know that they'll be loved

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” you turned over in the uncomfortable seat until he could see nothing except the back of your head. “Which will be any day now by the looks of things.”

“You think I’m gonna let that happen?” Satoru ran a hand through his messy white head of hair. “We’re gonna make it to the refugee center, don’t you worry. I’ll get you there even if it kills me. If traffic hasn’t gotten better by sunrise, then we’ll just . . . abandon the car and start walking. Cardio’s good for the heart, so they say.”

Are you stupid? You want us to walk around with no protection, knowing that those things are out there? I’d rather stay trapped in the car! And I don’t think living off saltine crackers for who knows how long is good for the heart, so screw cardio. Now isn’t the time to make jokes. God, you annoy me.

That was what you thought. That was what you wished you could spew out verbally, but you only shifted a bit, and said, “My safety isn’t your responsibility, Satoru. Not anymore.”

“Are you being for real? You think that with everything going on right now, everything we just witnessed back home . . . you think that us being broken up matters in the grand scheme of things? Baby, come on.” He stared at the back of your head as he spoke. When seconds of silence passed, he tapped his hand against the top of the steering wheel and sighed out of pure frustration. “If I see one of those fucking monsters attack you, I’ll just let it happen since you’re my ex-girlfriend, and that apparently matters in a life or death situation. That’s what you want, right?”

You still didn’t respond. Not for a long time. There was a book in your hand, and you clenched it tightly.

The chatter and footsteps from outside the car felt uncomfortably loud in the midst of that unsettling quietness.

Say something, Satoru thought, resting his elbow on the driver’s seat door. You turned around in your seat. Your blanket fell from around your shoulders, drifting down to your waist.

“You’re missing my point, as per usual. I’m trying to figure out, why me? We broke up three years ago. Three years. And our town? It got overrun two days ago. Everyone had to grab food and water and their loved ones and get the hell out as quickly as possible. So why did you take the time to find me? Out of everyone else in your life, why’d you show up at my doorstep, desperate to save your ex?”

“Because I still love you more than anyone else in my life. Isn’t that obvious?” Satoru smiled sadly.

Your eyes met his for the first time in what felt like three years.

“What? Did you think I was going to say something different?” Satoru stated as if his earlier confession was an obvious fact: The sky is blue. Two plus two equals four. And I’m still in love with you.

“I’m not having this conversation with you,” you mumbled, and rolled over in the seat yet again. “Don’t get any mixed ideas. The second we get to the refugee, shelter place, whatever- we’re done. One hundred percent finished. We’ll part ways for good. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

Satoru unfolded a piece of ancient work unbeknownst to most of society due to the arrival of technology: a map. “Loud and clear.”

— THREE DAYS LATER —

The Safe Place, as some called it, could more accurately be named a madhouse.

Traffic never moved forward. Many fellow stuck civilians had all gathered on the highway, Satoru among them, and agreed that they all had a better chance of dying than seeing the countless amount of cars piled up along the roads finally start to move forward.

And, eventually, just as water was starting to become a memory and the first signs of dehydration had your head spinning — the summer heat you walked in for days did you no favors — you all stumbled upon a crowded, one-level building with people spilling out of the doors, fighting for their right to retrieve whatever was inside. Food. A bed. Clean clothes. Water.

All the things you so desperately wanted.

Armed guards prevented the massive wave of people from entering the shelter. But getting shot didn’t seem as scary as not being allowed entry to some, and they still tried to fight their way inside.

“I have three kids! Please, please let us in, sir,” one woman cried.

You and Satoru were further back in line, and you could only make out the back of her messy head of hair, but you heard the guard she argued with quite clearly.

“We’re at max capacity. Hell, past that now, lady. There’s nothin’ I can do for ya, ‘m sorry.”

His words sparked a wave of panic. All at once, people began to shout. To push forward.

“What do you mean you’re full?”

“You’re going to leave us out here to die like animals?”

“Let us in!”

“We have a right to live, you piece of shit!”

The unsettling bodies were pressing against yours, pressing you and Satoru together, so much so that it became hard to breathe. One man roughly knocked you off your feet as he made his way past you in line. Large hands caught you before you hit the ground and became the new stomping mat of the riot slowly starting to come about.

Satoru straightened you up. He gripped your shoulders to steady you, and he said, “We gotta get out of here now.”

“And go where?”

Satoru could barely hear your response. But he didn’t have to. He knew you, and he knew you’d ask the most logical question there was to utter amidst the chaos.

“We’ll find-”

His words, which held no meaning anyway, were interrupted by the sound of two gunshots, followed by a fresh explosion of shrieks and cries. People ducked instinctively.

The guard who shot one person in the chest and another in the stomach did so as a way of sending a crystal clear message: calm down and stop trying to enter the shelter, or this is what you’ll get.

Your ex-boyfriend’s blue eyes started to flicker at various things, and you knew what he was doing. He was thinking. It was the face he made while grading poorly-written student essays, or figuring out the best way to apologize to you after showing up an hour past the date-night reservations you made, seeing you stand outside of a fancy restaurant, having eaten without him, a book in hand because you knew he’d screw this up. You were all alone.

All of the guards are distracted right now. I could sneak her in. No . . . if she gets caught, they’ll shoot her. Not to mention she could get trampled just from trying to make it to the front . . . shit.

But where would we go? See if we can find a car and avoid that mess of a highway? Pray the next town over wasn’t somehow hit with whatever the hell ours was hit with? What the hell is going on? No one knows, not really.

Large, skeptical hands turned you around and started to guide you out of the chaotic crowd. It wasn’t easy. Satoru used his height to his advantage, but even he nearly stumbled and fell over more times than he could count.

Your ribs ached from elbows unintentionally slamming into them. The thumping in your head? Well, that was for a number of reasons. Getting hit, being thirsty, and coming to terms with the reality of the situation: there was nowhere for you to go.

—

“I’m just saying. I haven’t seen any dead people. Are we sure this isn’t one big social experiment?” Your words were soft, and without amusement.

Satoru might not have remembered what kind of flowers you preferred, but he recognized the tones of your voice, and you weren’t speaking out of disbelief, rolling your eyes as you chalked it all up to a conspiracy theory, but out of desperate hope.

The smoldering flames of the dying fire that sat between you and Satoru illuminated that very hope in your eyes as you continued to speak.

“J-Just think about it. We all saw the news go on and on about this disease. Next thing we know, everyone in our town is panicking and fleeing, but . . . I just think that for all this outrage, I’d have seen a dead person come back to life and start eating people by now with my own eyes.”

“I have.”

It seemed as if the darkness of the night that surrounded you both, so unsheltered among the side of the open road, had grown all the more dark. Over a day had passed since you both tried to enter the madhouse- no, shelter. It was a shelter.

The neighboring town was still as clean and polished as it had been a week ago, when Satoru strolled down the people-filled streets in his car on the way to his favorite dessert shop.

The only difference was that, now, the only souls that seemed to linger around were his and yours. Not even the souls of the dead that had started to rise, apparently.

Satoru summed up that bittersweet luck to the fact that this town more than likely evacuated before yours did. All of its citizens were, perhaps, the ones who crowded the refugee camp, so much so that the people of your town weren’t allowed entry.

And you had a point.

If it wasn’t for the fact that, before Satoru arrived on your doorstep several days ago, he saw what he saw, he might have found truth in your accusation.

“Who turned? Was it your parents? A friend?”

“A student,” he mumbled.

“Oh.”

Satoru thought that little hum of yours marked the end of the conversation, and the sounds of crackling wood filled the silence for a moment. Then, you continued to ask, “What happened?”

His jaw clenched.

Why would you ask me that? He thought.

“It’s not really a subject for polite conversation,” Satoru said with a seriousness that was quite unusual. Even during past arguments when you begged and prayed and pleaded for him to listen, listen, and listen. To wipe that smug smirk off of his face and fucking listen, never before had he seemed so cold. All the light left his eyes, as if he were the one who died, and not his student.

“All you need to know is that it’s real, just as dangerous as they say, and . . . I don’t think . . .” he paused, as if to choose his next words carefully. “I think that, come sunrise, we should prioritize finding weapons just as much as food and water. It might even be more important.”

“What? No way. Weapons are important, but it’s been days since the so-called outbreak, I haven’t seen one, so . . . maybe they aren’t all that common. We might have a better chance of coming across a wild bear, so I think the knife I grabbed from my kitchen will be just fine. Food first.”

“Your dull knives could barely even chop through an onion. If that’s all the protection we have, we’re as good as dead.”

“Okay, since you’re an expert on apocalypses," you yawned, lying down on the cold, hard patch of grass beside the road, “why didn’t you think to grab any weapons before grabbing your ex?”

“I’m a high school teacher, not part of the military. What weapons did you think I would’ve had?”

“That old baseball bat in your garage, your kitchen knives which, apparently, are oh so sharp and cool, um . . . a leg off of your dining room table, anything. But, you were too focused on being a hero, hm?”

“Alright, I get it.” Satoru rolled up the sleeves of his dirty, unbuttoned blue shirt. “You wish I left you behind, you don’t want anything to do with me, blah blah blah-”

“See? You’re a grown man saying blah blah blah, dismissing my feelings, and you wonder why I’d rather take my chances on my own.”

“You know, I didn’t drag you out of your house and force you into my car. You came out of your own free will.”

You frowned. “Well, I’m not an idiot, am I? I’m forever pissed at you, but I’m not stupid enough to turn down a ride out of a town falling apart. I thought that once we found a safe place, it would be safe enough for us to split up, but that didn’t work out, sooo here I am, still stuck with you until we do find a safe place and I can say goodbye to you forever, because, like I said, I’m not an idiot.”

It was silent for a moment. You wanted to break eye contact with him. Let your words reign true, that was it, that was that.

But you could only stare at the sadness suddenly possessing his dirty face. The corner of his lips pointed downward. His eyes glistened as if tears would fall from them with the simplest blink. “You hate me that much?” He whispered. “Were you that miserable with me?”

“I wasn’t miserable with you, I was miserable without you. You were never there when I needed you.”

“I’m here now.”

“I don’t need or want you now.”

“Yes, you do.” Satoru darted his gaze down to the dying flames. “You just admitted that you need me until you find a safe place. You’re using me, and I’m just gonna let you, ‘cause I know if I don’t, you’ll die.”

“You think I’d die without you? The high school teacher who couldn’t even remember to call me back, show up for dates, or that it was my birthday until late at night when you finally would piece together why I’d been rolling my eyes at you all day long? Please. Being with you for now is better than being alone, but I’d do just fine without you. Always have.”

You rolled over then, but the conversation wasn’t quite finished. Satoru’s voice that sounded from behind you took on a tone so dark, so low — it was almost frightening.

“You really don’t get it. Guess it’s ‘cause you haven’t seen it before, yeah? People are getting sick, slowly dying, slowly losing every part of themselves, but not all at once. They come back from the dead and can still kinda piece together who they are at first, but all of that gets overshadowed by this desire to eat people. I went to check on my student who hadn’t been to school for a while. Our families are close and whatnot, so I was worried about him. He was sick. Everyone thought it was the flu. But when I showed up, he was sitting at his desk, dead. Chest wasn’t moving. He was just . . . dead. And you know how good of a student he was? Even though he was sick, he was still trying to finish his essay. I saw the stupid pieces of paper underneath his head. He, uh, he was dead, but, after a while, we saw him start to move. I thought that, maybe, his body was just naturally trying to fall out of the chair, ya know? Oh, was I wrong. He stood up. His eyes opened, he turned around, and he came straight for me. I had to . . . anyway, after, I thought it was weird that, even though his parents and sister were closer, he came straight for me. Then, I looked down, and I saw that his essay was in his hands. He might have been trying to eat me, but I think . . . I think in Megumi’s mind, he thought he was just giving his teacher his essay.” Satoru saw your body stiffen as he recounted his tale. His misery. “Point is, it took all of my strength, his step-mom’s, and his dad’s, to get him off of me, and he had been freshly turned for not even thirty seconds. I can’t imagine the strength and bloodlust of one that’s been turned longer. So, for you to say you don’t need or want me because of relationship drama that no longer matters in the face of all this goddamn bullshit is ridiculous.”

You wanted to move your body, as the hard ground you tried to imagine was your warm bed had started to make your bone ache terribly, but despite the warm weather, it felt as though your limbs were frozen. His words, paralyzing.

“You treated me like shit when all I tried to do was love you. What happens when I’m the one slowing you down? What happens if we’re low on food and there isn’t enough for both of us? You keep saying it doesn’t matter anymore, but you expect me to believe the man who always forgot about me will have my back now?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to bed.”

Despite your words, you rose from the ground, messy boots scraping against the rocky grass as you started to walk away.

“Woah, woah, where are you going?” Satoru hopped up.

“Just further down the road. I think you and I could benefit from a little distance,” you said, stepping away from him.

He reached out to grab your wrist. “Now you’re just being stupid-”

“Oh, fuck off, Satoru! I’m an adult, I can do what I want!” The explosion of anger scared you more than it scared him. The rise of every bit of heartbreak you still hadn’t yet healed from had bubbled to the surface, and you snatched your wrist away from him as if his touch burned your skin. “I bet you’re happy about this situation because you have a chance to force me back into your life and treat me like your little fucking pet again, but you know what? Here.” You reached for your bags. By now, your supplies and his supplies had become one, mixed together in either bag, because, well, you were together, after all. But you started to toss everything that he claimed as his out of your backpack. “Take your stale crackers, your fucking clothes, your stupid photo album, just take it all back. I’m done.”

You slung your bag over your shoulder, not bothering to close it.

He tried to call your name, tried to grab ahold of you, but you wouldn’t have it. And he couldn’t force you to stay put, could he? You were no longer his.

Satoru stared at the fire well into the night, long enough for a reasonable amount of time to pass in which you’d hopefully cool off.

It was no different than sitting on the couch, waiting until you unlocked the bedroom door after one of his great, big, fuck-ups.

He stood and started walking. It was quite dark beyond the small fire he created. The only other light that guided his path shone down upon him from the full moon, but it was barely enough.

He didn’t expect you to come back to his spot. You said you were going to sleep. But he couldn’t even blink properly out of the pure anxiety crawling up his throat over not knowing your whereabouts.

I’m just gonna check on her, get yelled at probably, then I’ll go back to my spot, he thought.

But with every step he took in the direction you stomped off in, he only saw trees. The road. Grass. The moon. The stars.

Never you.

He called your name quite a few times, but nothing came of it. Only chirping crickets answered him.

—

Walking was a great way to work through one’s stress, so they say. That was how you found yourself entering the abandoned, picturesque town in the dead of night, around two or three miles up the road.

You couldn’t remember entering an abandoned library. Perhaps, with the cloud of anger hanging over you, you no longer thought about the state of the world. You only knew a library or bookstore was often your source of comfort during dark moments, and much to your surprise, the doors to this one opened with one tug of your arm.

There was an awkward maneuver of slinging your bag around and digging through it to fetch your flashlight — the moon and stars no longer able to service you, not in here — but you got it, flicked it on, and there it was.

A countless amount of dusty novels that were left behind by their townsfolk in search of food or medicine. You grabbed one without bothering to check for the author or an eye-catching synopsis. Anything would do. Absolutely anything.

The carpeted floor seemed cozy enough. Warm enough. You sat down nearest one of the bookcases, shone your flashlight upon the inked words, and started to read.

Half an hour had passed before you were awakened by the sounds of groans and growls. You dozed off while reading. Waking up in a rather disorienting state with complete blackness surrounding you made you forget what kind of noises you heard. You only remembered that you heard something.

“‘Toru?” You called out softly.

Some noises sounded human. As in, the poor soul making those noises hadn’t yet been too far gone. But some had. Some were no longer capable of making noises that resembled the person they once were. But in truth, as you grabbed your flashlight and shone it forward, the small herd of people — no, these weren’t people — they were monsters. Animals. Dead. Hungry. Able to rip you apart limb from limb, and they made their way into the library through the door you forgot to shut behind you, and started to approach you.

“Oh my god,” you cried, tossing your trembling hand over your mouth.

You started to scramble to your feet. No time to search for that dull kitchen knife.

“Run!”

The shout belonged to Satoru. You knew it. But you couldn’t pinpoint his location, not daring to snatch your flashlight away from the ungodly things headed right for you.

Going through the entrance was impossible — that was their way in.

Your only hope was for another exit — it was a public building. There had to be another.

With your unwelcomed company on your tail, you tried to find a door, an exit sign, anything, but you could barely breathe. Barely think.

Being afraid was an understatement.

“Don’t stop moving!”

The shout came from above you, towards the right. You saw him.

The library building itself was rather beautiful, as it had two floors, the second with an all-around balcony that let one browse for more books, while also peering over onto the first floor. That was where Satoru was. Watching the entire thing from above.

He tried tossing books, dying plants — even a reading chair — over the balcony to draw them away from you, and it worked for some, but not all. Not most.

He would have kept going, but then, you shouted, amidst your aimless running, “they’re behind you!”

Those words would have, should have, sent a wave of panic through him, making his knees want to buckle, create the urge to throw up his insides, or drain the color from his skin. And while those things happened, it wasn’t because you alerted him to his own company on the second floor, but it was because the moonlight shining through the windows of the library allowed him to see the herd start to back you into a corner.

“No.” The cry slipped out from between his quivering lips.

You cried his name. Not his full name, but the nickname you adored whenever you felt needy or frightened. He thought it was because of your impending doom, but in truth, it was because he was about to meet a similar fate.

He felt hands grace the back of his shirt, but there were too many around him, just as there were too many around you.

Just too many.

You watched as Satoru vanished into the herd grabbing at his clothes and limbs, unable to fight them off.

And he watched as your figure vanished, and the other herd piled on top of you. And they started to feast.

— FOUR YEARS LATER —

The world no longer resembled the civilization or society it once knew. Overgrown grass and vines had started to climb most buildings, and said buildings were all trashed, abandoned, and picked apart by desperate survivors.

But the people — the last of those who hadn’t been eaten or turned — they were worse. Empty shells of the person they used to be before the world went to shit.

That was the reason why you treated every stranger like an enemy. As far as you were concerned, they were.

The woods were peaceful today. Leaves were changing colors, representing the arrival of the fall season. The thought of trying to survive another winter sent a shiver up your spine, but you couldn’t worry about that right now.

Only on how to make it to tomorrow.

If my traps didn’t catch anything, that’ll mark day three of going to sleep hungry, you thought. Nothing new, I suppose.

Suddenly, you heard a leaf crunch.

You drew your gun instantly, gripping the small weapon with both hands.

A figure moved past one of the trees, catching your eye, and they were much too fast to be one of those damned monsters. It was a human.

He appeared in front of you — or rather, in front of the barrel of your gun — in an instant, halting his footsteps, startled, as if he hadn’t expected to run into anything or anyone out here in the woods, as if the world was still a somewhat safe place.

“Drop it.” You said lowly to the unfamiliar man, eyeing the knife in his right hand.

“There’s no way-”

“I said to fucking drop it!” You cut him off, stepping closer. One wrong move, and you’d fire a bullet in his head.

“Okay, okay.” The man tossed the knife to the ground, but he never snatched his eyes away from you. And they weren’t necessarily filled with fear, but rather, shock. “It’s me, Satoru. Don’t you-”

“Turn around.”

“Please, you gotta recognize-”

“Turn around.” You grabbed him, turning him around yourself. And he let you. Despite the advantage he had in strength and height, he didn’t fight. You chalked it up to you being armed. “Shut up and don’t move,” you ordered.

You gave him a quick, one-handed pat down before removing the bag he carried.

You cautiously stepped away from him, his back still turned, and you opened it, dumping out the nonsensical items that fell onto the orange leaves and dirt.

He has nothing of value, you thought, flipping through his belongings. What would I kill and rob him for? A book and a photo album?

Suddenly, the man spoke.

And it was a call of your name.

Your eyes widened, and you rose to your feet to see him turning around, his hands in the air.

You were quick to press the gun against his chest.

He took a step back. “Easy, easy-”

“How the hell do you know my name?”

Sadness as clear as day was evident in his eyes. His ears and cheeks had gone red. Whatever was upsetting him had wrecked him so much so, he looked like a kid, or a kicked puppy. “Because it’s me. Satoru Gojo. We dated years ago, remember? I got you out of your hometown when the outbreak started four years ago. We got separated, and I thought . . . I can’t believe you’re alive. Please, baby, you gotta believe me. You gotta recognize me,” a tear rolled down his cheek, not a result of being close to death, but from being forgotten. He nodded at the book of photos on the ground. “Look through the photo album.”

You had seen your fair share of crazy, unstable individuals, but he seemed somewhat normal. His words were unsettling, as if they rattled some buried truth within your core, creating butterflies or nausea — you couldn’t tell the difference — in your stomach.

So you did as he instructed.

You crouched down, gun still in hand, and flipped it open.

There were pictures of the man with people who looked like him. People who didn’t. And someone who looked like you. She had your features, but she was clean. Grinning. Her eyes hadn’t yet grown dark. You, before it happened.

There were more photographs, and every single one forced a memory into your head at an unforgivable pace. Birthdays. Car rides. Pictures he took of you without your knowledge.

You laughed sadly, shaking your head. “I, um . . . I don’t rule out any weird shit nowadays, but if I remember correctly, the man in these pictures got eaten alive. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“No, I didn’t die. I’m here,” Satoru approached you. “There was a-a door behind me. I was able to open it, go down some stairs, and leave. I came around the building, but you were gone. All I saw was them dining on someone and your shoe, all covered in blood and, I heard you call me ‘Toru, which you only do when you’re scared. How the hell are you alive? How?”

You rose to your feet. “Shoe fell off. Dead guy on the floor behind me. Just tossed him at them and ran for it. No big deal.” You started to walk away. “Bye.”

“Wait, what?” Satoru grabbed his backpack and tossed his dumped belongings inside before he jogged in front of you, making you halt your steps. “You’re leaving? I thought you were dead for years, and you thought the same thing about me. We can’t just go our separate ways now, c’mon.”

“Just because we knew each other once doesn’t mean we still do.” You clenched your gun as some sort of warning. “So get out of my sight before I change my mind about letting you live.”

“Please, baby-”

“Don’t call me that. My memory’s working just fine now. I didn’t want anything to do with you then, and that same logic applies. You’re traveling out here with no food or water. Your clothes aren’t torn to shreds. T-shirt looks pretty clean. Your hair looks like someone trimmed it up for you recently. I’m willing to bet you found a nice group of people to settle down somewhere with, and you haven’t known true struggle since this entire thing started.” Your hands started to tremble. There was anger glistening in your eyes, so intense, he didn’t recognize it as you continued to speak. “And you think . . . you think I’m going to follow you anywhere? No. I’ve been tricked like this a coupla times, Satoru. Too many people who were up to something inhumane have done and tried to do the same fucking thing you’re doing now, and I’m not falling for it again. Now leave. I’m keeping this gun pointed in your direction until you’re so far away, I start to forget about you again.”

“I would never, ever hurt you. I’m begging you to believe me.”

“Seems like you’re begging for death to me-”

There was another leaf crunch. Multiple.

I knew it, you thought. This was a setup. His people are here.

You saw the figures moving in the distance. And in an instant, you felt like that girl from three years ago, one who was all lost, alone, cold, hungry, and trusted the wrong group who approached her.

But not again.

You pushed Satoru down, only able to do so because he too had turned to inspect the noise, and once he hit the ground, you ran into the ever-changing trees.

Your footsteps only came to a halt when you heard those familiar groans and growls.

It wasn’t his group.

Guilt started to swirl around in your stomach, and you turned, but not to help. To watch, unsure of what you were hoping the outcome would be.

Satoru managed to get to his feet and grab his knife.

With great skill, with great, unwanted practice, he stabbed the hungry, dead bodies circling him in their skulls. He’d yank it out, blood would spew, and he’d do it again, and again, all as if it was a simply as washing dishes, blood soaking his clothes instead of soapy water.

Once the last one hit the ground, you turned away, only to come face to face with one that wasn’t among the crowd Satoru slaughtered.

You killed it rather easily with the knife you kept tucked in your belt loop.

But, by then, Satoru was within your line of sight, unsmiling.

His blood-covered chest heaved from exhaustion. But you couldn’t help but assume anger was also a reason.

He took a step in your direction. His blue, wide eyes locked with yours.

Suddenly, he charged.

You thought he was coming for you.

He was fast, fast enough to let you know that if he wanted to hurt you, he truly could have, so long as you didn’t have your gun. What a horrifying realization.

But when you felt a rough hand grace your shoulder from behind, you realized just as Satoru stuck his knife in the head of another zombie what his true intentions were: saving your life.

There was no time for thanks or for arguments, as more of them started to appear, ruining the atmosphere of the woods you once found peaceful.

You and Satoru ran alongside one another, making your way into the nearest town.

—

Perhaps it was guilt. Perhaps it was the curiosity of wanting to know the person whom you couldn’t remember until today.

But you hadn’t yet told Satoru to leave your side well after you escaped the herd, and as you both broke into an abandoned retail store for shelter, you were the one to speak first.

“I thought those were people. Your people. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” he said simply, moving in through the front door behind you.

“I also didn’t consider helping you once I realized they weren’t,” you shone your flashlight over the broken candles and glass. “I was fine with letting you die.”

“It’s okay.”

“But you came back to save me.”

“That’s what happens when you’re still the person I love most in the entire world, I take it.”

His words made you turn around, shining the harsh light in his face, but he continued, even with a little smile upon his blood-covered face. “And I’m the person you hate the most, still.”

You put your backpack on the ground nearest a shelf of scented lotions. “It’s getting late. We can move some of these display tables and shelves and block the door, spend the night here, and go our separate ways in the morning.”

“Where are you headed?” He asked, starting to clear off one of the tables.

You didn’t answer. You only stared at him with great suspicion.

“Hey, I’m only asking because you were wrong about me not knowing what it’s really like out here, but you were right about me being with a group. I found some old coworkers and students of mine. We lost a lot of people, but some of us are still holding on, tough bastards. You might even recognize some of them from back home, you know. And, well, we don’t have an all-you-can-eat buffet going, but we do have food and clean water. Clothes too. Soap.”

You nodded in the direction of the singular soap bar left behind on one of the shelves. “And so does this place.”

“You need a group-”

“No!” You suddenly shouted, making Satoru halt his movements all at once. “Never again. People are worse than those fucking monsters. Now stop begging me, or else I’ll shoot you. I’ll shoot you and think nothing of it, swear I will.”

Satoru didn’t say another word after that. He only helped you block the doors, watched you go through the picked-over store merchandise, and wondered what the hell happened to his ex-girlfriend. But he’d never ask.

—

The festering tension had died down after you both cleaned your bodies with the very little water you could allot for bathing, and the bar of soap you found.

However, today felt like Christmas. Because, underneath the counter that formerly served as a register, there was a protein bar. You imagined that it belonged to an employee who liked to sneak snacks when their managers weren’t looking, but it didn’t matter. It was here.

Old and expired, but better than nothing.

You unwrapped the stale, nutty bar, and split it in half, handing some to Satoru.

“I’m all good here,” he shook his head.

“So confident you’ll make it back to your group safely that you’ll pass up on food now? You’re just as stupid as you were when we got separated.”

“Why would I take away food from someone who doesn’t know where their next meal will come from?” Satoru looked at you. “I mean, I know where mine is. Next meal, next bath, we even have mattresses . . .”

“What did I just say?”

“Nah ah, no shooting.” Satoru waved his finger at you, grinning. “You brought it up this time, baby.”

“It amazes me that you’re still alive,” you rolled your eyes, biting into your dinner.

“Shocks me too,” Satoru’s face took on a somber expression you could barely make out within the darkness. “Especially after I thought I lost you for good. I was kinda looking for ways to die, you know? I’m one lucky fool.”

“Why do you say things like that?”

“Huh?”

“Losing me couldn’t have impacted your life that much.” You took another bite, your last one before saving the rest for later. “I don’t understand you. If I was . . . if I am . . . the person you love most, why’d you treat me that way? Why did the world have to end for you to finally see me?”

Satoru sighed, but not out of annoyance. “I guess I took advantage of having you in my life. I thought that I could be an idiot, and you’d stay. I was one of those people who thought that the only bad things someone could do in a relationship was cheat or hit their partner, and so I figured, since I wasn’t doing any of those things and just missed a few dinners and anniversaries, then you and I were fine. See? A goddamn fool. But I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“It doesn’t matter.” You shrugged.

“Yes, it does. I was wrong to tell you it didn’t matter back then. And you’re wrong to say it doesn’t matter now, ‘cause it does. Yeah, we’re living in hell, but I was putting you through hell long before now, and I didn’t realize it. I’m going to risk my life and say this one last time, but I need you to come back to my camp with me. I can’t just walk away from you come sunrise.”

“No.”

“Then let me come with you.”

You widened your tired eyes. “Are you crazy?”

“Yes. So, whaddya say?” He smiled.

“I won’t let you give up on something as rare and as precious as your little safe place for me.”

“Fineee,” Satoru shifted his position, hitting his backpack as if fluffing a pillow before lying down on it. “Then I guess you’ll just have to kill me. I mean, I’m just gonna follow you no matter where you go, I swear I am, so . . .”

“Just . . .” you paused. “Just shut up and go to bed.”

“Yes ma’am.”

The drastic drop in temperature throughout the night was the first sign of an approaching winter. Finding warmer clothes was on your eventual to-do list, but damn it, as you shivered, you couldn’t help but wish you had prioritized it.

What the hell is the matter with me? I’ve survived too long to act like an idiot now. I blame Satoru, you thought as you started to rise, thinking that even lighting a few of the abandoned candles might have offered a little bit of warmth, when suddenly, you felt a strong arm wrap around your waist.

Satoru pulled you close until your back hit his chest.

Only when he felt your body stiffen did he realize — did he remember — holding you close wasn’t something he was allowed to do. Not anymore.

“Sorry, I’m sorry. I saw you shivering and-” Satoru whispered from behind you. “Nothing but instinct. I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.”

Your response was surprising. He expected another death threat. But he didn’t question it. Instead, he stroked the back of your cold hands with his warmer ones.

It wasn’t long before he heard a couple of sniffles rather than snores.

“Are you crying?” He asked softly.

“No,” you sniffled. “Shut up.”

“What’s wrong? Talk to me.” What a stupid question. Most people cried every day, if they lived to see another day.

“I just haven’t been held in years. I don’t remember the last time I even hugged someone.”You snuggled closer against him, and Satoru’s heart started to melt. “It’s no big deal. Just go to sleep.”

— TWO DAYS LATER —

He meant what he said. Satoru Gojo was on your heel like a lost puppy. And though your journey was a far cry from the luxury he was used to — access to basic necessities in truth, but a luxury four years into the end of the world — he never stopped grinning. Never complained. He bore it all with a smile: the hunger, the dirt, the exhausting walks, running for his life, killing, killing, killing.

“I changed my mind.”

Your words broke a comfortable silence, one that accompanied the gorgeous view of the autumn trees from the cliffside hill you both sat upon, nearest the fire he roasted a piece of fish above. It was so beautiful, watching the sunset. Breath-taking. So much so, Satoru hadn’t fully grasped your words until you spoke again, claiming the spot next to him.

“I’ll go back to your camp with you.”

“Really?” Satoru tried to hide the excitement and relief he felt, but it was impossible. He was nearly jumping out of his boots.

“I feel guilty,” you shrugged, then eyed his state. His messy hair, dirty clothes, ripped pants — which would have been fine had the world been normal and fashion trends mattered, but out here, when one needed all the warmth they could get, ripped clothing was a disaster waiting to happen. “It’s been two days, and you’re already a mess, Satoru. If I can’t get you to give up on sticking with me, then, camp it is. I can’t stand feeling like I’m killing you slowly.”

“Can’t stand it, hm?” He grinned, pleased with the fact that wasn’t always so obvious: you cared about him. “I’m glad you changed your mind, but if I die out here, it’s on me, not you.”

You gave a hum in response. You couldn’t help but fidget with your fingers. After all, the idea of being in another camp with other people frightened you more than anything else nowadays. But the idea of having access to things you once took for granted? The idea of, maybe, just maybe, being able to talk to someone or have a meal that was somewhat decently sized — the idea of being around him? With him?

You couldn’t help but stare at him for a while. He looked up, catching your gaze, though you tried to slickly flicker your eyes down at the fish.

“How many fish were you able to catch?” You asked.

He smiled, deciding not to comment on your lingering stare. But, oh, how he wished it lasted longer. “Just one for now. I’ll give you the bigger half.”

“No, split it evenly.”

“You got it.” Satoru pulled the cooked fish out of the fire. With a cleaned knife, he split it, but the portions were drastically uneven.

He gave you a piece of fish so big, you had to wonder, for a moment, if he had bothered to cut it at all.

“Here you go, your half of the fish,” he said.

“This looks like a bit more than half,” you held it up, inspecting the hot meat with a little smile.

“Huh? I can’t hear you.” Satoru hid his tiny portion in his big hands as he moved it to the side of a log, as if to prevent you from comparing, but then, he noticed something. Something as rare as a shooting star. “Was that a smile? Did I just see you smile?”

You tried to wipe the grin off your face and turn away from him.

“Nuh uh, don’t turn away, I wanna see it again.”

“Absolutely not.” You placed the fish down on the log in front of you. You couldn’t eat just this second, not when butterflies were swirling around in your stomach.

You started to fidget with your hands again. God, this was silly. You felt like a giggly schoolgirl rather than a survivor of the apocalypse, much like you once did when you first met all those years ago, when he was the guy at the bookstore purchasing a few copies of the mandatory novels his students had to read for those who were less fortunate and couldn’t get access to them as easily. He wasn’t allowed to do that. Hell, he wasn’t even an English teacher, but he did it anyway.

Then he saw you. Purchased the three novels in your hand for you all the while wondering if he should take up the part-time job as a bartender he had been eyeing lately, all to keep up with the book shopping habit of the girl he had just learned the name of. That day, he spoke to you in ways that had you acting similarly to how you did now. A lovesick fool.

Suddenly, you felt fingers press against your waist. A couple of days ago, you would have sliced the hand of anyone who dared to touch you that way, but around him, you could relax. You could breathe, and just be.

“Satoru!” You whisper-shouted, choking back the urge to giggle as you flinched.

“You’re still ticklish?” He did it again, and there it was. The sound that was a foreign concept for anyone nowadays. A laugh.

“Yes!” You giggled. “It’s not something that just goes away!”

He looked for any signs that you wanted him to stop, but when he saw that your eyes were practically begging him to keep going, as if the windows to your soul showcased what you so desperately needed — affection, a good laugh, some sort of happiness — he gently, yet swiftly, got you onto your back, practically straddling you as he continued to tickle your sides.

“Oh, I-I’m getting you back for this,” you gasped for breath, laughing, playfully trying to swat his hands away, but not really putting in any effort. “Just you wait!”

What came next was a result of his love and affection for you, a result of seeing you laugh and smile and him thinking, she’s so beautiful.

Satoru leaned over and kissed your cheek.

You froze. He froze.

“Shit, I’m sorry. It was, um . . . instinct again,” he blushed. He was starting to move away from you, but you suddenly grabbed hold of his wrist.

“Wait, it’s fine,” you were unable to look him in the eye as you said, “you can do it again.”

Soft lips pressed against your skin yet again, lingering, wanting more.

He moved his lips a little closer to your jaw.

“Can I kiss you here as well?” He whispered with an eagerness he tried to hide, but failed to.

“Yes.”

“Where all can I kiss you?”

“Anywhere. Everywhere.”

His other hand cupped the side of your head. You found yourself leaning into his palm, all the while his lips trailed kisses along the side of your neck.

“Satoru, don’t tease me. It’s been too long.”

“I won’t baby, promise.”

—

For the first time in years, your skin knew something other than bruises. Hickeys decorated it as if Satoru wanted to mark you as his.

He pulled your naked frame closer to the fire for warmth, used his bag as a cushion for your head, and one hand gripped your ass in a way that made every thrust feel that much deeper, and his other held you against him, as if your body touching the floor of the woods was a sin.

His thick cock pumped in and out of you with a familiar rhythm he remembered you once loving. Pretty moans slipped from between your lips in such a way that he almost hated the idea of kissing you, but he dreaded the idea of not doing so even more. It took you by surprise — his mouth melting against yours, shutting you up in the best possible way, but he too moaned when your wet tongues started to swirl around each other.

“Can’t hold it long,” he whispered into your mouth, though the warning wasn’t needed, as the way his hips bucked with loosening restraint was a telltale sign that he was about to cum. And if you remembered one thing about Satoru Gojo, it was that he liked to make a mess, pump you full over and over again until he was certain your warm hole had milked him dry.

He gave another thrust, one that had you both seeing stars, and not the ones that glistened in the sky behind his messy hair, but the ones that came when he angled his cock just right.

“Mmm, right there, oh god,” he moaned, pulling his hips back before driving his cock in again. “You like it too, huh?”

His hand released your ass, and instead, gripped the surrounding grass as if the ground itself could ground him.

“Fuck,” he swore, and quickened his pace. “Cum for me, baby.”

“Please, please, Satoru.”

You begged for something, you didn’t know what exactly, but it wasn’t long before a rather powerful orgasm washed over you. Your toes curled, sweat dripped across your forehead, and that explosion of pleasure knocked every bit of sense out of you as your nails scratched up his muscular back.

He didn’t stop, though. Your thrashing frame was only held against him tighter by his other arm. Chest to chest. All you could feel was him. Him, him, him. And as you came, he returned his lips to yours, claiming your mouth with his own, swallowing your moans, all while fucking you through your orgasm.

His own came next. But first, he pressed you against the ground. He then hooked his hands underneath your knees, raising them, pumped and pumped and moaned and pumped some more, all until he finally fucked you and himself silly, so silly that he wasn’t certain he’d ever stop cumming. You felt too good.

No part of you ever had to wonder if Satoru only wanted sex. Not when, afterwards, he held you close, exchanging soft, sweet kisses with you as if you two were a happy couple warm in a bed.

“No, I’m serious,” Satoru laughed softly. “I am-I was a teacher, but I can’t tell the difference between a crocodile and an alligator. I mean, who cares when you should be running away from it anyway?”

“You can tell by, um, their snouts, I think. Oh, did you know moose are way bigger than most people think they are?”

“I did, yeah. I also heard there’s this huge debate over whether or not dinosaurs are bigger or smaller than the media portrays ‘em to be.”

“Have you heard the theory about dinosaurs having feathers?”

“I remember some students of mine talking about that. Wouldn’t surprise me.”

Your mindless, simple chatter went on, on, and on, well into the night when you both fell asleep in each other's arms, safe.

—

Satoru awakened to the rising sun, fading smoke from a long-gone fire, forgotten, cooked fish, and you, frowning down at him.

“Someone frowning the morning after isn’t a good sign,” he said, sitting up, yawning. “And here I remember someone cumming all over-”

“Aht, aht, aht. Enough.” You coughed. I can’t believe that’s your first sentence as soon as you wake up. But I’m frowning because it just hit me that you didn’t pull out. I’m imagining the worst-case scenario.”

Satoru rose to his feet, stretching his sore limbs. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t miss his mattress. He could only hope his friends didn’t give it away, thinking he was dead and long gone — not that he’d blame them.

“At the camp, we have a doctor there, goes by Shoko. I’m sure she could help with all kinds of scenarios,” Satoru’s face was blank, unrevealing to what scenarios he could have been imagining.

You scratched the side of your head. “What else do you guys have?”

“Books.” Satoru, who reached into his backpack and waved the red, thick novel at you, continued, “More than this one you’ve been eyeing.”

“You’re joking.” Your eyes widened a bit.

“No joke, baby. We’ve got everything from classics to shitty romantasy.” He put the book back in his bag, making a mental note to hand it to you later on once you both could settle down once again. But right now, you had to keep moving. “But, uh, I don’t think anyone’s been breaking into any libraries since this all started, ‘cept you, of course. Why don’t you have any?”

You stood, grabbing your belongings, including the uneaten fish. “I’m always on the move with limited space. The only things I can afford to carry are what I need to survive. Plus, the last book I had fell into a river. I didn’t get to finish-” you cleared your throat. “To finish-”

False alarm. There wasn’t a little something caught in your throat. It was a full on coughing fit.

“Here, drink some water,” Satoru hurriedly reached into his bag for his bottle. “Sit down.”

It was hard to hear him over your own coughs. But he sounded calm. Probably because you both instantly ran over every scenario in your head that could result in such a coughing spell from you, but as far as you both could remember, you hadn’t been bitten. You weren’t infected. You were healthy.

“Don’t look at me like that, I’m fine,” you said, shaking your head at his offer of water. “People cough sometimes. Let’s keep moving.”

—

There came a point during your trek through the ruins of a city with skyscraper buildings in which Satoru was ahead of you.

“So, about the book in my backpack, I’ll give it to you, but, in exchange, I want you to call me ‘Toru at least ten times a day. You only do it when you’re scared, but I wanna hear it more often. How does that sound?” He said with a grin.

But when his annoying behavior wasn’t met with a response, his smile faded.

He turned around to face you, and that’s when he saw it. The way your limbs trembled. The way your chest heaved.

“Baby?” He called out with great worry.

You suddenly collapsed.

Your body hit the ground hard, much too fast for him to catch you. He rushed to your side, falling to his knees and ignoring the ache such a move shot through his legs.

“Baby, wake up. Come on, wake up.” He shook your shoulder.

Just as his hand touched your cheek, your eyes snapped open.

“Wh-what . . .”

Your words were nonsensical. You looked around, rather startled, and felt Satoru press his hand against your forehead.

“It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re burning up.” He sat you up, but the movement made you flinch. Satoru figured that, perhaps, it was because of your fall. Until your hand gripped your shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” He asked.

“There’s an ache in my shoulder.”

If something was wrong, I would’ve seen it last night, right? Satoru thought as he slowly removed your clothes, just enough to see you from behind. I would’ve seen it last night.

The back of your shoulder was exposed to him.

Or, rather, the big, festering wound was. It was red. Angry. Infected.

The same conditions were more commonly seen around bite marks, so much so, it was difficult to remember that scratches from those damned monsters were just as deadly. Having to slice off the hand of his pink-haired former student just to save his life, all because he had gotten bit just along his palm and he needed to act quickly to stop the infection from spreading sealed the memory of the symptoms into Satoru’s mind forever. And he was seeing it yet again.

But he couldn’t slice off this body part, not that it would help. You had been infected for too long, and he knew it, because as he stared at the scratch that, in itself, was barely visible to the naked eye, he remembered where it came from.

“The other day. After we reunited,” he whispered in shock. “There was one of ‘em behind you. I killed it, but it must’ve scratched your shoulder. I wasn’t fast enough. No, this can’t be happening. I just found you. I just found you. No . . . no, we can fix this.”

You started to tremble. “It’s just a scratch, maybe I’ll be fine if I just take some antibiotics or . . .” You shook your head at your own words. You knew that wasn’t how this worked. You laughed bitterly. “It’s just a scratch. I’m going to die . . . from a scratch. I’m gonna die-”

Satoru was in front of you in a flash. He cupped your face, though he was the one with tears streaming down his cheeks. “Look at me, baby. Shoko, that doctor I was telling you about, is brilliant. She’s the smartest person I’ve ever met. If we hurry, maybe we can get to her in time, and she can do something.”

It was wishful thinking. An idiotic mindset. You sniffled. “‘Toru, I don’t know.”

“We have to try, yeah?” Satoru helped you adjust your clothes and guided you to your feet. “Come on, let’s go. Can you stand up?”

—

You walked for a while until walking became difficult.

Satoru carried you for a while until even resting against his back became difficult.

It was night time, the woods as dark as ever, when you started coughing again. This time, blood came with it, spewing from between your lips and across Satoru’s shoulder, decorating his shirt in red specks.

The coughing was endless. He stopped walking, lowered you against a tree, and pulled out his water.

Your only responsibility was to drink as many sips as you could while he built a fire. You watched him do it, his brows pinched in dread and concentration. Perhaps, realization as well.

Satoru appeared in front of you again, able to see your face clearly now, and thus, your bloodshot eyes, dried, blood-covered lips, and sweaty skin.

“I don’t wanna die,” you whispered.

He could barely hear you. You didn't have enough energy to speak properly. He knew — he knew — even if Shoko could do something — and she couldn’t, or else Yuji Itadori would still have both hands, Nobara Kugisaki would still have an eye, and Kento Nanami would still be alive — you would never make it back to the camp.

He wasn’t certain if you’d make it through the night.

And the thought of that made him wish he was dead, because he couldn’t fucking stand it.

Satoru gently pulled you close, holding your trembling frame against his chest. He too was shaking. Kissing the top of your head, he said, “I’ll hold you the entire time. I promise.”

“But I’ll hurt you. I’ll-I’ll kill you,” you cried softly, soaking his shirt. “I don’t wanna turn into one of those things. Please don’t let me. Kill me before then.”

Suddenly, Satoru heard familiar groans and growls in the distance.

He leaned you back against the tree, eyeing the direction it came from as he pulled out his knife.

“Stay right here, I’ll be right back.”

“No,” you tried to reach for his shirt with the intent to tug on it and stop him, but you missed him entirely, swiping at the air instead. “I should handle it. I’m dead anyway. ‘Toru, please-”

You started to cough again. Blood spilled out onto your chin, and that was all the confirmation Satoru needed to know you weren’t strong enough — not that he’d let you do it to begin with.

He left to the heartbreaking sound of you weakly calling his name.

The last thing he wanted was to leave your side, but based on the noise, it was only one, and he’ll be damned if you were eaten alive whilst you were already dying. No. he’d make your death as peaceful as possible. Hold you the entire time. Stroke your skin and-

Satoru thrusted his knife into the head of a zombie. This one, though, was a big guy. It was just as tall as he was — well over six feet — but not only did it have the crazy strength that all of those dead creatures possessed, but he had over a hundred pounds on Satoru.

And Satoru’s horrid mental state and lack of concentration didn’t do him any favors. Thus, while he was able to kill it, he didn’t account for how close he was to the edge of a hill, nor that the zombie would fall forward onto him, and send him and itself rolling down the hill.

—

An explosion of pain made his limbs feel like they were on fire. It was a bad fall into what was seemingly a pit at the bottom of that damned hill he rolled down. His head ached, there was blood from him smacking his skull against the ground, but that wasn’t nearly as bad as the weight of that dead thing on top of him, crushing him, and putting pressure on his badly twisted ankle.

Getting out of this pit would have been hell even if he didn’t have the extra obstacles of being injured and trapped.

But he had to get out.

You needed him.

—

It took over an hour.

It was hell. Climbing, crawling, grunting in pain. But he made it to the top of the hill, and upon seeing the flickering flames from the fire he created to keep you warm, he ignored the pain shooting through his body, and half walked, half dragged himself back to you.

He saw the book first.

It was on the ground, flipped open. He almost smiled at the thought of you seeking it out and reading it as best as you could in your condition, as you had been eyeing it since your great reunion, but hadn’t yet asked him for it.

He stepped closer, and that was when he noticed that some of the pages were in fine condition, but once you seemingly made it to page twenty, the inked contents were ripped. Page after page. Nearly shredded. Each one more destroyed than the last.

He heard something rattle.

Satoru darted his eyes over to you. You were digging through his backpack, unaware of his approaching footsteps.

“ . . . ‘Toru,” you called out in a voice he didn’t recognize.

Suddenly, your trembling hands started to pull things out of his bag one by one. You grew more angry, more dissatisfied with every item that wasn’t the one you seeked, tossing things against the ground as you groaned angrily, until finally, you pulled out what you wanted.

His photo album.

He called your name softly, and you froze.

And when you turned to face him, he knew he lost you.

The light in your eyes was completely gone. You smiled at him, but not lovingly. Your blood-soaked teeth shined as you grinned with hunger, that same blood dripping, dripping, dripping from your chin, and just before he could break down and cry at the sight, you launched at him.

It was quite funny. Alive and somewhat well, you had forgotten all about him during the four years you thought he was dead. But in this condition, dead and bloodthirsty, part of you still remembered the man you currently tried to devour. Your dying self must have missed him terribly, coughing up blood as you knew you were going to turn into one of those horrid things, and there was no one by your side.

You died alone, waiting for him. Reading to keep yourself company.

Just as you once did while you waited outside of restaurants for him.

And now, you had been clenching that photo album. All because, even while dead, you wanted ‘Toru.

Tears streamed down his face as he pulled you between his legs, held your wrists with one large hand, then held your head, snapping jaw and all, against his chest.

He broke his promise to hold you earlier. But maybe, if he held you now . . .

“I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

Satoru cried. He released your head for a moment, and you bit his hand, ripping his flesh, but it didn’t matter.

With his bleeding, infected hand, he felt around your hips for the gun within the holster of your pants.

You gave a mixed noise; it was inhuman, the groaning and growling all of those monsters made, but there was something else there. A cry of his name underneath it all.

As tears clouded his blue eyes, blurring his vision, Satoru pressed the gun against your head.

He couldn’t speak anymore. It was too much.

Therefore, he thought, I love you.

The bullet was fired through your skull. Your body went limp in his arms, blood drenching his clothes in such a disturbing way, it freed his mind of any doubts he might have had about his next move.

But there weren’t any, truth be told.

Don’t be scared, you won’t be alone, baby. I’m coming with you, he thought.

When he pressed the hot gun that burned his temple against the side of his forehead, he fired it, as he knew he wanted to die with you from the moment he realized your fate upon looking at your shoulder.

After all, he swore that he’d follow you anywhere, and the brain matter that spewed from his head just before his dead body collapsed on top of yours devastatingly proved it so.

Beside her, Lizzie blinked awake, stretching with a quiet yawn. “Morning,” she murmured, her voice still husky from sleep.

“Morning, love,” Y/N said, leaning down to steal a soft kiss before pulling on her slacks.

“You’ve got your shoot today,” Lizzie said, watching her move around the room with that mix of grace and casual confidence that made her heart squeeze.

“Mm-hm. Big one too — contestants are down to the last few, so I’ll be playing host-slash-head-chef-slash-agent-of-chaos.” Y/N smirked as she buttoned her shirt.

Lizzie propped herself up on her elbows. “Sounds fun… for you.”

“Fun for me, terrifying for them.” Y/N crossed back to the bed, brushing her fingers through Lizzie’s hair. “I’ll probably be home late, so don’t wait up.”

Lizzie smiled faintly, hiding her own little secret. “We’ll see.”

Y/N grabbed her bag from the chair and started toward the door, running through her mental checklist for the day. She was halfway to the hallway when Lizzie’s voice called after her.

“Uh—excuse me, Miss Big-Time Chef,” Lizzie said, sitting up in bed with her arms crossed, “you forgot something.”

Y/N paused, looking back with raised brows. “Did I?”

Lizzie tilted her head, a small pout forming. “Yes. A very important ingredient for my morning.”

Y/N caught on immediately, setting her bag down and walking back to the bed. “Ah. How irresponsible of me,” she murmured. Leaning down, she cupped Lizzie’s jaw and kissed her — slow, warm, and lingering just long enough to make Lizzie hum softly.

When Y/N finally pulled back, Lizzie smiled in victory. “That’s better. Now you can go.”

“Demanding little thing,” Y/N teased, brushing her thumb over Lizzie’s cheek before finally heading out the door.

---

The studio buzzed with energy — cameras rolling, lights beaming down on the sleek counters lined with fresh ingredients. Contestants stood at their stations, some fidgeting nervously, others gripping their knives like lifelines.

One of the judges, a renowned chef with a signature white jacket and booming voice, stepped forward.

“Alright, everyone,” he began, smiling at the camera, “today’s challenge is all about balance — flavor, texture, and presentation. You will be preparing your own take on a classic comfort dish… but with a gourmet twist.”

A murmur swept through the contestants.

The judge continued, “You’ll be working under the watchful eye of none other than Chef Y/N herself. She’ll be here to guide you — or, if you don’t pay attention, to roast you harder than your main course.” The crowd and crew chuckled, and Y/N gave a small smirk from her position at the front.

“But that’s not all,” the judge added, glancing toward the audience seating. “Today, we have a very special guest joining us to savor your dishes.” He paused for dramatic effect. “You may know her as an award-winning actress and a household name… Elizabeth Olsen!”

There was polite applause from the crew and a few gasps from the contestants as Lizzie walked in, all smiles, wearing a casual yet elegant outfit that somehow made her glow even under the harsh studio lights.

Y/N’s eyebrows shot up. “What—” she muttered under her breath, just loud enough for the sound tech to grin.

Lizzie’s eyes met hers from across the set, and she gave a playful, knowing smile — the kind that said surprise, babe.

Y/N didn’t even bother hiding her grin as she walked toward Lizzie. The crew’s cameras tracked her every step, sensing a good moment for the episode.

“Well, well,” Y/N said as she reached her wife, her voice carrying just enough for the mics to pick up. “Guess I’m gonna have to behave today.”

Lizzie laughed softly, and the sound made Y/N’s chest warm in a way no studio light could.

Turning back to the contestants, Y/N raised her voice. “Alright, listen up! You should always cook your best, but today…” She gestured dramatically toward Lizzie. “…today my queen is here to taste your food. So, if you mess up, you’re not just letting me down — you’re letting her down.”

The contestants chuckled nervously, and Lizzie bit her lip, trying not to laugh too hard.

“And believe me,” Y/N added with a playful smirk, “you don’t wanna be the reason she frowns.”

The cameras caught Lizzie’s slight blush as Y/N finally stepped back, giving the other judge room to move things along. But even as the challenge officially began, Y/N’s eyes kept drifting toward the VIP table, where Lizzie sat — and where, in Y/N’s mind, every dish today suddenly had to be worthy of her.

---

The sounds of sizzling pans and clattering knives filled the studio as Y/N moved through the contestants’ stations, a whirlwind of authority and charisma.

“Careful with that sear!” she called to one contestant, leaning over the stove to adjust the angle of the pan just so. “Don’t let it burn — you want flavor, not charcoal.”

The contestant nodded nervously, sweat beading on their forehead as Y/N’s sharp eyes inspected every move.

She moved to another station, tasting a sauce with the back of her spoon, eyes narrowing slightly. “Too acidic. Balance it — think about how the sweetness of the caramelized onions could pull this together.”

And all the while, her gaze flicked toward Lizzie seated at the VIP table, casually sipping water but radiating that quiet warmth that made Y/N’s chest tighten.

“Remember,” she called over her shoulder to all the contestants, voice playful but commanding, “my queen is here to taste everything. So make it count. Not just for me — for her.”

A few of the contestants exchanged nervous glances, suddenly aware that their dishes weren’t just being judged by a Michelin-starred chef — they were being scrutinized by someone who clearly had her full attention.

Y/N leaned in to taste a delicate risotto at one station, and Lizzie’s eyes followed every move. The subtle flash of pride in her gaze made Y/N smirk under the bright studio lights. “Looking good, babe?” she murmured quietly, just loud enough for Lizzie to hear.

Lizzie laughed softly. “Always.”

And just like that, the kitchen buzzed with energy — but for Y/N, part of her focus was always on the woman she loved, seated just a few feet away, savoring every sight and smell as much as every taste.

While Y/N was darting between stovetops and stations, the other two judges leaned a little closer to Lizzie at the tasting table.

Chef Marquez — a sharp-tongued but brilliant Spanish chef — grinned knowingly. “So, Elizabeth… how does it feel seeing your wife in her natural habitat?”

Lizzie chuckled, resting her chin in her hand as she watched Y/N correct a contestant’s knife grip. “Honestly? It’s incredible. She has this… energy when she’s here. Like she was born for it.”

Chef Laurent nodded. “She’s strict, but she’s fair. You can see the respect she commands. Though,” he added with a smirk, “she does look a little intimidating.”

Lizzie laughed, shaking her head. “Oh, she is. But not at home. At home she’s… different.” She leaned back in her chair, smiling softly. “People think she cooks for me all the time, but the truth is—she prefers my cooking.”

Marquez raised his brows, clearly surprised. “You’re telling me one of the top chefs in the world would rather eat your food than her own?”

Lizzie nodded, amused. “Every time. No matter how simple it is — pasta, soup, even grilled cheese. She says it tastes better because it’s from me. I think it’s her way of making me feel special, but she’s very convincing.”

Both chefs chuckled warmly at that, and Laurent leaned forward. “That might be the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. No wonder she looks at you like that.”

Lizzie’s eyes softened, following Y/N again as she bent to taste a sauce at one of the stations. “She gives everyone here her best… but when she comes home, she gives me all of herself. That’s what I love most.”

Marquez chuckled, shaking his head. “So the contestants are cooking for Chef Y/N today… but really, they’ve got to pass the test of the woman whose cooking she loves more than anyone else’s.”

Lizzie blushed faintly, covering her smile with her glass. “Don’t say that too loudly. She’ll tease me forever.”

---

When the clock hit zero and the contestants dropped their utensils, the studio filled with a collective sigh of relief. Plates were lifted, nerves were high, and the lights dimmed just slightly for the dramatic moment everyone had been waiting for.

Chef Laurent cleared his throat. “All right, contestants. Today you’ve cooked under the watchful eye of Chef Y/N. But before we begin our critiques…” He turned with a little flourish, “…we have someone very special here with us.”

The cameras shifted, zooming in on Lizzie at the table. The audience clapped and cheered as her name flashed on the screen. Lizzie waved politely, her cheeks a little pink as she glanced toward Y/N.

Y/N — who had been standing at the front with her arms crossed, full chef’s authority on display — suddenly grinned wide, her whole face softening. “That’s right,” she said, stepping forward, voice warm but teasing. “Today isn’t just about impressing me or the other chefs. You’ve got my queen sitting right here.” She gestured toward Lizzie, eyes glowing with mischief. “So you’d all better pray your food is up to her standards.”

The contestants laughed nervously, some even exchanging wide-eyed looks like the stakes had just doubled.

Lizzie rolled her eyes playfully, but her lips curved with affection. “Don’t listen to her,” she said, though her voice carried easily to the cameras. “I’m just excited to taste all of your hard work.”

Still, when the first plate was set down in front of her, Y/N slipped behind Lizzie’s chair, leaning down close enough for the mic to catch her murmur. “First bite’s yours, baby.”

Lizzie glanced up at her, startled by how tenderly she’d said it, and then obediently lifted her fork. The contestants and crew seemed to hold their collective breath as she tasted the first dish.

Her eyes lit up. “Mmm. That’s… really good.”

The contestant who’d cooked it almost fainted with relief.

Y/N smiled smugly, giving Lizzie’s shoulder a little squeeze before looking back at the line of nervous chefs. “See? That’s the standard. You make her smile like that—” she tilted her head toward Lizzie, “—you’ve already won in my book.”

The audience roared with approval, the moment caught perfectly by the cameras: Chef Y/N, notoriously stern in the kitchen, melting entirely just because her wife had taken a bite.

The second dish was brought out — a beautifully plated pasta with a vibrant sauce. Lizzie picked up her fork again, twirling a bite with surprising confidence.

She tasted it slowly, taking her time the way she would if she were sampling wine, and then dabbed her lips with the napkin before looking at the contestant. “You know…” she began, tilting her head slightly, “this feels like… a first act.”

The contestant blinked. “A first act?”

Lizzie smiled, slipping into her actor’s rhythm without realizing it. “Yes. It’s fresh, colorful, it catches your attention right away. It doesn’t tell the whole story yet, but it makes you want to know more.”

The audience laughed softly, charmed. Chef Laurent nodded in appreciation. “I like that. A narrative on the plate.”

Y/N, standing just behind her, chuckled low. “Careful,” she teased, “if you keep this up, they’ll replace me with you next season.”

Lizzie glanced up at her wife, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “Oh, please. Everyone knows the real star at home is me anyway.”

The crowd exploded with laughter and applause. Even the other chefs couldn’t hold back their grins.

Y/N placed a hand dramatically over her heart, pretending to look wounded. “She’s not wrong,” she admitted, “I’d pick her lasagna over my own any day.”

Lizzie reached out and brushed her fingers lightly against Y/N’s wrist, a subtle gesture caught by the close-up camera. “But don’t worry, love,” she said softly, meant just for her, “you’re still my favorite chef.”

The audience aww’d in unison, and Y/N shook her head, muttering with a grin, “She’s impossible.”

The tasting continued, each contestant now watching Lizzie’s reactions like hawks. And while the other chefs gave sharp critiques, Lizzie’s words painted pictures — she described flavors as emotions, textures as performances, plating as “scenes.” It was different, unorthodox, but it made every contestant beam with pride at having their work seen in such a unique light.

By the end, it was clear: Lizzie wasn’t just a guest. She’d stolen the show.

---

The cameras had stopped rolling, the crew buzzing around wrapping up equipment. The contestants were still chatting in a cluster, clearly still glowing from Lizzie’s warm words during tasting.

Y/N finally managed to sneak away from the chaos, tugging Lizzie into a quieter corner near the dressing rooms. She leaned against the wall, tugging off her chef’s jacket, her undershirt clinging slightly from the heat of the kitchen lights.

“You,” Y/N said, her voice low but full of amusement, “completely stole my show today.”

Lizzie tilted her head innocently, though the grin tugging at her lips betrayed her. “What? I was just giving my opinions. Besides, you’re the chef. I’m just the actress who eats your food at home.”

Y/N stepped closer, bracing one hand against the wall beside Lizzie’s head. “Mm. Funny, because I saw the way the contestants lit up when you spoke. You had them hanging on every word.”

Lizzie’s smirk softened into a smile, her hand brushing down the front of Y/N’s shirt, fingertips lingering over the faintly beating heart beneath. “That’s because I wasn’t just tasting their food. I was looking for the story in it. You taught me that, you know.”

Y/N’s brows arched. “I did?”

“Of course.” Lizzie’s voice dropped tenderly. “Every dish you make has a piece of you in it. And every time you cook for me, I feel… loved. That’s why I could recognize it in theirs.”

Y/N’s chest tightened, her teasing grin melting into something far more vulnerable. She cupped Lizzie’s face gently, thumb brushing her cheek. “God, I adore you,” she whispered, and leaned in to kiss her — slow, unhurried, the kind of kiss that lingered.

When she pulled back, Lizzie sighed dreamily, only to grin again. “So… are you going to admit it now?”

Y/N narrowed her eyes playfully. “Admit what?”

“That I am the star at home.”

Y/N groaned, burying her face in Lizzie’s neck with a muffled laugh. “Unbelievable. My wife hijacks my set and then rubs it in afterward.”

Lizzie giggled, arms circling around her. “Your wife loves you. That’s all she’s rubbing in.”

Y/N lifted her head again, lips hovering just above hers. “Good. Because after that little performance of yours… I’m making you dinner tonight. My star deserves it.”

Lizzie kissed her again, softer this time, her voice brushing against Y/N’s lips. “As long as you’re on the menu too.”

---

That evening, their house was quiet, the warm glow of the kitchen lights wrapping everything in comfort. Y/N moved easily between the stove and counter, sleeves rolled up, humming softly under her breath as she prepared dinner. The sizzle of olive oil and garlic filled the room, mingling with the faint notes of herbs.

Lizzie sat cross-legged on the counter, wine glass in hand, watching her wife with a grin that hadn’t left her face since they got home. She scrolled through her phone, suddenly breaking into laughter.

Y/N glanced over her shoulder, raising a brow. “What’s so funny?”

“The internet,” Lizzie said, half-giggling as she swiped through posts. “You should see the way your fans are reacting to me on the show today.”

Y/N set down a pan with a soft clatter and crossed her arms, feigning suspicion. “Do I want to know?”

Lizzie’s eyes sparkled as she read aloud. “Okay, listen to this one, ‘Chef Y/N is terrifying in the kitchen but melts into a puddle the moment Lizzie smiles at her. I want a love like that.’” She broke into another laugh.

Y/N groaned, covering her face with one hand. “Oh my god.”

Lizzie kept going, clearly delighted. “Or this one— ‘Forget the contestants, Lizzie Olsen won today’s episode by existing.’”

Y/N spun back toward the stove, shaking her head with a smile she couldn’t hide. “They’re not wrong.”

Lizzie tilted her head. “About which part?”

“Both,” Y/N admitted, voice low but warm. “You exist and I’m already done for.”

Lizzie’s laugh softened into something gentler, her cheeks pink as she watched her wife stir the sauce with practiced ease. She hopped off the counter, padding barefoot across the kitchen until she slipped her arms around Y/N’s waist from behind.

“You know,” Lizzie murmured against her shoulder, “I actually had fun being in your world today. Watching you in your element… it was kind of sexy.”

Y/N smirked, turning just enough to kiss her temple. “Kind of?”

“Okay, very.” Lizzie grinned, tightening her hold. “But I think I like this better. No cameras. Just you cooking for me.”

Y/N’s chest swelled with warmth, the scent of rosemary and wine sauce rising between them. “Then that’s exactly what you’ll get. Always.”

And later, when they sat across from each other at the table, candles flickering and plates full of Y/N’s handiwork, Lizzie snapped a secret photo of her wife serving food. She posted it with a single caption:

“Best chef in the world. But I’m the luckiest taste tester.”❤️

---

After dinner, the dishes sat soaking in the sink, but neither of them moved to clean up. Instead, they migrated to the couch, Lizzie tucked beneath Y/N’s arm, her legs stretched across her wife’s lap. A movie played softly in the background, but neither of them was paying much attention.

Lizzie scrolled through her notifications again, laughing as new fan edits and memes popped up. “Look at this one—someone already clipped the moment you winked at me after I took that first bite. They’re calling it *the most domestic power move on television.*”

Y/N groaned, burying her face against Lizzie’s hair. “I’m never living that down.”

Lizzie tilted her phone so Y/N could see. “You don’t want to? You looked hot.”

Y/N chuckled, squeezing her a little closer. “You think I looked hot yelling at someone for almost burning their scallops?”

Lizzie tipped her head back to meet her eyes, lips quirking. “Yes. Very.”

For a beat, their gazes held, warmth spreading like the glow of the lamps across the room. Y/N leaned down, capturing Lizzie’s mouth in a slow, unhurried kiss. The kind that said the world outside didn’t matter—not the cameras, not the fans, not even the chaos of a busy kitchen.

When they pulled back, Lizzie whispered, “I love that I get to see both sides of you. The chef everyone admires… and the one who burns toast at home when she’s too distracted kissing me.”

Y/N laughed, pressing her forehead to hers. “I do not burn toast.”

“You do,” Lizzie teased, her grin smug. “But I forgive you, because it means I get to be your taste tester forever.”

Y/N’s voice softened, almost reverent. “Forever sounds perfect.”

The movie played on, forgotten, as they melted into the couch—Lizzie tracing circles on Y/N’s hand, Y/N brushing absentminded kisses to her hair. The world had seen their love earlier, through a glimpse in a busy studio kitchen. But here, in their quiet home, it bloomed in the small, ordinary moments—the ones that would never make it to screen, but mattered most.

Y/N shifted slightly, her arm sliding lower so Lizzie could curl even closer against her chest. The steady thrum of Y/N’s heartbeat filled the silence, calming and intoxicating all at once. Lizzie tilted her chin up, brushing her nose against Y/N’s jaw in a feather-light touch that made her wife pause mid-breath.

“You keep doing that,” Y/N murmured, voice low, almost teasing.

Lizzie’s lips curved. “Doing what?”

“Looking at me like you’re not planning on letting me finish this movie.”

Her giggle was soft, but her hand gave her away—fingers slipping under the hem of Y/N’s shirt, nails grazing skin. “Maybe I’m not.”

Y/N exhaled slowly, her eyes darkening as she caught Lizzie’s gaze. She leaned in, their mouths meeting in a kiss that started sweet but deepened quickly, heat sparking as Lizzie pressed closer. The forgotten wine glasses on the coffee table stood as silent witnesses when Lizzie swung a leg over, settling into Y/N’s lap with easy familiarity.

“Bedroom?” Y/N asked against her lips, her tone already fraying with need.

Lizzie shook her head, kissing her again, more insistent. “Couch first,” she whispered, smiling like she already knew Y/N would give in.

And Y/N did, hands finding her hips, pulling her closer as the movie flickered on—its light dancing across the room, the only witness to the kind of love that belonged entirely to them.

By the time they finally pulled away from each other after two rounds, the movie was ending. Lizzie rested her head on Y/N’s chest, fingers intertwined with hers, both of them savoring the lingering warmth of their closeness.

“Now we can take it to the bed,” Lizzie murmured, kissing Y/N’s collarbone softly.

Y/N chuckled low, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of Lizzie’s head. “I gave you two orgasms and you are already ready fore more?”

Lizzie lifted her head, a mischievous glint in her eyes. “You think I’m done? Not a chance. You set the bar too high.”

Y/N laughed, running a hand down Lizzie’s back, the warmth of her body pressed against hers. “Impossible to argue with that logic,” she murmured, voice husky. “Fine… but only because I love you.”

Lizzie smirked, wiggling just enough to make Y/N groan softly. “Good. Because I want every inch of you tonight.”

Y/N captured her lips in a slow, deep kiss, letting their shared heat build again, but even in that intensity, there was tenderness—a love that had grown through years of shared mornings, kitchens, and quiet nights like this.

“Bed it is,” Y/N whispered, pressing her forehead to Lizzie’s, feeling the steady rhythm of her pulse. “But you better be ready… I don’t plan on holding back.”

Lizzie grinned, wrapping her arms tightly around Y/N as they slowly rose from the couch, their bodies entwined, heading toward the bedroom with the kind of familiarity and hunger that only comes from knowing each other completely.

---

A few days later, Y/N stepped onto the studio set, the familiar buzz of sizzling pans and clattering utensils filling the air. Contestants hustled at their stations, cameras trailing every movement, and Y/N slipped into her chef mode as if no time had passed.

But the other judges were already grinning, leaning casually against the counter.

“You know,” Chef Marquez said with a smirk, nodding toward Y/N, “after the last shoot, I think we need to start inviting your wife as a regular guest.”

Y/N raised a brow, adjusting her jacket, a playful smile tugging at her lips. “Oh really? And why would that be necessary?”

Chef Laurent chuckled, arms crossing. “Because you were… different last time. Stricter than usual. Barking orders like a drill sergeant, but every time she took a bite, you couldn’t help staring. And your reactions? Very expressive.”

“Distracted?” Y/N scoffed, though the corners of her mouth betrayed her. “I was focused on the food.”

Marquez leaned in with mock seriousness. “Focused? Please. You practically melted every time Lizzie gave a comment. If she’s not back in the VIP seat, the contestants might actually have to cook for two terrifying chefs instead of one smitten one.”

Y/N shook her head, laughing softly as she moved between the stations. “You’re impossible.” Her lips curved knowingly. “But… maybe I’ll bring her along again. Just to keep everyone on their toes.”

Laurent winked. “Ah, that’s the only way. Otherwise, we don’t get the full ‘Chef Y/N experience.’”

Y/N’s eyes flicked instinctively toward the audience seating, already imagining Lizzie’s mischievous grin waiting for her there. The thought made her smirk. “Fine. But only because she’s mine.”

The other chefs chuckled, the tension of the kitchen easing slightly — though inside, Y/N could already feel her pulse quicken at the thought of her wife watching again.

Winter has always been beautiful in Westview. By the last week of November, there always came flecks of snow, signalling an upcoming white Christmas, and by mid-December, children were playing with their dogs and siblings in their backyards and town parks, sparking white blanketing the roofs, roads, and trees. 

The town’s planning committee certainly did their own part for the holidays too, for Christmas was the committee’s largest and busiest occasion of the year. The committee, composed of town volunteers and run by Westview’s municipality, began planning by the first of December, and continued on eagerly until the twentieth.

By the twentieth, there was an itinerary planned and prepared for a performance in the town square on Christmas Eve. Typically, there was a set of musical performers and, around the patio, snack vendors for things like hot chocolate and warm pastries, and small business pop-ups. 

Surrounded by outdoor heaters for the patio performers and the visitors, the town came together to listen to music, decorate cookies and ornaments, and support small businesses, with a fraction of all earnings going towards a local charity chosen in November by the planning committee.

Throughout December, the municipality itself decorated the town, with boughs of holly, lights, and other decorations and ornaments adorning the light poles, streets, and storefronts and their roofs. People of Westview began counting down until Christmas as the decorations gradually went up; by the time the town square’s patio was decorated, which was done last, they knew it was only a matter of days until the town celebration, and most importantly, until Christmas Eve. 

As anyone would guess, everyone involved in any town affair during the duration of December was rather busy, so you were rather grateful that you were able to join the planning committee late.

You’d always wanted to somehow be a part of Westview’s Christmas traditions since moving there for work a year ago. You moved in around the end of November after you graduated, and your very first impression of the town was the all-around magical month of December. But last year, you travelled to see your family, and couldn’t stay for the planning nor the celebration.

This year, you were hosting, and that meant you could finally take part in the committee as you’d wanted to do last season, though you did end up joining late because you had to bring unexpected extra work home. 

Naturally, you were rather excited to be able to both take a break from work and do something fun, and to get more involved with Westview’s community. 

But upon your first committee meeting, you realized you weren’t expecting the committee was so… hierarchical.

You understood and even expected the hustle and bustle of assigned responsibilities and time-crunching, and even a few of the disagreements during the meetings and over the text groupchat which sometimes seemed a little hostile to you, so perhaps, to word it more accurately, what you hadn’t been expecting was Wanda Maximoff.

The committee worked by dividing volunteers into different sections of responsibility, involving those who worked with the small business, who handled the budgeting, the charity partnership, the performing bands, and many others.

Wanda Maximoff was the head of planning. She led the committee meetings, and she was the first one every divided section went to to discuss any changes or new ideas. Wanda could independently veto or approve any adjustment or suggestion, and knew everything about everything which not even the many of the divided sections knew about each other since they were too occupied with their own responsibilities. 

Being registered as a committee volunteer took an application which went through Westview’s municipal website — not the committee itself. 

Wanda had seen in her email that a new member had joined the committee. She’d never heard of you, and though she wasn’t particularly close to anyone in Westview, so she wouldn’t exactly be the first to know about social matters, she’d asked a few of the other executive planning volunteers, and they hadn’t heard of you either.  

A large reason you wanted to join the committee was to become more involved in Westview’s community. The past year after moving last November was far busier than you’d expected, and along with a promotion at work, you’d had far too many new responsibilities to adjust to to have enough time to socialize or involve yourself very much. 

With that being said, the upcoming holiday spent with the committee was going to be your first real involvement with the town and your community. 

The first meeting was okay. It was around the end of the first week of December, which by the committee’s speed, was still late for you to suddenly jump in and join like they’d been playing jump rope. The meeting was somewhat of a debrief about how far everyone had gotten, while bringing up any new ideas in moving forward. 

It was actually rather incredible to watch them all plan and discuss; they were diligent and all worked well with each other, and additionally, they were partnering with performers and vendors who were all local, which made planning everything in December possible. 

You figured Wanda was the head of the committee for how every conversation either ended or started with her, and if they didn’t involve her, and was far more focused on what each group was saying than anyone else.

You didn’t speak very much, so perhaps that was why you might’ve appeared as some kind of outlier, but truly, you didn’t have anything to say, and wouldn’t have had anything to say even if you tried. 

Though you understood the logic of being the odd one out, not much attention was drawn to you, likely because everyone was far too busy to pay you much attention — that is, aside from the busiest in the room. 

Circles don’t have heads at their tables, and yet, Wanda was very evidently sitting at it. With the side of her chin in her hand, her head tilted slightly in your direction, your eyes kept flickering over at her, and more than half of the times you did, her green eyes darted away immediately and looked back over at whomever was presently speaking. 

After the meeting, you chatted a little with some of the volunteers you were sitting beside, waiting patiently for a window in which you could approach Wanda. Everyone who was part of the committee was sorted into groups to take on different responsibilities, but you hadn’t been sorted yet, and it wasn’t mentioned in the meeting, which you understood given how busy everything was, so you were hoping Wanda could sort you.

Wanda was slinging her purse over her shoulder when you approached her, and when she turned around, there was just a single beat in which she seemed to be surveying you, as if a resolve to the brief glances she had taken of you from afar. 

You introduced yourself to her. 

“Y/N,” she acknowledged, without introducing herself in turn. “Your name was emailed to me this afternoon after you submitted your application two days ago.”

You looked at her wordlessly for a moment then nodded, as if hesitant. You were waiting for her to continue. What did she expect you to say to that?

You felt slightly belittled for how unwelcoming initially came across, and how her greeting only called you to initiate more of the conversation on your own. And she wasn’t even really acknowledging you, she was just stating a fact, as if she would’ve said the exact words to anyone else in any professional setting. 

‘The sky is blue, it’s wintertime, there are light traces of freckles along the bridge of my nose, and your name was emailed to me this afternoon,’ she seemed to be saying. 

“Cool,” you answered. It was an answer in the form of an itch; you felt you couldn’t respond to her with the cordiality you’d initially intended.

It wasn’t just the way she had spoken, for you didn’t expect any obligation for any specific form of kindness. She was the head of the committee, and no doubt extremely busy and extremely stressed, and you were late to join, after all. 

So you put aside the way she was looking at you, in the bored and scrutinizing way she was, and how she kept looking over at you during the meeting only to say little to nothing welcoming or friendly upon your official introduction. 

If you knew Wanda well enough, not that many did, you would’ve noticed the narrowing of her eyes visible only by a slight twitch at the corner of them. 

Cool. 

“I was wondering how I’d be able to figure out what I should start helping with,” you told her. You hoped feigning curiosity would give yourself a good impression — you already knew it was Wanda who was assigned roles. 

“That depends,” she said, her focus not at all on you as she reached into her purse to take her car keys out. She looked back up at you. “Are you good at anything?”

For a moment, you genuinely questioned if you had done something wrong, and then you quickly realized it isn’t at all your responsibility to baby a grown woman. 

You repeated, genuinely confused and not willing to intentionally leave a bad impression this early into your volunteering, “Am I good at anything?”

“Are you good at anything discussed during the meeting?” she clarified, her expression remaining still and unimpressed.

“I wouldn’t know,” you answered, “this is my first time here. Wasn’t that mentioned in the email?”

Wanda looked to the side thoughtfully, as if thinking something over, but the slight rising of her shoulders as she took in a breath indicated irritation. Then she looked back at you. “It was. But I assumed you had some prior experience, perhaps from your own job or volunteering experience.”

Something uncomfortable and tense tightened in your stomach. It wasn’t as if she was saying anything particularly rude, but you knew it was meant to be somewhat offensive, if not purposefully condescending. 

“We’re always a bit rushed in booking the performances, so if that’s something that interests you, you can help with that,” she finally offered. “I’ll give you Kate’s number so you can contact her and make some plans to meet up on your own time during the week.”

After you received a Kate Bishop’s number, you tucked your pride away and thanked Wanda for her help, only to look up from your phone and find her approached by a man around her age whose face you recognized from the meeting, who she immediately looked far more friendly with.

You weren't planning on sticking around to stand idly watching the coldest woman you’ve met in Westview so far since you moved last November act all buddy-buddy with someone else right in front of you, but the transition from speaking to you to speaking with the man was far too stark to not notice the differences, even for the split second you stood there for.

He placed his hand on the table behind her, to which Wanda turned, leaning against the table and looking up at him as they spoke. A gold wedding band adorned the finger of the man’s hand which you noticed was placed on the table, and you assumed he was her husband. 

For a moment as you turned to leave, you sympathized with Wanda, who you could now envision as a stressed and overworked woman who was glad to see her husband after a long day. 

Perhaps it was just thinking over the bizarre contrast between her interactions with you and the immediate friendly demeanour she took with the man that made you turn your head back as you walked away, just to reconstruct her first impression on you. But when you turned, you realized she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring at all.

You were slightly confused and perhaps a little intrigued, but not at all invested enough to think about that nor about Wanda Maximoff at all by the time you left the building. When you got into the driver’s seat of your car, you sent Kate Bishop a text message introducing yourself and explaining how you got her number and for what reason, then headed home, eager to finally lay down.

By the time you were on the road, driving down the decorated light poles and storefronts, and down the snowy, sparkling white sidewalks and roofs, you forgot all about Wanda and that dreadful first interaction.

Two days later, you met up with the group within the committee which handled the preparation of the performances. You didn’t know who you were expecting to see once you met up at one of Westview’s cafes to plan and discuss, but you certainly weren’t expecting a group that was composed of only college students.

You weren’t much older than them — you finished your postgrad last year — but you were younger than Wanda, and maybe it was just because you harboured some remnants of bitterness for her, but you almost thought the group she suggested to you was intentional.

After an hour of conversing with them, however, you realized you were being far too obsessive with your first interaction with Wanda to have even had that thought upon meeting them, because you actually ended up having likely one of the first thoroughly enjoyable times with a group of people from your town.

Along with Kate, you were grouped with her friends America, Peter, and Kamala. If you were honest with yourself, you felt a little insecure about your age while being around them, listening to them discuss school while you’d been working for a year since graduation. But you felt, and they assured you once you mentioned it to them half-jokingly, that you honestly blended in just fine.

In fact, Peter very seriously thought you were in his history class this past semester.

But in a way, that made you feel a little bashful — did you still look like a college student, and not at all like the professional you thought you’d been becoming throughout the past year?

Is that what you looked like to Wanda that day you first met?

You didn’t see Wanda again until the next committee meeting, which you found out took place twice a week. Only the first meeting was mandatory, and the other was optional for any pressing questions, and also provided a window for opportunity to speed up the planning if anyone had any extra time to do so.

After the last few days meeting with your group and talking a little over the groupchat between all of you, you found yourself in a particularly good mood, and it was hard to stay sour in Westview when it was winter, getting closer and closer to Christmas each day.

You wanted to make a good impression and wanted to make some room for having further conversation with other volunteers, so you stopped by a cafe and bought a box of twelve fresh muffins. There were about two times that amount of people in the committee, but you were certain not everyone would want one, and you also weren’t sure how permitted it was to bring food to the meetings. 

You were planning on arriving early and placing the muffins on the table with a little note to take one, with an easy in and out without being seen. You didn’t want to be seen bringing the muffins in because you figured you’d end up behaving far too awkward in the act, effectively outweighing any possibility of having the first impression you wanted. 

If someone brought the muffins up, or offered you one, you were planning on somehow subtly bringing up that you were the one who brought them.

After setting the box down on the edge of the meeting room table, you placed the sticky note you wrote on top of it. You turned to head out the door, planning on waiting in the car for others to arrive before reentering, only to come across Wanda on your way out. 

She had her chin tucked into her scarf, and a knitted hat on, looking rather cozy and warm in her jacket, the purse which you saw her carry last week hanging from her shoulder. At the sight of you, and at how you slowed down as you passed her, she untucked half her face from her scarf and took her hat off, causing her brown hair to frizz up as she pulled it off.

Combing her fingers through the top of her head to smooth her hair down, she said, “You’re early. Heading out?”

“O-Oh…” you stuttered, feeling awkward.

You weighed the risk of telling her you brought muffins, since you didn’t know if bringing food was allowed. And wouldn’t you look even far more awkward if food was allowed, and you were running away from a box of muffins as if you’d just wired in a bomb?

Wanda continued to look at you expectantly, slowly unwrapping her scarf from around her neck, which distracted you from making a decision about what to tell her, for whatever reason.

“I brought muffins,” you suddenly said.

She blinked, eyes darting down at your empty hands which laid limp at your sides, then to your back and shoulders, which was devoid of any bag to carry any muffins in.

“I already put it in the meeting room.”

“It’s already in there?” she asked.

You nodded once.

“Then where are you going? Aren’t you staying for the meeting?”

Did she question everyone this seriously? Couldn’t she at least smile a little or give you a little laugh to ease the tension?

“I am. I just… forgot something in my car.”

Wanda looked at you for a moment, and surprisingly, it didn’t look like she was scrutinizing you. It looked like she was thinking something over. She looked in the direction of the meeting room, and you took the time to look at her ring finger. She wasn’t married.

“Why did you bring muffins?” she then asked, looking back over to you and putting her hat into her purse and holding her scarf.

You opened your mouth and promptly shut it, realizing all you knew to do in the moment was stutter, so you stayed quiet for a moment to think of what to say so as to not look like an idiot. “I just wanted to do something nice, I guess,” you said.

“Really?” Wanda said, her eyebrows raising ever so slightly, seemingly surprised. “I see.” She made some kind of noise, like a hum, and looked away into the general direction of the meeting room. 

Then she undid her jacket, looking at you only briefly and saying a few words before heading into the building: “Well, I won’t keep you from going back to your car. I’ll see you.”

When you thought back to how Wanda had kept looking over to you during the first meeting you attended, you imagined that she was interested in you because it was her first time seeing you, and figured she was likely that way with everyone who initially joined. 

Naturally, that meant that after conversing with her and proving yourself as able to reliably contribute to your group, you imagined she would treat you like any other member, and after that, you’d come to realize that you’d been thinking about her in a rather overdramatic fashion.

But instead, Wanda seemed to pay you even more attention. You caught her staring far more often, though this time, it was hard to justify this as stealing glances when you were actually part of a group this time. She made unwavering eye contact with you when you spoke, which she didn’t do with anyone else. She picked at your suggestions and progress reports more than anyone else in your group.

This time around, you genuinely started to feel rather frustrated. You’d been enjoying your last few days in Westview with your group, and were looking forward to the rest of the month, and had initially believed that your irritating interactions with Wanda were more or less made up by your imagination.

But this all seemed far too targeted to be coincidental.

You were even too irritated during the meeting to pay attention to anyone who was enjoying the muffins you brought — which was, unbeknownst to you, quite popular amongst the members. You told Kamala about the muffins when you’d bought them, since you asked her about where to go for the best ones, so she was able to drop your name to other members a few times.

After the meeting, Wanda was talking with the same man who approached her after the meeting last week — the same married man.

“Can I talk to you, Wanda?” you interrupted their conversation the moment you heard the briefest gap in their conversation. She looked over to you, along with the man, who for some reason irritated you far more than she did in the moment.

They exchanged a few last words before parting, and Wanda turned to you, adjusting her scarf. “What did you need to talk about?” she asked.

You had hoped she was planning on talking in a more private place, but she didn’t move anywhere else, and stayed more or less in the vicinity of traffic of people who were leaving. If she didn’t want to put any effort in nor give any indication that she cared about interacting with you, then you’d have the conversation right there.

“Do you have a problem with me?” you asked. 

For the first time, Wanda wore an expression around you that was other than bored and unimpressed, looking somewhere between entertained and surprised. “I’m sorry?”

“You asked me more questions about my group than anyone else I’m paired with, and more than anyone else in the committee,” you told her. 

“It bothers you to be favoured?”

You flinched back a little, as if the word ‘favoured’ had physically nudged you backwards. “F… Favoured?”

“Y/N…” Wanda let out a little exhale that you knew was a repressed sigh. “This is your first year volunteering. It is not unreasonable nor should it be threatening to you that I want to ensure you’re playing your part within your group. And I want to make sure you’re getting along well with everything.”

“You’re overdoing it,” you quickly replied. “I joined only a week late, and if you think I need more monitoring than any other volunteer, you’re not focusing your attention on the right things. You don’t think I notice that you look at me even when I’m not the one talking?”

In the split second of silence between your second last sentence and your final one, Wanda opened her mouth to respond, but quickly shut it when you mentioned how she kept looking at you. Her jaw seemed to tense and she adjusted her purse on her shoulder, her eyes darting over to the side for a brief moment.

“To each their own, Y/N,” she replied simply. “Either way, if you’re getting along with everything well, what I do shouldn’t bother you as much as it does. Everything is getting done on time, isn’t it? What more could you ask for?”

She likely had wanted the conversation to stop with a rhetorical question, but if she was really asking, then you were really going to answer. “I want to ask for you to stop treating the committee like it’s some kind of tyranny. You know, people come here in their spare time, away from their families and their homes to do something nice.”

Wanda visibly tensed, and she seemed to be fidgeting when her other hand moved to the front of her jacket to tug at the edge of her scarf. Perhaps she simply didn’t like confrontation. You wondered when the last time anyone confronted her was, and then you wondered when she’d given anyone but you a reason to confront her. 

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” she apologized disingenuously, clearly just wanting to end the conversation. You wondered if she had plans to get to, and at the thought that she was just in a rush to go meet that married man at some dingy motel, you exhaled through your nose with visible irritation.

You attended the following optional meeting because America wanted to discuss the possibility of including one of the bands at the college she went to into the performance setlist, so it was just you and her out of your group that attended. Typically, they partnered with more local bands, but America really liked them, and she was certain she could have them perform for cheaper than the usual bands they invited if they paid for their trip here.

Upon arriving, you noticed that there were a few pastries set out on the table, and thermos of hot chocolate and some paper cups and lids, which some members were helping themselves to as they settled in. Everyone was warming up with the hot chocolate, and looking delightfully surprised at the selection of pastries since a storm was beginning to come down outside as they all drove in.

“Y/N, dear, you had the right idea bringing muffins the other day,” Mrs Davis gushed as she approached you from behind, a hand on your upper arm. “Everyone is always so hungry at the evening meetings, since some of us have to squeeze them in before dinner.”

America looked amused at your confusion as your eyes darted between the pasties and hot chocolate and Mrs Davis. She knew you felt a little confused and preoccupied by being drilled by Wanda — though you chose not to share how much she irritated you — so she knew that you hadn’t paid attention to how popular the muffins were last meeting, or how Kamala mentioned to others that you brought them.

“Oh,” you replied with a friendly albeit confused smile. “Did you bring these?”

“I bought the hot chocolate, but Rio and Agatha brought the pastries,” she answered with a beaming smile. 

An excited and warm feeling grew in your chest at the thought that you’d started a little tradition, which made you forget all about how confused you initially were.

In spite of the cheery beginning and how the committee started out, chatting about each other’s holidays and preparations at home with their families, the meeting progressed with gradual confusion since Wanda still hadn’t shown up twenty minutes into the hour-long meeting. 

It wasn’t a good look on her, since a member of Westview’s municipal financial association had come to sit in to see how things were coming along since the committee was largely funded by them along with some other invested donors. 

By the twenty minute mark, everyone decided to begin speaking altogether and writing the biggest takeaways into a notebook, which would be provided to Wanda over text and in the committee groupchat. Things discussed in optional meetings weren’t always necessarily shared with the rest of the committee, since they were typically attended for more specific questions and planning, but it was Wanda who decided what should be made common knowledge, which she covered in the following meeting, or if it was pressing, she’d send it to the groupchat. But since she wasn’t there, it was decided that they’d record everything important that was covered, whether it was a resolved question or not.

Close to forty minutes into the meeting, Wanda arrived, looking a little frazzled, with her scarf and hat still on. She had tried to come in subtly but, perhaps intentionally, Rio called out, greeting her loudly. 

“I’m sorry for being so late,” she apologized, and you could detect a little breathlessness in her voice. She sat down and took her hat off, her hair frizzing up at the top like it did the other time she took her hat off. But she didn’t smooth it down before she undid her scarf, making her look even more frazzled.

As she looked around at the table and then at the notebook, and then at the municipal member sitting at the table, Wanda slid her jacket off and smoothed her hair out. “How… has everything been going?” she asked. She was then given a rundown from the notebook, Wanda nodding and listening carefully as it was all explained to her.

Throughout the rest of the meeting, you didn’t catch Wanda looking over at you even once.

The municipal member who had come to sit in pulled Wanda to the side after the meeting finished, engaging in a conversation which looked slightly serious from the other side of the room as you chatted with Mrs Davis and Rio and Agatha as they packed up their things while you and America helped. 

They all left as soon as possible, since Mrs Davis carpooled with Rio and Agatha on their way here, and the storm had suddenly come down rather heavy outside, so they were eager to get home quick before the visibility got any worse. America’s mothers were waiting outside for her, so you said goodbye to her too as you zipped up your jacket. 

By the time you headed out, Wanda was standing inside the building by the door, looking out through the windows at the side of the front door. She was back in her scarf and hat and bundled up jacket, so you weren’t sure why she was still hanging out at the front.

Upon getting a closer look at her as you continued to walk towards the exit, you noticed that Wanda looked genuinely stressed, unlike the other times you only assumed she was. She seemed anxious looking out the window, and seemingly tense in general. 

You looked outside the windows, and the snow was very quickly building, footsteps at least a few inches into the snow until they reached the ground, and a few people still getting into their cars, the sight of them blurring in the white veil of the blowing snow, shielded themselves from the wind, careful not to hit the other cars around them while opening their car doors.

“If you wait any longer to drive home, it’ll only be harder to get through the snow,” you said, stopping a few feet away from her. She jumped a little, turning her head to look at you and staring for just a moment before looking back through the window.

Her scarf was wrapped up to just below her nose, muffling her words slightly as she replied, “I’m waiting for an Uber.” 

“Huh? An Uber?” you asked. “No driver is driving around in a small town through a storm that just started. The salters haven’t even come out yet. Didn’t you drive here on your own?”

Wanda didn’t respond, and looked down between her phone — which you assumed she was tracking her driver through — and the window.

Though you were frustrated at her standoffishness and how she just completely ignored you, you inhaled sharply before pressing, “You should just call a friend or some family to pick you up. You’ll be waiting here at least forty minutes before your driver comes.”

“Incidentally, don’t you someplace to be?” Wanda suddenly asked sharply, turning her head around to look at you.

Your eyes narrowed and you adjusted your jacket, preparing for the winter storm. “Fine. Then I guess I’ll be seeing you at the next meeting — still waiting here for your Uber.”

She gave you a look as you walked past her and left the building.

You stormed off into the blizzard with enough anger that you were melting all the snow sprinkling down in your vicinity with how frustrated you felt, suddenly feeling like you were overheating in your jacket. 

There was something about Wanda that just really pissed you off, and even worse, you couldn’t stop thinking about her. After the meetings and when you were home, you hardly thought about her, and more often than not, you were ready to be friendly with her every time another meeting came around. But each time you interacted with her, she drilled herself further and further into your brain and buried herself there. 

There was just something irrational about how frustrated she made you that just sort of ate at you. You thought she looked so stupid in her scarf, and she looked like an idiot when she took her hat off and her hair was in a frizzy mess. 

And what was the deal with her and that married guy? She certainly wasn’t her brother or her friend with how close he got, and you could swear once you saw him brush his hand up against her hip — with the hand he had his ring on!

So, along with being just a dick, she was a stupid idiot who owned stupid scarves and stupid hats, and she was a homewrecker and a total anti-feminist for flirting with a married man.

Then, feeling frustrated and overwhelmed and not paying attention to your surroundings, you set your foot down on some ice and nearly slipped. You were flailing around and practically running in place desperately until your foot landed on the thick snow to give you enough friction to steady yourself.

And you knew it was irrational, but fuck, this was somehow all Wanda’s fault. 

You ripped your hat off, finally becoming overstimulated with it on, before sticking it in your jacket pocket. You looked back over at the building, and then at the parking lot which was very empty of an Uber driver, and you stormed back over to the front door. 

When you reentered the building, Wanda was still standing in the same spot, and when you turned to look at her, holding the door open from the inside, she looked up from her phone at you, confused.

“I’ll drive you home,” you told her bluntly. “Let’s go.”

She straightened, putting her phone in her pocket. “No, I’m waiting for my ride.”

“You’re not getting an Uber in this storm!”

“Well, I am. I already ordered one.”

You really weren’t planning on raising your voice, but you had nearly slipped on ice, and you needed to get out of your jacket, and Wanda looked so stupid with her scarf wrapped up around the lower half of her face.

“Wanda, let’s go!” you bit as if she were a child throwing a tantrum in a grocery store and you were her parent, who’d been patient for long enough.

She stared at you for a few moments, the whistling wind of the blizzard outside the only noise between the two of you. 

“Fine,” she finally mumbled, burying her face in her scarf and heading out the door. She waited a moment for you to exit the building behind her, before she followed behind you towards your car.

Wanda told you where she lived after she buckled herself in and you pulled out of the parking lot. She remained bundled in her hat and scarf. Maybe it was because Wanda hadn’t ever been in your car before, but she looked so tiny sitting in the passenger’s seat, half her head wrapped up in her plush scarf. 

But maybe she was making herself smaller, sinking into her jacket and the seat,

Taking in a small breath and trying to melt your frustration away in the warmth of your car, you asked softly, “Why were you late?”

Wanda shifted in her seat, folding her gloved hands in her lap. “My car broke down on the way here,” she explained. “I tried to stay around to get it towed, but I ended up having to leave it there because of how busy the towing company was. They suggested I get it done tomorrow morning instead.”

“How did you get to the meeting?”

“One woman came, but by the time she did, the car was already covered and far too stuck in the snow, and she couldn’t call anyone else. So she drove me.”

Maybe you got a little too excited at the thought that you were finally having a normal conversation with the woman who’d been irritating you so much, so you casually asked, “So, is that guy your husband?”

“What?” she asked, taken by surprise. She looked at you, the lower half of her face a little more uncovered. At the stoplight, you looked at her, seeing the bridge of her nose and her cheeks flushed a gentle pink from the warmth of her scarf.

Then you looked away and back at the road, feeling that you’d perhaps got ahead of yourself, and after thinking it over for a moment, you weren’t sure why that was the question that came out of you. You’d already come to the fine conclusion that Wanda was seeing a married man, but perhaps it was interacting with her normally that made you think for the first time that such a thing might be uncharacteristic of her.

“No, he’s not,” she finally answered. “I’m not married.”

You decided not to mention it again. You had already known that Wanda wasn’t married to him, and you weren’t really interested in knowing more about her love life. Actually, the idea that Wanda even had a love life made you a little uncomfortable. The idea that she could act in any way other than how you’d already witnessed her, and instead, as romantic and affectionate, was somehow startling.

“You should probably cancel that Uber,” you told her.

There were a few moments of silence, and you figured Wanda was cancelling the drive since you weren’t paying attention to what she was doing. Then, she said quietly, “I never got a driver. No one picked it up.”

You looked over at her for a second and she was still sunken down into her jacket, looking straight ahead at the road, whose visibility was becoming steadily worse as the storm progressed. “So… were you waiting for someone?”

“I was…” She sounded like she was thinking something through. “I was just waiting for the storm to die down before I tried to go home.”

“I’m sure one of your friends or some of your family would’ve come to pick you up,” you told her, thinking that she was the kind that was against asking people for help.

You were beginning to realize that Wanda always seemed a little tense each time you brought up any mention of family, so you didn’t press any further when she was silent in response to what you said. 

When you arrived at her place, you offered to help her out of the car, but she said she was fine to get out on her own. She closed the door behind her and walked around to your window. Though you felt a little put on the spot, you rolled the window down. 

You couldn’t really see her expression beyond her plush scarf still covering everything below the tip of her nose, but she looked just a little awkward as she looked at you, her gaze seeming uncertain and hesitant. 

“Thank you for driving me,” she said, and you couldn’t tell if she was purposefully mumbling or if her scarf was muffling her words. 

Suddenly you felt a little awkward, and your chest felt fluttery. “You’re welcome,” you answered.

“And I don’t know if you really care about these things, but everything I’ve heard about you from the committee has been very positive.”

“Oh.”

“They all say you’re very kind and responsible and friendly. And everyone thought it was really sweet that you brought the muffins earlier this week.”

You didn't want to say oh again, but you honestly didn’t know what else to say. You felt like you were put on the spot, and more than that, your face felt warm. “Oh. Okay. I see.”

Wanda blinked then looked away for a moment as if thinking of something else to say, though her expression was still and unmoving. But then she looked back at you and said, “Thank you for driving. I’ll see you next week.” Then you waited until she got into her house before you pulled out of her driveway and headed back home as soon as you could, getting out of the storm.

The next time you met up with your group, there was just under two weeks left until Christmas, and you were all making perfect time, and from what you’d been hearing, so were the other groups. 

“Did you see all the changes Wanda made to our document?” Kate asked as you all settled down in a booth from picking your drinks up at the counter.

You looked up from your mug.

“Changes?” Peter asked, sounding slightly whiny. “I thought our setlist and budgeting was perfect.”

Kate huffed as she scrolled down the Google Doc. “Yeah, but at least she only changed little things,” she said, leaning forward and reading the screen. 

“Like what?” Kamala asked, scooping some whipped cream from her hot chocolate with a spoon and sticking it into her mouth.

A small confused frown formed on Kate’s face. “Just, like… the songs and the order of the bands. And the accessories they were going to wear.”

“She didn’t change any of the actual bands?” America asked.

Kamala added, probably as some sort of inside joke, “Or relocate our spendings?”

“Umm…” Kate scrolled through the document again, double-checking. “Nope. None of that. She just fixed around random things.”

You didn’t really like talking about Wanda with them, because you were still partly convinced that you were just making it all up, and you were just being overly irritated around her. But you still couldn’t really pinpoint why she got under your skin so much.

Taking a sip of your drink and trying not to sound so invested in the topic of her, you asked as nonchalantly as you could, “Does she normally do all the other stuff?”

“Yeah, last year she relocated a bunch of our funding to a different group, then changed around the setlist we scheduled,” Kamala answered, setting her mug down, revealing a white rim of whipped cream along her upper lip.

Kate jutted her hand into the middle of the table, holding all five fingers up. “Five days before Christmas, by the way,” she added, eyebrows raised. “And we had to call the bands to tell them that their performance times had changed, which luckily didn’t conflict with anything, and we also had to cut way down on a whole lot of other things we were planning, and it was just…  a mess.”

“Oh,” you said, somewhat shocked at hearing the things she did last year. You already thought she could be rather tyrannical, but you wouldn’t have expected her to go into a group’s plans and change so much without notice.

“I thought she’s been sorta nicer this year,” Peter said, snapping his Biscoff cookie in half and taking a bite of one the halves.

Kamala suddenly gasped and leaned forward, her hands making contact with the table, effectively gaining the group’s attention. “Wait, is it true that she got in trouble at the last meeting for coming late?”

America nodded, “Yeah, because she was forty minutes late, and a woman from the town council came to the meeting.”

“She was late?” Kate asked, looking up from her laptop. “I guess that’s surprising for her, but why did she get in trouble for that?”

Peter mentioned, “Ned’s uncle works in Westview’s financial department, and he told me that the committee was behind in reporting the budgeting.”

“Oh,” America added, “the woman told me she was from the same department. So… I guess the tardiness was just the cherry on top.”

On the way back home from the cafe, you thought about how little you actually knew about Wanda from the meetings, and upon reflecting on your conversation in the car, you realized you didn’t get to learn much about her then, either. 

Something about that made you feel a little impatient, with Wanda seeming more and more like some enigma you were compelled to understand. You enjoyed seeing her that way more than you previously saw her since you could see her as more of a mystery than a weight on your shoulders.

But you couldn’t deny how relieved it made you that you weren’t the only one she’d ever pissed off.

By the time of the next meeting, there was a week and half left until Christmas, and everything seemed to be progressing well with all the groups. Everything was scheduled to be finished on time, if not a little bit early.

Aside from the newly-developed tradition of bringing a few snacks and drinks to the meeting, everything went as it typically did, aside from the fact that Wanda looked almost… a little flustered when you caught her looking at you, though you caught her far less frequently than you did the times before.

Because of how little she spoke with the other committee members, you figured it was because she felt a little awkward having interacted with a member outside of the meeting. 

And you didn’t forget about how you snapped at her when she wouldn’t let you drive her at first. 

It was a little embarrassing to think back on, especially with how frustrated you were, but you ended up being able to drive her anyway, and she told you that everyone had a great impression of you, so it wasn’t all for nothing.

While looking at Wanda from across throughout the meeting, you felt sort of bad for her. 

After thinking about it a little bit, why didn’t she mention any friends or family helping her with her broken down car? Or after the fact, once the meeting finished? Even if she was the kind to be against asking people for help, it must say something about her loved ones that she felt she couldn’t rely on them for help.

Then there was the matter about how she always looked a little uncomfortable when you mentioned family.

As much as you hated thinking about her love life for a reason you couldn’t entirely understand — though you were sure it was because it still felt strange for you to imagine Wanda could be in a relationship — it was a little depressing to imagine that the only person she’d been spending her holidays with was a married man.

Being the head of the planning committee for Westview’s busiest and largest holiday was a lot to handle, and volunteering was still something everyone did in their spare time, so the possibility that she could very well have dozens of other far more pressing things in her life going on, only to be reprimanded by someone representing the committee’s funding, couldn’t be very easy for her.

After the meeting, you approached her, and as you did, you came to the realization that you spoke with her at the end of every meeting you attended so far, and not even the married guy did that.

“Wanda, I was wondering if I could get your help with something,” you said as you stopped at her side while she was slipping a few papers into her purse. 

She hung her purse from her shoulder and turned to you. “With what?” she replied simply.

Although Wanda still hadn’t given you as much as a single smile so far, you thought you made a little progress, given that you also somewhat expected her to take your request for her help as indicative of your inability to keep up with the rest of your group.

As you walked out to the parking lot together, you explained, “Rio and Agatha’s group asked me for a little bit of help with planning the decorating of the performance patio since they were a little behind, and they thought I would know the best way to decorate since we’re planning the performers’ outfits.”

“They didn’t have to ask you, they could’ve just spoken with your group.”

“They did, but everyone else was busy. I have the least to do in the group since they all fit me in to do anything extra. And it’s not a big deal, I just wanted to discuss budgeting stuff with you.”

Wanda stared down at the snowy ground as she walked forward. Then she looked up and over at you. “Alright. We can meet when you’re free to ask me anything you want.”

Although you technically already had Wanda’s number since the committee groupchat was made through WhatsApp, she gave you her number anyway, perhaps not realizing that you already had it through the groupchat. And there was something about Wanda giving you her number that made you feel a little excited.

But what made you even more excited was that Wanda used one smiley face over text when you planned to meet up. 

That was basically a real life smile.

You decided to come early to your lunch with Wanda on the Saturday which you both planned to meet for. You were ten minutes early, but by the time you arrived, Wanda was already sitting at a table with a cup of coffee.

You rechecked the time, and you were indeed ten minutes early.

“Hi, I’m here,” you greeted as you stopped at the chair that was opposite of Wanda, taking off your jacket and hanging it from the back of it. “Have you been here very long?”

In the same way that she looked in your car, Wanda seemed tiny sitting at the table with her cup of coffee and wearing clothes that were a little more casual than those which she wore to the meetings. Maybe she always just seemed much larger to you in the context of the meetings, since she didn’t even really behave the same way outside of them.

“Hi,” she greeted back first. “I’ve been here for maybe fifteen minutes. I thought I would come early too.”

You took a seat and looked around at the place. It was primarily a cafe, but known for its cheap and delicious breakfast sandwiches, so it was also known as a breakfast location, but in the afternoon, as a proper cafe. You hadn’t been yet, but Peter had been queuing this place up to go the next time your group had to meet.

As you looked around, Wanda watched you, her fingers rubbing against the side of her warm mug, feeling a little nervous. When you looked back to the side of the cafe that was behind her and into her general vicinity, her eyes darted back down to her coffee.

Wanda didn’t know anything about you by the first meeting, but she was immediately drawn to how you seemed to her. You were curious, always looking around at the table, and very attractive. She knew immediately that you were going to do quite well at whatever you wanted to put your time towards. 

Truthfully, Wanda has never been good with socializing. She was good at planning and being professional in a way that other people hated enough so that she never really had to worry about being close with others. 

It wasn’t lost on her how you’d approached her at the end of every meeting, if not only to speak to her with some hostility. She noticed how sweet you were to the other members, and how well you were already getting along with everyone. Though she figured that anyone she asked would have said all those things she mentioned to you after you drove her to her place, she actually hadn’t been told anything about you. She just didn’t know how else to talk to you in that way.

No one really told Wanda anything in the social context; she wasn’t ever really wanted or thought about unless it was necessitated.

Truthfully, she didn’t feel jealous about how popular you were, but instead, she felt rather nervous to be around you. It felt similar to feelings of insecurity, if she really thought about it.

She decided to come to the cafe early to try and prepare herself for lunch with you, since she would’ve felt even worse panicking away at home or alone in the car. God, what did people even talk about over lunch? She couldn’t even remember the last time she met someone in such a casual context. It felt somewhat casual anyway, although you had asked her to discuss some of your committee responsibilities.

“Do you mind if we get some food before we talk about the budgeting?” you asked, and when Wanda looked up from her coffee, you were making eye contact with her. “I haven’t eaten yet.”

She nodded. 

You trailed off as you flipped through the menu, and when you noticed she didn’t have a menu open, you looked up at her. “Are you getting anything?”

“Oh. I know what I want.”

“Were you really here for that long?”

“I come here sometimes for breakfast if I wake up early enough.”

The image of Wanda coming in here for breakfast while bundled up in her cozy hat and plush scarf at nine in the morning kind of made you wanna tease her for such an adorable routine. Well, you told yourself it was adorable for her, at least. Breakfast restaurants were pretty popular in many contexts, for many people. But for whatever reason, you liked to imagine Wanda doing things like that.

The food came and you found yourself observing her as if she were some kind of specimen. It was interesting to watch her do things that didn’t have anything to do with the committee or planning or being a little tyrannical. Everything she did outside of that was interesting, like how she held her utensils or which part of her plate she ate first, or after how many bites she took a sip of her coffee.

“So, what do you do when you’re not volunteering?” you asked.

“I teach at a high school about thirty minutes outside of Westview.”

Damn. She must not be very popular there, either. You weren’t even trying to be rude by thinking that; if you were a high school student, you certainly wouldn’t have liked her.

“What do you teach?” 

But before she could answer, you quickly interjected, “Oh, wait, let me guess.”

She closed her mouth and smiled slightly, looking like she thought you were sort of entertaining or funny. “Okay,” she replied softly. “Guess.”

You hummed, looking at her in great detail as you thought over all that you knew of her. Wanda shifted in her seat, tugging at the bottom of her knit sweater and tucking her hair back, feeling a little awkward and insecure with you looking at her.

With a slight narrow of your eyes, you spun your fork between three fingers. “Can I ask you a question so I can make a better guess?”

“Sure.”

“Are you good with technology?”

“In what way?”

You clarified, “Do you know how to reset your wifi router?”

She looked up and to the side for a moment, trying to imagine what she would do if her wifi went out. “No, I don’t think I’d know how to. But I could likely figure it out on my own,” she answered, looking back at you. “And that’s far more than one question.”

“Do you teach English?”

A gentle smile formed on Wanda’s and then she nodded. “Yes.”

It wasn’t that English teachers seemed technologically unknowledgeable, but if Wanda did know how to reset her wifi router, she’d likely teach history or maybe even some kind of science. She thought that was funny. She didn’t laugh to indicate that, she told you that it was, with a little smile.

You then told Wanda what you worked as. At the moment, you were doing some research after your postgrad, hopefully to be able to do some further research abroad in preparation for… something or other. You weren’t entirely sure right now.

Wanda was actually quite soft-spoken, and a little shy. She always looked like she wanted to say something more than what she had already said, or was thinking something more and didn’t entirely know how to say it.

After you finished eating, it was you who finally brought up the budgeting although you had honestly only used it as an excuse to get to know her more. After that, it was pretty much just committee talk.

”Do you have any plans for the holidays?” you asked her as you packed up your things. You paid for lunch, since you had asked her to take time out of her day to answer your questions. 

Wanda hummed as she fit her hat on then did her jacket up. “I won’t be too busy. Usually, I call my family and celebrate on my own.”

“Call them?” you repeated. “Do they live far?”

“They live in Eastern Europe.”

“Do they ever travel to visit you?”

She didn’t answer for a few moments as the both of you stepped out of the cafe. “No. They prefer not to travel. They say they’re waiting for my brother and I to save up and host them here so they can live in America. “

So, could that married guy have been her brother? 

“Does your brother live in Westview?”

“No, he travels around. I don’t think he has plans to save up for them any time soon.”

You felt a little idiotic for being so invested in that man’s relation to her, and you were suddenly uninterested in talking with her any longer. After all, that guy was probably her boyfriend, and she was probably taken aback in the car the other day when you asked her about her affair. 

But it shouldn’t even matter to you whether Wanda was dating anyone. 

Maybe you’d suddenly become a huge ethicist during the holidays, and just subconsciously hated women who had affairs with married men. 

“Well, thanks for helping me with the budgeting,” you said, turning to her once you got to your car. 

Wanda looked at you first, seemingly confused for just a beat, before she looked at your car, which she recognized from the time you drove her. She realized she hadn’t really been paying attention to what she was doing; she’d only been following wherever you were going. 

“Oh, yes, right.” She collected herself, brushing invisible snow from her jacket. “You’re welcome. I’ll see you next week.”

Then when you were preparing to turn and unlock your door, Wanda stepped back to leave but hesitated a little, so you figured she had something more to say. 

She looked over to where her car was, then down to the ground and back to you. “Thank you for inviting me to lunch. Have a good rest of your weekend.”

By the next meeting, there was a week left until Christmas, and things were beginning to wrap up. There were only two meetings left, and the final one wasn’t set for any planning. 

The final meeting, since everything had been moving ahead of schedule so far, was going to be reserved for a committee potluck, and any of the committee members could bring their friends or family as long as the volunteers were planning on bringing enough food. 

No one wanted to fall behind lest they lose the date of the potluck, and so the groupchat had recently been busy with updates as groups remained on time or even ahead of time, and the present meeting was no exception. 

Wanda seemed to have gotten word of how the committee heard that she was reprimanded for being behind in reports, so she made an update on all the things she’d sent to Westview’s council as confirmation to everyone and to ensure that she’d sent accurate information. 

Your group was all but finished aside from needing to buy the accessories for the performers, which would just be some bracelets and Santa hats and other small things which unified them as they all performed for the same event. Kamala and America were planning on shopping for them this weekend, and would bring them to the potluck to keep them there until they were taken out of storage for Christmas Eve.

The other groups were all caught up and were just waiting on tiny things, like how the group handling the small businesses were waiting on finalized menu prices for budgeting, which would also be finished this weekend.

Rio and Agatha’s group had finished their patio designs too.

Wanda wasn’t under any impression that you purposefully came up to her at the end of every meeting, and she was more than understanding of the fact that they were just coincidences, or due to reasons that came up which required you to speak with her. It wasn’t like you wanted to.

She was sort of hoping you had a reason to speak with her this time around too, but she didn’t think you had any issues with your group or with things you needed to do for the committee like you did before.

Wanda walked out to her car, trying to accept that she wouldn’t see you again until the next major planning committee event you could attend. She wasn’t planning on going to the next meeting’s potluck, and she wasn’t planning on going to the event on Christmas Eve either. She didn’t really go to those things.

You sounded busy during the year when you explained your job to her, and who knew if you’d be in Westview for next Christmas? Not that she was any thrill to have in your company anyway; she hardly knew how to keep an interesting conversation.

She exhaled a little in the driver’s seat, slumping down into her jacket.

It wasn’t often that anyone gave her their time. She thought the way she regarded you was a little pathetic, since it was clear you saw her as your committee head and nothing more. 

Wanda started her car and headed home. She would be finished with her work by tonight before the potluck, since all the other things that remained to be done didn’t involve her reports. The rest of her plans for the holidays involved buying gifts for her family and shipping them through the post. On Christmas, she’d call her parents then talk to her brother, who likely wouldn’t be in the mood to speak with them in a group call.

Then she’d celebrate New Years’ at home alone, and in January, begin a new school semester.

The day of the potluck came, and it was the first year everything had been done not only early, but as exciting as it all was; this year was imagined to be the most thrilling one so far. The blizzard had brought in inches and inches of snow which had been a pain for anyone stuck in it while it had been happening, but a dream to wake up to by the next morning once it stopped.

Westview was decorated in a winter you often saw in the movies, and everyone at the committee was in a wonderful mood.

You waited for Wanda to show up, wondering what kind of food she’d bring, and hoping to see her in a casual setting again. You wondered if she would wear her committee meeting clothes or something more comfortable. But a part of you also kind of dreaded seeing her around the married guy, whose name you found out today was Simon, because it seemed that he brought his wife to the potluck.

But by the thirty minute mark, Wanda still hadn’t shown up. 

“Do you think Wanda will come?” you asked Kate.

She shook her head. “She doesn’t come to these things. She never comes on Christmas Eve either.”

“What? Really? But she’s the head of the committee. I thought she’d at least show up to the event since she put so much time into it.”

Kate hummed, thinking about that for a moment. “Yeah, I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I always just assumed she travels or something.”

You looked around at the food, thinking back on all the times pastries and other drinks were brought to the meetings, and you couldn’t recall if Wanda ever partook in them. You looked up at Simon, who was chatting away with his wife.

Some part of you imagined some grand gesture where Wanda came to the potluck though she typically didn’t attend, but you were almost entirely sure she wasn’t going to. From what you had learned about her in the last few times you spoke with her on your own together, Wanda seemed a lot more hesitant than one would guess. 

You took two of the takeout boxes someone had brought in case there was going to be leftovers — and there was certainly going to be — to take to Wanda. One box was full of a normal dinner, like some of the rolls, turkey, stuffing, and mashed potatoes and gravy. Then in the other box, you packed some dessert, like cookies, pastries, and some candied fruit.

Then you made your way to her place.

Maybe she had company over, like her actual boyfriend, but in any case, you were fine just dropping the food off and handing it to her. And you didn’t want to call, because you didn’t think you were that close with her, and you didn’t want to assume she was comfortable with you calling her out of the blue.

Her car was alone in front of her place, and it didn’t look like she’d pulled out of her driveway since at least last evening given how much it’d snowed over her tire tracks.

You knocked on her door, and after a few moments the door opened, revealing Wanda in sweatpants and a thin plain black t-shirt.

“Y/N,” she firstly greeted, surprised as she pushed the door open further at the sight of you. “Did we talk about meeting?”

“No, nothing like that.” You held the two takeout boxes out. “I just thought you’d come to the potluck.”

She looked down at the boxes, reaching her hands out hesitantly to take them, then retracting her hands so they froze halfway to them. “Are these for me? What are they?” she asked, looking at you.

“It’s the food from the potluck. I brought you dinner and a bunch of dessert.”

“O-Oh, you… really didn’t have to bring me this…” she answered, her voice softening as she looked back down to the boxes and carefully took them from you. She looked back up and smiled at you. “Thank you.”

After a moment of brief silence which made you quite nervous, since it was very awkward to be standing in silence in front of Wanda, you stepped back. “Well, I’ll see you on Christmas then,” you said.

She stepped forward. “Would you like to come in, Y/N?” she asked suddenly. 

When you made eye contact with her again, Wanda looked down at the boxes in her hands. “I just made some coffee and I was planning on doing some reading, but…” She looked up. “I made enough for two, and I haven’t had dinner yet.”

You swallowed, feeling somewhat nervous. “If you don’t mind.”

Wanda’s shoulders straightened, her expression lightening. “I don’t mind at all. Please come in,” she invited, stepping back and allowing you to enter. 

As you stepped inside and Wanda took your jacket, she took silent deep breaths as she prepared herself to have a proper conversation with you. 

“So…” she started as she walked you into the kitchen, pouring you a mug of coffee. “What are you planning on doing for Christmas, Y/N?” 

You stood a few feet away from Wanda as she poured you her coffee, watching her. She asked you what you liked in your coffee, and she stirred it in. She looked kind of… cute in what she was wearing. She looked kind of cute looking all domestic.

You scratched your cheek awkwardly, looking away as you answered, “Well, this year my family is coming to Westview and I’m hosting Christmas this time. So I’ve been decorating my place and thinking through some things to make for dinner.”

She carefully placed the coffee in front of you and began plating the food you brought her from the potluck.

“That sounds sweet,” she said. “I hope you enjoy hosting.”

“Do you have any Christmas traditions?”

She hummed in thought as she closed the boxes. “When I still lived with my parents, we volunteered at a soup kitchen, then came home and had late dinner. After we ate, we opened our gifts, then watched a movie as a family.”

You smiled a little as she described it. 

Wanda brought her coffee and plate to the dining table, and you brought your own coffee and a platter of peppermint cookies which she said she made yesterday. 

Wanda’s house was decorated with string lights, and she had a few unscented candles lit around the house. Her place smelled like cookies and a little bit of cinnamon, and you figured she must bake a lot in her freetime. In the living room, which you passed on your way to the kitchen, she had a large tree in front of the window decorated with gold, white, and pink.

It was kind of cute to imagine her decorating, and she was obviously far more festive than you thought. But then you imagined her decorating such a grand thing all on her own, and that made you feel quite bad for her. Not that you didn’t think she couldn’t — she clearly could — but the idea of someone so alone during the holidays made you ache.

“You said your parents wanted to move to America?” you asked when you sat down at the dining table. You both sat on one side of a corner, closest to each other.

She took in a breath and took a sip of coffee. “Yes, I did say that,” she answered, setting her mug down then cutting a slicing bit of turkey. “But… I honestly don’t think they’re sincerely interested in moving anywhere.”

“And your brother?”

“He moves too much,” she answered. “I had to ask him to stay in one place for a month so I could deliver a gift to his address, but he just told me to send it to a post in Berlin, and he’ll fly over if he’s not in Germany anymore to pick it up whenever it’s been delivered.”

She looked up from her plate, watching you look around her place. She swallowed, playing with her fork a little bit. The candlelight from the dining table made your face look very smooth, and very warm.

Wanda rubbed her knuckle against the back of her cheek, feeling herself flush at the sight. “Um, Y/N,” she said, looking back down at her plate and cutting a piece of turkey just to keep occupied. “I’ve been thinking…”

You looked away from her Christmas tree which you saw from a distance. It was beautiful, and Wanda truly had an eye for decorating. Even her furniture was gorgeous.

“I wanted to apologize for how I must’ve seemed to you when we first met. I mean… not how I seemed, exactly, but how I behaved…” She poked at the piece of turkey she sliced. “I’m… not very popular with the committee.”

Something fluttered in your chest, forcing you to take in a breath of air. Maybe it was guilt, or… Well, you were completely justified for how you acted around her before. 

But something about watching Wanda eat at the decorated table in the middle of her dining room in her gorgeous house, and imagining her doing this every evening for dinner alone made your chest tighten. 

Even in her own house, she seemed small. 

“Can I ask you something kind of personal?” 

She looked up from her plate, lowering her fork a little. She nodded. “Of course.”

“Are you seeing Simon?”

Wanda answered quickly, “No, I’m not seeing him.”

Before you could stop yourself from pushing too far, you added, “But he’s always flirting with you.”

She looked down at her plate again. “Yes, he’s…” She trailed off. She put her fork down and took a sip of coffee. “Simon is interested in me — of course I know that.”

“I’m just curious…” you spoke cautiously. “Why don't you see him if you know he’s flirting with you?”

“You’re asking because of his wife?”

When you blinked in response, Wanda figured you had no idea what she was talking about. She took a bite of her turkey, and after swallowing, she said, “His wife isn’t very subtle about her own affair. But I don’t think she concerns herself with what other people think of her; she’s some kind of lawyer, so she’s typically never in town.”

“You know a lot about everyone.”

To your surprise, Wanda laughed, though it was a dry one. “No. Simon just tells me.”

You nodded, taking a bite of a cookie. 

Wanda looked up when you didn’t respond, and she bit the inside of her cheek. She wondered if you felt as tense as she did whenever you brought Simon up. She fidgeted with the string of her sweatpants with her other hand. She never knew whether it was ever appropriate to say the things she had in mind. Often, she hesitated between telling you what she wanted to say and staying quiet. 

Swallowing, Wanda set her fork down and fidgeted with the handle of her mug. “I know it sounds terrible of me, but Simon always compliments my work as the committee head. That’s what he comes up to me after the meetings to talk about.”

“Oh,” you replied.

Still, the idea of Wanda getting all excited and romantic with some guy made you uncomfortable. It still made you upset that it frustrated you so much, and you wished you could look down on her for her questionable interactions with him, but you couldn’t help but just feel frustrated about it.

A small silence came over the two of you as Wanda looked down at her empty plate. She racked through her mind desperately for anything interesting to say. 

Then she looked up and asked, “What do you think about Agatha and Rio?”

You sipped your coffee, thankful for how beautiful Wanda’s house was since it gave you any excuse not to look at her for a few moments during moments of silence. “I think they’re nice together.”

“I think they are too,” Wanda replied, adjusting her fork and knife on her plate. She wanted to cry out and bury her face in her arms. She felt so pathetic; she had no idea how to have a conversation. You probably just wanted to go home already.

Even so, she tried to keep talking with you. 

“But Rio doesn’t like me very much.”

You looked over at her, recalling the time Rio called Wanda’s name loudly when she had come in forty minutes late though she had been trying to walk in subtly. “I had a feeling,” you said. “Why not?”

“I saw Agatha for a very short time, and I didn’t know she and Rio were on a break,” she explained. “Agatha told me they were on a break after she and Rio made up, but I didn’t know beforehand.”

Something about that was incredibly funny to you, because Rio and Agatha seemed inseparable, and to imagine that Wanda, of all people, had somehow gotten between them was extremely funny.

Wanda looked up from her plate, her lips parted slightly as she watched you for a moment while you laughed out loud. She felt her heart in her throat at the sight of you. She’d never seen you laugh that hard, and she didn’t think herself to be that funny. 

“That must have been very awkward for you,” you said once you could speak clearly.

“Yes, it was,” Wanda answered, smiling at you a little bashfully, tracking you with her eyes as you looked down to the table then picked up your mug of coffee again.

Wanda was never really good at picking up signals from other people either. It must mean something that you were in her house and eating with her, and sitting so close, and you weren’t rushing to finish your coffee. But what next?

It had been a long while since she had any close friends, or any real friends at all, so maybe she was just misunderstanding how she felt around you. Perhaps it was normal to feel so nervous around you and attracted to you.

Should she pursue you as a friend? She didn’t know how to do even that, and she also didn’t know if you still saw her as only your committee head. 

“Why did you change all those little things on our document, by the way?” you asked suddenly. “Sorry to bring committee stuff up. I’ve just been curious.”

Wanda looked a little embarrassed and she fiddled with the handle of her mug with two hands, her plate now pushed to the side. “There wasn’t anything wrong with it. I just thought I’d make a few adjustments about things that guests brought up last year,” she said. 

She looked up, looking uncertain and even a little remorseful. “I hope they weren’t too much of a change. I just thought I’d try to help a little bit.”

For a moment you couldn’t imagine that this was the same Wanda who had changed major parts of the group’s planning last year just five days before Christmas Day, and then you recalled that sometimes you couldn’t believe that both Wandas you knew were the same person.

You could understand Wanda seeming much larger in the committee room and much smaller in your car and in the cafe because she was sort of scary in the meetings, and soft-spoken outside of them. But you didn’t have a clue regarding things like how she seemed to treat the committee differently this time or how she treated your group differently than previous years, since you recalled that Peter mentioned how he thought she’d been nicer.

“Not at all. I think the changes were nice.”

“Really?” she asked. The corners of her lips tugged upwards a little. “I’m glad I could help.”

Wanda put away the dishes and thanked you again for the food. She packed you some of the peppermint cookies too. 

As she was walking you to the front, she watched you from behind, wondering if it was normal to bring up things that didn’t necessarily pertain to exactly what the two of you were talking about in the moment — which was to say, nothing.

Second guessing and uncertainty surrounding how she should behave or speak to you always got in the way of saying things she wanted to say. 

“Y/N, thank you for thinking of me today at the potluck when I didn’t come,” she said quietly as you slipped your boots on. She played with the box of cookies in her hands. “I’m not very good with people, as you might have guessed. But…”

She trailed off and you straightened once your boots were on to look at her. “I really like spending time with you outside the meetings,” she confessed, “and I hope that we might be able to keep talking after the holidays.”

You swallowed, suddenly feeling your heart race at the sight of her averted eyes and her quiet tone. You took in a breath and then spoke. “Would you like to help me wrap some gifts tomorrow?”

Wanda looked up, surprised. 

“I have a bunch to wrap because I’m hosting Christmas, and some of my family members gave me money to shop for them here because they couldn't travel with too much,” you explained. “So… I’ll really need your help.”

She nodded, gripping the box a little tighter. “Of course. I’ll be there.”

That night, you and Wanda planned for what time she’d come over. She’d come around three so she could have lunch, and you offered to cook her dinner for her help. She wanted to deny the offer, but she truly couldn’t turn down the chance of having a home-cooked dinner with you at your place.

Though you were looking forward to having her over, you felt rather nervous about it all. Wanda had a gorgeous home and was likely a very talented cook as she was a talented baker, and you really didn’t want to disappoint her.

As you went through the grocery store in the afternoon after getting some last minute gifts, you decided on preparing salmon sushi baked, which you’d been wanting to try. You picked up the ingredients then headed home.

Wanda was far different from how you initially thought her to be, but she was still incredibly intelligent and responsible, and although you felt a bit awkward admitting it to yourself, she was gorgeous too, and you still didn’t entirely know the kinds of things she was thinking about you. 

She had said that she wanted to see you after the holidays.

As a friend, right?

You were at least certain that she saw you as more than just a committee member.

When had you even started feeling this confused about her, anyway? It was still possible she had a boyfriend or some kind of partner in Europe where she was from.

Thinking back to things you knew about Wanda made you feel a little flustered, even things that had really pissed you off for reasons you still didn’t really understand your reactions to, like her little cozy hat and the scarf that always covered half her face, and her habit of averting her gaze when you caught her looking at you.

When Wanda arrived, she was in jeans and a light brown knit sweater, her hair done in a braid. She smiled at you when you opened the front door, and she was holding a large Christmas gift bag full of different gift wrapping designs. You realized her hair wasn’t naturally as straight as you typically saw it, because the hair was a little wavy, pulled back into the braid.

Wanda sat down on your couch as you brought her some hot chocolate, and some fruit and a little charcuterie board you put together.

“Thank you,” she said, smiling up at you as you set down the food on the coffee table. She was smiling at you more than usual since she’d arrived, and you couldn’t figure out whether you were unsettled or flattered by it.

When you sat down beside her on the couch and Wanda was taking a sip of her hot chocolate, she asked, “How was your day?”

“It was okay. I was mostly running around,” you answered. “I was getting some last minute gifts, and then I bought the things for dinner today.”

At the mention of dinner, Wanda perked up. “Oh, right. I brought something.” She set her hot chocolate down carefully then stood up to go over to her purse, where she also had her wrapping paper set. You didn’t ask her to bring anything, but she brought about four different designs from her place.

She pulled out a bottle of white wine, which looked rather expensive, and brought it over to you before sitting back down beside you. “I was thinking we might be able to have some wine with dinner.”

You carefully took the wine from her and looked it over. “Wow, Wanda, this is a really good kind,” you mused. “I think I had this last Christmas, and I loved it. Thank you.”

“I’m glad, Y/N. I had a feeling you’d like it.”

After setting it down on the coffee table, you looked over to her, only to find her still looking at you. She had a sort of pleasant look on her face. A little smile formed when you met her eyes, which looked at you with a sort of focus or analysis whose details she didn’t disclose to you.

She looked away and took a grape from the charcuterie board.

“Should we start wrapping?” you asked, solely to release the tension in your chest.

You and Wanda sat on the floor in front of your tree, the coffee table moved so you could both reach the charcuterie board and Wanda could reach her hot chocolate. The two of you decided to use the wrapping paper Wanda bought, since hers was unsurprisingly far prettier.

“So, well… I’m actually not very good at wrapping presents. I always put them in gift bags,” you confessed.

Wanda took a box of expensive chocolates and aligned it with the wrapping paper. “I’m quite good at wrapping presents,” she boasted playfully, looking up at you as she cut the paper with a pair of scissors. “I can show you how.”

The chocolate box was wrapped pristinely, and Wanda turned it around a few times in her hands to show you its sharp edges and folds. She gave it to you so you could write on the gift’s label. 

“Where did you learn how to wrap so good?” you asked, taking another gift in an easy-to-wrap shape and setting it in front of your crossed legs.

“I had to do a lot of Christmas wrapping when I lived with my parents,” she explained. She stood up suddenly and took a seat beside you. She repositioned the gift in front of your legs and aligned it with the wrapping paper.

Between explaining how to wrap gifts to you and explaining how she learned while wrapping her own alongside you for you to follow her through example, she spoke while you listened.

“My brother and I also wrapped gifts for the soup kitchen I mentioned before,” she explained, her eyes darting between your gift and hers to make sure you were following along properly. “We wrapped so many, so I think I just got better at it over time.”

You spoke a bit slowly since you were focusing. “How long did you volunteer there?”

“I think about…” Wanda paused to think, then reached out to move your hand with her own. “Fold this underneath, not over. Keep it against the box,” she instructed. 

When you looked up at her after correcting yourself, she nodded, letting go of your hand as your fingers pressed the paper against the box. “Yes, just like that,” she said.

Then she continued, “I think we volunteered there for about eight years.”

You and Wanda spoke back and forth as you wrapped gifts together for about an hour, sitting cross-legged side by side beside your Christmas tree.

“Do you miss your family?” you asked at one point.

Wanda hummed as she taped some paper down. “My brother and I were very close,” she said. “I do miss him. I sometimes feel resentful that he hasn’t taken any time to come see me, but I understand that he’s always felt very trapped around family growing up. He was far more ambitious and impulsive than I ever was.”

You noticed she didn’t mention anything about her parents. 

“When did you both move out?”

“Pietro moved out when he was eighteen. He took up jobs wherever he travelled, and he’s always been a spirited and friendly person, so I hear he’d been able to make fast friends no matter where he landed.”

You noticed that Wanda typically avoided talking about herself when she had the chance to talk about anyone else, especially when it had to do with her family.

Sliding your last gift away under the tree after labeling it and turning your body to face Wanda with hers, you asked, “What about you?”

“I left much later, when I was twenty five. I studied to become a teacher here in America after finishing my undergrad there,” she answered, keeping her eyes on the final gift she was wrapping. 

She finished the gift and slid it over to you. You labelled it then placed it on top of another gift. 

“Wow. They all look great,” you said, standing up and taking a step back to look. “Thank you for your help. I couldn’t have done any of it without you.”

You looked down at Wanda, who was staring at the tree and the gifts in some oddly sentimental way. You reached a hand down to her, and the movement from the corner of her eye broke her focus. She looked up at you with a grateful smile then took it and stood up. 

Wanda opened the wine so the two of you could start drinking as you began to cook together. 

This was your first year out of school and you’d been working throughout it without even really getting a chance to settle it in. 

This Christmas season, you’d been doing a whole lot of meeting with people from Westview, and it was all incredibly fun. You felt like a college student again, surrounded by older Westview neighbours, doing fun group assignments, and worrying about travelling to meetings in the weather. 

But while you were cooking with Wanda, your place finally felt lived in for the first time since you moved to Westview.

It was nice to fit in, but it was nicer to be home. 

“So… Can I ask if you have kids? Or, like… some wild crazy ex-husband story that would be interesting to tell?”

Wanda’s eyebrows raised over the rim of her glass as she took a sip. “Goodness,” she said, setting the glass down. “Do I really look that old?”

“No, no,” you assured, waving your salmon-coated hands in front of you. She picked up a piece of salmon from the counter that had flung off from your finger and placed it in the glass dish that was nearly set to go into the oven. 

She watched you with a little smile, her cheeks warm from the wine as you flattened the salmon across the rice, thinking of a different way to form your question. 

“Then… Do you have a boyfriend?” you asked, looking up after a moment, meeting her eyes innocently. 

“No,” she answered. “I’m a lesbian.”

You blinked, partially surprised, and then feeling a little competitive. If she had a girlfriend, things would be totally different, for some reason. 

As if she could read your mind, she added, “But I’m not seeing anyone, and I don’t have an ex-wife or any children.”

It was most certainly the wine that was making the both of you feel a little bolder, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked her about whether she was seeing anyone, and she wouldn’t have seen your slightly flushed expression and thought to take the opportunity to tease you. 

“Do you have a partner, Y/N?” she asked, picking up her glass again. 

“No,” you answered earnestly. “I’ve been too busy to think about those things.”

She hummed at your answer, pouring a little more wine into her glass then topping yours off too. You washed your hands and put the salmon bake into the oven. 

“You’re not interested in anyone in your group?” she asked.

“Um…” You frowned a little at the thought, not because you were thinking about it, but because it was a strange thing to suggest. “No — no one there.”

Wanda would be lying if she said she didn’t think of placing you in that group because she wanted to see how you and Kate got along, amongst other reasons that were far less important now. She wanted to figure out if you liked girls, and Wanda figured she and Yelena had broken up since she stopped coming to meetings. But your answer wasn’t indicative of anything, so she figured she’d just never know. 

You set a timer on the oven and stood in front of Wanda, who’d been leaning her hip on the counter watching you after she cut the salmon and laid the seasoned rice out into the dish. 

“I guess I didn’t really think the rest of the night through,” you said sheepishly after taking a sip of wine. “What do you want to do?”

“Would you like to just talk at your dining table?” Wanda offered with a little smile. 

You and Wanda sat very close to each other, with the table’s edge between the two of you like it had when you were at her place. Except, her knee brushed against yours under the table with how close she was sitting. 

You said something that made Wanda laugh, and she crossed her legs on top of your dining room chair. Her cheeks were flushed a soft pink, and she kept leaning closer to you. 

Wanda had been worrying about the upcoming evening all day, wondering what kinds of things people talked about when they wrapped gifts together.

Then she wondered again about how you regarded her; you didn’t invite just anyone to your place, much less to do something as casual as wrapping gifts.

She’d actually Googled the kinds of things people did at these things, but she couldn’t find anything very good for what to say or do during gift wrapping activities, or even find anything for the specific occurrence. 

She’d even tried to search up how people advanced from a professional relationship to a more intimate one. She got some great tips on that from a website called Reddit — share more about your personal life, indicate with body language to express willingness for physical closeness, and maintain eye contact sometimes. 

Well, Wanda would say that it was all going quite well. She felt like a great socializer, and you seemed to be picking up on all her hints that she wanted to be closer to you. 

“I’m really sorry to ask, but I’m just curious,” you apologized, prefacing your next question as the two of you settled back down at the table, salmon bake now freshly out of the oven and on the dining table. 

Wanda was serving the pieces onto a plate after the both of you sprinkled fresh seaweed on top. “Don’t apologize,” she said. ”Ask me anything.”

“Are you close with your parents?”

The tension that often came over Wanda when you asked personal questions hadn’t seemed to come over her the entire time she was over. Instead, she would react with a familiar pensive silence where she looked like she was thinking something over before answering. 

“Not very close, no,” she answered. “My parents were very strict and very controlling of my brother and I. Pietro moved out the moment he could, and I stayed to complete my education and support them.”

“I see,” you said, taking a bite of your dinner. 

Before you could say how good it was, Wanda exclaimed with a hand over her partially-full mouth, “This is amazing. You’re a wonderful cook, Y/N.” Her cheeks were a little stuffed as she chewed and her hair had been loosened from her braid, showing more of the natural waves of her hair.

You had wanted to agree, but got a little distracted watching her, so after she swallowed another bite, she added, “I worked as a teacher’s aid through my undergrad and worked a lot outside of school to support my family. I still send them money frequently. I think my brother does the same, but we don’t talk very much about them. I’ve always been much closer to him.”

“May I ask you something personal too?” she asked. She looked up from her plate to look at you, and you nodded when you noticed she was waiting for visual confirmation.

She hummed a little, as if she were trying to select a good one. 

Then she asked, “Do you like women?”

The question surprised you and you weren’t sure whether you should laugh as if it were a joke. Your cheeks flushed at the idea of Wanda imagining you with a woman. But she didn’t seem to catch onto your embarrassment, even as she watched your face with focus.

You decided to answer simply given how nonchalantly Wanda was looking at you. “Yes.”

Then Wanda took a sip of her wine, looking at you still. 

“Okay,” she replied, smiling a little. “Have you dated recently?”

“Um…” You thought about that for a moment, then looked back at her. “No. I think it’s been about two years since my last relationship. What about you?”

Wanda swallowed another bite of her food. “I was with one of my coworkers when I first started working at the school for a few months.”

“Wow. How did that go?”

“It was a very bad idea.”

She looked up from her plate when you laughed, and Wanda couldn’t help but giggle thinking back at the absurd circumstances, which she discussed in more detail with you after you asked about it.

After dinner, you and Wanda decided that it wasn’t a good idea for her to drive home because of how she still felt a little tipsy, but it was late, and you didn’t want to keep her from going home, and you didn’t trust yourself to drive either. 

But because of how occupied the two of you had become inside, neither of you had paid attention to another snowstorm that seemed to have been going on for at least forty minutes.

“Do you think an Uber will come?” she asked, looking up from her phone with the weather app open and through the window in your living room, which you were also looking through while standing beside her.

“Ah… I don’t know,” you answered, sounding a little preoccupied as you looked outside. “The snow’s got some inches up your tires…”

Wanda looked at you, biting the inside of her cheek as she watched your deep focus. “Is it okay that I stay for longer? I don’t want to keep you up.”

“It’s really okay,” you said, stepping back from the window. “Please stay.”

The weather app said that the storm wouldn’t stop until later in the evening, so the plan was for you to stay up with Wanda until it died down. Maybe by then, you could shovel the driveway for her ride. Otherwise, she was alright with sleeping over. 

The two of you were sitting on your couch, the television on but paused about five minutes into a Christmas movie before one of you paused it for some forgotten reason, and became distracted in conversation moving forward.

Wanda was wearing some of your extra clothes, and you’d changed into something more comfortable too. She had undone her hair from her braid, and you thought she looked beautiful with her hair unstraightened. The two of you were drinking hot chocolate again after finishing off the wine, exchanging stories and talking about random things.

Then, as you looked over at the television, partly in deep thought about something you had just been talking about and the other part wondering if you should play the movie again, Wanda looked over your face, sitting with her knees up against her stomach, her body facing you. 

“Y/N, can I tell you something honestly?” she asked.

She thought back to the advice she read online — to become closer with someone, you should try being more honest about things to show that you were open to sharing your real thoughts and feelings.

“Sure,” you replied, turning back to her.

“I think you’re very attractive.”

Sometimes Wanda had a habit of asking questions or saying things which surprised you, in a tone that was entirely nonchalant. But often, when you looked at her expression and found that she was asking seriously or casually, you were able to gauge how to respond without seeming as flustered as you did — like when she asked if you liked women.

But this time, she herself seemed flustered too.

She brushed her cheek against her upper arm which was wrapped around her knees as you looked at her. “I’m sorry if that was a strange thing to say,” she said quietly, seeming hesitant to look away from you, but eventually looking back over at the paused movie.

Perhaps she was also thinking about playing it again, hoping to forget about what she said.

“Wanda,” you said quietly, getting her attention again.

When she looked at you, her eyes meeting yours and looking a little nervous, you said, “You’re really, really beautiful.”

Wanda’s hands tightened around her elbows, and she had the urge to hide her face. She didn’t want to, because she wanted to take the compliment well and say something kind in return, but her cheeks felt flushed and warm and she didn’t want to smile as wide as she felt she wanted to. 

Against her better wishes, she buried her flushed face in her arms, which were still wrapped around her knees. “You’re saying that to be kind, yes?” she asked, her voice meek, lifting her head and looking at you. “I read that sometimes people mirror others to seem friendlier.”

You only shook your head in response, and Wanda looked at you, trying to figure what to do with what you told her, her internal thoughts a downright mess.

Wanda imagined what would happen if she decided to stay quiet, like she normally did when she didn’t know what to say, or when she worried that she wasn’t reading social cues well enough to speak within the right context.

Maybe you might have lunch with your committee after the holidays, and realize that Kate was entirely your type. Maybe you would meet someone doing the same kind of research as you did in your postgrad at work. Maybe you’d stop staying in Westview, and start staying with your future girlfriend if she lived outside of town, and she’d never see you again.

“Can you kiss me? Please?” she asked suddenly, letting go of her legs and straightening.

Like a soldier acting on command, you reached over to her, ending up on your knees with one hand on the couch to steady yourself to meet her lips with yours. Your other hand rested on her knee, and Wanda took it, tugging you closer so you could move on top of her as she began to lean backwards.

You slotted yourself between her parted legs, her thighs closing against your hips, holding you in place. Her hands slid under your shoulders and laid against your upper back, keeping you close as your lips moved against each other. 

The little noises that came from her made you want to touch her in the most delicate way you could. You kissed her slowly, and she liked that speed. She shuddered when your tongue traced the bottom of her upper lip, and she immediately parted her lips for you. 

She rolled her hips upward when your tongue entered her mouth, the tip of her own running along the side of yours, like a gentle greeting, before your tongue swirled around her own slowly.

You parted from her lips to take a breath, and through hooded eyes you saw Wanda’s slightly open mouth, her lips glistening, before you leaned down and tucked your face into her neck. She whispered your name shakily, tipping her head to the side as your tongue flattened itself and ran up to the edge of her jaw.

Unsure if she was alright with you leaving marks, you gently suckled at points of her neck instead, nipping at her skin close to her neck. You felt the vibrations of her soft noises against your lips. 

One of Wanda’s hands moved down your lower back and tugged lightly at the waistband of your pajama pants. “Can I take it off?”

You lifted your head from her neck and nodded, reaching down to help her, and lifting yourself up onto your knees to readjust your positions. 

“Can you get on your back?” she asked, sitting up and removing her legs from between your knees. 

Wanda took the remote and set it down on the floor so you wouldn’t lay on it. She got on top of you, between your parted legs.

You kissed differently when she was on top. It was hard to explain, but you could feel it. She wasn’t necessarily slower, but she was careful and deliberate, your lips moving together as if to feel one another rather than doing so with the explicit intention to kiss. 

Your arm was wrapped around her waist, your hand pressed against the side of her stomach, feeling her shirt lift slightly as she moved, warm skin under your fingers.

She teased your nipple through your shirt in a way that made your body jerk slightly, the side of her finger grazing over it until it hardened and became sensitive. The pad of her thumb drew circles against it. 

The noises she made sounded more of satisfaction than pleasure as you whimpered beneath her, your body arching beneath her as she continued to tease your nipples. 

“Can I push your shirt up?” she asked, having to part from your lips to ask. You nodded immediately, lifting your back a bit while Wanda straightened so she could push your shirt above your chest. 

The position you were in was a rather vulnerable one, and made you feel more exposed than if you had just taken the shirt off. Her eyes darted between your breasts, before leaning back down, closer to you. 

Her eyes were still on your chest, and your shirt, bunched up close to your neck, obscured your view of her hands. Her finger teased at one nipple delicately, and you could figure that it was quickly stiffening based on a low noise Wanda made. 

She leaned her head down and wrapped her lips around it, sucking gently, her tongue rhythmically moving back and forth across the very tip of it and drawing soft moans out of you. 

Wanda paid such close attention to how her little ministrations were affecting you, and the speed of everything she was doing was perfect. She rubbed the tip of her tongue at just the right slow and teasing speed against your nipples, knew just when to pinch them between her thumb and index finger. 

You couldn’t even remember the last time someone had such a fixation on your nipples, let alone been able to make you feel this good while stimulating just them. 

She moved up and kissed you again, and the feeling of her shirt against your chest made you kiss her teasing. “Do you like when I play with your nipples?” she asked against your lips. “I can tell they’re very sensitive.”

You nodded immediately. 

“Would you like more?”

“Yes, please,” you practically sighed out in desperation. You sat up a little to take your shirt off to make it easier, and Wanda helped you get it over your head before placing it on the floor. 

She returned to teasing your buds, alternating between wrapping her lips around them, pressing gentle kisses to them, or rubbing her tongue against them. The pads of her fingers were gentle, careful to touch them right at their tips, which made you jerk upwards the most. 

At this point, you had practically been rolling your hips up against her for several moments straight, desperate for friction against your core. 

Wanda released your nipple from her mouth, watching your face as her fingers grazed across your clothed slit. She could feel the contours of your pussy against the pads of her fingers. She was so careful, and so delicate. 

She applied pressure steadily, rubbing up and down your slit, rubbing up the mound of your clit’s hood. She pressed into the empty space, feeling how easily your folds slid against the fabric of your panties — you must’ve already been rather wet. 

Her finger hooked around the waistband of your underwear and you reached down and tried to help her take it off. She repositioned herself to pull your panties off.

Your legs immediately parted for her and you watched as her eyes ran over your legs and thighs and then your cunt, your heart racing at the steady eyes you knew so well now focused on your pussy. 

One of your legs was partially dangling from the couch, while the other was bent, the side of your knee resting against the couch’s back cushion — you were entirely exposed to her. 

Wanda moved closer, unbending your knee and wrapping your leg around her hips so she could fit in between your legs. Her one hand placed itself on the couch by your hip. 

Curious fingers parted your folds carefully and you felt yourself flutter around nothing, a shudder running up your body. Two cool fingers rubbed slow circles against your pussy, so slow that you could hear the noises your cunt was making. 

“You’re so wet, Y/N,” Wanda said, her voice gentle and soothing. She spoke it as if narrating a fact rather than trying to intentionally talk dirty to you. “Your pussy is so soft. I wish you could see the way you look when I rub you this slow. The way you’re coating my fingers…”

She took her bottom lip between her teeth.

With the same two fingers, she parted your folds, watching your opening flutter for her. 

Wanda adjusted her posture, straightening her back and leaning forward to shift her weight onto her other hand. With one finger first, she slid into your opening, a satisfied noise leaving her at the feeling of how you wrapped around her middle finger.

“This is one finger,” she told you, looking up at your face. You nodded in confirmation. 

You clenched around her immediately, soft whimpers escaping you as Wanda began her rhythm, slow and intentional. She curled her finger upwards, applying light pressure against your g-spot. 

At the upward bucking of your hips, she straightened her finger inside of you and began to pick up speed. 

Wanda watched your back arch and your hips twitch upwards. She adjusted her speed and how hard she thrusted her fingers into you based on how much your hips chased her, or how much you pulled away or fluttered around her. 

Her eyes moved down from your face to your heaving chest, and she shifted her weight onto her heels so she could reach out with her other hand and grope one of your breasts. 

“Another finger,” you pleaded, reaching down to loosely wrap your fingers around her hand. She pulled out and reentered with two, adding her ring finger. 

As you adjusted to the size, evidently enjoying it much more for how you moaned out, gripping at the edge of the couch, Wanda experimented with her speed again, and tried thrusting her fingers in a little harsher. 

“Does that feel good?” she asked. 

“G-Good,” you stuttered in response. 

At your whimpers and your arching back, Wanda figured she found the perfect rhythm. She maintained it, then began teasing your nipples again. 

The double stimulation was far too much, and your leg wrapped around Wanda tighter. Your heel began to press into her lower back, so you set your foot down on the couch to avoid hurting her. 

“You feel so nice, Y/N,” Wanda said, practically cooing for how delicately she was speaking. “You’re so warm and soft. When I curl my fingers right here…” She curled them, pressing the pads of them against your g-spot, eliciting a whine out of you. “You fit around my fingers perfectly.”

She began to enter you each time with a delicate curl of her fingers, rubbing against the spot you loved. 

You panted, your hips lifting from the couch slightly as you felt yourself begin to tighten around Wanda’s fingers. She let go of your breast and wrapped a hand around the side of your waist, steadying you. 

“A-Ah, I’m gonna co-ome,” you stuttered. 

“Come for me, Y/N,” Wanda cooed. She looked down at you, biting down on her bottom lip as she watched your face contort in pleasure, listening to your whines mesh with your pants.

She maintained the speed you liked, until she felt you squeeze around her fingers, a cry leaving you while Wanda looked down at your body, feeling her mouth go dry at what she was seeing and at how much she loved feeling you around her fingers. 

You were younger than her, but Wanda never thought about your age difference very much when she spent her time with you. But you looked much younger below her as she watched you orgasm, listening to your delicate whimpers as you came down from your release.

Wanda slipped out of you slowly when your hips fell back down to the couch, missing the warm squeeze of your walls. She wrapped her lips around her fingers, savouring you slowly, her tongue sliding around her slick fingers. 

Then she moved on top of you, leaning down to kiss your lips. Her hand caressed your cheek, and you felt the remnants of her saliva rub against the corner of your jaw. She parted from you and buried her head in the crook of your neck, and you helped her position herself so she was laying on top of you, on your chest.

She turned her face upwards, kissing your neck chastly.

“You’re so good at that,” you said after you caught your breath in silence, Wanda having closed her eyes as she laid on top of you. Your hand was tucked under her shirt, rubbing her bare side.

With a flush of her cheeks and a repressed giggle, Wanda turned her face to rub against your chest. “Thank you.”

You untucked your hand from under her shirt and lifted it to her upper arm to play with the ends of her hair. Then you raised your hand to the side of her head, your fingers intertwining themselves into her hair, massaging her scalp gently.

Feeling the stark contrast from the present in comparison to when you first met her, you confessed honestly, “I actually really disliked you when we first met.” You avoided using the word ‘hate,’ because sometimes Wanda took your words very literally.

Wanda opened her eyes, looking up at you from your shoulder. “I know,” she said. “I figured you did.”

“But I thought I was just being overdramatic,” you added, “so I never talked about it with anyone, in case I would say things I regretted or if I figured I was just being confused.”

She wrapped her arm around your torso a bit tighter. 

“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I gave you a hard time on purpose.”

“Why on purpose?”

Wanda looked back down at your chest, her hand rubbing against your side slowly. “At first, I felt a little awkward. I thought you were very attractive, and I knew you were younger than me,” she explained. Her fingers drew shapes against your skin, fidgeting slightly as she confessed what she regarded was embarrassing.

“Then you got along so well with the committee — far more than I ever had after volunteering for three years. And I knew you didn’t like me very much, and I also knew that if you spoke about it, you’d certainly speak with others who didn’t.”

Then she added quietly, “And I didn’t know how to speak with you; I don’t know how to speak with anyone. And when you drove me home during the blizzard, I felt very awkward. I didn’t know what I should say.”

You thought about that for a moment, and you realized that Wanda genuinely felt insecure about her struggles with socializing, and often behaved with hostility due to her inability to blend in well with others or figure out how to act in social situations.

“I didn’t think of you like that at all,” you said. “I only didn’t like you because you ran the committee like a dictator, not because I figured you had a hard time talking with people.”

“Really?” she asked, lifting her head to look at you. “I thought I stuck out like a sore thumb.”

You shook your head. “Kate said you didn’t typically come to events like the one downtown on Christmas Eve because she figured you travelled, and I just thought you were very different outside of the committee. I wanted to know more about you.”

Wanda felt her cheeks flush, and she swallowed. “You wanted to know more about me? Even after I was terrible to you?”

“You weren’t terrible to me, Wanda.”

She looked away, feeling a little awkward. You reached out and cupped her cheek supportively, your thumb brushing over the traces of the freckles by her nose that you’d noticed the first day you met her. She looked back at you, smiling at your supportive gesture.

“The day you drove me back, I told you all those things that I heard from other volunteers,” she said. “But no one really tells me those things. They don’t speak with me socially.”

“So… You just made it up?”

“No, I didn’t make it up,” she answered. She averted her eyes. “I didn’t know how to compliment you…”

You smiled at her shy demeanor. You rubbed your thumb against her cheek again, and Wanda re-met your eyes. “I don’t think you seem awkward, Wanda. You don’t stick out like a sore thumb,” you told her. 

Wanda always had a very difficult time with eye contact, but she liked being looked at by you. She replied softly, “You’re the only one who thinks that.”

“Do you want to know what I think?”

Her smile widened at the sound of your playful tone.

“What?” she asked.

“I think…” You sat up, and Wanda slipped from your chest, sitting back into your lap as you reached down and put your shirt back on. “I think that we should go upstairs so I don’t have to be the only one without my underwear on.”

“I can take them off now,” she offered, shifting herself on her lap to slip the pajama pants you gave her off. 

You placed your hands on hers to keep her from undressing, and you stood up from the couch. “No, I mean, I want to have sex upstairs,” you explained.

“Ah,” she replied, feeling a little silly for misunderstanding, a smile forming on her face. She quickly stood up after you and followed you up the stairs. Her eyes kept darting down to your naked lower half below your oversized shirt, her heart racing at the sight of you, and at the act of following you upstairs. 

She sped up a little to walk beside you. 

You wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling you against her so you could kiss her. Wanda moaned softly into your mouth. She tugged at your shirt, encouraging you to pull her to your bed.

You unwrapped your arm from her waist, placing both hands on your hips and keeping her against you. Wanda felt herself ache at how you handled her, and she carefully stepped back as you led her towards your bed. 

She took a seat at the edge, your lips parting. 

The two of you spoke about using a strap, and you showed her the size you had. She held the harness up while you inserted it, then the two of you put it to the side on the bed as Wanda moved back onto your bed.

Your lips met again, Wanda parting her legs for you to position herself between. You felt her reach down to take her shirt off and you straightened to help her. 

She didn’t seem to receive as much pleasure when you teased her nipples as she did when she was doing it to you. She preferred for you to be closer to her, with your lips on hers or against her neck. 

Her hands tucked themselves under your shirt, running up the curve of your back. She pulled your shirt over your head and pulled you down to her. Her breasts were soft against your chest and you flushed at the sight of the soft flesh against your body.

You practically whimpered as you looked down at them, one hand massaging her gently, Wanda whimpering softly as you did.  

“You like them?” she cooed from beneath you, watching with rapt attention as your eyes looked down at her chest. She arched her back up and pushed herself into your palm, your hand full of her soft breast, her nipple stiffening under your contact.

After responding with a useless, distracted noise, Wanda cradled the back of your head with her hand and brought you down to her neck, where you sucked gently at her collarbone first before travelling up to her jawline.

Her pleasured sighs made you ache once more between your thighs, and you could feel Wanda begin to roll her hips up against you. Her leg wrapped around your hips and she pulled you closer.

Instead, you repositioned yourself to slide a thigh between her legs, making contact with her clothed core. Wanda immediately began rolling herself down against you, whiny moans coming from her. You bent your thigh forward, applying further pressure to her clit.

Her eyebrows furrowed together at the sudden attention, and she opened her eyes to look for where the strap was placed. “Please, now,” she begged.

Wanda eagerly took her pants and underwear off as you stepped off the bed and stepped into the harness. She swallowed at the sight of you, and she laid back down, her legs spread for you and her hands gripping onto the blankets, feeling a hummingbirds’ heart thrumming in her chest.

It had been a while since Wanda last had sex. 

She was more heartbroken over Agatha than she preferred to let on; for her, it had been a short fling on a break, while Wanda had sincerely liked her and enjoyed the intimacy. When she discussed it with you the time you came over to her place, it had been the first time she thought about it without feeling inadequate for serving as some temporary fling.

It wasn’t just that it had been a while that made her feel a thrum of both excitement and nerves, but also that she couldn’t remember the last time she felt so attached to someone she was about to sleep with. She wanted to do well for you, and she wanted you to feel a connection with her. 

You coated the strap with lube before setting it down on the nightstand and meeting her warm pussy with your fingers. 

A small whine escaped Wanda at the contact. 

You looked up at her. 

“Are you feeling nervous?” you asked. 

She nodded.

You lowered yourself over her, your fingers still rubbing softly against her warm folds. She made little noises, gripping into the sheets. 

“We don’t have to,” you told her, removing your fingers. “It’s okay if you’d like to go to bed, if you would rather that.”

Wanda shook her head adamantly and placed her hands on your sides, pulling you against her. 

“I want you,” she assured. 

Then, when she felt like she might go silent again like she normally did when she wasn’t sure what to say, she confessed, “I want you to feel connected to me, and… I don’t want you to be bored of me. After this.”

“Wh…” You lifted yourself up, your weight shifting onto your hand by her head to get a better view of her. “Why would I feel bored of you?”

“I want to spend time with you. I still want to see you even if you ever leave the committee, and even after the holidays when we both get busy. Sometimes, I still can’t tell if you like to see me just because you’re free over the holidays,” she explained. 

She added quietly, “I don’t want you to… leave me for someone you like more.”

You completely sat up, leaning back against your heels. Wanda sat up a little against your pillows and headboard. 

You took her hand. “No, Wanda, I really, really like you. Outside of the committee, and outside of… of the holidays.“

That made Wanda giggle a little, her hand brought up to her mouth. She felt her stomach filled with butterflies at the direct confession.

“You really like me, Y/N?”

With a poorly-repressed grin, you climbed on top of her again and added a little more lube to yourself, your hand wrapped around your strap. “I like you so much, Wanda,” you whispered against her temple. 

You heard another giggle from her before you delved into her neck, your fingers drawing circles against her core. You entered and exited her shallowly, steadily pushing yourself further into her with one finger with every gentle entry. The length of your finger slid against her clit with every stroke.

“Tell me when,” you said, speaking against her neck, curling your finger slightly with every slow entry, trying to see if you could gauge the speed she liked. 

“I want you now,” she sighed, her hand moving down to find your harness, pulling you against her hips. She let out a desperate whimper when your strap grazed against her core.

Wanda liked it in the same way she liked kissing you. Your speed was steady, and she took your entire length with her legs wrapped around your waist, pulling you in so you met her skin with an echoing slap. Then she loosened the tension so you could pull back, before pulling you back in, lifting her hips slightly so she could meet you with the intensity she wanted. 

The speed allowed for her moans to be low and genuine, communicating what she couldn’t with words in little noises and sighs. 

You reached over her head to grip the headboard so you could meet her hips without the pressure of her legs. Wanda whined loudly, reaching up to wrap her hand around your bicep as she arched her back up against you.

She whimpered your name, her thighs squeezing against your hips.

“Y-Yes, like that,” she panted. “Ah, Y/N, I’m…”

“Fuck, you take me so well, Wanda,” you encouraged.

Wanda whimpered at your praise and she came not a moment after, crying out into your shoulder, her hand squeezing your bicep when your hips met hers with a slightly more forceful impact as she reached her peak.

Her thighs loosened from around your hips and she groaned, breathing out with a huff. Her hand remained gripping your bicep loosely. 

Wanda caught her breath while you laid beside her, rubbing her hip. You kissed her face gently and then the top of her head, and played with her hair.

“Do you want water?” you asked her.

“Please,” she replied, opening her eyes and looking at you with a little smile.

A few moments later you came back with a glass of water, handing it to her after she sat up. “Thank you,” she said, shuffling closer to you as you drank from your own. 

After she set it down, she looked at you with a smile, as if expectantly.

You exhaled a laugh into your glass then set it down, wiping the water that had splashed onto your cheek. “What?”

After some giggling in which Wanda bashfully asked to go again, the two of you switched positions. 

Wanda turned onto all fours and you held onto her hips, positioning yourself against her opening. She pushed herself back slightly, and you watched as her opening hugged your tip. She let out a soft whimper.

Everywhere you touched Wanda, your bare skin brushed against hers. When you looked at her, you could see every form her naked body took, how it curved and bent and folded. Her skin was cool to the touch and easily warmed.

The bed squeaked beneath the two of you in tandem with your hips meeting her ass in rhythmic slaps, and it didn’t take Wanda long to lower herself, unable to hold herself up. She laid on top of your pillows, moaning out as you kept the steady pace she liked. 

You sped up slightly and Wanda whined into your pillow.

“Do you like it when I do that?”

“Nngh, s-so good,” she groaned. She slipped her hand beneath her torso and massaged her breast.

You reached forward and wrapped a hand around the side of her waist to hold her in place. Your other hand moved her hand out of the way, and you groped her breast before flicking at her hardened nipple. 

Wanda held onto your wrist, her body jerking forward with each one of your thrusts. The headboard hit lightly against the wall in the same tempo as Wanda’s tiny whimpers, muffled by your blankets. 

With this position, it was far easier to thrust against her with a little more intensity, although with the same speed. 

“Is this too rough?” you asked. 

“A little…”

You let go of her breast and placed both hands on her hips, slowly lowering her so she was mostly laying flat. Her back was arched enough so that she was angled up against you, her ass slotting against the curve of hips. 

This way, your range of motion was centered closer to her body. 

“Is this better?” you asked, speaking softly now that your torso was entirely against her back. 

She nodded, reaching back for your hand. You let go of your hip and interlaced your hands with hers, holding it above her head, her other gripping at the bed sheets. 

“Faster…” she muttered against your pillows. 

You sped up, your hips meeting her ass eagerly, egged on by listening to her moans so close to your ear. 

From behind, you buried your face in her neck, kissing and suckling gently at the soft skin. You bit down lightly on her shoulder to see how she would react, and you were rewarded with a whiny moan and a squeeze of your hand. 

“Pull my hair,” she told you. 

You let go of her breast and took a handful of her hair, pulling it back, her noises now unmuffled from your pillows. Her hair was so soft. You were sure not to lose your grip. 

“Wanda, you’re doing so good,” you whispered. “You sound so fucking hot.”

She whimpered, squeezing her eyes shut. 

“Mmm, Y/N…” She turned her head and met your eyes. “Am I being a good girl?”

Your mouth went dry and you felt like you were melting on top of her. Then you realized it made an incredible amount of sense that Wanda would be into being praised. 

With the way she was underneath your body, her hand squeezing around yours, and her hair tightened in your other, the blissed out look Wanda gave you through her hooded eyes made you completely speechless. 

You leaned in and kissed her, and Wanda immediately parted her lips. The kiss was messy for how often the two of you had to part to take breaths and exhale, panting into each other’s open months, tongues swirling around each other, grazing against smooth teeth, teasing at swollen lips.

“That’s right, my good girl. Take it just like that,” you grunted softly. “You deserve this, Wanda. You’ve been so good… Working so hard.”

Wanda whimpered, feeling even a little emotional at your words. Her lips were parted and her tongue was stuck out slightly, waiting for you as you spoke against her lips, her breath hot.

You tightened your hand around her hair. “You look so pretty taking it, princess. You make me feel so good when you sound like that.”

“I’m gonna come,” she whimpered. 

You maintained your speed so you could ensure she took you in deeply, taking your entire length each time, burying yourself inside of her. Wanda cried out at the depth, throwing her head back further and allowing you to readjust her grip on her hair. 

In broken noises, she whined, “Aa-ah, I’m coming, I’m com-”

Wanda’s words were interrupted as a long, loud cry left her parted lips, she let go of your hand, reaching up and helplessly grasping against your headboard, fingers pressing into the solid surface as she came. 

When she came down, her hand slipped from it, and you let go of her hair carefully, letting her catch her breath as you slowly pulled out of her.

You unfastened the strap from around your hips, setting it to some corner of your bed before laying down beside Wanda’s panting, tired body. Her eyes were closed, her lips slightly parted. Her hair was a mess where you had been pulling it, and her body trembled with the post-tremors of her orgasm.

Your arm wrapped around her waist and Wanda immediately shifted, lifting herself up so she could bury herself against your front. Her arm wrapped around your torso, and she laid her head on the bicep of your other arm. 

She breathed out deeply, and you felt her entire body loosen and relax in your arms. 

When you pressed a kiss to her forehead, you saw the glimpse of her flustered smile before she buried her face in your chest. “You’re so gentle, Y/N,” she whispered. “That felt so good…”

“How couldn’t I be gentle with you?”

You unwrapped your arm from her waist and combed your fingers through her hair, smoothing it out and fanning it out against your pillows.

“Can I sleep here with you?” she asked, looking up from your chest.

You smiled down at her, and her eyes darted down to your lips, smiling a little in response when she picked up that you thought her question was a little funny. But you couldn’t even poke fun at her. She just looked so small in your arms, looking up and asking to sleep beside you.

“Of course. I want you to stay here with me,” you answered, moving your hand from her hair to cup her cheek. “I’ll get us some new pajamas.”

“Okay,” she answered, beaming up at you and asking for a little kiss before you went to dig through your wardrobe.

A few days later, you and Wanda decided to go to the Christmas Eve event downtown. It was both of your first times there, and Wanda felt rather nervous to go. You had no idea she thought so frequently about how others thought about her; you knew she was insecure about how she behaved, but not regarding how others viewed her.

She told you that she had considered attending many times before, but worried that people would see her attending and think she shouldn’t be there, and so she figured she ought to just do what was expected of her.

She was still rather nervous as she attended with you, but your presence reassured her in the first few minutes you were there. After a few minutes, Wanda became easily amused and was quickly beginning to have a lot of fun. She mentioned all the planning that had come up behind the scenes at things you passed together, and you couldn’t help but smile at how excited she was getting.

You had both said that you didn’t want to be too open about seeing each other right away, so in case the two of you might be seen by other committee members, you agreed on keeping intimate physical contact to a minimum while you were out. It was Wanda who had the hardest time remembering that. 

Sometimes you couldn’t help but wrap your arm around her when she got excited — she was too cute. She took a bunch of photos with you, and you took many of her on her own. You took dozens of photos of her while she wasn’t looking too; she looked like a kid experiencing Christmas for the first time.

Because you had convinced her to come, she paid for your hot chocolates and macaroni and cheese. But you paid for the churros and dulce de leche dip, because you were far more interested in trying it than she was.

The two of you stayed for a few of the performances, because Wanda hadn’t ever actually seen any of the bands they partnered with play. The two of you sat with your hot chocolates, Wanda holding the mac and cheese while you held the long churro stick.

“They’re so good, Y/N…!” Wanda whispered to you excitedly.

You laughed, and Wanda continued to look onwards with rapt attention.

As you were leaving, the two of you passed Mrs Davis, who had forgotten her mittens at home and decided to walk over to get them and come back to the event since she lived in very close walking distance. She called your name first, and you felt Wanda’s arm brush against yours, seemingly having stepped closer to you.

“Y/N, you made it!” she greeted cheerily, holding her arms out excitedly. Then upon seeing Wanda, her eyes darted between the two of you, trying to see if she could read the kind of outing this was. But a large and warm smile remained on her sweet face all the same.

“It’s so good to finally see you at one of these events, Wanda,” she said.

Wanda nodded, smiling a bit shakily, not that Mrs Davis noticed. “I thought it was high time I finally attended,” she said. 

Share personal information, she recalled from what she read online.

She added, “And Y/N offered to come with me since I didn’t want to come alone.”

“Oh, it’s so nice to see you out during the holidays, Wanda, I always wondered how you were the head of the committee, but were never able to enjoy the hot chocolate vendors you helped us find!” Mrs Davis laughed, and Wanda found herself genuinely smiling, pleasantly surprised by how much she’d been thought of.

“The hot chocolate was amazing,” Wanda conceded with a shy smile.

A voice called from behind the two of you, presumably Mrs Davis’ husband, for she waved back and quickly said her goodbyes as she said she needed to run.

“So, so happy to see both of you,” she said with a beaming smile. “Merry Christmas!”

Wanda waved goodbye, watching the older woman walk away before you both headed back to her car together. When you looked at Wanda, she had a little trace of a smile on her face, and after a moment, she held your hand, not saying anything.

You sat in Wanda’s living room going through the photos you took together, having stopped by a restaurant to pick up some dinner. She was laughing at them, asking you to send all of them to her, and recalling everything you did that night together with great excitement.

She cuddled close to you as she watched you send her the photos.

“I’m so happy we went,” she said, her cheek laying against your warm sweater.

You brought your hand up to her head, combing through her hair and massaging your fingers against her scalp. You watched as her eyes closed, listened to her breathing softly as you touched her gently.

After some silent moments, you asked, “Would you like to come to my place for Christmas?” 

Wanda opened her eyes and looked up at you. “But you’re hosting your family.”

You and Wanda had only been together for a few days, and by tomorrow, Christmas Day, you still wouldn’t have been together for even a full week. 

“I know, but… Wanda, I don’t want you to be celebrating Christmas alone at all. I want to spend it with you, and I want you to be there.”

She sat up, her hand still resting on your knee.

“But I’ll be meeting your family, right?”

You knew that family was a bit of a sensitive topic for Wanda. You didn’t want her to feel upset while she was there, and you didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable, or like she didn’t fit in. But unbeknownst to you, that wasn’t what Wanda was thinking about at all.

“You… will. Yes. But I promise they’re really nice, and they’ll really like you,” you tried to explain, hoping you weren’t turning her away from spending the holiday with you.

“But, I mean…” Wanda trailed off, trying to find a way to word her thoughts. “You’re introducing me to them as… What?”

The moment a weight was taken from your shoulders at the concern that Wanda would be too nervous to spend Christmas with any family, another one was added in which you and Wanda would have to think about how you wanted to see your relationship.

Wanda felt a bit of panic rise in her at what seemed to her as hesitancy. Didn’t you want to be with her? Were you feeling ashamed of being with her? Or even worse, were there some things about having a family that she just couldn’t understand? Was she fated to never fit in amongst people you loved?

You also felt nervous to approach the topic. Introducing her as your girlfriend felt like forcefully jutting her into your family dynamic. You wanted to show her that you listened to the stories you told about her family, and that you didn’t want to change how she was in order to enjoy Christmas with you.

“We can…” you started, going nowhere. “Maybe I can… If you want… introduce you as my girlfriend.”

Wanda felt her heart flutter and her fingers tightened around your knee. You took that as a sign of tension. 

“But that’s totally okay if that’s not at all what you want. I understand. Listen, we can try, just for Christmas, and if you hate it, we don’t have to do it again.”

Then Wanda became confused, pulling back. “What do you mean? You’ll break up with me after Christmas?”

“What? What do you mean ‘breaking up?’”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing right now? Asking me out so you can introduce me as your girlfriend?”

“I-I mean… Yes, maybe. I’m actually… I’m not really sure what I’m doing.” You frowned just a little, looking helpless. “I’m a little confused.”

She exhaled a little, feeling relief that at the very least she wasn’t the only one.

After regaining some of your confidence, you worded yourself carefully, and honestly. “I just don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable being around my family. I don’t want this to be something that divides us.”  

“Me neither,” she replied. She moved closer to you again. “I want to fit in with your family.”

“Wh… Really?”

Wanda nodded. “Of course,” she replied sincerely. “I want to be able to fit into your life. I want to take this seriously.”

Then after a moment, she asked quietly, “Do… you take this seriously?”

“Yes! Yes, I do,” you quickly answered, taking her hands. “I just thought that you’d feel uncomfortable being around my family for the holidays, and I didn’t want to force you to have a role with them by introducing you as my girlfriend.”

“Oh,” Wanda breathed out, understanding where the misunderstanding had come from. “But what about what you said about breaking up after Christmas?”

You let go of her hand to scratch the back of your neck awkwardly. “That… Well…” you trailed off, and Wanda squeezed your hand supportively. “Well, are we dating? Right now?”

Not even Wanda really knew, and she was the one who was most outwardly adamant about wanting to be serious with you.

“I want to be your girlfriend, Y/N,” Wanda said.

Your cheeks warmed and you felt your chest flutter with the idea of Wanda calling herself your girlfriend, and the idea that you were dating her. 

“Okay,” you replied with a little smile, and Wanda smiled shyly when you squeezed her hand. “Then… Will you be my girlfriend? Can we go out?”

Wanda couldn't help but giggle, both at the ridiculousness of the confusing conversation, and at the feeling of being asked to be your girlfriend. 

“Oh, you’re making fun of me now?” you teased, only making Wanda laugh harder. She tried to pull her hand away from you to compose herself, but you didn’t let her. 

You pulled her on top of you as she laughed. Your hands held her at her waist and you kissed her neck and shoulder. Then you laid your head back, watching with a smile as she came down from her laughter. 

She brushed her hair back and looked down at you. 

“Yes, we can go out,” she finally replied, pushing your hair back from her forehead with a delicate smile on her face. 

It wasn’t until after Wanda started dating you that she realized she was a little bad with words. It wasn’t only lacking the confidence to say things that made her bad at it, but also her struggles with wording things. But you somehow always understood her when she tried her best to explain, pulling together scraps of a cohesive explanation. 

You understood when she tried to explain how happy she was that she was your girlfriend, and you were hers only. Largely, you understood everything she tried to tell you, even when she thought she made absolutely no sense. 

It made her much more confident in speaking with others, and in sharing what she thought and felt in a sincere way, and not because she read a tip online saying that she should. 

You spoke with her over the phone as you ran the last few errands for Christmas dinner, and Wanda was preparing the dish she was going to bring. She asked things like what she should wear and if they’d like the dish she chose, and even things like conversation starters your family would like. 

To the last question, you honestly had no clue, and told her no one had ever asked you that before. It kind of made you laugh, which made Wanda laugh and realize she was overthinking. 

After you hung up, Wanda called her parents like she did every Christmas Day. This time, she was able to tell them that she was going to attend something later. 

Pietro, unlike her parents, for they didn’t understand the significance of what their daughter was trying to tell them, was thrilled for her. Though she wasn’t sure if he would actually hold up his end of the bargain, he communicated that he really hoped to see her for Christmas next year. 

She sent him the pictures of the Christmas Eve event she went to with you, and she promised to send pictures later that night too. 

Pietro was always very supportive of Wanda’s interests, and he said he truly couldn’t remember the last time she was so excited about anything. She hadn’t realized she was so excited about the dinner. 

He corrected her, saying that she seemed far more excited about dating you. 

Wanda knocked at your door, holding her own attempt at the salmon bake she believed you mastered the first time you cooked it last week. She heard the sounds of your family already inside and she felt her chest flutter with both nerves and excitement. 

She thought of Mrs Davis, and how excited she had been to see her. 

She thought of everything you’d told her, and how you’d wanted to know more about her when she thought she’d treated you horribly, and how you didn’t think she treated you horribly at all. 

Maybe she wasn’t so bad at all the things she thought she was. In any case, you still liked her. Though she didn’t think she’d ever get used to that. 

You opened the front door, quickly ushering Wanda in. You took the dish from her as she took her shoes and jacket off. 

“Merry Christmas, Wanda,” you said softly, leaning in and giving her a kiss. 

Wanda beamed at you.