you do not yield 🗡️

Sam • 29 bi • obsessed with all things romantasy, dark romance, f1, taylor swift & sleep token 🖤

[janesfantasyoutlet]

Until Morning (Azriel) - One Shot (18+)

I wrote this over a year ago, kind of nervous to share this one but I you know what it's a Friday so why not double post.

The Motherlist

Summary: a dare at Rita's leads to an unexpected conversation with the Shadowsinger. One drink turns into an entire night, and by sunrise, neither of them is ready to say goodbye.

Content warnings: explicit sexual content, alcohol, fluff

★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★★

Rita's was loud enough that conversations had to be shouted and laughter disappeared beneath the music almost as quickly as it was born. The dance floor was crowded, glasses clinked against polished wood behind the bar, and somewhere in the corner someone was singing along to a song they clearly didn't know the words to.

It was exactly what she'd needed after a long week.

"So," her friend Daphne announced over the rim of her drink, "are you finally going to tell us when the last time was that you actually talked to a male you didn't already know?"

A beat of silence followed, quickly filled by Daphne’s grin widening. "And I don't mean one of the shopkeepers you politely nod at on your way to work. I mean a stranger."

She frowned. "I talk to people."

"You order coffee and say thank you," Elia supplied helpfully.

"I have conversations."

"With us," Daphne said sweetly. "And your plants."

She opened her mouth to protest, but Daphne wasn’t finished.

"Honestly, I think the last time you spoke to a man you didn’t already know was-what? Two years ago? Three?"

"That is not true."

"It is absolutely true."

She huffed, crossing her arms. "I just don’t see the need to talk to strangers all the time."

"That’s not what we’re saying," Lysa replied, leaning forward. "We’re saying you’ve built an entire life where the only males you interact with are strictly platonic relations."

A reluctant smile tugged at her lips. "That’s a very specific category."

"It’s accurate."

She rolled her eyes, but before she could think of a proper retort, Daphne tilted her head. "You know what I think?"

"I’m afraid to ask."

"I think you’ve forgotten how to flirt."

"I have not-" She opened her mouth to say something else when the atmosphere inside the bar shifted.

Not dramatically. No one stopped dancing, the music didn't falter, and conversations continued uninterrupted. But heads turned all the same. The Inner Circle had arrived. It happened every time. Some people offered nods of greeting. Others simply watched them pass, curiosity lingering for a heartbeat before returning to their own evenings. They weren't loud or demanding, but they carried themselves with an effortless confidence that naturally drew attention.

Rhysand walked beside Feyre, their hands brushing as they moved through the crowd. Cassian was already laughing at something someone had said, his voice carrying above the music. Amren looked as though she'd rather be anywhere else.

And then there was him. She found him before she realized she was looking. He walked a pace behind the others, hands tucked into the pockets of his pants, his expression unreadable beneath the dim amber lights of Rita's.

Azriel.

She knew his name only because everyone in Velaris seemed to.

The shadows came first. Not because they announced him, but because they refused to obey the rules of ordinary darkness. Wisps of black drifted lazily around his shoulders before disappearing altogether, only to reappear near one of his hands a moment later. One curled around his wrist like smoke before slipping away again. They moved as though they had minds of their own.

She couldn't stop watching them. Or him.

He wasn't handsome in the obvious way Cassian was. He was... drop dead gorgeous. The thought arrived so suddenly it caught her off guard.

Sharp cheekbones softened by the warm lighting. Dark hair that looked perpetually windswept. Broad shoulders filling out his shirt. There was something restrained about him, something almost lonely despite standing among people who clearly loved him.

She wondered (briefly and entirely against her better judgment) what it would feel like if one of those shadows brushed against her skin.

Her stomach flipped. Gods. Get a grip.

She took a very determined sip of her drink.

"What are you looking at?"

She nearly choked.

Daphne was watching her with far too much amusement.

"I wasn't looking."

"You were absolutely looking."

"And smiling," Elia added.

"I was not."

Both of them slowly turned to look toward the table where the Inner Circle had settled. Then they looked back at her.

"It's the shadows, isn't it?" Elia grinned.

Her silence answered for her.

"I knew it."

"They're interesting," she defended weakly.

"They're attached to the most attractive male in Velaris."

"I didn't say that."

"You didn't have to."

She buried her face in her glass. "I hate all of you."

"No, you don't." Daphne leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table. "You should ask him to dance."

She laughed so hard she nearly spilled her drink. "Absolutely not."

"Why not?"

"Because..." She gestured vaguely toward Azriel. "Look at him."

Two heads turned. "What about him?"

"He looks..." Dangerous. Untouchable. Like someone who would politely decline and somehow still make her want to disappear into the floor. "He looks busy," she finished instead.

"He looks single," Daphne corrected.

Elia smirked. "I dare you."

She stared. "...You're serious?"

"Completely, Come on."

"No."

"You're never going to see him again."

"I could see him again."

"But you won't ask him then either."

She hated how accurate that sounded. Her gaze drifted back across the room before she could stop it. He was listening to Cassian now, though only half-heartedly if the faint, absent look in his eyes meant anything. One of his shadows curled lazily around the stem of his glass. He looked impossible to approach.

Absolutely not. She had no business walking over there. She didn't know him. He didn't know her. He'd probably think she'd lost her mind. Exactly, the sensible part of her agreed. Stay exactly where you are.

Another, far more reckless part of her whispered that she'd regret it the moment she walked out of Rita's. She sighed. You're a grown woman, you're capable of asking someone to dance. If he says no... he'll say no. Life would continue. She'd survive the embarrassment, probably.

Elia nudged her shoulder. "What's the worst that could happen?"

She looked toward Azriel once more. He hadn't noticed her. Or maybe he had. Either way... She smiled despite herself. "You're right."

Daphne's grin widened. "Oh, she's actually doing it."

Before she could lose her nerve, she slid from her chair, smoothed the wrinkles from her silk dress, took one steadying breath, and crossed the room toward the table occupied by the most intimidating group in all of Velaris.

𖤓𓂃 ོ𓂃°⭒₊

The distance between their table and his suddenly felt much longer than it had looked from across the room. She resisted the urge to turn around. Keep walking.

By the time she reached the table, every ounce of confidence she'd managed to gather had all but evaporated. No backing out now.

She cleared her throat. "Excuse me?"

Six pairs of eyes lifted toward her. Well. This was somehow worse than she'd imagined. Rhysand regarded her with quiet curiosity, Feyre offered an encouraging smile, Mor looked as though she already knew exactly why she was there, and Cassian... Cassian looked positively delighted. Amren barely spared her a glance before returning to her drink.

Then there was Azriel. Up close, he was even more unfairly attractive. The warm glow of Rita's softened the sharp planes of his face, though not enough to hide the quiet intensity in his hazel eyes. One curious shadow drifted lazily over his shoulder before disappearing somewhere behind him.

He looked at her expectantly. His attention was so unwavering that she nearly forgot why she'd come over.

"I..." Brilliant start. She forced herself to smile. "I was wondering if you'd like to dance."

Silence. It wasn't necessarily uncomfortable. Just unexpected.

Azriel blinked once, as though the question genuinely surprised him. Beside him, Cassian's eyebrows climbed so high they nearly disappeared into his hair. Mor pressed her lips together, clearly fighting a smile.

She'd made a terrible mistake. "I'm sorry," she said quickly. "You don't have to answer that. My friends dared me and I thought-"

"I don't like this kind of dancing." The words were gentle, matter-of-fact rather than dismissive.

"Oh." Of course he didn't. She laughed softly at herself and nodded. "Right. Well... thank you for letting me interrupt your evening."

She had just begun to step back when he spoke again. "I would, however..." She looked back. "...be happy to have a drink with you."

For a heartbeat, she simply stared. "...Really?"

The corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly. "Really."

Complete silence settled over the table. She could practically feel the astonishment radiating from everyone around them. Cassian looked as though someone had punched the air from his lungs. Mor's eyes widened before an unmistakably smug smile spread across her face. Even Rhysand's expression shifted ever so slightly, amusement flickering behind his calm composure as he reached for his whiskey.

She glanced between all of them before looking back at Azriel. "I feel like I've interrupted something."

"You have," Cassian answered immediately.

"Cassian," Feyre warned, though she was smiling into her glass.

"What?" he said innocently. "I'm just saying this is unexpected."

Azriel didn't take his eyes off her. "Ignore him."

She laughed, the last of her nerves easing from her shoulders. "I'll do my best."

He rose from his chair in one smooth motion. He was tall. She'd known that already, but standing this close to him drove the point home. She found herself tilting her head to meet his eyes. It made her stomach tingle.

"Come on," he said quietly.

She nodded.

As they walked toward the bar together, she couldn't shake the strange feeling of half the room watching them. Maybe they were. Or maybe it was just the five people they'd left behind.

She had the distinct impression she'd be the topic of at least one conversation before the night was over.

𖤓𓂃 ོ𓂃°⭒₊

They ended up in one of the quieter booths tucked into the far corner of Rita's, just far enough from the dance floor that they could hear each other without shouting.

It wasn't exactly quiet, but more secluded. She slid onto the bench first, smoothing her dress beneath her before Azriel settled beside her rather than across from her.

Close enough that their shoulders almost touched.

A server appeared almost instantly. "The usual?" she asked Azriel.

He nodded before glancing at her. "What are you having?"

"I’ll have same as whatever you're having."

One dark eyebrow lifted. "Brave."

She laughed. "I've already walked over to ask a complete stranger to dance. I feel like I've committed to making questionable decisions tonight."

A quiet chuckle escaped him. "I'll try not to disappoint you."

When the drinks arrived, she lifted her glass toward him. "To questionable decisions."

He touched his glass lightly against hers. "To courage."

She wasn't sure why that made her smile as much as it did. For a moment, they simply watched the crowd. "You come here often?" she asked.

"Occasionally."

She looked at him expectantly. "...That's all you're giving me?"

A corner of his mouth twitched. "You asked a yes-or-no question."

She laughed. "I suppose I did."

He turned slightly toward her. "What about you?"

"My friends drag me here every few weeks."

"And if they hadn't dared you?"

She groaned, covering her face for a second. "We're pretending that part didn't happen."

"So you weren't planning on talking to me?"

"I was planning on admiring you from a safe distance." The words slipped out before she could stop them. Her eyes widened. She considered hiding beneath the table.

Azriel's expression softened into unmistakable amusement. "I appreciate your honesty."

"I blame the alcohol."

"You're not drunk."

"...I blame my friends."

"I suspected as much."

She smiled into her glass.

"So," he said after a moment, "what do you do?"

"I work at a daycare."

Something changed in his expression. Not dramatically. Just enough that she noticed.

"You do?"

She nodded. "I spend my days surrounded by tiny people who think finger paint belongs on the ceiling and that every bug they find absolutely has to be shown to me."

His eyes warmed. "And you enjoy it."

"I love it." There wasn't a second's hesitation. "They're exhausting." She laughed. "By the end of every day I swear I'm going to find a quieter career."

"But?"

"But then one of them decides I'm their favorite person in the world because I tied their shoe or remembered they like the blue cup better than the green one." She shrugged. "It's hard to stay grumpy after that."

He was watching her with an expression she couldn't quite place. "You must be very patient."

She snorted. "You've clearly never seen me trying to convince young ones that crayons aren't food."

That earned a genuine laugh. Low, warm, and far prettier than she'd imagined.

"There was one little boy," she continued, smiling despite herself. "Every single morning he'd run into the classroom, point at me and yell, 'You're back!' like he'd been convinced overnight that I'd disappear forever."

Azriel smiled. Not the polite sort she'd seen him offer moments ago. This one reached his eyes. "You mattered to him."

"I think I mostly reminded him where the biscuits were."

"I'm not convinced that makes a difference."

She laughed so suddenly she nearly spilled her drink. He was already looking at her. The smile was still there. For the briefest moment, it seemed he'd forgotten to hide it. Then, almost as if catching himself, he lowered his gaze to his glass. She found herself smiling too.

Conversation shouldn't have been this easy.

Yet somehow, with a male she'd met less than fifteen minutes ago, it felt as though neither of them had to try very hard at all.

𖤓𓂃 ོ𓂃°⭒₊

At some point, she realised they hadn't touched their drinks in several minutes. She couldn't have said when it had happened. Only that somewhere between talking about the children at the daycare and him telling her about the bakery that made the best cinnamon rolls in Velaris, the conversation had stopped feeling like one between strangers.

"So they really made you wear a paper crown?" Azriel asked, a hint of amusement lingering in his voice.

She groaned. "It was Princess Day."

"And you were the princess."

"I was appointed princess. One of the little girls informed me my crown was 'acceptable.'" She used her fingers to make exaggerated quotation marks. "Acceptable, Azriel. She was five."

A quiet laugh escaped him. "And did you recover?"

"Barely." She smiled into her glass before taking another sip.

The music shifted to something louder, the steady rhythm carrying across the room as more people crowded onto the dance floor.

"What?" Azriel asked.

She frowned. "What?"

"You said something."

"I didn't."

"I thought you did." He leaned closer, just slightly, as if testing the space between them. Only a little. Just enough that she could make out the flecks of green in his hazel eyes.

Still, he paused. Listened. Then exhaled once, quiet.

"Oh," she said. "No."

He nodded once.

Neither of them moved away. For a moment, it seemed like neither of them quite knew whether they were supposed to.

Eventually, the conversation continued as though nothing had happened. A few minutes later, she was telling him about a little boy who had insisted worms were "just tiny snakes with confidence" when he tilted his head again.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. "I missed that."

She repeated herself. This time, he didn't just lean in. He shifted closer properly, closing the distance until there was no longer any question of space between them. His shoulder brushed hers, then stayed there. Intentional now, even though it was the lightest contact imaginable.

But it didn't move away. He didn't apologise. He didn't move away, either. Instead, he stayed exactly where he was, close enough that she could catch the faint scent of cedar and night-chilled air clinging to him beneath the warmth of Rita's.

"...and then he tried to put the worm in my pocket," she finished.

Azriel laughed. "A future naturalist."

"A future menace."

"I imagine there's a fine line."

"There really is."

Again, neither of them acknowledged that they hadn't put any space between them. She certainly noticed. She was acutely aware of every inch. His knee angled toward hers beneath the table, the warmth radiating from his arm, the way one of his shadows drifted lazily between them before curling around the back of the booth, as though even it had settled in for the conversation.

"What made you choose a daycare?"

She answered, and halfway through explaining how she'd always loved working with children, he inclined his head toward her once more. Close enough now that if she turned, she'd be looking directly into his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said, voice low enough that it was nearly lost beneath the music. "It's difficult to hear you."

She blinked. It wasn't, not really. They were tucked away in one of quieter corners of Rita's. The music reached them, certainly, but she'd had no trouble hearing a single word he'd said all evening.

Besides… He hadn't asked her to repeat herself once. Not until he'd found another excuse to move closer. The realization settled over her slowly, and then all at once.

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth.

He wasn't leaning in because of the music, he was leaning in because he wanted to.

And, judging by the almost imperceptible curve of his lips when he noticed her smile, he knew she'd figured it out.

*****

She let the silence linger. Not because she didn't know what to say. Because she wanted to see what he would do. He held her gaze for another heartbeat before taking an unhurried sip of his drink.

Completely composed. At least on the surface.

The corner of her mouth lifted. "You know..."

"Hm?"

"I don't think it's the music."

He tilted his head ever so slightly. "What isn't?"

"The reason you keep leaning closer."

For the first time that evening, she caught him off guard. It was almost imperceptible. A brief stillness. One of his shadows, lazily circling the back of the booth, paused with him.

"I've heard every word you've said," she continued, unable to stop smiling. "We haven't had to repeat ourselves once."

His eyes searched hers. "So either your hearing comes and goes very selectively..."

She leaned in just enough to close the last fraction of space between them.

"...or you're using it as an excuse."

Another beat of silence. She waited for him to deny it, but he didn't. Instead, his gaze drifted briefly to her lips before returning to her eyes. "So you've noticed."

Her heart gave one traitorous thump. "I have."

"And yet," he said quietly, "you haven't moved away."

Heat bloomed in her cheeks. "I suppose I haven't."

"No." His voice had dropped lower somehow, nearly swallowed by the music surrounding them.

"You could."

She knew what he was offering. An out. A chance to reclaim the space between them.

Instead, she found herself smiling. "I could." She didn’t move.

One of his shadows floated curiously between them before settling around the back of the booth again, as if deciding to leave them to it.

She glanced toward it. "Do they always do that?"

His eyes followed hers. "They're curious."

"About everyone?"

A small shake of his head. "No."

She smiled, watching one curious tendril drift cautiously nearer before retreating again. "I think they're deciding whether they approve of me."

"I think," Azriel murmured, unable to hide the faint amusement in his voice, "they decided that a while ago."

She looked back at him. He was already looking at her. The air between them had changed. The teasing had faded into something quieter, something warmer.

She became suddenly, acutely aware of how close they were. Her pulse quickened. Neither of them seemed interested in discovering what would happen if they created distance instead. Neither reached for their drink. Neither looked back toward the dance floor.

The rest of Rita's continued around them. Music, laughter, glasses clinking somewhere beyond their little corner. It all felt impossibly far away.

The silence stretched between them. She couldn't remember the last time she'd sat beside someone she'd only just met and felt so completely at ease.

Azriel hadn't looked away. Neither had she.

His eyes drifted to her lips again for the briefest moment before returning to meet hers. It was enough. Enough to send her heart racing. Enough to make her wonder if she was imagining the whole thing.

She swallowed.

Say something.

Nothing came.

The corner of his mouth was still curved into that faint smile she'd come to realize was rare. Reserved. Given rather than offered. She liked that smile. Gods, she liked him.

The realization landed with startling clarity. She liked the quiet way he listened. The way he'd asked questions instead of trying to impress her. The way he'd smiled every time she laughed, as though he hadn't meant to. The way he'd been inching closer all evening under the flimsiest excuse imaginable.

A laugh almost escaped her. If you don't do this now...

She would spend the next week wondering what might have happened. Wondering if she'd imagined the way he'd looked at her. Wondering whether she'd been brave enough to find out.

Her pulse hammered in her ears. What's the worst that could happen?

The words floated back to her, accompanied by Elia's smug grin. She smiled to herself.

Before she could think better of it, she leaned forward. Only an inch. Maybe two.

She paused just long enough that he would have every opportunity to stop her. He didn't. 

Her lips brushed his. Soft, tentative.

Barely more than a whisper of a kiss.

It lasted only a heartbeat before she pulled away again. Heat flooded her cheeks the instant she realized what she'd done. "Oh." A nervous laugh escaped her. "I..." She shook her head, smiling despite herself. She searched his face, suddenly terrified she'd misread everything. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "That was probably incredibly presumptuous."

For one impossible second, the only thing she could hear was the pounding of her own heart.

Azriel didn't answer. He simply looked at her. His expression hadn't hardened, if anything it had become unreadable in a way that made her breath catch.

She resisted every instinct telling her to fill the silence.

So she waited and hoped.

𖤓𓂃 ོ𓂃°⭒₊

The kiss had lasted no more than a heartbeat.

It should have been easy to dismiss.

It wasn't.

Azriel’s thoughts, so often ordered and disciplined, scattered the moment she'd closed the distance between them. She had kissed him. Not because she'd expected anything. Not because she'd demanded anything. She had kissed him because she'd been brave enough to take a chance.

The realization settled somewhere deep in his chest.

His shadows had gone utterly still. Usually they whispered, fidgeted, darted through every room before he entered it. Now they hovered quietly behind him, as if even they were waiting to see what he would do.

She was apologizing. He barely heard the words.

His attention had narrowed to the flush spreading across her cheeks, the nervous smile tugging at her lips, the uncertainty she'd tried so hard to hide.

She thought she'd made a mistake. Gods. She'd done the opposite.

He'd noticed her the moment she'd walked into Rita's. Not when she'd asked him to dance. Before that. She'd been laughing with her friends, completely unaware that one of his shadows had drifted across the room out of idle curiosity.

It had returned. Then wandered back again. The shadows had liked her before he'd even spoken to her, whispering in his ear that she liked him. That alone should have made him suspicious. Instead, he'd found himself watching.

Wondering why someone with such an easy smile looked so hesitant to use it. Wondering why she kept glancing toward him before immediately looking away. When she'd finally walked over, he'd already known what his answer would be.

Not the dance.

A drink.

A conversation.

Just long enough to satisfy the curiosity he'd felt the instant he'd noticed her. Except somewhere between her stories about children wearing paper crowns and laughing over worms with confidence... Curiosity had quietly become something else.

Something infinitely more dangerous. He hadn't realized how close he'd been sitting until she'd pointed it out. Hadn't realized how transparent he'd become. Then his gaze dropped, almost involuntarily, to her lips.

She’d kissed him so light he could almost convince himself he'd imagined it. Except he hadn't. He could still feel it, a soft tingling sensation where her mouth had touched his.

She shifted almost imperceptibly beside him. Not away. Just enough that he caught the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes again.

She was waiting for him to speak. To reject her. To laugh. To politely tell her she'd misunderstood.

Instead, Azriel lifted one scarred hand.

Slowly.

Giving her every opportunity to stop him.

She didn't.

His fingertips brushed a loose strand of hair away from her face before his palm settled gently against her cheek. He was aware of his scarred hands, but she leaned into the touch without thinking.

His breath caught. "There is," he said quietly, his thumb stroking once across her cheekbone, "absolutely nothing to apologize for."

He held her gaze for another long moment. Then, with all the patience in the world, he closed the distance between them.

His lips met hers with a tenderness that stole the breath from his lungs.

Slow and unhurried. As if he was asking the same question she'd asked only moments before.

May I?

She answered almost immediately.

The hesitation she'd worn after her apology melted away as she leaned into him, her hand lifting almost shyly to rest against his forearm.

Relief bloomed somewhere deep in Azriel's chest. She wanted this.

He let himself savor the moment. The warmth of her lips. The quiet sigh she breathed between them.

The way she instinctively leaned closer until there wasn't an inch of space left between their shoulders. She tasted like her sunshine and whiskey, and he couldn't get enough.

His thumb continued its slow path across her cheek, the movement absentminded now. It was comforting.

When they finally parted, it was only by a fraction. Just enough to breathe. Her eyes remained closed for a heartbeat longer before fluttering open.

She smiled. Not the nervous smile she'd worn after the first kiss. A softer one. "I was beginning to think I'd imagined that." The words escaped her in little more than a whisper.

Azriel felt the corner of his mouth lift. "You didn't."

"No?"

A quiet shake of his head. "I was deciding how to answer."

"And this..." She glanced briefly at his lips before meeting his eyes again. "...was your answer?"

"I thought it was clearer than words."

A laugh bubbled out of her, light and utterly genuine. "I'll admit," she murmured, "it was."

He found himself laughing with her. It was quiet. One of those laughs Cassian was forever insisting he was capable of but seldom offered.

She looked at him with unmistakable delight. "You've been hiding that laugh all evening." "And I like it."

Something in his chest tightened. He couldn't remember the last time someone had looked at him with such uncomplicated warmth. There was no expectation in her eyes.

The moment lingered, soft, suspended, until a familiar voice cut through it.

“Well,” Mor drawled, appearing at the edge of their table with a knowing smile, “I hate to interrupt whatever this is.”

Azriel didn’t look away from her. He didn’t need to, the faint tightening in his shoulders giving him away.

Mor’s gaze flicked between them, amusement sharpening. “We’re heading out,” she continued, as if she hadn’t just stepped directly into something delicate. “Cassian’s already arguing with the bartender about one last round, and Rhys is pretending he isn’t enjoying it.”

A pause.

Then her eyes landed fully on her. “And I was wondering…” Mor’s smile turned just a touch bolder. “Would you like to come with us?”

Azriel finally looked at Mor then. A subtle but unmistakable warning in his eyes.

Mor only lifted a brow in response, utterly unbothered. “What?” she said lightly. “You don't look particularly ready to say goodbye just yet.”

Azriel’s gaze shifted to her, quiet and searching. A question without words. She understood it immediately. A small nod. “Okay,” she said softly.

The decision seemed to ripple through the table at once. Mor’s grin widened like she’d been waiting for exactly that answer. “Perfect,” she said brightly. “Then let’s get you out of here before Cassian actually convinces the bartender to start a second round of bad decisions.”

Cassian, from somewhere across the room, shouted in protest. Rhysand only laughed.

Within minutes, the group began to gather their things, chairs scraping softly, coats being pulled on, the easy chaos of friends who had done this a hundred times before. Azriel stayed close to her side the entire time, a quiet, steady presence that made it impossible to feel anything but anchored.

When she spotted Elia and Daphne near the edge of the room, she slipped away for a moment.

“I’ll be right back,” she murmured to Azriel. He gave a slight nod, shadows curling once at her departure before settling again.

Elia was the first to notice her, eyes lighting up immediately. “Well, well,” she teased, leaning an elbow on the table. “Look who finally decided to rejoin the living.”

Daphne’s grin was just as sharp. “We were beginning to think you’d been stolen away.” 

“I-” she started, then huffed a small laugh. “I just got distracted.”

“Oh, we noticed,” Elia said, glancing pointedly over her shoulder toward Azriel.

Daphne leaned in conspiratorially. “He looks like he’s been distracted for a while too.”

Heat rose to her cheeks. “Stop it,” she muttered, though there was no real bite to it.

Elia only smiled softer then, bumping her shoulder gently. “Go on, then. Don’t keep him waiting.”

Daphne waved her off with a mock shooing motion. “And try not to break anything important on your way out.”

“I make no promises,” she called back over her shoulder, earning a chorus of laughter as she returned to Azriel.

He was already waiting. As if he’d never moved.

The others were gathered near the exit now, the night winding down around them. Mor gave her a final knowing look as they passed through the doors of Rita’s, the cool night air washing over them in a quiet wave.

Outside, the city stretched around them in soft, glowing lines of light and shadow.

The group began to disperse with easy goodbyes - Cassian still arguing about something entirely unimportant, Rhysand and Feyre already half-turned toward Velaris’ rooftops.

Azriel stepped slightly closer to her and lifted his hand. A silent question. She didn’t hesitate and took his hand. The world shifted. Wind, light, and shadow folding in on itself - and then unfolding again.

The noise of the city vanished. Cool stone and open air replaced it. The House of Wind balcony stretched out beneath them, high above Velaris, the city glittering like scattered stars below.

Azriel released her gently, though he didn’t step away. Not even a little. 𖤓𓂃 ོ𓂃°⭒₊ By the time the city had fallen quiet, they'd shared a pot of tea in the House of Wind's kitchen with Mor and Cassian, who had spent far more time exchanging knowing glances than actually drinking it.

Mor had eventually risen with a theatrical sigh. "I suppose we'll leave you two."

Cassian had looked between them, grinning. "You know," he'd said, stretching as he stood, "the sunrise is beautiful from Az's balcony."

"Cassian," Mor had warned.

"What? I'm encouraging appreciation of nature."

Azriel had pinched the bridge of his nose. "They're impossible," he'd muttered.

"They seem to enjoy it."

"They do."

When Mor winked at her on the way out, she'd laughed so hard she nearly spilled her tea.

A few seconds later, the kitchen had fallen quiet. Azriel had cleared his throat. "I know a place with a better view." He grinned.

She'd looked up.

"My balcony."

A beat. Then she laughed. "Really?"

"It's just..." He'd glanced toward the windows overlooking Velaris. "It's a nice spot to talk a little more."

She'd smiled at the faint blush on his cheeks. "I'd like that."

𖤓𓂃 ོ𓂃°⭒₊

Hours later, they were still talking. Or at least… they tried to.

Conversation had become something wonderfully inconsistent. She would tell a story, only for it to dissolve into a comfortable silence as he looked at her a little too long. He would start explaining something about the constellations above Velaris, and she'd find herself distracted by the way the moonlight caught in his eyes.

Somewhere between discussing childhood memories, favorite places in the city, and whether cinnamon rolls counted as breakfast, they'd discovered that every conversation eventually gave way to another kiss. Stolen moments between conversations. As though neither of them could quite help themselves.

She'd begun to lose track of who started them. Sometimes she'd glance at him and find him already looking at her. Sometimes he'd pause halfway through a sentence because she'd smiled. Sometimes there was no reason at all.

Just the quiet certainty that another kiss felt as natural as finishing a thought. Eventually she'd laughed into one of them, making them both pull back.

"What?"

"You forgot what you were saying."

He frowned thoughtfully. "I did."

"You were explaining something."

"I was."

She waited. "So?"

"I don't remember."

She laughed again. "I think that's my fault."

"I think you're right." His smile had become easier over the course of the night. Freer. She wondered whether anyone else noticed how much it transformed him.

She let herself take in the absurdity of it for half a second. She was in his lap, on a chair he’d dragged out onto his balcony, the city of Velaris glittering below them like it had the decency to pretend it wasn’t witnessing this.

And she’d completely lost track of time. Lost track of everything, really. He didn’t seem to be doing much better.

She kissed him again before she could think too hard about it, the conversation they’d been having dissolving into something far less coherent. One of his hands slid up her leg as the kiss deepened, his touch slow and deliberate, like he was testing how much she could take before she broke.

She answered him with a soft sweep of her tongue against his lower lip.

He let her in immediately. His arm tightened around her waist, pulling her closer, while the other hand continued its unhurried path up her leg, as if he had all the time in the world and intended to use every second of it.

Something in her snapped - quietly, decisively. She broke the kiss just long enough to shift, moving with a confidence she didn’t bother questioning, until she was straddling him properly.

His breath hitched. He pressed his forehead to hers, eyes darkened and filled with desire, lips parted and slightly swollen from her. “You’ve been driving me crazy all night,” he murmured, already leaning in again like he couldn’t help himself. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me.” His words brushed against her mouth as he spoke, and she felt them more than she heard them.

That did something to her. She glanced at him, at the way he looked at her like she was the only thing anchoring him to anything at all. “Why don’t you show me,” she whispered.

That was all it took. Azriel didn’t hesitate. His kiss turned sharper, hungrier, less restrained, like whatever control he’d been holding onto had finally slipped through his fingers. He stood with her in his arms as if she weighed nothing, not breaking the kiss once as he moved them inside.

Her legs found his waist almost without thinking, holding on as he carried her through the doorway.

The room was dark save for the first hints of dawn spilling through the open balcony doors. Cool morning air drifted inside, carrying the scent of jasmine from the gardens below, but it barely reached him. He lowered her onto the bed with a care that felt entirely at odds with the urgency building between them. Even then, he didn't rush.

His hands lingered at her waist for a heartbeat, searching her face instead of reaching for more. A silent question.

She answered by slipping her fingers into his hair and drawing him back to her. The kiss stole what little restraint he had left. A quiet sound escaped her as he settled against her, soft enough that he almost wondered if he'd imagined it.

He hadn't. His breath caught. Gods. He wanted to hear it again.

He trailed slow kisses along the line of her jaw, unhurried, letting his lips linger against the warmth of her skin until he found the place just beneath her ear. The moment his mouth brushed there, her breath caught. A soft, involuntary whine slipped past her lips.

He stilled for the briefest heartbeat.

His scarred hand tightened almost imperceptibly at her waist before he kissed the spot again, more carefully this time, committing every tiny reaction to memory. Every shaky breath. Every quiet sound she couldn't seem to hold back.

"Az..." she whispered, his name dissolving against the silence of the room.

The sound settled somewhere deep in his chest.

Gods.

He'd heard his name spoken countless times over the centuries, but never like that. His cock strained painfully against his pants. "I know," he murmured, the words barely more than a breath against her skin.

He pressed another lingering kiss beneath her ear before drawing back just enough to meet her eyes. His fingers found the delicate silk resting on her shoulders. Slowly, giving her every chance to stop him, he eased the straps down. The fabric whispered over her skin before pooling at her arms, her breasts spilling out.

His breath caught. The cool morning air drifted through the open balcony doors, brushing over her bare skin. She shivered, a quiet breath escaping her lips, and he couldn't tell whether it was the breeze or the way he was looking at her.

Beautiful. The thought came so suddenly it stole every other word from him. His scarred hand skimmed lightly along her side, slow enough that he felt the warmth of her skin beneath his fingertips. She leaned instinctively into the touch, her breath hitching again.

His gaze lifted to hers. "Still alright?" he asked quietly.

She answered with a small nod before reaching for him again, her fingers curling into the back of his neck and drawing him closer.

That was all the permission he needed.

He lowered his head, pressing a lingering kiss against the underside of her breast. She arched into him with a soft, involuntary sigh, and a low sound escaped his own chest before he could stop it.

Gods. She was undoing him far more thoroughly than she could possibly know. The sound he made seemed to loosen her last thread. Her hands found the back of his shirt, fingers fumbling with the buttons before giving up entirely and gripping the fabric instead. She laughed softly at her own impatience. "This is your fault," she murmured.

A rare smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I know."

His wings shifted behind him, forcing him to pause. With an almost embarrassed huff of laughter, he slipped the remaining buttons free around them before shrugging the shirt from his shoulders.

She didn't look away. Not for a second. Her gaze wandered over the planes of his chest, the scars crossing his skin, before returning to his face.

One curious shadow drifted between them, brushing lightly against the silk gathered at her arms. Another joined it, and together they coaxed the fabric lower with almost playful patience.

She let out a surprised laugh as the cool wisps skimmed over her skin.

The silk slipped free at last, settling in a soft heap beside the bed. His shadows lingered only long enough to make certain she was comfortable before moving towards her lace panties, pulling them down her legs with the same curiosity they'd shown all evening before retreating to his back.

Azriel's gaze found her once more. He'd spent centuries mastering discipline. It deserted him with alarming ease whenever he looked at her. For a long moment, neither of them moved. They simply looked at one another, as though trying to memorize the person in front of them before the night slipped away with the dawn. He finished undressing with none of the confidence he'd carried through the rest of the evening. If anything, he seemed almost self-conscious beneath her gaze, as though centuries of composure had deserted him somewhere between the balcony and the bedroom. He immediately gripped the base of his cock out of habit, pumping once. Twice.

She simply looked at him, breathing quickening. The breadth of his shoulders, the scars etched across skin that told stories she couldn't begin to imagine, the powerful lines of him softened only by the uncertainty in his eyes as they searched her face, his hand wrapped around himself. She rubbed her thighs together in response.

He was Godlike. The thought arrived before she could stop it.

His breath caught when he realized she wasn't looking away. She smiled, slow and unguarded. "So..." Her eyes met his again, warmth dancing in them. "That's what you've been hiding from me all night?"

The words startled a quiet laugh out of him. It was brief, almost disbelieving. One corner of his mouth lifted as he shook his head. He closed the distance between them once more, bracing himself carefully over her, his forehead brushing hers for the briefest moment before he found her lips again.

"Where'd all that confidence come from?" He teased back before capturing her lips in another kiss. He hissed as his cock made contact with her slick. She impatiently started bucking her hips. "Easy." He murmured. He slowly started pressing kisses down her body again, licking her nipples along the way and teasingly sucking just above where she needed him. She moaned out desperately. He chuckled, and then promptly buried his face in-between her legs. The sound she let out was pornographic, and for a second he worried about the others in the house. But then she squeezed her thighs around his head, and he forgot all about them. She tasted like strawberries and sin, and he couldn't help the groans escaping him. "Az- please, need more." She wove her hand into his hair, and he took a brief pause from devouring her to take her in. She was perched on one elbow, looking down at him with big, wild eyes. Her hair was a tangled mess and a thin layer of sweat lay above her brow. He slowly moved his hand up her inner thigh, earning a small encouraging sound from her. When he entered a single digit into her, his eyes shut. She clenched down on his finger, and he could only imagine how she would feel wrapped around him. He could feel her nearing her high. He sucked harshly on her clit, letting it go with a loud sucking noise. "That's it." A pause. Another quiet, almost disbelieving breath came from him. "Devine…" Another suck. "You undo me." Me mumbled against her sex. Her head was swirling, she didn't know where to look, where to grab. She felt herself sprinting towards euphoria. He reattached his mouth to her clit and started a pace of hard quick strokes with his tongue. Her orgasm overwhelmed her. She cried out his name and Azriel swore he never wanted anyone else to breathe his name ever again. She let her body fall back against the pillows, hips jerking involuntarily as she felt wave after wave of pleasure overcome her. He let her ride out her high, before pressing a final kiss to both of her thighs and moving his body back up, pressing his mouth back to hers. She felt his cock move against her belly button and moved her hand down his back towards his front. His breath hitched as her hand found him. He closed his eyes for a heartbeat. "Fuck." The word escaped him before he could stop it. She moaned sofly, wiggling underneath him so she could drag him through her slit, grinning at the way Azriel's breath hitched. "Why don't you do something about that?" She teased, moving her head slightly back so she could look at him. He almost looked like he was in pain, eyes watery and mouth still shimmering from the mess he made between her legs. His brows were slightly furrowed and his lips apart, small breaths coming from them and crashing against her mouth in warm waves. He unwrapped her hand from him, instead pulling it over her head and intertwining her hand with his. "Gladly." He grinned. He sat back on his knees to take her in for a moment. She looked gorgeous like this, spread open wide for him, slick running from her hole onto his sheets. They would smell like her for days. Azriel didn't mind that thought one bit. He moved slightly forward so that the tip of his cock nudged her entrance. He leaned forward again, opting to look her in the eyes as he slowly pushed inside. He drew back every now and then, just to slide in a little further every time. Once he was fully seated inside her, he let his head fall into her neck. "Fuck..." He groaned. "I can't- I can't hold back." He panted. She didn't respond, she only tightened her legs around his hips, urging him even deeper. "I don't want you to." The quiet certainty in her voice unraveled what little composure he still possessed. He moved again, slower this time, giving them both a heartbeat to adjust before finding a rhythm that felt as instinctive as breathing.

A low, involuntary groan escaped him. He'd tried not to imagine this. Not on the balcony. Not while she'd been laughing over tea. Not while she'd smiled at him across the table in Rita's.

Nothing had prepared him for the reality of her. He closed his eyes for the briefest moment, every measured breath threatening to come undone as she met each movement with one of her own. She wasn't simply following him - she was with him, closing every bit of distance he tried to create.

His forehead found her shoulder. Another quiet, disbelieving breath left him.

When he finally lifted his head, he looked at her as though seeing her all over again. She was watching him with flushed cheeks and bright eyes, her hair spread across the pillows beneath her. Soft moans escaping her lips. He couldn't stop looking at her, listening to her, breathing her.

His hands settled gently at her waist, his thumbs pushing into her skin as if reassuring himself she was really there. Every small reaction she gave him, every hitch of her breath, every subtle shift toward him, only deepened the wonder settling in his chest. His pace quickened, and she cried out his name.

He found himself committing it all to memory. Every expression. Every laugh from earlier that still echoed in his mind. Every glance she'd stolen across Rita's. He wanted to remember this version of her, too. All of it.

The sound of her voice undid him some more.

One of his shadows drifted into the edge of his vision, lingering uncertainly beside them. It hesitated, almost asking. Azriel gave the smallest nod.

The shadow responded, brushing against her swollen clit with featherlight care. She gasped, her body tensing before melting back into him.

His forehead fell against hers. "Gods..." he breathed, the word more prayer than curse.

He kissed her then. Not carefully, his tongue messily entering her mouth. Every kiss stolen between breaths, every inhale shared, every touch speaking for the words he'd long since forgotten. When he pulled back a line of spit from his mouth connected to hers.

He felt her unravel before he saw it. The rhythm she'd matched so effortlessly faltered. Her fingernails dug into his back. She buried her face against his shoulder with a broken little sound that seemed to travel straight through him. He held her through it, murmuring her name against her skin as though it were the only thing he knew how to say.

The sound of it on his lips seemed to push him over the edge. His own release followed close behind, a quiet groan escaping him as he buried his face in the crook of her neck, holding her as if letting go wasn't an option.

For a long moment, neither of them moved. Only the steady rise and fall of their breathing filled the room, Azriel still slowly moving in and out of her even though he had nothing left to give.

The first rays of morning had begun to spill across the wooden floor, painting soft ribbons of gold through the open balcony doors. Eventually, Azriel rolled onto his side, never straying far enough to lose contact with her. She was already looking at him.

A slow, tired smile spread across her face. He answered with one of his own, that rare, unguarded smile she'd spent the entire night coaxing from him.

Neither of them spoke.

After the night that had passed between them, words somehow felt far too small.

𖤓𓂃 ོ𓂃°⭒₊

They lay beside each other silently, save for the distant sounds of Velaris slowly waking below the balcony and the steady rhythm of her breathing beside him.

She was still smiling, sleepily, contentedly. Azriel wasn't sure he'd ever seen anything more beautiful. Carefully, so carefully she barely stirred, he slipped from the bed. One of his shadows followed him toward the adjoining bathing room, returning moments later carrying a warm, damp cloth. Another hovered nearby, almost proudly, before disappearing again.

He couldn't help the faint smile that tugged at his mouth. "Show-offs," he murmured.

They ignored him. When he returned, she blinked up at him through half-lidded eyes. "What are you doing?" she asked, her voice thick with sleep.

"Come here." There was no command in it, only quiet gentleness.

She shifted closer without question. He brushed a loose strand of hair behind her ear before taking the cloth, his scarred hands impossibly gentle as he cleaned away the traces of the night they'd shared. She watched him the entire time, hissing when he went over particularly sensitive spots. "You don't have to do that."

"I know." His eyes lifted to hers.

Something softened in her expression.

When he finished, he set the cloth aside and reached automatically for the blankets, pulling them over her before climbing back into bed beside her.

She curled against him almost immediately, resting her head beneath his chin as though she'd done it a hundred times before. His arms found their place around her without thinking.

Outside, the first true rays of sunlight spilled across the bedroom floor. He stared at them for a long while. Then cleared his throat.

She tipped her head back to look at him. There was something almost endearing about the uncertainty on the Shadowsinger's face. "I..." He looked away for the briefest moment before meeting her eyes again. "You don't have to go."

She smiled. "I wasn't planning to."

Relief washed over him so quickly it almost made him laugh. He shook his head. "That's not what I meant."

"No?"

He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly looking remarkably unlike the male who could face monsters and torture people.

"I was wondering..." His voice was quieter now. "If you'd stay."

Her smile grew impossibly softer.

"Maybe we can have lunch after we get some sleep." His cheeks warmed.

She chuckled, the sound light enough to make one of his shadows peek curiously out from the corner of the room. "I'd love that."

He searched her face for a heartbeat, as though making sure she truly meant it. Then one of those rare smiles spread across his face.

She reached up, pressed a lingering kiss to his cheek, and settled back against his chest. Within minutes, her breathing evened into sleep.

Azriel remained awake a little longer, one hand absently tracing slow circles against her back while his shadows settled quietly around the room. For the first time in longer than he could remember, the House felt less empty.

Eventually, sleep found him too.

He was still holding her when he woke up.

[evvergreen]

tumblr is the website for if you're just someone's weird sister

[vinylopall]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐚 𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐟 𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭 | j.jk

⤷"mini" one-shot!! in which....The perilla leaf debate in general is supposed to be nothing more than a stupid internet argument, until Jungkook nearly starts a war at dinner over Jimin helping you separate yours.

pairing: bestfriend!jungkook x fem!reader

warnings: friends to lovers, jk is down horrendous, jealousy over vegetables, mutual pining, lovesick idiot behavior, perilla leaves almost ruin a friendship, secondhand embarrassment, yearning, jimin stirs the pot for fun, kissing, tooth-rotting fluff, jk loses the perilla leaf war but gets the girl word count: 1,5k

masterlist

The group chat has been blowing up since 4 p.m.

taehyung: pls tell me someone wants to go have dinner tonight. i'm dying of academic boredom hobi: literally same. i haven't seen sunlight in 3 days namjoon: i found this place downtown. it's called "korean fusion." wait, i'll send the address. jimin: i hope everyone is coming... unless i might have to delete a certain someone's animal crossing save files you: threats??? really??? jk: she's coming you: umh??? i didn't even answer yet jungkook: you're coming

The restaurant is the most Instagrammable place you've ever seen, and you would have gotten there faster if your roommate hadn't been in desperate need of moral support over a situationship. You see Jungkook look up at you the second you enter his peripheral vision.

"Finally," Taehyung says.

"Sorry, sorry." You slide into the booth, and there's only one spot left, wedged between Jimin and the wall, directly across from Jungkook. "Emergency friend duties."

"More important than us?" Hobi asks.

"You'll live," you say, but you're not paying attention because Jungkook is still staring at you. Your eyes meet. He doesn't look away. Your stomach flips, and you wonder if you should have done this another day because emotional rollercoasters don't sound like a great idea on an empty stomach.

"Hi," he says.

"Hi," you say back.

A few minutes later, the drinks and the banchan arrive. Jungkook is laughing at something Taehyung is saying, beer in hand, but he keeps glancing at you every time you reach for the banchan. You don't notice as you are trying your best to separate the stack of perilla leaves.

"Oh my God," you mutter, trying to separate them with your chopsticks. "Why are they like this?"

"Here," Jimin says, and his chopsticks slide in from your left, holding the stack steady while you pull one free.

"Thank you," you breathe, relieved, and you don't see the way Jungkook's knuckles go white around his glass.

You look up, and Jungkook is staring at Jimin, and it's nothing like the soft, longing looks he's been throwing your way all night. Jimin, oblivious, or perhaps not, hums as he sets the separated leaves on your plate.

"Jungkook-ah," Namjoon says from across the table. "Pass the garlic?"

Jungkook passes it without looking up.That's when you realize he's staring at the perilla leaves.

Oh.

Oh no.

You know about the perilla leaf debate. Everyone knows about the perilla leaf debate. It's a stupid thing where people argue whether it's okay to help someone else's partner separate their perilla leaves, whether it crosses a line, or not. Usually, usually, it's just internet debates and topics for variety shows.

Jungkook, however, looks like he's about to flip the table.

"So," Jimin says, "how's work been? Did you finish that powerpoint presentation?"

"Yeah, finally," you start to say, but Jungkook cuts in.

"She finished it yesterday," he says, pouring soju into your glass without asking.

Jimin's eyebrows lift. "Did she?"

"Mhm. She texted me at three in the morning," Jungkook says.

Namjoon looks up from his phone. Hobi pauses with his mouth full.

"Jungkook, that's not-" you say, blushing.

"Do you want some meat?" he asks instead, grabbing the kitchen scissors and carefully cutting the grilled pork belly into bite-sized pieces before placing them on your plate.

"Thanks..." you say slowly.

Jimin watches with his head tilted. He looks between you and Jungkook, then back to the perilla leaves.

"Ah," Jimin says softly.

"Ah what?" Taehyung asks.

"Nothing," Jimin says with a grin. He reaches for the perilla leaves again. "Do you want another one? These are really good." His chopsticks hover over the stack.

Jungkook's chopsticks hit his plate with a clatter.

"You don't have to. I'll do it," Jungkook says quickly.

"It's fine," Jimin says sweetly, separating another leaf. "I don't mind."

"I said," Jungkook replies, enunciating each word, "I'll do it."

He takes the leaf from Jimin's chopsticks and places it on your plate himself. Then he looks at Jimin with an expression that makes your stomach flip.

"Jungkook..." you say quietly.

"Eat," he tells you, looking at you with those soft eyes that could kill you.

Jimin leans back, studying Jungkook.

"What is it?" Hobi asks, looking between them.

"Just... perilla leaves," Jimin says. "You know the debate, right? Whether it's okay to help someone else's person with their leaves?"

The table goes absolutely silent and you want to disappear into the floor.

"Guys, seriously, it's not-"

"Some people think it's too intimate," Jimin continues, looking at Jungkook.

"And what do you think?" you ask.

Jimin shrugs playfully. "I think intention matters."

"What's your intention?" Jungkook asks.

Jimin holds his gaze for a long moment. Then he laughs, breaking the tension, and reaches over to pat Jungkook on the shoulder.

"Relax, maknae. I'm just teasing."

The rest of dinner passes quickly. Every time Jimin speaks to you, Jungkook finds a reason to touch you or get your attention. For the first time, it's not meant to be subtle. It's almost like a competition to see who hands you your coat when you leave or who walks closest to you on the way out.

Everyone agrees to walk to the Han River, grab some ice cream from a convenience store, and sit on the benches by the water. None of you are ready to go home yet.

You hang back, letting the others drift ahead. Jungkook stays beside you, his hands tucked into his pockets.

"You didn't have to do that," you say quietly.

"Do what?"

"Mark your territory."

He stops walking. You stop too, turning to face him.

"Is that what you think I was doing?" he asks.

"I don't know what you were doing, Jungkook. You acted like Jimin committed a crime by helping me with dinner."

He looks away. "You don't get it."

"Then explain it to me."

"The perilla leaf thing is stupid. I know it's stupid. But...I always want to be the one helping you. And I know I don't have the right to feel like that, but I do."

"Jungkook..." you say softly, trying to get him to look at you.

"Don't say whatever you're going to say. Let me just... let me have this one moment where I pretend it's okay that I feel this way, even though I'm your friend and I'm supposed to just be cool with Jimin flirting with you."

"He wasn't flirting."

"He was," Jungkook insists, finally looking at you. "Maybe he didn't mean it like that, but he was, and I hated it. I hated it so much. I wanted to be the one helping you, even with something as stupid as perilla leaves."

"You know," you say softly, "you could have just said something instead of starting a silent war at the dinner table."

"I don't know how to say things," he admits. "I only know how to... want... from a distance."

"That's the problem," you say as you reach out, your fingers finding his. His hand relaxes, and he threads his fingers through yours. "You think you're being subtle, but you're not. Everyone at that table knows exactly what's happening."

"Did you?"

"Yeah." You smile. "I know... and I think I've been waiting for you to help me with my perilla leaves for a pretty long time now."

"Don't joke."

"I'm not joking."

"Jimin was testing you, Kook."

"Testing me?"

"Yeah. He was messing with you. It was so obvious he was challenging you. He wanted to see if you'd finally do something about it." You smile. "He's not stupid. He saw it before either of us did."

Jungkook groans. "So I played right into his hands."

"And you were very dramatic about it," you say with a sigh.

"Shut up," he says, smiling.

"I liked it. I really like it when you stop being quiet about wanting."

He takes another small step closer. "So... can I help you with your perilla leaves next time?"

"Only if you're not doing it just to be polite."

He smiles nervously "I'm doing it because I want to be the person you reach for."

You look at him, at the tiny chocolate-chip mole beneath his lip that you've wanted to kiss for months.

Then you do.

You have to.

He's standing there with his heart in his hands, offering it to you like it's nothing.

His hands come up to cradle your face, his thumbs brushing softly along your jaw as he kisses you back.

When you finally pull away, his forehead rests against yours.

"Does this mean I won the war?" he asks, breathless.

"You were the only one fighting it, you idiot," you laugh, giving his chest a light shove. "Jimin wasn't actually interested. He has a crush on the barista at his coffee shop."

Jungkook blinks. "What?"

"Namjoon told me last week."

He stares at you, dropping his head to your shoulder. "I made a fool of myself for nothing."

"Not for nothing," you say, running your fingers gently through his soft hair. "You finally stopped being quiet."

He lifts his head.

"I can be loud," he says. "If you want. About this, about you."

"Show me."

"Gladly."

And he does. He kisses you again, deeper this time, and you smile against his lips.

Then Taehyung's voice carries over from farther up the path.

"Finally! Took you long enough!"

You laugh into his mouth and pull him even closer.

▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱▰▱

tysm for reading! <3 divider

masterlist

[parkchanwoohoo]

[iero]

Billy hitting Stu with the phone in anger was unintentional, as the phone accidentally slipped out of Skeet Ulrich's (Billy's) hands due to the fake blood. Subsequently, Stu screaming "Fucking hit me with the phone, dick!" was Matthew Lillard's (Stu's) actual reaction.

SCREAM (1996) Dir. Wes Craven

[zclhes]

Happy 16 years, you sweet creatures.

There is nothing but love and deep gratitude whenever I think of you. Through highs and lows, through change, through losing myself and finding my way back—you are and have always been there. May love and happiness always accompany you, wherever you might be. 🪽

[gardenofdelete998]

pillows have stopped having a cold side some time ago

[lucy-vanpelts]

when someone calls me their friend my heart skips a beat it’s like i won at being myself

[ahnaiee]

.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·. UNSENT LETTERS

summary. You learned to bottle your feelings for John Logan, ever since junior year of high school. Because you knew you would always be just friends, and out of fear of not ruining your friendship, you kept these feelings on ink and paper, locked in a box, first in your room, and now in your dorm, hidden away until you would put another letter in.  It was supposed to be a secret that you would take to the grave. Until a mistake has your box of unsent letters, spanning from your high school days to present college years, tumbling right in front of him, and now his curiosity is piqued. pairing.  John Logan x Reader tags. Hurt/comfort, angst (it’s not really angst) with a happy ending, yearning, yearning, yearning but its reader yearning SO bad ice time. 10k (woops) notes. @ladynaviamin hi babes.

The first letter was on the day you realized you liked him. 

It was a messy jumble of words, ink stains obvious on the fading paper, the emotions spilling out before you could even register what you were writing. All you knew was that you needed the whole thing out of your system and onto the only thing you knew what to do and that was to write. 

Before you could stop, or be smart about it, everything was poured on the paper. Lengthy, descriptive, and full of the things you wanted to say, and things you know you can’t say, because even at that age, you knew that liking John Logan was a beautiful terrible idea. 

Because he was your best friend. And you aren’t supposed to like your best friend. At least, in your head. Who are you to ruin the friendship, you know?

You remember folding it in half. Then again, then for a third time, like you were trying to make it as small as possible. Like diminishing it physically would diminish what the words on the paper meant. 

You'd been looking for somewhere to put it. The trash felt too final, too much like admitting it had existed, and you were halfway on just stuffing it under your pillow  when you'd found the box. Your grandmother's, handed down at the end of summer with a kiss on your forehead and the words for letters you mean to send someday. Wooden, old-smelling, with a brass latch that stuck a little if you didn't press it just right.

You'd tucked the letter in and shut the latch.

That was the beginning of it.

-

It had been a random tuesday, back in junior year of high school.

John – he had always been John to you before he became Logan – had after school hockey practice. You'd been draped over the boards for the past ten minutes, watching from the bleachers the way you always did when you had nowhere better to be, which was most days— something you'd never quite admitted to yourself until recently. Because the walk home was shorter from this direction. You had a whole catalogue of reasons, and not one of them was true.

John had been the last one off the ice.

That in itself was not unusual. John Logan was always the last one off the ice. The coach was nice enough to lend him that extra time, considering that he had always been the kid that loved hockey more than anything else. 

And you would always wait in the bleachers. Sometimes on your phone, most times watching him as he skated. You count the amount of times he circled it, especially when you felt bored but didn’t have the strength to look away. Because something about him was magnetic to you. You wondered what it was, every time you stay that extra ten minutes in the rink.

Then after his usual rounds (at most, seven rounds), he looked up, and caught your gaze.

John grinned. The stupid, lopsided grin that suddenly made your heart skip. Then he skated all the way over to the boards, where you were, and leaned on them as he grinned. His helmet was tucked under his arm, hair damp at the temples, “You just got here?”

“Yep. Passed by after practice.” You tried to keep your tone as casual as possible, like the sight of him didn't make your heart skip. 

“You really didn’t have to come by, you know. It’s late.”

“I wanted to.” You smiled. You didn’t say anything else as follow up. Because adding something else after that would mean that you were admitting something that you weren’t ready to admit. And you would have to explain everything else that you didn’t name yet.

He looked at you for a second, searching for something in your face, and then he looked down and smiled again. It was softer this time, private, the one that felt like it wasn't for anyone else, the one he wore when something surprised him in a way he found pleasant, and tilted his head. 

"Sure. Thanks for that.”

You just shrugged.

John nods over at the locker rooms. “Give me ten minutes. I’ll get you hot chocolate at the cafe nearby.”

You huffed, lips curling in amusement. “There? Really? Last time we went there, you said you didn't like the hot chocolate they made.” 

John just grinned at you. “Yeah. But you like it.” 

He skated away after that. Like those words didn’t make you freeze, your eyes trailing after him, heart stuttering and your brain finally naming that warmth that spread on your cheeks. 

And that was it. That was the whole thing. That was the moment that broke you open.

You'd gone home that day and picked up the closest paper and pen, and the words just started coming, because they didn't have anywhere else to go. You wrote about how his smile was the most disarming thing he could have. You wrote about the way he'd leaned on the boards and looked at you like looking at you was just a natural extension of breathing. You wrote about how his curls fell perfectly on his face.

You wrote about how the hot chocolate from the machine in the convenience store nearby had been terrible, watery and too sweet for him, and even when you told him he didn't have to drink it, he'd laughed and drank it anyway and said that it was fine with all the cheerfulness of someone who genuinely didn't mind, and how that had somehow made everything worse.

You wrote, hesitantly, but filled with everything in your chest— I like him. 

You folded the paper into thirds, tucked it into your grandmother's box, and pressed the brass latch shut.

You didn't open the box for three weeks after that. Not because you were over it, but because you were hoping, very determinedly, that if you didn't look at it, the feeling would dissolve on its own.

It didn't.

-

The letters accumulated the way all things do when you are trying not to notice them: gradually, and then all at once. 

By the end of junior year, there were ten. By senior year of high school, fifteen.

They were not all long. Some were barely a paragraph, dashed out on notebook paper in the middle of class when something happened that you had no one to tell except him, which was the problem, because he was the person that you would usually go to about these things… so you tell the paper instead.

Junior year, you wrote about how naturally John seemed to do things for you. Carrying your bag, buying things in the cafeteria when you didn't want to get up from the bench. But at the same time, it was always the question if he liked you, or if he was being nice

You remembered I hate raisins in things. You picked them out of the muffin before you gave it to me. You've been doing that since seventh grade and I only just noticed today that it's something you do on purpose.

Jealousy would often seep into your letters, as well. Because you knew he was well liked. That John had a future of having girls that would throw themselves at him, and he would always entertain it with his smile and pretty curls and— 

— but you act like I’m special, and that they don't matter. But I don't have the right to even stop them from liking you, so all I could do is watch and wish that you would instead look at me.

You kept those folded five times. 

--

Senior year, anger would sometimes seep into them.

I should tell you. I should tell you that I lie in bed until 3 am wondering if anything would happen between us. I should— but you are so unfair. You act like you care, and then I'm left hanging again. I still have your jacket. That stupid, gray jacket that you gave me. The damn gray jacket that was your favorite and you don't let anyone wear but you handed it to me when I was cold. And at the same time, you turned and smiled at Kaia like she mattered and. I hate that I like you and I hate that it feels like you do too— but then you turn around and act like you don't.

Some were the soft, bewildered variety, written in the margins of homework you’d never turn in, about something small he'd done that shouldn't have meant as much as it did.

You know how everyone else talks over me when I'm telling a story and moves on before I'm done? You always wait. You just… wait. You wait until I'm finished, and then you respond to what I actually said, not what you were going to say next. I don't know if you know you do that. I don't know how to tell you that it matters.

When you both got into Briar University, John on a hockey scholarship, you on a Merit Scholarship— you celebrated together in the parking lot of the ice rink, his arms around you, lifting you a full two inches off the ground, and you laughed and said “John, put me down!” even if you knew that deep down, you didn’t mean any of it, wanting him to keep his arms around you longer. 

You'd gone home that night and written four pages.

I keep telling myself I'm not following you. And I'm not. I worked for this, I studied late into the night and doubled my efforts whenever I would fail because I wanted Briar before you got in.  But some part of me is terrified that the reason I want it so badly is mixed up with the reason you're going, and I can't separate them cleanly, and that scares me.  What if I didn't want Briar so much as I wanted to be wherever you were going to be? What does that mean? What am I supposed to do with that? I don't have an answer. I'm going to go to sleep. I'm going to not think about it. I'm going to go to Briar, even if I can't solidify why I am.

You went to Briar.

You don’t address it after the long four page letter, and somewhere between orientation week and prelims, the box had gone from a strange habit to a necessity, a pressure valve that kept everything from building to critical mass.

You'd gotten good at it. At the translation of feeling into ink, at the sealing away of things that had no business existing in the open air. The box lived under your bed, behind your extra blankets and a stack of Intro to Lit anthologies you kept meaning to donate. The latch, temperamental from the start, had gotten worse with age. 

You'd meant to fix it.

You kept meaning to do a lot of things.

The letters still ranged from two lines to four pages, even when you entered Freshman Year in Briar. They still kept the same amount of yearning and thoughts you would never find the courage to say, or even send to Logan– and soon after, you started signing them too.

John – or maybe Logan?  You started being called Logan after you teamed up with Tucker and the rest. So maybe I should change it up to. Adapt and change, you know. Though it would be weird to start calling you by your last name.  – With love, and judgement.

You tried to call him Logan. He looked at you then with such offense that you back tracked and went back to calling him John. He said it made him feel better. Special, because John was a name only you could use. 

You wrote another letter that night, trying to reason out the butterflies and the implications of what he meant. Because rationalizing it away makes it easier than admitting it out loud.

They kept piling up. Letter after letter.

This sucks. You remembered my coffee order even after I changed it three times in two months. I can’t blame you for how well you treat me. It’s just how you are.  I should just stop putting meaning into things, but the other part of me just wants to believe that maybe it did mean something. UGH. John Logan you fucking suck. I hope you trip on the ice during practice. Actually, no. That was a joke. Maybe. – With love.

You called the longest ones your pathetic, yearning lovergirl letters. Late-night things, written when the distance between what you felt and what you were allowed to say felt too wide to sleep across. Those ones you sometimes read back in the morning with a kind of horrified tenderness, like finding a diary from a younger self. 

They were overwrought. 

They were honest in ways you couldn't quite access in daylight.

John, I've been thinking about the thing you said last week, that you don't know what you'd do without me. You said it so easily. Like it was just true, just a fact of your life, the way you'd say it's cold out or practice got cancelled. I don't know what to do with that. I've been turning it over and over in my head trying to figure out what it means and I think the honest answer is that it means exactly what it sounds like and nothing more and I need to learn to be okay with that. I'm working on it. – With love. P.S. You should stop handing me your hoodies when I get cold and letting me keep them. It messes with me and my late night 3 am delusional thoughts.

John, You have this thing you do when you're listening to someone — you get very still. Most people, when they listen, they nod, they mm-hm, they start formulating their response and you can see the moment they stop actually hearing you. You don't do that. You just go still and you look at the person and you listen, like it costs you nothing, like you have all the time in the world. I don't think you realize you do it. I don't think you realize what it does to people. What it does to me. I'm going to stop writing now. Before I start turning into the 3 am yearner I was last night. Again. — With love.

By freshman year of college, there were thirty letters.

Sophomore year is when it all cracked.

Classes started to weigh on you in a way freshman year hadn't warned you about. Rehearsals that ran until midnight, choreography notes bleeding red ink across marked-up scores, tech week for the department showcase bleeding into finals week, the constant ache in your calves and the tape on your feet that never seemed to come off in time — a dance major was not a degree that let up, and you were running harder than you ever had, barely sleeping, more often than not with Logan being the one thing keeping you sane, showing up with food you hadn't asked for and quiet company at your desk — or in the studio doorway — at midnight, watching you run the same eight counts until your body finally understood what your brain already knew. 

And then there was the puck bunny thing.

You didn't have the right to say anything about it, not really. You understood why. John Logan was hot. He was charming, easy to talk to, easy to fall for — and there was always a rotating cast of girls finding excuses to linger near him after games. You watched it happen the way you'd always watched it happen, except now you were closer to it, in his dorm, at his games, in the middle of the aftermath. And you had no claim to any of it. He wasn't yours. He'd never been yours. You just got to watch, the way you always had.

So you stopped writing. You shoved the box into the dark crevice under your bed and didn't take it out again. You prayed it would stay there. You told yourself you were moving on.

Meeting Davis was almost spontaneous — a late night out at Malone's, small talk with a guy from your gen-ed class that turned into something steadier. He was easy. Uncomplicated. He didn't make your chest hurt the way John did, and for a while, that felt like a relief instead of a warning sign. The letters stayed buried. Things between you and Logan went back to what looked, on the surface, like normal. Friends. Best friends. 

Because that was all it was going to be.

-

"So how are things with Davis?" Logan asked, leaning against the kitchen counter while you hunched over a marked-up piece of choreography notation, notes scattered across the counter in purple and yellow highlighter, counts and spacing diagrams bleeding into the margins. Gen ed notes scatter on top of them, but you seemed more preoccupied with the scrawls of markings for your major.

"Things are fine." You tried to keep the annoyance out of your voice, but Logan had always been perceptive, and it showed in the way his brows drew together.

"Yeah? Then why do you sound like that?"

Your pen dug a little deeper into the page. "Sound like what?"

"Like things aren't fine."

Your head snapped up, an evident frown pulling at your mouth. "It's none of your business, John."

Your voice came out sharper than you meant it to, and you winced, immediately regretting it. "Sorry. That was — sorry."

He didn't push on the apology. Just crossed his arms and softened his voice instead. "What's wrong?"

You hesitated, pen hovering over your notes, and then you let out a long groan and dropped your forehead against your textbook. "I don't want to start venting."

"Vent anyway."

"He keeps asking when I'm free. Wants to hang out constantly, and I get it, I do, but callbacks are in two weeks and I have a showcase piece I'm not off-book for yet, and I told him that, and he just —" You sat up, dragging a hand down your face. "He said it's kind of pathetic that I care this much about a theater degree. That I don’t have a future in this and that I’m only wasting my time."

Logan's jaw went tight. He would also do that when something pissed him off, and you knew him enough to know that he was also pissed off at what you said. "He said that?"

"Basically."

"That's not — " He stopped himself, exhaled through his nose, clearly working to keep his voice level. "You've wanted this since we were sixteen. You used to run your combinations for me in your driveway at eleven at night in the middle of winter because you couldn't get the phrase to feel right, and I stood there freezing my hands off holding your phone so you could film it."

That got a small, watery laugh out of you. "You always came outside, though. Even when it was that cold."

"Because it mattered to you." He said it so plainly, like it wasn't even a decision he'd had to make. "Anyone who makes you feel stupid for caring about the thing you've wanted since we were in high school doesn't get to also get your time. That's not — that's not how it should work."

You didn't have an answer for that. You just nodded at your notes, throat tight, and went back to studying, and Logan stayed leaning against the counter a while longer before he finally pushed off it and went to make you tea you hadn't asked for, the same way he always did.

-

Things ended with Davis not long after that — quietly, without a scene (an irony you did clock, even mid-breakup), the kind of ending that comes less from a single fight and more from a slow accumulation of moments where you'd chosen your scripts, your late rehearsals, your friendship with Logan, over him, and he'd finally said out loud what he'd clearly been thinking for weeks. You didn't wallow in it. It hadn't felt like losing something so much as setting something down.

Allie, your dorm neighbor across the hall, caught you in the laundry room a few days later, sorting a basket of mismatched socks.

"Wait, so you and Davis are actually done?" Allie asked, propping her hip against the dryer.

"Yeah." You shrugged, feeding a quarter into the slot. "It didn't work out." She knew about what he said, and she made the same face as you the moment you told her. She was the friend you made in one of the early collaborations your major did with hers, and she was the one who knew well how taxing it would be on your body and to have someone just brush it off? She had also pushed for you re-evaluating your whole relationship before you even talked to John about it.

"Huh." Allie studied you for a second too long. "You don't seem that broken up about it."

"I'm fine," you said, and mostly meant it, which felt strange enough that you didn't examine it too closely.

Allie didn't push, but she gave you a look on her way out that said she'd clocked something you hadn't said out loud.

Your roommate and best friend in all things best friend, Jai, was less subtle about it. She came in that night to find you cross-legged on your bed, not doing anything in particular, just sort of staring at the wall.

"Okay, what's actually going on with you?" Jai said, dropping her bag and sitting across from you. "You broke up with Davis, which you knew most of us had been telling you to, but usually break ups have the whole grieving process. And right now,  you look like you're thinking about a math problem, not a breakup."

"I don't know. I think I just — I didn't care as much as I should have. The whole time. I feel bad about that." You fiddle with your fingers. “That maybe I feel this apathetic because I didn’t care as much in the beginning.”

Jai considered you for a moment, tilting her head the way she did when she was about to say something you weren't going to like. "You know what I think?” 

You looked up at Jai, who nodded over at the space under your bed. “You never wrote about him.”

You blinked. "What?"

"The letters." Jai said it like it was obvious, like she'd noticed the box's absence the same way she'd notice if you'd rearranged the furniture. "You've had that thing since I've known you — you disappear into it when something's actually gotten to you. You didn't write a single letter about Davis. Not one, in like four months."

You opened your mouth to argue and found you didn't have anything to argue with.

You hadn't written about Davis. Not once. Every single letter in that box, every one you'd ever written, had one name on it, and it wasn't his.

The realization hit you like cold water. 

You hadn't moved on. Not even a little.

That night you pulled the box out from under the bed — dusty, a stray cobweb clinging to one corner — wiped it down, and wrote the first letter in months. You didn't let yourself think too hard about what it meant that your hand knew exactly how to start again, like it had never really stopped.

I dated someone in hopes of getting over you– only to realize that every time I sit across from him, I imagine its you. It’s not fair on him. Or myself. But though he did deserve the break-up… he didn’t deserve someone who is still hung over a guy she liked since high school, It’s stupid. Terribly so, but I had four months of thinking that dealing with him was much easier than dealing with the constant ache in my chest every time I see you.  Maybe it’s more stupid of me to get back to writing to you and acknowledging the constant hurt i feel. — With love, reluctantly, again, and always.

By Junior year, the letters slowed but never stopped completely. The program was, if anything, worse than sophomore year — a full-length ensemble piece now, not just technique classes, and you were buried in rehearsal schedules and rep notes, and the only thing that made any of it bearable was Logan, constant as ever, still showing up with food, still sitting on the studio floor with you at 1 a.m. while you both pretended you weren't exhausted, still somehow always exactly where you needed him to be. 

Jai, who had appointed herself the unofficial keeper of your feelings since the Davis revelation, was relentless about it.

"You have to tell him," she said one night, apropos of nothing, while you were both supposed to be doing readings for your gen ed classes. "Junior year of high school, senior year, all of freshman and now half of junior year of college. That's — I did the math, that's four years, and you're going to keep writing it down instead of just saying it?"

"It's not that simple."

"It kind of is, though."

You'd relented eventually, worn down by her insistence and your own exhaustion at holding the same shape for four years straight. You told her you'd do it. You'd tell him. Maybe at the house party that weekend, when everything felt looser and easier and less like something you had to plan for.

You didn't get the chance.

You found him in the kitchen of the party, laughing with a girl whose name you didn't know, and before you could process anything, she'd leaned in and he hadn't leaned away.

You didn't wait to see more than that. You turned around and left before he ever noticed you'd been there, walked back to your dorm in the cold without your jacket, and didn't cry, exactly — just sat on your floor and wrote until your hand cramped.

I stopped hoping tonight. I think I needed to see it to actually believe it, because apparently telling myself wasn't enough. I'm not writing this one for you to ever read. I'm writing it so I stop lying to myself about what almost happened this weekend, and didn't, and isn't going to.

I keep thinking about how badly I wanted to walk over there and how I didn't, and how that's the whole story of us, isn't it. Me, standing a few feet away, wanting, and staying exactly where I am.

You told Jai it hadn't worked out. She didn't push for details, just sat with you until you didn't feel like crying anymore.

Things between you and Logan, in the weeks after, went quiet in a way that wasn't quite a fight and wasn't quite normal either — some instinctive retreat on your end that you dressed up as being busy. Eventually it faded, the way most things did when you were both incapable of staying upset at each other for long, and by the second half of the semester you'd settled back into something that looked, from the outside, exactly like it always had. You told yourself that was enough. You tried, in your quiet, determined way, to move on.

There was one more letter before the long silence, written the week after, when he'd shown up at your studio with soup because Jai had mentioned you were sick, and stayed on the floor doing his own reading while you slept on and off on the yoga mats, and woken you gently every hour to make sure you drank water.

You have no idea what you do to me by being like this. You have no idea, or you do, and you just don't care, because it's easier to be kind to me than to explain why you keep being kind to me. Either way, I am so tired of this constant wishing and wanting. I’ll move on. I have to. Or I’ll never get out of this stupid hole.  I love you. But it hurts to keep loving you.

By the second semester of junior year, there were forty-three letters. You left it at forty-three letters.

Ever since that night, where your anger and everything about you spilled into paper and ink– you didn't slip in another letter. It stayed at forty-three.

Forty-three letters, across four years, across the span of a friendship that had become the most important thing in your life and the most carefully guarded secret you kept. Forty-three letters that were supposed to go with you to the grave while you plan out your whole moving on shtick.

That was the plan. That had always been the plan.

The plan, it turned out, was not consulted before Thursday afternoon.

—

It was a fire drill that turned out not to be a drill.

You'd been on the floor beside your bed, hunting for your phone charger, having pulled the mattress out from the wall and tangled yourself in the extra blankets you kept stuffed behind it, when the alarm split the air — sudden, violent, the particular shriek of the Briar dorms that had never once not startled you no matter how many times you'd heard it.

Your elbow caught the edge of the blanket stack. The box, which you'd shoved back into place after re-reading that last letter just the other day, teetered on the edge of the mattress frame. You grabbed for it, fingers catching the corner.

The latch — that brass, temperamental, long-suffering latch you'd always meant to fix and never had — gave.

The box opened.

Forty-three letters, across the floor of your dorm room.

You were still on the ground, staring at them, trying to process the scope of the disaster, when you heard Logan's familiar voice, your name, followed by a quick, "It's me, don't freak out —"

You looked up. Panic set in immediately, your heart dropping to your feet.

John Logan stood in the doorway, your dorm key in his hand — the one you'd given him freshman year for emergencies and never asked back — the opening words dying in his throat as he watched the letters settle.

The alarm was still going. Someone in the hall was shouting about everyone needing to get out. The late-afternoon light came through the window, gold and slanted, landing on the scattered envelopes and the stunned expression on his face and every single letter that bore, in your own handwriting, his name.

For a moment, neither of you moved.

Then you hit the floor on both knees, grabbing at the letters with both hands, stacking them against your chest with no particular order, your mind repeating the same panicked loop — collect them, get them back in the box, get them away from his line of sight.

"These are nothing — they're old, they're just — don't look at those—" You scrambled, but the panic made the ones in your hand slip loose again, and you nearly wanted to just sprawl over the envelopes and pretend they'd never fallen at all.

But John was crouching too. He wasn't reading them. He was just looking at the envelopes scattered across your floor, and you could see the exact moment he registered what they all had in common.

All of them. Every single one.

John Logan.

Your handwriting. His name. Over and over, in blue ink and black ink, and once in green, junior year of high school, when you'd been out of everything else.

His name on the front of forty-three letters you never sent.

He picked one up. He did it with the careful hands he used for things he wasn't sure about — the same way he picked up injured birds on his way to practice, the same way he handled other people's textbooks, and, twice, your feelings, on the two occasions you'd broken down in front of him and he'd gently cradled your face and helped you through the tears. Those were among the ten thousand other things written in your letters. Things you loved him for.

"These are addressed to me," he said. His voice was quiet. Unsure, tentative, like if he spoke louder he'd scare you off entirely.

"They're not —" you stammered. "I didn't send them. That's the whole —" You pressed the stack still in your hand to your sternum. "Please. Just — pretend you didn't see them."

"How many are there?"

His voice was doing something you couldn't quite pinpoint. Low. Careful. Something heavy underneath it, if you read between the lines.

You looked at him over the letters clutched to your chest, not sure what expression was on your face that made him soften even further. Maybe it was the pure panic. Maybe it was something else.

"Twenty — wait, uhm." You paused, blinked. "Thirty-four."

He lifted a brow. "You hesitated."

"...Forty-three."

The silence after that had weight. The alarm had stopped — someone had pulled it, or the drill was over, or building staff had caught up to whatever triggered it — and the sudden absence of noise made everything feel louder. Your heartbeat. His breathing. The soft scratch of the envelope he was turning over in his hands, not opening, just turning.

"How long?" he asked.

You didn't want to answer that. The answer was the part that would make it real. The part that would say out loud what had only ever existed on paper.

"Since junior year of high school," you said quietly.

You watched him absorb it.

He sat back on his heels, and you could see him doing the math. Junior year of high school. The end of the letter stack. The date on whatever letter he was holding. The span of years between then and now.

"You've been writing me letters," he said slowly, like he was learning the sentence as he spoke it, "for four years. That you never sent."

"It's not — it's a journaling thing. It's not —"

"Your journals have my name on them."

You winced and closed your eyes. "Yes."

"Why didn't you send them?"

You opened your eyes. He was watching you with an expression that made it very hard to think clearly, and you needed to think clearly to get through this conversation without losing something you couldn't afford to lose. Carefully, you thought. Be careful. He is your best friend and he is looking at you and you are not allowed to ruin this.

"Because I didn't want things to change," you said, which was the truest and most incomplete answer you had.

"What things?"

"Us." The word landed between you, bare, nothing around it to soften it. "The way things are. The way things have always been. I didn't — I wasn't willing to risk it. So I wrote it down instead, and I kept it, and I was going to keep it forever, and this was a mistake, Logan —"

"John." He interrupted quietly. You ignored the correction.

"— you were not supposed to see these."

"What are they?" he asked. "Just — tell me what they are. In plain English."

You looked at him. Then at the forty-three letters — the ones against your chest, the ones still sprawled on the floor, the one in his hands, the stupid brass-latched box open between you. You thought about every 2 a.m., every bleacher, every game, every borrowed hoodie you'd never given back. You thought about how long you'd been careful not to say a single thing. How much energy you'd spent on the not-saying, and how completely, catastrophically exhausted you were from it.

"They're everything," you said, "that I didn't know how to say to your face."

—

He was quiet for a long time after that.

You spent most of it looking at the floor, cataloguing the letters you could see from where you sat — the corner of the very first one, faded and ink-stained, from that Tuesday in junior year. The familiar blue pen of the one from a few months ago, the night of the game where he'd scored the tying goal in the final minute and looked up into the bleachers and found you immediately, like he'd known exactly where to look, like he always knew where to look, and you'd gone home and written four pages you didn't remember most of the next morning.

Then right by your knees was the latest letter. The one that was lengthy and full of hurt and anger and everything else that you poured out after seeing him make out with another girl– You push down the memory. 

The afternoon light had shifted. It was later than you'd realized.

"I want to ask you something," Logan said, "and I need you to answer honestly."

"Okay."

"Is it —" He exhaled through his nose, tried again. You watched the struggle on his face — that particular Logan expression of someone who had something to say and was working out how to say it without saying too much or too little. You'd seen it a thousand times. You'd written about it. Letter fourteen, sophomore year of high school. The way he gets quiet before he says something he means.

"Is it the same thing I think it is?"

"Probably," you said, to the floor. "Unless you think it's a grocery list, in which case, no."

He made a sound that might have been a laugh — hoarse, surprised out of him.

"You've liked me," he said, still careful, "since junior year."

"Yes."

"And you didn't say anything because you didn't want to lose the friendship."

"Yes."

"And you wrote — forty-three letters. Instead."

"I was going to say forty-three seemed excessive, but honestly, given the timeline, I think it's fairly restrained."

"Hey." His voice changed. That made you look at him. He was watching you with something so open on his face it hit you square in the sternum. "Don't do that. Don't make it a joke right now."

You swallowed. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry either." He set the letter down between you, gently, the way he set down things he didn't want to damage, and ran a hand through his hair — the thing he did when he was thinking hard, when something had knocked him somewhere he hadn't planned to go. "I just need a second."

You gave him the second.

Outside, someone on the quad was playing music, drifting up through your open window without any particular hurry. Late afternoon light cut across the room at the angle it only ever hit in March — long and gold and slanted, the kind that made everything look like it was happening in the last good hour of something. The last hour before whatever came next.

He abruptly brings up Davis. "What about Davis?"

Your brows furrow. "What about him?"

"You dated him last year."

You hesitate. "It was a half-hearted attempt to try and get over you."

"Did it work?"

You deadpan. "Well, I broke up with him, didn't I?"

John laughs through his nose. "Yeah. Yeah that makes sense."

Another beat passes, quieter this time, before he asks if you know why he's shown up to every single one of your performances since freshman year. Not just the winter and spring showcases. The studio showings nobody came to, the ten-minute improvisation pieces you took for the sake of getting better, performed to an audience of six, the Tuesday afternoon rehearsal run-throughs that overlapped with his lift block, when he'd shown up, hair damp, sitting cross-legged in the back corner of the studio so he could leave before anyone noticed a hockey player watching a modern dance rehearsal like it was the only thing happening in the building.

"That's practice, though," you say. "You're always busy."

"Not always." He says it like it's nothing, like it was never a real sacrifice, just a matter of arranging things around each other the way you'd both always done. "I never missed a lift block or a mandatory practice for it, if that's what you're asking. Coach would've had my head, and there goes the scholarship. I'm not that much of an idiot."

"So how—"

"I just used the time I actually had. Free blocks. The hour after morning skate before class. You'd be in Studio B until midnight running the same eight counts over and over, and I'd come sit in the corner with a granola bar and my laundry, because doing laundry at the machines by the dance building was somehow always more urgent than doing it in my own dorm."

You protest anyway, because your brain is still catching up, still trying to file this under good friend the way you have filed every other thing he's ever done for four years running. "You're just — that's just you being supportive. You did that for Summer-"

"I went to Summer's event once, and that was because Dean wanted us to. I have sat through you running the same eight counts eleven times in a row at eleven p.m. on a Tuesday because you couldn't get the turn right, and I have watched you mark a whole solo with a busted ankle because you didn't want to fall behind, and I still came."

"That was one time."

"I know. I counted the limps."

That gets you. Something in your chest cracks open a little wider.

He tells you about the incidents, then — the small things you never clocked because you were always mid-combination or too deep in your own head to notice him in the doorway, or slumped against the wall outside the studio with his bag still packed from practice. The night your partner dropped you a beat early in a lift and you both recovered it so smoothly the audience never noticed, and how he'd told Tucker after, unprompted, that he'd never seen anyone save a mistake like that mid-air, like it mattered to him the way his own game footage mattered.

The way he'd show up straight from morning skate, hair still wet, to walk you back to your dorm after a late rehearsal because he didn't like the idea of you crossing the quad alone at midnight, ice pack pressed to your shin, making conversation about nothing in particular just so you wouldn't have to walk in silence. The stretch of a week during tech for the fall showcase, when you barely left the studio, and he started just bringing his own homework to do on the floor during your five-minute breaks, so you'd have someone there without either of you having to say why that mattered.

"You did that the whole week," you say slowly.

"I did that the whole week."

"You never told me you had a physics midterm that same week."

"Didn't want you to feel bad about it." He shrugs, like this is a reasonable thing to have kept from you for two years. "It wasn't your fault. I wanted to be there."

You're quiet for a second, turning that over, and something about the quiet must give you away, because he tilts his head at you. "What?"

"Nothing."

"You've got a face on. That's not nothing."

"It's just—" You stop. Start again. "If you wanted to be there that badly. If you were doing all of that. Then what was with the girls?"

He blinks. "What girls?"

"You know what girls, Logan." Your voice comes out sharper than you mean it to, two years of swallowed irritation finally finding a door. "The ones after games. Hanging off the boards. The ones who got to walk up to you, because they didn't have some — some rule in their head about not ruining anything."

"That's what this is about?"

"I'm asking."

He drags a hand down his face, and for the first time all night, he looks ashamed instead of careful. "Those weren't anything," he says. "You know that, right? They were never anything."

"They looked like something."

Logan lets out a hoarse laugh — short, not really about anything funny. It's the sound of a person getting cornered by their own bad decisions. "Yeah," he says. "I bet they did."

There's something almost shameful in the way his jaw works before he goes on.

"They were a distraction." He says it plainly, no dressing it up. "You didn't — I thought you didn't feel the same way. I thought I was the only one carrying this, and I didn't know what to do with that, so I did the dumbest possible thing, which was try to feel something for anyone else so I'd stop feeling this much for you. It never worked. Not once. I always ended up back at your door with food you didn't ask for, like an idiot."

"I did care," you say, and it comes out smaller than you mean it to, four years of carefulness still clinging to your voice even now. "I thought you didn't."

"I know that now."

You stare at each other for a second, and it lands on both of you at once — the sheer, staggering waste of it. Four years of two people orbiting the same unspoken thing, each one certain the other didn't want it, each one building elaborate, private monuments to a feeling neither of you would say out loud. You almost want to laugh. You almost want to be furious. Mostly you just want to sit in the wreckage of it with him and not move for a while.

That's when he tells you about the texts.

"There's something you should probably know, since, well– I just accidentally saw your very personal letters." he says, and something in his voice makes you go still before he even finishes the thought. "I've been deleting texts to you since October of junior year."

"What texts?" you said.

"The ones I wasn't going to send." A muscle in his jaw moved. "Different medium. Same problem."

You stared at him.

"You," you said carefully, "have also been —"

"Yeah."

"Since —"

"Junior year." He kept his eyes on you. "You did that solo — the contemporary piece, the one set to that stripped-down piano track, for the fall showcase. I only went because you asked me to come, and also promised to buy me free snacks right after. So I came. I sat in the back row not expecting to care, and then the lights came up on you and you just — you weren't you anymore, you were something else entirely, and I remember thinking, very clearly, that I had never seen anything move like that. Not the piece. You. I didn't say anything to anyone. I definitely didn't say anything to you. I just knew, sitting in that folding chair, that something in me had rearranged itself and it wasn't going back." He stopped. Shook his head. "I thought you knew, later, that something had shifted for me. I thought it was obvious. I thought you didn't feel the same way, and I figured I could live with that — be your friend, be fine. And I was mostly fine. I was fine until you and Davis started whatever that was, and I wasn't fine anymore, and that's when I knew I was a lost cause."

"There was nothing with Davis," you said. "It was just — a gen-ed class, and I thought it was something—" The words died on your tongue.

"I know that now."

"John." Something enormous was rising in your chest — too big for any letter, too loud for that box. "We've been — we've both been —"

"Catastrophically stupid," he said, with a short, helpless laugh. "Yeah. I'm aware."

"Four years."

"I know."

"I have forty-three letters —"

"I know, I can see them —"

You laughed, and it came out slightly broken, and he laughed too, and for a moment it was just that — the two of you on your dorm room floor, surrounded by four years of everything you hadn't said, laughing at the sheer, impossible absurdity of it. At how close you'd been the whole time. At how completely you'd managed to miss each other while never once being apart.

Then the laughter faded.

He was looking at you. The gold light had shifted, fallen across him, and he looked the way he always looked when he was done thinking and had arrived somewhere decided. You knew that look. You'd written about it. Letter twenty-one. The way he looks when he's made up his mind about something and nothing in the world is going to unmake it.

"What do we do now?" you asked.

John reached out slowly, giving you every chance to move away if you wanted to. He tucked a loose strand of hair back from your face, hand staying at your jaw, careful. His thumb traced, barely, along your cheekbone.

"I have a practice slot tomorrow morning," he said. "Early. Six a.m., the rink's usually empty." He paused. "You could come. Sit in the bleachers, like you always do. And after — I could buy you hot chocolate. And maybe this time I could actually say what I haven't been saying for four years."

You looked at him. His hand was warm at your jaw, and the room smelled like old paper and cedar and whatever that specific thing was that his jacket always smelled like, because of course he was wearing the jacket you knew best.

"And we're doing it at the rink," you said slowly, "because —"

"Because that's where it started," he said, shrugging. "It should start there too. Not the ratty ice rink back home, but it still counts."

The feeling in your chest crested, enormous and warm, nothing like the quiet ache you'd carried for four years. That ache had been private and careful, kept deliberately small so it wouldn't take up too much room, wouldn't crowd out anything else. This was not small. This was taking up every room you had. This was refusing, loudly and completely, to fit inside a box.

"Okay," you said.

He smiled — the full one, the private one, the one that had always felt like it was only for you. Maybe it had been. Maybe you'd just been too busy cataloguing reasons not to believe it.

"Okay," he echoed.

He let go of your jaw slowly, like he was in no hurry about it, then stood and started helping you gather the letters off the floor, stacking them with surprising care, not reading them, just collecting. You watched him do it and didn't say anything. There was something strange and sweet about watching his hands handle these things that had existed in secret for so long.

He asked a few questions. Simple ones. The things you could admit to. Small rants you'd written. How you didn't read back on some of them, out of fear of what you'd find. You mentioned the one where you'd hoped he tripped, and how the very next day, he actually had.

Logan laughed at that — bright, curls settling around his face. You had to stop yourself from staring too long.

"Which one's your favorite?" he asked, holding the stack against his chest the way you'd been holding it minutes ago.

"I'm not telling you that."

"Come on."

"Absolutely not."

"I'll find it eventually."

"That sounds like a threat."

"It's a promise." He looked entirely too pleased with himself. "I have forty-three letters and the rest of my life. I'll get there."

When all the letters were back in the box, he set it on your desk and looked at it for a moment.

"You're going to have to let me read them eventually," he said.

"I really am not."

"The 'I hope you trip' one. I want to find that one."

"Absolutely not."

"I'm going to find it."

"Get out of my room, Logan."

"I thought I said you could call me John?"

You rolled your eyes. "I'm adapting to Briar. You're either Logan or John. Now get out of my room."

He grinned, the lopsided, lethal one, and you felt it the same way you always had — right in the sternum, like a bell being struck — and went, unhurried, toward the door.

"Six a.m.," he said from the doorway.

"Six a.m.," you agreed.

He left.

You stood in your room surrounded by the afterimage of all of it, then sat on the edge of your bed and put your face in your hands, staying that way for a while — not crying exactly, just feeling the full, enormous weight of something shifting into a new configuration, four years of tectonic plates rearranging themselves into something that finally made sense.

After a while, you got up, took the box from the desk, and put it back under your bed.

You set your alarm for five-thirty.

Hockey rinks always smelled and looked the same, no matter where you would go. It would always smell like ice and rubber and something underneath, though it didn't have the same ratty smell from the old hockey rink at home.

You climbed to your usual spot in the bleachers. Third row, center. You'd been sitting here since the first time you ever came to watch him practice. Even when you moved closer to Briar, you always gravitated to the same spot, before you'd known it was your spot, before you'd known you'd keep coming back. You'd just sat where the sight line was clear and the draft from the ventilation didn't hit as hard. You'd sat there every time after that, out of habit, out of something you'd told yourself was just habit.

John stepped onto the ice.

He didn't look up at the bleachers right away. That wasn't unusual. He rarely did, at first. He had a routine — you knew the routine, had watched it enough times to know it by heart — where he'd take a lap or two before he settled into the actual work of it, like he was reacquainting himself with the ice, reminding himself of the particular quality of this rink on this morning. Then he'd pick up speed. Then he'd look like himself.

You watched him. You were done pretending you weren't.

He skated the way he always skated — like it required nothing, like it was breathing, like the rink was just another place he lived and the ice was simply the ground beneath him. He did a lap, and then another, and then he started working through something, crossovers into a long sweep across the length of the rink, and you watched the way he held his weight, the clean economy of every movement, and felt the thing you always felt watching him, which you'd spent four years filing under aesthetic appreciation, nothing more, and which you were now allowed to call by its actual name.

After a while he came to the boards and looked up at you.

"You're in your spot," he said.

"I'm always in my spot." 

"I know." He leaned on the boards, the same way he had the first time, junior year, helmet under his arm, and he looked up at you with that look you were done misreading. "I skate better when you're here. I don't know if you knew that."

"I didn't."

"I didn't either, for a while. I thought it was just that the bleachers were less empty, which helps. But then I figured out it was specifically you." He said it matter-of-factly, like it was just a thing that was true. Like it was weather. Like it was temperature. "Third row, center. Every time."

"You knew the seat."

"I always knew the seat."

You looked at him, and the rink was cold, and the light was just beginning to come in through the high windows, pale and early and new, and forty-three unsent letters sat in a box under your bed, and standing at the boards in front of you — in his skates, in his gear, on his ice — was the person they were all addressed to. 

With a smile, you got up and headed down from your seat. The second you stopped in front of Logan, the only thing separating you being the rink’s wall, you smiled wider. "Hi," you said.

"Hi," he said back.

He reached for you, and you reached back, and when his hand found yours over the boards it was easy, the easiest thing, like something that had been waiting a long time to finally happen and was not going to make a fuss about it now that it had. His hand was cold from the ice, and you held it anyway, and neither of you said anything for a moment, because there wasn't anything that needed saying.

You got the hot chocolate from the machine in the convenience store. Different store, same franchise. It was, as promised, terrible. Watery and too sweet, dispensed in a thin paper cup that was already going soggy at the base.

He handed it to you and watched you take a sip and pull a face.

"Still bad," you reported. “It’s surprising how consistent the store is.”

"Still bad," he agreed, leaning against the wall, holding his own cup, looking entirely unbothered. He'd never minded the terrible hot chocolate. You'd written about that once. Letter seven. The way you seem genuinely content with things that aren't good. Like the contentment is the point, not the quality of the thing.

"You said you were going to say what you hadn't said."

"I was getting to it."

"It's been twenty minutes."

"I was working up to it," he said, and there was something almost shy in the way he said it, which was not a quality you'd had many opportunities to observe in him, and which was doing things to you that you weren't prepared for. "I've been working up to it for four years, give me another thirty seconds."

You giggled, but you still waited.

He looked at his terrible hot chocolate. Then he looked at you.

"I love you," he said. "I've loved you since I saw you performing on stage and I thought — I thought, that's her. That's the person. And I didn't say anything because you didn't, and I figured I was misreading it, and I kept not saying anything for four years and I had a phone full of deleted texts and a very long mental list of things I was not going to tell you, and then yesterday I walked into your room and saw my name on forty-three envelopes on your floor and I thought—" He stopped. Something moved across his face, somewhere between wrecked and grateful. "I thought: we are both absolute idiots."

"We really are," you said.

"We really are." He pushed off the wall and set his cup down on the machine and took yours out of your hands and set it next to his, and then he looked at you the way he had yesterday, with that decided, arrived quality, and said, "I'm done not saying it. I love you. Okay? I just — I love you."

You looked at him. This person you'd known since before you knew what it meant to know someone. This person who remembered your coffee order and picked raisins out of muffins and drove forty minutes in the rain and kept nine of your hoodies and showed up to every meet in every kind of weather and had, apparently, been composing and deleting texts to you since junior year of high school.

"I love you," you said. "I have loved you for a very long time."

He exhaled, slow, like something he'd been holding finally let go, and then he smiled — the private one, the full one, the one that had always felt like it was only for you because, you understood now, it had always only been for you — and said, "Yeah. We're definitely idiots."

"Monumental idiots."

"Historically unprecedented idiots."

"There should be a word for it."

"There probably is, in some language we don't speak." He reached out, and you let him pull you in, and he held you the way he'd held you before, the same arms, the same warmth, but with something different in it now, something that had been allowed to be what it was instead of being carefully kept at a certain size. You pressed your face against his shoulder. His chin dropped to the top of your head.

"We wasted four years," you said into his shoulder.

"Nah." His voice rumbled against your ear. "We just took the long way."

You thought about that. About the letters, and the bleachers, and the hot chocolate, and the forty-minute drives in rain,  the deleted texts, and the space between what you feel and what you're brave enough to say. About all the things that had happened in the gap.

"The long way," you agreed.

Outside the rink, the morning was getting started. Inside, it smelled like ice and rubber and cedar and something new.

—

The forty-fourth letter was the last one. Written that night, because some habits deserve a proper ending.

John. Logan. Or whatever name you want to be called–  The hot chocolate was terrible. The one near our old school was better (I’m lying, but you know that), but it’s not like you would drive an hour just to get there. Still, you know hot chocolate is always terrible from that machine. You bought it anyway because I said I wanted it and you cannot help yourself. I've been writing these since high school. I don't think I'm going to write another one. Not because I have nothing left to say — I think I'm going to have a lot to say, for a very long time — but because I'm going to say it to you from now on. Out loud. In real time. Without a box to put it in afterward. You told me today that you skate better when I'm in the stands. I wanted you to know that I run better when you're at the end of the finish line. I have never told you that. I'm telling you now. I love you. I have loved you since a Tuesday in junior year in High school when you offered me bad hot chocolate on an empty rink and smiled at me like I was someone worth skating across the ice for.I loved you through every year after that, through every letter I wrote and sealed and tucked away, through every moment I talked myself out of saying something because I was afraid of what it would cost. It turns out it didn't cost anything. It turns out you were over there deleting texts. We were both such idiots. Though I guess it does make sense with our track record. I'm done keeping it in a box, and I'll say it to your face from now on, and I'm sorry it took me four years and a broken latch and forty-three embarrassing letters, some of which you are never going to read, to get here. But I'm here. And so are you. That's enough. That's more than enough. — With love.

©ahnaiee [do not repost, copy, translate, or modify]

[alliehayesgf]

this was so incredibly sweet i'm gonna get a cavity

[bugzinme]

[primaveres]

'you're the girl in garretts lockscreen' ! garrett graham x childhoodbestfriend!reader

summary .ᐟ you finally meet visit the off campus house and meet garrett's friends, but not in the way either of you imagined.

notes .ᐟ maybe cringe??? idk...

"You're not waiting outside. End of"

His words were stern as he said them, not harsh, no, never harsh when it came to you, but his tone gave no room for discussion.

"G, Please. I'll be fine" You cringed at the slight whine that echoed through your words, pleading to your best friend in front of you

"No"

"Garrett!"

"No."

The lock to the off campus house clicked as his words echoed in your ears, Garrett's hand tight on the doorknob as he pushed it open. The warmth of his shared house flowed out, contrasting sharply with the biting cold of the winter weather outside.

"Get in, it's fucking freezing. You're gonna catch a cold" He sighed, tilting his head towards the door as he turned to you.

He rolled his eyes as you made no effort to move, as stubborn as you had been since elementary school. Garrett watched as you tried your best not to shiver, the cold nipping at your cheeks.

His hand swiftly came down around you, softly resting on the small of your back as he basically pushed you inside.

You hated how much you liked the warmth of the house, the multiple layers of clothes you had thrown on yourself like armour now seeming unnecessary.

Scanning the inside of the house, your eyes drifted slowly over the entrance. It looked exactly like you had imagined. Red solo cups and beer bottles resting on the coffee table, pillows haphazardly strewn across the sofa, a led lit air hockey table standing out against the dark wood floors resting next to a keg.

Your eyes almost rolled out of your head at how predictable it was.

"Happy now?" Garrett teased, closing the door behind him and placing his keys down. "No" You quipped back almost instantly

When you woke up this morning, the last place you pictured yourself was standing in the living room of the house Garrett shared with his 3 friends.

Garrett had waited for you outside your mid-day class, pulling you sideways the second you walked out of the lecture hall like some stalker waiting for his victim.

You let out a gasp as he pulled you into the corner of the hallway, grinning down at you like he hadn't just manhandled you into him. You listened to him drone on and on about hockey and practice, clearly where he had just come from, his dark curls still damp against his forehead as they swayed and his skin sticky from sweat.

It was only when you were dragged up the steps of his house that you realised grabbing lunch apparently meant needing to go home first. A detail Garrett had somehow failed to mention.

Despite being on campus for a few weeks now, you hadn't yet payed a visit to his humble abode. But that was not due to lack of him trying.

Ever since arriving at Briar, he badgered you constantly about coming over to his place, wanting to be in the solace of his room alone with you since you had banned him from staying in your dorm out of worry of making your freshly new roommate uncomfortable with his presence.

It's not that you didn't want to be with Garrett. Never that.

But you would be lying if you said you weren't slightly intimidated by the prospect of meeting his fellow hockey player roomates.

You wouldn't say you were a shy girl, per say, but you had heard whispers around campus of Garrett and his friends constantly since the semester started.

Whispers that clearly indicated that they were far, far from nobodies.

If you hadn't known Garrett since you were practically in diapers, you'd probably be scared shitless of him the most out of all of them.

Garrett didn't mean to trick you into coming over to his house that day. Well, at least not really.

He did truthfully want to grab lunch with you. Just after he showered, changed, and hopefully coaxed you into napping with him.

"Baby, they aren't home. Won't be for a while, don't worry." Garrett whispered into your ear, his minty breath warm against your neck as he dipped his head down behind you. Referencing to the fact his roomates were out discussing plays for their next hockey game with the new rookies, a meetup Garrett was glad he missed out on the planning of.

They may have still asked him to come. Multiple times. He may have declined. Multiple times.

"I'm not worried" You replied, almost too quickly.

He raised his eyebrows at your comment, clearly as convinced as you were by your own words. Which wasn't at all.

"Cmon" Garrett said as he began grabbing your hand before leading towards the staircase.

If you weren't so distracted looking around at his house and dissecting every detail of your new environment, you'd have asked where he was taking you.

However, your non-existent question was answered as he led you through a hallway and into a room.

His room.

You could tell as soon as you entered.

It had Garrett Graham written all over it. Well, literally. The street sign detailed with his name being the same one you had seen in his room from home.

It smelled like him too. Cologne, aftershave and mint.

Of course, it was clean. Bed made perfectly, desk neat, light filtering through his mahogany brown blinds.

A white picture frame stood out against the cool greys and browns hues of his decor, hand painted hearts littering the frame. You remember painting that him years ago, before he left for college. Assuming he was going to fill it with a photo of his friends or high school hockey team, you left the insert blank.

But instead, the picture that lay inside the glass, was you.

You remember the day it was taken. Garrett was fiddling around with your digital camera, promising he wasn't going to break it. He turned the camera around so it was facing the both of you, reaching his hands out and snapping a selfie of you both as he kissed you on the cheek.

As you looked around the room, the door clicked behind you, Garrett immediately taking the chance to wrap his hands around your waist while he stood behind you.

You immediately pulled away, looking back at him with mock disgust.

"You're sweaty" You declared, regarding the fact he had just came back from hockey practice.

"You can't even feel me!" He exclaimed, gesturing to the multitude of layers you had on due to the cold. "Yeah, but i can smell you" You quipped, even though he somehow didn't smell as bad as he should from skating around in a rink all day.

"Ok, rude. I'm gonna go shower then. Happy?" Garrett asked, sarcastic in his tone as he shrugged off his hoodie.

"No, you said you just needed to grab something quickly before we get lunch" You accused, watching as he walked over to his dresser.

"Well, you've made me insecure now" He stated, turning around to look back at you.

"No i haven't. You are never insecure."

"You're right. I'm not" Your breath hitched as he pulled his black shirt over his head, leaving him shirtless a few feet away from you, a bright grin on his face.

It wasn't the first time you had seen Garrett shirtless. Probably not even the hundredth. But it never didn't make you feel giddy inside, especially since his skin was glistening as the fractured light shone into his room.

"Now, can you stop standing there like a deer in the headlights and sit down or something" He joked, the fact that you were still standing right in front of his door reminding you that you hadn't moved since you had entered.

Suddenly, it dawned on you.

"You planned this whole thing didn't you? You didn't need to just grab something, did you?" You accused, wagging your finger in his face as you approached him.

His face then shifted to one struck with mock guilt, teasing. "I'm guilty. Take me away officer. Make it quick, please." Reaching his hands up as if he were about to get handcuffed.

"You're not funny," You replied

"I'm pretty funny"

You rolled your eyes as you made your way to his bed, sitting down on the soft comforter. "Hurry up" You said, placing your book bag onto his floor.

"What, don't wanna join me?" Garrett asked, only him knowing he meant the idea of you showering with him as a little more than a joke.

You ignored his question, facepalming as you groaned.

You heard him laugh across the room, his footsteps echoing towards his bed where you were sat. Your eyes raised, watching Garrett as he approached, clad only in his grey sweatpants.

"I'll be just a minute, bathroom is down the hall. Call out if you need me" You nodded softly at him, his constant need to make sure you're okay apparent in his sincere words.

He gleamed at your nod, reaching down to hold the back of your head softly as he kissed you on the forehead. "Atta girl"

You really tried not to watch him walk away. But the phrase often muttered by your roommate 'hate to see him go, love to watch him leave' echoed annoyingly in your head

The prominent muscles of his back rippled as he reached for the doorknob, his gold chain gleaming as it rested above his tattoo, every movement creating a tidal wave of muscle and strength.

You released a breath you didn't know you were holding as you heard the door close after he had left the room.

The heat from what you were hoping was the warmth of his room and not that interaction began creeping up your spine, causing you to pull off all the layers it took until you were left only in your long sleeve shirt.

As you stood alone in his room, you felt yourself drift over to the photo frame you had been staring at earlier. A smile creeping onto your face before you could register it as you slowly picked up the frame.

You can't believe he had a photo of you framed in his room, standing proudly on his bedside table.

It was only then you began to notice the small reminders of you in his bedroom. A note you had wrote him in middle school you had completely forgotten about tacked onto his wall, a candle sat on his dresser that he always told you smelled just like your perfume, the soft pink blanket you had left in his car months ago thrown over the back of his chair.

The soft chirping of birds outside his window sang in your ears, your head turning to watch as they danced through the branches of the trees. You found yourself smiling at their actions, flying in the air joyful and utterly free.

"G, I'm gonna fuckin kill you for bailing. Those rookies are fucking insufferab-"

Your neck almost broke by how swiftly you turned it, shock and genuine horror struck across your features.

Stood in Garrett's door was a tall blonde, his jaw slack to the floor and looking just as shocked as you were. Your eyes swiftly scanned his frame, a Briar hockey hoodie resting on his body and his hand outstretched to the door knob he had just rattled open.

"Sorry, sorry! Fuck." The boy cursed, his face now painted with guilt as he cringed at himself.

You nearly jumped as he went to slam the door closed, interrupting his movements. "No, no. It's ok. I'm just waiting for Garrett to shower" You explained, walking a few feet closer to the door.

The boy's eyebrows raised at your words, before a look of recognition struck wildly through his face.

"You're her!" He practically shouted, removing his hand from the doorknob to point at you.

You almost jumped at the volume of his voice, confusion washing through you. "Her?" You quizzed

"Yes! You're the girl in Garrett's lockscreen!" He started, what seemed to be excitement lighting up his expression, moving his finger to point to the picture frame on Garrett's bedside table "And the photo, You're her!"

Before you could even conjure up anytime of response to his words, another voice cut through the air

"Dean, bro, what the fuck are you screaming about?" Another boy said, showing up behind the blonde.

"Oh my god" The brunette exclaimed, clearly recognising you as well the second his eyes drifted to you, now standing feeling embarrassingly awkward as you stood in Garrett's room.

"Garrett talks about you all the fucking time, since we've known him. I cannot believe we are finally meeting you" The blonde said, tumbling into the room and wrapping you into a hug, eliciting a laugh from you that finally made you feel the tiniest bit less horrified by the situation.

"Tucker! Bro! Come here!" The brunette behind the boy shouted, smiling as he followed behind the blonde into the room.

At that same moment, steam rolled out from the bathroom door, Garrett's curls tight and dark from the water as he ran his hand through his hair, his body now clad in a dark grey teeshirt and black sweatpants.

Due to the sound of the water cascading from the shower head, the shouts of his roommates hadn't cut echoed through the noise, leaving him completely oblivious to the scene unravelling in his own bedroom.

So, he was utterly horrified as he watched the doorframe of his room now swung completely open and Dean's voiced echoing through the hallway from his bedroom.

"What the fuck are you doing?"

Garrett's voice sliced sharply through the air, his eyes set on the fact that Dean had his arms wrapped tightly around you, fucking hugging you.

Dean jumped as he heard Garrett's voice, turning to find him standing in the door of his room.

"Uh, hugging my new best-friend?" Dean said as if it were obvious, his voice contradicted by the fact he was slowly backing away from you at the sight of his friend's less than happy expression.

As if you weren't overstimulated enough, steps began bounding into down the hallway, gradually getting louder as they reached Garrett's room.

"What! What did i miss?" Tucker exclaimed, out of breath from running up the stairs from the kitchen with a deep fear of fomo.

His face mimicked Dean's exact expression as he noticed you, his jaw dropping in the same shocked way before he shouted

"You're her!"

[unclejeezysblog]

A Cinderella Story ⋆.˚

Fic for @moonstoneandmoonlight and @graywrenhart ‘s The Steve Harrington Summer Sleepover 🤍

Summary:

You’re a hardworking high school student and recently lost your father. You in love with the school’s most popular boy, Steve Harrington, through anonymous online messages. After overcoming misunderstandings and standing up for herself, you have one of the greatest love stories with Steve Harrington

Content Warning:

Greif, crying, venting, arguing, cussing, two idiots falling in love, flirting, overthinking, kissing….

Author’s note

This story will be similar to the movie “A cinderella story” but will not be exactly the same. I decided to remove her evil step mother and step sisters (because they annoy me too much). There will be changes. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it🤍

Your life was always simple, living happily with your father. He owns a small diner, that is not too popular but always filled with regular customers.

Your mother left you when you were 5 years old. You don’t remember much, but that doesn’t hurt you at all. Your dad provided everything you could’ve asked for.

Your relationship with your father was really close. You always communicated with him about your future, and always got assured that if you work hard, your dreams would come true. And you always believed that.

Tragically, shortly after, your father passes away in an earthquake leaving you devastated. You’d lost your only family member. While you were capable of taking care of yourself, the reality of being alone weighed heavily on you.

Your life felt like it had crumbled and your dreams were slipping away. Your father had promised to help with the finances at Princeton University, wanting his daughter to receive the best education. However, it seemed that dream would never come true.

On the other side, a friend of your father took over the diner. All you could do is continue working as a waitress in the diner.

You continued living your life, grieving for your father and your dream.

At your school, you always kept a low profile, embarrassed of being poor and working at a diner. You were far away from those popular girls who wore designer bags and heels to school.

Most of your school days are spent together with your best friend, Robin Buckley, an actor who performs dramatic speeches.

“Why don’t you try acting?” Robin asked you, placing her books into her locker while you leaned on the other one behind her.

“Me? acting? You’re funny” you chuckled

“What? You’re already beautiful you just need some practice” she locked her locker.

“Robin no, I already have a lot on my plate”

“Never too late to change your mind” she bumped your shoulder.

While Robin was talking about her upcoming performance, you accidentally made eye contact with Steve Harrington.

The most popular boy in your school, the one with the perfect life. Handsome and ridiculously rich, and the captain on the football team who was admired by everyone in the school. Everyone is talking about the football star he will become.

While you were at work, a group of high school students walked in, and sat in the booths. You felt like you could die on the spot. You hated serving people that were at your age.

When you approached the table, roller skating with your skates (you hated them but they were a part of the uniform) Nancy said “Well if it isn’t the diner girl?”

You could feel anger rising, but kept a calm face.

“What can I get you guys” you asked

“What can I get here that has no sugar, no carbs and it’s fat-free? Nancy asked.

“Water” you nodded

“Was that supposed to be a joke?” Nancy asked

“It was funny” Steve said

“Steve!” she smacked his arm, it looked like she was mad at him the whole entire time they were there.

Today was a sunny Saturday, of course you had work at the diner.

You spent your weekends working until lunch, and then studying at night.

Although two nights something happened. You got an email from somebody called “Hairspray”

You began chatting with him, neither knows the other’s real identity.

You used the username “Princeton”. You spent the night talking about school, and found out that you’re in the same grade.

Later when you arrived at home from work, you got an email.

Hairspray

Hey you’re at work?

Princeton

Just got back home, what about you?

Hairspray

I was helping my dad around the house, what are you up to?

Princeton

First rest and then i’ll study:’)

Hairspray

So you were serious about Princeton?

Princeton

Yes, is it weird?

Hairspray

No not at all

Actually I’ve been thinking about something

Princeton

about what?

Hairspray

about Princeton

Ever since I was a kid i wanted to be a writer but my dad pressured me with football and I never got to do what I actually want

Princeton

It’s not late to start focusing on writing

Hairspray

You think so?

Princeton

I do.

Hairspray

Thank you for understanding

Princeton

It’s alright

I do have this huge fear of not making it to Princeton though

Hairspray

But why you’re smart and all

Princeton

but it also costs a leg

Hairspray

Can’t you get a scholarship or something?

Princeton

Im trying for that now, If i don’t get it I won’t have a chance.

Hairspray

I think you’ll get it, you’ve been studying your ass off

Princeton

You think so?

Hairspray

Im sure 100%

Princeton

Too confident, no?

Hairspray

Hmm no

Princeton

If you say so

Hairspray

So you go to the same school as me

Princeton

Well if you didn’t lie about your school then yes

Hairspray

Please i’ve been more honest to you than my parents

Princeton

Oh i feel special

Hairspray

You should ;)

Princeton

Why is your username “hairspray?”

Hairspray

Because I use a lot of it

Princeton

But you’re a guy aren’t you?

Hairspray

Yes I am

Can’t guys use hairspray too?

Princeton

You can of course it’s just weird not many use it

Hairspray

Well i do

Princeton

Hmm so i should look out for a guy that uses hairspray at school huh?

Hairspray

Careful there’s lots of them

Princeton

No there’s not you just made that up

Hairspray

Okay yes i did

Princeton

Are you by any chance Mr. Williams

Hairspray

What our chemistry teacher? NO

Princeton

Okay thank god

Hairspray

Is it safe to say that I hate him

Princeton

I hate him too.

Hairspray

Now i like you even more

Princeton

You like me?

Hairspray

As a friend:)

Princeton

A friend you don’t know the name of and how she looks

Hairspray

well you’re my special anonymous friend

Princeton

How many anonymous friends do you have?

Hairspray

One.

(What you didn’t know is that “Hairspray” was actually Steve Harrington).

You couldn’t help it but blush a little. He made you feel seen and understood just like your dad used to. You could be walking past this person at school every day and not know who he is.

Over the last 2 weeks, “Hairspray” and “Princeton” grew closer and closer. You two got to know so much about each other. Cracking jokes at 1am, venting, and talking about their future. Throughout the talking, feeling were developed for each other, but both of you were still unaware.

Eventually they decide to meet. They agreed on meeting at the school’s Halloween Homecoming dance. Making it more romantic, they will recognise each other by clues. You said that you will be wearing a white dress with a matching white mask. Hairspray agreed to meet you exactly at midnight.

However, an unexpected problem arose first. The manager of the diner was not letting you attend the dance. However, Rhonda one of the other waitresses, covered for you and let you go to the dance.

You curled your blonde hair, and wore a beautiful white dress that made you look straight out of a movie. While the white eye mask made your blue eyes stand out.

You found out who “Hairspray” was. It was Steve Harrington. Of course it’s him, he’s the only guy in the school with hair that holds a ridiculous amount of hairspray.

Not going to lie, he looked really handsome tonight. He wore a black tailored tuxedo that fit his body like a glove, making him look formal and match the fairytale atmosphere.

At the dance, Steve finally found the mysterious girl he has fallen in love with.

You spent the night chatting and walking around the beautiful garden outside. The music from the inside could be heard perfectly, so Steve asked you for a dance outside, where you two were completely alone.

He knew how to dance really good, his arms around your waist felt way too warm. You could feel your stomach do a flip from his touch.

“Now will you tell me your name, Princeton girl?” he smirked

“Hmm maybe try guessing”

“I love a challenge” he replied

“Of course you do”

For a moment he stared at your eyes, unsure if he should say it or not but he did anyway.

“You have beautiful eyes”

“Thank you” you could feel blush creep up on your cheeks.

For the first time you felt truly happy. And Steve realised that you’re everything he has been searching for.

Eventually Steve discovers that you are the mystery girl after you removed your mask.

“How come I didn’t thought about you?”

“Hm I don’t know”

“You- wait you work at the diner right?” He started connecting the dots

“I- yeah” you sighed, embarrassment creeping up on you

“Why didn’t you mention anything about it?”

“Because I’m embarrassed by my lifestyle Steve!”

He lifted your chin up with his pointer finger, looking into yours eyes.

“Don’t be embarrassed, not from me”

“But what about the others? They’ll say that-“

“Shh hey who cares what the others think” he looked at you with a confused look

“Steve Harrington seen with this unpopular girl that works at a diner and people barely know her name?”

“So? they will learn it” he smiled

“No Steve you don’t understand” you shook your head

“What tell me, what’s there to understand?”

“You’re a good looking guy with a great reputation, and im just me”

“Yeah you with the smartest brain ever and the prettiest blue eyes” he tucked a hair strand behind your ear.

“I don’t think we can do this, sorry” you squeezed his palm once and turned around to leave.

“Wait no what do you mean?”

“Im sorry Steve” you sobbed, running away.

You couldn’t get to do this, you managed to keep your low profile for so long, you didn’t want to ruin that.

Especially you didn’t want to become the new centre of attention.

When you came home you saw the wall clock tick 00:00, then you realised you have lost your phone. Things felt so hard you couldn’t help it but sob.

The next day at school you managed to ignore Steve as much as possible. Today the school class presidents hosted an event, giving awards to the best students.

You were in the crowd, sitting next to Robin. Then you heard Nancy say “Best athlete of the year - Steve Harrington!”

Funny how his ex girlfriend was presenting the award to him.

The crowd immediately stood up and began cheering and applauding.

Steve stepped out on the stage “I want to thank my coach, my family, teammate’s and my closest friends for always supporting me” his eyes found you in the crowd, and they never left yours.

As Steve was about to leave the stage, Nancy said “Not only our he’s our best athlete, he makes sure to get the best princesses at homecoming!”

Your heart stopped. People started whispering and mumbling, you could hear a few “Oohh’s” in the crowd.

Steve’s face turned pale. He saw you trying to run away from everyone, but decided to follow you.

While you were in the hallway of the school, leaving, he called out

“Hey no wait!” he started running “You can’t just walk away from me every time” he stood in front of you, blocking your way out

“Let me go-“

“No you’re not leaving”

You finally looked at him, his face had a worried expression “From what are you so afraid? Tell me” his voice cracked

“From everything Steve, everything! I don’t want to become famous in the whole school and have every girl gossip about me! I’m already going through a lot, and you know it”

“I- nobody will gossip” he tried to confront you

“They will!”

“Maybe they will but that will be just the beginning! Then everyone will forget!” he cupped your cheeks

“You’re used to being alone, and that’s why you don’t want more people to know you”

He was right. You were afraid of letting people in your life, scared that they are going to leave you again.

“I want to be with you! I want to- want to take you out on dates, I want to buy your favourite snacks and watch stupid rom coms with you” He said.

Your heart was pounding so hard, It almost left your chest.

“Can I?” he asked

“Can you?”

“Just- do you trust me?”

“Yes”

His face was coming closer to yours, then suddenly he kissed you. He kissed you so fiercely that he was terrified you’d flee him again. For the first time, you stopped pushing him away and simply followed your heart, diving into the kiss.

Wrapping your arms around his neck, you pulled him closer. You could smell his cologne , and god he smelled like heaven.

“Holy shit” he broke the kiss, panting for air.

You looked at him with your doe blue eyes, Steve swore he could happily die on the spot.

“Gosh you’re so sweet” he kissed you again, not being able to get enough of you.

Normally right now in this moment, you’d try to run away, but you didn’t, you stayed.

His words made you blush.

“Be mine” he whispered close to your lips.

“I think I already am, Hairspray” you chuckled

“Then I’m one lucky guy, Princeton” he said, kissing you again.

“Oh and you forgot this, Cinderella” Steve pulled our your phone from his pocket.

“Oh my how did you find it?” you took it from his hand

“You forgot it at the garden, or left it on purpose just so you could talk to me again” he winked and wiggled his eyebrows.

You smacked his chest “Yes oh my god I’ve been dying to talk to you” you said sarcastically then you went closer up to his ear and whispered “And to kiss you” you whispered.

“You’re going to be the end of me, my Princeton Cinderella”

Taglist @hexyissy @yailology @oohlillie @jas-mines-things @sweatydjoshoes @us3r4682

[allergictononsense]

i just know azriel has ridiculously long eyelashes that he has no business of having.

[lentejita25]

Azriel and his ridiculously long eyelashes 😏

[alnitaks]

starry.eyed.stitcher

[moonstoneandmoonlight]

[ohmymistakee]

no thoughts really

[uwtloml]

does it hurt? john logan x reader

in which everyone knows that john logan is head over heels with you, and it’s not like you don’t feel the same way, so what’s the issue?

cw: angst, comfort if you squint

word count: 1.5k

an: this is unlike anything i’ve ever written but i’ve had so much fun writing it!! please be gentle xx

“Dean, sit down and shut up.” You pleaded, trying to shove the obnoxiously large and drunk blonde into your passenger seat. 

“I’m not sure why I’m sensing such a tone in your voi- ow fuck!” Dean was quickly cut off by hitting his head on the top of the door.

You took your hands off of his shoulders, taking a slow breath in, “I am seriously trying my hardest to not kill you right now.”

“Dean, can you just get in the car?” A slightly less drunk Tucker asked from the backseat.  

Reluctantly, Dean slowly lowered himself down into the seat. You closed his door, attempting to walk as fast as you could to the driver's side before Dean tried anything else. You had been trying to wrangle him into the car for the past five minutes. 

“Does anyone know if Logan is coming with us?” You asked, looking out of your windshield as you sit down. There was a large group of people but you didn’t see Logan anywhere. 

“Oh please, if anyone would know it would be you.” Dean slurred, laughing to himself. 

The rest of the car remained quiet, causing Dean to look back at Tucker. “I mean come on, you know it's true too Tucker.” Dean turned his head back to you, “You know, you’re just so confusing. Fuck, I’m getting a headache just thinking about it.” 

You narrowed your eyes at him, “I’m not sure what you mean by that, but if you have any hope of making it back to your house tonight I would sit there and be a good passenger princess, okay?” 

Dean held his hands up in defense, “Just trying to lighten the mood. I feel some animosity coming from you.” 

Whatever response you were going to come up with was quickly cut short by the feeling of your phone vibrating in your pocket. Logan’s name flashed on the screen. 

You answered, bringing your phone up to your ear. “Hey.” 

“Hey, Y/N. You got Tucker and Dean, right?” He asked you. 

“Mhm, I got Tucker in the back and Dean up front unfortunately.” You laughed.

Dean threw his hands up, “Okay, seriously what the hell?” He whispered. 

You brought your finger up to your lips, trying to silence Dean.

Logan’s voice “Good, I’ll just ride back with Garrett. I’m sure you have your hands full as is. Um, but I’ll see you at the house, right?” 

You clear your throat, “Yeah sounds good, I don’t know if I’m staying the night but we’re about to leave so I’ll just see you there.”

“Alright just let me know, drive safe.” Logan said. 

“I will, bye.” You replied, hanging up and throwing your phone into the cupholder. “Okay everyone has their seatbelt on, yes?” 

“All clear.” Tucker replied, leaning forward to check Dean.  

You nodded and began to reverse out of the driveway. You were about ten minutes out from the party when Dean grabbed your phone and asked to play music. 

“Spotify?” He asked, already unlocking your phone. 

“Yeah, you can play whatever.” You trailed off, trying to focus on the road. After Dean had played nothing for thirty seconds you looked over at him only to be met by a puzzled look on his face. “Dean? Music?”

He quickly snapped out of it, shaking his head. “Sorry, just trying to find the perfect song you know?” 

He settled for some 90’s rock song. The car was mostly silent for five minutes besides the aux, and you were pretty sure Tucker had dozed off in the back. 

The silence in the car was broken by Dean clearing his throat. 

“Does it hurt?” 

You snapped your head to look at him, confused. “I’m sorry, does what hurt?” You asked.

He simply gave you a knowing look. “You know what I’m talking about.” 

You let out a short laugh, thinking he was going into another drunken rant. “No, I really don’t. Care to enlighten me?” 

“John Logan.” He said leaning forward to pause the music. 

It took every fiber of your being to not slam on the breaks right there.

“Dean, why would it hurt? We’re just friends.” You immediately knew what he was talking about, feeling heat rise to your face.

“Y/N, I literally just saw a yearning playlist on your phone, don't even. I mean this is like some The Notebook yearning type shit. I know you’re not just friends. He knows you’re not just friends. Fuck, literally everyone knows. Everyone but you apparently.” 

“I know too.” Tucker chimed in from the back. You glared at him in the rearview mirror. 

Was it really that obvious? 

“Look, me and Logan are friends. That’s it, nothing more. Besides, it just wouldn’t work.” You argued, briefly glancing away from the road to look at both of them. 

“See, I just don’t know why you say that.” Dean shook his head in disbelief, Tucker silently nodding, agreeing in the back. “I mean he’s practically on his knees for you, that’s blatantly obvious. 

“I really thought after the last game, you two were going to lock it down. Instead, everything just went back to normal. You and Logan being friends again and you trying to pretend like you don’t see the way he looks at you.” Tucker added. 

You bit your tongue, trying to come up with a reasonable explanation without absolutely airing out all of the things wrong with you. You took the turn onto the boys’ street. “I think you both are just drunk and barely know where you are.” 

“No, we’ve all been thinking about it for a very long time.” Dean replied. 

“I would just fuck it up, okay?” You finally snap, “He doesn’t deserve that, especially not after everything.” 

As you began to approach the house, you already saw Garret’s car in the driveway. You quickly pulled into the driveway attempting to get these two out of your car as soon as possible. You put the car in park, sitting there quietly. 

“Well, I guess we’re here now.” Tucker said, unbuckling his seatbelt. He opened his door, walking, well, slightly tumbling into the house. 

“You know you’re my friend and so is Logan,” Dean said as Tucker shut the door, “and I also know that you’re hurting and he is too. I just don’t know how much more of it either of you can take.” You simply sat, looking down at your hands trying to stop the tears from welling in your eyes. “If you ever want to talk about it, maybe when I’m a little less drunk,” he laughed, “I’m here. Okay?”

“Okay.” You murmured quietly. A new light emerged from the porch, Logan was coming down the stairs and coming straight to your car. Dean unbuckled, starting to open his door. You quickly stopped him, shooting your hand out. “Dean, please don’t say anything to him.”

The blonde turned to you, “I won’t, this is between the two of you. Don’t worry about it.” He smiled, fully opening his door to meet Logan. 

Dean slightly stumbled, standing out of the car. 

“Jesus, I knew you should have stopped after the eighth shot.” Logan laughed, letting Dean lean into him. “Are you coming in?” He asked, turning his attention to you. The sight of your teary eyes caused him to draw his brows together in confusion. 

He lightly pushed Dean up off of him, “Dean, think you can get inside by yourself?” He asked.

Dean nodded, slowly trudging up the stairs before it was just you and Logan. He sat down into the passenger seat, looking at you. “You good?”

You cleared your throat, blinking rapidly. “Oh, yeah I’m fine.”

The look on his face told you immediately that he didn’t believe that. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah!” You said, trying to pull off your best smile. “Sorry, I’m just like really tired and I honestly don’t feel good so I think I’m just going to go back to my place tonight.”

“I don’t know if you should be driving if you’re that tired. You can totally sleep here if you want to. I’ll even let you have the bed all to yourself.” He responded, slightly leaning towards you. 

“Haha, no it’s okay. I think I might have caught something so it’s probably best if I’m not around everyone.” You lied, trying to hint to him to get out of the car. 

It was clearly not true, but Logan nodded, getting out of the seat before turning back to you, “Just um- just text me when you get home, yeah?” 

“Will do.” You promised, fingers thumping against the steering wheel. 

He smiled in response, closing the door and heading towards the porch before turning to take one last look at you. You hoped he couldn’t see right through all of the bullshit you just told him. 

Finally, he reached the door and stepped inside. 

You let out a long breath, rubbing your hands on your face.

Fuck me.

part 2???