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He heard the shuffling of clothes before the sun even broke through the dawn. Hurried, but stiff, detached movements. The spot beside him was still warm, and the pillow smelled like your shampoo. Heβd never tell you that he didnβt have the gall to wash it every time you left. You were ready to bound off at any moment, leaving him deserted. He wanted a little keepsake before that.
βGoinβ so soon?β Graves asks, a smirk plastered on his face as he watched you root around his room, already dressed in your undergarments and hoodie. Your pants, though? That was a mystery. He hoped the floor had swallowed them whole, to keep you here.
βI got things to do tomorrow.β
βIβd be more than happy to be that.β
You scoffed, finding your jeans and sitting on the edge of the bed to get them on, though the actions were delayed. The roads were still messy, and nobody would be out for hours anyways. He reached out, running his fingers along your spine, pushing your hoodie up a little bit, getting one more glance at your skin. His thumb ran over a little mark.
The first time he had brought you to bed, it had been in a hotel room, as usual for his hookups. But then he wanted more, so he went back to the bar you guys met in at first, and brought you to his house. And he kept bringing you to his house. Again, and again, and again, hoping youβd stay till the morning, or at least stay in his arms long enough for his adrenaline to wind down.
You never did. You were always gone a few minutes after, dissipating like cigarette smoke in the air. Bitter, so fleeting, and damaging.
βCβmon, sweetpea,β He murmured against your skin, still laying on the bed, propped on his elbows. But he had dropped the charm, the flirting, trying to lure you in. ββm being serious. Just one night.β
Graves pressed his cheek against your shoulder, watching and waiting for you to turn around. When you finally looked down at him, he swam in your irises, tense muscles loosening, and his heart slowing. Your perfumeβ¦ he wanted it on his clothes, for the bottle to be on his dresser, and your body wash in his shower, and you in his kitchen, in a big t-shirt, humming old countryβhe wanted you. And he had itβ¦
But then your brow twitched, and you stood up, away from his touch, and he lost his support. It was a little embarrassing for him to stumble slightly, his weight going back on his elbows.
βIβll see you later, Phil.β
You walked out of his bedroom, still buttoning your jeans. Your belt hadnβt even been fully pulled through the loops, but you were gone.
His forehead fell against his arms, listening as you padded down the steps, a pause as you put in your shoes, before opening the door and shutting it. Your car started, the headlights illuminating through the window before pulling away, casting shadows before dissipating completely. Gone.
Synopsis: Youβve spent almost a year making yourself invisible. He spent that same year learning exactly where to look.ββββββββββββββββ
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Avoidant Reader, Pining, Workplace Intimacy and he knows exactly what he is doing
Word Count: 11.5k
The thing about working in media at a football club is that you become very good at being invisible, and thatβs what youβd told yourself when you took the job, fresh out of uni, practically vibrating with anxiety on your first day at Cobham. You werenβt a player. You werenβt a coach. You were the person who drafted the press releases, managed the post-match interview schedule, and made sure nobody said anything catastrophically stupid on camera. You were invisible, functional, and doing well, and it had been fine, for almost a full year, until Mason Mount decided to notice you.
It started because of a microphone. Post-training press availability, a Tuesday in February. You were setting up in the media room, wrestling with a lapel mic that kept cutting out, when the door swung open twenty minutes too early.
βSorryβ thought this wasββ He stopped.
You looked up, and immediately looked back down, because looking at Mason Mount directly felt a bit like looking at the sun if the sun had very nice eyes and also made you forget basic grammar.
βPress availability isnβt until three,β you said to the microphone.
βRight.β He didnβt leave.
You could feel him watching you fiddle with the cable, the silence stretching, your face doing something terrible that you could feel without being able to stop it.
βYouβre the new press one, yeah?β he asked.
βIβve been here eleven months.β
A beat. βThe relatively new press one.β
Something about the way he said it gently, a little amused and not unkind really made you glance up despite yourself. He was leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, still in his training kit, with a small smile on his face.
βY/N,β you said. βIβm Y/N.β
βI know,β he said simply, and then someone called his name from down the corridor and he was gone, leaving you sitting there with a broken microphone and the distinct feeling that something had just started that you were completely unprepared for.
You were desperately aware of the professional line. He was a player, you were staff, and your entire job depended on being neutral and unremarkable. Crushes were not in the press officer job description. He seemed to find your awkwardness genuinely interesting rather than off-putting, which was somehow so much worse, because you were used to people looking past you and you didnβt have a script for someone who looked at you. You filed it all away under inconvenient and got on with your job.
The second time, it was after a home win β2-0, heβd assisted bothβ and you were running the mixed zone, clipboard in hand, trying to direct traffic and make eye contact with precisely no one. He stopped in front of you instead of the cameras.
βYou never watch the matches,β he said, not accusatory, just observational, like heβd been paying attention.
Your stomach did something inconvenient. βI watch the feed. In the media suite.β
βNot the same.β
βI know.β
He looked at you for a moment with that quiet, evaluating look you were already starting to recognise, then stepped toward the cameras. But right before he reached the journalists, he glanced back. βYou should watch sometime. Proper watch.β
You wrote call about Thursdayβs presser on your clipboard and absolutely did not think about it for the rest of the evening, which is to say you thought about it the entire evening.
-----
The away trip to Paris was not supposed to be a big deal, which is what your manager Diane had said when she handed you the travel itinerary βnot a big deal, just a pre-season friendly, good experience for youβ and you had nodded and smiled and then gone to the bathroom and stood very still for a moment, because it was in fact a very big deal to you specifically, given that you had never done an overnight trip with the squad before and were already mentally cataloguing every possible way you could embarrass yourself between London and France. The running total, so far: forgetting your press credentials, which youβd checked four times; saying something incoherent to a journalist, which felt probable; tripping in front of a camera, which was fifty-fifty; and doing something mortifying in front of Mason Mount, which was the new entry, recently added, and brought the total to four.
You boarded the coach to the airport with your head down, laptop bag clutched to your chest like a shield, and found a seat near the back next to Priya from social media, who was already on her phone and didnβt require conversation. You had your headphones in before the engine started and you did not look up when the players filed on, absolutely did not notice when someone sat down in the aisle seat two rows ahead and stretched his legs out and laughed at something Thomas Tuchelβs assistant said, and if you put your brightness down and stared at your spreadsheet with the focus of someone defusing a bomb, that was simply because you had a lot of work to do.
The flight was fine. The hotel check-in was fine. The pre-match media setup was genuinely fine, and for approximately three hours you felt like a competent adult professional person who had everything under control. And then you walked into a glass door.
Not through it βyou didnβt break it, you werenβt injured, it was frankly the tamest possible version of this type of incidentβ but you had been speed-walking through the hotel lobby with your lanyard in one hand and a coffee in the other and the door had been more closed than anticipated and youβd walked face-first into it with a flat, resonant thunk that turned approximately six heads.
You stood there for a second. The door was fine. You were fine. Your coffee had survived. Your dignity had not. Okay, you thought, very calmly. Okay. That happened. That is something that just happened in the physical world and cannot be unhappened. Great. Wonderful. You pushed the door open correctly this time and walked through it with your chin up, because what else were you going to do, and you were almost in the clear when you heard it β a laugh, quick and surprised and genuine, not cruel, which somehow made it worse. You turned your head approximately three degrees, just enough to confirm what you already knew in your soul, and yes. Obviously. Of course. Mason Mount was standing by the lift with Ben Chilwell, hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking, and his eyes met yours and he held up both hands immediately βIβm sorry, Iβm sorryβ still laughing, mouthing something that looked like are you okay?
You gave him a thumbs up.
You turned and walked away at a pace that you hoped looked purposeful and not like the physical manifestation of wanting to be absorbed into the floor.
You avoided the lobby for the rest of the afternoon, which was professionally complicated given that your job required you to be in it at several points, but you managed through careful timing and a secondary route through the hotel restaurant that added four minutes to every journey and was absolutely worth it. By the time the pre-match dinner was underway in the hotelβs private function room youβd almost convinced yourself it wasnβt that bad. People walked into doors. It was a human thing. Probably heβd forgotten about it already.
βSeat taken?β
You looked up from your pasta.
Mason Mount was standing across the table from you, holding a plate, nodding at the empty chair directly opposite. The function room was busy βplayers, staff, coaching team, a few journalists from the approved poolβ and there were other seats available. Several. Quite a few, actually.
βNo,β you said, because what else were you going to say.
He sat down. You looked at your pasta. He ate in silence for a moment, and you thought β hoped β that maybe this was just a proximity thing, just a seat, no significance, absolutely β
βFor the record,β he said, βthe door was basically invisible. Very poor design.β
You looked up despite yourself. He had a completely straight face, but his eyes were doing the thing, the warm and slightly amused thing that you had already against your will catalogued and filed away and thought about more than once.
βIβve seen it happen loads of times,β he continued, very seriously. βAt least twice this year alone.β
βYouβre being nice,β you said.
βIβm being honest.β
βTheyβre not mutually exclusive.β
Something shifted in his expression β small, quick, like youβd surprised him β and he tilted his head slightly. βFair point,β he said.
Silence again, but different now, less like a gap and more like something taking up space on purpose. You ate a forkful of pasta. He poured water into his glass and then, without asking, into yours. You stared at your glass and told yourself: normal thank you, regular volume, like a person.
βThanks,β you said. Normal. Fine. Good.
βSo do you actually like this?β he asked. βThe away trips.β
You considered lying β love them, great, brilliant β because that felt like the smooth and professional answer, and then you thought about how heβd said I know when you told him your name, like heβd been paying attention long before youβd noticed, and something about that made dishonesty feel like the wrong currency.
βI find them a bit overwhelming,β you said, to your pasta. βLots of people. Lots of moving parts. Iβm better when I know exactly whatβs happening.β You added, quickly, in case it sounded like complaining, βBut the work part I like. Iβm good at the work part.β
βYeah,β he said, like it wasnβt news to him. βYou are.β
Your fork stopped moving. You didnβt look up, because you had a strong instinct that if you did your face was going to do something you couldnβt diplomatically explain, so you just sat there with it suspended over a piece of penne while Mason Mount ate his dinner across from you like he hadnβt just said something that was going to live in your head for no reasonable amount of time.
The thing was β the thing was that you were very used to being competent and overlooked. It was a comfortable arrangement. You did the work, the work got done, nobody particularly noticed. And he kept noticing, quietly and consistently, without fanfare, like it was just a thing he did, and you didnβt have a section in your mental filing system for that.
You ate your pasta. He said something to the physio on his left and laughed at the response, and you watched him for exactly one second β the way he laughed with his whole face, the easy way he had with people β and then looked firmly back at your food. Your phone buzzed, Diane asking for tomorrowβs schedule confirmation, and you answered immediately, grateful for the task, and spent the rest of dinner looking at your screen. But when you left, he said night, Y/N β just that, quiet, like it was easy β and you made it all the way to the lift before you let yourself close your eyes for a second. It had been a seat, probably. Nothing more than a seat. You took the stairs back to your floor and told yourself that twice.
The match was at nine PM and you knew this. You had written this, it was on the schedule youβd drafted and printed and laminated and distributed in three different formats, and yet somehow at 8:47 PM you were in the wrong corridor β not slightly wrong, comprehensively and architecturally wrong, the kind of wrong that suggested you had taken a turn approximately four decisions ago that had nothing to do with the media pen and everything to do with the fact that youβd been following the sound of crowd noise like a confused pigeon and had ended up somehow outside the away dressing room. The door was open. You spun around so fast your lanyard smacked you in the face.
βSORRY ββ you said, to nobody, to the wall, to God, to whatever cosmic force had decided this trip was your villain origin story, and then you walked very quickly in the opposite direction and didnβt stop until you found a stairwell where you stood alone and pressed your back against the cold concrete and did a brief silent scream into your own scarf.
Your radio crackled. Dianeβs voice. βY/N, we need you in the media pen, kick off in ten.β
βYep,β you said, into the radio, with incredible calm. βOn my way.β
The match, at least, was good. Chelsea won 3-1 and Mason got the third β a low, precise drive from the edge of the box that made the journalists around you actually react, which journalists almost never did because they considered visible emotion unprofessional. You considered visible emotion unprofessional too, which was why you wrote goal, 79β, Mount very neatly in your notes and did not do anything embarrassing with your face.
Post-match mixed zone, and this was your territory. You moved through it with purpose β directing, coordinating, stepping in when someone asked a question heading somewhere diplomatically unfortunate, steering it away with the practiced efficiency of someone whoβd learned very quickly that footballers and microphones were a combination that required management. You were good at this. You were calm at this, right up until Mason finished his camera interview, turned around, and walked directly into you. His shoulder caught yours, your clipboard went one way, your pen went another, and you made a sound β a genuinely involuntary sound, a sort of startled oh! β and grabbed the nearest stable thing, which was his arm, and let go immediately, record timing.
βSorry β sorry, that was me, I was in the ββ you started.
βNo, that was me, I wasnβt looking ββ he said at the same time.
A beat. He looked at you. You looked at him. He was still in his kit, slightly sweaty from the match, close enough that you had to make a conscious decision about where exactly to look, which your brain handled by suggesting perhaps the middle distance, which meant you were basically staring at his collarbone, which was not better.
βYou okay?β he asked.
βCompletely fine,β you said, to his collarbone.
He bent down, picked up your clipboard, and handed it back, your fingers touching briefly when you took it. You wrote nothing in your mental filing system about that because there was nothing to write.
βGood match,β you managed.
βYeah?β He was doing the thing again, the looking thing. βYou watched?β
βI was literally standing ten metres away.β
βYou had your head down for most of it.β
You opened your mouth, then closed it. He was right, you had been looking at your notes, it was your job to look at your notes β but the fact that heβd clocked it, that heβd been aware of where your eyes were from the pitch while playing a professional football match, made your brain make a noise like a dial-up connection.
βI multitask,β you said finally.
He smiled β slow, a little devastating β and someone called his name from across the zone. He held your gaze for just a beat longer than necessary before he turned away, and you looked down at your clipboard to find you had written absolutely nothing useful for the last four minutes.
The coach back to the hotel left at midnight. You got on early, window seat, third row, headphones in, a buffer seat between you and the aisle filled with your bag, because you had learned from this morning. The players filed on gradually, loud and happy with the particular looseness of a team after a win, and you watched your phone screen with great concentration until the seat next to your bag dipped.
You looked up. Mason raised his eyebrows at your bag.
βSorry ββ you grabbed it immediately, shoving it onto your lap, and sat there with it pressed against your chest like a very awkward carry-on while he settled into the seat beside you, and internally you were asking why β there are so many seats, Ben Chilwell is right there, you are friends with Ben Chilwell, you chose this one specifically, why did you choose this one β
βYou donβt have to hold your bag like that,β he said. βYou can just put it in your lap normally.β
βThis is normally.β
He looked at the bag, at your hands gripping the strap like it might escape. βRight,β he said, and looked out the window, and you could see the reflection of him almost-smiling in the glass. You let go of the strap, slowly, casually, like you had meant to do that all along.
The coach pulled out of the stadium and outside was Paris at midnight, lit up and thoughtless and beautiful in the way cities are beautiful when youβre tired and slightly off-balance and sitting next to someone whose arm is almost touching yours. Almost. You were acutely and embarrassingly aware of the almost.
βCan I ask you something?β he said.
No, said your entire nervous system. βSure,β said your mouth.
βWhy do you always look like youβre waiting for something to go wrong?β
You turned to look at him properly for the first time all night. He was watching you with that same evaluating calm, and the question wasnβt mean or pointed β it was just honest, the way he kept being honest in this inconvenient and disarming way that you had no defensive strategy for.
βStatistically,β you said instead of deflecting, βsomething usually does.β
βLike today.β
βI walked into a door and then a person in the same twelve-hour period.β
βThe door was badly designed.β
βYou said that already.β
βStill true.β
The streetlights were sliding past the window in long orange stripes and somewhere behind you Reece James was telling a story that was making half the coach laugh. The seat was warm and his shoulder was an inch from yours.
βDoes it help?β he asked. βWaiting for it.β
You considered the question genuinely, which you hadnβt expected to do. βNo,β you admitted. βBut it means Iβm not surprised when it happens.β
He was quiet for a moment. βThat sounds exhausting,β he said, not with pity but like he was saying something true.
Your throat did something you refused to acknowledge. βItβs fine,β you said. βIβm used to it.β
βBeing exhausted?β
βBeing ββ you paused. Careful. βPrepared.β
He turned his head to look at you then, and you were looking at him, and the coach hit a bump in the road that knocked your shoulder directly into his and neither of you moved away after. The almost became something else. You both looked forward, out at the Paris night, and said nothing, and the silence had that quality again, the kind that wasnβt empty but full and pressing and patient. Your heart did something it would file a complaint about later.
This is fine, you thought. This is completely fine. You are a professional. You are invisible. You are β
His little finger brushed yours on the armrest. Barely. Couldβve been accidental, probably was accidental, and he didnβt move it, and you didnβt move yours, and you stared out the window at Paris and breathed very carefully and thought about absolutely nothing at all for the rest of the journey.
Three weeks passed. You didnβt speak about the coach and neither did he, and somehow that felt less like avoidance and more like an agreement β a thing held carefully between you, too new to name. You worked. You were professional. You were, as always, fine. And then it was a Friday morning.
-----
The story broke on a Friday, and not a rumour this time, not a blurry photo with a question mark caption β a proper, sourced, photographed story, Mason Mount Confirms Romance with Model Isla Reeves, with a red carpet photo from some charity event the night before, her hand on his chest, both of them smiling, and a quote from his representative that said Mason and Isla have been seeing each other for a few weeks and are very happy.
Very happy.
You read it at 7:51 AM on your phone in your car in the Cobham car park, engine still running, and you sat with it for a moment the way you sometimes sat with a work email that required a careful response β reading it twice, making sure youβd understood correctly, giving it the appropriate weight β and then you turned your engine off, put your phone in your bag, and went to work.
You were, professionally, the first person in the building who needed to have a position on this, and that was the thing about your job that you had always found clarifying: when something happened, you didnβt get to feel it first. You got to respond to it first, and feeling it came later, quietly, in your own time, in your own space, in a way that affected nobody and changed nothing about the quality of your work. By 9 AM you had drafted a brief internal note β playerβs personal life, not club business, no comment required β and sent it to Diane, who replied with a single agreed, good and that was that. By 10 AM three journalists had called and you handled them pleasantly and said nothing useful to any of them. By 11 am Priya had appeared in your doorway with two coffees and an expression that was trying very hard to be neutral.
βI saw,β you said, before she could speak. βItβs not a club matter. Weβre not commenting.β
βY/N.β Her voice was gentle in a way you didnβt particularly want it to be right now. βIβm not here about the press line.β
You looked at her. She looked at you.
βIβm fine,β you said.
Priya had known you for eleven months. She had watched you walk into a glass door in Paris and give a thumbs up and compose yourself in under thirty seconds. She knew exactly what your fine meant. She picked up her coffee, said βOkay,β and left, and you turned back to your screen and said fine to yourself, and meant it more aggressively than usual.
You didnβt see him until the afternoon, having been half-braced for it all day in the way you were braced for things; not obviously, not in a way anyone would notice, just a low-level readiness in your shoulders that had been there since 7:51 AM. When it happened it was exactly as undramatic as it should have been: you were crossing the main corridor outside the training analysis suite, he was coming the other way with Jorginho, and you met in the middle.
βAfternoon,β you said, pleasantly, the same way you said it to everyone.
βHey.β Something moved across his face, brief and searching. βYou alright?β
βGreat, thanks. Good session?β
βYeah ββ
βGood. Enjoy your evening.β
And you were gone. Forty-two steps to the media suite. You counted. You sat down at your desk, opened your laptop, and stared at the screen for a moment, then started typing with fingers that were completely steady, because you were fine.
That night, alone in your flat, you allowed yourself exactly one hour, which was a system youβd developed in your early twenties for things you couldnβt afford to carry around β grief, disappointment, embarrassment, the specific sadness of something that hadnβt even been a thing, technically, and therefore had no real right to feel like a loss. You made pasta. You put a film on that you didnβt watch. You sat on your sofa with your knees to your chest and let yourself feel the full, quiet weight of it, and you were honest with yourself during the hour, because there was no point otherwise.
The thing was that nothing had happened. You knew that. There had been a coach in Paris and some lingering looks and a water glass refilled without asking and a finger that had maybe, possibly, brushed yours in the dark. That was the complete inventory. That was the whole of it. It was nothing. It had felt like something, but it was nothing, and he was now very happy with a woman who had 800,000 followers and a face that photographers loved, and that was how it was, and you were going to be fine because you were always fine.
The hour ended. You washed your bowl, turned off the film, went to bed. In the morning you were going to be completely okay. You had decided.
-----
The decision held, and the thing about when you made a decision was that you committed, because the same rigidity that made social situations feel like a practical exam meant that once youβd set a course, you stayed on it. No wobbling. No revisiting. Forward.
So: forward. You bought a new work blazer, which was perhaps not a necessary step but felt symbolically appropriate. You accepted an invitation to Priyaβs friendβs birthday drinks, which you normally would have declined. You were present. You were socially available. Three weeks after the story broke, you met Daniel at a media industry event β a sports journalist, easy smile, the kind of person who was comfortable at events like this in a way youβd never fully understood β and he found you by the drinks table and said you looked like someone assessing threat levels, which was accurate, and he asked for your number at the end of the night with the straightforward confidence of someone who didnβt make it complicated. On the train home you thought: good. This is good. This is exactly right. You almost believed it.
The problem was that Daniel wasβ¦ obviously a journalist but also a sports oneβ¦ meant you had to disclose it to Diane, and you did it that same afternoon, clean and professional. She said: βAs long as thereβs no conflict of interest on club matters, itβs your business. Just be sensible.β βAlways,β you said, and left her office feeling organised and sensible and forward.
You turned the corner and nearly walked into Mason.
His hand caught your elbow for barely a second and you both stepped back, the corridor suddenly too narrow, a small collision of sorry and no, I before a beat of quiet stretched between you. Heβd come from training, hair still a bit damp, and there was a tiredness around his eyes that hadnβt been there before Paris β or maybe it had been, and youβd only learned to read him well enough to see it now, which was its own problem.
βYouβre in a rush,β he said.
βAlways.β Your standard line. Safe.
He nodded slowly, his eyes moving over your face in that way, reading the page, and you held yourself very still because youβd gotten good at still.
βYou look well,β he said, careful, like he was testing the temperature of something.
βThank you.β Perfectly pleasant. Perfectly level. Something shifted in his expression βbrief, complicated, goneβ and he stepped aside to let you pass. You walked away. Thirty-eight steps this time. Youβd gotten faster.
-----
It was a Tuesday in April when you had three deadlines and a 4 pm call with a journalist who always ran over and a sad desk sandwich that had gone slightly warm.
You were eating the sandwich when he knocked.
The media suite was empty, as it usually was by 6 pm, everyone having the reasonable instinct to go home, and you had stayed because you had the call and then the deadlines and absolutely no other reason. Mason knocked on the open door, and you looked up to find him still in his training gear, jacket half-zipped, with the expression of someone who had decided something and was committed to it, which immediately made you feel like you needed to be somewhere else.
βIβm on a deadline,β you said.
βI know.β He came in anyway.
You watched him pull out the chair across from your desk β Priyaβs chair, the one nobody sat in unless invited β and sit down in it with the particular calm of someone who had specifically decided not to be moved.
βMason.β His name, again. Still a mistake. βI have a call inββ
βTwenty minutes,β he said. βPriyaβs schedule is on the board outside.β
You stared at him. The sandwich sat on your desk between you like a small and unhelpful witness.
βI just need twenty minutes,β he said.
βFor what?β
βTo talk to you.β
βWeβre talking now.β
βNo,β he said, patiently, βweβre not. Youβre managing me. Thereβs a difference.β
The sandwich sat on your desk between you like a small, unhelpful witness. You looked at your screen, then back at him, and he hadnβt moved and showed no signs of moving. βIβm busy.β
βI know.β
βIβm notβ this isnβt a good time.β
βWhen is?β
βIβllββ you reached for your notebook, reflexively, because holding something helped. βI can check theββ
βY/N.β Quiet. Firm. βStop.β
You stopped. The room was very still.
βI just want to know how you are,β he said. βThatβs all. Not work. Not the schedule. You.β
And there it was β the question, the real one, the one he kept finding new ways to ask β and you felt the familiar tightening in your chest that meant you were approximately ten seconds from saying fine and redirecting and closing the whole thing down, because you were good at that, you had built your entire professional life on being good at that β
βIβm fine,β you said.
He nodded slowly, like heβd expected it, like heβd prepared for it, and then he picked up your sad, slightly warm desk sandwich, looked at it for a moment, and took a bite.
You stared at him. He chewed. Set it back down. Looked at you completely normally, like he hadnβt just eaten your dinner without asking, like this was a thing that people did.
βWhat,β you said.
βYou werenβt eating it.β
βI was about toββ
βYouβve been staring at your screen for ten minutes, you hadnβt touched it.β
βYou donβtβ thatβs myββ you picked up the sandwich, put it back down, because now it felt weird to eat it, which was somehow the most annoying thing. βYou canβt justβ thatβs mineββ
βI know, Iβm sorryββ
βAre you?β Your voice came out sharper than intended, something loosening at the hinge. βAre you actually sorry, or is that justβ¦ something you say?β
He went still. You heard what youβd just said and felt the shape of it, and that wasnβt about the sandwich and you both knew it and the knowing sat in the room between you like a third presence, warm and uninvited.
Walk it back, said the professional part of your brain. Redirect. Youβre tired, youβre stressed, itβs a long weekβ
βWhat does that mean?β he asked, carefully, not defensive, just honest.
βNothing. Forget it. It means nothing, it was about the sandwich, Iβm tired, I have aββ
βIt wasnβt about the sandwich.β
βWas it about Isla?β
The name landed in the room like something dropped. You didnβt answer, which was itself an answer, and you watched him watch you understand that, and there was nowhere to go suddenly; no redirect, no clipboard to pick up, no corridor to walk away down at pace.
βThereβs nothing there,β he said. βIt wasβ itβs done. It wasnβt serious.β
βYou donβt have to explain your personal life to me.β Your voice was impressively level. You were quite proud of it. βGenuinely. Itβs none of myββ
βI know itβs not. Iβm telling you anyway.β
βWhy?β
The word came out louder than you meant, raw at the edges, and you felt it leave you and couldnβt take it back and the room absorbed it and went very quiet.
βBecause you went away,β he said simply. βAfter Paris. You justβ¦ went. And I didnβt know what Iβd done, and then the Isla thing, and you got even further, and I just watched you go and I didnβtβ¦β he stopped, reset, βI didnβt like it.β
Your chest hurt. Not metaphoricallyβ actually hurt, the specific ache of something that had been compressed for a long time being asked to expand.
βYou donβtββ your voice had lost some of its level, which you hated, βyou barely know me.β
βI know you take different routes to avoid the main corridor some days. I know you eat lunch at your desk when somethingβs bothering you. I know you give thumbs up when youβre mortified and you say fine when youβre the opposite and youβre the best person in this building at your job and you carry your bag like it might escape.β He said it all quietly and evenly, like a list of facts. βI know you find it overwhelming when there are too many people and you told me that in Paris and I donβt think you tell people things like that easily.β
You stared at him. Your eyes were doing something you were furious about.
βThat's...β your voice came out smaller than you intended. The wall was there, you could feel it, but your hands were tired. Youβd been holding it up for a long time. βThatβs notβ you were with someone else. You were photographed. And I knowβ I know nothing happened between us, I know that, it was a coach and a dinner and Iβm notβ Iβm not naΓ―ve enough to thinkββ
βHey.β Heβd leaned forward, elbows on the desk, close enough that you could see the tiredness in his eyes. βWhat did you think I thought it was?β
You shook your head.
βTell me.β
βI donβt know.β Your voice cracked slightly on the last word and you pressed your mouth together and looked at the ceiling for a second. βI donβt know what I thought. I neverβ I donβt do this. I donβt read situations and I donβt make things out of nothing, Iβm really careful, Iβm always careful, and somehow I stillββ you stopped. He waited, infuriatingly and tenderly patient. βAnd then you were with someone else,β you said, quietly. βAnd I was fine. I am fine.β
βYouβre crying a little bit.β
βIβm aware,β you said, with some dignity.
There was a pause and outside the window the Cobham car park was going dark. βI ended it with Daniel,β you said, very quietly, and you werenβt sure why you were telling him except that youβd run out of things to protect. βTwo weeks ago. I drove home feeling nothing and I think that was the answer.β He didnβt say anything for a moment and he didnβt look pleased about it, which you appreciated.
He didnβt say anything, didnβt make a speech, didnβt explain himself further. He just reached across your desk and put his hand over yours β still, warm, staying.
You looked at it. Looked at him.
βI ended it,β he said. βWeeks ago. Because it wasnβt β it wasnβt what I was thinking about.β He didnβt elaborate. He didnβt need to. βIβm not asking you for anything right now. I just needed you to know that. And I needed to know you were actually okay.β
Your hand didnβt move. Neither did his. Outside the media suite the building was quiet, the particular emptiness of Cobham at evening, faint hum of the lights, distant sound of rain on the roof.
βIβm not okay,β you said, very quietly. The truest thing youβd said in months.
βI know,β he said, and he didnβt let go of your hand, and you didnβt let go either, and for a momentβ just a momentβ you let it be enough.
***
He noticed her because she was the only person in the room not looking at him, which could sound like ego, and heβd be the first to admit it. But it wasnβt β it was just that heβd been doing this long enough to know what a room felt like when he walked into it, the subtle shift, the awareness, and heβd gotten so used to it that the absence of it was actually the thing that stood out.
The media room, a Tuesday in February. Heβd come in twenty minutes early by accident and she was crouched on the floor wrestling with a microphone cable, completely absorbed, talking to it under her breath β not to him, to the cable β like he wasnβt worth the interruption. When he said sorry, thought this was β she looked up for exactly one second and then looked back down and said press availability isnβt until three like he was a scheduling inconvenience. Heβd stood in the doorway longer than he needed to. He found out her name that day by asking Priya from social, casually, like it was an admin question.
Y/N. Sheβs been here nearly a year.
Nearly a year, and heβd been in the same building the whole time and somehow sheβd moved through it like weather: present, functional, completely unregistered until suddenly she was the only thing he noticed. He thought about that for a while.
What he noticed first, properly noticed, the inventory he built without meaning to, was how careful she was, not in a cold way but in a way that looked like someone who had learned that the world required navigation. She moved through Cobham with a kind of deliberate efficiency, always slightly purposeful and never lingering, like sheβd mapped every room and knew exactly how long she needed to be in each one before the odds of something going wrong increased. He recognised it, vaguely, as something heβd felt at seventeen when he first came into the first team setup at Chelsea: that hyperawareness, that sense of needing to be useful enough that your presence was justified. The difference was that heβd grown out of it, more or less, and she seemed to have just refined it, made it a permanent operating mode, built a whole professional identity around being competent and contained and fine. He found it interesting the way you found a locked door interesting, not because you wanted to force it, just because you found yourself wondering what was on the other side.
The Paris trip changed something. Heβd sat next to her on the coach back from the match because heβd wanted to, which was simple and true and he didnβt overcomplicate it. Sheβd held her bag like a shield and made him almost-smile in the dark for twenty solid minutes and then said something so quietly honest β it means Iβm not surprised when it happens β that heβd had to look out the window for a moment because the directness of it had caught him off guard. She talked to him like he was a person, not a footballer, not a name, not someone to be managed or impressed, and then she remembered to guard it and shut it back down and went back to her screen. But heβd heard it. On the armrest in the dark heβd let his finger brush hers and not moved it because he wanted to see what sheβd do, and what sheβd done was go very still and stare out the window and breathe carefully, like she was handling something fragile. He drove home from the hotel that night thinking about the careful breathing.
When she went cold after Paris he went over it methodically, replaying the conversations with the analytical part of his brain he usually reserved for match footage and coming up with nothing concrete β just the gradual withdrawal, the different routes, the lunch at her desk, the responses that were perfectly professional and perfectly empty. The Isla thing was β heβd been honest with himself about the Isla thing. She was fine, theyβd had a few good evenings, and the whole time there had been a low-frequency awareness that he was doing something for the wrong reasons, or not quite the right ones. He ended it after three weeks, quietly, kindly, without drama, and he didnβt announce it because it hadnβt felt like something that required an announcement. In retrospect he understood why that had been a mistake.
What he saw in her β if anyone had asked him to put it into words, which nobody did, which was perhaps why he ended up sitting uninvited in Priyaβs chair on a Tuesday with someone elseβs sandwich β was this: she was sharp, not in an aggressive way but in a precise way, choosing her words carefully, and when she said something real it landed exactly right and he could always tell the difference between her professional voice and the one underneath it, the quieter one that came out sideways when she forgot to guard it. She was honest, and even when she was deflecting, the honesty was in there somewhere β she just mostly kept it inside. And there was something exhausting and sad and quietly admirable about the way she carried herself through every situation with that careful composure, like sheβd decided a long time ago that the safest version of herself was the useful one, the competent one, the one who didnβt need anything.
He didnβt want that version. He wanted the one that talked to microphone cables and gave thumbs up when mortified and said thatβs mine with genuine outrage over a sandwich. He wanted the one that cried a little bit and said Iβm aware with her chin up. He wanted β and this was the thing heβd been sitting with for weeks, the thing that had been building since February in a room with a broken microphone β he wanted her to know that being seen didnβt have to be the most dangerous thing in the world. He just had to wait for her to let him tell her that, and he was, if nothing else, patient.
-----
Nothing changed overnight, and that felt important to say β the hand on yours and the quiet room and the Iβm not okay did not constitute a transformation. You did not float home on a cloud of emotional resolution. You drove home in the rain, ate cereal for dinner because youβd missed the sandwich window, and lay in bed for forty minutes thinking about the fact that you had cried, slightly, in front of Mason Mount over a desk sandwich. A desk sandwich, you thought, at the ceiling. Thatβs what broke me. Eleven months of composure and it was the sandwich. You fell asleep before you could finish being embarrassed about it.
The next morning you arrived at Cobham at your usual time and took your usual route and made your usual coffee and sat at your usual desk and were, externally, completely normal. Internally you were doing something that resembled a browser with forty-seven tabs open, several of which were frozen and one of which was playing music you couldnβt identify or stop.
Priya came in at nine, looked at you, looked at her chair β back in its normal position, no evidence of last night, everything tidy β and said nothing. βMorning,β you said. βMorning,β she said. She made her tea. You answered your emails. The world continued rotating.
At 9:47 your phone lit up with an unknown number, and then a text.
itβs mason. priya gave me your number. hope thatβs okay.
You stared at it. Priya, you thought, with great feeling.
You typed Thatβs fine, deleted it, typed Okay, deleted it, typed Sure, no problem, this is Y/N by the way in case you werenβt sure, stared at that for a long moment, deleted it, and sent: Thatβs fine.
Three seconds.
how are you
You looked at that for a moment, at the intimacy of the lowercase, the lack of punctuation, the fact that it was a question heβd asked you many times in many corridors and this was the first time it felt like it was actually asking.
You typed: Honestly. Still processing the sandwich incident. Otherwise intact.
donβt be
the sandwich thing was my fault
Iβve been told I have boundary issues around other peopleβs food
Who told you that, you typed.
my mum
sheβs right
You pressed your lips together against something that was almost a smile. I appreciate the honesty, you sent.
anytime
are you around later
The forty-seven tabs all tried to load at once. Around where, you typed, because you needed the specificity, because your brain required logistics when everything else felt uncertain.
cobham. after the afternoon session. just to talk. no sandwiches involved
You looked at your screen, then out the window, then back at your screen.
I finish at six, you sent.
Iβll find you
You put your phone down and picked it up again and put it down, and Priya said, without looking up from her computer, βYouβre doing the thing.β
βWhat thing.β
βWhere you pick your phone up and put it down repeatedly.β
βI donβt do a thing.β
βYou have several things.β You put your phone in your drawer. βIβm working,β you said, and Priya turned back to her screen with the expression of someone who had said everything she needed to.
He found you at six-thirteen, slightly later than six and slightly earlier than youβd spent the intervening hours catastrophizing about, and you were in the small corridor outside the analysis suite with your coat on and your bag on and ready to leave, which youβd timed deliberately, because being in motion was easier than being stationary when you were nervous.
βHey.β He fell into step beside you, naturally, like it was easy.
βHi.β You kept walking. He kept up.
βYou were going to leave,β he said.
βI was going to coincidentally be leaving at this time, yes.β
βRight.β
βI had somewhere to be.β
βWhere?β A pause.
βHome.β
βIβll walk you to your car.β
You glanced at him sideways. He had his hands in his jacket pockets and the expression of someone who had absolutely clocked what you were doing and found it more endearing than annoying, which was honestly a little disarming. The evening was cool with that particular April coolness that couldnβt decide if it was still winter, and the car park was quiet, and he walked beside you with an easy unhurriedness that you found simultaneously calming and destabilizing.
βI wanted to sayββ he started.
βYou donβt have toββ
βI know I donβt have to.β Patient. Still. βI wanted to.β You closed your mouth.
βLast night wasnβtβ I didnβt come in there to make things weird or to make you feel like you had toββ he paused, finding the words. βI just missed talking to you. The actual you. Not the press officer you.β
Something warm moved through your chest and you immediately distrusted it on instinct. βTheyβre the same person,β you said.
βTheyβre really not.β
βThe press officer me is very competent.β
βShe is,β he agreed. βSheβs also a bit terrifying.β
You blinked. βIβm terrifying?β
βNotβ no, not likeββ he looked at you, caught something in your expression, and laughed, properly, that full-face laugh that youβd been cataloguing without permission since February. βYouβre not scary terrifying, youβre just veryβ composed. You walk into a room and you know exactly what every person in it should be doing and you just sort of quietly arrange that without anyone realising and itβsββ
βTerrifying,β you finished.
βImpressive,β he corrected. βI was going to say impressive.β
βYou said terrifying first.β
βAs a compliment.β
βThatβs a strange compliment.β
βYouβre a strange person.β
The words landed and you looked at him, ready to feel the sting, and found him already looking at you with something so far from unkind that the sting never arrived. βOkay,β you said, quietly.
βIn a good way,β he said, equally quiet.
You reached your car and stopped, and he stopped too, and the car park was empty and still and the sky above Cobham was doing that thing where it couldnβt decide between blue and grey. Somewhere across the car park a door opened and closed and you both glanced over instinctively, two people with the same instinct for discretion, and when you looked back at each other you were both almost-smiling at having done it simultaneously.
βIβm stillββ you started. βIβm not very good at this. Any of this. I should probably tell you that upfront so youβre not surprised later when I say something weird.β
βYouβve already said several weird things.β
βThat was a warm-up.β
He smiled, full and warm and aimed entirely at you, and your heart did the medically inadvisable thing.
βI think,β he said, βthat we justβ see how it goes. Quietly. No pressure.β
βQuietly,β you repeated, and something about the word settled something in you; the absence of performance, the permission to just be uncertain without an audience.
βJust us,β he said.
You nodded, slowly and carefully, like you were agreeing to something that mattered. βOkay,β you said. He reached over and tucked a strand of hair behind your earβ just that, light and quick, like it was the most natural thingβ and you stood very still and your brain went completely blank in a way that was actually quite restful.
βGoodnight, Y/N,β he said.
βI have forty-seven browser tabs open in my head right now,β you said.
He stared at you. βSorry,β you said. βThat was one of the weird things. Youβve been warned.β
He was laughing as he walked away and you got in your car and sat for a moment and smiled at your steering wheel like an absolute idiot. Forward, you thought, but different this time, lighter. You drove home.
-----
The text came on a Thursday at 4:52 pm, not unusual in itself; youβd been texting for three weeks now, the kind of texting that had started as occasional and quietly become daily without either of you formally acknowledging that it had become daily. Short things mostly, observations, him sending something about training and you replying with something dry about the press implications and him sending back a single laughing emoji that you had, embarrassingly and privately, started to consider a form of affection. This text was different.
where do you live
You stared at it. Why, you sent back, because you were a person who required context.
just tell me the area
thatβs not an answer to my question
Y/N
Masonβ a pause, and you could almost feel him laughing at his phoneβ
i want to show you something. tonight if youβre free. what area
You looked at the text for a long moment. The sensible part of your brain βwhich had been gradually losing authority over the last three weeks but still showed up daily like a disciplined employeeβ said: ask more questions, get specifics, do not just give a man your postcode because he asked nicely.
Peckham, you sent.
perfect. Iβll send you an address. 7:30
Thatβs still not an answer
wear something nice
You stared at that for a genuinely unreasonable amount of time.
You almost talked yourself out of it twiceβ once at 5:30, standing in front of your wardrobe thinking this is insane, you donβt know where youβre going, and once at 6:45 when you were ready, navy dress and hair down, and you caught yourself in the mirror and your brain said this looks like effort and effort felt dangerous, effort felt like a declarationβ so you grabbed your coat and left before the thought finished.
The address was a fifteen-minute drive, a street in Peckham you half-knew, quiet and residential, and when you pulled up you sat in your car looking at a small restaurant with its lights low and no sign outside, the kind of place that either didnβt need one or had decided signage was too much commitment. Through the window: candles, dark wood, small tables, the warm amber of a room specifically designed to make people feel like the rest of the world had gone quiet.
You looked at it. Looked at your dress. Looked back at the restaurant. Oh, said something in your chest. Oh, he absolutely did.
He was already inside and you saw him before he saw you βstanding to greet you, dark jacketβ and for a brief and unguarded second before he knew you were looking, he had an expression on his face that you didnβt have a word for yet. Anticipatory. Almost nervous. Mason Mount, nervous. You filed that away somewhere very safe.
Then he saw you and the expression shifted into something warmer and he said βyou cameβ like heβd actually been unsure, whichβ
βYou gave me forty minutes notice,β you said, sliding into the chair across from him. βI didnβt have time to talk myself out of it.β
βThat was intentional.β
βThat was manipulative.β
βStrategically timed.β
βThose are the same thing.β
βAre they?β
βI took a module on thisββ you stopped. βYou know what, never mind. Why is there no sign outside?β
βItβs a private dining room. Friend of a friend runs it, closes the main restaurant on Thursdays, does private bookings.β
You looked around at the low candles on every surface, at something that smelled extraordinary coming from somewhere, at a single table, yours, set properly with actual glassware and soft music from nowhere specific, the kind that existed to fill silence without demanding attention.
βSo,β you said, carefully. βThereβs no one else here.β
βNo.β
βItβs just us.β
βYes.β
βIn a candlelit room.β
βCorrect.β
βMason.β You looked at him with great composure βIs this a dateβ¦β
He held your gaze, completely unbothered. βWhat do you think?β
βI think you should have said that in the text.β βWould you have come?β
A pause.
ββ¦Strategically timed,β you said quietly.
He smiled.
The food arrived in small courses, unhurried, and somewhere in the middle of the second one you forgot to be nervous; not dramatically, just gradually, the nervousness losing its grip like a hand slowly unclenching, and what was underneath it turned out to be something that felt a lot like ease.
You talked, actually talked, not about work or schedules or anything that required a professional filter. He asked about your family and you told him about your mum who sent voice notes that were never under four minutes and your younger brother who youβd taught to cook badly and who had now surpassed you, which was both proud-making and annoying. He told you about growing up in Portsmouth, about being sixteen and terrified and certain he was one bad training session from being sent home, about the version of himself from that era that he wouldnβt fully recognise now.
βYou seem veryββ you searched for the word. βSettled. In yourself.β
βNow,β he said. βI wasnβt always.β
βWhat changed?β
He considered it. βStopped waiting for permission to just be how I am, I think.β
You turned that over quietly. βIβm still waiting,β you said, before youβd decided to say it. βFor permission. Or β I donβt know. For it to feel safe enough, maybe. To just ββ you moved your hand vaguely, which was not a sentence but communicated something.
βI know,β he said, gently.
βItβs annoying,β you said. βAbout myself.β
βItβs not.β
βIt takes me a long time toββ
βI know.β His voice was patient in that specific way that never felt like tolerance, just actual patience with no timer on it. βIβm not going anywhere.β
The candle between you flickered and your stomach did something long and slow and warm that had nothing to do with the food. He looked at you differently in candlelight, or maybe not differently β maybe just more visible, the way candlelight stripped out all the ambient noise of a space and left only what it chose to illuminate. He looked at you the way youβd been quietly terrified of being looked at, and the difference β the thing that was different from every other time someone had looked at you and made you want to disappear β was that it didnβt feel like an assessment. It felt like recognition. Like someone looking at something theyβd been looking for.
You picked up your glass to give your hands something to do. βStop,β you said.
βStop what.β
βLooking at me like that.β
βLike what.β
βYou know like what.β
He didnβt stop. He leaned back in his chair with the particular ease of someone completely comfortable in their own decisions and looked at you across the candlelight and said: βNo.β
βNo?β
βNo. Youβre going to have to get used to it.β
βThatβs very presumptuous.β
βProbably.β
βI could leave.β
βYour coatβs on my side of the table.β
You looked. It was. Youβd put it there yourself when you sat down. βI did that.β
βYou did.β
βThat was an accident.β
βSure.β
You looked at him for a long moment β this person who had walked into a media room twenty minutes early and noticed you talking to a microphone cable and had apparently decided, quietly and without fanfare, to keep noticing β and felt something shift in you that was past the forty-seven tabs and past the wall and past the careful practiced fine, something that felt, cautiously, like being glad.
βThis is a very good restaurant,β you said, because you needed to say something that wasnβt the thing you were actually thinking.
βIβll tell him you said so.β
βThe food is genuinely excellent.β
βY/N.β
βThe ambiance is also ββ
βY/N.β
βWhat.β
He was smiling. Soft, private, just for this room. βYouβre doing the thing.β
βI have several things apparently.β
βThe deflecting with commentary thing.β
βI donβt ββ you stopped. βOkay I do that.β
βI know.β
Silence. The good kind. Full kind.
βIβm glad I came,β you said quietly. The truest available sentence.
His smile changed slightly. Warmer. Something in it that made you look at the candle for a moment because looking at him directly felt like a lot.
βYeah?β he said.
βDonβt make it weird,β you said.
βIβm not making it weird.β
βYouβre doing the face.β
βWhat face.β
βThe β looking face. The one that makes my ββ you stopped abruptly.
He waited. Very deliberately waited.
βFinish that sentence,β he said.
βAbsolutely not.β
βY/N ββ
βThe food is excellent,β you said firmly. βIβd like dessert.β
He laughed, full and delighted, the kind that meant youβd given him something he was going to keep, and you pressed your lips together against your own smile and looked at the menu with great concentration and felt, in the warm candlelit quiet of a room that was just yours, something bloom open in your chest that you didnβt have the words for yet, but you thought, maybe, you had time to find them.
Time did a thing at the restaurant, moving too fast in the parts where he was saying something that made you forget to monitor your own expression and too slow in the parts where he looked at you across the candle and you needed somewhere else to put your eyes, and by the time you both registered that the restaurant had gone completely quiet and the friend-of-a-friend had very politely stopped coming out of the kitchen, it was eleven seventeen.
βEleven seventeen,β you said, looking at your phone with the specific horror of a person who had a 7 am press briefing.
βEleven seventeen,β he confirmed, with considerably less horror.
βI have a 7 am .β
βI have a 6 am.β You stared at him. βAnd youβre notββ
βIβve been here the whole time too,β he pointed out.
βYes but you ββ you gestured at him vaguely. βYou seem unbothered.β
βIβm very bothered,β he said. βIβm just quiet about it.β
You stood up and reached for your coat βon his side of the table still, where you had put it accidentally on purpose three hours ago and neither of you had mentioned againβ and he stood at the same time and reached it first and just held it open for you, naturally, like it was nothing, and you stood for a moment looking at it and then turned around and put it on and your brain said heβs right there and your body said yes I know and you said nothing and walked toward the door.
Outside: rain. Not light rain, not the fine invisible Parisian rain from the coach β proper, committed April rain, coming down in sheets across the empty Peckham street, turning the pavement to mirror, bouncing off the roofs of parked cars with a sound like applause. You stood in the doorway looking at it.
βYour carβs round the corner,β he said, from behind you.
βI know where my car is.β
βYouβll be soaked in about four seconds.β
βI have a coat.β
βItβs not a waterproof coat.β
You looked at your coat. He was correct; it was an aesthetic coat, a coat for looking put-together in mild weather, not a coat for this. βIβll be fine.β
βIβll drive you.β
βYou donβt have to ββ
βMy carβs right there.β He nodded at a black car parked directly outside. βYours is round the corner in this.β
Logic. Infuriating logic. βFine,β you said.
The six steps to his car still got your shoulders wet, and he knew the way without being told, which you registered and chose not to examine. The city at nearly half eleven was a different thing: quieter, amber-lit, rain making everything soft and blurred at the edges, and you sat in the passenger seat watching London slide past and felt the pleasant and dangerous warmth of someone who had eaten well and talked for hours and was now in a small enclosed space with a person they were β you looked at your hands.
Careful, said the sensible part of your brain, which had made a full comeback. Oh shut up, said the rest of you, which was new.
βLeft here.β He turned left. βAnd then the next right. The building with the blue door.β He pulled up.
It was a converted Victorian townhouse split into three flats, yours on the top floor with big windows and high ceilings and the kind of bones that people used words like character to describe, and you were quietly proud of it in a way you rarely told anyone.
βThis is yours?β he said.
βTop floor.β
He looked at the building, then back at you. βThis suits you.β
βIt does?β
βBig windows,β he said simply, and you didnβt know what that meant and also understood it exactly and decided not to pursue it.
βWell,β you said. βThank you for dinner. And the drive. You should get home, youβve got the sixββ
βItβs still raining,β he said.
βIβll go quickly.β
βOr I could come up.β
The words landed in the car. You looked at him. He looked at you, his expression even and open, nothing in it that was pushing, just offering β like heβd put something on the table and was waiting to see what you did with it. Every sensible instinct you had lined up and said: say goodnight, go inside, this is the right place to stop.
βItβs quite messy,β you said.
βIs it?β βNotβ¦ not chaotically messy. Organised messy. Thereβs a system.β
βI believe you.β
βIβm also out of decent tea. I have one kind and itβs not very good.β
βThatβs fine.β
βAnd thereβs a plant in the hallway that looks dead but isnβt, before you say anything.β
βI wasnβt going to say anything about your plant.β
You looked at him for a moment longer. Then you got out of the car.
The flat was warm and smelled like the candle youβd left burning low on the kitchen counter, which you were privately grateful for because it meant the space had atmosphere you hadnβt had to engineer in the last thirty seconds. He came in behind you and stopped in the hallway and you watched him take it in: the high ceilings, the big windows running with rain, the warm lamplight, the bookshelves covering most of one wall in the living room, organised by colour because youβd gone through a phase and then committed to it. The plant in the hallway, which was fine and thriving and he glanced at but honourably said nothing about.
And the photos. The wall beside the kitchen was a gallery of frames, different sizes, no particular grid system, just things youβd loved enough to print and put up: your mum at the beach, your brother at graduation, a print of a painting youβd bought at a market in Lisbon on your first solo holiday aged twenty-four, terrified and proud of yourself, and a strip of photo booth pictures from a work Christmas party two years ago where Priya had dragged you in and you were laughing in every frame, genuinely laughing, the kind you couldnβt perform.
He drifted toward them and you filled the kettle because you needed something to do with your hands, watching him from the kitchen as he took his time, looking at each one with that same quiet attention he gave everything, and he stopped at the photo booth strip.
βThis is you,β he said.
βAstute.β
βYouβre actually laughing.β
βI do laugh.β
βI know. I just havenβt ββ he paused. βIβve heard you almost laugh. Where you stop it.β
You looked at the kettle. βPriya pushed me into a photo booth. I didnβt have time to stop it.β
βI like it.β
βThe photo or the laughing.β
βBoth.β
He turned from the photos and looked at you across the kitchen and the flat was small enough that across the kitchen wasnβt very far, and the rain was loud on the windows and the candle was still going and the kettle hadnβt boiled yet and β
βThe tea really is not good,β you said. βI should warn you again. Itβs some kind of ββ
βY/N.β
ββ herbal thing that Priya left, I donβt actually know whatβs in it ββ
βY/N.β
ββ could be anything really, might be mostly ββ
βHey.β Heβd moved, not a lot but enough that he was in the kitchen now, close enough that the forty-seven tabs all crashed simultaneously. βLook at me.β
You looked at him, which was a bad idea and an immediate regret, because he was looking at you the way heβd been looking at you all evening in the candlelight, the way that felt like recognition, and he was close and the rain was loud and you had genuinely just talked about herbal tea for thirty seconds to avoid this exact moment β
βIβm going to kiss you,β he said, quiet and straightforward, like he was simply providing information.
βOkay,β you said, very calmly. He leaned in. βWait ββ you said, and he stopped. βSorry, I just ββ you pressed your lips together and your heart was absolutely rioting, βI just want to say, for the record, that Iβm normally a lot more composed than Iβve been the last few months, and this whole situation has genuinely been ββ
βY/N.β
ββ a lot for me specifically and I donβt want you to think that Iβm always ββ
βY/N.β
ββ like this because Iβm actually quite ββ
You grabbed the front of his jacket. And kissed him.
It was not graceful, the first half-second, your timing slightly off and both of you adjusting, and then it was β warm and unhurried and tasting of the dessert wine from the restaurant, his hand coming up to your jaw like heβd thought about where to put it, the rain coming down outside and the candle burning low on the counter and the kettle boiling and clicking off and neither of you noticing.
When you pulled back you kept your eyes closed for a moment, and then opened them, and he was right there looking at you with that look, worse now somehow, more of it.
βFor the record,β he said, quiet and a little rough at the edges, βyouβre always composed.β
βI just talked about herbal tea for thirty seconds to avoid kissing you.β
βComposed and thorough.β
βThatβs not what thorough means.β
βNo?β
βNo, thorough means ββ you stopped. βIβm doing it again.β
βI know.β He was smiling, soft and private and just for this kitchen. βI donβt mind.β
His thumb moved, just slightly, against your jaw, and you were still holding his jacket, and outside the rain kept going, loud and committed and completely indifferent to the two of you standing in your kitchen at eleven fifty-three, figuring out something that had been waiting since February in a media room with a broken microphone.
βThe tea really is terrible,β you said, very quietly.
βIβll bring some tomorrow,β he said, equally quiet, and something in his eyes was warm and certain and patient, like someone who had decided and wasnβt revisiting it.
You nodded, once, small. βOkay,β you said.
And you smiled β not the almost-smile, not the stopped one, the real one, the Priya-photo-booth one β and he saw it and kept it like it was something worth keeping.
You and Ericβs βsituationshipβ as you like to call it . Itβs been going on for about a couple months, maybe 5? You werenβt sure as you see no point in counting. Itβs simply a means to an end. When Eric is pent up he seeks you out β when youβve had a long day you seek Eric out.
That basically sums everything upβon your end that is. Eric wants more, so much more. Heβs so in love with you and youβre the only one who hasnβt noticed.
Before your little arrangement: Eric used to punch the bags so hard his hands bled to get rid of anything he was feeling yet now he goes to you, albeit sexual relief or just comfort.
Youβve also been strong and level headed, two things Eric admires but also turns him on about you. Everyone in dauntless found out early on about your arrangement because Eric isnβt subtle.
He began eating lunch with you, shamelessly leaving your room at prime hallway traffic hours, leaving non-subtle marks on you or rocking his own from the night before like battle scars.
Four was the first to say something, teasing him a little. βSo you and her huh? Really? I didnβt know she was into guys like you.β
Eric turned to him. They were supposed to be monitoring the new recruits. βWhatβd you say? Because I must have heard you wrong.β Which all be received a laugh from four and a grunt from Eric.
Which leads to now, you were asleep and you turned over when you felt the bed dip beside you. βEric..?β You blindly felt around for his hand. βYeah itβs just me baby..β at your soft grumble he held your hand as he got snuggled up behind you.
βMissed youβ¦had to come visit my special girlβ
To which you canβt lie made your stomach flipβ but remember itβs just casual. βOh yeah?β A little bit of teasing canβt hurt right? βYeah..you mean more to me than you seem to realizeβ oh shit.
Now that woke you up,shifting slightly out of his hold you sat with your back against the headboard avoiding eye contact, βEricβ¦what are you even saying? I think you need to get some sleepβ
Eric mimicked your behavior except his eyes never left your face,βhad a bad fucking day. Four was talking shit during training. He knows how to get me under his skin.β He took a long pause before sighing βIβm also saying I donβt want casual anymore, I donβt want convenience. Iβm saying I want you and I to be something official with labels and meaning. No more sneaking in your room, weβd just have one room with our shared things.β
Oh. βEric I donβt know if I can do anything more than casual.β You twiddled your fingers, slightly picking at the skin on them. βIβve never been with anyone. You are the closest thing Iβve ever had to..well anything! Youβve seen all of me, and to me that is enough. I donβt know if I can give you more by allowing myself to be vulnerable. Thatβs a weakness no oneβs ever seen.β
Eric took a deep breath, βI can understand because no oneβs ever seen this much of me baby.β He took your face in his hands and rested his forehead against yours.
βBut I trust you enough to allow you to see my weaknesses. Do you think with time you can slowly allow me to see yours? In the mean time just allow me to love you openly?β
You take a moment before responding, βmhm..just uhm donβt be over to top. A little pda is ok like holding pinkies or maybe a small hug or kiss here and there but not like smothering. Is that okay?β
Eric smirks softly, βOkay honey. I will never do anything more than you are comfortable with. Plus Iβm not okay with lots of pda either. Can I kiss you?β
You gave him a heartfelt kiss, pulling him toward you as you slowly lay back against the bed. βGoodnight..honeyβ Ericβs smirk widened, βyou finally called me a sweet nameβ this will take some getting used to but itβs so worth it.
hey love! iβm not sure if youβre actually taking requests right now, but i have a very specific oneβ¦
i was thinking about something with jj or rafe, paired with an avoidant!reader. maybe something where reader and one of the boys are kind of seeing each other β nothing official or too serious β but then reader starts catching real feelings and decides to pull away for no reason, just full-on dramatic avoidance, lol. and then that causes fights, angst, and a lot of yearning from their side, etc! π«£π«£
thanks hun!!! my requests are always open! its 2 parts the moment i got this i was workinnnn , hope you like it!!
you and jj werenβt anything. not officially. not really.
just flirting that went too far. lingering looks. stolen moments behind beach houses and in the back of his truck. inside jokes that no one else understood. the kind of connection that felt like a spark you could smother if you just ignored it long enough.
you told yourself it was casual. fun. a distraction, nothing more.
and jj? he played along staying loud, flirty, always quick with a joke.
but then he started doing more.
bringing your favorite snacks. sending dumb memes in the middle of the night. watching you like he was trying to memorize every emotion on your face.
and youβ¦
you started caring.
that was the problem.
because once you cared, it was only a matter of time before it all fell apart.
so, like clockwork, you pulled back.
first, it was little things. taking longer to text back. skipping hangouts. giving him short answers and vague excuses.
but jj wasnβt stupid.
he texted you three times in a row the night before:
whereβd you go?
did i do something?
just tell me if youβre done, okay?
you didnβt answer.
you couldnβt. because the truth felt pathetic.
you were scared. not of him, of you. of how deeply you felt. how badly you wanted this to be real. how you knew if you let it happen, if you let him all the way in, it would destroy you when it eventually ended.
because things like this didnβt last.
so now youβre standing at the edge of the party, alone in a crowd, pretending the flames arenβt burning holes in your resolve, pretending your heart isnβt clawing its way out of your chest every time you catch a glimpse of him.
heβs across the firepit, laughing with john b and pope, beer bottle dangling from his fingers, eyes flicking over the crowd like heβs not really listening.
like heβs looking for someone.
and when his gaze finally lands on you, like a damn spotlight, your stomach flips and your chest tightens and you do the most cowardly thing youβve done all week.
you look away.
and pretend you donβt care.
even though every nerve in your body is screaming his name.
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"I'm sorry I dont wanna take off my clothes, but at least I know you were mine."
content: avoidant reader tries to cope with her past and accept her feelings for matt.
WARNINGS: ** heavy SA trigger warning !! prim talks of her experience of SA (the effects not the events), how it affects her daily, mentions / implied SH, mini scenes of fluff inbetween heavy angst, mentions of sickness, implied sex, implied hypersexual struggles, emotional numbness, angst with comfort, mini makeout session.
a/n, to everyone that hates avoidant reader, i hate YOU :(
wc: 1.1k
AU MASTERLIST // NAV // ALL AUS // TAGS
(β line dividers by @chrisssiren )
Every night she woke up feeling like her skin was crawling.
She hates the burning but maybe she's supposed to live with it. Maybe it's her fault. I mean sheβs the only one living with the consequences.
She doesn't want to wear her own skin. It barely belongs to her. It's been used, ruined, stained. She didn't know she was supposed to claim it. She thought it was her own. They took the decision like she wasn't enough to even be presented with it.
She didn't understand it when it happened. Maybe she just didn't think they could be so cruel. Maybe that was her fault - she knew they were bad but she didn't know they thought she was. They had to think she was worth nothing to do it all to her.
They told her she was everything they needed but she never wanted to be that for them. She didn't fucking want it.
She wished being loved could drain it out.
She wished it felt like waiting. but it's not. it feels like needing to blink, but maybe her eyes would never open back up again. Maybe sheβd get hurt again. Maybe letting her guard down wouldn't actually help.
Prim let Matt touch her. She thought it was the only way anyone could see worth in her. Maybe she enjoyed it - but it always left her with bitter guilt at the tip of her tongue.
The shame made her push him away. She always felt used, replaceable. Prim expected a million contrasting things - matt to make her feel important; closer to the need to breathe than the need for a release.
She also expected him to hurt her all the ways she had been before. The tactic she used was to always let him - let anyone who seemingly wanted her in that way to have her, because then she's choosing it. She has the control.
Tears couldn't help but spill every time after. Because despite it all, she still never felt like she had control.
These men could see every inch of her but sheβd never let them see her cry. She never let them see her inside out.
Matt made it hard.
He didn't push for it. Acting as if he didn't even want it. His effort was directed in trying to make her laugh, make her relaxed. Chasing the glint in her eyes she only got when Matt dragged her outside of her own head.
There were battles Matt went through in terms of self confidence. He loved her like she was a God he prayed to. Constant chasing validation to deem himself worthy of her - her company, her love, her life that he wanted to share.
βIβm sick, Matt, go away.β
βCβmon, I'm not leaving you on your own.β
He started collecting the used tissues, shoving them into the tiny trash bin next to her bed.
Prim groaned out, covering her face with the blanket out of shame for her appearance. βI look awfullll!β
βYou look adorable.β he tilted his head, looking at her face peaking out from the hole she made in the covers so she could breathe. She blinked a few times, processing, sniffling. Then went back to her routine of self deprecating.
βIβm ill and gross, look at me- actually, don't.β She covered herself almost fully, earning a small laugh from Matt.
He kissed her temple, not caring for the slight sweat lining her skin. βYou want me to leave you to suffer in peace?β
She hesitated, but answered. βYeah.β
βAlright, but I'm staying downstairs so yell out in agony if you need anything.β
A part of her denied that she loved him - told herself she barely liked him at all. He was perfect but she thought she felt nothing.
Prim was desensitized to feelings. If a touch didn't burn and make her spiral through thoughts then was it worth anything? If the feeling didn't hurt then how did she know she was feeling anything at all?
It felt so innocent. Even those intense moments shared so privately with one another felt innocent. His grip barely registered, like they'd been doing it their whole lives, like time apart had been the most unnatural part of it all.
She wasn't used to that lack of feeling. Used to spending her days scrubbing at her skin, burning at it to get the old feeling out. The constant invisible weight from where they took her body from her.
No matter how many days passed, the hands remained. All over. Cursed to live in the body she couldn't call her own anymore.
Matt lingered on her mind.
Moments she brushed away at the time but wished she could experience over and over in a time loop. He was always gentle. Most people thought the bare minimum was the ability to breathe being around someone but to Prim it was much more valuable.
A rule she had was no hand holding. Debatably a level of claustrophobia but she didn't want to give it a title so heavy. She needed an escape. If there was a solid grip trapping her fingers, she felt so out of control that she had urges to rip off her skin. Just like before.
Prim let her head rest on Matt's shoulder, seated sideways in his lap. She drew lines with her finger, trailing the skin of his neck.
She watched him inhale and exhale, his own head atop hers, eyes closed as if in the most peaceful state heβd ever experienced.
Her nose nudged his jawline, pecking kisses to encourage him to face her.
Matt kissed her the same as he always did, she reciprocated differently. Zoning out wasn't her instinct at that moment, choosing to give in to the feeling. Prim held him, breaking the kisses only to breathe and chase him back.
Mattβs hand cradled her face, thumb caressing her cheekbone. She placed her hand over his, fingers intertwining to feel him in a way she hadn't before. She pushed herself closer, ignoring the sting in her eyes and the tears streaming down her face.
Matt noticed. As he always did.
He pulled back, panic filling his body as he held her face fully. He stared into her watery eyes as her frown deepened.
Again, she crawled the rest of her fingers into the spaces between his, practically desperate for the gesture sheβd run away from for so long.
βWhy are you crying?β He tried to soothe her, wiping her tears with his thumb so gently, holding her so gently. Eyes as always gentle.
