept together.

But then it kept happening, and as time went on it felt more like a relationship than casual hooking up. Yet Billy continued to insist they kept it quiet, so she had, despite it seeming odd to her that they’d make a secret of something that clearly both made them happy.

And Billy did make her happy - most of the time. When things were good, they were really good; they’d spoon on his threadbare sofa, his laughter ruffling her hair as they watched reruns of The Simpsons. His large hand would always find its way up her top, wrapping around the dip in her waist, anchoring her to him.

When things were bad, they were awful. It would often happen after Billy’s weekly visits to the JobCentre to sign on, he’d come back petulant, closed off, in a place that was so far into his own mind that she couldn’t reach him. He’d lash out with angry words, filled with spite and vitriol if she tried to push him to open up, so she’d learned to retreat, to let him come to her.

Usually a day later, he’d reach back out and apologise, and things would be good again. Yet this time, a week had passed since she’d left Billy to his own devices and he hadn’t spoken to her at all.

She clicks away from Lana’s text, and onto her thread with her younger brother, faced with a stream of her own unanswered messages.

Fuck him.

If he doesn’t want to talk to her then perhaps her Friday night is better spent at the pub. She fires off a quick message to Lana, telling her she’ll be there in an hour before showering and getting herself ready.

The pavement is slick underfoot as she walks from her flat. It’s rained recently, and the smell of it hangs thick in the air, along with a brisk chill that causes her to pull her leather jacket tighter around herself, wishing she’d put on something warmer.

She pushes through the heavy barrier of the pub door, leaving behind the cold air, the smell of rain and the steady hum of traffic, for stifling warmth, the cloying scent of beer and raucous laughter.

Smiling when she spots Lana at a table in the corner, flanked by her mate and fellow EXPO, John, she heads over, taking a seat next to Lana and shrugs out of her jacket.

“Alright, stranger?” Lana looks warmly at her, eyes filled with familiar affection, “Mick’s just getting a round in.”

Her smile falters, stomach churning with disgust at the mention of Mick. He’s ex-military, a mutual friend of Joel and Lana. Since Joel had passed away in the Westhaven Estate bombing, he had latched onto Lana, and it made her skin crawl. She hated his arrogance and the way he always leered at her, he took cheap shots at Billy’s expense whenever he was around, despite repeatedly being told to stop.

“Great,” she says, the dullness of her tone not matching the enthusiasm of the word.

Before Lana can respond, Mick makes his way back over, four full pint glasses clutched tightly in his hands. He sets them down on the table, the motion sending lager foam dripping over the edges and onto the wood beneath.

“Lana mentioned you’d be dropping in,” Mick says, sliding a glass across to her, a trail of moisture spreading across the tabletop in its wake, “so I got you a pint.”

“Thanks,” she says with a tight smile, lifting the glass to her lips and taking a deep sip, focusing on how the bitter bubbles fizz against her tongue.

“Any time, gorgeous,” he fires back with a wink, and she grimaces, feeling as though she’ll bring the beer back up that she’s just swallowed.

She’s grateful when he takes a seat next to John and the two fall into conversation, leaving her and Lana to catch up. They talk about work and Lana’s excitement over Thom finally asking her to move in with him. It’s nice to be around her best friend again, how easily they slot back into place as though no time has passed. She feels guilty for not having made more time for Lana, being secretly kept preoccupied by Billy.

As if on cue, her phone buzzes and she pulls it out of her bag, seeing a text from him flash up on the screen. “were r u??”

She sighs, realising he’s likely turned up at her flat and seen she’s not home. It’s tempting to ignore him, considering he’s left her hanging for the last week, but she knows Billy, knows what he’s like, he’ll spiral if he doesn’t hear from her.

“At the pub.” She replies, then sends “With your sister.” as an afterthought, hoping it will deter him from turning up.

Putting her phone away, she continues drinking her pint and chatting with Lana, until Lana’s eyes move towards the door, brows raising in surprise.

“Here comes trouble,” she says, before taking a drink.

She turns, heart sinking as she sees Billy making his way unsteadily towards their table. His eyes are glazed, a pinkish hue is dusted across the bridge of his nose and cheekbones, the telltale signs he’s been drinking.

Mick looks up, raising his pint in greeting. “Billy! I’d offer you a drink, but I’ve not long gotten a round in. You can afford to get your own, right?”

“Mick, leave it,” Lana grits out, eyes narrowed.

“Sit down, Billy,” she says gently, pulling out the seat next to hers, “I’ll get you one.”

“I don’t need you!” He snaps, nostrils flaring and brow furrowing.

She flinches back, feeling her throat tighten, lowering her gaze to hide the hurt she feels.

Billy softens, shoulders sagging with shame, averting his own eyes. “Don’t need you to get me a drink,” he says quietly, “can get my own.”

She watches him weave through the crowded pub towards the bar, anxiety forming a pit within her stomach.

“Fuck’s sake,” she hears Lana mutter under her breath, turning to her. “I’m so sorry, had no idea he’d turn up.”

I did, she thinks to herself, but offers her friend a reassuring smile. “It’s alright, I don’t mind.”

Billy’s pint is already half drunk by the time he makes his way back to their table. He sets the glass heavily down on its surface, before slumping in the seat next to hers, fingers fidgeting with a beer mat.

“Still not working then, Billy?” Mick asks and she has to fight the urge to tell him to shut up, her grip tightening around the condensation coated outside of her pint glass.

“Starting an apprenticeship in two weeks, actually,” he says, shooting him a sideways glance, fingers continuing to spin the beer mat.

What? Why hadn’t he told her?

Her eyes widen in surprise, mouth opening to ask about it, closing it again upon realising it’s not her place, not publicly anyway. Thankfully, Lana is quick to step in.

“That’s brilliant news! Doing what?”

“Car mechanics,” Billy says. “Bloke at the JobCentre sorted me out with it, I start in two weeks.”

“Wow,” Lana says with a genuine smile, “I’m dead pleased for you, mate, know how much you enjoyed doing up your old Vauxhall.”

Billy nods, tapping the edge of the beer mat against the table, not looking directly at anyone. “Yeah, should hopefully have a job by the end of it.”

She takes a mouthful of lager, swirling it over her tongue, trying to distract herself from the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She’s pleased for Billy, it would be cruel not to be, but she can’t deny the hurt she feels that this isn’t something he felt was worth sharing with her.

“Let’s hope this sticks, eh, mate?” Mick says with a smirk.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Billy asks with a scowl.

Mick shrugs casually. “Seems like a good opportunity, would hate to see it go the same way as all your attempts to join the army.”

“Let’s keep it friendly, shall we?” John says uncomfortably, but is ignored by Mick.

“I’m just saying,” he continues, “hope another group of terrorists doesn’t come along and distract him. They teach you how to look for bombs while you’re fixing up the cars at this apprenticeship?”

“I said enough!” Lana shouts, slamming her pint glass down, eyes wide with fury.

The pub goes eerily silent, the Oasis song that’s playing on the jukebox and the scrape of Billy’s chair legs on the flagstone flooring are the only audible sounds as he stands abruptly, tossing the beer mat he’d been fiddling with onto the table.

“Going out for a fag,” he says sullenly, the chatter of surrounding tables gradually becoming louder as the shock of the sudden outburst wears of.

Billy walks out of the pub, head bowed, and she watches him go, her heart aching for him.

“Erm…think I’ll join him, actually,” she tells Lana, turning towards her, “could do with a smoke anyway. I’ll see if he’s alright.”

“Appreciate that, thank you,” Lana says, giving her hand a squeeze. “Think Mick and I need to have a little chat anyway,” her tone is suddenly stern, her gaze dark as she turns to face the man opposite her.

She nods, slipping her jacket back on and heads outside.

The shock of the cold night air hitting her skin causes her to draw in a sharp breath. It’s still damp outside and she worries that Billy might have gone home when she can’t immediately see him. It’s not until she walks along the road a short distance that she spots the glow of the end of a lit cigarette down an alleyway, the reddish hue dully illuminating Billy’s sharp features.

Wrapping her arms around herself, she walks towards him. “You should ignore Mick,” she says softly, standing in front of him, “he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Billy exhales a plume of smoke, a hint of a sneer on his face as he draws his head back, staring at her through narrowed eyes. “Seems like he had the right of it to me. I’m a fuck up and almost got myself killed because of it.”

“You’re not, Billy,” she reassures him, “you were in a bad place. Those scumbags took advantage. Mick only takes the piss because he knows if he was in your position he wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

He sniffs, scowling slightly as he takes another drag, and she shifts from foot to foot, anxiously waiting for him to say something, anything.

She sighs when it becomes apparent he won’t, silently exhaling smoke, his brooding silence too much for her to bear. “Why didn’t you tell me about the apprenticeship?”

Billy swallows thickly, staring down at his trainers. “I was gonna, but then…then Becky text me.”

“Oh,” is all she’s able to get out, her skin growing heated despite how cold it is, as her heart lurches with painful jealousy.

She takes an involuntary step back, but Billy is quick to advance towards her, his free hand reaching for her. “No, not like that!” He says hastily. “I dunno what she wanted, actually. Messaged to ask how I was and I told her I was with you and not to contact me again.”

Her stomach flutters at his words.

Told her I was with you.

She can’t help the smile that tugs at the corners of her mouth. “And then what?”

“Then she said it wouldn’t last, she couldn’t imagine why someone like you would wanna be with someone like me.”

“And you believed her?”

He chucks his cigarette butt on the ground, crushing it underfoot. “I followed my therapist’s advice; cut ties with people who force you to question your self worth - blocked her number.”

Pride swells in her chest at his words and she reaches for his hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

“But it got me thinking,” he continues, “you deserve better than a few secret shags with your best mate’s waster brother.”

Her brow furrows, sadness making her feel heavy. “Is that why you’ve avoided me all week?”

Billy nods. “Yeah, just sorta wondered what the point of it all is, we have to keep it a secret anyway, and I’m just gonna fuck it up, same as I’ll do with this apprenticeship.”

She reaches up, cupping his face, fingers stroking over the scruff of his jawline, which is in desperate need of a shave. “Billy, it was your decision to keep us a secret. I’d tell everyone, given the choice. I’m not ashamed to be with you.”

His hands grasp her wrists, thumbs stroking the soft skin on the undersides. “Really?” He asks, his voice barely a whisper as he looks at her hopefully.

Leaning up, she kisses his lips, quick and chaste. “Really. Billy, you’re so good,” she leans up again, pressing her mouth to his more firmly, for longer, savouring the feeling of him kissing her back.

“So good to me,” she whispers, trailing her lips along his jaw and over his neck, smiling as she feels him shudder, his long fingers threading themselves into her hair.

“I’m so proud to be with you,” she tells him, sucking at his pulsepoint, earning a groan, which she feels the rumble of through his chest.

She reaches down, palming him through his jogging bottoms, feeling the rapid hardening of his cock through the cotton. “You’re gonna do so well at your apprenticeship, show everyone else just how good you are.”

His jaw goes slack, his grip on her hair tightening as he pulls her in for another kiss. It’s deep and heated, his breathing rapid as he tongue works against hers. He tastes of tobacco and Carling, yet to her there has never been anything more addictive.

Pulling away, his hands slip from her hair as she drops to her knees in front of him, not caring how the dampness of the concrete soaks into the material of her jeans.

“What are you doing?” Billy asks, lips parted in shock as he watches her tug at the waistband of his joggers and boxers, pulling them down just enough to free his erection. “Someone could see!”

“Then let them see, Billy,” she whispers huskily, eyes flitting up momentarily to meet the ocean blue wideness of his. “I told you I’m not ashamed to be with you.”

She licks the flushed pink tip of him, humming appreciatively at the sharp taste, grinning to herself as Billy hisses through his teeth, eyes screwed shut.

“Tastes so good,” she coos up at him, reveling in the sigh of the rapid rise and fall of his chest and the way he twitches against her palm.

Opening her mouth, she envelopes the length of him in its wet warmth, hollowing her cheeks as she bobs her head back and forth.

“Oh…fuck!” Billy all but chokes out, and she moans around him, speeding up her movements, pulling back each time the head of him knocks the back of her throat, stroking her hand up and down the base in tandem.

It is risky to do this so publicly, and yet it adds to the thrill; on her knees in a darkened alleyway for her man, showing him exactly what he’s worth, what he means to her.

Her core throbs with arousal, her movements becoming sloppy as Billy cups the back of her head, muscles tensing and his breathing becoming ragged. She can feel the tang of pre-cum against her tongue and knows he won’t last much longer.

She whines when he grips her hair, pulling her off of him and dragging his trousers back up.

“Why’d you do that? You were about to cum,” she huffs, rising to her feet.

“Exactly,” he says with a shrug, wrapping an arm around her shoulders, and guiding her out of the alley. “Wanna be inside you when I do that though, and I’d much rather be back at my girlfriend’s place to do that than down a fucking alley.”

She grins, wrapping an arm around his waist as they walk home.

Girlfriend.

She likes the sound of that.

#billy washington #billy washington x reader #billy washington x you #billy washington x y/n #billy washington smut #billy washington angst #billy washington imagine #billy washington trigger point #ewan mitchell #billy washington fan fiction #billy washington fanfiction #billy washington fan fic #billy washington fanfic #trigger point

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jupitercomet · 1 year

Text

Sunflowers

summary - “Where were you?” You ask softly.

“Sunflowers,” Bradley blurts as he sets them down on the kitchen island.

“W-What?”

“Sunflowers,” he repeats, letting out a shaky breath. He’s nervous, his eyes darting between your own and the bouquet.

Bradley’s always been good at saying things he doesn’t mean, but he’s even better at saying things that he does.

warnings - age gap relationship (Bradley is 38, reader is 25), mentions of therapy, the little prince makes a return

this blog is 18+, minors please do not interact

word count - 2.6k

I’m officially on spring break!! so I thought I’d post the Make Up™ to celebrate. enjoy! - bugs

part one i ain’t worried ‘bout it masterlist

You wake up heavy. And you’re not used to waking up heavy. Normally you wake up light, and it takes a couple seconds for the heavy to register—for you to remember why you’re meant to feel heavy at all. But this time you’re a kind of sad that even sleep cannot forget. And so, from the moment your eyes open, you feel tired, and hollow, and heavy.

The bed is empty beside you, sheets cold and only slightly rumpled from your light tugging at the blankets. It’s unclear if Bradley spent the night next to you and the thought breaks your heart a little, but you push it down and pad out of the bedroom. Rubbing a hand against your sleepy eyes, you’re hit with another stab of betrayal when you’re met with an empty living room and kitchen.

Bradley had left.

There’s no note on the fridge, or explanatory text on your phone, and you purse your lips because you really don’t want to cry anymore. Instead, you try to ignore the bitter disappointment, deciding to shower like that will wash away all your heavy. It doesn’t, but you walk through all the steps of it anyway. It’s weird to do all of this alone at Bradley’s house—normally you wouldn’t think twice about it. Now there’s this hyper-awareness that maybe you don’t belong here anymore. Maybe you never did.

You fall into old habits when you finish drying off, reaching for one of Bradley’s shirts before you can stop yourself. You hold the old cotton in your fingers, staring at it thoughtfully. It’s baby blue, the text on it worn with age and the amount of times it’s been through the cycle of Bradley’s washing machine. A few summers before you met, Bradley joined a volleyball league with some of his buddies and each of the teams ended up getting t-shirts made. It was the kind of shirt that spent most of its time hanging in the closet, but you always gravitated towards it anyway.

You know that, right now, you shouldn’t find comfort in it, not after last night. But you do. After a beat, you throw the faded, baby blue shirt over your head.

Bradley’s still not back—part of you wonders if he’s waiting for you to get the hint that he doesn’t want you here anymore—but, despite everything he’s done, you know that’s not Bradley. You swallow down your hurt and decide that breakfast would taste better. It takes making, eating, and putting away your pitiful bowl of oatmeal for Bradley to finally return.

You hear the Bronco pull into the driveway. The sound of the front door as Bradley unlocks it. In your head, you can picture everything he’s doing. Sliding off his shoes, putting his keys in the basket by the door, turning into the open living room. Though you can see all of this so clearly, you don’t face him. Not until he’s right in front of you.

Bradley freezes when you lock eyes, as if surprised to see you in his kitchen. The air is awkward and it makes your heart constrict because you hate that you feel so uncomfortable and unsure around the man you love more than anyone. He has yet to speak, but you notice something yellow poking out from behind his back.

“Where were you?” You ask softly.

“Sunflowers,” Bradley blurts as he sets them down on the kitchen island.

“W-What?”

“Sunflowers,” he repeats, letting out a shaky breath. He’s nervous, his eyes darting between your own and the bouquet. “I, um, I took you to the San Diego Museum of Art once—to see van Gogh—and you told me you didn’t know how to feel about Starry Night because you don’t believe that beauty is worth pain. But these are, um, I mean, van Gogh painted Sunflowers in 1888 and it’s one of the paintings he’s most proud of. And, to him, it represented happiness, which is why the sunflowers are yellow. He also—”

Bradley wets his lips in thought, fiddling with the rubber band holding the bouquet together. He feels like he’s butchering the speech that’s been running through his mind since last night, but he keeps going anyway. “He also painted it during a time when he was really happy and, I think, that’s what it’s meant to be… like, his happiness. But the important thing is that people think it’s beautiful— I think it’s beautiful.”

You’re frozen in the kitchen, akin to a deer in the headlights. You still look like the aftermath of a night spent crying, but you’re bathed in the yellow sunlight filtering in through his kitchen window. And Bradley has never been good at understanding art, nor has he ever claimed to be, but even he knows that if yellow is happiness then it most certainly makes sense that you're covered in it. He takes another breath.

“What I’m trying to say is, I… I don’t want you to be my Starry Night, I want you to be my Sunflowers. And… And I want to be your Sunflowers too. I don’t even know if I’m making sense but—”

Bradley’s train of thought dissolves when you suddenly move around the kitchen island and throw your arms around his neck. Your cheek rests against his chest and you squeeze him tightly, a kind of desperation in your fingers as you hold him. Bradley doesn’t entirely know what’s going on anymore, but he doesn’t waste the opportunity to secure his hands around your waist. He breathes in the scent of your hair, refamiliarizing himself with every part of you he’d been aching for these last couple hours.

“I am so, so sorry,” Bradley whispers, his grip tightening.

Your voice comes out a mumble against his shirt. “I know.”

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Bradley questions softly, nudging your side gently. “You can yell at me if you want.”

Your eyes well with tears again as you look at the sunflowers. “I don’t want to yell at you, Bradley… Can you just hold me for a little?”

“I can do that, honey,” Bradley nods, beginning to rock you slowly.

It’s quiet for a moment and then in a weak voice you ask, “Did you mean it?”

“No, honey, not at all,” Bradley shakes his head against your hair. “I’m not embarrassed to be with you. I just— Sometimes I’m embarrassed you have to be with someone like me.”

He hears your breath catch, he can feel the movement of your bottom lip tucking under your teeth. “What do you mean?”

“I’m... I’m not the kind of guy smart, mature, put-together girls want, I guess. I’ve never really been in super serious relationships or things like that and especially not with girls who— who know how to be healthy communicators. I don’t think you’d feel the way you do if you were with, like, Bob or something. But… No one expects me to be in a healthy relationship. So they see you, and you’re 25, and you’re dating me—” Bradley cuts himself off, pursing his lips.

Because he doesn’t want to say it. That sometimes he is embarrassed that, no matter what you act like, people know there isn’t any possible way Bradley Bradshaw could have found someone good for him. That you can’t be all these wonderful things that Bradley knows that you are because he’s too stupid to be attracted to that, so you must be some childish disaster.

Just like Bradley.

“And— And sometimes I get upset because I feel like I need you a lot more than you need me. Like, if you left me right now, you’d be okay and and I’d… I’d probably do something stupid and self destructive,” Bradley swallows. “I know I’m not in a position to ask you for anything, but when you don’t come to me for things you’re feeling, it feels like you see me that way too. Like it’s only a matter of time before you realize how much better you can do than me.”

You look at him sternly. “Bradley, I can’t— I don’t want to do better than you. You are the healthiest, most serious boyfriend I’ve ever had, and I’ve never had someone who just knows everything I need so well. I do need you, so, so much. I guess... maybe that’s a little scary for me sometimes. But that’s not your fault and, you’re right, I need to get better at being vulnerable with you too.”

You take a breath. Bradley’s still rocking you in the kitchen, looking down at you with his big, brown eyes, and it hits you that this is your Bradley. You’ve always known he was yours and he’s always been yours, but now you know this is your Bradley who loves stronger than anything. And he gets angry, and sad, and reckless just as strongly and sometimes that’s hard. But he loves you more than anyone has ever loved you. He’s your Bradley who stays up researching the life and works of Vincent van Gogh because he’s always loved you like you’re art and he wants you to love like that too.

“Sometimes being around people your age is hard for me because it makes me feel bad about not being in the same place as you. And I want to tell you, but I don’t want to make you feel like you have to give things up for me—I know it probably wouldn’t look like that to you but that’s just what it feels like—so I just try to get over it. And, honestly, I can handle people treating me like a child— Maybe not all the time, sometimes it can be a lot. But I can. What I can’t handle is you doing that. Last night, you didn’t treat me like an equal member of our relationship and I— Bradley, I am younger than you. And that means that sometimes I’m going to act 25. I can’t take it if you use that against me. I need to know that you’ll respect me then too.” You gnaw at your lip, somewhat hesitant to meet Bradley’s eye.

“I will. I do,” Bradley promises. “But I know I need to get better at showing it. I think… I think I’m gonna start seeing someone. A professional, I mean. I don’t like who I am when I’m angry and I think part of the problem is that I want to be able to, like, express my feelings the way you do, but I can’t and it makes me frustrated. I’ll probably need you’re help sometimes, you’re way better at this stuff than me, but I want to, um, I want to be someone that can be there when you feel like this. I want to be someone you’re proud of too.”

You smile softly, “I am proud of you, Teddy.” Gently, you cup his cheek and Bradley melts into your palm.

He turns his head to kiss the inside of your hand. “I love it when you call me that.”

On the kitchen island, the bouquet of sunflowers sits—yellow and happy.

Morning blends to afternoon and the sunlight in Bradley’s kitchen gets muted by soft clouds. The two of you are entangled on Bradley’s couch, shirts and shorts tossed to the hardwood floor beneath you. Bradley insists that it’s because it’s too hot, but you both know that his A/C works just fine and that it’s not the real reason Bradley pulled you onto his bare chest as soon as you stripped to your underwear.

You let out a quiet breath, cheek smushed against Bradley’s pec as you trace patterns on his skin. Bradley’s hand is lazily stroking your back, fingertips gliding across your spine, as the other holds a worn copy of The Little Prince.

Once you learned that Bradley had never read The Little Prince, you went out and bought a copy of it from an old bookstore. While Bradley appreciated the gift, he never read much of anything that wasn’t jet manuals or mission reports, so for a while it sat as mere decoration on his coffee table. People had asked about it a couple times—Natasha pointed it out once at a backyard barbeque he was hosting—and Bradley always shrugged and said it was his favorite book. He’d never read it, but he knew it was his favorite.

Now though, he finds himself reading it, his chest vibrating under you as he reads aloud. And, though he always said it was his favorite, Bradley wasn’t sure how much he’d actually like reading a children’s book, but a small smile lights up his face when he realizes the narrator is a pilot and he thinks that when he’s done with the book he’ll watch the movie like you always wanted to. But, for now, Bradley feels your soft breaths on his bare skin and he reads.

“—His face turns from white to red as he continued:

‘If someone loves a flower, of which just one single blossom grows in all the millions and millions of stars, it is enough to make him happy just to look at the stars. He can say to himself, ‘Somewhere, my flower is there…’ But if the sheep eats the flower, in one moment all his stars will be darkened… And you think that is not important!—”

Bradley closes his mouth suddenly, looking down at the top of your head. His fingers no longer ghost your skin, but are more firmly pressed against it because what he really needs is to feel you. Feel the rise and fall of your breaths, your warmth. How soft, and strong, and fragile you are. Because sometimes Bradley has to remind himself. Because sometimes Bradley forgets.

“Why’d you stop reading?” You ask quietly.

“I was thinking.”

You watch as Bradley sets The Little Prince back on the coffee table. “What were you thinking about?”

“Stars and flowers,” he pauses. “And you.”

He feels your smile grow across his skin. “I was thinking about that too,” you whisper, pressing a kiss to Bradley’s chest. He doesn’t say anything more, and neither do you, for several minutes until you speak suddenly. “Will you read again? I like when you do the voices.”

“‘Course I will. Just gonna look at you a little longer first.”

You cover your face with a groan. “Stop it.”

“Stop what? Lookin’ at you? Or this?” Bradley breaks out into a grin when you let out a shriek as his fingers dance along your sides. His laughter joins your own, legs entangling with yours to pin you to him as you squirm gleefully on his chest. And Bradley decides that he knows for certain what the Little Prince is talking about.

Because when he looks at you, laughing on his chest, soft and strong and fragile, Bradley knows that he can face all of his stars, as painful as they are, because, somewhere, you’re there. And that’s the kind of beautiful Bradley sees in you. The kind of beautiful that heals. The kind of beautiful that only ever shows itself because Bradley is fully and utterly happy.

Bradley has always been so sure that the two of you could work through anything. That you love each other more than you’re mad at each other. That you want to fix things more than you want them to just stop. That you matter more to each other happy than sad.

Now, as he watches you like Sunflowers, Bradley knows that it’s true.

I don’t have a taglist but feel free to follow my library @jupitercometgold if you want to be notified when I post

#bradley bradshaw imagine #bradley bradshaw imagines #bradley bradshaw x reader #bradley bradshaw fluff #bradley bradshaw angst #rooster imagine #rooster imagines #rooster x reader #rooster fluff #rooster angst #top gun maverick imagines #x reader #i ain't worried 'bout it #buggy's got a pen

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darkficsyouneveraskedfor · 9 months

Text

The Duff 17

Warnings: groping, insecurity, food and body issues, manipulation, and the usual. Proceed with caution.

Feedback is always welcome. Love you and thanks for the wonderful responses so far. ♥♥♥♥

Image credit (I want to give dues where due but don’t want the creator to keep getting tagged in my posts as I have been approached by some before that they don’t want me in their notifs)

You get up to your apartment and lock the door, double checking before you can bring yourself to step away. Finally a chance to breathe, but you can’t.

You go to the counter, plopping your bag on top as you try to gulp down air. The roll and clatter of some unseen object can’t break through your panic.

What the fuck? What the fucking fuck!?

You don’t get it. Curtis, Andy, all of it. One big clusterfuck with no escape. Some weirdo you got stuck with in the club is not your personal pest and your own boss can’t take a hint.

Since when did you become some hot commodity? How could you take for granted all those years of being overlooked? You’d give anything to never be seen again.

You clumsily reach for your bag and fish out your phone. You can barely grip it as your breaths remain shallow and your hands tremble. You pull up your chat with Stephanie and text her; then Isla, then Mindy. You need someone.

You stare at the empty checkmarks. You’ll be lucky if you get a response before the morning. Some friends.

All your anger and resent boils up until you’re crying again. You were always the odd one out, the third wheel, always left with the scraps and now look what it got you. You blame them. For exiling you to the status of DUFF. For not giving a goddamn shit. Not one of them checked in after that night at the club.

You could throw your phone. Instead you swipe away the more than twenty messages piled up in your notification bar. All from the same person. Curtis is insane, you know that much. You should’ve seen it sooner. You should’ve let yourself see it sooner but you really thought you’d met a decent guy. The first guy to actually see you, but not he’s way too focused on you.

You feel helpless, trapped. You don’t know what to do. You can’t even hide at work with your desperate boss hovering like a shark. How did you not see that either? Well, you wouldn’t expect it. You’ve worked for Andy for almost a year and he’s never tried anything.

Maybe it’s you. Maybe you’re sending all the wrong signals. Well, you don’t even know what kind of signals to send. When you want someone to leave you alone, they bother you, and when you’ve only ever wanted a bit of attention, you were castigated.

You give up. You get a hold of yourself and count until your heartbeat evens out. You plug your phone into the charger and pick up the half-empty bottle of mint-flavoured sparkling water from the floor. You place it back on the counter and drag your feet across the unlit living room.

You’ll call in, take a day to recover. Maybe one of the girls will finally answer their messages and you can get some ideas from them. One thing for sure, you’re locking yourself up in this place and not going anywhere.

You go into the bathroom, flicking on the light. You look in the mirror and sigh. Are you really the type to drive men mad?

You rinse your face and brush your teeth. You go through the motions, hoping routine can comfort you. It hardly does.

You enter the bedroom and flip off the bathroom light. You walk through the dark. You're too drained to turn on the lamp as you approached the bed.

You strip down to your underwear and pull on the tee shirt you left rumpled up by your pillow. You nestle under the covers and resist another wave of tears. You feel lost. You don’t know which way to go.

You squeeze your eyes shut and pray for sleep. You just need to forget everything. You just need a break. You–

You don’t drink sparkling water. You sit up and hold a cramped breath in your chest. That bottle. Mint? What kind of psycho buys organic mint water?

Your heart hammers. Your phone is out in the kitchen. Shit.

You get up slowly and listen to the silence of your apartment. You creep towards the door, your footsteps light but scuffing over the carpet and onto the hardwood. You pause just in the doorway as you try to see through the dark into the front room.

You hear the slow roll of the closet door folding back too late. In a moment, you’re wrenched off your feet. You flail and kick, your voice muffled beneath the rough palm as you claw blindly at the figure behind you. His low hush warms the shell of your ear.

“It’s okay, bunny,” Curtis grits softly, “I’m going to take care of you.”

He keeps his hand over your mouth, snug against your nose, blocking all air. Your eyes bulge as you fight to breathe and his thick arm comes up around your neck, squeezing enough to make you dizzy.

"I know you love me. Let me show you how much I can love you..." He rasps.

The world speckles around you, the distant noise of the city pulsing until silent, your eyelids closing against your will, casting you into horrifying black.

#curtis everett #dark!curtis everett #dark curtis everett #curtis everett x reader #drabble #au #series #the DUFF #snowpiercer

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softlyspector · 1 year

Text

Lavender

Summary: A year after his mother's death, Marc travels back to Chicago to face his father. He doesn't expect it to be easy but he also doesn't expect it to be so hard. He especially doesn't expect to find refuge from the hard moments in a little known witch's shop a few blocks over. And definitely not in one keeping watch over the family's piano.

This chapter: Marc tries to confront his father. You tell him about the day you got the piano.

Tales Untold; Part II

Pairing: eventual Marc Spector x Reader (eventual minor Steven Grant x Reader and Jake Lockley x Reader)

Word Count: 5.9k

Warnings (this chapter): mentions of past child abuse, mental health issues, alcohol

A/N: I hope you enjoy! As always thank you for reading! Comments and feedback are so appreciated. Please let me know if any additional warnings need to be added. For full series warnings, please check the series masterlist, which will be updated as parts are posted!

II.

Tales Untold, Chicago 10:54 AM

Sun.

Spotted on the floor. On the cream colored rug beneath the sofa.

Marc stares at it for a long moment, at the undulating lines of light, head pounding and vision crossing. His neck is tilted at an odd angle on the armrest of the sofa, an ache piercing the top of his spine. When he pulls in a breath, everything still smells like lavender and rosemary, even though the blanket infused with the scent is heaped by his feet at the end of the sofa and spilling onto the floor.

“Fuck,” he whispers, pushing himself upright.

The sky is clear beyond the window, robin’s egg blue, like the snow had never happened. There’s a thin layer of ice rimming the glass and the panes rattle ominously with a wind that still hasn’t died down.

Aside from him, the room is empty.

Marc can just see the rumpled edge of your duvet poking out from behind the changing screen, though he can tell you aren’t in bed. The bathroom door is ajar, the room beyond empty.

Slowly, Marc stands, stumbling a little when a bolt of pain darts up his spine to land at the back of his head. “Fuck,” he murmurs again as he rubs a hand over his neck, turning his eyes around the room until he meets Steven’s tried gaze in the standing mirror near the stairway door.

“Bloody hell, Marc. What was all that?” He rubs his eyes with his fists, hands hidden inside his coat sleeves. “We feel bloody awful.”

Marc doesn’t answer, pivoting to look for the piano innocently standing in the corner of the room. He half expects it not to be there, like last night had all been a weird dream.

It’s still there, the keys uncovered, half in shadow, half in the light spilling in the window, cherry wood shining and polished.

He glances away.

It belongs with him, and yet he can’t hold his gaze on it for longer than five seconds.

You’ve clearly been taking good care of it, if nothing else.

Guilt, uncomfortably warm and familiar, slides up his throat. He shouldn’t feel guilty for immediately interrogating his father, for running away and not going home last night. But it was hard, to stand there, to pretend like he was a normal son coming home for a normal visit to a father he trusts.

He pulls out his phone, scrolls through the missed calls and worried text messages from his father that tapered off around one in the morning.

More guilt squirms in his gut, for making Elias worry, despite it all.

Marc switches the phone off and shoves it in the pocket of the coat he’s still wearing. The acridity of booze and stale cigarettes wafts off him in waves, but he can’t remember what bar he’d been at before he wandered away and collapsed on the street.

Apparently, back in front of your shop.

He glances at his hands, turning them over slowly to check for bruises and cuts. But he remembers most of the night and Marc already knows he won’t find anything. The familiar embrace of anger hadn’t come last night, just the slow moving death of melancholy. One day the pain might stop his heart, the ache inside him that hasn’t stopped bleeding and weeping.

“What is it about that piano, mate?” Steven asks and when Marc glances at him again his hands are against his chest, the shape of them nervous and worried. “Somethin’ I should know about, yeah?”

But that’s Marc’s memory, this piano is Marc’s memory, one of his only good memories. And he wants to guard it jealously. He’s not ready to talk about it. Not yet.

It means -

giggles and sunshine and a mother who loves him.

It means lying shoulder to shoulder with his brother, happy and unburdened and unknowing of the future and all that came with it.

Marc tries, he really tries, not to hide things from Steven anymore.

But this is something he can’t bring himself to talk about.

“I’m not ready to talk about it,” he manages, his throat dry and cracking. His mouth tastes sour and cottony. He wants a glass of water and to brush his teeth. “Not now,” he grumbles, clearing his throat not so subtly.

“Okay,” Steven agrees, his voice soft. “But, sometime, yeah?”

Marc nods, making sure to turn and look into his alter’s eyes.

It’s a system that works for them. Marc gets to hold onto his privacy for a little longer, and Steven doesn’t feel cut off and adrift, alone, left to guess.

“Was it…it was mum’s?”

He must have heard Marc’s conversation with you. “Yeah.”

“And-,”

A door slams loudly below them. The sound makes Marc flinch, brace himself, fists curled at his sides. The stairs creak as someone climbs them quickly, clearly taking them two at a time.

Marc tenses as the person reaches the top of the stairs, his headache worsening by the minute.

But it’s just you, appearing suddenly in the doorway balancing two travel cups of coffee and a paper bag. “Good morning!”

Your voice is loud, but not grating. And Steven goes silent, drinking in the sight of you, the smile tugging your mouth up, before he gushes that you're beautiful, ethereal.

Marc tries to tune him out.

You are inexplicably sunny, cheerful. You’d been drunk last night too, teetering on uncertain feet and leaning into his arm, but you don’t seem to be paying for it now.

“Morning,” Marc falters, watching you dump the bag on the kitchen counter, acutely aware suddenly that he’s in someone else’s space, that he doesn’t belong and you were probably hoping he’d leave while you were out. “I was just going to-,”

You extend a hand across the kitchen island, holding out one of the paper cups to him. “I don’t know how you take your coffee, so I got it black. I have milk and sugar if you want,” you chatter on, not seeming to realize the internal conflict swirling around inside him.

Marc stares at you, then down at the cup in your hand before he slowly takes it. “Marc,” Steven reprimands. “You should probably thank the person who saved us from the street, yeah?” A pause, then, “Marc, do we even know -,”

“What’s your name?”

You smile, shaking out the contents of the paper bag onto a plate. A couple of pastries roll out - a chocolate croissant, a blueberry scone, a banana muffin, an apple tart. You tell him your name, before asking which of the pastries he’d like. “Obviously I don’t know what you like so I got a couple different things.”

He opens his mouth, Steven harshly reminding him to - “Say thank you! Gone to a lot of trouble for you and hasn’t even got a clue who you are!”

“Thank you,” he blurts out, feeling stupid and slow to action, his mind foggy and pulsing. “For last night,” he clarifies when you only stare at him. “And the coffee.”

You blink, like you aren’t expecting to be thanked, like you can’t understand why he’d thank you. “Well, here,” you push the plate toward him instead of acknowledging his words. “You pick first. Milk or sugar?”

He should just get out of your way, go home. The pity you’d had for him while intoxicated was probably long gone in the sharp light of a sober new day.

But you just peer at him from beneath too long lashes when he doesn’t answer, tilting your head to the side.

“Both,” he says instead of giving you his leave, settling on a stool.

You slide the sugar bowl across the counter, and then the milk when you retrieve the carton.

Marc decides on the croissant, his headache easing a bit with every bite of food, and he’s reminded that he hasn’t eaten anything since the airport, since he arrived in Chicago the previous day and nervously bought an overpriced sandwich to stall for time until he inevitably had to track down a cab.

He should have eaten with his father.

He had smelled food cooking as he stood in the living room. Something salty, something that smelled suspiciously like matzo ball soup.

It was a childhood smell, layered over the scent of his mother’s peppermint and cedar, the slightly stuffy smell of a house kept closed for too long.

He’d stood there watching the empty space of the piano with a chasm opening in his heart. It was like mourning and grief slapped over painful memories, papered over the things harbored inside him that he’s never been able to tramp down.

You watch him make up his coffee and Marc doesn’t feel weird about it. The silence isn’t sticky and Marc has never felt pressure to speak, to fill empty spaces with words. Even still, you’ve been kind, maybe saved his life, and he feels…oddly safe.

“So, shit talks to you, huh?” He finds himself asking.

He cringes at the words that leave his mouth, Steven slapping a hand over his eyes in the mirror. But you don’t miss a beat, snorting out a laugh. “Sometimes. But not precisely that, no.” You peer at him over your own cup of coffee and offer no further explanation. “Piano?”

“It was my mother’s,” he says, though you already know that. Maybe that’s why it's so easy to say. His spine softens a fraction and you lean against the counter across from him.

You hum, like its new information and you’re storing it away for later use.

This time, you don’t comment on her death. You don’t comment on her at all. Instead, you ask, “Do you still play?”

“No.”

You nod thoughtfully. “Where are you going to take her? You don’t live in Chicago anymore, right?”

“No.” And then, “I’m not sure why I came looking for it. It’s not like I have room. I don’t even know if I want it.”

You quirk a brow at him. “Things can have a weird pull over us. Attachments don’t always make sense.”

He nods, but all he knows is that when he’d seen that open space in the living room, something inside him had yawned open, vicious, cloying emotions swirling up from the abyss he thought he’d sealed closed inside himself. He hadn’t intended to go tearing off trying to find it.

Marc, really, at the end of the day, always fucks everything up. His best intentions and decisions skewed to something he never meant to happen, and always for the worse.

You take a bite of the muffin, like you’re mulling over what he’s said and he’s someone much more important to you than some guy you just met. “Well, you don’t have to decide now, right? You can take some time to think about what you want.”

He doesn’t answer you, sipping at his cup of coffee.

It’s good coffee, bold and aromatic. The milk you’ve given him is oat but he doesn't mind the flavor of it.

He’s not sure, really. Not sure if he came to finally have it out with his father, reconcile, spiral, or something worse.

He doesn’t know, either, why his father asked him to come home.

“You can always leave it here,” you suggest, mistaking his silence for apprehension. You send him a nervous smile when he meets your eyes. “Especially if you’re in town for a little while.” You shrug and look toward the instrument when Marc refocuses his eyes on the counter. There’s something about your eyes, something that makes him think you know much more than you should, just by looking at him. “I knew as soon as your father walked in the door that I’d have to save whatever it was he was donating.”

Marc goes still at the mention of his father, and doesn’t dare look up from the counter.

“She wasn’t ready to leave your family. Didn’t want to.” For one horrifying moment, Marc thinks you mean his mother, until he realizes you’re just talking about the piano. The piano, and all that it carried, had not been ready to leave his family. According to you. “Now though…it knows you.”

Marc turns to look at the piano and sees the living room of his childhood again, bright child laughter, sun spots on the floor, warm drinks, and the sound of prayer. The image fades, replaced by your lilac walls, the cold spring morning air, the scent of lavender lingering in the air, mixing with coffee and sugared pastries.

He doesn’t question what you mean, about the piano knowing him, about it not being ready to leave, like you can somehow communicate with it.

“Do you want to play it?”

His throat goes tight and he glances back at you, focuses on the lashes that line your eyes, the plush curve of your cheek. “No.”

He’ll die if he touches it. If he touches it, if he plays a note that resonates too loud, his mother will know.

Unbidden comes the image of before, of Randall’s hands next to his, pressing key after key, following the lead of his big brother.

“Marc,” Steven’s voice, curling around him. “Maybe you should-,”

“No,” he repeats, louder this time, and you jump. “No. No, sorry,” he makes an effort to even his voice. “I can’t.”

It’s silent for a while, nothing but the sound of both of you sipping on your coffees and finishing the pastries.

The guilt comes back with a vengeance.

He doesn’t know you. You don’t know him.

And here he is unloading all of his shit onto you, all the baggage he carried around on the ladder of his spine, between the curves of his ribs.

Already he’s had a breakdown in front of you, been saved from freezing to death by you, slept on your couch, and let you feed him.

He wonders why you haven’t told him to fuck off yet, and why he feels so comfortable staying.

“Look,” you say suddenly. “When your dad dropped off the piano, we talked for a bit. He talked a lot about you. I think…I know he misses you.” Marc’s spine goes rigid, his breath stalling in his lungs. “He didn’t tell me what happened between you. But he does miss you. I don’t know-I don’t know if that’s why you’re in town but you don’t have to worry about the piano right now. I’ll take care of her while you figure things out with your dad.”

“He talked about me?” Marc’s voice is sharp and hard, like grit in an open wound.

“Yeah,” you say softly. “Yeah, he did.”

Marc scoffs and shakes his head. “Fuck,” he mutters into the top of his cup.

“Sorry,” he decides to apologize again instead of lingering on the thoughts bubbling up about his childhood, his last remaining family member, and what the fuck he hoped to get out of coming home. “Sorry for whatever the fuck last night was. You didn’t have to do that.”

You smile, “Stranger things and all that,” you murmur, glancing away from his eyes. “I didn’t mind. Truthfully, having a guest snoring on my couch was welcome.”

“I snored?”

“A little,” your nose scrunches up. “Cute little, like, mumbles.” Marc doesn’t have time to feel embarrassed about that before your grin fades and you continue, “Terrible date. Truly awful. I have such bad luck.” You sigh and it sounds heavy, like you’re at the edge of giving up. “Anyways. It was nice to not think about that right after.”

Silence settles again and it's not uncomfortable.

He doesn’t feel like he has to talk.

But he kind of wants to.

Marc licks his lips, decides he’s going to take your offer.

The thought of coming back here, to this little room, only has a little to do with it. “You won’t sell it?”

“Course not, it’s yours.”

Marc swallows and stands, figuring he should get out of your way anyways, figuring he should face his father, “Okay.”

You blink across at him before tilting your head to the side, owlish in your intensity. “Okay,” you agree. “Come visit her whenever you want, if you want. Get reacquainted, y’know?”

He nods. He’s going to need somewhere to go when that house gets too stifling. He’s going to need somewhere to flee when things get messy, somewhere safe.

And you feel weirdly safe.

Like he’s known you his whole life.

“Do I - Did we grow up together or somethin’?”

You shake your head, smiling again. “No. Don’t think so. This was my mom’s place until a couple years ago. I lived out of state with my dad.”

Marc hums, glances at the mirror to find himself alone. He almost says it. Feels like we did. It feels like we know each other.

It feels like he’s known you for a long time. He feels comfortable with you.

“Are you okay to go home?”

The golden energy that bands around you seems to gather at the crown of your head, like some kind of sovereign holding court. “Yeah,” he says, not sure why his voice cracks. “I’m good.”

“Okay. Well. You know where to find me.” He’s almost to the steps when you call out, “Marc? You’re always welcome here.”

Milwaukee Avenue, Chicago, 12:14 PM

His father meets him at the door, worry etched in his eyes. “Marc,” he starts to step forward.

Marc steps away, his back hitting the solid wood of the front door behind him.

Elias steps back, holding up a hand in surrender. “Come in,” he says, placating his only remaining son, beckoning him forward into the house that Marc should feel comfortable in.

Marc follows and doesn’t offer an explanation for where he’d been, where he’d gone, and Elias doesn’t ask.

“I’m sorry about the piano,” Elias says when Marc is settled at the dining room table. The same white cloth is spread over it, a candelabra that holds three candles in the center of the table. “Did you manage to find it?”

A steaming bowl of matzo ball soup is placed in front of him, then a spoon.

Marc wants to fling it across the room, a childlike, bitter, angsty rage swimming in his gut.

He didn’t think it would be this hard. He thought -

He’d done the hard part. Fought himself and won. Fought better for himself and Steven, and Jake, when he deigned to appear. He’s good now. He’s over this. He doesn't think about that room at the top of the stairs anymore. He doesn’t think about the slither of leather, the loudness of an unwanted presence. He doesn’t think about the best ways to hide and go unseen and unnoticed.

Not anymore.

Here, he expects her still, bottle in hand, to sway through the door, point and say it's all his fault, every shitty decision he’s ever made is punishment for the one mistake that could never be undone.

He expects Wendy to walk through the door, look into his eyes, and tell him he’s just like her.

They are one and the same, bitter and biting.

Marc swallows, doesn’t fling the bowl across the room.

Instead, he says, “I already ate. I found the piano. It’s still at Tales Untold.”

“It hasn’t been sold,” Elias leans back in his chair, eyebrows ticking upwards, clearly surprised. “I thought it would have.”

Marc shrugs in response, an awkward quiet descending between them. He doesn’t know what to say into this uncomfortable silence. Not with the weight of a mother and wife, and lost sons, sitting between them.

“How’s life in Lon-,”

“Why did you ask me to come here?”

Elias blinks. “I-,”

“Do we really have anything left to say to each other?” The rage boils up and over, hot and mean. “After all these fucking years. Do we really have anything left to say? Do you?” There’s a long pause, the silence deafening. “You didn’t even fucking come after me. Her shiva. I left. You could have at least come out on the steps.”

He doesn’t know why he’s talking about that day, why he’s even brought it up.

“Son-,”

“Don’t.” His breath stutters and he feels the itch of panic behind his skin, for being loud and taking up room in a place that tried to crush him. “Don’t make excuses.”

“I was grieving.”

Marc’s throat is tight, shards of his broken heart swallowed down into his belly. “So was I.” He remembers stumbling down the street, cold cobblestones beneath his knees when he’d been unable to continue. “And I was alone.”

He’s always been alone.

The comforting presence of his alters are there in a moment, warm and reassuring that he’s no longer alone, that he never had been.

Words flutter at the back of his throat, questions he’s swallowed down his whole life.

I was a kid. How could you let that happen to me? How could you look the other way? How could you protect her over me?

Between the summer evenings batting baseballs together in the park, and early morning prayers, and winters drinking cocoa together. Between the soft moments where things were normal and Marc was allowed to be a kid, between Cubs games and going ice skating and visiting the aquarium, how could he ignore it? Ignore the bruises? Ignore the crying? The drinking? The pain he started carrying around like it was a second skin?

But he doesn’t.

He doesn’t ask.

His rage burns out quicker than it comes. Marc shoves a lid on the emotions simmering under the surface of his skin and looks away, feeling drained and empty.

The urge to throw the soup across the room is still there.

Instead, he curls his hands into fists. “I’m not hungry.”

Elias doesn’t move, doesn’t speak, and Marc is reminded of all the evening dinners he sat through just like this lunch. His mother drunk, perpetually grieving her son, his brother cold, and he and his father not knowing how to look at each other, what to say, who to blame.

Was Marc just a kid? Aas it just an accident, or was Wendy right? Marc’s always been jealous, and he was waiting for an opportunity to become the killer he was destined to be.

“I already ate,” he repeats, something inside him closing, locking tight. If he speaks again, he’ll scream, he’ll cry.

The silence descends again, before Elias quietly takes the bowl away and returns a few minutes later. “Okay,” he starts to lie a hand against Marc’s shoulder but thinks better of it. “I’ll save it and you can warm it up if you want some later.”

Marc gives a stiff nod but doesn’t look up from the table.

Tales Untold, Chicago 6:43 PM

The brick needs repaired. Marc scratches a nail over the crumbling facade of Tales Untold with his free hand.

The wooden sign over the door needs repainted and the flower boxes lining the front window have seen better days.

Marc waits for the door to open, feeling stupid for knocking. He shouldn’t be bothering you. You’d only been kind the other day because he had been in a delicate state of mind. There’s no way you actually want him to come back, but he doesn’t know where else to go, and if he goes anywhere else he might end up at a bar.

Three days have passed since he last saw you, since you took him in drunk and let him sleep on your couch and fed him breakfast. Three days have gone by - three days of half aborted conversations with his father. Three days of awkward silences and even more awkward small talk.

He can’t take it anymore, feeling trapped in that house, feeling the looming presence of people missing. Two nights in a row he’d gone out and bought a bottle of whiskey but on the second night, the anger had come, and he’d seen her in the mirror.

The mirror ended up shattered, long shards spattered with blood lining the floor of the upstairs hall. When his father didn’t even mention it the next morning, Marc realized that he was used to it and so it wasn’t anything to comment on.

Marc dumped the rest of the liquor down the toilet and told himself it was not because it hurt his father but because Marc didn’t want to be his mother.

He’s sober now, with a headache pinching the back of his neck.

He’s a stranger to you and it's evening and the shop is closed. You probably don’t want your free time being taken up by someone you don’t know.

Before he can walk away and pretend it didn’t happen, he catches movement behind the glass, your figure weaving through the aisles to the door.

A frown is etched over your face and Marc’s belly dances with guilt and uncertainty. He’s not sure he can remember a time he’s made a decision without that feeling.

You peer through the glass and the frown disappears.

To Marc’s surprise, you look happy to see him and not at all irritated. “Marc,” you say when you unlock the door and wrestle with the way the door sticks in the frame before it creaks open. “I was wondering when you might come back!”

He holds up the tupperware of matzo ball soup. “I brought you dinner.”

“Oh,” you look surprised. “I-,”

“To get you back. For breakfast.”

He needed an excuse to get out of the house, away from the walls he was ready to tear down with bloody fingers. He’s never felt more like an unwanted guest.

“You didn’t have to do that,” you say, but your smile is bright and you take the tupperware from his outstretched hand.

Marc nods, a strange vulnerability surging up the back of his throat as he realizes there’s nothing to tether him to this spot. Now, he’s empty handed and stranded on the street with nowhere to go but back to a place that feels haunted to him.

“Your sign needs a new coat of paint,” he grumbles, pointing above your head. “And the brick needs to be repointed.”

Marc wants to kick himself. Insulting your storefront probably wasn’t the best way to buy himself more time. But you just hum thoughtfully and nod, “And the door sticks. And the bell is a little rusty.”

It’s an out, a recovery from his poor choice of conversation. A graceful turn of his words, accepting of the blunt assessment.

“And your flowers are dead,” he nods at the wilted, iced over blooms sticking sickly out of the window boxes.

What the fuck is wrong with him? He was in the clear. Why would he-

You just stare at him for a moment, startled and blinking rapidly, before you burst out into laughter, clutching your stomach and bending over like it's the funniest thing you’ve ever heard.

Heat warms his face, something pleasant fluttering behind his sternum.

“You…are so right.” You nod and wipe the corner of your eye on your sleeve. “It needs a lot of work.” You tilt your head at him, “Have you eaten dinner? I got bread from Flour Up earlier that would probably go really well with this. We can share.” You hold up the container with a grin.

He rubs a hand over the back of his neck, not sure if he should accept your offer, if he really deserved to. He’s already taken up so much of your time. “Flour Up?”

You jut your chin to the left, at the bakery next to your shop. “Flour Up. Opened only a couple weeks ago but it's pretty good. That’s where the coffee and pastries were from. The owner is nice.” Marc hesitates, that biting loneliness, the voice inside him that whispered he wasn’t good enough, rearing up again. “C’mon,” you cajole. “You’ve gotta eat some.”

“Okay,” he acquiesces, maybe too quickly.

“Great,” you beam and hold the door open for him. “I bought too much bread anyways.” You chatter as you lead him once again through the shop and up the narrow stairs at the back. The sun is fading now, sinking below the horizon in the distance and your shop and the apartment above are bathed in a faint orange and gold glow.

An unlikely peace settles between his bones again, the golden sunshine on your skin mesmerizing.

He doesn’t look at the piano, even though he can feel it looking at him.

“Y’know,” you say, popping the top off the tupperware as he settles at the counter, “I haven’t had matzo ball soup in forever.”

Marc watches you turn on the stove, the snap of the lighter before the flame appears comforting in its domesticity. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s so good in the winter or when you’re sick,” you chirp. “It’s such a perfect soup.”

Marc finds himself fighting a smile as you carefully pour the soup into a pot and put it over the heat to warm. “Yeah, I haven’t had it in a long time either.” The piano tugs on his gaze and Marc turns to look at it.

You’re humming under your breath, pulling out a cutting board and a serrated knife.

The bakery bag crinkles in your grasp as you pull out the peasant loaf and slice into it.

The salty scent of the broth circulates the room and Marc stands to move closer to the piano, circling it until he can see the keys, the worn places his mother’s hands and his and his brother’s used to rest.

Wendy would sometimes stand behind him and guide his hands, her larger palms engulfing his. He sits down at the bench and slides a finger over one key, careful not to depress it. The smell of the soup reminds him of being small, of his hands being covered and gently guided, of being sick and fed by hand when he couldn’t do it himself, of cold winter mornings and snow days.

“Are you sure you don’t want to play it?” You ask.

Marc’s head snaps up but you aren’t looking at him as you carefully ladle soup into two bowls. “I’m sure,” he answers, letting his hand slide off the keys. “You should play it though.”

“I can play for you,” you agree with a nod.

He didn’t mean it that way, but he doesn’t correct you. He wants to hear it played, even if he can’t do it himself. “It’s happy you’re here.”

This time when Marc looks up, his eyes connect with yours. “She missed you.”

He doesn’t answer, nodding quietly.

You leave the soup on the counter, plumes of steam rising from the bowls, and cross the room to sit next to him on the bench. “Did you work things out with your dad?”

Marc doesn’t deign to answer. The truth is painful, that he could talk things over with his father a million different ways, and he still wouldn’t work things out with him. Not that he’s really tried, not that they ever get to any of the hard questions, the important things that weighed them both down.

The answer sits there between you, the words unsaid and implied. “When he donated it,” you say softly. “He told me you were the most beautiful player of the family. Said he missed that sound.”

Marc chokes on the indignation that rises up. “He never fucking told me that.” He turns to you and you meet his eyes. “I’ve been-,” he falters, seals himself off.

“You can tell me,” you turn back to the keys, fingers brushing against them. “If you want.”

Marc closes his eyes for a moment, trying to breathe past the glass in his lungs. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Maybe he doesn’t either.”

But you don’t know what happened. You don’t really understand, and Marc has a hard enough time explaining it to himself that he doesn’t know where to begin with another person.

He breathes out hard. “Maybe. Shouldn’t, ah,” he glances at you from the corner of his eye, licks his lip nervously, “shouldn’t be unloading this shit on you.”

You nudge your shoulder into his, and press one key down, the long keen of sound it makes beautiful, “You really aren’t. You’re fairly closed up about it actually.” Your fingers twist down the keys, playing a quick tune that sounds vaguely familiar to him.

“What else did he say to you?” Marc asks, watching the movement of your hands over the piano.

You don’t miss a single note, the action is all memory. You don’t glance down, not once. “Not much. Not really.”

Marc nods, pressing down on the questions that bubble up, the urge to beg you to tell him exactly what his father had told you, every detail, so he might start to understand what he’s doing in Chicago.

“He said you moved away a long time ago and that you don’t visit,” you pause in playing, the silence of your hands like an incorrect note in an otherwise perfect sonata. “He doesn’t blame you for not coming home though,” you strike another chord, and then a second.

The isolated, desolate feeling comes back. He’s adrift and alone, shouting into a void that would eat his voice until he went mute. “Yeah? And how the fuck did that come up?”

You don’t flinch at the brash cut of his voice. “Well, I asked who’s piano it really was. She clearly wasn’t his. And she clearly didn’t want to leave. He said it was his son’s. That’s how it came up.”

Marc’s breath is caught somewhere between his lungs and his mouth. He can’t make himself swallow, the pressure choking him. “He…didn’t say it was my mother’s?”

You shrug, your hands still slipping along the keys. The music, this song, is comforting, he realizes, because it's something his mother used to play alone, the movements too complicated for his little learning hands. “He didn’t mention your mother. Only that she’d passed recently. He talked about you.”

The song you’ve been playing ends suddenly and you tuck your hands in your lap. He sits shoulder to shoulder with you for a long time after that, the quiet peaceful, his thoughts jumbled, a tangled knot. “He doesn’t say that shit to me,” he says eventually, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

“I don’t know what happened between you,” you answer. “So ignore this if I’m off base. But sometimes it's easier to say things to a stranger than to the person you need to talk to. Because it doesn’t matter with them. It’s hard with your dad, because it matters. It’s hard for your dad because it matters to him.”

Marc finds that hard to believe, after everything. After everything he was allowed to suffer.

Still, it makes sense. It makes sense why he finds it easy to talk to you, even when he chokes and trips over his words.

You lean your shoulder into his, the pressure light as you begin another song.

He watches your hands greedily, the lithe way they move along the keys, and leans back into you, just a little.

The soup is cold when you finally move away from the piano and Marc’s guilt surges unpleasantly.

But you just laugh.

“No big deal.”

And you put it back on the stove for a second time.

Thank you for reading! Comments and feedback are so appreciated. New parts will be posted Saturdays at 3PM EST! You can add yourself to the tag list on the series masterlist.

#marc spector x you #marc spector x reader #steven grant x reader #steven grant x you #jake lockley x reader #jake lockley x you #moon knight fanfiction #moon knight fanfic

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