♱

SUNSHINE READER X MICHAEL ROBINAVITCH

PRINCESS READER X MICHAEL ROBINAVITCH

NERD READER X FRANK LANGDON

ER BARBIE READER X FRANK LANGDON

this was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!

“Deep thoughts?” Jack drawls, resting an ankle across his knee.

He watches as you blink back to reality. Your cheek is smushed against your palm, eyes glassy and distant, maybe seeing galaxies or shopping lists, Jack’s never quite sure.

The sun slips golden fingers through your damp curls, threading droplets like tears down your shoulders, staining the pale fabric of your sundress in fading watercolor trails.

“Only the deepest,” you assure him, offering a pout. More theater than truth. You lift your head. “Mostly about what kind of ice cream we’re getting later. You have important input here, Jack, don’t disappoint me.”

“You trust me with a choice like that?” Jack teases, eyes glinting.

But his palms go slick with something like anxiety beneath your expectant gaze.

He’s aware of every tiny sensation now, like the fresh scratch he’s nursing on the roof of his mouth.

Where did that come from, anyway? 

His tongue pushes at the raw little wound compulsively, over and over, sabotaging his already precious facade of laid-back, casual disinterest.

Cool and detached is apparently harder than advertised; imagine that.

“I trust you with everything, silly,” you tell him earnestly, eyes sparkling in the last slivers of the sun’s dying glow sprinkling freckles of warmth across your skin.

He nudges you with his shoulder. “Everything’s a big word. Care to elaborate?”

You nudge him back, giggling, blissfully unaware of the slow dread pooling through his chest, or the faint pressure of obligation suddenly crowding his throat.

“Oh, you know, the big, meaningful stuff. Restaurant decisions, purse-holding emergencies, spinach-in-teeth protocol. Seriously important matters. You’re at peak trustworthiness now, Jack. Consider yourself honored.”

He gives a low whistle. “Wow, purse-holding status already? I didn’t realize we’d gotten that far. Next you’ll be asking me to meet your parents.”

“That’s actually a really good idea! My parents love meeting my friends — my mom always does that embarrassing baby picture thing, but you’d totally survive.”

Friends. 

He turns the word over mentally, sour and mocking like spoiled milk, bitter on the tongue. It feels painfully inadequate, wildly inaccurate.

Friends don’t stumble bleary-eyed out the door at midnight, half-dressed, heart thudding with adrenaline because you thought you heard an intruder outside your window — only to discover a raccoon rummaging through your garbage.

Friends don't obsessively check menus for allergens, driven by irrational visions of accidentally killing you at dinner, or carry spare hair ties like some reluctant, lovesick Boy Scout prepared for oddly specific emergencies.

Jack's running out of ways to make himself clearer.

“Kid, you really make it hard to flirt with you.”

For a second, your face becomes an open book, cycling rapidly through shock, amusement, disbelief, realization, puzzlement, wonder, mild panic, bashfulness, hopefulness, and then back to sheer confusion. 

It's like a rapid-fire slideshow of everything he finds endearing and frustrating about you, distilled down into a few frantic heartbeats.

Finally, you settle on a stunned blink, eyes wide and brows knitted.

“Wait, what? You mean...right now? Or before now?”

Jack chuckles under his breath, something strained in it, hand dragging over the back of his neck like he can physically scrub away the corner he’s just backed himself into.

“Always. Constantly. I basically live in a perpetual state of flirtation-induced existential crisis with you. Frankly, it’s wearing me out.”

You hesitate, searching his face like the answer might be written there if you just look hard enough.

“Why?”

Jack nearly groans aloud, hand pressing harder against his neck, feeling an embarrassment akin to adolescence flooding his chest.

“Why?” he repeats, incredulous and mildly despairing. “Because I like you, okay? Because apparently my sense of self-preservation is broken, and being around you turns me into a masochist who enjoys embarrassment and rejection. Because you're the only person who's ever made me genuinely nervous, and I've survived literal explosions.”

He mentally braces himself, prepared for confusion at best, rejection at worst, anxiety drumming through him like a high schooler waiting for a prom date’s answer.

Instead, you crash into him, all vibrant disbelief, knocking him mentally, and somewhat physically, off balance.

“Jack!” you squeak, body pressed close enough that he can feel the flutter of your heartbeat. “Are you serious right now? You’ve liked me this whole time? Why wouldn’t you just say something? We could’ve been kissing — like, a lot.”

“Whoa, easy there,” Jack laughs, hands quickly finding your waist to stabilize the pandemonium of your limbs, half-laughing and half-alarmed by the tidal wave of enthusiasm colliding against him. “Believe me, if I’d known that kissing was on the table, I would’ve spoken up months ago.”

“So many missed opportunities,”  you lament, tipping your head to consider him, eyes wide.

Jack grins despite himself, gently teasing, “To be fair, I tried repeatedly. You're remarkably hard to communicate romantic interest to.”

"Guess I'll have to make it up to you, then.”

"And how exactly do you plan on doing that?”

"Like this," you whisper softly, closing the distance with careful deliberation, your mouth touching his so sweetly that it mends every fractured moment of miscommunication.

And perhaps all his fumbling signals and hesitant gestures weren't really missed opportunities after all, but merely necessary stepping-stones, quietly guiding him home to exactly this moment, to exactly you.

this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!

Sometimes Frank thinks he should put you on a leash.

Get one of those toddler backpack rigs with the little animal character on it and clip you in. Maybe that would preserve what remains of his peace.

Morifying for you, humiliating for him, definitely probably a terrible look in public, but at least you’d stay within a five-foot radius and he could stop living in this permanent state of low-grade vigilance you seem to provoke as casually as breathing. 

And he loves you. Deeply. Completely.

That’s the problem. Love, with you, is surveillance. It is anticipatory. It is watching for the exact point at which your glittering, social, I’m-fine performance starts to come apart at the seams while you insist it isn’t happening.

You just never seem to know when to stop. 

And tonight you are all over the pool patio with a mojito slicking one hand cold and damp, dribbling little sacrificial offerings of rum and mint over the stone, while the other hand keeps straying to the bikini strap at your hip. 

Restless. Fidgety. Smiling at everyone. Talking too loudly. 

A little drunk, a little sleepy, and, as ever, too stubborn to concede either.

The moment you glance his way, Frank tilts his chin and crooks two fingers in a come here.

A gesture that should not, by any reasonable standard, contain so much possession in it, and yet your expression changes all at once, brightening with buzzed delight as you cross toward him.

“Well, if it isn’t my favorite person to be bossed around by,” you say when you reach him, voice dipped in honey. You stop beside his lounger, smiling down at him. It’s such a pretty smile. “Did you miss me terribly?”

“I usually do.” 

There’s no point in pretending otherwise.

That gets you. 

“Yeah?” You tip forward a little, closing the distance with shameless interest. “Can I get a kiss, then?”

Frank’s mouth twitches. “You can get whatever you want, sweetheart.”

He lifts a hand to your jaw and draws you down, sealing his mouth over yours in a kiss that has to be brief by sheer circumstance, though not so brief he misses the cool, fizzy ghost of lime on your lips. 

Sugary and faintly effervescent, the taste of it lingering for one extra second after he pulls back, temptation rendered in citrus. 

Frank has never been especially talented at self-control where you are concerned.

It’s why he’s not a fan of PDA. Public affection is never only that. It is a beginning. A permission slip.

One kiss and suddenly he is keenly aware of all the ones he is not having, all the ways he would rather be kissing you if the two of you were alone.

So he stops there, because he has to, and leaves your hand at your jaw instead, thumb brushing once over your cheek.

“What do you say we go find you something to eat?”

You make a face immediately, lower lip pushing out in a sulky little pout. “‘M not hungry.”

“That’s fascinating, because you look like you’re about two minutes from falling asleep standing up.”

“You make everything sound so dire.”

Frank snorts. “Pot, meet kettle.”

Then, in a flawless little proof-of-concept, you sway backward with all the structural integrity of a wilting palm tree. 

Frank moves before the thought fully forms, hands shooting out to catch the back of your thigh, fingers splaying over the soft curve just beneath your ass as he drags your forward. One quick tug and there you are, neatly slotted between his legs. 

Your hands land on his shoulders and you giggle, as if nearly toppling over into a concussion is somehow charming rather than precisely the kind of thing that keeps shaving years off his life.

He squeezes once, firm and corrective. 

“Okay, well, what do you say you keep me company for a while?”

He could tell you to sit down. You might even listen, eventually, but not without first delivering a brief theatrical monologue on authoritarianism and oppression and how cruel it is to stifle your sparkle.

So. Better not make it about obedience. Frank has learned this the hard way, or at least the repetitive way.

There are only so many reliable methods of keeping you where he can see you, and most of them depend on reframing the situation until it no longer sounds like containment.

You resent being managed. You respond beautifully to being needed. Especially by him. 

“Mm, okay,” you murmur at once, whatever resistance you had dissolving on contact. 

Before Frank can offer any further guidance, you’re already hauling yourself into his lap with spectacularly poor mechanics, all grabby hands and misfiring limbs, nudging him backward against the lounger.

And after a moment of awkward shifting and a fair amount of readjusting, you finally settle into him in a drowsy little heap, half draped across his lap and half tucked into his side. 

Frank extracts the mojito from your hand just before the remainder can go down the front of his shirt, though not before a bright cold splash hits his chest anyway.

He puts the glass aside and looks back at you.

Brushes your hair off your face. Once, twice, again, until there you are properly visible beneath it.

You blink up at him, visibly straining to keep your eyes open, lashes heavy with the effort. “You know what Parker told me earlier?”

“Hmm?”

“That you’re not supposed to compliment the moon here.”

Frank’s fingers drift through your hair again. “And why’s that?”

“Apparently,” you say, lowering your voice, “it’s bad luck. Like if you say it’s pretty, then something in your life gets ruined out of jealousy.”

Your finger wanders over his shirt, drawing something looping into the cotton, your nail a shiny petal-pink that matches the sparkle dusted over your eyes. 

He asks, “Should I be concerned you’ve already told it how pretty it is?” 

A tiny crease appears between your brows. 

“Maybe a little.” Your nail catches on his shift before drifting on again. “But it kind of makes sense, doesn’t it? Because Selene is the moon, and Helios is the sun, and they’re siblings, I think, so maybe he gets weird about it… because if everyone keeps talking about how beautiful the moon is, and nobody’s complimenting the sun, that could create resentment. Familial resentment. Which is, like, one of the oldest forces in mythology.”

Frank opens his mouth, halfway to saying that while the ancient Greeks certainly contained enough familial instability to support the theory, he strongly suspects Parker is still just screwing with you, and then he looks down. 

You are asleep. 

He huffs a laugh through his nose, quiet enough not to disturb you, and shifts his hand higher along your back, settling you more securely against him. 

This, too, is part of loving you, he thinks. The rare and fragile privilege of being where you land when the night catches up to you.

Around you, the patio goes on glowing. Voices blur. Glass clinks somewhere in the distance. Water shifts blue-black under the moonlight. 

He leans his head back against the lounger and lets himself look out at it for a second. It is a pretty moon.

If Selene is listening, she can be flattered. He’ll take the risk.

this fic was part of my 2 year celebration: maria's summer in santorini 𓆉°❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ to learn more, click here!