#then there’s others who are analyzing it and saying no he’s not asleep he’s faking it
Text
Anonymously Yours
Will a wrong number lead to love?
BOLD = wrong number's messages
Italics= Y/N's messages
A/N: Thanks to @kazsrm67 for being my beta for this story and also @chriszgirl92 who bullied me into letting her read it before it was posted, who actually found mistakes that had been overlooked. LOL
‘Hey girl! I had fun last night with you. Maybe we can do it again sometime.’
‘Wrong number.’
‘Girl, quit playing! It's me. Did you get so drunk you developed amnesia?’
‘DUDE! It's 6 am. I've been asleep all night. As I said before, wrong number!’
‘Oh come on darlin’. I know you didn't give me a fake number.’
Y/N's phone lights up her face as she reads the last message. This guy just wasn't giving up.
‘Listen Romeo. Whoever you met last night either gave you a random number or you put it in your phone wrong. Sorry but I'm not her.”
‘I can't believe this. This never happens to me. Well, I'm sorry for waking you up. Have a good day.’
Y/N slams her phone down on the mattress and closes her eyes, willing for sleep to overtake her. But it never comes. She can't stop thinking about the poor schmuck at the other end of the conversation.
She sighs as she re-opens her eyes and grabs her phone
‘I'm sorry for being such a bitch. It's early. I didn't sleep well and shouldn't have taken it out on you. I hope you find the girl who fooled you…..but seriously if she just gave you a random number, she probably wasn't all that into you.’
‘Yea. That's pretty obvious. But thanks for laying it out like that. And sorry for waking you up. Again.’
Y/N read the message and then threw the comforter off her body, sitting up and placing her feet on the cold concrete floor of her room.
That's the thing about living in an underground monster-proof shelter….it's always cold! Especially in the deeper quarters, like the bedrooms and restrooms.
But being in the business of keeping the world safe from what goes bump in the night, Y/N and the Winchester Brothers must adapt and overcome the inconvenience of living off the grid.
So, an old defunct Men of Letters safe house is Home Sweet Home for the martyrs.
After using the facilities and brushing her teeth, Y/N heads toward the kitchen area, her stomach growling for sustenance.
She and Sam had spent days researching and analyzing tomes, trying to gather lore on how to kill a Khiksaz, the newest threat to the population. So much so, that it has been close to 24 hours since she had eaten anything.
She was starving!
The delightful aroma of coffee engaged her senses as she neared the kitchen. Inhaling the caffeinated fragrance, she entered the room to get her fill.
Dean, the oldest brother, stood at the stove flipping bacon. The sizzle of the meat met her ears and she hummed in bliss.
Y/N loved Dean's cooking skills. He could turn the most mundane ingredients into a delectable, magnificent meal.
“Good morning sweetheart,” he says as turns to look at her. “Sleep well?”
Y/N sips the hot beverage, letting the liquid brew wake her more and warm her from the inside.
“I guess,” she answers as she takes a seat at the table. “No nightmares, so that's a plus I guess.”
Dean approaches the table with a plate of bacon and pancakes that were warming in the oven and sets it in front of her.
“Progress though, right?”
That's the thing about Dean and Y/N; they share a connection of both suffering from nightmares. Dean’s of Hell and Y/N’s of witnessing her family get murdered by a rugaru while on the annual family camping trip.
The only thing that saved Y/N from the monster who stole her family was the fact that she had stepped out of the tent and wandered into the woods to find a spot to relieve her full bladder. She had watched from her hiding place behind a big oak as the giant beast tore her mother, her father and little brother to shreds. The guttural screams still haunted her all these years later!
“Yea, I guess so,” she admitted. “But I also feel like if I don’t dream about them, it means I’m forgetting them.”
“I know sweetheart,” Dean says from his side of the table as he pours a generous amount of molasses on his hotcakes. “But I’ve told you before. Just because you don’t dream about them doesn’t mean they’re not still in your thoughts; doesn’t mean you don’t love them or miss them anymore.”
“Yeah,” Y/N answers forlornly. “I know you’re right.”
She takes a bite of her own breakfast and moans obscenely at the burst of flavor.
“So how was your night?” she asks, knowing Dean had left to search for a hook-up to take his mind off the monotony of research. “Did you find some willing girl to get your rocks off?”
That’s another thing about Dean and Y/N’s relationship-friendship; they were crass and blunt with one another. They were like two peas in a pod. And it all started when Dean came to Y/N for advice on what exactly women want in a hook-up.
FLASHBACK
“Y/N,” Dean says as he sits at the table where she had been scouring an old journal she’d found in the library. “You’re a female, right?”
The question catches Y/N off guard and she laughs. “Yes, Dean. Unless I’ve been cursed in the last 5 minutes, I am a female. I have a vagina and boobs.”
“Smart ass,” Dean says with a smile. “Can I ask you something though? Something that only another female might understand.”
“Sure, Dean. What is it?”
“What do women look for in a hook-up?”
“I’m going to be blatantly honest with you here,” she says and continues once Dean nods. “Plain and simple. To get off. Someone who knows what to do with what the good lord gave him. We don’t really care about size but if you don’t know how to use what you got, we have to do It ourselves. And while that gets the job done, it's not as fun. As the saying goes, ‘It's not topside of the boat; it's the motion of the ocean’.
“So, Mr. Winchester,” Y/N smirks as she places her elbows on the table and rests her chin on her palms. “Do you know how to use what you got?”
She smiles as she notices the blush creeping up his neck. Who knew Dean Winchester could get flustered so easily?
Y/N would be lying if she said she'd never noticed how handsome Dean Winchester is. She has eyes with perfect vision, she can see the sex appeal. But she swore to herself that she would never be the fly caught in his web.
Dean Winchester was a player and a philanderer. He didn't do romantic relationships. Something else they had in common.
Y/N found out very early in her adult life that her choice of profession didn't lead to having a partner who understood the need, the commitment to keeping others safe from attacks of the paranormal.
So, much like the oldest Winchester, she sought out one-night stands, a love-em-and-leave-em situation was what worked best.
“Awww is Dean-o embarrassed? Well, tell me this then. Canoe, yacht or cruise ship?”
Dean flips her off and pushes up out of his chair and rushes off down the hallway, Y/N's laughter following him.
END FLASHBACK
After breakfast was finished, with Sam popping in after his early morning run to mix up a smoothie Y/N and the Winchesters gathered in the library to research more about the Khiksaz.
About an hour and one less brother later, Y/N's phone vibrated in her pocket. She pulls it out and notices it's the same number from earlier with another text.
‘You single? There's not some big burly man out for my head for waking you up this morning is there?
‘No worries Romeo. Single as a Pringle over here.’
‘That's good. You seem nice.’
Y/N couldn't help but laugh at that. This morning she had been bitchy and quite frankly rude to this stranger and he just called her nice.
Sam looked up from the book he was reading, an eyebrow raised in question.
“Sorry. Just read something funny on my phone.”
As soon as Sam was once again studying what he was reading, Y/N began texting her new friend.
‘Is that your way of asking to be friends?’
‘What if it is? What would your answer be?’
Y/N left him on Read as she contemplated his question. Would it be so horrible to befriend this guy? She knows nothing about him and he knows nothing about her. It could remain anonymous and be something to get her through the boring task of research.
‘It stays anonymous. You don't ask my name and I don't ask yours. We'll keep it casual unless one of us has a bad day. Then we'll help the other out. No pictures, no voice messages, no videos. Capichè?’
‘You sure do drive a hard bargain RG. But okay.’
‘RG?’
‘Yea. Regina George….you know the bitchy bitch from Mean Girls.’
‘Are you seriously calling me a bitch this early in the friendship?!’
‘NO!!! God no! You said it yourself this morning. You apologized for being a bitch. Sorry. I'll come up with another name for you.’
‘Oh. Haha. You got me. Okay, Regina or RG is fine.’
‘Good because I already gave you that moniker in my phone.’
The rest of the afternoon consisted of researching this new species of monster and texting Romeo, as he was now labeled in her phone.
Dean was once again absent from the library after he had brought in some sandwiches he had whipped up.
As evening approaches, Sam and Y/N were still poring over the lore and taking notes. Dean walks Into the library with a whistle on his lips and his keys twirling around his finger.
“See ya later nerd,” he calls out as he heads up the stairs.
“Wrap it before you tap it,” Y/N yells.
“Fuck you!”
“No thanks.”
And then he was gone. Off to find some floozy in a bar to make him forget the awful world they live in.
Y/N retired to her room around midnight, her eyes tired and her back aching from leaning over all day.
As she changes into her pajamas She hears her phone ding with a message.
‘You awake?’
‘No. I'm sleeping peacefully. Ha! I just climbed into bed. What's going on?’
‘Eh. Nothing much. Just lonely.’
‘Lonely? You mean Romeo didn't go out and try to find another conquest?’
‘Not really in the mood. Just wanted to have a conversation that didn't lead to anything.’
‘Okay. So tell me about your day.’
Y/N laid in bed, reading texts about Romeo's job in pest control and how he hated that customers would call him in about their problems but when he eradicated the vermin there was no appreciation, no gratitude.
She tells him about her work as customer service and how she suffers the same fate.
‘The adage “The Customer is Always right” is bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit!’
‘I feel you there sister.’
The two of them keep texting back and forth throughout the night until Y/N hears Dean’s early morning return from wherever he’d been. She made a note to sanitize Baby’s backseat before their next trip.
She listens to his footfalls approaching and then continues past her room to reach his, further down the hallway.
‘God this night sucks! I just want to fall into bed and sleep. Text tomorrow, bestie?’
‘Tomorrow Romeo.’
That night, Y/N’s sleep is plagued with nightmares. They consist of the anonymous person on the other side of the phone. As the night continues the images behind her eyelids morph into more pleasant ones. Her dream guy is tall, muscular with beautiful features and a complete sweetheart; a complete and adorable heartthrob.
She wakes the next morning with a smile on her lips and an urgent need to masterbate. She sends out a silent thank you to the girl who gave out the wrong number; before making her way to the bathroom.
A week later, Sam and Y/N finally had enough knowledge and data on the Khiksaz for the three of them to venture out to the small community of Sikeston, MO and take this monster on.
With help from the immense amount of lorebooks and tomes in the library of the Bunker, they figured out that a Khiksaz was a phantasm from a tribes of Arabian descent that had been captured and stored for millennia in a handspun clay jar after the spirit ripped through the older members of the tribe and began to beseech the still infantile and juvenile members to allow it to lead them.
One of the oldest chiefs, a religious man, conjured up a binding spell that captured and trapped the Khiksaz creature into the urn for all eternity. Unfortunately, someone in Missouri had come across the container and, not knowing what it contained, unleashed the beast which was causing chaos and devastation in the small town.
Sam and Y/N had worked mercifully at creating a copy of the enchantment and found a similar vessel to once again apprehend the offending spirit.
It was a 9 hour drive that took Dean only 7 to accomplish. Once they were checked in and unpacked, the three of them set out to make sure they had what they needed to accomplish the job.
Well, Sam and Y/N did. Dean sulked and flipped through the television channels until he found an old John Wayne western to watch.
Y/N felt her phone buzz in her pocket, but she was too busy perusing the spell once again to check.
After a few minutes, Dean huffed and turned the tv off and announced he was going out to find some fun in this one-horse town.
Y/N had had enough of his attitude for the last few days. He had been agitated and snippy at them both.
“God damn Dean! We are here to get this Khiksaz not for you to get your dick wet in some strange pussy!”
“Don’t you fucking worry about where my dick is going!” Dean yells back. “I don’t need a cunt to get off. My hand works just fine. I just need a drink or twelve.”
“Asshole!” Y/N says, stepping up to the older Winchester and getting in his face.
“You’re insufferable! I’ll see you two when I see you.”
He steps toward the door, throws a middle finger sign over his shoulder and sings, “Don’t wait up.”
Y/N growls. She literally and audibly growls.
“What the hell is his problem?!” she asks, rhetorically.
“He’s Dean,” Sam tries to reason. “You know how he is.”
“Yea, he’s a giant asshole.”
Once the two of them get the spell and weapons, along with the container to hold the Khiksaz in, they decide to go find something to eat.
While waiting on Sam to use the restroom, Y/N pulls her phone from her pocket to see a text from Romeo.
‘How you doin’?”
‘Friends fan huh? So maybe I should call you Joey. By the way, that is the lamest pickup line ever.’
‘I thought it was pretty good. In the 90s. It worked a few times.’
‘Yes I tried it.’
‘An no, I’m not hitting on you’
‘I don't know whether to be pleased or offended.’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Never mind. So what are you doing?’
‘Getting ready to head out and get a bite to eat.’
‘Alone?’
‘Nope. My brother is coming with.’
‘Oh. You have a brother? So do I.’
‘Cool. What are you doing? I thought we were keeping this anonymous?’
‘You're right. No deep seated questions about one another. Sorry.’
‘Feeling like a jerk. A co-worker of mine and I got into it and I said some things I didn’t mean and now I regret it.’
‘So go apologize.’
‘Yea. I probably need to. ‘
‘Go apologize Romeo. Or I’ll send my brother to kick your ass.’
‘You make your brother do all your dirty work?’
‘I don’t make him do anything. But anyway, he’s out of the bathroom now so I’ll catch you on the flip side.’
‘And go apologize.’
As they walked across the highway to the diner, Sam brought up the texting.
“You have a boyfriend or something?”
“No,” Y/N answers sheepishly. “Just a friend….who might be a guy.”
She waits until after the waitress takes their order before delving into the whole story of how some random guy began texting her because he was given the wrong number by a girl.
“Ouch! That’s harsh.,” Sam says. “But what do you know about this guy? Is there a reason the girl gave him a fake number?”
Y/N shrugs as she takes a sip of water. “I dunno. Like, he seems nice. And we get along. But just through text. I don’t even know his real name. I called him Romeo in jest and it kind of just stuck.”
“You don’t even know his name?! Does he know yours?”
“No,” Y/N laughs at the ridiculousness of it. “He refers to me as Regina or RG.”
Sam looks at her confused so she explains.
“Regina George from Mean Girls. I was kind of a bitch to him, like Regina is to everyone in the movie. I didn’t take offense to it. I thought it was quite hilarious.”
“Let me see your phone,” Sam says, holding his hand out for it.
Y/N watches Sam scroll through her contacts until he gets to ‘Romeo”. He opens the information tab and studies it. His lips pull into a quarter smile as he closes the phone and hands it back.
“What?”
“What, nothing? What was the smile for?”
“What smile? I’m just happy you made a friend outside Dean and I. I mean, you gotta be careful because of our line of work. But I like that you have someone else to talk to.”
“Oh.”
The waitress brings their food and the subject is dropped. Their attention and concentration goes back to the job at hand and they discuss how to lure the Khiksaz out and distract it while the incantation is said.
In the early morning hours, Y/N is awakened by Dean stumbling into the room, blitzed out of his mind. He staggers to the mini-fridge and pulls out a bottle of water, opening it and downing it.
Between the smell of booze and the aroma of some of the most fragrant perfume, Y/N can’t help but gag. Dean notices the involuntary movement and shakes his head.
He cautiously walks to the bed and sits down beside Y/N.
“Are you here to gloat?” she whispers. “I really don’t want to hear about your sexcapades with some poor hometown girl.”
“Y/N, we’re friends right?” Dean says instead and it shocks her.
“Yes, Dean. We’re friends.”
“I’m sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to call you an uptight cunt.”
“Um, Dean? You didn’t.”
“Yes, I did. On the drive over to the bar. I called you an uptight cunt and a self-righteous prude and I’m sorry.”
“All is forgiven,” Y/N says, burrowing her nose into the pillow. “But please go shower and wash that stink off you before I puke!”
Dean chuckles. “Yes ma’am.”
Unfortunately the next day does not go to plan at all. Both Winchesters and Y/N are thrown around while fighting and trying to capture the Khiksaz. Sam ends up with a concussion but Y/N breaks a couple of ribs.
With horrible dictation, Dean gets the spell read and the monster is once again bottled up and will make the trek back to Kansas to be stored away in the dungeon of the Bunker.
Y/N feels every curve and bump in the road of the 647 mile trip. Broken ribs are uncomfortable and painful when you're lying still but Dean insists on driving like a bat out of Hell.
He is on a tangent about how the information they had to the Khiksaz wasn’t complete and they didn’t know it had powers and how it’s his fault for leaving the research up to the two of them.
Sam tries in vain to reason with his hard-headed brother.
“We don’t always know everything about the monsters we go up against. This is just another instance!”
“Yea. Well-”
“Well, nothing! This hunt was no different than when we went up against that Wendigo or the rugaru that killed Travis! What?! Is it because Y/N got hurt? Is that why you're so pissed off?”
“We all got banged up; it's not just her,” Dean defended. “You have a concussion for Christ's sake!”
“And your brooding and griping isn't helping. Let's just call it a win and move on. Please!” Y/N pleaded from the backseat. “And Dean? Slow the fuck down! You're killing me back here.”
Knowing that his erratic speeding and Baby's lack of sufficient suspension is probably agonizing with busted ribs, he took his foot off the gas.
“Sorry sweetheart,” he apologizes. “I just want to get back to Bunker to rest and recuperate. I'll go slower.”
The rest of the ride was quiet and uneventful, other than when Sam tried to fall asleep and Dean blasted Metallica to keep his brother awake.
Once parked in the garage, Dean hurried to help Y/N sit up and get out of the car and hovered around her as she made her way to her room.
“You need anything, just holler okay?”
“Thanks Dean.”
As soon as he was out of the room and the door was closed, Y/N pulled her phone out.
‘I've had a shitty day at work. Tell me a joke.
There was no response for the longest time; so long Y/N began wondering if Romeo had actually blocked her.
‘Did you hear about the Italian chef that died?’
‘No. What happened?’
‘He pasta-way!’
‘OMG! They was corny as fuck!’
‘Forrest Gump’s email is 1forrest1.’
‘That one is no better. Lol. But they made me smile. Thank you Romeo.’
‘You're welcome Regina. Wanna tell me about your day?’
‘Nah, that's okay. It was just another one dealing with ungrateful, unappreciative customers.’
‘How was yours?’
‘Honestly, about like yours. Customer called with a rodent nuisance and I took care of it. Customer never acknowledged it.’
‘People suck!’
‘Yes, they do.’
The phone was silent for a few minutes before it buzzed again with an incoming text.
‘I ordered a chicken and an egg online. I'll let you know which comes first.’
‘Ya know, I'm starting to understand why that girl gave you the wrong number. You. Are. A. Dork!’
‘You asked for it missy! I am quite offended. I'm the farthest thing from a dork. I'm suave and charming for your information!’
‘And a dork. But you made me smile with your silly dad jokes. So thank you.’
‘Glad I could make you feel better. Our conversations make me happy.’
‘Same goes for me. But I'm getting pretty tired so I'm gonna try to get some shut eye. Good night Romeo. :*’
Y/N's eyes widened as she realized what she had done. She'd sent him a kiss face! A stranger! Someone she didn't really know.
What if he took that the wrong way? They had agreed to be anonymous friends. FRIENDS, nothing more. So why did she send him that?
What did it mean?! Was she developing feelings for this mysterious man?
She thought back to just a few nights ago, the erotically passionate dream she'd had with what she imagined this stranger to look like.
She reminisced of her dream Romeo kissing her breathless, worshiping her body as if it were a temple; of how they had fervidly made love into the early morning hours. He had brought her pleasure numerous times!
Oh fuck! She was falling for him.
‘Sweet dreams darlin’ :*’
Y/N laid awake for hours, contemplating on how to handle the knowledge that she was falling for the stranger.
How was it possible to develop feelings for someone you've never met, someone you'd never laid eyes on. Hell, she didn't even know the sound of his voice.
Around dawn, she decided she would no longer exchange messages with him and as soon as her body was healed, she was going to go find some willing guy to fuck Romeo's memory away.
Of course, she was awakened by her phone alerting her that a text was waiting.
‘Good morning beautiful’
‘You're probably still asleep’
‘I just can't get you out of my head’
‘Maybe we should break the anonymous rule and meet?’
Y/N read each of the lines over and over, each time making her heart drop. She didn’t know what to do.
She began to think that maybe she should’ve just ignored and erased his first message; when she realized it was a complete stranger who had accidentally texted the wrong number. She shouldn't have engaged with him. Now she was in this predicament. Of course, this is how her life is, fucked up and confusing as hell!
Y/N silences her phone and rolls out of bed carefully. The motion takes her breath away as her broken ribs shift with the motion. She makes her way to the door and down the hallway toward the bathroom, only to be almost bowled over when Sam, dripping wet and shirtless, comes barreling out of the bathroom.
“Oof.”
“Oh god Y/N. I’m so sorry,” he apologizes, profusely. “I didn’t expect you to be out of bed. Dean said he was going to bring you breakfast.”
“That’s sweet of him,” Y/N responded with a smile. “But that doesn’t negate my bladder issues.”
Sam laughed and stepped to the side. “Yea, I guess not. So, ummm…I guess I’ll come check on you later?”
“Okay,” she says as she closes the door to the communal bathroom and shuffles to the row of toilets. As she went to sit, she realized that the mundane task was hindered; she couldn’t bend without excruciating pain radiating from her thorax.
Even though her bladder was yelling at her to be emptied, Y/N stood and studied the ancient throne. With a small shrug, she grabbed the roll of tissue and tore off a few squares of paper before pulling her leg out of one side of her sleep pants and straddling the seat.
After cleaning up-because peeing like a man isn’t as easy for a woman as you’d think- Y/N heads back to her room, where as Sam said, Dean was waiting with a tray of eggs, bacon and coffee.
“Oooh, nectar of the Gods,” Y/N says as she reaches for the hot beverage. “Thanks Dean!”
“You’re welcome. How’re you feeling?”
“I’ve been better. I can tell you that,” she answers. “I’m going to try to wrap them later.”
“I can help you do that,” Dean says as he watches her sit on the bed before sitting the tray of food on the table. “You probably can’t get it tight enough.”
“M'kay.”
A few hours later
“Dean, I swear to Chuck if you try to cop a feel, I’ll kick your ass!”
“Oh be quiet, Y/N/N. It’s not like I haven’t seen them before,” Dean teases.
And he was right. On a couple occasions the eldest Winchester had been witness to Y/N’s top half of her body exposed; whether it’d be walking into the bathroom as she was exiting the shower or when she got wasted at that bar the three hunters visited and she flashed the whole crowd as she finished singing “Natural Woman” by Aretha Franklin; well butchered it would be a better word as she couldn’t hit a single good note in her inebriated state.
But she was being ogled by a fellow patron and was feeling frisky so after placing the mic back on the stand, she flipped her shirt up and flashed the whole bar. Her bra covered the main parts but it had been a ragged one and didn’t hide much.
So, yea Dean and Sam and half the community of Bumfuck, NM had seen her tits.
“I know,” she giggles and then groans as he wraps the gauze around her torso tightly. “Motherfuck! That hurts.”
“Cry baby,” Dean jokes.
“Let me kick you in your balls and see how you feel,” Y/N threatens.
“Hey now. If I can’t grope you, you aint groping me!”
“You’re such a dork!” Y/N says and they both laugh.
“Okay, you’re all bandaged up now,” Dean says as he hands her her shirt. “Go on and get redressed.”
As soon as Dean leaves, Y/N feels her phone buzzing in her pocket.
‘Regina? Are you there?’
‘Did I scare you off?’
‘Could you please answer me?’
‘Please?’
Y/N pockets the device and heads back to her room. How is she going to answer him? Is she?
She sits on her bed and stares at the phone as it begins vibrating again.
‘I’m sorry. Whatever I’ve done, I’m sorry.’
Deciding to throw caution to the wind, she answers.
‘I’m here. I’m fine. No you didn’t scare me off. You actually didn’t do anything. I did. We agreed to be friends and I went and let my feelings take control and didn’t even realize it until I sent you the emoji after my message.’
‘I know you aren’t interested in me. I know I’m just the consolation prize for the busty brunette or blonde, maybe even a redhead, that you were really hoping to talk to and text. I won’t hold it against you if you want to stop texting. No need to meet in person to tell me.’
Y/N reads over her message a couple times before hitting send and laying her phone down. It immediately starts ringing.
Romeo calling…..
Fuck!
‘I’m not answering you.’
The phone stops ringing and then a message comes through.
‘You have it all wrong, darlin’. You are not a consolation prize…not even close! I wanted to tell you, to say the words to you. But you won’t answer so I’ll just type them. I’ve fallen for you too.’
‘Don’t just say that to appease me. I’m a big girl. I can take rejection’
‘Baby, rejection is the last thing on my mind. Will you please answer the phone?’
Y/N reads Romeo’s last message a few times before she opens the chat box and responds.
‘No. But I will agree to meet you. Work is going to be pretty busy for the next few weeks and I won’t have much free time. So, how about two months from now we meet at a mutually agreed upon place and see where this goes?’
‘Deal.’
Y/N knew that in a couple months her ribs would be healed enough to not raise any questions or alert Romeo to the fact that she fights monsters for a living and not existing in a dead-end customer service job as she had alleged to.
The next few days, Sam and Dean went on a couple little salt-and-burns, leaving Y/N at the Bunker to continue healing.
Y/N and her mysterious Casanova texted continuously, getting to know one another better and just regaling one another with childhood memories and stories.
It was nice; it was befitting for two strangers to become acquainted. Y/N still refused to actually speak to the man she had feelings for. The secrecy was thrilling to her and she preferred the voice he had in her now-nightly dreams.
To pop that bubble by finding out he had a high pitched, nasally voice would be most crushing.
Of course, she hadn't told Romeo her real past. He knew her parents had passed, but she claimed a car accident took them from her.
She felt terrible for lying to him but how do you tell someone that your parents were killed by a beast that isn't supposed to exist?
What Y/N doesn't know though is Romeo had lied to her about his past also.
When Sam and Dean returned from their latest hunt, neither one of them acknowledged Y/N or said a word.
Both Winchester stomped to their respective rooms and she heard one door slam right after the other did.
“What's gotten into them?” she wondered aloud before going back to reading the book she had found. It was an erotic novel.
Greg cups her cheeks in his hands and he leans into her, closing the distance until their lips meet. His were soft and plump against her thin, chapped ones, but the lack of moisture on her lips was the last thing on her mind. He licked the dry vessels until she obliged opening them, inviting him in to taste her.
Greg’s, Romeo’s moans filled her ears as he explored her mouth, his tongue wrestling with hers.
Layla Regina threw her arms over his shoulder and planted her hands against the back of his head, pulling her lover closer and deeper into herself.
They stumble and almost fall but right themselves before hitting the bed, her on her back and his weight pushing her into the mattress. As his hands begin wandering her body, Regina silently begs for his hand on her most intimate area. As his palm slides down the skin of her abdomen, she wonders if her prayers were heard.
After becoming so enthralled with the book that she was even substituting her and Romeo’s nicknames into the plotline she missed the sound of Dean’s boots thudding down the corridor.
“What has you all dreamy-eyed and drooling?”
Y/N jumps in her seat and slams the novel shut, internally lamenting the fact that she didn't mark her place for later indulgence.
She looks up to see Dean standing at the mouth of the hallway, a couple of beer bottles in his hand.
“Are you reading porn?” he asks with a laugh and a smirk.
“It's a romance novel, dumbass!”
“Eh, same thing,” Dean shrugs as he steps toward her and offers her one of the beers. “Romance guy woos the damsel right into his bed.”
“So, you know oh so much about this subject, I take it you've read a lot of romance novels?” Y/N snarks.
“You know as well as I do, life doesn't happen that way,” Dean says instead of answering her. “It's a lot more messier and a lot less loving.”
“Are you telling me you don't woo all those unwitting hookups you have? Not even just a little bit?”
“Oh no. I woo the hell out of them. Tell them exactly what they want to hear-” he takes a drink then continues. “Then I get what I'm after and leave before daylight. Easy in, easy out.”
“You are a real piece of work Dean,” Y/N says with a laugh. “Those poor women probably think they've finally found the man of their dreams and the poof! you're gone.”
“Oh like the schmucks you hook don't know you're a one and done?” Dean says, rolling his eyes. “I've heard them before, telling you all their hopes and dreams. I've heard them during, thinking you are ‘the best they ever had’- their words, by the way- and then you're usually in the back of Baby before Sam's even gone for his run.”
“Oh my god,” Y/N laughs, trying to hide the embarrassment of the fact Dean has heard some of her excursions. But that's what you get when you stay in cheap motel rooms with thin walls. “That was one time! And he was a clingy fucker. Always had to be touching me; my face, my hands, my hips. Hell he even tried to suck my toes. Eww!” she shivers at the memory. “I couldn’t get away fast enough.”
They both laugh and then it goes quiet as they drink.
“So, um…” Dean begins. “Girls, ahem women, don't like that? The touching?”
“No. I mean yea we love an attentive man but sometimes it just takes away from the whole experience. Touch me all you want, run your hands all over me. Play with my tits, my clit…hell a little ass play ain't out of the cards but once he's inside me, I expect to get fucked! Not just filled and rubbed. Use that dick and make me feel it. Ya know? It's inside me for a reason.”
Dean shifts and adjusts his body in his chair and clears his throat. “Okay. Okay. I get that but let's change the subject.”
“Oh is Deanie-poo getting turned on?” Y/N jests. “You got a big ole boner under this table?”
“Shut up Y/N,” Dean mutters before getting up and bolting back toward his room, his half-empty beer bottle still on the table.
Y/N shakes her head and laughs before opening her book to try to find the place she left off at.
Why is it that time crawls when you are looking forward to something?
Y/N's ribs are slowly healing, thanks to the Winchesters generous and considerable care. They both made sure she was taking it easy and mending.
Sam always made her stretch and exercise what she could so her muscles wouldn't lock up and get sore while Dean kept her fed and hydrated and in good spirits with his complete goofy foolishness.
Y/N also noticed that as time went on and closer to her “date” with Romeo, Dean began to get happy and cheerful and just completely giddy.
Not like him at all. She'd also noticed he went out a lot more than usual. Once the day was done, Dean would disappear with only the sounds of his beloved Impala leaving the compound behind.
Does he have a girlfriend? Has he met someone and is unofficially officially dating? Who is she? When will she and Sam get to meet her? Will they?
Y/N didn't put much more thought into Dean's disappearance because truth be told, she had her own secret. She was in deep with Romeo.
They had texted regularly after their proclamation and had even done a little sexting.
Nothing too graphic, just a few descriptive words here and there and talking about using and touching. But it was enough to make Y/N wet and yearn for the day she finally sets eyes on her Romeo.
‘What are you wearing, gorgeous?’
Y/N smiled as she read the words on the screen.
‘Wouldn't you like to know.’ she teased.
‘I wouldn't have asked if I didn't.’
‘I'm sitting on my bed in a lace bustier with the matching thong. I'm so lonely Romeo.’
‘Is that an invitation? Because I can be there in no time at all.’
‘Haha. I’m only joking with you. I’m sitting here in an old pair of ratty sweats and a tee-shirt that had way too many stains to be presentable. My hair is up in a bun on top of my head but most of it has already fallen out and is just blowing in my face. I do not want you to see me like that at all.’
‘So when we meet in a few days, I still won’t get to see the real you? You’re going to be all dolled up and not the picture of perfection that you just described.’
‘Romeo, believe me….NO ONE wants to see this.’
‘I do. I am going to be honest with you. I am tired of going out and hooking up with people who don’t show their true selves. Who lie about who they are, what they do….give out random wrong numbers. I’m ready to be with a real person.’
‘Wow. That is honest. And truthfully, I feel the same.’
‘Maybe getting the wrong number was an omen. Someone up there believes we are both ready for something substantial. Shit, duty calls. I’ll text you soon :*’
As soon as Y/N read Romeo’s last message, Sam was knocking on her door.
“Come in,” she calls and the tall, long-haired man peeps around the open door.
“Just got off the phone with Jody. She needs help. I called Dean and he’s coming to pick me up and head to Sioux Falls. Wanted to let you know.”
“Okay. What’s Jody got?”
“Sounds like a cursed object wreaking havoc. A couple of bodies have come up….” Sam begins to explain and Y/N pushes herself off the bed and begins throwing items in a bag. “Wait, what’re you doing?”
“I’m coming with, I’m tired of sitting here by myself. Don’t worry,” she says as Sam gives her a pointed look. “I will stay away from the line of fire so to speak. I can hang with Claire and Alex or something.”
“Okay,” Sam answers, skeptically. “I don’t know if the girls are even home. You know, Claire has been hunting and Alex….well, she has her own friends now. You might be stuck at Jody’s by yourself so how’d that be different than staying here?”
“Sammy,” she says, patronizingly. “Jody’s has windows and sunshine and warmth and just please let me go?”
“Yea I guess I can see your point,” Sam answers and Y/N pumps her fist in the air before finishing packing. “By the way, Samuel, were you calling me old? When you said the girls might not even be there? Insinuating that they wouldn’t want to be saddled with the old, hurt woman?”
“Shut up, Y/N” Sam says with a smile. “You know that’s not what I meant!”
Dean didn’t seem surprised at all when Y/N threw her bag into the back seat of the Impala and climbed in. He just nodded and as soon as everyone was loaded, took off toward South Dakota.
“Y/N!” Sheriff Mills exclaims as we all exit Baby. “I didn't expect you to come. But am I glad you did.”
She hugs me and whispers in my ear, “I sure could use another female to talk to.”
“I'm here,” I whisper back and then pull away from her embrace. “I'm gonna crash on your couch while these two help you with your case.”
“Good. Good.”
She turns to the Winchester and greets them with their own hugs. After the warm welcome, the three of them head toward the station to discuss the case.
Y/N pulls the erotic novel she's reading and heads to the park across the street and sits at a table.
Opening to the page she marked, she immerses herself back into the story. As she continued reading about the marriage of Greg and Layla, the fictional characters in the story, she began fantasizing about another wedding; one that featured herself and Romeo.
She is brought back to the present when her phone buzzes in her pocket and she pulls it out to see a message from the man she can't seem to quit thinking about. She smiles as she reads the words, remembering how she felt as they vowed their lives to one another.
‘Another day, another rodent to take down. Please tell me your day is better’
‘Not really. This seminar is taking forever.’
Before Romeo can respond, she hears Dean call her name and she turns to see him slide his phone into the front pocket of his jeans as he heads to the Impala.
“We're heading to Jody's,” he announces. “You coming?”
Y/N hurries to mark the place she thinks she left off at and shuts the book before jogging across the empty road to get to the Impala.
“Did you figure out what’s going on this time?”
“We think it’s Lamia,” Sam answers. “Bobby went up against one, years ago but he put it through a wood chipper so this is not the same one but it’s the same M.O. They look female and seduce men and then choke them and eat their hearts.”
“Ew. Well, where’re we going to find a woodchipper?”
“We’re not,” Dean says. “I’m going to pretend to be the victim and then stab it with a blessed silver knife and burn it.”
“That’s risky,” Y/N states, worry about her friend filling her with dread.
“Well…” Dean says with a shrug and the conversation ends.
They pull into Jody’s driveway to see the Sheriff having a very animated conversation with her surrogate daughter, Claire.
They watch through the windshield as Jody hugs Claire and then the young blonde heads toward an old jalopy of a car and takes off.
“That girl is going to be the death of me,” Jody exclaims and her three guests join her. “Come on in guys. I’m making lasagna.”
That night, after helping Jody with the dishes, Y/n and the Sheriff join the Winchesters on the back deck of Jody’s modest ranch-style home.
The conversation flows but no one brings up the case at hand.
Y/N notices Dean is distracted and keeps looking down at his lap and wonders if he is beginning to regret his role as the Lamia’s victim.
‘Just to let you know. Something’s come up and I gotta leave town for a few days so you might not hear from me for a while. Just know I will be back for our date. I’m looking forward to it.’
Y/N reads the message and smiles. She’s been looking forward to it also.
‘Be safe and I’ll talk to you soon :*’
After the guys go up to bed, Jody and Y/N finish their glass of wine and stargaze.
“So what’s new with you?”
Y/N turns her head, looks at the older woman and smiles.
“I have a date.”
“Oooo, tell me more. Who is he? Does he know about….?” Jody begins badgering her with questions.
“I don’t know his name. I call him Romeo; it’s a joke between us. He, uh…..a few weeks ago, someone apparently gave him a fake number and he texted it but it wasn’t exactly fake. It was mine. We’ve been texting back and forth since and agreed to meet.”
“Oh,” Jody says, looking apprehensive.
“What is it?”
“How do you know this ain’t some demon or monster just trying to get to you and the boys Y/N?
“I’ve thought about that, Jod. I’m wearing my silver rings and I’ll have a flask of holy water to spike his drink if need be,” Y/N explains. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it covered.”
“Sounds like,” Jody chuckles and then lightly punches Y/N in the shoulder. “You gotta tell me all about it, though. Even the juicy parts, especially the juicy parts. Damn, I ain’t got laid in forever. I need to find a man.”
They both laugh and then settle back down and stargaze some more before heading inside and going to bed.
Dean Winchester almost becomes the Lamia’s fifth victim. If it hadn’t been for his fast thinking brother, Dean would’ve succumbed to the creature’s power and be dead.
Although he was alive, it was only barely. The Lamia had sucked so much blood from his body that he was unconscious for days.
Sam and Y/N had maneuvered him into the backseat of the Impala and raced back to the Bunker, hoping to find something to revive the oldest Winchester.
While they waited and researched, Y/N realized that she hadn’t heard from Romeo in almost a week. Their date was coming up and he had gone radio silent.
Sure he had told her that he had to leave town and wouldn’t be able to text her but couldn't he at least take a second to check in?
As soon as she could, Y/N sent him a message.
‘Haven't heard from you in a few days. Are you okay?’
And then, for the rest of the day, she kept an eye on her phone for a response.
The device stayed silent.
When Dean finally came around two days later, it was much to the relief of both Y/N and Sam.
They sat at his bedside and regaled him with the story of how the Lamia was not who they thought it was but that Sam caught on pretty quickly and used the current from an old stove hookup to burn the creature before she could take Dean’s life.
Dean, as stubborn as he was, refused to stay in bed. He was adamant that he needed to get up and that he wasn’t wasting away in his room while there were other monsters still roaming the world.
Sam and Y/N eventually gave up and left him to his own devices, going to their respective rooms to rest themselves. It was tiring trying to save a life then having that same someone argue that they hadn’t needed it.
Y/N was awakened by her phone buzzing with an incoming text. She opens the message thread and sees that Romeo has responded.
‘Sorry darlin’. I’ve been extremely busy. But I’m back in town and chomping at the bit for our date. Wanna move it up a few day?’
Y/N felt her face flush. She had been excited and eager and wishing that time would move faster as well.
‘A few days would mean tomorrow. You want to meet tomorrow?’
‘Yes. Tomorrow.’
Y/N woke up the next morning, nervous but excited. She was going to meet the man she had been messaging and getting to know through texts for the last three months.
She joined the guys in the kitchen for breakfast and then headed back to her room to determine what she was going to wear.
What do you wear when meeting someone new? She knew him, she thought, but she had yet to see him face to face or even hear his voice.
What if he was not at all what she’d been picturing all this time? What if they meet and one (or both) of them weren’t completely different from what the other thought?
She chose her nicest pair of jeans; nicest meaning they weren't covered in monster blood and guts and other bodily fluids of the creatures she has murdered.
Next, she chose a nice flowy camisole that wasn’t so low cut it showed much cleavage but low enough to show off her chest. Over that she wore a fitted leather jacket with the fancy schmancy silver buttons.
She slid the silver and turquoise necklace on with the matching silver ring, that way if Romeo went in for a hug instead of a handshake, she could still test if he is a werewolf or skinwalker and she had a vial of holy water in her purse to confirm he wasn’t a demon.
As she was finishing her makeup she heard Dean walking past her room, a whistle on his lips.
“Why is he in such a good mood?” she wondered out loud then went to look at her reflection once more.
By the time she got to the garage, the Impala was gone. Y/N was glad because she did not want to explain to Dean why she was borrowing one of the many cars there.
She chose an older model black Ford Mustang because it was one of the few inconspicuous cars they owned. Heads wouldn't turn at the sight of it rolling down the street, unlike the Bel-Aires and the Fairlanes would.
She didn't want to bring attention to herself for a set of wheels that should be in a museum somewhere.
As she drove toward town she hummed a tune that had been stuck in her head for days. She'd finally realized it was ‘Hooked on A Feeling’.
Y/N had no idea where she'd heard the song or even who sang it but it seemed appropriate for the situation. She was hooked on a feeling that she'd found her soulmate through a mistaken wrong number.
Once she got parked and walked toward the door of the restaurant she was to meet her Romeo, something caught her eye.
Down past the building was a sleek black car that she'd know anywhere. A 1967 Chevy Impala that if you looked closely had been rebuilt at least twice but was in pristine condition.
She turned her head to look through the window of the restaurant and her heart dropped. Dean was inside!
What was he doing here? Did Sam tell him about her rendezvous with Romeo and he was here to stop it? But then she realized that she hadn't told Sam about the meet-up.
Turning on her heel, she walked with purpose back to her car and slipped inside.
‘Something has come up and I can't make it. Sorry.’
Y/N raced back to the Bunker, parked the car and ran to her room. She flopped on the bed and let the tears flow.
How dare he be there? Finally, when life was going her way, she was going to meet the man of her dreams, Dean fucking Winchester had to go and ruin it!
Her phone buzzed a couple of times in her pocket but she didn't check it until she was all cried out.
‘Hope everything is okay. Is there anything I can do?’
‘Are you ghosting me?! Really?’
She didn’t answer. Y/N wasn’t sure how to answer. She was no better than the woman who gave Romeo the wrong number to begin with.
What was she supposed to do? Tell him that her “brothers” were actually just two men she lived with in an underground shelter that was warded to keep out supernatural beings that were out for their head? That her job consisted of continually being on some demonic radar?
Yea, he’d think she was nuts!
So instead, Y/N turned her phone off and laid in bed, wallowing in her own self-pity. She would never find a man to understand her lifestyle and she wasn’t going to give it up.
Fighting monsters and demons was her life! She was dedicated to making sure no one ever had to witness or live with the fact that their loved ones were murdered by things that shouldn’t even exist!
A few moments later, she heard the bunker door slam shut and could make out the boys’ voices but couldn't understand what they were saying. It got heated quickly though as she heard Dean yell, “You don’t fucking understand!”
Y/N got off her bed, wiped the tears from her face and left the bedroom, heading toward Sam and Dean.
“I just don’t understand it, man,” Dean says as she reaches the doorway to the library. Y/N stays just out of their sight; she can see them but the boys have yet to notice her presence.
“We get along so well. She’s funny but smart. She puts me in my place.”
“Maybe you should just man up and tell her your real name,” Sam suggests.
“No, no way. That opens up this whole world-” Dean says as he waves a hand around, motioning to the room and all the books on the supernatural they have. “She’s not like us. She wouldn’t understand. I just don’t know what happened?”
“I’m telling you Dean,” Sam says sternly but compassionately. “You may just be surprised.”
“No. I’m not telling Regina about this life.”
Y/N gasps and puts her hand over her mouth as it all comes clear. Romeo is Dean. Dean is Romeo. Holy shit! Wait, what? Like, what the actual fuck?! Dean is who she’s been chatting with via text for months now?
She thinks back to the first message and tries to remember if it came in as Dean since she has his contact information saved. But no, it was a number that came up, not a contact. She quietly runs back to her room and grabs her phone.
As soon as it turns on, she goes into her contacts and scrolls down to Romeo’s. She opens it and sees it is indeed a different number than she has saved for Dean….and his other phone….and his other, other phone.
So what is going on?
She walks back toward the library and this time she makes herself known.
“Oh hey Y/N.” Sam says with a smirk on his face.
“Hey Sweetheart,” Dean says, his tone melancholy before taking a drink of his beer.
“So, which came first? The chicken or the egg?”
Dean swallows the drink in his mouth and then slowly turns his head toward her. “What did you say?”
“Which came first? The chicken or the egg?”
“Um, how do you know that?”
Y/N walks closer to Dean and holds out her hand. “Hello Romeo. I’m Regina.”
Dean froze. The only thing that moved was his eyes, from her outstretched hand to Y/N’s face.
Time stood still as Y/N waited for Dean to catch up to what she had said. Suddenly his eyes widened and his lips opened and closed like a fish trying to breathe.
“What?!” he finally found his voice and spoke.
“I’m Regina and I’m assuming you’re Romeo from what I’ve heard.”
“You are the amazingly hot chick I’ve been texting all this time?”
Y/N nods her head and Sam laughs from his spot across the table from his brother. “It’s about time! I was getting tired of watching you guys pine for one another, and not realizing it.”
“Shut up Sam,” Y/N and Dean both state.
Dean pushes his chair back and stands up, pulling a dinosaur of a phone from his pocket. It’s a frigging flip phone for Chuck’s sake!
“What the hell is that?” Y/N asks as she laughs and watches Dean flip the phone open and punch in numbers on the number pad. “How old is that phone?”
“It was Dad’s,” Sam explains as they both watch Dean work on getting into the phone and open up the text thread. “I didn’t even know it was still usable but apparently my brother uses it to hook up.”
Y/N turns her attention back to Dean and watches as he looks at the screen, apparently re-reading all the messages.
“Well, fuck!” Dean says with a chuckle. He then turns to her and smiles. “Romeo at your service. And he is a dumbass. I didn’t recognize your number, but I do now.”
Sam stands and closes his laptop. “I’m going to go to my room and give you two some privacy.”
Neither Dean nor Y/N pays attention as the taller Winchester leaves the room, their eyes glued to one another’s, studying one another. No words were spoken for a few minutes.
“You’re Regina?”
“And you’re Romeo,” Y/N states with a nod. “I just have one question though. How the hell do you know who Regina George is? That's a chick flick if there ever was one!”
Dean shrugs and blushes. “Rachel McAdams is hot. What can I say?”
They both laugh but then Dean surges forward and wraps her up in his arms.
“But not as hot as my Regina. She can't hold a candle to you, baby.”
Y/N feels her heart squeeze around such a heartfelt compliment and smiles. “How idiotic are we?”
“Well sweetheart, this idiot has fallen for you.”
Y/N’s phone slips out of her hand and her arms wrap around Dean’s neck. “It’s a good thing I’ve fallen for you too then.”
They stand there, wrapped up in each other just taking it all in.
“Can I kiss you now?” Dean asked and Y/N nodded.
He slowly leans in, their eyes glued to one another's until at the very last second he glances down to her lips.
As soon as their lips touched, it was like everything became clear. The world had been dark and gray and now it was bursting with vivid color.
Dean licked against the seam of her lips, begging for entry and Y/N immediately granted him access.
When the need for air became necessary, they pulled apart but not before Dean placed his forehead on hers and smiled.
“Who knew love was right under my nose?”
“Well, here it is,” Y/N says as she tightens her hold on the older Winchester. “Who knew we belonged together? Now take me to bed!”
@spnbaby-67 @sea040561 @delightfullykrispypeach @larajadeschmidt13 @atc74 @vicariouslythruspn @squirrelnotsam @sandlee44 @blacktithe7 @hoboal87 @mogaruke @supraveng @akshi8278 @lyarr24 @kazsrm67 @chriszgirl92 @deanwithscissors @raisinggray @fanfic-n-tabulous @hobby27 @stoneyggirl2 @purpleeclipseeggsland @kmc1989 @leigh70
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A chronological analysis on Twilight and Yor - Part 4
*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*
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When Anya ends up making it into Eden, Twilight is more or less coerced by Franky into giving her a lavish reward. Although this episode is mostly comedic and doesn't have much to analyze, a lot actually came to mind during the part where Twilight "battles" drunk Yor while she's pretending to be a witch. This is the first time he's seen her in her much less reserved, drunken state, and also the first time she's doing something that, to him, could be seen as an annoyance or even a threat (she did draw blood when she kicked at his face with her heel).
We know that Twilight wouldn't knowingly say things to Yor, Anya, or anyone else if it would be detrimental to his mission, such as an insulting remark that would hurt their feelings. However, this should not affect what he thinks. As far as Twilight is concerned, nobody has access to his thoughts except for him, so there's no reason for him to put any filters there (since he doesn't know that Anya can read his mind). We're given plenty of insight into his thoughts throughout the series, and even though, as I mentioned before, he often lies to himself about his feelings, he never seems to think bad things about other people. In this case, rather than be bothered or even angry at Yor for taking this silly performance so seriously, what does he think to himself? That she shouldn't be using physical attacks if she's supposed to be a witch! (and when she finally reaches her limit and falls asleep, he simply asks if she's okay).
Even for other characters who are actual threats to him, like Swan from the previous episode, or even Yuri later on, insults and criticisms never pop up in his thoughts (compare this to the many anime/manga protagonists who always think "this bastard" when faced with an antagonist). You can tell he's annoyed by having to do the whole Bondman skit, but even so, he doesn't openly complain about it (but he does openly congratulate Anya at the end). All this indicates that he's a very non-judgmental person both internally and externally. Another example that I mentioned before is when he refuses to put any blame on Anya and Yor for their performance at the Eden interview…and there will be many more instances like this to come. I believe the reason for this part of his personality goes back to his obsession with his spy profession.
He's determined to keep his emotions in check, whether good emotions or bad emotions, and even just thinking negative thoughts about others could trigger negative emotions. Because of this, he's probably conditioned himself over the years to just not feel anything towards other people, whether love or hate, attachment or aversion, which ultimately means never idolizing them or disdaining them. Why waste time thinking happy or angry thoughts about people when you can put that energy into understanding their mindset, outsmarting them, and then getting valuable information from them? He might also know that his own hands are dirty from all the lying, manipulating, and killing he's done in his line of work, so he feels he has no right to judge others. But regardless, while Twilight never harbors malevolence towards people, the number of positive thoughts he has about his (fake) family will only continue to increase, including those that manifest into words.
Continue to Part 5 ->
<- Return to Part 3
#twiyor#sxf analysis#spy family#spy x family#sxf#spyxfamily#loid forger#yor forger#loid x yor#loidyor#sxf meta#reblog for season 2 hype#self reblog
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On Forehead Kisses
So, this is taken from a fic series i deleted/abandoned but idk. I wanted to just share this bit. I took out the stuff that tied it in with the plotline I had but. enjoy?
Discovering it was purely an accident. Andrew’s lips brushed his forehead and Neil went mostly boneless against him. It took a second for Neil to recover, to put the inch of distance back between them. He muttered a sleepy apology-Andrew hadn’t missed the slight flush to his cheeks.
After a few dizzying moments of analyzing the moment, Andrew came to a conclusion: Neil likes to be kissed on the forehead.
Since it had happened the first time, Andrew hadn’t tried it again. He contemplated the effect it seemed to have on Neil. Andrew thought about the number of people in his life who would have kissed his forehead. Mary didn’t seem the type. She used brute force and abusive protection over kind affections.
Did Neil even realize he likes it? He had been half asleep when it happened. Was it a need he had but didn’t know he had- like holding hands had become? Like leaning on Andrew and trusting him with the weight of his issues? Something that he craved now that he knew what it felt like?
Below him in the bottom bunk, Neil’s breathing turned uneasy. For Andrew, it was another one of those nights, where he felt wound too tight to sleep. For Neil, it seemed it was the beginning of a nightmare.
Silently, Andrew crept from his bed and into the kitchenette of their dorm room. It didn’t take long for the smell of coffee to filter through the small space. The green numbers on the clock glowed just passed 5am. A familiar time. A familiar place.
An unfamiliar resident.
Neil hadn’t been living in the same dorm as Andrew for very long. With footsteps as light as they always are, Neil padded into the kitchen.
It’s become routine that however macabre their nightmares or intrusive thoughts that plague them get, however late or early they are woken from them, they unwind with steadying breaths sat easy in the kitchen.
Neil’s eyes are bright with feral energy that Andrew recognizes. “You are not going anywhere, Neil Abram Josten.”
Until this moment, using his full, newly legal, name had always snapped Neil away from the gloom of his nightmares. Neil tensed further, lashes fluttering as his eyes twitched. Andrew took in a breath and held it for a second or two.
“You were there. In that cop car. The one they stole to take me to him.” Neil’s volume tapers off as he says the word ‘him’. As if even just the thought of him would summon the ghost of Nathan Wesninski to finish him off. “Sometimes, one of the others were there. Matt. Dan.” Neil swallowed hard, “But this time it was you.”
“And?” Andrew challenges but Andrew doesn’t really think Neil will answer. Not with how there’s even more sweat gathering on his brow, and his knees are bent slightly, braced and ready to bolt.
Andrew pours two cups of coffee, patiently waiting. His face remains emotionless, knowing the stability Andrew offered had always been a comfort for Neil. Andrew could take each and every problem Neil had and help him shoulder it. “It...” Neil, despite himself, takes the mug Andrew offers. A little swirl of tension loosens in Andrew’s gut. Neil can’t run with hot coffee.
“It was just a dream.” Andrew finishes for him, carefully neutral. “We’re both alive.” Andrew says. He watches as Neil’s nightmare starts to dissolve from his mind in little fizzles of loosened shoulders, an unclenched jaw.
“We’re alive.” Neil echos, voice only the ghost of a whisper. He’s still miles away. Andrew watches Neil for a while, long enough to finish his coffee. Neil is staring into his, cooling rapidly.
Because he know it will Help Neil, he forces out the words, but he can’t fake any enthusiasm for them. “Exy practice starts up today.”
The remaining tension flows from Neil like a loosened spigot and the smile that smooths out the crease in his brow is definitely not overwhelming. “Junkie.” Andrew scoffs, setting aside his empty mug.
“It’s the first time I’m playing without healing from any major injuries in a while.” Neil points out, as he had a couple times before when practices resuming came up, when Andrew would scorn his excitement. He knew the effect it had on Andrew.
Andrew shut up. He could concede that point. He didn’t have to like it, though. “I won’t let you score a single goal.” Andrew mutters, “Not even if you scream.”
Neil looks excited by the prospect, “promise?” He takes a few steps closer to Andrew and sets his mug beside Andrew’s, still full. Andrew’s hand curls in the front of Neil’s shirt, tugging him closer.
“Remember the game, your first year, that you had coach pick a number and that’s as many goals as you let through before you closed the other team out?” Neil had recovered from the nightmare, it seemed, if he was here getting aroused by the thought of Andrew playing Exy. And playing Exy well.
“What about it?”
“What if I picked a number?”
“No, I said zero and I mean zero.”
Neil just grins.
Because he hates when Neil gets the jump on him, he resolves to put his secret weapon to the test once more. With his grip on Neil’s shirt an anchor, he rises to his toes and presses his lips to Neil’s forehead.
The effect is immediate. Neil slumps forward, his forehead pressing heavier into Andrew’s lips. When Andrew lifts his free hand to the back of Neil’s neck, Neil shudders. His lips part with a heavy breath that Andrew feels against his chin and collarbones.
Andrew lingers, not long enough for it to be weird, but just long enough for the weight of just how intimate this action is to settle around both of them. When Andrew rocks back onto his heels, Neil’s arms are on either side of him, holding onto the counter. Oddly, Andrew doesn’t feel trapped. Maybe a little cornered under the weight of Neil’s stare, but not in a way that makes anxiety ripple in his stomach. His face remains placid, calm, even when Neil speaks again.
“Can I kiss you?” Neil asks because he never stops asking and Andrew appreciates that so much. He sounds breathless, unable or unwilling to speak above a whisper. Andrew doesn’t know which.
“Yes.” Andrew says at his normal volume. He needs to show Neil it wasn’t a big deal. Simple, doting affection shouldn’t be earth shattering. Maybe it’s a lesson they both need to learn because when Neil kisses him, it’s so tender that Andrew feels he might explode with the feelings welling up inside him.
When they first collided, it had been fast, almost angry. Rough. There was not a single ounce of gentleness to be found in their union. It had been that way for the first few months, with a rocky back and forth in the time following Spring Championships.
Nowadays it stays more casual, infinitely slower. Andrew is still trying to reconcile this brand of Neil Josten’s sensuality with the inexperienced freshman from before. They’re both inexperienced, they’re navigating it together.
Andrew pulls back just as he starts to feel overwhelmed, and Neil listens to his body language and takes a small step back. He drops his hands from the counter so Andrew doesn’t have a chance to feel trapped.
He’s not. He wasn’t.
Neil glances at the clock, then to the darkness outside the window. Andrew knows he’s thinking about taking a run. “Stay.” Andrew says.
“Okay.” Neil relents. Andrew doesn’t think it was a tough decision at all for Neil.
When the night winds down after practice that night, Andrew stops Neil before he climbs into his own bed. “Up.” He motions, pointing to his own bed.
Neil hesitates, “You sure?” It’s not because they technically have a roommate that Neil is double checking- Kevin is in one of the beanbag chairs out front, headphones on and watching old Exy matches.
“Yes.” Andrew’s tone is sure, so Neil has no other reason to question him.
Neil climbs up with his pillow just as Andrew settles with his back against the wall. It’s a good thing they’re both short and Neil is so lean. They’d never fit otherwise. Neil turns to Andrew, their faces close, but Andrew has had a good day, and there’s no anxiety in the closeness.
They’ve been together long enough for Andrew to know he can trust Neil. For the thought of Neil’s skin against his to not have it crawling.
Andrew shifts, lifting a hand and brushing Neil’s hair away from his forehead. He glances at Neil’s face briefly beofre pressing his lips right in the center of Neil’s forehead.
Neil lets out a shaky breath and Andrew lingers. When he moves, his lips skim down the length of Neil’s nose. He purses his lips against the tip of Neil’s nose, another little kiss. Neil doesn’t react as viscerally as with the forehead kiss.
Andrew digs his thumb into Neil’s pulse. He feels both their heartbeats at this single point. “You like being kissed on the forehead.” Andrew doesn’t pose it as a question.
Andrew can see Neil fighting back his reaction, but he can’t stop the pooling of blood on his cheeks. With the summer sun, Neil is perpetually sunburned, but Andrew is so familiar with Neil he still sees it. Even in the dark. Neil doesn’t try to refute Andrew’s claim, “No one’s ever done it before.”
Andrew had suspected it, but the confirmation still doesn’t settle easy. Neil’s pulse is elevated. Andrew rubs his thumb in long stroke down Neil’s neck. He wants to tell Neil it’s just a kiss, don’t be so dramatic. But that isn’t true, is it?
It’s affection, true. But it’s patience, unhurried care. It shows trust. A level of adoration neither of them are familiar with in the slightest.
“Can I...?” Neil tips his chin, indicating Andrew’s forehead. Andrew’s nostils flare, betraying his surprise. “Had anyone ever...?” Neil doesn’t finish either question, but he doesn’t have to. Andrew knows what he means.
“Cass did.”
Neil touches Andrew’s forehead tentatively, parting his hair. “No one who stayed?”
Andrew stiffens just slightly, but he doesn’t tell Neil to stop, doesn’t move away. “No one who stayed.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Neils fingers tap at Andrew’s temple in a mockery of a familiar salute. He leans in and kisses Andrew’s forehead like Andrew had done for him.
Objectively, he knows why Neil likes it. Neil is warm. His lips are slightly chapped but they’re still soft against his skin. Being on the receiving end is different. There’s a puff of breath from Neil’s nose skimming his head, not moist against against his collar. There’s the scent of Neil’s bodywash and something unnamed and undoubtably Neil.
He feels safe, astoundingly enough.
Safer than he ever had, even. Neil settle back against his pillow and looks at Andrew in that fond way of his that he has. The kind that makes Andrew feels seen. Feel known. Combined with the kiss, it’s too much.
Andrew turns Neil’s face into his pillow for him, as if he might smother the striker. Neil chuckles into the sheets and Andrew releases him. “You liked it, too, didn’t you?”
Andrew doesn’t respond to that trap, instead he just says, “Go to sleep, Junkie.”
#aftg#all for the game#all for the game fic#andreil#neil josten#andrew minyard#this is longer than i thought it was hahah#read it while you can i might get self conscious and delete it like i did with all my other stuff#sorry this is barely edited bc if i think too long about it i will never post
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An analysis of Billie Eilish’s ‘WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?’
Written by Daniel T. Gaming - 3/29/24
Today marks the 5 year anniversary of Billie Eilish's debut album, ‘WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?’.
To celebrate, I want to make this thread that analyzes each song for what it's about & why it exists. I've actually done an analysis on this album before, so this is just gonna be a summarized version.
!!!!!!!
This 14 second monologue of Billie pulling out her Invisalign was actually the first thing her & Finneas EVER recorded for the album. Fittingly enough, its length matches the amount of tracks on the album (14 seconds = 14 tracks). Also, the track’s title is officially pronounced ‘Seven Exclamation Points’.
bad guy
The biggest single on the album. It's a track that Billie wrote to mock at people who put on fake personas & make themselves look more important than who they really are. The title is actually a reference to Scarface, in which Al Pacino's character, Tony Montana, says "Say goodnight to the bad guy!"
xanny
Billie wrote this track after her & her friends went to a party. She noticed afterwards that they started acting rather unusual. Smoking, drinking, vomiting, acting up on her, it made them feel like different people, and that was something Billie wanted to represent. Especially in the chorus, where the distorted bass & Billie's textured vocals really imitates that of second-hand smoking.
you should see me in a crown
This is the first single off of the album. It's actually written off of a line from BBC's Sherlock!
"We wrote this song ‘cause of Sherlock, actually, 'cause there’s a scene where Jim Moriarty says, 'You should see me in a crown’ and me and my brother were like, ‘Hey, that’s jiggy as f*ck.’ Then we just sorta made the song about being jiggy I guess, and you should see me in a crown, so there it is." - Billie during the premiere of the song on BBC Radio 1.
all the good girls go to hell
Billie's take on Christian symbolism & climate change, even taking key notes from Ariana Grande & continuing the indication of God being a woman. This song is in reference to the California wildfires that happened around the time "you should see me in a crown" was being released.
wish you were gay
Also a very early track Billie wrote. It was written when she had been rejected by a guy she liked. She was hoping for other reasons that weren't about her to be the reason for his rejection, and she thought of the idea that he could've been gay. Ironically enough, when the song dropped, he got in contact with Billie, and told her that he turned out to be gay after all!
when the party's over
A song about distancing one's self from romantic interest, Billie wrote this as more of an angry perspective, rather than sad. It's also based on a story in which Finneas had drove away from this girl he was dating with. It's a feeling you're not happy about, but it needed to be done.
8
Flipping over to Side B, we have a song about feeling regretful for being rude to a friend. Billie shows a lot of sympathy to her friend, and regrets hurting them as is.
"When people hear that song, they’re like, ‘Oh, poor baby Billie, she’s so hurt.’ But really I was just a dickhead for a minute and the only way I could deal with it was to stop and put myself in that person’s place."
my strange addiction
Written off of the TLC series, 'My strange addiction', Billie finds herself taking on another person when she should be taking a break for herself. The interludes & opening are also sampled from The Office episode, 'Threat Level Midnight' (S7:E17)
bury a friend
Sleep paralysis. Demons. Fear from what's beneath. All of which combined makes up the creepiest song on the album. It's about the idea of a monster being under Billie's bed, and the confusing relationship she has with this monster. It's also where the title of the album comes from.
What also adds to this unsettling tension is dentist equipment that was recorded for the album. This song also transitions smoothly into...
ilomilo
Going from fearing somebody, to fearing loneliness. The song's idea also comes from the video game of the same name, in which you control both Ilo and Milo, as they are separated apart, solving puzzles in order for them to reach each other. That concept of escaping loneliness plays into this song incredibly well. The lyrics for it would also be used in the documentary, ‘Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry’.
listen before i go
By far, one of the saddest songs on the album, Billie writes a heart wrenching story of a woman who is ready to end her life by jumping off of a building, writing her final message to her friends & her partner.
The track really pulls at you, with how openly depressing its structure is. It even has these bass jabs that appear in the middle that really make you feel like you have like an instant panic attack. The track ultimately ends with a bass thump, with ambulance sounds and screaming, ultimately leading us to believe that she had actually done it.
i love you
Toxic dependency is a tragedy as old as love itself. In the penultimate song for the album, Billie sings about two emotionally distraught lovers trying to find peace in each other.
This guitar-eccentric “love” ballad is also the longest song on the album, clocking in at almost 5 minutes. The title for her longest song would later go to ‘Happier Than Ever.’ And with this track being the penultimate song helps wrap the album into a nice bow. A bow covered in blood, tears, sadness & spiders.
goodbye
To finish off the album is a one minute melancholic medley. It samples the bridge from ‘xanny’ and recites all of the album’s songs in reverse order. From ‘i love you’ -> ‘bad guy’, and ending it off with a tape stop.
Billie wrote this because she didn’t want the album to just end inconclusive. She felt like albums ending with a random song from the track list doesn’t make it feel like it actually properly ended. So she wrote this ending piece as a way to cap off the album. She also uses this track to end off her concerts too, even to this day.
Conclusion
When I first picked the CD up for this album in June 2019, I was honestly not knowing what to expect. I did hear a few of the singles before the album released but I wasn’t expecting something as intense as it did. And I LOVED it.
I know that Billie has evolved a lot since this album’s release, and I know she’s had even MORE critical and commercial success since, but I will be forever grateful for this album’s existence. It got me through some of the darkest times I’ve ever had, and every listen to this album gave me a fuzzy experience that I don’t think will ever be replicated again.
To Billie, Finneas, and the WWAFA,WDWG crew… thank you. Thank you for giving us one of, if not, the GREATEST album of 2019, and for the 2010s as a whole. May Billie continue to seek success and continue to be one of the most important pop stars in the music industry.
-❤️ Daniel
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I don’t think that last post is true because Loki is being played by a human actor! Tom Hiddleston can’t really just go into REM on set you know
If he was really dedicated he would 😤
But all jokes aside, that’s fine nonny, you don’t have to agree. There’s plenty of scenes you could look at, I’m sure, from many pieces of media where someone is “sleeping” and they’re not blinking and don’t wake up suddenly. And for the sake of the argument, you could fake REM if you really wanted to by moving your eyes under your eyelids. I think the more convincing part of the argument is that he wakes up so quickly, but then again I suppose you could just say that Loki is a light sleeper 🤷♀️
#I like to argue both sides in case you couldn’t tell#tbh first seeing the scene I assumed he was really asleep#and there’s plenty of people who agree#then there’s others who are analyzing it and saying no he’s not asleep he’s faking it#I’m kinda just neutral on it because I don’t think it has *that* much bearing on anything#so view it as you want#:)#ask#anon ask#anon#the loki show#the loki show spoilers
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Is it ok to request Thoma venti and itto with a quiet s/o who's usually reads and their sometimes seen alone
Him with a quiet s/o that reads
A/N: left out Thoma because i tried sm times but i feel like i just couldn’t get it to sound like him :(
warnings: none
reader is gender neutral!
Characters: Itto, Venti
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Itto
he thinks it’s cute that you’re relatively quiet. keeping mostly to yourself and often seen alone
takes those chances to spend time with you though! when he isn’t busy with his gang or finding beetles
will ask you constantly to read something to him. even if he doesnt understand anything that you say from each page, he enjoys listening to you just talk. your voice is relaxing<33
9/10 times will fall asleep on your lap if you left him while you read aloud to him, flipping through each page softly until you hear quiet snores coming from the big oni who’s head is lying comfortably on your lap.
if you wake him up, will 100% refuse that he fell asleep. will say he was faking to see how long you’d let him stay there. but the tired look in his eyes and the way he talks slow and in a quiet voice gives away that he slept at some point
if you ever are in a crowd or public area, and you want to be alone wether that be for reading purposes or just your social battery being low, he will immediately help you find a quiet place you’ll enjoy staying in
and if you ask him to stay you’ll see hearts in his now shining crimson eyes as he sits next to you and holds you to his chest
you’ve fallen asleep reading to him before, your eyes drifting closed as your hands drooped with the book barely in your hold as Itto held you close against his chest, the sound of his heart beat lulling you further into sleep
he’ll notice you’ve drifted to dream land soon enough when he realizes you’ve gone really quiet for a while, and if only you could see your sleeping face, features relaxed as you looked ethereal in his arms. a wide grin on his face as he sighs to himself and falls asleep thinking of you that evening
reading or not, alone somewhere quiet or not, expect Itto to be tailing behind shortly like a lost little puppy as he showers you in affection and praise as you read or as you enjoy the comfortable air surrounding you two alone <33
Venti
He loves and hates that you enjoy being alone
Tries bringing you to the tavern many MANY times a day, even when you decline because you’d rather be alone reading somewhere he‘ll still try, man is persistent.
if you do somehow agree, he thanks the anemo god above literally thanked himself and then picks a quiet spot near the back of the tavern for when you do decide to join him.
he loves listening to you read, lightly blows wind through your hair to watch your beautiful eyes glance up from the pages through your lashes at him who grins cheekily in return.
he can and will fall asleep to the sound of your voice calmly reading the words off the pages of a book you have, will beg and annoy you til you do read to him and it eventually becomes a regular thing for you to do
he pays you back though, sings to you whenever you’re the one feeling tired making sure everything is quiet and to your liking as you fall asleep to the sound of his voice for once rather than it being the other way around.
tries to read aloud with you but fails because he reads quicker while you purposefully read slower as you analyze each word written on the pages of the novel in your hands
if you’re ever in public and want to go somewhere quieter, sometimes to read or sometimes to just simply enjoy the peace being alone brings he’ll instantly blow a gust of wind that safely carries you to a quiet and beautiful spot he knows well as you both sit in the comfortable silence.
he may be annoying, pestering you from time to time to get a rise out of you or simply to steal your attention away from a book. but he means well as he clings to your side and listens intently to each word that spills from your mouth before he’s fast asleep leaning om your shoulder again
you’ll giggle quietly, smiling to yourself and read quieter now as you let him sleep. knowing he’ll sing to you later as a way of “repaying” you
you’ll fall asleep reading that evening, a smile on your features as your eyes drift closed and lean your head on top of his own as your last thoughts are of how you got yourself into this
and how you found yourself falling in love with a bard like Venti.
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likes and reblogs are appreciated
do not use or repost my work on any platform
#venti x you#genshin impact#genshin impact x reader#genshin x reader#itto x reader#arataki itto#genshin impact x you#genshin impact fluff#genshin headcanons#genshin impact headcanons#arataki itto x reader#itto fluff#genshin impact venti#venti fluff#venti x reader#venti x y/n#genshin venti#arataki itto x you#genshin itto#genshin arataki itto
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Comforting Student Reader ft. Aizawa and Present Mic
Warnings: crying, bad times, death, mourning
Requests are open!!
Although no one knows it, he always keeps an eye on his students. He can almost always tell when someone is upset.
He noticed how your actions changed. You were always quiet and reserved, daydreaming from time to time. You would always turn your work in, getting mostly A’s with a few B’s. So when you started failing the class with F’s and D’s, Aizawa knew something was wrong. He also noticed how everyday you would space out even more than you did before. He noticed the way you acted, slow and solum. He saw how sleep deprived you were. You had missing assignments and late work, unfinished tests and work.
Aizawa confronted you one day after class.
“L/N, stay after class please.” You nodded, taking in a shaky sigh. This day cannot get any worse, you thought. The bell rang and you packed up, walking slowly to Mr. Aizawa.
“Yes, sir?” you asked quietly, giving a fake smile. He sat on his desk, looking over you. Your uniform looked as if you had just thrown it on. Aizawa brought his eyes up to yours. He could see how dull the had become.
“L/N, what is going on?” Aizawa asked. You gave him a confused look.
“What are you talking about?” you questioned, although you knew exactly what he meant. Aizawa gave you a soft look.
“I think you know exactly what I mean,” he started.
You looked around nervously, avoiding his gaze. “I, I… I don’t know what you mean.” Aizawa stared at you for a moment, analyzing your body composition.
“Your grades have dropped drastically, you’ve started falling asleep in class,” he listed off. You looked away, ashamed. “Y/N,” he said, resting a hand on your shoulder. You looked up, surprised by both his hand and the use of your first name. “What’s going on?”
Tears welled up in your eyes. “Can you close the door?” you asked quietly. Aizawa’s face softened.
“Of course.” He closed the door and came back to you. He pulled two chairs to face each other and he sat down in one. When he saw that you hadn’t moved he motioned for you to sit and you did as asked. The two of you sat in silence for a while before you bury your face in your hands.
“I’m sorry,” you muttered, silent tears falling down your face.
“It’s ok,” Aizawa said softly. “Take your time.”
Silence.
You lifted your head and Aizawa’s heart broke slightly. Although he would never admit it, Aizawa would die for his students and seeing them cry made him feel bad. He saw the tear tracks on your face and leaned forward.
“Y/N,” he said quietly. You looked at him. “You know you can trust me, right?” You nodded, sitting up.
“Yeah,” you answered and wiped the tears from your face. Once you compose yourself you decided to speak. “I’ve just been having a really hard time lately. I’m sorry,” you apologized again, tearing up.
“It’s alright,” Aizawa assured. “Can you tell me why?” You nodded.
���It’s just…” you took a deep breath, “My dad… he, he’s a pro hero and a villain hurt him pretty bad. He’s, he’s my only family left and the doctors said that they’ve done all they could.
Aizawa’s eyes softened as he stood, pulling you up with him. He pulled you into a hug, holding you tight. This caused you to burst into tears. Aizawa pulled you closer as you sobbed, clutching his shirt in fists. He used on hand to hold your head against him and his other to rub up and down your back in hopes to help calm you down.
“I’m sorry,” you sobbed.
“Shh, it’s alright,” Aizawa soothed, resting his chin on your head. He stayed with you until you had calmed down. When you finally pulled away you discovered how tired you really were. Aizawa saw it as well; the way you swayed slightly on your feet, the way your head bobbed down and how it took a lot of energy for you to keep your eyes open.
“Are you tired?” he asked with a small smile. You shook your head.
“No,” you slurred, rubbing your eyes and fixing your posture. Picking up your bag, you got ready to leave. “I need to get to my next class. I’m already late.” As you started to walk towards the door Aizawa caught your shoulder. You turned to face him and saw the look in his eyes.
“Yes you are, I can tell,” he said, stopping you. “I can tell you haven’t been sleeping for several days.” He smiled, “you’re beginning to look like me.” You smiled slightly as well. “Come with me.” You followed him to a room connected to the classroom, his office. You looked around to see a cot against one of the walls.
“Rest here,” Aizawa instructed. You cocked your head.
“What about class?” you asked.
“Who do you have?”
“Mr. Hizashi,” you answered, yawning.
“Alright,” Aizawa smiled. “I will let him know that you are with me. Now, rest. You really need it.” He ruffled your hair as you nodded. He turned to leave the room before you stopped him.
“Mr. Aizawa?” you spoke. He turned towards you and smiled softly.
“Yes?”
“Thank you,” you said, smiling slightly as well. “For everything.”
“You’re welcome,” he responded. “But, hey, don’t tell anyone about this. I can’t go around with people thinking I’m soft.” You giggled.
“Ok.” You laid down on the cot, suddenly feeling extremely tired. Aizawa watched you fall asleep and smiled, knowing that you’d be ok in the long run.
Since Hizashi has such an outgoing personality, he always tries to make sure his class is awake and happy. He tries to make school exciting for his students and fellow coworkers. He always enjoyed how you smiled and laughed at his jokes. He even enjoyed when you would sing along quietly to the ear-blasting music he played sometimes during class.
What happened that day was hard on the both of you. On your way to school a villian decided to attack in your area. Because you live on the outside of the city, the big heros were not around. You watched helplessly as the villian with a fire quirk snatched your brother, taking him. You screamed running forward. Pro heroes fought against the villain as you ran forward to fight back.
“L/N!” Present Mic yelled but that did nothing to stop you. “Stop!”
You continued moving forward as Hizashi grabbed you by the waist and pulled back.
“No!” you sobbed, suddenly aware of what was going on. Hizashi’s grip tightened as he pulled you away from the scene.
“Shh,” he shushed, trying to calm you down. He dragged you into an alleyway. You continued to scream and cry, fighting against Present Mic.
“(Brother’s name)!” you shrieked. You tried to use your water quirk to escape but red eyes stopped you.
“Y/N,” Aizawa called, running up to the two of you. He kneeled down in front of you. “You need to calm down. You’ll hurt Mic if you keep it up. Calm down, ok?”
Something in his voice calmed you and you quit struggling. He smiled softly and patted your head, blinking. He stood and ran off. “Stay with her Hizashi. We’ll be ok.”
You fell limp and both you and Hizashi fell to the ground. You grabbed his arms and sobbed harder with each scream you heard.
“Shh,” Mic soothed again. He pulled a pair of headphones from his bag and plugged them into his phone. Pulling up Youtube Music, he typed in (favorite artist) and placed the headphones over your head. Hizashi picked a playlist, rocking the two of you back and forth. After several songs you finally calmed down, breathing heavily.
“You are alright,” Present Mic whispered, very unlike him. “Would you like to go home?” He realized you couldn’t hear him.
“How is she?” Aizawa asked, running back over to the two. He saw Hizashi’s headphones around your head.
“Much calmer,” Present Mic answered. “But I don’t think taking her home would be the best option.” Aizawa nodded.
“She certainly is not in the right state of mind to go to class.”
“I can keep her in my classroom,” Hizashi offered. Aizawa nodded. “That way she isn’t alone or have to go to class.” He picked you up and you didn’t bat an eye. You lay limp and silent the whole way to UA. When the three of you arrived to Mic’s class, Aizawa and Hizashi noticed that your eyes were closed.
“F/N?” Aizawa said, tapping your foot. Your eyes snapped open and you shot forward. Hizashi nearly dropped you as you landed on your feet.
“Wow, it’s alright hot shot,” Hizashi said as he placed his hand on your back. You pulled the headphones down to hang around your neck, looking up to your two teachers.
“You’re going to stay with Present Mic today, alright?” Aizawa explained.
“What about class?” you whispered.
“Y/N,” Hizashi started, catching your attention. “We just think it’ll be better if you stay with me.” You thought about it for a moment before nodding. Aizawa left for his class. Your puffy red eyes met Mic’s and he smiled softly.
“You can sit over there,” he said, motioning to a desk in the front row. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and handed it to you. “Just relax, ok?” You took his phone and nodded, heading to the desk and laying your head down.
Hizashi kept an eye on you for the rest of the day. He even stayed quiet during his classes just in case you had fallen asleep. When someone tried to bother you, he’d get defensive and tell them to leave you be. He even brought you lunch, figuring you wouldn’t eat unless he sat down with you and ate. He kept a good eye on you for several months and talked with you to make sure you were ok. Let’s just say that you appreciate what your teacher has done for you.
#bnha#bnha fluff#bnha comfort#bnha hurt/comfort#bnha x you#bnha x reader#bnha x y/n#aizawa fluff#bnha aizawa#shouta aizawa#aizawa#present mic
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Pirates and Princesses (8/8)
(gif: @beccs) (PART SEVEN) (SERIES MASTERLIST)
Summary: JJ must confront his childhood trauma when returning home for the first time since his dad went to jail and prevent it from sabotaging his new relationship. Meanwhile, something sinister happens at the Chateau that brings Y/N face to face with her grief over John B’s death.
Word Count: 13.4k
Warnings: Angst, implied sexual content, strong language, parent/child abuse, mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorder, grief, and fluff.
A/N: Welcome to the final chapter of Tokens! This one has a little bit of everything in it, but it also has detailed scenes about JJ and his dad, so proceed with caution if you’re easily triggered by that topic. The love you guys show this fic warms my heart so much, so thanks to anyone who stuck with this story until this chapter. Hope you enjoy it!
Now that she has been sentenced to both punishments, one as a consequence of the fight with Kacey and the other as a consequence of the stunt she pulled with JJ to break out of ISS, Y/N can confidently say that out of school suspension is superior to in-school suspension by a long shot. Instead of sitting in a humid room with Alec for the duration of multiple school days, she's allowed to stay home, go out surfing, and do whatever she wants in lieu of doing classwork.
She promised herself not to make it a habit, promising the invisible presence of John B that she likes to pretend follows her around that she will never get herself into trouble again, but she sees no problem in enjoying her suspension while it lasts.
For the first few days of her suspension, JJ skipped school to spend it with her. Their memories of the conversation they had at three in the morning on Sunday were fuzzy, but not missing entirely. She noticed a difference in his behavior for the first few hours after they woke up under the tree together for the second time in one week. It wasn't a difference in their relationship or how he treated her, it was a difference in him.
He was quieter than usual as they cleaned up cans of beer and tossed them into the recycling, sending pictures to Kie while she was in class after she made them promise not to throw them in the trash. Rather than cracking jokes or making casual conversation with her, JJ made his way around the yard with the recycling bin in his hands and his head in the clouds. It disappeared as the day progressed, but for a little while, he wasn't completely there.
Today, he went into school instead of ditching to spend extra time with her in between shifts at work and time spent with their friends. Since they can't exceed three consecutive absences without a doctor’s note and he doesn't own a printer or laptop to forage the header from a doctor's office, he had no choice but to part from her this morning.
He bites his lip to contain his smug facial expression at the recollection of her wake up call for him. The hand holding his locker door open for him to lean on in the midst of his not-so-wholesome thoughts of her squeezes the metal hard enough to turn his knuckles white.
The curtains weren't shut all the way when they fell asleep before midnight last night, allowing a shaft of sunlight to shine in and land on his face. But that wasn't what woke him up from the dream he was having. In fact, the reality he opened his eyes to was a hell of a lot better than any dream he remembered.
Most of his memory of those moments spent suspended between consciousness and unconsciousness consisted of feeling her pressing a kiss to his shoulder, then her hands rubbing up and down his waist to slip lower and lower until they settled on the waistband of his underwear. It was then that he woke to find her looking up at him for permission from where she peppered kisses along his chest.
Their eyes met right as she kissed the edge of his nipple with this pleading, needy look that he took pride in causing without actively attempting to. She woke up on the brink of coming undone from a pleasant—to put it tamely—dream about him. With a glimpse at the time displayed on the alarm clock, it didn't take much for her to roll over to wake him up.
It ended with her beneath the sheet, finishing what she started Friday afternoon until he was clutching the pillow beneath his head in the midst of his orgasm. It happened so fast, a fault of how hot he found it to wake up to her wanting him so badly, but it felt slower than it truly was in the early morning haze of exhaustion they felt.
The memory as he relives it is as heady as it felt the first time around. He sees it in fractions; her eyes looking up at his, warm palms finding the familiar planes of his muscular body with the exploratory touch of someone who's never traveled it before, and the intense sensations he felt at the end...It's easy for him to stand here and lose himself in it. Despite the class he has to go to, he bargains with himself for one more second spent in the paradise of his memories before he has to come back to reality.
Reality, as his shitty luck would have it, comes in the form of a familiar feminine voice chirping from behind his back as he replays his morning bliss.
"It's good to see you're alive and well, Maybank."
He decides, based on who he knows he'll see when he turns around, that he might invest in a sharpie to write "Bang head here" on the inside of his locker door for instances like these where he'd rather suffer brain damage than speak to someone he can't stomach the presence of.
When he turns to see Kacey with one arm still stretched to hold his locker open, he doesn't bother concealing the genuine reaction from his face for the sake of her feelings. Any care he had for her and her feelings was thrown to the wind as soon as she decided she could steal from and put her hands on his girl last week. However, after a second of thought, a condescending smirk finds its way to his face.
He says, jerking his chin to vaguely gesture at her bruised up face, "Purple really suits your complexion. It makes your eyes pop, don't you think?"
Though the swelling of her black eye has deflated in the days since the fight that’ll soon tally up to a week, the verbal jab hits right where it intended to if the light leaving her eyes tells him anything. She bounces back after a second, though, ever the relentless pest they've come to see her as.
She offers a sickeningly sweet, yet fake smile to mirror the one gracing his striking features and spins so her back meets the locker beside his, allowing herself to invade his space further.
A collection of Y/N's stickers decorates the inside of his locker door that he briefly entertained the idea of designating as a place to bang his head against. They range from girly, glittery ones to those he willingly picked when she gave him the choice. Whenever they're at his locker together, she sticks one on the inside, and the evidence of the habit catches Kacey's wandering eyes.
Her fingertips brush against the surface of the sticker-covered metal while she ignores his protest of, "Can you not touch my stuff?" to inspect them. Since one of the Pogues in particular is famous for her endless supply of stickers, her expression sours at the thought of the girl responsible for them.
She spares him a quick glance out of the corner of her eye as she continues to analyze the sticker collection against his instructions not to, asking, "Why weren't you at the bonfire?" A failed attempt at a seductive look in his direction makes him fight not to roll his eyes. "After how last year's ended, I thought you wouldn't miss it for the world."
JJ doesn't bother to take a second to think things through before he reaches to slam the door closed with her hand still outstretched inside of it. Watching her pull it away just in time to avoid jamming it in the locker probably pleases him more than it should, but he can't help it. His hand catches on the edge of the door, halting it in place right before it closes where her hand previously rested.
She doesn't look too happy with him when he opens the door with no harm done except for the drop of her stomach when he initially pretended to swing it shut on her bruised knuckles. She didn't get many shots in on Y/N when they fought, but apparently it was enough.
He doesn't bother with the fake niceties she's giving him after the disrespect she showed him, his friends, and, most importantly, his girlfriend. The fact that she thinks she has any right to breathe in his direction, let alone flirt with him, after she stole JB's bandana is criminal. 'Cause not only did she mess with Y/N, she messed with John B on multiple levels, and his loyalty to his best friend hasn't disappeared with death. Kie and Y/N told him everything she said about their departed friend in the locker room last Thursday.
But he's smart enough to know what'll hurt her more, so he doesn't go for the general scolding he imagined giving her in his head. Since he was told everything about the encounter in the locker room, he knows she's still holding their history together near and dear to her heart.
"We stayed home," he says, casual and cool as always, with added emphasis on the first word, "You know how it is, my girl doesn't like parties. Especially not ones with kooks."
Hook, line, and sinker.
She scoffs, "Your girl?"
Looking at her now, he wonders if she was always this stupid, or if this is a new development she's had in the year since he last spent more than a minute or two at a time with her. It’s easier to trick her than it was with Kie and Y/N a few days ago, and those poor girls flew into that trap like moths to a flame.
"That's what I said, isn't it?"
The ire is visible in the way her face tenses up in places, her lips pressing together a little more firmly and her forehead creasing between the brows.
"Doesn't your, um, history bother her?" she asks, and he's gotta give her credit for being a sneaky little shit when given the chance. The girl takes every possible opening she can to strike for a potential weakness. "No offense, but you kinda get around."
He shrugs this time, deciding to drop his casual act and aim straight for the jugular.
"She likes having someone who knows how to fuck her right, actually, but I really appreciate the concern."
Much like Kie's reaction to their matching tattoos in the hot tub the other night, her jaw is unhinged to meet the unswept hallway floor they stand on. It makes him wish Y/N weren't suspended in order for her to see the gobsmacked reaction Kacey has to the harsh dismissal. Though he wouldn't want to incite an extra round of the Kacey vs Y/N WWE showdown by having her watch another girl flirt with him and essentially call him a slut upon rejection, he knows she'd get a kick out of it.
This one's for you, baby, he thinks with a quiet laugh to himself and turns his focus to the sticker collection she so lovingly crafted.
There are plenty of summer themed ones left over from the same pack he gifted her for her birthday with the surfboard sticker she used to tease him, as well as a newer genre of Valentine's Day stickers she started using the closer they grew since first getting together. They're mostly different colored candy hearts with corny phrases ranging from "U SXY THING" to the classic "BE MINE" and one printed with "ANGEL" on it—his favorite by far.
However, others are random ones from her endless stash built up over the years from birthdays and holidays deemed worthy enough by her dad to stop by Dollar Tree for a new pack, so the one he sets his attention on is likely meant for teachers or coaches to give to their students. The opportunity appears too good to be true to him when it clicks, but it isn't.
He peels the sticker off of the locker door, careful not to disturb the ones around it, and leans in closer to her to place it on the front of her tank top.
"Leave us alone or I won't stop her next time," JJ says lowly, past the point of civility, then backs away to slam his locker shut for real this time as his voice raises back to a normal volume, "And keep John B's name out of your mouth, got it?"
All she can do is look down at the sticker placed on her shirt with squinted eyes to try and read it while he walks off in the direction of his next class. It tears away from the fabric with a soft noise, and when she finally reads it, she rolls her eyes.
“Good Try!”
Walking out of school to see the Twinkie parked in the usual spot Y/N takes when she isn't suspended is a delightful treat he didn't know to expect after a rough day in class and his run in with Kacey. His head was hung low on his way to Kie's car to hitch a ride to his house before going home to the Chateau, since he had some things to pick up with his dad out of the picture for the near future, but then he heard her greet them.
JJ's body melts into hers upon contact, and he nearly pushes her up against the closed passenger side door of the van with how hard he hugs her. Though he doesn't want to acknowledge it, his dad has been living in his thoughts more than usual today. Ever since he texted him goodbye, he's been withdrawn inside of his head more and more, and after today's inconveniences, the rising anxiety of his plan to visit home has him two seconds from losing his mind.
Her eyes widen at his zeal, meeting Kie's concerned gaze from over the shoulder she rests her chin on. She stands with her keys swinging around her finger as she watches the couple embrace one another. In an answer to the silent question Y/N asks her in their stare, her lips mouth the words, "His dad," to her.
Deep down, Y/N had a feeling.
It began with his impromptu request to run away with her a few days ago and extended into his uncharacteristically reserved attitude the next morning that receded somewhat, but has yet to fully disappear. There is a part of her that's upset that he hasn't come to her to talk about it, to communicate the way they swore they would, yet she also knows it isn't that simple.
She has to remind herself that she knew what she was getting herself into with him. That's not to say that dating her must be a walk in the park for him, it isn't.
She knows based on the amount of times he had to hold her as she cried, or the time he curtailed her panic attack in this very parking lot, that she hasn't made it easy for him in the aftermath of John B's death. But it's because she knows how it feels that she has such patience with his communication issues.
It's not a conscious choice most times, it's an involuntary blockage preventing the words from being spoken no matter how desperately they long to be. They may have made a promise, but she won't chastise him for succumbing to the same pitfalls as her. It’d be hypocritical.
"Bad day?" she asks.
Her voice is tender with him, prodding gently for a clue as to why he pounced on her on sight. He sinks further into her arms at the sound and lets the sanctity of her touch sway him into submission. Everything about her sets him at ease, if only for a second. Her hand lifts the beat-up red hat from his head to allow the other to brush through his hair.
There's a hum of agreement that she feels vibrating through the center of his chest into hers, and her arms pull tighter around his shoulders in response. This time, when she looks up to see Kie there, she's waving a quick goodbye and setting off toward her car, clearly giving JJ the space he needs.
"We can go to the beach," she says softly, "I have a towel in the back of the van, we can just lay there and talk about it if you want."
The idea of her kind offer to him should add to the comfort he finds in her embrace. It should make him nod and whisper his gratitude to her for being the one person that knows him better than anyone, but it brings him back to the gloomy headspace he was in before seeing her.
It started as a minor distraction when he first arrived at school after carpooling with Kie. It followed him in the quieter moments, only making appearances when he wasn't distracted with more pressing matters. It began as that and built the closer the day came to ending. The sooner his inevitable visit back to his childhood home came, the more he lost himself in his fear, reverting back to a state of helplessness he now occupies with no small amount of shame.
His bottom lip trembles with the urge to cry.
"Can we stop somewhere on the way home first?"
The last place she expected him to drive the Twinkie is here.
As they made their way down each street, taking each turn necessary to bring them closer to the house he seldom let her go to over the course of their lifelong friendship, she felt her heart begin to race. And now, as the van rolls to a stop in the yard in front of his house, she has swallow back the lump in her throat at the sight of it.
She has only been here a few times.
The first time, she was seven years old.
It was a sweltering summer morning in the Outer Banks for her and John B as they set off to retrieve their friend after he missed their plans to meet up at the Chateau for a day of having fun, riding bikes, and playing on the boat. Pirates and Princesses was her favorite game to play with them because JJ would switch roles with her halfway through when she grew tired of being the damsel John B had to rescue from the most cruel and vicious Captain Jesse James Maybank.
The HMS Pogue would rock beneath his feet as he marched across the deck of the boat and took her place as the kidnapped Princess Routledge. He handed off his "sword" to her, a stick he found in the yard, and stood at the edge of the boat with his hands behind his back as though he were a tied up damsel in distress for her to hold captive. The sun setting behind them laid a picturesque backdrop that made the scene all the more vivid to their imaginative young minds.
The boat floated in the afternoon current as John B approached the pair with his best pretend face of worry for the fair Princess Maybank, who had the sharp sword of the pirate queen pressing into his throat with the threat of death should he have tried to escape.
Sometimes, she'd let John B advance on them and tie make believe rope around her wrists and ankles while he and Princess Maybank claimed their victory. Other times, they'd get backed up until the heels of her sneakers hung off the edge of the slippery deck. One move from her brother would have her yell something along the lines of not taking either of them alive, then she'd let her and JJ fall back into the marsh together with gleeful laughs infiltrating the humid air upon their return to the surface.
On the day he didn't show up, none of that happened. She and John B rode their bikes together along sidewalks until they pulled into a driveway marked with the address number he remembered from the other time he sought him out to play before.
Y/N didn't understand what they were hearing when they pushed their kickstands down and called out for their friend, but John B's little face blanched at the sound flooding out of the opened windows of the dilapidated yellow house. It was a combination of banging against the walls, glass shattering, and childlike shouts of frustration and pain. Her big brother placed himself in front of her protectively when the front door opened and smacked against the side of the house, but it wasn't his dad storming out of the house, it was JJ.
His eyes widened at the sight of the siblings standing there, and his heart dropped to his stomach at the realization that they heard it. Maybe not all of it, but based on how the girl peeking out around John B's shoulder looked at him, they heard some.
The van is parked in the exact same place their bikes once were, the exact place she and John B stood years ago when they were first confronted with the harsh reality about their best friend's home life, and he looks like he has fully backpedaled into the state of mind his childhood self inhabited. Even when he turns the key in the ignition and lets the rumbling engine sputter down in silence, he sits in the driver's seat with his lip drawn between his teeth in thought.
Yet as soon as she summons the courage to say something, he takes a deep breath and opens the door without a warning or the typical instruction for her to stay in the car. He doesn't tell her to follow him in, nor does he order her to stay out as he used to when his dad still lived inside. He gives her the choice to make on her own, and, when faced with the opportunity to support him or stay outside like the confused little girl she once was, she chooses the first option.
Her swift steps kick dirt up from the earth onto her ankles as she follows him out of the van to the front steps of the house. She tries not to make her concern for him as evident as it'd be without her intervention on her way up the porch, but it's impossible to erase every sign of it from her face.
It isn't a particularly special or scary house. It's a normal home that'd likely look more inviting if JJ were still living here to mow the lawn and tend to the household upkeep his father saddled him with since he was old enough to be put to work. But she knows better than to trust the street appeal. As he takes her hand to lead them through the threshold of the haunted structure, she is overcome with a sense of creeping trepidation that she can't shake.
"You're sure he isn't here?" she asks.
The entryway is crowded with stacks of mail his father wasn’t bothered to open, as well as empty cardboard boxes that once held cans of beer that are scattered, empty, in various places around the house. Her question is answered by the state of the rooms they breeze past in the direction of his bedroom, but she needed something to say to fill the silence. With them, they usually don’t feel uncomfortable not speaking to each other, but this feels different.
The way he stares out in front of him with his hand squeezing hers hard enough to cut off circulation unnerves her more than the tainted energy of the house itself. He isn't himself. He's a shell of the JJ they know and love, the JJ who is most comfortable tucked away in the safe walls of the Chateau with their friends, not here. If anything, how he is while he's here is the antithesis of his behavior while living with her.
Ever since John B died, he's practically moved in with her. When they're hidden away in her house without the reminders of his home life in sight, he's usually the caretaker of the relationship. It comes naturally to their dynamic, both with him being slightly older and his promise to take care of her, but everything is flipped here. It's an alternate reality for him, or, perhaps, actual reality smacking him in the face after a carefully constructed two months in utopia with her.
They come to a stop in front of his closed bedroom door.
"He's gone," he says, not even sparing a glance at her for reasons she can't decipher, "He texted me a few days ago to say goodbye."
With that, he turns the doorknob and lets the door swing open to reveal the bedroom she only saw one other time.
The second time, she was thirteen years old.
It was a Friday.
Since his dad was supposed to be at work, they stopped at his house on their way home from school exactly like they did today so he could share with their friends what he got from his cousin the night before. Being the good girl she was, she didn't even know what he was showing her when he dug it out of the backpack in the bottom of his closet.
Her brows furrowed at the ziploc bag, more specifically the contents inside of it. She was knelt down on the floor in front of the opened closet door with her shoulder pressed up against his to inspect it. The dried green cluster of a plant didn't look like anything she'd seen before, and she couldn't help but ask him what the hell it was rather than react the way he knew the others would.
"What is it? It looks like dried up moss."
JJ laughed and pulled another bag with rolling papers and a grinder stowed inside.
"It's weed. My cousin Ricky gave me a discount since—"
He halted mid-sentence abruptly enough to startle her, his head turning in the direction of where he heard a trunk pulling up to the front of the house. Her stare was still set on where he was holding the plastic bags in his hands, and she noticed, after he stopped speaking in reaction to his dad coming home, that his hands began trembling. It was so minimal, she almost didn't catch it until she saw the bag wavering under the light coming in from his window.
Before she could open her mouth to say anything more, she felt his hands on her shoulders shoving her into the closet. He followed in closely behind her and crawled in until they were both crammed into the confined space together. With the closet doors shut in front of them, he clamped a hand over her mouth, whispering in her ear for her to be quiet.
She stands with her arms crossed over herself in the center of his room, and though nothing has yet to be said or done to convince her anything is wrong, that's the exact reason why she feels so unnerved by the entire experience of coming here.
He's silent.
The closet doors are wide open as he stuffs the rest of the clothes he had yet to bring to the Chateau into the biggest bag he could find. He rips through his belongings in a fit of melancholy driven anger. His thoughts are swirling with similar memories to the ones she conjures from being here again, but his are tinged with a darkness hers don't have, even with hearing him crying in pain as a child and hiding in the closet with his hand smothering her mouth to evade his dad.
JJ visibly grimaces at the memories he's forced to relive in flashes with every glimpse he gets of the room he spent so much time hiding in. It used to be more tolerable to be here, or at least easier to suffer through. At least he was used to it before, but he got so accustomed to life somewhere else that the second he was confronted with coming back, he started to fall apart.
Whatever he can't live without, he finds space for it in the bag and prepares to leave the rest behind. But every object he touches and step he takes around the room brings him back to the person who he spent his adolescence simultaneously fleeing and wanting more from. More notably, it brings him back to the train of thought that has been nagging him ever since he texted him over the weekend.
The third and final time she came here was over the summer.
It happened right before Hurricane Agatha waged war on the island, when none of the Pogues heard from JJ for two days after he said he had to go home to help his dad with something. She didn't want to track him down to his house after they went over twenty-four hours without a single message. She didn't want to have to go back to the house that gave her chills to think about, let alone go to again after they hid in his closet when they were younger, but he gave her no other choice.
What was she supposed to do except go check on him where he last said he'd be? After all, if she lived in the hazardous environment he did, he'd do the exact same for her. If their friends were involved in her thoughts at the time, they would've gone out on a limb to say he would've gone beyond what she did to protect her if the situation were flipped. If he knew someone was hurting her, he would've come in swinging first and asked questions later, but, in her defense, he strictly told her to never come back to his house. By walking over in the first place, she was breaking one of the fundamental rules of their friendship.
Nevertheless, she found herself crouching around the side of his house to find his bedroom window and check if he was in there. Kie and Pope weren't aware of what was happening with his dad yet, but she and John B accidentally found out years ago, so she wasn't wondering why he wasn't answering them, she was wondering if he was alive.
Part of her truly thought underneath it all that Luke might've killed him. He might've been too drunk or high and went too far when beating him, too far to the point where he didn't want to risk going to jail to take him to the hospital for help. She couldn't live with herself if she didn't check, and if he got pissed at her for showing up against his wishes and didn't want to speak to her ever again, she could live with that.
She knocked on his window in a cadenced beat loud enough for it to heard through the room but not any further. After the first series of knocks, no one came to the window. It ripped her heart to pieces to wonder if she'd see him again as she continued to knock and allowed the sound to increase in volume in hopes that maybe he was asleep, but it didn't bring anyone to the window.
It wasn't until she turned back around to go to the front of the house again that she bumped right into the solid wall of his chest and was pushed back up against the house. The question of what she was doing there was on the tip of his tongue, but she said something that stopped him from asking it.
Her arms were thrown around his shoulders in a desperate bear hug.
"Oh God, JJ, you scared me half to death!" she cried into the front of his shirt, "I thought he killed you!"
He can't help but think of it as he packs his belongings away for a final time to bid his hellish childhood home goodbye: What kind of life are they going to have together if they can't get off this island? Running away may have been an idealistic drunken fantasy for him to entertain after his conversation with Pope got him to admit his true feelings for her, but they both know his consistency can't be trusted.
One moment, he's planning to tell her. The next, a day like today comes along, sweeps his legs out from beneath his body, and he's questioning whether it's worth it to force her to put up with his fickle commitment to her. It isn't fair to her, is it?
Right now is just about when he'd normally start to hyperventilate with an oncoming wave of panic, and he does, but he can't let it fully sweep into him with her here. He fights the urge to smack his head with the heel of his palm, as if that'd forcibly remove the poisonous thoughts infiltrating his mind and ruining the careful work they've done together to remedy their issues with communicating their feelings.
Just like you ruin everything, a thought whispers in the corner of his mind. What made you think this would be any different?
His actions around the room have turned somewhat aimless and distracted, which she notices as soon as he starts to disintegrate into a mess of heavy breaths and self-sabotaging thoughts. She picks up on the shift in his energy as soon as the anxiety starts to wash over him, and she'll be damned if she continues to stand here quietly to let it happen.
It's one thing if he's being silent because being here upsets him, or if he simply doesn't know what to say, but she refuses to let him tailspin into a mental breakdown without doing something to stop it. Whether he knows it or not, after what they went through with him trying to push her away last week, she knows what's occurring within his mind right now.
He flinches at the feeling of her hand grabbing his shoulder to turn him to face her at first, and when she reaches again with her other hand to try to hold his hand as he cries, he shrugs off her touch.
"JJ..." she lets the solemn sound of her own voice murmuring his name trail off, "it's just me."
His head shakes at her consoling words. Everything else inside of his mind is so earth-shatteringly loud, he can't drown it out with logic or reason to bring himself away from the memories of his dad. Those intrusive thoughts keep attacking him with doubled, then tripled force the harder he tries to resist them, and he's so exhausted from it. All of it—the memories, his dad going to jail, and his inability to accept her love to its fullest extent without convincing himself she'll abandon him—is exhausting.
This time, when she rests her hand on his shoulder, he swats it away as the frustration of today crushing him with the force of an avalanche. Not to hurt or scare her, but to get her hands off of him before he bursts out of his skin with the sickness it stirs in his stomach. So detached from himself, he anticipates pain from every touch she gives him, and he knows it hurts her.
JJ hardly recognizes his own voice as he backs away from her a step and says, "Don't."
He can tell it hurts her based on how she looks at him immediately after, but he can't handle being touched right now. How did this happen so quickly? It was overwhelming when they first parked outside, but as soon as he stepped foot inside, it was as if a switch was flipped inside of him and all of the buried feelings he kept hidden over the past two weeks exploded into this.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"
"You need to leave. I just-I can't breathe and"—He still refuses to look up from the ground or see her face as he paces around the room with no real intent in mind—"You can't see me like this."
That is what breaks her out of her soft spoken, timid attitude to handle the situation the way it needs to be handled. Their natural dynamic worked best for him to take charge when she had her panic attack because JJ acts first and thinks later. He saw that she was in distress and jumped in to help her before things got worse rather than allowing her to keep him at an arms length where he couldn't do anything about it.
Taking a page from his rule book, she takes action.
The room surrounding them is in a state of disarray from him searching through it for the items of clothing and objects now stashed in his duffel bag. There are multiple obstacles in her way as she steps between them like navigating a minefield to reach him after he backed away in instinctual fear, but they don't stop her from reaching him. Nothing could.
Y/N walks right up to him and reaches to grasp his face between her hands, forcing him to stop pacing around and actually look at her for the first time since they arrived her so he hears what she says. To say the least, the way he looks right now is enough to make her cry. There are tears welled up to the brims of his blue eyes, his lips are downturned with his sobs, and he's staring at her like she's about to strike him.
She says it as slowly and clearly as she needs to get it through his head, "He's not here," and before he manages to squeeze out another word of doubt between his rapid inhalations, she cuts in, "Take deep breaths."
He isn't listening to her.
The movement of his chest that hits hers from how close they stand to each other has yet to settle into the familiar pace she remembers from nights of falling asleep with the rhythm of his breaths beneath her head.
Her eyes search his face frantically, from left to right and top to bottom, for any sign of the person she's known for years, but she doesn't see him. Instead, she sees the same panicked child her and John B saw the first time they visited this house. It's uncanny how similar the expression in his face is. It feels to her as if she's been hurled back in time to the moment itself, and when she tries to think about what would've worked with him back then, she doesn't know what else to do except help him escape.
So, with the helplessness of having to watch him turn into a sobbing, incoherent mess, she decides to step into the darkness with him and do what seven year old Y/N would've done. Just like their games of make believe, of pirates and princesses, she assumes the role John B would have and rescues him from what holds him captive. It’s his own mind in this case, but, in the physical sense, it's the house.
She drops her hands from his face and takes his hand in hers to drag him out of the room. The packed bag sits on the floor in their wake as she pulls him back through the bedroom door and into the living room, not caring about what they came here to do.
It doesn't matter anymore.
The various rooms of his dad's house pass by them in a blur as she leads him down the hallway to the front door with one sole objective in mind: get him out of here. If he wants his stuff to bring back to the Chateau, she'll go back inside and get whatever he needs her to, but she isn't letting him inside of this house again. Not under her watch.
Thankfully, since he is undeniably stronger than her and she wouldn't have stood a chance, he doesn't fight it. He stumbles after her guiding hand the same way he always has, just like how he followed her back to the Chateau after she and John B saw him that day when they were kids. She led the way as he sat on the handlebars of her brother's bike, and he watched her hair flutter in the wind with the momentum of their bicycle spokes until the tears dried up.
He watches her drag him out of the home until they've reached the safety of the yard at the bottom of the porch steps, and as soon as the soles of her shoes meet the dirt, she feels his hand slipping out of hers.
"JJ?"
She turns around to see him clutching his chest, rubbing his hand along the front of his shirt over his heart as though it'll loosen up the tightened muscles preventing him from catching his breath. His body weight is leaned onto the railing of the porch steps for support. He's partially slumped on it, looking at her desperately, like she somehow knows the answer to every question screamed inside of his head, and she has never felt as useless.
"You're gonna leave," JJ says through the gasps and cries that leave his cheeks stained with tears.
When she reaches out again to help him remain upright without leaning over the railing, he doesn't shove her hands away as he did inside of his bedroom. It's a small battle won, but she takes it as a win nonetheless.
"What are you saying? I'm right here, I'm not going anywhere—"
"You're gonna leave! Everybody does! My mom, John B, my dad, and you"—his head falls to look at the ground instead of her, and she watches him work through it in his head—"I mean, look at me. You don't want this."
"Don't tell me what I want," she says.
Her voice remains as steady and calm as she can force it to be amidst the turbulent situation, but the way he said it...It takes her right back to sitting in the back of the Twinkie with him at the Cherry Bowl, except it's ten times worse. That felt like a break up, but based on what he's saying, this is one. She hasn't prepared herself for the heartache she feels in response to it.
"You don't want me, you just think you do 'cause I was there after John B died, but you don't. You're gonna go off, find some perfect guy that isn't as fucked up as me, and have a great life somewhere else, but it ain't here," JJ says, his breathing evening out with the distraction of the argument to keep him tethered tor reality, "And it won't be with me."
He can see it every time he's looked at her and debated saying those three titular words that have been floating around in his head since he first met her.
How could she want someone who can't walk into his childhood bedroom without breaking down, or someone who still has years-old scars from cigarette burns on his skin when she touches him? Her bright future contrasted with his pre-designated fate on the Cut, her personality better matched with someone more similar to her, her life continuing on whether he's there or not—it's his worst nightmare, but he's prepared to see it through.
What he doesn't expect is for her to hold her ground.
"You honestly think I'm buying into that bullshit?" she asks.
"What?"
She doesn't put it softly, she states facts with as much harshness as his cruel fantasy had, "You're trying to push me away and I won't let you."
Her typically sweet, soft features have hardened into a bitter expression he's sure he mirrors. The arms holding his waist to keep him upright move to climb up his chest and cup his face between her hands with all of the gentleness her face and voice don't have right now.
She sees right through him.
When he tries to look away again, to avert his eyes to make what he's trying to do easier on himself by not having to look at her when he does it, her grasp on his face holds firm. Her hands guide his chin back up so they're face to face, and he realizes what a mistake everyone makes in assuming her this dainty, broken girl whose only source of strength came from the brother she lost. She's a forest fire.
"You're not hearing what I'm saying—"
Y/N interjects, "I am hearing what you're saying, I'm just saying it's bullshit."
She refuses to let him off the hook, and though it frustrates him on the surface, deep down, it makes him fall in love with her all over again. Her insistence against his speech about her leaving him proves him wrong more than anything else could, 'cause he gave her the perfect chance to dip and she shot it down instantly.
The house looms behind them as a menacing presence that threatens to take control of him again, but she doesn't let it. She keeps his eyes on her no matter how many times he tries to look away and doesn't let anything get in the way of what she says next.
"You think that if you push me away and get me to leave you right now, it'll hurt less than it would if I did it later, and I don't accept that. I won't take the bait and let you torture yourself anymore, okay? I can't speak for anyone else, but I know I'll never leave you. Not willingly, anyway."
She looks into his eyes, and this time its softer, more loving, and he's never felt as understood as he does when she continues to speak.
"I'm in love with you. Whether it scares you or not, it's the truth, and I'll never stop saying it. If you think that your issues with your dad are gonna change that for me, you've officially lost your mind." Their noses brush as she leans in to ghost a kiss over his mouth and pulls away a second later to whisper, her forehead pressed to his, "I love you, JJ. Stop being so stubborn and just let me."
His next breath in trembles as he lets her words sink in, and he's stuck at a crossroads inside of himself without a clue of what to do.
The breeze blows her hair away from her face, the afternoon sunshine painting her golden, and when he sees her hair flutter in the air like it did so many years ago, he can't help but feel as calm as he did during their bike ride home. The further away he got from his dad and the house where it all happened, the calmer he grew, and it hits him at this moment that he's so taken aback by her confession to him, he forgot why he was so upset.
It's sobering. The intoxication of his panic hurtled him back in time to the frightened, childlike state of mind his dad's violent abuse often sent him to, but it was hearing her say those words he's feared for weeks that brought him back. Like the jolt of a defibrillator, he's roused back to life with more clarity than before.
She loves him, but, perhaps more importantly, she said she'd never leave him, and that is what he needed to hear more than anything. That is the statement worth more to him than the four letter word he has agonized over endlessly. No one else every attached the promise of "I love you" with the stipulation of it lasting forever. They said the empty words and contradicted it with their actions, but she hasn't done that. Her actions spoke the words long before her mouth did.
He sighs.
It's a deep, yearning sigh that sends him melting into her with the acceptance of what he's denied for too long. He savors the hands cradling his head, as well as the body pressed up against his that he has memorized down to every beauty mark and imperfection, and makes the right choice.
It isn't like it was the night at the Cherry Bowl, or the night he spoke to Pope about it. It still takes more bravery than he possesses to form the words, but there isn't a physical incapability stopping him anymore. It's just him against the trauma beckoning him into its trap again, and he won't let it lure him back into that house.
"Alright," JJ says to her through a sniffle in acceptance to her command, as if he were agreeing on afternoon surfing plans rather than something as monumental as allowing someone to love him, then continues onto with a timid tone, "I love you too."
Before he can watch for her reaction, she's surging forward through the few inches of space left between them to connect their lips in a kiss.
It's vastly different to the kiss they shared in the hallway at school last Friday. In contrast to that one, the reigning emotion within him that drives the kiss after the hesitant beginning doesn't lead them into increased intensity, it gets gentler. It doesn't explode into chaos and passion, it's a tired kiss that he never wants to retreat from. It's the physical manifestation of his feelings for her underneath the guarded exterior he uses to protect himself: gentle and yielding, yet undeniably powerful.
He feels her smiling through her tears against his mouth. In the face of everything that happened this afternoon, he doesn't feel like he should be smiling back at her, but he does. He smiles while kissing her with tears streaming down his face, still reeling from his traumatic response to coming home for the final time, and wonders how a person can feel such contradicting emotions all at once.
Y/N is the one who starts to pull away first, though it's only to check in on him. If she had it her way, she could stay here with him until the sun sets, but he did just come back from the brink of a full-blown panic attack, so she can't in good conscience ignore his well-being for the momentary bliss of their love confessions.
Her thumb brushes over his bottom lip, her smile drooping with worry as she asks, "Wanna spend the rest of the day on the boat? You always say being on the water makes you feel better. Maybe it'll make it easier to talk about it."
His Adam's apple bobs with how he swallows the lump in his throat.
"Can we maybe take baby steps for now? I don't think I can handle telling you all that shit yet."
It was already enough to allow her to follow him into the house, watch him break down into a fit of panic no one else has seen him in, and tell her he loved her, but it'd cross the line into uncharted territory to talk about everything between him and his dad so openly. Between the minor annoyance of dealing with Kacey to this hellish visit home, he thinks he's reached his quota on feeling uncomfortable today.
She nods in agreement.
"Baby steps."
Drawn back to each other by a force stronger than gravity, they collide again, but it isn't a kiss this time. It's a hug charged with all of the previously unspoken emotions they've buried inside of themselves for years, the same hug she gave him the last time she came to this house with the fear of his potential death lingering in her thoughts.
She throws herself at him with the same desperation she did that day and relishes the feeling of his muscular arms returning the embrace until their bodies are tangled together. She'd usually never refer to something as inherently affectionate as an embrace as violent, but it's the closest she can come to capturing how it feels as their bodies meet. It makes her lose her footing on the bottom step they stand on together, teetering on the edge she'd surely slip off of with the force if not for him keeping her steady.
He's about to say something, a thank you to her for calling him out on his bullshit and not letting him go that easily, when the grating sound of her ringtone blares from the back pocket of her denim shorts.
The contact popping up on the screen along with a series of frantic messages when she pulls away from him to answer shows Pope's name.
Pope
You and JJ need to get back to the Chateau ASAP!!
The van doors slam shut behind Y/N and JJ as soon as it rolls to a stop in front of the Chateau.
Under the assumption that something dire happened, as in injury or death or catastrophic damage to the house itself, they bolted off of that porch faster than they knew they could move. She only turned back when she remembered the packed back of JJ's things they abandoned on his bedroom floor and, not wanting him to reenter the house, she brought it back to the Twinkie in record time.
They're preparing to trample up the porch into the house like a stampede of animals when they hear Kie calling them over to the backyard and change direction.
"No one's hurt!" she shouts, knowing that was likely where their minds went after everything they went through during the summer, "You have to see this though, I don't know who did it!"
Sticks and fallen leaves crunch beneath her feet on her way around the side of the house. Her mind races with the possibility of what could've happened that didn't hurt their friends but necessitated a series of texts and calls as frantic as the ones she received at JJ's house. She drove over here in defiance of the speed limit, something she rarely does, and prayed nothing terrible was happening.
It gave her flashbacks to when she found out John B and Sarah died in the storm. The pedal beneath her foot brought the van to an uncomfortably swift speed, then she remembered the sound of Shoupe's voice when he gave them the news. JJ warned her to slow down, then she remembered how it took multiple people to help her restrain him from attacking the new sheriff for letting his men drive their friends into their deaths.
At first, she doesn't realize what's wrong.
Kiara and Pope are standing and waiting for them across the grass near the large tree that sits as a centerpiece to their yard. Based on the body language screaming their frustration and the tears in their eyes, she can tell something bad did happen, but it's not clear what it is until she looks past them to the tree. More specifically, until she looks at what's on the tree.
"Oh my god," she whispers to herself.
Her hand is already up to cover her mouth and conceal the instantaneous frown besmirching her previously relaxed face. They both are stopped in their tracks halfway to where their friends are standing, and she can’t hear JJ's reaction over the rising volume of her hysterical thoughts.
Spray painted in red on top of their memorial for John B are the words "COP KILLER" in bold letters that conceal what they burned into the tree trunk for his gravestone. It sticks out from the beauty of the greens, browns, blues, and swathes of other earthy tones composing the scenery around the Chateau like a thorn amongst flowers, so much so that she wonders how she didn't instantly see it when they rounded the corner to come back here.
Yet that isn't the only thing amiss in the peaceful sanctuary they call home, there are random things strewn around the ground around the tree. An old t-shirt spray painted with the word "murderer" on the front, four ripped up envelopes, and a gorgeous mahogany jewelry box...broken on the grass.
The freshly turned dirt they had the contents of the box buried beneath is scattered around the trashed area as well. It clicks with her a few seconds late that whoever came here to do this must have seen the pinwheel she put in the ground to mark the "grave" and dug it up to add insult to injury.
She moves forward without consciously realizing it and stumbles until she reaches the first object of the debris field. Before this, she was doing a masterful job of holding in her cries, but as soon as she crouches down to pick up the pieces of the jewelry box, the lid snapped clean off the hinges to separate it from the bottom section, it comes rushing out of her against her will. The first unrestrained keen is the first thing to snap JJ out of his shell shocked trance.
He walks after her as fast as his legs will take him without breaking into a run, but she isn't letting him get close before she puts the box back down and shuffles forward to collect the torn letter remains. She doesn't want them to get blown away by the wind anymore than they already might have been, so she scrambles to gather the pieces until they're cupped in her hands to protect them.
"Why?" she asks and looks up at Kie and Pope with tears dripping down her face, "Why would anyone do this? Who would do this?"
Pope says, "My guess is as good as yours. We didn't see anyone leaving when we got here, so it must've happened before school ended. This is all we saw before we called you guys."
For a second or two, JJ is grasping at straws for why this happened and who did it like the rest of them are, but then something Pope said makes it click into place. It sets off a domino effect in his mind as he brings back the memory of a certain offspring of satan being absent from gym this afternoon despite being at school earlier, since his encounter with her before Physics made him, unfortunately, aware of her existence again.
His face is set in anger, jaw clenching with the tension of him grinding his teeth together, and he takes his hat off to fidget with it between his hands for a second. Their friends are too focused on her crying to see him contemplating it, but as soon as he speaks, they look up to see him setting his hat back onto his head in preparation to leave and track Kacey down.
Y/N's head snaps up from the torn letters in her hands to the sight of him storming off across the yard with his only goodbye being the words, "I'm gonna kill that bitch."
Her and Pope stare after him in shock, unable to put the pieces together about who that "bitch" is, but Kie doesn't miss a single beat. While Y/N is crumpled over on the ground in tears, she's rushing after JJ before he can approach the bike parked in front of the house. He doesn't even make it five steps before he feels her hands latching onto his wrist to stop him.
She asks, "Who the hell are you talking about? And why would they do this?"
His eyes narrow at her. His unreleased frustration for the situation in general and having to watch Y/N cry after an emotional afternoon together comes rushing out when he snaps at her.
"Kacey. She talked shit at school and I put her in her place. Now, if you don't mind, I'm gonna pay her a little visit."
He yanks his arm sharply towards himself to free it from her grip, but she's a step ahead of him. Quicker than he can think to stop her, Kie swipes the keys hanging out of his back pocket away and throws them to Pope, who, bless his heart, can't catch to save his life. The key ring jingles with its contact at the dead center of his chest, and she mouths an apology to him before turning back to face JJ.
"What the fuck, Kie?"
He makes to stomp past her and retrieve the keys from Pope only to be stopped by her hands reaching out to grab his shoulders.
"Listen to me, you can't go anywhere. Look at her," she whispers lowly enough to keep Y/N from hearing, pointing behind her to where she sits on the ground with Pope knelt beside her, "I wouldn't put it past Kacey to pull a stunt like this. I'm just as mad as you, but revenge can wait and you know it. She needs you."
The fury visible in his expression is subdued by looking past Kie's shoulder to see Y/N crying softly to Pope about the vandalized memorial.
The last time he saw her so distraught over something, it was the day they made the memorial and buried the box in the first place. She sits on her knees with her mom's broken jewelry box between them, shuddering with the sobs she has no control over, and pours the torn paper into the empty bottom half of the box. Exhausted to the core, she looks more like a sullen, kicked puppy than she does herself.
It makes his anger-fueled instincts that urge him to hunt Kacey down and do something, anything he can to make her feel the pain they do right now bubble down into sorrow. It's visible in his eyes when he looks at her.
Kie knows she's gotten under his skin when he sighs, sparing a parting glance to the bike in the driveway, and nods once at her before setting off back to where they're sitting in the grass.
Meanwhile, Y/N is stuck staring down at the disarray of her backyard with nothing but pain aching through her to the bone.
Her brother did wrong things sometimes as a consequence of being human, but never this, never something worthy of having his name dragged through the mud and being branded a murderer after his death. He stole scuba gear from Ward and broke dozens of laws in their hunt for the gold, but he never crossed that line into moral bankruptcy. Rafe did, and it kills JJ to see someone like Kacey do this to his best friend while hanging off of Rafe and his friends like a leech.
The fabric of his worn t-shirt is tarnished by the dried paint clinging to the front of it to the spell the lie written there, and her vision blurs with tears for what feels like the millionth time in the span of an hour. First, it was JJ. Now, it's John B, and she can't help but wonder if the heartache will ever end. It began to feel better over the course of the week, her grief for him slowly beginning to slip from her mind until now. Until the storm clouds converged again to batter her with another wave of it.
Through the deafening volume of her mind racing with thoughts and feelings to process what's happened, she hears Pope shuffling around to stand on his feet. Then, another person sits down in his place and scoots closer until their bodies are touching, and she knows it's him. She doesn't have to wait to hear his voice or look to see his face, she can tell based on the feeling of his touch and the smell of him she's so intimately familiar with, yet couldn't describe it aloud if she tried.
He doesn't smother her. He sits close enough to touch her and doesn't push it any further.
The background of the pale, cloudless sky frames him in the foreground like the subject of a painting—a living, breathing painting that she could study endlessly. The other trees planted in the yard's leaves flutter distantly behind him and try to draw her gaze away, but she keeps her eyes on him.
Maybe that's how it is, she thinks.
Maybe it'll get better and worse in a dance that'll only stop when they're no longer here to agonize over it. Maybe this is what moving on from John B will always be like. It'll feel like they've made strides in the right direction, then something will come along to shatter it to sharp pieces that'll reopen their stitched up wounds. If that's the case, at least the four of them have each other to lean on when it gets worse again.
JJ sits with her and lets her crawl onto his lap, resting her head on his shoulder, until the sun sinks below the horizon.
The gentle bobbing of the HMS Pogue at the surface of the water steadies her amidst her eddying thoughts. It keeps her present to the moment the way the ropes tying the boat to the dock keeps it from floating adrift into the marsh. It's a motion engrained in her from the start of her life until now from countless days spent on the water. Whether it be for fishing, swimming, or playing make believe with her boys all those years ago, it's as much a part of her as her personality or body itself.
JJ was right about one thing: being out on the water makes it easier to think.
He hasn't followed her out since she woke up before sunrise and snuck out of bed to come here. Despite her efforts not to wake him, he woke up when she disentangled her body from his, silently cursing the fact that they always cuddle so closely, and he tried to pull her back to him with a whine of displeasure in his groggy, half-asleep state. Sleep finally found them after hours of staying up together to talk about what Kacey did, unable to relax from the chaos of yesterday, so he wasn't prepared to wake up that soon.
"Go back to sleep, angel," she whispered as she hovered over him, brushing a chaste kiss to his lips that he was too tired to return.
That was the last time she saw him since this morning, and now that the sun has risen to its peak in the sky without her moving an inch from her perch atop the bow of the boat, she's begun to wonder if he's awake yet. It isn't uncommon for them to sleep in for half of the day when there isn't school or work, so it isn't surprising to her that he's just now waking up when she hears the back door to the Chateau opening and closing.
Unbeknownst to her, JJ has been awake the entire morning since she left bed.
They were so attached to each other yesterday night, he didn't have the time to put it together without her seeing and ruining the surprise, but once he heard the door to the porch close to signify her leaving, he kicked the blankets off of himself and got to work. He wasn't originally planning on starting so early, since they stayed up late into the night together, but once he woke up to the feeling of her sneaking out of his arms, he was too awake to fall back asleep.
The sound of his footsteps on the dock warns her of his approach, but she doesn't raise her head from where she rests it in her palms to stare out at the water.
"I was wondering when you'd finally wake up," she says.
There's another few steps, then the boat jostles with his weight stepping onto it.
He doesn't say anything to her in response. The only clue she gets as to what he's doing are the footsteps on the deck that lead closer to her until she feels him sitting down on the bow next to where she is. And she's about to open her mouth to ask if he's okay when he sets something down in front of her.
It's a shoe box.
Y/N turns to see him, eyes flickering over his tired face, and looks back at the box with furrowed brows.
"What is this?"
His hair is messy, exactly how it was when she left him in bed this morning, and if she weren't more focused on the mysterious box he plopped down in front of her, she'd be combing through it with her fingers. He's gotten used to those casual displays of affection from her; how she runs her hands through his hair on mornings before school when he forgets to brush it, or when she fixes a button on his flannel that he missed.
JJ's lips are tipped in a smile, and she can't help but blush with how he looks at her. She never used to see it, but he has always looked at her like this. Like he's hopelessly, utterly in love with her. Even before they lost John B, back when he'd expend all of his romantic and sexual attention on girls he hardly knew, he still looked at her this way.
He gestures at it and says, "Open it."
The lid of the box is coated in a freshly dried layer of blue paint to match the shade of the sky overhead. She knows instantly that he must have dug through the arts and crafts box she specifically labeled with a warning for him and John B to stay out. It's painted with aimlessly sloppy brushstrokes and stickers placed at every corner of the cardboard box, all of which she recognizes from the stash she kept under her bed alongside the India ink he borrowed last Friday.
As she gives him a skeptical look and reaches to lift the lid off of the shoe box, she makes a mental note to rewrite the label on the arts and crafts box without the warning for him to keep out. Since John B isn't here to steal anything from it and JJ never follows that rule anyway, it's redundant at this point.
Any skepticism is washed away from her face as soon as she flips the lid open to reveal what's inside. It leaves her speechless as she looks down at it all.
"JJ..." she murmurs in awe.
Sitting at the bottom of it is a folded up t-shirt she saw JJ wear multiple times, but never again since John B died. He refused to glance at the shirt his best friend gave him the year before they never saw him again, let alone dig it out of the corner of her closet where he keeps his things...until now.
But that's a scratch on the surface of all of the things about his gift that stuns her to silence. The next thing to catch her immediate attention is a picture she hasn't seen in years.
It's one that Big John took of the three of them together right where she and JJ are sitting. She was much younger in it, flashing a toothy grin with her arms thrown over both boys' shoulders. To her left, John B was leaning his head on her shoulder. To her right, JJ was wearing an eyepatch they crafted out of an old black shirt he stole from his dad. It was cut with the kitchen scissors and tied around the back of his head in a knot.
She brushes her thumb over John B's face, then sets the crinkled photograph back down atop the folded shirt and moves her attention to the last surprise.
Letters.
Torn up pieces of paper painstakingly taped back together sit one on top of the other, some missing pieces here or there, and it makes her mouth part in shock. Her hands shuffle the letters apart to see each one and recognize the handwriting: Kie's bubbly, swirling letters, Pope's neat cursive, hers, and JJ's chicken scratch writing that she's able to decipher from years of proofreading his essays.
She pictures him at her desk all morning while she was sitting out here, ripping tape off of the roll and arranging the puzzle pieces of the ripped letters until he was sure he got it right. It made him want to rip the hair from his scalp, but he sat there and pushed through the frustration to make it as perfect as he could for her. The missing pieces were primarily from Kie's letter, which fluttered away on a balmy breeze when Kacey tore it up and threw it to the ground, but the one he wanted her to have the most wasn't missing more than a single piece.
Y/N looks up from the letters held like a precious treasure in her hands to see him watching her with that same classic JJ smile on his face, but he doesn't let her get a word in yet.
"Go on," he says, leaning closer to pull his letter to John B out and place it on top of the pile for her to read, "I want you to read it."
"You didn't let me read it when I asked before though, are you sure you—"
He interrupts her before she can worry herself over it, "Dude, just read it. I promise I'm fine with it. I want you to."
The letters crinkle under her touch as she looks back down and smooths them out on the deck enough to read through the clear tape. With one last confirming glance to him for permission, she takes a deep breath and reads the first line.
Dear John B,
You really know how to keep a guy on his toes, don't you? You really outdid yourself on this one. I was so sure we were gonna make it, but I guess you had to go all Romeo and Juliet on us, huh? As long as you and Sarah are happy macking on each other in heaven, it's okay.
In all seriousness, I fucking miss you, bro. I miss you more than I realized a person could miss another person. Whenever I need to talk to you again, I don't know what to do. I guess that's why it's good that Y/N made me write this.
Also, I'm really sorry for—
"What does it say there? There's a whole chunk missing," she murmurs.
He scoots close enough to her that she can feel his body warmth radiating onto her through the shoulder of his flannel. Sunlight reflects on the silver rings decorating his fingers as he holds one side of the paper to tilt it enough for him to squint at.
"Macking, I think. It's supposed to say "I'm sorry for macking on your sister."
—macking on your sister. You can totally kick my ass for it, but before you come back from the grave to murder me, let me defend myself, okay? She isn't just another girl for me, John B.
I think you knew it before I did.
Last summer, you asked me straight up if we were hooking up behind your back after I kissed her in front of you on the porch. I laughed in your face, but you were right.
You saw everything before me, man. You knew I loved her since we were kids and waited for us to come to you about it, so that's gotta mean something, right? I hope it means you wouldn't be mad at me for this.
I swear I won't fuck it up with her, but you already know that. That's why you asked me to take care of her,. I didn't know why at the time but I do now. I won't let you down.
I'm keeping my promise.
- JJ
P.S. Don't miss me too much. We'll be shotgunning beers together up there before you know it.
There are tears blooming in her eyes when she lifts her gaze from the tattered paper to look at him again, but they aren't sad. For once, the tears slipping down her cheeks are happy tears, not born from grief, sadness, and pain, but bittersweet happiness.
They're caught staring at each other for a second before he asks her shyly, "It isn't too sappy or anything, is it? 'Cause I thought it—"
"C'mere," is the only thing she can get out before she's tugging him forward by the front of his shirt to kiss him.
JJ stumbles a little with the unexpected force of her pulling him to her, but he takes it in stride. He steadies himself and lets his hands shoot out to grapple for purchase on her waist, keeping her pressed up against him tightly as he kisses her back.
And it doesn't get much better than this, does it? This is it for him. He meant what he wrote to John B, he won't fuck it up with her, especially not because of his trauma with his dad getting inside his head and sabotaging his relationship with her. This is what makes everything worth it.
It brings happy tears to his eyes too.
She can taste the salt of them where their lips meet in the middle. It makes her smile, wrapping her arms around his neck and clenching the letters he mended for her in her fist to keep them from blowing away in the wind, and they both start to laugh into each other's mouths at the poignant feeling they both share but can't quite place.
They pull away from each other to catch their breath after another moment of it, and she can't help but stare. How could she not when she feels like this? It’s less like he’s her boyfriend and more like a piece of her soul has attached itself to his with no hope of letting go in the near future.
"You're the best thing that ever happened to me," she whispers to him.
Plain and simple. No room for disagreement or a bashful rejection of the compliment. She's pulled back from him enough to hold his gaze and make sure he sees her seriousness, and there isn't anything he can do to refute her statement.
He brushes his nose against hers affectionately, dipping down to kiss her again, but when he leans back to see her face, he can't help himself.
"Ditto."
The rest of the day after their moment on the boat, locked away in their own little world where none of the monsters chasing them could sneak through and ruin it, melts away peacefully. After another half hour spent looking through the box together, of her thanking him over and over again, he hops off of the HMS Pogue onto the dock and extends his hand to her in the most gentlemanly manner possible.
His lips are curved into a smirk as he kneels down on one knee as though she's a revered royal and bows his head in subservience, "Princess Routledge."
Her hand fits in his warm, calloused palm as a perfect match, and she steps off of the boat onto the dock beside him with an expression to match his.
"Captain Maybank," she says in her most regal royalty voice.
Her stellar performance breaks into a laugh they share as he stands and throws his arm around over her shoulder to walk back to the yard. The cardboard box is tucked beneath one of her arms while the other slips around his side to hold him back, and her heart feels full with both the presence of JJ and John B alongside her.
They bury it together.
Tag List: @gabiatthedisco, @fangirlvoice, @black-syren, @apparrio, @particularcth, @planetdemon, @idk-ijustworkhere, and @krisphann
Also, now that it’s over, let me know what your favorite part was in the comments or tags if you’d like to :) I’m curious.
#jj maybank#jj maybank x reader#jj maybank smut#outer banks#obx#fanfiction#i'm gonna miss these dorks#🥺#I love how he tries to break up with her and she’s like ‘no❤️’#also totally do not put on ‘seven’ by Taylor Swift during the childhood flashbacks unless u wanna cry#cause I did and my sensitive ass was crying#that song is about John B and JJ okay#it just is
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Research Purposes ~ Part 2
*Not my gif*
Pairing: Jay x Reader
Requested: Yes
Prompt: What happens when the only person in the world you didn’t want finding out does?
Warnings: Swearing
A/N: Part one found here (NSFW, 18+)
A/N 2: Also thank you to @enchantedblackrose for the idea 😊
If you are not 18+ and are unable to read part 1 and want to back story just hit me up (:
“We’re so freaking late. There’s no way we’ll have time to stop for my car.” You rushed around Jay’s apartment, pouring coffee for both of you.
“And whose fault is that.” Jay looked at you accusingly.
“I was just trying to help the environment.” You shrugged, handing him his cup after checking the lid.
“You and I both know we wasted more water in there together than we would’ve showering on our own.” He retorted grabbing his badge and gun off the coffee table to secure them to his belt.
“Yeah okay so I wanted shower sex sue me.” You rolled your eyes shrugging your jacket on.
“I wasn’t the one complaining.” He smiled, taking a drink.
“We would’ve had more than enough time if you didn’t insist on cuddling this morning.” You pointed out, remembering how he pulled you back into his chest every time you tried to move out of bed a couple hours prior.
“You like shower sex. I like cuddling.” He teased handing you your purse.
“Maybe we can draft up an alternate schedule.” You joked.
“I do hear compromise is the key to a healthy relationship.” He replied.
“We gotta go if you don’t want to get pulled over for speeding.” You changed the subject reaching for the door knob, before being tugged back by your arm, turning in time for Jay’s lips to meet yours in a sweet, passionate kiss.
“To get us both through the day.” Jay winked reaching around you to open the door and usher you out.
This was the second time that week you and Jay would be showing up to work together. Nobody noticed it the first time, but your anxiety climbed at the thought of someone recognizing and approaching you about it. What would you say? You and Jay were only in it purely for the sex. Right? Regardless of that fact that you had stayed at his house almost every night the past couple weeks even without the promise of sex, or how your stuff was starting to accumulate at his house from the past few months. A few t-shirts mixed in with his, hair straightener resting on his bathroom organizer, makeup scattered about on the dresser. Friends with benefits, that’s all it was. Nothing more and you certainly were not gaining feelings for him. Absolutely not that was against the rules and you were not about to be some stereotypical fuck buddy turned feelings trope, but you were getting sloppy apparently. You agreed to enter through the front while Jay entered through the back. Skipping up the steps you threw a smile at Trudy offering her a good morning, but in return she stared you down, eyebrow raised as she rested against the desk.
“What?” You stopped in your tracks in front of her. But she stayed silent giving you a look, and you just knew she knew. She was Trudy Platt. She knew everything.
“You should tell him.” She whispered to you, and it’s not the first time she had said something of the sort recently.
“Tell who, what?” You continued to fake innocence as you had the times before.
“It’s going to end badly.” She pushed again.
“It already did end badly.” You reminded her before trudging upstairs feeling the heat of her stare still on your back. Everyone except Kim was already there, including Jay who had his feet kicked up on his desk looking through a file. You greeted everyone draping your coat over the back of your chair and falling into it.
The first hour ticked by slowly, and you found your eyes moving across the room to focus on Jay. Opened documents lay across your desk. He looked so relaxed, shoulders loose, breaths slow and even, head resting against his palm as he fought not to fall asleep. You knew he would rather be out chasing suspects, but deep down you were starting to register you were okay with paperwork days. It meant he was safe, and that thought scared you a little. The last time you had those same thoughts you were staring at a different man in the room. A man who sat not too far behind Jay, clicking his pen absentmindedly as he often did when he was bored.
“Ruz, I’ll break the damn pen.” Kevin grumbled, as he had many times before in response to the habit.
“Sorry.” Adam mumbled, setting the utensil onto his desk away from his fidgety hands.
You chuckled at the small exchange, experiencing the exact same one many times in the years you had been detailed in intelligence with the best people you could’ve ever asked to work with. That certainly didn’t mean it wasn’t complicated though, and you were the very obvious example of that. You watched Jay’s head bob catching himself before adjusting in order to keep himself awake. His eyes accidentally met yours, heart rate immediately increasing. He sent you a small smile as his eyes started to roam over your body. Looking for a distraction from the tedious work. You couldn’t scold him. It wasn’t like you hadn’t been doing the same thing the past 10 minutes. Looking at his arms that were tight against his sleeves you wondered if the scratch marks you left on his biceps this morning would still be prevalent, or if the fading hickey from nights prior was still noticeable on his hip bone.
“I need coffee. Anyone else?” You asked trying to divert the obvious eye fucking your were giving each other. Everyone in the room raising their hands. You laughed taking notice of all the tired eyes who so obviously wanted to bash their heads off the desk already bored out of their minds, just waiting for a case to jump off.
“I’ll help.” Jay offered, voice gruff from barely speaking all morning. Together you poured and distributed everyone cups. Sitting back down into your chair when Jay was handing Kev his.
“You gonna shave that thing anytime soon? You usually can’t stand it past a week.” Kevin asked Jay, referring to his beard. They had always teased him whenever he claimed it grew in patchy compared to Adam and Kevin’s and it usually resulted in him having a clean shaven face the next shift. But it had grown in quite nicely this time, and he made sure to keep it presentable by trimming it as needed.
“No, it’s starting to grow on me. I’m keeping it for research anyway. Seems it can enhance far more than just my facial features.” Jay shrugged casually sitting back down atin his chair, and at his words you choked on your coffee spitting it all over your desk. Uncontrollable coughs tickling your throat.
“You good [Y/L/N]?” Hailey asked standing up to help you.
“Yeah..sorry. Just.. went down the wrong pipe. Didn’t expect it to be so.. hot.” You explained between coughs looking across the room to glare at Jay who wore a cocky smirk on his face, flipping through papers not daring to look up at you.
“You forget your ice?” Adam asked, knowing you had put a couple cubes of ice in your coffee every morning cooling it down so you could drink it faster.
“I must’ve. Kinda out of it today.” You shook your head taking napkins out of your drawer to try to clean up the mess you had made on your desk as well as your white shirt.
“I’ll get you some.” He started to walk towards the break room.
“It’s really okay I spit most of it out anyway.” You laughed.
“I’ll just get you a new cup.” He reasoned and you just thanked him not feeling like bickering with him about it. He had been going out of his way to do nice things for you recently. You assumed either so you wouldn’t spill the beans about him and Upton or because he felt bad.
“There’s no way this is coming out..” You grumbled dabbing at the tan stain forming on your shirt, “Do you happen to have a spare?” You asked, turning towards Hailey.
“I’m sorry I don’t. I used my spare the other day after that shooting and haven’t brought another extra.” Hailey apologized. You waved her off thanking her anyway.
“There’s one in my locker.” Jay offered, “You’ll probably just have to tuck it in.” You thought for a moment, it probably wouldn’t look like a big deal. Just a friend helping out a friend.
“Okay. Thanks.” You nodded getting up to head to the locker room where Jay followed. “I know where your locker is.” You rolled your eyes.
“Yes, but you don’t know my combination nor are you very good at opening dial locks. Hence why you have a keypad one on yours.” Jay pointed out, spinning his combination. He was right. You could never open dial locks.
“Do you analyze everything I do?” You crossed your arms annoyed at how well he always seemed to know you.
“You’re an interesting person babe.” He smiled handing you the shirt as he kissed your forehead.
“Watch yourself. You don’t know who’s hiding in here.” You lectured, “this is your fault by the way.”
“I know. Total win-win situation.” Jay laughed, smiling brightly.
“You’re gonna be the death of me Jay Halstead.” You groaned, a small smile on your lips.
“What a way to go though, huh?” He quipped, giving you a quick kiss.
“Get out.” You pushed his chest.
“What? No free peep show? I offered you my shirt and everything.” He acted offended.
“They’re gonna start getting suspicious if we are in here any longer go.” He huffed at your reply giving in and leaving as you turned around to switch shirts. Jay’s scent immediately overwhelmed you as you slipped his shirt on. Causing your body to relax in turn at the familiar fragrance. Jay was right, you had to tuck the shirt into your jeans, otherwise it could’ve been a dress thanks to your large height difference. Turning to walk out of the locker room, you were met with Adam holding a new cup of coffee out to you making you jump at the unexpected body in your path. “Thank you.” You giggled taking it from his hand to take a drink.
“Did you change?” He asked, eyeing the shirt you now wore.
“Oh yeah. I had white on and it was gonna stain so Jay offered me his shirt.” You explained, shifting on your feet at the uncomfortable conversation.
“Well I have one. It might fit you better.” He offered moving to walk towards his locker, but you put a hand to his chest stopping him.
“I’m good this one is perfectly fine.” You reassured him, Adam stared at you, breaking the tense silence with a long sigh, leaning against the side of the lockers.
“Listen we never got to talk about that night you came to my apartment. I just wanted to say I’m really sorry you-“ He began to apologize when Kevin peeked his head in the door.
“Hey, I’m sorry to interrupt..” he looked between the two of you awkwardly, “but we just got a case.” Adam cleared his throat as you nodded,
“We can..finish this later.” You chewed on your lip pushing past him to grab your coat out of Kevin’s hand.
It was nearing 8 o’clock by the time Voight had given you guys permission to go home and get some sleep. Knowing you’d be returning bright and early in the morning to continue to case.
“What do you think about pizza tonight? I’ve been craving some Bartolis.” Jay asked walking down the stairs behind you.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” You stopped turning to face him when you rounded the corner out of sight.
“Well I can just get pizza and I’ll stop for whatever else you want too.” He offered.
“I’m not talking about food, Jay.” You laughed, looking at the ground. Your mind had been racing since showing up with Jay this morning.
“Then..what are you talking about?” He asked, stepping closer towards you.
“I mean I don’t know I’ve been at your place almost every night the last couple weeks.” You whispered, hoping your voice wouldn’t carry to anyone nearby.
“Well we can go to your place. That’s fine.” He reasoned.
“No that’s not..” You sighed not able to find the words.
“Hey, just talk to me. What’s up.” He encouraged hands falling to your hips holding you gently.
“I’m just worried we’re starting to get careless. Showing up to work twice in one week together. One of these days we’re bound to get caught either coming in together or showing up on scene together. We don’t even know what this is. I don’t want to have to talk to Voight about it in the meantime.” You explained.
“We can be more careful. I promise. I just don’t want you to freak out about this.” He assured you tucking your hair behind your ear. “Can we just address how good you look in my shirt. I’m so glad you’re such a klutz..” Jay’s eyes roamed up and down your body.
“I am not a klutz! How did you expect me to react?” You crossed your arms, glaring at him as you did a few hours prior.
“Well is it not the truth? This thing is still on my face purely for your satisfaction.” He reminded you by trailing his lips down your neck, immediately summoning goosebumps from the raggedness tickling in the wake of his lips. He winked knowing his point was proven, moving up to place a soft kiss on your lips. “Sooo pizza?” He asked, pulling back, hopeful look on his face.
“Fine, but I’m not going in to get it.” You rolled your eyes, a bright smile on your face when he wrapped an arm around your shoulders pulling you towards his truck but when you rounded the corner your eyes connected with Adam’s who stood near the door, eyes wide between you two as Jay let his arm fall to his side, your feet rooted to the floor.
“I forgot my wallet in my locker.” Adam explained stammering over his words.
“Well don’t let us keep you. See you tomorrow brother.” Jay remained calm grabbing your arm to pull you out. Patting Adam on the shoulder when you passed.
“Shit!” You cursed when you reached Jay’s truck.
“What?” He questioned and you looked at him dumbfounded.
“You’re fucking kidding me right?” You scoffed.
“He’s not gonna tell Voight. For starters it’s Adam. Plus we know about him and Hailey. He can’t.” He shrugged.
“That’s not what I’m worried about!” You yelled.
“You just said that’s what you were worried about.” Jay reminded you, trying to catch up. “Babe.” He urged when you didn’t answer him.
“You don’t get it Jay!” You shook your head, lump forming in your throat at the anxiety the situation presented.
“No, you’re right I don’t. I’m sorry. Help me understand.” He grabbed a hold of your hand trying to get you to face him.
“Not right now.” You chewed your lip feeling a few tears fall down your cheeks, quickly swiping them away before they were seen, but you knew Jay would know regardless. You were tired, hungry, and now slightly panicking at the thought of having to address the entire situation. His hand squeezed yours tighter before starting his truck putting it in drive.
All Tag List:
@corebore123 @scarletsoldierrr @hehurst23 @beautiful-bunny89 @ingie @halsteadsway @malrunaway @grettiwrites @inlovewith3
Jay Taglist:
@jayxhalsteadx @life-treatments @weepingfestivalmentality @toomuchtv95 @queen-of-arda
#jay halstead x reader#jay halstead imagine#jay halstead#chicago pd imagine#chicago pd x reader#Chicago pd#one chicago imagine#one chicago
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#26 with Mando? Fluffy pls 🥺
Summary: prompt no. 26 "You are my family." Din finds his covert again and you can't help but think this is end end of you two but he has an alternative instead.
Warning/content: softness, two idiots finally tying the Knott.
I hope you like it! I tried something a little different then I normally do! 😊
There's no soothing the discomfort of your throat, trying to contain the big ball of emotion that pile in it. Your mouth is dry, tears are so close to leaking, burning the corner of your eyes as you hold it in.
Din is finally reunited with his covert, his people, his family. A single unit that have learned to love each other through hard work and secrets. It's weird, to trust and love sometime despite not ever seeing there face, you can see it in the way Din wraps his arms around a rather large Mandalorian with blue armor, pulling him close as he tries to free himself from your Mandalorian but Din doesn't give.
Honestly, if you think about it, it's not that weird because that's exactly what happened with you. His hair is a rich, brown, you only know this because one morning you woke up to find his face burried in your chest, the small strand of hair tickling your chin. He has a moustache, the passionate, long kisses of the night confirm that when he closes his own on yours. His hands are beautifuly suited for a man who wares gloves all day, a few scars and nics but smooth.
He looks over at you, catching the way your shoulders slump but you smile, its forced and fake but at least keeps the tears at bay as you watch from the side lines. Din found good family.. he doesn't need you anymore.
It's not much later when you feel a hand grasp your hip, it's as gentle as the other hand that reaches up to point your chin towards his visor. You don't have to see his face to know his eyebrows are most likely pinched with confusion and worry.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing is a wrong."
Smooth gloves roam over the curve of your jaw, settling at the shell of your ear to press his forehead against your own. "You are a terrible liar, do you not like it here?"
"That's not it." You chew at the fat of your bottom lip, peering up into his own. "You seem happy here, you should stay here."
The Mandalorian is silent for a second, no doubt trying to analyze the emotion in your voice. "What about you?"
"I'll leave, you should stay with your family. You have been looking for them for so long, I don't want to be in the way."
The laugh that falls from the vocoder makes you turn in embrassment but the hand against it keeps you steady to look at him again. "Hey, hey, I'm sorry, I'm not laughing at you." He pauses, his hand travels from your hip to curl the ends of your hair. "Sweet girl, you are my family. Me, you and the kid, that is my life now."
You don't know what to say, completely speechless as he looks over towards that armorer. Little horns of her helm mentioning him forward. His eyes grow wide under the helmet, nervous click of his tongue as he looks at you.
" Anyways, there's a reason we are here."
Shyly you turn back to face him, watching the way his chest stutters up and down. "What is that?"
"It order to get married, I need to have blessing. Which I got, but the problem is I don't know when I will find them again. The armor she must do it."
"You want to marry me?" You question, a small smile grazing crinkling your eyes.
"I thought it was obvious, you gave me flowers, that's a marriage proposal in my culture."
"W-What?" Your heart drops, not because of the proposal itself but the fact you have been so unaware of its lingering presence for months now.
"I'm just kidding." His laugh is cute, dorky but you know there's a grin behind it. "I've wanted to marry you from the moment you fell asleep in my bed, I knew you were meant to be my riduur."
"You're being serious right now?" Calling his buff.
His hand reaches out, offering you one final choice. Now or never, eyes shift back from his face and extended hand. "Will you marry me, sweet girl?"
Biting your lip in order to conceal the giant smile that graces blushing cheeks as you notice the glances from all those around you. "Of course I will."
#din djarin fan fiction#din djarin imagine#din djarin x reader#din dijarin x reader#the mandolorian imagine#din djarin#the mandolorian x reader#the mandolarian#pedro pascal#pedro pascal character
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Sitcoms: The #1 Cause of Fatigue (Jimmy Woo x Reader)
Summary: FBI agent James E. Woo is a surprisingly good binge-watching buddy
A/N: Hello everyone! It’s finally here!! I really really hope y’all like this! Jimmy Woo was a really fun character to write and I plan on writing for him more in the future! I’m rambling rn but please enjoy!!
Warnings: FLUFFFFFFF, swearing, cheesy clichés and Jimmy Woo being one of the best MCU characters, very very minor wandavision spoilers (I don’t think there’s any spoilers but just in case)
Word Count: 1,364
Tags: @madame-rat, @bisexuaivalkyrie (for some reason I feel like I’m missing someone but I don’t think I am. If I did miss you I’m really really sorry i have a very bad memory dkafjdsklfj)
Gender Neutral Reader
Watching and analyzing a fake sitcom starring two Avengers (one of them dead) was not something you had planned for this week. Or ever, for that matter. Yet, here you were, eyes glued to an old box television with a pencil slowly slipping out of your hand.
Doctor Lewis had commanded asked you and Agent Woo to continue keeping an eye on the TV as she went to work on something else. You’d agreed, and were now slowly starting to regret it.
Sitcoms were never your thing in the first place and the fact that it was all some sort of an alternate reality made it even weirder for you. These were real people with real lives, and they were being forced to act in someone’s fucked up dream world.
You sigh heavily, leaning back in your “chair.” Your “chair” was actually a hard wooden bench that barely fit two people. You close your eyes, finally letting the pencil drop out of your hand and onto the floor. I’ll just rest my eyes for a bit, you think to yourself. Because that always ends well.
***
You’re awoken by someone gently shaking your shoulder. You flinch away from them, startled. It takes you a few seconds to realize what had happened. You look up at Agent Woo holding a cup of coffee, looking down at you with concern etched on his face.
“You alright, Y/L/N?” He asks you, tone matching his expression. You nod, rubbing your eyes as Agent Woo sits down on the bench next to you.
“Shit, yeah. Sorry,” you mumble, brushing a few pieces of hair out of your face.
Woo shakes his head. “You’re fine. I won’t tell anyone if you won’t tell anyone about how I accidentally short-circuited a laptop with a cup of coffee.” You stare at him blankly for a few seconds, when the hell had he done that?
He breaks eye contact with you and stares down at his shoes. “You didn’t know about that, did you?” Woo whispers in what you can only describe as abject horror.
You have to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from laughing but, despite your best efforts, a small smile forms on your face. You shake your head slowly, “No, I didn’t.”
Agent Woo clears his throat, straightening his back. You sit in silence for a few minutes, staring at the old tv blaring the fake sitcom. “Oh! I got this coffee for you since I don’t trust myself with hot beverages and electronics anymore.”
He holds out the coffee for you uncertainly. You take the cup from him and smile. “Thank you, Agent Woo.” He smiles back shyly.
“You can call me Jimmy if you want to,” he says scratching the back of his neck, nervously glancing over at you like you might attack him at any second.
You smile again, face burning almost as hot as the coffee in your hands. “Alright, Jimmy.” You turn to face him and hold out your hand. “You can call me Y/N.”
Jimmy stares at your open hand for a few seconds before clasping it and giving you a firm handshake. You hold hands for a moment before you both burst out laughing, letting go of each other.
Neither of you can seem to contain your laughter. You weren’t sure whether it was the stress or sleep deprivation that was getting to you, but tears were starting to form in your eyes.
“It’s not even that funny,” Jimmy wheezes out, accidentally knocking his knee against the table. Which causes another fit of laughter between the two of you.
Eventually, you both settle down and are reduced to just an occasional giggle when you make eye contact. But, when Jimmy hits his knee on the table again, you’re thrown back into a laughing fit.
It probably would’ve gone on for the rest of the night had it not been for a stern glare coming from an ARMY personnel that you hadn’t seen before. But, the look was enough for you and Jimmy to quiet down and sink into your seats like a couple of second graders.
But, despite the awkward moment, you settle into a comfortable silence, scanning the tv for anything out of the ordinary. Ordinary being a fake sitcom, obviously. Every once in a while you sneak glances at Jimmy, who has his full attention on the screen in front of him. He looks incredibly cute when he’s concentrating on something, you think, suppressing a smile.
It goes on like that for God knows how long, with you glancing over at him sneakily and occasionally trading notes with each other. You’re not even sure what time it is when Jimmy finally drops his pencil onto the table.
“I’m starting to understand why you fell asleep,” he mutters, stretching his arms upward. You hum in response as Jimmy lets his arms drop back down. He cranes his head toward the ceiling.
“Why the hell does S.W.O.R.D. have the fan on if it’s raining outside?” He asks himself. You look up at where he was staring. You had noticed it when you first arrived at the base but hadn’t said anything, having more important matters to attend to.
You’d eventually gotten used to the cold temperature, but you were still chillier than you would’ve liked to have been. And as soon Jimmy points out the fan, you let out a series of sneezes, ending with a sniffle and an involuntary shiver.
Jimmy looks over at you, concerned. “Are you cold?” He asks and you shake your head as you once again shiver involuntarily.
You sniffle. “It’s the-uh fluorescents.” He raises an eyebrow, unconvinced. “The fluorescents make my nose itch.” As if on cue, you sneeze once more into your elbow.
“Right…” Jimmy trails off, and you look over at him with a guilty look in your eyes. “Are you a mind-reading vampire too?”
You laugh, caught off-guard by the fact that he understood your reference. “You got me there, Jimmy. I am actually a 117-year-old vampire.” You hope your joke distracts him from the fact that your body has suddenly decided that you’re in the North Pole instead of just a room with an uncomfortably chill AC.
“You should take my jacket,” Jimmy tells you, and before you can protest he’s pulling it off himself and wrapping it snugly around you. After a moment of shock, you grab the edges and pull it even closer around you, trapping in the heat.
You look over at him shyly, face burning as hot as a stovetop. You smile softly. “Thank you, Jimmy,” you murmur. He smiles back, meeting your gaze before looking away in favor of his shoes.
“Of course.” You lean back, tucking your feet under yourself and doing your best to focus on the tv in front of you. But, your mind keeps getting distracted by your racing thoughts. Oh my God, he gave me his jacket. It smells so nice. That means he smells nice. That means he smells like vanilla. HE SMELLS LIKE VANILLA-
Eventually, you somehow calm your brain down enough to understand what was happening on the TV. Which was eating dinner by the club pool, apparently. Nothing important so far.
You sneak a glance at Jimmy, who seems to be about half-asleep. His notebook was long forgotten in his lap and he seemed to be staring anywhere but the television.
“You still alive?” You ask him quietly. He makes a grunting sound and gives you a thumbs up.
“Yeah, unlike you.” You chuckle at his response, but it’s broken up by a yawn. “We should get our replacements and take a break,” Jimmy says.
You hum in agreement. “That sounds like the responsible thing to do,” you reply as you rest your head on Jimmy’s shoulder. Almost immediately, he wraps an arm around you.
“We’ll get them in a few minutes,” he reasons.
��Yeah,” you whisper, closing your eyes.
***
“Y’know, normally I would be mad, but this is just wayyyy too cute,” Darcy mutters to no one in particular as she snaps pictures of you and Agent Woo together.
#jimmy woo#jimmy woo x reader#wandavision#marvel#the avengers#mcu#marvel imagine#marvel fanfic#marvel fanfiction
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Nighttime Confidence
Summary: reader and the band are having a sleepover in Julie's studio and the late hours are starting to get to the reader
Pairings: luke patterson x reader
Words: 1.9k
Warnings: lil bit of cussing and tickling and the reader doing a minorly dangerous stunt
"Oh my god I'm gonna fucking die," you groaned.
Luke pretended to be hurt. "Do you really not trust me that much?"
"Yes!"
"Maybe I'll just drop you on purpose," he offered.
"Don't you dare," you said, backing up a couple steps.
He grinned at you and pulled you back, "Trust me you're gonna be fine," he assured you.
It wasn’t that you didn’t trust him, you just didn’t trust that you were going to land on his shoulders, without breaking anything.
But your worries began to fade into more of an anticipation as your friends watched you with excited looks on their faces. Besides, you were doing it in front of a couch for a reason, right?
“Okay, I’ll do it,” you reluctantly agreed.
“Yes!” cried Reggie.
Julie just facepalmed, “I’m not sure if it would be better to watch or just look away.”
“Julie, you gotta watch, you’re the only alive person here who could save me,” you realized.
“Like I was gonna let this happen without recording it anyways,” she scoffed.
You shrugged, ”Fair enough.”
“Alright y/n you ready?” Luke asked, squatting lower to the ground.
You didn’t know if it was the fact that it was three am, or that the coffee was kicking in, or if your boyfriend's confident energy was contagious, but suddenly you felt like you could conquer anything. “I don’t know, are you ready Patterson?”
He quickly yet slyly winked at you before motioning to jump.
“Ready, set, GO!” Reggie yelled like a car girl in nascar.
You took off at a bit of a run before attempting to bounce off the pillows and onto Luke’s shoulders. As you soared through the air for a moment you could’ve sworn you heard Alex yell ‘I can’t watch this!’. But only seconds later you came in a rather harsh contact with the couch.
You groaned, but quickly got up so as to not worry any of your band mates.
“Y/n are you okay?” Alex worried.
“Yes Alex I’m fine, really, that’s why we put the couch there,” you giggled.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” Luke asked.
“Technically none since usually that theory only applies to living people, but you’re holding up three,” you concluded.
Reggie couldn’t help but laugh. “Yeah, I think she’s fine.”
Luke smirked at you. “Maybe a little too fine.”
“What is that supposed to mean beanie boy?” you teased back. You were getting used to your so-called midnight confidence.
“Oh so that’s how you wanna play it?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.
“I’ve been playing it, it just took you a while to catch up,” you taunted. Julie snorted and gasped before slapping her hand over her mouth.
As your eyes went back to Luke, you realized your first mistake was taking your focus off of him considering he was running right at you. You yelped before vaulting the couch.
You now had it separating the two of you.
“Come on y/n which way you wanna go?” he sang.
The look he was giving made you want to melt into a puddle of embarrassed goop but that was not a realistic solution, so you would have to come up with something a little more tangible.
You looked around the area to scan for something helpful, the instruments were put away; the other three were on the other side of the room, and had not bothered to get up from the floor to watch, and the studio doors were shut.
Luke recognized your analyzing face. “You can’t outrun me, I’m a ghost remember?”
Your nighttime confidence had a second wave. “No, but I can try.” You vaulted back over the couch and went running as fast as you could in the opposite direction of Luke. You made it about five steps until you felt his hands wrap around your midsection. Another yelp escaped your lips.
He quickly threw you over his shoulder, not unlike a sack of potatoes.
You tried to sound angry but you couldn’t stop laughing for the life of you. “Put me down!” you insisted.
Luke pretended he couldn’t hear you, but suddenly you got an idea. You stretched downwards to taser his sides. The minute you did he nearly dropped you, but he managed to muffle his laughter.
“Now that’s just dirty,” Luke commented.
“Says the one holding me like a potato sack, asshole” you quipped.
“She’s got a point with that one,” Julie chirped up.
Luke pretended to scowl at her but she just stuck her tongue out at him.
Luke finally put you back down on the ground.
“Thank you?” You were highly suspicious that he gave up that easily, and from the looks on your bandmates faces it looked like they didn’t believe him either.
“You’re welcome,” he said innocently, but his wide mouthed grin showed an ulterior motive; though you weren’t quite sure what that was yet.
You cautiously moved back to the rest of your friends. You didn’t take your eyes off of him until you were safely planted in between Reggie and Julie.
“So if Luke promises not to attack anyone, do you guys wanna watch a movie?” Julie suggested, and threw him a fake glare.
“All of you guys were clearly entertained by that, so you can’t even pretend to be mad at me,” Luke concluded.
“No, I’m pretty sure that was just you,” Alex retorted.
“And I’m pretty sure we can,” Julie accidentally finished.
Luke held his hands up in surrender, realizing he was very outnumbered. “Alright, you’ve proved your point.”
“So movie night?” Reggie asked.
“Definitely, but what do we want to watch?” Julie wondered aloud.
“Can I vote for Star wars?” Reggie hinted.
“That’s fair, anybody else have any ideas?” she asked.
“Oh, we could watch an animated disney movie?” Alex suggested.
“Which one, isn’t there like a shit ton of them?” Luke looked to you and Julie for help.
“Yeah, they have a lot,” you confirmed.
“So either disney or star wars?” Alex echoed.
“Technically they are both disney since disney owns star wars now,” you pointed out.
“They what now?” Reggie gasped.
Alex and Luke exchanged a nervous glance.
“Oh, sorry, yeah they bought them out in 2012,” you explained.
“Well now we gotta watch a star wars movie to see if they’re even good anymore!” Reggie exclaimed.
Julie scrunched up her eyebrows before agreeing. “Alright, Star Wars movie it is, I guess.”
Soon enough you were all scattered across the studio floor in a big pile of blankets and pillows, as the Rise of Skywalker played on the 'hologram projector'. Who would’ve thought that movie night was the real use of it?
Reggie seemed to be enjoying himself. It did take a little bit of explaining and some googling to get him caught up on the twenty five years that he missed, but he seemed to be fully engrossed in the movie.
Julie had never seen any Star Wars movies, so she was a little lost at first, but she seemed to really like the characters. Alex was half asleep near Reggie, it seemed like he was enjoying the movie, but the drummer was obviously very tired. Luke was propped up against the back of the couch, and you were sitting next to Julie.
You looked back at him to exchange a quick glance before turning back to the movie. You saw Julie watch you with an amused look in her eyes.
“What?” you softly asked.
“Go!” Julie whisper yelled to you.
“What?” you whispered.
“Go sit with your boyfriend.” She motioned back at him.
“No, I told you I was going to sit with you,” you insisted.
She narrowed her eyes. “Then why are you making googly eyes at him?” she asked.
You pulled your jaw back up. “I was not!” you defended.
Julie grinned, “Trust me, I think I can manage by myself up here, go back with him.”
“I’m not just gonna abandon you like that,” you argued.
“Y/n I love you, but so help me if you don’t go sit with him you are going to end up as a ghost really soon,” Julie threatened.
Not really wanting the wrath of Julie upon you, you picked up your blanket to move beside Luke.
“Hey princess,” he greeted you.
“Hi handsome.” You placed your head on his shoulder.
“You wanna know something y/n?” Luke asked.
“Mmm hmm, what’s that?”
“Reggie already watched this movie, he just wanted to watch it again because you seemed to like it,” Luke divulged.
You furrowed your brows. “You’re kidding right?”
“Nope, he binged all of them the second he heard there were more.”
“Wow, we must be really good friends if he’s willing to give up the first trilogy for me,” you commented. While it was intended as a joke, it didn’t mean you didn’t see the sentiment behind it.
“We all love you, you know that. And you love us,” he whispered.
“That’s true, and most especially you.” You placed a quick kiss on his lips but even the small moment gave you a warm feeling through your body.
“Hey y/n?” he asked.
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember earlier?”
You thought for a moment about what the hell he could be talking about until you saw the devilish smirk on his face, and you realized that you had yet again made a mistake.
Before you could make a move to get away he had already pulled you on top of him.
He pulled your shirt up slightly.
“Don’t you dare tickle me,” you threatened.
“I mean I wasn’t going to do that, but now that you mention it.” As he trailed off you felt a hand start to glide across your stomach and your breath hitched in your throat.
“I whihll khihhill yhohhuhu,” you giggled out. You were trying to be as quiet as possible so you wouldn’t wake Alex.
“You do know I’m a ghost, right?” he reminded you.
You choose not to answer that one in favor of holding your mouth shut so your laughter would stay in.
“You know what ghosts are really good at though-” he paused; you were absolutely certain you could hear his smile.
“Ghosting.”
You felt his fingertips lightly make contact with your hip bones. You tried to squirm away but Luke was strong, and he had a good hold on you. But when you felt his hands start to glide across your hips, you grew desperate enough that you managed to roll off of him.
He looked rather smug at your giggly smile as you laid on the floor.
“I hate you,” you breathed out.
Luke almost let out a loud laugh at that one. “As tempting as it probably is, no you don’t.”
“No, no I don’t,” you admitted with a sparkle in your eyes.
You crawled up to him again. “Because I will always love you.”
He looked into your eyes with a serious demeanor. “I love you too, always.”
“Good, so we both agree that we’re stuck with each other,” you joked.
Luke placed his head on your shoulder. “Forever and ever y/l/n.”
You rested yours against his. “Forever and ever Patterson.”
#quillsandtyposwrites#q&t- jatp#q&t- x reader#jatp#julie and the Phantoms#julie and the himbos#julie molina#luke patterson oneshot#luke patterson imagine#luke patterson x reader#charlie gillespie#madison reyes#jeremy shada#reggie jatp#juke#willex#julie and the fat ones#luke jatp#Julie jatp#jatp netflix#unsaid emily#now or never#jatp x reader#jatp reader insert#jatp watch party#jatp renewal#jatp rewatch#ler luke patterson#ticklish!reader#jatp tickle fic
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8 Letters
OR: 4 times he couldn’t say he loved you + 1 time he did
Ok, here we are with the very over hyped Vince fic! This was inspired by 8 Letters by Why Don’t We and has been swimming around in my head for a while before I realize it fits with this himbo.
Shoutouts to the following (and hopefully this is short because this is not an awards show even though it would be fun to pretend it is): @vincecdunn because Nikki’s the reason I’m on the Vince train so as retaliation I’m just going to keep sending her ideas for more fics to write, @pucksnsticksnhockeyboys and @broadstbroskis for allowing me to come into your inboxes and be annoying and bounce ideas off of, and then @pettypetey and @pumpkinpatchmakar for the ways to say I love you and I’m 100% forgetting people but that’s just because I suck
Other people who wanted to be tagged: @all-time-fanatic @marialovesdean @oyeinpayne @ghstandpucks @maybehockeymaybenot @itzelmunoz and @thecasualyogi (unsure why it isn’t letting me tag you sad boi)
So, here we go, all 7.8k words of this 4+1
______________________
I
Tonight was one of the first nights in a while that the two of you were able to spend together, Vince on the road on and off for what felt like longer than usual and you just drowning at work. Any chance you got to be together at this point was almost always spent alone in the comforts of your place or his. You were spending it at your place, watching him stand at the stove as he cooked dinner for the two of you.
“God, who you have thought someone could look so sexy stirring pasta,” you admire him, propping yourself up on your elbows to watch him.
He laughs, putting the large spoon on the counter, turning around to face him. Vince approaches you, pulling you close to him. His hand finds the small of back, the other tilting your chin up to him. He bites his lip, looking down at you. “You think that’s sexy, just wait,” he says, his lips planted against yours before you can say anything else.
You pull away at the sound of splashing water, seeing the pot boiling over. “Ah, fuck,” Vince releases his grip and runs to turn the burner down, you laughing as he goes back to stirring the boiling bubbles away.
“You know what’s great about this?” you say, sarcasm dripping in your voice.
“Oh no,” he mutters, bringing the pot over to the sink to drain the excess water, knowing that whatever you’re going to say isn’t going to be great for him.
“You get to clean up.”
He puts the now empty pot back on the stove, shaking the remaining water off the pasta in the strainer, “But I made the dinner!”
“Yeah, and then you made the mess.”
He turns to you, a mischievous look on his face. “You’re evil,” he says, lunging at you, lifting you off the ground and sending you into a fit of giggles as you try to wriggle your way free of his grasp.
“Vince!” you squeal, your arms overlapping his. “Put me down!”
“I like holding you, though,” he whines, putting you down without letting you go.
You turn around to face him, putting your hand on his face, tracing a random pattern on his cheek with your thumb. “Hold me on the ground and after you put the pesto on the pasta,” you tell him, giving him a quick kiss before pushing him away. “I thought you didn’t like pesto?”
He shrugs, putting pasta into the bowls you hand him. “I’m not crazy about it, but it’s your favorite, so I’ll put up with it for you.”
You can feel the heat rushing to your cheeks over something so simple. “You’re nice,” you tell him, in a sing-songy voice, taking a bite of the pasta.
“Only to you,” he says, sending you a wink that makes your insides flutter.
Properly full from the simple dinner, after you clean the dishes and Vince cleans the stove, you retreat to your bedroom where you planned on spending the rest of the night. “What do you want to watch tonight?” Vince asks you, settling onto your bed with your TV remote in hand.
He reaches his arm out, gesturing for you to come snuggle up next to him, perfectly fitting against him as he kisses the top of your head, the warmth from his body comforting you more than the blankets that covered your bed probably ever would. “Gossip Girl,” you insist, knowing what his reaction would be.
Vince groans, throwing his head back. “Come on, that show is so bad.”
You look up at him, imitating the puppy dog eyes and signature pout he would give you all too often when he was asking you to do something. “Yes. But that’s what makes it so good to watch,” you plead.
He rolls his eyes, giving in and pulling it up on your Netflix. “Now how could I say no to that face,” he tells you.
“You can’t,” you tell him as he pulls up the show.
Letting out a small, “Yay,” you earn a giggle from his lips before kissing him quickly and settling into the show. You start with the first episode of the second season, Vince stroking your arm absentmindedly, laughing at how cheesy the show is. He steals the occasional glance at you, loving how closely you could pay attention to anything in front of you, analyzing, critiquing, admiring what was before you. You did it with anything and everything that you fixated on, something Vince could never do and something he loved about you.
Not that you’ve said you love each other yet. But, you were the only thing he could focus on outside of hockey at any moment.
“The true reason I should stay right where I am and not get in the car,” the two of you watch Blair Waldorf on your screen in her scene with Chuck Bass. “Three words. Eight letters. Say it, and I’m yours.”
The screen cuts to Chuck, his hesitation. “I-I...”
“Thank you. That’s all I needed to hear,” with Blair getting in the car, leaving Chuck standing there watching the girl he knew he loved drive off with his heart.
That part always made you cry, letting out a soft sob at the sight of the character you hated the most, actually experiencing heartbreak, slightly humanizing the demon that you thought he was. Vince, paying more attention to you than the show, had no clue what was happening.
“This is a dumb question,” he starts, watching you wipe the tears that had fallen down your face, “But what are the three words?”
You sit up, your hand placed on his thigh sending a chill through his body. “I love you.”
His eyes go wide, swallowing hard. Given what just happened in the episode, he knew it was ridiculous to think, but he couldn’t help but wonder if what just happened on your screen would happen right now. “Are... are those the words or are you telling me?” he asks, his voice shaking.
You hesitate for a moment. You had been together for five months already. He was the person you trusted the most, no matter how dumb he might be sometimes. You would do anything for him, and you were sure that he would do anything for you. You thought about him constantly, but you had never been in love before. Whatever you felt for Vince was something you hadn’t felt for anyone. “Both,” you decide, seeing the panic wash over his face. “You don’t have to say it back. I’m not gonna leave you if you don’t,” you reassure him.
He opens and closes his mouth like a fish, trying to muster up the courage to actually say what he wanted to. He knows how he feels about you, but, “I can’t say it.” You knew the pain you felt at hearing those words flashed over your face for a moment because of the quick, “I’m sorry,” he let out before getting up off your bed and heading for the door.
“Vince, hey, wait,” you say, chasing after him and beating him to your door. With your back against it, you look at your boyfriend, panicked, breathing fast, hands shaking. “Vince,” you say his name again, hearing it coming from you calming him down, “You don’t have to say it. I promise. Just please, don’t leave.”
He studies your face, the pain that he just caused you still showing. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, dropping his head.
“Hey,” you say, tilting his head up to look at you. “Listen to me when I say this: it’s fine. I don’t want you to feel pressured to say it just because I did. I told you that because I do love you. If you don’t feel the same way, that’s fine. I can’t force you to love me,” you tell him, smiling through it. He had to know it was a fake smile, just using it to hide how you really felt. “You still want to be with me, right?”
He hesitated for longer than he should have, even though his answer popped into this head immediately. “What? Of course I do. Can we just,” he takes a deep breath, trying to find his words, “Do you think we can watch something else?”
You nod, taking his hand and leading you back to your bed. You just fucked everything up, didn’t you? But Vince’s panic and now lack of attention to even the Netflix catalogue he was scrolling through was more worrisome than him not saying he loves you. “Actually,” you say, gently taking the remote from his hands, “Do you think we can talk about this? Like, I’m ok with it, but, I don’t know, you’re kind of worrying me.”
He can’t look at you, staring at the TV instead as the now muted screen flashed with characters he didn’t recognize. “I don’t know,” he lies. “The girls I was with before I met you kinda fucked me up I guess.” You could feel your heart breaking watching him like this, more so than when you watched Chuck and Blair. “I thought I was in love with them, but then it always ended with them using me for my money, because I play in the NHL, for sex. I mean, my purity score thing is so low for a reason, right?” he jokes, you trying to smile even though you could feel yourself wanting to cry. “Fuck, one of them even called Sammy because she liked him more while I was asleep in the bed next to her and asked him to go pick her up.”
You take his face in your hands, pulling him in for a kiss. Using the pads of your thumbs, you wipe away the tears that you got on him, unsure if they were just yours or if he had started crying, too. “I will never do that to you,” you assure him. “I’ll even call Sammy and tell him that you’re better.”
He laughs, sniffling a little bit. “Can you do that every day? Really wear down his self esteem.”
You laugh, giving him a quick kiss, happy that he was at least smiling again. “I’m not going to emotionally destroy a man.”
“But it’s Sammy!”
II
You, Nikki, and Patricia were sitting on Nikki’s couch together, each with one glass of wine for the night because of the need to drive later, pizza, popcorn, and much more junk food than you would like to admit. Dressed as if you hadn’t seen daylight in years, you all had on sweatpants, sweatshirts, hair tied back, makeup free, everything that would signal to an outsider that you had all stopped caring, but to you, it was just a night in after work. It was a much needed girls night, the stress of work getting to all of you while you sat there with your best friends trying to find something to watch. With the boys off on a road trip, you could definitely use the company. Part of you was bothered by Vince not saying he loves you, but could you really justifiably get upset but that?
“What are we watching?” Nikki asks, pulling up Netflix, practically forcing you to relive the conversation with Vince from the other night.
“Uh, Gilmore Girls?” Patricia suggests.
Without saying a word, Nikki plays the episode she left off on, Rory and Dean celebrating their anniversary together by going out to what was supposed to be a nice, sweet night.
“What do you think Connecticut is like?” Patricia asks about the setting of the iconic show.
“My ex in college was from Connecticut. Nothing good comes from Connecticut,” comes from Nikki, you barely hearing her as you fixate on the episode.
“Gilmore Girls comes from Connecticut.”
Without missing a beat, Nikki says, “One good thing comes from Connecticut.” The two of them keep talking, you barely hearing anything they say as you watch Dean and Rory in the car that Dean had built for her, telling her he loves her for the first time. Rory doesn’t say it back, the same expression on her face that you say on Vince’s that night. “Hey, Y/N, what’s up?” Nikki asks, snapping you away from the show.
“Oh, nothing, why?” you lie through your teeth, your best friends exchanging concerned looks.
“You know that you’re crying, right?” Patricia asks, snagging the remote and pausing the episode.
You reach up, feeling your now damp cheeks, wiping away the tears you didn’t even know were there that were brimming in your eyes. “Oh, wow,” you let out, laughing a little bit. “I guess the episode just got to me,” you lie again. Nikki sits there, eyebrow raised, lips pursed as if to say ‘bitch, please,’ while Patricia just sat there, waiting for you to answer. “I told Vince I love him,” you start.
You get cut off by the two of them screaming, “Oh my god!” and “What did he say?”
“He,” you sigh, debating on telling them the truth or not. “He panicked and couldn’t say it.”
Both of them gasp, you trying to figure out what emotions they felt; anger, sadness, disappointment, you swear all of it flashed on their face.
“Dump his ass!” Nikki yells, loud enough that her neighbors could probably hear her.
You take a handful of popcorn, throwing it at her in response, Patricia laughing and dodging the mess the two of you were creating as kernels flew past her face. “I’m not dumping him! He said he’s afraid of getting hurt,” you tell them once you stop throwing the food at each other.
“Does he think you’re going to hurt him?” Patricia asks, concern washing over her face.
“If he thinks that, you dump him,” Nikki pips in.
“You cut that out,” you fire back, pointing your finger at her. The ridiculousness of the simple action made all of you laugh, forgetting for a moment the conversation at hand.
“Do you really love him?” Patricia asks another question, both her and Nikki with the same expression on their faces.
You feel a soft smile growing on your face, nodding. “I really do. I’ve never loved anyone like I love him. Can we just talk about something else, please?”
They go back to talking about Connecticut, you trying to keep up with their banter.
“Wait, so why did you date that Connecticut boy?” you finally join the conversation, asking Nikki.
She shrugs, shoving the popcorn that was still in the bowl into her mouth. “Connecticut boys have money. I figured I could get some nice shit from him.”
“So you're a gold digger?” you tease her, Patricia nearly spitting out her wine.
Nikki sits there, mouth open pretending to be offended. “Talk about being a gold digger, you’re dating a professional athlete!”
You mirror her look, Patricia laughing as the innocent bystander in this. “Fuck,” is you can muster out before the three of you are laughing together.
“How could he not love that!” Nikki says once you catch your breath, pointing to the smile on your face and immediately making you turn red.
“Are you flirting with her?” Patricia asks
“Someone has too,” she shrugs, winking at you while sipping her wine.
You sit there, in awe of her bluntness. “If Vince were here he would get mad at you.”
“Where are they, anyway?” Patricia asks, changing the subject before Nikki can flirt with you more or make other snarky comments about your boyfriend.
“You see,” you start, setting down your glass of wine, “Vince told me they were going to California but when I checked the schedule it said they were going to play the Florida Panthers tomorrow,” you explain, all of you unable to contain your laughter, “so I think he’s confused.”
The three of you fall back into a rhythm that doesn’t involve talking about your boyfriend who was just about off your mind. After a few hours, you’re all yawning, the single glass of wine having no effect on you as you drowned out the alcohol with more water than anything so you could drive, Nikki kicking you out so she can go to sleep.
While you and Patricia are walking to your cars, your phone starts buzzing, an incoming Facetime call from Vince. You answer, immediately turning the camera away from you, “Hey, babe, I’m walking to my car.”
“And you’re not showing me yourself because you don’t want me to see the guy walking you there?” he jokes, smirking at the camera. He was in the bed in his hotel room, the white sheets pulled up just low enough that his chest was exposed, shirtless as he always was when he was ready to sleep. He knew what he was doing; showing just enough of himself that it would drive you crazy enough to be distracted.
“Yeah, this is the man,” you tease, panning over to Patricia getting into your car, “Say hi to Vince!”
“I’m stealing your girl!” she yells, ducking into her car and shutting her door, Vince’s laugh echoing in the air.
You prop your phone up in the thing your mom got you, suctioned to your dash so you can still see your phone while driving, even though you told her you had Apple CarPlay and had no need for it. Driving down the street, you fall into a mundane conversation with Vince about getting to Florida, teasing him for confusing it with California, telling him about the girls night you just had.
“Come on, show me your face!” you hear him whine. Without taking your eyes off the road, you know exactly the look on his face: those green eyes of his wide like a puppy, his bottom lip jutted out and if he weren’t holding his phone, his hands would be intertwined in themselves under his chin to show you he was begging.
“No, I look gross. My hair is tied back, I have no makeup on, and I’m in a groutfit.”
“Have you ever seen me?”
You roll your eyes, hitting the button to flip the camera now that you were at a red light. “Yes, I’ve seen you. You’re hot,” you say without shame.
“Fuck,” you hear him let out a long and low whisper. You roll your eyes at him, even though you can’t help but blush and smile at the way he was practically visibly drooling over you. “I didn’t know gross could be so beautiful.”
“I look like a Founding Father, shut up,” you say, glad it was dark enough that he couldn’t see the heat rushing to your cheeks.
He laughs again, making you smile even wider at the sound. “Who would have thought I would like sleeping with a Founding Father.”
“That is necrophilia!” you scream, loud enough that you could probably be heard outside your car, drowning out the sound of his laugher. “I never want to hear you say anything like that ever again!”
You pull up to your building, getting out and walking to your place while Vince rambles on about something that Sammy had done on the plane. “Oh!” he says once you unlock your door, startling you and almost dropping your phone, “Look what I got you!”
“You got me something?” you ask him, walking through your dark apartment into your room.
“I saw and I liked it and thought you would like it so I had to get it!” he says like a giddy child. He holds up a small stuffed puppy, shoving it almost too close to the camera, “Can you see the tag on his collar?”
He pulls it away slightly, the letter on it becoming clear. “His name is Vince!” you exclaim, the biggest smile on his face as he holds it next to him.
“Because you say when I get excited I remind you of a little puppy.” He sits there with the small stuffed animal pressed to his face, beaming at his purchase that he couldn’t wait to give you, even though he ruined the surprise he had anticipated because he couldn’t wait until he got home to see you. You take a screenshot, unable to hide how adorable you found him in that moment.
“I love it, Vince. I can’t wait for you to get home,” you say to him, a big yawn coming from him. His eyes get droopy, the way he gets before he’s about to fall asleep, a lazy smile on his face that means he felt the same.
You settle onto your bed, turning on your tv to watch whatever was on. You sit there in silence holding your phone, yawning a few times yourself. “Hey, babe, I’m gonna go to sleep,” you say, leaning over to turn off your lights, “I love you,” you say, forgetting that you're upset over his inability to say it back, seeing that he was already asleep, anyway, unable to return with a response.
III
You were swamped with work, having to hustle on a Saturday to get everything done. Vince was tired of being cooped up inside, only really going out when he had practice or a game, so he was the one to suggest going to the coffee shop half way between your apartments in order to just be somewhere that wasn’t the four walls of your apartments.
“You’re not working,” he says in a teasing voice, watching you sit there staring out the window at the people passing by.
“I just,” you sigh, “I don’t want to do this project.”
“Can I help?” he asks, getting up from his seat and standing behind you, just enough room between your chair and the wall for him to fit and lean against you. “You’re on Facebook.”
You look up at him, an innocent look on your face. “I’m using a rewards system!” you defend yourself. “I was working for half an hour, so I’m watching a video as a break.” You scroll back to the video you were just watching as he rests his hands on your shoulders, rubbing the slightly. You find the video of an artist with a bunch of metal strips, twisting them into a metal tree art piece. You turn to him, eyes wide with excitement, a huge smile on your face that he can’t help but roll his eyes at, mirroring your smile. “Isn’t it cool?”
“You’re acting like a child. That’s my job,” he says, kissing your cheek before going back to sit down.
“That just means you’ve rubbed off on me. Or maybe I’ve rubbed off on you?” you wonder, scrolling to find one more video to watch. The next video is scene from That 70’s Show, and old favorite of yours that you haven’t seen since it was taken off Netflix. Eric and Donna were in a car, probably the Vista Cruiser in one of the earlier seasons judging by how young they look. The captions on, your sound off, you read the scene instead of watching. It was Donna telling Eric she loved him, only for him to panic and respond with, “I love cake.” The smile on your face disappears, looking up at Vince and thankful that he was paying more attention to his phone than he was to you.
You just wanted him to say he loved you. You were sure that he did, and you had told him that you did. But he couldn’t say it. You were constantly going back and forth between being ok with it and being upset by it, knowing that it wasn’t fair to force him to say something if he didn’t mean it, but also knowing that it wasn’t fair to you to spill your guts to him for him to remain closed off.
You take a deep breath, switching back to the tab that had the new marketing pitch you were working on. You get to typing, focusing on the project while you see four other cursors working on different parts, occasionally switching to another section to check one of your partners' work while they do the same for you. You barely notice the people around you, the coffee shop practically packed to capacity as an afternoon rush came in. Vince would look up from his phone, stealing the occasional glance while you take no notice.
You both jump at the sound of someone knocking on the window next to you. Look up, Vince knew who it was immediately, irritated by your “Oh my god!” sqeual as you practically leap from the table to run outside.
Vince watches as you jump into the guys arms, a huge smile on your face, unable to read your lips as you talk with him. The guy was more attractive than Vince had remembered. Fuck, he looked like a model, and there Vince was, a hockey player, mad about it.
“How have you been?” you ask your friend Jack, someone you hadn’t seen in years.
“Pretty good,” he tells you, his arms lingering on your waist once you pull away from the hug you practically forced on him in the first place. “You?”
“Good, busy. Getting out with my boyfriend instead of acting like an old agoraphobic couple,” you tell him motioning to Vince sitting at the table, arms crossed over his chest. You both wave to him, Vince mirroring with a wave and a very unenthusiastic look. “Who’s apparently tired from practice,” you lie, hoping he would buy the explanation for Vince’s unexpected attitude.
“Isn’t he a hockey player?” You look back at Vince who’s now looking down at his phone, nodding, a soft smile on your face as you just stare at your dumb boyfriend. “You really have a thing for athletes, huh?”
You roll your eyes, knowing what he was referencing: Jack was technically your ex, having hooked up a few times, gone out on a few dates, he even brought you to a family wedding of his because you were seeing each other when the invitations went out, breaking up not long after the event. You never called him your boyfriend, and as far as you were concerned, you weren’t his girlfriend, but still, you weren’t just friends. “Hockey players are a little better than baseball players, bub,” you tell him, knowing it would hurt his ego a little bit.
He scrunches his face, pretending to be hurt but laughing anyway. “You always know how to hit a guy where it hurts, Y/L/N,” he tells you, both of you nodding. You were about to tell him goodbye, missing your chance when he says, “Do you think I could meet your new guy?”
You feel your breath stop for a moment, your eyes going wide at the thought of your ‘ex’ meeting your boyfriend. “Uh, sure, if you want to?” you tell him, obviously unsure of the situation that was about to unfold. “Vince?” you snap his attention away from his phone, the two of you standing over him. “This is my friend Jack. We went to school together,” you say, Jack extending his hand for Vince to shake.
Vince swallows hard, a wave of jealousy washing over him as this guy stands in front of him. “Nice to meet you,” he says, a cold tone in his voice. You shoot him a look, Jack taking your seat while Vince pulls you into his lap without you expecting it, planting a firm kiss on your lips. “So, Jack, what do you do?” he asks the guy sitting across from you, holding you tight around your waist as if he were marking his territory.
You look at your boyfriend, confused by why he was acting like this. He sends you a soft smile, his eyes flickering down to your lips, making you melt a little as you turn your attention back to Jack. “I work in marketing.”
“Oh, just like, my girl here.”
‘My girl?’ you mouth to yourself, unsure if either of the boys saw you.
“That’s how we met,” Jack starts, a little confused as well by Vince’s actions. “We were both marketing majors so we had all of the same classes.”
Vince keeps on asking Jack questions, practically leaving you out of the conversation, occasionally kissing your cheek while Jack was talking.
“Wow, you two are clearly in love with each other,” Jack points out, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Vince freezes, his heart racing against your chest as Jack gets up. “I’ve actually got to get going, but it was great seeing you, Y/N. We should catch up again.”
You nod, agreeing with him as he leaves, taking your seat back across from Vince, glaring at him. “What the hell was that?”
“What? I can’t kiss your cheek occasionally?” he scoffs, leaning back in his chair. You watch as he stares out the window, Jack still in his view.
“You never do it like that,” you point out. Then it dawns on you: “You were jealous! Why were you jealous?”
“I was not,” he pouts, his arms crossed.
“You’re so cute when you’re jealous!” you squeal, careful not to be too loud in the quiet environment. His face turns red, his lips pursed as he stares out the window, clearly ready to deny it. You reach over to poke his cheeks, just to agitate him.
He swats you away, hating that you were right. “You think I’m cute?”
“Why were you jealous?” you ask again.
“You think I’m cute?” he says, leaning on the table.
You smirk at him, imitating his body language. “We both know I’m going to win this so you should just answer me now,” you say slowly.
“He’s the guy you dated in college,” Vince says.
“I never showed you his picture.”
He hesitates for a moment, knowing the exact reaction this was going to illicit: “I saw the pictures you posted with him on Instagram.”
You stop and think for a moment. The last time you even saw Jack was a few years ago. “Those pictures were from my freshman year of college. You’ve scrolled that far back on my page?”
He sticks out his bottom lip, eyes wide to give you his puppy dog face. “Sometimes, when I miss you, and I know you’re busy and can’t talk, I scroll through your Instagram so I can see your face.”
You feel yourself melting at his words, the face he was giving you making you love him that much more. “Come here,” you tell him, pulling him up around the table. You take him by the collar down to your level, giving him a sweet kiss. “And, yes, I do think you’re really cute,” you say to him, kissing him again.
IV
Vince watched in awe at his teammates. All of them were drunk, him, for once, being the most sober one around as they entered the bye week that took place around All-Star Weekend. He was waiting for you to show up, anxiously checking his phone to see if you had texted him anything saying that you and Patricia were at the bar. He hated being the only sober one, especially since it meant he would have to play dad if something happened unless you two showed up soon.
“You’re not drinking?” Sammy asks him, two beers in hand. Someone would think one was for Vince, but, no, both were for Sammy as he put the openings of both bottles in his mouth at once.
“I’m waiting for Y/N.”
“You’re whipped!” Sammy slurs, sitting down next to his friend in the booth he was refusing to get up from while he anxiously shakes his leg waiting to see you, rolling his eyes even though part of him knew he was right.
“Stop that,” Vince says, getting up and trying to shake his friend off in the crowded bar.
“You love her, right? I mean you have to love her to be like this,” Sammy insists, something he wouldn’t be doing had he not been drunk. Vince opens and closes his mouth, trying to figure out how to say what he wanted. “Dude.”
“You know I can’t say it,” is all Vince can let out. Sammy knows his past, Sammy knows what has happened to Vince. Saying it would mess something up. Those eight letters would ruin what he had with you when they were out in the open.
“I don’t know how to talk about this with you,” Sammy admits, eyes narrow since he was thinking about it anyway.
“I don’t think I want to talk about this with you.”
Before Sammy can say anything else, like magic, you appear at his side, Patricia in tow. “Hey,” you say to him, kissing him as he wraps his arms around your waist. He pulls away, looking over your shoulder to see Sammy making faces at the two of you, Vince giving him a look that told him to go away without you noticing.
Patricia wanders off with Sammy, leaving the two of you by yourselves. “How far deep are they?” you ask, dragging him to the bar so the two of you could start drinking, knowing you couldn’t drink so much that you would catch up with them, but enough that you wouldn’t have to act as the mother of the group.
“We’ve been here for an hour so I expect someone to be throwing up soon,” he laughs, not dropping your hand when the two of you sit down.
“If you’re drunk, do you have to take care of them?” you ask him, signalling to the bartender to come take your drink orders. You fall into conversation, watching Sammy strike out with multiple girls, Patricia spending the entire night with a single guy following her, something she clearly enjoyed as she milked at least four free drinks out of him.
“Think she’ll go home with him?” Vince asks, nodding over to Patricia as he finishes what might have been this third drink that night. As far as he knew, no one was throwing up, but now, he didn’t have to worry about it if he was just a little drunk.
You shrug, putting down your now empty glass. “If they both want that I guess.” You could feel yourself getting bored and tired, wishing that you and Vince could just leave and go home yourselves. But he looked like he was having fun watching the guys, a smile on his face whenever they did something stupid. You study Vinces face, his slightly pursed lips and his eyes sparkling as he watched Sammy strike out with what was probably his fourth girl of the night, Vince smiling as he couldn’t help but laugh at his friend. Your attentioned is pulled away by your phone buzzing in your hand, Nikki bombarding you with texts.
‘Have Vince watch these with you ;)’
She sends you two clips, both from a Halloween episode of New Girl. Unfamiliar with the show, you tap Vince to have him watch over your shoulder. You watch the two girls get into a limo, one going as far as exclaiming, “Hey, look! I’m in a limo! I wish I could have really long legs so I could stretch them out the length of the limo!”
The camera switches to a guy, telling them to have fun, saying, “I love you,” an immediate look of regret washing over his face, the girl in the limo responding with finger guns while her friend behind her mouthed, ‘No.’
You swallow hard, texting Nikki back yelling at her for it, definitely partially a product of the alcohol. You don’t even bother to look at the second video, afraid of what it would be and what it would bring considering the first one brought an awkward silence in the middle of the loud bar.
“Did you tell them?” he asks quietly, sitting back down next to you.
You straighten your posture, forming a thin line with your lips. “Yeah. I did. It was bothering me more than I thought it would and they figured it out.”
“How would they figure it out?” he snaps, his voice a little louder than it would have been had he not had so much to drink. “That’s not something you can just read on someone’s face.”
You take in a deep breath, knowing that people were starting to turn to look at the fight you were about to have. “Come on,” you grab him by his arm, leading him outside so at least if you started really fighting, they couldn’t kick you out. “Look, we were watching something where someone said I love you and the other person didn’t and I started crying,” you explain to him, feeling tears brimming in your eyes.
The people around you in the city were staring as they walked by, two idiots on a weird night causing a scene in a public. “Y/N,” he says, taking a step towards you and reaching for your hand.
You snatch it away, startling him that you were so quick. “No, Vince. I know I said it was fine,” you sob, “But it hurts. It hurts to love someone who doesn’t love you back. And I know you’ve been hurt before, but you’re letting that get in the way of you and me, and I don’t know how much longer I can handle being in love with you when you won’t even say you love me.”
He drops his head down, tears falling down his face while you were trying to fight your own from falling. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry for being afraid, but I am.”
“Do you love me?” you ask him, taking a step towards him.
He looks up at you, both of you crying. His eyes are red, he looks like he’s in pain. He tries to say something, only to shake his head, taking you in for a hug before either of you can do anything else. You can feel him crying in your shoulder, one hand in your hair, the other at the top of your back. You stand there for a moment in shock, not sure how to react. You react into his hold, trying to calm him down. You had never seen him cry like this before, in fact, you weren’t sure you had ever seen him cry at all. You pull his head off your shoulder. His face soaked with tears. “I think you need to go home,” you tell him, wiping the tears from his face.
He doesn’t say anything, just pulling you in for another hug when the guys and Patricia stumble out of the bar. “Hey, we’re going to go to another bar,” Patricia tells you as you shake your head, signalling that she shouldn’t ask what was going on. “Do you guys want to come?”
“We can?” Vince questions, only looking at you, his face still red from the sobbing he had just done. “Unless you don’t want to.”
“You go with them. I’ll be fine, I want to go home anyway,” you insist, trying to push him off you. If there was one thing you hated, it was the kind of girls who made their boyfriends miss out on things with their friends because they insisted on attention, but you also didn’t want to be with him at this moment.
He smiles at you as you try to force yourself to not succumb to his looks, refusing to let go of you, “It’s not worth going with them if you aren’t going to be there with me.”
“Then don’t go. I’m going home.” You break free of his grip, turning on your heels and walking down the street to go home by yourself.
+one
“Dude, have you seen Nikki’s snapstory?” Sammy’s voice comes through Vince’s phone.
“No, why?”
The concern in Sammy’s voice resonated with Vince, “I think you need to go look.”
Vince puts his teammate on speaker to go find one of your best friend’s story. “I’m looking now, hold on.”
Nikki was in her car, a picture of your favorite flowers in front of her steering wheel, your apartment building in the background. She had captioned it with ‘Bought my best friend flowers to go tell her I love her because her boyfriend won’t say it.’
“Ah, fuck,” Vince mutters, closing out the app.
“What are you gonna do about this?”
“I gotta go,” he says, hanging up before Sammy can say anything else.
-------
You run to the door when you hear the knocking, hoping it was Vince since you hadn’t heard much from him since that night at the bar. Instead, you find Nikki standing in your doorway with your favorite flowers. “What are these?” you deadpan, still a little irritated with her.
“Vince won’t say I love you so I figured I would,” she tells you, kissing you on the cheek and brushing past you. “I love you!” she says, dramatically, plopping down on your couch and putting her feet on your coffee table.
You look at the flowers, biting your lip. You just wanted Vince to say it. But you get it. “They’re just eight letters. He doesn’t have to say it when he can just show it. And you sending that video the other night does not and will not help anything,” you scold her.
You hear her scoff as you go to put the flowers in some water. “You know I was right to send that video. How does he show you he loves you? How could he possibly tell you he loves you without saying ‘I love you?’”
Rolling your eyes, knowing that she’s seen him show you loves you plenty of times. You could either argue with her more over what she did, or just list the ways you knew she was already aware of. “He always makes sure I’m the last person he sends a text to or calls at night and the first person he does that with in the morning. Even if he wakes up in the middle of the night and answers someone else, he’ll still send me another text right after. He’ll give me his pickle whenever he gets them because he knows I love them, even though he does, too. If he sees something on the road that he thinks I’ll like he gets it for me to surprise me with when he comes home.” You can feel yourself starting to cry thinking of all the way Vince has shown he loves you. But you really just wanted to hear those three words. You just wanted that verbal confirmation from him.
“I mean, babe, that’s great, but if he really meant it, wouldn’t he say it?”
You join her on the couch, trying to figure out how to answer. “Not everyone is good with expressing their emotions with words,” you shrug, unable to look at whatever expression she had on her face. “He’s been hurt before, when he’s told a girl that he loved her. I understand why he wouldn’t want to flat out say it to me.”
You get up, going back to your kitchen to at least fake the need for a glass of water. “Well, what else does he do?” you hear Nikki call over the sound of your tap.
You swallow, unsure if listing the ways was making you happy or sad. “He asks me to call him when I get home so he knows I’m safe. He’ll snapchat me funny faces when I’m sad because he wants to see me smile. He’ll even leave the guys if I’m upset and stay on Facetime with me until I’m happy. When we’re in the car he has my playlist on because he wants to listen to my music because it makes me happy. He doesn’t have to tell me he loves me.”
“Yes he does,” you hear from the other room, a voice that wasn’t Nikki’s. You see Vince standing there, bags in hand, Nikki slinking away into the other room to give you privacy.
“Hey, babe, what are you doing here?” you ask him, giving him a kiss for the first time in what felt like forever, trying to take the bags from him when he pulls away. The two of you walk over to your couch, setting the bags down and hearing clinking from inside. “Can I look inside?”
“No, not yet,” he stops you, taking your hands in his to prevent you from reaching in. “I’ll get everything out. Just, just trust me.” He closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath. “I told you I couldn’t say...it because of the girls I’ve said it to before. And god, I’m the worst for not saying it. But you deserve so much more.”
“Vince, what are you talking about? I don’t need mo-”
He cuts you off, handing you the first thing in the bag. A bottle of your favorite wine, a note taped to it. “You’re my partner in wine,” you read out to him, laughing at the goofy grin on his face telling you that he was proud of himself.
A bag of your favorite coffee grounds is placed in your hands next. “Words can not espresso how much you bean to me.”
A can of your favorite soup. “I ‘canned’ live without you.”
A snack pack of pudding. “Thanks for pudding up with me.”
There was food item after food item with a note taped to it with a different pun revolving around what he thought about you. He went to the grocery store for all your favorites, handing them to you one by one until he gave you the last item in the bags: a bar of your favorite cheese. “Sorry about being so cheesy.”
You look at him, seeing the embarrassed look on his face. His cheeks were red, unable to make eye contact with you but smiling anyway. “Well, now I don’t have to go grocery shopping,” you joke, him laughing along with you, “Vince, I love this.”
“And I love you.”
You can’t help the smile on your face, staring into his green eyes as his expression mirrors yours. “Really? I mean, I knew,” you explain, “But I didn’t think you’d say it. Why now?”
He smiles at you, taking your hands in his. “Because Nikki shouldn’t have to tell you she loves you because I can’t.”
“You’re welcome!” you hear Nikki yell from your room, both of you laughing.
“Oh my god,” he lets out at her obvious eavesdropping, his eyes closed, biting his bottom lip. “It’s not fair to you that you told me how you felt and I couldn’t tell you how I really felt.”
“Vince, you don’t have to apologize,��� you try to tell him.
“No, no. I do,” he says, dropping your hands and cupping your face. His thumb traces along your cheekbones as he keeps going. “I chose shitty girls before you, and them hurting me ending up hurting you. I love you, and it shouldn’t have taken me so long to say it. You’re the only one I’ve ever really loved.” He pulls you in for a kiss, soft and sweet.
“I love you, too.”
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warnings: sfw, a little bit of angst, slightly suggestive if you squint really hard.
@anonymous
hii can i request a, c, h, j, k for bakugo :p
a/n: since you didn’t specify sfw, or nsfw, i’m just gonna assume you meant sfw. i hope you don’t mind! also, thank you for requesting my first bakugo one!
p.s. when i analyze a character’s personality in anime in order to write about them, i stick to how i see them to be. i don’t write fanon headcanons. i only write their canon personalities. so, for bakugo, i’m not gonna pretend he’s some flirty, dominant sex god. hope you don’t mind.
¬ a (affection): how affectionate are they? how do they show affection?
✦ bakugo is secretly super affectionate.
✦ at first glance, you’d probably assume that the only form of physical touch he’d engage in is violence. but, oh boy. when he finally finds the one, or they find a way to burrow into his bubble, he’s hooked.
✦ he doesn’t know it, but the little things he does for his s/o to “help them out” are really just his way of saying “i really care about you, and i want to prove it by doing this task for you.”
✦ if you are running late in the morning and don’t have time to pack your lunch for the day, guess who’s in the kitchen chopping up apples and packing you a sandwich.
“here, take it.” bakugo held the strap of a bag loosely in his fist as you entered the kitchen. “what’s this?” you ask, accepting it into your hands. “you can’t skip lunch again, idiot.” the purr in his morning voice was low and rough, but also very soothing and shy. he tried his best to sound annoyed, but you both knew it was a fa��ade.
as you opened up the contents, you found neatly packed fruit, vegetables, and a sandwich fitted inside. you smirked and gazed into his half-lidded eyes. “thank you, kacchan~. you’re so sweet!” you say with love laced thickly in your tone. a soft peck of gratitude was set onto his pale cheek.
“tch. whatever… idiot…” he turned away, avoiding eye contact as his cheeks heated into a soft pink. closing the bag up again, you set it aside, and wrapped your arms around his torso. “thank you.” you say once more, this time a bit more sensual. your voice hummed short vibrations into his chest. sighing a fake breath of annoyance, he reciprocated the affection. his lips pressed gently onto the side of your forehead, then trailed to the top corner of your cheek, to the corner of your anticipating lips, and finally satisfying your desire by capturing you in a passionate, slow, kiss.
“you better eat it, or i’ll kick your ass.” his warm breath fanned at your lips as the words escaped his mouth. a satisfied chuckle escaped your throat. “i’d like to see you try.”
✦ he will also do other small tasks to ease the “burden” of them off of your shoulders.
✦ if you leave clean clothes scattered all across your bed, he’ll definitely fold them for you and put them away in their respective drawers. (expect to be scolded when he’s finished, though.)
✦ katsuki will definitely cook dinner for you whenever he can. he’s amazing. he’s so perfect. he’ll even adapt to whatever your taste buds can handle, and damn can this man cook. if you’re a picky eater, well you’re in luck. while he will give fake complaints about your “shitty taste buds”, he’ll still get the job done, and well.
¬ c (cuddles): do they like to cuddle? how would they cuddle?
✦ katsuki’s favorite time of the day is night time. “why?”, you may be asking... well... CUDDLES!
✦ when you’re both exhausted from your busy days, the best feeling ever is to get cleaned up, and crash onto your shared bed. the feeling of being stress-free and in clean pajamas, cuddling up with your boyfriend is heavenly.
✦ as soon as you plop yourself onto the bed, bakugo is sure to follow suit. if you’re laying on your tummy, he’ll lay directly on top of your back and get comfortable. he loves to hold you whenever you two are alone.
✦ around other people, he would be a bit distant. he’s not at all into PDA, so home is the perfect place to get his long-awaited cuddles in. (he’ll still hold your hand in public, don’t worry.)
✦ if you’re laying on your back, he’ll lay in between your legs, and again, wrap his arms around you while his head is on your chest.
✦ play with his hair. even though it looks like a mess, it’s actually very soft and doesn’t have tangles. your fingers can run smoothly through his locks without resistance. if you play with his hair, he’ll only melt further into your touch. he’ll adjust his body once more to get closer to you, and finally fall asleep.
✦ he snores, but it’s quiet. it’s also super cute! (*´꒳`*)
¬ h (hugs): do they like hugs? what are they like? how often do they hug you?
✦ bakugo loves hugs! he thinks of them like a slightly less intimate version of cuddling. he calls it the “quickie version of cuddling”.
✦ he much prefers cuddling, though.
✦ when bakugo hugs you, his face is always buried in your shoulder, while his strong arms are engulfing your chest. unlike the other guys, bakugo doesn’t hug low. his arms are always placed high on your back, right below your shoulders, making it so that your arms have no choice but to wrap around his neck.
✦ bakugo really only hugs you when you’re not in front of people, and aren’t home. hugs, to him, are a quick substitute to cuddling when he’s feeling really needy.
¬ j (jealousy): how jealous do they get? what do they do when they get jealous?
✦ if we all watched the same show, we know that this man would get jealous, but not very often. he’s not a super insecure person, but there are some exceptions.
✦ unlike when he’s always yelling at people, when it comes to being jealous over his s/o, he would stick to giving dirty glares and death stares. to be honest, he wouldn’t even yell at the person unless they’re making an actual move on you. he knows that you wouldn’t cheat on him, so he’s really only worried about the other person. but then again, he knows that you can handle yourself... he’ll still keep an eye on you though.
¬ k (kisses): what are their kisses like? where do they like to kiss you? where do they like to be kissed?
✦ bakugo’s kisses are probably the most passionate out of anyone in the entire universe. when he kisses his s/o, it’s like he pours all of his feelings out through the touch of his lips.
✦ the gentle hold of his hands placed flush against your hips sends tingles up your spine. his kisses are gentle, yet demanding. like he can’t get enough of the butterflies he gets just from the touch of your burning skin. the firm press of his soft lips against yours is enough to make you dizzy. he doesn’t leave any room for air when he’s needy.
✦ bakugo’s favorite place to kiss you is on your lips. for a man that didn’t have much physical affection throughout his life, he feels that kissing your most sensitive places is more intimate than anywhere else. plus, he doesn’t really get butterflies from kissing you on your cheek.
✦ for katsuki, his favorite place to be kissed was on his lips as well... until he found a knack for wanting rewarding/comforting forehead kisses.
bakugo sighed deeply as he held his head low. his fingers were intertwined as his elbows pressed into the top of his thighs. “what’s wrong, honey?” you asked. he looked up with heavy lids. his eyes were full of doubt. self-doubt. “nothing’s wrong.” he said with a slight growl in his voice. you knelt down in front of him while lifting his chin, forcing him to look up at you. “let me help you, baby.” your calm voice flowed like the waters of a quiet brook.
“i don’t need your help...” he attempted to turn away, but your fingers caught his chin. “katsuki,” your tone was firm, “look at me.” the sound of your voice made his heart jump. his usual stubbornness was instantly torn down by his own internal desperation for comfort. he didn’t fight back again, he didn’t try to push you away. instead, he let you brush the pad of your thumb across his trembling cheek. the instant your skin touched, he instinctively leant into your touch.
“what if… i’m not… as strong as i think i am?” his painful words stung your chest. the room was filled with silence as he anticipated your next words. it felt like eternity before you finally responded. but instead, you shook your head at him. “you’re not.” his mouth fell agape as his eyes snapped to meet yours. they followed your movement as you rose to your feet. brushing his blonde hair away from his forehead, you cupped his cheeks, and pressed a gentle, reassuring kiss to his forehead. “you’re stronger.”
with the flutter of his heart, his worries began to fade. within a few seconds, katsuki’s arms snaked around your waist and pulled you closer.
“…do that again.”
1/4/21
#sfw#anime headcanons#bnha headcanons#mha headcanons#alphabet headcanons#bnha#mha imagines#bnha fanfiction#bnha imagines#boku no hero imagines#boku no hero academia#boku no hero headcanons#my hero academia#my hero headcanons#my hero imagines#my hero academy fanfiction#mha#bakugou katsuki#bakugou imagine#bakugo#bakugo headcanons#bakugou headcanons#bnha bakugou#bakugou x reader#bakugou fluff#katsuki bakugo headcanons#katsuki bakugo imagine#bnha bakugo katsuki
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pickup lines ↠ hhj ♡
↳ inspired from the song i love you by treasure. (no relation to the song idk why i was inspired)
genre: fluff
type: drabble
word count: 1.9 K
⇥ warnings: none except one (1) teeny tiny kiss (just a peck nothing too suggestive), lot’s of fluff and pickup lines and that’s a warning. 🥺 IF THIS DOESN’T SHOW UP IN THE TAGS THIS TIME I WILL FUCKING FUME.
network tag: @stayverse
↯ note: uhfuyewhf please forgive this random outburst that overcame me, fluffy boyfriend hyunjin is just !!!!. Also my first fic woo hoo !! no particular premise of this blurb idk what this is for but i’m still gonna write it. ⇥ dawn.☀️
A long, deep sigh.
A cheek pressed against his palm, resting his head against his elbow as he stared off into space. The library was relatively quiet around him, no other sound other than the timely flipping of the page by the two other people sitting in the almost empty, spacious room.
And of course, the sound of you humming the tune that poured through the earphones you were sporting. Hyunjin could almost swear that he would fall asleep from the tune, if it weren’t for the hard wood underneath him.
Hyunjin pouted when he noticed you completely immersed in your sociology 101 textbook. Studying to be a data analyst was hard, and while it was both yours and Hyunjin’s dream job, (instead of focusing on the plethora of books lying on the table) Hyunjin found staring at the love of his life much more interesting than analyzing any sort of data.
Sunlight poured in through the open window. It was still fairly early in the morning, and while Hyunjin hated waking up early, he was more than ready to do so the moment you called him the previous night, begging him to tag along on the pretext that “it would be boring to go alone.”
And the moment you entered the library, you picked out your books and quickly drowned yourself in them, and in less than five minutes, Hyunjin found himself the one who was “bored.”
You felt a poke at the side of your arm, startling you out of your concentration.
“Hey.”
Pulling your earphones off, you smiled at Hyunjin. “Yeah?”
“You said you’d be the one bored but now I’m the one bored.” Hyunjin humphed, folding his arms across his chest. “Remind me why I accompanied you?”
You laughed, gently pinching his cheek. “Because you’re a good boyfriend.”
Being the dramatic llama that he was, Hyunjin rolled his eyes, though the subtle smile on his lips told you otherwise. “Fine finish it soon now.” He pointed before poking your arm again. “Or I’m gonna leave you and get subway for myself.”
You gasped in fake betrayal, clutching your heart as your eyes widened. It was a known fact that Hyunjin was too smitten for you, far too caring and considerate to leave you alone in the library without breakfast. And you loved to tease him about it.
Anyways, the act faltered in two seconds the moment you giggled at him.
“You’re adorable, have I ever told you that?” You mimicked his position as you faced him, admiring how he looked at the moment. Heavily lidded eyes, messy black hair, and the sunlight from behind him almost made him look like he was glowing.
At your words, Hyunjin felt the tiniest blush creep up his cheeks as he shyly admitted. “You tell me every day!”
“Well I’m going to keep telling you that, so…” you shrugged, turning your attention back to your books as hyunjin internally groaned. The library didn’t allow use of phones either, so he couldn’t just start playing around with it to kill time.
Brushing his hair off his forehead, his eyes sparkled when a thought popped into his head, a smug look on his face. Quickly grabbing his cellphone from the back of his pocket., his fingers moved against the screen — not quick enough for the librarian to notice — but at this point, it hardly mattered. The librarian was almost asleep on his table — he must’ve not adjusted to the early hours of his job very well.
When your phone dinged — signifying the arrival of a message — Hyunjin watched intently as you picked up your phone and tapped the screen a couple of times. When you grinned widely, Hyunjin knew his message had the desired affect. In all honesty, that was Hyunjin — always looking for subtle ways to tell you he loved you, and ways to keep you smiling and happy.
You reached over to push your reading classes up your nose before turning to look at Hyunjin’s direction, raising your eyebrow playfully.
Hyunjin: Guess what I’m wearing?
He had a similar grin on his lips as he silently coaxed you to reply, and so you did just that.
You: What? Your uniform? 🤭
Knowing Hyunjin, you knew that the answer would not be so simple, but nevertheless you curiously waited for the answer.
When the reply came in, the smile on your face turned into a wide, ear-to-ear smile, cheeks almost hurting with how widely you were grinning. You tried desperately trying not to alert anyone of what you were doing, but it was getting harder with how adorable Hyunjin was being.
Hyunjin: No, the smile you gave me.
You: usdyuegwydedh 🥺🥺🥺
You: you cheesehead! 😘😤
Hyunjin: But I’m your cheesehead - ;D
Hyunjin, still staring at you was in a similar state. He admitted that watching you laugh and smile was something he could never grow tired of. He treasured that moment, and it always seemed like you lightened up the whole room with just your smile.
“Hey!” you looked at him, books totally forgotten as you stared into his eyes.
“They say the eyes are the mirror to the soul.” Hyunjin said, straightening up his posture as you eyed him confusedly. “You must have one beautiful soul.”
Your jaw dropped open at the sudden explosion of pickup lines coming from your boyfriend, rolling your eyes to the back of your head as you felt yourself grow coy at his compliment.
“Oh gosh, what’s gotten into you.” You whispered, slapping his arm slightly. Hyunjin smiled devilishly when he noticed your beaming face, feeling oddly relaxed — but then again, he was always relaxed when he looked at you.
“ On a scale from 1 to 10 you’re a 9 and I’m the 1 you need. “
You gasped, squealing as you slapped his arm yet again.
“Oh lord, your cheeseball stop being so cute my heart can’t handle this.” You pouted, and Hyunjin bit back the overwhelming desire to squish your cheeks.
He always did everything in his power to make you happy, and it never changed, even after a year of dating. The love between you was pure in every way, and you couldn’t help but feel lucky to have such a caring and lovely angel for a boyfriend.
“Come on, I need to focus now, just half an hour more?” You managed to convince him (only after giving him your traditional puppy eyes which you knew he would never be able to resist), before turning your attention back tot he book.
Twenty minutes passed. Hyunjin had found himself a book to read in the mean time, but he wasn’t the type to be patient. It wasn’t ling before he reached for his phone yet again.
When your phone dinged again, you quickly snapped your attention from where it was fixed on Hyunjin, hiding it under the table as you stealthily read the message.
Hyunjin: Can we go eat now?
You laughed to yourself, brushing hair off your forehead before replying.
You: There’s still 10 minutes left 🤭
Hyunjin: Please I’m hungry 🥺
Hyunjin: pls pls pls pls pls pls pls 🥺
You quickly looked at the watch before sighing, smiling at Hyunjin before shutting your book and stretching your arms out. You’d been there for about two hours, since your college library opened fairly early. As expected, Hyunjin let out a silent squeal of victory, quickly helping you pack up before getting out of his seat, all to eager to get out of the cramped space.
“Remind me to never tag along with you again.” He chided playfully, and like you said before, you knew Hyunjin was too soft to be able to ignore your pleas — and even if he did, you had your secret weapon: puppy eyes. You only giggled and nodded. “yeah, whatever.” Allowing him to intertwine your fingers together as he pulled you out of the building.
Once you were out of the building and walking towards the nearest subway, you decided to go the park (which was incidentally opposite to the subway shop). As you walked in the almost empty park, you munched on your sandwich slowly, whilst Hyunjin had already devoured it all. You figured he didn’t drink his coffee before coming to the library, and you didn’t bother to ask either.
Hyunjin had still not et go of your hand, and every once in a while — out of pure habit — he would squeeze it gently, just as a form of reassurance. It never failed to warm your heart.
The both of you found a clean bench under the cool shade of a tree, enjoying the breeze as you finished your sandwich; while Hyunjin simply looked around the rows of trees and plants that were planted along the edge of the ground.
When Hyunjin caught your gaze on him once again, another thought popped into his head as he smiled yet again. Personally, he had no idea how he was acting so cheesy today, but seeing your reaction did not encourage him to stop.
“Do you have a map?” You boyfriend asked all of a sudden, and you frowned confusedly. Of course, you’d let your guard down from the previous explosion of cheesiness, which only fueled it more.
“Why do you ask?” You murmured.
“Because I keep getting lost i your eyes.”
“Aghhhh,” you groaned, covering your face with your palms as you looked at Hyunjin. “Where do you even get these from?” You pouted at him.
“I don’t know, maybe you bring it out of me?” Hyunjin shrugged.
“Hmph,” You pinched his soft cheek lightly, smiling as you did so.
Next, he grinned, tilting his head to the side as he gazed into your orbs. You sensed another attack coming ahead, but did nothing to stop it, because deep down, you were enjoying this way too much.
“You know at this angle, as the light hits your eyes.” A dizzy smile on his face as he gently fixed his hair, tucking some of the strands behind his ear. “I can see myself and I look great.”
That caused you to close your eyes, erupting into a fit of giggles as your eyes morphed into the softest of crescents.
Hyunjin opened his mouth yet again, but this time, you were quick to stop him.
“Ah, no young man. No more, or I’m gonna combust.” You tucked your own hair behind your ear.
“Nooooo,” He whined, pouting as he gave you the softest look that he could muster. “One more, please? Just one. Please please please please please-”
“okay fine! One more, and then no more, deal?” You looked at him smugly, and he nodded.
“Okay so, kiss me if I’m wrong, but dinosaurs still exist, right?”
Hyunjin had chosen that line for a joke, expecting to get yet another slap on his arm, or a shy turn of your head. What he didn’t expect was for you to blush profusely before you leaned in, pressing a soft peck to his lips.
When you pulled away, Hyunjin’s eyes were widened as you stared at each other silently for two seconds, before you snapped your fingers in front of him, pulling him out of his daze.
“You were wrong.” You stated as nonchalantly as possible, shrugging at him as you got up, grabbing your bag as you began walking towards the exit.
“H-hey, wait for me!” Hyunjin cried, not being able to suppress his smile as he ran towards you, immediately entwining your fingers once again. And the rest of the walk was spent just like that, in peaceful silence as you enjoyed each other’s presence in the cool, moist air.
“You’re such a goofball,” You mumbled at him, gaining his attention as you rubbed your thumb against the back of his hand. And before he could even reply with his loving, playful gaze, you completed the statement yourself, eyes twinkling in content.
“But you’re my goofball.”
↯ note: i pray to every god out there please just show up in the tags for fuck sake i worked hard on this ; - ; ⇥ dawn.☀️
#stayverse#skz fluff#stray kids fluff#skz hyunjin fluff#stray kids hyunjin fluff#hwang hyunjin fluff#hyunjin imagines#hwang hyunjin imagines#hyunjin scenarios#hwang hyunjin scenarios#skz scenarios#skz imagines#stray kids imagines#stray kids scenarios#skz x reader#skz x you#skz x y/n#skz smut#stray kids smut#skz hyunjin smut#hyunjin smut#skz hyunjin
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“Happy Ending” Bakugou x Reader
Summary: Being a single top pro-hero is stressful and is the leading cause for stiff muscles. After a taxing villain fight and reaching his breaking point with bold fans, Bakugou goes to a spa resort to hopefully solve his problems. Pent up and sore, what he didn’t expect was the cute masseuse assigned to him work out all of his stiffness.
Words: 3,756
Warnings: Smut
Author’s Note: Happy Birthday, Bakugou~ I love you so much. He is an adult in this fyi...like late 20s adult so he’s mature-ish. (also happy 1 year anniversary to my succubus fic~)
Bakugou rolled his shoulders back, wincing as he watched police arrest the villains they just took down. "You okay dude?" Kirishima and Kaminari walked up next to him, each limping or bending over slightly in pain, trying to disguise their injuries from the news cameras. Bakugou scoffed but didn't answer, glancing at the wreckage around them, smoke hovering over the rubble littering the ground.
He couldn't understand why his back was sore; he worked out often, stretched when he was supposed too, and ate healthily. What pissed him off the most was that his back pain managed to slow him down during the fight. Part of him had the looming thought in the back of his mind that his age was starting to show a bit, but he quickly shoved that aside, reminding himself he wasn't old.
Paramedics came quickly, rushing over to the three pro-heroes, asking questions and guiding them over to the ambulance while getting their medical supplies out. Bakugou reluctantly followed although he was sure he just had strained muscles, he received a nasty blow during the fight, a bruise starting to form on his chest.
"Ouch!" Kaminari openly cried out, bending over from the blooming pain in his stomach. Kirishima was next to him, his leg propped up, gritting his teeth as the medical staff tended to the wound. "I need a day off..." Kaminari whines again, recoiling back from the nurse's touch. Kirishima goes to chuckle, but it comes out as a wheeze as he starts coughing, nodding his head in agreement.
"Ground Zero, Red Riot, and Chargebolt were the first heroes on the scene tonight as multiple villains crashed through buildings near west Tokyo, causing a few fatalities. The heroes were quick to react, getting the rest of the civilians to safety as the villains were seized in an all-out brawl-"
One reporter was too close for Bakugou's liking, reminding him how he wasn't fast enough to save the few fatalities. The camera was aimed to show the three of them in the background as she continued to recite the minimal information police told her. Quick to react, huh? He tuned them out and lifted his shirt as the nurse who was working on Kaminari finally came over to him. Bakguou had insisted the two of them go first since he wasn't in bad shape.
At least, that's what he kept telling himself.
Holding his breath as the nurse rubbed ointment on the bruise, he tried to calm himself from lashing out at her to hurry up. The touches got softer and more teasing, causing his irritation to spike. Looking down, he saw the nurse staring at his chest with a bright blush covering her face, pupils blown wide with lust.
Bakugou harshly stepped back and away, shoving his shirt down, causing the nurse to snap out of her trance in embarrassment. "Oh! I'm-" She started, but Bakugou walked away before he could hear the rest of it, forcing out a rigid 'thank you,' the stern tone stopping her from finishing.
As a top pro-hero--a single top pro-hero--he was constantly being asked about his love life or flirted with, making this part of the job vexing especially when he was on duty. Bakugou wasn't all that concerned with girls; he knew he had the sex appeal and could probably have anyone he wanted, but no one has managed to capture his attention. There were days he did dabble in his bachelor tendencies which he always regretted in the morning because they never wanted to leave.
He began to walk over to the police, avoiding the mob of microphones being held out to him, questions being thrown his way. Shouts blended together but he was too exhausted and annoyed to even bother deciphering as he walked towards the police chief, ready to give a brief statement of the situation.
Soon enough, Kirishima and Kaminari joined him as they gave any details and information they received during the fight to help investigators. The background sirens and noises all faded into a blur as Bakugou felt the years of being a hero settle in, the constant cycle never-ending. What seemed like a lifetime of fighting was actually the built-up stress resting heavily on his shoulders.
He needed a break.
~*~*~*~*
Bakugou woke to his phone beeping, the alarm startling him out of an on-coming sex dream. Sweat rolled down his skin as his boxers strained beneath the sheets, making him groan softly. It's been a while since he had a release, caught up in work as he tried to avoid falling back into his one-night stands.
He reluctantly reached out for his phone to hit snooze on the alarm, the dream already fading. As he lifted his arm, a jolt of pain shot through his joints and down his side, making him grunt, eyes screwing up in agony. I can't fucking move.
Slowly moving his body to where he thought it wouldn't hurt as much, he gritted his teeth just barely grabbing his phone. Moving back in his original position, he took a deep breath as he shut off his alarm. As much as Bakugou took his work seriously, moving did not seem like an option today. The amount of pain he would be feeling soon once the drowsiness wears off, there's no fucking way he can function.
Just as he was about to call the agency and let them know, his phone rang, Kaminari's name popping up. Bakugou squinted at the bright flashing screen and answered, slowly bringing his phone to his ear not trying to move as much.
"Hello?" His voice came out raspy, his eyes closing tiredly as the room darkens again.
"You up?" Kaminari's equally hushed voice said, his voice a bit lighter than Bakugou's. Just then Kirishima's wheezed laughter came through the line, making Bakugou realize he was brought in a three-way call.
"He picked up, Kami. He's awake." Kirishima said, a grin obvious through his words.
"Well excuse me, I'm still half asleep," Kaminari cleared his throat weakly, "so listen, I talked to Sero earlier because I called out today and he told me about a spa retreat by Mt. Fuji. Apparently, it's a small secluded resort but it's really good. They take pro-hero clients and have a private section for them so they won't be bothered by other guests."
Bakugou listened quietly, letting out a hum when Kaminari had paused for his reaction to let him know he was following along.
"Anyways, I called to tell Kiri finding out he called off too and asked if he wanted to come with me. Which of course, you're also invited, but I told Kiri you take work to seriously to even bother coming along-"
"I'll go."
"See? I told you, Kiri, he's a hardass-wait what?" Kaminari paused, realizing what Bakugou had said. "Really?"
"I can't fucking move, Sparky. If I could, I would be at your place by now beating your ass for that 'hardass' comment." Bakugou growled, raising his other hand slowly to rub at his eyes. A choked sound could be heard from Kaminari.
"Great! We're getting up now and leaving soon before the streets get busy. It's going to take an hour or so to get there and we're planning to stay overnight. Pack a bag Bakubro, we're taking a small vacation." Kirishima confirmed, relieved that they could get away from work for a while.
Bakugou grunted and hung up without another comment knowing one of them would send him the location details. He eased himself up in a sitting position trying to hold back the garbled groans crawling up his throat, his body screaming in pain. Forcing himself to pack a small overnight bag, Bakugou left his house on his way to the resort.
~*~*~*~*
"We have three heroes arriving soon who will be staying overnight. (Y/n), you're going to be assigned to one of them." Your manager calls out to you from her office, seeing you pass by with a stack of towels.
"Okay!" You call back, hurrying to finish stacking the hot spring towels before getting ready to see your client. Meeting the hero clients always made you excited, no matter if they were a returning customer or not. Being assigned a hero meant that you were responsible for their massages and overall care during their stay at the spa, leaving them entirely in your care.
As thrilling as it was, you prayed for the day Ground Zero would come through the front doors in all his sinful glory. What can you say other than you've admired him for so long and to just be in his presence would be like heaven on earth. His muscles?! God took the time!
Placing the towels in the cabinet by the changing area, your mind drifts to the many thoughts you've had of him before shaking yourself out of your trance. That has to wait for later, right now I have to get ready for work. Just as you were walking back to the lobby, you heard commotion letting you know the guests were here.
Stepping back through the threshold, you pause in your humming seeing Ground Zero, Red Riot, and Chargebolt standing at the front desk, the two latter chatting excitedly. Wow, my mind. I called it. Manifestation baby.
"Ah! Perfect! (Y/n), come here please." The manager sees you standing in the doorway and motions you over but your eyes don't leave the pro-hero as his red irises flicker over to you. Gliding over to him, you swallow dryly, flustered already by his intense stare. "You will be assigned to Mr. Bakugou here," she motions to him gently, a wide smile on her face that screams: don't fuck this up.
Resisting the urge to roll your eyes, you throw a fake smile back and nod, watching her analyze the response before walking away in approval. Dropping the smile, you turn to Bakugou and bow shyly introducing yourself. "Welcome! I'm (Y/n), and I will be your personal masseuse during your stay."
Straightening back up, you're about to show him to his room when a flash of yellow fills your vision. "We get personal masseuses?! Dude, I don't want to go back to work ever!" Chargebolt had been listening to your introduction as he was still waiting on his own assigned masseuse. Bakugou tsks, shoving him aside and you see him wince, his face screwing up in pain before slowly lowering his arm. Ouch.
"Let me show you to your room so you can go straight into the hot springs." Making sure he was following you, you lead him outside to a separate building the had executive suites. All of the separate hero buildings held their individual massage rooms within the bedroom which proved to be more convenient instead of having the heroes walk around.
You stood politely in the hallway as Bakugou opened his door and dropped his bag on the bed. "Do I need anything?" His deep voice carried over to you, making you swoon.
"No, but I need you in me like yesterday," you mumble softly, regretting ever wanting him to come here because he was becoming a major distraction.
"What?" Bakugou's eyes narrowed and for a second you thought he heard you but you played it off, flashing him a bright smile.
"No, There are towels already over there. Take as long as you want, I'll be in this room when you get back to give you a full body massage." Motioning to a door next to the entrance, you step into the bedroom and open it, revealing the large massage table and a counter filled with oils and lotions. The lighting was dimmed and a few unlit candles were placed throughout the room.
Bakugou grunted and lifted his shirt above his head, throwing the fabric on the bed. Seeing his sculpted chest suddenly revealed made your cheeks flush vibrantly as you turned away to avoid gaping at him. "Y-you don't have to do that here! There's a place for your clothes by the hot springs. We also provide robes so when you finished you can come back in that-"
A deep chuckled sounded from behind you making you jump. Bakugou walked past you to the door, a small smirk on his face, his back muscles flexing as they moved almost making you sigh out loud. "I'm teasing you."
With that, he left the room leaving you leaning against the wall for support as arousal flooded its way to your core.
~*~*~*~*
Bakugou was gone for a while and you weren't surprised. After seeing him wince sharply in the lobby by such a simple movement, you don't doubt the hot water felt good on his sore muscles, easing some tension. Also, you knew he was close with Red Riot and Chargebolt so they probably met up and got to relax together, not something they could do often with all the hero work.
In the time Bakugou was gone, you set up your massage room and picked out all the necessary oils to use for when he comes back. You lit a few candles to the already dim light to make it more peaceful. By the time you heard the door open again, you were finished and walked back out to greet him.
What you didn't expect was to see him only wrapped in a towel around his waist, no robe in sight. Bakugou sees you walk out and smirks, flicking his damp hair out of his face. "Ready for me?"
The question makes you gulp as you nod, motioning inside the room, taking note of the huge bruise covering the left part of his chest. "Do you want your back done first or your front?" You ask, clearing your throat. It looks like Bakugou is thinking it over before turning and climbing on top of the soft covered table, laying on his stomach. He positions his head in the pillow and limply lays his arms next to his body.
You shuffle around a grab one of the oils you picked out which helps ease aches and pains, pouring some on your palms to warm it up. The scent of peppermint fills the air as you place your hands on Bakugou's back, his skin warm to the touch. Evenly coating his back at first, you begin to ease your thumbs into his muscles, starting slow so you don't hurt him.
A heavy groan falls from Bakugou's lips making your hands falter as they run slowly over his taut lats, moving down to his lower back and back up in the same movement. Feeling that he loosened up a bit, you roll your knuckles in between his shoulder blades, making another sharp intake of breath echo in the room.
You lost track of time, moving around the table while focusing on the most impressive form of human anatomy you've ever seen. The noises that escaped Bakugou whenever you hit a certain spot broke your concentration making you bite your lip.
Strong shoulders bulged under your fingertips as you traced the outline of them, leading to his neck where you thumbs rubbed at the knots you found. From there you ran your thumbs along the length of his spine, making goosebumps appear on his arms.
Since you witnessed his pain earlier, you spent extra time on his back before moving on to his legs, massaging firm calves and up to where his towel ended. It landed just above his knees, which you were grateful for because your mind began to wander again.
You poured another oil on your hands when you got to his arms, knowing these might hurt a lot too because of his quirk. Pouring some lavender oil on your palms, you smooth it over his arms, massaging them gently as you worked your way down to his fingers, his natural body heat making you hot with the added candles in the room.
"Okay, you can turn over now." You whisper out in case he had fallen asleep. However, Bakugou shifted and limply rolled over, adjusting himself to get comfortable. You could tell he was relaxed by the way his body seemed heavy from moving.
Seeing the bruise again made your breath catch as you grabbed some frankincense oil, specifically applying it to that one spot, rubbing it in gently instead of massaging it. Finishing the left side of his chest you pick up more peppermint oil and focus on his lower abdomen, his abs flexing constantly beneath your hands.
Deep in thought, the sudden upward thrust of his hips brought you back to reality. You had just brushed your thumbs along his waist, massaging his sides when a moan was caught in his throat. "Sorry, did that hurt?" You pull back a little bit, only to notice a tent in his towel. Mortified, you glance up at Bakugou seeing a light flush covering his face as he avoided your eyes.
Something about seeing one of the top heroes flustered underneath you sent a wave of confidence through your veins. "This isn't that type of spa Mr. Ground Zero," you mock whisper, going back to massaging his sides and up the right side of his chest.
"Fuck if it is, it's your fault." Bakugou's raspy response sent shivers down your spine. His hand reaches up and grabs your wrist bringing down just above his towel. Your fingers twitch in his hand as he brushes them against his clothed member making him smirk. "Teasing me with touches like that, look, you know you want too."
With his other hand, Bakugou undoes the side of the towel, the fabric now loose on his lap. He lets go of your wrist, placing his arm behind his head to prop himself up. You saw the lustful challenge in his eyes, no longer embarrassed by the situation. The cockiness in his expression stirred something within you, butterflies erupting in his stomach.
Meeting his gaze with a fake-innocent look of your own, you pull the ends of the towel eyes widening at the sight of his cock. Long and perfectly shaped, it curves up towards his stomach, a few veins running along the shaft. A gasp left your lips, eyes lowering as you hand grazed the underside of his cock, making it twitch slightly.
"Fuck." Bakugou's hips jerked again as your oiled hand wrapped around him stroking him lightly. The weight of him in your hand further encouraging you to rub along his length. Heavy pants and groans filled the room, making your thighs squeeze together for relief.
"You're so stiff, Bakugou," you tease. Trailing your hand up, you run your palm over the head of his cock, this time drawing a growl out of him the sound making you moan softly. His free hand closest to you reaches out and smacks your ass, making you bend over in shock, your face directly in front of his cock.
"Hah-I bet your pussy is dripping right now feeling me up like this. Wouldn't that oil just make everything so much better?" The suggestive words drip from his mouth in taunts making you pull your hand back. The many thoughts you had of being fucked by Ground Zero in his strong arms now coming true, sent pulses of heat throughout your body.
Bakugou was about to retort another comment until he saw you stripping out of your clothes, his hand moving to grip his member stroking himself as your breasts were revealed. He followed your hand lower, as the took off your pants as well, leaving you panties on.
Not being able to wait, you climb on the table, you straddle his hips as he pulls your panties to the side teasing the head of his cock along your slit making a low whine escape your lips.
"Please, Bakugou," you moan out, not caring if anyone heard. The slick movements along your slit stopped as Bakguou aligned himself with your pussy, his cock easily going in. Gasping at the feeling of being stretched out, your eyes meet Bakugou's as he bottomed out inside you.
"I haven't had such a good pussy in so long time...massaging me like that. You are good at this." Bakugou grips your hips tight, his hips starting with slow shallow thrusts before becoming more erratic. Your hand flies back to grip his thighs for support, meeting his thrusts with your own as the tip of cock kisses your cervix sending you into a quick orgasm, clenching around him tightly.
His thumb suddenly lands on your clit, making you cry out again tightening around him, as he prolongs your orgasm. A loud growl rips from his throat, his hips stuttering before stopping inside you, filling you up with cum.
Loud pants filled the room as the two of you caught your breath. Bakugou's eyes were closed and the sudden realization of what just happened washed over you. "I'm so going to get fired." You whine, moving to get off one of the top pro-heroes in the world and do the walk of shame, only to have Bakugou tighten his grip.
"You're not going anywhere and I'm not done with my massage, (Y/n)." Bakugou reached over and poured some peppermint oil on his hands bringing them up to massage your breasts. "I'm staying the night at this damn resort so you better make it worth my while."
"I just gave you a happy ending." Pouting at the arrogant tone coming from him, you gasp sharply as your nipple was pinched.
"Oh this isn't the end, babygirl. I'm still a little 'stiff.'"
For the rest of Bakugou's time at the resort, he made sure you tended to all his needs and you made sure you met them, relieving his soreness and pent up tension. By the time morning came, you woke up alone to an empty bed a single note left to you from Bakugou himself.
'I'm usually don't do this so ignore how shitty this sounds. Thanks for the service, my back feels better today as well as other things...Call me when you get the chance, I'll show you around Tokyo sometime. xxx-xxx-xxxx B.K.'
Feeling sore, you roll over at the irony and make a mental note to text him later. Closing your eyes as another wave of tiredness comes over you, the thought of being official with a pro-hero crossed your mind, your heart skipping a beat. Maybe there are more happy endings to come. You giggled softly at your own joke before falling into a deep sleep.
#my hero academia#mha#boku no hero academia#bnha#mha x reader#bnha x reader#mha x reader lemon#bnha x reader lemon#bakugo x reader#bakugo x reader lemon#bakugou x reader#bakugou x reader lemon#katsuki bakugou x reader#bakugou smut#bakugo katsuki#bakugou katsuki#katsuki bakugo x reader#mha lemon#bnha lemon#mha imagines#bnha imagines
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