gia 💌🕯️🎀

james potter's real life gf

[g1rld1ary]

navigation *ੈ✩‧₊˚

me: i'm gia!! 20, she/her, queer, fuck jkr

find me: on ao3 | wattpad ୨ৎ

request guidelines 𖦹 | masterlist ✮ | emoji anons ｡𖦹°‧ | my tags ✧.*

obsessed with: lockwood&co, pjo, marauders, stranger things, jatp, criminal minds, anne with an e, DBD, smosh, talking about films, 70s music, conan gray, tsitp, romcoms!!!

1000% anti AI. do not use AI in any relation to any of my works.

[g1rld1ary]

i think sports reporter x james will be out at the end of this week and i am soooo excited for you guys to read it!!!!!! needs a bit more editing but should be about 12k words 🤭

[g1rld1ary]

poolside - college swimmer!james potter x fem!reader

wc: 1028 cw: none, university AU me: the way this isn't any of the three wips i teased a week ago.......

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

The smell of chlorine always calmed you down. Some people thought it was gross, your friends certainly did, but for you it was the one place you could think, no matter what.

No matter what kind of day you were having, being near a pool unfailingly brought back the happiest of memories; swimming lessons with your mum, summer days, tangled hair and melting ice creams. It wasn’t the water; you hadn’t swum seriously in years, it was just being there that did all the good.

Finals week was not going well, so you made yourself sit down in the one place you could focus on your work — the huge stadium that held the university pool. You took your spot on one of the wooden benches, lumber scratchy on your short-clad thighs. The humidity in the air meant you could always wear summer clothes, another thing you loved about it. Breathing in a lung full of chlorinated air, you focused back on the readings on your laptop, finally feeling like you could take the words in.

Down below, the swim team were fighting through their last laps of the training session, the thrashing of water filling the air. You glanced up from the article you were reading, watching them with pity as they flew up and down the pool, practically floating above the water. That’s how you knew they were good, it looked like they didn’t even need the water to be swimming.

When the words in the PDF all started blurring together you let yourself watch the athletes below, the sheer magic of it all always entertaining. Plus, swimmers were buff, which didn’t make for a bad show. The way their muscles stretched and contorted under their skin was a welcome distraction.

You were lost in a daze, enjoying the show below, when the swimmers all bunched at the end of the lane, coach looming over them on solid ground. You couldn’t hear exactly what he was saying over the whir of the fans and the splashing of other swimmers, but it didn’t really matter anyway. You weren’t so much into the sport that a random coach’s corrections fascinated you.

Suddenly, you locked eyes with one of the swimmers. You couldn’t tell much of him; his hair was covered by a red swimming cap and face distorted by orange goggles. If it weren’t for the broad shoulders sticking out of the water, he’d be unmistakeable for a little kid at a public pool.

It only lasted a second, and then he was turning back to his coach and you to your reading, pretending you were taking in even a single word.

Practice ended half an hour later, but you only spared the athletes a glance as they laughed and roughhoused their way to the change rooms.

You were finally feeling truly locked in, understanding your subject in a way you hadn’t since week one. The focus was broken at the sound of wet, slapping footsteps coming up the stairs toward you.

Before you, you assumed, was the same swimmer as before, though he was more of a wet dream than when he was in the full training attire. He stood before you in all his glory; swimming trunks over speedos, flip flops and no shirt, just a towel strewn across his shoulders. He was too good to even be true, your mouth drying up a little just at the sight.

“Why aren’t you wearing a shirt?” Is what came out of your mouth, and you almost jumped from the stands to the pool. Why the fuck would you say that?

The guy shrugged, looking at you with interest.

“Just wanted to keep the show going.”

“So you made the effort of going into the change rooms to only get half changed, to come up here and talk to me?”

“Well, when you put it like that…” He rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly, still smiling despite it all. “Anyway, why are you hanging around here? You’re not one of the boys’ girlfriends, are you?”

“No, definitely not,” You laughed, “I just focus better here.”

“I get it, me too. Hence, the uh, you know.” He gestured down at himself, droplets still falling from his mop of curls. “I’m James.”

You looked up at him for a fraction of a moment, trying to discern what his intentions were. Still, you gave him your name in return, a silence passing between you.

“Do you come here often? I haven’t noticed you before.”

You shook your head, glancing down at the laptop which lay abandoned beside you.

“No,” You said, “Only when everything else fails and the desperation is hitting.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, then. I didn’t mean to stress you out or pull you away from work or anything.” You should have cared more than you did, your final only days away, but you were enjoying the little conversation and admittedly didn’t want it to end.

“Don’t be sorry. Can’t study in a public place without expecting the public.” James laughed, loud and clear through the general buzz of the fans and water.

From somewhere below, someone yelled for him, muffled like you were in a room of your own. James glanced backwards, acknowledging them, but didn’t seem in any rush.

“We train again on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.”

You nodded slowly, poorly concealed grin matching James’.

“My last exam is next Tuesday.” James’ smile widened, eyes gleaming golden as he took small steps backwards.

“I’ll look out for my biggest fan.”

You scoffed, unable to produce any other sign of annoyance. James hopped down the stairs easily, greeting his friend with an arm around his shoulder, the two of them joking their way out of the pool. Your eyes followed him as far as you could, lingering when he slipped out of the double doors.

You gave yourself another few seconds to sit in the giddy bizarreness of it all, smile still faint on your lips. Right, you came back down to earth, final tomorrow.

[sunny-therapy]

[g1rld1ary]

as a football fan your James Potter fic has made me realise that football related fanfiction exist and im so so excited to explore more prepare to be sick of me with incoming requests

so happy that you discovered it honey!! i believe someone else has a footballer!james series too so i hope u find that, & your requests are always welcome !! :-)

[lalunavinoalafragua]

Man's best friend.

(I'm partial to wolfstar, but if there's any story of unconditional love among the marauders it's this one)

[g1rld1ary]

OH MY GOD I LOVE THE REPORTER X FOOTBALLER ONE ALREADY

hahahah thank you lovely!! extra pressure for it to be good now eek!

[yasministration]

i live here! - emily prentiss

summary: when your neighbour's unsuspecting friends catch you trying to pick the lock to your own front door, they feel the need to call you out, but your desperate conversation gets the attention of emily prentiss. wc: 0.9k+

Derek and Penelope stroll down the hallway towards Emily’s apartment with post-case bliss. They’ve just enjoyed a dinner at their favourite chinese place, and Emily and Spencer follow close behind them, carrying parcels that Emily’s doorman had given her. As the hallway sharply turns, Derek and Penelope pause, waiting for Emily to reach them so she can unlock her door. But while they wait, Derek and Penelope are met with a much more interesting sight.

Just a couple of door down the hallway, hidden from Emily and Spencer’s sight, a woman is struggling against a door, two bobby pins clasped in her hand as she tries picking a lock. “Excuse me!” Derek immediately calls out, grasping your attention. Your eyes go wide at the sight of the stranger, immediately aware of what this must look like. “Oh, hi!” You smile at the pair shyly, but keep at your movements in an attempt to force your front door open.

“I don’t think you’re supposed to be doing that.” Derek says with a hand held out towards you, looking close to calling the police on you. “No don’t worry, I live here.” Penelope purses her lips in an attempt not to laugh, but Emily and Spencer, who have noticed their conversation with someone, speed up to see what’s going on. When Emily pokes her head behind the corner, she immediately lets out a loud laugh. Your head snaps back to look at her, and your shoulders instantly slump with relief. “Emily, I locked myself out again.” You whine with a pout, and Emily takes slow steps towards you. She puts a hand on your back, and you instantly lean into her, letting go of your bobby pins.

“Did you call a locksmith?” She asks, and you nod “They said they’d call me back in half an hour.” Behind you both, Spencer, Derek and Penelope shoot each other amused glances. So you’re the neighbour Emily’s told them about. One night, many many drinks ago, a tipsy Emily muttered with rosy cheeks that she wishes she would have the courage to invite you over more instead of relying on hallway conversations with you.

Emily eases your bobby pins out of your door, asking “How was that working for you?” You huff, muttering “Not well. I even watched a video and everything.” Emily opens her palm to give you the bobby pins back, and you drop them loosely into your purse. It’s only when Emily catches a glimpse of your little vintage guess bag that she notices the rest of your attire. A short flattering dress with tall boots and large hoops that match with the bangles around your wrists. “Come on, I have a spare, remember?”

Your entire face morphs into one of realisation, and you wrap your arms around Emily’s waist and rest your head on her shoulder for a short moment before letting her lead you towards her front door. Derek chuckles when you walk past him, jabbing with “I told you I live here.”

Emily’s coworkers file into her living room, leaving you waiting in her entryway as she retrieves your key from her safety cabinet. She pops into the living room to tell her teammates to help themselves to wine from her kitchen before following you out with a key in hand. You stand by her as she unlocks your door, holding it wide open when she finally pushes it open for you. You thank her as she lets you through, watching as she removes the key from the door and puts it in her pocket.

“Good case?” You ask, trying to get her to stay for a little bit. She nods, leaning against the wall. “Yeah, good case. We went out for dinner just now. Good night out?”

“Yeah, we went out to a jazz bar downtown. I’d say we should go sometime but I like our days in.”

Emily smiles, humming in agreement. “Yeah, it’s nice to have good company on a lazy day.” You both stand in silence for a long moment, and Emily finally pushes herself off the wall, nodding her head towards the door. “I should probably go.”

You take a step towards her, and Emily puts her hands on your biceps to caress your bare skin softly. “Okay, thank you Emily.” She nods, seeing the way you take the tiniest step towards her, hesitant in your movements. So she stays where she is, giving you the opportunity to say anything if you need. Instead, you lean forward, pressing your lips to hers for a short moment. Emily doesn’t even have the chance to flutter her eyes shut before you’ve pulled away. She observes you as you swallow thickly, taking a step away from her, but Emily makes up the space by walking to you and cradling your face in her hands.

She sees the glimpse you take towards her lips before she finally kisses you, and she feels her heart swell in her chest at the way you immediately melt against her. She moves her hands from your face to wrap her arms around your torso and keep you close to her, letting out a soft noise when she feels your fingers lace in her hair. You break the kiss to look at her face for a short moment, then step away from her, forcing her arms to loosen around you.

“Your friends are waiting for you.” You tell her, opening the front door for her.

“Okay, I’ll be back tomorrow to help you out with this.”

“Don’t expect me to be awake before 2 though.”

taglist: @dearlizzies, @tiaajosephin, @bxuzi, @rory-cakes, @dlljdhsh, @aouoo, @fandomhoe101, @selenewowww, @sharkers00, @joonbread, @krokietino, @paankhaleyaaar, @bxuzi, @bearymuchso, @princesstiti14, @lunavelha, @doiki3, @daisylove3, @laufeysvalentine, @animegamerfox

[g1rld1ary]

Hii i love ur writing so much i was wonder if you can reveal what wips you have which i can look forward to 👀 specifically any marauders or percy jackson ones

wait i love you and i love this ask !!!!! keep in mind that i literally have 100s of ""wips"" at any one time that are just notion pages with like 3 sentences or a vibe in them, but these are a few heavy hitters which are likely to be actually posted soon !!

footballer!james x sports journalist!reader - james and r have to keep their relationship secret because of ethical concerns regarding reporting on your own boyfriend, but the world cup brings new pressure and many more eyes on them. (unrelated to our names in the paper)

she's not afraid - james potter x reader - university fwb, james is head over heels whilst you resist his advances, despite always ending the night back in his arms. so, what's your problem with falling in love?

percy jackson x dance teacher!reader - estelle brings percy to her 'bring a friend to dance class' day, where he meets the pretty young dance teacher! hope he doesn't trip over his own feet :)

+ a few other bits and pieces here and there!! thank u again for asking gorgeous!

[g1rld1ary]

last exam is in a few hrs and im sitting in the carpark writing fanfiction 😋

[g1rld1ary]

exams r done for this semester!!!!!!!! i think i did extremely poorly but at least that is one huge mental load off my shoulders ☺️

[g1rld1ary]

last exam is in a few hrs and im sitting in the carpark writing fanfiction 😋

[yasministration]

international (super)star - clark kent

summary: it only takes one video for someone to become a viral sensation, and of course that person just so happens to be the new superhero clark notices around his block. wc: 2k+ cw: suggestive themes, superhero influencer reader

Clark doesn’t know when the earth fell off its axis, but what he does know is that he’s no longer Cat’s favourite superhero. He knew there was someone knew around, travelling through shadows in the night to help people in the neighbourhood. He wanted to get a closer look at you, introduce himself to someone who would surely be an ally to him. Then all of a sudden, you weren’t just a secret he knew about, but an international sensation. People were obsessed with you, no matter who or where they were. Clark no longer needs to find you because you are everywhere.

He stares at Cat’s phone in utter shock, trying to process what he is seeing. The video he’s watching was posted from an account called user61384520497, and was filmed on the rooftop of a building. The video starts with a familiar woman leaning forward into her phone, hand covering most of the screen whilst steadying it against something before straightening up. Within the screen, you take a few steps back, hands settling on your hips as you turn to the side, kicking your foot back and catching it there with one of your hands to show off the boots you’re wearing. They’re chunky, Clark notices, with a wedged heel making you taller than you are. Maybe it’s an intimidation technique, he tries to justify.

“Vintage coach.” You mutter in the video, letting your foot drop back down to the floor in an elegant movement. You run your hands down your waist, feeling the slick fabric of your black catsuit as you strut towards the camera again. Your mask is a dark glass panel that covers your face from your eyes to below your cheeks, and Clark is sure that it has some sort of intelligent technology strewn into it. “My hair is a very simple, messy braid,” You add, doing a slow spin to show it off. “I’ll believe that’s a hazard when someone actually manages to pull on it.” You finish, a little sass making its way into your voice.

“I'm obviously wearing the same suit I always do, and this what i’m wearing for my evening rounds around the city. Stay safe!”

Clark furrows his eyebrows, spinning in his chair to find Lois’s gaze. “What do you think of her?” He asks, because quite frankly, he doesn’t have an opinion of his own yet. She shrugs, mumbling “I mean, not really practical for a superhero, but she seems nice, I guess.”

Clark downloads social media that night, searching up ‘stylish superhero girl’, and instantly, the video he had been shown by Cat pops up on his screen. He taps on your username, frowning when all his phone does is pause the video. He clicks it again, huffing when the video resumes. It’s only on the third try that he’s taken to your profile. There’s only four videos on your page, and when he clicks on the most recent one, he realises that it was filmed at nighttime and notices that you’re on a different rooftop from the way you’ve set up your phone. The video is in response to a comment that asks if you have any powers, and Clark shifts over this bedsheets, wondering what you’ll say. He knows he hasn’t seen you flying around the city, but what does he know? Just two hours ago he learned how to use social media (very, very minimally).

“I didn’t know if I should answer this,” You start, and Clark can see the glimmer of sweat on your face as you get closer to the camera. “But I figured it would be you find out today or you find out tomorrow, you know? So there’s two things I can do, which are kind of interlinked together.” You say as you stand up, making an intertwining motion with your fingers. “So number one, I can make portals to go literally anywhere, which is pretty cool for when I’m done with rounds or missions and want to get some food. I will now demonstrate.”

And just like that, the space next to you blurs, as though the buildings behind it are just a reflection. You step into that space, and instantly appear on the neighbouring rooftop, where you offer a little wave. Within a second, the space you were standing in before morphs as the atmosphere shifts, and you reappear in the frame. “Second thing I can do is time manipulation, so I can basically stretch it out as much as I want, but only within a certain radius. I don’t really get it either – demonstration.”

Clark hums as you pull a knife out of a pocket in your suit. You come close to the phone again, angling it away from you. You wave the knife around in the frame before tossing it away from you. There’s a tiny flicker in the air before you appear just where you had thrown the knife, now holding it. You slowly walk back to the camera, shrugging your shoulders and saying “Can you believe that I took my sweet time as I walked over there? Anyway, I need to take a shower.”

A laugh leaves Clark as the video cuts, instantly repeating himself. He tosses his phone to the side, licking his lips and silently wondering to himself how you’d be able to handle all the online fans. He picks his phone up again, clicking on the comment section of your video to see the support people are offering you. He’s instantly disappointed. Half of the people in the comments are letting you know how bad of a superhero you’re making by being embracing your femininity, and the other half are people fighting those comments. He furrows his eyebrows, slowly typing out ‘Awesome stuff!’ and posting it as a comment.

Clark finds you the next night. He tries to find you based on the sound of your voice, and chuckles to himself when he hears you humming not too far from him. You’re crossing the road from a convenience store, a bright green bag clutched in your arm as you make your way home. Clark feels weird following after you in his suit, but he doesn’t even know how to call you. Do you even have a superhero name?

“Hey!” He calls, watching as you spin around cautiously. Your eyes light up at the sight of him, and you hum, mumbling “Superman…”

“Hi, uh, I wanted to introduce myself.” He explains, sticking his hand out as he makes his way closer to you. You step forward, shaking his hand with a smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“Can I call you by anything?” He asks, watching as one of your eyebrows quirks up. “What, like a name?” Clark nods, and you shrug. “You can call me whatever you want to.” Clark flushes darkly at the flirtatious tone in your voice, and he laughs shyly, asking quietly “You don’t have any preferences?”

“Well, you can start by calling me yours.”

Clark’s mouth parts in shock, and you laugh quietly at the look of surprise on his face. “Sorry, I wasn’t expecting you to… come onto me.”

“I can stop if it makes you uncomfortable.” You say, and Clark smiles, feeling his face go impossibly hotter at the realisation that he in fact, does not want you to stop. Clearly, you make that connection too, smiling to Clark, who finally asks again “So no names?”

“I guess not until you find out my real one.”

Clark doesn’t know how he managed to step foot in your apartment before finding out what your name was, but he supposes that was just part of your relationship dynamic. Somehow, in the few months you’ve known each other, you’ve been to each other’s apartments, seen your real faces (or in Clark’s case, his secret identity), shared a first kiss, and yet have still gone without sharing names. He’s gotten so used to calling you ‘honey’, that he doesn’t even know if he’ll use your first name when he discovers it.

But now, standing in your kitchen with you, his arms wrapped around your waist as he presses kisses to the skin of your neck, he wonders if you’d tell him your name if he asked you now. The leftovers you’ve agreed on having for dinner simmer in a pan on the stove, and you raise your head to move your gaze from the food to look at Clark. He smiles at you, and you lean forward to kiss it off his lips. He melts into you, arms tightening around you as he effortlessly lifts your feet off the ground, trying to bring you closer to him to deepen the kiss. You wrap your arms over Clark’s shoulders, and he hoists you up even higher, one arm letting go of you so he can lift the cover off the pan, evaluating its contents.

In the meantime, you press kisses to Clark’s jaw and down his neck, smiling against his skin when he squeezes you once fondly, his second arm returning to you. When he moves his face in your direction, he doesn’t let you connect your lips to his, moving his head back to murmur “Would you tell me your name if I asked?”

You smile softly, pecking Clark’s lips once and patting his biceps. His heart drops in his chest when you whisper “Put me down” and for a moment, he thinks he ruined everything he’s built with you. Clark eases you back onto your feet, and he takes the opportunity of his free hands to turn off the stove, immediately following after you. He nearly slams into your body on the way out of the kitchen, his hands coming up to your shoulders to stop you before you can crash into him. You both just stare at each other for a moment, before you hand him the small wallet you had retrieved from your purse. He’s confused for the briefest moment, but you nod your head towards the wallet, and Clark opens the small compact to extract your driver’s license. He grins widely when he reads the little letters spelling our your full name before returning the card in its place and tossing your wallet to the side.

He’s instantly onto you again, arms snaking around your waist, face lowering down onto yours, but you pause him before he can kiss you again. “Are you missing something?” Clark blinks quickly, and you raise a single eyebrow at him for him to remember the situation.

“Oh. My name’s Clark.”

“Clark.” You repeat, and Clark feels his insides go hot at the sound of his name coming out of your mouth. He kisses you then, sighing into your mouth when you bring a hand up to play with his hair. Clark breaks the kiss quickly, saying “I’m surprised you didn’t snoop around and find my identity.”

“Mhm, it was pretty hard not to,” You begin, leaning forward to kiss Clark once. “I know exactly how I would’ve done it too.”

“Food?” Clark asks, nodding his head in the direction of the kitchen. You shake your head “That’s not what I’m hungry for anymore.”

The silence of the Daily Planet’s bullpen is ruined by an overly excited scream, which could only come from one person’s desk. Heads snap towards Cat as she makes her way over to Lois, Clark and Jimmy, holding her phone out in front of her. “I simply can’t believe it.”

Lois rolls her eyes dramatically at Cat’s energy so early in the morning, but when she glances down at the phone, her eyes snap wide open in surprise. It’s another video from user61384520497, and for the first time, she’s not alone in the video. Clark bites his bottom lip as he watches the video you had asked him oh-so-sweetly if you could record. You’re both stood in your kitchen in your supersuits, and your back is turned to the camera as Clark holds you in a loving embrace, both heads stilted to opposite sides as you share a sweet kiss. His hands are almost dipping lower than appropriate, and that's a detail most people in the comments choose to fixate on. There’s a string of text across the screen that spells ‘He’s not just super, he’s my man’, and the first comment is from the account ‘Superman’, its message being a single red heart.

Clark straightens up, swallowing thickly when he’s instantly met with Lois’s teasing expression. He turns away from her, rolling back to his desk slowly in hopes of blending into his surroundings. God knows what her reaction would have been if he had let you post the photo you had taken of him beneath your sheets, Superman suit thrown over a chair in the photo’s background, big capital ‘S’ displayed for everyone to see.

taglist: @aceshigh98, @naty-sunshine, @matcha-kitty13, @elijahhewsonswifelol, @sunnliqht, @tiaajosephin, @imnotsurewhatyouexpected, @iluvhrj, @juliabagoolia9, @bearymuchso, @princesstiti14, @challengers4ev, @doiki3, @daisylove3, @laufeysvalentine, @animegamerfox

[g1rld1ary]

I love your Finn SMAU and was wondering if you could make any more Smaus?

thank you so much gorgeous! i'll definitely do more smaus in the future if people want them, i love making them :) is there anything specific you want to see ?

[g1rld1ary]

coolest person he knows - mike wheeler x fem!reader

wc: 1331 summary: mike has a crush on the senior who works at the arcade. the only problem is that you're the same age as nancy, and definitely not interested in a freshman. warnings: swearing, age gap but nothing happens in this part, mike pining me: setting this up as the first part for a smut piece im writing rn!! (obvs they will be much older in it, to where the age gap is so irrelevant)

════ ⋆★⋆ ════

Mike thought you were the coolest person he’d ever met. You were who he wanted to be when he grew up. You were who he wanted to be with when he grew up. The only problem was that you were older than him, and perpetually saw him as a little brother.

It’s not that you weren’t kind to him, you were. Excessively, even.

“Hey Mikey,” You always cooed from behind the counter when he walked into the arcade, “How’s school?”

“Don’t call me that,” He grumbled each time, though he never snapped like he did at his own friends.

“Wait,” You said, stopping the whole party in its tracks, “When did you get all tall?” Ducking under the divider between the cashier’s station and the rest of the arcade, you approached Mike. His breath hitched at the proximity; you almost never came so close, preferring to stay behind or on top of the counter, teasing the group from a safe distance. Sure enough, though, Mike had shot up over the summer, particularly the month he’d been on vacation out of state with his family. In a few short weeks, he was almost a whole head taller than you, when you’d had at least a few inches on him in the spring.

“I dunno,” He mumbled, eyes trained on your black Converse, colourful socks just creeping out from the high-rise cut.

“This is so not fair,” You complained light-heartedly, “You’re not supposed to grow up. Is this how you feel all the time, Max?” You were already backing off, returning to your spot behind the cashier’s desk. She shrugged, more interested in Mike’s semi-crisis than answering your polite small talk.

Mike was bright red, fingers fidgeting with the hem of his shorts as he tried to stay calm, desperate to not reveal his childish crush on you.

An hour later, Mike was seconds from kicking the shit out of the Dragon’s Lair machine, unable to kill the final few villains of the game.

“Fuck off!” He groaned, fist slamming hard against the game.

“Aw, little Mikey, don’t get mad,” You giggled, putting your cleaning supplies back into the bucket next to the Pac-Man machine you’d been wiping down.

“I’m not little,” He snapped, though he shied away from his own frustration when he noticed how close you were. While he’d been wrapped up in trying to save Princess Daphne, you’d popped up beside him, leaning over his shoulder and left arm to better see where he was going wrong.

Mike’s breathing hitched as you put a hand on his shoulder to balance better, sharp eyes analysing his movements even as you spoke completely casually.

“But you are little, teeny Wheeler. I still remember when you used to dress up in Nance’s old fairy costumes when I came over to play with her. You were so cute, I hoped you’d never grow out of it.”

Mike was sure he was going to die. He’d never been so embarrassed in his life, except for every other time he talked to you. He always made some stupid social misstep, or you brought up something that reminded him of the age gap between you.

“Shut up,” He mumbled, eyes trained resolutely on the screen, though his fingers were only getting clumsier in your presence.

“Come on, shove over,” You continued, bumping Mike’s hip with your own carelessly, as if every nerve in his body wasn’t specifically attuned to you at all times. Still, he got out of your way, watching as you prepared to win the game for him.

You did one round unsuccessfully, clearly rusty on the game. Mike didn’t blame you; it was a fan favourite and famously hard to get time with. Even working at the arcade, you hardly got the chance to practice.

He didn’t expect, however, for you to shake yourself out and get serious about it, determined to win for your favourite member of the Party. Seriously, you scooped your hair up into a ponytail, completely unaware of Mike’s eyes widening comically beside you. Your shirt was tied in a knot over your belly button for the summer, and twisting the scrunchie through your hair had it rising salaciously, giving Mike ample view of the soft skin hiding underneath, tanned from days in the sun.

“You ready to see greatness?” You teased, completely unaware of Mike’s peril. He stammered something out in the positive, trying to be completely normal about your shoulders bumping.

Thankfully, his panic began to subside when you started the game, navigating it with practised ease. Mike couldn’t keep his gaze on any one thing; your elegant fingers fiddling with the game buttons, your face screwed up in concentration, tongue just poking out from your lips. Your feet, toes tapping incessantly on the carpeted floor of the arcade. Mike was transfixed, hardly noticing the enemies you were defeating until you swore under your breath.

“C’mon, baby, give me something,” You muttered, hands working overtime to pass one of the final levels. Mike could feel himself getting excited, too excited for a stupid video game. One of his hands flew to your shoulder, gripping tightly as you got closer and closer to beating the final boss, Singe the Dragon.

In one, two, three more well-timed moves, Singe the Dragon collapsed into death, and both your mouths dropped open — you’d actually finished it. Mike breathed a “holy shit” into the quiet before you were both celebrating. Your laugh was breathless, almost disbelieving, as you jumped up and down, holding your hands up to Mike for a double high-five. When he met you halfway, you clasped your fingers around his so he had to follow, jumping up and down like a little kid.

Mike could manage that, but when you hugged him, his body snapped rigid so fast he should have gotten whiplash. Awkwardly, he managed to wrap his arms around you, barely brushing the skin of your back before you were popping away, brilliant grin still on your face.

“How’s that for being a role model, kiddo?” Oof. A knife to Mike’s heart.

“Yeah,” He mumbled, “Super cool.”

“I’ll see you later, Mikey, ‘kay?” Mike nodded as if his heart hadn’t just been shattered by your casual dismissal. He stood where you left him, cheeks dusted pink as he watched you go.

“You’re pathetic,” Max said from where she was standing a few games away.

“Shut up,” He snapped.

Later, leaving the arcade to go have dinner at the Wheelers’, Lucas pulled Mike aside.

“Dude, you really have to ask her out.” Mike spluttered, red as a stop sign.

“The fuck you mean ‘ask her out’?” He snapped, “She’s the same age as Nancy!”

“And? People have age gaps all the time, maybe she likes younger men.” Lucas was calm, collected, everything Mike wasn’t at the moment.

“Yeah, when they’re like forty,” Dustin joined the conversation with a grin, “What would the coolest senior we know want with Mike?”

“She’s the coolest senior you know?” Max asked incredulously, “She works at an arcade.”

“Exactly,” The party said in unison. Whilst Mike was the only one head over heels, all the boys had experienced a passing infatuation with one of the only girls in Hawkins who actually enjoyed their nerd shit.

“Guys,” Mike said finally, “I’m not asking her out, okay? She doesn’t like me, she just sees me as a kid. I’m not ruining our friendship because of that. I’ll just… get over her.”

“Yeah, right,” Max snorted under her breath so only Lucas could hear her. Still, they all let the issue go, resolving to only bring up Mike’s crush in times of dire teasing, leaving him to figure the rest out by himself.

[g1rld1ary]

sending love to all the people on youtube making hour long movie-themed ambient study tracks. i love you.

[prettyglad]

you ask for poly marauders so here i come.. how about them going for a roadtrip? or camping? just exploring the outdoors. have a great day! 💗

the dock — poly!marauders x reader

summary — you and the boys head to the summer house for a few weeks. you have the best time doing nothing.

content 4k words, poly!marauders x reader, no pronouns, just the boys being the softest people possible.

note thank you thank you! for this request ily!!!!!

The house has been in Sirius's family for generations, which means it is beautiful in the specific way of things that have never had to try.

It sits at the end of a lane that becomes gravel after the last proper road, tucked behind a stand of old oaks that block the house from view until you're almost on top of it, so that your first sight of it every summer is always slightly startling — the white render, the climbing roses gone rampant across the south face, the blue-painted shutters that nobody ever bothers to close. 

There are seven bedrooms, and none of them have locks. There’s a kitchen that fits everyone if you're willing to stand close together, and a dining table that technically seats eight but has regularly accommodated twelve. 

The garden that someone once kept formal and that has long since decided to be something else, and at the bottom, there’s a dock that extends over the lake, the wood of it warping slightly in the summer heat, and it’s on this dock where most of the important things happen.

You arrive on a Friday evening in late June.

James picks you up from the station in the old Land Rover that smells of dog, even though there’s no longer a dog. He talks the entire forty minutes from platform to gravel lane in the cheerful, unfiltered way that James talks when he's happy, which is most of the time, but especially now, especially here, especially when the summer is just beginning. 

The evening light is doing that particular gold thing over the fields, and everything difficult or complicated or uncertain is still a whole summer away from mattering.

"Sirius got here Tuesday," James is saying, one hand on the wheel, the other arm out the window in the warm air. "He's already rearranged the kitchen and broken something and fixed it badly."

"How badly?"

"The thing mostly works." James tilts his head in a way that suggests mostly is doing significant labour in that sentence. "Remus got in this morning. He's been in the garden since eleven. Hasn't moved."

"That tracks," you say.

"We tried to get him to come to the village for lunch." James puts on the particular measured cadence of Remus. "'I've only just arrived.'"

"It was the morning."

"I know. He knows." James glances at you sideways, grinning. "He simply didn't care."

Outside, the fields roll past in the amber of late afternoon, the kind of light that makes everything look like it's been chosen specifically for the occasion. You've been looking forward to this for months, and now that you're nearly there, the anticipation has sharpened into something more urgent, the particular impatience of being close to something you want.

James reaches over and puts his hand over yours on the seat between you.

"Missed you," he says, like it's obvious. Like it's the most straightforward thing.

"You saw me three days ago," you say.

"And I missed you for all three of them."

Work for all three of you had been awful timing. The boys had finished work days before you and were determined to wait until you’d finished yourself before they left for the house. It took you three days to convince them you’d meet them there a few days after.

You turn your hand over and hold his. The lane crunches under the tyres. The oaks close over you briefly, and then the house appears, as it always does, suddenly and completely — the roses in full bloom, a light on in the kitchen, Sirius's bike leaned against the front wall at the angle that means he's been here long enough to stop caring where he leaves things.

Something opens in your chest.

It does this every time.

Remus is exactly where James said he'd be.

The old wicker chair at the far end of the garden, legs stretched out, bare feet in the grass, a book open on his knee. He looks up when you come through the gate, and his face does the thing — the slow, warm arrival of it, the tide-coming-in quality that you love most about Remus's expressions because they never rush.

He closes the book.

"Finally," he says.

"I said Friday."

"It's late Friday." He's already standing, unfolding himself from the chair, and you've crossed half the garden before you've decided to, and then you're walking into him and his arms come around you. The length of him, the chin finding the top of your head, the smell of old books and fresh air and the particular soap that has always been in the bathroom at the end of the hall.

He holds on for a proper amount of time.

His lips press against your hair, once, quietly, the kind of gesture that doesn't announce itself.

"Missed you," he says. His voice is lower than usual, close to your ear.

"I know. I missed you, too." You tilt your head back to look at him. "How's the book?"

"Very good. I'm at the part where everything goes wrong."

"Sounds familiar."

He attempts not to smile, and he doesn’t succeed. He keeps one arm around your shoulders as you turn toward the house, and that's Remus, that's the thing he does, the staying close without making theatre of it.

Sirius appears in the kitchen doorway.

He's wearing a shirt that’s been through many summers and is better for it, sleeves pushed up, and he has something on his left forearm that might be engine grease or might be paint. He looks at you with the expression he reserves for people he loves arriving in places he loves to be, which is its own specific and extremely effective look.

"You're late," he says.

"Everyone keeps saying that."

"We've been here for days."

"Sirius. It’s been three days."

"Exactly." He comes down the back steps, easy and loose-limbed, and you detach from Remus to meet him, and he hugs you — all momentum, no ceremony, immediate and complete.

But he lifts you slightly when he does it, which he does sometimes, and you've never asked about it. He keeps you there for a moment with your feet off the ground and his face turned into your hair.

"Hi," he says, muffled.

"Hi," you say.

He sets you down. His hands stay on your waist for a moment, and he looks at you like it’s been months.

"Missed you," he says.

"Sirius."

"It was terrible." He says it completely seriously, like this is a factual report. "The house without you is an entirely different house. I've raised this concern multiple times."

"You have a very comfortable house."

"It has the wrong person in it." He says it simply, and then turns away before you have to respond to it, back up the steps, into the kitchen. "James is doing something to the dinner. It needs supervision."

"It doesn't need supervision," James calls from inside. "It needs trust."

"They're not the same thing," Sirius says, stepping through the door.

Remus's arm comes back around your shoulders, and you walk up the steps together into the warm noise of the kitchen, which smells of garlic and something herby and the specific warm-house smell of a summer evening. 

James turns from the stove with a wooden spoon in his hand and says, "Good, you're here, tell Sirius this doesn't need supervision".

"It objectively does,” Sirius says.

Remus says absolutely nothing, and you lean back against the counter and feel the thing in your chest settle into something so full it almost aches.

Dinner is loud and close and all four of you in a kitchen that is too small for it, which has always been the point.

James cooks with the serious pleasure of someone who is genuinely good at it and knows it — moving between the stove and the counter, definitely in his element. Sirius helps in a way he thinks is best, tasting things constantly and offering commentary on each tasting, standing close to James, looking over his shoulder like he had any input in the creation of the dish.

"You could step back," James says, not looking up.

"I could," Sirius agrees, not moving.

James elbows him without heat. Sirius catches his elbow and uses it to pull himself in and kisses James's cheek, swift and deliberate, and James goes slightly pink in the way he still does, which you still find remarkable after all this time, and turns back to the stove.

You're sitting on the counter in the space by the window.

Remus hands you a glass of wine and leans against the counter beside you, close enough that his shoulder presses warm against yours. He doesn't make anything of it. He simply occupies the same space as you in the easy way he has, like proximity is the natural state and distance is the thing that requires explanation.

"How's the piece going?" he asks. He means the project you've been struggling with, the thing you'd told him about in the shower three weeks ago when it was going badly and you'd needed to say it to someone. He remembered. Of course, he remembered.

"Better," you say. "Turns out it wasn’t as big a deal as I thought it was."

He tilts his wine glass slightly toward you, a small acknowledgment. "I'm glad it's better."

Across the kitchen, Sirius has been apparently told to do something useful and is now chopping herbs in a way that James keeps correcting, not because James needs the herbs chopped differently but because it gives him a reason to reach past Sirius and adjust his grip, which is not really about the herbs at all.

"You're holding it wrong," James says.

"I'm holding it perfectly."

"Your knuckles—"

"My knuckles are fine, James."

James closes his hand over Sirius's to demonstrate, and Sirius goes still in the way he goes still when he's being touched, and pretends to be paying attention to the knife, and James says "There, see?" quietly, and Sirius says "Sure, that's what it was", and James is smiling at the herbs.

You look at Remus.

He's watching them too.

"Every summer," he says quietly, in the tone of someone fond beyond language.

"Every summer," you agree.

After dinner there is the dock.

There is always the dock.

The four of you migrate there the way you migrate every year — wine, the blanket from the wooden box at the end of the garden, the quiet. The garden is dark now except for the light coming through the kitchen window and the particular softness of a summer night, and the dock is darker still, the wood of it warm underfoot from the day's heat, the lake very still.

You arrange yourselves the way you always arrange yourselves. Sirius flat on his back at the end of the dock, looking up at the sky. James cross-legged near the edge, facing the water. Remus sitting with his back against the corner post, legs stretched out, and you between him and James because that’s the configuration you always find.

James’ hand finds yours in the dark.

He doesn't say anything. He just takes your hand and holds it, loosely, his thumb moving slowly across your knuckles, automatically, which means he's thinking about something else. You let him hold it. You look at the water.

"It's so still," you say.

"It's always still the first night," he says. "By next week, there'll be wind."

"You say that every year."

"And every year there's wind by the second week."

"He's not wrong," Remus says from behind you, still looking at the sky. "It's a pattern."

"It's empirical data," Sirius says. "I've been coming here since I was eight. I have empirical data on the wind situation."

Remus shifts behind you. His arm comes around your waist from behind, slow and easy, and you lean back into him by instinct, his chest warm against your back, and he rests his chin on your shoulder and looks at the water over your shoulder.

"Hi," he says quietly, just to you.

"Hi," you say back, just to him.

His arm tightens slightly. Not pulling you anywhere, just there. The weight of it. You feel yourself exhale something you've been carrying since before the station, since before the drive, something that's been sitting in the upper part of your chest for three weeks of too much work and not enough of this, and it goes out of you slowly, and the summer comes in to replace it.

"Okay?" he says.

"So okay," you say.

"Good," he says, and presses a kiss to the side of your neck, light and brief, before resting his chin back on your shoulder.

"Stars are incredible tonight," Sirius says from the dock's end. "Come look."

"I can see them from here," James says.

"It's different lying down."

"How is it different?"

"You get more of them."

James looks at you. You shrug. He looks sceptical but uncoils himself from his cross-legged position and moves down the dock to where Sirius is.

He lies down beside him, and from here you can see Sirius turning his head to say something to James, and him responding and then Sirius laughing quietly, the sound going out over the water.

"What are they saying?" you murmur.

"Something stupid, probably," Remus says, which is not true and both of you know it — James and Sirius are rarely stupid in private, in the dark, on the dock — but Remus saying it’s its own kind of tenderness, the fond dismissal of someone who loves people too much to describe them accurately in front of witnesses.

The four of you stay there for a long time.

Long enough for the wine to run out and nobody to go in for more. Long enough for the night sounds to change — the shift that happens around midnight when the birds stop, and the water takes over. The silence becomes a different kind of silence, fuller somehow, more settled. 

You move at some point from leaning against Remus to lying down with your head in his lap, looking up at the same sky Sirius has been evangelising about, and you understand immediately that he’s right, you do get more of them this way.

Remus's hand finds your hair.

He does this without comment, without drawing attention to it — begins moving his fingers through your hair in the slow, thoughtless way that’s become reflexive. You close your eyes. The dock rocks very slightly with the breathing of the water beneath it.

"Don't fall asleep," Sirius says from somewhere down the dock.

"I'm not asleep," you say.

"You sound asleep."

"I'm resting."

"Those are the same."

"They're really not," Remus says above you, his voice in the low register that means he's also halfway to sleep, which he would not admit, and which is entirely evident.

James laughs.

The dock holds all of it — the laughter, the dark, the water underneath, the weight of you, the weight of summer just beginning. It’s always held everything you've brought to it. You've been trusting it with things for years and it has not once failed.

You look at the stars.

You fall slightly asleep and don’t admit it.

The morning arrives without urgency, the light coming through the curtains of the room at the top of the stairs before anyone is ready to acknowledge it.

You surface slowly.

The room is warm already, the sun having been up for a while without asking anyone's permission. The window is open, and the curtain moves in it, and through the gap you can hear the garden — birds, the distant sound of the lake, something else that resolves itself after a moment into the faint sound of someone moving in the kitchen below.

James. It's always James in the mornings.

Beside you, Remus is asleep — entirely unconscious, one arm thrown over your waist, his face against your shoulder, he seems to intend to remain here for some time.

On your other side, Sirius is on his back with one arm behind his head, and from the quality of his stillness, you know he's awake or nearly, in the light surface state he moves into before he decides to surface properly. You can tell because there’s the ghost of a frown on his face.

You look at the ceiling.

You think about last night — the dock, the stars, the way the four of you had eventually come inside when it got too cold, moving through the quiet house in a loose, easy group.

James turning off lights as you went, Remus leaving a glass of water on the kitchen counter, Sirius’s hand at the small of your back on the stairs.

You think about being here.

The specific fact of it — that you are in this room, in this house, in this summer, with these three people, that this is a thing you get to have.

Sirius's voice, low, not quite fully awake: "You're thinking loudly."

"Sorry."

"Don't be." He turns his head toward you. His hair is doing several things at once, and he looks at you with the morning version of his face, which is softer. He looks younger. He looks exactly like himself.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi."

He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair back from your face with one finger, the minimal gesture of it, and then lets his hand rest against your jaw for a moment before dropping.

"Sleep okay?" he asks.

"Really well, actually."

"The house does that."

"I know." You turn onto your side to look at him properly. "I always forget until I'm here."

Remus stirs behind you. A sound that is part groan, part protest.

"Go back to sleep," he says, to no one specifically.

"Good morning," you say.

"No," Remus says, face still pressed to your shoulder.

"It's ten past eight," Sirius says.

"That's not a rebuttal," Remus says. "That's a description of a crime."

Sirius’s mouth does the thing. You feel it rather than see it, the quality of his exhale, the shape of the silence he doesn't fill.

Below, the sounds from the kitchen have graduated. James making breakfast — the opening and closing of things, the sound of eggs, the low singing he does when he thinks no one can hear him.

Which he does every morning and has done every morning for years, and which neither Remus nor Sirius has ever admitted to hearing, because hearing it would mean acknowledging it and acknowledging it would mean having to deal with how unbearably fond they are of it.

You have no such inhibition.

"He's singing," you say.

"Is he?" Sirius asks.

"Same song as last time."

Remus lifts his head from your shoulder just enough to look at the ceiling. "He sings that song when he's happy."

"I know."

A pause.

"Good," Remus says, and puts his head back down.

You lie there for a while in the warm room with the curtain moving and James's voice drifting up from the kitchen. Remus’s arm over your waist, and Sirius beside you, looking at the ceiling, and you don't say anything because there isn't anything to say that the room isn't already saying.

This is the thing about the summer house. It already contains everything. You just have to turn up.

Breakfast is an event.

James has been busy. The table — the proper dining table that they've dragged into the shaft of morning sunlight coming through the back window — holds toast and eggs and fruit and something he's made with the leftover herbs from last night that smells extraordinary. He's standing at the stove with a tea towel over his shoulder and an expression of considerable satisfaction.

"Sit," he says, when the three of you come downstairs in various states of assembly. "Sirius, don't touch that yet. Remus, the good coffee is in the left cupboard. Sit, sit."

"You've been busy," you say.

"I've been up since seven," he says, as if this is an explanation and not a further source of wonder. "The garden was nice. I went out for a bit."

"You could have woken me," you say.

He looks at you over his shoulder. "You were asleep. You were properly asleep, the good kind." He turns back to the stove. "I wasn't going to wake you."

Sirius drops into a chair and immediately steals a piece of toast from the stack, and James says Sirius without turning around, which is a thing James has always been able to do with him, some peripheral awareness that operates independently of his actual eyeline.

"It was the closest one," Sirius says.

"They're all equidistant; it's a stack."

"Debatable."

You sit beside Sirius. He leans over and kisses your temple without making anything of it, the way you might reach for the nearest thing — naturally, because you're there and he loves you and those two facts have always been sufficient.

Remus sits across from you with his coffee, both hands around the mug, watching James plate things with the particular expression he gets when he is content and wants you to know it but isn't going to say so. You know this expression well. It appears most often here.

"Eggs?" James says, turning with a pan.

"Please," you say.

He serves you first. This is also a James thing — you've noticed it over the years, the way he tends to you first without making it something. Plate, coffee, the blanket from the box in the garden. He just notices what you need before you've named it and acts on it, and he would be confused if you drew attention to it because it doesn't feel like a gesture to him.

"Thank you," you say.

"Don't thank me for eggs," he says.

"I'll thank you for whatever I like."

He sits down across from you, beside Remus, and immediately Remus shifts toward him by some small amount, and James's hand finds Remus's knee under the table, which you can tell from the way Remus's shoulders drop a fraction.

The table holds all four of you.

Outside, the garden is bright and warm, and the lake is visible at the bottom of it, blue this morning, the still-lake of the first days. The roses are at their full height, climbing the south wall of the house; you can smell them when the breeze picks up.

"What do we want to do today?" James asks.

"Nothing," Sirius says immediately.

"Nothing is still a plan," James says.

"My nothing involves the dock and being horizontal," Sirius says.

"That's a plan," you say. "I'm in."

"Remus?" James says.

Remus is looking out at the garden. 

"I want to go to the village," he says. "Later. That bookshop."

"It'll still be there," Sirius says.

"I know. Later." He looks at you. "Come with me?"

"Yes," you say, without hesitating.

Sirius points between the two of you. "You're going to come back with seven books."

"Three," you say.

"Seven," Sirius says.

"Five," Remus says, which is the closest he's going to come to admitting Sirius is right.

James laughs, the full version. It arrives before he can moderate it, which involves his whole face. Sirius looks at him with the look he has specifically for James, laughing, which is its own whole thing, soft and unguarded, which he never seems aware of wearing.

You reach for your coffee.

Outside, the summer morning continues, unhurried. The lake at the bottom of the garden. The roses. The particular quality of light that exists here and nowhere else, the light that knows it's summer and is making the most of it.

You think, this is what all the other days have been for.

You drink your coffee. You stay at the table. You let the morning do what the morning wants.

[prettydaisygirl]

James Potter mention!!!!!! i have missed my loverboy,,,, can we please have a next door neighbour James if your feeling up to it 🙏🙏 I'm thinking summertime vibes, maybe a barbeque, maybe a pool party, definitely some yearning and staring at James being helpful to his mum

hi lovely!!! thank you so much for requesting <3 i'm loving the summer vibes, not loving the absolutely devilish heat though lol. Hope you enjoy!

james potter x neighbor!reader who really needs to cool down ✿ 1.3k words

summary: thank goodness the neighbors are nice enough to let you use their pool to cool down on a super hot day. it's just the cherry on top of the cake that you get to oggle your bestfriend, too

cw: pre-established relationship, i believe this to be gn!reader but written with fem!reader in mind (let me know if I need to change anything <3), mentions of “casual” sex with james in the past

james potter masterlist

°˖✧✿✧˖°

The summer heat is practically unbearable at this point. You’ve tried everything: taking your clothes off, turning on multiple fans, drinking ice cold water and even an ice cold bath at one point. But nothing helps. It’s like it’s seeped into your bones, your very being. 

You’re considering using your last resort: the kindness of Mr. And Mrs. Potter. The Potters are quite possibly the nicest people you know. You’ve lived next to them your whole life, and even more than that, you’ve been kind-of, sort-of best friends with their son since the two of you were in diapers. 

You only say kind-of, sort-of because while James Potter is definitely your best friend, he’s also… more than that. Not outwardly, not in any way that could be pointed out, but you do find it a bit of a disservice to him to see him as just your best friend. 

You flop down on your bed again, bare skin slick with sweat against the sheets which have been tossed around from your thrashing as you tried to get cool under the fan. You weigh the decision in your mind, trying to determine if you think it is worth it or not to get up and head next door, when James makes the decision for you. 

Ironic, considering he can’t even see you. 

He’s visiting his parents for the summer, standing there in front of the grill, biceps and thighs on display, clothes soaked through with sweat. You watch each shift in his muscles as he flips burgers, and suddenly you’re finding yourself hot for another reason. You try to stop the thoughts that spiral through your mind at the familiar heat, memories of one too many nights of curious, soft touching between the two of you rolling like film. 

You try to push those thoughts aside as you lean forward and open the window, catching James’ attention with a shouted, “Hey, Potter!”

He looks up at the sound of your voice, eyes finding you like they were always meant to, and a smile brightens his face, spreading across his already-sunburnt cheeks. “Hi, love!”

You ignore the way your heart flutters, or at least you try as much as you can to ignore the way your body reacts to him. Instead, you smile back and gesture toward the pool, “Can I come over and swim?”

He shrugs and waves the spatula around in what you think is supposed to be an inviting gesture. “Sure! Come on over!”

“Don’t you need to ask your parents?” 

You can’t really see his eye roll, but you can feel it. “Just come over, you know they doesn’t care!”

That’s how you end up in the Potters’ pool, arms resting on the concrete, head resting on top of them, staring at James while he grills. The smell is almost as mouth-watering as the sight of him. 

“Aren’t you hot?” You ask, slowly kicking your feet back and forth under the water. “I felt like I could barely breathe and I was inside.”

James shrugs and flips another burger. “I can take it.” You think he might purposely flex his arm in your direction as he says it, and you let out a chuckle. 

“Whatever. Just know I’m not taking you to the doctor when you get heat stroke.” You can see his eyes roll this time, and it makes your smile widen. 

“I’m not going to get heat stroke.” 

You splash some of the water out of the pool, the droplets spraying over the concrete and the backs of his calves. He jumps as though the water was fire, turning around and pointing the spatula at you threateningly, his eyes narrowed but still alight with playfulness. 

“Did you just splash me?”

You give him his signature shrug back, your own eyes shining with mischief. “Maybe.”

James glances between you, the grill, and back. “If I wasn’t on burger duty, you would be dead meat.”

You raise an eyebrow teasingly, hands creating trails in the water like an ongoing threat to splash him again. “Oh, so you’re using the burgers as an excuse, huh?”

His head cocks to the side, the shape of his tongue pressing to the inside of his cheek making something in your stomach flutter in utter delight. Your confidence falters when he tosses the spatula aside, hands gripping the neckline of his shirt to hoist it over his head, turning back toward the house with a shout of, “Can one of you come man the grill?”

You try to flee to the other side of the pool, already knowing that you’ve sealed your fate but trying to prolong the consequences. You don’t get far, James’ leap into the water lands him right next to your side. You barely have time to inhale before he’s tackling you into the water, his arms around your waist and yours flying out, gripping onto his shoulders as you’re dunked below the surface. You can hear his laugh above you, muffled, and in a split second you make a plan. 

It’s an Oscar-winning performance, truly. You come back up, making a show of coughing and hacking, moving yourself away from him to wipe water from your face and pointedly from below your eyes as though there might be tears mixed in with the chlorine. There aren’t, but James doesn’t need to know that. 

His smile fades instantly. His hands move to cup your face, worry evident all over his expression. “Are you alright? Did I hurt you?” When you don’t answer immediately, his hands are trailing down your shoulders, over your arms, his eyes searching your wet figure for any kind of injury or source of pain. 

You take the opportunity when you spot it. You pounce with a shout, tackling him below the water. Your laugh rings out just as loud as his did, but when he resurfaces, he’s smiling as though you’ve given him a gift, not pouting from your attempted drowning like you would have thought.

“You tricked me.” He says. 

You give him the same shrug again, a mimic of his own. “Maybe.” 

“Oh, come here.” His hand wraps around your wrist, tugging you closer. You think he might dunk you under again, but he doesn’t, instead choosing to wrap you in a loose embrace, letting the two of you float gently in the water as it laps against your skin. The sun beams down from high above, reflecting white off the slight waves in the pool from your movements. 

Something shifts as you look into his eyes. Suddenly, you aren’t in the pool anymore. You’re the two teenagers you used to be, hands exploring under the covers. You’re the university students who found  themselves in each other’s beds after long nights of drinking. You’re two adults who know they have to stop pretending to dance around whatever this thing is between them. 

“James…” Your whispered voice makes him shiver, your hand tracing slowly down the side of his neck before settling at the back, fingertips delving into the curls at the nape. He says your name back, voice low and eyes darkening. The gap between you starts to close, but just as your eyes begin to shut, you realize something is wrong.

“James?” 

“Hmm?”

“I think your burgers are burning.”

“Oh, shit.” 

If Euphemia and Fleamont are stood at the back door, purposely staying inside and watching your almost kiss, praying James might finally confess his feelings for you… well… who can blame them?

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© prettydaisygirl