summary: dean will do anything to win you back, but winning you over proves harder than why he bargained for. (5.9k)
pairing: dean di laurentis x reader
content warning: relationship dysfunction, dean di laurentis is a mess, yearning, jealousy, language, alcohol, hurt/comfort.
authors note: this is for everyone who wanted to see how taking him back would play out. this may be the longest piece i’ve wrote on record but i couldn’t let this man get off so easily…
part one.
the tail-lights of suni's honda civic bled into the darkness of the gravel driveway, leaving nothing behind but the exhaust fumes and a hollow, ringing silence.
dean stood frozen under the dim glow of the porch light, his hand still half-raised in the air as if he could somehow catch the car and pull it back.
the cold night air slapped against his face, a brutal contrast to the suffocating heat of the house behind him, but he couldn't feel it.
his mouth was slightly open and his throat was completely dry.
i am officially withdrawing my terms.
the words repeated in his head, sharp and clinical, cutting right through the lingering buzz of the alcohol in his system.
dean di laurentis didn't get left hanging on driveways.
dean di laurentis didn't get tongue-tied.
he was the guy who always had the perfect pivot, the effortless laugh, the smooth reassurance that smoothed over any wrinkle.
but as he stared at the empty space where you had just been standing, a sickening wave of realization crashed over him.
he hadn't been playing a game.
you had just seen right through the defense mechanism he had been using his entire life.
the heavy front door thudded open behind him, letting out a brief burst of blaring music before closing again.
two sets of footsteps crunched on the gravel.
"hey, man."
a heavy hand came down on his shoulder.
dean flinched, snapping his head around to see tucker standing there, his face tight with a mixture of pity and disappointment.
right next to him was beau maxwell. his arms crossed over his chest and his usual laid-back energy completely gone, replaced by a rare, dead-serious frown.
"i told you, dean," tucker said quietly, looking down the empty road. "i warned you that she doesn't do the whole half-in, half-out thing."
"i wasn't half-in," dean snapped, his voice suddenly raw, a dangerous edge cracking through his usual easy-going demeanor.
he ripped his shoulder away from tucker's grip, running a frantic hand through his blonde hair. "i was going to tell her tonight. i was waiting for the house to clear out so i could ask her to stay. permanently."
beau let out a low, heavy sigh, shaking his head. "then why didn't you say it in front of everyone? why did you let her watch you flirt with some sophomore if she's the one you wanted? you can't treat a girl like a secret and then expect her to treat you like a priority."
tucker nodded in agreement. "beau's right. you let her think she was just another hookup that half the campus has already been with. you can't blame her for cutting you off."
dean quickly opened his mouth to defend himself.
he wanted to explain that the girl by the keg meant absolutely nothing, that it was just muscle memory.
it just the casual persona he put on so nobody looked too closely at how much he actually cared.
but the words died in his throat.
i know when someone is just trying to win over a crowd.
you had called it.
every single bit of it.
he had been so terrified of admitting, even to himself, that he had finally found the right girl. the one he had been passively waiting for his entire life.
but he had treated her like a secret and in doing so, he had completely destroyed the only real thing he had.
"i fucked up, guys," dean whispered, his voice dropping into a register they had never heard from him before.
it was entirely stripped of pride, heavy with a terrifying, sudden desperation. "i really, really fucked up."
beau looked at tucker, then back at dean, his expression softening into something deeply sympathetic. "yeah. you did. and if i know her? she's not the type to give you a second chance just for the sake of it. you're going to have to actually work for this one."
dean didn't go back inside the party.
he walked straight up the stairs to his room, locked the door, and sat on the edge of his bed in the dark.
the scent of your coconut shampoo still lingered faintly on his pillow.
the hum of the tires against the asphalt was the only sound inside suni's car for the first three miles.
after the oppressive, vibrating bass from earlier, the silence inside the sedan felt less like an absence of noise and more like a physical weight, settling deep into your bones.
you blankly stared out the passenger window, watching the streetlamps bleed past in long, blurry streaks of amber.
"do you want me to say it?" suni asked quietly, her brown eyes fixed on the dark road ahead.
her hands were gripped tight on the steering wheel, still vibrating with that protective adrenaline.
"say what?" you murmured, your forehead resting against the cool glass.
"that you are an absolute fucking badass," she said, a small, fierce smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
"i mean it. people don't just walk away from dean. girls usually dissolve into a puddle when he looks in their general direction, and you just destroyed him on his own driveway."
you let out a breath that was half-laugh, half-sigh, feeling the tight knot in your chest loosen just a fraction. "i don't feel like a badass. i feel hollow."
"that's just the detox," suni promised gently, reaching over to give your knee a supportive squeeze before putting both hands back on the wheel.
"it's the sugar crash after two months of eating nothing but empty calories. it'll pass."
she was right.
it was a crash.
but as you pulled up to your apartment building, the relief you expected to feel was shadowed by a lingering, dull ache.
you had drawn the line. you had won the argument.
so why did it feel like you were the one recovering from a blow?
four days passed in a tense, quiet limbo. you stayed away from the standard student hangouts.
you kept your head down, and entirely avoided the athletic side of campus.
which was much easier said than done.
it was actually hannah wells who broke the radio silence when you bumped into each other at work.
you two weren't particularly close outside of your shifts, but you had always been good coworkers, and she gave you a sympathetic look the second she saw you.
she admitted right off the bat that garrett had practically begged her to feel you out and see if you would be willing to hear dean's side of things.
but hannah made it clear she wasn't actually pushing his agenda.
you let her know, gently but firmly, that you just didn't want to hear him out right now.
she nodded immediately, completely understanding.
you were halfway through your shift at malone's when the bell over the front door chimed and beau maxwell walked in from the cold.
the dinner rush hadn't started yet, leaving the restaurant washed in a warm, lazy quiet.
soft music drifted through the speakers. behind the bar, hannah was busy polishing glasses, while allie was sitting in one of the booths near the window. she was seemingly looking over her homework but clearly tuned into the room.
you looked up from the hostess stand and immediately narrowed your eyes.
beau rarely came here unless dean dragged him.
and judging by the guilty, deeply uncomfortable look on his face, this definitely wasn't a social visit.
"it's that bad, huh?" you asked dryly before he could even open his mouth to speak.
beau blinked. "what?"
"you drew the short straw." you crossed your arms. "dean sent you to talk to me."
hannah stopped wiping her glass, an amused smirk spreading across her face. the fact that beau's expression instantly gave him away nearly made you laugh.
"oh my god," you said, an incredulous smile finally breaking across your face. "he did."
"to be fair," beau said carefully, raising his hands in surrender, "i volunteered. mostly because i couldn't take another night of him pacing the living room floor like a caged animal."
allie leaned out of her booth slightly. "wait. dean di laurentis is sending representatives now?"
hannah leaned her elbows on the bar, looking entirely entertained. "please tell me he at least prepared a speech."
beau groaned, rubbing a hand over his face. "you people are evil."
"no," you corrected lightly, grabbing a stack of menus from the counter beside you, "he's pure evil."
that earned you a reluctant laugh from beau. he shoved his hands into his pockets, looking both amused and slightly helpless.
"okay," he admitted. "maybe this does look a little pathetic."
"a little?" allie echoed from her booth, shaking her head. "beau, i don't know why you're doing this for him."
hannah pointed a bar towel at you. "his approval ratings are in the toilet."
you pressed your lips together, fighting another smile.
it was ridiculous.
dean was apparently moping around because you stopped answering his texts.
a month ago, the idea would've satisfied you.
now it mostly just felt surreal.
beau's expression softened as your smile faded slightly. "i've known dean a long time," he said quietly. "and i've honestly never seen him like this before."
you focused on straightening the menus in your hands even though they were already perfectly aligned. "beau—"
"no, seriously." he leaned against the hostess stand, dropping his voice. "the guy is a disaster. garrett says he's playing like crap at practice because he's distracted all the time. coach yelled at him so hard yesterday his face literally turned purple.”
“and logan threatened to throw dean's phone into a lake because he keeps checking if you texted him back every thirty seconds. he doesn't sleep. he just... he stares at his phone."
a reluctant laugh slipped out before you could stop it, but it died quickly.
"this is insane," you muttered, covering your face briefly with your hand. "he's literally running a pr campaign."
"that's actually exactly what tucker called it," beau admitted.
the amusement faded entirely after a second, though, something heavier settling back into your chest. because underneath all the ridiculousness... there was still hurt.
a deep, aching bruise left by a boy who thought everything in life came easy.
you slowly lowered your hand. "did he send you because he thinks if enough people tell me he's miserable, i'll magically forget why i left?"
the teasing atmosphere immediately evaporated. beau straightened slightly, his voice turning serious.
"no." he shook his head.
"i came because he knows he hurt you. and because for once in his life, he's too scared to make it worse. he's terrified that if he pushes you, you'll completely erase him."
that caught you off guard.
even hannah went quiet behind the bar, returning to her glasses. you looked down at the menus in your hands, tracing your thumb absentmindedly along the edges.
beau hesitated before continuing. "he's not trying to charm his way out of this anymore," he said carefully. "honestly? i think that's freaking him out the most. he doesn't know how to exist without his armor."
before you could respond, the front door opened again and a group of customers entered, breaking the moment apart. hannah immediately pushed off the bar, professional mode clicking back in. "right, back to it before della catches us."
allie slid back into her booth to give the customers room. beau stepped away from the hostess stand, giving you one last careful look. "i'm not saying you should forgive him," he said gently. "that's your call. but i do think losing you finally forced him to become a person instead of just a personality."
and annoyingly enough, that line stayed with you long after he left.
by the end of the week, the hurt had hardened into a reckless, heavy spike of anger.
suni practically forced you out the door to the pre-game mixer at the phi kappa house. "you need to show up, look stunning which isn't hard for you, and prove you aren't hiding in your room crying over a some hockey player," she insisted.
the house was a sensory overload—a wall of thumping bass, sticky floors, and sweat-fogged windows.
it took exactly five minutes for the room to feel subtly dialed into your arrival. across the crowded living room, the hockey team was gathered near the back patio.
and right in the center was dean.
he looked exhausted, his gaze drifting aimlessly until logan nudged him, pointing in your direction. the moment dean's blue eyes locked onto yours, his entire posture changed.
his chest rose sharply, and he took an instinctive step forward, completely abandoning his conversation.
his eyes flared with a sudden, desperate hope.
you felt the invisible weight of the room watching, waiting for the classic fallout. a dark, defiant spark ignited in your chest.
dean had spent months keeping your relationship a secret, acting like a casual observer while he entertained a crowd.
two can play that game.
you deliberately tore your eyes away from him, turning your gaze toward liam. liam was a handsome football player who had been hovering in your orbit since the start of the academic year.
he was tall, built, and more than happy to have your sudden, undivided attention.
out of the corner of your eye, you saw dean freeze. the hope on his face shattered.
you leaned in close to liam, letting your laughter trail off into something softer, low and intimate.
you stepped directly into his space, your hand sliding deliberately up his arm to rest against his shoulder, your fingers brushing the nape of his neck.
liam's eyes darkened instantly with surprise and heat. his hand came up, wrapping firmly around your waist and pulling you flush against him.
across the room, dean looked like he had been physically struck.
you could see his jaw clenching so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek, his knuckles turning stark white as his grip tightened around his red cup.
garrett muttered something in his ear, placing a grounding hand on his shoulder, but dean brushed him off as his eyes burned into you with a raw, bleeding agony.
you didn't look back at him. instead, you leaned up on your toes, your eyes dropping to liam's lips.
"you're incredibly beautiful tonight," liam murmured, his voice thick, his thumb sliding beneath the edge of your top, tracing the bare skin of your hip.
"thank you," you breathed out, tilting your head up slightly. "liam?"
"mhm?"
"kiss me."
he didn't hesitate. liam leaned down, slanting his mouth over yours.
he didn't hold back at all. his lips were warm and demanding, his hand pressing firmly into the small of your back to hold you tight against his chest.
you let your eyes close and leaned into the weight of him, wrapping your arms around his neck, deepening the kiss into something slow, deliberate, and deeply sensual.
you made sure it lingered, playing your part perfectly for the crowd.
and for the specific boy breaking apart by the doors.
a low ripple of whispers washed through the immediate room. the kiss was thick with heat, but it didn't ignite that familiar, electric ache you only ever felt with a certain stupid idiot.
when you finally pulled back, liam was breathing heavily, a dazed, smug smile tugging at his lips.
you offered him a quiet, heavy-lidded smile before finally looking past his shoulder.
the satisfaction immediately turned to ash in your throat.
dean looked physically ill. the fierce, possessive anger had completely drained out of him, leaving behind a hollow, entirely defeated devastation.
his face was completely pale, his eyes wide as he stared at you. it was like he was looking at the end of his life.
watching you give someone else that kind of intimacy had entirely undone him.
dean's fingers slacked. his cup slipped from his hand, clattering against the floor and splashing beer across his shoes, but he didn't even notice.
he turned on his heel and blindly pushed through the crowd, fleeing out the back doors into the freezing night air.
beau shot you a heavy, disappointed look before turning to follow him out.
you stood frozen beside liam, the adrenaline completely evaporating, leaving behind a bitter, hollow ache in your chest. you had hurt dean exactly the way he hurt you.
so why did you feel like throwing up?
dean didn't find you until two weeks later. it took him two full weeks after that party to gather the courage to approach you again. when he finally did, it wasn't at a party, or in his bedroom, or under dim lights where he could press his mouth against yours and make you forget.
it was the middle of the afternoon in the campus library.
you were sitting cross-legged in one of the armchairs near the back windows, a stack of annotated articles spread across the table beside you.
for a long minute, he just stood at the end of the aisle.
god, he looked awful. the sharp jawline you used to trace was covered in a rough, uneven stubble. his signature silver-tongued confidence was entirely absent.
you sensed him before he even spoke. your eyes lifted slowly from your laptop. no warmth or softening. just... nothing.
dean flinched. "hey," he said, his voice raw and stripped of its usual smooth cadence.
you looked back down at your laptop screen, your voice flat. "dean."
he swallowed hard, stepping closer, his hands shoved deep into his pockets as if to keep himself from reaching out. "can we talk for maybe a second? please. just... two minutes. i'll leave right after, i swear."
"i'm really busy right now, dean."
"i know. i know you are." his voice cracked. he hesitated, his eyes flashing with a sudden, sharp spike of residual pain from the party. he swallowed hard, trying to keep his composure, but his voice shook. "are you... are you seeing him? liam?"
you didn't even look up from your screen. "that's really none of your business."
"none of my—" dean let out a bitter, breathy laugh, his eyes swimming. he leaned slightly over the table, his voice dropping to a harsh, desperate whisper. "that was low, you know. even for you. putting on a show like that in front of everyone just to rub my face in it?"
you finally shut your laptop softly, leaning back in your chair and crossing your arms.
you scoffed at him, a cold, mocking sound that cut right through his defense.
"low?" you repeated, your voice slicing through him. "you should worry less about who i'm kissing, dean, and worry a lot more about yourself. you don't get to lecture me about public displays when you practically pioneered them."
the reality of your words hit him like a physical punch to his ribs. he actually took a half-step back, his chest heaving as the hypocrisy collapsed on him.
he was desperate to know if you were talking to liam. he was paralyzed by the thought that you had moved on, but he knew he had no right to ask.
"i'm sorry," he whispered, the defensive edge completely evaporating, leaving him entirely exposed. "you're right. i have no right. i just... i think i genuinely don't know how to handle this."
"i think you genuinely don't understand why you hurt me in the first place," you countered calmly, the honesty of it cutting deeper than your anger ever could.
"you understand that i left. you understand that your bed is empty and your ego is bruised. but i don't think you actually understood what it felt like to stand next to you and constantly feel temporary. to feel like a placeholder until someone better, or flashier, caught your eye."
dean went completely still.
"i liked you so much, dean," you admitted quietly. it made you almost sick to say it. the words tasted bitter and heavy as they left your tongue, but unfortunately it was true.
"it was enough to make excuses for things i normally wouldn't tolerate. i let myself believe you actually cared, and you made me feel stupid for it. you treated my feelings like they were disposable. i'm not doing it anymore. i'm done."
"please," he whispered, his voice dropping to a raw, desperate plea. "don't say it's over. just give me something to fix. tell me what to do."
"there's nothing to do," you said, your heart aching behind the wall you had built, but you forced your voice to remain steady. "i just need you to leave."
he stood there for a long, agonizing beat, looking at you like a man watching his life sentence being handed down.
finally, he closed his eyes, took a shaky, ragged breath, and nodded.
"okay," he sighed, his shoulders hunched in complete defeat. "okay. i'm sorry."
he turned around and walked away, his heavy footsteps fading down the library aisle, leaving you alone with a crushing, heavy silence.
two more weeks passed. then three.
if dean's initial reaction to the "breakup" was a loud, messy public moping tour, his reaction to the library confrontation was a total blackout.
the campus gossip machine slowed down because dean stopped giving them material.
he wasn't partying.
he wasn't hovering at the edges of your vision.
but he hadn't given up instead he had just changed his tactics.
the loud gestures were replaced by quiet, undeniable consistency.
every tuesday and thursday morning—the days you had an 10.00 am seminar on the opposite side of campus—there was a large vanilla latte waiting for you at the barista counter, already paid for.
no note.
just your exact, complicated order.
when you tried to refuse it, the barista just shrugged. "he said if you don't take it, i have to throw it out. every day."
you left it on the counter the first three times.
by the fourth time, the cold winter air bit too hard, and you took it.
it tasted like an apology.
then came the hockey games. suni dragged you to the friday night game against yale.
you sat twelve rows up, determined to look indifferent.
but the moment the team skated onto the ice, it was clear dean wasn't playing for the scouts or the crowd anymore.
he played with a brutal, self-punishing intensity. and when he scored the game-winning goal in the third period, the stadium erupted.
normally, dean would skate a lap, flashing his devastating smile to the student section, soaking in the god-like adoration.
instead, he skated straight to the center line, stopped, and looked directly up into the stands. right at you.
he didn't smile. he just held your gaze for three agonizing seconds, chest heaving, before skating back to the bench.
"okay," suni muttered beside you, watching him go. "that was... actually kind of miserable. he didn't even wink at the girls."
the next afternoon, you were heading out of the science building when a shadow fell over you.
you braced yourself, expecting to see blue eyes and a desperate expression, but when you looked up, it was tucker.
he stepped right into your pace, unceremoniously slinging his heavy arm over your shoulders, pulling you briefly into his side to shield you from a sudden blast of freezing wind.
"hey," tucker said quietly, giving your shoulder a firm, reassuring squeeze before letting his arm drop back to his side. "you got a minute? i'm not here on his orders, i swear. he doesn't even know i'm talking to you."
you didn't walk away, but you still kept your guard up. "tucker, if this is about dean—"
"it is," he interrupted gently. he gestured toward a quiet bench under a bare oak tree.
once you both sat down, he leaned his elbows on his knees, looking at you with complete sincerity.
"i'm not here to tell you he's miserable, because you already know that, and honestly, he deserves to be. but he's always been the guy who keeps one foot out the door because he thinks if he doesn't fully commit, nothing can actually hurt him."
you let out a bitter, breathy sigh, looking down at your boots. "so i'm just supposed to wait around while he plays psychologist with himself?"
"no," tucker said firmly, catching your eye.
"absolutely not. you did the right thing by walking away. you forced him to look in a mirror, and he hated what he saw. but what i'm trying to tell you, as your friend he's not trying to trick you back. he's genuinely terrified because he realized his own cowardice cost him the only real thing he's ever wanted."
tucker leaned back slightly against the bench. "i've never seen dean look at a girl the way he looks at you. he's not trying to smooth things over anymore, he's just trying to figure out how to be a man you could actually trust. i'm not asking you to take him back. i'm just asking you not to completely write him off before you let him speak."
you sat in silence for a long moment, the weight of tucker's words sinking deep into your chest.
tucker wasn't an enabler. he was your friend, and he was the moral compass of that friend group.
if he was defending the sincerity of dean's change, it had to mean something.
"thank you, tuck," you murmured softly.
he gave you a brief, supportive nod, standing up from the bench. "just think about it, okay? see you around."
you watched him walk away, your mind a chaotic blur.
a few days later, you were sitting on the couch in your apartment, staring blankly at a textbook, when suni dropped a mug of tea onto the coffee table in front of you.
"you're thinking about him," she said flatly, crossing her arms as she leaned against the back of the chair.
you let out a long sigh, rubbing your temples. "i don't want to be. but it's been a month, suni. he's not stopping. every time i turn around, there's a coffee, or he's clearing out of a room the second i walk into it so i don't feel uncomfortable. and his friends are trying to reason with me. it's infuriating."
"why is it infuriating?"
"because it's working," you admitted, your voice cracking. "it's making me remember why i fell for him before he started acting like a coward. but i'm terrified. if i let him back in, what happens when he gets bored of making amends? what happens when the crowd calls his name again?"
suni searched your face, seeing the deep, defensive armor you had built. she slid onto the couch next to you, pulling your hand into hers.
"then you make him earn the right to even ask that question," suni said softly, squeezing your fingers.
"you don't fold just because he's acting like a human being now. that's the baseline expectation, not a reward. if you want to talk to him, talk to him. but don't let him off the hook until you are 100% sure he knows he's lucky to breathe the same air as you."
just promise me you walk away if he slips back into his old habits." she sighed holding onto your hands.
"i promise," you whispered, a sudden wave of clarity washing over you.
you didn't go to the rink to find him.
it was close to midnight when you found yourself walking toward the athletic center to drop off a borrowed, heavily annotated textbook for hannah.
but as you stepped into the corridor, the muffled, echoing thwack of a puck against boards drew you toward the main arena doors.
armed with suni and tucker's advice echoing in your head and a tug in your chest you couldn't ignore anymore, you pulled open the heavy side doors of the rink.
the stadium was dark, except for the bright, stark floodlights illuminating the pristine white sheet of ice.
dean was alone.
he was stripped down to his practice jersey and skates. there was no crowd to impress, no scouts watching, no teammates to joke with.
it was just him, a puck, and a net.
he was doing suicide drills—skating full sprint to the blue line, stopping hard enough to spray a cascade of ice shavings, skating back, and doing it again.
he was panting, his blonde hair soaked with sweat, his movements driven by a furious, desperate energy.
he was trying to skate away from his own head.
you stood by the player's bench, your arms crossed, watching him coolly.
"you're slacking on your defense di laurentis," you called out. your voice echoed sharply in the cavernous, empty arena.
dean froze.
his skates dug into the ice with a harsh screech, breaking the silence.
he snapped his head around, his chest heaving as he stared at you.
for a second, he looked entirely paralyzed, as if he thought he was hallucinating.
"you're here," he breathed, slowly skating toward the boards. he stopped a few feet away, looking up from the ice.
"i'm here," you said softly, your tone steady, giving him absolutely nothing to work with. no smile or softness. you unlatched the heavy wooden door of the player's bench. "i think you've done enough pacing around campus, dean. come here."
before he could answer, you took a tentative step out onto the ice. you were wearing regular winter boots, completely unequipped for a freshly zambonied sheet of ice.
"wait, wait, hold on—" dean warned, his eyes widening in alarm.
naturally, you didn't listen. your heel hit a patch of smooth ice, and your balance instantly vanished. your arms flailed as you slipped backward, a short gasp escaping your throat.
but you didn't hit the ice.
dean moved with the terrifying speed of a professional athlete. in a fraction of a second, he closed the distance, his strong gloved hands catching you right around the waist. he hauled you against his chest, his skates digging hard into the ice to anchor both of your weights.
you gasped, your hands automatically flying up to grip his broad shoulders. you were pressed flush against him, the cool scent of the ice and his familiar cologne enveloping you completely.
"gotcha," dean whispered, his breath puffing white in the cold air.
he didn't let go.
his hands stayed firmly clamped around your waist, pulling you so close that you could feel the rapid, thumping beat of his heart against your chest.
he was looking down at you like you were the only thing left in the entire world, his eyes intense, wide, and bright with unshed tears.
no armor. just dean.
but even wrapped in his arms, you kept your gaze sharp.
you didn't melt….. just yet.
"you're a fucking idiot," you murmured, your voice level and direct. "you really messed up, dean."
"i know," he whispered, his voice cracking as a tear finally slipped down his cheek, cutting through the sweat on his face. he didn't even try to brush it away.
"i'm the biggest idiot. i ruined everything. the night you left... i sat in my room and i realized i've spent my whole life making sure nobody could ever reject me by making sure i never fully committed to anything.” he continued.
“and then i met you. and i was so terrified of how much power you had over me that i tried to make you small so i could feel big."
he took a shaky breath, his grip tightening around your waist as if you might vanish if he let go.
"seeing you with liam? it nearly killed me. but the worst part wasn't jealousy. the worst part was realizing i was the one who drove you into his arms. i am so sorry. i am so, so sorry for making you feel like a secret. i swear to god, i love you. i don't want anyone else. i just want you."
you stood steady in his hold, letting the weight of his words hang in the freezing air.
your heart was pounding, but you kept your hands firm against his shoulders, maintaining your boundary.
"words are easy for you, dean," you said quietly.
"you've always been good with a crowd. you've always known exactly what to say to smooth things over. i don't want a public spectacle. i care about what this is."
"this isn't a performance," he choked out, his shoulders hunching in complete defeat, entirely exposed to you. "tell me what to do. anything. i don't care how long it takes."
you looked at him for a long moment, watching the genuine, stripped-back desperation in his eyes. only then did you let a very small, guarded smile touch your lips. it wasn't a total surrender, but it was a crack in the ice.
"i'm not ready to give you a second chance," you told him firmly, your voice unwavering.
"and i'm definitely not ready to forget how you treated me. but i am willing to stop running so if you want to try and earn my trust back, you can start by taking me on a real date. next friday. and if you slip back into your old habits even once? i'm gone. do you understand me?"
a breathless, stunned laugh escaped dean's lips. it wasn't his usual confident chuckle.
it was a sound of pure, unadulterated relief, heavy with the realization of just how close he had come to losing you.
"yes," he whispered fiercely, his eyes shining as he looked down at you. "yes, absolutely. whatever you want. however long it takes. i'll be exactly who you need me to be."
you let your eyes drop to his lips, then back to his eyes, finally allowing yourself to relax against his chest. "show me."
dean didn't hesitate.
he leaned down and captured your lips in a deep, desperate, passionate kiss.
it wasn't the smooth, practiced kiss of a guy trying to charm his way into a girl's room.
it was heavy with weeks of longing, raw with the terror of almost losing you, and overflowing with a profound, aching relief.
he poured everything he couldn't put into words into the press of his mouth against yours, his fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of your neck, holding you to him as if he could bind your paths together right then and there.
when he finally pulled back, just an inch, his forehead rested against yours. both of you were breathing heavily, the white puffs of your breath mingling together in the cold air.
dean let out a soft, shaky laugh, a brilliant, breathtaking smile finally spreading across his handsome face—the first real smile he had had in weeks.
"so," dean murmured, his thumb gently tracing your jawline, though his eyes still held that cautious, vulnerable edge. "does this mean my approval ratings are finally going up?"
you let out a genuine laugh, but you didn't let him entirely off the hook. "don't push your luck, di laurentis. you are still on probation."
"i'll take it," he whispered, before leaning right back down to kiss you again, your laughter echoing beautifully in the empty arena.
Summary: When faced with the hardest decision of his life, Eddie drives around Hawkins, trying to find the answers he seeks. While reflecting on his several years-long friendship with you, he worries that he won't be able to be what you and your baby needs. Until WSQK plays a familiar song that Eddie knew well- your song. The soundtrack of exactly how he felt about you- and he wonders how he hadn't seen the truth until now.
A/N: Tumblr cut me off because this part was too long. So, to be continued in part 4….
────────
“Eddie? Are you okay?”
You stood nervously as you watched Eddie completely blank out, staring straight ahead as his world felt like it was crashing down around him.
“Eds?” You call out “Can you say something?”
He felt like he was short-circuiting. Nothing was making sense. How did things go from him suspecting that you were screwing around with Steve to finding out that you were carrying his child? This felt like a bad episode of The Twilight Zone and he had a starring role.
No. This could not be happening.
“Eddie?” Steve calls out, still holding his bleeding nose. While Eddie was breaking down, he had to have grabbed a kitchen towel to try and stop the blood.
“What the fuck is there to say?” Eddie explodes, his voice coming out with a harsh laugh as he begins to shake his head, rocking anxiously.
“You’re sure?” He looks at you with glassy eyes. You couldn’t tell if he was about to cry or not but you noticed his hands shaking. You don’t speak. You just nod.
“Fuck!” Eddie shouts, kicking Steve’s coffee table with his boot. Eddie jumps up from the couch. Where did he plan to go? He didn’t know but he was too antsy to stay seated.
“Fuuuck…” He agonizes, rubbing his face with his ringed hands as he paces back and forth- completely fired up. “Okay. Okay, okay, okay. So, fuck, what are you going to do with it? The-“
Eddie couldn’t even fix his mouth to say the word.
He turns towards you expectantly, eyes full of worry as he looked for you to come up with some way to fix this.
“I’m keeping it, Eddie.” You answer, your voice calm and steady- sure of yourself. You weren’t expecting what he was going to say next.
“You’re keeping it?” Eddie guffaws, feeling as though he was going crazy “Are you insane? You’ve got to be joking.”
“She’s not.” Steve replies, firmly advocating for you. “That’s the decision she’s made, Eddie. She’s been through a lot these past few weeks. Shit that you don’t even know about, man.”
“And how the fuck do you know?” Eddie scoffs, looking at Steve in disgust.
“Because I’ve been there the whole time, Eddie. Where the fuck were you?” Steve challenges.
“Really, Harrington? You really wanna start this shit?” Eddie threatens “How the fuck do you even know about this before I did?”
“You’re lucky that you even know now.” Steve retorts “She wasn’t going to tell you. I told her when she found out that it wouldn’t have been a good idea to keep this from you but, seeing how you’re acting right now, maybe she’s justified.”
Eddie turns to you, a look of hurt and betrayal on his face. “You weren’t going to tell me?”
“Eddie-“
“How long have you known?” Eddie questions, staring at you in disbelief “How long have you been keeping this a secret from me?”
“I’m eight weeks pregnant. I just found out two weeks ago.” You confirm, looking at Eddie whose expression was unreadable.
“You sat on this for two weeks?” He replies incredulously “Wow. Wow, okay. Nice to know that I was the last one clued in here.”
“Eddie, I didn’t tell you because the original plan wasn’t to keep it. I was going to have an abortion.”
“And you didn’t?” Eddie questions.
“No, I didn’t. I couldn’t.” You admit.
“Well, I think that’s really fucking selfish of you.” Eddie snarls, shaking his head at you in disapproval- in shame.
“What?” You ask, shocked.
“I mean, are you even thinking? This isn’t just about you! This is my life too! You didn’t even talk to me about this. What if I don’t want kids? Have you maybe stopped to think about that when you went around making all of these decisions?”
“Eddie, are you fucking serious, man?” Steve replies, completely stunned.
“No, Eddie.” You snap “I didn’t think about it at all. I didn’t think about what you would want. I was thinking about the fucking baby I’m going to have. Christ, do you even hear yourself?”
“Listen, sweetheart, I’m not trying to be an asshole but you really need to think here. We’re twenty and twenty-two. Nowhere even close to having our shit all figured out and you want to add a baby into this? When it’s already fucking complicated as all fuck? Jesus Christ, don’t you see how fucking stupid that would be?”
“But using me as a rebound to get over Chrissy wasn’t fucking stupid, right?” You quip “Now we’ve got something to show for it and you want to be mad at me? What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“You don’t get it, sweetheart. This isn’t something that you can just decide to do and expect everything to be okay. This affects everything. Don’t you get that? How are we going to afford to do this? Do you know how much it costs to raise a kid? ‘Cause I sure as fuck don’t.”
“Well Eddie,” you sigh “I guess that makes you lucky because you can just opt out if you want to.”
“Hold on.” Eddie says, putting up his hands as if he’s trying to pause everything “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I’m giving you a choice here, Eddie.” You start, ready to lay out the ultimatum that’s been weighing heavily on you for weeks “Whether you like it or not, I’m keeping this baby. There’s no changing that. But it’s up to you if you want to be around. Frankly, if you ran off and never spoke to me again, I wouldn’t blame you. It would hurt but I’d fucking get it. Or you can choose to be a part of this baby’s life. Either way, this is happening. But this part…it’s on you now.”
“You just don’t fucking get it.” Eddie barks out a laugh, throwing his hands up “It’s not that simple! This is complicated shit!”
“Doesn’t have to be.” You add “You need to make a decision. Are you in or are you out?”
────────
June 1979
Eddie was almost finished, enraptured by the mythical world of Mordor. He had been reading for days, barely even taking a break to put it down to eat or sleep. He was enamored, obsessed, and dying to know how things ended.
He was sitting in a beach chair at Hawkins Community Pool, his nose practically touching the pages as he read from a brand new copy of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. It had taken a lot of allowance money and a long bike trek to the nearest Walden Books which was two towns over, but it was worth it- oh so worth it.
The words on the page served as the closest thing that he could get to an escape from the horrors of Hawkins, Indiana. A way to turn off his mind and be anywhere else but there- a town where he was a spectacle. He had none other than the brilliant mind of J.R.R Tolkien to thank.
He was so engrossed in the world of Hobbits and wizards and cursed objects that it somehow made him feel a little less lonely- mostly distracting him from the fact that he had no friends and that no one was even interested in being one. At least he had fantasy and fiction- two best pals that would never let him down.
But, to Eddie’s dismay, he still found himself yearning for something more- a partner-in-crime, a companion, or a confidante. A Samwise Gamgee to his Frodo Baggins. Someone to stand by his side even if he had to travel to Mordor to toss cursed jewelry into the depths of a volcano. Eddie needed a friend more than anyone would ever know. Yet, it seemed, that no one would ever come. Until that hot July day.
Unbeknownst to Eddie, he had been watched for the last hour by a group of boys- staking him out on the other side of the pool deck as he minded his own business, turning pages in his novel as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Eddie bothered nothing and no one. Yet, for some reason, that set off the pack of jocks- wanting a target and their eyes were set on him.
You had been quietly observing Eddie Munson since you moved to Hawkins that spring, intrigued by the quiet and mysterious nature of him. You didn’t know much about him if anything at all. Just that he lived with his uncle in a trailer in the Forest Hills Trailer Park- only a few blocks away from the house you had moved into with your parents.
You saw him ride his bike through your neighborhood a few times throughout the past few months, constantly angering your elderly neighbor Mr O’Dell by cutting through his yard on his way home- crushing his flower beds in the process. You would sit on your front porch, reading from a book as you would hear the old man bellow, trying to chase after Eddie on his bike. He was always too fast and Mr. O’Dell always ended up in a coughing fit after over-exerting himself.
Your mother would just shake her head in disapproval as she watered the lawn- muttering to herself that “Wayne Munson needed to get that boy under control.” But you silently disagreed, turning back to your book after watching Eddie turn the corner on his bike and disappear. You liked Eddie Munson just the way that he was.
You hadn’t seen him ride through your neighborhood very much for the past couple of months- stolen glimpses here and there. As you paid attention to him from across the swimming pool, you took stock in just how long his hair had grown since you had discovered that he existed back in the spring.
It had grown in quite a bit from the previously buzzed style that he sported when you first laid eyes on him. Now it was growing in shaggy and slightly disheveled- hints of curls starting to take shape. You didn’t know why but you immediately thought that it was more “like him.” More suitable. Which was ridiculous to think because you didn’t know him at all- especially not enough to judge whether or not something seems more “like him” or not. What you did know was that he was beautiful- intriguing. Not like anyone else around Hawkins.
You were so wrapped up in your thoughts of him that you almost didn’t notice Tommy Hagan and his douche brigade headed right towards Eddie with a mischievous air about them. They were up to no good- you knew it.
“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” You caught the sounds of Tommy Hagan’s voice, his tone mocking as he approached Eddie in his pool chair- getting his attention as he looks up from his book. Noticing that he was being surrounded by the pack of jockstraps.
“Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson.” Tommy sneers, causing his cronies to begin snickering behind him- sheep without a mind of their own “Whatcha got there, Munson? The satanic bible?” Tommy patronizes.
Eddie looks down at his paperback, resting in his lap as he sat in confusion.
“No…” Eddie answers, as if it were obvious- as if Tommy and his gang is dense. Which, to be fair, they probably were. “It’s The Fellowship of the Ring. It’s a book about-“ But before Eddie could explain the novel and its premise, Tommy Hagan snatches it off of his lap- causing Eddie to lunge for it.
Oh no, you thought, this wasn’t going to end well.
“Really? ‘Cause it looks pretty satanic to me.” Tommy argues as he flips through the book. Eddie watches- looking helpless.
“What do you plan on doing? Cursing the whole town?” He asks “Sacrificing everyone to the devil like the freak you are? I bet that’s what happened to your parents, isn’t it freak? You sacrifice them or something?”
“What?” Eddie replies, dumbfounded as he shakes his head “N-no! I don’t even know how-“
“Sure you don’t, freak. You expect us to believe that?” Tommy patronizes, waving Eddie’s book in his face “You know, I should really just destroy this- do all of Hawkins a favor.”
“Please don’t.” Eddie says, staring at Tommy as he continues tossing his book around.
“Give us one reason why I shouldn’t, freak.” He teases. But before Eddie could open his mouth to give a response, Tommy had already placed his hands on both ends of Eddie’s book- splitting it right down the middle.
You cringe as the tearing sounds meet your ears, screwing your eyes shut. You thought that Tommy would only do it once but he didn’t- choosing to really twist the knife by tearing out all of the pages. Ripping those in half so that there was no way for Eddie to savage them- and Eddie just stood there and took it. Because what else was there for him to do? He couldn’t fight back. Not when he knew that he’d end up at the Hawkins Police Department as he awaited his uncle to come and pick him up. Further proving to Wayne that the apple didn’t fall far from his brother’s tree.
When Tommy was finished, he dropped what was left of the book down onto the ground- right in front of Eddie’s feet. J.R.R Tolkien’s masterpiece now reduced to nothing but scraps.
“Oops.” Tommy replies, a wicked grin on his face “Sorry, freak.” He stomped onto the scraps of paper to further rub salt in the wound. Eddie’s spirit was broken. You could see that- even from where you stood.
Tommy Hagan was prepared to walk off but but not before shoving Eddie hard onto the pavement- scraping Eddie’s elbow in the process. Eddie winces in pain as he raises his arm, blood trickling from the wound at a fast pace. Everyone around just watched- including you.
Eddie removes his shirt, balling it up in his hands as he uses it to apply pressure and stop the bleeding. He slumped back down into his beach chair, his eyes landing at the pile of scraps that used to be his novel. He just stared at it. After what felt like fifteen to twenty minutes, Eddie removes the shirt from his elbow to make sure he had stopped bleeding.
He then rises from his beach chair, reaching down to grab his backpack as he slings it onto one shoulder. He walks over to the pile of what was left of his book, scooping it up in his hands as he carries it. You watch as he walks towards the exit of the pool, making a pit-stop in front of the garbage can next to the snack bar as he dumps the remains of his favorite book inside.
Your heart aches as you watch him sigh in defeat. But he didn’t linger long. He turned away and walked out of the community pool, gliding towards his bike that rested against the fence- mounting it as he began to bike off. Back to the Forest Hills Trailer Park.
Through the neighborhood full of disgruntled adults that seemed to dislike him. Past his peers that made up rumors and whispered to each other about him. Even though it was futile, Eddie wondered if there would ever be a day where he wasn’t looked at like a freak or the town pariah. He guessed he would never really know.
────────
That night, you sat cross-legged on your bedroom floor- a hammer rested in your hand as you had your arm poised to strike down onto your glass piggy bank.
Poor Mr. Hamlet, you thought as you stared down at the porcelain hog that you had been storing your allowance and loose change in for months. You had been saving up for an acid wash denim jacket but, you thought, that would have to wait. Just a little bit longer. There was no shame in starting over.
You smash the piggy bank, thankful that you had put a towel down underneath it so that your mother wouldn’t freak out on you. You place down the hammer, plucking away the large chunks of porcelain to collect the money that was stored inside. You began to count it. At the end, you ended up with $23.07. More than enough for you to buy what you needed and to take the bus there and back.
Perfect.
────────
The following night, Eddie was lounging on this uncle’s couch- legs draped over one of the arms as his eyes were glued to an episode of The Dukes of Hazzard. It was the next thing on his agenda following his hearty dinner of Planters Cheez Balls and a Super Rope.
He tried to distract himself from how his arm still stung- how humiliating the whole situation was. The worst part was that he didn’t understand why Jason Carver and Tommy Hagan hated him so much. He had never done anything to either of them. But Eddie guessed that was exactly the reason why. Someone smaller and quieter to pick on. If only Eddie wasn’t such a wimp and had just fought back. Why didn’t he stand up to them?
As his mind began to dwell deeper on what he should’ve done and how he would’ve handled the situation in his head despite it already being in the aftermath, Eddie heard a sound. A dull thump that sounded as if it had come from his front porch. It scared the shit out of him.
Eddie being home alone at night was still new to him, his Uncle Wayne having just started working at the plant. With that being said, Eddie was hyper-aware of every little creak, thump, or gust of wind that occurred in the trailer.
He sat frozen on the sofa, listening closer to see if he had heard anything else- hoping that it was nothing. That he had imagined it and his mind was playing tricks on him. Then he heard the sound of heavy feet as if someone were running followed by the sound of clunking metal and the crunch of asphalt underneath tires. His curiosity got the best of him- to which, Eddie realized, would make him a pretty quick victim in a slasher film. Nevertheless, his mind was made up- he was going to check it out. With protection, of course.
Eddie rushed into his bedroom, quickly searching his closet for the old metal baseball bat that was left there to collect dust after Wayne gave up trying to get him to partake in sports like normal boys his age. He grabs onto it, gripping it tightly in his hands as he exits his room- heading towards the front door of the trailer. He peeked out of the window, trying to see if he could spot anything but was met with nothing.
He places his hand on the doorknob, twisting it as her swings it open. On the other side of the door, he was met with nothing. No one. Maybe it had been his overactive imagination, after all. Wayne had already told him that sometimes his mind was too all over the place for his own good. Maybe this was one of those times.
Eddie then decides to step out onto the concrete stoop, thinking that some fresh air might do him good. As he steps out, the toe of his sneaker nudges something, kicking it forward an inch. Eddie looks down and is met with a bright red paperback copy of The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien- the same book that he had possessed just the day before. Before it was ruined.
Eddie stared down in confusion. Where had it even come from? Who left it there and why? Was this a sick joke orchestrated by Jason and Tommy to further humiliate him? Eddie was far too nervous to find out. He gently kicked at the book again with his shoe, worried that something would happen- nothing did.
He cautiously bends down to pick it up, turning it over in his hands as he inspected it. Brand new, mint condition. Spine uncracked. As he flips open the cover of the book, a small pink Post-it note flutters out of the pages- falling onto the stoop. Eddie bends down to pick it up, leaning closer towards the yellow glow of the porch light as he begins to read it.
Eddie,
Sorry about your book. I'm also sorry that other people are so mean to you. You don't know me but sometimes I wish that you did. I also wish I had the courage to talk to you. Maybe we could be friends if I actually introduced myself. I know it doesn't make things better but I hope that you at least get to finish the book. The guy at the bookshop who helped me find it had told me that it was really good and that you must be really smart to be able to understand and enjoy it. I think I agree with him. Either way, I hope you enjoy the book and you like how it ends.
It wasn't signed with a name. Eddie felt even more confused than he was initially. Who would have not only bought him a brand-new copy of the book he lost but also written him such a kind note? Eddie can't even remember the last time someone was kind to him. Probably never. This had to be a prank.
Eddie tears his eyes away from the note, looking around the trailer park to see if there was anyone watching him- ready to jump from the bushes and laugh in his face about how he had fallen for it. How there was no one in this town that liked or cared about him. But no one came out of the shadows to laugh at him. Maybe there was someone who didn't hate him. Someone that seemed to admire him enough to do something thoughtful and nice. Maybe, just maybe, there really was someone out there that cared.
────────
You didn't interact with Eddie again until weeks later. You had been at Walden Books in the magazine section, swooning over a cover of Ralph Macchio when you saw him. He was in the Fantasy section, pouring over the next Lord of the Rings book- The Two Towers. You watched curiously as flipped through the pages, tucking it under his arm as he walked over to the check-out counter.
You didn't know why but you followed him, magazine in hand as you waited in line behind him. You didn't even want the magazine- not really. You just wanted an excuse to be near him. To see the boy you admired up close. To just exist in the same space as him at the same time. If he knew this, he'd probably think it was creepy. You just hoped that he wouldn't notice. But, then again, you were probably plain enough to blend in with the wall everywhere you went.
You tried to act natural as you both paid for your things. In order to avoid looking like a weirdo, you fell back a few feet- not wanting to immediately follow him out of the store. When you had gotten an appropriate amount of distance between the two of you, you exited next- walking towards the bike rack where you had left your new candy-red painted Schwinn bicycle. Right next to it was a slightly rusted gray one- a bike you recognized. Next to it was Eddie Munson, unlocking his bike that was right next to yours.
In order to prevent looking suspicious as you stood awkwardly next to the bike rack, you tried to play it cool. You avoid eye contact and stare down at the ground as you sidled up next to him in order to retrieve your bike, putting in your own combination to unlock it. You could do this. You could act natural and inconspicuous. You could-
"Hey, nice bike!”
The sound of his voice could’ve turned you into stone. He was talking to you.
Holy shit, Eddie Munson was talking...to you.
What do you even say?
“Oh…” you reply, so low and bashful that it was practically a whisper “Thanks.”
“Yeah.” Eddie replies “Sure.”
The first thing that Eddie noticed was that you were cute- really cute. The second thing he noticed was that he hadn’t seen you around before. In a town like Hawkins where everyone knew everyone, it was hard to come across someone new and not notice them. Especially when they looked like you. All Eddie could hope was that you were also just now seeing him for the first time. That your opinion of him wasn’t yet tainted by the public opinion of Hawkins.
“Are you from around here?” He asks, feeling a suddenly desperate need to keep the conversation going. To at least get to know your name. Eddie didn’t connect with people like this- he didn’t connect with anyone. But there was something about you.
“I…yeah.” You swallow nervously “I just moved here…to Hawkins.”
“Yeah? No shit?” Eddie asks, perking up a little that you were responding. That he wasn’t talking to someone who was already scared of him and thought he was a freak.
“Yeah. I moved here in the spring. In April.” You finally lift your gaze from the ground, meeting his eyes and Eddie immediately felt like he was going into cardiac arrest. Like his heart stopped beating for a moment. Then it began to thump like crazy in his chest. You were looking at him. You were a very pretty girl that was looking at him and not in a way that conveyed that you were disgusted.
“Oh. Wow. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. That’s…yeah. Really cool.” He stammers nervously, melting under your gaze. So, so pretty.
“I…uh…I’ve gotta go.” You reply, mounting your bike as you prepare to leave “But it was nice talking to you, Eddie.”
“Yeah, of course.” He mutters, breathless “Maybe I’ll see you around some time?”
He was trying so hard to be cool that it was painful. He was trying so hard to be cool that it was totally and completely uncool. But, nevertheless, you looked at him and you smiled- it was a small smile but it was there and it was directed towards him. He had never felt more alive.
“Yeah.” You reply “Maybe.”
As you began to bike off, Eddie gave a small wave. Probably the totally most uncool thing he’s ever done but you don’t laugh at him when he does. You just turn forward and begin peddling off, leaving him next to the bike rack in front of Walden Books. Then it hit him.
You knew his name.
────────
Ever since that day, Eddie had looked for you and your candy-red bike. He thought about you and how you knew his name- how he didn't know yours, but how he wished more than anything that he had. He wondered where about Hawkins that you lived. Were you one of those pretty girls with a family that came from money and never had to worry about anything? A girl that lived in a big, huge house with a picket fence and beds of flowers and a wraparound porch? Then Eddie thought about how that didn't matter at all. What did matter was what kind of girl you are- who you are.
Eddie had decided that day outside of the bookstore that even though he knew nothing about you, he liked you- a lot. Even though you had barely met, barely spoken. None of it mattered. What mattered was that your presence and the air that you had given off had made him feel comfortable- like he did know you. Like he always had. He had never felt like that before- like he could trust. But after days of you invading his every thought, he had finally lucked out.
He was unknowingly biking through your neighborhood, barely paying attention when he spotted a familiar flash of color as he zoomed by. There, lying on its side in the green grass of somebody's front lawn was a bike- a candy-red Schwinn. The same bike that you rode. The one that he had complimented. No one else in Hawkins seemed to have a bike like that.
Eddie's gaze quickly wanders up towards the front of the house, and his heart almost stops. There you were, lounging on the front porch with a book in your hand as you read quietly. Not a care in the world. Then, at just the right second, your eyes flicker up from your pages- meeting his as if you were affected by some magnetic pull. It was you. Eddie was so fixated that he almost didn't see that he was seconds away from colliding right into one of your neighbor's mailboxes. At just the right time, he jerks his bike handles to avoid the collision- almost falling off of the bike before he regained his balance.
He braked, firmly planting his feet on the ground as he whips his head back towards your house where you sat on your front porch. You had seen everything. How fucking embarrassing. But you didn't laugh. No, instead, you had raised your hand up to wave- greeting him. If Eddie wasn't dying of mortification, he would've waved back but he felt like a total complete loser for almost biffing it not only in front of you but in the middle of the street- potentially causing damages to your neighbor's mailbox that Wayne would never stop nagging about.
He didn't wave. Instead, he righted himself on his bike- pushing off with his foot as he tried to continue down the street like nothing had happened. But Eddie wasn't mad that it had happened and that he potentially made himself look foolish. If anything, he's glad that it happened because now he knew where you lived- and it was only a stone's throw away from him.
────────
Unbeknownst to Eddie, you had thought about him too- somehow even more with each day that passed. It had been almost two weeks since the mailbox fiasco and you had barely seen him around. You craved contact of any kind. You wanted to keep this interesting little ping-pong game between you two going. So, you went to Walden Books and purchased the third Lord of the Rings book- The Return of the King.
You had decided that same night that you would drop it off just as you had with the first book and leave it on his porch. This time, though, you were going to be brave enough to leave another Post-it note inside with your name signed at the end. Maybe you were ready for him to finally know who you were- your name, at least.
You biked through the Forest Hills Trailer Park, peddling towards his trailer that's windows were lit up with a calming yellow glow against the contrast of the darkening dusk sky. He was home. Inside doing whatever it was that Eddie Munson did with his time. You were so curious about him. What he was really like. His hobbies besides reading The Lord of the Rings. Anything that was more than what you currently already knew- which wasn't much.
You brake a few feet from the front stoop of the trailer, hopping off your bike as you put down the kickstand- book in your hand. After you dropped off this paperback, he would know who you were. He would know your name. It was a fact that was both frightening yet exhilarating.
You approach the trailer, feet shuffling towards the cement porch in preparation to drop the book and then bike off. But no. Fate apparently had other plans because right as you were preparing to set down the novel, the front door swings open to reveal a tall older man with a smooth bald patch at the top of his graying head. He had an equally gray beard and was dressed in a pair of blue jeans and a Carhartt jacket to brace the cool summer night air. He looked at you curiously, a lit cigarette burning in his hand.
"Oh!" He says, his eyes landing on you once he notices that you're there- lurking outside of his home "Hello. Somethin' I can do for ya?" You heart thumped nervously in your chest as you held the book close to it, staring down at the ground as you shook your head.
"You lost, darlin?" He asks. Wayne knew that you weren't from around Forest Hills. He rarely saw kids around the park so, when he did, he took stock in knowing who lived where and who their family was. You weren't one of them. Judging by the nice bike, Wayne could tell that you probably lived in one of the nicer houses in town.
"No, sir." You croak, shaking your head again "I...I brought this." You pull the book away from your chest, showing it to Wayne who looks at it questoningly. "It's for Eddie."
"Really now?" Wayne asks, a smile lighting up his face. There was a girl here....for his nephew. "Ain't that nice of you. Y'know, Eddie hadn't mentioned you. Wonder why." Wayne laughs, poking fun at his nephew as he assumed that Eddie had found himself a little crush in town that he was too shy to tell him about. Wayne was going to have a lot of questions for his nephew over dinner tonight.
"Could you give it to him, please?" You practically stammer, your face burning with embarrassment and it was almost too sweet for Wayne to take. The tell-tale beginning of young first-love.
"Sure, darlin', but don't you wanna give it to him yourself?" Wayne offers "We're actually just about to have dinner. You could join us if you'd like. It would be nice to get to know one of Eddie's little friends."
Little friends.
Wayne Munson definitely thought this was more than what it actually was and you were far too shy and bashful to explain that it wasn't what it seemed.
"I'm sure he'd be happy to see you, and all." He adds "Eddie doesn't have friends over. I'm sure he'd be pleased to see you."
"Oh." You breathe "I...I actually have to get going, Mr. Munson. My parents don't like me out after dark."
"I see," Wayne says, a little disappointed "Well, I'll make sure he gets it then."
You shakily hand over the book, giving it to Wayne as he smiles at you. You had always heard around town that Wayne Munson was a very nice man. You were glad that the rumors were true.
"Thank you, sir." You say.
"No problem, darlin'." He replies, "I'll tell Eddie you stopped by."
You give one last nod before turning around and walking back towards your bike, popping up the kickstand as you mounted it. You kick off, peddling down the Munson's driveway without looking back. As you rode off through the dusk, Wayne watched you- intrigued.
What a sweet girl...
────────
After washing up for dinner, Eddie walks into the kitchen area of the trailer- prepared to sit down across from his uncle and enjoy a family dinner together on his day off. Family dinners with Wayne were starting to become rare due to his shifting work hours so Eddie knew how important it was to join his uncle at the table whenever he could- to bond, as Wayne would say. But as Eddie prepares to slip into his seat at the table, he is met with the presence of a paperback book sitting next to his plate. A brand-new copy of The Return of the King by J.R.R. Tolkien. His heart almost stops.
"Where'd this come from?" Eddie asks, grabbing the book in his hands as he turns it over. The last time he received a book, it was mysteriously left for him on the porch. Now there was another one on the dinner table.
"Oh," Wayne says, looking over his shoulder as he pulls out a can of beer from the fridge "One of your friends left it for you. Asked me to give it to you."
Friend?
"Who....who was it?" Eddie asks cautiously, looking up at his uncle that took his seat at the table.
"Dunno." Wayne shrugs "Didn't tell me her name."
Her?
"What did she look like?" Eddie prods, needing to know all of the details immediately. A girl had left him a book. Maybe this girl had left him the first one as well.
"She was shy. Didn't speak much. She seemed like a peach, son. Very pretty too. Didn't even know you were friends with a girl."
He wasn't.
"She didn't say anything else?" Eddie pushes, trying to get even just a crumb of an idea of who you could be.
"Nah, not really. Just gave me that book and hopped on her lil red bike. Took off outta here like she was racin' for the Indy 500."
Lil red bike.
"She had a red bike?" Eddie asks, dying for his uncle's confirmation.
"Yeah. Nice one too. Hadn't seen one like that around here."
Neither had Eddie. Not until almost two weeks ago outside of Walden Books. A candy-red Schwinn. He only knew of one person with a red bike in town- you.
It had to be.
────────
Later that night, Eddie was lying in bed- staring at the ceiling as his mind replayed that interaction with you outside of the bookstore. You and your little red bike. You had known his name without him introducing himself. It’s had to be you. Who else could it be? And why?
Maybe Tommy Hagan and Jason Carver put you up to this. Maybe it was all just a long-winded prank that just kept going on for weeks just for the fun of it. But were those two jockstraps even smart enough to craft a plan that detailed? Eddie didn’t think so. They were more the type of bullies to push you down a flight of stairs or shove you into a school locker. They didn’t have enough brain cells for anything past that level of cruelty.
After over an hour of staring at his bedroom walls, Eddie decided to flip on his bedside lamp. Maybe reading will help him shut his mind off enough for him to hopefully drift off. He grabs for the copy of The Return of the King, opening to the first page when he is met with a bright pink Post-it note in girly scrawl.
Eddie,
I saw this at the bookstore and thought of you. I hope you enjoy it. Maybe one day you can tell me what it’s about.
P.S. Sorry for not checking to see if you were okay when you almost ran into that mailbox. I wanted to ask but I was too nervous.
And to Eddie’s excitement, at the bottom of the message was a tiny doodle of a heart right next to a name. A girl’s name- your name.
Eddie finally knew your name. Now he was certain that he could never forget it.
────────
At the beginning of August every summer, Hawkins Middle School hosted a week-long day camp for their student body to get together and meet new people before the beginning of the school year. The school faculty, for some reason, believed that it was a good opportunity to set students up to succeed and find out where they fit in. This was Eddie’s third year attending and he never made friends at any of them. It was always a bust. So, what made this year any different?
You, on the other hand, had never been to anything like it. All of your past schools in your hometown couldn’t care less about helping you “branch out and spread your wings.” They barely cared if you passed your classes, most of the time. Hawkins Middle was clearly very….different.
The first day of Hawkins Day-Camp was a glorified “school dance” in the humid, stuffy gymnasium where they played shitty music and served grocery store cookies and watered-down fruit punch. It gave off the vibes of junior bible study more than a party. Of course, attending this thing wasn’t your idea- and it wasn’t Eddie’s either. You both had been goaded to attend to try and “make friends!” which really just resulted in the both of you sitting like lumps on a log on opposite sides of the gym. Neither of you knowing that the other was on the other side- just as miserable.
You weren’t sure of the dress code. Since it was a “party,” your mom insisted on dragging you down to the nearest Mervyn’s and picking out a dress for the occasion. It was a dress that you hated. It was easily the most garishly ugly thing you’ve ever seen in your life. It was a very unpleasant floral print party dress in a disgusting shade of yellow.
To make matters worse, it was adorned with the most outrageously puffy sleeves. It looked more like a church girl’s Sunday-Best than a party dress. You felt absolutely ridiculous. How were you expected to make friends when you were standing there dressed like Big Bird?
You stood with your back against the wall, sipping slowly from a red solo cup of shitty fruit punch. Or maybe it was sugar-free Flavor-Aid? You weren’t sure. You just knew that it was the saddest beverage you’ve ever consumed in your life as you watched hoards of other girls your age mingle- squealing about what they had done over summer. Trips to Lake Michigan or Disneyland or road trips to the Grand Canyon. Things that cool girls did. Nothing like your sad summer on your front porch reading Pride & Prejudice for the third time in a row.
Eddie, on the other hand, was just as miserable. He was dressed in what his uncle called a “nice shirt.” Which really just meant “not a band tee.” He wore his nicest pants without holes in the knees. Before Wayne could catch him, he slipped out of the trailer with his newly DIY’d denim battle vest- covered in patches of his favorite metal bands. If he was going to come to this stupid dance thing, he was going to come as himself- not anyone else.
He watched as groups of pretty girls talked amongst themselves or giggled to each other about the cute boys in their grade. How they were already excited for the winter formal. A dance that Eddie wouldn’t dare be caught dead at. As he people-watched from the sidelines, he sipped his shitty punch and reflected on how he managed to get mixed up into a group like this. Everyone was so aggressively normal. Lost little sheep being lead to the slaughter that was “conformity.” How fucking depressing.
He looked around. Everyone wore the same shit- the same brand of “trendy” clothes. Everyone’s hair was the same. Everyone was sporting fucking Keds, for god’s sake. There wasn’t a single soul in this entire gymnasium that seemed to have any sort of creativity- any mind of their own until….
There was you.
From the other side of the overly floor-waxed room, was a flash of yellow. As bright as the sun as glimpses of your ugly dress poked through the bodies of yours and Eddie’s peers.
You.
Lil red bike girl.
After he had received your last book, Eddie hadn’t seen you. Just like before, he looked everywhere for you and your red bike but ended up with nothing. That was over a week ago. Now, here you were. Right there in the same place as him once again. But this time, he knew what he hadn’t known then. That you were his secret admirer (if he could call it that), that you were the person behind the kind words in your handwritten notes. Best of all, he knew your name.
You looked just as cute as he remembered.
No, Eddie thought, you looked even cuter.
You practically stood with your back against the wall, dressed in a yellow party dress that was littered with an aggressively floral print. The sleeves were far too puffy for their own good, almost swallowing his view of your face.
But, behind those sleeves, was a face he couldn’t forget. You looked pretty- real pretty. Not in the way that other girls in this same gym looked. No, you weren’t trendy. You looked classic. Effervescent, even. While you probably looked meek and shy to the other people surrounding you, Eddie could sense that it wasn’t the full truth. No, you were a force- everyone simply just didn’t know it yet.
Your hair was down and styled in soft curls, pinned back with what he was sure was a heap of Bobby pins in order to keep the shape. On your face was a small sweep of pink blush and a subtle coat of mascara. Not too much. Even though Eddie thought that you didn’t need it at all. You were pretty just the way you were. Just as you are.
Before Eddie knew it, he didn’t realize that his feet had already been carrying him toward you. Closer and closer towards where you stood- as if you were on a distant, deserted island that he wanted to charter. He didn’t know what had come over him but he was moving on pure instinct. His mind didn’t know what to do. His brain didn’t know what to do. But his body did. His body was telling him to be right next to yours. As if that’s where he belonged this entire time.
As if by grace, coincidence, or the earth working its magic- you turn your head and you look at him. Really look at him. Eddie’s heart began to pound in his chest. You were looking at him. You could see him- and, god, it felt good to be seen.
His journey to you never faltered. He kept walking, vehement on closing the gap between you. The gap that had only grown wider that whole summer. He didn’t want there to be any distance between you anymore. He was ready to know you.
“Hey, freak!”
Eddie was so zoned in on you that he didn’t see Tommy Hagan swoop in and block his way, causing Eddie to stop in his tracks and meet the gaze of the menacing boy in front of him.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Eddie looks up, eyes landing on you and then back on Tommy. Great, just great. Eddie just stood there.
“Are you listening, freak?” Tommy laughs “I said where do you think you’re going?”
Eddie froze, his body locking up and tensing in the spot where he stood.
“Nowhere.” Eddie whispers, looking down at his boots as Tommy grins wickedly. Out of all the times for Tommy Hagan to pick shit with him…
“Doesn’t seem like nowhere.” Tommy taunts, jutting forward to shove Eddie in the chest. Eddie sways backwards before regaining balance. Even with Tommy standing directly in front of him, he could catch a glimpse of you from behind him- watching. You were seeing everything. Just like everyone else in the gymnasium was.
“What’s wrong, freak?” Tommy laughs “You scared? You worried everyone’s going to see me make a fool out of you?”
That’s when it hit Eddie- no, Tommy Hagan wasn’t going to make a fool out of him. Not in front of you.
In a split second, Eddie’s body was reacting before his mind could catch up. Still holding his red solo cup full of punch, he tilts the cup back and then juts it forward- splashing the liquid right into Tommy Hagan’s face.
The collective gasp that echoed throughout the gym was deafening. Eddie just stood there, his now-empty cup still in his hand as Tommy Hagan reaches down for the hem of his shirt- pulling it up to try and wipe the spilt drink from his face. Eddie was in shock. Probably more in shock than everyone else in that room. When Tommy Hagan finally open his eyes, he gives Eddie the most spine-chilling stare imaginable.
“You’re dead, Munson.”
Eddie drops the empty cup onto the floor, immediately turning heel and running- his boots carrying him to the exit as fast as they can go as Tommy Hagan follows after him, hot on his heels.
Well, Eddie thought, here’s another new way for me to get my ass kicked.
────────
Eddie burst through the doors of the gym and out into the hot summer air as he continues to run away from Tommy Hagan who was hot on his trail. Eddie was so screwed.
“Get back here, you fucking freak!” Tommy seethes “You’re so fucking dead!”
Eddie continues running, cutting through the school’s front lawn as he was being chased. He didn’t know where he was going. He had no destination. He just wanted to get away from Tommy and prevent himself from getting pummeled. But, suddenly, Eddie felt the weight of something wrap around his legs and the next thing he knew, he was tumbling to the ground.
Eddie hits the ground hard as Tommy Hagan tackles him, working to straddle Eddie and grab two handfuls of his shirt as he pulls Eddie up to get into his face.
“You think that shit was funny, freak? You-“
“Stop! Leave him alone!”
It was a feminine voice. Sharp and loud as it bellowed out behind them. Following right after was the sound of someone running. Eddie was wincing from the anticipation of Tommy Hagan preparing to punch him in the face- so much so that he didn’t realize who the voice was coming from until he felt the force of Tommy’s body completely shift off of him.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
Eddie opens his eyes to find you, towering above him after you had grabbed Tommy Hagan by the collar of his shirt and yanked him back with all of your might. Eddie had never seen anything like it.
“I said leave him alone!” You shout, glaring down Tommy with a stare that could melt steel. Tommy Hagan had finally taken shit too far. But you learn pretty quickly that he still wasn’t done.
Tommy hops up from where you had dragged him, getting into his feet as he begins to charge at you like a bull. Eddie’s heart immediately drops into the pit of his stomach. Tommy Hagan could fuck with him all day. He could shove him, punch him, push him into his locker, or beat his ass any day of the week but fucking with you? That was where Eddie drew the fucking line.
Eddie scrambles to his feet, lunging at Tommy as he tries to go after you. Eddie yanks him back again which puts Tommy in the middle of a standoff between you and Eddie. Two-on-One.
“You want some, Munson?” Tommy snarls but before Tommy could face him, you lift up your right leg and swing it directly in-between Tommy Hagan’s legs- kicking him right in the balls. Eddie’s mouth drops open in shock as Tommy Hagan drops to his knees onto the hard ground beneath him, grasping onto his penis.
“You fucking bitch!” He wheezes, groaning out as he writhed in pain. You just stood above him and watched- satisfied.
Eddie walks over, stopping in front of Tommy before balling up his first and punching him right in the nose- causing Tommy to yelp again in pain.
“That’s for calling her a bitch.” Eddie states clearly, clenching his jaw.
Eddie turns to you, watching as you peered away from Tommy to lock eyes with him.
“We should probably get outta here.” He glances off to the bike rack where both of your bicycles sat. You nod.
────────
The both of you walked your bikes along the sidewalk as you started on your way home. Neither of you spoke, too nervous to say anything. It was finally Eddie who broke the silence.
“Thanks.” He says, looking over at you as you walked your candy-red Schwinn beside him. “You helping me. Not that you, like, had to or anything.”
“I wanted to.” You say, your voice firm as you look over at Eddie “That guy was a total dick. Does he always act like that?”
Eddie didn’t expect the hot-headed temper to come out of you, taking him by surprise but also leaving him with a smirk. There wasn’t much that he knew about you yet but you were clearly passionate with how you felt.
“Yeah.” Eddie says “That’s just how he is. He’s always been a dickwad.”
“Yeah, well, he fucking sucks.” You spit out, causing Eddie’s smile to widen.
“I concur.”
“Well, he better think twice about doing it again.” You threaten “Next time I’ll kick him even harder. I didn’t even do it that hard and he folded like a little bitch.”
“Easy there, tiger.” Eddie snorts, causing you to whip your head over to him and glare.
“I’m serious.” You state.
“Oh, I know.” Eddie laughs “If I were Tommy Hagan, I would definitely learn my lesson not to fuck with you.”
“Good. That was the point.”
“Well…point well made.”
The conversation died into a long silence. All Eddie could think about was keeping you talking. He couldn’t let you go home without solidifying whatever this was between the two of you. He needed to ensure that this was going to go farther than this. That he would be able to talk to you again.
“Can I ask you something?” He says, finally letting himself be brave for a moment.
“What?”
“The books. Why’d you leave them for me?” It was a question that had haunted him for several weeks.”
“….I don’t know.” You answer. It might have sounded like a cop-out to Eddie but it was the honest truth. You didn’t know why you did it other than you wanted to. “I just wanted to, okay? I wanted to do something nice.”
“…Like, you wanted to do something nice just because? Or you wanted to do something nice because you feel sorry for me?” Eddie drops, afraid of the latter being the answer you gave. You just looked at him as if he wasn’t making any sense.
“Why would I feel sorry for you?” You blink, taking Eddie aback.
“Because I-“
“Because you don’t fit in, you’re really fucking weird, and you have no friends?” You question, raising an eyebrow.
“Um, yeah. I guess?” Eddie replies. Were you insulting him? Right after you just saved him from getting his ass kicked?
“Well, in that case, shouldn’t you feel sorry for me too then?” You pose the question.
“Oh please.” Eddie challenges “You’re trying to tell me that you don’t have any friends?”
“Believe it or not, Munson, but I don’t. Not since I moved here. Not like I really need friends anyway. I just keep to myself and keep my head down. Just like you do. But I know how lonely it gets. I get it. That’s why I did it, okay?”
Eddie could tell that the subject you had embarked on was a touchy one- yet, he was satisfied with what you had said. It wasn’t much but it spoke volumes because he understood. You were right, he knew what it was like to be lonely. He didn’t push for more. He was grateful enough for that. Instead, he responded with what felt right.
“Well, you have one now.” Eddie states, looking at you with his brown eyes that made your heart skip a beat.
“I have what now?” You ask.
“A friend.” He explains “We’re friends now. Because I said so. Okay?”
You look back at him, searching for traces of disingenuousness in his statement. There weren’t any.
“Sure.” You nod once “Okay.”
The short silence that followed was comfortable this time. Like it was decided right then so that was that.
“Can I tell you something, by the way?” He asks
“What?”
“I like your dress.” You say, his eyes taking in the way that the hem billowed around your thighs as you walked beside him. You gave him a sour face.
“This thing?” You ask in disgust “You’re joking, right?”
“I think it looks nice.” He shrugs “I like the marigolds.”
“The what?”
“The flowers.” He points out “On your dress.”
“Oh.” You reply, softly “Well….I like your hair.”
Eddie’s face immediately lights up.
“Yeah?” He asks, removing one of his hands off of his handlebars to run his fingers through his curls “I’ve, uh, been growing it out. I’m trying to let it get long, you know. Like the guys in Judas Priest.”
“What’s Judas Priest?” You ask, immediately making Eddie stop in his tracks. He began staring at you as if you were an alien.
“You’ve never heard of Judas Priest?” He asks, mouth practically agape.
“Nuh-uh.” You answer, kind of feeling embarrassed. Were you supposed to know who they were?
“Alright.” Eddie says matter-of-factly “First rule of business, Marigold, is that I’m going to introduce to my music. The good shit. Otherwise, we can’t be friends.”
Eddie was totally spitting bullshit. He would still want to be your friend even if you listened to fucking New Kids On The Block and ass-kissed Gloria Estefan. He was all talk.
“As a matter of fact, I just so happen to have a fine collection of their cassette tapes.” He states.
“Is that so?” You play along, indulging him.
“We could, y’know, go hang out at my house and listen to them. If you want. My uncle’s with his fishing buddies until later tonight. We could blast music as loud as we want. Y’know, if you want to.” He offers.
“Okay.” You say, not even giving it a second thought.
“Wait. Really?” Eddie asks, surprised.
“Sure.” You reply “I mean, you did say that we can’t be friends unless I listen to your music.”
Yeah, Eddie thought. But I wasn’t being serious.
All Eddie could hear in the back of his head was Wayne’s voice nagging him for the past few weeks to clean up his room. Now he was wishing that he’d listened.
“Okay.” Eddie says, trying to play cool. But he wasn’t cool. Inside of his head he was doing backflips. The girl he had been overly-fascinated with almost all summer was agreeing to hang out with him- to be friends.
Maybe Eddie’s luck was finally starting to turn around.
────────
As Wayne Munson arrive home from a long day of drinking beer and fishing, he was met with the loud rumbling of his nephew’s cassette tapes. Wayne didn’t really care much for Eddie’s music but he let the kid express himself, wanting him to always have a sense of individuality. What Wayne did mind was potential noise complaints from the neighbors.
He kicked off his boots near the front door, his eyes catching sight on an extra pair of shoes. There were his boots, Eddie’s pair of thrifted black combat boots, and a mysterious pair of white strappy sandals. Huh.
Wayne sets his fishing pole against the wall by the door as he makes his way down the hall to Eddie’s room where the sounds of electric guitars and loud bass-heavy riffs flowed from the crack left open in the door. He hears the sound of his nephew’s voice talking. Also odd.
“Have you ever heard of Black Sabbath?”
“Is that the one with that guy with the accent?”
Wayne could hear a feminine voice speak back. A girl. His nephew had a girl over.
“Yeah, that’s Ozzy Osborne. He-“
The sound of Wayne knocking on the open door caused Eddie to stop mid sentence, grabbing both of your attention as you looked at the older man in the doorway.
“Hey, son. Just wanted to let you know that I’m home.” He says slowly, looking over towards you “Who’s this?”
After you introduced yourself to Wayne, properly this time, his face spreads into a smile.
“Well, it’s nice to officially meet ya, darlin’.” He nods, his expression warm “I see Eddie here has already started to talk your ear off about his music.”
“Wayne.” Eddie groans, cutting the old man a look.
“Sorry, right.” Wayne jokes “Forgot that your music was a sore subject.” He surveys your yellow dress and smiles. You looked darling.
“So, how did the day-camp go?” Wayne asks “Any fun?”
You and Eddie both look at each other and shrug, both of your faces breaking into a knowing smile over the incident that bonded you.
“Nah.” You smirk “Not really.” From the corner of his eye, he caught the way that his nephew looked at you. It was subtle and happened in a blink but Wayne caught it. He knew that look all too well. He smiles.
“Should I assume that you’ll be stayin’ for dinner, darlin’?”
You look over at Eddie, gauging his reaction as he nodded. Wayne could see that the two of you had already established a form of nonverbal communication. This was sure to be trouble. A very welcome kind of trouble but trouble nonetheless.
“Is that okay?” Eddie asks, his eyes pleading.
“Sure. Hope ya like fish though. The buddies and I caught the motherlode today.”
And as Wayne began to launch into a story from that afternoon, Eddie watched you in wonder. How you engaged with his uncle and acted as if his silly old fishing stories were some of the most interesting things you’ve ever heard. Eddie watched the way your lips formed into a smile or the enthusiastic way that you asked questions.
He looked at your face as he admired all of the little details that he could finally see up close. A freckle near your nose, the hint of a dimple that formed in your cheek as you laughed, the curl of your eyelashes. How soft your hair looked. Eddie couldn’t look away. Nor did he want to. He began to wonder how the universe hadn’t brought you together sooner. How it was cruel that it took thirteen years for you to finally come into his life. To finally be given the companionship that he had longed for. The Samwise to his Frodo. But Eddie couldn’t complain. You were friends now and that’s all that mattered.
────────
September 1979
You sat in the back of the bus, waiting patiently as it stopped in front of the Forest Hills Trailer Park. It was the first day of school and you had saved Eddie a seat- just like you said you would. Your Walkman was out and ready with two pairs of headphones plugged in. The beginning of a years-long tradition.
Eddie bounds up the stairs of the bus, standing at the other end of the aisle near the bus driver as he peered down the rows of seats, undoubtedly searching for you. Once he found you, his face lit up with joy. Even though he had seen you only just the day before as he sketched out a map of Hawkins Middle School- telling you the best routes to each class and revealing all of the secrets he had found out during the two years that he had attended before his now eighth-grade year.
Eddie walks down the aisle, his eyes still on you fully as he approaches you. Sitting down next to you was all that he cared about. He was so blinded by the need to be reunited with you that he didn’t even notice the way that the other kid’s eyes followed him as he walked past.
“Hey you.” He greets, smiling as he plops down in the spot you had saved for him.
“Munson.” You tease, smiling back as you shyly tucked a strand of hair behind your ear. Even though you and Eddie had spent practically every single day together for the remainder of the summer, you still found yourself becoming nervous around him.
“Alright, what are you in the mood for?” He asks, digging through his backpack for some cassette tapes.
“Hm…” you hum as if you’re deep in thought “Surprise me.”
"Iron Maiden, it is then, m'lady." He grins, whipping the cassette tape out of his bag.
"Ew." You wrinkle your nose in faux-disgust "Do you really have to call me that? Like, is it necessary?"
"Does it annoy you?" He asks, a smirk on his face.
"Yes." You lie.
"Then yes. I absolutely do....m'lady." He hands you the cassette tape as you snatch it from him jokingly. Eddie could see the smile on your face as you popped in the tape and handed him the extra pair of headphones. His hand brushes against yours in a way that sent a shiver down your spine. You try to ignore it, pressing play on your Walkman as you slid on the headphones.
Just as you began to focus on the song, the bus unexpectedly breaks, causing you to jolt forward. Eddie's fast reflexes kick in, his hands immediately flying to your waist as he grasps onto you- holding you back so that you didn't smash into the back of the seat in front of you.
Your breath catches as the bus comes to a stop at a traffic light, giving you to chance to recover. However, your heart was beating so hard and so fast that it felt like you never would recover. Especially with Eddie's hands wrapped around your waist protectively- holding you close. What you didn't know was that Eddie was freaking out just as much as you were.
He was touching you. Holy shit.
"Are you okay?" He asks, trying to prevent his hands from shaking as they held you. He hoped you couldn't feel it. It would be a dead giveaway that he was literally malfunctioning by being this close to you.
"Yeah," You nod, voice small and meek "I'm okay."
"Okay, yeah. Good. I'm glad you're okay."
Eddie's hands linger there for just a second too long before he finally removes them from your waist. But as soon as he did, he felt empty, somehow. He clears his throat, adjusting him body on the seat and he leans back against it- trying to steady his nervous heartbeat.
He had touched you and he liked it.
But he was your friend. Friends don't touch friends that way. At least, they're not supposed to- and they're not supposed to like it. This was a dilemma.
You on the other hand, felt self-conscious. You were suddenly hyper-aware of your developing tween body. So many times during that summer you had stood in front of your bedroom mirror and picked apart every single little thing about yourself and your body. How you thought you nose was slightly crooked, your teeth weren't perfect, the size of your newly-growing breasts, the way your hair looked- but, especially, your stomach. Your waist. Your thighs.
Soon, all you could think about was how fast Eddie had seemed to jerk his hands away from you. How weird he had acted. Maybe he felt something that he didn't like? Did he think you weren't thin enough? Was he disgusted by it? God, this was so fucking embarrassing. You didn't know if you could ever look at him again without wondering if he thought you were unattractive.
Eddie, on the other hand, was trying to fight against the sudden blood flow that was heading south of his body.
Please no...please no...please no.
He immediately grabs his backpack that sat on the floor beside his feet. He pulls it into his lap, trying to think about something else. Anything else. Literally any...fucking...thing...else.
As the two of you sat on that bus for the rest of the ride, neither of you spoke. Neither of you looked at each other- both of you too embarrassed, self-conscious, and absolutely mortified to make eye contact. Not even small bits of awkward small talk- and absolutely neither of you even dared to mention how the song that you had both been listening to had ended five minutes ago.
────────
December 1979
"Hey, darlin'! Merry Christmas."
Wayne opens the door for you as you step into the trailer, carrying your Christmas gift to Eddie in your gloved hands.
"You didn't walk here, did ya?" He asks, peeking through the window for any sign of your parent's car retreating down the driveway. You shrug.
"It's not a far walk." You say as if it's no big deal.
"Darlin', it's almost below zero outside. You mean to tell me that you walked all the way here in sub-degree weather just to see my nephew?" Wayne teases.
This was nothing new for Wayne. He always teased. Always poked and prodded. Even when Eddie would constantly swear to him that there was nothing going on between the two of you. Wayne knew better though. He'd been around the block long enough to see young love when it was right in front of him. Especially when Eddie had begged him since mid-October for an increase on his allowance.
At first, Wayne just thought he wanted to buy more manuals for that damn game that he had recently become so interested in. But it wasn't until a couple weeks ago, when Eddie asked him for a ride to the nearest camera store that he realized just what Eddie had planned to do with that money.
Eddie steps out of his bedroom just as you kicked off your snow boots. After hanging up your winter jacket on the coat rack, Eddie got to see what you were wearing. A cute little black skirt layered on top of a pair of white cable knit stocking tights. On the top you wore a gaudy knitted Christmas sweater that was adorned with little bells that jingled when you moved. On the front was a big Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
Eddie swore that this was the cutest that you have ever looked. Dorky but sweet. Cute. No, not cute. Fucking adorable. How could someone be wearing the world's ugliest fucking sweater and look like a literal Christmas angel sent from above.
You catch him staring which immediately makes you self-conscious. You knew you should have changed. He probably thought you looked like a total dweeb.
"Sorry, I should've changed." You wince "I look stupid, don't I? I just got done visiting my nanna and she knits....sweaters....really ugly sweaters but yeah."
But, unbeknownst to you, Eddie was so glad that you hadn't changed. He loved your dorky sweater. He looked how cute you looked. He loved you.
"No, I like it." He says "It suits you."
You immediately narrow your eyes. "You calling me ugly, Munson."
"What? No, I- You....You look- Wait, no-"
"Don't finish that sentence, son." Wayne interjects, watching from the kitchen as he sipped from a cup of coffee. "As a man, I'll tell ya that you're just gonna end up screwing it up and get yourself into worse trouble."
"Okay!" Eddie replies hastily, changing the subject "Time for presents? Yeah? Sound good? Presents sound nice. How about I go first? Be right back. Byeeee!"
You raise your eyebrows at Wayne, silently questioning what was going on with his nephew. Wayne just shrugs.
"Ya got me beat there, darlin'. Ya know I ain't never had an inkling of an idea of what's wrong with that boy."
"Hm." You say "You think it's drugs?"
Wayne lets out a laugh. "Goddamn, I hope not but it sure would make a lotta sense."
"Got it!" Eddie exclaims, emerging from his bedroom with a gift wrapped box in his hands. He hurries into the living room and plops himself onto the couch, looking over at you and Wayne as you stay rooted in the kitchen. "You gonna come over here?"
You obey Eddie's request, walking into the living room with your gift in your hands as you sit beside him on the couch.
"Alright," Eddie says, "Mine first. Open it. I demand it."
"So eager." You laugh.
"Yeah, well, I've been waiting to give it to you for ages." He smiles "Can't wait to see your face."
You trade gifts, taking each other's into your hands as you place it down on your lap.
"Okay, open it." He pushes "Open, open, open!"
"Alright, alright! Sheesh." You giggle "I'm opening the damn present."
You gingerly begin to take off the wrapping paper. To Eddie's horror, you're doing it neatly.
"Jesus Christ, are you trying to preserve it?" He snorts.
"This is how I open presents!" You explain "My mom saves the wrapping paper."
"Well, we don't so rip it!" Eddie exclaims "I'm dying here."
You finally just listen to him and rip the paper off of the gift, revealing a box. You turn it over, looking at the front. It was an instant Polaroid camera. Your face immediately lights up with joy and the sight of it warms Eddie's heart.
"Is that the right one?" He asks "A few months ago, you said you had always wanted one but your parents never let you. Because they were too expensive."
"You remembered that?" You whisper, your throat thick with tears as you tried to hold them back.
"Of course I remembered." He says. As if it were obvious.
"Eddie, I-" You mumble, trying to hold back the emotion in your voice "This is too much. I can't accept this."
"Yeah, well, that's too bad." He says nonchalantly "I knew you'd say that so I threw away the receipt. Whoopsies. Uh-oh. Now you have to keep it."
"You little shit." You reply, shaking your head as your eyes well with tears "Thank you, Eddie."
"Of course, sweetheart." He grins.
Sweetheart. He had called you sweetheart.
You try to hide your bashfulness. But Wayne could see it clearly from where he stood in the kitchen- smiling into his coffee cup.
Young love...
"Okay," You say "Your turn. Open mine."
"Okay." Eddie nods, looking down at the gift in his lap. He begins to gently take the paper off as you stare in horror.
"What are you doing?"
"What?" He laughs "You said that you save the paper."
"Oh shut up, Munson. Just open it, will ya?"
He smiles at your insistence, ripping it off to find a plain brown box. He grabs at the flaps, opening them up to reveal a brand-new leather journal, two packages of guitar strings, and a mason jar full of multi-colored guitar picks.
"Wait." Eddie says, trying to make sense of the items "I don't..."
He looks at you as he notices you stare off towards Wayne who just grins at you before retreating towards the small closet in the back of the trailer that was used for storage. He returns with something in a huge, gift-wrapped box, setting it down gently at Eddie's feet.
"This one is a two-parter." He explains to Eddie before smiling at you "Your girl and I sorta coordinated."
Eddie just stares between you and Wayne- dumbfounded.
"You gonna open it, son?" Wayne teases "Or are ya gonna wait until next Christmas?"
Eddie obeys, sinking down onto the carpet as he wraps the large gift- opening up the large box to find a B.C. Rich NJ Warlock electric guitar with a red and black crackle painted finish. It was candy red. The same color as your bicycle. Eddie just stared. Speechless. For once in Eddie Munson's life, he was completely speechless.
"Do you like it?" You ask, watching as Eddie malfunctioned. He had been talking non-stop about wanted an electric guitar for as long as you've known him and, for Wayne, as long as Eddie had learned to speak.
"Darlin’ helped me pick it out for ya." Wayne adds "Didn't know what you’d like so I let her take the lead. I thought she did a pretty damn good job. What d’ya think, son?"
Eddie looks over at you, his expression unreadable until he opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. Not matter how hard he tried. There was so much that he could say but his brain and his voice refused to work in tandem. All he could do was stare at you, a look in his eyes that Wayne hadn’t seen from his nephew since his mother died.
Love.
Pure, true love.
Eddie lunged for you, pulling you close as he enveloped you in a bone-crushing hug. He buried his face in your neck, his heart racing as he smelled your familiar scent- vanilla body wash and strawberry shampoo. It was so...you. Eddie didn't want to forget the way that you smell. He wanted to remember this. He wanted to remember this moment that he was sure would be the happiest of his life. His favorite memory. When he would remember you, he wanted to always remember you this way.
"Ed, I think you're crushing her, son." Wayne pipes in.
"Oh, shit, sorry." Eddie replies, pulling away from you even though he didn't want to. God, he didn't want to let you go. He wanted to stay just like this. Wrapped around you, breathing you in. His Christmas angel. No, his every day angel.
Before Eddie completely let you go, he cups your face in his hands- looking at you with so much love. So much care and adoration. He adored you. He adored you in a way that he never thought he could ever feel for anyone.
"This means so much to me." He whispers, low enough for only you to hear. Not even Wayne who desperately wanted to know. But he knew to just butt out of it. He wouldn't want to ruin what was clearly a very important moment for his (obviously love-struck) nephew.
To your surprise, Eddie suddenly leans in- planting a gentle kiss to your forehead. Your stomach felt like it was bursting full of butterflies as he pulled away, letting go of your face. Your face felt warm where he had kissed you. Where his hands once were. Your whole body felt warm. A beautiful kind of warm.
"I don't know how to thank you." He says, staring at you with those pretty, brown puppy dog eyes of his.
"Well," You say, nervously clearing your throat "Guess you'll just have to play me some songs then. Whenever I want."
Eddie smiles. "Okay." He nods "I can do that. Anytime. Anything you want."
"Even Rick Springfield?" You joke, causing Eddie to give you an unamused look.
"Don't push it, sweetheart."
────────
Spring 1980
“….and Ronnie had this really sick idea that I add in a guitar solo to the middle of the song we’re playing. I can’t wait for you to meet her. She’s super rad. She plays drums. She’s probably the coolest girl on the planet. The way that she….”
Your blood was boiling. You had been listening to Eddie drone on and on and on about his friend Ronnie. How she was sooo cool and soooo smart and sooo “fucking rad.” All you wanted to do was tell him to shut up. You were so sick of hearing about Ronnie fucking Ecker.
“That’s great, Eddie.” You huff, trying not to roll your eyes as you continue walking down the sidewalk to your house. You figured that Eddie would continue to be too oblivious to notice how upset you were becoming but, to your surprise, he finally picked up on it after your fourth reprise of “that’s great, Eddie.” He was starting to realize that things weren’t “great.”
“Hey, you okay?” He asks, searching your face that was set into a hard expression that he couldn’t read but he knew were upset.
“I’m fine.” You grumble, your hands clenched into fists.
“Are you sure?” He questions “You seem mad.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not, okay?” You snap, causing Eddie to raise his eyebrows.
“But you seem-“
“I said I’m fine!” You growl, catching Eddie off guard. Okay, you were definitely mad.
“Hey, did I do something wrong?” He asks “If I said something that-“
“I’ve gotta go.” You cut him off, walking ahead of him to stomp across your front lawn. You would think that Eddie would catch a hint but he didn’t. He just continued to follow you like an idiot.
“Wait, I thought we were hanging out.” He asks, completely confused.
“Yeah, well, I forgot that I have plans.”
“Plans? But I thought we had plans?” He pouts.
“Well, I’m busy now.” You quip “Maybe your best friend Ronnie is free.”
Before Eddie could say anything, you open your front door, storming inside before slamming the door in his face.
Great. Now what did he do?
────────
It was the first ever fight that you and Eddie had ever had and he was completely lost. No matter how much he thought about it, he still couldn’t figure out what he did wrong. Were you upset with him about Ronnie?
But why?
For three whole days, you had given him the cold shoulder. Every time he would speak to you, you would ignore him. Every time he sat down next to you on the school bus and said hi, you didn’t say anything back- and it was breaking Eddie’s heart.
You still sat next to him on the bus and at lunch and in the very few classes you shared together but you never spoke to him. He tried to pass you notes but you just ignored them. Whatever it was that he did, he knew it wasn’t good. All he wanted to do was fix it but he didn’t know how. Things finally came to a head the day before the talent show.
You were standing at your locker, grabbing the textbooks that you needed for homework that night when he sidled up to you in the hallway.
“Hey.” He says, voice small and nervous as he looks down at his shoes. You don’t say anything back but he wasn’t surprised
“Can you please just tell me why you’re mad?” He pleads “Like, what did I do? You just started treating me like an asshole out of nowhere for literally no reason.”
“For no reason?” You scoff, your eyes narrowing at him “You really can’t see why I’m mad?”
“No.” He admits “I don’t. But I wish you would tell me so that we can squash it. I don’t like it when you’re mad at me. It’s….it feels weird. Did I say something? Did I do something?”
“It’s fine.” You huff “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter.” Eddie argues “It matters to me. You’re my best friend.”
The words “best friend” felt like a gut-punch after hearing him talk about how great some other girl was non-stop for weeks. Eddie was practically your only friend. It sucked that there was someone else that he really liked besides you. Maybe even romantically. The thought of Eddie having a crush on someone else was heart-wrenching.
“You know what I hate about being your friend, Eddie?” You start, turning to look at him.
“Um…no?” He replies.
“I hate that you’re my only friend. I hate that I care about you more than you care about me.”
“Huh?” Eddie asks, completely dumbfounded “Where is this coming from?”
“Don’t worry about it.” You say “I’m sure you have a million other things to think about.”
“…..Okay….” Eddie replies slowly, feeling as though he were walking on eggshells with you. That no matter what he said, he would just end up being wrong. “Are you at least coming to the talent show tomorrow?”
He looks at you with hopeful eyes as you stood in front of him, clutching your math textbook.
“I don’t know.” You retort “Maybe. I might be busy.”
Eddie immediately felt as if he were a balloon that was rapidly deflating.
“Oh.” He says “Okay. I….I thought that maybe you’d come. To see me play.”
He had been working really hard on his talent show performance with his newly-formed band Corroded Coffin. It was their first debut performance. He couldn’t imagine performing for the first time without you being there to witness it. Especially when you were the reason why it was even possible for him to perform in the first place- the girl that picked out his guitar.
“Well…I’m not sure. I have after-school stuff.” You lie, trying to seem nonchalant.
“Oh.” Eddie’s face drops.
“It’s not like you need me anyway.” You say “You have your other friends. They seem to be way cooler than I am.”
You close the door of your locker, arms full of books as you look at Eddie who seemed to be completely defeated. Your stomach began to twist in guilt.
“But I’ll see you around.” You say “Good luck tomorrow.”
────────
Unbeknownst to Eddie, you had decided to show up the next day. Even though you were upset with him, you didn’t have the heart to miss his first performance. You found the closest seat that you could get to the stage, a small bouquet of red carnations in your hands.
You had spent all night thinking about Eddie and how much you missed him. The way he teased you, his stupid jokes, his hugs- just him. You didn’t know why you were so upset with him in the first place. It was okay for Eddie to have other friends- even friends that were girls. So, why did it bother you so much?
But, back behind the stage curtain, Eddie was having a nervous breakdown.
“Eddie, you’ve gotta snap out of it and warm up otherwise we’re gonna sound like shit.”
Ronnie watches as Eddie paces backstage, his head going into overdrive as he tries not to have an episode. Other the past few days leading up to the talent show, he has grown more and more anxious about performing- about getting onstage in front of everyone and not only playing guitar but singing.
He had wanted to talk to you about it, hoping that it would ease his mind but you were so busy being mad at him that Eddie couldn’t seem to get out of his own head. Now the anxiety had built and it was to the point where he didn’t know if he could do it.
“I can’t do it.” He murmurs, his hands shaking “I don’t think I can play.”
“What do you mean you can’t play?” Dougie asks, tuning his guitar “We’ve been practicing for weeks.”
“I know,” Eddie breathes out shakily “I…I can’t. Everyone’s gonna look at us. What if I fuck up?”
“Eddie,” Ronnie replies “Everything is going to be okay. Just take a few breaths. You’re ready. We’ve been practicing our asses off. We’re gonna go out there and we’re gonna kick ass. Got it?”
But Eddie was too distracted. He wanders off to the wings, pulling the curtain back as he peeks out into the crowd. The auditorium wasn’t packed full but there were a decent amount of people.
“F-fuck….” Eddie stammers, his stomach twisting in knots. Then his eyes do exactly what he had sworn himself not to do- he searched for you.
“I’m freaking out, Ronnie. Totally freaking out. What the fuck do I do?” Eddie panics.
Ronnie sidles up beside him, trying to talk some sense into him.
“Eddie, close the curtain.” She demands “That’s not going to help.”
“But I need-“
“He’s looking for his giiiirlfriend.” Dougie teases.
“She’s not my girlfriend.” Eddie denies, his eyes still sweeping across the room.
“Bullshit.” Dougie laughs.
“Leave him alone, Doug.” Ronnie replies, watching Eddie survey the crowd.
“Do you think she’s coming?” She asks, raising an eyebrow.
“No.” Eddie shakes his head “She’s still mad at me.”
“What exactly did you do again?” Ronnie inquires.
“I don’t even know.” Eddie groans “But she won’t talk to me and she’s probably not coming. I-“
“There she is.” Dougie interjects, pointing to where you were seated in the third row- carnations in your lap as you sat in your seat. The best part? You were wearing that dress- the dress.
“Marigold…” Eddie whispers, his heart pounding in his chest as he looked at you- at how pretty you were.
“Wait.” Ronnie pipes in, cranking her neck to get a better view “That’s her?”
“Yeah.” Eddie murmurs, mostly to himself as he admires you. The way that you wore your hair, how cute you looked in that dress that you hated but knew that he loved. His girl.
No, not his girl. At least, not in that way.
“Great.” Ronnie states “Now the two of you can talk things out before we go onstage. Kiss and make up and all of that. Maybe you’ll be less of a nervous wreck.”
“No!” Eddie shouts, pulling Ronnie back by the arm as she tried to walk off “Don’t.”
“Why not?” Ronnie asks “You’re clearly a huge fucking mess right now and if she can help then I’m going to go get her.”
“No, she’s still mad at me! Ronnie, don’t-“
But it was too late, she was already walking off to go and find you.
────────
You fiddled nervously with the cellophane that was bunched around the bouquet of flower, completely overthinking whether or not showing up had been a good idea. You didn’t even know if Eddie wanted to see you. Especially after how mean and nasty you had been to him these past few days.
You were starting to wonder if it was foolish for you to even show up. He probably didn’t even want you here. You were so in your own head that you barely noticed the girl that had walked up to the end of the row you were sitting in before she called your name. Your head snaps over to look at her.
“Hey, sorry, I know you don’t know me but….I’m Ronnie. One of Eddie’s friends. Look. I know you two aren’t exactly talking to each other right now but Eddie’s really freaking out back there. Like, malfunctioning. I thought maybe you could-“
But before Ronnie could finish her sentence, you had already leaped out of your seat, carnations in hand as you exit the row of seats.
“Where is he?” You ask “Is he okay?”
Ronnie just stares at you, taking in the way that you immediately jumped up to help as soon as you heard that Eddie might need you. Ronnie took in the worried look on your face and how tightly you gripped the bouquet. Then it hit Ronnie; as much as Eddie swore it wasn’t the truth, she knew that there was something between the two of you. Something sweet and caring and tender.
“Come on.” She says “I’ll take you backstage.”
────────
Eddie couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. It felt like Ronnie had left forever ago. He was somehow freaking out harder than he was before. With every act that went onstage, it only brought Corroded Coffin closer and closer to playing.
His chest felt tight. He felt like he was having trouble breathing. Like he wasn’t getting enough oxygen in his lungs and he was at risk of passing out. He tried to tune his guitar to keep his mind off of it. He tried to focus on all of the corrections that Ronnie and Dougie had given him but it somehow only made things worse. He was so in his head until-
“Eds?”
He whips around, following the sweet sound of your voice as you stood a few feet away from him backstage- standing next to Ronnie as you held a bouquet of flowers.
His chest felt tight as he looked at you up close. That yellow dress, your soft hair, your pretty eyes. His marigold.
Because he could open his mouth to speak, you were already starting towards him, pulling him into a tight hug. He let himself melt into your arms- his favorite place on earth.
As soon as he felt you wrap your arms around his neck, it felt like a weight had been lifted. Something that had unknowingly been weighing him down. Maybe it was his nerves or the stress of fighting with you but now it was gone in an instant now that he was in your arms. All of it dissipating like magic.
“I’m sorry.” You mumble, your head resting against his shoulder “I’m sorry that I was mad at you. I’m not mad anymore. It was so stupid anyway.”
“It’s okay.” Eddie says, his arms tightening around you- worried that if he didn’t hold on tight you would disappear again. He didn’t want that to happen. “I’m sorry for whatever I did.”
“No, it’s not you. I was being stupid.” You argue.
“Yeah but it was probably because I did something stupid. I just….can we not fight anymore? I don’t like it.” He suggests.
“Yeah.” You agree “Okay.” Then a moment passes “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m a little better now.” He sighs. Really, he felt so much better now that he had made up with you.
“Are you sure?” You ask, pulling back so that you could look Eddie on the eyes. He immediately felt empty without your body against his.
“Yeah.” He nods “Just nervous. I can’t stop shaking.”
You look down at his hands, noticing the small tremble.
“What can I do to help?” You ask, reaching for his hand as you softly grab it- beginning to rub circles into the back of his hand with the pad of your thumb. Something inside of Eddie felt like a dam that was about to burst.
You were holding his hand.
“I…I, uh…” he stammers, trying to keep his mind straight but was failing with every little touch that you had given him “Could you…uh…could you maybe keep doing that? Holding my hand?”
You look over at him. “Is it helping?”
“Yeah.” He whispers, nodding his head “It’s helping a lot.”
In response, you loosen your grip which immediately makes Eddie nervous that he had said the wrong thing but his mind was put at ease once he realized that you were interlacing your fingers with his.
“Just tell me when you want me to let go, okay?” You insist.
But Eddie would never tell you to let go. Not ever. He wanted to hold your hand forever if he could. He wanted your hand to be glued to his hand so that you were inseparable. So that you couldn’t leave his side. So that you could be this close to each other always. He never wanted to stop holding your hand. But Eddie didn’t say that. He wouldn’t dare. Because that’s not what friends said. So, instead, he tries to hide his feelings as best as he could- like he always does. Gently giving your hand a squeeze.
“Okay.”
────────
After the talent show, you were wedged into a booth table in Benny’s next to Eddie as he recounted again, for the millionth time, how well Corroded Coffin performed at the talent show. Dougie and Ronnie were sitting across from you both, laughing as Eddie mimed out his guitar solo.
“Did you see how sick that was? Can’t believe I almost didn’t listen to you.” He exclaims to Ronnie.
“See what happens when you actually listen to my expertise?” She says, a smug smile on her face.
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever.” Eddie waves her off before turning to you “What did you think? I mean, you got to watch the whole thing.”
You felt bashful underneath his stare, trying to keep your breathing normal as you watched your best friend geek out over something he was so passionate about.
“You guys were great.” You say “Like, really great.”
“Yeah?” Eddie smiles as if he had just received high praise in a Rolling Stone magazine.
“Yeah. You guys were pretty awesome.” You answer “Don’t let it go to your head though.”
That causes Ronnie to snort.
“So,” Dougie starts, a sly smile on his face “How long have you two been going out?”
Eddie just about knocked over his milkshake.
“Dude!” He exclaims “I told you already. We’re not like…that.”
“Okay, okay. Sheesh.” Dougie says, holding his hands up in surrender “Don’t shoot me.”
“We’re just friends. Emphasis on the friends.” Eddie further elaborates.
“Alright, alright.” Dougie replies “I get it.”
Next to Eddie, you self-consciously suck down the last of your milkshake- trying not to let your disappointment show on your face. Eddie had been far too hasty to correct Dougie’s assumptions that you were a couple. As if it would be the most mortifying and embarrassing thing that could ever happen to him.
Eddie turns to you, noticing your empty shake glass.
“You want another one?” He asks.
“Oh. I-“
“Vanilla, right?” He asks, sliding out of the booth.
“Yeah.” You mutter quietly.
“Cool.” He says “We’ll be right back.”
As Eddie and Dougie venture off for more milkshakes, you are left sitting across from Ronnie who seemed to be swirling the straw around in her glass. It was silent. You didn’t know what to say to her so you were surprised when she was the one to speak first.
“He really likes you, y’know.”
“What?” You ask, your breath catching.
“Eddie.” Ronnie clarifies “He really likes you. Like, a lot. All he ever does is talk about you. How cool you are. How you’re, like, totally best friends. Stuff like that.”
The admission catches you off-guard but was also incredibly heartwarming. Eddie talked about you to his friends?
“Really?” You ask, stunned.
“Yeah. It’s actually kinda annoying. Like, he doesn’t shut up.” Ronnie snorts “You would’ve thought you invented Metallica or something.”
“Oh.” You say “I didn’t know that he talked about me…to other people.”
“I know. Which is why I’m telling you this. I’ve known Eddie since we were, like, six. Eddie can be kind of-“
“Closed off?”
“Yeah.” Ronnie replies “Exactly. So, hearing him talk about you the way that he does….I just wanted you to know. He cares about you. I can tell that you care about him too. I guess I’m just glad that he has someone. You know, besides me and Dougie. Just don’t break his heart, okay?”
“I-“
“Yeah, I know. You don’t have to say it. I know you guys aren’t like that.” Ronnie clarifies “What I mean is that if you and Eddie ever stop being friends, I feel like it would destroy him, you know. So, yeah. Promise me that won’t happen.”
“Of course!” You exclaim “I’d never stop being friends with Eddie. I mean, sometimes he’s annoying and-“
“Bossy and makes stupid decisions and can be an asshole sometimes?” Ronnie adds.
“Yes.” You agree “Exactly. But that’s what I like about him. He’s not, you know…like everyone else. He’s different.”
Ronnie watches as your lips curl into a shy smile. All Ronnie could think about was how completely gone you were for him and you didn’t even know it.
“Yeah.” Ronnie snorts “You can say that again.”
Just as you opened your mouth to say something else, Eddie and Dougie return to the table.
“Vanilla milkshake, for the lady.” He announces, setting it down with a dramatic flourish. You look up and catch Ronnie smirking at you.
“What?” Eddie asks, looking between you and Ronnie “What did I miss?”
“Nothing, Munson.” Ronnie says “Don’t worry about it.”
Ronnie glances over at you, giving you a knowing look as she drinks from her milkshake. Your heart pounds in your chest while Eddie just stands there in confusion.
“….Okay….” He says, looking at Ronnie as if she were up to something before he slid back into the booth next to you. He places down a basket of fries between the two of you.
“Help me eat these?” He suggests, nudging the basket closer to you.
Really, he had bought them for you. To share. He knew they were your favorite and that you would never order them for yourself at the risk of other people looking at you and judging you for it. Because of puberty and your developing body, you were hyper-aware of people thinking certain things about you. However, Eddie didn’t care. Because sharing fries with you at Benny’s was one of his favorite parts of your friendship.
“I cant-“
“C’mon, you’re so not going to make me eat this whole thing by myself.” Eddie pouts “Please?”
His brown puppy dog eyes are what got you. You folded every time.
“Alright.” You relent “Okay.”
You pick up a fry from the basket, popping it in your mouth as you try to keep your face neutral but Eddie could see how happy you were. Sitting next to him at Benny’s as you shared fries and milkshakes. You had told him before how this was your favorite place on earth. Sharing those moments with him. Truth be told, you loved every moment you shared with Eddie. Always. But these? They were by far your favorite.
As you and Eddie took turns sharing the basket of fries, Ronnie looked on at the two of you- watching as you laughed at Eddie’s jokes. As he leaned in closer to you when you spoke. How his eyes would land on your lips as if he wanted to kiss them. Ronnie couldn’t help but compare you both to a couple of magnets, stuck together by a great force.
Ronnie wouldn’t say it in front of the both of you but she could sense that there was something more than friendship between you two. Care, trust, empathy. Love.
Definitely love. The truest kind. Her friend Eddie Munson was in love. Completely and stupidly in love.
────────
1983
"Hey, you're Munson's girl, right?"
The voice startles you, causing you to look up from the book that you had been reading on a bench outside of the school. You lock eyes with none other than Jason Carver- one of the most popular guys in school. And he was talking to you.
“Oh, I- uh…no.” You stammer, nervous by his presence as he stares at you “I mean, I know Eddie. We’re friends. I’m not- he’s not, you know, my boyfriend. Just a friend. Who’s a boy.”
God, you probably sounded like an idiot.
“Okay.” Jason smiles, nodding as his tightens his grip on the gym bag that he had hoisted over his shoulder “Cool. I mean, I heard that from other people but I wasn’t too sure. You two seem pretty close so I thought I’d just ask you. But yeah, good to know. Really good.”
Your heartbeat speeds up as he smiles at you again, flashing his perfect teeth and his blue eyes. Practically every girl in school had a crush on Jason Carver and you were no exception.
“Are you just hanging around here?” He asks “All alone?”
“Oh.” You say “I’m actually waiting for Eddie. He usually drives me home.”
“Really?” Jason asks “School’s been out for a while. It’s getting dark out.”
“Oh, yeah, I know.” You explain “He hosts the Hellfire Club. They usually take a while to finish up their sessions.”
“I see.” Jason replies “Are you not a part of his club?”
“Well, I mean, sort of. I sub for some of the other members sometimes if they can’t make a session. It’s not really my thing though. I kind of just do it to help Eddie.”
“Do you do a lot of things for Eddie?” Jason questions, raising an eyebrow quizzically.
“I mean, we’re friends. We do stuff for each other, you know.”
“Hm.” Jason nods “And you guys are, you know, just friends? Like, there’s nothing going on between you two?”
“Me and Eddie?” You exclaim, practically choking on your own spit “No. Definitely not. Just friends.”
“Okay, cool.” Jason says “Sorry, I just wanted to make sure. I….Okay, this might seem weird but I’ve been noticing you around lately and I..uh..I’ve gotta be honest, you caught my eye.”
“Really?” You ask, your voice laced with shock “Me?”
“Yeah.” Jason shrugs “That so hard to believe?”
“I…no, I just…I’m surprised…and flattered, I guess.” You admit “I’m surprised that you know I exist, to tell you the truth.”
“Really? Huh.” Jason laughs “Would you believe me if I told you that I thought you were cute?”
Holy shit. Did he just say what you thought he said?
Jason Carver thought you were cute?
“Oh, I-“
“Hey, I’m actually headed home. Do you want a ride? I couldn’t forgive myself if I just let a cute girl sit outside while it’s getting dark.” Jason flirts.
“I-I’m really flattered but I should probably wait for Eddie.”
“You sure?” He asks “Those Hellfire meetings can go pretty late, can’t they?”
This was true. Eddie was such a control freak about his position as DM that he tried to cram as much as he could into one session which usually left everyone gathered around the table for hours. Which means that, by proxy, you were stuck waiting for him until he remembered your existence and that you were waiting for him.
“Yeah.” You nod “Sometimes.”
“I’m sure you’ve had a long day. Why not just let me drive you? I don’t bite.” Jason teases.
Now that you thought about it, you did have a long day. You were tired, your feet were sore, and your book wasn’t doing much to stave off your boredom. You also had a mountain of homework that you hadn’t even started on. Maybe you should go home. Eddie would understand, right?
“Yeah, okay.” You finally relent, watching a smile spread across Jason Carver’s face “I’ll let you drive me home.”
────────
It was around seven pm when the phone rang.
You had just finished up washing dishes after dinner when you walk over to the phone, picking it up as you press the receiver to your ear.
“Hello?”
“Jesus H Christ! Good to know that you’re alive!” Eddie exclaims on the other end of the line, his voice laced with what seemed like sarcasm and worry.
“Hey Eds.” You say.
Hey? He had been searching the whole school for you for over an hour and all you could manage to say was hey?
Eddie huffs out an incredulous laugh.
“Do you have any idea how fucking worried I was? I was five seconds away from filing a missing persons report, for christ’s sake! I had everyone from Hellfire looking for you.”
“Oh.” You squeak, a feeling of guilt washing over you. “I’m sorry, Eds! I didn’t realize it would be a huge thing. I should’ve told you I was leaving but I didn’t want to interrupt the campaign.”
“Sweetheart, I’d rather you interrupt the campaign than have me worried that something happened to you.” He sighs “How did you even get home? Did you walk?”
“No, I actually got a ride home.”
Eddie freezes, caught completely off-guard. Had he heard you right?
“Wait what?” He asks “You got a ride home? From who?”
From the moment he got his license and inherited his dad’s shitty van. Eddie had picked you up and dropped you off everywhere you needed to go. Whenever you wanted. It had always been that way. An unspoken arrangement that existed within your friendship. Who the hell would be driving you home besides him?
“You’re not gonna believe this.” You start, a grin spreading across your face. You were glad that Eddie couldn’t see it. He’d surely never let you live it down “Jason Carver drove me home.”
On the other side of the line, Eddie’s heart nearly stops.
“Carver?” He says “Jason Carver. Drove you home?”
“Yeah.” You reply.
“As in, the captain of the basketball team?”
“Yes?”
“Okay, wait.” Eddie malfunctions “I didn’t even know that you knew any of the jockstraps. Since when do you hang out with Jason Carver?”
“I don’t.” You explain “He just came up to me while I was waiting for you and we started talking. Then he offered me a ride home and I took it.”
“He just came up to you and started talking to you?” Eddie questions “What did he want?”
“Nothing. We just talked. He’s really sweet.” You blush.
Sweet? Jason Carver and his gang of jockstraps were anything but sweet.
“Sweet, huh?” Eddie replies, his voice laced with disdain.
“Yeah.” You sigh, your voice dreamy. It made Eddie want to puke.
“And he didn’t try anything with you? Didn’t, like, hit on you or anything?” He interrogates.
“What? No. No, he was really nice. He was a total gentleman.”
Uh-huh, Eddie thought, and I’m fucking Ronnie James Dio.
“You’re sure?”
“….Yes?” You ask “Why are you acting so weird?”
“What did you guys talk about?” Eddie pushes, wanting to know everything.
“You know, just normal stuff. School. We talked about you, actually.” You admit. The confession throws Eddie for a loop.
“Me?” He echoes
“Yeah. Funny story, actually. He thought we were dating.” You explain “Isn’t that weird?”
No.
“…Um…yeah.” Eddie stammers “That’s…that is weird. So, like, what did you say?”
“What do you mean?” You ask “I told him we were friends, obviously. Then guess what he told me?”
Eddie’s stomach began to tighten.
“What?”
“He told me that he thought I was cute.” You practically squeal.
“He said what?” Eddie guffaws, his mouth falling open. He was so glad you couldn’t see his reaction over the phone.
“I know, right?” You squeak “Isn’t that, like, I….I can’t get over it. Jason fucking Carver thinks I’m cute. Can you believe it?”
Jason fucking Carver was so fucking dead.
“Huh.” Eddie huffs.
“Huh? What do you mean ‘huh’?” You question, immediately picking up on Eddie’s weird behavior.
“Nothing.” Eddie replies coolly “It’s nothing.”
“No, what? Why are you acting like that?”
“It’s just….Jason Carver? Really?” Eddie snorts, catching you off guard. Was he laughing at you? “Just thought you’d have better taste.”
“Okay, that was mean.” You say, shaking your head at how Eddie was behaving. Why was he being such a jerk.
“I mean, can you blame me?” Eddie scoffs “Some sheep-brained ball-dribbler calls you cute and now you’re planning your wedding.”
“What? I’m not ‘planning my wedding’” You sass “One of the most popular guys in school complimented me and I can’t even tell my best friend about it? This is, like, huge for me and you’re acting like you don’t even care.”
And, boy, was that far from the truth. Because Eddie did care. He cared a lot.
“I just thought you’d were smart enough to not fall for guys like that.” Eddie retorts “Guys with bland personalities and low IQ’s who think that their entire life’s purpose is to toss balls into laundry baskets.”
“Okay, what is your problem?” You finally snap “Why are you being so bitchy?”
“I just don’t see how you’re so blinded by this.” Eddie quips.
“Blinded by what?”
“Are you really too blind to see what he’s doing? Sure, he can tell you that you’re cute as much as he wants but that doesn’t stop me from seeing right through the bullshit.” Eddie tried to reason “He’s only being nice to you to try and get in your pants.”
Your mouth falls open in shock. Did Eddie really just say that?
“Excuse me?” You practically gasp.
“What?” Eddie replies coldly “It’s the truth. He’s being all nice to you to try and hookup with you. Then he’s going to ditch you and pretend like you don’t even exist.”
“Wow.” You say, your tone hurt and incredulous “That’s really what you think of me?”
“No.” Eddie explains “What’s what I think Carver thinks of you. That he can have sex with any girl he wants because he’s popular.”
“And what makes you think that I’d hookup with him? Like, you seem all sure of it or something. Like you think I’m easy and would just, I don’t know, give it up to anybody.” You reply, hurt in your voice.
Was this really what Eddie thought of you.
“You’re twisting my words.” Eddie argues “That’s not what I said.”
“But it’s what you meant, right?”
“What? No! I-“
“You know what, Eddie? Fuck you!”
Before he could respond, you slam the phone back into the wall- hanging up on his before he could even get a word in.
Inside of the trailer, Eddie stood there. Dumbfounded as he listened to the dead line ring in his ear.
Did you just hang up on him?
────────
“Holy shit. Eddie, look.”
Eddie looks up from the character sheets that he was studying next to his locker, following Jeff’s line of sight as he watches you stroll through the front doors of Hawkins High School- right next to Jason Carver.
He was holding your hand.
What…the…fuck?
“Holy shit.” Gareth breathes, staring as Jason whispered something to you- causing you to tilt your head back in a laugh.
“Did you guys, like, have a fight or something?” Jeff questions.
Eddie could barely hear him over the erratic beating of his heart as he clenched his fists.
“Whatever.” Was all Eddie could mutter in order to not go into a complete meltdown.
“Whatever?” Gareth asks, raising an eyebrow questioningly “But aren’t you guys like…a thing?”
“What?” Eddie scoffs “Ew no. She’s not my girl. We’re not like that.”
“Could’ve fooled me.” Jeff snickers “Now she’s all cozied up with Carver. Bet you’re loving that.”
“It’s none of my business.” Eddie replies icily “She can dates who she wants. Even jockstraps that use fucking Sun-In and have a negative number of brain cells.”
Just as you and Jason are making your way down the hallway, you pass Eddie and the Hellfire guys. You lock eyes momentarily before your pull your eyes away, staring straight ahead. You had ignored him.
Alright, Eddie thought. Two can play that game.
────────
1988
Eddie had been driving around Hawkins aimlessly for hours, your voice ringing out in his head.
Are you in or are you out?
His knuckles gripped the steering wheel, his mind going into overdrive. He was thinking about everything and nothing all at once. His head was filled with so much that it felt like he was carrying the weight of the world between his shoulders. Everywhere he drove past reminded him of you.
Milkshakes and fries at Benny’s Diner.
Snack runs to the gas station late at night as you sat on the curb next to each other and drank Slurpee’s.
Blind-buying cassette tapes for each other at the record store early morning on a Saturday and blasting them in the van. The wind whipping through your hair as you rolled the windows down.
Egging Tommy Hagan’s house on Halloween.
Carving your names in the trunk of an old oak tree near Lover’s Lake.
Shared rock concerts at the shitty dive bars right outside of Hawkins where you both screamed so loudly that your voices were practically gone the next day.
Arguing over what to rent at Family Video on Thursday nights where he would pretend to be annoyed when he let you win.
So many years of memories. The best times of you and him. Was he really going to throw it all away like that? What the fuck was he supposed to do?
You were his best friend, his person, his Samwise Gamgee….and you were pregnant with his baby.
Eddie wasn’t ready to be a father. Not even fucking close. He didn’t even know if he wanted kids and now, here he was, with a baby on the way with a girl that wasn’t even his. Not really. Fuck, how could things have turned out like this?
He thought back to the many times where you had spoken to him at length about your future plans- where you saw yourself in the next ten years. A suburban dream house with the prettiest garden on the block, a husband, a job you loved. Maybe a couple of kids if you felt up to it. But, most of all, you wanted to be happy. Eddie knew that he could never give you that.
Eddie was a loser wannabe rockstar with a dead end bartending job as he sold weed on the side. You didn’t fucking deserve that. You deserved a guy would could provide for you. Someone who could make you happy and make sure you want for nothing. Now, here you were, pregnant with his baby that you insisted on keeping and there was nothing he could do about it. Another story of failure to add to the cursed Munson family name.
You deserved better.
So much better.
You deserved someone like Steve Harrington who came from money and stood by your side during your pregnancy. Not someone like Eddie who was a spineless fucking coward that already had one foot out the door. You didn’t need him. Your baby didn’t need him. Eddie would be nothing but dead weight for the both of you. Completely fucking useless like his own father whose mistakes Eddie was destined to repeat.
No, he couldn’t stick around for this. Not when he got you pregnant and just ruined your entire life. Unlike Eddie, you were destined to do something with your life. Not to be tied down by the town freak and his Satan spawn. He couldn’t let you do this. But, if you were going to do it anyway, Eddie couldn’t just stick around and watch it. All of this was a car crash waiting to happen.
He would write you a letter. He would pack his shit and go somewhere where you wouldn’t be able to reach him. It would fucking sting but it was for the best. He couldn’t watch you get dragged down into a life of single motherhood. He couldn’t be around when the kid was old enough to wonder who their father was. No, he was going to do you a favor but taking himself out of the picture.
He would write a note. He would explain everything. He would tell you that he loved you and that he couldn’t hold you back by staying. He couldn’t help you raise a child that he would surely fuck up. He couldn’t watch you struggle and take care of his kid until you eventually woke up one day and realized that all of this was a huge mistake.
Having sex with him was a mistake, being his friend was a mistake, loving him was a mistake. Fucking meeting him was a mistake. Eddie couldn’t be your biggest life regret. He wanted more for you. He wanted you to want more for yourself. He wasn’t the man you needed. He would never be. The best thing he could do for you was let you go.
────────
1983
“I can’t believe she’s going to the dance with Jason Carver.” Eddie grumbles, biting angrily into a slice of pizza as Steve Harrington and Jonathan Byers listen to his rant. It was supposed to be a carefree guys night before it completely evolved into an Eddie bitching session.
“Like, seriously? Him? The guys probably listens to Bruce Springsteen.” Eddie scoffs.
“What’s wrong with Bruce Springsteen?” Steve asks.
“I hate Bruce Springsteen.” Eddie explains as if it were obvious “They’re probably dancing to Top 40 hits and gushing over how popular everyone looks tonight.”
Eddie rolls his eyes so hard that they could’ve gotten lost in the back of his head. He hated what you had become. Suddenly you were Jason Carver’s girl that was too good to speak to him- too good to hang out or even call. It had been two weeks of the both of you ignoring each other and pretending neither of you exists but Eddie couldn’t deny the fact that he missed you. That he was lost without you. Now you were at the shitty winter formal with a guy that wasn’t him and it was killing him.
“Eddie, have you thought about telling her how you feel? I mean, if you-“
Jonathan’s thoughts were immediately cut off by the phone ringing. Eddie’s brows furrow. It was past nine o’clock and no one called past nine. He gets off the couch, walking to the phone as he picks it up.
“Hello?”
“Eddie?”
It was you.
You and your sweet voice. He almost sighed into the phone at the sound of it, complete forgetting that he was mad at you. That you ignored him and ditched him for two weeks for a guy that played with balls.
“Are you there? Eds?” He squeezes his eyes shut as he tried to shake off the thoughts of how much he missed you and your voice.
“What do you want?” He asks coldly “Surprised you even remember that I exist.”
“Eddie, I-“
“Look, I’m busy right now. I-“
“Eddie…” He was suddenly met with the sounds of broken sobs, causing his heart to twist in his chest. You were crying. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I should’ve called. I know you’re mad but I….I really fucking need you.”
“What happened?” He asks hastily, voice filling with panic “Where are you? Did someone hurt you?”
“No.” You hiccup “I’m fine. I just…can you come pick me up? Please?”
“Where are you, sweetheart?” He asks, his hand tightly gripping the phone.
"I'm outside of Benny's. At the payphone."
"Okay." Eddie breathes "Just stay right there, okay? I'm coming, baby."
────────
1988
It happened while Eddie was pulled over on the side of the highway, pen in hand as he tried to balance his leather journal on the steering wheel in order to write. Every time he thought he had gotten a good start on what he wanted to say to you, he ripped the page out-crumpling it up in his hands as he tosses it onto the floor of the van. He didn't have room to make mistakes on this. He needed you to read his words, his heart on the page as he explained to you why he was leaving. Why he couldn't stay and let himself ruin everything you built.
He couldn't focus. His mind was consumed with you.
The way that you used to ambush him with your Polaroid camera, snapping photos of him that you'd hang in your locker or use in place of bookmarks. How you created a collage that took up practically an entire wall of pictures of you and him.
How you would call him right at midnight on the dot when it was his birthday because you couldn't fathom not being the first one to say it.
How you would steal his hoodies and return them with the lingering scent of your perfume.
How you had taken care of him when he caught the flu in eleventh grade.
Bandaging up his hands after he would burn himself on the iron when you would help him DIY his battle vests. How you would jokingly tease him for being so clumsy and empty-headed.
All of the late nights you shared as you drove around town in the van together, just talking about nothing and everything all at once.
The books you lent him. The hugs you shared. The way that you had cried on his shoulder whenever something hurt you. The moments where you had fallen asleep with your head in his lap in the middle of a movie night. How Wayne would walk in and grin at him when he saw the way that Eddie would run his fingers through your hair soothingly. Like it was the most natural thing on earth, because it was.
How you used to leave your bedroom window cracked open for him so that he could climb in and listen to your Walkman together until it was almost one in the morning. The many, many times where he had looked at you and realized how much he loved you. The one time where he almost said it out loud. Leaving you behind would be the hardest fucking thing he'd ever have to do in his life.
Just when he was beginning to agonize over how to put it all on the paper in front of him, he began to hear the opening notes of a familiar song- all too familiar. It was your song.
Eddie practically freezes.
Eddie puts his pen into the cupholder, reaching for the volume knob on his stereo as he gently turned it up- trying to drown out the whooshing sound of cars passing him on the shoulder of the highway. Trying to quiet the overly running thoughts in his head. As soon as he heard the lead singer of Spandau Ballet begin to croon on WSQK, Eddie fucking lost it.
So true,
Funny how it seems,
Always in time but never in line for dreams,
Head over heels when toe to toe,
This is the sound of my soul,
This is the sound.
Suddenly, there you were. In that teal wrap dress as you sat across from him on your bedroom floor. Your face bare of makeup after crying in the passenger seat of his van as he drove you home. The same passenger seat that was next to him- empty. He remembered the way you smelled. Vanilla body wash and a hint of hair spray from styling your hair so nice and pretty for some other guy. A guy that didn't deserve you.
"Jesus Christ..." Eddie mutters, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried not to break down. But it was too late. The song transported him right back to the best moments of you.
His lips pressed sweetly against yours for the very first time the night after the 1982 Winter Formal. How close you were. How your kiss took his breath away. How he was convinced that he didn't need oxygen as long as he could breathe you in. Spandau Ballet playing softly in the background.
Senior prom 1986 in the school gymnasium with you in that beautiful pale pink dress with the puffy sleeves that reminded him of the yellow marigold dress you wore all those years ago. Holding you close with his hands on your hips as you swayed back and forth in his arms. How he wanted so badly to tell you that you were the most beautiful girl on earth. How, even though he hated prom and the forced conformity of it all, he couldn't imagine wanting to be anywhere else but there. With you.
I bought a ticket to the world,
But now I've come back again.
Why do I find it hard to write the next line?
Oh, I want the truth to be said.
"Fuck."
He sobs, tossing his notebook onto the floor of the passenger side as he buries his head against the steering wheel.
He couldn't leave you.
He didn't want to leave you.
He loved you. Fuck, he loved you so much that it fucking hurt.
He didn't think he could ever love anyone that way that he loved you. His love for you was so fucking massive and vast that he could never have room for anyone else in his heart. Not Chrissy Cunningham, not all of those other girls that he used to have crushes on or tried to hit on at the mall. No, you.
The way you kissed him, the way you smile, the sound of your laugh. How you never got mad at him enough to stop being his friend. How warm your body feels against his side whenever he'd snuggle you close. How you trusted him wholly and completely. How the way you held him the night that he made love to you made him want you to never let you.
He loves you.
Fuck, he fucking loves you with everything he fucking has.
There was never anyone else. How could there ever be? It was you.
It had always been you.
────────
1983
"Here, let me help you with that."
It was the first thing that Eddie had said to you since you had gotten into his van when he rescued you from Benny's Diner. You slide into the cab of the van, closed the door, and began to cry. Big fat tears that ruined your makeup. Now, here Eddie was, sitting across from you on your bedroom floor as he tried to remove your makeup for you.
As he swiped at the mascara stains on your cheeks, you try not to look at him- wrapping his jacket tighter around your body.
"Thank you." You whisper, finally breaking your silence "For doing this. For picking me up. I owe you."
"No." Eddie shakes his head, using the makeup wipe on your other eye "You don't owe me anything, sweetheart. If anything, I owe you an apology. I was a fucking jerk."
"No." You croak, your eyes watering again "You weren't. You were right, Eddie. This whole time."
"Right about what?" He asks, his hand stilling.
"About Jason." You sigh, lowering your head in embarrassment "He only wanted one thing from me. Everything you said about him was true."
Eddie's heart immediately drops into the pit of his stomach, anger flares inside of his chest like a red, hot inferno.
"What happened?" He says, his voice low and angry no matter how badly he was trying to stay calm in front of you. All he could think about was getting his hands on Jason fucking Carver and wringing his neck. "Did he do something to you?"
"He....tried to make out with me." You admit, biting your lip to keep yourself from crying all over again "I told him that I didn't want to. That I was saving my first kiss for someone special. I shouldn't have fucking said that. After I did, he got so mad at me. He, like, lost it. It scared me, Eddie."
Jason Carver was so fucking dead when he finally got his hands on him. He was practically already six feet under at that very fucking moment.
You could see how hard Eddie was balling up his fist, his jaw clenching.
"Eddie, it's okay." You whisper, "I'm okay."
"No, it's not fucking okay." He growls "Did he touch you? I swear to god I'm going to break every one of his goddamn fingers and he'll have to kiss his full fucking ride to some Ivy League bullshit college goodbye because he won't be able to dribble a ball ever again in his fucking life.”
"Eddie, no." You shake your head, reaching for his hand as you gently try to get him to unclench his fist- slipping your hand into his as you intertwine your fingers "He's not worth it. He's not worth you getting in trouble."
"You're worth it."
"Eddie, please don't. Just leave it alone, okay? Promise me."
Eddie clenches his jaw again, causing you to squeeze his hand until he looked at you.
"Promise me." You demand.
"Alright, alright." He grumbles "I promise."
"Okay." You nod "Good."
Your bedroom becomes quiet as the two of you look at each other. Not speaking. You didn't have to with Eddie. Not every moment needed to be filled with words and conversation like it was with Jason. With Eddie, the silence was comfortable. Safe.
"Eddie?" You ask, your voice small "Do you....do you think I'm pretty?"
The question hits him in the chest like a sledgehammer.
Of course, he thought you were pretty. He thought you were beautiful.
"I mean..."
"Just be honest? I won't get mad. I just...sometimes I worry that guys won't look at me and think that I'm...you know...attractive. At least, not enough to be serious about me. Not enough to want to ask me to be their girlfriend and take me out on dates and stuff. Like, show me off.”
And those guys are fucking idiots, Eddie thought.
"So, like...If you and I weren't friends, would you? Think that I was pretty?" You continue.
Even as a friend, I think you are the most gorgeous girl in the world.
"Really?" You ask, a glint of something in your eyes that makes it so hard for Eddie to not lean into you, close the gap, and press his lips against yours. He thought that he could control himself. But you had already caught the way that he was staring at your lips. The way that his adams apple moved as he swallowed nervously.
"Eddie..." You whisper, leaning closer and closer into him that his heart was raging a war in his chest. He might be going crazy in that moment but he was almost completely, one-hundred percent certain that you were about to kiss him.
"Wait, wait wait." He calls out, holding his hand out between the two of you in order to maintain distance. "What....what are you doing?"
"I...I thought...do you not want to kiss me?”
"No, no, no." He shakes his head "Sweetheart, it's not that. I-"
"Shit. I just made things really weird, didn't I?" You agonize, covering your face with your hands.
"No!" Eddie says "It's not that. It's not that I don't want to kiss you. I do...it's just...you're really vulnerable right now. You were just crying over Jason and you just told me that you didn't want to kiss him because you wanted your first kiss to be special and I-"
"I do want it to be special." You say.
"Right." He nods "Which is why you shouldn't waste it on me."
"But I want to." You whisper, your eyes drawing down to his lips and it drove Eddie crazy. "I mean, I want it to be special."
"And it should be." Eddie agrees "It should be with someone you love and that you trust and-"
"I love you, Eddie.” You admit “And I trust you. More than anyone. I think that…if my first kiss is going to be with anyone, it should be you. I want it to be with you.”
"I don't think you're thinking straight."
"I think this is the straightest that I've ever thought in my life."
"Sweetheart, please don't say shit like that. You don't mean it. You're hurt and...and-"
"And I want my first kiss to be you. I…I’ve been thinking about it ever since Jason tried to kiss me. How I don’t want to just give it away to someone like him who’s going to hurt me or use me or take advantage of me. I want to get it over with but I want to do it with someone I trust so I don’t regret it. I know that, if I let you be my first kiss, I won’t wake up one day and wish I had done things differently. I know you’ll take care of me.”
"Sweetheart..." Eddie groans helplessly.
"Please, Eddie? I won't ask you again." You say "If you don't want to kiss me, that's okay. I don't-"
"That's not the problem." Eddie says "Sweetheart, I want to kiss the shit out of you right now. You look...god, you look unreal in that dress and your hair and...the way you're looking at me. I just... don't want to ruin anything by doing this.”
"You won't." You state "I wouldn't want my first kiss to be with anyone else, Eds. I'm going to ask you one more time and that's it, okay? Will you be my first kiss? Please?"
"Fuck...you're sure?" He asks, asking for consent. He needed to hear that you wanted this just as much as he did "You sure you want it to be me?"
"I'm sure, Eds. I want it to be you."
And he could've died right there. Just from hearing you say it.
Okay." Eddie agrees "If that's what you want, sweetheart."
"It is." You confirm.
"Fuck...okay." He breathes "I...shit, how do I do this? Do I just..."
"You've never kissed anyone before?" You ask, a surprised look on your face.
"Me? No!" Eddie laughs nervously "What makes you think that I've done this before?"
"I don't know." You explain "I just thought....you just seemed like you have before."
"Nope." He shakes his head "This'll be my first time too."
"Oh my god." You gasp "Fuck, and I'm over here pressuring you to kiss me. I'm such a fucking idiot." You bury your face in your hands again.
"Hey, stop it." Eddie says "You're not an idiot."
"Yes, I am!" You mumble against your hands "This whole time, I'm begging you to kiss me and you haven't even had your first kiss yet and you should probably be saving that for someone special and-"
Your words were immediately cut off by Eddie grabbing at your hands, removing them from your face before leaning in and smashing his lips onto yours to shut you up.
Suddenly, the world stopped spinning. Every possible thought that was swarming around in your head had disappeared. Your mind was completely blank. Quickly replaced with thoughts of Eddie.
How close he was to you, how soft his lips were, how they felt pressed up against you, the way that he smelled.
It was him. Only him.
Eddie.
Eddie.
Eddie.
Within a couple of seconds, he had pulled away. Ending the kiss as quickly as he had started it. Your eyes flutter open, catching sight of your best friend as his face looked flushed and nervous.
"I...uh...Was that okay?" He asks "Did I do that right? I mean, I guess you wouldn't know either."
"No, that was...it was nice." You smile, staring down at your hands in your lap "Can I be honest for a second?"
"Sure." Eddie clears his throat nervously "Yeah. Totally."
"I just...when I imagined it, what my first kiss would be like, I thought it would be a little different. More...passionate."
"Passionate?" Eddie asks, trying not to think about the way that the lower half of his body was reacting to how he had just kissed you. Were you trying to kill him?
"Yeah." You explain "And romantic. Not that it wasn't romantic. I just...I imagined that there would be more kissing....and music, maybe."
"Oh." Eddie says "Do you want to try it again? We can go again. You know, if you want to. I can try to be more....passionate."
"Would you really do that for me?" You ask.
Fuck, sweetheart, I'd do anything for you.
"Of course." Eddie says "We can put on a cassette if you want. If that'll make it more comfortable for you."
"Okay, yeah." You say nervously "I'll...go play something. Don't move, okay?"
Your bedroom would have to spontaneously burst into flames before Eddie could even think about moving an inch right now.
He watches as you rise from the floor, stumbling over to your nightstand as you reach for a half-used scented candle before lighting it. You were hoping that it would set the mood but now that you had lit it, it kind of felt ridiculous.
You quickly rifle through your cassette collection, searching for something to set the tone of what you and Eddie were about to do. You were literally trying to pick out a soundtrack to make out with your best friend to. Suddenly, everything felt so silly and so serious at the same time.
You finally settle on your brand new Spandau Ballet tape that you had just picked up from the record store the week before.
"Is this okay?" You stammer, holding out the cassette cover for Eddie to see. He couldn’t care less about what you put on. All he could think about was having your lips against his.
"Sure, sweetheart." He says "Whatever you want to play."
You pop it in, immediately skipping to the song you liked best. Track eight.
As the soft guitar notes of the beginning of the song began to pump through the speakers, you make your way back to Eddie- sinking down into the floor across from him.
"You okay?" He asks, taking in how nervous you looked "We don't have to do this."
"No, no. I want to." You assure him.
"Should I turn off the lights?" He asks "Will that help?"
"Yeah." You croak "Maybe."
Eddie stands to walk over to your bedroom door, hitting the lights. You try to control your breathing as he returns to you. You had already kissed him once. You had already gotten the first time out of the way. This should be easier, right?"
"Okay." Eddie whispers, sitting across from you. But closer than before. Close enough for his knees to be pressed against yours. "Ready?"
"Mhm," You nod.
The familiar track began to pump quietly in the background
I know this much is true....
You tried to let Tony Hadley sing away your nerves, relaxing your body as you felt Eddie reach for you- brushing his fingers through your hair. Your eyes fluttered closed, letting the feeling take you away.
"Is this okay?" Eddie whispers "Me touching you like this?"
"Yes." You squeak "You can...you can touch me more, if you want."
Holy Christ....
"Okay." Eddie swallows, his hand moving from your hair to your face, cupping it in his hands as he swept his thumbs against your cheekbones. Just feeling you. Just reminding himself that all of this was real.
That you were real.
Eddie could hardly focus on the song because he was worried about you feeling his hands tremble across your soft skin.
So true,
Funny how it seems,
Always in time but never in line for dreams.
Head over heels when toe to toe,
This is the sound of my soul,
This is the sound...
You reach for him, placing your hands on his wrists gently as you open your eyes to look at him and he practically melts. You and those pretty eyes. Those pretty lips. Pretty, pretty you.
"It's okay." You whisper "You don't have to be nervous. It's just me."
The words hit him hard as soon as they leave your lips.
It was just you. But you weren't just you. You were everything.
He leans in, resting his forehead against yours as he continued to stroke your face. Your nose bumps against his, causing his breath to hitch. So close. You were so, so close.
I bought a ticket to the world,
But now I've come back again.
Why do I find it hard to write the next line?
Oh, I want the truth to be said.
You nudge your nose into his again, playfully, as the corners of your lips lift into a grin.
Fuck, you were so cute. So, so cute.
I know this much is true....
Eddie practically sighs.
I know this much is true...
"You gonna kiss me or what, Munson?" You murmur.
"I'm getting there, don't worry." He promises "Let me take my time."
With a thrill in my head
And a pill on my tongue,
Dissolve the nerves that have just begun.
Listening to Marvin all night long.
This is the sound of my soul,
This is the sound....
He leans into you, intoxicated by your sweet scent as he finally presses his lips against yours. Sure, this time. Ready.
In his head, he tries to recollect every past memory of every chick-flick romance that you had forced him to sit through throughout the years, trying to copy what he had seen in those movies. How the love interest always kissed the girl in such a way that he took her breath away- and that’s all Eddie wanted. To take your breath away.
Eddie moves one of his hands from where it was holding your face, placing it on the back of your neck to pull you in closer to him- deepening the kiss as he tilts his head. You follow his lead as he slots his lips against yours. The action earns him a barely audible moan from you, causing Eddie to feel as though he had just been hit by lightening. Completely electrified. He was doing something right. Thank god.
What he didn’t expect was for your body to react even further by leaning into him, shifting onto your knees to get closer to him. To kiss him back.
You were so close that it was intoxicating. Your lips against his as he cupped his hand behind your neck and kissed you harder. He wanted to go further but he didn’t want to cross any boundaries. He was happy with just this. Heated closed mouth kisses as you pressed your chest against his.
God, your fucking chest.
The way your boobs were pressed up against his chest was driving him wild. He tried to focus his mind on something else. Anything but your breasts against him and how they might feel without your dress in the way.
Your chest, your skin, the heat of your body.
Eddie wanted to feel you. All of you.
And this was only kissing. Barely even making out.
Imagine if you wanted him to go all the way with you.
Jesus Christ, he would lose it.
“Eddie?” You whisper, pulling away from his lips as you slowly opened your eyes to look at him “I…can I come closer? I want to be closer…”
Eddie follows your gaze as you stare down at his lap.
“Is that okay?” You ask, your cheeks heating up at the request.
“You….you wanna sit in my lap?” Eddie stammers. He could immediately feel himself getting hard beneath his jeans. If you got on top of him, it would be game over. He didn’t know if he could control himself.
“Is that okay?” You ask “I…I want to be closer….to you.”
Eddie felt like he was swallowing a boulder as he looked into your eyes. Beautiful and needy. Who was he to not give you what you wanted? But he also didn’t want to scare you off by potentially causing you to feel something you didn’t want to.
“I…I don’t know if that’s…I’m kinda…” Eddie tried to convey what the issue was without having to outright say it. How the fuck do you even tell your best friend that you didn’t want her to sit on your lap because you were sporting a hard-on?
“Did I do something wrong? Did I-“
“No, sweetheart.” Eddie replies softly, shaking his head “No, you’re definitely not doing anything wrong. It’s actually kinda the opposite. I….If you just give me a second, I can-“
But before he could excuse himself from your room to sneak into your bathroom to adjust himself, you were already climbing into his lap- straddling him as both of your legs framed either side of his body. Eddie tried so hard to stifle a groan, his hands immediately flying to your waist. As soon as he realized what he was gripping onto, he began to panic.
“Shit,” He winces, quickly jerking his hands away. You catch them, grasping his wrists to stop them.
“It’s okay.” You assure him “I like your hands there. It makes me feel…safe.”
Oh god…
You wrap your arms around his neck, reaching up to play with his hair. Eddie’s eyes close at the feeling of your fingers in his curls. This was heaven. He was sure of it.
“Is this okay? That I do this?” You ask.
“Yes.” Eddie croaks out “Don’t stop doing that. Please. I…”
“What?” You ask.
“I like this. Being close to you like this.” He admits, his voice soft and dreamlike “Can I kiss you again?”
Instead of speaking, you lean in- capturing his lips with yours as his grip tightens against your waist and it felt so right.
You let yourself get lost in him. In your best friend. Your Eddie. The boy you could never let go.
Always slipping from my hands,
Sand's a time of its own.
Take your seaside arms and write the next line,
Oh, I want the truth to be known.
Eddie Munson with his loud mouth and his stupid jokes and his long curls and his deep voice. Eddie who was stubborn yet sweet. Over-protective but full of love.
Eddie.
Eddie.
Eddie.
You use your tongue to swipe at his bottom lip, asking for permission to deepen the kiss into a new territory of intimacy that you haven’t yet explored. But you wanted to. With him.
Eddie parts his lips a little, somehow instinctively knowing what to do- opening his mouth to taste you. Already intoxicated.
He sighs against your lips as you slip your tongue into his mouth. You had always worried that french kissing would be gross and slimy and awkward but it came so natural for you to want to do it with Eddie. He welcomed you into him with no restrictions. Completely open for you. Every single part of him.
His tongue tangles against yours, feeling you press yourself closer to him as if you could never be close enough. He grasps your hips tighter as he works his mouth against yourself, breathing heavy as he nips at your bottom lip- earning another moan. He was suddenly aware that kissing you was his new favorite thing. Nothing could top this feeling.
Your nose bumps against his as you kiss him harder, deeper, more hurried. Like you couldn’t get enough. You tilt your head in every possible angle to earn yourself more of him, wanting to taste his lips in every which way that you could. Spandau Ballet serenading you in the background.
I know this much is true….
Eddie was pretty fucking certain that he was falling in love with kissing you. He wanted more.
He wanted to claim every part of your mouth- your lips. He wanted to claim you. Make you his.
He wanted to live in this moment of kissing you. He wanted to stay just like this forever. He wanted you to be the first, last, and only girl he’d ever kiss. No one else. Because he was certain that no one else could make him feel this way.
He didn’t want anyone else to make him feel this way. He was sure of it. So sure. So fucking sure that he needed to tell you. He needed-
Click.
The cassette tape stopped. The track coming to an end as it was the last song on the tape. It suddenly felt like a spell had been broken.
No, no, no.
But you were already pulling away, retreating out of the kiss-induced trance that you had been under.
A/N: Requested by an anonymous user. Hopefully I did you justice 🩷
Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader
Summary: Giving your boyfriend Eddie the after-sex emotional intimacy that he craves.
Content Warning: 18+ Smut, Unprotected Sex (P in V), Cockwarming, Sexual Language, Swearing/Profanity.
Credits: @cafekitsune for the dividers
────────
“Holy shiiiit, you’re unreal! Fuck! Oh fuck!”
Your boyfriend pants in your ear as he nears his high, thrusting into you as deep as he could go.
“You feel so- god, oh my god! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes! Just like that! Hoooooly mother of god!”
“You okay?” You moan underneath him, out of breath and wrecked as you watched him fall apart above you.
“M’good! So good, baby….So fucking good. This feels so nice.” He whimpers “Being inside you like this…”
“Yeah?” You squeak as he hits a spot deep inside of you that had your toes curling.
“Fuck yes….so wet…and tight and perfect. God, baby, you’re perfect. So fucking perfect….all for me. Mine. My girl…”
“Yours.” You whisper, kissing his neck as he lets out a gasp.
“Hah! Fuck! Y-you…oh god! You’re…squeezing’ me…so good. So fucking good! Are you close, sweetheart? Tell me you’re close. Please tell me you’re close!” He pleads.
“M’almost there, Eds.” You moan, gripping tightly onto his biceps as he keeps fucking into you “Just keep going, baby. Don’t stop.”
“No, no, no. Not gonna stop…I’ve got you, sweetheart. I’ve fucking got you. Shit….just give it to me, yeah? Please? God, please, angel. I need you to cum. Need you to give it to me.”
“Eddie…” You whine.
“Fuck, baby! You’re squeezing me so good….you gonna cum? Yeah? You gonna cum for me? Please fucking cum for me, angel.”
He slams into you relentlessly, reaching down between the two of you to rub hurried circles on your clit.
“Eddie!”
“Fuck, baby, you’re so close. I can feel it. Come on, sweetheart, fucking cum for me. Need to feel you cum on my cock.”
It hit you faster than you expected, your orgasm peaking with a high pitched gasp that had Eddie tumbling right after you.
“Oh my god, sweetheart! Atta girl!” He groans “I’m so close, baby. Gonna fucking cum. Gonna- oh shit!”
Eddie grasps your hand, squeezing it as he released inside of you- filling you up as he panted and whimpering above you. His arms give out, sending him collapsing on top of you as he tries to catch his breath.
“Fuck…” He laughs, gasping for air “That was…god, you’re amazing.”
He presses featherlight kisses to your forehead, your temples, your cheeks.
“I love you.” He whispers “I love you so much.”
“I love you too.” You say, looking up at him as he looms over you- the ends of his curly tresses brushing against your face. You reach up, grabbing his necklace as you absentmindedly turn it over between your fingers.
Eddie just stares down at you. Admiring. Watching.
Fuck, you were so beautiful.
“You okay?” You ask, noticing that he hadn’t yet pulled out and rolled over onto the mattress beside you like he normally did.
“Yeah.” He says, clearing his throat “I just…can I just stay here like this? Just for a little longer?”
You watch as he looks down at your tangled up bodies, his eyes staring at where you met.
“What do you mean? Like-“
“Inside you.” He admits “Just like this. I just want to stay here with me inside you. Is that okay?”
“Sure.” You nod, reaching up to brush a strand of hair out of his eyes “Okay.”
“I just….I love being inside of you. Even after we have sex. I love how warm you feel….and wet. I…okay, you’re going to think I’m a total weirdo creep when I say this.”
“Yeah? What else is new?” You joke, causing Eddie to playfully tap you on the arm.
“Stop it.” He says “I’m being serious here. I…I love being inside of you. It’s my favorite place. I know that sounds crazy but I feel safe. Right here like this…with you. You make me feel safe.”
The words that left his lips had made you feel tingly inside. Good. Loved.
“You feel safe with me?” You ask, looking into his brown doe eyes.
“Yeah, I do.” He sighs “But especially like this. I could stay like this forever. Knowing that this is the closest that I’ll ever be to you.”
“Okay, that’s actually really sweet.” You murmur.
“Can I ask you for something else? Without you judging me?” Eddie asks, his voice coming out small.
“Of course.” You say, threading your fingers through his hair.
“Can you…can you hold me, please? Would that be weird? If that’s too weird-“
“Come here.” You whisper, wrapping your arms to pull him down to you- allowing him to lay on top of you fully as he buries his face in your neck. He inhales your scent, smiling into your hair as he closes his eyes.
You smelled like home.
You felt like warmth.
You were safety.
“This good?” You ask.
Eddie nods his head against your neck, wrapping his arms around you so that you were pressed tightly against him.
“This is perfect.” He mutters.
Home.
Warmth.
Safety.
You.
“I can feel your heart beating.” He whispers as you run your fingers down his back soothingly, sending a shiver down his body.
Your touch. Your body. Your heartbeat.
You were so close. He wanted nothing more than this. To be completely wrapped up in you.
“I don’t want to be anywhere else but here.” He says, mumbling against your neck “With you.”
He pulls away for a second, taking you aback as he reaches for one of your hands- gently placing it over his heart.
“Do you feel how crazy you make me?” He asks, looking down at you as you felt his heart race beneath your touch “That’s what you do to me, sweetheart. No one else. You. I love you. I love you until my heart stops beating, you understand.”
“I love you too, Eddie.” You proclaim “More than anything.”
“Good.” He smiles, nuzzling his nose against your cheek “Because you’re stuck with me. Forever. Just like this.”
And you couldn’t imagine wanting to be with anyone else but Eddie. Forever.
Summary: Tucker tries to make cookies, you just mess around, ending with him mad at you. Luckily, you know what to do to stop him from being mad at you (he literally melts into your kisses).
Disclaimer: English is not my first language, so I apologize if there are any spelling or grammatical errors.
You were just playing around the kitchen while your boyfriend tried to cook something. You don't really know how to cook anything without burning it, so you couldn't really help him, but you definitely didn't want to wait in his room. So, as an incredibly supportive girlfriend, you were bothering him.
You took a little flour and threw it at him, giggling when he did the same to you. But sadly, it came to a point where Tucker decided to really lock in on the recipe and stop laughing at your attempts to start a food fight.
“Babe, this is serious, my mom finally shared her recipe with me and I want to try it,” he calls out to you, frustrated by your lack of seriousness.
You didn't think that he was being serious, so you kept bothering him until he stopped laughing or smiling and frowned, mad, and stopped answering you or looking at you.
It's then that you understand that you have screwed up.
Tucker had his arms crossed and didn't look at you at all until you put a hand on his chin, making him look at you, and pressed your lips to his slowly. His frown disappeared, his arms dropped immediately, placing them on your waist. He kissed you back without hesitation, melting slowly into your touch.
“It’s not fair,” he mumbled into the kiss.
You giggle, breaking the kiss.
“You can't do that when I'm mad at you,” he mumbled again, completely lost in your eyes.
“I love you,” you respond, smiling widely when you see how his eyes shine at the words.
“I love you too, beautiful,” he kissed you, dragging you closer to him.
“I thought we were baking cookies,” you mumble mid kiss.
“Fuck the cookies,” he answered back, turning the sweet kiss into a deeper one, placing your body between his and the kitchen counter.
It could have gone farther if it wasn't for Dean walking into the kitchen.
“Wow, wow guys, there is something called rooms upstairs if you want to try it.”
You flip him off, kissing Tucker again, way hungrier than before. You could hear Dean gagging at it.
“Seriously, please not in the kitchen,” he cried out, looking away from both of you, finding the ceiling way more interesting.
“It's not like you used it anyway, man,” Tucker answered him, unable to think properly because you trailed your kisses from his lips to his jaw and neck, leaving marks there.
“Okay, I'm out.” Dean walked away, mumbling something about never using the kitchen again.
Not like he did anyway.
Tucker started to lead you both to the stairs until you stopped.
“The cookies,” you pout, looking at the chocolate chip dough balls arranged on the baking tray on the counter.
“I’ll bake them for you later,” he answered quickly, taking your hand and running upstairs.
You just giggle because who would have thought that trying to cook cookies would have ended up this way.
Because you definitely didn't kiss him with that intention.
Right?
This is a short one but I can't stand how Tucker is not receiving the attention he deserves 😔
summary: allie comes over for movie night, but neither of you end up paying much attention to the movie. (not smut…)
parings: allie hayes x fem!reader
a/n: hey guys… hehe it’s been a while since i posted.. i just wanted to focus on school because it was super stressful but SCHOOL IS OVER!! and summer break is finally here. unfortunately that means i need to start looking for a job.. but we’ll do that later.. okay anyway i been super obsessed with off campus!! it’s so good and i love it.. so guys now’s ur chance to send me requests because im locked in. okay here’s a cute allie fic i hope you guys enjoy… send requests for off campus!!
HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!
it starts with a text that comes in when you’re not really doing anything important.
allie: hey iconnn, movie night?
i’m bored
i’m coming over btw
you stare at it for a second longer than you should, sitting cross-legged on your bed, then type back without thinking too hard about it.
you: you don’t even ask anymore 🙄
allie: because you always say yes
and you hate that she’s right.
there’s a knock at your door not long after, a little impatient like she already knows you’re going to open it anyway.
when you do, allie is standing there like she’s trying not to smile too obviously. she’s got snacks in both hands, shifting them slightly when she sees you like she suddenly remembers she’s supposed to act normal.
“hey,” she says, softer than the text messages were.
you step aside. “you’re acting like this is a planned event.”
“it is,” she says, walking past you like she’s already decided where she’s going. “you just didn’t know about it.”
you let out a quiet breath that almost turns into a laugh and close the door behind her. she moves into your room without hesitation, setting the snacks down and glancing around like she already belongs there.
you notice her hair first. down, a little messy, falling into her face in a way she keeps brushing back without noticing she’s doing it.
she catches you looking and her eyebrows lift slightly. “what.”
you shake your head a little too fast. “nothing.”
when time passes you guys are now sitting on your bed watching mamma mia.. it’s a classic and a musical something you both love and happily agreed on.
the movie keeps going but neither of you are really watching it anymore. it’s still playing, still filling the room with noise, but it feels distant now, like it belongs to something else entirely.
allie shifts slightly beside you, not enough to feel deliberate, just enough that the space between you changes without either of you acknowledging it. her shoulder brushes yours again and this time it doesn’t feel accidental in the way it probably is.
you don’t move away.
a few seconds pass like that, quiet in a way that feels heavier than it should. allie tilts her head a little toward you, eyes drifting off the screen like she’s already forgotten it’s even playing. she looks at you a second too long, like she’s thinking something she hasn’t said yet, and when she finally talks it’s quieter, like she’s not really saying it to the room at all.
“you’re pretty good at this,” she says.
you glance at her a little slowly, like you didn’t expect that. “at what.”
she makes a small, vague motion between the two of you, the bed, the movie, like she’s not even sure how to explain it properly. “this. just… being you.”
that makes you look away before you mean to, like it landed too close to something you don’t usually let people touch. your fingers tighten slightly in the blanket without you noticing at first, and when you finally speak your voice is quieter than before.
“that’s a weird thing to say,” you admit, not really looking at her when you say it.
allie just shrugs a little, still looking at you instead of the screen. “it’s true though.”
there’s a pause after that not empty… just slower. like even the room feels like it’s moving a little differently now.
you shift a little, adjusting like you suddenly forgot how to sit still, and she notices. of course she does. her knee nudges yours lightly again, not pulling away this time, just staying there like it belongs.
“you’re not even watching the movie,” you say quietly, more just to say something than because it really matters.
allie hums like she’s thinking about it, but she doesn’t look away from you. “neither are you.”
you let out a small breath through your nose, almost a laugh, but it doesn’t fully come out. “you’re really distracting,” you say, softer than you liked.
“me?” she asks, like she’s offended, but there’s a smile in it now. “you’re the one looking at me.”
you glance at her properly then, and she’s already looking back, closer now without either of you really deciding it happened. her expression isn’t teasing anymore, not really. it’s quieter, more steady, like she’s waiting for something she hasn’t said yet.
“what?” you murmur, because you can feel the shift even if you don’t know what to call it.
“nothing,” she says again, but she doesn’t look away.
and that’s the problem.. because nothing about her feels like nothing right now.
there’s a beat where the movie changes scenes and neither of you react at all. the sound keeps going but it might as well not exist.
allie leans in just slightly, not closing the distance fully, just enough that you feel it. her voice drops when she speaks again, softer now, like she’s not trying to interrupt anything anymore.
“you know..” she paused. “you’re really pretty,” she says.
it lands differently this time. slower. heavier. not like a comment, more like something she didn’t mean to hold in.
you go still for a second, not dramatic, just caught. your eyes flick down briefly, then back up, and there’s a small, nervous smile that slips in before you can stop it, like your body reacted before your brain caught up.
“you can’t just say that,” you say quietly, but it doesn’t really come out sharp like you wanted it to, it came out shy instead.
allie watches you like she’s trying to figure out why that reaction matters to her more than it should. “why not?” she asks.
you hesitate, shifting a little closer without realizing you’re doing it. “because it makes me feel like i have to say something back,” you admit, voice low now, a little more honest than you probably meant it to be.
that makes her expression change slightly, like she wasn’t expecting that answer at all. she doesn’t push it though, just nods a little like she’s taking it in.
“you don’t have to,” she says, after a second. “i just think it.”
that does something worse, honestly, because it’s even quieter now, even more real, and there’s nowhere to hide it.
you glance at her for a second too long, then away, then back again, like you’re trying to figure out what you’re supposed to do with the space between you.
“you’re pretty too,” you say, and it comes out softer than everything else, like you didn’t fully decide to say it before it happened.
allie goes still for a moment, just looking at you like she’s letting it sit there between you, then she shifts a little closer without really thinking about it.
her hand is already there before you fully notice it, resting lightly on your thigh, like it didn’t need permission so much as confirmation, and you don’t move away from it. you just look at her instead.
the movie keeps playing behind you both, completely forgotten now, like it was never really part of the night to begin with.
her voice drops, barely there when she speaks. “can i kiss you?” but there’s no joke in it or teasing. just her, asking.
you nod once, small. “yeah.”
she leans in slowly, like she’s giving you every chance to stop her, and you don’t.
the kiss starts soft at first, kind of careful in a way that feels almost unfamiliar, like neither of you really trusts it yet or wants to rush into something you can’t take back. there’s a second where it just lingers like that, close but still hesitant, like you’re both waiting to see what the other does.
and you guys can’t pull away from the kiss.. or maybe you just don’t want too but just like that.. the night goes on.
GUYSSS HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!! WOOOOO!! okay guys im very happy to be back finally!! hehe.. how do you guys like this short fic?? i think it’s very cutesy… GUYS PLEASEE send more requests for off campus i do anyone! garrett, dean, hannah, tucker, logan, allie (obvs), and beau.. ok pretty much anyone. sorry if this is bad or so many grammar errors this is not proofread LMAOO. i always end up doing my fics at like 2 am?? not sure why… im very obsessed with this show rn.. okay anyway guys i hope you enjoyed this! don’t forget to send more requests for off campus and i love you all so muchhh (happy pride.. again!)
𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐞 : john logan x fem! chronic fainter! reader
𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐤 𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 : little bit of angst, self-sabatoge! reader, ermmm, healthy communication? Logan..being a green flag? comfort!
𝐞𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 : You couldn't get it out of your mind. the devastated, unbearably broken look on your boyfriends face from that evening. The evening where you didn't recover as easily as you did, all those times before. You noticed it the next day, how wound up he was- how tired and exhausted he looked. And if 1+1=2, you calculated that he must be done with you, done with your baggage and your inbuilt extra effort. So you did the most logical thing you could think of, create distance, let him make you the villain in your untimely end and break it off.
What you didn't anticipate was that he was more stubborn than you ever could've imagined.
𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐧 𝐢𝐜𝐞 : 8.9k words
𝐛𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐲’𝐬 𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫 : I told ya'll this was a big mama fic. almost double the amount of words than pt 1! I got so so so many requests for a part 2, so I thought I'd do it right. Hopefully it doesn't disappoint, I decided to end it on a good note (spoiler!) since I felt bad for leaving ya'll with an unintentional cliff hanger. Enjoy!! Thank you @pinkyups for the gif and @somebitchprobably-graphicdump for the dividers !
𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 : I would really appreciate if you could send in an ask to be on my taglist, it's easier for me to manage and make sure everyone is added!! here is the post of my current taglist. Also, if your user is bolded, I'm going on a prayer that youve been tagged but Tumblr wouldn't let me properly do so. I would recommend checking your privacy settings to allow other people to tag you.
You woke up the next morning, head still laying in Allies lap with drool dribbling down your chin and onto her leg, against your thigh Hannah lay soundlessly, her mouth parted with her hair splayed across her face. The room was a sight for sore eyes, in front of where the three of you lay sprawled, a small mountain of empty ice cream tubs, bottles of wine and tissue boxes half full sat- waiting for your attention.
You smacked your lips together, wincing at the foreign, dry feeling that paired with the tangy taste of leftover wine stuck to your mouth. Stretching as carefully as you could, you managed to wiggle out from beneath Hannah, substituting your thigh with a throw pillow and got to work making your living room seem somewhat presentable.
As you padded around, memories came back in chunks with each new piece of trash you picked up.
Used tissue pile by the money plant? Hannah and Allie had found you curled up on the floor next to it, one hand messily discarding and using the tissues on your eyes while the other scrolled through Pinterest- a new wave was activated when you came across some cute couple on your feed.
Plastic cups smelling like coke and rum? Allie had suggested something stronger after you finished the stash of wine in the cupboard, perfect to pair with the magic mike re-run you were watching.
A small pile of Logans hoodies and t-shirts, soaked in…was that vodka? Hannah had drunkenly collected anything she could find in her haze, and somehow emerged with a half-full bottle of smirnoff. You and Allie had stopped her before she somehow found a matchbox.
Slowly, the night was coming back to you in chunks and by the time the two girls on the couch had begun to wake at 11:00am, you had removed any trace of your, as you liked to call it, heart-broken psychotic adventure.
You actually managed to use the shower first, returning to the main room whilst towel drying your hair- Allie called your name from her sleepy perch, “So..” She wiped at the crusted drool on her cheek, “Logan texted you? Is it actually over?”
Your eyes widened, that part didn’t register to you until now. You assumed that whatever conversation you had back at the house constituted an implied breakup, but that wasn’t Logan’s style. He would never leave things unsaid if he truly believed in following through. So, you lunged at your phone that sat innocently on the table, sure enough there were a few messages from Logan- along with one missed call and a few from the other boys.
The phone mocks your bated breath, taking you through the lock-screen and slowly loading the messages that you were waiting for.
“He said..” You squinted at them, that couldn’t be right? “Good morning? And… He can’t wait to see me in accounting?”
Thumbing at the phone you scoff and shake your head, “Is that it?”
Hannah had woken up during your narration and had scrunched her face up in disapproval, “Wow how avoidant of him,” She slowly rises from the couch, unbuttoning her sweater while yawning, “I’m next for the shower, tell me if he says anything else nonchalant.” She mocks your boyfriends..well? Ex? Or not? Behaviour with a silly voice and stumbles into her room.
Allie groans and thumps her head against the headrest, facing away from you, “Great, I’ll take a cold one,” She lifts her hand and crooks her finger at you, “Get over here and show me those messages.”
Shrugging, you hand her your phone and continue to dry your hair, “Should I ask about yesterday?”
You watch her analyse the texts like they would tell her the next bond movie lead, “I don’t know babe, I think he might just be trying to brush past it. Y’know, maybe he’s got used to it.”
“Yeah maybe.. He seemed so out of it yesterday though.” You chew your lip, getting up to start breakfast. Or lunch. You settle for brunch.
Allie stretches her legs out and slumps into the sofa humming whilst wrapping herself in the discarded throw, “We all were, you did pass out like. Fully.”
You roll your eyes and have half the mind to throw a rogue blueberry at her, but you decide against it when she continues, “Not saying it was fun for you- but in his eyes. He was in class and then suddenly got messages about his girlfriend not waking up.”
“It’s just,” You shake your head and break an egg into the pan which had been heating some oil, “You didn’t see him, Allie, he was so tired. Exhausted. Because of me.”
The scrambled eggs go blurry for a second before you blink it away, “I don’t want him to end up resenting me- especially for something I can’t control.”
The girl sighed sympathetically, “I don’t think he could resent you, even if you crashed his car into the workshop.”
The pan sizzled behind you as you turned, spatula in hand, “I’ll ask in person, if he doesn’t want to talk about it. Then he must be okay.”
Allie nodded, the thin blanket slipped off her shoulder as she dashed to her room, Hannah had emerged from the bathroom and was tapping some moisturizer into her face.
“Yeah, and if all else fails- just get with his brother!” The door slams, and the sound of the shower turning on replaces her voice.
You stare at where she was sitting, Hannah slowly turned away towards you her mouth popped open in an O, “So..what did I miss?”
Logan claimed he was fine, so fine in fact that he had brought you your favourite breakfast to class. A brown paper bag that smelt suspiciously like an almond croissant sat at your desk, along with an iced latte. You smirked at the display and your gaze dragged to the seat next to you, rolling your eyes when Logan grinned at your amused expression.
You kissed his cheek and thanked him, already sipping at the sweet drink as the professor walked in, papers flying out of his satchel with each hurried step he took; it gave you the perfect opportunity to turn to Logan, leaning closer to whisper into his ear, “So about yesterday..”
The area between the two of you seemed to chill, a frigid feeling settled deep in your bones and made your smile fall. Logan had stilled, the fingers that twirled his pen between them froze, “We don’t need to talk about it,” he cleared his throat and adjusted in his seat, hunching his shoulders forward to bow his head down.
“Oh,” You avert your eyes, fiddling with the straw in your coffee that somehow tasted bitter despite the gallons of sugary syrup pumped into it, “Yeah… of course. You just seemed so off, and I want-”
“It was nothing.” He gritted out, turning to you.
His eyes were dark, as if overnight he had built a large, looming wall over them- just tall enough to keep his emotions at bay, and you out.
You nodded silently, thankful for the fact that your professor had finally re-organised himself and was beginning the lecture.
The worst scenario your brain could think of last night, had come true. He was tired of you, tired of what you brought to his life but just couldn’t find a way to tell you. So, in that moment, despite the fact that Logan had relaxed back into his seat, scribbling notes down as if he hadn’t ripped your heart in two with his words- you decided that if he wasn’t going to pull away, you were going to run.
Thereafter, the entire week had been your own personal hell. You felt like a little doped up hamster, burdened to never leave its wheel- because nothing even changed.
You still woke up to good morning texts.
Still got updates about practice. Still got stupid blurry pictures of Tucker doing something deeply concerning in the background of the hockey house kitchen. Logan still sent you reminders to eat like muscle memory had taken over his nervous system.
Johnny boy 🏒 :
have u consumed anything today besides caffeine and academic suffering
You:
rude.
You:
and yes
Johnny boy 🏒:
that pause was suspicious
You:
i had pasta at like 3
Johnny boy 🏒:
okay good
Johnny boy 🏒:
proud of u baby
And every single time your phone lit up with his name, your chest hurt, because he must have been trying so hard, to be normal, to make any of this normal. But you knew the truth, you couldn’t stop replaying the look on his face from that evening, the pure, exhausted fear etched into the deep lines of his face.
That look followed you everywhere.
Back to your dorm.
Back to class.
Back to the library where you’d sit for hours pretending to read the same paragraph while your brain looped endlessly around the same horrible thought:
How long until he gets tired of texting you, tired of the constant check-ins, from the random times you'd become an inconvenience.
Ever since the fainting started, you loathed your body- your brain, the elementary functions you were meant to be able to complete on a daily basis. But you couldn’t and it made people look at you differently. Like you were some sub-terranian alien, one that couldn’t handle the complexities of earth and would choose the most annoying parts of life to announce it to the entire world.
The thing that nobody fully could comprehend was that the fainting itself wasn’t even the worst part anymore. Embarrassing sometimes, inconvenient always, but manageable. You’d lived with it long enough that it barely felt dramatic inside your own head.
It was everybody’s reactions that exhausted you, the panic, the hovering, the carefulness afterwards- the way they’d treat you like you were fragile. You learnt ways to make it easier for them, learning how to throw the first joke into the room, how to brush it off fast enough for the benefit of everyone, so that they would unpause and move on before it got weird.
And it worked, most people would continue on. Which was exactly how you liked it.
Logan never really had, you noticed it in the tiny things, the way he tracked whether you’d eaten without even realising he was doing it, the protein bars he shoved into every bag you owned, the way his eyes snapped toward you anytime you stood up too fast.
And maybe it should’ve felt romantic, and maybe a part of it did. But another part of you - the ugly, exhausted, matter of fact part - felt guilty every single time.
Because loving you looked stressful.
And somehow, against all odds, he made it look worth it. Which only made you feel even worse.
𝐅𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐇𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊
The first time you actively hid a dizzy spell from him had been months ago, before the others really noticed how bad your stress had gotten during midterms.
You’d all gathered at the hockey house, a break from your regularly scheduled academic meltdown and junk food hoarding. You, Hannah and Allie were in the kitchen, grabbing some drinks and glasses while Logan and the boys argued loudly over some game in the living room.
You remembered leaning against the counter while Hannah talked about one of her classes, your vision slowly fuzzing around the edges in that horribly familiar way.
“Oh no,” you muttered quietly.
Allie looked over immediately, “What?”
You pressed two fingers against your temple. “I think I stood up too fast.”
“You say that every single time before you’re not.”
You ignored her and reached for the fridge handle instead, horrible decision. Your stomach dipped sharply and the kitchen tilted for half a second.
“Okay,” you whispered immediately, grabbing the counter. “Maybe not fine.”
“Whoa, hey,” Allie rushed to your side, rubbing your back.
You squeezed your eyes shut, breathing carefully through the dizziness. From the living room, you could hear Logan laughing at something Tucker said, the sound made your heart twist, he sounded carefree, happy.
The kind of happy that someone would be if they were operating under the pretense that their new girlfriend was only fetching drinks from the kitchen with her friends, not currently making a mental deal with god, begging him to save her the ordeal of fainting in the kitchen.
“No,” you said quickly when Hannah glanced toward the doorway.
“What do you mean no?”
“Don’t call him.”
Allie frowned. “Are you serious?”
“Yes.” You breathed out too fast. Too desperate, “Please.”
The girls exchanged a look.
“He’ll freak out,” you admitted quietly, still staring at the floor. “And it’s literally fine. I just need a second.”
Hannah softened, “Oh,” she opted to hand you a glass of cold water.
You laughed weakly, even though your throat felt tight, “Everyone else gets over it eventually. I’ll tell him when it feels right. ”
Allie’s face fell slightly at that but before either of them could say anything, voices got louder from the other room. You could make out the familiar, soothing sound of Logan calling your name paired with footsteps approaching.
Your eyes widened.
“Pretend nothing happened.”
“You’re insane,” Hannah hissed.
“Please.”
And somehow, against their better judgement, they did.
By the time Logan wandered into the kitchen, you were sitting on the counter swinging your legs like nothing had happened.
His eyes landed on you instantly anyway.
“You okay?” he asked. His eyebrows furrowed when you blinked slowly and hummed, your knuckles whitening as your grip tightened on the platform.
You smiled too quickly, “Peachy.”
You could practically see him sensing something off in the air, the way his gaze flicked between you, Hannah and Allie.
“You look pale.”
“I’m literally always pale.”
“That’s true,” Allie cut in suddenly, way too loudly.
Hannah stared at her.
Logan narrowed his eyes, “You guys are being weird.”
“No we’re not,” all three of you said at once.
Then Logan snorted softly and kissed your forehead, reaching for the pack of beer that had been thawing out next to you, “Okay. Freaks.”
You rolled your eyes at him, ignoring the throb that emanated from the action, and accepted his hand that helped you off from your perch.
And just like that, the moment passed.
At the time, you’d felt relieved. Victorious in some sick, twisted way.
Now, sitting alone in your dorm days after the fight, the memory made your chest ache instead.
Because maybe that had been the beginning of it, the beginning of you quietly teaching yourself that it was easier if Logan didn’t know everything.
Easier if he didn’t see too much.
Your phone buzzed against your blanket.
Johnny boy 🏒:
u alive?
You:
unfortunately
Johnny boy 🏒:
good
Johnny boy 🏒:
miss u
Your throat tightened instantly and you stared at the message for way too long before finally typing back.
You:
miss u too <3
This felt worse than fighting, you felt like a fraud, because he still loved you exactly the same. And you still hadn’t been able to force your feet through the front door of the hockey house.
The problem with dating John Logan, and subsequently trying to avoid him. Was that it required an almost military level of strategic planning.
And unfortunately for you- he was everywhere. This wasn’t in the metaphorical sense, though you did feel the emptiness of your heart every night when you slept alone, without him. This was in the literal sense.
You saw him in the cafeteria holding three protein shakes and arguing with Tucker about whether ketchup belonged on eggs. You saw him outside the lecture hall one afternoon with wet hair curling slightly at the ends from practice, hockey bag slung over one shoulder while Dean tried to wrestle his headphones away from him. You saw him through library windows, through crowds, through reflections on your phone screen when you accidentally opened old photos.
And every single time, your body reacted before your brain did, you felt it in the automatic loosening of your shoulders, the daily frown melting from your mouth, a deep exhale of breath you didn’t realise you were holding. Like you subconsciously still recognised him as your ultimate release.
Which was deeply irritating considering you were actively trying to avoid being alone with him.
It also didn’t help that he was still oblivious. From the outside, you could've passed for your usual selves.
Because he still texted you, at the same times with the same gentle tone that he had reserved for you.
Good morning baby.
Did you eat?
Professor still annoying as fuck?
Miss you.
And you answered. Always, which was betraying the very essence of your Logan-cleanse. Matching his energy so perfectly that it almost became cruel.
Miss you too <3
Yes mom.
No but I’m plotting murder.
Practice go okay?
There were heart reactions. There were jokes. There were even selfies.
Meanwhile, you had not willingly stood in the same room as your boyfriend for eight days.
You skipped hockey house movie nights because you “had work.”
You started studying in different library wings.
You left classes through side exits.
You timed your schedule around his practices without even meaning to.
He noticed early on, of course he did- and of course, at first, he tried to play along with whatever you were creating. His texts became impossibly softer, less pushy like he was trying everything in his power to not scare you off.
Each time his name popped up on your phone, you could feel the truth slam into your face like a wrecking ball.
You missed him. God. You missed him.
You missed being folded into his side on the couch while he watched terrible action movies. You missed the absentminded way he played with your fingers during lectures. You missed waking up to his stupid bedhead and warm hands and the smell of laundry detergent clinging to his hoodies.
But every time you thought about seeing him properly again, your chest tightened. Not out of anger, you just couldn’t fathom feeling the way you did when you first heard his voice break, the way your stomach fell when his lip quivered and how an acidic burn leeched up your throat when his hand tightened around yours just as you’d woken up.
You couldn’t stop hearing it.
I don’t know how many times I can do it.
You knew he hadn’t meant for it to be cruel, he’d said it like someone admitting they were drowning. And now every time you pictured yourself next to him, all you could think about was weight. Pressure that held his head below water. Responsibility that dragged him down to the sea-bed. Another thing for him to survive.
And you couldn’t be selfish and force him to survive you, just because you knew you wouldn’t make it out of the heartbreak alive.
The library lights flickered softly overhead as you rubbed at your eyes for what had to be the hundredth time that night. Your laptop screen blurred slightly, not in the way that made you push the device out the way in preparation for your body going limp, this was exhaustion.
The kind of exhaustion that settled somewhere behind your eyes after too many hours staring at academic journals while pretending your personal life wasn’t quietly imploding in the background.
Around you, the library had mostly emptied.
A few students still lingered in distant corners, faces illuminated by laptop screens and caffeine-fuelled despair, but the heavy silence of closing time had already started settling over the building.
You checked the time.
11:47 PM.
Jesus.
No wonder your spine felt compressed. You stretched slightly in your chair, wincing as your neck cracked.
“Still alive over there?”
You looked up.
One of the older library staff members smiled at you from the circulation desk while stacking returned books into a trolley. You offered a tired smile back, shrugging weakly as you gave him a wry grin.
“Debatable.”
He laughed softly, “You staying late again?”
You nodded with a sigh, “Big test tomorrow.”
“That boy of yours not dragging you home tonight?”
Your stomach dipped and forced your expression not to change.
“Oh,” you said lightly, eyes dropping back to your laptop screen, “he’s got late practice.”
It wasn’t technically a lie. That’s what you told yourself to soothe the childish guilt of lying to the sweet old man in front of you.
The librarian hummed knowingly before disappearing toward the back office.
You exhaled slowly once he was gone, fingers hovering uselessly over your keyboard.
You were tired. Not only physically, something more than that.
You were tired of thinking.
Tired of calculating.
Tired of trying to figure out whether love was supposed to feel this terrifying when someone finally saw all the ugly parts of you and stayed anyway.
Your phone buzzed beside your laptop. Flipping it over, you stared at the notification for a moment before opening it.
Johnny boy 🏒:
practice finally over. u awake?
Your chest ached instantly but you typed back before you could overthink it.
You:
Unfortunately.
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
Johnny boy 🏒:
Baby go to sleep.
A reluctant smile tugged at your mouth.
You:
Can’t. Studying.
A pause.
Johnny boy 🏒:
Library?
Your stomach dropped as the message glared at you, maybe, if you didn’t move the universe would decide to be merciful. It was not. The universe evidently, enjoyed your suffering.
Because less than three minutes later, footsteps echoed somewhere beyond the corner you had tucked yourself into. Heavy in a familiar way that made your heart skip a beat.
You looked up before you could stop yourself. And you couldn’t look away even if you tried.
John Logan stood halfway down the corridor in a backwards Briar hockey cap and grey hoodie, hair still damp from practice and curling slightly at the edges. His hockey bag hung from one shoulder while his other hand rubbed absently at the back of his neck.
For a second neither of you moved. Your muscles felt tight, yet somehow loose, as if you physically wanted to start packing up and haul ass- but mentally you knew there was nowhere you’d rather be; that staring into this man’s eyes was probably the calmest you’ve been throughout this entire week, and like an addict, it was better for you to get lost in the warmth of his gaze.
Logan looked up from his phone, scanning the area- the moment he met your eyes the tension seemed to melt away from his posture.
He looked at you like he loved you before anything else.
“Hey,” he said quietly.
Your throat felt weirdly tight.
“Hey.”
Logan adjusted the strap of his hockey bag slightly, glancing toward the study room beside you, “Forgot my charger here after practice last week. Thought I’d come by and grab it.”
You blinked once. Of course he did, the universe lacked both sympathy and subtlety. You looked back at your laptop quickly, pretending your pulse wasn’t behaving embarrassingly.
“Oh.” You pressed your lips together, brushing the pads of your fingers over your nails. The moment paused, hanging between the two of you.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
Straight to the fucking point.
Your hands went limp and you took a pen that had been discarded nearby into your fist.
“No I haven’t.”
Logan stared at you for what seemed to be hours, but what was probably a few seconds, “Baby,” he said gently.
For some self-loathing reason, you wished he sounded angry. Instead he didn’t, he sounded like all he wanted was to bundle you up in his arms and hold you close; the thought made you swallow thickly, suddenly the entire library felt too warm. Too quiet.
“I’ve just been busy.” You pushed off of your seat and began to walk towards the closest study room, hoping that despite its full glass exterior- it would somehow shield you from the crushing weight of this conversation, “Your charger should be in here..”
“How do you know I used this one?” Logan leaned against the door, tilting his head thoughtfully at you as you walked deeper inside, glancing momentarily at the plug sockets in search of this damn charger that brought him here.
Shrugging, you huff and fall into the sofa that sat on the edge of the space. “This one’s your favourite, perfect lighting.” You point outside where two large windows sat, normally during the day they’d spill the various hues of the hour onto the spacious desk in the centre, “Perfect placement where it’s not too noisy but not too quiet,” This was the second to last room, meaning it was never surrounded by too many students, just enough chatter to turn into a soothing white noise, “And I've been here since your practice started and nobody has used it since then.”
By the time you finished- he was looking down at his shoes, and you swore a faint blush had crept up to his cheeks, his hand came up to cover his mouth and scratch at his stubble. The nod he gave you was short, subdued- almost as if he had reigned himself in. He let himself shuffle further in, placing his bags down heavily.
Another beat of silence settled between you.
Then somewhere in the distance, a heavy door slammed shut, neither of you reacted- seeing as it was late, you figured it was the librarian closing up the other rooms for night. The overhead lights flickered. And then it went dark.
You both froze.
“Oh my god,” you whispered.
Logan looked toward the main entrance hallway.
Then back at you, “...Did they just lock us in?”
The first thing Logan did after realising they were locked in was laugh. Not because he was amused- he’d rather be doing 500 other things that didn’t involve the tension in this fish bowl of a room but probably did include his girlfriend. It was more self-preservation, or insanity that made him chuckle, “You have got to be kidding me,” he muttered, pushing a hand through his hair as he stared at the firmly locked study room doors.
Behind him, you stood frozen beside the table, still clutching the highlighter you had brought in absentmindedly between your fingers like your body hadn’t fully processed the situation yet.
The fluorescent lights buzzed softly overhead, a taunting soundtrack to this car wreck of an evening, the entire library had gone eerily quiet now that everyone else was gone, the silence somehow louder than it had been all evening.
You swallowed and mustered some hope, “Maybe they’re still outside?”
Logan looked back at you. The look in his eyes nearly undid you, there was no anger in it, no irritation at the unhelpfully positive suggestion and somehow no bitterness over the fact you’d spent nearly a week dodging him while texting him like everything was perfectly normal.
Just surrender, quiet surrender to the tiredness that had settled in his face.
“I already checked,” he said gently.
Guilt bloomed hot beneath your ribs.
“Oh.”
The hush that permeated through forced you to become painfully aware of everything.
The fact you were alone together for the first time since the fight.
The fact you still knew exactly how his hoodie smelled.
The fact his hair was damp slightly at the edges from practice.
The fact your body still reacted to him instantly, stupidly, helplessly.
You cleared your throat and looked away first. “Well,” you said lightly, forcing brightness into your voice, “at least if I die in here, I’ll die academic.”
Logan stared at you for a second, then he huffed out a laugh despite himself.
Your stomach twisted and you cursed yourself for the relief that coursed through your body in response to his dry chuckle. Logan rounded the table and you froze, unable to take your eyes off of him, you barely noticed the small slump in your shoulder when he paused halfway.
“You cold?” he asked absentmindedly.
“No.”
“You’re shivering.”
“I’m stressed.”
“That too.”
You rolled your eyes automatically.
Logan sat down heavily against the couch cushions, stretching his legs out in front of him with a groan, inches away from where you were perched before the both of you were locked in.
You tried not to look at him too hard. Because if you did, the realisation would come crashing back into you, the one that you fought tooth and nail not to face.
You’d missed him.
Not dramatically, not in a chick-flick, crying-on-your-bedroom-floor way. But there were several moments everyday you were close to those versions. You opted for the aching kind of grief, a constant pang in your chest.
You missed him every time something funny happened and your fingers twitched toward your phone.
You missed him every time you reached for coffee and automatically thought about how he always handed you the cream first because you hated black coffee.
You missed him every time you woke up in your dorm bed without the weight of his arm across your waist.
It had only been a week, maybe more and that countdown made your heart seize, you were terrified if this is what barely a week felt like, you weren’t entirely sure what longer would do to you.
Logan looked over at you eventually, interrupting the rollercoaster of thoughts that bustled in your mind.
“You gonna stand there all night?”
“I’m considering it.”
“You’re weird.”
“You’re trapped in a library at midnight because you forgot a phone charger.”
“That sounds like fate.”
“That sounds like an excuse.”
A tiny smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and the feeling came plowing through you mercilessly. The one that made this entire situation unbearable.
This easy banter made everything work. Make all the noise fade away into the background until your brain was an oasis of calm.
You sat down finally, curling yourself up into the furthest corner of the couch. Away from him.
Logan’s eyes flicked toward the distance between you before returning to your face.
Outside the library windows, the campus had gone dark and sleepy. Streetlights glowed gold against the pavement below, shadows stretching long beneath them. You tucked your legs beneath yourself and leaned your cheek against the back of the sofa, ignoring the way he watched you do it- like he was grateful for the chance.
Then he broke the quiet, interrupting the sound of both of you breathing with a whisper, “Are you gonna tell me why you’ve been avoiding me?”
You shut your eyes, there it was. The other shoe dropped and thudded against your conscience. You were truly a terrible person. An emotional sado-masochist that had to enjoy the suffering, otherwise you wouldn’t have done this to either of you.
You stared down at your hands, “I haven’t been avoiding you.”
Logan blinked slowly, “Baby.”
The nickname hit you like a physical blow and you looked away immediately. If he noticed you flinching, he didn’t say anything, “Every time I ask to see you,” he said carefully, “you suddenly have somewhere else to be.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“You skipped movie night because you said you had a paper due.”
“I did have a paper due.”
“Hannah posted you eating Taco Bell in Allie’s room fifteen minutes later.”
You winced, “Traitor.”
Logan’s mouth twitched briefly before flattening again.
“Why?” he asked softly.
Your chest tightened, you would give an absurd amount of money to the higher power for him to stop looking at you like that. Like you were something precious he was trying not to scare away.
It made all of this harder. if he’d been angry, maybe it would’ve been easier. Instead his face was comforting, his hand itching to hold your face and coax your deepest darkest emotions out of you.
You rubbed your palms against your jeans, “I just thought maybe you needed space.”
“From you?” His brows pulled together immediately.
You laughed quietly, but there wasn’t much humour in it. “You make it sound ridiculous when you say it like that.”
“Because it is ridiculous.”
Your throat tightened, “No it’s not.”
Logan leaned forward slightly now, elbows braced against his knees, “You fainted,” he said carefully. “I freaked out. We had one bad conversation. That doesn’t suddenly make you unbearable to be around.”
The words hit harder than they should have, because that wasn’t what you’d been trying to explain.Not really.
“That’s not the point,” You looked down and shook your head.
“Then what is?”
You bit your lip and the room filled with silence again, like some cruel torture device, where air was replaced with a void that steadily rose to your chin and swallowed you whole. Logan waited, eyes full of patience. He was always so fucking patient with you.
You hated how close tears suddenly felt, “I don’t know,” you finally admitted
Which was partially true, how were you supposed to explain something that had lived inside you for years?
The constant awareness of yourself.
The humiliation of it.
The way every fainting spell turned you into a problem people had to manage.
You remembered being sixteen and pretending you needed the bathroom because your vision had started going fuzzy during lunch. Locking yourself in a stall until the dizziness passed because your friends already thought you were dramatic enough.
You remembered learning how to laugh immediately after waking up because jokes made people less scared.
You remembered how relieved you always felt when people eventually stopped reacting. Because if they stopped reacting, it meant they still saw you normally.
Logan still reacted every time.
And that terrified you.
Because you knew, eventually people got tired. Eventually people realised loving someone medically inconvenient was exhausting. And you weren’t sure you could survive watching Logan reach that point.
So instead, you’d done what you always did. Pulled away first.
Your voice came out quieter this time, “You looked at me like I was dying.”
Logan went still and your throat closed up at the look on his face, like his heart had paused and brain malfunctioned.
“And I know I wasn’t,” you rushed out quickly, “I know it sounds dramatic, but that’s what freaked me out, okay? Everyone else moved on and you couldn’t and I just…”
Your laugh cracked slightly, “I don’t know how to be with someone who cares that much.”
The silence afterward felt enormous.
Logan stared at you, heartbroken in a quiet, devastating sort of way.
“Baby,” he said softly.
“No, because you don’t get it,” you twisted your fingers together tightly, “this is normal for me.”
“I know.”
“No, Logan, I don’t think you do.” You finally touched his hand, ignoring the immediate warmth that spread through your fingertips, “so much of my life has been people staring at me after it happens. Asking if I’m okay every five seconds. Acting weird around me. Watching me constantly.”
You swallowed, “And you looked terrified.”
“Because I was,” his jaw tightened as leaned back slightly, eyes still fixed on you.
“You stopped answering me,” he said quietly. “You weren’t moving.”
Your chest hurt, “I know.”
“And all I could think was what if one day you don’t wake up.”
Your breath caught. He laughed softly then, but it sounded miserable.
“Which logically, I know is insane. Garrett literally told me it’s never happened like that before.”
“Because it won’t.”
“I know.”
“But?”
Logan looked at you for a long moment, “But I love you,” he rubbed a hand over his face before continuing more quietly, “I know you hate being treated like you’re fragile.”
Your throat tightened as he continued, “And I know I probably make it worse sometimes.”
You opened your mouth but he shook his head, flipping his hand over to intertwine your fingers on the empty seat between you, “No, let me finish.” After a deep breath, and approximately four seconds of gruelling silence, “But you avoiding me doesn’t make me less scared, baby. It just means I’m scared without you.”
The silence after that felt different, painfully honest. You envied him for that, for his ability to say such devastatingly honest things as though it was like water flowing out of him.
You stared at Logan from across the couch, your chest aching so badly it almost felt murderous. Slow understanding creeped into your mind, why he freaked out that evening, why he was so tense in class.
It was unadulterated fear that coursed through his blood, like someone had held a knife up to your throat and threatened him, and all he could do was stand there uselessly.
You wished he’d been dramatic, maybe you could've brushed it off. If he suddenly became controlling, maybe you could've gotten angry. If he treated you like glass, maybe you could’ve pushed back and shattered in his grip. Any emotional outburst would’ve made it easier for you to walk away, to take the burden away from him. But he didn’t all he did was sit there in his emotions, solid, ready to hold yours. Because he loved you, purely, wholeheartedly, in a way that terrified you to your very core.
Your eyes dropped to your hands, “I didn’t mean to punish you,” you admitted quietly.
Logan’s expression softened.
“Baby.”
“I know,” you interrupted quickly, rubbing at your face with exhausted fingers. “I know this whole thing probably feels insane from your side.”
“A little.”
Despite yourself, you laughed weakly, “There it is. ”
“There what is?”
“You, being annoying.”
His mouth twitched.
“You love when I’m annoying.”
“I tolerate it affectionately.”
“Liar.”
The ease of conversation made you want to bash your head against a wall, no matter how emotionally catastrophic things got between you, the two of you still somehow slipped naturally into this rhythm that belonged entirely to you.
You hated how much you missed it.
Logan watched you carefully for another moment before speaking again.
“Come here.”
Your stomach flipped and you looked up at him.
“What?”
“Come here.”
You stared at him suspiciously, “You could also come here.”
“I could,” he agreed. “But you’ve been sitting as far away from me as physically possible for the last twenty minutes, so I’m trying to make a point.”
Heat crawled up your neck.
“I was not sitting as far away as physically possible.”
“Baby, there’s an entire couch cushion between us like we’re in couples therapy.”
You snorted, but you softened when he smiled at you, like hearing you laugh loosened something in his chest. Tearing your gaze away from him, you looked down at your intertwined fingers, tapping them randomly against his palm.
“I’m still annoyed at you,” you muttered.
“What did I do?”
“You made me emotionally confront things.”
“Oh, tragic.”
“It was horrible actually.”
Logan huffed out another quiet laugh, and then let out a shaky breath, “Please come here.”
There was something almost unfair in the way he said please, like he was asking for something so delicate, that you couldn’t possibly say no.
Your chest squeezed painfully as you shuffled slowly before your brain stopped you. The second you were close enough, his entire body relaxed and he tentatively wound an arm around your waist, pressing into the briar hoodie that you had carelessly thrown on that morning. He tugged you closer and unwrapped his hand, resting it instead on your thigh, like touching you was muscle memory.
You nearly started crying right there, sniffing quietly you looked down at your lap, “I’m sorry,” you whispered.
Logan looked down at you, his eyebrows pinched, “For what?”
“For making you feel crazy.”
His expression softened so fast it hurt.
“You didn’t make me feel crazy.”
You gave him a look, this close you could see the small lines in his face, grooves that had implanted themselves into his skin- like he had slept with a small frown on his face for days.
“Logan.”
“Okay,” he admitted reluctantly. “Maybe a little crazy.”
“A little?”
“You were texting me hearts while actively fleeing every building I entered.”
You winced, “In my defence, I didn’t realise how often you exist.”
“I go to this school.”
“Unfortunately.”
His thumb brushed absently against your knee.
“You could’ve just told me you needed a second.”
Your nose burned, “I didn’t know how.”
He nodded slowly, watching you tuck a piece of hair behind your ear- he rested his chin on your head, before exhaling, “I need you to understand something.”
You glanced up.
“When you faint,” he said carefully, “I’m not upset at you.”
“I know.”
“No,” his voice stayed gentle as he murmured into your hair, “Baby, I’m scared because I love you. Not because you’re inconvenient.”
You didn’t say anything, scared that whatever words would spill out from your mouth would be garbled with emotion, instead you pulled at the hair tie around your wrist. His hand shifted from your knee, fingers curling lightly around where your fingers plucked.
“Hey.” He shifted, bent his head down to meet your eyes, “You don’t have to do that with me.”
“What?”
“Act like it’s not hard sometimes.”
You looked away from him, choosing a point on the grey carpet to focus on, “It is hard…” you admitted finally, voice small now, “for you, I know it is.”
Logan looked genuinely confused.
“Taking care of me.”
His entire face changed, something that resembled a profound sadness mixed with disbelief that made his eyebrows shoot up and mouth part, “Baby,” he said slowly, “do you seriously think I’m with you out of obligation?”
“No.”
“But?”
You laughed weakly.
“But eventually people get tired.” The words rushed out of you, like a fact. A proven knowledge in the world, that after a few bouts of your dizziness, people would stop trying.
This ugly truth that was patiently sitting beneath everything, was now visible. Exposed and ready to be poked at.
Logan went very still beside you, and suddenly a wave of embarrassment and self-awareness washed over you, like you’d accidentally exposed something too raw.
You shrugged lightly, pretending your exterior hadn’t just cracked, “It’s just easier when people move on quickly after it happens,” you admitted quietly. “Because then I can pretend it wasn’t a whole thing.”
Logan stared at you.
“You think I should care less?”
“No!”
You groaned immediately, pressing your palms over your face.
“Oh my god, this is why I avoided this conversation.”
Logan actually laughed softly then.
“You’re terrible at emotional vulnerability.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’re literally hiding inside your own hands right now.”
“Because this is awful.”
Warm fingers wrapped around your wrists gently.
“Hey.”
You resisted for approximately two seconds before letting him pull your hands away from your face. And he came into view again, a small, encouraging smile on his face- looking at you like you mattered more than anything else in his life.
“I don’t want you to care less,” you whispered.
Logan’s thumb brushed softly against your skin.
“Okay.”
“I just…”
Your voice wobbled slightly.
“I don’t know how to let someone love me this much without feeling guilty for it.”
Something in Logan’s expression shattered, “Oh, baby.”
You blinked hard and Logan moved before you could stop him. One second there was still a respectable distance between the two of you, the next he had shuffled closer, thighs pressing against yours- his hands cupping your face carefully. Warm palms and calloused fingers grazed against your cheeks tenderly, the familiar smell of detergent, cold air and Logan surrounded you instantly.
You exhaled shakily, a hand coming up to wrap loosely around his.
“You are not a burden to me.”
“Logan-”
“No.”
His voice stayed soft, but firmer now, “You don’t get to decide for me what loving you feels like,” he bumped his forehead against yours and admitted quietly, “yeah, sometimes I get scared.”
You swallowed.
“But that doesn’t make me love you less.”
Your chest hurt so badly now it was unbearable.
Logan’s eyes flitted between yours, “It just means I need you here long enough to keep doing it.”
That was what finally broke you. A small, devastated sound left your throat before your face crumpled against his shoulder.
He wrapped his arms around you, tucking you into his front with such certainty like there would never be world where he wouldn’t
“Oh baby,” he murmured softly into your hair.
Your fingers twisted into the fabric of his hoodie.
“I hate this,” you whispered thickly.
“I know.”
“I feel insane.”
“You’re a little insane.”
You laughed through your tears.
“Shut up.”
“There she is.”
You shoved weakly at his chest, Logan held you tighter- burying his face into the crook of your neck.
His hand rubbed slowly up and down your back, as he pressed soft kisses below your ear and whispered soft assurances whilst you sobbed into his sweatshirt. You could feel the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath your cheek and you stayed like that for a long time, enough for your breathing to even out, hiccups turning into slow drags of oxygen.
You pulled back slightly and Logan looked at you with an unbearably soft expression that made your stomach flip
“You done avoiding me now?” he asked quietly.
You sniffed.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I need time to recover from being emotionally perceived.”
His smile finally appeared properly then. God, you missed his smile.
Logan brushed his thumb beneath your eye gently, wiping away the last stray tear that leaked from the corner of your lashes.
“You know,” he murmured, “most people just buy flowers after arguments.”
You stared at him.
“Did you just compare this to a normal couple disagreement?”
“Absolutely.”
“We got trapped in a library and trauma bonded.”
He grinned at you, like a vintage actor who was closing off the impossibly long black-and-white romcom, “That’s romance, baby.”
You laughed again.
And this time, Logan looked like hearing you laugh was the greatest relief he’d felt all week.
Eventually, the emotional devastation settled enough for both of you to remember you were still physically trapped inside a university library. You were curled against Logan’s side on the couch now, one of his arms wrapped loosely around your shoulders while the other lazily scrolled through his phone.
His thumb paused on Garrett’s chat.
Cap’n crunch 💪 :
where are you?
Cap’n crunch 💪 :
wait are u both together rn
Cap’n crunch 💪 :
OH MY GOD
Cap’n crunch 💪 :
DID YOU DIE TOO???
You snorted into Logan’s chest.
“He’s so dramatic.”
“Says you.”
You tilted your head up immediately. “Excuse me?”
“Baby, you vanished off the face of the earth for a week because I had emotions near you.”
“I was processing.”
“You were fleeing.”
“Processing while moving very fast. Away from you. ”
Logan laughed quietly and you flicked his forehead. You hadn’t just missed him, you missed this. The easy teasing and warmth of his words, the way he always made the world feel softer around the edges.
You sank lower against him instinctively, your cheek pressed against the warm fabric of his hoodie.
His hand immediately slid into your hair.
“You know,” Logan murmured after a moment, “this would be significantly more romantic if we weren’t sitting next to a printer.”
You glanced toward the large copy machine three feet away.
“…I don’t know. It’s kind of giving academic enemies to lovers.”
“We’ve literally been dating for eight months.”
“Details.” You waved him off.
His chest shook with another laugh, he pressed his lips against your forehead and mumbled, “I missed you.”
You tilted your head slightly to look up at him.
“You texted me like… every day.”
“You know what I mean.”
You hummed and nodded. His hand slid from your hair to your jaw slowly, thumb brushing along your cheek, making your breath catch.
“You gonna run away from me again?” he asked softly.
You narrowed your eyes, “Not sure… It was going pretty well until you interrupted me.”
“Brutal.”
“I’m kidding.”
“You better be.”
The words came out light, teasing almost- but you could feel the vulnerability beneath them, shifting upward slightly you brought your lips up to his; waiting for him to meet you halfway. He pressed into you so he could envelope your mouth with his.
It shouldn’t have felt this overwhelming after one week. But it did.
His hand cupped your jaw carefully while he kissed you slow and warm and familiar, like he was still relearning the shape of your mouth after being denied access to it for days.
You melted instantly, fingers curling into the front of his hoodie while Logan smiled softly against your lips.
“Don’t think you’re going anywhere anytime soon,” he murmured.
You kissed him again to shut him up. It didn’t work, because the man kept smiling into every kiss like he couldn’t physically stop himself even if he tried.
“You’re so annoying,” you whispered.
“And yet.”
“And yet unfortunately you’re cute.”
“Unfortunately?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Baby, it’s been to my head.”
You rolled your eyes dramatically before kissing him again, this one was softer, sleepier in a way that wasn’t rushed, where you’d part slowly, barely a millimetre from each other just to feel the soft pants fan across your face before reconnecting, lips moulding together in soft caresses.
Logan’s fingers rubbed absent circles into your waist through your sweater, outside the campus had gone completely dark- the yellow glow of the lamp posts bled into the isles of the library, the only guidance in the pitch black of your surroundings.
You were vaguely aware that at some point this situation probably needed solving. But you were too preoccupied with your boyfriend, who smelt so good and was holding you like he’d been touch-starved for days.
You priorities seemed very straightforward.
“You know what’s crazy?” you murmured lazily, your head lolling onto his shoulder, cradled against his bicep.
“What?”
“We’re probably gonna have to explain this to everyone.”
Logan groaned immediately.
“Oh my god.”
You started laughing.
“Garrett is going to be unbearable.”
“Hannah’s gonna cry.”
“Allie’s gonna think we secretly got married.”
“She already basically thinks that.”
You smiled against his cheek, “…Do you think they’ll be worried?”
Logan looked down at you and shrugged, “Probably.”
Guilt flickered briefly through your stomach.
“Hey.”
His fingers tilted your chin upward gently.
“You’re allowed to have hard moments, baby.”
You looked at him quietly and scrunched your nose, “That still feels fake when you say it.”
“Yeah,” he whispered, “I know.”
Before you could respond, sudden footsteps echoed somewhere beyond the main circulation desk.
Both of you froze.
You blinked.
“…Wait.”
Logan sat up slightly.
“…There’s someone else here?”
Another noise.
Then a voice spoke from the darkness outside your glass prison.
“Jesus Christ, finally.”
You both whipped around to where the voice was coming from.
Mr. Donahue - the older overnight librarian with permanent reading glasses and the energy of someone spiritually exhausted by college students - appeared around the corner holding a janitor’s keyring.
You stared.
He stared back.
Then, with the same patience of an uninterested lion and its prey, he grumbled, “You two done?”
Your brain stopped functioning.
“…Done?” you repeated faintly.
Mr. Donahue gave you a deeply unimpressed look.
“With the world’s longest relationship crisis.”
Beside you, Logan went completely rigid.
“Oh my god,” you whispered.
Mr. Donahue sighed the sigh of a man who had worked at a university for too long.
“You think I didn’t notice you two sitting in here crying at each other?”
Your mouth fell open.
Logan looked horrified.
“You locked us in on purpose?”
The librarian shrugged.
“You seemed busy.”
You made a strangled noise somewhere between laughter and humiliation.
“Oh my god.”
Mr. Donahue pointed a finger toward Logan.
“You.”
Logan blinked, he pressed his palm at himself, in the centre of his chest.
“…Me?”
“She’s clearly obsessed with you.”
You buried your face in your hands immediately, “Sir.”
“And you looked like someone kicked your puppy for a week straight.”
Logan made the mistake of looking smug for approximately half a second.
“You looked miserable without me?” you asked immediately.
His smugness vanished.
Mr. Donahue snorted.
“Kid looked one inconvenience away from writing poetry.”
You burst into helpless laughter and Logan whipped his head around to look at you, deeply betrayed by your amusement, “This is actually insane.”
Mr. Donahue shrugged again.
“I’ve worked here for fifteen years. You learn things.”
You were still laughing when the older man finally unlocked the door.
Before leaving, though, he paused. Then slowly turned to look directly at you, “Eat real meals,” he said firmly.
Your face heated instantly and you buried into your hands, “Oh my god.”
“And you,” he added, pointing toward Logan now, “stop looking at her like a Victorian widower every time she gets dizzy.”
Logan looked scandalised.
You wheezed.
Mr. Donahue nodded once, satisfied. And then jerked his thumb behind him, “Alright. Get out.” The doors swung open and he trotted away.
Neither of you moved.
Then slowly, Logan looked down at you, “…Victorian widower?”
You immediately lost it again.
“He clocked you so bad.”
“I hate that man.”
“No you don’t.”
“No,” He admitted thoughtfully, “I kinda love him.”
You were both still laughing quietly when Logan finally stood, pulling you up with him.
And the second you were upright, his arms wrapped around your waist again automatically. Like he refused to stop touching you now that he had you in his grasp.
You looked up at him and pushed his damp hair off his forehead- the library lights that Mr. Donahue flicked on reflected warm gold across his face. And suddenly, everything from last week felt very far away.
Logan leaned down slowly until his forehead rested against yours.
she looks so perfect (part 6) - john logan x reader
summary: john logan was your best friend and the guys, allie, and hannah were your family. everyone knows that you had liked logan for forever but you knew that he didn't feel the same way about you. logan was with grace and you respected it. you couldn't even hate her for it - she's perfect and she's perfect for him. it's okay though, your family's got you. but things spiralled, and grace was harmed in the middle and you felt so awful about it.
Series: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5
warnings: sad, angst, sad logan, sad grace, hard truths
author's note: lols forget logan, just kidding (somewhat) they should kiss!!! but - girls gotta stick together !!! how are u liking the series so far??? What are your favourite parts??? Lmk :)
Your hand shook as it hovered over the wood of Grace’s sophomore apartment door, trembling. You had asked a few times over the last few weeks, Hannah and Allie to tell you how Grace was doing but they didn't want you to feel bad. For someone who was in so much pain, you worried about Grace more than yourself.
You held your breath out in the hall of Grace's apartment. You shut your eyes. This is a bad idea. Garrett’s words echoed in your head like a warning siren: “Don’t be a fucking idiot okay—you know she doesn't want to see you. I'm not trying to make you feel bad. It's just not a good idea, got it?.” He was trying to protect you. He was trying to protect everyone, because that’s what Garrett Graham did when his friends started spinning out of control. You glared at him as he scolded you after you had shared your plan to try to fix things - and you just wanted to make sure Grace was okay.
You and Logan weren't speaking. You avoided him and there was no real conversation since the day at Malone's after he walked out. He had texted a few times, Hannah and Allie had told you about his fight about you, in the backyard with Garrett. This has been the longest you both have had not spoken in all time of knowing, if you don't count the time that you had a persistent sore throat for 2 weeks straight last winter - but nothing like this. This felt like you'd never speak to him again - and you regretted the way you spoke to him in Malone's that day. If you had acted normal, pushing down your feelings and if you hadn't caused this all to ripple - none of this would have been happening.
The silence between you and Logan was a vast, and felt almost irreconcilable. How do you ever recover from something like this? How could you face anyone after you indirectly were the reason the kindest, sweetest girl was crushed by your lack of boundaries and your blurred lines with Logan? You were grieving him, it felt like a death. You couldn't sleep or eat. You're lucky that you had only had two finals left when all this erupted. You were mourning the loss of the person who always saw the goodness in you when you could had lived like you didn't value your life, he knew you better than anyone, who couldn’t let you go until the universe forced his hand.
But as much as your heart felt physical, literal pain, Grace’s was the one that have every right to feel this way - way more than you. Logan had been hers. He belonged to her, and she had been caught in the middle as unfortunate collateral damage, unspoken entanglement - that none of you knew was even happening until that day - that she never asked or ever would agree to be a part of.
Holding the painkillers, electrolytes and tea packets in the small bin holding them - you had brought them for Grace, not as a peace offering but these were the things helping you so you extended it to her too - just in case. Taking a sharp breath before you could lose your nerve, you gently knocked.
The silence that followed was heavy. For a second, you thought she might ignore it. But then came the soft click of a lock, and the door creaked open, with Grace peering out from behind, almost hiding.
She looked fragile. Her usual bright energy was dimmed, her eyes slightly puffy, wearing an oversized sweatshirt that you painfully recognized as Logan’s. When she saw you, her expression didn't harden into anger. It just... fell. She starred at you for a second, like it was dream like - like there would be no way you were standing at her door right now.
"Y/N," she breathed, "Hi," her voice small. "W-what are you doing here?"
"Sorry - Garrett told me not to bother you and I probably shouldn't be here right now but I just needed to say some things to you. S-sorry, I can-I can leave"you said quickly, your throat tight. "I know you don't want to see me-" you whispered painfully. "I just-" There was no malice in her eyes, just a profound, exhausting sadness. "That's-it's okay, I don't not want to see you," she said opening up the door a bit more, a bit more relaxed. She looked up at you with almost hopeful glassy grey-blue eyes.
"Oh," you said surprised. Your shoulders relaxing for a second. You didn't expect her to say that. "Well, I need you to hear this, Grace." You took a breath. "I'm not saying this because I want to fix any of it because I know I can't. But I just need you to know that you are so incredibly special, Grace," you were so genuine, you just needed her to hear it.
"You're- you're a good person, Grace. You're kind, funny, the prettiest person I have ever seen honestly. Everything about you. You are just so special. You are not broken, there's nothing wrong with you, there's nothing about you that isn't good enough," your eyes pleaded that she heard you with an earnest tone in your weak voice.
"It was never your fault. None of this was because of you, and I'm really sorry you're hurting. I wish I could take it away. It's my fault, I should have been clear with my boundaries - I tried to distance myself and I already stepped away when I could. I-I should have been clearer. It wasn't fair to you. I just need you to know that you didn't deserve any of this and you can hate me if you want-"
"I don't-" Grace interrupted you, "I don't hate you, y/n...It's not your fault," Even when she was suffering she was gracious and kind.
You took a small quiet breath, stepping back to give her space.
"I just...I just wanted you to know that I think you're wonderful and that I am sorry," your voice stammered, her eyes welled up with glossy tears. "You deserve every good thing."
She looked up at you, her eyes searching your face. There was no hatred there—just the mutual, tragic understanding of two girls who had loved the same boy, both left bruised in his wake.
"Thank you, y/n/n," Grace whispered, her voice trembling but steadying, her using your nickname as a sign of the glimpse of girlhood you shared. She reached out to squeeze your hand in silent agreement that she indeed did not hate you, and actually still had kind care for you.
You gave a small smile with tears in your eyes.
"I’m not going to ," you said quietly. "I’m not going to keep being friends with Logan."
The words hung in the quiet apartment, heavy and absolute. Grace’s eyes widened slightly, a flicker of shock crossing her face. "Y/N... he's your best friend."
"And look what it did," you replied with a sad, final shake of your head. "It just hurts people, and it just wrecks things."
"...Y/N, you don't have to, I already knew." She sighed. "Knew what?" you were confused. "I already knew he loved you." You both were silent.
You didn't know what to say. "Wait. Sorry - this wasn't me trying to-I didn't-this wasn't me trying to make myself feel better to get your forgiveness or anything like that. I didn't mean to make it like that-" "No, y/n. It's okay. I know you."
"I already knew he loved you. He talked about you like you were the best part of his day. I knew he had written your exam days in his calendar because he knew you got anxious. I knew you were on his mind, most of the time - even when we were together, I know he said you were his family but I don't even think he let himself believe anything otherwise - I know he didn't do this on purpose," you nodded, trying to process what she had said, you didn't even know that he was in contact with your dad, or had your test dates written down, you didn't know he was doing a hundred little things - he never told you, he never took credit for any of it - it was like a reflex of his to take care of you.
"I know he never meant to hurt you, I haven't spoken to him at all - but I know he feels awful..." you weren't trying to defend him, but you both knew John Logan's heart - and he'd never intentionally harm the both of you. He'd never do that.
She nodded, almost letting out a small laugh, "Yeah, he's pretty stupid," you laughed too, "The worst."
You handed her your small care package, "Thanks for caring about me, y/n," as she held the box in her hands, you gave her a weak smile. "See you in the fall?" You said hopeful, that Grace would still want to be your friend after some time. She nodded, and you were turned to leave, "I'm visiting my mom in Paris again," she called out, "I'm leaving next week after my last final on Tuesday," you turned back, surprised she shared that - you were glad she got to go, she was a euro-sunkissed princess after all- just like you had exclaimed drunkenly to Garrett at the party a few weeks back.
"Hope it's wonderful. I know it's your favourite."
She reached out to grab your hand, stopping you from leaving, "You're allowed to love who you love, y/n," she blurted out all of a sudden as if she had wanted to say that the whole time. "You deserve the love you give to everyone else too. You're allowed to have good things too"
You didn't say anything. You just stared at her, shocked. She let go of your hand gently, and stepped back a bit, "See you in September, y/n," beginning closing the door, "See you...see you, Grace," as the door shut quietly in front of you.
You walked back to your apartment which was about 15 minutes away. Unsure of what just happened, like it was a psychedelic dream. She meant everything you said - you genuinely think that she deserves every good thing.
The insane thing was that, grace ivers - an angel of a person, thinks after all that you've done - deserved good things still.
summary: you broke up but still call logan when you need help.
—
Logan had spent the last hour pretending he was having fun.
Which, honestly, should’ve been easy.
The hockey house was packed wall to wall, music loud enough to shake the floors, girls everywhere, beer shoved into his hand every five seconds. Dean was already half gone, Garrett and Hannah were making disgustingly in-love eyes at each other across the kitchen, and some brunette had been touching Logan’s arm for the better part of twenty minutes.
Normally, this would’ve been enough.
More than enough.
But all Logan could think about was you.
Which was pathetic considering you’d broken up three months ago.
Mutual, technically.
A complete load of bullshit if you asked him.
He was halfway through tuning out another conversation when his phone buzzed in his pocket.
He almost ignored it.
Then he saw your name.
Everything else disappeared instantly.
You free? My car broke down…
The brunette was still talking when Logan grabbed his jacket.
“Wait, where are you going?” she asked.
“Out.”
“Are you coming back?”
Logan barely looked at her. “No.”
Then he was gone.
Twenty minutes later he found you sitting on the hood of your car in an empty grocery store parking lot, arms wrapped around yourself against the cold.
The second your headlights caught his truck pulling in, your shoulders dropped in relief.
And Christ, that nearly killed him.
Logan climbed out quickly. “How long’ve you been here?”
“Like an hour.”
His jaw tightened immediately. “You should’ve called sooner.”
You shrugged lightly, trying for casual. “Didn’t wanna bother you.”
That made him look at you sharply.
Because once upon a time you never would’ve said that.
Once upon a time you would’ve called him immediately.
He stepped toward the car instead. “What happened?”
“Started making a weird noise. Then the engine died.”
“Pop the hood.”
You obeyed automatically while Logan got to work, broad hands moving confidently under the dim parking lot lights.
And there it was.
The thing that always undid you.
John Logan with grease on his hands.
Focused expression. Sleeves pushed up. Muttering to himself while fixing things like it was second nature.
You used to tease him that he loved broken engines more than people.
But that wasn’t true.
Because Logan loved hard. Too hard.
That had been part of the problem.
“You’ve got a busted hose,” he said finally. “I can patch it enough to get it home, but I wanna look at it properly tomorrow.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
He didn’t even glance up. “Yeah, I do.”
Your chest hurt a little at that.
Twenty minutes later you sat in the passenger seat of his truck while Logan drove your car slowly behind it toward your apartment, towing it carefully.
The silence wasn’t awkward.
Even after months apart, being with Logan still felt easy.
Familiar. Like muscle memory.
You watched his hands on the steering wheel for a second before speaking quietly.
“You were at a party?”
“Yeah.”
“You left?”
Logan snorted softly like the answer should’ve been obvious. “Your car broke down.”
Something warm and painful twisted in your chest.
Outside, rain tapped softly against the windshield.
You stared out the window. “You always come save me, John.”
The words slipped out before you could stop them.
Logan went quiet.
His grip tightened slightly on the wheel.
Then finally, “I’ll always find you.”
Your breath caught.
He said it so simply.
Like no matter how many fights or breakups or months apart happened between you, Logan would still come the second you called.
You turned toward him slowly.
“John…”
His jaw flexed.
“I mean it.”
And there it was.
Everything the two of you had been avoiding since the breakup sitting right there between you.
Because Logan still looked at you the same way.
Still loved you the same way.
Maybe he always would.
At the next red light, he finally looked over.
His expression softened immediately when he saw yours.
“Hey,” he said quietly.
That almost broke you.
Because that was his voice.
His voice when he knew you were overwhelmed.
When he was trying to handle you gently.
You looked down quickly. “We broke up for a reason.”
“I know.”
“You can’t just keep showing up every time I need you.”
“Why not?”
“Because it makes it impossible to get over you.”
Logan went still.
Then, after a long moment, “Maybe I don’t want you to.”
Silence filled the truck.
You looked at him again and immediately wished you hadn’t because Logan was already staring at you.
“I tried,” he admitted roughly. “I tried giving you space. Tried moving on. Tried acting normal.” He laughed once without humor. “I can’t do it.”
Your eyes burned instantly.
The light turned green.
Neither of you moved for a second.
A horn blared behind you.
Logan blinked and started driving again.
“I know we screwed things up,” he said. “But if you call me at two in the morning five years from now because your car breaks down somewhere?”
Summary: Logan and Y/N were best friends for as long as they could remember. They did everything together; they knew one another inside and out. Especially after they decided to become friends with benefits. What happens when the feelings become a little to real for Logan?
This was inspired when listening to Madison Beer's new album :) Especially after listening to Lovergirl and the Locket Theme
John Logan used to know exactly where to find Y/N.
Either being curled up on the couch of the hockey house, his hoodie on her figure while Dean complained about having to take care of kitchen clean-up this time. Her laughs echoing across the house. Or when she was outside with them all, encouraging their lift sessions as she joined in.
Or he could find her in the passenger seat of his truck during midnight drives. The nights where he could find her waiting for him after practice with a sarcastic comment, and leftovers from Malone’s she swore she wasn't buying specifically for him.
For years, she was his person. His absolute best friend. Garrett couldn’t compare to her.
Y/N was his favorite girl. His favorite mistake.
She was the girl he called when he couldn't sleep. She became the girl whose bed he'd climb into after parties. She became the girl he kissed when friendship stopped being enough, but commitment felt too terrifying.
They never put a label on it, and deep down, that was Logan's first mistake.
Because somewhere between late-night study sessions, tangled sheets, and whispered secrets, Y/N fell in love with him. She didn’t realize it until one night, tangled up in his sheets after quite a few rounds, his biceps wrapping around her naked figure. The way he would cover her up so she wouldn’t get goosebumps along her skin.
It was the way they held deep conversations during the night when everyone else was asleep around them. Logan kissed her like she was the only one.
The problem?
Logan did too, and he was just too much of an idiot to realize it.
So when another girl showed interest, something flipped. He didn’t know how else to put it. He didn’t want to admit he was in denial. So he said yes to her. The new girl was someone easy, uncomplicated, someone who didn't make his chest tighten every time she smiled. He convinced himself that was what he wanted.
Something simple.
Something safe.
So, Logan started seeing her. But instead of being honest with Y/N, he did something worse. He did something he knew he would never be able to take back.
He disappeared.
There was no explanation, conversation, or even a warning.
One day he was in her bed laughing at some stupid movie, cuddled up next to her like it meant nothing. Knowing it meant every fucking thing. Then the next, he stopped answering texts.
Logan stopped showing up. He even stopped looking at her.
Y/N had spent weeks wondering what she'd done wrong. She remembered sitting with Allie, Dean and Hannah, tears rolling down her face as she tried to figure out what she did wrong.
The courtyard at Briar had buzzed with the usual lunchtime chaos. Students crossed between buildings, laughter drifted through the warm spring air, and somewhere nearby a group of freshmen were throwing something back and forth.
Y/N barely noticed any of it.
She sat at the picnic table with her untouched plate in front of her, Allie had set it down knowing she hadn't eaten much in a few days. Her eyes fixed on the wood grain beneath her hands. Tears slid silently down her cheeks despite her attempts to stop them.
Across from her, Hannah looked heartbroken, while Allie reached over and squeezed Y/N's hand. While Dean had been chewing his own food, he had looked furious.
"Okay, no." He leaned back in his seat and ran a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry, but this is bullshit."
Y/N let out a shaky laugh that sounded more like a sob. "Dean."
"No." He shook his head, setting his fork down. "Seriously. One day you two are inseparable and then the next he acts like you don't exist? What the hell is that?"
She swallowed hard, sniffling lightly.
"That's what I don't understand,” Her voice cracked, as the table fell silent. Y/N stared down at her lap, picking the nail polish off of her fingertips.
"We have always been so close, we’ve always communicated when something was wrong," Her chest tightened. "We weren't officially together, but everyone knew what was happening."
Hannah nodded carefully.
"Everyone thought you guys were heading somewhere."
"Exactly, like fuck,” Y/N laughed bitterly.
"Then one morning he was just," She snapped her fingers. "Gone."
Allie frowned, running her thumbs over her friend’s hand. "He never gave you a reason?"
Y/N shook her head.
"Nothing?"
"No."
"Not even a text?"
"Nope."
The single word came out flat, and Dean muttered a curse under his breath.
"Dick."
"He stopped answering my messages." Y/N wiped at her face. "Stopped showing up. If I ran into him on campus he'd suddenly have somewhere else to be. He doesn’t come near me in class, I always catch him sitting with Beau or another one of the Hockey guys,” she explains, the hurt in her voice made all three of them wince. "I kept thinking maybe I did something-"
Allie immediately shook her head. "Don't."
"But what else am I supposed to think?" Y/N asked quietly, her tone sounding hopeless, eyes red and puffy as her lip quivers. "What if I said something wrong? What if I got too attached? What if he realized he doesn’t need me anymore?"
Dean's jaw tightened, watching Y/N’s body shrink down, shoulders sagging with a lack of hope.
"That's not it,” he mutters, shaking his head while playing with his lip.
"You don't know that."
"I know Logan."
Y/N looked up, and Dean sighed.
"I've known him for years, Y/N/N,” he says. “Living with the guy, and playing Hockey with him 25/8 kind of does that.”
"Then explain it to me, because apparently I don’t know a thing."
He opened his mouth, and then closed it. Not because he wanted to, but because he couldn't. Which made her hurt even worse.
“See?” Y/N laughed humorlessly, as Dean looked miserable.
Because the truth was he had noticed Logan acting strange. He was more withdrawn. More distracted. Every time Dean asked, Logan brushed him off. Left the house without another word.
Now, Y/N was sitting in front of him crying. Dean hated it.
"He still looks at you,” The words came softly from Hannah. Everyone turned toward her, while Y/N frowned.
"What?"
Hannah shrugged, with a slow nod. "I've seen it."
"When?"
"Everywhere."
Y/N blinked, and Hannah leaned forward.
"The library. Parties. Hockey games."
"He avoids me."
"He avoids talking to you," Hannah corrected.
Y/N stared. “Han, he’s avoiding me altogether. Like I don’t even exist.”
Something flickered across Y/N's face. Slight Hope. She still felt completely fucked up, and tired, but that hope was dangerous.
"If he notices me, then why won't he talk to me?"
Nobody had an answer, because that was the question. It was the one that didn't make sense. Yet, it was also still the one that had been tearing Y/N apart for weeks. She lowered her gaze again.
"Maybe he met someone,” Y/N frowns to herself, her eyes darting between her and Allie’s linked hands on the table.
The possibility tasted like poison, and Dean immediately shook his head.
"No."
"You don't know that."
"Y/N, I do."
"How?"
"Because if Logan had a girlfriend, Tucker would've accidentally announced it to the entire campus within twelve minutes."
That earned a small laugh from Hannah, and even Y/N managed a weak smile.
It came as quick as it disappeared, her face filling with heavy hurt and mental exhaustion.
"I just wish he'd tell me why. I swear I would have understood. I’ve known him for too long not to," Her voice was barely above a whisper.
The three of them exchanged glances.
Because that's what made it so awful. It wasn’t the ending, or the silence, or unanswered calls and messages. It was the not knowing that killed her most. Y/N lowered her head as fresh tears spilled onto her cheeks.
"I miss him."
The confession hung in the air. It was raw and honest. Her heart filled with breaking pain.
Across the courtyard, standing near the entrance of the student union with a hockey bag slung over his shoulder, Logan froze. Because he had heard every single word.
For the first time since he'd walked away from her, he had looked absolutely devastated.
But Hannah suddenly sat up straighter. "Wait."
Y/N sniffled, looking back over at Hannah. "What?"
Hannah's eyes lit up.
"You should write about it,” she conjures up, grabbing her songbook and a pen. Y/N laughed through her tears.
"Write what? A strongly worded email?"
"No." Hannah grinned. "Write how you’re feeling. In a song,” she admits, nodding at Y/N. “I’ve been needing ideas on how to start a melody, and finding someone to perform it with Justin being busy with his band. We can put a melody together tonight, and write up lyrics.”
Dean pointed immediately.
"Yes,” he said immediately while Allie nodded.
"Oh my goodness, yes. You’ve been in a songwriting funk, and I think this would be a perfect way to help explain your feelings throughout all of this,” Allie admits, squeezing Y/N’s hands. She gives them a sheepish look.
“I haven’t performed any of my music for anyone outside of that auditorium, Han.”
"And your voice is beautiful. Your songwriting is breathtaking. Listen,” she sighs before reaching over to place her hand over Y/N and Allie’s conjoined ones. “You're hurting," Hannah said gently. "And you're carrying all of it around because you never got closure."
Y/N looked away while Hannah continued.
"So let's make your own,” she smiles at Y/N, Allie nodding as Dean sat forward.
"And then sing it at open mic night,” he adds, going to place his hands on top of all of their’s. “I felt FOMO not holding all of your hands,” he says, making them all let out a slight chuckle. Y/N nearly choked.
"Absolutely not."
"Absolutely yes," Allie corrected.
"You know how to sing."
"That doesn't mean I want to sing about my emotional damage in front of strangers,” Y/N says. Dean shrugged, and she eyed him with a squint.
"Technically they'd be Briar students, not strangers."
"Dean."
"What? I'm helping."
For the first time all afternoon, Y/N actually laughed a real laugh.
Hannah smiled. "Come on, I will help you out with this one."
“What about date night with G?”
She pulled out her notebook, swatting at her. “He can wait, or better yet he can come listen. Be an outsider hearing it. You know he will give you an honest opinion.”
Y/N looks at them all, seeing the agonizing wait for her answer. She rolled her eyes with a sigh, wiping her tears. “Fine.”
The girls had taken over Hannah and Allie’s place for the night. Takeout containers covered the coffee table, and a half-finished bottle of wine sat between them. Sheets of notebook paper were scattered across the couch cushions as Hannah and Y/N worked on refining the song.
Allie sat cross-legged on the floor with a red pen, pretending to be some kind of music producer.
"You repeat that too many times here," Allie said, pointing it out as she chews on the edge of the pen.
"It's literally the point of the song,” Y/N chuckles, scribbling part of it out.
"I know. I'm just saying maybe make the last one hit harder."
Y/N rolled her eyes, and Hannah laughed.
"She's right."
"Traitor,” Y/N scoffed playfully, before sticking her tongue out at them both.
"Thank you,” Hannah gasps with a giggle. The mood was lighter than it had been all day.
It wasn’t healed, or good. Just light Y/N was reading over a revised verse when Allie suddenly gasped.
The room froze. Hannah looked up from her laptop, pushing her headphone to the side.
"What?"
Allie's eyes were glued to her phone, then slowly turned up to Hannah’s in horror. Y/N frowns.
“Allie?”
That single word made Y/N's stomach drop. "What?"
Nobody answered immediately, which was answer enough. Y/N slowly sat upright.
"Allie,” she says a bit more firmly. Allie winced.
"Oh no,” Hannah’s voice cuts in, her eyes glued to her laptop. Y/N shakes her head in confusion. “Oh fuck."
"Hannah,” Y/N trails off as Hannah looks horrified, and Y/N feels her pulse start racing.
"What?"
The girls exchanged a glance, then looked at Y/N. That’s all it took. Y/N knew. Her frown slowly turned into pure sadness. Her face contorted into sadness, pain, anger, shock, confusion. She knew before she even reached for the phone.
"No."
Nobody spoke.
"No."
Allie slowly handed it over, and Y/N did not hesitate to look.
Instagram. A close friend's story. One of the hockey guys had posted it from the ongoing party. There were people laughing, music playing.
Then, there it was. She was standing beside Logan.
A girl.
Pretty. Breathtaking. Looking at Logan like he was the world. Y/N’s eyes scanned the whole thing.
Her arm wrapped around his. His hand resting on her waist. The image had blurred instantly, but not because of the screen.
Because tears filled Y/N's eyes, as the room stayed silent. The kind of silence that hurts.
Y/N found herself going back and staring at it again. And again. And again.
The same image was proof for her. It was an answer.
After weeks of wondering, of weeks being confused. Of weeks blaming herself for doing something wrong that she didn’t realize.
There was another girl. There always had been.
A sharp laugh escaped her. It was a broken laugh, filled with humiliation.
"Oh."
Nobody knew what to say, and Y/N swallowed hard.
"So. That was why,” Her voice cracked, handing the phone back. “Y/N-”
"I get it now."
Her chest hurt, like physically hurt. It felt as if it were caving in.
"He found someone else,” she sniffles, letting her head fall as she began to scribble every word she once had written. Hannah’s face faltered slightly, looking at Allie, who looked just as distraught. "You don't know that."
Y/N laughed bitterly, shaking her head. "I literally have eyes, Hannah,” she sighs. "He couldn't even tell me."
The realization hit harder than the picture itself. Not that he might have moved on, it was the fact that he never respected her enough to tell her.
He had simply vanished, and left her searching for answers. While apparently moving on with somebody else. She pursed her lips, tearing out the page in the book, crumpling it and throwing it across the room.
"I was sitting around wondering what I did wrong,” she bitterly laughs, going to write again. Her voice had broken with every word as she spoke. "And he was just-"
She couldn't finish the sentence as the apartment door opened.
"Hey babe, I brought-" Garrett stopped mid-sentence, his smile disappeared immediately. The hockey captain took one look at Y/N crying and set the grocery bag down.
"What happened?"
Nobody answered. Garrett looked toward Hannah, and then toward Allie. Hannah pans her laptop his way, watching as his face darkened. Because he knew exactly who the picture involved.
"So there you go,” Y/N sniffled, running hands through her loose pony. Garrett frowned.
"What?"
"That's why he disappeared,” she says, throwing her hands up in the air defenselessly. His expression tightened.
"You don't know that."
Y/N laughed bitterly, scoffing at him. "It kind of looks that way."
Garrett didn't answer right away, which was unusual. Because Garrett Graham always seemed to know what to say.
Finally he sighed. Garrett was usually the calm, responsible and level-headed one. Right now he not only looked ready to kill one of his teammates, but also he looked completely lost.
"I don't know what's going on in Logan's head,” he grumbles, running a hand through his hair. The honesty surprised everyone. "But I know him."
Y/N looked at him with a frown. "And?"
"And whatever this is, it doesn't make sense."
“Oh, it makes perfect sense, G,” She almost laughed.
"No,” Garrett shook his head, chuckling darkly. "Not to me."
"Did he tell you why?" Y/N asked quietly, and watched Garrett shake his head.
"No."
"Did you know?"
"No."
He didn't hesitate, not even for a second. Somehow that made her believe him.
Garrett sighed. "If I had known he was doing this, I would've called him out weeks ago,” he admits, before his eyes dropped to the notebook on the coffee table. "What's this?"
"The song," Hannah said.
"The one she's writing for open mic night."
Garrett blinked, and then immediately looked interested.
"No way."
“Garrett, please,” Y/N groaned.
It was already too late, because he was already grabbing the pages. The apartment fell silent while he read a few pages that still had some lyrics circled, he squinted as he read them.
A few moments passed.
Then a few more.
Finally he reached the end, and looked up. Then Garrett pointed at the notebook.
"Okay,” he huffs, as he hands her back the notebook. Everyone waited. "That's going to absolutely destroy people. These little mental lyrics you’ve written. This feels real."
She swallowed hard. "Because it is,” she assured him, and Garrett nodded.
"That's why it works."
His eyes drifted briefly toward the picture displayed, but also partly being hidden behind the garage band icon on Hannah’s laptop. Then back to the lyrics.
He paused on one section. "But if you put these all together, they may work. But it's still missing something."
Allie sat up, a shit-eating grin on her face. "Oh, I knew it."
Garrett nodded.
"The whole song is making statements about you. How you love, and how you are,” he explains, and Y/N frowned.
"Okay,”
"But now, you need to make it into how he made you feel throughout everything. From start to finish," he explains, and she tilts her head. Hannah smirks, knowing she would definitely be giving Garrett shit later about his songwriting smarts.
The room grew quiet, as everyone knew exactly what answer he meant.
"You don't need to make it angry,” he said as he looked at her carefully. "You just need to make it honest."
Y/N stared down at the page.
At the lyrics she'd spent hours writing, scribbling and retrying over and over again. She stared at the hurt she'd poured into every line. Suddenly she realized Garrett was right. The song wasn't about Logan leaving. It was about what finding that picture felt like.
The bar is packed. Dean, Tucker, Garrett, and Logan are crowded into their usual booth. Allie and Hannah had told their boyfriends that they would be coming with Y/N as emotional support. She had been rehearsing the song day in and day out.
She even had Justin help her through it, through the emotional side of it. He helped her figure out when to breathe, when to make it feel the pain she felt as she sang it.
Y/N’s eyes didn’t miss the way Logan’s new girl was sitting right next to him. She didn’t bother to dissect that he had zero interest in her advances. She just saw him with her, and that was enough.
Beside her, Hannah squeezed her shoulder. "You've got this."
"I absolutely do not,” she chuckles dryly, Allie coming up to squeeze her tight. "You do."
"I might actually throw up."
Allie laughed. "You'll be fine."
On stage, Justin finished the final song with his band, the crowd erupted into cheers and hoots. Justin grinned into the microphone.
“Thank you for all the love tonight,” he chuckles, and then eyes dart over towards Y/N. He nods at her, and her eyes widen. She let out a puff of breath.
Then his expression shifted, slowly softening. "Before we take off, I want to introduce the next performer. This next song is a little different. It was written by somebody who probably doesn't realize how talented she is."
Y/N wanted the floor to open and swallow her whole, as Justin looked toward the side of the stage at her. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "And from what I've heard, she wrote this one from a very real place."
Then he pointed toward the side of the stage, giving her a warm welcome. "Everybody give it up for one of Briar U’s brightest singers, and also my dear friend, Y/N L/N."
The applause started immediately, not thunderous, but completely supportive. It was enough to make her heart pound harder. Y/N stumbled onto the stage slowly, the spotlight hit her instantly.
And suddenly every person in Malone's seemed to turn and look at her. Her pulse roared in her ears, where the microphone stood waiting. She could barely breathe. Then she spotted her friends.
Hannah smiling, Allie practically bouncing in her seat, Garrett giving her a reassuring nod, and Dean raising his drink in support. Tucker and Beau let out a few hoots and cheers for her. She smiles softly at them.
For a moment, everything felt manageable. Then her eyes moved farther back, because her eyes met his own. Logan was standing by the exit of Malone’s, as if something stopped him from leaving. He was looking up at her with a frown. The girl by his side, pulling him to leave with her.
Logan couldn’t find it himself to want to leave. Not now. Logan looked confused. Curious. Almost nervous as if he suddenly realized this song might be about him.
Y/N swallowed hard, finally pulling herself back, she looked away. The room quieted completely. Finally, she spoke.
"This song starts off slow, like an intro." she explains softly. “It’s called locket theme,” she says, and then clears her throat. “The intro is very personal, and goes into this song I wrote. The song is called Lovergirl.”
The titles alone seemed to catch Logan's attention, making him walk slowly back into the crowd, and his expression changed immediately. Y/N saw it.
So did Garrett, and suddenly his jaw tightened. Because for the first time all night, Logan looked like he might finally understand exactly how much damage he'd done. Y/N wrapped her fingers around the microphone.
The first chord rang through Malone's, and every eye in the room turned toward her as she began to sing.
For Logan, the entire room disappears. The lyrics aren't subtle, they're raw.
Did you miss me? I like to pretend you did. Was crying nightly, I know you can picture it
All our memories safe in my locket, I carry it.
I know I missed you, I’m not gonna lie ‘bout that. I had to leave you be and see how I felt ‘bout that
If you don’t hear from me, it don’t mean I loved you less. Had to get this off my chest
I’ve been searching, but the answer’s right in front of me. My protection’s so divine and now I see
Pain on a necklace, set it down, I’m weightless
Everything I need is within me
Every word feels like a punch to the ribs, and Logan can't breathe. She poured out everything in that intro, and he didn’t know if he would be able to handle hearing what she wrote in the song. He wasn’t just hearing lyrics, he was hearing memories. She kept every single one tucked away, because he pushed her away.
The music began to transition into a new low melody. It sounded like pain, heartbreak and yearning, turned into something deeper. Prettier.
I care too much all the time, love so hard it makes me cry
No, it's not worth it to deny. 'Cause when it's good, it's so good, it's so nice
One look right into your eyes, One touch and I'm yours tonight
I, I just can't help that I'm a lovergirl. Why not embrace the simple pleasure? Let me hold you close
And we can take off all our clothes. I, I thank God I found you in this lonely world
Why would we ever stop ourselves from doing what feels good? Baby, if we can, we should
I've flown too close to the sun. And I've been burned far more than once
But it still hasn't stopped me from doing it again, I'm doing it again
One look right into your eyes, One touch and I'm yours tonight (tonight)
I, I just can't help that I'm a lovergirl. Why not embrace the simple pleasure? Let me hold you close
And we can take off all our clothes. I, I thank God I found you in this lonely world
Why would we ever stop ourselves from doing what feels good? Baby, if we can we should
I, I just can't help that I'm a lovergirl. Why not embrace the simple pleasure? Let me hold you close
And we can take off all our clothes
Logan’s mind began to hit him with realization. With memories. With every single fucking thing he had been denying. The memories filling in one after another.
The night she fell asleep on his shoulder after finals. The way she'd laugh when he got jealous. The mornings he'd wake up beside her and pretend it didn't mean anything. The look on her face the last time she texted him asking if she'd done something wrong.
The messages he never answered.
Across the table, Garrett slowly lowers his drink, and Dean goes completely silent.
Tucker mutters, "Oh, fuck,” with a hiss after, because everyone knows exactly who the song is about.
And then Y/N sings the final verse, not angry, or bitter. Just with hurt. So much hurt. The kind of hurt that comes from loving someone who never chose you. The kind that sounds devastatingly permanent. For the first time in his life, Logan realizes the truth.
He never stopped loving her.
Not once. Not when he dated someone else. Not when he avoided her. Not when he convinced himself she deserved better.
Not even now.
He loves her. He's always loved her.
And he's spent months watching her slip through his fingers because he was too scared to admit it. Now, he couldn’t breathe. It was all making him feel dizzy. Because standing there watching her sing her heart out, he couldn't imagine a future that didn't include her.
Couldn't imagine another girl making him laugh the same way. Couldn't imagine another girl understanding him the way she did. Couldn't imagine another girl hurting this much because of him.
It hit him so quickly. Almost like a lightning strike. Logan understood what Dean had been trying to tell him for months.
He wasn't protecting himself, he wasn't protecting her. He'd just been terrified. Terrified of how much she meant.
The final chord faded.
Silence.
One second. Then two.
Then the entire bar erupted.
Applause.
Cheers and hoots.
Whistles.
People rising to their feet, and Y/N's eyes widened in shock. She smiled widely, thanking them politely as she stepped off the stage, hugging Justin, Allie and Hannah tight.
Logan barely heard anything, because he was too busy staring at her, realizing he might have completely screwed this up.
She disappeared into the crowd almost immediately after breaking apart from their hugs. Logan instinctively started moving.
He needed to talk to her.
Tonight.
Right now.
Immediately.
He was stopped abruptly when hand grabbed his shoulder. Hard. He turned, and was face to face with Dean.
He was not smiling. Not joking. Just staring.
"Sit."
Logan frowned. "Dean-"
"Sit. Down,” his tone was something that did not hesitate to make him listen. A few moments later Logan found himself back at their table.
Garrett sat across from him, and Tucker beside him.
Beau leaned against another chair, and now none of them looked happy.
That was unusual. Especially for Tucker and Dean. Tucker was normally incapable of looking serious for more than thirty seconds. Now he looked annoyed.
“What?” Logan sighed, and this caused Dean to laugh. A short, humorless laugh as he rubbed at his jaw.
"What?"
Garrett folded his arms, nodding at Logan."That's your question?"
Logan looked between them. Nobody answered, but nobody looked away.
That was when he suddenly had realized. They knew. They all knew, every single bit. Dean leaned forward first. "Do you have any idea how many nights she cried over this?"
Logan's stomach dropped, but Dean continued. "Do you?"
No answer. He stayed quiet, only gulping, because he didn't. Garrett shook his head.
"You ghosted her, Logan,” he says, his tone sounding defeated as he crosses his arms, making Logan immediately look away.
"Garrett-"
"No,” Garrett cut him off. "You don't get to brush this off,” he snaps, and the table goes quiet. It was a rare sighting for Garrett to be putting Logan in place, when it was usually the exact opposite. "She spent weeks wondering what she did wrong."
Logan closed his eyes with a sigh, as every word felt worse.
"You didn't even give her a reason,” Dean pointed out, making Logan nod. "I know."
"You just disappeared."
"I know."
Dean scoffed. "No, I don't think you fucking do. Because if you understood what that did to her, you would've fixed it already."
Logan rubbed a hand over his face as Tucker spoke up next. Which somehow felt even worse.
"Man, she looked miserable,” he admits, talking about how he had seen her moping around campus for weeks. Her being around the house less and less. The way she looked so pained while singing in front of them. Logan's chest tightened, and Tucker shook his head. "And she still defended you."
That surprised him enough to snap his gaze back up, frowning in confusion. "What?"
"Every time."
The table fell quiet again, and Beau nodded. "She's never once talked badly about you,” he adds, trailing off and Logan looks down at the wood tabletop because somehow that hurt the most.
After everything.
After disappearing. Avoiding her. Leaving her with nothing. Y/N still hadn't tried to destroy him.
Dean sighed heavily. "What were you thinking?"
“I fucking wasn’t. That was the issue, Dean,” Logan laughed bitterly. Dean’s eyes sharpened at his friend’s tone.
"Clearly."
Another painful silence, but then Garrett leaned back as he let his expression softened slightly.
"Do you love her?"
That was when Logan froze.
The question hung there.
It was so simple, yet so terrifyingly direct. The one question he had ignored for months. Keeping it buried away. Locking it for far too long, or just pretended it wasn't true.
But after hearing that song? After seeing her on that stage? After realizing she'd been hurting this entire time? There wasn't really a point in lying anymore. So quietly, he answered.
"Yeah,” he sighs, running a hand through his hair as all of his emotions break through. They shattered completely. “Yeah. I really fucking do.”
Nobody looked surprised. Dean immediately rolled his eyes. "Oh, for fuck’s sake."
Tucker threw both hands in the air, pursing his lips, leaning back into the booth cushions. "I knew it."
"Everyone knew it,” Beau laughed, and Garrett pointed at him.
"Literally everyone,” he agrees, and Logan groans.
"Great."
"No," Dean said, shutting it down completely. "Not great."
The table quieted again, because out of every single one here, surprisingly Dean was right. Knowing the truth didn't magically fix what happened. It didn't erase weeks of pain.
It didn't undo the damage.
A few moments later, Hannah and Allie approached the table, both immediately noticed Logan sitting there. Neither looked impressed. Especially Allie, as she folded her arms.
"Seriously?" she hissed, not missing how Logan winced. Garrett slid over so Hannah could sit beside him, while Allie took the empty chair next to Dean. The tension was instant.
Logan looked around. "Where's Y/N?"
Hannah glanced toward the front doors.
"Outside."
His heart immediately sank.
"She okay?"
Allie laughed, but not kindly. It was a pointed and sharp toned laugh. "You don't get to ask that,” she shot back. “Where’s your girlfriend anyway?”
Logan looked away, before letting out a huff. “I never made it official with that girl. I couldn’t, something in me couldn’t.”
“Something as in your love for Y/N? Maybe?” she retorts, making him close his eyes because she wasn't wrong.
The table fell silent. Outside the windows, the spring night stretched across campus. Somewhere beyond those doors, Y/N was standing alone. Trying to catch her breath after singing her heart out in front of an entire room.
While inside, for the first time in months, Logan was finally being forced to confront the truth.
Not that he'd hurt her. He already knew that. The truth was worse.
Because sitting at that table, surrounded by the people who cared about both of them, Logan realized something he'd been trying not to admit for a very long time. Losing Y/N hadn't made things easier.
It had made everything harder.
Now? Knowing that there was a very real possibility that he was too late fucked his entire body up. Logan is on his feet before he even thinks.
"Logan-" Dean starts to call out, Allie’s expression softening as they watch him sprint out, but he's already gone.
The rain had started sometime during the last chorus. Not enough to send people running, but just enough to leave the pavement shining beneath the streetlights. Y/N stood outside Malone's with her arms wrapped around herself.
The cool air felt good against her overheated skin. Inside, everyone was celebrating. The buzz of her music, of her song. Justin’s band had gone back up for a couple of covers from what she could hear.
She couldn't handle any of it right now. The emotions were too close to the surface. The tears were too close, glossing over her eyes.
The rain dampened her hair as she stared across the empty parking lot, slowly beginning to walk out from under the cover from the rain. Then the door behind her opened, closing quickly as feet padded behind her as if trying to catch her.
"That song was about me."
Not a question, but a statement.
Y/N laughed bitterly, not needing to turn to know who it was. "You figured that out all by yourself?" she snaps back, whipping back to face him with a cold stare, Logan flinches.
Good, she wanted him to.
"You have no idea what you put me through,” Her voice shook lowly, the cold rain starting to make her shiver lightly. The anger she'd been holding in for weeks finally surfaced.
Logan swallowed hard. "I know-"
"No,” she stood still, rain droplets clung to her eyelashes. The hurt in her eyes nearly destroyed him. "You don't. You don't get to say you know."
His chest tightened.
"Y/N-"
"I spent weeks blaming myself,” Her voice cracked as she talked over the rain, teeth chattering. "Weeks, Logan."
Logan looked away, unable to hold her gaze. The rain began to pour down hard, drenching them both.
"I thought I wasn't enough. I-I had thought I scared you away,” another tear slipped down her cheek. "I thought maybe I imagined the whole thing,” she laughs to herself, hugging herself to keep any warmth she had left. The rain hid some of the tears falling freely, but not all of them.
Logan felt sick, because he remembered every text he ignored. Every hallway he'd avoided. Every opportunity he'd had to fix it. Every time he'd chosen not to.
"I never stopped caring about you,” The words escaped before he could stop them.
Y/N stared at him, and then laughed. It was her broken laugh. "Seriously?"
"I'm serious."
"You have a funny way of showing it."
She wasn't wrong, not one bit. Logan closed his eyes briefly, because there was no defense. No excuse. There was nothing he could say that would make it better. When he looked at her again, his voice was quieter.
"I got scared, Y/N."
Y/N scoffed.
"Of what?"
"You."
That made her heart stutter for a second. Something in her paused. For the first time all night.
The rain continued falling around them, and Logan stepped closer.
"I was fine when it was casual,” His voice shook, nerves coming out with each word. "I was fine when I could convince myself I wasn't falling for you."
Y/N's heart started pounding.
"But then suddenly every time something happened, you were the first person I wanted to tell,” He laughed bitterly. "Every good day,” Another step closer. "Every bad day,” Another. "You were the person I looked for."
Y/N's eyes began filling again. His bottom lip quivered as he spoke once more. "And it scared the hell out of me, Y/N."
The confession hung between them. It was raw. Honest. Painful.
Logan ran a hand through his wet hair. "So I did what I always do."
"What?"
"I screwed it all up,” he admits. “I fucking ran like a coward. Denied every single fucking feeling you were making me feel,” his voice cracked, a tear mixed with the rain on his cheek.
Y/N froze. Because Logan wasn't just emotional. He was crying.
Actual tears. Logan almost never cried.
His voice broke. "I thought if I walked away first, it wouldn't hurt as much,” The next laugh that escaped him sounded miserable. "Turns out that was the dumbest fucking decision I've ever made."
Y/N stared.
Because she'd imagined this conversation a thousand times. None of those versions involved Logan looking completely shattered. The tension snapped.
Not completely. But enough. It was enough for all the hurt beneath it to finally surface.
Logan stepped closer again. This time neither moved away. Rain soaked through both of them now. Neither cared.
"I. Love. You."
The words came out suddenly. Unplanned. Unfiltered.
Y/N stopped breathing, and Logan looked terrified the second he said it. He didn't take it back.
"I love you, Y/N," His voice cracked, another tear sliding down his face. "I think I've loved you for a long time. I just didn't realize how much until I lost you."
Y/N felt her entire world tilt. Weeks of anger. Weeks of heartbreak.
Weeks of missing him.
All crashing together at once. Her own lips began to quiver again. "You don't get to say that now,” she squeaked out, the words came out weak. Because that part of her wanted to hear them again.
"I know,” he nods, biting his bottom lip as it keeps quivering.
"You don't get to disappear and then tell me you love me."
"I know."
"You broke my heart,” she sobs, the tears returned immediately. Logan nodded his tears were continuous too.
"I know,” His own voice broke. "And I'm sorry."
Y/N stared at him. Stared at the boy she'd loved for so long. The absolute fucking idiot who had shattered both of them.
At the person she'd spent weeks trying to forget.
Her shaking hand coming up to cup his face, he lets out a stuttered sob at the contact, taking her wrist softly in his hand as he leaned his cheek into her touch. "I hate you,” she says, her eyes still glossy and red, but full of love.
Logan laughed through tears, nodding. "I know."
"I really hate you."
His eyes never left hers.
"I know."
The space between them disappeared. One second they were arguing.
“But I still love you,” she admits, making him smile sadly at her as he cried with her. “So fucking much, John Logan,” The next moment, Y/N grabbed the front of his jacket, and pulled his neck down to kiss him hard.
Angry.
Months of frustration pouring into it. Logan made a sound somewhere between relief and heartbreak as he kissed her back. The rain fell harder around them.
Neither noticed, and neither cared.
All the words they'd never said.
All the feelings they'd buried.
All the hurt, and the love.
It all collided at once beneath the streetlights outside Malone's. Thunder sounding in the distance, the music inside blaring softly. Their lips moving together like puzzle pieces that were meant for one another. Hands wandering wherever they could grab and hold.
For the first time in months, neither of them ran.
A/N: This was requested by an Anon. I took some creative liberty and made her insecure about his crush on Hannah as well.
Pairing: John Logan x reader
Words: 1,8k
Warning(s): feeling insecure, slight angst but happy end
The first month of dating John Logan should have been the happiest month of your life. Instead, it terrified you. Not because Logan did anything wrong, in fact, that was the problem, he did everything right.
He texted you every morning before you were even fully awake, he always managed to find you between classes, even if it was only for a few minutes. He kissed your forehead absentmindedly while you studied together and wrapped an arm around your shoulders whenever you would walk across campus. He even remembered the little things you mentioned once in passing, like your favourite coffee order, the movie you’d watched a hundred times as a kid, and the fact that you hated thunderstorms but loved sitting by the window when it rained. Every day, he made you feel important, wanted, and cared for. And every day you become more convinced that it couldn’t possibly last. The problem wasn't Logan; the problem was you.
Before Logan, there had been other relationships. Relationships that had slowly chipped away at your confidence until there was almost nothing left. Ex-boyfriends who had made you feel like you were too much one day and not enough the next. Guys who flirted with other girls right in front of you and then accused you of being dramatic when you got upset. Guys who compared you to other women without even realising the damage they were doing. Over time, you had learned a dangerous lesson: if someone seemed to love you, it was only a matter of time before they changed their mind.
Then Logan had come along, and he was wonderful, which somehow made everything worse. Because you knew about his crush on Hannah, everyone knew about that. You remembered hearing stories before you and Logan ever got together. How hopelessly gone he’d been for her. How he’d looked at her like she hung the moon in the sky. How long he’d spent wanting someone who was never really his. Hannah and Garrett had their happy ending now, but that didn’t erase the history. It didn’t erase the fact that Logan had once wanted someone else so badly that everyone around him had noticed.
And you couldn’t stop wondering if those feelings had truly disappeared. Every time you saw Hannah on campus, your stomach twisted itself in knots. Hannah was beautiful in a way that seemed effortless. She laughed loudly. She spoke confidently. She never appeared self-conscious or unsure of herself. She fit naturally into every room she entered. Standing next to her made you feel painfully aware of every flaw you spent hours trying to hide. The comparisons became automatic. Hannah was prettier, funnier, more outgoing, confident, just everything. Meanwhile, you spent twenty minutes staring into the bathroom mirror every morning, wondering why Logan had chosen you at all.
At first, you managed to keep all those thoughts hidden. You smiled when you needed to smile, you laughed at Logan’s jokes, and you kissed him back when he kissed you, but the insecurities have a way of growing in silence. The longer you kept them to yourself, the larger they became. Eventually, you started pulling away from him without even realising it. You answered texts a little slower, you stopped initiating affection, and you constantly found excuses when Logan asked you to hang out.
Some days you convinced yourself that you were protecting your heart. That if you got too attached, it would hurt even more when he left. It was better to create some distance now than be blindsided later. The irony was that you were creating the very thing you feared, and Logan was starting to notice.
And every time you would lie, every single time. Because how were you supposed to explain something that sounded so ridiculous out loud?
Sorry, Logan. I think you're secretly in love with another girl even though you've never given me a reason to think that.
Sorry, Logan. I think you're going to leave me because everyone else eventually did.
Sorry, Logan. I hate myself so much that I can't believe someone like you could actually love me.
So, instead, you just smiled and told him you were fine. However, he didn’t believe you.
One Friday night he showed up at your apartment unexpectedly. You had just gotten out of the shower when you heard a knock on the door. You opened it, wearing sweatpants and an oversized shirt, immediately freezing when you saw him standing there. He looked nervous, actually nervous, and that alone made your heart drop to your stomach.
"Hey," you said quietly.
"Hey." You both just stood there, not moving at all, before Logan started to rub the back of his neck. "Can I come in?"
Something about the expression on his face made panic flare inside your chest. This was it. He was breaking up with you. The thought arrived so quickly and naturally that you barely questioned it. Of course he was. Why wouldn’t he be?
You silently stepped aside and let him enter. Logan walked into the living room before turning to face you. The moment he did, you saw the concern that was written all over his face. It didn’t look like anger or frustration, just concern, which somehow made you feel even worse.
"Talk to me," he said softly.
You looked away immediately. "About what?"
His jaw tightened. "About whatever's been going on for the last few weeks."
Your stomach dropped. "Nothing's going on."
"Y/N." The way he said your name nearly broke you, because there was no accusation in his voice, only worry. "I know something's wrong."
You folded your arms across your chest, contemplating your answer, before finally settling on "I'm fine."
"No, you're not." The silence stretched between you. Logan took a deep breath before he continued. "You barely answer my texts anymore." You stared at the floor. "You don't reach for my hand." Your eyes started to burn. "You keep finding reasons not to see me, and I don't know what I did."
That was what finally shattered you. He wasn’t angry with you, he didn’t blame you for anything, just a genuine belief that he had somehow caused this. Tears filled your eyes immediately, and Logan’s expression changed the second he saw them.
"Oh, baby." The nickname only made you cry harder. You sank onto the couch and covered your face. Everything you had spent weeks hiding came crashing down at once. The jealousy, the fear, the self-hatred, the constant comparisons, the certainty that you were just temporary and that you were a rebound, a placeholder. Just someone who happened to be there because the girl Logan actually wanted wasn’t available. The words poured out between sobs. They were messy, embarrassing, and impossible to stop. By the time you finished, you felt completely exposed and humiliated. You were certain that Logan would finally see how broken you really were.
Your apartment fell silent. For several long seconds Logan didn't say anything, when you finally forced yourself to look up, the expression on his face wasn't annoyance. It was heartbreak, like hearing you say those things had physically hurt him.
"Y/N," he said quietly. His voice sounded rough. "You really think that?"
Fresh tears slid down your cheeks, but you couldn’t answer. Logan moved to sit beside you, then he gently took your hands away from your face.
"You really think you're a placeholder to me?" The pain in his eyes was unbearable.
"I just..." you whispered. "I don't know why you'd pick me."
Something inside Logan seemed to crack. He reached for you right away, pulling you into his lap and wrapping his arms around you so tightly you could barely breathe.
"You have no idea how much I hate hearing you say that."
You buried your face against his shoulder and softly whispered, "I know you loved Hannah."
"Hannah was a crush," Logan sighed heavily. You didn’t respond. "A crush," he repeated. "Do you know what that means?" His question was met by silence.
"It means I built a fantasy in my head about someone I barely knew." He tilted your chin upward. "This is real." His hand rested over your heart. "You are real." Then he pressed your hand against his chest. "And this? This is real too."
Tears blurred your vision. "I don't compare you to Hannah,” he said firmly. "I don't think about Hannah when I'm with you."
He pressed a kiss to your forehead. "I don't wish you were Hannah."
Then he pressed a kiss to your temple before continuing, "I don't want Hannah."
A kiss to your cheek. "I want you."
Your breath caught in your throat. Logan rested his forehead against yours.
"You,” his voice cracked slightly. "Just you."
For a moment neither of you spoke. Then Logan admitted quietly, "Do you know what I thought was happening?" You shook your head. “I thought you stopped liking me."
His confession stunned you. "What?"
A sad laugh escaped him, "You kept pulling away." His eyes searched hers. "And every day I wondered what I did wrong."
The guilt hit you instantly. "Oh my God."
"I was terrified."
You stared at him. John Logan. Confident, charming, popular John Logan was terrified because he thought he was losing you. The realisation changed something inside you. For weeks you’d been so focused on your own fears that you’d forgotten Logan had feelings too. Forgotten that he cared. Forgotten that relationships involved two people. He wasn't some untouchable guy waiting for someone better to come along. He was your boyfriend, and he loved you.
The months that followed weren't perfect. Healing never happens overnight. There were still bad days. There were still moments when old insecurities crept back into your mind. Moments when you doubted yourself. Moments when you struggled to believe you deserved the love Logan gave you, but Logan never made you face those moments alone. He didn't magically fix your, he couldn’t, what he did instead was stay. He stayed when you were feeling insecure, when you overthought things, when you were afraid. Day after day. Week after week. And slowly, you started believing him. And not because he constantly told you that you were beautiful, or because he showered you with affection. It was because he proved it, over and over again, with his actions, his patience, and with his unwavering choice to love you.
For the first time in your life, you began to understand something you had never truly believed before. Love wasn’t supposed to feel like waiting for someone to leave. Love was supposed to feel like someone choosing to stay. And John Logan chose you every single day.
Hey girly! Would you be down to do a request for John Logan where reader is also an athlete at Briar (softball??) and him and the boys come to her game??
Line Drive
Pairing: John Logan x Reader
Word Count: 1014
Request open!
Off campus masterlist
John had seen you in a lot of settings.
At parties, where you were easy to find by the sound of your laugh. In the kitchen of the hockey house, usually stealing one of the guys’ fries while pretending not to. On the couch, half-asleep under a blanket with a book in your lap. But seeing you on a softball field was different.
You looked like you belonged there.
He knew that the second he and the guys walked up to the bleachers and found a spot halfway down the row. Garrett was already talking too loud, Tucker was trying to read the schedule on his phone, and Dean was making fun of the snack prices at the concession stand, but John barely heard any of them.
He was looking at you.
You were in Briar’s colors, hair pulled back, glove tucked under one arm while you stood near the dugout listening to your coach. Even from the stands, John could tell you were focused. Calm in that special way athletes got right before a game. He had seen that look on his own face enough times to recognize it.
Garrett followed his gaze and grinned. “There she is.”
John didn’t look away. “Yeah.”
Tucker nudged him. “You’re staring.”
“I know where she is.”
Dean laughed into his drink. “That’s not what he meant.”
John finally looked at them. “You all gonna be annoying the whole game?”
“Absolutely,” Garrett said.
John shook his head, but the corner of his mouth twitched anyway.
Down on the field, you glanced up toward the stands and spotted them. Your expression changed immediately, all surprise and then all warmth when you saw John. You lifted your hand in a small wave, and he answered with a quick one of his own.
Garrett made a sound like he was watching a rom-com unfold. “Oh, this is sickening.”
“Shut up,” John muttered, but he was smiling.
You turned back toward the field, and John settled in with the strange, focused kind of pride that only showed up when someone you loved was doing exactly what they were meant to do.
When the game started, he became even more aware of you.
The first inning went fast. Too fast. You were everywhere at once: calling for plays, shifting in the infield, talking to teammates in quick bursts. The first time the ball came your way, John sat up straighter without meaning to. You fielded it cleanly and threw to first with a sharp, confident motion.
Garrett immediately clapped like an idiot. “That’s my girl!”
John shot him a look. “No.”
Garrett grinned. “What?”
“She’s not your girl.”
Tucker nearly choked laughing.
Garrett leaned back smugly. “Okay, then.”
John shook his head, but he couldn’t stop watching you.
By the third inning, the guys were loud enough that people around them kept looking over. Dean kept making comments about your form. Tucker had become weirdly invested in the score. Garrett was offering absolutely useless commentary at all times. John, meanwhile, was mostly quiet except for the occasional muttered, “Good,” or “Nice catch,” whenever you did something worth noticing.
And you did something worth noticing a lot.
When you finally got up to bat, John went still.
You adjusted your grip, rolled your shoulders once, and stepped into the box with the kind of calm that made his chest feel oddly full. The pitcher wound up. The ball came fast. You swung and connected cleanly, the crack of the bat sharp enough that John felt it in his ribs.
The ball sailed.
The entire row of Briar guys erupted.
Dean was on his feet first. “Oh, that’s gone.”
Tucker was laughing. “That’s absolutely gone.”
Garrett cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Go, babe, go!”
John didn’t even glare at him this time because he was too busy watching you sprint down the line with a grin breaking across your face.
Home run.
The crowd got loud. Your teammates were cheering. You rounded the bases with your ponytail bouncing and your expression pure joy, and John found himself standing too.
He didn’t mean to.
He just did.
When you crossed home plate, someone slapped your helmet and you laughed, breathless and bright. Then you looked up toward the stands again, and this time your eyes found him immediately.
John didn’t bother trying to look casual.
He smiled right at you.
You smiled back, and for a second it felt like the whole field had gotten quieter.
Garrett noticed, because of course he did. “This is disgusting.”
John didn’t even look at him. “You’re still talking.”
After the game, you came off the field sweaty, flushed, and grinning like you’d been chasing that high all day. John was already waiting near the fence when you reached the side gate.
“You were loud,” you said, approaching him with a smile.
He gave you an innocent look that fooled no one. “Was I?”
“Very.”
Garrett called from behind him, “He was the worst of us.”
John finally looked back. “You were screaming too.”
Garrett pointed at him. “Because I was being supportive.”
You laughed and moved closer to John, and the second you did, his hand found your waist on instinct.
“You played really well,” he said.
Something soft flickered across your face. “You came.”
He looked mildly offended. “Of course I came.”
Dean made a noise behind him. “That sounded bad.”
John ignored him and looked only at you. “Wouldn’t miss it.”
That made your smile widen in a way that did something dangerous to his chest.
You shifted closer and lowered your voice. “Even with those three?”
John glanced over your shoulder at the guys, all of whom were pretending not to listen and failing miserably. “Especially with those three.”
You laughed, and John kissed your temple without hesitation.
Behind him, Garrett gagged dramatically. Tucker laughed. Dean shook his head like he’d known this would happen eventually.
John didn’t care.
He only cared that you were smiling, warm and happy and standing there in your uniform looking like the best kind of victory.
summary: angst/hurt comfort. logan finds you crying in the bathroom during a party. short fic. requested here and here!
Logan isn’t there when it happens, but he certainly hears the commotion around it through the grapevine. The whispers dancing around the party, spreading the news of a girl slapping a Sig Tau frat’s face after he tries (or rather, forces) a move on her, your name mixed within them.
He shares a brisky look with Tucker, who quickly mumbles something among the lines of “I’ll take care of it. Go.” before pushing him back inside the house. Logan runs through the crowd of people, eyes scanning every face, then up the stairs storming a bunch of rooms occupied by couples who definitely should’ve locked the door. He only finds you when he starts banging on the locked doors of the upstairs bathroom.
“Go away!” You yell from the other side.
“It’s just me.” He answers, loud enough for you to hear but never to scare you, “Would you open the door, please?”
There’s a beat of silence, then the sound of the lock turning.
Logan opens the door to find you sitting on the bathroom floor, hiding your face behind your hands. “I’m so embarrassed.” You say, voice muffled by your own palms, “I didn’t know he’d– I didn’t mean to–”
“Hey, no– You’re good. You did nothing wrong, ‘kay?” He cuts you off, crouching down to sit by your side on the floor, hand going for your shoulder in a comforting move, asking in a lower voice, “Wanna tell me what happened?”
You lift your head up, and Logan sees your tear-streaked face and wobbly underlip, feeling almost light-headed with the sudden flush of emotions. He feels ready to go out there and give a proper finish to the damage you’ve started on the guy’s face, yet, he knows that there’s no way in hell he’d ever leave you alone in those cold bathroom floor tiles — especially when he feels your hand curving around his upper arm, seeking his assurance.
“I was just grabbing a drink.” You say, voice cracking in such a way that makes his ribs hurt. “In the kitchen. Then this guy– I don’t know, I turn around and suddenly he’s too close, and– And he’s trying to push me against the wall, so I–”
You start growing antsy and take a moment to breathe, eyes closing. You drop your head into his shoulder, “I wasn’t thinking. I just had to get him away from me.”
“You did good.” Logan repeats himself, his arm tentatively going around your shoulders, careful not to startle you. You curl up against him, and he goes on saying, his low voice a litany of assurances, “You got him away, yeah? That’s what matters. You did great, honey.”
You breath in, staying still where your head lands on his shoulder, and Logan won’t dare to move either until you do. A knock on the door is the sole reason for your disturbance.
“Occupied.” Logan says, but the voice that comes out the other side is from Garrett.
“Everything okay there?”
“Fine.” You say, “Just– Yeah. We’re good.”
“Okay. Uh, the girls are waiting in the car. We’re, uh, ready to leave if you are.” His voice says.
Logan turns to face you, your eyes blinking slowly like you’ve just been pulled out of sleep. “You ready to go?” He murmurs.
You nod, “Yes, please.”
He lifts himself off the floor, offering you a hand.
When he opens the door, Garrett isn’t the only one on the other side. Dean and Tucker stand there, one on each side of him, all three standing like guards waiting for orders. Logan’s eyes fall down to their hands, and if you notice the redness around each their knuckles, you don’t mention it. None of them really say a word other than a quick “c’mon” and know that you understand it exactly as they mean to — as in “We got you too.”
It’s a quiet drive in the backseat of Garrett’s car.
There’s a silent agreement, reinforced by you saying that you don’t wanna go to your dorm, that everyone’s staying the night at the boy’s house, and Logan doesn’t care if he has to sleep on the couch, or rather force Garrett out of his own room so you can share the bed with Hannah, but he knows is that you’re not staying alone tonight.
You keep your head on Logan’s shoulder, hands intertwined with his. He closes his eyes, focusing solely on the softness of your fingers as he calms himself down. There’s a lot of emotions to unpack and possibly hard conversations to get through in the following days. Right now, all he cares about is keeping you safe by his side, fast asleep on the road home.
notes: quick psa, if you or anyone you know has ever been affected by sexual harrasment, please know that it's not your fault and finding support is always the best choice. thank you for reading <3
you were sprawled across logan’s bed, legs kicked up against the headboard, scrolling through your phone while he sat at his desk, half-heartedly pretending to study.
the conversation had drifted. like it always did with logan—from stupid shit your ex did to sex, and somehow landed on the one thing you’d never admitted to anyone.
“wait, wait, wait.” he spun around in his chair, textbook forgotten.
“you’re telling me you’ve never-”
“squirted? no.” you rolled your eyes, not looking up from your phone. “it’s fake, logan. porn shit. girls fake it for views.”
he was quiet for exactly two seconds. then his chair rolled against the floor.
“the fuck y’mean it’s fake?”
you finally glanced up. he was standing now, arms crossed, jaw tight like you’d just insulted his entire bloodline in one sentence.
“i mean…” you said slowly, “that i’ve come before. orgasms are real. but squirting? that whole gushing thing? no chance. my ex tried once, ended up practically elbow-deep, and nothing happened. so i’m pretty sure it’s a myth.”
john’s eye twitched. like proper twitched when you insult a man’s beliefs.
he walked over to the bed, grabbed your ankles, and yanked you flat before you could protest. your phone clattered onto the sheets.
“logan!” you squeak out in surprise, laughing softly.
“you’re telling me..” he said, voice low, “that some useless fuck tried to make you squirt, failed, and now you think it’s not real?”
“that’s...yeah, basically.”
he ran a hand through his hair, let out a breath, and then his gaze dropped to your hips like he was solving a fucking equation. “that’s offensive.”
“are you serious?” you snort, laughing at the look on his face.
“yeah! you’ve been walking around thinking your body can’t do something it absolutely can!” he climbed onto the bed, knees bracketing your hips, hands planted on either side of your head.
“and that i’m gonna have to be the one to prove you wrong.”
you should’ve laughed. should’ve shoved him off and called him an idiot.
instead, your thighs pressed together. “log-”
“shut up.” but he said it softly, thumb brushing your jaw. “you trust me?”
you nodded before you could think.
his mouth found yours, deep and soft, like he was tasting you for the first time. his tongue slid against yours, and his hand traveled down, down, past your stomach, fingers curling under the waistband of your shorts.
“these need to go.” he murmured against your lips.
you lifted your hips, let him peel them off along with your panties. the cool air hit you, and you shivered, suddenly hyperaware of how wet you already were.
logan looked down. let out a low whistle.
“fuck. you’re soaked. just from talkin’ about it?”
heat crawled up your neck. “shut up.”
he grinned, not fading even as he settled between your legs, broad shoulders forcing them apart. his thumb found your clit without even looking – calloused, rough, rubbing lazy circles that made your back arch.
“’m gonna show you exactly what your body can do,” he said, pressing a kiss to your inner thigh. “and you’re gonna feel so good you forget every single idiot who couldn’t get it right.”
“logan – i’m telling you, it’s not gonna-”
he shoved two fingers inside you without warning. no build-up. no teasing. just the sudden stretch, the curl of his knuckles against your walls. you gasped, back arching.
"feel fake?" he pumped once, twice, watching your face. "feel good?"
"..yeah."
he shoved two fingers inside you.
the words died in your throat. your walls clenched around him, slick and hot, and he curled his fingers just right, pressing up against that spongy spot that made your vision blur.
“that feel fake to you?” he pumped slowly, watching your face. “feel good?”
“..yeah” followed by a breathy sound.
“good.” he added a third finger, stretching you open. the stretch burned in the best way, and you gasped, grabbing his hair on instinct. “i got you. just breathe.”
he kept a steady rhythm – in, out, curl. his palm slapped against your clit with every stroke, wet sounds filling the room. your legs tried to close, but he pinned your thighs over his shoulders, holding you open.
“thaaat’s it. you’re so fucking tight, baby. taking my fingers so well.” he murmured softly, eyes fixated on the way your hole was moving around his fingers.
he pulled his fingers out, and before you could complain at the loss, he lowered his head. his tongue dragged through your folds, flat and wet, then his mouth closed over your clit. he sucked hard, fingers still inside you, curling against that spongy wall.
then he pulled back, dragged his tongue down, and spat directly onto your clit. you cried out, fingers twisting in his hair. he looked up at you then, chin glistening, smirk sharp.
"that got your attention."
his fingers resumed – fucking you fast now, three of them, while his mouth worked your clit in rough, sucking strokes. the pressure built like a dam about to break. your whole body trembled, legs shaking, hands fisting the sheets.
"i can't – i can't-"
"you can." his voice vibrated against your skin. "you're gonna squirt all over my hand, and i'm gonna watch you fall apart. c’mon."
he curled his fingers hard, hit that spot dead-on, and sucked your clit into his mouth at the same time.
your orgasm hit like a freight train. it gushed out of you – hot, uncontrollable, soaking his hand, your thighs, the sheets beneath. it kept coming, pulse after pulse, while you screamed into the crook of your arm. your whole body convulsed, vision white, ears ringing.
john didn't stop. he groaned against you, drinking it down, fingers still pumping you through it. when you finally collapsed, limp and trembling, he pulled back.
his palm was glistening. his chin and shirt were wet. he brought his fingers to his mouth, licked them clean, and grinned.
"still think it's fake?"
you couldn't even answer. just stared at the ceiling, chest heaving, thighs sticky and sore.
he leaned up finally, kissed your forehead, and whispered,
Series Summary: After Bucky cheats on you, you leave the Tower shattered, humiliated, and convinced that love has only ever made you smaller. Steve comes back from a mission to find you gone - and when he learns the truth, his loyalty is tested in ways he never expected.
Wordcount: 9.9k
Pairing: Steve Rogers x Female Reader (no use of y/n)
Warnings: tower fic, alternative mcu, slow burn, healing arc, hurt comfort, emotional hurt comfort, angst with comfort, infidelity angst, second chance at love, cheating / infidelity, emotional betrayal, toxic ex relationship, Bucky Barnes is OOC, forced kiss, non con elements (very light), boundary violation, sexual assault implications, emotional manipulation, jealousy and possessiveness, panic attacks / panic response, vomiting due to distress, STI scare / medical testing mention, violence / physical fight, blood mention, breakup grief, trauma recovery, found family, protective steve rogers, soft steve rogers, toxic bucky barnes, self-worth issues, mentions of emotionally abusive family dynamics, reader has a difficult childhood, happy ending, MDNI, some chapters will have smut or explicit intimacy
A/N: Beta read as always by Cassie. Also, again, some talks happen here, because communication is the key kids.
Important note about Bucky: Bucky is very OOC in this fic. I want to be very clear about that from the start: I know he is OOC, I know canon Bucky would not act like this, and I am not presenting this as my interpretation of canon Bucky Barnes.
This story uses him in a deliberately darker, more toxic role for the sake of the angst, conflict, and Reader’s healing arc. So please, before sending me an ask or leaving a comment to tell me that Bucky would never behave this way: I know. That is what this warning is for.
I will not be replying to complaints about Bucky being written OOC. You have been warned, and if this version of him is not something you want to read, please feel free to skip this fic.
Masterlist - Series Masterlist - Prev - Next
You found the pancake place almost by accident.
It sat on a corner just off a broader avenue, all bright windows and painted lettering and the kind of cheerful, aggressively comforting interior that seemed designed specifically for people who had made it through something unpleasant and now needed syrup about it. The sign outside promised all-day pancakes and custom toppings in a font too enthusiastic to be entirely trusted.
Steve parked anyway.
When he held the door open for you, the smell hit at once – butter, coffee, sugar, vanilla, bacon, warm batter on a grill. The place was busy without being crowded. Families with children. Two students sharing a tower of something pink and impractical. An older couple reading the paper over bottomless coffee. Music played low from ceiling speakers, something soft and harmless that asked nothing of anyone.
It was ridiculous.
It was exactly right.
A hostess led you both to a booth by the window. Sunlight fell in pale strips across the table, catching in the syrup bottles and the steel coffee pots. The menu was absurd. Page after page of pancake combinations with fruit, whipped cream, nuts, sauces, chocolate, caramel, powdered sugar, peanut butter, cream cheese drizzle, ice cream if one had fully abandoned restraint.
Steve looked at it for a moment, then at you.
You looked like someone trying very hard to behave like a person having breakfast after a clinic appointment, and not like someone whose mind was still stuck several hours behind the rest of the day.
Your eyes moved over the menu. Stopped. Moved again. Stopped for longer on nothing at all.
Steve knew that look.
You were not deciding what you wanted.
You were enduring the act of deciding.
When the waitress came by – kind eyes, tired smile, the sort of woman who called everyone honey without making it feel performative – Steve ordered first to spare you from having to think too long. Chocolate chips and banana slices. Coffee. Water.
Then she looked at you.
You glanced once more at the menu and said, “Just the plain stack. Maple syrup.”
No toppings. No whipped cream. No fruit. No indulgence. No decision beyond the most basic version available.
The waitress nodded as if there was nothing sad about that at all and left.
Steve poured you water from the sweating pitcher without asking. You took it, drank a little, and set the glass back down with too much care.
Outside the window, the city continued in its usual indifferent way. People crossed at the light. A car honked. A cyclist nearly got flattened by impatience and lived to complain about it. Cities never paused for private catastrophe. Steve had known that for a very long time, but today it seemed especially offensive.
He looked back at you.
You had gone quieter again since the clinic. Not shattered. Not actively panicking. Something else. Held. Folded inward. As if your mind had taken all the forms, the information, the blood draw, the doctor’s calm voice, the instructions about timelines and follow-up testing and notifications, and set them somewhere just behind your eyes where they could keep vibrating without yet becoming words.
Steve did not ask what you were thinking.
If you wanted to tell him, you would.
So when the pancakes came, he focused instead on practical things.
The plates were ridiculous.
His stack looked like a child’s fantasy breakfast – thick pancakes with melting chocolate chips between the layers and banana coins arranged over the top, butter sliding slowly into the heat of them. Yours were exactly what you ordered: plain, golden, a neat square of butter softening in the center, a small pitcher of maple syrup on the side.
For a second, Steve thought maybe the simple comfort of the smell alone would help.
It didn’t.
You cut into the top pancake and then… did nothing with it. You pushed the piece through syrup with the side of your fork. Then nudged it back. Then divided it into two smaller pieces as though the right geometry might make eating happen.
Steve watched for thirty quiet seconds.
Then another fifteen.
Then he said, “If you don’t start eating, I’m making you take half of mine.”
Your head came up.
There was nothing sharp in your expression. Only tired surprise, as if the threat itself required more energy to process than you had available.
“What?”
He cut into his pancakes as though discussing the weather. “Half. Minimum. And you’ll hate them because I got chocolate chips.”
You stared at him for another second. “That’s coercion.”
“That’s care.”
“You’re very bossy for someone who once wore a star on his chest and tap-danced for war bonds.”
Steve’s mouth twitched. “That feels like a cheap shot.”
“Accurate shot.”
“Eat.”
You made a face at him that lacked any real heat. Then you looked down at your plate again and still did not move.
So Steve did.
He reached across with his fork, stole two banana slices from his own stack, and dropped them onto the edge of your plate.
You looked up at him with an expression halfway between suspicion and confusion.
He shrugged one shoulder, the motion deliberately casual.
“It’s your favorite fruit.”
That stopped you.
Not dramatically. You did not tear up, did not smile, did not say anything immediate. But he saw the hit land. A small thing. Tiny, really. Two slices of banana on a breakfast plate. The kind of detail anyone might have forgotten. The kind of detail Steve remembered because he remembered things about you, because he had been paying attention long before anyone named what that attention was.
You looked back down at the plate.
Then, finally, you took a bite.
Just one at first.
Steve said nothing.
He only cut into his own pancakes and gave you the dignity of not watching too openly while relief moved quietly through him. A few seconds later, you took another bite. Then one with a piece of banana. Then another.
Little by little, the plate began to look touched by intention instead of avoidance.
Not much conversation passed between you after that, but it did not feel strained. You let him pour you more coffee even though you only drank half. He pushed the syrup nearer without comment when you ran low. Once, when your fork slowed and your gaze drifted out the window again, he tapped the edge of your plate lightly with his own and you rolled your eyes and took another bite just to prove you still could.
By the end, you had eaten more than half.
Not enough, in Steve’s private opinion, but enough to stop the hollow look from worsening. Enough that he did not actually have to force half his own breakfast onto your plate.
He considered that a victory.
The waitress brought the check and called you both sweetheart as if the word belonged to everyone. You reached for Tony’s card again before Steve could stop you.
“This is still self-care?” he asked.
Your mouth twitched faintly. “Recovery is expensive.”
He let it go.
Outside, the day had sharpened toward afternoon. The earlier softness was gone. The light had grown cleaner, less forgiving. Steve helped you onto the Harley and, once the helmets were on and the engine rumbled back to life beneath you, turned the bike toward the city.
There was no reason to stay.
The clinic would send the results by email when they came in. The doctors had made that clear. Some of them might take a day or two. Others longer. Follow-up might be needed depending on timing. There was nothing to do nearby except wait in the orbit of a medical building and let dread stretch itself thinner and meaner with every hour.
So you went back.
The ride into New York felt different than any of the others.
Not lighter. Not healed. But steadier.
You did not cry this time.
Steve noticed that almost immediately because he had become absurdly tuned to the language of your grip around his waist. Yesterday, and even earlier today, sorrow had announced itself in sudden tightening hands, in the trembling of your body against his back, in the quiet convulsions he felt more than heard.
Now your arms held him firmly and consistently. Your cheek rested once against his back, then your forehead. No tremors. No silent collapse. Only tiredness. Thought. Maybe even resolve, though he did not dare name it too soon.
The city rose gradually around you again – bridges, traffic, glass, brick, noise. The closer you got to Brooklyn, the more Steve felt something in himself resist the return. Not because he wanted to keep you on the road forever, though some part of him probably would have liked that. Because road delayed endings. Cities insisted on them.
When they reached the safehouse building, he killed the engine and helped you off the bike. You took off your helmet and shook out your hair, looking more awake than the day before, more composed than the morning, and also strangely farther away.
Steve knew that look too.
Thinking.
Deeply. Seriously. In the way people did when the adrenaline had burned off and the emotional facts of the last twenty-four hours had to be laid side by side to see what they amounted to.
He carried your bag upstairs without comment and stood just inside the apartment while you set the helmet down and closed the door behind you.
The place felt familiar now in a way it had not the first time. The couch. The table. The shattered old phone still bagged by the trash because Tony would probably want its remains later. Your water glass from before. The temporary shape of refuge.
Steve turned toward you, already knowing what he wanted to say before he found the words.
He wanted to stay.
Not in some sweeping, dramatic sense. Not to pressure you. Just… stay. Sit in the apartment with you. Make sure you ate again later. Be there when the first stretch of waiting started gnawing at you. Be close if the silence turned ugly.
The offer was already half-formed in him when you spoke first.
“Can you give me a few hours?”
He stopped.
You were standing with one hand still on the back of a chair, the other loosely at your side. Your expression was careful. Not shut down. Not rejecting him. Just serious.
“Three or four,” you said. “I need to think a little.”
The words landed with a small, clean ache.
Not because he took them badly. He didn’t.
Because he understood them at once.
Of course you did.
The last day and a half had been too much by any standard. Bucky’s betrayal. Leaving the Tower. Sam and Natasha and Tony orbiting the fallout. Steve showing up. Crying in his arms. Kissing him. The forest. The motel. Panic. The clinic. Breakfast. The road. None of it had happened with enough distance between one event and the next for reflection to catch up. You had mostly been surviving in motion.
Now, for the first time, you were asking for stillness on purpose.
Thinking time.
Not to escape him. To find yourself inside all of it.
Steve nodded immediately.
“Yeah,” he said. “Of course.”
Relief moved through your face – small, but unmistakable. Maybe because you had expected him to be disappointed. Maybe because asking for space always carried the risk of being heard as withdrawal. He hoped his answer spared you that.
“I’m not asking you to disappear,” you said after a second, as if you wanted to be sure he understood.
“I know.”
“I just…”
You looked away then, toward the window, toward the room, toward anything but him for a second.
“I need to hear my own head without…” You trailed off, then gave a tired little shrug. “Without everything else.”
Steve knew exactly what you meant.
Without the constant pressure of his presence.
Without the comfort that made not-thinking easier.
Without kisses clouding pain, or pain clouding want, or want clouding judgment.
Without him becoming the answer too quickly to a question you had not yet had time to ask properly.
“I know,” he repeated.
The silence that followed was gentle.
Not the sort that begged to be filled. Just an ending approaching.
Steve stepped closer then, slow enough that you could have stopped him if you wanted. You didn’t. You stayed where you were, watching him now with that same exhausted attentiveness you had worn all morning and half the night before. There were shadows under your eyes. Your mouth still looked slightly pink from syrup and coffee and all the things neither of you had named since the motel. You looked like someone who had survived something intimate and frightening and unfinished.
He had no idea what the right goodbye for that looked like.
So he chose honesty in the only form he trusted fully right then.
He kissed you.
Softly.
Not with the heat from the motel room. Not with the hunger from the forest. Just a gentle, quiet kiss meant to say the things words would only tangle: I understand. I’m not offended. I’m still here. Take the time.
Your lips softened under his immediately.
For one brief second, your hand came up to rest at his wrist. Not to hold him there. Just to touch.
Then he drew back.
Your eyes stayed closed a moment longer before opening.
“I’ll give you the hours,” he said.
You nodded.
“And then?”
He let out the smallest breath, almost a smile but not quite. “And then if you want me back here, I come back.”
You looked at him for a long second. Then you nodded again, slower this time.
“Okay.”
Steve picked up his helmet.
The walk back out of the apartment felt longer than it should have. At the door he looked back once and saw you standing exactly where he had left you, arms folded loosely now, thoughtful already, the room gathering around you in quiet layers.
He wanted to say one more thing.
Something wiser than call me if you need anything. Something less clumsy than don’t sit here alone with the worst version of your thoughts. Something that would keep the next four hours from swallowing you whole.
In the end, he only said, “Eat again later.”
That won him the faintest shadow of a smile.
“Bossy.”
“Yeah.”
The door closed behind him.
On the ride back to the Tower, Steve felt every mile.
Not because he feared what waited there. Though he did not exactly look forward to it either. The building still held Bucky, still held all the sharp edges of the last two days, still held the fallout Tony was no doubt digging through frame by frame. But that was not what sat heaviest in him.
What sat heaviest was absence.
The abrupt loss of your hands, your voice, the weight of you on the back of the bike, the small domestic rhythm that had started to form between the two of you in crisis and on the road and over pancakes and motel coffee. He had gotten used to your presence faster than was probably wise. Not in some naive way. Simply in the bodily sense. His day had started arranging itself around the fact of you being there.
Now, with the city moving around him and the Tower rising in the distance again, he felt the empty space of that arrangement.
By the time he reached the building, the sun had shifted westward enough to throw long reflections over the glass.
He parked.
Took off his helmet.
Stood for one second longer than necessary with one hand on the handlebar and the engine ticking softly under him as it cooled.
Then Steve headed back inside to the Tower, carrying clean fatigue, unresolved hope, and the quiet knowledge that somewhere in Brooklyn you were finally sitting alone with your own thoughts – and that when those thoughts reached their conclusion, for good or bad, they were going to lead back to him.
By the time the elevator started its smooth climb toward the common floor, Steve had gone over the next few hours in his head more times than he cared to admit.
The mirrored walls threw back a version of him he did not especially want to examine too closely – tired, still road-worn despite the shower and fresh clothes, mouth set harder than usual, thoughts clearly somewhere else. The Tower hummed around him in its usual sterile, expensive calm, and for one absurd second he wanted nothing more than to turn around, get back on the Harley, and go sit outside your safehouse door until your three or four hours were up.
He did not.
You had asked for space.
He would give it.
That did not mean he had to sit idle while the rest of the Tower remained full of people who could still hurt you by proximity alone.
The elevator chimed for the common floor.
Steve did not get out.
Instead, after one beat of stillness, he reached past the panel and pressed another button.
Down.
To the lab.
If anyone in this building had already thought three steps ahead on security, access, damage control, and whatever digital mess still remained attached to your name, it was Tony. Steve would have bet money on finding him exactly where Tony always went when anger got productive.
He was right.
The lab doors slid open to the familiar wash of blue light, music, mechanical noise, and organized chaos. Tony stood at the main console with two holographic screens split open in front of him, one full of security timelines and the other what looked like a systems access panel. Bruce was there too, perched on a stool near one of the side benches with a tablet in his hands and a look on his face so sober it seemed to have drained all color from the room.
Tony looked up first.
Steve did not waste time.
“Tony, you need to change her access. Make sure Bucky can’t get into her room.”
Tony stared at him for half a second, then rolled his eyes with all the energy of a man personally offended by being underestimated.
“Good morning to you too,” he said. “And I already did.”
Of course he had.
Steve almost would have been annoyed if the relief had not arrived first.
Bruce glanced up from the tablet and gave a single dark nod. “As of twenty minutes ago. Door code, biometric access, the whole thing. FRIDAY’ll flag it if he even tries.”
Steve let out a breath he had not noticed himself holding.
Bruce’s expression did not soften, exactly, but there was something quietly fierce in it that Steve recognized. Bruce liked you. Most people in the Tower did, but Bruce liked you in that more specific way reserved for the few who gave him patience without patronizing him. You listened when he talked. Really listened. Even when he disappeared into scientific jargon thick enough to drown half the room, you never interrupted just to hear yourself speak. You might not have understood every word, but you respected that the words mattered to him.
Bruce remembered things like that.
It showed now in the way he looked at Steve – not questioning why he had come straight here, not needing the explanation laid out.
Tony, meanwhile, had already gone back to stabbing at a screen with more force than the interface required.
“Also,” he said, “while you were out not sleeping at home – and no, I don’t want details, spare me the sepia romance – I found the name.”
Steve stopped.
Bruce looked up again too, though judging by his lack of surprise he had already heard.
For one second Steve simply stared at Tony.
“That was fast,” he said.
He sounded almost surprised. Almost. Mostly he sounded tired.
Tony gave him a flat look. “You continue to underestimate how efficient I become when I’m pissed off.”
Steve’s jaw tightened.
He had known Tony would find out. Had known it the second Tony started talking about footage and timestamps and refusing to do what Natasha had done. Still, knowing a thing in abstract and hearing that the answer now existed in the room were two very different experiences.
He took one step closer to the main console.
“Who?”
Tony turned one screen with a vicious flick of his fingers.
A still image came up – grainy security footage from a hallway Steve recognized only after a second. Side corridor off one of the lower residential levels. Not heavily trafficked. A woman, in profile, turning half toward Bucky in a way that left far too little room for innocence.
Tony did not dramatize it.
He did not need to.
“Denise.”
Steve felt the shock hit clean and hard.
He had expected many names before that one.
Not Denise.
“Jesus,” he said before he could stop himself.
Because Denise was not some random woman from another department. Not a stranger from a bar. Not a disposable piece of collateral drifting around the edges of Tower life.
She was someone you knew.
Someone you worked with.
Not one of your closest friends, maybe – not the way Natasha or Sam stood in your orbit – but close enough. Present enough. Trusted enough that her face belonged naturally in the same rooms as yours. Steve had seen the two of you together more than once over post-mission coffee, over tactical review, over those easy in-between conversations that happened when people spent enough time alongside one another to become part of each other’s everyday landscape.
He stared at the screen harder.
“She’s married.”
Tony’s mouth flattened. “Wasn’t aware adultery needed a second application form.”
Steve passed a hand over his mouth.
Not because Tony was wrong. Because the extra layer of it made the whole thing uglier in a fresh direction. This was not one betrayal. It was a network of them. Denise betraying her spouse. Bucky betraying you. Both of them doing it inside the same building, inside the same ecosystem of trust and routine and shared work.
And Denise knew you.
That fact lodged like a splinter under Steve’s ribs.
Bruce set the tablet down on the bench beside him. “How much contact do they still have professionally?”
Tony answered before Steve could. “Too much. Which is why I’ve already started mapping overlap in their schedules.”
Steve looked from the screen to Tony. “You can do that?”
Tony gave him another look.
“Rogers, I can disable a nation-state before lunch. Yes, I can compare two agents’ calendars.”
Bruce rose from the stool then, coming to stand nearer the console. “We should assume proximity alone is a problem now,” he said quietly. “Even if she doesn’t know yet. And when she does know…” He did not finish.
He did not have to.
Steve knew exactly how that sentence ended.
When she does know, she should not have to keep turning corners and finding either of them there.
Tony minimized the footage with a hard jab of two fingers. “I already sent myself a copy. Not because I intend to show it to her unless she asks. But because if anyone suddenly develops the urge to revise history, I’d like to remain difficult to gaslight.”
Steve almost said Denise did not seem the type.
Then he stopped himself.
What did that even mean anymore?
Who exactly seemed the type?
Bucky had not seemed the type either, if the last few days had proved anything. Or rather, Steve had built a version of Bucky in his head where certain kinds of ordinary cruelty simply did not fit, and life had taken visible pleasure in dismantling that assumption piece by piece.
He looked at the panel again, though the image was gone now.
“Does she know that we know?”
Tony snorted. “No. And I haven’t decided whether that’s mercy or tactical advantage.”
Bruce folded his arms. “Don’t turn this into a game.”
It came out offended, which meant he probably was at least a little, but the anger underneath it was real enough that Steve did not bother calling it out.
Steve straightened. “I’m going to Fury.”
That drew Tony’s eyes back to him.
“Yeah,” Tony said after a beat. “That’d be the grown-up move.”
Steve ignored the wording.
“We need the assignments changed,” he said. “Anything coming up where she’d be working with Denise or Bucky.”
Bruce nodded once at that, immediate agreement.
Tony’s mouth tightened again, but this time in approval. “I’ll send over the overlap I found.”
“Thanks.”
Tony waved a hand as if the word only irritated him. “Go. Before I decide to solve this in a way with more lasers.”
Steve turned and headed for the doors.
Behind him, Tony called, “And Rogers?”
He looked back.
Tony had already pulled another set of screens open, but his gaze when it lifted held a rare and ugly sincerity.
“She’s going to ask eventually.”
Steve knew who he meant.
Denise.
Not just who was it in the abstract, but specifically whether the answer had been kept from her too long by people trying to protect her from one more blow.
Steve nodded once. “I know.”
Then he left.
Fury’s office suite felt, as ever, like walking into the center of an oncoming storm that had chosen paperwork as its aesthetic.
Minimal. Controlled. Dark wood, glass, steel, the whole place set up to remind people that sentiment did not belong there unless it arrived disguised as operational necessity. Steve had always respected that about Fury right up until the moments he hated it.
Today, operational necessity happened to be on his side.
Natasha was already there when he entered.
Of course she was.
She stood off to one side of Fury’s desk with a tablet in one hand and one ankle crossed loosely over the other, but there was nothing loose in her expression. She glanced at Steve once as the door shut behind him, read his face in a second, and seemed unsurprised by whatever she found.
Fury did not bother with preamble.
“I heard.”
Steve believed that.
News of the break had clearly moved fast enough through whatever channels it needed to move through. Fury knowing about Bucky was no surprise. Fury knowing about your departure was no surprise either. A top-level Avenger-adjacent operative walking out of the Tower after a private implosion was exactly the kind of thing nobody in charge liked learning about late.
What surprised Steve slightly was that Fury did not ask for explanation.
Maybe Natasha had already provided enough.
Maybe Fury had taken one look at the relevant names on the schedule and jumped straight to logistics. That was more his style anyway.
Steve stepped up to the desk. “I need future missions reorganized.”
Fury lifted one brow. “You and everyone else.”
Natasha held up the tablet. “I already started.”
That got Steve’s attention.
She moved to the desk, swiped once, and turned the screen so he and Fury could both see. Several operations over the next three weeks had been marked up in red and yellow – team pairings, deployment windows, contingency notes.
“Anything involving her and Barnes is gone,” Natasha said. “Obviously. Anything involving her and Denise needs to go too.”
The name landed in the room without commentary.
Steve glanced at her.
Natasha met his eyes for one second and that was enough. She knew, because that what who she had seen with Bucky, that one time. There was no visible surprise in her now, only the colder, more refined fury of someone whose suspicions had hardened into fact.
Fury’s expression changed not at all. “Denise.”
Not a question.
Natasha nodded once.
For a brief moment, no one spoke.
Steve felt again the ugly shock of it. Denise. Married Denise. Friendly Denise. Familiar Denise. Someone who had stood in briefing rooms and debriefing rooms and near your shoulder often enough that the betrayal now seemed to spread backwards through memory, poisoning scenes that had once looked ordinary.
He forced himself back to the practical.
“Sam can cover some of the Barnes replacements,” he said. “I can cover the others.”
Natasha shook her head slightly. “Not all of them. Some of the European surveillance runs need a woman in place without changing the cover structure.”
Steve looked at the screen again.
She was right.
Fury leaned back in his chair, hands folded loosely over the desk in that way of his that meant he was already three decisions ahead and only letting the rest of them catch up out of courtesy. “Can you take any of hers?”
Natasha nodded. “Some. Not all, but enough.”
Steve looked at her. “You sure?”
One corner of her mouth moved in a humorless almost-smile. “Steve, if it keeps her from being stuck in a van with the woman who helped Barnes blow up her life, yes. I’m sure.”
That answered that.
Bruce would have volunteered too, Steve suspected, if the work had fit. Sam definitely would when told. Tony would probably have tried if anyone let him near field scheduling. The whole Tower had turned quietly, almost instinctively, toward shielding you from impact where it could.
Steve found that both comforting and infuriating.
Comforting because you had people.
Infuriating because you needed shielding at all.
Fury took the tablet from Natasha and scanned the marked assignments.
“This one,” he said, tapping a line item. “Barnes gets dropped entirely. Rogers, you take point.”
Steve nodded.
“This one– Wilson.”
Another nod.
Natasha pointed at a third. “I can take her slot there without compromising the cover. Denise keeps the original deployment.”
Fury considered for one second, then inclined his head.
So it went.
Not dramatic. Not emotional. Just the cold work of rearranging a future before it had the chance to do more damage. Steve respected that. There was relief in it, in a way. A problem he could help solve with concrete action, not just patience and comfort and promises in motel rooms.
Still, every new line they struck or reassigned carried its own reminder. This was how far Bucky’s choices had reached. Into schedules. Into op structures. Into who could stand beside whom in briefing rooms without the oxygen changing.
By the end, half a dozen missions had been altered.
Natasha volunteered wherever she could without overloading herself. Sam’s name went onto two substitutions. Steve took the rest of Barnes’s slots that he physically could. Denise’s pairings with you were erased. Future contact minimized. Containment, as much as such things could be contained.
When Fury finally set the tablet down, the plan was ugly but workable.
“Done,” he said.
Natasha exhaled once through her nose. “For now.”
Fury looked at Steve. “Where is she?”
Steve held his gaze.
He did not answer directly.
Fury’s eye narrowed slightly, then he gave the barest dismissive wave, as if to say fine, don’t tell me, I already expected that. “Keep it that way until she decides otherwise.”
Steve nodded.
That, more than anything, made it clear Fury understood the shape of this better than his manner suggested. Operational security was one thing. Respecting the fact that you had left to get out from under the weight of the Tower was another. He was doing both.
Natasha shifted beside the desk and asked, “How is she?”
Steve could have given the easy answer.
Tired. Shaken. Hanging on.
All true. None enough.
He thought of the forest. The motel. The clinic. The pancakes. The way you had asked for a few hours alone not because you wanted him gone, but because you needed to hear your own thoughts without his presence muddying them.
“She’s thinking,” he said at last.
Something flickered in Natasha’s face then. Understanding, maybe. Approval. Maybe both.
Fury only grunted.
The meeting ended with no ceremony. Natasha gathered the revised assignments. Fury began issuing follow-up instructions into his tablet before Steve had even fully stepped back from the desk. The machine moved on because that was what institutions did.
As Steve turned for the door, Natasha fell into step beside him.
They walked in silence until the office door shut behind them and the corridor muffled Fury’s world again.
Then Natasha said, very quietly, “Tony told you.”
Steve nodded.
“Denise.”
Again, not a question.
“Yeah.”
Natasha’s expression hardened by imperceptible degrees. “I should’ve said something when I saw them.”
Steve glanced at her.
There was no self-pity in the statement. Only clean anger turned briefly inward.
“You didn’t know enough then,” he said.
“I knew enough to dislike what I was looking at.”
“That’s not the same as knowing what to do with it.”
She did not answer right away.
Then she said, “She’s going to hate that it was Denise.”
Steve looked down the corridor toward the elevators.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I know.”
Because betrayal by a partner was one thing.
Betrayal by someone adjacent, someone familiar, someone near enough to your life that you could not dismiss her as anonymous – someone who had looked you in the face and carried on anyway – that was another wound entirely.
And sooner or later, that wound was coming too.
Steve only hoped that by the time it arrived, you would not be facing it alone.
When Steve finally made it back to his room, the silence inside it felt wrong.
Not empty. Wrong.
He closed the door behind him and did not move again for several seconds. He just stood there in the middle of the room with his hands hanging uselessly at his sides, his mind still full of too many overlapping things – the clinic, Natasha’s tablet, Fury’s cold practicality, Tony’s anger, Denise’s name, your face in the doorway of the safehouse when you asked him for three or four hours to think.
The room had all the usual pieces of itself. Bed made. Desk orderly in the way his spaces always tended to be. Duffle from the mission shoved half out of sight. Lamp off. Curtains open just enough to let in the late afternoon light. Nothing had changed in here.
And yet he could not shake the sense that he was standing in a place he had already, somehow, outgrown.
He dragged a hand down over his mouth and exhaled.
He should have used the time sensibly. Written the report. Checked in on the field summaries from the mission. Read the follow-up brief Tony had probably already sent to Fury. Done any one of the hundred practical things still waiting for him.
Instead he turned and went straight for the bathroom.
The second shower of the day was less about cleanliness this time and more about something closer to reset. The water ran hot. Steam gathered. He stood under it longer than he needed to, letting it beat against the back of his neck while the muscle there finally started to give.
His thoughts did not.
They kept circling back to you.
Not the dramatic moments first, though those were there too – the way panic had ripped through you in the motel room, the way you had shaken in his arms afterward, the softness of that last kiss before he left you at the safehouse. What stayed with him most in the shower were the smaller things. You eating the banana slices because he remembered they were your favorite. Your hand finding his in the clinic waiting room. The way your voice sounded when you asked for time, careful and serious and trying not to hurt him even then.
He tipped his head back under the water and shut his eyes.
Four hours, you had said.
Not forever. Not distance. Just time.
Enough to think.
Enough to sort through what the last day and a half meant when laid side by side instead of survived one blow at a time.
Steve respected that.
He also hated every second of not knowing what conclusion you might reach inside that time.
He shut the water off before the thought could go any farther.
Afterward, he dressed simply – clean shirt, jeans, something comfortable enough to sit in a safehouse for hours if that was what the evening became. Then, instead of returning to the bathroom mirror or the desk or the report waiting untouched, he went to the closet and pulled out a small overnight bag.
That decision came so naturally he barely registered making it.
He packed without overthinking.
A change of clothes.
A clean T-shirt.
A sweater in case the safehouse turned cold after dark.
Toothbrush, toothpaste, razor.
Phone charger.
A spare pair of socks because some habits from war never really left him, and being caught without clean socks still struck him as one of civilization’s more preventable failures.
He paused once with the bag open on the bed, looking down into it.
The sight might have embarrassed him under other circumstances. The quiet assumption built into it. That you would ask him to stay. That he wanted to be ready if you did. That he was planning around your possible need without waiting to be told the need existed.
It should have felt presumptuous.
Instead it felt practical.
And maybe that told him more than he wanted to know.
He zipped the bag shut and set it near the door.
Then, because four hours was still four hours and the mission week and the sleepless motel night were sitting heavily in his bones whether he acknowledged them or not, he crossed to the bed, lay down on top of the blanket, and set an alarm on his phone.
Two hours.
Enough to take the edge off.
Enough to keep him from showing up at your door looking like death and pretending he felt fine.
He closed his eyes.
Sleep took him faster than he expected.
Not gently. Not restfully. More like a switch thrown in a body that had reached the limit of pretending it was running on discipline alone. He dropped into it hard and came back out of it the same way when the alarm cut through the room two hours later, sharp and mechanical and immediately infuriating.
For one second he did not know where he was.
Then the room came back. The Tower. His bed. The bag by the door. The fact that he had promised to give you time and that enough of it had now passed to make his chest tighten all over again.
He sat up, scrubbed a hand over his face, and reached automatically for the phone to kill the alarm before it could sound a second time.
Two hours had not made him well rested.
But they had made him functional.
That would do.
He stood, stretched the worst of the stiffness out of his back and shoulders, grabbed the bag, and headed for the door.
The Tower had shifted into evening by then. Lights lower in the corridors. More doors shut. Fewer voices. The sort of lull between the end of official work and the beginning of whatever passed for private life in a building full of damaged overachievers.
Steve took the stairs partway down before cutting across toward the garage access where Stark kept the less theatrical cars.
The bag strap sat heavy over one shoulder.
He had almost reached the turnoff by the secondary elevator bank when Bucky stepped out from the corridor ahead.
Steve stopped.
So did Bucky.
For one ugly, stretched second, the whole hallway seemed to lock around them.
Bucky looked worse than he had upstairs in the wrecked bedroom, though in a different way now. Cleaned up, technically. Fresh shirt. Face washed. No blood on his hands anymore. But the damage had only gone inward. He looked hollowed out. Eyes shadowed. Mouth gone tight in that specific way that meant he had either not slept at all or slept badly enough it did not count.
Then Bucky’s gaze dropped to the bag.
Steve watched him see it.
Watched the understanding hit.
Not the full understanding, maybe. Not where Steve was going exactly. But enough. Enough to know Steve was leaving with more than keys in hand and no intention of being gone for only an hour.
Something changed in Bucky’s face.
Hope, maybe, for one stupid instant – hope that Steve had come to him, that this was movement toward some conversation he wanted, some mercy, some route back into the center of things.
Then that hope died almost immediately when Steve gave him nothing.
No greeting.
No explanation.
No acknowledgment at all.
He simply walked.
He went past Bucky as if Bucky were another piece of hallway architecture. Present, unavoidable, and entirely undeserving of special notice.
Bucky half turned as Steve drew even with him. Steve felt the movement more than saw it.
He did not slow down.
Not when Bucky’s breath caught as though he meant to speak.
Not when silence stretched long enough that one word from either of them might have changed the shape of the corridor.
Steve kept going.
He had no useful sentence for Bucky right now that would not either turn into violence or spend itself uselessly against a man already drowning in what he had done. And more than that, Steve refused to carry your hours of thinking back through Bucky’s orbit like some reportable event. Those hours belonged to you. Not to him. Not to Barnes.
So he said nothing.
The garage level felt colder than the floors above.
Rows of cars sat under clean white lighting, every one of them more expensive than Steve would ever have chosen for himself. Stark’s collection ran from absurd to ostentatious to almost reassuringly plain when one looked hard enough.
Steve chose one of the plain ones.
No roaring engine.
No aggressive lines.
No machine designed to announce itself three streets before arrival.
Just a dark sedan with decent suspension, good brakes, and the sort of presence that vanished easily into Brooklyn traffic.
He tossed the bag into the passenger seat, got behind the wheel, and drove out into the city.
Evening traffic had started building by then, but not badly enough to trap him. The streets moved in fits and starts under a sky already beginning to lose color at the edges. He drove with both hands steady on the wheel and the windows up against the cooling air, the city blurring by in storefronts, taillights, pedestrians, scaffolding, glass reflections, street vendors closing for the day.
Every few minutes, his mind flicked back to the safehouse.
To you alone in there.
Thinking.
Maybe pacing.
Maybe sitting on the couch with the new phone in your hand and Tony’s ridiculous credit card on the table beside you.
Maybe crying again.
Maybe not crying at all, which in some ways worried him more.
He did not rehearse what he would say when you opened the door.
There was no point.
If the last two days had taught him anything, it was that trying to script tenderness in advance usually ruined it. Better to show up honestly and meet what was there.
By the time he parked outside the building again, four hours had passed since he left you.
Precisely enough.
Steve cut the engine and sat for one second in the sudden quiet.
Then he got out, took the bag, and went upstairs to the safehouse, hoping – more than he cared to admit – that when you opened the door this time, you would let him in again.
When you opened the door this time, Steve knew before he even crossed the threshold that something had shifted.
Not vanished. Not healed. The safehouse still carried the quiet weight of everything that had happened there – the bottle rinsed and left upside down by the sink, the broken remains of your old phone bagged near the trash, the couch that had held your grief the night before. But the air felt different now. Less like a place where someone had been trying not to drown, more like a place where someone had started, however shakily, to reassemble herself out of the wreckage.
And underneath that, unmistakable, floated the smell of food.
Warm oil. Chili. Basil. Coconut milk. Something sweet and sharp and savory all at once.
Steve stepped inside and closed the door behind him. The overnight bag hung from one hand. You stood a few feet away in clean clothes again, hair half dry at the ends as though you had splashed water on your face and pushed it back while thinking, and there was more color in you now than there had been when he left. Not much. But enough that he noticed at once.
He glanced toward the kitchen counter.
“You cooked?”
You looked at him with such immediate offense that, under any other circumstances, he might actually have laughed.
“Are you out of your mind?” you asked. “You know I could probably set even water on fire.”
Something warm and almost disbelieving moved through him at the sound of that tone. Dry. Familiar. More you than some of the last day had allowed.
He set the bag down by the chair and lifted one brow. “That bad?”
“That bad,” you said gravely. “I went out and bought a few things and then passed a Thai place. I got… kind of everything.”
Steve let his gaze flick once toward the bag by the counter where takeout containers had been unpacked in varying degrees of order. Rice. Noodles. Little plastic tubs of sauce. A paper bag folded down at the top. Two sets of disposable chopsticks. You had arranged it all with the careful practicality of someone who did not want to stare directly at what she had been doing with her hands for the last few hours.
Then your eyes dropped to his overnight bag.
Steve felt that glance land.
You said nothing.
No question. No visible hesitation. No arch remark about optimism or presumption. You only looked at the bag for one brief second and then looked back up at him as if its presence made enough sense that it did not require discussion.
Relief moved through him so quietly he might have missed it if he had not been watching for every reaction you gave him now.
He took that silence for what it was.
Permission.
Or at least, not refusal.
So he crossed the room and joined you at the counter while you started opening containers with the kind of absent concentration people used when their hands needed occupation more than the task itself mattered.
There was a lot.
Pad thai. Red curry. Green curry. Basil chicken. Spring rolls. Fried rice. Some kind of noodle dish Steve did not recognize but that smelled aggressively good. A small clear tub of sliced chilies floating in vinegar. Another of crushed peanuts. A cardboard box with what looked like mango sticky rice.
He looked at the spread, then at you.
“You really did get everything.”
You gave one shoulder a small shrug. “I couldn’t decide.”
That was true in more ways than one, he suspected.
Still, the fact that your indecision had turned toward food and not inward destruction seemed like a win he was not going to argue with.
You both settled at the little table by the window. Steve took the chair opposite yours, the overnight bag still near enough that he could see it in the corner of his vision. The room had the look of evening about it now. The city outside was dimming by degrees, the window reflecting more of the apartment back inward with each passing minute. Lamps on. Takeout boxes open. The two of you facing each other in a safehouse that had stopped feeling entirely temporary.
He wanted to ask immediately.
What had you thought about.
Where had your mind gone in those four hours.
What did his returning mean to you now that you had asked for time and gotten it.
What, exactly, were the terms of whatever was unfolding between you besides hurt and comfort and too many kisses to still call accidental.
He wanted to ask all of it.
He did not.
He could feel how much care the moment still required. The wrong question too fast could turn the whole evening brittle again.
So instead he reached for the nearest container and said, “What did you go buy?”
You were in the middle of spooning rice onto your plate. You did not look up right away.
“Toothpaste,” you said. “And condoms.”
Steve choked.
Not dramatically enough to spill anything, but enough that a piece of rice and a startled breath went down wrong all at once. He coughed, reached blindly for his water, and heard – actually heard – the tiniest betrayed laugh escape you before you covered it by taking an entirely innocent-looking bite of noodles.
He stared at you over the rim of the glass while he swallowed and recovered what remained of his dignity.
You met that stare with an expression so deliberately mild it was practically criminal.
Then, because you were not remotely finished, you pushed the water bottle a little farther toward him with two fingers and said, “You should drink.”
Steve set the glass down slowly.
“Are you doing this on purpose?”
Your eyes widened just a fraction in a performance so unconvincing it would have offended him if it were not also fascinating.
“What, telling you what I bought?”
“Yes.”
You leaned back in your chair and crossed one ankle loosely over the other. There was a softness around your mouth now that had not been there when he arrived. Not quite a smile. Something more dangerous because it was trying not to be one.
“I thought honesty was important.”
Steve let out a breath that might have become a laugh if it were not tangled too tightly with the image your words had put in his head.
Condoms.
Bought by you.
Deliberately.
Not in panic. Not by accident. Not supplied by some clinic pamphlet or shoved across a counter in the abstract.
You had gone out, on purpose, and bought them.
The knowledge landed in him with a heat so immediate he had to look down at his plate for one second just to keep his face under control.
You saw enough anyway.
Of course you did.
When he looked back up, your expression had changed. Still edged with mischief, yes, but something more careful underneath it now. Watching him. Measuring what the reaction meant. Maybe how far it went.
Then you said, quieter this time, “Just in case you wanted to… try the beginning of last night again.”
The words entered the room and changed its temperature.
Steve went still.
He had spent the drive over here trying not to decide too much in advance about what your thinking time meant. He had told himself to meet whatever he found honestly. That was one thing in theory. It was another to sit across from you with curry steaming between you and hear you say that in a voice balanced on the edge between composure and invitation.
He set his chopsticks down.
Not because he was rejecting the food. Because suddenly his hands seemed too aware of themselves to do two things at once.
Your own composure wavered first, just a little. You looked down at your plate, then back up at him, and for the first time since he arrived he saw the vulnerability underneath the teasing. The possibility that this mattered enough to hurt if mishandled.
Steve spoke carefully.
“That what you spent four hours thinking about?”
Your mouth tightened at one corner. “Not only that.”
No, he thought. Of course not.
He believed that too.
Those four hours had not been some long lead-up to a joke and a box of condoms. He could see that plainly in the way you sat now – more grounded than before, more yourself, but also more deliberate. As if you had taken the last two days apart piece by piece and put some of them back down in a different order.
He waited.
When you went on, your voice had lost almost all of the humor.
“I thought about whether I was just grabbing onto the first good thing because I felt horrible.” You glanced at the takeout container in front of you as though the noodles might offer witness. “I thought about whether I was about to make a huge mess of you because I’m angry and sad and lonely and I don’t know how to be any of those things quietly.” A beat. “I thought about whether I’d hate myself tomorrow if I kissed you and tried to sleep with you again.”
Steve did not interrupt.
He barely breathed.
You looked up then, and the directness in your face nearly undid him.
“I don’t think I would.”
The silence that followed was not empty.
It thrummed.
Outside, a siren moved somewhere far off through Brooklyn. Inside, the refrigerator hummed. One of the takeout lids settled with a tiny plastic pop as it cooled. Small sounds. Meaningless sounds. And still Steve heard each one because of how sharply the rest of him had tuned to you.
He leaned back slightly in the chair, one hand coming up to rub once at the back of his neck.
“You make it really hard to stay calm when you say things like that.”
Some of the tension left your shoulders then. Not all. Enough.
“That’s not a no.”
Steve almost smiled.
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
You looked at him over the table with that same expression you had worn in the forest when you were not sure whether the question itself was too much to ask and decided to ask anyway.
“It’s not a yes either.”
“No,” he said again, more softly this time. “Because I need to know one more thing first.”
You waited.
Steve held your eyes.
“If we do this,” he said, “is it because you want me? Or because you want to stop thinking for a while?”
The question cost him something to ask.
Not because he feared the answer. Because he knew it might be both, and he did not know yet whether he could live with being used as relief if he already wanted so much more than that.
You were silent for a long moment.
Then you put your fork down too.
“It started as the second one,” you admitted. “Or maybe that’s all it was at first. Yesterday morning. In the forest.” You took a breath. “But that’s not all it is now.”
Steve’s pulse climbed.
You looked almost irritated by the honesty of your own next sentence. “I wanted you to come back.” A pause. “I wanted you specifically. Not just company. Not just someone kind. You.”
That landed somewhere deep and dangerous.
Steve felt his whole body register it.
You must have seen some part of that on his face, because your own expression changed in response – softening, but not into pity. More like relief at no longer being the only person in the room saying something difficult.
Then, perhaps because you had already crossed the hard part, you added with the driest ghost of a smile, “Also, I did in fact buy condoms.”
That made him laugh despite himself.
Not loudly. But helplessly enough that some of the tension broke.
You smiled properly then, small and quick and real.
The sight of it hit harder than the joke.
Steve exhaled once and reached for his water again, not because he needed it this time but because it bought him a second to get his thoughts into a line that would not do damage.
When he spoke, his voice had gone low.
“If we try anything again tonight, and you panic again, we stop.” His fingers tightened lightly around the bottle. “No apology. No shame. No making it about me.”
You nodded immediately. “Okay.”
“And if you change your mind in the middle, we stop.”
“Okay.”
“And if all you actually want is to eat Thai food, make me choke on my water, and sleep next to somebody who doesn’t make you feel unsafe–”
That got a tiny snort out of you.
“–then that’s enough too.”
You looked at him for a long second after that.
Then, very quietly, “You always leave me room to back out.”
Steve’s chest pulled tight.
“I’m trying to leave you room to choose.”
The words seemed to settle over both of you.
You looked down first this time, but not out of discomfort. More like you were letting the sentence live in you for a minute.
Then you reached for a spring roll and took a bite.
It was such an ordinary motion after everything that it nearly made him laugh again.
“Eat,” you said around it.
He blinked. “What?”
“You heard me.” A little more color had come into your face now, enough to support a proper look. “If we’re going to have emotionally loaded conversations about sex and choice and whatever else, you’re still going to eat your curry before it gets cold.”
Steve stared at you, then at the food, then back at you.
Something warm unfurled in his chest.
Not desire this time.
Something quieter. More dangerous, maybe, because of how deeply it reached.
Companionship. Ease. The beginning of a rhythm.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said.
You rolled your eyes. “Don’t call me that.”
He picked up his chopsticks again and obeyed.
Dinner resumed, though not quite as if the conversation had never happened. More as if it now sat there with you openly, another presence at the table, no longer needing to hide inside jokes or unfinished gestures. The tension remained, but it had changed flavor. Less brittle. More aware.
You both ate properly this time.
Steve let himself enjoy the food because it was genuinely excellent and because he knew you had bought far too much with the specific hope, perhaps unconscious at the time, that the evening might last. He watched you steal some of his basil chicken after pretending you did not want any. You watched him lose patience with the tiny plastic forks and switch to the chopsticks with quiet superiority. At one point he slid the container of mango sticky rice toward you without a word and you gave him a suspicious look before taking some anyway.
The safehouse windows gradually darkened into mirrors.
At some point your foot brushed his under the table and stayed there.
Neither of you mentioned it.
And through it all, he did not yet ask what your conclusion was in any grander sense.
He suspected he already knew enough for tonight.
You had let him back in.
You had not questioned the overnight bag.
You had bought condoms and admitted why.
You had told him you wanted him specifically.
Whatever else remained unresolved – and there was plenty – it was not a question for the dinner table anymore.
By the time the food had been reduced to scattered leftovers and half-folded cartons, the room felt warmer, softer, more lived in. The edge that had lived in Steve since the motel bathroom had not disappeared entirely, but it had loosened. You looked tired again, though not in the brittle way from before. More in the way people did after finally speaking the thing they had been turning over in private for hours.
Steve pushed his plate away and looked at you.
“So,” he said.
Your eyes lifted.
“So,” you echoed.
He did not smile this time, though the softness in his face might have counted as one from anyone else.
“Do you want me to stay?”
You held his gaze.
“Yes,” you said.
No teasing. No hedge. No irony.
Just yes.
And Steve, who had packed the overnight bag before sleeping because some part of him already knew, felt the answer settle through him like certainty finding its place.
in which it’s thanksgiving; the time for forgiveness.
pairing: john logan x f!reader
series summary: You and John Logan are childhood best friends. You share the kind of emotional intimacy only two people who have seen each other grow up can have, but now you’re no longer kids, you’re college students and trying to navigate the complex time between childhood and adulthood. Before joining John at Briar U a year after him, you were convinced your silly crush had faded, but now that you’re back in his orbit, you’re no longer so sure. You try your best to remain just friends, but watching him turn from the boy down the street to the big man on campus is harder than you thought. And you’re not sure how much more you can take of watching him overlook you time and time again.
contains: angst! friends to enemies (sort of) to lovers, no use of y/n (logan calls reader by nickname: birdie), yearning and pining, hurt/comfort, garrett graham being a shameless flirt, grace ivers being a sweetie pie
authors note: i’m having way too much fun writing this series :)) thank u guys so much for all your lovely words and feedback, i really appreciate it <3 i also just created a series playlist just for funzies, feel free to give that a listen for extra angst :p
series playlist!
You may have overestimated your cooking abilities.
In an attempt to distract yourself from the things and people back at Briar, you had committed to making the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, sweet potatoes, mac and cheese, and a homemade cranberry sauce.
Your mom was making pumpkin pie.
Your dad was just making a fuss.
Your usual Thanksgiving tradition was watching football on the couch and ordering take out. And normally, you liked that. This year however, you found that the last thing you wanted to do was sit around doing nothing while both of your sister’s enjoyed the company of their significant others.
You’d just gotten used to your brother in law crashing the family festivities. Now, your other sister was insisting on including her boyfriend as well.
The whole world was in love. How wonderful.
It was the night before and you were boiling cranberries over the stove while your mom mixed together the ingredients for her pie beside you. You had put both your sister’s to work behind you peeling potatoes. All the men were in living room watching TV like it was 1942. You were tempted to head in there to grab one or all of them by the ears to make them come in and help, but your dad had already made it quite clear that since it was your decision to go all out this Thanksgiving, it was entirely your responsibility.
He was grumpy now, but you knew come tomorrow he would be the one eating the most out of every dish.
“I don’t even like mashed potatoes,” your middle sister complains after breaking one of her nails on the vegetable peeler.
“Who doesn’t like mashed potatoes?” Your eldest sister questions validly.
“She does,” you confirm. “She just doesn’t want to help make them.”
“That’s not true,” she protests.
“Girls.” Your mother silences the kitchen in one word. “Could you stop bickering for two seconds?”
When she turns back around to the mixing bowl on the counter, the three of you turn to each other and make a face, coming together over a common enemy like you always do.
“That’s probably enough potatoes anyway,” you tell them and they both waste no time throwing the peelers on the table with a relieved sigh.
“No it’s not,” your mom remarks as her eyes scan the pile on the table. “Not with the Logans coming.”
The kitchen is silent once again for a few moments.
“I’m sorry. What?”
Your sisters look just as shocked as you, their mouths agape as they stare between you and your mom.
“The Logans. I invited them for dinner. I’m sure I told you.”
“Uhm…no. You didn’t. I would have remembered.” Your cranberry sauce is completely forgotten on the stove as you turn to give your traitorous mother your full attention.
“Well, it’s not a problem, is it? We’ll have plenty of food,” your mom reasons.
“That isn’t the issue.”
“Yeah, John, like, totally fucked Birdie over.”
“Language,” she scolds.
“Jules can come,” one of your sister’s supplies unhelpfully.
“Girls.” Your mom drops the spoon in the mixing bowl with a loud clang and turns around to face all three of you. “Their mom is in rehab. Again. And I will not allow them—any of them—to spend Thanksgiving alone, okay?”
Once again, the kitchen is quiet, save for the faint sound of a sports announcer over the TV in the living room.
Your shoulders sag. “Fine.” You turn back to the stove where the bright red liquid is bubbling rapidly. You take the pan off the heat quickly, but as you stir you realize the cranberries are burnt and stuck to the bottom of the pan. You angrily throw the pot into the sink and hurry up to your room to escape the knowing eyes of your family.
You lay on your bed for about an hour with your headphones on before your phone chimes on your stomach. When you check it, you find a text from Garrett.
「 ✦ Garrett Graham ✦ 」
‘How’s cooking going?’
「 ✦ You ✦ 」
‘Logan is coming.’
The call comes instantly.
“I know,” is the first thing he says.
“What do you mean, ‘you know?’” You sit up in your bed.
“He told me.”
“When?”
“Earlier today.”
“And you didn’t think to warn me?”
“I thought you knew.”
You did not. And had you known…
Well, you weren’t sure what you would have done. As much as you would like to, you wouldn’t have told him not to come. You of all people knew very well about his mom’s history with addiction.
“I’m surprised he’s coming here. I’m sure Grace’s family does something for Thanksgiving.” Your tone is bitter despite trying your hardest not to be. Garrett chuckles at it.
“There’s no way he’s told her about his mom.” He sounds so sure.
“I don’t know, Gar. They’ve grown pretty close.”
After the Maxwell-Di Laurentis party last month, you and your roommate drove back to Briar in total silence. It wasn’t until two days later that she finally spoke to you, apologies flowing from her mouth.
“I’m so sorry. I had no idea you guys knew each other, if I had I would have never—“
“Grace,” you made sure to cut her off. “You did nothing wrong. How could you have known?”
You had both assumed the other was mad, scared to talk to each other and cause an uncomfortable fight that would likely end with one person having to move out. You had momentarily forgotten how similar you and Grace were.
You were back to normal by the end of the weekend.
Then came Friday.
You and Garrett had paired up for a group assignment in your Psychology class earlier that week and had been staying late in the library together almost every night. It was surprisingly fun. Never would you have imagined you would get along with Garrett Graham of all people, but he was a lot more than what his reputation was around campus. You think it helped too that there was a clear line drawn in the sand between you.
You had come back from your study ‘date’ ravenous and craving ramen made from your dorm microwave when you found Grace perched on her bed there just waiting. You knew something was off the second you stepped inside.
“Are you…expecting someone else?” You check behind you before closing the door and slinging your backpack off your shoulder and into your desk chair.
“No. I just wanted to talk with you.”
“Okay…” you trailed off nervously, walking towards your mini kitchen in search of some Top Ramen. “You look like you have bad news.”
“No, not really.” She sounds unsure. “Logan came to see me.”
You had just opened the top of the plastic cup when she said it, placing it down shortly after, your appetite suddenly gone.
“Okay,” you reply calmly, turning to face her.
“He wanted to apologize for last weekend. He told me what happened between the two of you.”
Surprise jolts through you. “He did?”
“Yeah. And he told me he was gonna lay off, he shouldn’t have reacted that way towards you.”
“Lay off?” You parrot. “Lay off what?”
“You and Garrett,” she supplies simply. “He said when he saw the two of you, he just reacted poorly, knowing how Garrett usually is with women. He was overprotective.”
“Overprotective?” Your mimicry is hollow. “Like a brother?”
“Yeah.” Though you aren’t looking at her, just zoning out on the rug at your feet, you see her lean towards you to look closer out of your peripheral. “Is that…not true?” Her voice sounds suddenly worried, like she hopes with all her heart that it is true. You knew the feeling. A little too well.
“No, yeah,” you laugh woodenly, trying to brush off the entire conversation. “He’s…yeah. Just like a brother.”
You turn back around suddenly to fill up your ramen cup with water and stick it in the microwave.
“Well…would you be uncomfortable then if we started hanging out again?”
“Hmm?” You ask, though you heard her perfectly fine. Your hands are trembling as you search the drawer for a pair of wooden chop sticks.
“I totally get it if you’d rather I didn’t. I just…I really like him, you know? And I think…he really likes me.”
You can feel the sting of tears in your eyes, blinking fast to try and make them disappear. The count down on the microwave makes one minute feel like one hour.
“No, that’s—that’s totally fine. You guys do whatever you want.”
When your ramen is finally done, you quickly take it out and stick your chopsticks in it before making your way to the door. “I’m gonna…go eat this outside.”
You sit on a bench in the quad just staring out at nothing while the steam from your cup unfurls into the air in front of you. It isn’t until the contents have gone completely cold that you realize you never even put the seasoning packet in, leaving just noodles and water. You toss it into the trash can before making your way back inside.
Grace and John were at least considerate enough not to come around your shared room, though she was gone a lot more frequently than before. You had most nights to yourself, sat on your bed watching various movies and making sad playlists on your phone.
Garrett let you wallow in your self pity for about a week and then he cut you off.
“Alright, enough of the pity party. I’m getting you laid,” he declared far too loud for being inside of a library.
“Shh!” You leaned across the table to cover his mouth with your hands, feeling him smile beneath your palms. Then, he licked them like he was seven years old. “Ew!”
“I can’t be silenced.”
“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” you complained even though you were smiling.
“C’mon, let me set you up on a date.”
“I don’t trust you nearly enough to let you do that.” You try to focus back on your project pulled up on your laptop in front of you, but he shuts it and leaves his hand on top so you can’t open it again.
“No hockey players,” he begins negotiating to try and convince you to let him matchmake.
You consider. “No athletes, period,” you add. He pauses like he’s thinking about it.
“Fine.”
“And no one from the hockey house,” you revise quickly.
“Please,” he scoffs. “Dean would just want to nail you—“
“Nail me?”
“—And Tucker’s too good for you.”
“Hey,” you fake offense over your laughter, though he’s probably right.
And he does make good on his promise, but that doesn’t mean the date goes well.
“No athletes meant no former athletes either, Graham,” you inform him angrily at your next study session together after your agreement. The guy spent almost your entire date talking about how he ‘could have gone pro if only he hadn’t torn his ACL.’ Then he open mouth kissed you when he walked you to your car at the end of the night. You’re not even sure if you said a word to him after, you just remembered ducking into your driver’s seat and riding home in complete silence.
“Always read the fine print, feathers.”
He’d started calling you that after the party. When you questioned him about it, he told you it was because you let people ruffle your feathers too much. He was probably right, but you weren’t going to tell him that.
“Don’t call me that,” you tell him for what might be the twentieth time.
His eyes snap up to something behind you, making you turn to look as well and find a very happy looking John and Grace as they stroll into the library hand-in-hand. You quickly turn to face forward again, trying hard not to seem too affected.
Garrett raises an eyebrow at you. “You’re trying to tell me that didn’t just ruffle your feathers?”
“Shut up,” you mutter, turning your focus back to your project.
That was the last time you saw John. Happy. Unbothered. Dating your roommate.
You collapse back onto your bed with a huff, your phone still pressed to your ear.
“Tell me how to get through tomorrow, Garrett,” you request.
He’s of no help.
-
The next day, you wake up feeling much better. You don a sweater like armor, your eyeliner and mascara like war paint. You’re determined to not let John Logan get to you.
You greet your family cheerfully when you come downstairs, their eyes following you with hesitation and curiosity as they sit at the breakfast table. You waste no time getting to work on the food.
You put the turkey in the oven first with the stuffing inside, setting multiple timers so you can remember to baste it periodically. You get started on cranberry sauce number two and then begin grating the cheese for the macaroni.
You knew it was your choice to make a big dinner, but it stung that no one offered to help you. Your sisters just stood in the kitchen with glasses of wine and watched you cook, talking about their partners while they sit just in the other room.
You were shaving carrots with more zealous than needed when you took a chunk out of your thumb and cut off their conversation with a loud curse.
“Are you okay?” One of them shrieks. You cradle your bleeding hand and grab at some paper towels to press to the cut.
“I’m fine.” The paper towel fills quickly, the cut deeper than you first thought and your sisters notice as well.
“Good lord, Birdie. Let me see.”
“I said I’m fine,” you snap, the sound of your sudden outburst loud in the quiet kitchen. “God, I’m so fucking tired of only hearing about the men in your life! Why can’t we talk about literally anything else? What about you? What about me? I’m here, too!”
When the adrenaline fizzles out and you watch the both of them stare at you wide eyed, you suddenly shrink with embarrassment, turning around to head towards the bathroom and muttering something about needing a bandaid.
When you come back out, bandaged up and with more than just your pride wounded, you find your sisters finally helping out. You take the opportunity for a small break and pour yourself a much needed glass of water. It’s short-lived, however when you notice one of them mashing the potatoes instead of using the ricer you had bought.
“No, you’re doing it wrong.” You take over, not surprised when the both of them leave again to let you take control over the kitchen by yourself.
It was another hour before the Logan’s showed up. You heard them before you saw them, staying tucked away in the kitchen with the excuse of being busy cooking away. You overheard your sister’s introducing their partners to them and then your dad greeting John joyfully and with a hug that included a very loud clap on the back.
Jules was the first to come whirling into the kitchen.
“Birdie!” Their arms wrapped around you from behind and you turned to hug them properly. “I brought marshmallows for the sweet potato casserole,” they informed you, thrusting the bag at your chest.
“Thank you, these are perfect.” You had already bought a bag yourself, but the thought was kind, and honestly you liked the idea of having some extra to snack on while you cooked since you hadn’t eaten anything yet today.
“I told them you probably already had some,” a familiar voice sounded from the doorway. You looked up while Jules turned around to glare at their brother.
“Mom always said to never come empty handed.”
John’s face hardened at the mention of their mother, and before he could respond, you cut in with, “well, I’m glad you did. You can never have too many marshmallows.”
Jules turned back looking triumphant and stuck their tongue out at their brother as they walked past him back out into the living room to join everyone else.
The two of you were locked in a staring contest for a few seconds, what transpired the last time the two of you were alone hanging heavy in the air.
“Can I help with anything?” He asks softly, wringing out his hands in front of him. You can’t help but acknowledge how good he looks. Carhartt jacket loose on his shoulders, a chain dangling over his broad chest that stretched a black t-shirt. His jeans just a little loose and cuffed at the bottom to show off his Timberland boots. He looked straight out of a Levi’s magazine.
“Nope,” you croaked, clearing your throat. “No. Go enjoy yourself. Beer’s in the fridge.” You motioned towards it, though he already knew where it was located, and then turned back to the stove. You heard nothing for a moment and then the shuffling of his shoes across the hardwood and the clinking of your silverware drawer being opened.
You glanced over at him. “What are you doing?” You questioned.
“I’ll go set the table.” He left with a handful of utensils and plates balancing on his palm. You stared after him for a moment, watching him delicately place everything around the dining room table in the next room over without ever being asked.
You blew out a breath, trying to focus back on the food, but knowing he was just a few feet away was quite distracting.
Forty-five minutes later, you were ready. Everything was steaming hot and looked delicious. Everyone was seated around the table that John had kindly set, and the only thing missing was the turkey.
You carried the golden brown bird out on a decorative plate to carve it at the table, the fine china beginning to burn your hands with how hot the meat still was. You were making your way carefully toward the table when your brother in-law scooted out from his seat suddenly to grab something for your sister and bumped into you.
You stumbled, hit the wall, and then dumped the very hot turkey onto yourself, the juices pouring over your left arm. You yelped and threw the plate and food off of you, but it just landed on your legs as you collapsed to the floor.
John was suddenly in front of you, wiping your arms and legs to get rid of any remnants, and you realized then that everyone had gone completely silent. The both of you looked up at everyone still sitting at the table.
“Why am I the only one helping her?” It was maybe the angriest you had ever heard him be, the entirety of the room jumping into action like they were waiting for command. “C’mon, sweetheart.” He helped lift you up off the floor, murmuring his apologies when you winced or whimpered. When you couldn’t move without cringing, he carefully swept you off your feet and carried you out of the dining room.
“There’s a first aid kit in the upstairs bathroom,” your mom murmured, John merely nodding before carrying you upstairs. Your skin stung too badly for you to protest.
He set you on your feet and turned around to run the water in the shower. “We have to run cold water over your burns,” he explained gently. You nodded, staring off at nothing, numb and overly sensitive all at the same time. You didn’t even realize you were crying until you felt his thumbs brushing your tears away from under your eyes.
You sighed at the feeling of the cold water on your forearms and shins as you sat on the edge of the tub, the hem of your satin skirt getting wet, but it was already stained from the broth and oil of the turkey, anyway. John rummaged through the cabinets behind you while you washed off, searching for the antiseptic.
You felt his hand on your shoulder after a few minutes, silently instructing you to turn around. You reluctantly turned off the cold water and turned to face him, watching him delicately dry off your red, irritated skin.
He gently applied the ointment, apologizing when you hissed from his calloused fingers rubbing it in.
“I can do it,” you told him weakly. He looked up at you momentarily before continuing to rub the product in, moving from one arm to the other, then your legs. He carefully took your ankle into his hand to prop your foot on his knee before beginning on your shins, your breaths coming quicker with each pass of his touch.
When he was finished, he set your feet back down onto the cool tile with such delicacy, it was as if you were made of porcelain. You swallowed thickly at the look he had on his face.
“I need to get changed.” You stood, hiding your wince this time to walk past him and out toward your bedroom. You carefully removed your sweater and skirt and replaced them with your softest pair of sweatpants and the lightest cotton t-shirt. You weren’t even hungry anymore, really all you wanted was to go to sleep.
You heard a gentle knock on your door after a few minutes, your hoarse voice directing them to come in.
John opened your door and leaned against the frame as he took you in sitting on your bed across from him.
“Just wanted to make sure you survived.”
You chuckled weakly. “I think I can handle dressing myself.”
He hummed like he was unsure. “I don’t know. I think you should milk this injury. Make everyone wait on you hand and foot.”
When you chuckled and shook your head, he took the opportunity while your guard was down to walk further inside and inspect your space. He took in the posters you had on your wall, some old and some new. He glanced at the pictures and the knick-knacks you had collected and displayed in various places.
He was shaking a snow globe you had gotten from Washington DC to make the glitter scatter when he said, “I feel like I haven’t been in here in ages.”
“Because you haven’t.” You brought your knees up to your chest and slowly wrapped your arms around them, careful not to touch any of your burns.
“Couldn’t have been that long.” He placed the souvenir back on your shelf and you watched the glitter wink at you before settling back in the bottom.
“Are we gonna talk about it?” You asked quietly.
He calmly walked over to you and sat on the edge of your bed, close enough to touch you, but he’d have to reach out to do it. A safe distance. “Talk about what?”
“The weirdness between us.”
Before the kiss you two shared over a year ago, you felt like you had just come to terms with the status of you and John’s relationship. You were friends, you couldn’t be more, and you could live with that. But then he kissed you and called you his and then he left. And ever since it’s like a dam broke between the two of you and there was an infinite amount of mud in the water. No matter what you did, you couldn’t seem to get back to the way you once were.
“What’s there to say? I fucked everything up.”
“You didn’t fuck everything up,” you disagree.
“Yes I did. I should have never let myself—“ he cuts himself off.
“Never let yourself what?” You hedge.
He sighs. “I shouldn’t have kissed you. I shouldn’t have crossed that line and made everything different between us.” You had a feeling that wasn’t what he was about to say, but you let him say it anyway.
“Then why did you?” You used to think that the old explanation he had given you was true, that it was only because he had recently broken up with his girlfriend; that he was lonely and you just happened to be there. Now you’re wondering if there was another reason.
He stares at you, tracing over your features. You wonder if he’s deciding whether or not to tell you the truth.
“One way or another, I ruin things. Even beautiful things. It’s inevitable.”
You knew he truly believed that. The thought made you incredibly sad. You likened yourself then to a porcelain doll, John’s porcelain doll, one that lost all value once taken out of its packaging. You wondered how far things would have to go to loose all value. You wondered how damaged he had already made you.
“Then maybe we should pretend like it never happened,” you suggest, already hating the words as they come out of your mouth.
His eyes look hopeful as he stares at you. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, let’s go back to the way things were before. Just friends. Nothing else.” You weren’t positive it was what you really wanted, but it felt less painful than this strange in between, and you knew it was probably what was best for the both of you. You had been able to swallow your feelings for him before, you could do it again.
“Do you…can you do that?”
“Can you?” You turn it back on him. He was already dating your roommate. You honestly hoped for her sake he could.
“Yeah.” He nodded.
You extended your arm towards him and lifted your pinky finger, an amused smirk stretching his lips at your childish attempt at a promise. When he lifted his to wrap around yours you pulled back.
“Friends means no more weird, overprotective brother shit,” you demand. “No more being weird about who I spend my time with.”
“Deal,” he agrees after a second, though his smile is gone. You lock pinkies and shake on it.
It’s then that Garrett Graham decides to call you, your phone vibrating on the bed between you and souring the moment immediately.
“I, uh…” he stands, his eyes still on your phone screen. “I should…go call Grace anyway. Wish her a happy thanksgiving.”
And after he leaves, you wonder how long this truce between you will last. You wonder whether or not you really want it to.
I think you would eat up a who did this to you trope with Azriel 😛😛
(Photos courtesy of Pinterest)
Summary: "Who did this to you!?"
Authors Note: Lowkey this may be one of my favourite tropes...
Training in the Illyrian camps had always been brutal.
You knew that long before you decided to train.
Bruises were common. Bloody lips happened. Even Cassian had once shrugged at a dislocated shoulder like it was a mild inconvenience.
But this?
This was different.
The male across from you circled slowly, wooden training sword spinning lazily in his hand while several others watched from the sidelines. The afternoon sun beat harshly against the training ring, sweat sticking your leathers to your skin.
“You’re distracted,” the Illyrian sneered.
You tightened your grip on your blade. “I’m fine.”
He smirked.
Then he struck.
Hard.
The force of the blow rattled down your arm painfully enough to numb your fingers. Before you could fully readjust your stance, he swept your legs out from under you which you tried to clumsily recover from.
Pain exploded across your cheekbone as the hilt of his weapon clipped your face hard enough to send you finally sprawling.
The world tilted sickeningly.
You hit the dirt hard.
A few males laughed nearby.
Humiliation burned hotter than the sting of your cheek.
“Get up,” he barked.
You did.
Again and again, he came at you too aggressively for a sparring match. Every strike was meant to hurt. To embarrass. To prove something.
And when you managed to land a decent hit to his ribs—
His temper snapped.
The next shove sent you crashing directly into one of the wooden posts surrounding the ring. The male hit you hard enough that your vision blurred.
You stumbled backward as his hand grasped the front of your leathers, boots skidding across the dirt as he dragged you away forcefully into the middle of the ring, before slamming shoulder-first into the ground once again.
Something cracked painfully along your ribs.
Pain exploded across your side and a sharp gasp escaped you before you could stop it.
The training ring went quiet for half a second.
The male looked almost satisfied.
“You’re weak,” he spat.
You swallowed hard against the pain radiating through your ribs. “I said I’m fine.”
But your voice sounded strained even to your own ears.
He eventually grew bored and wandered away.
You ignored the looks from the others as you left the ring, forcing your breathing steady while your side screamed with every step. You didn’t want pity. Didn’t want a scene.
You especially didn’t want Azriel finding out.
Unfortunately for you, the universe seemed personally committed to ruining that plan.
You had barely made it beyond the training courtyard when shadows curled around your ankles.
Your heart dropped.
Azriel stepped from the shadows directly in front of you.
He took one look at your face and froze.
His eyes took everything in.
Your split lip. The darkening bruise across your cheekbone. The rip in your leathers exposing bloodied skin beneath. The way you were holding your side like breathing itself hurt.
The world seemed to go silent around him.
Even his shadows stilled.
“Who did this to you?”
The words were terrifyingly calm.
You immediately straightened despite the pain. “Az, it looks worse than it is—”
“Who.”
You had heard him interrogate enemies with more warmth than that single word.
You swallowed hard. “It was training.”
Azriel’s gaze dropped to the blood soaking through your side.
Then to the trembling hand you were unsuccessfully trying to hide behind your back.
His jaw flexed once.
“Training,” he repeated softly.
The shadows around him began writhing violently.
You stepped forward quickly before he could vanish. “I’m alright.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I’ve had worse.”
“That does not comfort me.”
His voice cracked slightly on the last word and suddenly the anger on his face looked dangerously close to panic.
Azriel moved toward you slowly then, like he was holding himself together by sheer force. His scarred hands hovered near your waist, hesitant—as though he was afraid touching you would hurt.
“Let me see.”
You winced as he carefully moved your arm from your ribs.
Blood stained his fingers instantly.
He went utterly still.
The kind of stillness that meant something terrible was about to happen.
You knew it immediately.
“Azriel,” you said carefully.
His hazel eyes lifted to yours.
Cold. Lethal.
“Who,” he repeated quietly, “hurt you?”
You hesitated for half a second too long, your eyes instinctively flickering over to the male in question.
That was all he needed.
His shadows surged violently around him as understanding settled across his face.
You grabbed his wrist immediately. “Please don’t kill him.”
His gaze snapped back to yours, and somehow that terrified you more because his expression remained perfectly calm.
“I need you to go inside.”
You blinked. “What?”
Rhysand’s mother’s old house sat just beyond the camp, warm light glowing faintly through the windows.
"Go inside."
"Not unless you come with me."
He didn't say anything for a moment, but eventually he nodded his head sharply.
You heaved a sigh of relief, as much as your ribs allowed you anyway.
Azriel guided you towards the house carefully, one hand firm against your back while shadows circled restlessly around both of you.
“Azriel, I'm fine—”
“You’re hurt. You can barely stand.”
That shut you up because unfortunately he was correct.
Pain stabbed sharply through your ribs with every breath now, your head spinning unpleasantly from whatever damage had been done to your face.
Azriel opened the door and guided you inside with startling gentleness compared to the fury radiating from him.
The moment the door shut behind you in your room, he turned toward the small wash basin, grabbing a cloth to press carefully against the blood at your side.
His hands shook, so slightly that anyone else may have missed it.
But not you.
That scared you more than the injuries.
“Azriel…”
His eyes flicked upward.
You softened immediately at the sheer rage and fear warring there.
“I’m okay,” you whispered.
Something painful crossed his face.
“No,” he said quietly. “You aren’t.”
He cleaned the blood from your cheek with impossible care, but every new bruise he uncovered only darkened his expression further.
When he touched your ribs, you inhaled sharply.
Azriel closed his eyes.
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
Then he stood.
You immediately grabbed his hand. “Don’t.”
His fingers curled tightly around yours for one brief second.
“You know I can’t let this go.”
“He was just a bit rough, that’s all—”
“He enjoyed it.”
Silence.
Because again—he was right.
Azriel crouched in front of you then, both hands cupping your face carefully despite the blood still staining your skin.
“You are not supposed to look like this after training,” he said softly.
The fury in his voice made tears sting unexpectedly behind your eyes.
You leaned into his touch instantly. “Please don’t kill him.”
A shadow of dark amusement crossed his face.
“I’m going to try not to kill him.”
“Azriel.”
His thumb brushed gently beneath your swollen cheekbone.
“I’m simply going to remind him,” he said softly, “that if he ever touches you like that again, training or not, they’ll never find enough of him left to bury.”
You stared at him.
He stared calmly back.
Oh, he meant business.
“Azriel—”
He leaned forward, kissing your forehead tenderly before you could continue arguing.
“Stay here.”
And before you could stop him, darkness swallowed him whole.
You groaned softly, dropping your head back against the chair. “Mother save that male.”
It was nearly an hour before shadows finally stirred near the fireplace again.
Azriel stepped from them silently.
Your head snapped up from where you’d been anxiously waiting wrapped in blankets.
He looked entirely uninjured.
Calm.
Too calm.
You narrowed your eyes immediately. “Did you kill him?”
Azriel paused mid-step like he genuinely needed to consider the question.
“No.”
Suspicion flooded you instantly. “Azriel.”
His mouth twitched faintly.
“I didn't kill him.”
“I don't believe you.”
A soft huff of laughter escaped him then as he crossed the room toward you.
The tension in your chest eased immediately despite yourself.
He was alive. He was safe. Most importantly, he was here.
Azriel crouched beside your chair, hands settling carefully around your waist as though checking you were still real.
“I merely reminded that filth,” he said mildly, “that training with you does not grant him permission to brutalise you.”
You squinted. “Define reminded.”
A pause.
“He will struggle to sit comfortably for a few days.”
“Azriel.”
“And perhaps his hand is broken.”
You stared at him in shock.
Azriel looked entirely unrepentant.
“He shouldn’t have touched you.”
The possessive fury beneath the quiet words made your stomach flip.
You sighed tiredly. “You’re terrifying.”
His expression softened instantly. “Not to you though, right?"
You smiled gently at him, brushing some stray hairs tenderly from his forehead. "Of course not."
The rest of the tension in his shoulders eased slightly.
His hands slid carefully up your arms, pulling you gently into his lap despite your quiet protest about your ribs.
Azriel ignored you completely.
He tucked your head beneath his chin, wings curling protectively around both of you while his shadows settled at last.
Safe.
You felt his lips brush softly against your hair.
“No one hurts you,” he murmured quietly, “and walks away unchanged.”
