The only gas station in town is the one on the very edge. It sells a little bit of everything. From energy drinks, to warmed up taquitos, to bags of ice, to live bait– anything you need in a hurry, you can find there.
That’s why Tucker can be found there most mornings buying a breakfast sandwich wrapped in foil– one that will no doubt leave the first grease stain of the day on his pants– a pack of gum, and a small bag containing three strips of bacon for Socket. (The peppered kind. She’s picky.)
The gas station always smells like old coffee, half stale pastries and bleach from someone scrubbing the floors at 5 AM. Ms. Mabel, who was working here before Tucker was even tall enough to see over the counter, is in her usual spot at the register when he puts his stuff down.
“Rough night?” Mabel asks, clearly noticing the dark circles under Tucker’s eyes. He’d spent all night staring at a crack in the ceiling above his bed, thinking about the way she smiled at him.
“Rough life.” He mutters back.
“I hear ya on that one,” Mabel agrees, the same mindless, polite conversation they have in different fonts each morning.
He’s reaching into the back pocket of his coveralls for his wallet when he hears it. An engine. The low, familiar rumble of a red truck that’s seen better days pulling up to the pump right outside the window.
“You gonna pay for those or just stand there and stare?” Mabel gently clears her throat, not even bothering to hide the knowing grin on her face.
Tucker blinks, glancing back down at his wallet. He pulls out a few bills and slaps them on the counter.
“This will cover mine… and her pump,” He gestures outside towards the truck. “And whatever else she wants. Hold onto these for me, will ya?” He asks, shoving his sandwich and the bacon towards her. He doesn’t give her the chance to argue because he’s already heading outside.
By the time he reaches the pump she’s just getting out of her truck– her hair is messy, wearing a cardigan over a t-shirt that says something about books, looking at him like she might still be in bed dreaming.
“Are you following me?” She asks, folding her arms across her chest.
“I am not following you,” He quips back, placing a hand over his heart to feign heartache at the accusation.
“You’re at my gas station.”
“Your gas station? I get gas here everyday. This is my gas station.” He scoffs, dropping his hand to reach out and grab the nozzle from the pump.
She blinks. “No it’s not.”
“I’ve been coming here since I was twelve. I have a relationship with Mabel.” He argues while popping open her gas cap.
“You have a relationship with Mabel?” She raises her eyebrows at him.
“You know what I mean. She knows my order.” He rolls his eyes, placing the nozzle in her truck with a squeeze of his fingers.
“I can pump my own gas.”
“I know,” He doesn’t stop. “That doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it.”
She wants to argue. Wants to bump him off to the side and take the nozzle herself just to prove a point. But he’s leaning against her fender now with one hand in his pocket, the other one stretched out on the bedside panel, looking like he has all of the time in the world and nowhere better to be.
He finishes pumping, pops the cap back on the tank and closes the latch and puts the nozzle away, but he doesn’t walk away. He just stands there, both hands in his pockets now, watching the way the sunlight hits her freckles.
“You eat breakfast yet?” He asks.
“I was gonna–” She glances over at the gas station’s glass doors.
She blinks at him again, like he’d spoken a foreign language. “You didn’t have to.”
“I know.” He shrugs, already turning towards the doors but keeping his eyes on her.
“Tucker.”
“Sunshine,” He mocks. “Just let me do somethin’ nice, alright?”
“Tucker…” She repeats.
He finally turns back around, calling out her real name this time. Maybe so she’ll take him seriously. Maybe just to remind her that he still knows it.
“Thank you.” She calls back, quiet and genuine.
He just nods, ducking back into the gas station to grab his stuff. Mabel is still behind the counter, still looking at him with those eyes that are begging for details.
“Who was that?” She asks as she passes him the grease soaked bag and foil wrapped sandwich.
“Nobody.” He answers dryly as he grabs them from her and heads back for the door.
“That wasn’t nobody.”
“Nobody that's any of your business, Mabel. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He salutes her with the hand holding his pack of gum.
The Bench
It’s around 8:15 when the Bronco finally rolls up and comes to a stop outside of the shop. Tucker reaches over and pushes the passenger side door open from the inside to let Socket out. (It doesn’t open from the outside. He’ll fix it… eventually.)
The old timers have already taken their unofficial assigned seats on the bench. The one they’ve been sitting on so long the wood has slowly molded to fit their asses. There’s Mr. Miller from the hardware store, who’s been retired for as long as anyone can remember but still shows up to move stuff from shelf to shelf. Red, who earned his nickname back before he lost all of his hair. The name stuck anyways.
And in between the both of them is Tucker’s dad, Rusty, with a thermos tucked in one hand that he’s been hauling around since he carried it under one arm and Tucker under the other.
“You’re late.” His dad points out.
“It’s my shop. It opens when I get here.” Tucker gruffs back as he searches through his keys.
“You’re late.” His dad repeats. Tucker is never late. He lives behind the shop. He has no reason to be.
“Yeah, yeah Pops. I heard you.” Tucker answers, clearly ignoring the question in his dads voice as he pushes his way into the office door.
His mind is still somewhere else. It’s still at the gas station, thinking about the way her ears turned red when he called her sunshine. How her cheeks turned when when he called her by her real name.
By the time Tucker flicks on the ancient coffee pot, turns on all of the lights and compressors, and lifts the bay doors he’s whistling without even realizing it. A tune he’s got stuck in his head.
“Is there a damn bird out here?” Red asks, glancing up at the awning above their head.
“That ain’t no damn bird, you old bastard. That’s the boy. I think he’s whistling a song.” Miller grunts in response, lifting his paper coffee cup to his lips.
“Whistling? Yeah, right. He don’t know how to.” Red ponders with a grumble of his own.
“Huh,” Is all Rusty mutters. The one sound saying everything he’s thinking. I forgot he could still do that.
“Never heard that boy whistle a day in his life.” Miller adds.
“Maybe he’s sick.”
“Maybe he’s happy.”
“I can hear you, you know?” Tucker speaks up, sliding out from where he’s just been under a mini van with a bad belt. “And I’m not happy. I’m just—“
“Whistlin’,” His dad finishes for him.
“I whistle, I’m allowed to whistle.” He argues with a scoff. The word ‘whistle’ is being said so much it doesn’t even feel like a real word anymore.
“You hum. There’s a difference.” There’s a smile on Rusty’s face now, one that tells Tucker his dad is about to be insufferable about this.
There’s a moment of silence between the four of them. The radio plays. Socket snores, Tucker wipes his forehead with the rag from his back pocket.
“It’s just a song.”
“Oh I know what song it is. You Are My Sunshine.” Tucker freezes at his dads words, like even he hadn’t realized what tune it was until it was pointed out.
“That’s a love song, ain’t it?” Miller asks with newfound interest, leaning forward in his seat. “Who is she?”
“Nobody.” Tucker answers too fast. “And it’s a lullaby, not a love song.”
“Oh it’s somebody.” Rusty laughs back, but doesn’t push any further than that. He knows his son is selective on his best day.
“Don’t y’all have something better to do than be botherin’ me?” Tucker grumbles as he slides back under the van.
“Nope.” Miller sighs and leans back in his seat to get comfortable.
could you write something where reader and tucker are dating and they wake up in the middle of the night because tucker has a bad low(i’m sure yk he’s diabetic)?? ty!!
Low
(Here's what I came up with for your request, I hope you enjoy!)
What first woke her up was an incessant buzzing.
Not her phone. Her screen is pitch black. Not his either. He'd silenced it hours ago with a grumbled, “Son of a bitch,” after the third time his dexcom alerted him of a false low. That tends to happen when the sensor is worn out and he lays on his arm for too long.
She blinks awake slowly, feeling disoriented momentarily in the curtain drawn darkness of their hotel room. Outside, whatever city they’re staying in is still alive with early morning life, but in here everything is still.
Too still.
The buzzing stops… and then starts again.
Tucker is curled against her side, but something is off. He’s too still, too quiet. She feels his skin when she reaches across his clammy shoulder to grab the buzzing device. It’s his receiver– the screen lights up in her hand and her stomach drops.
52 mg/dL ↓↓
URGENT LOW
Below it, a graph with a terrifyingly sharp line pointing straight down.
“Tucker.” She shakes his shoulder gently and gets no response, just a long shallow breath that doesn’t sound right.
“Tucker, baby, wake up.” She’s louder this time, more insistent. She sits up, fumbling around until she finds the switch to the lamp on the nightstand.The light clicks on, flooding the room with a harsh, too yellow light she has to blink against.
He’s still curled on his side with his face half buried in the pillow, but his lips are pale. There’s a sheen of sweat glistening across his forehead despite the air in the room being set on low. His hands– the ones that he wrapped around her so gently as they fell asleep– were now tucked into himself and trembling against the sheets.
She reaches out and gives his shoulder a squeeze.
“Tucker.”
This time she gets him to stir. He makes a small, confused sound, but doesn’t open his eyes.
“Hey.” She keeps her voice calm and measured, the way she’d learned to do over the years– from every close call that would’ve only been made worse by panic. That doesn’t stop the hammering in her chest though. “I need you to wake up for me, okay?”
“Open your eyes for me, yeah?”
His brow furrows, creating a little crease between his eyebrows. The same one that she’d kiss away when he was stressed, but this isn’t stress. It’s struggle.
His eyelids flutter twice before they finally, finally open.
His eyes are glassy and unfocused. His pupils blown wide as he looks up at her with a thousand yard stare— like he couldn’t recognize the stranger looming over him in the dark, and that scares her more than anything else.
Her heart cracks, just a little.
“Hey,” She murmurs softly, her hand sliding up to cup his cheek. “There you are.”
“Wha—“ His words are thick around the edges, like his tongue won’t cooperate with his mouth. “What’s…”
“You’re low, baby.” She answers, her fingers trailing even further up to brush his sweaty hair back off of his forehead. “Really low. I need you to sit up. I’m gonna help you. Can you do that?”
He stares at her for a moment too long. Too long for her to be comfortable with— like it’s taking time for her words to fully process. Then he nods, or tries to as his head lulls slightly to the side.
“I’m gonna help you.” She repeats as she wraps her arms around his middle, resting his arms over her shoulders. “Just hold on to me.” She instructs, using every ounce of strength and adrenaline in her body to push his lanky frame up against the headboard.
He doesn’t hold on. Instead he clings and shivers.
He’s heavier than usual, his dead weight and muscles refusing to cooperate certainly don’t help, but she manages. She catches his chin when it falls forward, tipping his head back before it can touch his chest.
With her free hand she reaches for his bag. The one that is never too far away. It’s a leather satchel resting on the nightstand stocked with everything he might need in a moment like this— meter, test strips, lancet, glucose gel.
“I need to check your sugar, okay?” She murmurs while pulling out what she needs. “The old school way. I’m gonna poke your finger.”
He blinks at her and swallows hard. “‘Kay,” he breathes.
His hand is still shaking when she grabs it. Her own are steady because they have to be.
She pricks his finger, squeezing until there’s a tiny bead of blood that she presses the strip against. The meter counts down from three.
Two.
One.
47 mg/dL
That’s even lower than the alert said. He’s dropping fast.
“Okay, okay okay…” She says to herself more than him, before recentering. “We need to get some sugar in you. Now.”
She reaches back into the bag and pulls out a tube of glucose gel. It’s his least favorite method of getting his sugar back up, but right now they don’t really have a choice. She rips open the end of it with her teeth and holds it up to his lips.
Just as she expected he grunts, clamping his lips shut and trying to turn his head away. His sugar starved brain is fighting against him.
“No, ‘s gross.” He mutters stubbornly. He acts like the artificial sweetness even touching his tongue is torture.
“I don’t care if it’s gross. You’re gonna take it anyways.” She mumbles back, matching his energy as she squirts a bit of the gel on her finger and promptly sticks it in his mouth, rubbing it against his gums and clenched teeth.
She pulls her finger out of his lips and uses her hand to cup under his chin, double tasking as the other hand reaches for one of the juice boxes on the nightstand. Apple— the kind with the bendy straw, which is his favorite. She peels the plastic from the straw and stabs it through the foil.
Holding it up to his lips she murmurs again, “Drink. It’ll help with the taste.” She helps him lift his arm and presses the juice box into his hand.
“All of it, baby. Drink the whole thing.” She encourages, her fingers linked tightly around his still trembling ones. He takes a sip. And then another. Slow, too slow at first until the sugar slowly hits his system and his body realizes what it’s been missing.
He obeys, his throat moving with each swallow, and she watches closely for any sign that he’s coming back to her. The glassiness in his eyes is starting to clear up, and he’s shaking but holding the juice box on his own. All good signs.
When the color starts to creep back into his cheeks she feels something in her chest unclench.
“There you go, that’s it.” She breathes and takes the empty juice box from his hands. “You’re doing good.”
She reaches over to the nightstand and checks his receiver.
82 mg/dL ↑
Better. Not safe yet, but much better. The number on his receiver slowly continues to climb.
The next ten minutes are a familiar ritual for both of them. Although uncommon— Tucker’s tech is normally more reliant when it’s used properly— it does happen.
She makes him drink another juice box and eat a few fruit snacks that she forces into his hand despite him insisting that he’s not hungry.
She’d moved to sit beside him against the headboard, watching as the tension slowly bleeds out of his shoulders, and his hand (now warm), finds hers under the covers.
“Sorry,” He mumbles, his voice sounding wrecked. “I slept through it.”
“Don’t apologize,” She replies with a shake of her head, using her hand to lean his head until it’s resting on her shoulder.
“I scared you.”
“I’d rather wake up scared a million times than sleep through something happening to you.” She murmurs and presses her lips to his temple.
“How bad?” He asks, already cringing before she answers.
“54… straight down.”
“Fuck… I hate that you have to do this.” He admits in a soft breath, one that’s filled with a mix of guilt and embarrassment that she has become used to. “Take care of me like this.” He elaborates with a huff.
She turns and cups his cheeks between her hands, studying his expression. There’s something soft, tired and a little bit broken in his eyes. Her thumbs brush over his cheekbones, wiping away the last of the sweat that’s there.
“Tucker Pillsbury,” She tells him, making sure he’s looking her in the eyes. “I’ll wake up at four AM and force feed you apple juice and fruit snacks as many times as you need me to. Okay?”
“Okay,”
“Just rest until we have to check you again,” She says, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.
“Okay.”
He hesitates just a moment before falling back asleep, long enough to lift his hand up to her face. His fingers caress her cheek as he tilts his chin up and catches her lips in a kiss that tastes of apple juice and glucose gel.
“I love you.” He mumbles, tired but fierce.
“I know. I love you too.”
She reaches over and flicks the lamp back off, keeping his receiver close while tucking the blankets up around them both. She probably won’t get any more sleep tonight. But he’s here. He’s safe, and that’s all that matters.
The only gas station in town is the one on the very edge. It sells a little bit of everything. From energy drinks, to warmed up taquitos, to bags of ice, to live bait– anything you need in a hurry, you can find there.
That’s why Tucker can be found there most mornings buying a breakfast sandwich wrapped in foil– one that will no doubt leave the first grease stain of the day on his pants– a pack of gum, and a small bag containing three strips of bacon for Socket. (The peppered kind. She’s picky.)
The gas station always smells like old coffee, half stale pastries and bleach from someone scrubbing the floors at 5 AM. Ms. Mabel, who was working here before Tucker was even tall enough to see over the counter, is in her usual spot at the register when he puts his stuff down.
“Rough night?” Mabel asks, clearly noticing the dark circles under Tucker’s eyes. He’d spent all night staring at a crack in the ceiling above his bed, thinking about the way she smiled at him.
“Rough life.” He mutters back.
“I hear ya on that one,” Mabel agrees, the same mindless, polite conversation they have in different fonts each morning.
He’s reaching into the back pocket of his coveralls for his wallet when he hears it. An engine. The low, familiar rumble of a red truck that’s seen better days pulling up to the pump right outside the window.
“You gonna pay for those or just stand there and stare?” Mabel gently clears her throat, not even bothering to hide the knowing grin on her face.
Tucker blinks, glancing back down at his wallet. He pulls out a few bills and slaps them on the counter.
“This will cover mine… and her pump,” He gestures outside towards the truck. “And whatever else she wants. Hold onto these for me, will ya?” He asks, shoving his sandwich and the bacon towards her. He doesn’t give her the chance to argue because he’s already heading outside.
By the time he reaches the pump she’s just getting out of her truck– her hair is messy, wearing a cardigan over a t-shirt that says something about books, looking at him like she might still be in bed dreaming.
“Are you following me?” She asks, folding her arms across her chest.
“I am not following you,” He quips back, placing a hand over his heart to feign heartache at the accusation.
“You’re at my gas station.”
“Your gas station? I get gas here everyday. This is my gas station.” He scoffs, dropping his hand to reach out and grab the nozzle from the pump.
She blinks. “No it’s not.”
“I’ve been coming here since I was twelve. I have a relationship with Mabel.” He argues while popping open her gas cap.
“You have a relationship with Mabel?” She raises her eyebrows at him.
“You know what I mean. She knows my order.” He rolls his eyes, placing the nozzle in her truck with a squeeze of his fingers.
“I can pump my own gas.”
“I know,” He doesn’t stop. “That doesn’t mean you have to keep doing it.”
She wants to argue. Wants to bump him off to the side and take the nozzle herself just to prove a point. But he’s leaning against her fender now with one hand in his pocket, the other one stretched out on the bedside panel, looking like he has all of the time in the world and nowhere better to be.
He finishes pumping, pops the cap back on the tank and closes the latch and puts the nozzle away, but he doesn’t walk away. He just stands there, both hands in his pockets now, watching the way the sunlight hits her freckles.
“You eat breakfast yet?” He asks.
“I was gonna–” She glances over at the gas station’s glass doors.
She blinks at him again, like he’d spoken a foreign language. “You didn’t have to.”
“I know.” He shrugs, already turning towards the doors but keeping his eyes on her.
“Tucker.”
“Sunshine,” He mocks. “Just let me do somethin’ nice, alright?”
“Tucker…” She repeats.
He finally turns back around, calling out her real name this time. Maybe so she’ll take him seriously. Maybe just to remind her that he still knows it.
“Thank you.” She calls back, quiet and genuine.
He just nods, ducking back into the gas station to grab his stuff. Mabel is still behind the counter, still looking at him with those eyes that are begging for details.
“Who was that?” She asks as she passes him the grease soaked bag and foil wrapped sandwich.
“Nobody.” He answers dryly as he grabs them from her and heads back for the door.
“That wasn’t nobody.”
“Nobody that's any of your business, Mabel. I’ll see you tomorrow.” He salutes her with the hand holding his pack of gum.
The Bench
It’s around 8:15 when the Bronco finally rolls up and comes to a stop outside of the shop. Tucker reaches over and pushes the passenger side door open from the inside to let Socket out. (It doesn’t open from the outside. He’ll fix it… eventually.)
The old timers have already taken their unofficial assigned seats on the bench. The one they’ve been sitting on so long the wood has slowly molded to fit their asses. There’s Mr. Miller from the hardware store, who’s been retired for as long as anyone can remember but still shows up to move stuff from shelf to shelf. Red, who earned his nickname back before he lost all of his hair. The name stuck anyways.
And in between the both of them is Tucker’s dad, Rusty, with a thermos tucked in one hand that he’s been hauling around since he carried it under one arm and Tucker under the other.
“You’re late.” His dad points out.
“It’s my shop. It opens when I get here.” Tucker gruffs back as he searches through his keys.
“You’re late.” His dad repeats. Tucker is never late. He lives behind the shop. He has no reason to be.
“Yeah, yeah Pops. I heard you.” Tucker answers, clearly ignoring the question in his dads voice as he pushes his way into the office door.
His mind is still somewhere else. It’s still at the gas station, thinking about the way her ears turned red when he called her sunshine. How her cheeks turned when when he called her by her real name.
By the time Tucker flicks on the ancient coffee pot, turns on all of the lights and compressors, and lifts the bay doors he’s whistling without even realizing it. A tune he’s got stuck in his head.
“Is there a damn bird out here?” Red asks, glancing up at the awning above their head.
“That ain’t no damn bird, you old bastard. That’s the boy. I think he’s whistling a song.” Miller grunts in response, lifting his paper coffee cup to his lips.
“Whistling? Yeah, right. He don’t know how to.” Red ponders with a grumble of his own.
“Huh,” Is all Rusty mutters. The one sound saying everything he’s thinking. I forgot he could still do that.
“Never heard that boy whistle a day in his life.” Miller adds.
“Maybe he’s sick.”
“Maybe he’s happy.”
“I can hear you, you know?” Tucker speaks up, sliding out from where he’s just been under a mini van with a bad belt. “And I’m not happy. I’m just—“
“Whistlin’,” His dad finishes for him.
“I whistle, I’m allowed to whistle.” He argues with a scoff. The word ‘whistle’ is being said so much it doesn’t even feel like a real word anymore.
“You hum. There’s a difference.” There’s a smile on Rusty’s face now, one that tells Tucker his dad is about to be insufferable about this.
There’s a moment of silence between the four of them. The radio plays. Socket snores, Tucker wipes his forehead with the rag from his back pocket.
“It’s just a song.”
“Oh I know what song it is. You Are My Sunshine.” Tucker freezes at his dads words, like even he hadn’t realized what tune it was until it was pointed out.
“That’s a love song, ain’t it?” Miller asks with newfound interest, leaning forward in his seat. “Who is she?”
“Nobody.” Tucker answers too fast. “And it’s a lullaby, not a love song.”
“Oh it’s somebody.” Rusty laughs back, but doesn’t push any further than that. He knows his son is selective on his best day.
“Don’t y’all have something better to do than be botherin’ me?” Tucker grumbles as he slides back under the van.
“Nope.” Miller sighs and leans back in his seat to get comfortable.
desc - growing up, the one dream steve had in life was to have a wife and kids. then he got his heart broken by the only girl he'd ever loved. so fast forward to now, he was utterly hopeless. he no longer believed someone would come around and change his life. did he wish for it? absolutely. when he was out at bars drinking his life away did he sometimes picture being here with someone special? also yes. but, he realised life doesn't always work in his favour. until he met you, that is.
val speaks - AYYY new rm song yk what that means babies !!!!!! a fic loosely based on it! high hopes 3000 has been on absolute repeat and i have my cowboy boots on and everything. anyways i hope u enjoy this !!!!!
word count: 8.6k
steve harrington had spent so much of his life believing that wanting something badly enough would eventually make it real.
when he was younger, it had been easy to imagine the rest of his life as a neat little picture painted in soft colors and warm light.
a house with a porch and a little garden that never quite stayed tidy. a kitchen that always smelled like coffee in the morning and cookies in the afternoon. noisy children running through hallways with scraped knees and bright laughter. a wife who knew him so well she could tell what kind of day he’d had just by looking at him.
a life that felt full.
a life that felt loud in the best possible way.
a life that made the silence in his parents’ house seem like a distant, ugly dream instead of the thing he had grown up inside of.
his parents had always been there, technically. they had paid for the house, the clothes, the school, the kind of life that looked good from the outside if anyone ever bothered to glance their way. but steve had never really felt raised by them so much as maintained. like something expensive that had to be kept in decent condition.
he learned early how to be easy to love in theory and impossible to know in practice. he learned how to smile when people expected it, how to be charming when it suited him, how to become the version of himself that made other people comfortable before he even knew what made him comfortable at all.
so when nancy wheeler came into his life, it had felt like a door cracking open in a locked room.
he had been young, stupid, and desperately in love with the idea of being seen.
maybe that was what made it so dangerous.
maybe that was why he had let himself believe so completely in her, in them, in the future he started building in his head before he had any real proof that it could exist.
he loved her in the loud, awkward, aching way that only teenagers can.
with all the confidence of someone who had never actually been broken before and with all the hope of someone who thought love would fix the emptiness he'd carried around for years.
and for a little while, it had almost been enough.
he imagined her in every version of his future.
the woman beside him at the kitchen counter. the mother of his kids. the person who would finally make the house feel alive. he imagined growing old with her in a way that felt almost sacred, like love was something solid and permanent if you held it tightly enough.
but then the cracks came.
then the lies, the distance, the things unsaid and the things said too late, and suddenly the dream he had been holding in both hands split apart right in front of him.
nancy had broken his heart in a way he never really admitted to anyone, not even to himself, because naming the hurt would've made it real in a way he wasn’t sure he could survive.
so, he boxed it up instead.
shoved it in the back of his mind with all the other things he had never figured out how to say.
he finished high school. barely. he took a shitty job. he let his life narrow into a shape that was easier to manage than hope.
and when the years kept moving and nothing magical happened, steve started to wonder if the dream had died with nancy.
maybe that was what life had decided for him. maybe some people were built for grand love stories and some people were built to watch them from the outside. maybe he was the kind of man who got close to happiness only to be reminded that it was never really meant for him in the first place.
by twenty one, he had learned how to pretend he was fine with it.
he stopped sneaking drinks in sweaty basements and started buying them at bars where the lights were low and the music was loud enough to drown out thoughts if he let it. he bought clothes that fit properly, nice enough to make him look like a guy who had his life together even though he absolutely didn't. he moved out of his parents’ house and into a small apartment that was barely more than four walls and a handful of bad decisions, but it was his.
that mattered more than he liked to admit.
his own furniture, his own dishes, his own front door to close behind him at the end of the day. he should've felt proud of that, and sometimes he almost did.
mostly he felt lonely.
there were nights when he’d come home, keys in hand, shoulders sore from work, and stand in the doorway for a second too long just listening to the silence settle around him.
no television in the background. no soft laughter from another room. no smell of someone else’s shampoo in the bathroom.
just the hum of the fridge, the faint traffic outside and the weight of a life that was technically his and yet still somehow felt unfinished.
-
he still told himself things at bars, of course.
tonight’s the night.
i’m gonna meet someone tonight.
i’m gonna talk to someone tonight.
he said it with enough confidence that he even almost believed it, at least until the moment came and went and he was still alone with his drink, pretending not to notice the couples at the corners of the room. pretending not to notice the girl by the jukebox smiling at some guy who clearly knew exactly what to say. pretending not to notice that he'd become very good at standing in places where something could happen and then leaving before it did.
the worst part was that he wasn’t even sure he was doing anything wrong.
he was trying, he really was.
he was just trying in the way a man tries when he's already started to assume the universe isn't on his side.
that was what made the night you came into his life feel like a mistake at first.
not because you did anything wrong, because you didn’t.
you were just there.
standing in the doorway of a bar he had almost left ten minutes earlier, the cold of the outside air still clinging to your coat, your cheeks faintly pink from the wind.
you looked around like you were deciding whether the place was worth staying in, and for one impossible second steve had the absurd thought that he knew exactly how that felt.
you were carrying a bag over one shoulder and had a look of quiet determination that made you seem like the kind of person who didn’t waste time on things that weren’t worth the trouble.
he noticed that first.
then he noticed the way you tucked a strand of hair behind your ear when you scanned the room, the small crease between your brows when the music got too loud, the way your eyes softened when the bartender pointed you toward an open seat.
it was nothing.
it was everything.
it was the sort of ordinary moment that should have passed by without making any kind of impression and yet somehow lodged itself deep under steve’s ribs before he had even told himself to look away.
he did anyway.
or tried to.
you took the stool near the bar instead of one of the crowded tables, set your bag on the empty seat beside you, and ordered something with the kind of calm confidence steve had always secretly admired in people.
he couldn’t hear what you said over the music, but the bartender smiled like you were a regular, or maybe just the sort of person that was easy to like. you took off your coat. you glanced around again. and then, for the briefest second, your eyes landed on him.
steve froze.
not dramatically, not in a way anyone else would have noticed, just enough for his fingers to tighten around his glass and for some old, painfully familiar instinct to flare up inside him.
don’t get caught staring. don’t be obvious. don’t make it weird.
he’d spent enough of his life being the pretty guy at the center of attention to know exactly how dangerous it was to be seen looking like he wanted something.
but you didn’t look away immediately.
you held his gaze for a beat, maybe two, with a kind of unreadable calm that made his stomach twist in a way he absolutely didn't appreciate.
there was no smile. no flirtation. no embarrassment. just a moment of shared awareness, as if you had both quietly registered the other one and decided, for reasons not yet explained, that the moment meant something.
then you looked back down at your drink.
steve should've left it there.
he should've gone on with his night, maybe ordered another beer, maybe pretended the strange little jolt in his chest was nothing more than boredom.
instead, he found himself watching you again and again without meaning to.
not in a creepy way, he told himself. not like that. just… noticing.
noticing the way you spoke to the bartender with your head tilted slightly to the side, the way your expression changed when the song on the jukebox shifted into something older and sadder, the way you seemed both perfectly at ease and a little far away at the same time.
there was something about you that made him think of winter mornings, of warm light, of doors being opened to places he had never quite let himself hope existed.
which was ridiculous.
steve was not the kind of man who believed in signs. not anymore. not after everything.
but there was something almost insulting about how quickly his attention kept returning to you, as if his own mind had decided to betray him on the first night of a random week in a random bar with a random stranger who had absolutely no business looking that interesting.
you stayed in your seat for a while. long enough for steve to tell himself about six different times that he wasn’t going to say anything. long enough for the bartender to slide your drink across the counter and for you to thank them with a small smile. long enough for him to take one more sip and still not decide what to do with the weird, restless feeling building under his skin.
and then the universe, apparently, got bored of watching him suffer in silence.
because someone bumped into the table behind you, and your bag slipped off the seat with a quiet thud that made your head snap down at the exact same time steve moved to catch it before it hit the floor.
his hand got there first.
yours met his over the strap.
for a second, both of you just stared.
then you looked up at him with a kind of startled politeness that made his heart do something embarrassingly stupid.
close up, you were even prettier than he'd already decided, which felt unfair.
he saw the shape of your mouth when it parted slightly in surprise, the faint shimmer of your eyes under the low lights, the little breath you took like you had just been caught off guard by a very small, very human moment.
“sorry” you said, and your voice was softer than he expected.
“no, uh, it’s fine” steve said at the same time. “you good?”
you blinked once, then looked down at the bag in his hand before looking back at him. there was the smallest ghost of a smile at the corner of your mouth, like you found his question slightly ridiculous in a way that was not unkind.
“yeah,” you said. “i think so.”
he nodded like he hadn’t just lost every coherent thought in his brain.
“cool. great. good.”
you laughed then, quietly, and it was the kind of laugh that hit him somewhere deep and unexpected.
it made him smile before he could stop himself, and suddenly the whole thing felt less like fate and more like one accidental step in the wrong direction that somehow landed on the right path anyway.
“thanks” you said, taking the bag from him.
“yeah, no problem.”
you hesitated, one hand still resting lightly on the strap, and something in your expression shifted as if you were deciding whether or not to keep talking.
steve, who had spent years convincing himself he wasn’t the kind of man to hope too quickly, found himself hoping anyway.
“are you here alone?” you asked.
the question was simple. harmless, probably.
it still made his pulse jump.
“yeah,” he said, “i mean, not like- not because i’m weird or anything. just, you know. alone.”
your smile widened a little. “i didn’t say weird.”
“right. yeah. sorry.”
you turned slightly on the stool so you could face him more fully. it was such a small movement, but it changed the air between you. made it feel less like two people near each other by accident and more like something had quietly begun.
“i’m not judging,” you said. “i just noticed.”
“good to know.”
“are you always this charming, or am i just lucky tonight?”
there it was, the opening.
the small, shimmering crack in the wall he had spent years building round himself.
steve should've taken the easy route. should have flirted back the way he had with dozens of people before, should have made some smooth comment and followed it with that lazy smile he knew worked on most people.
instead, what came out was a little more honest than that.
“i’m usually better at it” he admitted.
you gave him a look that was equal parts amused and curious. “better at what?”
he shrugged, suddenly aware of how much he wanted this conversation to keep going. “talking to people.”
“that sounded suspiciously like a lie.” your laugh came again, and this time it was easier, warmer.
he leaned his elbow on the bar and glanced at your drink. “so what are you drinking?”
you told him.
he ordered you another one before you could object.
and when you opened your mouth to protest he raised a hand and said, “please let me have this. i almost died saving your bag.”
“you did not almost die.”
“emotionally, i did.”
that got another laugh out of you, and steve had the completely unreasonable urge to keep making you do that forever.
it scared him a little, how quickly his mind was leaping ahead, how easily some part of him had started imagining a future that hadn't yet earned the right to exist.
but maybe that was the thing about loneliness.
maybe it made even a brief kind smile feel like a promise.
you introduced yourself then, and when he repeated your name under his breath, he felt something shift in him that he didn't have words for.
maybe the first real crack in all that hopelessness he had worn like armour for years.
the bartender set your drink down between you and steve found himself watching your fingers wrap around the glass.
he tried not to stare. tried not to look too eager. tried not to let the night become more than it was. but you kept talking, and he kept answering, and somehow the hours began to peel away around you both like old paint.
you were funny in a dry, unexpected way that made him catch himself smiling when you were speaking.
you asked questions and actually waited for the answers. you didn’t seem impressed by his name, his looks, his usual empty bravado, and that in itself was almost enough to fascinate him completely.
there was no performance in the way you listened. no fake interest. just steady attention, as if he were a person first and a pretty face second, and steve was so unused to that he almost didn’t know what to do with it.
he found out where you worked. he found out you were new to town, which explained why he hadn’t seen you around before. he found out you hated tequila, preferred colder weather to hot, and had a habit of collecting old books from secondhand stores if the covers looked interesting enough.
he told you about the video store. he told you about robin, making you laugh when he described her as “the most annoying genius i’ve ever met.” he told you about family christmases that felt too large and too empty at the same time, about his apartment, about the long, stupid loneliness of adult life that no one warned you about when you were younger.
you listened to all of it without making him feel pathetic for saying it.
that alone should have been enough to make him fall for you a little.
it almost was.
by the time the bar started thinning out and the music changed to something slower, steve had stopped pretending this night was just another night.
he didn’t know what you were looking for. he didn’t know if you were waiting for someone, if you had come here on a whim, if you were the kind of person who flirted with strangers just because you liked the conversation. he didn’t know if there was any chance at all that what he was feeling was mutual.
but when you looked at him, really looked at him, something in your expression told him he was not imagining the way the air seemed to pull tight between you.
and that was terrifying.
because steve had built his life around surviving disappointment.
he knew how to laugh things off. knew how to make the joke first so nobody else could hurt him with it. knew how to leave before he got attached, how to keep things light, how to turn longing into something manageable.
but you were standing there with your hand around a half finished drink, looking at him like he might actually be worth staying for, and all his old defences started to feel flimsy in the face of something he hadn't let himself want in years.
a person.
a real one.
someone kind, someone warm, someone who might sit beside him on the couch in that tiny apartment and make the silence feel less enormous. someone who might laugh at his terrible jokes and know when he was pretending to be okay. someone who might touch his shoulder in passing and make him feel, for the first time in a very long while, like he wasn't built only for being left behind.
the thought hit him so hard it almost made him angry.
not at you, at himself.
at the stupid, aching hope that had survived in him even after he had spent years trying to kill it.
you were saying something then, something about the record store downtown, and he realized he had missed the first half because he had been too busy staring at the shape of your mouth when you spoke.
he cleared his throat, cursed himself silently, and said, “sorry, what was that?”
you tilted your head. “nothing important. just wondering if you were actually listening.”
“i was listening” he said, too quickly.
you looked at him for one long second, then smiled in a way that made him think you didn't entirely believe him but were willing to let it go for now.
“good,” you said. “because i asked if you’d ever been there.”
“the record store?”
“yeah.”
“uh,” steve said, suddenly scrambling for a memory. “probably. maybe. once?”
“that is the least convincing answer possible.”
“i’m aware.”
you laughed again, and he wondered, not for the first time that night, whether you knew what you were doing to him.
whether you could see the way he kept leaning a little closer when you spoke. whether you noticed how careful he was becoming with every word, as if something in him had started to believe that this mattered.
the thing was, it did.
he didn’t know it yet. not fully. not in the way that would eventually settle deep into his bones and refuse to leave. but something about you had already begun to move through him like the first warm air after a long winter.
and maybe, just maybe, that was how it happened.
maybe love arrived like this instead. in a crowded bar on an ordinary night. with a dropped bag and a crooked smile. with a stranger who didn’t feel like a stranger for long. with a man who had spent years convinced that nothing good was ever going to stay and a person who looked at him like staying might be the most natural thing in the world.
steve didn’t know your name was going to become the first thing he thought about in the morning.
didn’t know your laugh would start living in his head like a song he couldn’t turn off.
didn’t know that one day, when he was standing in his empty apartment again, he would remember the warmth of your hand over his and feel something in his chest answer back like it had been waiting all along.
all he knew was that the night was not over.
and for the first time in a very long time, that didn't feel like a threat.
-
it happened so gradually that neither of you really noticed it at first.
one phone call became two.
two became every other night.
every other night became every night.
and suddenly steve couldn't remember what his evenings had looked like before you.
he'd get home from work exhausted, smelling faintly like dust and videotapes and whatever cheap cologne he'd sprayed on that morning, toss his keys onto the counter, kick off his shoes, and before he'd even fully settled onto the couch the phone would ring.
or he'd call you first.
sometimes neither of you had anything particularly important to say.
those ended up being his favorite conversations.
you'd spend hours talking about absolutely nothing.
books you'd found. movies you'd watched. customers that had annoyed you. customers that had made you laugh. memories from childhood. stupid theories about life. things neither of you had ever told anyone else because they seemed too insignificant to matter.
except somehow they mattered now.
steve had never realized how much loneliness could sneak up on a person until it started disappearing.
for years he'd gotten used to silence. he'd gotten used to empty apartments and eating dinner alone and nobody asking how his day was. he'd convinced himself that was adulthood, that everyone eventually stopped expecting more.
but then there was you.
calling him because you'd found a book with a ridiculous title and needed someone to laugh about it with. calling him because you'd gotten lost on the way somewhere and somehow thought steve harrington was the best person to ask for directions. calling him because your shelf was crooked. calling him because you couldn't decide what to make for dinner. calling him because apparently he was now your designated emergency contact for every minor inconvenience in your life.
and god.
he loved it.
he absolutely loved it.
it became the highlight of his day.
there was something embarrassingly satisfying about hearing your voice say his name followed by some variation of, "i need your help."
sometimes he worried it made him sound pathetic.
robin certainly would've said it did.
but steve couldn't help it.
he liked being needed. liked knowing that when something happened, good or bad or completely insignificant, he was one of the people you thought to call.
one evening he'd spent nearly forty minutes helping you assemble a bookshelf over the phone.
forty minutes.
he hadn't even been there.
you'd read the instructions out loud while he attempted to make sense of them.
"okay," you'd said. "so i've got three wooden pieces left."
"how many are there supposed to be?"
"i don't know."
"what do you mean you don't know?"
"i threw the box away."
steve had nearly choked laughing. "you threw the instructions away?"
"they were confusing."
"the instructions are literally the most important part."
"well that's your opinion."
"that's everyone's opinion."
he could still remember sitting alone in his apartment, grinning like an idiot at nothing while listening to you argue with him.
it had hit him then that he hadn't felt lonely once during that entire conversation.
and maybe that shouldn't have felt so monumental. maybe normal people experienced that kind of comfort all the time.
but steve didn't, he never had.
which was probably why he found himself asking increasingly dangerous questions, questions he wasn't sure he wanted answers to.
does love come around or does one come around to it?
he thought about that a lot, late at night mostly.
when the apartment was dark. when your voice wasn't filling the silence. when he was lying awake staring at the ceiling.
because maybe people talked about love all wrong.
maybe it wasn't lightning, maybe it wasn't destiny, maybe it wasn't some magical thing that appeared out of nowhere and knocked you off your feet.
maybe it was this.
slowly finding yourself looking forward to someone's calls. memorising the sound of their laugh without meaning to. learning their coffee order. knowing exactly what kind of mood they were in from a simple hello.
maybe love wasn't something that arrived, maybe it was something you arrived at.
and god.
if that was true.
he thought he was getting dangerously close.
there were still bad nights, of course. steve wasn't suddenly fixed. you weren't some magical cure for years of disappointment and loneliness.
there were nights when he'd sit in the dark and all those old thoughts would creep back in.
nights when he'd remember every failed date, every conversation that went nowhere, every person who'd eventually left.
there were nights when he'd think maybe he was being stupid again. maybe he was building castles out of nothing. maybe he was setting himself up for another heartbreak before anything had even started.
because really, what was this?
you weren't dating, you hadn't talked about feelings, you hadn't kissed.
hell, you hadn't even properly gone out together.
you were friends, just friends. very good friends. friends who talked every single day. friends who occasionally flirted. friends who somehow knew more about each other than people who'd been together for years.
friends.
right.
and then the next day he'd get home from work, the phone would ring, you'd tell him about some weird book you'd found or ask him for help choosing paint colors or call because you'd burned dinner and wanted sympathy.
and suddenly everything would feel okay again.
you had this strange ability to make life seem manageable.
like maybe it wasn't always working against him. like maybe happiness wasn't some exclusive club he'd never been invited into.
sometimes steve would catch himself smiling in public because he'd remembered something you'd said three days ago. sometimes he'd laugh to himself while stocking shelves because he'd thought of a joke you'd appreciate. sometimes robin would stare at him from across the store and look genuinely concerned.
"you're smiling again."
steve looked up.
"what?"
"that weird smile."
"i don't have a weird smile"
robin narrowed her eyes.
"did she call?"
steve immediately looked away which answered the question.
robin groaned.
"oh my god."
"what?"
"you are so gone."
"i am not."
"steve."
"i'm not."
"you literally just smiled at a copy of ghostbusters."
"it's a good movie."
she'd laughed so hard she'd nearly fallen over.
the problem wasn't that steve liked you, he'd accepted that part, the problem was what came next.
asking you out.
every time he considered it, he immediately talked himself out of it.
what if he made things weird? what if you'd only ever seen him as a friend? what if he ruined everything? what if he finally got lucky enough to have you in his life and then managed to lose you all by himself?
that possibility terrified him more than rejection ever could.
because right now?
he had you, maybe not exactly the way he wanted, but he had you.
he was the first person you called when something happened. the person you trusted. the person you reached for.
and selfishly, desperately, he wasn't sure he could risk that.
not yet.
so for now he settled for smaller victories.
baby steps.
movement.
he started calling first sometimes which had taken an embarrassing amount of courage.
the first time he'd done it he'd spent nearly five minutes staring at your number.
just staring.
before finally dialing.
you'd answered on the second ring.
"hello?"
and immediately every thought had vanished from his head.
"uh."
smooth, very smooth.
"steve?"
"yeah."
a pause.
then a smile in your voice.
"did you call me?"
he'd felt ridiculous. "yeah."
"everything okay?"
"yeah."
"then why are you calling?"
steve had opened and closed his mouth.
because honestly?
he hadn't had a reason, he'd just wanted to hear your voice. which sounded far too pathetic to say out loud so he'd settled on the truth adjacent version.
"i saw something funny and thought you'd laugh."
your silence lasted half a second.
then came the softest, warmest laugh.
"okay."
and somehow that had been enough.
because you hadn't questioned it, hadn't made fun of him, hadn't treated it like it was strange, you'd just stayed on the phone with him for three hours.
three whole hours.
and afterward steve had sat alone on his couch staring at the wall with the stupidest smile imaginable.
because for the first time in years, maybe ever, something in his life felt like it was moving forward.
and maybe he still didn't know how to ask you out. maybe his heart still jumped every time you laughed. maybe he still spent half his time wondering whether he was imagining the occasional flirtation between you. maybe he was still scared.
but for once the fear wasn't winning, for once hope was.
and steve had spent so many years without hope that even the smallest amount felt revolutionary.
especially when it sounded so much like your voice on the other end of the phone.
-
the first time you met steve in person outside of the bar, it was supposed to be simple. that was the lie you both told yourselves.
nothing about the two of you ever stayed simple for long.
at first it was little things, the kind that looked harmless from the outside.
he started showing up where you were with the kind of frequency that was easy to excuse. with coffee, a ride, a book he thought you’d like, a spare key he claimed he was only giving you in case of emergencies.
and then one day you went grocery shopping together, because steve had complained loudly and dramatically enough about needing to do it that you offered to come along just to keep him from whining the entire time. he accepted too quickly, which should.ve been a warning.
it was, in retrospect, one of the strangest and most perfect afternoons of his life.
the store should have been boring.
fluorescent lights, crowded aisles, a list tucked into his pocket, the usual dull tasks of adulthood that most people tolerated and nobody romanticized.
but with you beside him, it became something else entirely. you walked too close when the aisle got narrow, bumped your shoulder into his when you thought he was being too serious about brands of cereal, and laughed at him when he stared at the produce like he was personally offended by every lemon in the bin.
“why are you holding the avocado like that?” you asked.
steve glanced down. “like what?”
“like it might bite you.”
“i don’t trust it.”
you laughed so hard you had to stop walking, and he stared at you for a second too long before turning away with a grin he couldn’t hide if he tried. he hated how easy it was for you to turn a stupid errand into a memory. hated it because he loved it too much.
by the time you reached the cereal aisle, he’d already forgotten half the list. by the time you were arguing over which pasta sauce looked less depressing, he’d stopped caring about the list altogether and started caring about the way you leaned your hip against the cart like you belonged there. like you belonged beside him. like it was the most natural thing in the world.
and maybe that was the problem.
because the more time he spent with you, the more his brain betrayed him.
he stopped doing this years ago. stopped imagining girls in his future. stopped picturing dinners and holidays and apartment keys left in a bowl by the door and someone’s laugh spilling out of the bathroom while they got ready for work.
after nancy, he made a quiet little burial ground out of all those thoughts and called it moving on. he convinced himself it was easier not to hope, easier not to attach pictures to people, easier not to let his head wander into places that only ever hurt him.
but with you, the pictures came anyway.
one second you were holding a box of mismatched screws and telling him the instructions made no sense, and the next his mind had already placed you like that permanently. but instead, in his kitchen, years later, barefoot and annoyed and laughing as he tried to assemble something unnecessarily complicated.
it was so vivid it almost made him dizzy.
the first time you came over to his apartment, you took one look around and made a face.
“wow,” you said, setting your bag down. “this place needs help.”
steve blinked. “hello to you too.”
you looked around slowly, taking in the couch, the shelves, the sad little lamp in the corner, the blank walls.
“no, seriously. this place needs help.”
he crossed his arms. “i didn’t invite you here to insult my home.”
“good,” you said. “because i’m not insulting it. i’m saving it.”
“from what?”
“from looking like a single man with unresolved issues lives here.”
he stared at you. “i am a single man with unresolved issues.”
“right.”
he laughed despite himself, already shaking his head, and before he knew it you were opening cabinet doors, asking where the spare nails were, and telling him he needed better curtains.
he should have been offended. instead, he watched you pace around his apartment like you had an opinion about every corner of it and found himself impossibly, stupidly charmed.
and then you started helping.
really helping.
not the fake sort of help people offered when they wanted to feel useful. actual help. sleeves pushed up, hair tucked back, concentration pinching your brow as you tried to figure out what could go where.
you grunted when a piece of furniture refused to cooperate. you muttered under your breath when a screw dropped under the couch. you asked him for a hand without hesitation, like it was the easiest thing in the world to include him in what you were doing.
that part got him every time.
he would have carried boxes for you across town, fixed anything in your apartment, driven across state lines if you’d asked him with that same open trust in your voice. it felt good. better than good, it felt like purpose.
and the terrible thing was that you seemed to know that.
not in a manipulative way, never that, just in the way you noticed things.
in the way you handed him one end of a shelf and smiled like you were quietly offering him something he didn’t know he’d been missing.
the day stretched long and easy between the two of you.
music played low in the background. a chair got moved three times before you both agreed it looked best by the window. he found an old photograph tucked behind a drawer and made fun of himself for it. you laughed. he made you lunch in the middle of the chaos, and you told him his cooking was surprisingly good, which made his chest feel strange in the best way.
by evening, his apartment looked less empty, warmer somehow. not because of the rearrange, though that helped. because of you moving through the rooms like you belonged there.
that was the part that haunted him afterward.
the fact that you made his place feel lived in.
like a home could be made out of ordinary things if the right person was standing beside him.
and then there were the little surprises.
he’d complain offhandedly about something, barely thinking it mattered, and you would show up later with the exact thing he’d mentioned.
a rug, because he’d laughed once and said the one in his living room had a stain on it that probably counted as a permanent resident. you arrived at his door with a rolled-up rug tucked awkwardly under your arm, nearly toppled by the sheer inconvenience of carrying it, and he had to physically catch the thing before it knocked into both of you.
“are you trying to injure yourself on my behalf?” he’d asked, laughing as he helped you lower it to the ground.
you huffed. “it was on sale.”
“you bought me a rug because it was on sale?”
“because you needed a rug.”
“i didn't need a rug that badly.”
“steve, your old one looked like it had survived a war.”
he stared at you, then down at the rug, then back at you. “you spent money on this?”
you lifted your chin, unapologetic. “yes.”
“you didn’t have to do that.”
“i wanted to.”
that was worse. that was always worse.
because steve could handle kindness from strangers. he could even handle affection from people who liked giving it freely. what he didn’t know how to handle was the kind that felt thoughtful. the kind that remembered offhand comments and turned them into actions. the kind that said i listen to you, i notice you, i want your life to be a little better just because i’m in it.
it made his throat tight.
it made his heart feel too big for his ribs.
it made him think, more than once, that he was going to ruin this if he wasn’t careful.
so he kept trying to be careful.
he kept meeting you halfway, kept letting things unfold one small piece at a time, kept pretending he wasn’t completely undone by the way your smile changed when he opened the door.
he kept telling himself he wasn’t ready to ask you out, that the timing had to be right, that he couldn’t risk messing up something this good, that friendship was still better than nothing.
that he should be grateful for what he had.
and then one day, after a hard shift that left him sore and irritated and closer to snapping at a customer than he liked to admit, he came home and found your name on his answering machine.
he stood in the doorway for a second, key still in hand, just listening.
“hey, steve. it’s me. i figured i’d call and see if you were alive. if you are, call me back. if you’re not, haunt someone else. okay, bye.”
his chest ached.
he called you back before he could talk himself out of it.
you answered on the first ring this time.
“hey.”
and there it was again, that impossible steadiness in your voice. not pity. not obligation. just you.
“hey,” he said, sinking onto the couch. “you called just to check if i was dead?”
“mostly.”
he laughed, long and tired and real. “that’s kind of sweet.”
“don’t tell anyone. i have a reputation to maintain.”
he smiled at the wall, at the ceiling, at the empty room around him that no longer felt quite so empty when you were on the other end of the line. “you busy?”
“not really.”
“good.”
“good?”
“yeah,” he said, then exhaled and let himself be honest. “i kind of wanted to hear your voice.”
there was a pause.
then your voice came back even gentler. “you can always call.”
it was such a simple thing to say which was probably why it wrecked him.
you had no idea what it did to him when you said things like that. how much hope could fit inside a single sentence. how easily you could make a hard day feel survivable. how every tiny kindness from you seemed to settle into his chest and stay there.
a few nights later, you showed up at his apartment in pajamas with a paper bag in one hand and a small smile on your face.
he opened the door, looked you up and down, and frowned. “are you okay?”
you shrugged one shoulder. “you sounded bad.”
he stared at you. “i sounded bad over the phone and you decided to come over in pajamas.”
“yes.”
“with food?”
“obviously.” you walked past him and into the apartment like it was the most normal thing in the world. “you were having a rough night, and i thought you could use company.”
steve shut the door slowly behind you, heart in his throat, and for a second he couldn’t move. couldn’t think. couldn’t do anything but watch you pull takeout containers from the bag and set them on his coffee table like you belonged there, too.
“you do this on purpose” he said quietly.
you glanced up. “do what?”
“show up and act like you know exactly what i need.”
your expression shifted, just slightly. softer now. “maybe i do.”
he looked at you, really looked at you, and something in him finally cracked clean through.
because this wasn’t luck.
this was you.
showing up. staying. making him feel chosen in ways he’d never been chosen before.
and after enough days and nights of that, enough accidental dates disguised as errands and drive thrus and shared meals, enough of you reaching for him without fear and enough of him falling a little harder every single time, steve finally thought fuck it.
if he waited any longer, he was going to explode.
so he asked you out in the front seat of his car with takeout balanced between you, the engine off, the night quiet around both of you.
he had rehearsed it three different ways and forgotten all of them the second he looked at your face.
you noticed him staring. “what?”
he swallowed.
“i need to ask you something.”
you went still.
he almost panicked.
“okay” you said slowly, but you were smiling a little now, like you already knew where this was going and were trying not to scare him.
steve dragged a hand over his mouth, then let it fall to his lap. “i know this is probably going to come out badly, but i, uh..” he laughed once under his breath, nervous and disbelieving that he was really doing this. “do you want to go on an actual date with me?”
your eyes widened.
for one horrifying second he thought he’d ruined everything.
then you smiled, really smiled. the kind that made the whole world narrow down to just your face in the dim car light.
“yes” you said.
steve blinked. “yes?”
“yes.”
he let out a breath he felt like he’d been holding for years. then another. then he laughed, helpless and stunned, and had to lean back in his seat because he genuinely thought he might float out through the roof of the car if he didn’t stay put.
“oh my god.”
you laughed too, delighted now, and he covered his face with one hand like a man trying very hard not to lose his entire mind in front of you.
“that went better than i expected” he admitted.
“you expected me to say no?”
“i expected you to laugh in my face.”
you looked scandalised. “steve.”
“what?”
“i would never.”
he glanced at you through his fingers, smiling despite himself. “you definitely would if you thought i deserved it.”
you pointed at him. “okay, yes, maybe a little. but not about this.”
his heart felt absurdly full.
there were a thousand things he wanted to say after that. a thousand different ways he wanted to tell you how much this meant to him, how much you meant to him, how long he had spent wanting exactly this without daring to reach for it.
instead, because he was still steve and still at least a little terrified of sincerity, he said, “cool.”
you laughed again and nudged his shoulder with yours.
and that was that.
somehow, miraculously, that was that.
-
after that, everything got easier and harder at the same time.
easier because you were no longer pretending. harder because now he had a reason to be afraid of losing you. but mostly it was beautiful in the painfully ordinary way he had once thought only existed in daydreams.
date nights where you ordered two meals and shared because you were both annoyingly indecisive. afternoons spent browsing records, where you’d lean close enough to smell his cologne and he’d forget entire sentences. evenings where you sat on his couch in soft clothes and let the silence rest between you without it feeling empty. mornings where he woke up with your head against his shoulder and had to lie perfectly still because he didn't trust himself not to cry from happiness.
you asked for little.
just enough to let him love you in the ways that came naturally to him.
help carrying things. help with directions. help deciding what to eat. help fixing something small. help choosing between two nearly identical shirts. help with the kind of things that made him feel useful, needed, wanted.
and you asked him on purpose.
“you do that” he said, voice going strange and quiet.
you looked up from the counter. “do what?”
“ask me for things.”
your brow furrowed a little. “i mean, yeah. because i need help sometimes.”
he shook his head, smiling even though his chest hurt. “no, i know. i just.. i know you could do a lot of this stuff yourself.”
you went still, reading the look on his face with a kind of soft intelligence that always made him feel seen right through. “steve.”
he laughed once, shaky and disbelieving. “you do it because you know i like it.”
there was no point trying to hide it from you. not anymore.
you crossed the kitchen slowly and stopped in front of him. your expression had gone warm in that quiet, devastating way it always did when you were being tender. “yeah,” you said. “i do.”
his throat tightened.
“because you deserve to be needed too” you added softly.
that nearly finished him.
he stared at you for a long second, then reached out like he couldn’t help himself and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. you smiled up at him, and he thought, absurdly, that this was what a miracle must feel like.
the gentle, impossible fact of being loved by someone who understood you.
the first time you kissed him, he swears he forgot how to breathe.
it happened at the end of a date that was not technically a date anymore because by then the word didn’t even seem big enough for the way you were together.
the two of you had spent the evening sharing fries, making fun of a bad movie, and arguing over whether a joke in the restaurant had been funny or just deeply stupid.
when he walked you to your door, neither of you seemed in any hurry to say goodnight.
the air between you felt charged with something quiet and inevitable.
you smiled at him from the steps and said his name like you were already halfway to touching him.
“what?” he asked softly.
you looked at his mouth then you stepped closer, and suddenly all the fear, all the years, all the old loneliness that had once lived in him so deeply it felt permanent just fell away.
your hand touched his cheek.
he leaned into it without thinking.
and when you kissed him, it was so gentle it almost hurt. so certain it made every part of him go still.
he felt it down to the marrow of his bones, like the whole world had finally clicked into place and his body had been waiting his entire life for that exact moment.
when you pulled back, he was staring at you like you had performed actual magic.
you laughed softly. “hi.”
he let out a breath that sounded suspiciously like a laugh and a sigh at the same time. “hi.”
“was that okay?”
he stared at you in horror. “okay?”
“i mean, i just-”
he kissed you again before you could keep apologising for something so perfect.
after that, he stopped pretending he was only dipping a toe into this.
he let himself fall.
freely and completely.
and the worst part, the most beautiful part, was how easy it was.
he realised you were his first real love, and somehow you made that fact feel less like a wound and more like a gift.
you knew him in ways he'd never been known before. not because you were trying to fix him, but because you were paying attention. because you loved the parts of him he'd once thought were too much and not enough all at once. because you looked at his softness and his awkwardness and his need to be useful and his habit of filling silence with jokes, and instead of making him ashamed, you made him feel cherished.
he stopped worrying, mostly, about whether you'd leave.
not because the fear vanished entirely. he was still human. still steve. still someone who had been taught by life to brace for loss.
but because you were there.
because you kept being there.
because one night turned into a week, and a week turned into a month, and before he knew it he was waking up beside you and listening to you talk about your dreams before the sun came up, and it didn’t feel temporary. it felt like home.
that was the thing he had always wanted most.
not a perfect life, not a flawless one, just a life that felt full.
with laughter in the kitchen. with your shoes by his door. with your voice in his ear. with your hand in his. with a future that no longer felt like a blank wall he had to stare at alone.
he still thought about marriage sometimes. still thought about kids. still thought about the little house with the porch and the bright, noisy rooms and the warmth that would come from somewhere deeper than furniture or decor or good luck.
but now those thoughts didn't hurt.
now they glowed.
because he knew. he knew, with the kind of certainty that settled quietly and stayed, that he hadn't been doomed to loneliness after all.
he'd just been waiting for you.
and now that you were his, the world felt different.
steve, who had spent years thinking he was unlovable, was loved instead.
and you loved him so naturally that it rewrote everything.
he wasn't lonely anymore.
not when you were beside him talking his ear off in bed. not when you reached for him in the dark. not when you smiled at him over dinner and asked him to pass the salt.
he once thought high hopes were something that happened to other people.
now he knew better.
now he knew they were something he could have, too.
something he could build. something you had built together, one small choice at a time.
and when he looked at you, really looked at you, he felt it with painful, beautiful clarity.
you were his girl. his whole world.
that was not a dream that hurt to hold, it was real.
The afternoon sun is just past the crest of midday, hitting the garage floor and scattering it’s warm light over the dark stone. There’s a gentle breeze, the movement in the trees being cast in shadows that dance across the dusty flooring. The sign on the shop still flickers, as it has for a couple of years now– Pillsbury Auto And Repair, Est. 1982.
The bench next to the bay doors has been long since abandoned, the only sign that the morning gossiping session between the town’s elderly men happened is three empty coffee cups, the paper ones from the gas station, sitting in a near perfect little row.
She kills the engine and tries not to cringe when it shudders before going quiet. The check engine light that she’s been ignoring with a convenient tilt of her chin still stares back at her. It’s mocking at this point, as if it’s screaming I told you so.
“I know, I know,” She mutters to it and herself. “I’m going.”
The bell over the door dings when she walks in.
The shop is exactly how she remembers it from coming here as a kid with her dad. It smells of burnt coffee, engine oil and something new, something distinctly him. Cologne, maybe? Something leathery and warm that fills the whole space.
A white and black dog– one ear perked and the other flopped– picks up it’s head. It gives her a silent scan before thumping it’s tail once against the floor and collapsing back into it’s spot. This acknowledgement is an approval, it seems.
Tucker is under a car.
She can see his boots sticking out, the long leather laces wrapped around the top of the shoe. His signature coveralls are nowhere to be seen. He slides out from under the vehicle wearing a white t-shirt that’s a touch too tight around his arms. It’s dirty, of course, with a small tear at the collar. His faded black jeans are held up by a bronze belt buckle, and he looks unfairly soft in this light.
He doesn’t look up when she walks in, doesn’t say anything. There’s no rush in him, nothing hurried as he unfolds himself, long and slow until he’s sitting up on the creeper. He reaches into his back pocket, having to transfer his weight to one side to do so, and pulls a rag from it. He takes his time to wipe his hands and the wrench he’d been using. There’s a radio on a high shelf humming a song she might recognize if it were playing any louder.
“You brought it,” He says. His voice echoes off the concrete, low and easy.
“You said to.” She answers, and it’s followed by a pause. “So I did.”
“You’re early.” He finally looks up, still wiping his hands on the rag. His hair is pushed back out of his face, but one stubborn piece has fallen that he doesn’t bother trying to fix.
“I’m always early.” She shrugs.
“Mm,” is the mumble of a response she gets. He stands, tossing the rag off to the side haphazardly. He’s too busy looking at her to care where it lands. She looks back at him. The afternoon light spills in from the bay doors and big window, catching the dust motes floating in the air between them.
“You gonna just stand there all day or you gonna help?” He asks, the corners of his mouth twitching up.
“Help?” She asks, a soft incredulous laugh escaping her lips.
“It’s your truck. You should learn how it works.”
“I don’t know anything about cars.” It’s an excuse that sounds a lot like a warning.
He tilts his head, his mouth quirking up again. It’s not quite a smile, but it’s a preview of one. “You don’t need to know anything. You just need to listen.”
She should say no. She should go sit in the waiting room like a normal customer and pretend she’s not staring at him by scrolling on her phone, but the challenge in his voice is what stops her. Like he’s in on a joke that she wasn’t aware she was telling.
She looks down at the wrench he’s now holding out to her. She studies his hands, then his face. There’s a smudge of something dark across his jaw that he doesn’t seem to notice is there. His smile grows wider, more crooked when she says, “You’re enjoying this.”
“I’m not not enjoying it.”
They eventually get the truck pulled into the empty bay, her hands gripped tight around her steering wheel like she didn't just watch every muscle in his inked arms ripple when he stretched to lift the rolling door.
Once it’s parked she hops back out while he pulls the level and props the hood open. She stops next to him, close enough to feel the warmth coming off of the engine. Close enough that she can smell him now. That same leathery cologne mixed with coffee, grease and the mint gum he’s working in his sharp jaw.
He passes her a wrench, neither of them blinking when his warm, calloused fingers brush hers.
“You see that bolt?” He gestures towards the engine block as an entirety, trying not to crack another smile at the clueless crease between her brows.
“Which one? There’s like a million of ‘em.” She asks, having to stand on the tips of her toes just to get her chest across the front fender.
He reaches for her free hand not to hold it, but to guide it. His palm is rough over the back of hers, but his grip is gentle. He stretches both of their arms out until he’s pressed her fingers over the bolt in question.
“That one. Feel that?” His voice is lower, and much closer than it had been.
He leans in, his arm still stretched around her shoulder and reaches past her arm for something else, something deeper. There’s a metallic clink as he fiddles, but all she can focus on is the warmth of him, the solid weight of his chest against her back. He’s not quite touching her, but she can feel every place he almost is.
He must have been satisfied with whatever he was checking, his breath against her ear now. He helps her position the wrench over the bolt, both of their free hands falling away as he speaks. “Okay, just like that. Now turn it.”
She turns it. The bolt shifts and something clicks.
“Good.” He murmurs, and she can hear the grin he’s hiding in his voice. “Now turn it the other way.”
She turns it the other way. The bolt loosens and he makes a sound. It’s not quite a sigh, nor is it a hum. It’s a satisfied noise that rumbles from deep in his chest– like she’d done something right.
“See, you’re a natural.” He adds after a moment, and she can’t tell if he’s joking.
“I’m just following instructions.” She quips back, surprising herself for keeping her voice as steady as it is.
“Same thing.”
He finally leans back, the heat of him fades, but not all the way. He’s still close, still watching every little movement of her hands. Still not looking at her face. She wishes he would, but is glad he doesn’t. He hands her another tool. One with a handle and a hinge.
“This part’s trickier,” He warns, the sight of him in her peripheral vision makes her pause. “This is the part where you really listen.”
She does, gladly.
He talks her through the process step by step– slow, patient, every step measured like he has all of the time in the world. Tighten that. Careful not to strip the bolt. There you go, just like that. His voice is something she could lean into.
She doesn’t close her eyes, but the temptation is there. She keeps them on the engine, on her own hands, on the various tools he places in her palm. But she feels him there beside her, behind her. Everywhere.
When it’s finally done, a new belt in place and the bolt tightened once more he let’s up while taking the last tool from her hand. “Go try and start it.” He instructs, already reaching for the discarded rag to wipe his hands on.
She climbs back into the truck and watches through the windshield as he shuts the hood, swiping his wrist over his forehead to push back more hair that’s fallen. She turns the key and the engine starts– no groaning sound, no engine light. Just the slow and steady hum of success.
“It’s fixed!” She says, cracking a grin as he rounds the hood and pulls open the driver’s side door before she can do it herself.
“It’s fixed.” He confirms.
“We did it.”
“You did it.” He corrects her, not even bothering to hide his lip twitch this time as he holds out his hand to help her back out of the seat. She takes it with no hesitation despite not needing it. She hops in and out of it every day, but if he’s offering then who is she to say no?
“So what do I owe you?” She asks, dropping his hand as she turns to face him properly.
“How much do you have?” He asks in return, lifting one of his brows.
“Probably not enough.”
“Then we’ll settle it later.” He decides, giving her a swift nod of his head. A reason to see him again.
“Okay.” She agrees.
“Okay.”
She looks at him one last time. The afternoon light is now fading as the sky turns syrupy with the beginnings of a sunset. His hair is falling back in his eyes. He’s not trying to be anything he’s not. He’s just standing there, grease on his hands, his white shirt even dirtier than it was when they started, looking at her like she’s the only thing in the room that matters.
“I’ll see you around, Tucker.”
His face splits into a small smile when she says his name, he turns on instinct when the radio changes and then turns back to watch her climb in the truck.
“See you later, Sunshine.”
She’s heeere. Sorry this took me so long I’m literally so sick. :( I’m really proud of this one tbh. Okay, love ya bye.
DOES LOVE COME AROUND OR DOES ONE COME AROUND TO IT? 𝜗ৎ chuck timely
masterlist! taglist!
i need some high hopes lord knows i could use em!
long story short: chuck never gets laid. something about his personality made him “unlovable” or maybe it was the fact he’s always hungover, or that he’s always late, or that he’s really broke. one of those, probably.
one fateful day, you ended up at joys automobile, god knows what was wrong with your car. greeting you, was no other than mr chuck timely. you’d never met, but obviously you’ve heard stories. he greeted you with a big buck tooth smile, “chuck,” he said shaking your hand “what’s wrong with your car?” you explained to him, even though you didn’t really know what was up,
you sat in the lobby for a couple hours while he worked, honestly you didn’t know what was so bad about him. he was kinda charming? he’d pop out every so often to come say hi and update you on the status of your car. he comes back out a final time to tell you it’s finished, you thank him and pay but inside you’re kind of upset to say goodbye to him. that is until you get in a car and see a paper tucked in the cup holder. you unfold it, “316-348-4313 call me :)” oh my god. none of your friends could know about this, or they would be so dissapointed. chuck timely of all people.
you were knocking on the door of a small, rustic house the following night. he answers and greets you with a hug. “well are you gonna come in?” he jokes. he was honestly a really nice guy when you got to know him! you’d returned home satisfied that night, he wasn’t that bad in bed either.
but he still had the question: does love come around or does one come around to it?
AN: HEYY!! short little fic because i am so up i love you chuck timely
summary: chuck timely x reader. he’s the best man and you’re the maid of honor at the same wedding.
rating: e
warnings: smut, minors dni. submissive tucker/chuck and unsafe sex (wrap it before you tap it). angsty ending. might become ooc later if we learn more about chuck timely.
a/n: tumblr’s first ever chuck timely fic.
—
September 2025
The bride and groom are tired of Chuck’s antics before the wedding even starts.
First, he’s late.
Then he shows up hungover, sneaking in halfway through the ceremony and taking his place like nothing happened. He’s unapologetic afterwards, grinning for photos while your mutual friends just tolerate him.
“You reek of alcohol,” the bride complains.
“Hey, at least I made it at all, huh?” Chuck says, patting the groom on the back.
“You’re the best man, Chuck! That’s not good enough.”
“You threw off the whole wedding,” the bride adds.
“Ah, come on, it wasn’t that bad!” Chuck throws a playful arm around his friend.
The groom shoves him off. “I don’t know why I even expect better from you at this point. You always pull this, showing up hungover, if you don’t just flake. You’re a shitty friend.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Chuck says, putting his hands up in surrender. “That’s a little harsh.”
“Get out, Chuck,” the bride says.
“Alright, I’m going,” he laughs. “I’m going.”
After he leaves, you attend to the less-than-happy couple, trying to cheer them up from what just happened.
***
You go out to get some air during the reception. It was getting too loud inside.
Chuck is sitting on the hood of a car about ten feet away, tapping ashes off his cigarette on the hood ornament before taking another drag. You approach.
“Well, look what the cat dragged out here,” he drawls.
“Is that your car?” you ask.
“No.”
He doesn’t elaborate.
You sit down next to him on the hood of the car.
“He’s right, you know,” he says, handing you the cigarette.
You take a drag. “What do you mean?”
“I’m a shitty fucking friend.” He chuckles. “Shitty fucking boyfriend too. That’s probably why I’m not married yet.”
“I don’t think you’re that bad.”
“Oh, yeah?”
You take another drag, a deliberately long one, before passing the cigarette back to him. “Well, aside from ruining a once-in-a-lifetime special occasion for everyone.”
“Fifty percent of marriages end in divorce. There could still be a next one.”
“I take it back,” you say, grabbing the cigarette from him again. “You’re an asshole.”
“Are you still seeing that guy Jessie?”
“Not really.” You inhale, then blow out the smoke.
“Good. I didn’t like him.”
“Okay. I didn’t ask you.”
Chuck shrugs. “…You wanna go back to my place?”
Your fingers brush as he takes the cigarette.
“Maybe. You live around here?”
“Sorta. ’S a motel room. I never stay anytime”—he coughs—“anywhere for very long. That’s the thing, isn’t it? Best man and the maid of honor?”
“I guess, yeah.”
“Is that a yes to hooking up or yes that it’s the thing?”
You kiss him. He freezes only for a moment before he reciprocates and his free hand comes up to tangle in your hair. He pulls back for air, bringing the cigarette up to your lips. You inhale deeply, then exhale the smoke in his face. He grins.
***
Back at his motel, he helps you out of your satin gown and then pins you down on the bed, lips hot and wet on your neck. You make quick work of his suit jacket and white V-neck tee, peeling them off to expose the patchwork tattoos littered across his arms and torso. Then you undo his belt, tossing everything on the floor as you go.
“I’ve wanted this for a while,” he murmurs against your jaw. “You’re so hot. You’re gonna be screaming my name by the time I’m done with you.”
“Oh, will I?”
“Yeah,” he says, yanking your panties down. “If you can still form thoughts.”
“We’ll see.”
“You don’t believe in me?”
Your fingers dip beneath the waistband of his boxer briefs, carefully tugging them down. You brush your thumb against his hipbone, eliciting a small sound from him. You leverage your weight to roll the both of you over, straddling him.
“Fuck,” he mutters.
There’s nothing to tie him up with, so you have to make do, pinning one of his wrists behind his head. He gasps softly, his free hand coming up to rest on your hip.
You sink down onto him slowly. He stares up at you in awe as you begin to move at the angle you want. It doesn’t seem to matter to him what you do, he’s into it. He’s vocal about every thrust, his own hips bucking in response. The minute you let go of his wrist, it’s on you as well, running over your torso and squeezing lightly wherever he feels like it.
“Ah, fu—”
You lean down to kiss him. The rest of his words and noises are muffled against your lips. You prop yourself up on one elbow while your free hand tangles in his hair, pulling slightly. Chuck nearly whimpers. You don’t let up. His hands flex against your skin, his short fingernails digging into the soft flesh of your waist (you try not to think about the grease under them).
“I can’t, I can’t…” he gasps out. “Are you…? Fuck. Fuck.”
“Not yet,” you breathe, sitting up straight again. “Don’t you dare.”
“Okay, I… I’ll try my best,” he manages, his voice cracking from the effort. “Fuck!”
You’re getting close, but not quite there, so you don’t want him to come yet. He’s barely holding it together. Not that that’s your problem. This isn’t about him.
Chuck wets his thumb with his mouth and reaches down to circle it around your clit, making you cry out.
“That’s it, honey, please, please…” His words are desperate and a bit slurred. That does the trick, and you fall apart around him, collapsing onto his chest. He can’t hold on anymore, and you feel it when it gets the better of him, warm and satisfying inside you. You stroke his bicep, it’s meant to be a soothing gesture as it washes over him.
“Y/N,” he says. His voice is hoarse, broken, and awed.
“Yeah? Did you have a nice time?” you drawl.
He nods weakly.
“Good, I’m glad, baby,” you reply.
Even in the dark, you’re pretty sure he’s blushing. When you slowly climb off of him, he whines in weak protest.
“Shh, it’s okay.” You brush the damp hair off his forehead, laying down next to him.
His heavily tattooed arm encircles your waist as he buries his face in your neck and inhales deeply. After a few minutes, his breathing evens out into sleep.
You lie awake weighing your options, whether to stay the night or sneak out once you’re sure he’s out cold.
desc: joe’s still stuck on you. i mean, how could he not when you keep calling him and complaining about how your boyfriend is a shit show. he knows he could love you better, and you’ve even said so yourself. yet, you love to act clueless about that when you see him act the tiniest bit of jealous
cw: drinking + driving slightly under the influence (don’t do this at all he was just needy), some sexual content (kissing, innuendo, but no smut), some angst, smoking — not proof read!
wc: 3.8k
a/n - i haven’t written in so long and this like is ass + i missed out on so much i wanted to add and i just realized that now but i have too many exams coming up
————————————————————————————————
the city always looked a little unreal from this high up.
all glass and light and blurry yellow taxis, reflections smeared across the windows from inside the penthouse suite. somebody near the kitchen laughed too loud over the music, and somewhere behind you, a camera flashed.
you adjusted the strap of your bag higher onto your shoulder, already regretting coming.
“you okay?”
your boyfriend’s hand brushed your lower back for half a second before disappearing again, attention pulled somewhere over your shoulder. some producer. some actor. some person more important than the answer.
there was no reason for him to check in on you anyway.
“yeah,” you said anyway.
he nodded distractedly, arms length away from you. “i’m gonna go say hi to mark. get a drink or something?”
before you could answer, he was already gone. you stared after him for a moment.
“rough start?”
the voice came from your left, amused and warm and entirely too familiar.
your eyes closed briefly before you turned.
joe leaned against the bar like he’d been standing there the whole night waiting for this exact moment. dark jacket, curls messy around his forehead, one hand wrapped around a sweating glass. his gaze moved over you slowly, not inappropriate exactly — just knowing.
somehow it felt worse.
“you’re lurking now?” you asked.
“you walked directly into my line of sight. not my fault.”
“pretty sure that still counts as lurking.”
his mouth twitched. and god, that smile still annoyed you.
“you look nice,” he said after a second, taking a sip of his drink. the compliment landed too naturally. no weirdness or hesitation. like he still had every right to say things like that.
you hated that your stomach reacted anyway. “thank you.”
his eyes flicked past you briefly. “where’s what’s-his-name?”
you snorted softly. “that’s evil.”
“i know his name. i’m choosing not to use it.” he bites the inside of his cheek before taking another sip of his drink.
“very mature.”
“i try.”
you looked around the room again, pretending not to notice how easily the conversation slipped into place. this was the problem with him. no matter how much time passed, talking to joe still felt like stepping into something half-finished. like you’d only paused.
“he went to talk to someone,” you said finally.
joe hummed once, unsurprised. there was a beat. then: “you seem thrilled about it.”
you shot him a look. “don’t start.”
“i didn’t say anything.”
“you were about to.”
“okay,” he admitted. “of course i was about to. how could i not?”
despite yourself, you laughed quietly, his expression softening at the sound.
that was another problem.
joe always looked at you like your reactions mattered. unlike some other unnamed people. like he was paying attention even when he pretended not to be.
you leaned back against the bar beside him. “you’ve been here long?”
“too long. some guy cornered me twenty minutes ago to explain crypto.”
“tragic.”
“i almost killed him.”
“with a cocktail napkin?”
“with my bare hands.” he says with the straightest face.
you smiled into your drink as the bartender slid it toward you.
“still ordering that?” he asked as he noticed.
“what?”
“that drink. jesus christ.”
“what’s wrong with it?”
“it tastes how your lipstick smells.”
“you’re dramatic.”
“you used to make me try it every single time.”
“because you complained every single time!”
“and yet you never listened.”
you looked at him then. really looked at him. even with that shit-ass grin on your face.
he still has the same stupidly pretty face. same easy posture. same soft eyes that managed to catch things before anyone else did. there was a light stubble along his jaw now, rings on his fingers you didn’t recognize.
different enough to remind you time had passed. familiar enough to make it feel meaningless.
his expression shifted slightly under your stare. “what?” he asked.
“nothing.”
“liar.”
before you can answer with something sassy, someone brushed past you hard enough to knock your shoulder. joe’s hand landed on your waist instantly, enough to steady you. definitely just… automatic.
the touch barely lasted a second before both of you seemed to realize it at the same time. his fingers loosened immediately, but not before heat climbed straight up your throat.
“sorry,” he muttered.
you swallowed. “it’s fine.”
except it wasn’t.
because your body still remembered him too well. because he still touched you like he belonged there. because somewhere across the room, your boyfriend laughed loudly without once looking over to see where you’d gone.
of course joe noticed that. his jaw ticked once. “so,” he said casually, staring into his glass, “you gonna spend the whole night babysitting him, or can i steal you for five minutes later?”
you should’ve said no. that would be the smart and normal answer.
instead, you heard yourself say, “depends.”
joe looked unbearably pleased with that. “dangerous response, y/n.”
“don’t make it weird, joe.”
“sweetheart, it’s already weird.”
you rolled your eyes, but he was right.
the worse part was how easy this all felt. standing beside him with the music humming through the walls and people moving around you in blurred expensive outfits, it almost felt every shitty part of the breakup had happened to entirely different people.
almost.
“there you are.” your boyfriend appeared suddenly at your side, one hand brushing your arm absentmindedly. his eyes landed on joe and lit up in recognition. “hey, man.”
joe smiled immediately. polite and effortless. like hasn’t talked shit about him. it irritates you instantly.
“hey.”
“love your stuff,” your boyfriend said, already half distracted again. “we met once, actually. couple years ago?”
“sounds vaguely threatening when you say it like that.” joe says easily, taking a sip of his drink.
your boyfriend laughed. again, joe always did this. made people feel comfortable within seconds. easy smile, easy voice, like he’d known the person for longer than five minutes.
you remembered falling for it too.
“i’m gonna grab another drink from just over there,” your boyfriend said, squeezing your shoulder. “you want anything?”
“i’m okay.”
“cool. back in a sec.”
he disappeared into the crowd. joe watched him go quietly before repeating under his breath, “back in a sec,” he practically scoffed.
you sigh immediately. “joe.”
“what?”
“don’t.”
“i didn’t say anything.”
“you literally did.”
“okay, fine.” he leaned against the bar again. “i just don’t understand why he keeps leaving you alone at parties.”
“i’m not gonna combust because my boyfriend walked away for ten minutes.”
“feels longer than ten.”
you looked at him sharply. his expression stayed casual, but you knew him better than that. knew the specific tightness in his jaw, the way he got quieter when something was actually bothering him.
“you don’t have to do this,” you said.
“do what?”
“the weird jealous ex thing.”
he let out a short laugh. not very amused though. “you think i’m jealous of that guy?”
“joe—”
“i think you deserve someone who notices when you disappear for half an hour.” or call you his fucking ball and chain, he wanted to say.
your chest tightened a little at that. because he was right. yet again. and you hated how badly he himself wanted to be right.
“you don’t know our relationship,” you said finally.
his eyes snapped back to yours then. “now, you don’t do that.” he scoffed.
“do what?”
“act like you haven’t spent the last four months calling me every time he disappoints you.”
“why the fuck are you so loud?” you say almost whispering now even though how loud it is around you, stomach dropped.
“why?” he asked quietly. “am i wrong?”
you stared at him. he stared right back.
“that’s not fair.”
“isn’t it?” his voice stayed calm, which somehow made it worse. “you call me at two in the morning telling me he doesn’t listen to you. that he doesn't ask questions. that you feel lonely standing next to him.” joe shook his head once, like the thought of him treating you like that was actively hurting him, eyes fixed on yours, “then you show up places together and expect me to pretend i don't see it.”
“i never asked you to do anything.”
“you keep leaning on me like i’m still yours.”
the words hit hard enough that you actually went quiet. it was the real thing underneath under all the jokes.
you crossed your arms tightly. “you could’ve stopped answering.”
his expression changed instantly, hurt flickering there before he covered it. “yeah,” he said softly. “i could’ve.”
but really, how could he? how could he turn down any sort of connection with you?
the music around you two suddenly felt too loud. people brushed past laughing, glasses clinking somewhere nearby, and none of it touched the strange heavy silence sitting between you.
you looked away first. “i need air.”
joe didn’t stop you, which somehow annoyed you too.
—
you pushed through the crowd toward the balcony doors, cool air hitting your skin immediately once you stepped outside. the city stretched endlessly below, glowing gold and white beneath the dark sky.
you pulled out your phone.
no texts.
nothing from your boyfriend.
you waited another then minutes before checking again. he must've been wondering where you are now.
still nothing.
your irritation started climbing fast after that.
another twenty minutes passed. half an hour. and still nothing.
inside, the party only got louder. you spotted your boyfriend exactly once across the room laughing with a group of people you didn’t recognize before he disappeared again.
not even a glance toward you.
not even a fucking text.
“there you are.” a voice says, mimicking your boyfriends from earlier.
you didn’t turn around this time.
joe stepped beside you against the balcony railing, cigarette tucked between his fingers though he hadn’t lit it. “you look mean.”
“i am mad right now. so i’m mean.”
“yeah,” he said softly. “i can tell.”
you huffed out a laugh despite yourself, silence settling in shortly after, but easier this time.
“he leave?”
you checked your phone one more time.
nothing.
“apparently. i mean, i have no idea. for all i know.”
joe’s jaw tightened. “fucking unbelievable.”
“you’ve gotta stop…”
“i’m serious.”
“joe—”
“no.” he huffs out a unamused laugh. “who disappears on their girlfriend at party?”
“it’s not a big deal.”
he's really looking at you now. “you say that every time.” the tenderness in his voice nearly undid you.
you swallowed hard and looked away toward the skyline. “i don’t want to argue or fight tonight.”
“i don’t either.”
another pause.
then joe bumped his shoulder lightly against yours. playful but careful. “come on,” he muttered. “ditch this place.”
you laughed softly. “with you?”
“yeah, with me.”
“that sounds like a horrible idea.”
“probably.”
and it was true. joe didn't really have much going for him. sure, he went out with a couple of people after you guys broke up, but nothing really stuck. he cared too much about you, and still does.
sure, you had your boyfriend too, but he's barely a boyfriend. you have had to lean on joe more than you’d like to admit. sneaky little links with him where you’d end up crying about how your boyfriend doesn't truly love you while he’s just had to watch and do nothing.
if anything, now was the time. he knew that much.
you looked down at your phone again. still nothing.
the ache in your chest sharpened suddenly into anger.
at your boyfriend.
at joe for thinking he could just do this.
at yourself for allowing this to happen.
“fine,” you muttered before you could think too hard about it. “but i’m not going back to your place.”
joe went still beside you. slowly, “oh?”
heat climbed your neck immediately.
shit.
you stared out at the city harder. “i just mean—”
“you inviting me to yours?” he teases, voice gone lower now.
you should take it back. quicker than what's happening now if possible. but instead, “only because i don’t feel like being alone tonight.”
joe stared at you for a long second. then he smiled. “yeah,” he said quietly. “okay.” he swallowed harshly, fidgeting with his rings because otherwise his hands would be doing a whole lotta something else.
—
the drive to your apartment felt strangely familiar.
not because you’d done this before exactly, but because being alone with joe at night had once been the most natural thing in the world.
the city blurred past outside the windows while some old rock song by the doors played quietly through the speakers. joe drove with one hand loose against the steering wheel, rings glinting every time streetlights swept across the car.
you kept catching yourself looking at him.
the side of his jaw.
his hands.
the curve of his mouth when he concentrated.
stupid.
you turned toward the window again.
“you’re being weirdly quiet,” joe said after a while.
“maybe i’m regretting this.”
“a little late for that.”
“i can still throw myself out of the car.”
“please don’t. sally,” which was the name of his old truck. yours was harry before you traded it for some shiny new car. “would never be able to forgive me.” he continued.
you laughed under your breath despite yourself.
he glanced over briefly, smiling a little at the sound.
there it was again.
that awful, easy chemistry.
“you know,” joe said casually, eyes back on the road, “i really thought you were gonna marry me once.”
your head snapped toward him. “what?” you say, your voice weaker than you’d like it to be.
“back when we lived in that shitty apartment with the broken sink.”
“joe—” you say for what feels like the trillionth time that night.
“im serious.” his tone stayed light.
you remembered that apartment instantly.
the mattress on the floor.
his guitar against the wall.
one of your lace bras always draped over the corner of a dresser or lampshade.
cheap takeout containers everywhere.
a pair of both of your socks at the end of the bed every night.
him kissing your forehead while making coffee at two in the morning – you were painting, he was writing most of the time.
it hit harder than expected.
“you also thought you were gonna buy a horse,” you muttered.
joe grinned immediately. “still might.”
“you live in los angeles.”
“horses love los angeles.”
“that is objectively not true.”
“wow,” he said softly, amused. “you used to support my dreams.”
you rolled your eyes, but your chest hurt a little.
the car fell quiet again after that when you finally pulled into your building’s underground garage, neither of you moved right away. joe turned the engine off and even more silence rushed in.
you unbuckled first just to break it. “you coming?”
“thought you’d never ask. thought i was gonna have to get on my hands and knees.”
“gross.” you blush either way.
“you invited me home after emotionally devastating me at a party. mixed signals, y'know?"
“i did not emotionally devastate you.”
joe looked at you flatly.
you smiled despite yourself. “okay, maybe a little.”
—
the elevator ride up felt too small.
you stood shoulder to shoulder beneath harsh yellow lighting while the numbers climbed slowly overhead.
two.
three.
four.
joe leaned back against the wall watching you openly now.
“what?” you asked finally.
“nothing.”
“you’re staring.”
“yeah.”
your stomach flipped annoyingly. “you’re annoying.”
“you say that like it stopped you before.”
you looked away quickly after that.
five.
six.
“you know what your problem is?” joe asked suddenly.
“ouch, i thought i was perfect. but, i’m sure you’re gonna tell me.”
“you think if you ignore someone long enough, it disappears.”
“you’re a little too honest right now.” you frowned slightly. “what’s that supposed to mean?”
“drank a little too much.” he grimaces just slightly cause he drove here perfectly fine. “you know exactly what’s wrong with your relationship.”
the irritation came back instantly. now he’s drunk and honest? plus, starting an argument after he said he didn't want that.
“and you think you know everything because i vented to you a few times?”
“a few times?” joe laughed softly. “baby, you called me crying from your bathroom three weeks ago.”
your cheeks burned. “you’re so fucking loud. keep your voice down.”
“nobody’s even here. you embarrassed?”
“no, actually, i’m annoyed.”
“at me?”
“at you acting like this.”
the elevator dinged. the doors opened onto your floor.
you stepped out first, already digging through your bag for your keys while joe followed behind more slowly.
“acting like what?” he asked, eyes focused a little too hard on your back profile before focusing again.
you unlocked your apartment harder than necessary. “like i owe you something.”
joe went quiet behind you.
that should’ve warned you.
you pushed the door open and stepped inside, kicking your heels off immediately near the entrance. joe lingered a second before following, eyes moving around the apartment like he was re-learning it.
he’d only been here once before.
back when you first moved in.
before things got messy again.
“nice,” he said quietly.
“don’t change the subject.”
the door clicked shut behind him.
“i’m not saying you owe me anything,” he replied. “i’m saying i’m tired of pretending this doesn’t mean something.”
your heartbeat sped up instantly. you open your mouth to say his mouth in hopes of stopping him from talking but he continues anyway.
“you call me when you’re sad.” his voice stayed calm now. too calm. “you call me when you’re lonely. when you fight with him. when you can’t sleep.” he stepped closer slowly. “then you look at me like i’m insane for thinking maybe some part of you still belongs to me.”
the room suddenly felt too warm. you swallowed hard. “that’s not fair, joe.”
“none of this is fair.”
he was close enough now that you could smell smoke and cologne and something that was just him underneath it all.
familiar enough to ache.
your voice came out quieter. “you don’t get to say things like that.”
joe looked down at you for a long moment. “yeah?” he murmured. “then why’d you bring me here?”
you opened your mouth, but nothing came out. because there wasn’t a good answer.
his eyes dropped briefly to your lips. then back up again. that tiny movement alone nearly ruined you.
“joe.” you said softly. though you weren’t even sure what you meant by it anymore.
a warning?
a plea?
just his name?
all of the above?
his hand brushed your waist carefully, like he was giving you time to stop him.
you didn’t.
and that seemed to break the last bit of restraint he had left.
joe kissed you suddenly and deep enough to steal the breath straight to your lungs. like he’d been holding it in for months.
his hand tightened against your waist immediately, pulling you into him while your fingers grabbed instinctively at the front of his jacket. the kissed turned messy almost instantly – familiar in the most dangerous way, all heat and frustration and want.
the second you kissed him back, joe made this quiet sound against your mouth like relief mixed with frustration. after all, he’d been waiting for this longer than he wanted to admit.
his hand slid from your waist to your jaw, thumb pressing lightly beneath it as he kissed you deeper, slower now, like he was trying to remember every part of you all over again.
or maybe prove he never forgot.
your back hit the wall near the entryway softly but neither of you acknowledged it.
“fuck,” joe murmured against your lips, almost laughing once after. “this is such a bad idea.”
“you’re the one kissing me.”
“you invited me upstairs.”
“you followed.”
“obviously i followed you.”
despite everything, you smiled against his mouth.
he paused for half a second before kissing you again. like that tiny expression from you was enough to undo him.
his fingers slipped into your hair, careful at first before tightening slightly when you pulled him closer by the front of his shirt. the tension between you felt months old. maybe years.
every unfinished conversation.
every late-night phone call.
every almost-confession.
all of it is sitting here right now.
your breathing turned uneven when he mouth moved briefly to your jaw.
“joe,” you whispered.
“hm?” he hums, distracted.
“this doesn’t fix anything.”
“i know.”
another kiss. slower this time.
“still wanna do it though.”
you let out a quiet laugh that disappeared into a shaky breath when his lips brushed your neck.
there he was.
that dangerous combination of playful and devastating.
his hands settled back at your hips, pulling you flush against him while he kissed just beneath your ear. your fingers curled tighter into his shirt automatically.
it felt too easy to fal back into this.
joe pulled back just enough to look at you, curls falling slightly into his eyes now.
“tell me to stop.”
you stared at him. really stared at him. and his expression wasn’t smug anymore. wasn’t teasing.
just open in a way that made your chest ache.
because underneath all the jealousy and sharp comments and tension, joe had always loved you very honestly. you could see it all over his face.
your hand lifted before you could think better of it, brushing hair back from his forehead gently.
“that’s not stopping me,” he said quietly.
“i know.”
he leaned into your touch for half a second. then his mouth found yours again before either of you could say something too real.
the kiss deepened quickly after that. less hesitant now.
your hands slid beneath his jacket, fingers brushing the fabric of his shirt underneath while joe’s grip tightened at your waist like he physically couldn’t keep you close enough.
he kissed like he talked when emotions got too big — messy, sincere, a little overwhelming.
you felt him smile briefly against your mouth when you tugged him closer again.
“missed that,” he admitted softly.
your stomach flipped hard. “don’t say things like that.”
“why?”
“because.”
“great argument.”
you rolled your eyes weakly, and joe laughed quietly before kissing you again.
your apartment was dim except for the city light spilling through the windows, painting soft gold across his face every time you looked at him. his rings brushed your skin when his hand slid beneath the hem of your shirt slightly, warm fingertips pressing against your waist.
it’s like he’s questioning. giving you room to stop this. you should. instead you pulled him back in again.
joe exhaled sharply through his nose at that, forehead dropping briefly against yours. “you’re killing me,” he muttered.
“dramatic.”
“you used to like that about me.”
“used to?”
his eyes lifted immediately at that. the tension shifted again. less teasing now. something heavier underneath it.
“careful,” joe murmured softly. “you say shit like that and i start getting hopeful.”
-Ky has been Tucker's best friend since high school, when he was forced to take shop class.
-He knew nothing about cars. Tucker took pity on him and they've been inseparable ever since.
-He has a day job at the town's only bank as a loan officer.
-He wears a tie to work. He hates the tie. He takes it off before he even walks in the shop doors.
-He's more lean and shorter than Tucker.
-He wears glasses that are always slipping down his nose. He pushes them up with his middle finger. It looks rude, but it's just a habit at this point.
- He 'manages' the front office part time, for free. (It's just an excuse to hang around.)
-He mostly answers phones, drinks the terrible coffee and entertains Socket while Tucker's under a car.
-He's the only one who remembers to order hand soap for customers (not just the gritty orange soap Tucker uses) and refills the ancient vending machine.
-Ky is also the only reason that the shop has a functional website.
-He's set Tucker up on two dates in the last year.
-Neither of them called him back. Ky says it's because he has "the romantic instincts of a rock." Tucker tells him it's because Ky's taste is bad. They're both right.
-He handles the shop's books because Tucker "doesn't do numbers that aren't a firing order."
-He organizes the car club that meets up at the shop once a month. He still doesn't know much about cars, but he likes the people and the gossip.
-He's the talker to Tucker's listener. He tells long winded stories that go nowhere and complains about his day job, but Tucker just lets him fill the silence.
-Ky worries about Tucker constantly. Tucker's diet, his lack of social life, his back.
-Ky can't keep a secret to save his life and he meddles, but he's fiercely loyal.
-He is the only person who can make Tucker laugh when he's in a bad mood. Even if it's a breathy huff he considers it a win (and a public service).
Socket-
-She wandered up to the shop four years ago, skittish and skinny with ribs showing through her matted fur.
-Tucker was sitting on an overturned bucket by the bay door, eating a gas station breakfast sandwich.
-He tried to act like he didn't see her. She sat close to the dirt road between his place and the shop and just stared at him.
-He eventually pinched a piece of sausage off of his sandwich and threw it. She flinched, but eventually ate it.
-This continued for about a week. By the fourth day she let him touch her. On day five he bought a second sandwich just for her.
-On day six she slept under the front counter and just... never left.
-Tucker still lies and says she's not his dog, she "just hangs out here."
-Now she lays across the doorframe between the waiting room and shop like she owns the place and picks her head up to grumble when the door bell chimes.
-Tucker says she's a good judge of character. She's skeptical of strangers, but warm once she approves.
-Some people walk in and she is belly up, begging to be scratched. Others she watches from under the counter, unmoving until they leave. She's never been wrong.
-Socket has opinions. She barks when the bay door squeals too loud. She sighs heavily when Ky is talking too much.
-Tucker's dad always brings her a piece of bacon from the diner. She expects it now.
-She has one ear that flops and one that's always standing at attention. They're her top two features and she knows it.
-Tucker has a habit of rubbing the floppy ear between his fingers when he's thinking too hard.
-She's black and white with two white 'socks' on her back paws. The left one comes up higher than the other, and Tucker thinks it's hilarious.
-She wears a red bandana that's slightly grease stained from rolling on the concrete floor. Tucker has given up on trying to stop her.
-She's not a cuddler, except with Tucker. She follows him back and forth from the shop to the house like a shadow and sleeps curled at the foot of his bed.
-She loves car rides. She sits in the passenger seat of the Bronco with her head out of the window and her floppy ear blowing in the wind.
-There's always nose prints on the glass that Tucker can rarely force himself to wipe away.
-She's filed under "Socket Pillsbury" at the vet. Tucker will take this knowledge to his grave but also won’t change it.
A/N- Oop, hi. It's me again. I've been working on this for a while. Next will be the introduction of reader and how she ties in to everything.
all of a sudden, i hear this agitating, grating voice…
summary: you and tucker get snowed in for the foreseeable future in an isolated cabin in maine.
rating: t
tags/warnings: musician!reader, very vague on details so you can imagine whatever you want. use of y/n. established relationship dynamic (y/n is his n1 hater for literally no good reason and is just jealous asf). forced proximity. only one bed. mild enemies to lovers. no beta. not much logic to the plot, don’t think too much about it. rpf.
thank you my homeslice @tuckshoney for helping me flesh out the idea!
—
This was supposed to be a peaceful getaway.
Maybe to some people, a secluded cabin in the woods in the dead of winter in one of the northmost little corners of Maine seems like something out of a horror flick, but to you… it sounded a hell of a lot better than spending one more day in either L.A. or your hometown where your career hadn’t been going anywhere anyway. So you moved out to L.A. about a year ago. You released your debut album; to put it humbly, it did okay. It was well-received by the general public and up for several awards and even won a couple of them. Not a Grammy or anything, but you were off to an auspicious start.
Until you weren’t.
It’s not like you’re always thinking about Tucker Pillsbury (in the moment—fuck, that’s nothing if not catchy), but you can’t pretend that part of this isn’t about him. You don’t like the way you feel about him. But you just can’t help it. You’ve had this one-sided beef with him ever since his album Kansas Anymore narrowly beat out yours for the one award that really, really mattered to you—and to him, it’s just another award. He has enough of them by now. He didn’t need this.
You’d poured your heart and soul and every vulnerable little emotion from your last heartbreak into your debut just for him to swoop in and take it from you. For everyone to agree that his album was just better. It wasn’t better. He’s just—richer. Older. More established in the industry. Better at navigating all the trials and tribulations of such a cutthroat world (…and he doesn’t seem to see everything that way, either). More likable. Maybe even better-looking.
And you just… needed to write a better album.
That was all.
That’s what you came up here to do. Focus on the work. Not the competition. Even if spite is a powerful motivator.
It’s already snowing hard when you get up to the cabin. The roads were brutal coming up and you’re not looking forward to checking out on Monday if the weather stays this bad. The key is stashed exactly where the host told you to look, under a heavy wooden lobster figurine near the door. You let yourself in and immediately start stripping off your winter coat because it’s so much nicer and warmer in here than outside.
You’ve just sat down on the couch with a cup of cocoa when the front door starts rattling pretty hard. The fuck? You stand, slowly approaching the door. It’s probably just the wind, right? The floorboards creak under your feet, and whatever—whoever—is outside starts pounding on the door now.
“Hello? Is somebody in there? I can see the lights on, and it’s really fucking cold.”
You reach to unlock the door. Probably just the owner, you think, and it seems ridiculous, albeit smart, to worry about stranger danger right now. The temperature is well into the negatives. The roads are covered in ice.
Except it’s obviously not the owner, and it’s also not a stranger.
Motherf… Tucker?
“Y/N L/N?” Tucker says, like it’s all one word, because to him, you’re not on a first name basis. He drops several of the logs of firewood he’s holding, clearly surprised. “What are you—fuck, fuck, can I come inside first and ask questions later?”
What are you supposed to say? No? “This is my rental,” you say helplessly.
It takes him a moment to respond, he’s too busy setting his armful of logs down next to the door and trying to warm up as soon as possible. His face twists up in confusion. “No, I found this place off…” He cuts himself off with a scoff. “It got double-booked.”
“Okay, I’ll… I’ll call the host,” you manage.
“Yeah, you can try. You probably won’t get a signal this far out,” he replies.
You take out your phone anyway. He’s right. No signal. But he doesn’t say I told you so.
“Then I’ll go back into town and see if I can find a motel,” you say helplessly, turning around to reach for your coat, the mug full of hot cocoa forgotten on the coffee table now.
Tucker grabs your arm. You hate that it takes you a second to remember you should resist that.
“You won’t make it two miles,” he says. “…We can both stay. I don’t mind.”
He almost looks hopeful about how you’ll answer. Of course he’s throwing you a bone (though maybe it’s not his place to do that and you should be the one suggesting sharing—you were here first). He’s been nothing but nice to you since you met. This isn’t actually personal. It’s not about him. It’s what he represents to you. Failure. And you can’t be around that all weekend. He’s a walking, breathing, talking reminder of it.
At this point, it doesn’t sound so bad to just go back to Los Angeles. You gave up a lot to be there in the first place. Traded your dead-end job for the starving artist lifestyle, your shoebox apartment for an even more expensive shoebox in California, your steady relationship for one good album. But he’s right that the conditions fucking suck.
“There’s only one bed,” you say, even though you’ve given up on really convincing him to let you leave.
“And a couch,” he points out, looking around.
“Great, you can take that,” you reply.
He doesn’t seem too fond of the idea. Good. “Nah, that thing’s, what… five feet long?”
“Well, I don’t want the couch,” you scoff.
It looks like he wants to say something from the way he clenches his jaw for a moment, but then he just runs his hand through his hair and sighs exasperatedly. “Fine. Fine.”
And that’s that.
***
The heat in the cabin goes out sometime around midnight.
You only know this because you wake up to Tucker shaking you. It doesn’t take long before you stir, confused and groggy, immediately irritated with being woken up and that he’s the one who woke you. “Wh—huh?”
“Sorry, sorry,” he gets out. “But the radiator died and the couch is literally killing me. Can I please just sleep in here? I swear I won’t bother you too much, cross my heart. Please? I really don’t want to get hypothermia and die.”
He can hardly get the words out because he’s shivering so badly. You’re pretty sure he really doesn’t want to do this either, but it’s cold, so he kind of has a point and he knows it too. He’s already crawling under the blankets.
You let out a tired whine, still trying to figure out what’s going on. He’s not exactly touching you, but definitely invading your space. You shove at him weakly. It doesn’t do much.
“I know, sorry to wake you,” he murmurs. “You okay? It’s cold in here, too.”
“What the fuck, Tucker?” you groan.
“It’s cold,” he says.
“Yeah, I can see that,” you retort, your teeth chattering a bit.
Tucker reaches for you. “Come here.”
You resist it. You are cold, but you don’t want to give him the satisfaction. “I don’t wanna!” you whine.
He stops. It’s only then that you make a beeline for him, settling into his arms with a petulant huff. He tenses up for a second before he buries his face in your neck.
…It’s kind of nice.
“Did I do something?” he asks softly. Almost hesitantly.
“You woke me up.”
“Yeah, to not die,” he mutters. “No, before that. You’ve been bitchy all day. It’s not my fault that I’m stuck here, too. You don’t have to be mean to me.”
“I don’t like you,” you blurt out.
“I know that, but what did I do?”
“That award was mine,” you say, trying to sound stern, but your teeth chatter again halfway through and it ruins the effect.
“Wh—what award?” Tucker asks, incredulous.
“Last year. For my album. We were both nominated, mine was better and you know it, but you won.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Is it really that big of a deal? Trust me, that award isn’t the end of the world.”
You scoff. “Maybe to you! You have everything, Tucker!”
“I don’t have everything,” he replies. You can almost hear his expression, his face scrunching up in confusion.
“No, just the awards, the money, the career recognition.”
“None of that will actually make you happy.”
If anyone asks, you were totally prepared with a clever comeback. A shiver runs through you before you can get it out. Instead, you tell him, “Take off your clothes.”
He makes a shocked noise, but doesn’t stop you from palming at his shirt. “What?”
“It’s supposed to be warmer that way,” you insist, pulling it over his head. “Skin-to-skin.”
“Fine, but—” Tucker tugs your flannel pajama pants off, leaving you in just a tank top and underwear. You tangle your legs with his, which he seems to like, pressing a cold foot against his calf, which he doesn’t seem to like so much. “Y/N.”
Uh-oh. He’s scolding you? Is it bad that you kinda like it?
“Oh, my God. They’ll warm up, don’t be a baby,” you say.
“You’re the one who’s mad at me just because a committee liked my album more than yours.”
You respond by helping him out of his pants. You can’t make out much of him in the dark, but his breath hitches. You don’t escalate it even though you really kind of want to; you just snuggle up next to him as close as you can get.
He hesitates a moment longer like he’s not quite sure what exactly the boundaries in this situation are. His entire body is still trembling—probably from the cold—and you’re shaking from nerves because he’s not just physically warm, but maybe figuratively hot, in a way, and this feels weird.
“I’m still mad at you,” you say. You don’t want him to get the wrong impression.
He scoffs lightly. “…I’m going to sleep. I’m too tired for this shit.”
“Fine,” you huff.
He pulls you closer, already nodding off. Somehow, even though you’re mad at him and now he’s mad at you, it feels safe. You rest your cheek against his bare chest, trying not to think too hard about the awkward circumstances.
***
Neither of you sleep well.
You wake up groggy and he protests with a groan when you shake him awake. “Tucker.”
“What? What is it?”
It’s still dark out.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, my God.”
***
He kicks you awake a little bit later, mumbling something incoherent in his sleep, right in your ear.
***
When the heater finally whirs back to life, it’s loud, waking both of you.
“Heat’s back,” you mutter.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“You can go now.”
“Don’t wanna.”
“Tucker—”
“’M comfy.” He burrows closer, face in your neck.
“Tucker.”
“Not leaving. Just in case it goes out again, so we don’t die.” His voice is low and drowsy, muffled by your hair.
“…Okay,” you acquiesce, already drifting off again.
au: basically a pt2 to king of thieves, also my first time writing smut so no hate xx
You and Tucker have had sex before, especially considering you’ve been together for a while. Though what you hadn’t experimented with was Tucker’s spider abilities. As in webs.
You were hesitant at first, but he persisted. He reassured you that he wouldn’t do anything you weren’t comfortable with and that it was fully up to you. So, eventually, you agreed.
It started with a slow kiss, then his lips moved from your lips to your jaw, then to your neck. He moved your arms up so he could take your sweater off. The cold air hit you with a chill that was so quickly extinguished by the warmth of his body.
Taking the chance he had, he held your arms up against the wall and shot a few small webs, sticking your wrists to the wall.
His mouth traveled around, nipping softly at your neck. “You’re such a good girl.” He murmured against your neck as his hands fumble with your bra clasp.
He pulls it off, and admires you for a minute. “God, you’re so beautiful.” He murmurs, his voice low and full of want.
His lips trail down from your neck to your chest. Once he makes it your chest, his mouth lands on your nipple, sucking and licking. His other hand wanders to create a circular motion on your other nipple.
He kisses lower and lower, sinking to his knees. He looks up at you, “this okay, baby?”.
All you can do is nod weakly. His hands quickly unbutton your jeans, discarding them quickly. His hands slow down when it comes to your underwear.
His hands trace your hips, your thighs, your ass, then finally, with a shit eating grin, he pulls them down.
“Mmh, fuck, baby, you’re so wet.” He runs a finger through your slick heat. He pulls his finger away licking it clean as he looks up at you.
He brings his finger back, now adding a second one, coating it in your slick before slowly sliding them in. He curls his fingers, his thumb beginning to rub your clit.
“Do you like that? Huh? You like being webbed up, baby?”
You couldn’t answer, all you could get out was a breathy gasp.
“Baby, that wasn’t a fuckin’ answer.” His fingers slowed.
You let out a whine before responding, “yes, yes, Tuck, I do.”
“That’s what I fuckin’ though.” He takes fingers out, licks them clean with a groan, and lowers his mouth on you.
His tongue lapped and lapped. A whimper escaped him, “mm-so good. taste so good, baby.”
With every movement of his mouth you got closer and closer. At one point he webbed your hips to the way, “stop squirmin’.”
Finally, you reached your climax, seeing pure stars. You were almost certainly that everyone in the apartment complex could hear you. And who you were doing it with.
His tongue didn’t stop until he drank every last drop of you. When he did pull away, he was grinning, the bottom half of his face glistening. He leaned back down and pressed a few scattered kisses to your inner thighs.
He stands back up and kisses you, so gentle it was a bit jarring. “You did so good, bug.” His hands move to pull the webs away.
He picked up your sweater, putting it on you. He leaves and comes back with a damp towel, kneeling, not to go again, but to clean you up.
“Love you, bug.” He pressed one final kiss to your thigh.
all of a sudden, i hear this agitating, grating voice…
summary: you and tucker get snowed in for the foreseeable future in an isolated cabin in maine.
rating: t
tags/warnings: musician!reader, very vague on details so you can imagine whatever you want. use of y/n. established relationship dynamic (y/n is his n1 hater for literally no good reason and is just jealous asf). forced proximity. only one bed. mild enemies to lovers. no beta. not much logic to the plot, don’t think too much about it. rpf.
thank you my homeslice @tuckshoney for helping me flesh out the idea!
—
This was supposed to be a peaceful getaway.
Maybe to some people, a secluded cabin in the woods in the dead of winter in one of the northmost little corners of Maine seems like something out of a horror flick, but to you… it sounded a hell of a lot better than spending one more day in either L.A. or your hometown where your career hadn’t been going anywhere anyway. So you moved out to L.A. about a year ago. You released your debut album; to put it humbly, it did okay. It was well-received by the general public and up for several awards and even won a couple of them. Not a Grammy or anything, but you were off to an auspicious start.
Until you weren’t.
It’s not like you’re always thinking about Tucker Pillsbury (in the moment—fuck, that’s nothing if not catchy), but you can’t pretend that part of this isn’t about him. You don’t like the way you feel about him. But you just can’t help it. You’ve had this one-sided beef with him ever since his album Kansas Anymore narrowly beat out yours for the one award that really, really mattered to you—and to him, it’s just another award. He has enough of them by now. He didn’t need this.
You’d poured your heart and soul and every vulnerable little emotion from your last heartbreak into your debut just for him to swoop in and take it from you. For everyone to agree that his album was just better. It wasn’t better. He’s just—richer. Older. More established in the industry. Better at navigating all the trials and tribulations of such a cutthroat world (…and he doesn’t seem to see everything that way, either). More likable. Maybe even better-looking.
And you just… needed to write a better album.
That was all.
That’s what you came up here to do. Focus on the work. Not the competition. Even if spite is a powerful motivator.
It’s already snowing hard when you get up to the cabin. The roads were brutal coming up and you’re not looking forward to checking out on Monday if the weather stays this bad. The key is stashed exactly where the host told you to look, under a heavy wooden lobster figurine near the door. You let yourself in and immediately start stripping off your winter coat because it’s so much nicer and warmer in here than outside.
You’ve just sat down on the couch with a cup of cocoa when the front door starts rattling pretty hard. The fuck? You stand, slowly approaching the door. It’s probably just the wind, right? The floorboards creak under your feet, and whatever—whoever—is outside starts pounding on the door now.
“Hello? Is somebody in there? I can see the lights on, and it’s really fucking cold.”
You reach to unlock the door. Probably just the owner, you think, and it seems ridiculous, albeit smart, to worry about stranger danger right now. The temperature is well into the negatives. The roads are covered in ice.
Except it’s obviously not the owner, and it’s also not a stranger.
Motherf… Tucker?
“Y/N L/N?” Tucker says, like it’s all one word, because to him, you’re not on a first name basis. He drops several of the logs of firewood he’s holding, clearly surprised. “What are you—fuck, fuck, can I come inside first and ask questions later?”
What are you supposed to say? No? “This is my rental,” you say helplessly.
It takes him a moment to respond, he’s too busy setting his armful of logs down next to the door and trying to warm up as soon as possible. His face twists up in confusion. “No, I found this place off…” He cuts himself off with a scoff. “It got double-booked.”
“Okay, I’ll… I’ll call the host,” you manage.
“Yeah, you can try. You probably won’t get a signal this far out,” he replies.
You take out your phone anyway. He’s right. No signal. But he doesn’t say I told you so.
“Then I’ll go back into town and see if I can find a motel,” you say helplessly, turning around to reach for your coat, the mug full of hot cocoa forgotten on the coffee table now.
Tucker grabs your arm. You hate that it takes you a second to remember you should resist that.
“You won’t make it two miles,” he says. “…We can both stay. I don’t mind.”
He almost looks hopeful about how you’ll answer. Of course he’s throwing you a bone (though maybe it’s not his place to do that and you should be the one suggesting sharing—you were here first). He’s been nothing but nice to you since you met. This isn’t actually personal. It’s not about him. It’s what he represents to you. Failure. And you can’t be around that all weekend. He’s a walking, breathing, talking reminder of it.
At this point, it doesn’t sound so bad to just go back to Los Angeles. You gave up a lot to be there in the first place. Traded your dead-end job for the starving artist lifestyle, your shoebox apartment for an even more expensive shoebox in California, your steady relationship for one good album. But he’s right that the conditions fucking suck.
“There’s only one bed,” you say, even though you’ve given up on really convincing him to let you leave.
“And a couch,” he points out, looking around.
“Great, you can take that,” you reply.
He doesn’t seem too fond of the idea. Good. “Nah, that thing’s, what… five feet long?”
“Well, I don’t want the couch,” you scoff.
It looks like he wants to say something from the way he clenches his jaw for a moment, but then he just runs his hand through his hair and sighs exasperatedly. “Fine. Fine.”
And that’s that.
***
The heat in the cabin goes out sometime around midnight.
You only know this because you wake up to Tucker shaking you. It doesn’t take long before you stir, confused and groggy, immediately irritated with being woken up and that he’s the one who woke you. “Wh—huh?”
“Sorry, sorry,” he gets out. “But the radiator died and the couch is literally killing me. Can I please just sleep in here? I swear I won’t bother you too much, cross my heart. Please? I really don’t want to get hypothermia and die.”
He can hardly get the words out because he’s shivering so badly. You’re pretty sure he really doesn’t want to do this either, but it’s cold, so he kind of has a point and he knows it too. He’s already crawling under the blankets.
You let out a tired whine, still trying to figure out what’s going on. He’s not exactly touching you, but definitely invading your space. You shove at him weakly. It doesn’t do much.
“I know, sorry to wake you,” he murmurs. “You okay? It’s cold in here, too.”
“What the fuck, Tucker?” you groan.
“It’s cold,” he says.
“Yeah, I can see that,” you retort, your teeth chattering a bit.
Tucker reaches for you. “Come here.”
You resist it. You are cold, but you don’t want to give him the satisfaction. “I don’t wanna!” you whine.
He stops. It’s only then that you make a beeline for him, settling into his arms with a petulant huff. He tenses up for a second before he buries his face in your neck.
…It’s kind of nice.
“Did I do something?” he asks softly. Almost hesitantly.
“You woke me up.”
“Yeah, to not die,” he mutters. “No, before that. You’ve been bitchy all day. It’s not my fault that I’m stuck here, too. You don’t have to be mean to me.”
“I don’t like you,” you blurt out.
“I know that, but what did I do?”
“That award was mine,” you say, trying to sound stern, but your teeth chatter again halfway through and it ruins the effect.
“Wh—what award?” Tucker asks, incredulous.
“Last year. For my album. We were both nominated, mine was better and you know it, but you won.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Is it really that big of a deal? Trust me, that award isn’t the end of the world.”
You scoff. “Maybe to you! You have everything, Tucker!”
“I don’t have everything,” he replies. You can almost hear his expression, his face scrunching up in confusion.
“No, just the awards, the money, the career recognition.”
“None of that will actually make you happy.”
If anyone asks, you were totally prepared with a clever comeback. A shiver runs through you before you can get it out. Instead, you tell him, “Take off your clothes.”
He makes a shocked noise, but doesn’t stop you from palming at his shirt. “What?”
“It’s supposed to be warmer that way,” you insist, pulling it over his head. “Skin-to-skin.”
“Fine, but—” Tucker tugs your flannel pajama pants off, leaving you in just a tank top and underwear. You tangle your legs with his, which he seems to like, pressing a cold foot against his calf, which he doesn’t seem to like so much. “Y/N.”
Uh-oh. He’s scolding you? Is it bad that you kinda like it?
“Oh, my God. They’ll warm up, don’t be a baby,” you say.
“You’re the one who’s mad at me just because a committee liked my album more than yours.”
You respond by helping him out of his pants. You can’t make out much of him in the dark, but his breath hitches. You don’t escalate it even though you really kind of want to; you just snuggle up next to him as close as you can get.
He hesitates a moment longer like he’s not quite sure what exactly the boundaries in this situation are. His entire body is still trembling—probably from the cold—and you’re shaking from nerves because he’s not just physically warm, but maybe figuratively hot, in a way, and this feels weird.
“I’m still mad at you,” you say. You don’t want him to get the wrong impression.
He scoffs lightly. “…I’m going to sleep. I’m too tired for this shit.”
“Fine,” you huff.
He pulls you closer, already nodding off. Somehow, even though you’re mad at him and now he’s mad at you, it feels safe. You rest your cheek against his bare chest, trying not to think too hard about the awkward circumstances.
***
Neither of you sleep well.
You wake up groggy and he protests with a groan when you shake him awake. “Tucker.”
“What? What is it?”
It’s still dark out.
“Nothing.”
“Oh, my God.”
***
He kicks you awake a little bit later, mumbling something incoherent in his sleep, right in your ear.
***
When the heater finally whirs back to life, it’s loud, waking both of you.
“Heat’s back,” you mutter.
“Yeah, maybe.”
“You can go now.”
“Don’t wanna.”
“Tucker—”
“’M comfy.” He burrows closer, face in your neck.
“Tucker.”
“Not leaving. Just in case it goes out again, so we don’t die.” His voice is low and drowsy, muffled by your hair.
“…Okay,” you acquiesce, already drifting off again.
i’m a sucker for “fangirl” behavior sooo since you write for tucker, could i request a tucker x fashionista / fashion student!reader who goes to all his concerts in outfits designed by herself and inspired by his albums / album covers
idk maybe it gets him all giddy because it’s a surprise for him everytime and she’s like his #1 fan
pretty
tucker pillsbury x reader
val speaks - i luuuuv this req alsoooo first time writing for tucker on here how fun
word count: 930
you spent all week on the shirt.
between classes, late nights in the studio and with scraps of fabric scattered across your apartment floor.
it slowly came together exactly the way you pictured it in your head. soft white cotton, slightly oversized, cropped just enough to sit perfectly with your jeans and across the front, in your own hand-drawn lettering, the words slipfast get carried away curved gently across the chest in washed blue ink. beneath it, stitched delicately near the hem, was a tiny little design, a pair of wings wrapped around a star.
that was your thing.
every show, every city, every time you went to see tucker, you made something new.
sometimes it was lyrics, sometimes it was little references the fans would understand and sometimes it was artwork inspired by melodies.
tucker loved every single one.
more than loved them, honestly.
he waited for them.
it had become a quiet little ritual between the two of you, one that made his heart race in the stupidest, sweetest way. no matter how packed the venue was, no matter how bright the stage lights burned in his eyes, some part of him was always searching the crowd for you. not just for your face, though god, he could find that anywhere, but for your shirt.
he always wanted to know what you'd made, what lyric you'd chosen, what piece of him you'd turned into something beautiful with your own two hands.
and tonight was no different.
the venue was electric, bass humming through the floorboards, lights flashing silver and blue, voices screaming every word back at him, but somewhere in the middle of it all, tucker caught sight of you.
front left, just where you always somehow ended up.
his breath caught for half a second.
there it was.
slipfast get carried away.
and even from stage, he could make out the little design on the front, could see the careful detail. he smiled mid-lyric, soft and helpless, and shook his head to himself, laughing quietly because of course you'd somehow outdone yourself again.
of course you did.
suddenly the whole show felt lighter, warmer.
he played like he always did, poured everything into it, but there was this little glow tucked right beneath his ribs the whole night, this giddy little feeling that made him feel sixteen and ridiculous, because his girl was out there wearing something she made for him, inspired by his music, proudly loving him in the most thoughtful way anyone ever had.
it made him feel like the luckiest man alive.
backstage, when the show finally ended and the adrenaline was still buzzing through his veins, he barely had patience for the usual post-show chaos. he was distracted, eyes flicking toward the hallway every few seconds, waiting.
waiting for you.
and then you walked in.
your cheeks were flushed from singing, hair a little messy, eyes bright, still glowing from the concert, and there was your shirt up close, somehow even prettier than it looked under stage lights.
tucker's entire face lit up.
"baby" he said immediately, like the word had been sitting on his tongue all night, warm and full of affection.
he crossed the room in seconds.
his hands found your waist, pulling you close, and he leaned back just enough to look properly at your shirt, fingertips brushing lightly over the lettering, over the little stitched wings near the hem.
his smile turned soft. the kind that reached his eyes, crinkling at the corners.
"you made this?" he asked, even though he already knew you did.
you laughed quietly. "yeah."
he looked at you like you'd hung the moon.
"it's so good" he said, voice full of genuine awe, shaking his head like he couldn't believe you were real. "seriously... you always do this n every time i think there's no way you can top the last one, then you show up wearing something like this."
his thumb rubbed gently against your side.
"you have no idea what this does to me."
you smiled. "what, embarrass you in front of your whole crowd?"
he laughed, that warm honey laugh that made your chest ache.
"no," he said softly. "makes me ridiculously happy."
his eyes dropped to your shirt again before lifting back to your face, lingering there, full of that unmistakable tenderness he only ever seemed to have for you.
"and you look all pretty in it," he murmured. "always so pretty."
then, because he couldn't help himself, he leaned down and kissed you. big and lingering and full of affection.
one hand cupped your cheek, the other still resting at your waist, pulling you just a little closer like he wanted to memorise the feeling of you there.
when he pulled away, he pressed his forehead against yours, grinning like a fool.
"already excited for the next one" he admitted.
you laughed. "the next shirt?"
"yeah."
he kissed you once more, quick and sweet.
"but mostly seeing you in it."
and the way he said it made it clear that it had never really been about the shirts at all. it was the thought.
the love tucked into every stitch, the way you listened so carefully to what he created and turned it into something tangible, something beautiful.
to everyone else, it was just a shirt.
to tucker, it was proof, over and over again, that someone loved him enough to make art out of the pieces of him he left behind in songs.
and every single time, without fail, it made him fall for you all over again.
romaincrisis
snowghoul
origamiaround
baratheonpilled
