rinaa

Is it the delusion!? |⋆. 20.⋆|

[onetwolove]

Finally 65 degrees again

[kithtaehyung]

mami (m) | rapline | masterlist

series: mami (m) pairing: myg x reader(f) , knj x reader(f) , jhs x reader(f)😛 genre/rating: m (18+) ; smut ; battle rap au, roommates au summary: there are three guys in your life, in various degrees. one is your roommate, one is your favorite battle rapper and admittedly your favorite hookup, and another is someone you just started seeing. and all of them are about to mean a whole lot more to you than you bargained for. warnings: stated in each installment. minors dni. mlist: created 2025/10/10 ; updated 2025/10/10 total wc: 12.5k status: ongoing

🩷 parts 🩷

⇥ mami: pt.1 smut ; 3.7k ⇥ mami: triptych smut ; 8.8k ⇥ ??? ??? ; ???

taglist: sign up here (i check every entry so read the rules!) feedback form: submit here (for silent readers/bloggers!)  main masterlist: here

[onetwolove]

...😁shout out to that one comment on tiktok that rejuvenated my soul to be on this app

[d2dayyoongi]

OFF THE RECORD — TEASER

summary 𓂃⋆.˚ You weren’t looking for anything. Not between deadlines, late nights at the studio, and helping your best friend plan her wedding. Min Yoongi definitely wasn’t either. But somewhere between shared silences, quiet understanding, an unbothered cat and a energetic puppy… something begins to shift.

pairing 𓂃⋆.˚ producer!yoongi x a&r coordinator!reader

word count 𓂃⋆.˚ tbd (she’s growing… rapidly 😭)

tags 𓂃⋆.˚ non-idol au, coworkers to lovers, slow burn, strangers to something more, soft tension, mutual pining (eventually), slice of life, studio setting, pet meet-cute, tang the cat, sori the puppy, yoongi is quiet but not immune, reader is stressed and trying her best, found comfort, a little angst, a lot of softness

notes 𓂃⋆.˚ my first yoongi fic 🥹 this one started as a tiny idea and has now spiraled into something much bigger than i expected. i just wanted soft moments, quiet tension, and a meet-cute involving a very unimpressed cat and an overexcited puppy… and here we are.

teaser for now — full fic coming soon ♡

Your keys jiggled in the lock as you pushed your front door open, arms slightly weighed down with grocery bags. You had stopped by the store on your way back, remembering last minute that you were completely out of ramen… and more importantly, Sori’s kibble.

Speaking of—

The second the door cracked open, the familiar sound of tiny paws skidding against the floor echoed down the hallway.

“Sori—”

Too late.

The small bundle of energy came bounding toward you at full speed, nails clicking against the hardwood as she practically launched herself at your legs. She bounced up on her hind legs, tail wagging so fast it looked like it might fall off, soft golden curls bouncing with every movement.

You let out a quiet laugh, nudging the door shut behind you with your foot before carefully lowering the grocery bags to the ground.

“Okay, okay—hi, I missed you too,” you murmured, crouching slightly as she circled you in excitement.

Her paws pressed against your knee, nose nudging at your hands like she was making sure you were real.

Your smile softened as you looked down at her.

Sori.

Your foster puppy.

You had taken her in a few weeks ago, a “temporary placement,” the shelter had said. Just until they found her a forever home.

But weeks had passed.

And there had been no calls. No updates. No families asking about her.

Your fingers stilled slightly in her fur as the thought crossed your mind again, quieter this time, heavier.

How could anyone not want you?

Sori, completely unaware of your thoughts, simply leaned into your touch, tail still wagging like she had no care in the world.

You exhaled softly, brushing your thumb over her head before she suddenly darted toward the grocery bags again, curiosity pulling her away just as quickly as she had come.

You shook your head, a small smile returning.

“Unbelievable,” you muttered, reaching to pull the bag away from her before she could dig her nose in.

Sori only huffed in protest, tail still wagging as she trotted after you while you unpacked your groceries, circling your feet like a tiny, fluffy shadow.

By the time you finally clipped Sori’s leash onto her collar, the sky outside had already begun to dim.

“Sorry, baby,” you murmured, glancing down at her as she bounced impatiently by the door. “We’re late today.”

You usually took her out earlier, when the sun was still high and the park was busier, filled with people and other dogs. But today had run longer than expected. One of the new A&R assistants had misplaced an important demo, sending half the office into a quiet spiral until it was eventually found… in the wrong studio folder.

You had stayed back to help fix the mess.

Now, you were paying the price.

Sori, however, didn’t seem to mind in the slightest.

The moment you stepped outside, she was already tugging lightly at the leash, eager and full of energy as the cool evening air wrapped around you. The streets were calmer now, the usual daytime noise softened into something quieter, more relaxed.

By the time you reached the park, the sun was beginning its slow descent, painting the sky in soft hues of orange and pink.

You took a deep breath as you walked in, shoulders easing almost instantly.

This was your favourite part of the day.

Sori led you along the familiar path, stopping every few steps to sniff something new, completely fascinated by the world in a way only puppies could be. You let her take her time, your grip on the leash loose, your mind finally beginning to quiet after the long day.

When she eventually settled on a patch of grass, you paused, glancing around absentmindedly as you waited.

That’s when you saw it.

A black cat.

On a leash.

You blinked once, then again, just to make sure you weren’t imagining it.

The cat sat calmly near one of the benches, tail flicking lazily behind it, completely unbothered by its surroundings.

On a leash.

A small laugh slipped past your lips before you could stop it, the sound soft and disbelieving.

“Okay…” you muttered under your breath, a smile tugging at your mouth. “That’s new.”

Your eyes lingered for a moment longer, amused by the sight, before your attention was pulled back down by Sori, who proudly finished her business like she had just accomplished something monumental.

“Good girl,” you murmured, reaching down to reward her, the image of the cat still lingering faintly in your mind as you continued your walk.

You didn’t think much of it.

[onetwolove]

And if I told yall i had this exact dream ff in my head the other dayyy

Idk like something about yoongi being studio and working with him.....delusion of my early army days are coming backk

[onetwolove]

Genuinely miss being on here but like mamas is lowk fighting for her fucking lifee😃

[letmebeurbaby]

.・゜✭ STRINGS ATTACHED - finale

STRINGS STILL ATTACHED

.・✭ pairing ~ singer!ellie x composer!reader

.・✭ synopsis ~ music is all around, in the way it resounds in your laugh pressed against her lips again, in the way your fingers move around keys and hers around frets and strings. in the way it blasts through speakers of an arena filled with lights, the kind of you've only ever attended as part of the crowd, never on backstage, let alone on stage. yet, you're there. because the strings are still attached, because the promise you and ellie made to each other is stronger than ever: stadium lights and no place in the world to hide. not your music. not the two of you standing together again.

.・✭ word count ~ 8.3k

.・✭ content warnings ~ swearing, SMUT, oral sex and fingering (e!receiving), sub!ellie (shocker), top!reader, fluff, music, music, music, jackie's brief come back, huge reference to one specific chapter (five), not much else that i can think of tbh lol, afab!reader, men and minors dni.

ellie's album <3

★··· previous chapter → series masterlist → main masterlist ···★

You don’t even realize your hands leaving the handle of your suitcase, but just feel them warming up and the dampness that wets them the moment they land on Ellie’s cheeks.

It’s the same one you find slowly falling from your eyes, trailing down a path that ends up in a drop at your chin that quickly becomes two, then three and then countless more.

But what’s different in their saltiness – as some of them linger in the little space between each time your lips touch Ellie’s – is that they don’t taste like regret, or yearning, but they taste the same as the feeling of coming home would.

Because they’re laced with laughter, tiny hiccups that don’t seem to stop, with your forehead pressed against her because any inch of space that could create between your body seems unbearable just by the mere thought of it possibly existing.

“Hi,” you murmur between one kiss and the other, voice hoarse. “Hi, baby.”

Ellie lets out a choked out laugh. “Hey,” She says low, not even hiding the way her voice is shaking. “Oh my god, hi.”

She pulls back slightly  just enough to look at you in the eyes, to brush the tears from underneath them before they fall.

“You’re here,” she swallows hard, forcing her voice to come out.. “You’re really here. I’m not– hallucinating or some shit like that, right?”

You shake your head, blinking a few times before closing the space again and closing your eyes again, your forehead pressing against hers.

“I’m here.” you answer. “For real.”

You hear her exhaling, feel her shoulder sagging like she’s finally letting go of something – maybe the weight of waiting, maybe the fact that all she did until now lead her to this moment, to your lips grazing hers, to your hands on her skin and to the sound of your laugh ringing in her ears.

“I was listening to the tracks,” Ellie whispers. “Jesus Christ, when– when? Why? Like– fuck, peach I–”

You cut her off with another kiss, harder this time, with your hands drifting down to her sides and fisting her shirt only to pull her closer.

“We can talk later,” you start. “Right now… I just want to feel ya.”

And Ellie – with her breath still stuck in her throat and her hands shaking, seemingly unable to part from your cheeks – just stares at you for a beat like her head hasn’t still caught with the fact that you’re standing right in front of her and that your hands are merely a layer of fabric away from her skin.

It doesn’t last long though, because after that millisecond during which her eyes searched yours she nods and lets out a brittle, “Okay. Fuck, okay, please.”

So you smile again, turn your head over your shoulder only to grab the suitcase inside the threshold and close the door behind you with your foot.

You don’t even wait for her to speak again, just crash your lips against her all over again, like that’s the only thing keeping you alive, the only thing keeping the air inside your lungs, kicking off your shoes, not even looking where they land as you walk her backwards.

Clothes fall away faster than the both of you’ve ever shed them before, as if they’re in the way of the path that will allow you to crawl back into something safe and not suspended into the ifs and the shoulds and anything that might resemble regret.

It’s messy, rushed, breathless. You fumble with her shirt like your hands don’t work, like your brain is wired to one thought and one thought alone: I need to feel her again. So when her shirt catches on her elbow you don’t even wait – you just yank it, clumsily, your breath hitching as her skin hits yours again.

You don’t even remember landing on her couch, or climbing into her lap, just the heat of her thigh pressed between your legs, just the way it flexes when your hips start rolling on instinct and memory alone and how her hands grip them. Not guiding, just anchoring herself to you.

“F-fuck,” Ellie stammers, head thrown back against the couch cushions behind her. “I missed you, I missed you so much.”

You hum as your lips keep trailing a path down the column of her throat, tongue warm and wet when you reach the swell of her tits. “I missed ya too,” you mumble back. “So much, Els.”

But you’re not stopping, not when the only thing that’s keeping you from floating is the way your hands skim down her sides, her skin flushed against your palms, the way your mouth is now at her stomach and – slowly, so slowly it feels like time has been suspended just for the two of you to live in this moment forever – you’re coming down from her legs just to sink your knees into the floor like it’s instinct, like it’s worship.

When you look up – fingers hooked at the hem of her boxers – Ellie’s already looking at you: cheeks flushed, lips only slightly parted, her breathing already ragged while she places one hand at your cheek and grips the cushion next to her thigh with the other. And you swear your chest actually caves in.

“Lift your hips for me?” You ask, voice brittle.

And she does, immediately, like the thought of hesitating is something foreign to her, one that – when it comes to you, like this – has never even occurred to her. Ever.

So you slide the fabric down her thighs, letting pool at her feet before placing your lips on her knee, inching slowly closer, and closer and closer, trailing kisses until your breath ends up warm and hitched hitting her clit.

The sound she lets out – this fragile, feeble moan – it’s something you pretended to have forgotten but that had been so etched in the back of your brain since the first time you heard it in the coldness of an apartment with drafts and cracked tiles.

Except now – as her hand tugs your hair and her hips buck against your mouth almost imperceptibly – the air isn’t freezing anymore, the floor isn’t the same one you used to walk barefoot on during Sunday mornings to make pancakes.

Yet, somehow this feels better.

This feels like the pieces clicking into place together again but as if those same pieces have been renewed, healed, nurtured.

“I love you, Ellie.” You whisper, your eyes closed.

And without wasting any second more, your mouth is on her, gentle yet somehow eager at the same time, tongue lapping at her folds like you’ve missed every single moan and whimper that her lips are letting out, every twitch of her hips and every tug at your hair.

“Peach,” she moans. “Fuck, I love you. I love you so much.”

You keep going – even harder now – lips closing around her clit and sucking, your arms wrapped around her legs and keeping them open while your eyes keep staying on hers, watching every time her brows pull together and every wave of her chest as it heaves.

“Doin’ so good for me,” you pant, pulling back for air. “Don’t hold back, please.”

And Ellie – at that – can only nod and gasp as your mouth dives back in and your fingers leave her thigh to slowly push inside her cunt, one, then two, curling just right like your body remembers exactly where to press, where to drag. Like you’ve never stopped loving every single inch of her soul.

Fact is, you didn’t. Despite everything, you didn’t.

Her voice breaks open, raw and pleading while her thighs twitch around your head. “Fuck, fuck!” Ellie whimpers. “Don’t– don’t stop, please, fuck!”

So you don’t, you just keep thrusting your fingers inside her harder, keep sucking her clit and let her thighs – twitching and quivering – clamp at your ears while you feel her walls clenching around your fingers, a flutter, then two and then more as her voice breaks on a moan of your name as she comes.

A sound that – more than release – sounds like every fractured part of her is finally fitting back into place. Like all the tension, the waiting, the fear is breaking apart into something soft.

And you stay right there, eyes on hers, breathing her in, heart humming the same melody as hers, slowing down only to let her ride the high, but your hands never leave her skin. They smooth down her thighs, soothe, graze like you never forgot the shape of her underneath them.

Because you didn’t.

Because you never did.

“C’mere,” Ellie pants.

So you smile – soft, a bit shaking – and ease your fingers out carefully, like you’re touching something fragile again as you lift yourself up again, so slowly it actually feels like your feet are not even touching the ground.

The kiss you give her then as you lean down is something much less hurried, much less frantic – as though you can finally sink into the warmth, as though you’ve just proved yourself there is no reason to rush, no reason why this is just some fever dream and you’re actually still in Austin with your hand on the other side of the mattress where she used to sleep when you used to go visit together.

It’s gentle in a way that it carries love in every single touch, just as the way Ellie’s hands feel when they come to the back of your thighs and stands from the couch to pick you up, your legs wrapping around her waist immediately, so do your arms when they loop at her neck.

“I love you,” you whisper between kisses. “Love you, love you.”

You say it over and over like you’re trying to make up for all the times you wished she heard it but didn’t. And Ellie smiles, never pulling back, just lets herself soak into something she didn’t know she was allowed to have again: your weight in her arms while her bare feet pad across floors you’ve never walked on before towards a bed that’s going to finally have your scent lingering in the sheets.

And – for the first time in almost three years – that same scent isn’t going to be something her brain made up just to keep her heart beating.

Now, it’s everywhere.

In her bed when she lays you down there, on her lips when she kisses your shoulders as she peels off your shirt and keeps them pressed to every single inch of your skin like she’s imprinting the way it tastes on her way down.

It’s in the way your breath mingles with hers with every whimper, every moan, every time your back arches when she presses deeper, when she whispers I-love-yous like those are the only words she’s ever known to tell you.

Everything now that surrounds her is you.

Scent, voice, touch, feeling.

Just you.

You, as you come with her name on your lips. You, as you catch your breath when she wraps her arms around your waist and keeps your head close to her heart. You, while falling asleep with her hand stroking your hair and you both hold each other as no one ever left that apartment two years ago.

It’s the tracing of Ellie’s fingertips along your bare spine that wakes you up the next day. A gentle way of touching, one that feels like she needs to make sure you’re still there, warming the side of her bed she’s spent too much time just pretending that was filled by the shape of your body.

You flutter your eyes open with a hum, the sound low in your throat, a bit raspy.

“That feels nice,” you mumble, still half-asleep and followed by a soft chuckle as you turn to face her. “Mornin’.”

Ellie’s lips twitch upwards, something that could be a smile if she wasn’t so busy memorising the way your lashes kiss your cheeks when you blink, the way your own lips curve and how you’re inching closer so your nose can graze hers.

“Morning,” she whispers back eventually. “You slept good?”

You hum in response, burrowing your face into her neck, your hands at her shoulder blades. “Best sleep I had in… years probably.” You kiss her neck, lazy, unhurried. “So you can stop lookin’ at me like I’mma disappear.”

She lets out a strangled laugh, just the tiniest bit high-pitched. “What? I’m not.” She protests. “You just look pretty, that’s all.”

You snort, pulling back ever so slightly. “Uh-huh,” you say, one brow raised. “Then why are your nails literally digging into my hip?”

Ellie looks down, blinks a few times at her hand as if she’s just realized actually how hard she was holding onto you, only to bring one up, covering her eyes and the way her cheeks flare up as a groan escapes her.

“Sorry,” she mumbles. “I just–”

“Hey,” you cut in, voice gentle as you guide her hand back where it was. "S’okay. I just wanted to say that I’m here, babe. ”

She exhales deeply, a sharp breath that hits your cheeks and that still sounds like she’s trying to reconcile in her head that you’re warm, here, in her bed and not through a screen anymore or just a shape she’s making up because of how much she’s been longing for this moment.

“Yeah,” she agrees. “You’re here.”

A beat passes. Just enough time for her body to actually relax, to let it melt against yours, to feel the tension in her muscles slowly slipping away. And god, does that feel like coming back to a place where everything goes quiet, where nothing hurts.

“So,” Ellie says eventually. “Austin made you come back with an accent or something?”

You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling. “Yeah, yeah. Go on, make fun of me.”

“No, it’s actually– I like it. Feels yours.”

Everything softens, the curve of your lips, the way your hands are tracing absent-minded shapes on her bare back, the way you nose her cheek. “I guess it kinda is,” you murmur. Then, after a beat: “But that ain’t what you wanna talk about.”

Ellie laughs, just above a whisper. “I forgot how much you know me,” she says low, almost to herself. “I guess I wanna talk about the album? Like– fuck, peach, when did you even do that? I cried like a fucking baby on the floor for hours.”

You giggle, shrug just a little. “I mean, mission accomplished then,” you tease, but then your expression melts into something more thoughtful.

“I started when I asked you to send me the whole thing.” you add. “I think it was my way to tell you I love ya? And also… I regretted every single day not knowin’ what you meant to tell me back then. So I guess I wanted to know.”

Ellie blink at you, almost stunned. “You didn’t have to. Not after how hard I fucked up.”

“You did fuck up,” you admit, but not bitter. Not anymore. “But we both suffered enough for that.”

It’s like you both feel it at the same time, the weight those words carry. How they speak about every single day you spent apart: one wishing to reverse time, one pretending it never happened in the first place because admitting that hurt more than living in a world where the other’s existence never took place. How they speak about every single word that’s been unsaid and that you’ve poured into words and strings and melodies just to tell them without saying them. How they’ve been etched into phone calls and faces on a screen.

Let’s just let us be us again, because those strings that have brought you together almost seven years ago are the same that led you down the path to your hearts beating at the same time under the same covers again.

And it’s in that liminal space where you’re still wrapped around one another that those words finally take shape: the regrets, the longing despite the resentment that was once there but that has left to make space for forgiveness. But mostly? How every single second of both your lives has been carved around music in the form of a letter.

Letters that are now being opened and read aloud: the movies you meticulously chose to work on in order for them to be something you knew she would’ve watched, how you made sure none of them would end up in a dark corner of a theatre filled by only a handful of people, instead on those big screen events everyone talks about for months. Because that was the only way you had to reach her even when your mind was telling you it was out of spite.

How every song in Ellie’s album was just a different way of saying I’m sorry and none of them wasn't about you. Because – in her own words – Cut my Hair was when she sat in the backyard of Dina’s house, letting her hold the scissors at the nape of her neck while she was trying to forget the way you used to play with the strands of it when it used to be longer.

Viciously lonely – that was about all the times she stared at her phone on the nightstand that used to belong to you before finally deciding to pack her bags too because it wasn’t ringing anymore after a single text you didn’t even send yourself and only because it was Dina who literally came to drag her out of there.

Ivy – about all the times she searched for the shape of your body in every other single girl that occupied what once used to be your side of the bed, of all the times she couldn’t bear to keep her eyes open, because seeing a different face underneath her, a different skin warming her palms was something that made her feel, in her own words, that at that point she was better off to the head with the gun.

To regret – of all the time that she felt lost in the process of regretting everything she had done, of the nights she spent watching videos of the two of you, the most random ones, and how that same regret is the only thing that kept her from losing you entirely, because had she let go of that? That meant you had gone for good.

And – finally – Policy. The same song that didn’t even sound like hers when you had first listened to it months ago. The same song that made you fall asleep with your cheeks tear-streaked, the one that was so raw that made you want to crawl out of your skin. Because that song… is the one – more than any other – that truly speaks about what it had been for Ellie being apart for two years straight. The weight of her choice. The burden that brought. 

One that made you feel like bleeding out all over again.

A song about what it meant signing that contract, all the things a single signature took from her.

About having to lose everything before even trying to get it back again.

And during the whole time while listening to her talk about the meaning behind every sung and recorded word – her voice trembling, caught somewhere between her heart and her throat – you can’t seem to be able to not let the flood behind your eyes from streaming. Not that you even want to.

You just let it run down your cheeks, you just wipe Ellie’s own tears when they fall, let her do the same.

When she speaks again, her voice is still hoarse. “But none of those really mean anything. Not anymore.” She breathes, you just hold her tighter. “I– couldn’t record for the longest time. Always felt like music missed something. At least until you sent me the tracks back. It missed you.”

You burrow your head at her neck again, kiss the skin there like it’s the only way you have to make her feel that she won’t ever have to feel again like her songs miss something. Because there won’t be another day when she’ll have to miss you.

“Let’s record it together. Like, for real.” You murmur against her skin.

Ellie pulls back, eyes suddenly wide. “What?”

You hum, smile softly. “I mean it.” You reassure, voice steadier than it was before. “Let’s record the album all over again. Together.”

And Ellie – at that – can only bring her hands to your head, fingers tangling in the strands of your hair, and leave a kiss there like she’s sealing her part of the promise, a different kind of signature now. Not written, but one that carries everything you’ve lost, one that makes up to it, one that’s not desperate anymore. Steady.

The kind that only healing can bring.

That’s how it started again.

You and Ellie. A recording studio you had never seen before, the kind of newness that makes your skin tingle in anticipation, that has your heart beating in a rhythm that you forgot but now that it’s there, it feels so familiar.

The same you used to carry every time sitting down on stool before ivory keys, the one you’ve been slowly building back piece by piece in all those months in Austin. Music just for the love of music. Music just for the love of… love. Using the same vessel that brought you together the first time to guide you through two versions of you that still fit together like puzzle pieces. 

It had been quite some time.

No resentment, no hatred, no fingers moving out of spite.

Just love in its purest, unfiltered form.

It’s with that feeling that you get inside, holding Ellie’s hand, her thumb the inside of your wrist and a look in her eyes that leaves nothing to the imagination, the kind that says I can’t believe you’re here doing this with me again.

But you are. You’re there, squeezing her hand, letting her guide you across an unfamiliar hallway, looking around like you’re trying to memorize everything surrounding you and committing it to memory.

The records hung on the walls, the smell of something citrusy lingering in the air, the softness of the carpeted floors beneath your feet. You’re letting everything soak into your body because you don’t want to forget the way you felt when you got back to breathing.

When Ellie finally stops at the door of the studio, she looks at you over her shoulder before opening the door. “You ready?” she asks, a small smile on her lips, still making sure you really want to do this with her.

But the nod you give her – soft, but sure – is enough for her to whisper “Okay” under her breath and push the door open, twisting the knob.

What hits your first is how low the lights are, then it’s the sound of buttons at the console made by the hands of the sound tech, then it’s the one of another pair of hands, the click-clack of a keyboard and then–

Silence. A stunned one.

And then there’s Dina jumping to her feet, basically throwing the laptop aside to throw herself in your arms instead, giving you no time to breathe before she crushes your ribs.

“Finally,” she sobs. “I can hug you again.”

You laugh, pat her back with your free hand while still holding Ellie’s with the other. “Hi, Dee,” you greet. “Hi, god I missed you.”

“I missed you too!” she echoes, pulling back to make you breathe. “God, so much. You’re really here.”

You nod, a warm smile painting your lips. “I’m here,” you confirm. “Although people can’t really seem to believe it.”

Ellie besides gives you a guilty look, because it’s been a week since you told her to record the album together – a week where you holed up in her apartment doing nothing but being with each other again, a week of bare skin against bare skin and laughter. So much laughter. And during the whole time, every single morning Ellie would wake up and tell you those same exact words – you’re really here – like she couldn’t still believe it to be true.

“I mean, can you blame us?” Dina muses. “You had all the right reasons not to. But…” She takes some time to look at Ellie, at you again, at your hands laced together. “...I’m really glad you chose to forgive her sorry ass.”

You snort a laugh, Ellie just groans, dragging a hand down her face. “Okay,” she starts. “Can we… go back to business or am I just gonna get roasted today?”

Dina raises one brow. “Oh, now you’re eager to go back to work, I see.” She teases. “Fine, the place's yours. I’m just here for the vibe really.”

You chuckle, look up at Ellie and nod toward the door to the live room. Your steps sync to the ones of the other as you walk through it, just to head towards the piano that had already been set for you. It’s nothing less than you expected – Steinway, polished black, the kind of instrument that deserves someone with hands like yours.

Before sitting at the stool though, you turn only slightly, enough to watch Ellie adjust the strap of her guitar around her shoulders, to twist the pegs and test the tuning of the instrument. The image is just as you remembered it to be, like no time has passed at all: her tongue picking out slightly at the corner of her mouth in a way that you always teased her for, her hands careful in every movement like she’s touching a lover instead of wood.

She seems to feel your eyes on her, because it doesn’t take her much time to lift her head up and look right back at you. “What?”

“I just–” you start, then breathe her in for a second. “I just really love you, Els.”

That’s enough to make her stop, dead in her tracks, as though a lighting crossed her entire nervous system. Not because she hasn’t heard it for a week straight – over and over like a record she didn’t want to put down – but because of the way you said it.

Like this, all of this – everything you went through and that has brought you back here in a recording studio to tell your story together through the one vessel who made you meet in the first place – is worth it. Like the past doesn’t matter as long as you both can love each other through music again.

So she nods, clears her throat and exhales a deep, long breath through her lips. “I really love you too, peach.”

And – with that – it all begins again. With your fingers pressing the keys without hesitation, no sheet music before your eyes, just feeling the sound your hands are making echoing in your ears, just how your heart drops when that same sound mingles with the one coming from Ellie’s strings in the exact way you were picturing in your head it would have.

Love making through melodies.

It takes three months for all thirteen tracks, mainly because you end up with so many ideas, variations of tempos and staccatos, rhythms. Not because it has to be perfect, but because you both feel like there's so much to tell.

Months made of a lot of late-night mixing and early morning breakfasts that taste like dinners. You take turns falling asleep on the couch in the control room, tangled up in each other, headphones still half-on. Dina brings you coffee. Jesse drops by once and tries not to cry hearing playbacks. You almost finish a demo in your socks. Ellie breaks three strings. You beg some old friends from Juilliard to help with a couple of tracks you instead had violins in them. You rewrite one chorus entirely. None of it matters.

Because it’s all yours.

No more writing songs to each other. Now you’re writing songs with each other.

And when it’s finally done – when the last chord fades and the file renders and you both sit back in the empty studio, bathed in quiet – Ellie reaches for your hand, lacing her fingers with yours. She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t need to.

Because this album? It's not just music. It’s a love letter to the past that nearly broke you. To the version of her who made a mistake. To the version of you who left. To the ache and then, finally, the healing.

A letter that tells those girls that they can finally rest. That every single inch of your bodies can put the armor down because you’re here.

You’re really here.

Both of you.

The lights on the stage are blinding, more than what you’re used to.

To be fair, you’re not used to this at all. Not even at the Oscars – when you felt having the whole world’s eyes on you – they were so bright.

It kind of brings you back in multiple ways as well. It’s a little bit like the times you spent walking through Juilliard’s hallways, of the wooden floored stage you stepped on more times than you can count for every single exam you passed. Your hands were shaking then and apparently they never stopped, because they are now too.

It also reminds you of New York for a different reason. The pubs, Ellie’s gigs, the way you squeezed her hands every time before she disappeared in the backroom just before walking onto stage. You did that too an hour ago, more or less. Sat down beside her in the greenroom, told her she got it and she was gonna crush it. And – exactly as you used to when you were just in a shitty, cramped pub and not an arena filled with thousands of people here to just listen to her play – you didn’t hover more.

Instead, you just gave her time to let her heartbeat slow down on its own, and walked backstage to meet Jackie who flew all the way from Los Angeles just for this moment. Because tonight… is not going to be exclusively about Ellie. Not at all. Maybe that’s why your hands are shaking so much. Because you’ve talked about this, you were the one asking Ellie to do this whole thing, even if it scared the shit out of you. Even if when you did she looked at you like you had gone insane all of a sudden and asked a million times if you were sure. Although she couldn’t hide the way her lips split in a smile that was all teeth and dimples when you said that yeah, you were sure.

You're still backstage when the crowd erupts, when the air changes, when the beat of thousands of feet on arena floors turns into a singular pulse vibrating through the soles of your shoes. It’s the kind of anticipation that crackles in the air before lightning strikes. That kind of hush that’s not really quiet, just holding its breath. And maybe that’s what you’re doing too.

Ellie steps onto the stage alone.

No big entrance, no pyrotechnics, no flashy visuals. Just her silhouette against a backdrop of amber lights, warm and low like the glow of a campfire. Like home. And even from where you stand in the wings, your fingers clenched into the hem of your shirt, you can see it: the subtle rise and fall of her chest, the way her hands are careful around her guitar, like it’s breakable now. Like everything is.

But then she looks up, her fingers find the frets, her eyes look for yours, and that’s all she needs.

When she starts playing it doesn’t sound like nerves. It sounds like resolve. It sounds like someone owning their choices, their grief, their healing. The whole arena goes quiet in waves, not because they’ve been told to, but because she pulls the hush out of them.

You don’t realize you’ve started crying until your hand touches your cheek and you feel Jackie next to you squeezing your shoulder.

“She’s on fire,” she whispers, but you can’t answer, only nod.

Because this version of Ellie? This is the one who walked through fire and came out with her voice intact. This is the one who came back.

“You’ve got your phone, right?” You murmur to Jackie, but your eyes are fixed on Ellie while she talks into the mic to the crowd.

Jackie grins. “Yes, babes. I’ve got my phone,” she confirms. “I’m ready to FaceTime your brother.” Then – behind gritted teeth: “He’ll kick my ass if I don’t let him see his sister playing in front of thousands for the first time, so.”

You shoot her a look, but are too nervous to find a witty comeback, so instead you just shift your weight from one foot to the other, biting at your lower lip nervously. “And you’ve got… the box right?”

That’s when Jackie softens, one hand coming up to squeeze your arm. “Yeah, I’ve got it. Had to dig through your closet like a thief but I’ve got it.”

Finally, that’s enough to loosen you up just the tiniest bit, enough to make you chuckle low under your breath and rest your head on her shoulder.

Your heart won’t stop drumming like it’s at war though. Maybe it has its reasons, because just as you were starting to regulate your breathing a little bit more, Ellie turns her head in your direction, smiles and nods.

It’s time.

“Okay, guys!” She says into the microphone, her hands at the strap of the guitar. “Tonight’s almost over, but I’ve got a little surprise for you for our last song.”

She gestures towards you, and you swear your heart actually drops to your stomach. You should move, but all that you can think about is how those same words are bringing you back. Three years ago, give or take. Red lights all over. Girls squealing in your ears and Ellie looking for your eyes past every single other person’s ones. The gig that led her to sign that contract.

It doesn’t hurt, though. For the first time thinking about that night doesn’t hurt. If anything, it feels fateful that the same words she used to call you on stage back then are the same she’s using now. Like the end of a cycle, like a chance to rewrite it. A chance to start again.

And god if that doesn’t make your feet move on their own towards her, if that single ounce of confidence you’re walking with across the floor beneath your feet doesn’t make Ellie beam.

“There she is,” she whispers, but the mic before her catches it anyway.

You don’t even realize it before Ellie’s hand is grabbing yours, pulling you in until your lips meet the ones of the other. It’s nothing showy, nothing flashy, just the kind of kiss that says I’m so glad you’re here, I love you, I’m proud of us.

The crowd doesn’t just cheer. It roars.

Not in a wild, detached way – but like they’ve all been waiting for this too. Like they knew this story, even if they didn’t know the details, even all they could grasp about it was from tabloids and the single interview Ellie shared about the two of you. Even if they only read between the lines of her songs, or caught glimpses of the way her voice cracked mid-performance when singing certain verses. It’s thunderous and yet… not intrusive. It’s an ovation that holds space. For you. For her. For the kind of love people write entire discographies about but rarely see stitched back together on a stage under gold light.

You pull back. Breathless. A little dazed.

Ellie’s thumb is still brushing your knuckles. You don’t even know where to look – at her, the piano that’s now being hit by the overhead lights, or the crowd. So you just settle for looking at your feet instead.

“You ready?” Ellie asks, searching for your eyes, hand now on your cheek.

“I’m ready,” you say.

And it’s true. Even if your pulse is screaming in your ears. Even if your knees feel like they might give out beneath you. There’s no other answer you could give her now.

She gives you one last kiss to your forehead and lets you walk towards the piano before clearing her throat.

“If I’m here today, if this album exists” Ellie starts again. “It's only because of her. So it only seemed fair that I didn’t play this song alone.”

A beat passes, only for her to look behind at you again, only for you to settle on the stool and stretch your fingers by closing and opening your hands into fists again and again, warming them up. When your eyes meet, though, there’s some kind of certainty settled deep within both your sets of eyes.

One that makes you nod at her, that makes your hands lift and settle among black and white, and that makes Ellie turn towards the crowd again.

“This is Strings Attached.”

It’s the last thing she says before the sound of Ellie’s strings tangles with the cheers from the crowd, her fingers precise and controlled across the frets, like she can mess up everything again in every show that will follow this, but not now and not with this song.

She plays like it’s the most important thing she’s ever done and maybe it is. More than any other thing she’s written, this song is the one she bled her heart out for, the one she played over and over until she fell asleep with her guitar at her chest when you couldn’t hear it and she just screamed it louder as though the sound could reach you even with states between you.

But she’s not screaming it now, she almost whispers it. As if not wanting to take too much space, because she knows what’s coming.

And when it does – when your hands press down the keys with a force only you could bring, delicate but strong at the same time – she smiles like it’s the first time her lips curve in that way. Because that’s your answer, isn’t it? And finally she can hear it loud and clear. Not just through a recording, not just in a sample or blurred through her headphones

Now, it’s alive.

And you? You are glowing more than you’ve ever done before. Careless about how your forehead has got pearled, mindless of the way your body moves along with your hands as if connected by a wire that’s pulling everything together.

For the first time ever the crowd falls silent. Not a single cheer, not a single squeal. It’s like witnessing love being made without the need for two bodies, for skin to meet. Because this is how you’ve always connected more, this is how you’ve screamed I love you louder than with any word being said.

It’s almost painfully intimate, because the whole time, you’ve been glancing at each other as though there is a string that keeps pulling your eyes on the way of the other, like there’s no other in an arena so big but the two of you. It definitely feels like that. Like the lights are casting shadows on just your frames, like the music is playing something only you two will ever be able to understand.

And maybe that’s exactly the case.

Because – beside everything – you two are the only ones who can truly understand the meaning behind the way your hands keep faltering on the keys, the way Ellie’s are slightly trembling on the frets and how – despite the burning behind your eyes – you cannot seem to be able to stop smiling at her.

Even when the song ends.

Even when you finally lift your hands up and the last note rings out through the amps and the crowd finally erupts again and people’s torches on their phones finally shut and all that is left are whistles, screams for encores and the sobs.

It’s Ellie who walks up to you first. She rushes, almost, setting her guitar down on the nearest stand like none of that matters anymore. Her hands come to your cheek, yours at her waist and the kiss she gives you? It’s nothing short of a breathless, blind kind of reverence that no words could ever be able to summarize fully.

“You’–” she breathes between kisses. “Are my entire fucking world.”

And you can do nothing but fist your hands around her shirt and nod – like whatever you could say to her wouldn’t suffice. Sometimes, it’s better to just feel instead of saying anything at all.

And god knows how much you’re feeling it right now: safety, love, home.

“C’mon, peach,” Ellie adds. “It’s your moment now.”

With a sharp breath in, a moment you take to just close your eyes and let her help you on your feet – not because you need someone to do this for you, but because if there’s something you’ve learnt is that you don’t have to do anything alone, even when it’s about being brave – you finally walk to the centre of the stage, your hands linked with Ellie’s as if the thought of letting go isn’t even on the table.

Suddenly, the amount of people that are before you don’t seem overwhelming anymore, the lights don’t hit your eyes in a way that feels blinding but rather like they’re giving you a moment to be heard, a moment for anyone in the crowd who needs to be heard to be exactly that: someone who can take space.

So you clear your throat, look at Ellie one more time and when she nods at you again… that’s all you need.

“Thank y’all for comin’ here tonight,” you start. “For those who don’t know me, well, I doubt you don’t by now.”

The crowd cheers, Jackie sniffles loudly from the backstage, so much that among every other sound it even reaches your ears.

“There’s somethin’ I’d like to tell ya before I leave you to the show again,” you continue, holding Ellie’s hand just a fraction tighter. “Last year, there was someone in my life who liked to control every single part of it and made me bent it to their own likin’, made me shut out the people I loved, blamed myself for every single thing this person was doin’. That…” you eyes move to Ellie, then backstage towards Jackie. “...until I let those people I shut out in again. Until I let ‘em help. If you feel like y'know what I’m talkin’ about,  just know that you can ask for that help, you’re not and you’ll never be alone. Know that you don’t have to be.”

At your side, Ellie’s just silent, just anchoring you, not even daring to open her mouth. She has no intention of. On the other, Jackie is fully weeping right now, but the screen of her phone? Is directed towards you, and just the slightest bit, you can actually trace the outline of Ethan’s dark hair, of Emma’s smile and Beatrice’s hand covering her mouth. You know – though you cannot hear them – that they’re probably telling you how proud they are. And god, you are too. Because the you of a year ago would’ve never done this, would’ve never walked up in front of a crowd of thousands to share something so deeply yours.

Yet, you’re here. Yet, you’ve done it. Because maybe more people deserve their voice to be heard and if you can give them that voice – just like the people you love helped you get yours back – you will.

“There’s help out there, you just have to ask for it."

One last breath, one last look into Ellie’s eyes – enough for you to see how they've glossed over, how she’s saying I’m proud of you with every single inch of her soul – and you’re stepping back, to the wings again, to Jackie, to the rest of your family on the other side of a screen, back to the last thing you need to do tonight.

One last promise that needs to be fulfilled.

Back in the greenroom, back with a box that’s new but hides something that very much isn’t. Something that speaks of soft words mumbled in the early morning lights with socks at your feet and the scent of pancakes filling the air. Of rusty, groaning pipes and a water heater that froze down every single year in January.

And it’s in your hands, barely thirty minutes later having said goodbye to the stage, to your brother, with Jackie pacing more than you are like she’s been possessed.

“I still dunno how the hell you were able to keep that shit intact,” Jackie mutters, her palms dragging down her shirt from the sweat.

“And I dunno why you’re so nervous.” You muse, one brow raised.

“How are you not?!” She exclaims. “Like, you’re really basically almost actually–”

She cuts herself off only because the door pushes open to reveal a very much sweaty Ellie on the threshold, the guitar still strapped at her shoulders, but now hanging off at her back. Ellie, who almost freezes in place when she sees Jackie abruptly stopping her pacing like a deer caught in headlights.

“Something wrong?” Ellie asks, tilting her head at you.

“NO!” Jackie answers for you. “Just very life-altering decisions about to be made I guess!”

You snort a laugh, because what else could you do. “Jackie…”

“Fine! I’ll leave! But I want in writing that if she says–”

“Jackie.”

And Jackie only raises her hands, walks past Ellie, only to stop in the threshold for one last second, turning her head slightly towards her and whispers, “I meant what I told you last time, Williams. Knee caps.”

That only makes Ellie brows furrow even more, both of you watching her leave like you don’t know whether to laugh or just sigh at her antics.

“What was that about?” Ellie asks, finally closing the door behind her gently.

You shrug, hands behind your back. “Just Jackie bein’ Jackie.”

Ellie hums, her head tilting trying to pry behind your shoulder. “Guess no greenroom sex?”

You groan, roll your eyes, but you’re grinning as you take one single step forward to close the distance between the two of you. “Maybe,” you whisper. “But only after you open this.”

Finally and slowly, you bring your hands forward, letting Ellie see the small, green box nestled between your palms. Her eyes squint at it, but she doesn’t say anything, just steps towards you until you’re merely a breath away, until she takes it into her own hands and inspects like it’s probably going to explode at any second now.

“It’s not a bomb, Els.” You tease.

“No, I know. Well, I hope not.” She mumbles. “It’s just– why does it look like–”

“Just open it.”

And when she finally does, when she lifts the lid carefully, she sees something she probably wasn’t even prepared to see. Because she thought you had actually thrown away every single thing that could have possibly reminded you of her after you left.

Yet – no matter how much she’s furiously blinking at it – the paper ring she had given you three years ago in the haze of a morning made of sizzling pans and hands around your waist is still there. Like it doesn’t know what the passing of time even is.

“You–” she tries, but her voice dies in her throat, it drops to her lungs as her breath hitches. 

“Kept it?” You ask, chuckling as you take it out of the box. “Yeah. I did.”

You set the box aside, close the lid like it was in the way of the thing that matters the most now, which is her hand as you hold it, her palm resting warm on top of yours.

“You said ‘no flashy rings, just this’ when you gave it to me,” you add, the paper slowly rolling across her finger as you slide it on. “Y’know, I still kinda agree.”

There’s no even a single part of Ellie that’s trying to hold back, not one single ounce of her body that’s keeping back of the way she’s slightly folding forward, the way her hand is shaking where it rests on yours, the way there’s salt wetting her cheeks and her chest has lost its normal rhythm as it rises and falls over and over again.

“Yeah, well,” she mutters. “You said no flashy rings first, so of course you agree.”

There’s a soft laugh coming from your lips, your forehead pressing against hers and your hands lifting to cradle her cheeks. “I made a valid point, though”

“Yeah,” she whispers, swallows and closes her eyes while her hands close gently around your wrists. “You did.”

“OH MY GOD! JUST ASK THE DAMN QUESTION!”

Jackie’s voice is muffled by the closed door, but that doesn’t stop her from being loud enough to pierce your ears. And when it does – when you actually hear a thud of her probably sitting on the floor just outside because of course she eavesdropped the entire thing – both you and Ellie just burst out laughing, a little bit hoarse, but the sound fills the room brightly regardless.

But it’s not like you really need to ask anything with words, nor does Ellie need to answer them. It’s in the way your lips meet and you can’t stop smiling, in the way your hands don’t know where to land because there’s no a single part of her body you don’t wanna feel on your skin, in the way her cheeks are still damp and how yours are about to match them.

It’s in the way that – among every mistake, every word left unsaid and all that took to get here – you both know it.

There are some strings that are always supposed to stay attached.

dividers by @cafekitsune & @uzmacchiato

pictures from pinterest

perm taglist (check my masterlist post if you wanna be added!): @elliewmc @machetegirl109 @valeisaslut @imliterallyjustonegirl @iloveclairo2016 @rhian88 @mxchi-mxxn @sawaagyapong @angelz-void @seasonsofchaos @mischievous-darling @archersbows @slutforabbyanderson @liztreez

series taglist: @mikellie @chappellroankisser @cherrybomb61 @thatredheadloserlesbian

a special thank you to my gorgeous @les4elliewilliams for beta reading this and all the advices, i love you so much em, sposiamoci o ti vengo a prendere a casa <3

a/n: first of all, i wanna thank each and every single one of the people who took their time to read this series. strings attached will always and forever be a huge part of my heart. i poured so much of my soul into writing this and i hope in little ways at least you're gonna remember it too. this fic is so dear to me, so thank you again for having been a part of this journey. i love you all so so much and i'm immensely grateful. lots of love, nini <3

[onetwolove]

Can't wait to cry

[loveshotzz]

If you’re too shy, let me know (part one)

steve harrington x fem!reader part one of two

I pretend I don’t care about her stare, while she’s giving me a tough time.

summary: you’re an observer of sorts, a wall flower, and the last hire made by the infamous runaway Jimmy ‘fast hands’ Lee. It was a job you took on a whim, a decision made without much thought. You weren’t expecting to ever share a room with Steve Harrington again, but when it starts to happen five days out of the week, you certainly weren’t expecting the now quiet and brooding former king to take up so much space in your mind.

WC: 17k

warnings: 18+ slow burn, soft soul touching smut, takes place a few months after season five not exactly canon accurate (he still has his beamer), steve is picking up the pieces of his life, reader has no knowledge of upside down, moved back after the military disappears, touch and love starved steve (reader is similar), mild angst, lots of yearning, mentions of holiday sadness, smoking, one bed trope, p in v van sex, scar kissing & touching (steve has scars).

authors note: well this was originally supposed to be a long one shot but it grew legs and became too long. so enjoy part one of two of the story i’ve been writing since volume one. Writing this got me through a rough holiday season and it started to feel really special. I hope it feels that way when you read it and thank you for waiting so long. I wouldn’t call this a holiday fic at all, its used as more of a backdrop. also i have no idea how things at a radio station work so if it’s not accurate beyond what I googled I apologize! don’t hate me! Thank you to Andy, Candy and Jelly for listening to me ramble and read snippets over the course of the last few months, couldn’t have finished it without you!

Three Weeks Before Christmas - A Monday Morning.

Steve Harrington was an anomaly.

A word you never thought you’d use for the face and hair of Hawkins High’s sports programs circa 1981 to 1985.  A jock who used to push kids in lockers, break their camera’s, the kind to stand girls up who would just turn around and beg him to do it again. The popular guy who always seemed to get what he wanted, someone you thought would have his future laid out for him on a road paved of gold. So when you had your first day at The Squawk almost three months ago, and found him not only working the sound board for WSQK’s very own ‘Rockin Robin’ aka your favorite trumpet player to skip band practice with, but that they were also best friends. Like inseparable best friends, finishing each other's sentences kind of best friends, you weren’t sure how many chapters you missed after leaving for college four years ago. 

Steve Harrington was an anomaly, and he was wearing that damn brown bomber jacket again.

It was your favorite of what seemed to be his early winter collection that had started to appear in the form of thick sweaters and fitted jackets once the sun began disappearing after four pm. Another thing you hated almost as much as not being able to put your chipped polished finger on him anymore, was that now, the word favorite is in your vocabulary when it comes to the guy who never even looked your way despite sharing the same homeroom all four years of high school. 

This particular jacket though? It was your kryptonite. The soft suede wraps around his broad shoulders like butter, tapering just enough at the bottom to give the illusion of a loose fit, like it’s tailored special just for him. Its rich earthy brown color brings out the gold flecks in his hazel eyes that you swear changed colors with the season, or maybe it was because Nancy Wheeler finally stopped coming around. 

You’d overheard a conversation between him and Robin a few weeks ago after noticing an extra broody-ness about his presence that she had finally left Hawkins to attend Emerson in Massachusetts. It was all you were able to catch without being caught eavesdropping on your way to map out the next few weeks DJ schedules in Jimmy’s abandoned office. An office you were only supposed to be an assistant too, but now somehow managed to end up being the one to do the job it was made for. It was becoming a full time one too, keeping the station running since its operating hours are no longer the allotted time slots given by the military. Which still seemed like a fresh nightmare for most of the people that decided to stay when the fences finally disappeared.

“Morning!” You greet them, stretching your neck enough to peek out of the open office door, making your presence known since your ever changing schedule keeps you at the station at random times.

Today you’d gotten here at 3am to fill the late night dead air with your own curated mix, something you do whenever Steve or Keith couldn’t. It was easy money, you didn’t even have to talk, just make sure to queue the ads you’ve been having to fight tooth and nail to get in order to keep the lights on. 

“Good Morning!” Robin waves stretching her neck to meet your gaze with her signature toothy grin that lights up the whole room. Her blonde hair is extra frizzy from the snow starting to fall outside, the cold kissing her cheeks with roses. 

All you get is Steve’s back as he continues his path to the studio, giving you a quick flick of his wrist in acknowledgment. It was 50/50 depending on the day, or even his shift if he’d stay mute or give you a short ‘Morning’. Either way, it didn’t matter because he still cared enough to pretend that he likes his coffee black in front of you. A secret that you’ve always kept close after catching him put cream and an absurd amount of sugar in his whenever he thought you weren’t looking– on multiple occasions.

”I put your coffees in there already, three creams and two sugars for Robin, and don’t worry Steve, I left yours black just how you like it.”

Your lips twist at the slight tense of his shoulders.

”Thanks boss!” Robin sings, skipping to catch up with her best friend’s long strides.

”I’m not your boss!” You call back, brows furrowing ñ at the nickname she’s been determined to make stick. They weren’t paying you a radio manager’s wage. 

“Could’ve fooled me!” Her raspy voice carries across the room, before both her and Steve’s go muffled behind the soundproof door.

5 minutes till showtime.

You can see them through the glass that encases them from the cracked window in your office. Steve looks like he’s rambling about something to her, big hands gesturing wildly before they push back his thick mane of chestnut hair, the blonde tips it used to have, long forgotten. It is his personal tell that he’s stressed, besides a thumb flick to the nose which follows shortly after. Robin’s face softens, not meeting his chaotic energy as he takes off his jacket, revealing the cream mock turtle neck sweater underneath it. You can’t hear what she’s saying, but whatever it is makes his shoulders slump, nodding in response with another card of his hair. Relaxing.

It’s unexpected when his eyes shoot across the room, meeting your gaze for the first time in a few days. Averting your stare as quickly as you can, your cheeks feel like they're being raked over coals, they burn hot as you try and refocus on the spread sheet laying on the desk. Quietly vowing to leave the station before they break for lunch as your escape plan. This way you can lock yourself in your dark apartment and sleep off the exhausting seven hours before suffering the kind of embarrassment that radiates from your fingertips and all ten of your toes.

—-

Thursday Early Morning

5:13am. The bright green numbers on your dash feel like an assault as the tires of your Oldsmobile crunch against the snow and gravel leading up the path to The Squawk. From inside, the constant vigil of the studio lights fades into a soft glow, filtering through the glass front entrance doors to cut through the last bit of night and bounce off the shimmering snowflakes that somehow continue to fall.  It’s been four days of this now, the sky alternating between flurries and heavy snowfall. It’s starting to feel like it might never stop, like the universe seems determined to deliver a white Christmas during the one year you and the rest of this town can’t seem to find the spirit. 

Your jaw stretches with a yawn as you try to will the caffeine to hit your bloodstream faster. You pull up beside what should be Keith’s Thunderbird and rub the remainder of sleep from your eyes blinking at Steve’s BMW parked next to the WSQK van.  A newfound anxiety flutters beneath your ribcage, at the memory of how his eyes caught you– like you were intruding on something personal, a secret only meant for his best friend’s ears. Everything with Steve Harrington has felt like a secret lately. An unsolvable puzzle with a missing piece always just out of reach. There’s a determination to find it. With slightly shaking hands, you arm yourself with a travel mug of homemade coffee and a deep breath to collect your courage before heading inside.

He probably won’t even say hi anyway, if you’re lucky he’ll just wave from the studio, maybe, and then you’ll both ignore each other until he leaves without saying goodbye.

Frank Sinatra’s ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’ spills from the speakers in the studio, the door propped open allowing the soft trumpets and piano to fill the normally quiet space. He plays a lot of Sinatra on his overnights, a taste you’ve assumed he acquired from Robin, but part of you can’t be too sure anymore. 

Christmas lights that weren’t there the night before are draped around the DJ booth, with even more hanging half hazardly above the soundboard. They twinkle in red, green, and gold, warming the room in a comforting glow. It’s not until you round the corner that you see Steve on a step stool stringing more around the common area, a small pile of multi-colored shimmering garland on the table beside him with tiny Santas and snowmen hanging off the tinsel.

Steve Harrington is decorating for Christmas. 

“You’re not Keith.” You say, finding your voice, trying to break the usual awkwardness between the two of you with some kind of joke. Butterflies waking up in the pit of your gut when you hear it. 

A laugh.

It’s so quiet that if you didn’t see the slight shake of his shoulders, you’d probably miss it. An unfamiliar desperate need to make him do it again tugs at your heart.

”Defintely not Keith.” He huffs, but you can hear the slight smile in his voice. You’d almost forgotten what he really sounds like.

His Nike covered feet step down from the stool, leaving the string of lights to dangle half way on their journey across the room. Turning around, he runs one of his big hands through his messier than usual hair, those familiar hazel eyes catching yours for the second time in one week. A record breaking streak.

He’s wearing dark washed jeans, they fit him snug like all of them do. A navy WSQK sweater stretches over his chest, the letters faded and peeling because Jimmy cheaped out on the printing company.You’re willing to bet Steve’s got three more washes till they're all completely gone. The sleeves are pushed up revealing his permanently sunkissed skin despite the warm weather hiding on the other side of the earth, and they’re dotted with more freckles than you can count. 

“He asked me to cover his shift last minute, something about a pet ferret?” His face twists in the kind of judgment that has an uncontrollable giggle slip past your lips.

The gold in his eyes seems to sparkle at the sound, the corners of his mouth twitching, fighting a smile that he doesn’t let win. 

“That explains the smell of his jacket sometimes.” Scrunching up your nose at the memory of the last time you saw Keith, Steve can’t seem to fight his grin off this time, pearly whites gleaming behind plush pink lips.

It threatens to steal the breath from your lungs, teeth digging into your bottom lip with cheeks that start to feel like the surface of the missing sun, warming your skin with something that has you looking away. Suddenly, you have a new understanding for all those girls in high school. 

“I hope you don’t mind, me uh - decorating and stuff.” He scratches the back of his neck, like talking this long to someone that’s not his best friend is hard for him, or maybe it’s just because it’s you. “Robin was complaining about how she’s not feeling very festive this year, and it’s her and vi- it’s her first Christmas dating someone so I was thinking maybe this might help.”

It almost makes you mad at how sweet of a gesture it is, and how it feels like you’ll never quite figure him out. Every time you think you’re close, he sheds another layer. Throwing off your scent.

”Not at all, honestly, I haven’t been feeling very ‘jolly’ myself.” You laugh weakly, finally meeting his softened gaze, making his shoulders relax as if there were a world where you’d actually be mad. “This job has been…a lot.”

You don’t go into anymore detail about how none of this was what you signed up for, or how your home doesn’t feel very much like one anymore, like your childhood was some figment of your imagination the military erased. You’re not sure he’d even want to hear any of it anyway. No need to test the boundaries of this new progression between you and the former king of Hawkins, anyway. 

“Well, if it means anything coming from me, I think you’re doing a great job, all things considered.” He answers with a casual shrug, like he didn’t just shatter all the assumptions you thought he had of you in one sentence.

”It- It does mean something, thanks, Steve.” It feels weird saying his name out loud, despite how many times it’s crossed your mind over the past few months. 

Pink powders the apples of his cheeks, and now it’s his turn to look away.

”Decorate all you want. I’ve got this, like, 4 foot tall Christmas tree I had in my dorm in college that I can dig out and bring into the station tomorrow.” You add, returning to the safety of the original conversation, and you can tell he’s thankful for it.

”Cool.” He grins, shoving his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels a little bit.

”Cool.” 

The two of you stand there, not really sure where to go from here until the music cuts off and Steve remembers the job he’s actually supposed to be doing.

”Oh shit!” He gasps, eyes looking like a deer caught in headlights. “I gotta flip the record, I’m sorry, I swear I don’t let it go silent like this normally.”

You want to tell him that you know, because his overnights are some of your favorites to listen to. But you decide it's another secret best kept to yourself instead.

”It’s fine, I’m sure the four people listening will forgive you.” Rolling your eyes playfully, you catch the small grin you get in return as he jogs to the studio room. “I’m gonna go do my job too.”

Grabbing the stack of ad proposals next to his garland, you wave them in your hand, before making your way to Jimmy’s office, the kind of smile that makes your cheeks hurt tugging up the corners of your lips when you’re sure he can’t see it.

—-

Saturday

“Secret Santa!” Robin exclaims from the doorway of Jimmy’s office, bright blue eyes staring at you with the kind of excitement that threatens to be contagious. “We need to do a Secret Santa!”

”There’s like six of us who work here.” Steve speaks up from behind her, a half eaten sandwich dwarfed in his big hand, leaning against the studio room looking far too cool in a maroon sweater and dark washed jeans.

”Okay and? That’s an even number. You couldn’t ask for a more perfect scenario actually.” She gives him a tight lipped sarcastic smirk, before bringing her attention back to you,rolling up the sleeves on her white turtle neck she’s layered with a black The Smith’s shirt on top of. “Here me out -“

”We can do it.” You say simply, closing the radio tower instruction manual that was starting to give you a headache. 

“Wait, really?” She gasps with a smile so big it shows all her teeth, practically vibrating when you nod your head yes. “Oh my god this is so exciting, I’ll get everything together, you don’t have to lift a finger. Let's say a ten dollar budget, nothing too crazy.” 

“Ten dollars?! I don’t like anyone around here enough to spend ten dollars on.” Steve scoffs, shoving the rest of his sandwich in his mouth before crossing his arms.

”Are you kidding me? You don’t like me enough to spend ten dollars on? Her?” Robin points at you, and the urge to hide is the most tempting idea you’ve ever had, especially when Steve’s eyes meet yours from across the room with something you can’t decipher. ”Dustin, Mike? Literally you just hate Keith.”

”Dustin and Mike hardly count. They are here like two hours a week but fine! You win.” He surrenders, throwing his arms up before running an annoyed hand through his hair. His plan to help her feel more festive worked a little too well. 

“I always do!” She sings, throwing a wink at you before sauntering back to the chair and mic that feel like they are made for her to deliver Hawkin’s favorite segment of the day, nudging Steve playfully on her way. ”Hurry up dingus, we’re back on in three minutes.”

”You had to walk around me, I’m already here.” He huffs, kicking off the corner and back into the studio room closing the sound proof door behind them.

You can’t seem to fight the smile that twists at the corners of your mouth as you grab your weekly planner from under the pile of work orders that you’ve been deluding yourself into thinking you can find the fixes in the manual. 

The faint sounds of Billie Holiday’s ‘I Thought About You’ catches in your ears, something shifting in the air as the heat from an unfamiliar stare warms against your skin, sending goosebumps pebbling, begging for your attention. You haven’t risked even a glance through the window of your office since the day that Steve caught you, but something was daring you to do it again.

You aren’t sure what you’re expecting when you look up but it isn’t his eyes already locked on you, holding your gaze after they meet letting you know it’s not a mistake. Butterflies stretch their wings wide as you work up the courage not to look away first. The grip on your pen tightening, teeth digging into your bottom lip watching the slight shimmer of gold around the darkness of his pupils. He studies your face like he’s looking for the answer to something hidden inside of the contours of it, and you think this must be the way you look when he catches you staring.

It’s Robin that unknowingly interrupts whatever was going on, tearing his attention away with a bob of his Adam’s apple and a shake of his head. Saying something that looks a lot like the word ‘sorry’ before switching out the sound effect 8-track for the one she clearly wanted. In the hour it takes for you to wrap up and reach the end of your day, neither of you dare to look up again, and it’s you who leaves with a quick flick of your wrist, not saying a word this time. 

What was that? 

—-

Two weeks before Christmas 

You stare at the name on the small piece of paper you’d grabbed from Robin’s Santa hat on your way out the door. The white wisps of your breath filling the freezing space of your car, too stunned to even be bothered to turn it on. You read it a few more times just to be sure that too many overnights weren’t making you delirious, but there it was, clear as day in Robin’s signature bubble writing. 

Steve

His name plays on a loop as you finally kick on the engine to your car, it finds its way in every thought, sneaking past your efforts to shut it out. ‘Steve’ lingers in the cold breaths you take on your way to the front door of the small apartment you’d rented while your parents house gets rebuilt. It warms against your skin like the hot water from the shower that rinses off yet another long day at the station, following you to bed and curling around you under your covers, meeting you again in your dreams.

—-

 Tuesday

You climb up the short ladder that leads you to the hatch door, pushing up, you give it a good shove, the rusted hinges squeaking as it flings open. The clearest night sky you’ve seen in what feels like weeks shimmers brightly above you. Suddenly it didn’t matter that it was twenty degrees, not when it looked like this. Tightening your scarf and zipping up your coat as far as it will go, you finish your climb up onto the roof.

The cold greets you with a sharp sting, sending a shiver straight to your bones.Too focused on closing the door to keep the heat trapped inside the station you don't notice you aren’t the only one admiring the view. It shuts with a loud thud at the same time someone clears their throat behind you. Jumping at the sound, you turn around with a startled scream just begging to escape and echo through the darkness until your wide eyes meet Steve’s panicked ones.

”Hey! It’s just me! It’s cool, you’re cool, we’re cool.” His hushed words come out with urgency to stop it from happening, a nervous hand running through his already wind swept hair after it seems to work.

Cool seems to be Steve’s favorite word when it comes to you. You weren’t entirely sure how you felt about that. 

”Jesus Christ, Harrington.” You gasp with a hand on your chest, your quick huffs of breath embarrassingly visible in the cold air. 

”Sorry! How was I supposed to know anyone else would come up here?” He exclaims, a slight agitation to his voice that doesn’t last long before asking “Are you okay?”

Your gaze lands on his Nike’s first, wandering up the light wash denim that covers his legs, accentuating parts of him that you’ve been trying not to think about. Tonight he wears a dark brown leather jacket that tapers at the waist just like your favorite one does. While his lack of scarf seems like a choice, it has the moles that cluster around his neck in their own constellations battling for your attention with the ones above him. 

“Yeah, I’m good. No scarf?! Aren’t you col -“ You lose your train of thought when your eyes catch the glowing ember at the end of a half smoked cigarette tucked between two long fingers. “Wait, are you up here smoking?”

His eyebrows furrow together like he’s confused, until realization dawns on him smoothing the wrinkles on his forehead.

”Yeah,” He shrugs, flicking the ash before taking another drag. “I used to in high school, well, mostly at parties when I was drunk trying to look cool. But I don’t know, I picked it back up recently, I don’t smoke all the time, mostly over nights when I’m stressed or bored.” 

“What are you now?” The question comes out before you can even filter and mark it as inappropriate, the look on his face burning your cheeks only adding to your immediate regret.

But then he does the last thing you expect, he answers it — honestly.

“Stressed.” Wind whips his hair around some more before he shrugs in a squeak of leather adding, “and a little bored.”

There’s storm clouds in his stare as he looks at you with an intensity you can feel tingling at your fingertips. Underneath it lives a nervousness that tries to hide in the dark pools of his eyes from letting you perceive him, gauging your reaction by taking another drag.

”I come up here when I’m stressed too.” You say with ease despite the wild thumping of your heart in your ears, taking a few steps closer, your boots crunch against the frozen brick.

“To my spot?” His words come out around white clouds of smoke, a small smile twisting up the corners of his lips.

”Excuse me? Your spot? I’ve never even seen you up here.” Scoffing, you dig your hands deep in your pockets, shuffling closer with chattering teeth you desperately try to hide.

As if on instinct, Steve positions his body to block you from the wind, cinnamon and amber from his cologne tickling at your nose. He was closer than you’ve ever been to him, close enough to have your palms sweat, for your softened gaze to trace the purple bags under his eyes. The pale pink of a healed scar you don’t remember from high school shows its imperfect end from the edge of his beige sweater’s collar, only to hide from you again when he lifts his cigarette towards you in an offering. 

“I’m pretty sneaky. Stealthy, if you will.”  He winks, cold bitten cheeks pushing up at the snort you give him in response.

Your fingers brush with his accepting the nicotine with a spark you blame on the emanating voltage from the tower. 

“What about you?” He asks quietly, his eyes wandering over the details of your face like he was really looking at you for the first time. Maybe he was. 

Despite yourself, you can’t help but wonder if he likes what he’s found.

”Stressed, maybe a dash of depression, maybe.” If you admit to it out loud, that might make it true, but it’s his honesty that pulls out your own.

He nods his head in response, mimicking your previous stance, shoving his cold hands in his pockets. He kicks at the small patch of ice, brows furrowing as he thinks about what he wants to say. The pad of your thumb brushes against the butt of his cigarette still a little wet from his lips, there’s an intimacy there when yours wraps around it, cheeks hollowing as you take a drag. Inhaling him. 

“Honestly, this time of year. It’s never been my favorite.” His gaze is piercing when they meet your eyes again.“The only time I really liked it was when I had a girlfriend and that was like once.”

”Nancy Wheeler.” You hum, biting at your bottom lip wondering if it was a mistake to say her name out loud.

”Yeah,” he sighs, watching you take another drag, eyes lingering just a little on your mouth when you hand it back to him. “But honestly, I’m starting to realize a big part of that was because I didn’t have to spend it alone.” 

“What do you mean?” You ask confused because he’s Steve Harrington, the boy who’s always had it all. “What about your parents?”

”They’re never home — hell, they were gone when the quarantine happened.” There’s a bitterness in his dry laugh, taking one last hit before tossing the cigarette to the ground, snuffing it out with the toe of his sneaker. “They couldn’t get back in, but I think they preferred it that way, part of me thinks I did too.”

“I’m sorry, Steve.” You don’t know what else to say, but it also doesn’t feel like he's looking for much more than that either, giving you just a peek into the closed blinds of his soul. 

The bare trees rustle and snap in the silence between you. It’s not an uncomfortable one, but one that lets you sit with the weight inside of it. Steve Harrington, the king of Hawkins, the boy who everyone adored school but always returned to a shell of a home. You can feel the wall rebuild itself around him after revealing more of his hand despite the way both you subconsciously shuffle closer to chase each other's body heat. Steve looks up at the sky, but your eyes stay trained on him. Maybe you were seeing him for the first time too. 

The moon shines bright above, casting shadows on his sharp features, revealing the slight dusting of a five o’clock shadow that covers his jaw you didn’t notice before. Steve Harrington had grown up into a man. You aren’t sure how you missed it until tonight, under a blanket of stars no one’s seen in weeks. What else haven’t you seen?

His gaze finds yours again, the wind making his hair go wild. He holds it like he did in the studio room the other day, and you swear he moves even closer, the toe of his shoe tapping against yours. You can smell the leather of his coat, the tobacco clinging to the fabrics of his sweater mixing with the spice of his cologne in a way that shouldn’t smell as good as it does. A playful smirk teases at the corners of his mouth.

”You’re always looking at me like you’re trying to figure me out.” There’s something delicate about the way he stares at you, tugging at the bundle of nerves twisting in the pit of your stomach. Loosening the knots.                                                                                                                                                                                    

“Is there something wrong with that?” You hum quietly.

”N-no.” He smiles with something timid behind it, weary even. “Just no one’s ever reall-“ He’s cut off by the crackle of the walkie talkie you didn’t know he had clipped to his back pocket 

“Radio silence again dingus!” Robin’s voice comes through the small speaker, “Trying to make moves here and you aren’t helping.”

You don’t think you’ve ever seen Steve roll his eyes any harder, a loud irritated breath escaping through his nose like a bull. He mouths sorry before bringing the walkie talkies to his lips, pressing harsh on the red button.

”I’m doing you a favor tonight if you remember, watch the tone.” He turns it off after, leaving her no room to respond, determined to get the last word.

”Another day of catching you not doing your job.” You tease with a wink, getting your own eye roll but this one comes with a smile.

”I keep getting distracted by my boss.” He wiggles his eyebrows, starting to back away towards the hatch door. 

Was Steve Harrington flirting with you?

 ”Ugh! Not you too.” You groan, crossing your arms watching him open the rusted metal with ease.

”If the shoe fits.” He shrugs, “Don’t stay out here too long, can’t have you getting sick, the station would probably burn down or something like that.”

”You and Robin ran it just fine.” You argue, with a grin that refuses to go away.

“Yeah, sure.” Steve snorts, climbing down the first few steps of the ladder stopping when all you can see is his shoulders up, “but seriously, it’s cold. I mean it.”

”Okay, Dad.” 

He visibly grimaces at the nickname.

”Yeah, pretty awful isn’t it?” You arch a brow, laughing at his glare for falling into your trap. “I’ll come back in a few minutes, promise.”

He lingers for a few seconds more looking torn, like he wasn’t ready to leave yet, and you’d be lying if you said you didn’t wish he could stay too. But he does the selfless thing you’ve noticed he always does, closing the hatch behind him with one last look catching your small wave goodbye.

—-

Friday

Robin is a ball of energy at seven in the morning, completely consumed by whatever she’s ranting to Steve about when they burst in through the front door together. You watch with an amused smirk from your spot on the lime green couch in the common area, a cup of fresh coffee you brewed for the three of you warm in your hand. She’s so distracted that she doesn’t notice you, but Steve does, almost as if he was searching for you first. The blue hidden in the gold and moss of his eyes are like sunbursts when they find your gaze. His smile is small, but it’s just for you and it’s enough for the butterflies you’ve managed to snuff out all morning with distractions to wake back up. Hiding your smile in your mug, you watch as he nods his head giving Robin a ‘yeah,’ like he’s listening, but something tells you he had stopped a while ago.

Once they get inside the soundproof room Steve peels off the same leather jacket he wore on the roof. Robin follows suit tossing her long navy blue tench coat to the side, lips still moving a mile a minute. He runs two big hands through his hair, the little bit of flurries that had stuck to the ends melting on his fingertips before pushing up the sleeves of his WSQK sweater. And just as you suspected the K at the end of it had already peeled off since last week.

Robin’s lime green polished hands fly all over the place making the people on her ‘Beam me up, this place sucks’ sweater look like they’re actually running. Crossing his arms as he leans against the door frame, Steve seems distracted, but you can tell he’s still actively trying to focus. He’s shaved since the last time you saw him, and the bags that had kissed lavender under his eyes on the rooftop were gone. Maybe that meant he’d finally gotten some sleep. 

His best friend grabs her coffee mid sentence, holding out a finger to give her a minute as she drinks what has to be at least half the cup. Your teeth dig into your bottom lip watching Steve grab his own. Suddenly you wish you’d have gone into Jimmy’s office for this moment as a new fear that maybe something that seemed like a cute idea in the middle of night actually makes you look like a weird stalker. The intrusive thought eats away at your confidence as he takes the first gulp and looks confused peering down in his cup before taking another just to be sure. 

Steve’s eyes lock on yours through the glass, something inside them shifting just like the air between you on the rooftop. A secret revealed that paints his cheeks red, a small gesture that you don’t know has never made him feel more seen as he takes another sip of his coffee made the way he actually likes it today.

—-

“Hey boss, I’m running out for lunch, but Dustin’s got the news report covered while I’m gone.” Robin pokes her head in Jimmy’s office where you’d been for the past hour lost in balancing the books.

”Not your booosssss,” You sing with an annoyed smirk, giving your eyes a break to look up at her. “Isn’t he in school?”

”Winter break!” She grins, shoving her arms into her coat like she’s in a rush, “I’ll be back in like thirty, maybe forty minutes tops!”

She’s gone in a blur of blue and blond before you have a chance to respond, and as if on cue Dustin comes strolling in not even two minutes after her departure. He waves at you with a wide grin, green braces gleaming against the low light. The ends of his long tan trench coat are stained wet, dripping on the checkered floor. Duck boots squeaking against the linoleum. He must’ve rode his bike here like a lunatic.

”Hiya boss!” He greets, turning around to face you walking backwards to the studio room completely oblivious to the angry Steve yelling behind the soundproof glass watching him drip water and salt everywhere.

”Henderson!” You groan, burying your face in your hands before resting it on your desk.

”It’s a compliment!” He argues, getting you to look back up only to see that Steve is now standing behind him with his hands firmly planted on his hips.

”Are you kidding me asshole? Look at the floors.” He huffs, with the kind of outrage a parent would have with their kid. 

“It’s just water, it’ll dry.” Dustin rolls his eyes, pushing past Steve to start setting up but not before adding. “Or you can make yourself useful and mop it up.”

”How about I kick your teeth in, instead?”

“Not the first time you’ve threatened that.” The teenager raises his eyebrows at him, looking unimpressed, letting you know they’re always empty. Of course Harrington is all bark and no bite.

Another endearing quality, unfortunately.

“Yeah, and one day it just might happen if you don’t watch your sass dickhead.” 

It takes every ounce of will power not to snort at the sight in front of you, smiling like the Cheshire Cat at all the ways you’re going to schedule them together this summer. 

If it ever comes. 

“I’ll let you know if I need, I don’t know — like, a car crash sound, or maybe a police siren, but otherwise quiet on set. I have a job to do.” Dustin closes the door to the studio before Steve even has a chance to get the last word in, something you’ve come to find as the clear indicator of who the winner is in these little spats between all of them.

Steve still flips him off through the glass, grumbling to himself about getting the mop so someone doesn’t slip and break their necks. Dustin gives you a thumbs up from behind the sound board switching the ON AIR sign ‘Red’. He taps the sheets of paper you assume is the ‘news’ loudly on the desk to add his own effects as he kicks it off with the weather. Which is snow… always more damn snow. 

You groan, rubbing your temples at the thought of having to clean off your car every day for another week and all the shoveling, so much damn shoveling.

”God, I miss summer.” You mumble, exhaling a defeated breath through your nose grabbing the calculator to finish where you’d left off.

You don’t get very far though, the familiar sound of someone clearing their throat in the doorway breaking your concentration. Heat warms your cheeks instantly, teeth digging into your bottom lip daring to look up and meet the hazel eyes you swear have changed colors again. Something new — brighter, something that feels more like Steve.

”H-hey.” He waves awkwardly, giving you a closed lip smile riddled with the kind of nerves that tighten in your chest too. 

”H-hi.” It comes out quieter than you intend, your voice cracking making you try to clear the nerves out of your throat too. 

Steve digs his hands into his pockets, leaning on the door frame with a shyness you’d never expect from him. It’s got a stubbornness about it like he’s worked himself up to do this and is vowing to see it through.

“How’s your uh, how’s your day going?” A hand that can’t help itself comes out of his pocket running through his hair. 

“It’s going,” you sigh, a little defeated tossing your calculator to the side. Suddenly the weight of the last few months makes itself known in the muscles of your shoulders, while your bed starts to sound a little too welcoming for it to only be half way through your shift. “What about y-you? How’s your day going?”

“Not too bad, I passed out on the couch and slept for like 12 hours yesterday. So I’d say feeling pretty good all things considered.” Another card of his hair.

Your eyes catch Dustin watching you both with an amused curiosity. 

“On the couch?! Rest in peace to your back.” You smile trying to crack a joke that somehow works, earning you the twitch of his lips that you were looking for.

”It’s been through worse.” He laughs softly, looking down at his feet before meeting your gaze from under his thick lashes with a shy teasing grin. “Did you switch up the coffee this morning or something? It was better than usual.”

The giggle that bubbles out of you makes Steve’s full pink lips stretch wide over his teeth that look even more brilliant in the daytime. It cracks at the awkwardness that's tried to settle between you.

”I guess you’re not as stealthy as you think you are huh?” You wink, giddy feet bouncing under the desk.

”Apparently not.” He narrows his eyes playfully, “it needed maybe one more packet of sugar though, but hey, who’s counting.”

”Steve, I put in three already.” You scoff with a smile so wide it hurts, heart skipping a beat when his grows like it can’t contain itself either. “Why did you even pretend to like your coffee black in the first place? Such a weird thing to lie about.”

“I don’t know!” He whines, embarrassment flushing his cheeks as he runs his hands down his face, “It’s like I did it once, because you know, you’re pret — “ 

Steve clears his throat catching the words that almost slipped from his mouth, but you catch them, heart thumping wildly at the idea of how that sentence almost ended. 

”I hadn’t seen you since high school, so I wanted to come off more like an adult? I don’t know, it was dumb and honestly, I don’t know what’s worse, the fact that you caught me lying or that you let me keep up with it for so long.” He groans, huffing out a laugh scratching the back of his neck.

”Don’t worry, it was pretty amusing, dare I say my favorite part of the morning. You always looked so nervous, like you were about to be caught robbing a bank or something.” You try to hide your laugh behind the back of your hand, when you earn another one of his glares.

”Ha, ha, ha.” He rolls his eyes, but the twitch at the corner of his lips gives him away.

”Steve!” Dustin’s voice interrupts you, making his shoulders tense, jaw clicking with instant annoyance.

”What Henderson? Can’t you see I’m in the middle of a conversation?” He snaps turning around to face the high schooler, broad shoulders blocking him from your view.

”I’m sorry to interrupt your flirting to ask you to do your job.” Dustin responds with a taunting smile that you don’t need to see to know is there.

“You’re really pushing me today, you little shit. I’ll be there in a minute, just give me a second.” This time Steve runs both hands though his hair before turning around to face you again, the thumb flick you were expecting hitting his nose.

”What is this, the third time now in the past few weeks?” You can’t help yourself, or the teasing smirk that spreads across your face, lashes fluttering a little too much, but the greens in his eyes sparkle because of it.

”Like I said the last time, I keep getting distracted by my boss.” He laughs at your scowl about the nickname, walking backwards towards a very impatient Dustin, like he doesn’t want to stop looking at you until he absolutely has to. 

This time you didn’t have to wonder, Steve Harrington was flirting with you.

————-

Five days before Christmas

Monday

When Dustin said to expect snow this week you didn’t realize that he meant a blizzard. Of course it’s a fucking blizzard.

Your tires spin in the foot of snow that’s already fallen since it started this morning. The smoke from your exhaust comes out in huge plumes, over working your engine until you finally give up and take your foot off the gas. You curse the day you decided to go with the cheaper car that lacked the four wheel drive needed to leave the station tonight. And god, you really wanted to crawl into your bed.

“You’re gonna flood your engine!” 

It’s muffled, but the sound of Steve’s voice is unmistakeable, the timbre of it etching into the corners of your mind lately. Cutting off your engine, you look through the fogged up passenger window to see him and Robin standing at the front entrance of the station, the low yellow light almost turning them into shadows. Robin waves excitedly with mitten covered hands like she didn’t just see you less than ten minutes ago, an oversized crocheted beanie threatening to swallow her eyes. Steve on the other hand, he looks almost as stressed as you feel with only that damn leather coat protecting him from the winter storm quite literally raging around him, Nike’s still on his feet.

Leaning over your console, you start to crank open the window, the glass sticking from the frost, groaning like it might shatter before it gives way to snow fluttering into your car. Maybe this wasn’t your best idea.

”I’m stuck!” You yell over the howling wind jutting your bottom lip out for dramatic effect despite stating the obvious. 

”Steve can drive you home!” Robin volunteers without hesitating to ask him if that's okay, but he doesn’t even flinch at the idea.

”Oh — oh no that’s okay, I live on the other side of town, maybe you guys can just help dig me out?” You suggest instead, heart rate kicking up at the thought of being inside Steve’s car.

You’ve heard a lot of stories about that BMW, most against your will.

”You’re just going to get stuck again trying to get out of here, I’ve got four wheel drive. It’s fine, I can drive you.” He waves you off, taking his first steps towards you and into the storm. He walks past his BMW parked on the other side of the WSQK van that blocked some of the snowdrifts, protecting his car from suffering the same fate. 

”How will I get to work in the morning if I don’t try and get my car out of here now?” You counter, with the kind of nerves that only seem to get worse every time he’s around. 

His steps crunch softly in the snow stopping at your half opened window bending down with a hand on the roof to meet your eyes. Robin follows close behind, tilting her head to the side to listen, a smirk twisting up the corners of her lips.

“I’ll pick you up, you’ll need help digging out your car anyway.” He shrugs like he wasn’t offering to completely inconvenience himself for the next 24 hours for solely your benefit. 

“Steve - I can’t, I- “

”Seriously it’s fine! Steve loooves doing stuff like this, it’s like a hobbie, a kink if you will.” Robin interjects, a little too pushy for you not to narrow your eyes at her. “He’s got like a white knight complex or something.”

“Okay, Robin.” Steve snaps, glaring at her from over his shoulder. ”Also, how is enjoying being helpful to my friends a kink? What the hell is wrong with you?” scoffing incrediously, he turns his back almost completely to you.

“I’m just saying!” She shrugs winking at you like you’re in on the joke, but all you can focus on is Steve insinuating that you’re his friend and why that word has a sting to it. 

Running an irritated hand through his hair, he mouths something to her you can’t hear before turning to meet your gaze again with a softness inside his eyes that doesn’t match the tone he just had. It’s the same way he looked at you under the stars that night. 

“We’ve got two options here, and they are either accept my help now, or after you make me throw out my back attempting to dig out your car in a blizzard that will inevitably still get stuck half way down the hill.” The teasing grin on his pink lips disarms you with the kind of charm only he knows how to have, the kind you remember from high school. “I’ll do whichever one you want, honey, so you tell me.” 

Honey.

The word wraps around you gooey and sweet, covering your insides in sugar, warming your bones, leaving you no choice.

”Fine!” It comes out in a playful huff, the edges of your mouth threatening to curl as you pull your keys out of the ignition. You meet his eyes from under your lashes, giving him one last chance to change his mind. “If you’re really okay with this.”

He nods, those perfect teeth of his tugging his full bottom lip between them, cheeks dusting a pretty shade of pink that’s not just from the cold.

”Oh, trust me, he is!” Robin interrupts, and you watch in real time the way the gold sparkling inside his eyes turn black before they roll in the back of his head.

“Keep running that mouth Buckley, and you’re going to get real familiar with the walk home.” He groans with another hand through his hair, the constant snow fall making the ends wet.

”Empty threats.” She scoffs, completely unphased just like Dustin. “Now let's go before we all get stuck too. No offense to you guys but I don’t want to have a sleep over at The Squawk with Keith.” 

She says his name like it leaves a bad taste in her mouth, and Steve’s face twists in disgust like he can taste it too.

“Couldn’t agree more’.” You add, amused by another display of the two of them sharing the same brain.

Leaning over to crank your window back up, you meet Steve’s gaze from up close, something swirling inside it that you can’t figure out making your heart thump a few beats quicker. He holds you there till you’re sealed inside, leaving the storm muffled just like his voice.

“I‘ll go warm up the car.” 

———-

You never thought you’d be sitting shotgun in Steve’s BMW, or that it would relax every bone in your aching body, loosening the stress knots that have made a permanent home in your shoulder blades. It’s the way the cinnamon and amber fill the small space with the musk of his cologne, and how they mix with the deep tanned leather of the seat underneath you. The heat that blows from the vents only seems to intensify it along with the man next to you. It feels like you’re surrounded by him, encased by him. 

He drives slowly down the winding road that leads into town, the tires crunch as it compacts the thick snow underneath them. It falls from the sky like it’s angry, wind sweeping the wet flakes against his headlights. His wipers squeak working overtime to keep visibility. The full moon hidden behind the deep purple clouds fights to shine its way through the storm, casting a deep lavender glow along the banks. Illuminating the snow that hangs heavy on the edges of the trees that line the bare woods surrounding you. Frank Sinatra’s ‘You Go To My Head’ plays softly from his speakers with a light crackle from years of playing his music way too loud joy riding with Tommy and Carol. 

Steve readjusts slightly in his seat to shift gears, and you catch a whiff of tobacco still clinging to the fabric of his sweater underneath his coat. Tugging your bottom lip between your teeth, you have to fight the urge to lean forward and inhale.  

“Okay, so — secret Santa. We were thinking of having it at the Wheeler’s, since their basement is practically like our second apartment anyway, on top of the fact that it’s way easier to get to than The Squawk.” Robin breaks the silence, leaning forward resting her elbows on the backs of either of your headrests. 

You don’t miss the way Steve’s grip on the steering wheel tightens enough to show the white’s of his knuckles at the name, or the anxious pit that forms in your gut at the idea of being the new face in a group of friends that are tied together by something you can’t even begin to comprehend. 

“Hey! Sit down, are you kidding me?” He scolds, glaring at her from the rearview mirror.

”Sorry, Dad.” She huffs, raising her hands in defense, flopping herself back into her seat. Your lips twitch at the familiar nickname.

”And put your seat belt on too. Jesus, I’m driving in a freaking blizzard Robin.” He only takes his hand off the steering wheel just long enough to run it through his hair.  Robin sticks her tongue out at his reflection, but you still hear the click of her seatbelt before she continues.

“Anyway, I’m thinking around 8 o'clock Christmas Eve. You can make Keith work the overnight shift since you’re the boss and all.” She grins wide when you toss her your own glare from over your shoulder.

”What if Keith wants it off?” You counter with teasing revenge.

It’s Steve that snorts next to you, bringing your attention to the curve of his lips, doing good to keep his eyes on the road.

”Keith was banned from secret Santa, per our agreement, so therefore he has to work and you have to go.” He argues siding with his best friend daring to meet your gaze before adding a little quieter. “Besides, I want you to go.”

Your stomach flips at his admission, cheeks warming enough they could fog the window next to you if you were just a few inches closer. Biting down on your bottom lip, you try to fight off the shy smile that wants to take over your face. Nervous hands pulling at the sleeves of your coat.

”I guess I’ll see what I can do.” You try to play along with a roll of your eyes and a bad attempt at an even voice, but you can tell Robin sees right through it. The heat of her stare threatens to burn a hole in the back of your head daring you to meet it.

”Perfect, then it’s decided.” She finally says, something mischievous dancing around in her tone. “Hey dingus, drop me off at our place first, I forgot I gotta wake up early to help my Mom with something.” 

It sounds casual, the way she lays the trap, but you know exactly what she’s doing and you’re almost positive Steve does too. Especially by the way he stares her down through the rear view mirror before clearing his throat.

“Sounds good.” He nods with a small smile that almost seems nervous, glancing at you from the corner of his eye to gauge a reaction you don’t give despite the wild thumping of your heart in your chest.

Robin Buckley was a menace.

Of course it doesn’t take much longer for Steve to pull into the small parking lot of what you assume is their apartment complex. It’s one of the two in Hawkins, and yours of course is on the exact opposite side of town. Guilt consumes you with the realization of how far out of his way he’s going to not only drive you home, but to also pick you up first thing in the morning as the never ending storm clouds continue to dump what seems like another foot of snow on top of you.

Robin jumps out of the car before it even fully comes to a stop.

”Drive safe, and I’ll see you on Christmas Eve!” She smiles, sticking her head in one last time, throwing Steve a wink that makes him scoff and wave her off.

”Bye. Close the damn door before the snow ruins the leather.” He scolds, trying to dismiss her very obvious ulterior motives, mouthing ‘go’ until she finally obliges. 

The wind outside isn’t loud enough to drown out her cackle after she shuts the door, and despite his annoyance he still doesn’t drive away till he sees her disappear safely into their apartment. Adding yet another quality to the long list of things Steve does that you unexpectedly find extremely endearing. 

“I’m sorry — I don’t know why she’s being so, so - she’s being weird.” He stammers nervously, slowly pulling out and back into the snow storm that’s only seemed to get worse.

”I think that’s just Robin’s general demeanor.” You say casually, like your palms weren’t sweating. 

“That is also true.” He laughs quietly, shifting gears when his tires slide, turning a corner.

“Are you seriously sure this is okay Steve? We're still not that far from the station. It’s getting bad, I can just stay there.”  

As if to prove your point, the wind kicks up, smacking loudly on the side of his car.

”You’re not sleeping at the station.” He responds seriously, shifting again before slowly hitting the gas getting back on the main road. “I would not have offered it if I didn’t want to.”

”Technically Robin offered.”

”We’re basically the same person, so.” He shrugs, a toothy grin spreading across his face that only seems to be more handsome draped in shadows and moonlight. 

Frank Sinatra’s ‘If I Had You’ fills the quiet space between you, the strings and his deep melodic voice turning the snow outside into something magical instead of treacherous. 

“You really like Sinatra don’t you?” The question makes him do a double take, a reveal that warms both your cheeks and sends butterflies soaring deep in your gut giving your cards away about listening to his overnights.

‘I could show the world how to smile. I could be glad all the while. I could change the grey skies blue, if I had you.’ 

”Checking up on me I see.” He grins, shifting again only this time the side of his hand grazes your thigh, the slightest touch sending your body buzzing.

”I mean, I’ve got to keep tabs. I’ve caught you slipping, what? Four times now?” You tease, doing your best to hide your grin. 

”Three. And all of them were your fault.” He corrects, sly eyes finding yours over the console making you giggle.

”Sounds like a deflection to me, Steve.” You sigh, relaxing even more in your seat meeting him from under your lashes. “I just never pegged you for a Frank Sinatra kind of guy.”

He huffs out a laugh, running a big hand through his hair that almost looks like a messy kind of bed head after the amount of times he’s done it throughout the day. 

“I wasn’t until Robin started judging my love for Eddie Money like it was the worst thing she’s ever heard in her life. Which is crazy cause —”

”He makes hits!” You agree, with the kind of excitement that makes a smile stretch so big across his face that it splits in two. 

”Thank you! Yes, he makes hits. But, she disagrees and decided to dedicate the first two months we worked at the station ‘expanding’ my music taste. I tried hiding the fact that I liked Frank outta spite, but apparently you aren’t the only one who listens to my overnights.” He glances over holding your stare for just long enough to make your heart skip a beat.

“You really aren’t stealthy, Steve.” You giggle before adding, “I bet she knows you’re smoking again too.”

”You’re probably right.” He groans at the possibility.

”I hear that a lot.” 

Steve snorts, flipping his blinker on to turn down the road that leads to your side of town, shifting again his knuckles brush against you for the second time sending goosebumps pebbling across your skin. 

“I was so surprised the first time I heard you play ‘My Way’, but honestly Harrington, it kinda suits you. I like it.” Your cheeks warm at your own compliment, something about saying it in his moonlit car has it feeling bigger than intended.

He stays quiet for a moment, letting the song fill the space between you charged with the new feelings that sit on the edge of both of your tongues.

’And I could leave the old days behind. Leave all my pals, I’d never mind. And I could start my life anew, if I had you.’

”Yeah?” He asks quietly, with a kind of soft vulnerability wrapped around the word that’s unmistakable.

“Mmhmm.” You whisper matching his tone turning shy, heart thumping wildly in your chest. “It’s hard not too.”

You aren’t talking about Sinatra anymore, and you think you both know it.

His gaze feels heavy as it crawls over the details of your face in the silence that follows, trying to figure out what’s going on inside your head. You hope whatever he’s looking for is hidden, just like the feelings that are starting to bloom despite how much you’ve tried not to water them. 

“What was it like?” 

The question you’ve been too scared to ask since you’ve been home slips out without warning, nervous fingers fidgeting with the sleeves of your sweater that poke out from your coat. 

“Lockdown?” He clears his throat, straightening his posture holding the steering wheel with a harsh grip.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.” You try to take it back watching the way all the muscles in his body seem to tense at the memory. 

”No, no, it’s fine.” He responds with a small smile reading you like a book from the corner of his eye. “I don’t mind, just, uh, I wasn't expecting it.”

”Sorry, I have a bad habit of just blurting out whatever pops into my mind.” You laugh nervously, tugging your bottom lip between your teeth.

“Oh, I know, I remember your conversational skills on the roof.” He teases, the whites of his teeth shining against the dashboard lights.

“Now look at us because of my lack of conversational skills.” Smirking, you dare to look over at him again, your eyes tracing the moles that dot his profile. 

Steve was always handsome, but was he always this handsome?

“Fast friends.” He chuckles softly, meeting your gaze briefly before focusing back on the road. 

There’s that word again. You guess it’s better than ‘cool.’

The snow falls so heavily outside you aren’t entirely sure how he’s even able to see through it anymore.

”Lockdown was like being trapped in a never ending loop of the worst day of your life.” He says with a low voice, his handsome features going dark at the memory.

Shifting gears again, his Beamer slowly trudges up the kind of hill that you know would have been your car's demise if you had even made it out of the station's parking lot. He leaves his hand to rest on the stick shift this time, the tips of his fingers press softly into your thigh, he doesn’t move them. 

“But at least I had a real excuse for once as to why my life turned out the way it did.” There’s a layer of self hatred sewn into what he’s saying, it’s hard to miss in the way it diminishes the light in his eyes. 

”What do you mean by that?” You whisper, too nervous to talk at full volume, but you lean your thigh further into his touch, keeping him connected to you. The rev of his struggling engine bleeds through the conversation, and you wonder if his car will even make it back.

”I mean look at me.” He laughs, like it’s obvious. 

“I am looking at you Steve.” 

You almost tell him that it’s all you seem to be doing lately.

”My Dad’s a lawyer with his own firm, and I’m a sound guy at a radio station who peaked in high school that can’t seem to get it together enough to leave.” He scoffs like you must need a reminder, running that nervous hand through his hair again, knee starting to bounce. 

“That’s not what I see.” It comes out soft just like your gaze, fingers flexing in your lap fighting the urge to wrap around his.

”Yeah?” His voice cracks a little, but he keeps his focus on the disappearing road. “What do you see?”

’I could be a king, dear, uncrowned. Humble or poor, rich or renowned. There’s nothing I couldn’t do, if I had you.’

“Someone that loves his friends so deeply that he constantly puts his needs last. You’re selfless almost to a fault Steve, and sometimes I have to fight the urge to yell at you to take care of yourself when I see how bad the bags under your eyes get some days.” 

He chuckles dryly, his grip on the steering wheel tightening as he blinks back tears that threaten to spill like he’s never heard these things about himself before. A storm raging inside of him just like the one outside.

”I see a guy who’s so kind, he’d sacrifice his own happiness for anyone that he loves. And I think that’s exactly why you’re still here. I wouldn’t call that being a failure. Not by a long shot.” 

That’s when you do it, you wrap your fingers around his and squeeze, he does it back with zero hesitation, like he was waiting for you. Keeping you there.

”I think about it all the time you know?” He whispers, the pad of his thumb brushing against your knuckles, butterflies multiplying deep in your gut.

”What?”

”Leaving.”

Frank Sinatra’s deep baritone fills the quiet that falls between you when he turns on your road, letting the weight of his confession hold the space there. A deep longing inside of it to see what lies past where the twenty feet tall fences were. 

“Why haven’t you?” The question feels loaded when it leaves your mouth, and the way his thumb stutters tells you it is.

”I just need to know they’re safe — that they get out of here first. Especially Dustin, that little shit gets under my skin but I love him like he's my kid.” He answers the question with the most selfless kind of reason you should’ve expected. Something else lingering inside of it that he doesn’t want to unpack just yet. “After everything, I just can’t, I can’t. Not yet. Part of me feels like maybe I’ll always live here.”

He pulls into your complex like he’s done it a thousand times before, wheels spinning in the snow before his car propels forward into the first spot, only letting go of your fingers to put the car in park.

”That doesn’t mean you can’t explore what’s past Hawkins, Steve.” You whisper, turning in your seat to face him, already missing the warmth of his hand. “You’re not stuck, even if you stay, you can always see what else is out there, one place at a time, one trip at a time. Bit by bit. The world is big, and it’s not going anywhere.”

His eyes shine, glassy and shimmering under the street lamp above his car. They tell you everything he can’t bring his mouth to speak, your hands flexing in your lap fighting the urge to grab onto him again. Shadows make the moles and freckles that dot his skin look like the last flick of a paint brush, the final touches to a painting and you realize — yes, Steve has always been this handsome, you just didn’t see it before. 

You see it now though.

“Thanks for taking me home.” You smile a little shy, the heaviness of the conversation hanging in the air. 

“Any time, honey.” His full lips twist into something sweet, the new nickname making your body come alive. “Want me to walk you to your door?”

He glances around your well lit parking lot like something could be lurking in the shadows, it feels silly to you, but the expression that furrows deep in the V of his brows tells you that it’s anything but to him.

“I’m already scared you’re not gonna get out of here as it is. I’m just right there.” You point to the door of your apartment, the one conveniently closest to where he’s parked and his shoulders visibly relax. You knew he was going to watch you till you got inside anyway.

”I’ll pick you up around 8?” He asks, his eyes glancing down at your hands that fidget like he missed your touch too.

The bold red numbers on his dash read: 9:38PM. Suddenly tomorrow feels like a million years away. 

“That sounds good.” It comes out in a whisper, your mind frantically searching for anything to say to keep him here even if just for a few minutes more. But it’s all static.

”I’ll see you tomorrow morning then.” He smiles, leaning back into the headrest.

”I’ll make you coffee for your troubles — with four sugars, don’t worry.” You tease, trying to ignore the nervous crack in your voice, but your joke lands earning you a snort in response and it only pushes your cheeks up higher.

“Better make it five.” Steve winks, white teeth gleaming against the dashboard lights at the eye roll he gets.

”Whatever Harrington, it's your body, your diabetes." You shrug, not expecting the genuine full belly laugh you get, quickly doing your best to try and memorize the bass and timbre of it in case you don’t hear it again.

You take one last look at him, committing this moment to memory. His eyes do the same as they trace over every curve and dip of your face, it makes you squirm a little in your seat. Your fingers grab the door handle at the same time he clears his throat leaning back into the leather. He flicks his thumb across his nose, before that big hand of his wraps around the stick shift, signaling that it’s really time to go.

”Please drive safely.” You beg, stepping out of the car and into the snow, remembering all those times he peeled out of the station’s dirt road.

”I will, I will. Don’t worry.” He waves you off with a smirk, “I’ll be thinking about that coffee the whole way home.”

He’s not talking about the coffee. 

You tug your bottom lip between your teeth, the wet snow flakes that stick to your cheeks melting from the heat emanating off of them. Shutting the door, you wave at him one last time before trudging up to your apartment, feeling the warmth of his stare on you the whole way. He waits until your keys are in your door before you hear the squeal of his gear shifting, his tires spinning loudly just like yours did at the station. It makes you turn around, and you watch him try to back out again just to get himself even more stuck in the snow that just continues to pile around him. He tugs at his hair trying one more time, finally giving up when smoke starts to come up from the burning rubber of his tires. His eyes meet yours through his windshield, apologetic and nervous, the wind kicking up a notch to add salt to the wound.

”You’re gonna flood your engine!” You tease with a grin, getting the shine of his teeth you were looking for. Bright like the sunshine you missed so much, they break through the storm clouds that threaten to hide his face. 

Steve Harrington was snowed in at your apartment.

—- 

You never thought your place was that small for a studio until Steve was standing in the middle of it, broad shoulders and long legs taking up so much space. His eyes are curious as they absorb his new surroundings, mouth slightly agape unzipping his leather jacket looking around like he’s being let in on a big secret. Nerves twist tight in your gut at the general clutter scattered around your room that doubles as a common area, especially the pair of underwear hanging half hazardly from your laundry basket.

”Sorry for the - the um, mess. I wasn’t expecting anyone, obviously.” You stutter, peeling off your coat in a rush. 

Hanging up your puffer by the front door, you scurry past him to try and clean up what you can, starting with the black lace but the deepening red in his cheeks tells you that it's too late.

”You're fine, seriously. You’re cute — I mean.” He clears his throat like it's closing up, scratching the back of his neck, “It's a cute, cute apartment.”  

You can’t stop the twist of your lips no matter how hard you try, giggling a soft thank you as you speed clean around him. He stands there awkwardly, unsure of what to do with himself either, both of you lost in uncharted territory. 

“Here, I’ll take your coat.” You huff throwing away the last of the wrappers you’ve collected, taking a deep breath at the realization that you’re being a bad host. “You can sit on the couch, and get comfortable.” 

Steve looks like a deer in headlights when you walk over to him with an open hand.                     

”Is it okay if I use your bathroom real quick?” There’s a shyness in the way that he asks, slipping his wet leather coat into your grasp, that nervous hand pushing his hair back.

There’s a brief moment of panic as you try and remember the way you left it, but since you weren’t running late today, you’re nintey nine percent sure it’s safe.

”Yeah of course, it’s on the right around the corner, not the left, that's just a closet.” 

He nods, patting himself down like maybe he’s forgetting something before turning around and disappearing into the bathroom with a soft click of the door. A shaky breath you didn’t even know you were holding slips out from between your lips as you hang up his coat. The musk of his cologne hits your nose along with the relaxing hint of amber inside of it, and this time, you give in, inhaling a little more.

You take one last look around your apartment for anything else you might’ve missed before grabbing an extra blanket from the closet you warned him about. Your heart thumps a little quicker hearing the muffled sound of the water running in the sink as the reality of Steve Harrington having to sleep on your couch just a few feet from your bed settles in.

You grab the extra pillow you usually cuddle with from its hiding place under your comforter, laying everything out for him on one side of the loveseat.  Staring down at the short piece of furniture, there's a part of you that wonders if he’s even going to fit on it, at least comfortably. Another wave of guilt hits you like a tsunami as you start to think maybe you should be the one to sleep on the couch instead.

The sound of the bathroom door opening stops you from being able to fret about it too much as he emerges from around the corner. His hazel eyes find yours instantly, the gold in them looking warm like honey. A toothy grin cracks his handsome face in two calming the anxiety that had begun tightening uncomfortably in your chest. The sleeves of his brown sweater are pushed up, and the windswept mess on the top of his head had obviously been tamed in his absence. A mental image of him fixing his hair in your small bathroom mirror has the corners of your mouth curling up. It feels like something to check off a bucket list. 

“I like the pink rugs you have in there.” He points over his shoulder with his thumb taking two long strides to the middle of the room, his gaze wandering the posters on your wall like he's trying to piece you together.

“Thanks, I bought them when I first moved back to brighten it up a little.” You sigh with a shrug, looking down before adding “this one too.”

You point to the fuzzy burnt orange throw carpet under both your sock covered feet, a proud smile pulling up your cheeks meeting his eyes from under your lashes.

”I’ve got the last little bit of my favorite summer candle. I usually light it when it snows like this. If you wanna get really crazy, we can even pretend it’s June.” The wiggle of your eyebrows earns you the kind of laugh from him that threatens to become your favorite sound. 

“What does summer smell like to you?” He questions with a soft stare, teeth tugging at his full bottom lip. The warm light from your floor lamp casting shadows across his sharp features. 

”It smells like the beach on the sunniest day of the year — salt water, sunshine, with the smallest amount of sweetness and dare I say a dash of clean linen.” You sigh at the thought of it, side stepping him to light it from where it sits on your kitchen island. 

“Take me away to cocamo or whatever the song says.” Steve huffs, finally flopping down on your couch. A low groan rumbles from his chest as his body molds into the cushions. This time he runs both hands through his hair.

“I’m just gonna change into something more comfortable really quick.” It comes out in a rush, your nerves from before jumbling the words on the tip of your tongue.

”Take your time,” He waves you off with a yawn, “do you care if I use your phone to call Robin while you’re doing that? I don’t want her thinking I’m in a ditch somewhere.”

“Go for it.” You smile, grabbing your softest pajama pants and an oversized shirt doing your best not to over think it, or the fact that you have nothing for him to sleep in.

Disappearing around the corner, you have to ward off the mental image of what Steve sprawled out across your couch in his boxers would look like.

—-

His voice sounds faint on the other side of the door and even though he's speaking in a hushed tone you can still tell he’s annoyed by whatever his best friend is saying on the other end. Judging by the way she was acting in the car, you can only imagine in the privacy of a call.

You stare at yourself in the mirror, probably the same way he did, messing with your appearance. Your mind wanders, replaying the night and how pushy Robin was all of the sudden, and it makes you wonder if she knows something you don’t. Maybe you weren’t the only one figuring out what that flutter in your stomach actually means.

Clearing your throat loudly, you give him a subtle warning of your return, fingers wrapping around the doorknob for ten extra seconds longer before finally coming out.

”You are not basically Dave Hull, you don’t host a match making show, please shut up— I gotta go, seriously? Can it— bye!”

He hangs up, running an irritated hand down his face mumbling something to himself before turning around. His eyes go wide, crimson staining his cheeks clearly oblivious to all the warnings you tried to give him.   

“Sounds like she was super worried.” You tease trying your best to hide your smile and ignore the way his gaze wanders your softer edges, the hardened shell at work hung up with your coat. 

“Yeah, sorry about that.” He snorts with an annoyed groan, “she was just being —“

”Robin.” You finish with a giggle, dragging your feet lazily to your bed, as a guilty conscience has you sizing up the couch again.

”I forget that you understand.” He laughs dryly flopping back down where he was sitting before you changed, thighs spreading wide as he head lulls against the cushions.

”Steve, I really don’t think that couch is going to be big enough for you.” Crossing your arms, you try to think of any kind of comfortable position he could possibly sleep in without his legs hanging over the arm rest. Or worse, propped up in mid air. 

“I think you should take my bed, I’ll sleep on the couch.”

”No, nope, absolutely not.” He sits up, squaring his broad shoulders in stubborn finality. 

“Seriously, I re-“

“I mean it, I'm fine, I could sleep standing up if I’m tired enough.” Steve grabs the blanket you laid out for him, leaning back and stretching out with one leg on the arm rest and the other on the floor.   

“See? Comfy.” 

He drapes the quilted comforter over himself to really drive his point home. It doesn’t look comfortable at all, but it’s obvious he’s not going to back down. 

You narrow your eyes at him, staring just long enough to get a laugh before he shoos you away to a bed that’s been calling your name since the station. This time you don’t have it in you to argue, taking one last look at him letting him win after he whispers a final ‘I’m fine, go to bed.”

———

The wind howls loudly outside, noisy gusts blowing against your windows sending in a chill that bleeds through the cracks of the poorly sealed glass. Another harsh blast against your apartment building has the flimsy foundations shake, and despite the thickness of your comforter goosebumps pebble across your skin, teeth threatening to chatter. Glancing over at your alarm clock, bright red numbers flash a harsh 12:34AM at you.

It was the sound of Steve’s light snoring that lulled you to sleep about an hour ago, but now it’s his constant shuffling and re adjusting on the couch that pulls you out of it. A long huff escapes through his nose after turning for what feels like the hundredth time, and you don’t have to see him to know he’s running a hand through his hair.

The wind kicks up again, blowing out the dim flame of your dying candle on the kitchen island, the soft yellow glow disappearing turning the room a deep blue. A shiver runs up your spine at the same time the springs of the couch squeak as he tries to readjust again.

”Steve, just get in the bed.” 

The shuffling stops, both of you holding your breath.

”It doesn’t have to be weird, you’re clearly uncomfortable.” You sit up rubbing the sleep from your eyes finding him in the kind of position that was sure to give him back problems for the next week. 

The internal battle he’s having with himself is evident on his face, and it lasts long enough for the uncomfortable weight of regret to start settling in your chest. Nerves digging your canines into the skin on the side of your thumb. 

“Fuck it.” He huffs under his breath sitting up, grabbing the pillow you gave him that had been rolled up to help support his neck in the pretzel of a position he had put himself in. 

Your shoulders relax for a split second until the realization of what this means quickens the beating of your heart. Chewing your bottom lip, you lift the comforter in a silent invitation doing your best to keep up with the ruse that this wasn’t a big deal, even if it feels like the exact opposite.

Steve stops at the side of your full size bed, running those long fingers through the already messy main on the top of his head. Purple shadows kiss the bags under his weary eyes as he takes in the small space next to you before they meet your gaze.

”Are you sure? I- I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.” He asks with a sleepy rasp in his voice that makes your chest swell.

”I’ve actually never been more sure of anything in my life, if you can believe it.” You give him a lazy reassuring grin, “besides, I’m cold and I’m willing to bet you’re like a human furnace.”

He lets out a soft laugh at the reveal of your ulterior motive, the stress in his shoulders softening as he runs a hand over his face before nodding tossing his pillow down next to yours.

”As long as it’s mutually beneficial.” Steve smiles a little shy climbing under the covers, his weight making the mattress dip in the middle daring you to come closer. 

The bed squeaks underneath him as he adjusts, your metal bed frame smacking against the wall. He settles on his side facing you with a hand tucked under his pillow. You mimic the way he lays, nerves coming out in the form of fidgeting feet, your toes brushing against his under the covers. He’s so close that you can see the smattering of freckles at the corners of his eyes, and every mole that dots along his neck. Amber and tobacco hit your nose, warming you just like the heat that radiates off his body, eyes glowing a golden evergreen in the deep blue light of your apartment.

God he was close, so close.

His gaze traces the lines of your face and you swear they linger on your lips. Even if just for a fleeting moment, catching your breath in the back of your throat.

“Bet you regret offering to take me home now huh?” You tease in a whisper, the tip of your toe catching on his shin. 

“Nah,” he scoffs with a soft grin,“I do however regret not wearing my boots, I wasn't even thinking, rookie mistake.” 

Your giggle makes his full pink lips stretch wide over perfect white teeth. Butterflies flutter in a kaleidoscope of color when he catches your feet with his own.

“I’ll help you,” you hum, as your hand not tucked away finds a new home in the space between you. “Don’t worry.”

There’s a moment of silence while his fingers follow yours, resting close enough for the tips of them to brush. His thick eyebrows marry in the middle of his forehead, thinking hard about whatever he’s wanting to say next.

“Sorry if that was a little much in the car earlier, I didn’t mean to dump all of that on you.” He looks up at you from under his lashes, insecurities swirling in the depths of his irises.

“Don’t be,” your voice comes out quiet, swallowing your apprehension as your index finger hooks with his, “I like seeing that side of you.”

His finger flexes at your response, squeezing.

“Yeah?” He questions with the kind of disbelief that cracks open your heart.

“Mmhmm.” You murmur, holding his gaze, toes digging into the top of his foot, silently saying I like you.

You don’t know when it happened, but staring at him in the incandescent light of your room. You’re sure of it now. 

Steve scoots closer, the heat of his breath fanning against your lips. Drawn to him like a magnet, you do the same, the tip of your nose brushing with his. Cinnamon from the Big Red he always chews invades your senses like the left over cologne clinging to his clothes. Another gust of wind smacks against your windows, sending a chill up your spine. Steve’s lips quirk on one side.

“Want to test out your furnace theory?” He breathes, a nervous crack in his voice, as he takes the leap of no return, first. 

Tugging your bottom lip between your teeth, all you can muster is a shy nod, your legs wrapping tighter around his. Something greedy warms every inch of your skin like it’s a need to have him as close as possible, and here he is offering it to you like it’s all he wants too. 

His big hand finds your hip before sliding to the small of your back, his palm flattening along your spine tugging you to him. It doesn’t take much to close whatever space that was left between you, legs tangling together with bodies pressed so close that you can feel every ridge and dip of him. You look up from under your lashes just to find him already staring down at you, and even with the heavy weight of his mind evident under his eyes, he’s somehow more handsome than he was an hour ago. 

Your palms flatten along his chest, the unbuttoned collar of his sweater revealing the top of a thick patch of hair that hides underneath the cotton. It makes your thighs press into his, your cheeks burning but if he notices he doesn’t show it. The pad of his thumb presses softly running along the dip of your spine, soothing your stiff muscles while his eyes trace over the contours of your face. There’s something about the way he looks at you that makes you feel like he can see everything that you’re trying to hide, and when his gaze lingers on your lips you’re sure he can. 

The hand he kept tucked under his pillow outstretches with his arm, sliding under your head to pull the rest of you in. Tucking you under his chin, you bury your face into the side of his neck, thankful for the hiding place. His skin feels just as sunkissed as it looks, and it takes everything inside of you not to nuzzle deeper into him searching for more. 

“Is this okay?” He whispers against the crown of your head, soft fingers running up and down the length of your back. 

“Mmhmm.” You mumble against his throat instead of ‘can I live here?’ curling your fists into his sweater to pull yourself closer.

For the first time all winter, you’re thankful for the snow. 

“Are you okay?” Your question comes out in a murmur, lips ghosting against his skin as you attempt to look up at him failing miserably nosing the sensitive spot behind his ear. 

”Am I — am I okay?” He snorts incredulously, pulling you close enough to feel impossible, turning his head just enough for your cheeks to brush, the heat of his breath pebbling goosebumps along the side of your neck. “Never been better, honey.”

Honey. You want to change your name to honey. Get lost in the gold of it hidden in his eyes.

All you would have to do is lift your chin up slightly, and your lips could be pressed to his. The thought of them being so close quickens your heart beat, breath hitching as the tip of his nose nudges against the side of your cheek. Testing the boundaries like the realization dawned on him too. The sound of your heavy breathing mixes with the howling of the wind outside, filling the quiet space of your apartment, neither one of you daring to speak. His chest rises and falls under your palm, his own heart matching yours, skipping a beat at the tilt of your chin. 

His fingers slide down your spine, fiddling with the hem of your shirt until he feels the slight nod of your head giving him permission. Electricity sparks goosebumps along the soft skin of your lower back the moment the tips of them touch you, a low hum escaping the back of your throat. You swear you feel his lips curve up against your cheek at the sound. Your bodies move together, seeking friction you’re not ready to give into yet, heavy breathes hot against each other's necks. 

Your hands trail down his chest, a greedy need to touch more of him taking over all logical thought. They reach the bottom of his sweater at the same time your nose presses harder into his cheek when the blunt end of his nails drag softly down the dip of your spine. Your fingers slip under the hem, the pads of them meeting the rough hair of his happy trail. His body tenses, the movements of his hand coming to halt. You immediately feel the loss when he pulls it out, long fingers grabbing a hold of your wrist. 

“Hey.” He whispers against your ear, his voice laced with something soft and scared.

You work up the courage to push past the bitter taste of rejection sneaking up on you to pull your head back just enough to meet the heavy gaze of his eyes, eclipsed dark with want, fear sparkling in the depths of them. The tips of your noses brush, and your fingers itch to smooth the lines in the middle of his forehead from the furrow of his brows despite the way your heart drops to the pit of your gut. 

Maybe you read this all wrong. 

“There’s — There’s stuff you don’t know about me.” He starts, the hand on your wrist letting you go so he can thread his fingers with yours, easing some of the anxiety that had started to build. “Things happened to me — happened to a lot of us during that time.” 

You press your forehead to his, the pad of your thumb rubbing softly over his knuckles, silently encouraging him to continue. His face twists like he’s in pain, shame shadowing his handsome features, breaking your heart before he even has a chance to finish. 

”These things, they left their mark on me. It’s — it’s a lot to explain, not really pillow talk.” huffing out a nervous laugh, he swallows avoiding your gaze, he moves his focus to your tangled hands instead before continuing, “my stomach and umm parts of my chest — I’ve got a lot of scars is what I’m trying to tell you pretty fucking badly. A lot of them, and I haven’t really shown them to anyone before. Well anyone —“

”New?” You finish, squeezing your legs around his calf a little tighter remembering the one you saw wrapped around his neck. 

Tears that you don’t let fall sting the corners of your eyes. Seeing him vulnerable like this, leaving himself bare to trust you to help pick the pieces back up has a sharp pain tightening in your chest. A vengeful rage boiling under the surface at the idea of whatever it was that caused him so much pain. The urge to apologize to him eats at you but you keep it to yourself knowing that’s the last thing he would want. Steve Harrington hated pity.  

”Yeah,” He breathes a slight sigh of relief, his eyes finally meeting yours with a worry he can’t seem to shake swimming deep in the pools of them.

”Steve.” His name comes out gentle, a softness about it that has his nose nudging against yours. “You only have to share with me whatever you’re comfortable with.”

You run the tip of your nose along the length of his, breathing him in. 

“I don’t need to see them yet, or ever if that’s what you want, I just — I just really want to touch you.”

Your eyes close, hiding from his gaze that searches for you. 

“I want that too, honey. God more than anything.” He whispers against the corner of your mouth, the silk of his lips waking up every nerve ending in your body.

He lets go of your hand, fingers lazily crawling up your hip before returning to their home on the small of your back. A shiver runs up your spine at how good it feels to be touched by him again, only a few minutes passing but they felt like a lifetime. 

You meet Steve’s stare, an intensity burning in his eyes that wasn’t there before. The kind that gives you the courage to slip your hand back up the bottom of his sweater. Tentative nails raking through his rough happy trail. The feeling of your touch sends a shudder through his body, like it’s been denied this kind of intimacy for a long time. A low groan catching in the back of his throat pressing his forehead harder against yours.

Your touch grows bolder, more curious as your fingers dare to crawl further up. The pads of them are met with uneven skin, evidence of large almost teeth-like shaped gashes lining the sides of his ribs. Despite pinching his eyes closed, he leans further into your touch. Your teeth dig into the fat of your bottom lip, holding in the cry that wants to slip out.

What happened to you?

The blunt ends of your nails find the softer patch of hair on his chest, your hips meeting his on their own accord. Steve tilts his head up, his mouth hovering just above yours as his hands spread wide across the small of your back. He pulls you to him like there’s somehow more space between you even though there isn’t. Your top lip brushes just slightly against his full bottom one, while your fingers dance slowly down the other side of his ribcage. The bumps of identical scars kissing the pads of them again. 

His nose presses into your cheek, a shaky breath tickling against your skin. The blunt end of his nails digging crescent moons into the soft skin of your back when you go over a deeper indentation.

“So handsome.” You whisper, lips ticking just under the shell of his ear as you glide your fingers over the same spot again.

He breathes out a shy laugh, nuzzling deeper into you leaving a whisper of a kiss at the hinge of your jaw. His mouth is so close to where you want it most, a fluttering tickling deep in your gut at the feel of them dragging along your skin. 

“So beautiful.” His voice comes out low against the sensitive spot in the crook of your neck. Its baritone has your body curving soaking in the warmth of him through your palms because touching Steve feels like bathing in sunshine. 

The need for more is insatiable, and he lets you take as much as you want. Your hands wander the broad expanses of his chest, tracing the dips and curves of the pinched skin of his scars until your eyelids grow too heavy to keep open. The soft caresses of his fingers against the sore muscles of your back lulling you to the deepest sleep you’ve had in what feels like months but not before you hear a quiet whispered ‘sweet dreams, honey.’

——-

Part Two ✨

tag list: @beezusvreeland @winharry @stydiaforeverbitchezz @mhayes777 @margiissoswag

[letmebeurbaby]

THINK I NEED SOMEONE OLDER ⋆｡:

PART ONE | PART TWO

⋆｡: synopsis ~ two weeks after what was supposed to be one of your usual one night stands – ended with a line you were hoping wasn't gonna be taken seriously – you find yourself running from the only person who was able to actually make you feel something for the first time ever while ellie keeps chasing the one who made her feel alive again.

⋆｡: word count ~ 10.4k

⋆｡: content warnings ~ older!ellie x reader, age-gap (ellie's 34, reader's 24), swearing, reader's pov deep dive, angst kinda, mommy issues, daddy issues, everything issues lol, reader's messed up tbh, alcohol, mentions of cigarettes, SMUT, top!ellie, sub!reader, fingering (r!receiving), oral sex (r!receiving) strap-on sex (r!receiving), pet names (baby), praise, afab!reader, men and minors dni.

likes, comments and reblogs are deeply appreciated ♡

It’s been two weeks.

Fourteen days, give or take, since you left that apartment, tugged your dress back over your hips, patted the doorframe of her bedroom like it didn’t burn and told yourself – out loud, actually, just to make it sound more final – that it hadn’t meant anything.

And you’ve spent every one of those three hundred and thirty-six hours trying to convince yourself that it was – like always – just sex. Just another night, another body, another pulse racing beneath your palm that would forget your name before morning.

You were the one who said it, the one who left the door cracked open like a trap you didn't expect to fall into yourself: "If you wanna do this again... you know where to find me."

It was meant to be a power move, a way to remind her that you were the one in control, the one who decided if there was a next time, but now it just feels like a ghost you’ve summoned to haunt your own doorstep.

Because it’s been two weeks and you haven’t stopped thinking about her.

And not even in the ways you’re used to – not the oh she was hot, wonder if i can top her next time kind of way. Not the aesthetic recall of the shape of her hands or the flex of her muscles, though you could list every detail if someone asked.

No. This is worse. More specific. More… real. In a way that you hate yourself for remembering so vividly.

Because what  you think the most about is the way she looked at you, the fact that when you said you were leaving she didn’t argue, but she also didn’t pretend she didn’t care. She just sat there, wrecked and naked, back against her own pillows, blinking at you like she hadn’t prepared for that part.

And that… that is what fucked you up.

Because people don’t look at you like that. They flirt. They beg. They act like they care but they don’t mean it. It’s a game, just a game, one you’ve always played better than anyone. You’ve broken hearts and ghosted girls and got exactly what you wanted every single time.

But Ellie?

Ellie didn’t play the game. She didn’t ask you to stay or begged. She just looked at you like you were something out of the world and she had been… human. Because she had already failed at loving someone properly before and she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to try again. 

Or at least that’s the impression you had got from the little she let on.

The problem is, it reminded you too much of things you weren’t supposed to remember.

Of your mother’s voice on the phone at 2am, shaking and cold saying, “Don’t trust anyone, baby. You let someone in and all they’ll do is tear you apart from the inside out.”

Of the way she used to pull you aside after every birthday party or school dance, every moment where you’d let your guard slip just a little too far and whispered, “You’re not soft, you’re not allowed to be soft. Softness is how they get you.”

You remember thinking – even back then – that love sounded more like a threat than a promise. And you grew up believing in that lie, you let it settle in your bones, learned to keep your hands light and your heart locked up and your exits mapped out before you even said hello.

And it worked. It worked until two weeks ago, when a woman ten years older than you pulled you apart with her mouth and then looked at you like you were holy and asked you if you were actually leaving.

So you haven’t been back to the bar on the 12th since.

Not because you’re avoiding her. God, no. That’d imply it mattered, that you’re thinking about her. That you care.

It’s just… the semester’s ending. Finals. Thesis. A job interview that will probably ghost you. It’s just the terrifying reality of a life outside of university and shared apartments.

That’s what you tell yourself anyway, while sitting at your desk in your bedroom with a single lamp turned on.

The apartment you share with your best friend is small, the kind of space that feels like it’s shrinking when you spend too much time inside your own head. Tonight the air feels particularly thin as you sit at your desk, staring at your laptop screen that’s been on sleep mode for twenty minutes.

You’re supposed to be finishing the third chapter of your thesis, supposed to be focusing on coding interviews on NVivo , but all you can think about is the bar on the 12th, the way you’ve pointedly avoided that entire block for two weeks and the lies you keep telling yourself.

You stare at the black screen of your laptop at precisely 8:45pm, revising in your head the script your mother wrote for you before you were even old enough to understand why she was so bitter — the one about being sharp, about being a weapon, about being the girl who takes what she wants and leaves the rest to burn behind her.

Don’t let them in, she’d say, because if you do, the only thing they’ll do is find the softest part of you and sink their teeth in.

You’ve lived by that code for years, becoming the girl who broke hearts like it was a hobby, the one who never felt a thing. But Ellie wasn't either looking for a soft spot and she wasn't a victim – she was just a woman who looked at you and somehow made you feel like she saw the girl behind the mask.

“Okay, what the fuck is wrong with you?”

Jackie’s voice cuts through the silence of the room and your spiraling like a slap to the back of the head, which – frankly – would’ve been on brand for her. 

She’s leaning against the doorframe of your bedroom, standing there with a half eaten bag of chips in one hand, her ginger hair tied up in a messy bun, looking at you with that specific brand of I know you’re full of shit look on her face that makes you want to both hug her and shove her out the window.

You don't look up from the screen, your fingers hovering over the keys as if you’re actually about to type something profound.

“Nothing.” You mutter.

Jackie stares. “You haven’t worn eyeliner in two weeks.”

You blink, finally turning your head in her direction. “What?”

“You haven’t worn eyeliner in two weeks.” She repeats, eyes narrowing as she steps into the room. “You haven’t flirted with a single woman, haven’t opened Tinder, refused to go out. So, again. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

You look down, lean back against your chair and pinch the bridge of your nose trying to summon that sharp and perfect version of yourself that usually handles Jackie’s teasing with a wink and a comeback, but the mask feels heavy tonight, like it’s made of lead.

And Jackie notices, of course she does. Because she’s the only person who’s ever known you before the armor and the only one who can tell when it’s starting to rust. So she doesn’t back down, just walks over and sits on the edge of your bed, tossing a chip into her mouth.

“You’re gonna tell me what’s going on,” she starts, voice gentler now. "Or do I have to hire a psychic and a swat team to extract it from your brain?”

You open your mouth to argue, to tell her that she’s wrong, that you’re just busy, that there’s nothing more than that going on, but the words die in your throat as you remember the warmth of Ellie’s apartment, the smell of her charcoal pencils.

For the first time in your life, being sharp feels a lot like being empty.

So when you finally look up again, you hesitate. Although it’s fair to say that’s also because Jackie right now has got that kind of look in her eyes that says that says if you’re gonna feed me your mom’s bullshit, fucking spare me, please.

Seeing you stall, she wipes her mouth from the crumbs with the pad of her thumb and sets the bag of chips aside before crossing her arms. “Is it the hot older woman?”

You scoff. “It was a hookup, Jackie.” You start. “That’s it. Nothing serious.”

Jackie raises one brow. “It’s never serious with anyone and yet here you are, looking like someone dropkicked your emotional equilibrium.”

“It was one night.” You say, remarking your point again.

But Jackie just narrows her eyes. “Did she make you come?”

You freeze, and that’s enough to make her gasp, one hand flying to her mouth. “Oh my god. She did!”

You shoot her a look. “Could you say that louder? I think the neighbours missed it.”

“She made you come and now you’re broken.”

“Jackie!”

“She broke you.”

“She did not–”

Jackie leans forward, eyes gleaming. “You let someone make you come and then you caught feelings.”

You clench your jaw, refusing to take the bait, but you already know that when she gets like this, there’s no way in hell something is going to make her stop.

“She touched your soul through your cervix and now you’re spiraling because your mommy issues said nope.”

You groan, face hidden behind your hands. “I swear to god–”

“Just admit it!”

You slam the lid of your laptop close. “I’m not spiraling. I’m fine. It was just sex.”

Jackie blinks. You blink back.

A pause that maybe hangs for too long lingers between the two of you. Enough to make your shoulders drop, to sink into your chair deeper. To let a sliver of honesty creep in.

“...she asked if I was leaving.” You murmur eventually.

And Jackie – for the first time ever, maybe – says nothing.

You look away. “I said it wasn’t serious. I said we both got what we wanted. But she– I dunno, it was the way she asked. Like… like she didn’t expect me to leave.”

You don’t cry, just because you don’t do that in general. Ever. But your voice goes tight in the way it always does when something scratches a little too deep. “She looked like she wanted me to stay, but didn’t know if she was allowed to ask.”

Jackie exhales, but you don’t give her time to answer, just clench your jaw again. “It doesn’t matter.”

She shrugs, quiet now. “You still want to see her.”

You run your hands through your hair, sighing loudly. “I said it doesn’t matter.”

“She goes to our bar every Friday,” Jackie says casually.

Your head snaps up. “What?”

“She’s been there both weekends since,” she says, like it’s not a bomb, like it doesn’t just rip something wide open inside your chest. “I’ve seen her when I went there with that girl from Hinge. Both times.”

You can only stare at her.

“She’s waiting,” Jackie says simply. “And you’re here, playing cool like you’re not thinking about her every time you look at your own bedsheets.”

You exhale. Shaky. Quiet.

Then: “What if I go and she doesn’t want me?”

Jackie reaches over, grabs a pen from your desk and flicks it lightly against your forehead.

“Hey!” You yelp, pressing your fingers where the pen hit.

“She does,” she says, ignoring you entirely.. “She just doesn’t know if you do.”

The silence that follows is heavy.

Not because you don’t know what to answer her – you do. Or at least, you could. You could make a joke, flip her off, throw out some practiced line about how you’re just not into commitment, how some good sex isn’t enough to rearrange your schedule, how the last thing you need right now is someone with sad eyes and divorce baggage and the kind of vulnerability that leaves claw marks in your chest.

You could do all of that, because you’ve done it before.

But instead, you just sit there, staring at your own hands that had been so sure of themselves when you were on her, so steady guiding her down and flipping her over, but now they’re trembling slightly in the glow of your desk lamp.

Jackie’s watching you – not pushing, not mocking anymore – just… watching. Like she’s waiting for you to come back to yourself, Like she knows you’re somewhere far off.

Because you are.

You’re not in your bedroom anymore.

You’re back in Ellie’s. Back in the quiet hum of her apartment, back where the air was warm and low and the sheets smelled like old cedar and something soft, something hers. You’re there, dragging your dress down over your hips, saying it wasn’t serious, pretending it didn’t feel like you were stepping out of something you weren’t supposed to leave.

And you left, made it a joke, told her you got what you wanted, that she did too. But it didn’t feel like power when you walked out, but like longing. Like a pulse still beating, like your hands wanting to turn the knob the other way.

You left, because you always do.

Because it was your father who taught you the geometry of a disappearing act done in silence and your mother who perfected it. One morning he was just gone. No big goodbye, just a note and your mother pacing the kitchen at midnight for three weeks straight and muttering I should’ve known like a prayer she was trying to make retroactive.

Just that, the change that came next and the rules that sharpened you the older you got.

Don’t trust anyone.

Don’t get soft, don’t let anyone see you fall apart. They’ll use it, and use you.

You want to survive? Leave first, that’s how you win.

You did that every single time. Left. Every party, situationship, hookup: you perfected the exit, crafted the mask, broke hearts and never let them break yours. You walked away from every woman who cried, begged and thought you were different.

But as you sit there with Jackie’s gaze burning into the side of your face, you realize that for the first time in your life, leaving didn’t feel like a win but like a hollow, aching loss.

You felt like a coward.

You felt like an asshole for the way you’d weaponized your own pleasure to make an exit, for the way you’d seen the flicker of something soft in Ellie’s eyes and decided to stomp it out before it could catch fire.

Jackie seems to sense the shift in you, the way the tension in your shoulders finally begins to give way to something more fragile, and her expression softens, the blunt sarcasm fading into a quiet, rare sort of empathy.

She sighs, a long, weary sound, and stands up from the bed, reaching out to give your shoulder a brief, grounding squeeze that feels more like an anchor than a gesture.

“Hey,” she says, breaking the silence again, the gentle voice of the only person in your life who's ever really truly known you.

You glance at her, wary.

“Do you wanna go back tonight?”

Your whole body goes still at her question.

“Not to see her,” Jackie adds quickly, palms up like she’s not trying to spook you. “I mean–  we can go, grab a drink, just sit at the bar. Talk shit. Watch Gemma destroy another Adele song. Just you and me.”

You want to say no, laugh, shrug, shrink. Push it all down where it belongs.

But the silence between you is too familiar. And the ache in your chest – the one that hasn't really gone away since you left Ellie’s bed – is starting to feel less like something you can ignore and more like something you need to understand, even if you have no idea if you want her to have waited or to have moved on already. Even if you don’t know what the fuck you’d even say if you saw her again.

So instead, you nod.

Slow. Reluctant. Scared.

But you nod.

Jackie softens and smiles. “Cool,” she says. “I’ll drive.”

“Okay,” you whisper, the word feeling like it’s being dragged out of you against your will. “Okay, let’s go. But I’m not dressing up.”

And you don’t.

You reach for your favorite oversized sweater, pulling it over your head like a shield, enough for Jackie to glance over at you in the mirror before you leave and say, “You’re wearing a sweater? Like, a sweater sweater?”

But you just flip her off and leave the apartment with her trailing right behind you.

The bar on the 12th is exactly the same as it always is – loud, spilled tequila and a thousand cheap perfumes. Glitter on the floor probably from the last drag show, a group of girls way too drunk for 9:30pm and Gemma in the corner with her bluetooth mic like she’s about to put someone through vocal hell.

And it’s fine.

All perfectly fine.

Sort of.

You let yourself slide into a corner booth tucked in the shadow with Jackie, let her order your drink without asking for one – Malibu Cola for her, something pink and frozen for you, and you just sit there, fingers tracing the condensation on the side of the glass, head down, trying to focus on her rambling story about that girl she matched weeks ago and whether or not she should bleach her eyebrows while your mind is a mess of what ifs and shouldn’ts looping in the back of your head.

Everything’s fine until it’s not.

Until the door opens and the cold draft from the street hits your cheeks.

You don’t hear it, not really. It’s just a subtle shift, like a pressure drop, like the static hum of something arriving.

You just hear Jackie going quiet in the middle of a sentence – just for a second – and then, “Oh.”

You sip your drink again, the sugarcoating on the rim melting against your lips, your stomach’s already in your throat.

“Don’t say it.” You mutter.

“I wasn’t going to.”

When you finally look, your heart does something stupid: it just flips inside your ribcage.

You see Ellie before she sees you.

She walks with her shoulders hunched against the chill, that same worn leather jacket pulled tight over a dark hoodie, hair a little messier than you remember maybe.

She doesn’t look at the bar, doesn’t look at the stage. Just sweeps the room in one slow motion like she’s scanning for something.

But the second her eyes land on you, your entire body goes rigid, your breath catches in your throat until you might actually choke on thin air. You freeze in a way that’s not obvious, just… inward. Still on the outside, but with every thought in your head derailing like a train car too close to the bend.

Fuck, fuck fuck. Don’t look this way, don’t look this way, is a chant that drowns your brain as you instinctively try to shrink into the shadows of the booth. 

You look away too fast, back into your drink like it could have a map in the ice, like if you pretended just hard enough, she’ll think you didn’t see her. That you’re fine, normal, just two strangers in a gay bar with you trying to disappear into a hole made of darkness and regret and the wish of never seeing the daylight again.

But it’s too late. Because Ellie did see you.

It’s in the way her entire posture shifts, the tension in her jaw breaking for a fraction of a second as she stops dead in her tracks near the bar.

Beside you, Jackie’s sipping her drink casually, like she’s pretending not to watch your very microexpression with the corner of her eye.

“So,” she says eventually, pretending not to know. “Wanna tell me what just short-circuited your entire nervous system or should I guess?”

You can’t even find the words to snap back at her, not even the energy to pretend you aren’t spiraling. Because when you risk another glance Ellie is still looking right at you: brows lifted slightly like she wasn’t sure she’d see you again.

And suddenly, you’re not the one walking in with perfect posture, eyes low, smiling like you know the ending before the story begins. You’re not looking at the room like it’s yours to take.

You’re just seated, caught. Vulnerable and – worst of all – in a fucking sweater.

You inhale slowly, try to cool the flush at the back of your neck and act like you’re not panicking, to remember how to breathe like a normal person while you look away again.

Until–

Jackie hums beside you. “She’s coming over.”

You blink, startled, your head whipping fast toward her. “What?”

“She just started walking.”

And when you glance again, Ellie’s making her way across the bar, slow and steady with her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her jacket.

Every instinct is yelling at you to run, to find a back exit, but as Ellie gets closer you find yourself trapped between a wall and your best friend and the realization that you have nowhere to run.

Ellie hasn’t slept right in two weeks.

Not that she’s counting. That’d be insane, that’d be something she would’ve done years ago back when she still believed wanting someone meant they’d want you back, when she thought timing and effort and chemistry all added up to anything that lasted.

Now, she doesn’t count the days since someone left her bed.

But still. Two weeks.

Days she’s spent tracing the silhouette of a night she can’t quite categorize, her mind constantly drifting on the memory of the way you felt – that electric, terrifying combination of sharp edges and soft surrender that seemed to rewire every nerve she’d spent years trying to numb. 

So she’s been to the bar on the 12th three times since then.

The first one the Friday after. That made sense, that was just in case. Just showing up, just a maybe, a one time thing during which she pretended she wasn’t carrying hope in her pocket.

She just sat at the bar, same high top table, same whiskey neat, same soundtrack of mediocre karaoke and a poor third attempt of Chasing Pavements blasting in her ears.

When you didn’t show up Ellie didn’t flinch, nor did she let it settle anywhere soft. Just sighed like she was expecting it and told herself it was just sex, a fluke, a particularly good night in a long stretch of nothings.

But then she came back the second time. Still no sign. But she still showed up at the same table and the same drink.

Jesse – of course – hasn’t let her hear the end of it. His voice has been a constant, amused commentary of her sudden and desperate descent back into the world of the living.

He’d cornered her at the community center three days after the hookup, asking her why she looked like she’d been “hit by a glitter covered freight train.”

She’d tried to downplay it, that it had been only a way to shake off the rust, but he has known her long enough to see the way her hands were shaking when she tried to light a cigarette. So he did what he always does, he tried to push her out of her comfort zone with jokes that hit close to home and shoulder nudges.

Too bad that lately it’s become something he’s doing out of a deep, aching feeling of guilt that he’s trying to mask as being there for his best friend.

But Ellie didn’t notice any of that, didn’t notice when he hid his phone before she could see a way too familiar name on his screen that has been there from way before the divorce papers.

Because all she could think about – or tried not to – was the way your tone shifted when you were pulling your dress back on, how your voice tried to stay detached even as you hovered in the doorway a beat too long. The way you said, “I got what I wanted, so did you,” and then added “You know where to find me” like it wasn’t a knife and a map at the same time.

The third time, she had felt like an idiot. Thirty-four years old and waiting for a girl who was probably out breaking someone else’s heart. But that glimpse of vulnerability she saw flashing across your face when she asked if you were leaving is what has kept her coming back. Because she craved to know that version of you who lingered at her door for just a beat too long.

Tonight, she almost didn’t come. Almost turned around right before the door and walked back home. But there was this tight feeling clawing at her chest that felt too much like hope and that brought her feet there regardless. 

So she walks inside, still not expecting anything different, prepared for the same disappointment, the same whiskey tinted silence, the same conversation with the bartender about the weather.

It’s muscle memory by now how her eyes scan the room the second she steps inside, slow and casual, as if she’s just surveying the crowd, not looking for someone specific. She’s perfected it, even when it makes her chest tighten. Even when it makes her stomach flip. Even when she’s preparing herself for another night of nothing.

But then, she stops.

Her whole body goes still, because you’re there.

And not at the bar, not in a dress.

You're sitting there in an oversized sweater, hair messy, face bare and Ellie feels like the floor is shifting under her feet in the tiniest, most precise way.

Like something realigned, like something cracked open.

You look smaller than she remembers. Or maybe just softer, maybe just real. Not the confident, unbothered girl who pulled her apart and then walked out like it didn’t mean anything, but you. With your drink and your eyes flicking up just once, just briefly, and your expression turning into sheer panic the second you lift your eyes and meet hers.

She swears her knees nearly give out.

She watches the way you fumble for your drink, the way the same friend you were with two weeks ago leans in to say something that makes your jaw clench, and for a second Ellie doesn’t move.

She just looks.

Because she expected either performance or absence. But not this.

And that scares her more than she knows how to admit.

Still, she moves. Starts walking toward your booth slowly, carefully, like if she steps wrong the whole illusion might snap.

She doesn’t know what she’s going to say. Doesn’t know what the rules are now. If you want her there. If you hate her. If you remember her the way she remembers you – not just the sex, not just the tension, but the way you said goodbye like it cost you something.

But she’s walking anyway, wondering whether it meant more than you said.

You knew that coming here, this would’ve happened.

And still – somehow – you’re not prepared.

Because now Ellie's walking toward you in a slow, steady walk like she’s got all the time in the world, hands shoved into the back pockets of her jacket like they’ve been holding onto something too long.

Her face is unreadable – not cold, not cocky, just… guarded. Like she’s here, but still deciding how much of herself she’s going to let show.

It’s almost a relief that she’s not smiling, you wouldn’t know what to do if she was.

She stops at the edge of the booth, shadow falling across the table, and your breath sticks somewhere low in your throat. Jackie glances between you and Ellie once, then immediately takes a long sip of her drink like she’s just become a very unlucky extra in someone else’s drama.

“Hey.”

One syllable. That’s all Ellie says.

It’s not even loaded. Not even meaningful. But somehow it still feels too real. Because it’s not a memory this time, not an echo or a ghost or a voice you thought you imagined. It’s her, standing right there at the edge of your booth, hair falling just a little over her brow, and that same unreadable look in her eyes.

There’s a beat of silence. One that serves you only to buy yourself time to force yourself to meet Ellie’s eyes and straighten your spine.

“Hey,” you say back, quieter than you mean to.

It doesn’t land the way you want it to. Not confident, not biting, not anything. Just quiet.

Ellie doesn’t move or take a seat. She just stands there for a beat longer than she probably should, looking down at you with a small tilt of her head, like she’s trying to figure you out.

Then, finally, “So… found you. Eventually.”

Your laugh comes out dry.

Jackie picks up her drink and mutters something about having heard someone calling for her, enough to earn her a glare from you. But you don’t even have the time to say something to her before she’s already gone and you’re left alone to face the consequences of your own actions.

“Wasn’t hiding,” you say too fast, staring down into your drink again.

Ellie’s eyes narrow just slightly. “Didn’t exactly make yourself easy to find either.”

You shrug, noncommittal, detached. At least, that’s how you want it to look.

So Ellie keeps going.

“Didn’t think I’d see you again,” she continues, voice even. “Especially after you said I’d known where to find you and then disappeared like the fucking rapture.”

You exhale slowly, trying so hard to act unbothered. “Didn’t realize that was an open invitation.”

“It sounded like one.”

You blink at the table. “Guess I didn’t think you’d take that seriously.”

She doesn’t blink. “You didn’t want me to?”

You open your mouth. Close it. Try again.

“It was just a line. I didn’t think it was, like… I dunno. A whole thing.”

She tilts her head, still watching you. Still quiet. Still not letting you squirm your way out of this. “Felt like a thing to me.”

You glance away, exhale hard through your nose, trying not to let it show. “I wasn’t trying to make it serious.”

“I know.”

“You don’t.”

“I know,” she repeats, and this time her voice is softer, more grounded, less sure and more curious. “But I wanna understand.”

You hate her for that too. For saying I wanna understand instead of what’s your deal?, instead of you’re weird, instead of you’re a fucking mess, which is what you were bracing for.

She’s not teasing you. She’s trying.

You shift in your seat, your palm flat against the condensation ring from your drink, and you say, “It was just one night.”

Ellie nods. “Okay.”

“That’s it.”

“Okay.” She repeats.

“And I didn’t come back because I didn’t think–” You pause. Swallow. Lie. “I didn’t think it was worth the repeat.”

Saying it aloud hurts, first of all because you don’t mean it, second of all because you don’t even sound convincing.

But Ellie just breathes in slowly, like she heard every syllable you didn’t say. Her voice is low when she speaks next. “What are you running from?”

You try to laugh, you really do. But the sound comes out cracked, half formed, too bitter. “Jesus. Bit dramatic, don’t you think?”

Ellie doesn’t say anything.

And that – that – makes it worse.

Because she’s not playing, not pushing. She’s just standing there like she’s got nothing to prove, and she’s waiting. And you hate that it makes you feel safe. You hate that it makes you want to tell her the truth.

And worse, you hate that something in you already is.

You sigh, rub a hand down your face, lean back into the booth like maybe the cushions can swallow you whole. “What do you want from me?”

Ellie watches you. Her expression shifts,  just barely, like something softening. “I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Just wanted to see you again.”

You don’t say anything. Because what the fuck are you supposed to say to that? What do you do when the one thing you didn’t prepare for is someone who just wants you, without asking you to become something else first?

Then she says, “You said you got what you wanted. That it was nothing serious. But the way you’re not even looking at me right now… doesn’t feel like nothing.”

That’s when something folds.

You look away, but not fast enough. And she sees the shift, the way your eyes soften, the way your breath catches, the way your grip on the glass loosens just slightly like you’re surrendering, or tempted to.

You swallow.

And Ellie – patient, quiet, suddenly less steady than she was a second ago – speaks again.

“You wanna come back to mine?”

And somehow – somehow – it doesn’t sound like a power play or an invitation to pick up where you left off.

It sounds like a question. A real one. A soft one. One that asks more than just your body.

You should say no, tell her this was a mistake. That you shouldn’t have come. That it’s too complicated. 

But instead–

“Okay.”

Ellie’s apartment is the exact same, which is somehow not making things easier.

Same record player in the corner, same sketchbook spread across the cluttered desk, half closed pencil marks smudged by careless wrists, same hardwood floors you walked across in heels two weeks ago, back when your legs weren’t shaking and your confidence hadn’t split at the seams.

Back when this was a game and you were winning, glancing over your shoulder and daring her to kiss you.

What’s different, though, is the way you’re carrying yourself.

You walk in a few steps and Ellie doesn’t say anything as she closes the door behind you two. She doesn’t touch you yet, just sets her keys down on the entry table, kicks off her shoes, shrugs off her jacket and starts moving through the space like it belongs to her again, like she’s not unsure anymore.

And maybe that’s what rattles you the most. Because you remember a version of her that was hesitant, almost startled by her own need, kissing you like she had to learn the shape of pleasure all over again in real time.

That made you feel powerful, in control, like a switchblade with a beating heart.

But now?

Now she’s steady and you’re just standing there awkwardly, heart stuttering behind your ribs, your fingers twitching at your sides without knowing where to put your eyes because everything is reminding you of a version of yourself you can’t bring yourself to be.

You can feel her eyes on you, not with expectation or amusement. Just watching like she knows exactly what’s happening, like she’s seeing the shift.

You hate that she’s not kissing you already, that her hands are not at your hips. Because if she was doing all of that, it’d be easy to close your eyes and flip the script over, gain the power back, tease her with a smirk.

But all Ellie does is just say your name, soft. Just that.

You look up and she steps forward, right in front of you, letting the silence stretch until your lungs can’t take it anymore.

“You good?” she asks, low.

You nod before you think about it, arms crossing at your chest. “Yeah. Totally.”

She doesn’t say anything. Just watches you like she already knows you’re full of shit.

You shift, try to re-center, to find your footing again. You’ve never been the nervous one, you don’t do nerves. You’re the tease, the one with the lines, the one who kisses first and walks out without turning back.

So you smirk – soft, practiced – and take a step closer to her too, head tilted just enough to feign control. “So what,” you murmur, “you brought me back here again to talk about our feelings?”

Her brow lifts a little, like she’s amused, but her eyes? Her eyes don’t move from yours as if she’s clocking every flicker of emotion you’re trying to hide behind your mouth.

“No,” she replies after a beat. “I brought you back here so you’d stop pretending like you don’t want this.”

Your smirk falters at that, making you glance away. “Cocky.”

“Not cocky,” she says, voice lower now. “Just paying attention.”

You don’t know what to do with that. You really don’t.

So you reach for the familiar. The only armor you’ve ever worn. You step in even closer now, barely a breath between your bodies  and you tilt your chin up, your voice dropping to that cadence you always use when you want to win.

“Maybe I wanted to see if you’d beg this time.”

Ellie doesn’t even blink at that, doesn’t laugh or even flinch.

Instead, she moves – not fast, not aggressive, just sure – and her hand slides to the back of your neck as she leans in close enough that her lips ghost the edge of your jaw when she speaks.

“Baby,” she murmurs, and your knees weaken. “You start with that bullshit again and I’ll stop before I even start.”

You swallow. Hard.

Her thumb brushes against the side of your throat, a gentle press against your pulse.

“You came back here for a reason,” she whispers, softer now, but still steady. “You don’t have to tell me what it is. But I’m not letting you hide behind a smart mouth if what you really want is to be seen.”

The air catches in your lungs.

Because fuck.

Fuck.

You can’t flirt your way out of this.

You can’t trick her into forgetting how your hands shook that first time, how your voice cracked on your way out the door. You can’t pretend this is just for fun anymore.

Not when she’s looking at you like she sees right through your cracks, not when her grip is firm but kind and when her body’s close but not caging you in.

You don’t know what to do with that kind of care.

She pulls back just enough to look at you again. Searching your face. Your breath. Your boundaries.

You don’t move, just drop your eyes to her lips.

And that’s enough of a tell for her to lean down and press them against yours.

It’s messy, intentional. Not rough, but not soft either. Just… real. Her hand slides into your hair, tilts your head back slightly. Her mouth moves like she’s not asking anymore. Like she’s taking you for exactly what you are: wrecked and undone and still pretending not to be.

And at that, the only thing you can do is melt, even if you try not to. Even if you try to deepen the kiss, tilt your head, slide into the seat you know well.

But the second your hand slides to her hip like you’re about to lead Ellie pulls back just enough, just to whisper against your mouth.

“Don’t.” You freeze. “I know what you’re doing,” she says. Calm. Clear.

Your breath stutters. “And what’s that?”

She smiles – just slightly – and kisses you again, this time with a little more pressure, enough to make your hands curl into her hoodie.

“You think if you take control, you won’t fall apart.” A beat. “Am I wrong?”

You don’t answer, which is an answer itself alone.

So kisses you again. Again. Until your knees are barely holding.

“You can fall apart with me,” she murmurs.

And then – effortlessly, without a pause – she picks you up.

You make a startled sound, legs instinctively wrapping around her waist, her mouth never leaving yours. You can’t even think straight, only cling at her, kiss her harder, try to remember how to breathe.

She carries you through the hallway like it’s nothing, slow and certain.

She doesn’t bump the doorframe, doesn’t fumble. Just pushes the bedroom door open with the side of her foot and steps inside like she’s done it a hundred times, like this, right here, with you in her arms, was always meant to happen again.

Your arms are still around her neck, your mouth still tastes like her kiss. Your thoughts are a slow, flickering mess of what the fuck are we doing and don’t ever stop.

She walks you to the bed and doesn’t throw you down. No, nothing like that. She lowers you gently, controlled. The backs of your thighs hit the mattress and she follows you down, one knee on the bed, the other foot still planted on the floor like she’s steadying you both.

You bring your hands down, about to peel off your sweater, trying to take some kind of initiative, but her hands stop you before you can.

“I’ve got it,” she murmurs.

You exhale slowly, arms falling back to your sides, and Ellie just moves.

Her hand slides under the hem of your sweater, not to rip, but to lift. Her fingertips drag across your stomach, pushing the fabric up your body inch by inch.

She pulls it off over your head, tosses it somewhere behind her before she climbs over the bed, one hand braced at the side of your head, her thigh slipping between yours just enough to make you gasp.

“You’re shaking,” she murmurs, but it’s not a tease. It’s a note, an observation. A fact she gets to unfold.

You swallow, try to say something – probably a quip, some last ditch attempt to claw your way back to whatever power you had that night – but it dies in your throat the second she pushes her hand beneath your bra and brushes her thumb over your nipple.

The gasp you let out is louder than you probably intended.

“Yeah,” she says, so low it vibrates against your mouth. “There she is.”

She undoes the clasp with one hand like it’s nothing. You arch up, letting her peel the fabric away, her eyes dragging down your chest. She doesn’t say anything not at first. Just lowers her head and mouths at your tit, tongue circling your nipple, lips warm and wet and slow until you can’t think straight.

Your fingers tangle in her hair before you can stop them and Ellie moans into your skin – not from your touch, but from hers. Like sucking on your tits gets her off all by itself. Like she’s savoring every flick of your nipple against her tongue.

You squirm, try to grind down against the thigh still slotted between your legs, but she shifts it away instantly, lifting her head up.

“Nah,” she murmurs, voice thick. “You’re not getting off on me yet.”

You swallow, chest heaving, biting down whatever voice inside your head that's screaming at you that it'd be so easy to just flip her and the script over.

Instead, you let her fingers move to your jeans and unbutton them. Let her mouth drop back to your chest, kissing her way down your sternum, tongue dragging a line to your belly, while the jeans come off slow as she sinks down to her knees – your hips lifted, thighs bare, and when she sees the wet spot on your panties she groans.

“Fuck me,” she whispers, breath hot against the fabric. “You’re soaked.”

She doesn’t even pause. Just kisses you over your underwear, tongue flicking the damp cotton, sucking at the center until your hips jerk up and your breath punches out of you.

You reach for her again, desperate, hands through her hair like you need that anchor.

“Ellie–” you moan.

She hooks her fingers into the waistband with a hum, pulls them down slowly, and when they’re gone, she just looks.

Eyes on your cunt like she’s starving for it.

She doesn’t dive in. Doesn’t go straight to it. She lays a hand on your thigh. Spreads your folds with just her thumb, the wetness catching the light.

“Shit,” she mutters. “You want it that bad, huh?”

You nod, frantically, pathetically, and she fucking smiles at that — not mean. Not smug. Just like she’s never wanted to be between someone’s legs more in her life.

She settles herself between your thighs like she belongs there and then — finally — she licks you.

It's long, deep. From the bottom of your slit to your clit in one drag.

Your back arches, your moans grow louder.

Ellie groans right into you, and does it again. And again. Until your thighs are shaking around her shoulders and your hands are pulling her hair.

But she doesn’t let you get there too fast.

She slows, keeps her mouth right on your clit, tongue flicking in soft with just enough pressure to make you cry out every time. And when her fingers ghost along your inner thigh you just blurt it out before you can even stop yourself.

“Ellie–” you pant. “Please.”

She lifts her head just enough to speak, lips shining. “You want my fingers, baby?”

You don't answer, can't. Just nod. And Ellie smirks like she was picturing this moment.

"I believe that last time," she murmurs, fingers just short of your entrance, teasing you. "You told me to use words."

You whine, buck your hips, desperate for friction. "Fuck– yes, I want your fingers."

She hums satisfied. "Good girl."

And then she's leaning down again, pressing a kiss to your clit before her hand replaces her mouth, she’s sliding one finger in without warning – and fuck, you’re so wet, she groans like she feels it in her own chest.

“Jesus,” she breathes. “So fucking tight.”

You squirm, try to move, to roll your hips to meet her rhythm, but her free hand flattens on your stomach, pinning you down.

“Nuh-uh,” she murmurs. “None of that.”

She adds a second finger, slower this time, eyes locked on yours as she slides in deep and curls – and your mouth falls open, head tipping back against the pillows.

“That’s it,” Ellie says. “Just like that. Let me.”

And you do.

You let her.

You let her fuck you open, slowly, fingers stroking inside you, palm catching your clit just enough to make you cry out every few seconds. Her eyes never leave your face. Not once. Like watching you fall apart is the only thing she’s ever wanted.

You’re panting, whining, so close it hurts. And Ellie leans in, presses her lips to your ear.

“You gonna come for me?”

You nod again, no words coming out of your mouth, and when she curls her fingers just right you break.

Your orgasm builds so fast it feels like drowning – wave after wave ripping through you, sharp and hot and blinding, your cunt clenching around her fingers so deep inside you it feels like they’re stitched to something you didn’t know you had.

You cry out loudly, unashamed, with Ellie’s breath brushing your cheek, her mouth grazing your jaw.

She fucks you through it, slowing down just by a fraction and watching you fall apart like that was the only thing she had been craving for since the second she saw you again.

You try – god, you try – to gather yourself, to find the version of you that knows how to tip the balance back, but your voice doesn’t cooperate, your body is still humming, and you’re still spread out beneath her with nothing left to hide behind, thighs trembling, body humming with the aftershocks.

Her voice is low when it comes. “You with me?”

You nod.

“I need you to say it.”

“I’m–” Your throat catches. You swallow, try again. “I’m here.”

She exhales through her nose, soft. Almost relieved.

“Good.”

Her fingers slip out of you slowly, carefully, and your whole body twitches. You bite down a moan, and she catches your jaw in her palm before you can look away, grounding you with the way her thumb grazes your cheek.

“Still wanna act like that didn’t just break you?”

You let out a breathless, wrecked laugh. “Shut the fuck up.”

And she grins.

But it doesn’t last long.

Because you’re looking at her again. Fully clothed. Calm. Solid. And you’re nothing but bare skin and flushed cheeks and sweat cooling along the backs of your thighs. And the sight of her like that – grounded, in charge – makes your stomach pull tight again, your breath stumble, your hips tilting toward her like you forgot what it’s like to want anything else.

And she sees it.

Of course she sees it.

Because this time you’re not trying to hide it. You’re not even trying to win. You just… want.

And then you shift, sitting up just enough to put your palms on her shoulders, fingers sliding down the collar of her hoodie, breath catching in your chest.

“Take this off,” you whisper.

Ellie lifts her brows.

You run your hand down her chest, curl your fingers in the hem, and say it again, this time with more breath than voice.

“Please.”

And at that Ellie doesn't even add anything else, only pulls her hoodie over her head along with her shirt and drops it behind her without looking. You sit up straighter, thighs trembling, and help her with the rest – hands dragging over the waistband of her jeans, tugging them down her hips.

She steps out of them and walks to the drawer by the bed, not saying a single word.

She pulls out the same strap. Black, sleek.

Last time, you made a whole show out of it. Laughed when she pulled it out. Bit your lip when she slipped it on, cocky as hell and twice as loud, back arched and mouth full of moans, riding her like you had something to prove.

Now?

Now you can’t stop looking.

Your body reacts before your mind does – a slow ache pulling low in your stomach, your hips shifting almost imperceptibly against the sheets – and Ellie sees it, oh, she sees it, but she doesn’t comment, doesn’t gloat, doesn’t break whatever fragile, electric thing is hanging between you.

She just steps into the harness, tightens the buckles with a practiced hand, but not fast, never fast, every movement deliberate, every adjustment made while her eyes flicker back to your face in between: checking, measuring, making sure you’re still with her and not drifting back into that place where you armor yourself to survive.

She moves toward the bed again and you feel your breath hitch as she climbs between your legs again, the heat of her body settling over yours, the weight of her eyes pinning you more than anything else ever could.

“Stay like this,” she whispers. “Wanna see you.”

You could laugh it off again, flip her over, climb on top, pretend you’re still the one calling the shots. But you don’t. Because that shit’s tiring and because fuck it– you just want to let go.

Because you want this, want her. Want the way she touches you like she doesn’t just want your body, but wants to know you, to touch the places no one's ever seen and pull apart every wall you’ve built until there’s nothing left but you.

You bite your lip and then – finally – you nod.

She adjusts her weight, the mattress dipping beneath it while her knees slide between yours, the strap brushing your inner thigh and your pulse going wild beneath your skin.

She reaches for a pillow, slips it under your hips. It tilts you up – just enough to feel open, exposed, vulnerable in a way that has your throat clenching and your cunt dripping.

Then she parts your legs, hands on your knees. “You gonna let me?”

You nod again. “Please.”

And it’s the please that does it.

Ellie groans, low and rough, her voice soaked in need as she lines herself up, head of the strap catching on your entrance. Your whole body locks up – in anticipation, in desperation – and you grip her back before she even pushes in, nails digging into her skin.

“I’ve got you,” she murmurs. “Just breathe.”

Then – so slowly you could scream – she pushes inside.

It knocks the breath out of you. The weight. The pressure. The feeling of being filled like that. Of letting her take you, hold you, read you from the inside out. It’s too much and not enough at the same time.

Your hands scramble for her, one goes on her waist, the other one digging into her back. Your ankles cross behind her, pulling her in, your knees lifting instinctively as the strap pushes deeper.

“Fuck—” You gasp.

Ellie groans into your skin, hips grinding forward until she’s flush with you, strap seated all the way inside, and she just holds you there, doesn’t move, doesn’t thrust – just breathes, just lets you feel it.

“That’s it,” she murmurs. “Just like that.”

She starts moving in slow thrusts, shallow at first – just enough for you to feel it, the in and out glide of the strap rubbing exactly where you need it while your cunt clenches around it. Her hips grind, her hands slide under your thighs to tilt you up so she can reach deeper until your thighs are shaking and your stomach’s tensing and you can’t stop moaning with every stroke.

“Doing so good for me,” she pants. “Jesus Christ, you’re so fucking beautiful like this.”

You gasp. Whimper. Arch into her.

And then the pace shifts.

Just a little faster, enough so you cry out and your hands grab her waist, her arms. Anything. Panting through broken moans spilling from your mouth with every thrust. 

“Ellie–” You sob.

Actually sob her name. It tears right out of you, your voice breaking around it, your whole body curling forward as your legs lock around her waist, calves flexing, heels pressing into her lower back like you’re trying to pull her deeper, deeper, deeper–

She groans. Low. From the chest. You feel it vibrate against your ribs.

“Shit, that’s it– there you go, baby, come on– come for me, come on–”

She tilts her hips, drives the strap hard into that place inside you that makes everything snap, makes your body seize and your hands fist in her hair, your throat rasp her name in a cry so ragged you almost don’t recognize it as yours.

And she loves it.

Her mouth drops to your neck. “You sound so pretty like this.”

Your thighs shake. Your toes curl.

“You gonna give it to me again?” she pants.

You nod. Breathless. Desperate. “Yes, fuck, yes–”

And she thrusts harder.

Deeper.

And you lose it again.

Right there. On her strap. With your face buried in her shoulder and your voice wrecked and your thighs clamped tight around her waist, cunt clenching hard as you come with a cry that doesn’t sound like anything you’ve ever made before.

And Ellie – god.

She doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow. Not yet.

Because the harness is pressed just right against her clit and the way your body squeezes around her – thighs quaking, nails digging, mouth open and panting like you’re wrecked beyond repair – it’s too much.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck–” She gasps, one broken, stuttering breath.

Then her hips stutter, her arms shake, her eyes flutter shut and she buries her face in the curve of your neck, muttering your name like it’s the only thing keeping her together.

Ellie comes with a moan that sounds like surrender.

You're still trembling when she does, still clenching around nothing but silicone and her.

Her mouth is somewhere against your throat, open and panting. Lips dragging lazy and reverent over sweat damp skin.

You’re limp. Breathless. Boneless. Every nerve lit and spent.

Then everything slows.

Her hips ease, just barely moving – still buried deep inside you, but softer now, tender – like she doesn’t want to pull out until your body is ready to let her go.

Her nose nudges your jaw. “Still with me?” she whispers.

You nod, barely.

And then her lips brush your cheek. Your temple. The corner of your mouth.

It's soft. Not filthy, not teasing. Just soft.

Her hand smooths down your side, slides to the small of your back. “You did so good,” she breathes, hoarse, kissing your cheek again. “Took me so well. So good.”

And you – for the first time ever – let yourself linger in the moment that hangs just after the breaking.

The room is quiet again.

No more panting. No more moaning. Just the slow ebb of breath in and out, your heart still thudding too hard against your ribs as you stare at the ceiling like maybe – maybe – it’ll tell you what to do next.

But it doesn’t.

And neither does Ellie.

She's still above you – bare, breath warm, her skin damp with sweat, her hand is somewhere on your thigh, loose and casual, and her chest rising and falling in that steady rhythm that says she’s calm.

But you're not calm.

You’re blinking slowly, trying to collect pieces of yourself from where they scattered across her sheets. Your body aches in places you didn’t know could ache. Your mouth is dry and you’re flushed and spent and everything still smells like her.

Maybe for some the moments after are the ones that feel easy, the ones when you can just breathe and ease back.

Not for you.

Because this is the part where you get up.

This is the part where you make some half charming comment about needing to be up early, maybe lean in for one last kiss if you’re feeling sweet, and then pull your dress back over your shoulders like none of it ever mattered. That’s what you do. That’s what you’ve always done.

You leave before you can be left. That’s the deal.

So why the fuck can’t you move?

You shift slightly, still on your back, still staring at the ceiling like it might give you a clue. Like somewhere in the cracks there’s a line written out for you, some ancient inscription that reads here’s what to do when someone looks at you like they’d rather know your soul than your body.

But there’s nothing.

Just silence.

Until Ellie finally exhales against your neck, soft and low, and pulls back just enough to look at you. She shifts to her knees, reaches down, and unbuckles the harness with practiced fingers, slips it off like it’s no more meaningful than a sock and tosses it carelessly off the side of the bed, landing somewhere in the dark with a quiet thump.

Then, she moves.

Not away from you. Not toward the bathroom. Not to hand you your clothes or pull on her own. She just... slides under the covers and then pulls them back up over your hips like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

You stare at her.

Then glance at the ceiling again.

Because what the fuck is this?

“What the fuck am I supposed to do now?” you blurt out, voice hoarse. “Like, seriously,” you say after a long beat. “What’s the protocol here?”

Ellie raises an eyebrow. “For what?”

You turn your head toward her. “I dunno. Do I stay for breakfast? Are we supposed to talk about our feelings? Am I supposed to, like… drink your shitty coffee in the morning?”

Ellie deadpans. “I don’t drink coffee.”

You blink. “That’s a red flag.” you mumble. But after a second, you snort. Soft and unbidden, like your body let it slip out before your brain could stop it.

Ellie’s mouth twitches at the corner.

You sigh. Turn onto your side, facing her.

“You know I don’t do this, right?”

Her voice is low. Even. “Do what?”

“This.” You gesture vaguely between your bodies. “Sleepovers. Cuddles. Post-nut intimacy.”

She huffs a breath. “It’s not that deep.”

You raise a brow. “Lying in bed together? Naked? You tucking me in like we’re girlfriends?”

She doesn’t flinch and you just sigh, the heels of your hands rubbing against your eyes.

“Whatever, I’m improvising, dude,” you say quietly. “I don’t know. Do I do something?”

There’s a pause.

Then Ellie shifts closer. And you feel her arm slide beneath your shoulders. Her palm grazing the side of your hip. The slow, deliberate way she pulls you in like she’s done this before.

“You could just let me hold you,” she offers.

And it shouldn’t work.

It should trigger every warning you’ve ever been taught. It should feel wrong, it should feel dangerous, it should feel weak because love is a lie, because closeness is a trick, because the second you let someone close enough to feel them breathe, they have the power to break your ribs.

But the worst part? The truly terrifying part?

It doesn’t feel dangerous.

It feels warm.

So you blink. Again. Slowly.

Then– “That’s it?”

She hums. “That’s it.”

You hesitate, chew your lip, look down at her hand on your hip.

“Okay,” you say.

It’s barely a whisper. It’s barely you.

But it’s enough.

Ellie shifts closer, one arm sliding around your back, the other under your neck, tucks her chin over your head with her body curling just slightly toward yours like she knew this shape before you did.

Your throat tightens, you stare straight ahead, jaw clenched, mind racing with every defense mechanism you’ve ever sharpened like a blade.

And yet, you don’t leave.

You don’t get up or make a joke. You don’t say something flippant or cruel or distant.

You just... let her hold you.

Breathe.

And – maybe for the first time – you wonder what it would be like to wake up without running. To stay in the warmth. To smell another's skin and not pretend it didn’t feel like something you want to remember when the sun will kiss the floor.

And it’s like Ellie feels the way your brain's working overtime, because her palm slides across your spine, her nose presses to your temple and she holds you like she knows exactly what it means for you to let her.

pictures from pinterest

perm taglist (check my masterlist post if you wanna be added!): @elliewmc @machetegirl109 @valeisaslut @imliterallyjustonegirl @iloveclairo2016 @rhian88 @mxchi-mxxn @sawaagyapong @angelz-void @seasonsofchaos @mischievous-darling @archersbows

part two tags: @chxrryvalxntine @yuripilledfemme @starduszt @soupinspector

a/n: sooo, yeah. as promised. part two. the angst is not really angsting i guess, but idgaf lmao. i kinda tried to end it with this just in case, but... i won't deny that i got part three in my drafts already. also, i think that by now you can notice my obsession with the number two lmao. hope you enjoyed this as always, sending you lots of love <3

[jjscrybaby]

⋆ ˚｡⋆౨ৎ˚ pool days

steve harrington masterlist

warnings: reader can’t swim, soft!steve, friends to lovers, fear of drowning (?), shy!reader, mentions of mean girls, mentions of body insecurities (kinda), the first half of this was written like 3 months ago i just found it and decided to finish it so if that’s noticeable i apologise.

word count: 2.5k

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Steve had always been pretty good at noticing things. When he was a kid, he picked up on his fathers affair as soon as his dad started coming home an hour later than usual smelling like woman’s perfume. He could tell every time when Tommy and Carol had had a fight, he’d learnt quickly that Dustin hated noise whilst he did his homework and Lucas enjoyed sports but was too afraid to tell his friends. He noticed things.

That’s why, during the first proper hot day of the summer, he realised something about you.

He’d invited the group round to go in his pool, he hadn’t been in it since the night Barb went missing and he didn’t want the first time to be alone. He didn’t mention anything about it, but he could sense that everyone else knew what he was thinking. The kids were splashing water at each other, Robin was teaching them how to play chicken and he was barbecuing some burgers for lunch.

You, on the other hand, hadn’t moved from the sun lounger. You’d been laid there in your bikini since everyone had arrived.

“Don’t feel like going for a swim?” He asked, coming up beside you with a fresh cherry cola — he’d noticed you’d put your last one down awhile ago and hadn’t picked it back up, telling him it was probably empty.

“Uh, no, guess not,” you shrugged, giving him a small smile.

You were so shy around him, you had been since the moment you’d met. Sure, you’d gone to school together but he was the grade above and you weren’t in the same social class as him. He was King Steve whilst you were just… you. It wasn’t until he started working with Robin and she brought you around that you became officially acquainted, and he hadn’t left you alone for more than a week since.

It was a little embarrassing, honestly. How often he’d be calling you, how he’d always jump at the chance to see you. He hadn’t had cherry colas in his fridge until he noticed that you seemed to always buy them at the store. Robin would call to invite you out and he would have already done it. He didn’t care how much she complained, it was her fault for introducing you to him.

“C’mon, a little break from reading wouldn’t hurt,” he teased, making you flush. You’d been reading one of his moms cosmos that she kept on the coffee table purely for decoration.

“I— maybe later,” you murmured in response.

You didn’t go in later. Or the next time they all came over, or the next. It was starting to truly bug him, of course he had no problem with you sitting around in a dainty bikini all afternoon but he felt like you were missing out on the fun. He took his opportunity to ask you about it when you went to the bathroom. He followed you, as innocently as possible, and waited on the couch.

“Why aren’t you going in the pool?” You almost jumped out of your skin as he spoke up, having not noticed him sitting there.

“God, you scared me!” You exclaimed, cheeks red. He gave you an apologetic smile; if you were anyone else he would’ve laughed his ass off. “What… what do you mean?”

“You haven’t been in the pool, I was just wondering why,” he explained.

“I have been in.” It was a complete lie. You failed to notice that his eyes were on you at all times of the day. He knew you hadn’t been in.

“You haven’t,” he replied, keeping his tone soft so you didn’t think he was accusing you of anything. “Is it because of what happened to Barb? Because, I promise, I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. Not that anything would, it’s perfectly safe.”

You’d just so happened to have been dragged into all of this last summer, when Steve and Robin worked together at Scoops Ahoy. So, you’d been filled in on everything else that had happened prior. He wished that you hadn’t had to deal with any of it, but once you were stuck in a Russian filled basement with him he couldn’t exactly save you. He got a good few black eyes for trying, though.

“No, I know,” you reassured gently. “I just— I’m not really that big on swimming.”

“Is it the kids? Are they too intense? I can tell ‘em to knock it off, they listen to me… mostly,” he offered.

“No! No, they’re fine,” you responded. His eyes stayed on you and you knew he wasn’t going to let this go. You sighed, looking down at your feet. “I… I don’t know how to swim.”

Your words shocked him. He blinked in surprise. “You don’t know how to swim?”

“Not all of us grew up with pools in our backyard.” He smiled slightly, even when throwing a jab you sounded sweet.

“I know, but we did swim practice in high school,” he said.

“I didn’t like the idea of being in a bathing suit in front of girls like Carol and Nicole. Every time we’d do it I made my mom write a note that I couldn’t,” you admitted.

He despised the thought of you feeling insecure, he also hated the fact those girls had been his friends. His smile faltered and he looked at you with guilt in his eyes. “You’re beautiful though, you know that right?”

Your cheeks lit up as you avoided eye contact, being able to see his grin from the corner of your eye. “That didn’t really matter with girls like that, they’d find anything to bully you on.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” He’d heard the insults those girls would throw at people in the halls. Half of them didn’t even make sense, but because he was such an ass he’d just laugh along with them rather than doing what was right. “I’m sorry for that. For them.”

“You don’t need to apologise for other people, Steve,” you said softly. “We’re not in high school anymore, and I’m not bothered by it. It’s just the reason I never learnt to swim.”

“Good. You shouldn’t be.” He was happy to know that their petty words hadn’t affected you long term, he was sure for some others that wasn’t the case. “I’m sorry for bringing it up, guess I’m too curious.”

“It’s okay,” you replied. “I’m good sticking to the lounger. Your mom has some good magazines.”

“I’ll make sure she keeps buying them, then.”

It was a week later that Steve had invited you back over. You didn’t get your usual call from Robin, but you didn’t think much of it. By now she was used to Steve beating her to the punch. You showed up at his front door and knocked, expecting either Dustin or Max to open the door since they were the ones that were inside the most (Steve would make them take breaks because they burnt the easiest).

It wasn’t them, though. It was Steve.

“Hey,” he greeted with a smile, moving out of the way to let you inside. Surprisingly, he was in his swim trunks. He didn’t get in the pool that often himself, he wasn't afraid of it anymore but he was usually barbecuing or sitting next to you shamelessly flirting.

“Hi,” you replied softly, smiling at him. You had clothes on over your bikini, you’d gone with a white one this time; it definitely wasn’t because Steve had told you that was his favourite. “Am I the first here?”

“You’re the only one coming.” You gave him a look of confusion, but he was just grinning to himself like he’d won the lottery. “I didn’t invite anyone else.”

“Oh.” You blushed. “Why?”

“Because I’m gonna teach you how to swim.” Your blush quickly faded. This wasn’t because he wanted to hang out one on one with you, it was because of his need to help everyone with everything.

“What?” You asked, nerves tightening in your chest.

“C’mon, I was captain of the swim team and a lifeguard. I’m pretty much made for this shit,” he explained, arm wrapping around your shoulders to lead you further through the house; and stop you from running away.

“That doesn’t mean you taught people how to swim. Wouldn’t they already need to know how to do that to be on a swim team?” You mumbled.

“Not necessarily.”

“I don’t know, Steve,” you said anxiously as you neared the pool. Just being so close to it made you nervous. “What if I, like, drown?”

“How are you gonna drown with me right next to you?” He deadpanned. “Besides, it’s really not that deep. If you stand on your tiptoes you could probably breathe.”

“I’m gonna look stupid,” you carried on.

“I’ve watched you drunkenly fall face first out of my car and still didn’t think you looked stupid. Impossible,” he argued. You wanted to slap him just for bringing that up. “Please? I want you to be able to enjoy hanging out with everyone rather than sitting alone. I promise, it’ll be fun.”

You hesitated, but the pleading puppy-dog look made you huff. “Fine, fine you can teach me to swim.”

“Yes!”

“But, I swear Harrington if I drown—”

“You won’t be able to do much if you’ve drowned.” You gave him a look. “You’re not gonna drown! C’mon, we’ll start slow. Just dip your toes in.”

“I have been in a pool before. Just… the little ones for kids,” you mumbled, sitting down on the edge once you’d kicked your sandals off.

Steve sat next to you, grinning from ear to ear. The water was a little cold on your feet, but compared to the hot weather it was nice. “Ready to get in?”

“It’s been two seconds!” You squeaked out nervously.

“Come on, I’ll go first.” You didn’t expect for him to cannonball in, splashing you.

“Jesus!” You exclaimed, pouting as you looked down at your soaked crop top and denim shorts.

“They’ll dry in the sun. Come on.”

You huffed, but stood up from your place beside the pool and moved to put your clothes on your lounger; god you wished you could be sitting there today. You took your top off first, Steve’s eyes watched your every move. He smirked to himself at the sight of the white bikini. You kicked your shorts off and walked back over to the pool, stopping by the side.

“Come round here, this side is shallower.” He swam over and waited for you. There were steps which you slowly descended into, water slowly rising up your body. “Okay?”

“I guess,” you murmured. You knew you could’ve just done this before, but the fear of one of the kids asking for a race or to play chicken with them had stopped you.

“Good. So, here’s what you’re gonna do.” He started to demonstrate from beside you, showing you how to put your legs and arms. You tried to copy him, but failed miserably as you nearly swallowed a mouthful of pool water. “Not the worst first try I’ve ever seen.” You gave him a glare, wiping the water from your eyes.

“This is ridiculous,” you huffed.

“Right, how about we just get you feeling comfortable in the deep end,” he suggested.

“How do we do that without me swimming?” You sighed.

He reached out and grabbed your waist, you flinched in surprise. “Trust me?” He asked. You nodded your head. He pulled you closer. “Wrap your legs around my waist.”

“Steve…” your cheeks were as hot as a volcano at this point.

“Just do it,” he murmured. Your legs wrapped around his waist and his hands rested under your thighs. He moved to the deeper end with you in his arms and your hold tightened around his shoulders. “You’re good, I’ve gotcha.”

“Promise?” You hoped he wasn’t going to do that thing they did to babies where they just drop them in.

“I promise,” he soothed, giving you a reassuring smile. You were so close, the closest you’ve ever been, it wasn’t helping the butterflies in your stomach. He stopped when he got to the deepest section of the pool. “How’s it feeling?”

“I don’t know, fine,” you mumbled, although you were still gripping onto him like your life depended on it.

“How about we try floating? I’ll hold under you, so you know you won’t fall,” he offered.

“Here?” You squeaked out.

He smirked down at you. “Yeah. Here. I promise, you’re safe. I’m riiiight here, nothin’ bad can happen with me around."

“Okay,” you agreed hesitantly.

He situated you on your back, but his hand rested underneath you, holding you up. “Gotta let go of me,” he laughed. You hadn’t even realised that you were gripping onto his arm. You slowly let go, squeezing your eyes shut as you waited to go under… but nothing happened. You opened one and looked at him, he was grinning. “See?”

“Yeah,” you whispered.

“You’ll be swimming in no time,” he murmured softly.

He invited you round the next few days, giving you lesson after lesson. But you’d get tired at points, so the two of you would sit at the side of the pool and have lunch. You got to speak to him on a level you never had before, not when everyone else was around. He told you about what he wanted to do in the future, you told him that Robin had been your only friend for a long time; up until now.

On the final lesson, you finally did it. It was messy, water splashing, but you managed to swim from one side of the pool to the other. He stood in the water with you, just incase, cheering you on like you’d won the Olympics.

“Atta girl!” He cheered, swimming over to you. Your legs wrapped around him as he pulled you to him, both of you grinning from ear to ear.

“Did I pass the class?” You joked.

“Absolutely,” he nodded. “You get an A.”

“Any extra credit I can do for an A+?” It was a joke, you hadn’t even thought of the innuendo behind it. But you watched as his eyes flickered to your lips, your cheeks turned pink.

“I can think of one thing, but it’s a bit of a grey area. Could get me fired,” he murmured, lips now brushing against yours.

“I mean, I was your only student. You could just quit,” you whispered back.

He grinned, lips pressing to yours. You hummed into the kiss, his arms tightened around you as his lips moved against yours smoothly. He pulled back, resting his forehead against yours. “I’d say that’s an A star.”

“Never had one of them before,” you giggled shyly.

“Well, now you have. C’mon, let’s get out of here. We could… go for dinner or something?” He suggested, the most nervous you’d ever seen him.

“I’d like that,” you murmured.

“Cool. Let’s do it.” He didn’t put you down as he moved to the shallow end, helping you out of the pool.

He leant down and pressed another kiss to your lips. You were extremely happy that you’d never learnt how to swim.

[luveline]

Dyingggg to see how the rest of the gang comes to find out mermaid has legs, can’t wait to read what you cook up for the next few chapters eeek

beyond the sea au | fem, 1.6k

Walking isn’t as easy as swimming, but it’s alright. The real difficulty is acting calm inside of Steve’s ‘car’. 

“You okay?” he asks again. 

It hadn’t felt so scary going to the mall. It’s square, buzzing under your butt as Steve controls it, and its seats aren’t small but there’s a sensation of closed-in-tension that has you uneasy as time goes on. Maybe it’s because this go around, Steve made you put a strap over your chest to hold you in. He says it’s to be safe. 

You try to pull your legs up and your feet get stuck on the shell of wood in front of your seat. Shoes are solid enough to stop your feet from bending, where feet are usually more flexible, and this vexes you, but you have to admit that it’s far less painful to walk with shoes than without. Less cold, too. 

“Car done?” you ask. 

“Two minutes, honey… You don’t like the car?”

“Uh.” You show him a pinch. “Little no like.”

“Little no like,” he says, reaching over to squeeze your knee. His smile is shy again, but you don’t know why. “Is it scary?”

Not really? Just uncomfortable. What was that in English? “Un– un? No soft.”

“That’s real leather, babe, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Nonsense. He’s a plague of a boy. “Fast,” you say, laying a hand over your heart. 

“Oh, it’s a panic, huh?” he asks, hand slipping up some, rubbing gently and drifting back down, up and down and up. “I’m a safe driver. Keep you safe. We aren’t going anywhere dangerous, and the car is safe, okay? Promise, the car is safe.”

You make a buzzing noise. “Sound?”

“That’s the engine. The inside, it has to get hot to make the car move. But it’ll stop when we get there,” he placates, pressing your knee into the other with a small shake. “Why don’t you tell me your name again?”

You’d confided in him somewhere between the pink-snuggle and getting out of the house that he says your name all wrong, no melody, which is necessary to saying it right. So you parrot your name to him and he tries to say it back, says it wrong, but says it over and over until the car is pulling into a space in front of another house that’s smaller than Steve’s, and the too fast patter of your heart has dulled to its usual sedate pace. 

“Okay?” he asks as the buzzing stops. 

You glance out of your window. There are small humans moving around fast on the street, carried by wheels on metal frames. “Why?”

“Why?” Steve leans into your seat. “Oh, those guys? Just random kids. Who are they, you’d say. Not ‘why’.” 

“No,” you say. 

“Sure. Alright, get out of the car.”

“Um.”

“Okay, maybe you actually can’t do this bit yourself,” he says. 

Steve gets out of the car from his side and closes the door, coming around the front to your own door. He pulls it open and leans inside, pointing at a red thing down the side of your seat. “Can you push that?” Steve takes your hand and puts it on the button, pushing your fingers until something clicks, and the strap holding you in releases. “Push. That’s perfect.”

You peel the strap off and it tucks itself away inside the roof. Steve doesn’t laugh when you point at it indignantly. 

He frowns. “I don’t know how that works either. Okay, can you get out now?”

You get out of the car, planting two feet on the ground. Steve moves you away from the door, says, “Okay, now you close it,” with a pushing gesture to help you along. 

You push the door. It doesn’t move much. 

“Give it a good push, be careful of your fingers.”

You push the door again. It swings on its hinge and fits hard into the frame. 

Steve winces. You aren’t sure why. You closed the door like he told you to. “Good push?” you ask.

“Evil.” Steve checks you up and down. “You look great. Don’t tell Robin about her shoes though, okay? She’ll give me hell. And Robin lives with her mom and dad, and her grandma, and her grandma's sister and her little cousin Toby’s here in the week ‘cos her mom doesn’t wanna pay for daycare, so. I don’t know who’s gonna answer the door. New person, maybe.” 

You stare at him for a long time. “Robin.”

“Right.” 

He nods toward the house. You follow him down the path. 

Steve knocks the door and you both wait, Steve turning to you on the step, grinning. “She’s gonna lose her shit. This is so much cooler than telling her about your legs on the phone.” 

“Legs,” you agree, lifting your knee. Steve reaches down to tap your raised ankle, which could mean anything in human. 

“Nice legs. I’d still love to know how you got them, you know? How legs?” 

You wield your hands at them. “Legs. Salmon.” 

“The salmon did not give you legs.”

“Need salmon, give legs.”

“You’re kidding,” he says, a dawning fear in his eyes. 

Well, he’ll never know, will he? You secure as much salmon as possible for the foreseeable future and someone opens the door. 

It’s not Robin. The hair is too curly, frame too small. 

Steve’s smile disappears. “Uh, Nancy?”

“Hi, Steve.”

You look between them. You can tell when Nancy takes you in, her big eyes gone wide with surprise. She has a pert little nose, a pretty pink mouth, and long lashes. She’d be very, very popular in the Great Lake. 

“Hi,” Nancy says, smiling at you like she’s surprised to see you there. She can’t be as surprised as you about it. One bad storm and now you have a courting partner and a bunch of burgeoning friendships to foster via rides in the evil square car. “I’m Nancy.”

You smile at her. “Okay.”

“Um–”

“Nancy, this is Y/N,” Steve introduces you quickly, “I didn’t know you were gonna be here, though? Sorry.”

“Oh, god, don’t be, don’t be,” she says, something else in her smile now, a map of complicated emotions that you can’t read without understanding what she’s saying. “I’m just here to, uh, study, with Robin.”

“Where is she?”

“She’s in the bathroom, we were waiting for a pizza–”

Nancy opens the door to let Steve in. 

“Pizza?” you ask. 

“Are you hungry?” Nancy asks back. 

Steve says, “No, she’s okay,” just as you say, “Yes, much,” which earns you two wildly different looks from the both of them. 

Nancy herds you into the house. The door opens into a room with two couches and photographs on the walls. She nods at the table in front of the TV where a bowl of popcorn is surrounded by various sugary snacks. “You can help yourself,” she says.

Steve points at it himself, “You can eat anything,” he says, including one of your keywords, “it’s okay. Eat whatever you want. Thank you, Nance.”

“Thank you, Nance,” you agree, stepping over a purple lump to kneel in front of the table. 

“You can sit on the couch. Do you want to? It’s softer,” he says. 

You would have, but for a moment, you’d worried about getting it wet. Laughing at the very real reminder that you’re not dripping all over the place, you crawl a bit on your knees and climb clumsily onto the couch, eyes narrowed at the bowl of popcorn. Steve hasn’t made popcorn since you decided you hate the TV. 

“Steve, is she okay?” Nancy asks. 

“She’s fine–”

“Is she?” You grab a handful and turn to watch them talk, their heads bowed together like they haven’t realised you can eat and listen to them simultaneously. “That looked a little painful for her. I have, like, midol?”

“She’s, uh. Recovering from a knee injury?”

“Are you sure?”

“Not really.”

“Okay. And she– she sounds like El, so. If you wanted to explain that part to me?”

“What?”

“She just sounded a little stilted and, like, she didn’t respond to anything I said? Steve, I’m not stupid.”

“English isn’t her first language,” Steve says, voice gone high. 

“Is this a situation? Because nobody’s mentioned anything to me, and I think this is the kind of thing I should be privy to. Honestly, Steve, I know everyone that you know.”

“I know people!”

“No, you don’t! We have the exact same social circle!”

“Why are we yelling?” a new voice interjects. 

Robin comes around the corner, smiling despite the argument (so maybe Steve and Nancy aren’t fighting, just passionate) until she catches sight of you on the couch and her face goes slack with confusion. 

You stand up, mouth full of popcorn you work to swallow hurriedly. “Hi, Robin!” you say, rushing around the couch to show her your new body parts. “See, legs!” 

Robin laughs once, loud and oddly off-centre, twisting her fist into Steve’s jacket. Her slackened mouth reveals a row of little white teeth. Steve holds her on instinct, the three of you watching Robin in startled horror as she starts to look poorly, and Steve has to grab under the arms, helping her sit down in the middle of the floor. 

“What the fuck,” she says quietly. 

“Oh, no, hurt?” you ask. 

“What the fuck?” she says, turning her head to Steve. 

Steve’s answering smile is beyond nervous. “Uh, surprise?”

“Oh my god.”

[onetwolove]

Im so obsessed w this like ive read every single one😭

[onetwolove]

Starting school within the next week....ive been going to bed at like 2am every night how am I gonna wake up at 8am again

[mcthsman]

*SALT AIR: a joel miller x reader story (part one).

The trip was booked about a year before your relationship fell apart: Five days in a seaside town in Brasil, an unrefundable romantic getaway with all of the honeymoon perks that turns into a nightmare after six-months of not talking to each other: Your relationship ended quietly, and what was once heartbreak has since turned into resement. To you it's torture, spending those hot summer days next to the man who you once loved so dearly. To Joel, it's one last chance at winning you back.

series masterlist / main masterlist.

Your trip starts off on the wrong foot, and Joel makes a new friend.

chapter warnings: the basics (exes to lovers, reader is afab, age gap, etc.), little bit of angst, lots of mention of food/eating, jealous!reader, way too vivid descriptions of joel's cock, weed consumption, brief mention of possible somnophilia (doesn't happen).

word count: 7.1k.

fox says: hello friends, welcome to the first part of salt air! no smut yet, but i promise we'll get to it soon. the word count is going to be a little higher than usual for this because i am aiming for a smaller chapter count than my other series but hopefully it's not too much :) a huge thanks to @whitelics for beta'ing this for me, i love u more than u know. hope everyone enjoys this one and as always, please let me know how we're feeling!

if you want to be tagged whenever i update this pls just send me an ask, dm or comment on this post! <3

also available on archiveofourown.

tag list: @rosharanfiction @trulyourslola @angelofsmalldeath-codeine @joeldarling @fw-g-4-ia @the-sophverse @amourflores @diabaroxa @pascalismos @somedayheaven @inept-the-magnificent @time-for-my-weekly-spanking @missadangel @mrsnanamiller @winterfellonme @neapolitan--girl @eff4freddie @brittmb115 @faiantas-blog @kauyu @namelesslosers @wildthyng @crayolacraycray @hanahleah @cowgirlcosplay @anoverwhelmingdin @taniamiller @vickie5446 @joelmillerspnk @rachels2112

YOU.

You knew your relationship with Joel Miller was over because of a chocolate bar. You have a favorite, a pricey artisanal chocolate bar from a candy shop on the other side of town; it was out of your way home from work, and it certainly was far away from Joel’s office but he never complained about the forty minutes it added to his commute— You didn't even notice him replacing it, the pantry always stocked with the expensive, luxury chocolate that you love so much.

One day, the space where your chocolate bar should be was empty; at first you thought he might've forgotten, he'd been busier than ever with work and the multiple jobs he had to take to cover some extra expenses, and the chocolate was on the pricier side. But then a week went by, and another, and work wasn't as busy anymore and you finally had to admit to the truth: Joel simply didn't see you anymore.

You left his house by the end of the month. Packed all of your belongings one afternoon while Sarah was away at her mother's house and Joel was over at Tommy's for some bullshit football game; you were gone by the time he came home and, while you'd met up with him once to formally end things, he hadn't seemed surprised over it.

The worst part was how easily Joel agreed with the split. He said he understood why you were leaving, that he should've seen it coming, and didn't fight for you. Didn't ask you to reconsider, or stay, or tell him how to change— He simply nodded, grabbed his beer tightly, and watched as you walked out of the busy bar with your heart shredded into pieces.

That was six months ago. Now, you sit by your flight gate with your purse and ticket in hand, hoping he won't show; hoping he forgot about the trip, or that he simply decides not to go— You bought the plane tickets almost a year ago, right when things were starting to fall apart: A five days trip to Búzios, in Brazil, in a romantic Airbnb with all of the honeymoon perks. The plane tickets are nonrefundable, as is the Airbnb— At the time it felt like a good way to save money and to ensure that the both of you would actually take the trip; Joel has always been more of a homebody, never wanting to leave town for longer than a weekend, let alone the country, and you knew that touching his pocket would be the only way to get him to agree to go.

Oh, how you wish you hadn't appealed to his frugal nature now.

Joel shows up just three and a half minutes before boarding starts, because of course he does. His house barely ran without you, with Joel always being too wrapped up with work to pay attention to dates and times; you had to be the one to set up the alarms, to mark special dates on the calendar by the fridge, to send him little texts as reminders of Sarah's soccer game or Tommy's birthday. You're surprised he showed up on the right day, really, when you stop to think about it.

It also means that the Miller household keeps on moving, keeps functioning somehow without you, and that only makes things worse.

“You're late.” You tell him. It's the first time you're speaking with Joel since the night you ended things, and it doesn't feel like a good omen that your tone is so biting.

Six months apart have turned the sadness into bitterness, and you hate him just a little bit for how your relationship ended; you blame it all on him, even if you know you've been amiss as well. Too much time on your phone, not enough time talking to him; meals you shared in silence, each of you with your head somewhere else, nights where you pushed him away when he tried to touch you, always too wrung out to pay him any attention. He didn't fight for you at the end, but you'd been the one to let go of the relationship first.

And you know this, you know, but it still feels like it's all his fault.

“Hello to you too.” Joel says, hovering awkwardly, unsure of himself. “Ain’t late. Boardin’ hasn’t even started yet.”

“This is an airport, Joel, not your kid's soccer practice. If you're not here two hours early, you're late.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You been sittin' here waitin' for me for two hours?”

“I was not waiting for you! I'm waiting to board my flight.” You bristle, and the knowing little smirk beneath his mustache only makes it worse. “Thought you wouldn't even show up. Lord knows you never got any fucking dates right unless I was buzzing in your ear about it.”

“Maybe I liked when ya buzzed 'round me.”

The front gate calls for your flight, and you walk away without another word, something warm and unpleasant bubbling inside your chest. 

The flight is hell. You're trapped in the corridor seat — Joel graciously took the middle seat, but that meant having his elbow jamming into your side every-so-often — for almost sixteen hours from Austin to Rio de Janeiro, the food is awful and there's a man on the other side of the corridor that keeps turning in your direction every time he needs to cough. If you'd been in a bad mood before boarding the flight, it only gets progressively worse by the time you land, and you feel just about ready to murder the idiot next to Joel that actually claps.

Unsurprisingly, the airport isn't much better— People are polite and welcoming, and thankfully you manage to pick up your luggage without any issues, but then you find yourself trapped inside a rental car with Joel for the four-hours drive to your Airbnb in Armação dos Búzios; it's a lovely car, an expensive-looking convertible that at the time you thought would be fun to drive by the beach with the top down and it makes Joel's face light up when he sees it. You sort of hate your past self for doing something nice for him, and you hate your current self even more for the fluttery in your stomach as he revs the engine with the giddiness of a little boy on Christmas morning.

The Airbnb — Bangalô Verde, the owner called it — is small and rustic, a green stucco home with a gorgeous view of the ocean in the backyard; what had called you to it wasn't even the view or the huge windows in the bedroom but the wooden deck that hangs off the steep hill the house is on top of, surrounded by greenery and with a beautiful pool and a comfortable-looking hammock. There's a special fruit bowl in the kitchen, with a little note from the owners about the champagne in the fridge and a colorful bouquet of native flowers in the bedroom— All things you'd paid out of pocket, away from the joint funds you shared with Joel, as a little surprise. The honeymoon package seems to mock you now, tangible proof of how much of yourself you poured into a relationship that, towards the end, felt like you were the only one paying attention.

“Nice place.” Joel drops both of your luggage and his by the edge of the bed, already sweating from the summer heat, his usually neat gray curls pushed back haphazardly. His knuckles rasp awkwardly against the threshold that leads into the bedroom— There’s no door, just an archway with handpainted flowers. “Good bones.” 

You laugh in spite of yourself. “Are you doing a full house inspection, Mr. Contractor?”

“They got a bottle of cachaça in the living room.” He tells you with a small smile, hands on his hips. “Wanna crack it open?”

“No.” You shake your head, toeing off your shoes. “Not drinking on an empty stomach. I'll just take a shower and go out to eat something.”

“By yourself?” He asks, hands raising in defeat when your head snaps towards him. “I meant the meal, not the shower.”

Joel speaks to you as if nothing's wrong, as if you haven't spent the last six months apart. As if you haven't cried yourself to sleep almost every single night since then; it gets your blood boiling— Joel’s always kept his feelings close to his chest, but you’ve learned how to read him well and he’s never been uncaring. Closed off, sure, but this sort of nonchalance only serves to make you wonder if the breakup was only miserable for you. If maybe he’d been glad you were the one to pull the plug. A friend had told you once that men don’t end relationships, they simply stall it out until you’re brave enough to be the one to do it. 

You never pegged Joel for the cowardly kind of man, but maybe you had read him wrong after all.

“Yes, by myself. Listen, Joel— We don't gotta do this, alright? It's bad enough that you came along, so just… Stay in your corner of the house, and I'll stay in mine.”

Joel looks around, making a point of how little space there was; what was supposed to be a cozy place feels stifling, his broad frame taking up too much space in the small room. 

“And which corner's supposed to be mine, sweetheart?”

Your teeth clack audibly. “Whichever corner I'm not in.”

He nods, once. “'lright. I'll just fuck off, then.”

“Thank you.” You quip, back turned to him as you refuse to see the look on his face, going through your luggage. “I'll shower fast, in case you want to shower too.”

You look over your shoulder when there's no response but Joel's already gone, toeing off his shoes in the courtyard. He strips slowly, piece by piece until he's fully nude and you don't even notice the small toiletries bag until he's already underneath the spray of the outdoor shower, pushing his hair away from his face.

While your relationship with Joel ended six months ago, it has been even longer since the last time you saw him naked. The sex ended about four months before the relationship, both of you always too busy or too tired to give each other any attention, and your memory doesn't do justice to the sight in front of you: Joel's a sturdy man, tall and broad, his muscles built from hard labor rather than pulling weights at the gym. His stomach is rounder than it had been when you first started dating, salt and pepper hair and scars scattered all over it, the feathered happy trail that you've always loved so much catching rivulets of water as it pour down his body.

As much as you tell yourself that you shouldn't look down, your eyes travel to his cock nonetheless. It's thick and long, somehow even bigger than you remember, half-hard underneath the shower water; your eyes snap up, and you stagger slightly backwards when your eyes meet Joel's. He's staring straight at you, his eyes dark and heavy, a knowing smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth. It's clear that he's doing it on purpose, shifting slightly to turn his back to you, running the small bar of soap over his shoulders— Which once had been your favorite part of his body. You watch for a moment longer, his big hand running the travel-sized soap over his shoulder and bicep, bringing it up to the side of his neck, head tilted slightly back, the tendons straining against his tan skin.  

You turn your back to him before you can say something you might regret, your skin feeling a little bit too tight for your own body as you mechanically move back into the house in desperate need of a long, cold shower. 

Joel's is waiting in the living room by the time you finally exit the shower, sitting on the couch and browsing through his phone, wearing a pair of shorts and a short-sleeved button down that you know he didn't own before; Joel's entire wardrobe consists of Wrangler jeans and old cotton shirts and flannels, and you're sure you can count in one hand the amount of times you've seen him even remotely dressed up. He looks gorgeous, the deep green of the button down contrasting beautifully with the color of his skin, the shorts coming down just above his knee: Clothes that he certainly didn't buy for himself, and there's a small flare of anger in the pit of your stomach when you wonder whether someone else bought those clothes for him, or if he bought them to impress someone else. 

It opens a whole can of worms on whether or not Joel had already started seeing other people, if he was dating again or, God forbid, if he's already found someone to settle down with. You've seen it happen far too often, men moving on from years-long relationships with the first person that shows up and, while you don't think Joel is that type of man, thinking of him having rebound sex with a stranger makes you nauseous. 

“I found a restaurant just down the street.” He says without looking up from his phone. “Doesn't look like a tourist trap, all the reviews on Google are in Portuguese. Reckon we could go together. I know you're pissed at me but it'll ruin the damn trip if we don't even try to get along.” Joel looks up at you then, his eyes warm and inviting. “Think you can pretend that you don't hate me for the next five days?”

His words sting— You don’t hate him, could never hate him, and it hurts that he would assume you do but it’s probably best that way: If you can keep Joel at arms length then maybe, just maybe, you’ll be able to survive the trip without shattering your heart even worse. 

“Fine. But you're paying.”

Joel's grin could light up a whole block. “Always, sweetheart.”

The restaurant is just four blocks down the street, a corner store that looks more like a bodega than a restaurant, with a cluster of red plastic tables on the sidewalk and a dog sleeping on the ground next to the only costumer, a man in his sixties that sits alone in one of the tables demolishing a burger and a Skol beer. It's colder inside, the fan blowing loudly towards the woman by the counter. Joel's hand is a ghost on your lower back, guiding you to a table. The two of you study the menu for a long time, Googling the things you don't know, translating the others.

“I'll order for us.” He says, which you're thankful for: You don't speak a word of Portuguese, and you're not certain how well you'll fare with native speakers. Not that you think Joel will have a better grasp on the language but he’s always been far better at dealing with people than you are— Which is saying something, considering the hermit that he is.

“Great, I'll have the—”

“Burger with extra cheese and a side of the green mayo thing that you're dying to try but you might end up hating it. And also a side of the deep fried tapioca squares because you're embarrassed to be the tourist eating a cheeseburger.” Joel winks. “I know what you like, sweetheart.”

You're tempted to order something else just to spite him, but you simply sigh and cross your arms, ignoring the winning grin on Joel's face as he walks up to the counter. You don't catch the words, exactly, but whatever he’s saying doesn’t sound English, the words are a little clunky as they tumble out of his lips but the woman is ready to help, leaning forward across the counter and examining the menu with him. 

Joel’s not flirting, not really, but you can see the way he lays on the charm, his broad frame draping over the counter, a smirk on his lips that never came easy for him. You squint, anger flaring inside your chest— You know you have no right to, though, so you swallow it down as best as you can. Joel isn't yours, not anymore. He can flirt if he wants to, can find some random woman or man to have fun with during your vacation but it still stings. It stings even worse because the woman, somewhere in her forties with a welcoming smile and warm eyes, is probably a better fit for him than you ever were. You were always too something: Too young, too naive, too inexperienced. Joel had never been the one to say it, had always defended his college student girlfriend with the sort of fierceness that made your heart warm and your pussy wet, but you knew other people said it. And no one would ever say it about someone like the woman at the counter— A business woman with her restaurant, someone that seemed nurturing and loving and that nobody would blink twice if they saw her next to Joel. 

By the time Joel comes back to the table, he has both of your plates and an easy smile. The woman comes behind him, bringing your drinks, welcoming you with a smile and a greeting that you need to force yourself to reciprocate. 

“When the fuck did you learn Portuguese?” You ask him, your voice just a little bitter.

“Sarah got me into Duolingo, and I thought it might be useful for the trip.” Joel shrugs, his face burning bright. “Don't know a lot, just enough to order food, figure out where the bathroom is and about seven different animals. The lady at the counter's just real good at figurin’ shit out with half a sentence.”

You try not to dwell on the fact that he's been learning a whole new language for your trip. The fact that he's probably been thinking about it — about you — for a lot longer than you thought he would. 

“She seems nice.” You mumble as Joel digs into his plate and you hate to admit how delicious everything is— Even the cheeseburger is different from what you’re used to, from the bread to the burger itself, the green mayo pairing well with your food despite how fucking weird it looks. It’s not fancy, but it’s not fast food either, something else entirely but just as comforting and familiar enough to put you at ease with a cuisine you’re unfamiliar with but curious to try out.

“Her name's Marília, apparently her family owned the restaurant for generations.” He hums, washing down the deep fried tapioca square with his beer. “She was tellin' me about this night market they have every Sunday, reckon you'd like it. Could buy one'a them mugs you collect.”

You chew slowly, nodding, trying to pretend that you're not surprised that Joel actually remembers the tiny mug collection you’re started halfway through your relationship: He has a knack for that, for noticing and remembering the small details, the things you always kept to yourself or that you thought was too insignificant to share with other people. Joel always sees, always remembers.

“Not sure Marília wants you to bring your ex along for your little date.” You say and, while you try to make it sound like a joke, the words are more poisonous than you want them to be. Joel freezes for just a second before a grin slowly spreads over his lips. You know he's got you pinned, can tell he already figured out you're a little jealous from that sentence alone.

“Her wife's a local artist.” Joel speaks slowly, not bothering to hide his giddiness at your unwitting display of affection. “She sells pottery at the market, and Marília performs with a band there.”

You swallow it down, giving him a small nod, as noncommittal as you possibly can— You're actually really excited for it, you've always been a lover of outdoor sales and flea markets, but it is too reminiscent of your first date with Joel: You'd dragged him and little Sarah to a garage sale one Sunday morning with the excuse of a new rug and you'd left the sale with the trunk of Joel's truck full of useless nick-knacks and the certainty that you would never meet another man that made you feel the way he did.

“Sounds like a plan.”

The two of you end up by the beach after lunch. You're not in your bathing suit so you just sit on the white sand, staring at the ocean— It's one of the things you missed the most since moving to Texas. Joel sits quietly by your side, sunglasses perched low on his nose; you can't remember the last time the two of you did anything like this, just sitting together enjoying each other's presence but it's peaceful and familiar in a way that borders on dangerous, Joel's shoulder shuffling closer to yours and you need to fight off the urge to rest your head against him. The ocean is calm, the sun shining down on the crystalline water almost blinding you.

“Sarah would've loved here.” You say after a moment, unsure of where to go with the conversation. You had promised to one day take her to the beach, and it makes your chest ache with guilt that you never managed to keep your word.

“Sarah would've given me a damn heart attack, runnin' off into the water.” Joel snorts, but his voice carries that warm fondness that is exclusive to Sarah. “Prob'ly would'a tried to take that dog home, too.”

“The dog at your little friend's restaurant?” It's sweet, how Sarah is constantly on his mind; you hadn't even thought of her when you walked past the sleeping dog and the thought of him looking at the animal and thinking of his daughter makes you smile. 

“My married, lesbian friend? Yeah.” He bumps his shoulder into yours. “You ain't got nothin' to be jealous of, sweetheart.”

“I wasn't jealous.” The lie falls easily out of your mouth, but your entire face burns with shame. “You're a single man, you can flirt with whomever you want. Unless you're not single anymore, then in that case your new partner has to be the most confident person in the world to let you travel with your ex like that. Not that it matters, of course, because nothing—”

“I'm not seeing anyone.” Joel cuts off your embarrassing rambling, and you're relieved not just for the small act of kindness but also because it answers the question you've been dying to ask. The two of you fall silent and you can see that he's giving you space to answer the same question but you don't, you just nod and turn your eyes back to the ocean. “You?”

You bite your bottom lip, pleased that he couldn't stop himself from asking, and then you shrug. “Not really.”

“Good.” Joel's voice is low and heavy, gruff in that way he purposefully saved for the bedroom; it's like a Pavlovian response, your skin growing warmer and your pussy growing wetter from that single word. He must sense a line has been crossed because Joel stands up, brushing off sand from his ass. “Imma grab us some coconut water.”

You watch as he trudges up the soft sand all the way to the stands by the boardwalk, chatting up with the young man with the cart full of bright green coconuts; they talk for a long time, and Joel doesn't seem to flirt this time though you're too far away to tell— Not that you expect him to flirt with anyone anymore, not after the undercurrent of something in his voice at your admission to still being single. Joel is a protective man, yes, but he's never been possessive: You know he wouldn't have been angry if you had already moved on, but the fact that he is pleased that you haven't seems to only cement the notion that he still wants you, maybe just as much as you want him. 

But you can't. You can't let yourself fall into bed with him, because if this is just a vacation fling for him it would break your heart past the point in which you could fix it, and if it wasn't just a fling and he truly wants you back… Well, that is a can of worms you don't want to open and run the chance of ruining the one trip you'll have in years. Your attention is back to the ocean by the time Joel plops back down next to you, both coconuts in hand. 

“Got somethin' else too.” Joel says, an uncharacteristically boyish smile on his lips. He pulls out two pre-rolled joints from the breast pocket of his shirt. “Coconut guy gave me a two for one deal.”

Your hand snaps between the two of you, pushing Joel's hand closer to his chest.

“Are you insane?” You raise your head, wanting to make sure no one's seen the joints while Joel laughs at you. “We've been here for three hours and you're already buying drugs off the street? What if that guy was an undercover cop?”

“If he was a cop then that would've been entrapment.”

“And maybe entrapment is not illegal here, Joel.” You try to sound stern but you're laughing too, not really believing the situation. Joel shrugs, and then finally pockets the joints away. “If you go to jail I am not bailing you out. I'll chill in that nice house by myself and I'm only calling Tommy when I get back to Austin.”

“We can smoke it at home.” Joel concedes, bumping his shoulder into yours. 

The silence after that is heavy, full of the sort of awkwardness that had never been there before. Joel’s always been the silent type, and you’re not much of a conversationalist either, but it’s always been comfortable. An understanding of sorts. This silence isn’t that. It’s pregnant with things unsaid, the weight of the six months apart and the slow decay of your relationship sitting between the two of you like a wall.

The two of you stay at the beach until well past sundown— It's one of the most beautiful sunsets you've ever seen, the sand and the ocean and the sky all mingling in shades of orange and pink. The entire world feels ethereal, like you're somewhere that doesn't truly exist, sitting there basking in the golden light with Joel by his side; he takes off his shirt at some point, his tan skin bright with the shades of twilight.

You're exhausted when you finally make it to the Airbnb, but you don't really want the day to end. Joel looks happy, more carefree than you've seen him in a long time, and it doesn't seem like he's ready to go to bed either. The two of you wash off the sand with the outdoor shower and it burns you on the inside to think of earlier in the day— The night is cool but not cold, crickets and cicadas chirping somewhere in the wooded area that surrounds your place and the two of you find yourselves sharing the hammock, your feet by his ribs, his feet near your neck.

Joel lights up the joint, the ashtray balancing on his chest, taking a drag before he hands it over to you. You don't remember the last time the two of you smoked together, but it was something you used to do on the weekends, when Sarah was away at a friend's house or at Tommy's. Just the two of you, laying on the bed of his truck to keep the house smell-free, talking for hours and simply enjoying the moment with each other.

“How's work?” Joel asks as you blow the smoke up in the air; it's filler conversation, but can only hope that Joel genuinely cares— He's the one that helped you build your own nail design studio back when you were stuck with a half-finished college degree you hated and no happy future in sight. Joel's been the one to motivate you, to give you gas money back when you didn't have enough clients to afford both gas and food, the one who held you through the rough days and massaged your hands and back after a hard day of work. 

All those things feel like a thousand years into the past now. 

“It's been good, I'm almost always fully booked.” You say, your throat burning from the smoke before handing him the joint. You fingers touch, his lingering for a beat too long. “What about you and Tommy?”

“That's nice, I'm glad it's working out. You deserve it.” Joel smiles, and it's only then that you realize how he's never once taken credit for it. He could've, considering the only reason you have your studio is because of his help, but he's never done it, had gone as far as being offended when you offered to pay him back. “Work's flowin' well, Tommy is pickin' up more shifts and we managed to hire a couple of guys to help.”

“I'm glad Tommy's pulling his head out of his ass.” You snort, but the joke hides the truth: Joel has been carrying his brother's weight for a long, long time. 

“I got a lot more free time now.” Joel smiles, takes a long drag of the joint and when his eyes settle on you they're carrying a heaviness you don't expect. Like he knows that was something that troubled you, like he's always known he had been neglecting you and had simply waited until you left to fix it.

“Sarah must be happy.” You say, hating the way the quiver in your voice gives away your feelings. The smile on Joel's face crumbles just a little, clearly not expecting a bad reaction from you. 

“She is,” He agrees. “I haven't missed a soccer match in months.”

The goddamned Saturday morning soccer matches. She had one almost every week during the tournament months, and Joel more often than not either forgot about it at all or was too tired after a grueling week of work to get up at seven in the morning— You went to every single of them, no matter how tired, how cold or how miserable you felt.

“Good to know that all you needed was for me to step away before you became half a decent parent.”

Joel recoils as if you've slapped him, and you figure that might've hurt less than your actual words. You move, trying to get out of the hammock with as much dignity as you can but Joel stops you, gripping your ankle; you freeze at the touch, your heart hammering so fast you can hear it in your ears.

“I'm sorry.” He says, his voice low and heavy with emotion. “I should've said it sooner. I'm sorry I put all that weight on you, wasn't fair. 'M tryin' to do better.”

You should've tried to do better while I was still around. The words are trapped in your throat, bubbling to come out but you swallow them down.

“Better late than never.” It's what you settle for, and it pains you to shrug his hand off, climbing out of the hammock. 

“I know it's late.” Joel says, taking a deep drag of the joint before he puts it out. “But is it too late, sweetheart?”

The answer should've been yes. You told yourself time and time again in the past six months that you were done, that you didn't want Joel anymore and that you'd never take him back even if he begged you for it. And now, one afternoon with him, and your resolve is already wavering. You cross your arms over your chest, hugging yourself. 

“When did you know it was over?” You ask instead of an answer. It had always been on your mind, wondering when he gave up on your relationship exactly. 

“About two months before you left.” Joel doesn't look at you, staring at the trees instead. “It was the first time we were havin' sex in forever and you fell asleep halfway through it. Reckoned you were done with me by then.”

“Four.” You say. “We didn't have sex for four months before we broke up.”

“Nuh-huh, it was the weekend Sarah went away for camp. We had planned a bunch of stuff for the weekend, but you fell asleep while I was still inside you on Friday night and then we sorta just did our own thing until she came back.”

“Did you—” You swallow thickly. “Did you finish?”

“No, of course not.” Joel shakes his head, and he sounds offended at the question. “I pulled out and got you dressed before I went to the bathroom to jerk off.”

You're so mortified by the whole thing that your brain doesn't even conjure the very tempting imagery of Joel touching himself. You pinch the bridge of your nose, trying to contain the tears that threaten to spill.

“I don't remember that.”

“You were tired.” Joel's soft, understanding tone somehow only makes things worse. “Overworked and stressed, and I was only makin' it worse.”

You want to ask why he didn't try. Want to ask him why he didn't fight for you, why he simply accepted the break up with a solemn nod. Why he gave up. But you don't, because you're afraid of his answer— Whether the problem had been you, if he'd simply fallen out of love and gotten too comfortable with your relationship, or if he'd found someone more interesting, someone new. 

“I'm going to bed.” You say, clearing your throat. 

Joel nods, lips parted in hesitation. And then he sighs, his eyes falling on the couch behind your back. “Lemme just grab a pillow first.”

“We can share the bed. If you want.” The words come out of your mouth before you can think it through. “Just keep your morning wood to yourself.”

The look Joel gives you almost makes you backtrack, but he's climbing out of the hammock before you can say anything, a relieved smile on his face.

“I'll behave, I promise.”

You try to pretend you're not disappointed in that.

You don't wake up the next day with Joel's body pressed against yours as you had hoped, but you do wake up with him shaking you. You groan, trying to swat him away.

“G'way.” You mumbled, rolling to the other side of the bed. The sheets are cool, signaling just how long he's been gone. 

“Honey, there's monkeys. C'mon, get up.”

You drag yourself out of bed at that, partially thinking that maybe Joel has finally lost his mind but, sure enough, there are two tiny monkeys in the backyard deck, perched on the wooden rail and sitting far too closely to the breakfast table that Joel has set up— Coffee and juice, fruit cut up in little bowls and a basket of pão de queijo. 

“Is that a marmoset?” You ask, voice low as you try not to scar the animals.

Joel has a huge smile on his lips, nodding as the two of you watch from the large sliding door, still inside the house. The bigger monkey — which can't be bigger than a chihuahua, you think — crawls to the table and grabs a slice of mango and then skitters back into the closest tree; the smaller one isn't as brave, eyeing you carefully from his position before jumping back into the protection of the trees.

“I think we should get the food inside before they steal some more.” You say, not really containing the grin on your face. “Fuck, I should've picked up my camera.”

“They'll be back.” Joel says, finally stepping away to open the door; you can still feel the faint scent of his soap, the warmth of his chest almost pressed to your back. “Now that they know we have food they'll come back everyday.”

The two of you move the breakfast spread into the dining table inside, just in case. You're touched that Joel went through all the trouble of setting up the food in the first place, half expecting him to be asleep by the time you got out of bed, but the coffee is perfectly brewed, the fruit all carefully sliced and the pão de queijo still warm from the oven; it reminds you of the early stages of your relationship, before life got in the way, when Joel would wake up early and cook breakfast for both you and Sarah— Tommy too, sometimes, when he got too drunk to drive home the night before.

“Why are you doing this?” You ask when Joel fills your glass with orange juice, the words slipping out of your mouth before you can stop yourself; you don't want to ruin the small peace the both of you agreed to, but you need to know. “This… This is the sort of thing you did when you gave a shit, Joel. But I know what happens when you stop caring, so whatever this is… I'm not going to fall for it twice.”

Joel sighs, the sort of noise you know comes from resignation rather than irritation. He drops down on the seat adjacent to yours on the small square table, his knees creaking loudly. 

“I told you last night… I want to do better. Wanna fix the mistakes I made with you.” Joel's eyes hold yours, his face open and honest. “Yer the best damn thin' to ever happen to me after Sarah. I know I can't change the past, I ain't tryin' to erase you the pain I caused you and I know it'll take you some time to trust me again but I'm goin' to work hard everyday to prove to you just how much I still love you.”

You squint, trying to ignore the way your heart feels like it might jump out through your throat. “That sounds like a rehearsed speech.”

Joel blushed, his face and ears going red as he finally takes his eyes off you.

“M'therapist helped. But I mean it, she just… helped with the words.” He looks down at the table, shoving a piece of melon into his mouth. “But I'm workin' on it too. Bein' better at… Communicatin'.”

You're floored, breakfast forgotten as you stare at this man next to you that you're now uncertain if he is the same man he used to be. Joel's face flushes even harder, fidgeting under the weight of your gaze. 

“That's… That's good.” You swallow thickly. “Yeah. I'm glad you're going to therapy.”

“It's been a rough coupla' months, Sarah's teacher was the one to recommend it, actually. She started goin' first, and then I did.”

You know what he isn't saying: That it's been difficult because you left, to the point that Sarah had to go to therapy because you left without a word. It makes you sick to your stomach. 

“I'm sorry.” You say, though you wish you could apologize to the little girl instead. “I should've dealt with everything better. I— I miss her, honestly, I just thought it would be worse if I tried to stay in touch with her.”

“She misses you too. We all do.” Joel hesitates, taking a sip of his coffee with his eyes still glued to you, as if he's weighing his words and your reaction to them. “We could do something together when we get back. Not a trip, 'cause Tommy's gon' wring my neck if I make him cover another shift of mine, but something nice. We never took her to the zoo.”

In the silence that follows, you have the urge to say something mean, to be rude or dismissive or to just tell him off— Anything, anything to keep your heart from racing the way it does. Still, when you open your mouth, no venom comes out. Joel's looking at you with warm brown eyes, the same puppy-like quality that he has passed on to Sarah and, for a moment, you allow yourself to think of what that would be like. What it would feel to come back home to the life you thought you'd never have again.

“It might be good for her.” You relent, toying with a slice of pineapple on your plate. “That she learns we can be exes and still have a healthy relationship.”

You don't raise your head, trying to keep your voice as casual as you can, but you see from the corner of your eye the way Joel's head tilts to the side, his body going stiff at your words. 

“‘s that all you want, darlin’? Because I'll respect your decision like I did when we broke up, but I'm going to hear you say it.”

“I don't know what I want.” You say, but that's not exactly the truth. You know what you want: You want him, all of him, next to you and inside of you and everywhere. You need him, need him as much as you need the air you breathe but you're terrified. 

Because your story has already ended once, and you're not sure there is anything you can do to fix that.

“That's all I need to know.” Joel gives you a small, crooked smile before he takes your hand in his, pressing his lips to your knuckles. “Let me show you that I still love you. And, if by the end of the week you still don't want me, then I won't bother you ever again.”

There's a million reasons why you should say no. Relationships need more than love, and whatever happens while on vacation isn't a representation of real life and there is no way you believe that things will get better once you go home or that your heart isn't going to end up breaking like it's done once before but, in that moment, with Joel's soft lips against your skin and his molten eyes boring into yours, your brain can't conjure up any of those reasons. 

You love him. He loves you. You have an entire house to yourselves for the first time in months and not a single responsibility or to-do list. Just the two of you, the scorching sun and the bountiful nature around. 

It doesn't matter if your heart is going to break at the end. 

You want him anyway. 

“Okay.” You nod, and then laugh when Joel offers you a boyish grin. “Don't make me regret it, Miller.”

“Wouldn't dream of it, honey.”

next part. (coming soon)

[onetwolove]

Watching living single and I can't stop thinking about how cute queen Latifah is😔

[alloftheimagines]

⊹₊ abby anderson | immune | ch. 13 ₊⊹

SERIES MASTERLIST | PREVIOUS CHAPTER

words: 3.7k warnings: 18+. MINORS DNI. I MEAN IT. TLOU2 spoilers, fem!reader, canon-typical trauma & violence including a discussion about the sexual abuse abby faced with the rattlers. ptsd. discussions and imagery around suicide. angst. emotional hurt/comfort. discussions about putting a dog down but DON'T WORRY HE'S GOING TO BE HAPPY & HEALTHY FOREVER. synopsis: abby begins to pull away the night after you sleep together, but it's not for the reason you think. also, you find a new emotional support pet.

tags: @hakandnsjoqmsn @abbyily @mamas-evil-hag @cherrybomber3000 @chraw @abbysburr1t0 @mewl3tte @loonetteslooneybin @lilredbird101 @wontilly @littlelittlebear @pomm3verte @mumuming @naponiac @ramsmain @chxrryxcx @sevviesbabe @nerdy-creature @thatredheadloserlesbian @vampgfrnd @mybodyismadeofcrushedstars @sweet-lover-girl @acfgio @abbysbbygrl@bambishaven@sentimental-sage @lovvrr @imheadintothemountains @warmness0ul @madsxh1022 @wonderlandwalker @klmr0 @vi-sinner 

Abby makes noises in her sleep. You’re sitting by the door, watching the sun rise over the distant mountains, body still humming with the electricity she put there last night, when it begins. It was an effort to move the barricade without waking her, but you couldn’t resist; after all, you don’t know how many more of these you have left, and there is something about watching the sky that makes you feel small, comforted.

At the sound of her in pain, something fractures in you. You head back inside to see her tangled in the blankets, naked and sticky with sweat. For hours before, you’d been watching her, counting the freckles on her face and smiling at the way the hair on her face sometimes made her nose twitch. It didn’t surprise you, how soft and innocent she could look in the darkness, but it still felt like you were privy to something special to get to witness it. Still, not even sleep chased away that clenched jaw, and now her teeth grind audibly together as she tosses onto her other side. 

"No," she rasps out quietly, a divot forming like a blade's edge between her brow.

“Abby?” you murmur, hoping it’ll be enough. You don’t wanna wake her, not when it’s still so dark and she’s likely still exhausted, but it’s hard to watch her struggling like this now.

"No. No, don't touch me. Please, don't."

You perch on the edge of the bed, hands hovering because you think touching her, when she is asking - begging - somebody not to, would make it worse. “You’re okay, angel,” you whisper. “It’s just a dream. It’ll pass.”

She seems to calm at the sound of your voice, breaths steadying into their slow rhythm again. You want so badly to kiss the pout on her lips, massage the tension from her face, but instead, you just sit with her a while longer. Instead, you miss the sunset to memorise her, instead, because the thought of not having her soon is far more harrowing than anything else. 

It’s the second time in less than twelve hours that you realise you might not want to die anymore. 

*

Abby wakes as she always does: heart racing, the edges of a nightmare still lingering behind her lids, an emptiness she’s never been able to fill expanding in her chest. Before she’s even alert enough to know why, she reaches for the place you’d been last night, when she’d fallen asleep without meaning to. You let her fucking drift off again — and now the sheets are cold. 

You’re not here. 

She's lost you again.

She lunges into a seat, mattress groaning beneath her. At the sight of the empty motel room, lit only by the sunlight falling through the cracks of the wooden boards and the door hanging ajar, her heart lands somewhere in her throat, and instinct has her reaching for her gun. 

Only, of course, it’s not on her for once, the holster abandoned with her pants on the floor. There’s an unsettling ache between her legs, proof she didn’t just imagine all your hungry touches, but also born from the nightmare, the ones she always feels like a real memory the next day. Your absence overshadows both. She doesn’t know how she can be so fucking stupid, so careless. She’s never fallen asleep without meaning to before, certainly not beside someone, and all she can think is you’re gone again. Maybe Cal had friends, or maybe it’s more infected, or raiders, something, anything—

“Morning, sleepyhead.” 

She pauses midway through pulling on her pants at the sound of your voice just inches away, and then she lets out a sound of relief so thick, so vulnerable, it’s foreign even to her own ears. 

You sit on the step at the door, brows furrowed, index finger tucked between the pages of your paperback like a makeshift bookmark.

“You okay?” you ask, and god, she must look like a madwoman, hands trembling around her belt and stretched out bra strap fallen off one shoulder. 

“You… You let me fall asleep,” she bites out. 

You stand to reach her eye level. “The door was barricaded all night, and I stayed up just in case.”

She rubs the crust from her eyes. She can’t quite remember the last time she’d slept for long enough for it to form. She wants to blame the sex, but she knows it’s not just that. It’s you. She’s careless around you. You wrap her in a false sense of safety, one that should have been broken the moment she woke to find you gone the other day, but instead… 

But instead, she kissed you, over and over. Instead, she lowered all her fucking walls, walls that were built for a reason, especially with you.

And then her mind punished her by conjuring a nightmare born from her time with the Rattler's, an unwelcome reminder that the pleasure she felt last night only briefly covered up the corners of her they invaded.

“Abby,” you whisper, stepping close to cup her jaw. “Everything’s fine. The world didn’t implode. I didn’t get kidnapped. Nobody came for us.”

She doesn’t like it. Not one bit. She turns around, sifting through the knots in her hair with her fingers. “I thought you were gone again.” 

“I’m not. I’m right here.”

She doesn’t feel right, maybe because it’s the first time she’s been with someone since the abuse, or maybe because that someone was you, and you remade her with your gentle fingers and soft moans, or maybe because you’re about two days out from getting to Catalina Island, and it isn’t enough, and she knew it never would be, but she did it anyway. 

Arms snake around her, warm and inviting and so easy to melt into, but in the light of day, she can’t bring herself to look past the bites on your arms. The new one especially, beads of blood staining the gauze covering it. 

“Don’t be mad at me," you plead into the nape of her neck. "You needed the rest.”

“So did you,” she mutters.

“I can sleep on the road.” You plant a gentle kiss on her bare shoulder, another on the knots of her vertebrae. It’s nothing like the rough hands that ruined her last year, and yet she finds herself frozen. They always took her from behind, bending her over and pinning her by the neck. Her body has remembered its wounds, suddenly, and they’re weeping. 

It isn’t fair. She wants to be… whole for you. She doesn’t ever want your touch and theirs to overlap in her mind, but they are today. And she’d been so careful, setting those boundaries, making sure she could handle the small things before she gave into the things she really wanted. She wonders if she’s just searching for excuses, if she’s just hiding behind that trauma, but it’s more… physical than that. Like the truth is squirming under her skin, trying to break free, and every time you’re near, it’s closer to the surface.

You mustn’t notice her stiffness, because you squeeze her tighter, right around the hips. “I can already see that fucking frown, and I’m telling you, we're not fighting about this again,” you murmur against her skin. Every fan of your breath draws another bead of sweat into her hairline. She can’t breathe, suddenly, the dusty clutter of the room swimming around her like it’s not real. “You don’t get to, okay? Not after last night.”

“I…” She wants it to subside so badly that she waits for moments, willing her skin to grow reaccustomed to your touch, but it doesn’t. Instead, there are only flashes of last night’s dreams: those cruel faces that taunted her, the soreness between her legs, the eventual submission she’d shown them if only because volunteering herself meant Lev was safe from them. 

“What, angel?” you say, so tender it almost kills her. “Talk to me. Please.”

But she can’t, instead breaking free of your embrace. Your arms fall to your sides as she grabs her tank off the floor, dressing quicker than she ever has before. 

“I need to check the truck and find us something to drink,” she says, fastening her belt. “Get your shit ready, okay?”

She doesn’t wait for a response, hauling up her backpack and heading out the open door into the humid morning. She should have known better than to think she could just move on from all this. Just have you without also having to remember them. She has never been the type of person to let go of the things that haunt her — and you?

You deserve better than her ghost. 

*

She expects you to be angry when, twenty minutes later, she returns from the river with filled flasks of boiled water after having filled up and scrubbed her skin raw. Instead, you’re not focused on her at all, but a shaggy-haired mongrel who you’re sharing you’re fucking crackers with on the curb. She sucks in a long breath, because of course the one time she risks leaving you alone, you find a stray that likely has rabies. 

She reaches for her gun, which you should have done, considering the skinny thing has likely lived in the wild its whole life. 

With as much patience as she can muster, she says your name, stopping a few steps away. 

You barely look up, grinning as the dog whines for more food. “Hm?”

“Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

Despite the matted fur and protruding bones, Abby can’t help but remember Alice, especially when you pet the dog between its ears and it begins to pant happily. The last thing she needs this morning is a reminder of Seattle and all the blood she watched pour there. 

“He’s like me,” you say on a shrug. “Covered in bites.” You part his fur around the scruff of his neck to reveal an array of teeth marks, which only has her clicking the safety off her gun. Still, when she narrows her eyes, she sees the scars are old, bumpy, and likely from an animal rather than an infected – which does not make her feel any better about the possibility of rabies. 

“Look, he’s cute and all, but could you maybe stop touching him?”

You pout. Adorably. Abby is already preparing for the fact she’s going to have to break your heart when she rips you away from the mutt. “But he looked so happy when he found me,” you say. “I bet he’s been alone for most of his life.”

“Yeah, exactly. He’s probably softening you up before he mauls you to death.”

“Don’t listen to her, Austen. You’re a good boy.” You cast a sidelong glance at her gun. “Put it down, Abby. You’re not shooting him. He’s fine.”

“He doesn’t look fine. He looks flea-ridden.” And vulnerable. Another living thing Abby will have to take care of, and likely fail in the end. Still, she holsters her gun, bending to her knees to cast you a raised brow. “Austen? Really?”

Your wry grin has her stomach tightening. There it is, that want, awakening in he now that she’s had a minute to breathe and scratch away their fingerprints to make more room for yours. “We can’t just leave him out here alone.” 

“I feel like we probably can, actually.”

“Abby,” you say sharply as the dog — fucking Austen — licks salt from your fingers. “Look at his big brown eyes.”

“Hm. Very cute,” she says, but she’s actually looking at yours, all moon-eyed and sparkly as you croon high-pitched affections at him. 

She thinks that, when you’re gone, it won’t be the scars or the tears or the fear she remembers of you. Maybe not even the bliss of last night. It’ll be this, here. The wide open smile, like the world never took a thing from you. The kindness you show to a stray that’s more likely to hurt you than love you.

“C’mon. Don’t you have dogs in Avalon?" you bat your lashes. "They were training some in Fort Worth. They make good guards.”

Abby leans back on her heels, already half-resigned. Like hell is she going to be the reason you stop smiling like that. “Yeah, we do, but… this one looks old. And starved. And injured.” He hasn’t set down his back leg since she laid eyes on him, in fact. “Putting him down would be kinder than taking him across the state just for our vet to decide there’s nothing we can do for him.”

Hurt slashes across your features suddenly. She doesn’t know why, not until you mutter, “You know, Lauren had that same thought about me.”

She understands, then. The bites. The kindness. You look at this dog and see all the months you must have spent lost and starved yourself. To her, it’s ridiculous. She loves dogs, but they were wild animals once and probably will be again long after humans stop existing. You’re not a stray. You’re… 

You’re you. Heart too big for your chest, a patchwork of kindness and empathy and ferocity and understanding. Why should she expect that you wouldn’t also extend that to an animal?

Abby purses her lips, running a tentative hand through the dog’s coat. She doesn’t see any fleas, just a whole lot of fur that needs to be cut and plenty of scabs underneath.

When you don’t look at her, she says, "Hey. You’re not a stray.”

“We’re all strays at some point.” You pull your knee to your chest, resting your chin atop it as the dog sits awkwardly on the warm concrete. Maybe she was wrong about him always being wild, because he seems loving, like he’s had people around him before. Or maybe it’s just you. Maybe he can sense he’s safe the same way Abby does. 

“You must really regret last night,” you add finally, quietly, still avoiding her gaze, “to disappear like that without finding me a babysitter first.”

“It’s not that,” she whispers, lowering to a cross-legged seat. “Last night was perfect.”

“The nightmare, then?” 

She hates how easily you can read her. It’s a wonder you can stand to be with her at all, when you must see so many of her broken parts. She’d always thought her armour bulletproof before, but she might as well be behind glass. “How’d you know?”

“You were talking. I wasn’t sure whether it would be best to wake you or not. Should I have?”

Abby shakes her head. “It wasn’t as bad as they usually are. It was okay.”

“Look, I get it. You’ve been through something. I wish I could make it all better for you, and I want to sit with you through it the way you have for me. But I don’t think I can deal with much more of the hot and cold stuff, especially not after last night…” Your eyes fill with tears that you quickly turn away from her to hide. Austen tries to lick them, and you let out a soft laugh. “I’m not asking for you to tell me everything, and I don’t expect you to mean the things you said in the heat of the moment. But I do need to know where I stand with you, Abby, even if this thing only lasts until we make it to Avalon.”

Carefully, Abby takes your hand. “You stand right here.” Like last night, she places your palm atop her ribs. “I meant what I said last night. I meant all of it. And, god, I’ll never regret it. Don’t ever think that.”

She shakes her head, steeling herself, because she knows she can’t keep giving you non-answers. 

Maybe that was why she felt so raw this morning. She knew it would lead to this. To telling you. 

Austen lies down by her legs, and she risks another pet. Yeah, you’re keeping him. He’s clearly already decided for you. 

“Before we got to Catalina Island,” she begins, “we were in Santa Barbara. Lev and me, I mean. We were captured by this group. A big group. They kept a lot of prisoners as slaves, and…”

Your throat bobs, like you already know. Of course you do.

“I needed to make sure they wouldn’t touch Lev, so I…” She clears her throat. “Shit, I’ve never told anyone before. Whenever Lev brings it up, I shut him down.”

“You don’t owe me the explanation,” you say, lying your palm on the flagstone a couple inches from hers. An offering, one she is so tempted to take — but not until this truth is set free. “If you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to.”

“I think maybe I need to before we… If we have sex again, I want you to know. Because what they did makes me feel dirty. Tainted. I know it shouldn’t. If it were someone else, I’d never think of them that way. But I prided myself on being strong for so long, and these people just… broke me down. Used me. I couldn’t even touch myself for a long time, not without thinking about it. Sometimes, I still can’t. Especially when I have the nightmares.” She’s surprised, how smoothly it rolls off her tongue, like the words have been sitting there for a long time. “It’s why I don’t like to be touched. Or didn’t, before you. There's not an inch of my body they didn't bruise. Even though it’s been a year, I feel like I still have them all over my skin.”

“Yeah, I know, that feeling,” you reply, looking down at your scars. Of course you know. Your own body has been changed. Maybe it’s different. Maybe she’s lucky, in comparison, because at least she doesn’t carry the evidence. But she feels it, still. And she’s been waiting for everyone to see it. 

“I kept going for Lev, but I’m not the person I used to be. I don’t know if I ever will be.”

“Nobody needs you to be who you were before. You shouldn’t have gone through that pain, but who you are now is strong and brave and caring and terrifying, and I love all of those things about you.”

That word, love, has her chin snapping up, heart stuttering. Her vision grows misty as she twists to tuck your hair behind your ear. “You have no idea how good it felt, to feel like a person again last night. To forget about it and just be with you.”

“I’m glad you could be.” You tilt your head. “You killed them, right? Slowly? Painfully?”

She lets out a bitter laugh and shakes her head. “I wish. When I went back months later, the place they kept us was empty, burned down. Found bodies. Looked like they’d suffered, at least.”

“God, you deserved to be the one to do it.”

“I was just glad to get out. I thought I was gonna have to watch Lev die in there, and fuck…” She gulps around the rock in her throat. “I don’t know how he does it. He’s healing, y’know? He belongs with the Fireflies now. I don’t. I still feel like I’m there, some nights. A prisoner.”

You take her hand, sidling closer. “You’re no one’s prisoner, Abby Anderson. If there’s one thing I know about you, it’s that.”

The ghost of a smile passes her lips. Maybe she needed the reminder. Still, she’s always wondered if maybe she deserved it. She dodged death so many times. Watched everyone around her succumb to it while she kept going, kept moving. Owen and Mel died because of her. Isaac. Yara. 

Soon, you. 

She shudders to imagine what you’d think of who she was before, when she was nothing but vengeance incarnate. A cold soldier, a Scar killer. Would you still want her, if you knew all the terrible things she’s done?

She presses a kiss to your temple, fingers tracing up your thigh. “You’re going to love tonight’s stop, y’know.”

“Yeah?”

She nods. “It’s an old library. The only place I could even try to nap on my way out of California, but mostly an excuse to pick up some books.”

You grin. She loves it so much she wants to bottle it up. She wishes cameras were easier to come by, but she doesn’t want to think about this being a memory. She’s already convinced herself that you’re not dying. You’ll be more useful to Roe alive. 

“I’m sure Austen is going to love it, too…”

Abby groans. “We’re keeping the dog, aren’t we?”

“Yes. Yes, we are.” You pat Austen’s head, then stand up. “I’ll cut you a deal. He’ll stay in the truck bed until we de-flea him.”

“And if the rabies sets in and he takes a bite from us in the middle of the night?”

“Won’t be the worst thing to bite me this week,” you dismiss nonchalantly, already making kissy noises and calling for Austen to jump into the truck bed. 

Abby worries her lopsided smile reveals all the things she can’t say: that you make her happy, that she is falling in love with you too quickly, that you are the best person she’s ever met. 

That she will do everything in her power to save you. 

She rises to her feet. “Too soon, again,” she chastises, but she’s learning to deal with that self-deprecating humour that thinly masks your pain. 

“Austen disagrees. He thinks I’m hilarious.”

“Of course he does. You bribed him with crackers.”

She grabs your hips before you can get in the car, turning you around to brush her knuckle against your lips. “We need to talk about the thing that happened before the sex. The thing where I said I’m going to tell Roe—”

You place a hand on her chest, stopping her. “Not now. Let’s just not talk about that until we get there, okay?”

She frowns. It isn’t like you to shy from uncomfortable topics. 

Still, she has to agree. This might be your last full day together, and she doesn’t intend to spend another moment of it in the past or the future. 

“Can I kiss you?” she asks timidly instead.

Your breath trembles out, breaking through the thick, hot air and reviving her. “You don’t ever have to ask.”

So she does, hands gripping your lower back. Her skin prickles with that tension at first, because no amount of scrubbing removes the memories from her skin. But then you’re all she thinks of, all she feels, all she sees, and she melts into you, hoping that, by the time you both get to the library tonight, she won’t have this heaviness weighing on her. That she’ll be yours and only yours again. 

With the truth floating between you instead of sitting between her ribs, she can start to believe it.

⤷ CHAPTER FOURTEEN

[onetwolove]

Would yall believe me if I said I was thinking about this for dayss cuz I lost it and couldn't remember the name 💔 finally found it the universe loves me

[onetwolove]

The first movie I put on for the new years is pitch perfect....yall im never getting laid

[userinherownwrld]

[isabellaboo2025]

The Devil’s Smile - Part Eighteen

Pairing: Joel x Reader.

Chapter Summary: You visit Tommy and Maria, and Joel gives you food for thought.

Plot summary: Reader and her kids are rescued from a cult and go to live with Joel.

A/N: 18+ only.

Masterlist

****************************************************

The week passes in a sun-drenched haze, the temperature climbing as the weekend approaches necessitating Joel cranking up the air conditioning and the girls frequently trooping in and out of the house demanding cold drinks, popsicles and naps in the shade. Even Ellie succumbs, her growing frame sprawled over the living room couch, chest rising and falling as she catches up on the energy expended by playing in the yard.

Sarah comes and goes as her work shifts permit, her mood vacillating from one extreme to another. Some mornings she sits quietly hunched over her breakfast, uttering barely a word. Other times she converses with the girls with gleeful abandon, conspiring in all their plans for play. Then there are the moments when she and Joel argue, never over anything in particular, and the guilt eats away at you because you’re privy to information that he isn’t.

The hotter weather also brings with it a requirement to forgo jeans and light sweaters in favour of shorts and tank tops – clothes that still feel unfamiliar to you after years of enforced modesty. But what now is familiar is the slow drag of Joel’s gaze over your body – the slope of your shoulders, the swell of your breasts, the curve of your hip. You see it, even when you know he’s doing his best to hide it and challenge it with stolen glances of your own – the strength of his shoulders, the muscles that flex in his chest, the narrowing of his hips, all drawing you like a moth to a forbidden flame.

Driving lessons resume when Sarah’s home at night to watch the girls and your confidence blooms like wildflowers after rain. The first session post-Mel's visit, you grip the wheel with hands steadier than before, the engine's rumble syncing with your breath as you navigate down the drive and back again, turning past the house and moving out onto the back trails, Joel in the passenger seat, his knee brushing yours from the start – a contact that sparks but no longer overwhelms, the familiarity grounding rather than igniting alone.

"Take the curve wide, there you go," he guides, voice husky and you do, the car hugging the gravel without a wobble, acceleration smooth into the open stretches.

You hear yourself laughing with genuine relief and joy as you nail a shift without his hand on the gear.

"See? Told you you're gettin' it,” he tells you, his praise drawing a grin that lights your face, high spirits carrying you through the loop, the ranch unfurling below like a conquered kingdom.

With each lesson, the sureness grows and by Friday, Joel's nod of approval warms you more than the sun on your skin.

“You’re a natural," he murmurs, eyes tracing your profile as you check the mirrors, his gaze lingering on the flush of your cheeks and the way your hair whips in the breeze – dark and intense, pulling at the tension that simmers beneath the progress.

You exchange glances, your eyes flicking to his hands on the dash, strong and capable, heat curling in your core, his dropping to your lips, holding until you both look away, the air charged but navigable. The lessons always end with you pulling into the drive flushed and exhilarated, Joel reminding you how proud he is of your progress, the pleasure his approval brings fighting for dominance amongst the anxiety of carrying Sarah’s secret.

He agrees the listing for Round Rock looks the best out of the bunch you’ve looked at so far, but you note down another couple of options that you wouldn’t mind falling back on if needs be.

“Round Rock’s good,” he says on Friday evening, nodding with approval at the images on the screen. “You and the girls would be safe there, and I’d be alright knowin’ that’s where you were.”

“Would you come and visit us?” you ask, turning to look at him, the distance between you at the table so small that you almost imagine you can hear his heart thudding in his chest.

“You just try and keep me away,” he replies softly, eyes flickering over your face, the air thrumming between you to the point where you’re convinced he’s about to kiss you, but for Abby appearing in the doorway, her bunny clutched in her hand, rubbing her eyes with contested sleep. Before you can react, he has her swept up in his arms, promising that she’ll soon be carried away in blissful dreams if she just closes her eyes, his gaze returning to yours for a brief moment, seeking permission to attempt to put her back to bed.

And where before you would have balked at the idea of any man bar David, least of all one you’ve barely known six weeks, being anywhere near your precious girls in the vulnerability of their bedroom, you grant approval without a second thought.

Because you trust Joel – trust him implicitly – and that what makes carrying the burden of his own daughter’s secret even harder.

****

Saturday unfolds in a haze of preparation.

You spend the morning making sides to take to Tommy and Maria’s by way of contribution – cornbread and coleslaw – even though Joel tells you they won’t be expecting anything. At Zion Ridge, although you lived mostly communally, it was practice for one sister to take a small token to another if she paid a visit.

Some practices have their place.

Throughout the day, Ellie chats nonstop about seeing Benji’s backyard while Abby stays close to your heels – too close at times, given you almost fall over her every time you turn around. When you chance to pick her up at one point, you feel the warmth of her skin and the tiredness of her eyes, but you simply put it down to heat fatigue and carry on with your preparations.

With half an hour to go before you’re due to leave, you hurry upstairs to change into something suitable and find yourself staring at the small collection of clothes you have, biting your lip at the realisation that you don’t know what to wear for such an occasion. It won’t be fancy, you know that much, but you still don’t want to turn up in a t-shirt and faded shorts, even though the heat dictates you need to be comfortable and cool.

Finally, your gaze falls on the dress – pale blue cotton with the buttons down the front – rescued from the storage facility at the police station. You’ve washed it since, and it’s pretty and practical, but as you finger the hem, you can’t help but wonder if putting it back on means re-clothing yourself in the past. If, in wearing it, you might somehow be binding yourself once more to Zion Ridge and to David.

“Ten minutes!” Joel calls from downstairs, and you quickly make up your mind to wear it. To reclaim it as something of yours, not a relic of your past.

You step out of your room at the same time Sarah leaves hers, your eyes meeting with a fragile trust that does nothing to ease the anxiety already curling in your belly. She nods approvingly as she looks at your outfit, eyes lingering at your face, then cocks her head on one side.

“Do you own any makeup?”

“Oh, uh…no,” you admit. “We weren’t encouraged to wear any. A painted face mocks God, rather than celebrates him so…”

“I might be able to help with that, assuming you’d like me to.” Moving forward, she takes hold of your arm and starts pulling you back towards her room.

“You don’t have to…” your protest weakly.

“I know,” she says, “and I know we have different skin tones so a lot of what I have probably won’t suit – but I do have this cream blush and some lipsticks that I’ve never worn…oh!” She reaches into a drawer and pulls out a bag. “And I have some mascara and eyeshadow in here you could have…if you want it, that is. I’m not…not trying to pressure you.”

“That’s…” you stare at the items in front of you, feeling once more devoid from the reality you now live in. You haven’t worn makeup in more than ten years and yet, you can see your hand moving, feel the give of the plastic under your skin as you open the blush. Part of you wants to refuse, to say that you’re fine just as you are. But another part of you plucks at that small thread of rebellion. “That’s very kind, thank you.”

Sarah grins broadly. “Do you want me to help you, or…”

“Please,” you say with a sigh of relief, handing her the brush. Over the next five minutes or so the two of you giggle as the makeup slides across your skin – just a little, not too much – and when you finally look at yourself in the mirror, you’re a little stunned at the reflection that looks back at you. Your skin looks glowing, eyes wider, lips plump with the faintest hint of colour. “Is it too much?”

“No,” Sarah says, “it’s perfect. Besides, it’s only Dad and Uncle Tommy who are going to be there. It’s not like we’re making you up to go on the hunt for a new man – yet.”

She grins again and you manage a small smile before looking away, hoping to hide the heat in your cheeks that can’t be attributed to the blush.

Joel’s voice floats up the stairs again, calling both your names, and as you make your way down to where he’s waiting, you see an imperceptible shift in his expression – so small that you might almost have missed it. His eyes soften slightly, lips twitching, then he looks away, distracted by Abby clinging around his thighs.

Sarah volunteers to ride in the back with the girls, and as you climb into the passenger seat of the truck, you catch his eyes lingering on you as you smooth down your dress, his gaze tracing the curve of your waist before flicking away, that familiar heat simmering beneath the surface. The drive to Tommy’s place – a modest ranch-style home nestled among live oaks and a sprawling yard dotted with wild verbena – passes in companionable quiet, the radio humming low with Willie Nelson's twang, Ellie's numerous questions to Sarah filling the gaps.

Tommy greets you at the door with a handshake for Joel, a hug for Sarah, a smile for the girls and a wary look for you that you don’t miss. In contrast, Maria emerges from the kitchen with aprons tied over her dress, hair pinned back and a wooden spoon in hand, subconsciously making up for her husband’s reticence by taking the sides you’ve prepared and pulling you into an embrace that smells of smoked paprika and sage.

Come in, come in," she says, her voice rich and welcoming, ushering the girls toward the backyard where Benji’s waiting, a tire swing dangling from a sturdy branch, Ellie whooping as she bolts for it, Abby at her heels.

The house wraps around you like a well-worn quilt, in a different way from Joel’s ranch. It’s full and cluttered, with dog-eared books and framed photos mingling with potted succulents that thrive in the sunlit windows. Benji’s toys are strewn across the floor, and you have to pick your way through them to reach the back.

The ranch is warm and safe, but this place feels more like a family home.

Outside, dinner lies sprawled across the backyard picnic table under string lights that twinkle like captured stars, ribs glistening with sauce, the very sight making your mouth water.

“The sauce is a family secret, minus the bourbon," Maria says, following your gaze. “Not that there isn’t bourbon to drink, if you want some.”

“Oh no I’m fine, thank you. I don’t really drink,” you reply, glancing at Joel. “You should have some though.”

“You drivin’ us home, Sarah?” he calls to where she’s pushing Abby on the swing, smiling when she nods in agreement. “Aright, line ‘em up.”

Conversation flows relatively easy as the plates empty, the kids’ energy a joyful chaos as the three of them run, scream and laugh. You lean back in your chair, the wood warm against your shoulders, a second helping of cornbread balanced on your lap, feeling the evening's ease seep into your bones like the last rays of sun on your skin.

Tommy turns to you midway through, wiping sauce from his chin with the back of his hand, gaze still cautious but mixed with curiosity. “Heard from Joel you're tearin' up the roads now.”

“Oh…I wouldn’t say that, exactly,” you laugh lightly, glancing over to where Joel’s talking to Maria. "But it is liberating. No more white knuckling at least. So, I should hopefully be good to start my Drivers Ed soon and get my learners permit.”

“You could drive anywhere on your own now,” Joel says.

“Not legally though,” you remind him.

“You’ll have a full licence before you know it.”

Maria leans in, her smile encouraging as she refills your iced tea. "And the rest? Joel mentioned you’ve been dealing with a lot of paperwork.”

You nod, warmth spreading through your chest as you outline the progress made. “Joel got me set up with a new email account and I got my SNAP and TANF approvals the other day. I’ve been looking at properties and I think I found one I like over in Round Rock.”

Maria nods approvingly. “Nice area.”

“It has a terrible carpet though!” Sarah calls over from the swing and you all laugh.

"It's coming together," you say, voice steady with a pride that surprises you.

“Well,” Tommy raises his glass, “to new starts.”

The group murmurs agreement, the evening's glow wrapping the words in optimism, even as you feel Joel's gaze on you again, heavy and lingering from his seat.

The night deepens with dessert – Maria's pecan pie, gooey and sweet, served with scoops of vanilla ice cream that melt into golden pools – and the girls' yawns signalling the time for wind-down, Ellie lies on the grass looking up at the sky while Abby dozes in your arms, her bunny clutched tight, Benji already down for the evening. You savour it all as Tommy tells stories of Joel's younger misadventures, Maria rolling her eyes fondly, Joel’s cheeks reddening from time to time as he bites back with equally lurid tales that have Sarah almost breathless with laughter.

When he’s not defending himself however, his looks persist – his eyes holding yours when you joke about a listing that proclaimed "vintage" plumbing like it was a selling point, a flicker of heat in their depths that makes your pulse quicken, your skin prickling under your dress. Later, as you help clear plates, his gaze follows the sway of your hips from the kitchen window, unspoken want threading the air like invisible smoke, enjoyable in its intensity but laced with the memory of restraint.

Maria offers you the guestroom to let Abby nap and so you slip inside, navigating the cosy hallway, setting her down gently on the bed and kissing her flushed face before retreating to the guest bathroom. You wash your hands at the pedestal sink, staring at your reflection in the mirror – cheeks flushed, eyes brighter than they've been in weeks. You’ve enjoyed the evening, more than you thought you would. Zion Ridge had proclaimed itself as being family, but it had never felt like this. This reminds you more of the before times.

Emerging into the dimly lit hall, voices drift from the living room, low and murmured, Tommy's tone sharpening as you pause just beyond the doorframe, hidden by the angle of the wall.

"Listen," he says, “she’s nice, okay? I can see that. But I also see how you look at her and, I’m beggin’ you Joel, don't fuck her. She’s clawin' her way out of that mess, got those kids dependin' on her stability. You complicate it, you'll drag her under so just…keep it clean.”

You hold your breath, body pressing against the wall, the pecan pie's sweetness lingering on your tongue, now soured by the intrusion of this private exchange, your heart thudding, part mortification, part a stinging ache at the raw caution in Tommy's voice.

You shouldn’t be listening, you know you shouldn’t, but there’s no other way out except past where they are, so all you can do is wait this out.

Joel's response comes after a beat of weighted silence. "You got it wrong, Tommy. I don’t look at her like that and I ain't got no intention of fuckin' her. She's... hell, she's been through enough without me stirrin' shit up. You’re mistaken, plain and simple." The words land firm, a door slamming shut, but there’s a hitch in them that betrays the effort behind the denial.

Tommy's murmur follows, softer now, probing. "I’m just sayin', eyes don't lie…” but Joel cuts it off with a grunt, footsteps heavy as you hear him moving toward the kitchen, Tommy following, the conversation dissolving past the point of your hearing,

Heat floods your cheeks, a flush that burns from neck to ears, as you count slowly to twenty and begin to make your way back outside. The denial stings sharper than expected, a confirmation of the boundaries he's drawn since that night on the porch and you feel doubt worming in, coiling low in your gut. Those gazes across the dinner table tonight, dark and lingering, the way his knee had brushed yours under the picnic spread, electric and unapologetic. The things said and unsaid. Have you somehow made a mistake? Taken something from what he’s said about wanting you and twisted it into something that hadn’t been meant?

You re-join the group moments later, sliding back into your seat, watching as Sarah and Ellie sit on the grass together making daisy chains. Joel stands by the grill now, poking at the dying coals with a poker, his back to you. But when he turns, glass in hand, his eyes find yours across the yard, holding for a beat that stretches taut, searching, as if sensing the shift in you. You offer a small smile, forcing lightness into your voice as you compliment both Tommy and Maria on a lovely evening, but the air between you hums with new weight, Tommy's warning a secret fracture in the foundation.

The drive home is mostly silent – Abby dozes against you, her body still warm, whilst Ellie rests her forehead on the window, watching the lights go past. Sarah drives competently, Joel in the passenger seat, his head turning occasionally, eyes raking over you and Abby as though he’s assessing something he can’t quite nail down.

Once home, he carries Abby upstairs, Ellie dragging her heels behind as the two of you work in tandem to get them ready for bed.

“Can we visit Uncle Tommy and Aunt Maria again?” Ellie mumbles as you help her under the covers.

You pause at the use of the monikers, glancing at Joel, who simply nods and smiles.

“Sure thing, babygirl, anytime you want.”

She rolls over, happily satisfied, murmuring a good night as you kiss her forehead, Abby already snoring lightly in the opposite bed. Slowly, you and Joel retreat, clicking off the light and pulling the door half-closed. You turn to find him behind you, close, almost to the point of having you backed against the wall, eyes flickering over your face once more.

“You look real pretty tonight,” he says softly.

“Oh…” you feel your breath stutter, “I didn’t…it was just…”

“But you always look pretty,” he adds, before you can finish your thought.

“Sarah let me borrow some makeup.”

“I figured. You don’t need it – just so you know.” He smiles gently, and you know he means it in a good way– you know he does – but the memory of David’s words mingle with his own to Tommy and uncertainty blooms.

“So, it’s wrong to wear it?”

“No,” he frowns, “no it ain’t wrong. I just meant…”

“David said wearing makeup was pure selfish vanity.”

He blinks rapidly and shakes his head. “That’s bullshit. You wanna wear makeup – wear it. Like I said, you look pretty. I just meant…” he breaks off and lets out a long breath. “Man, I’m really bad at this.”

It’s your turn to frown. “At what?”

“At tryin’ to give a woman a proper compliment.” He smiles ruefully. “Been a long time.”

“Oh,” you breathe a laugh. “Sorry, I guess I’m making it weird.”

“No, you ain’t.”

“I am if the first thing I think of when you say I look pretty with some makeup on is…”

“You ain’t makin’ it weird,” he insists. “I’m just showin’ myself up to be a fifty-year-old man who hasn’t quite figured out how to say somethin’ nice without makin’ you feel like I’m criticisin’ you.”

“You aren’t. You don’t,” you say softly. “Maybe…maybe we both just need a bit of practice.”

“Yeah,” he holds your gaze. “Maybe.”

The hot pool of want bubbles in your belly. Your room is mere steps away. How easy it would be to step forward, to kiss him, to ask him…

“Tommy saw how I was lookin’ at you tonight,” he says suddenly. “Called me out on it.”

You open your mouth to fake a surprised response, but something inside, something honest, changes your mind. “I know. I heard the two of you talking after I put Abby down for a nap.”

His eyebrows rise, lips parting slightly.

“It was an accident, I didn’t mean to listen and…” you take a breath. “I’m not going to ask you to punish me but…I’m sorry.”

He takes a step back, gaze dropping to the floor, and shakes his head. “Then you heard what I told him. That he was mistaken.” You nod silently. “I had to say that, you understand, right? Ain’t like I could stand there and tell him what was goin’ through my head all night every time I looked at you. He wouldn’t understand, hell – I’m not even sure I understand but…” He looks at you earnestly. “Ain’t a mistake. You and the girls bein’ there tonight – Sarah too – it was like…”

“Family,” you supply quietly. He says nothing, but you can tell by his expression that you’ve hit on exactly the right word. “It felt like family for me too, in a way that reminds me of life before I met David. I just…" anxiety burns in your chest, "don’t want to get too comfortable in something that might never become anything.”

“It will,” he says quickly. “If it’s meant to be, if it’s right, then it will.”

“When will I know that?” you whisper, voice thickening with the sudden threat of emotion. “When will I know if it’s right, Joel?”

He swallows hard, apple bobbing in his throat. “When you’re settled, independent, living your own life with the girls away from here. When you’ve made friends, reconnected with your family, met men your own age, gone on dates…” he takes a breath. “When…if…you decide you want me, rather than need me – then you’ll know it’s right.”

“Is there a difference?”

You hear the sound of Sarah moving around downstairs, closing the doors, switching off the lights, preparing to come up to bed.

“Yeah,” he nods, “there’s a difference. Fact that you gotta ask me that proves we’re doin’ the right thing.” He moves past you as Sarah makes her way upstairs, stifling a yawn with her hand, and drops a kiss on her forehead. “Night babygirl.”

“Night,” she replies, glancing at you as he crosses the hallway and steps into his bedroom, closing the door behind him. “Everything okay?”

“Yes,” you nod, heart thumping so hard you can feel it in your throat. “Everything’s fine.”

****************************************************

Taglist: @friedunknownphantom @5zuott @eviispunk @shadowqueen2024 @harriedandharassed @enchantedreader @mcthsman @fresh912 @namelesslosers @ptolemaea444 @stamira @lostinthestreamofconsciousness

[onetwolove]

Lowk I need more of her and Sarah being girls togetherr😫 🫶🏾

The end!! I think this every chp theyre so understand of eachother and joel on her need to build something of her own b4 thinking of that part of their relationship 🫠

[onetwolove]

Keep seeing moonlight edits like oh my fuckk u want me to jumpp