"Hey, babe, grab me another cookie?" Buck asked when Tommy stood to clear his plate.
"As you wish," Tommy replied.
Chim laughed, earning him a blank stare from both his wife and brother and law.
"The Princess Bride? As you wish? Guys?" Chim asked, when neither provided the requisite chuckle the reference required.
Tommy turned from the counter where he was poking through the cookies, trying to find the cranberry white chocolate he'd spotted earlier, and mentally claimed for dessert. Buck's oatmeal chocolate chip already set aside on a napkin.
"Neither of us have any idea what you're talking about, Chim," Buck said, after a long moment.
"The movie?"
"I think it was a book first, actually," Tommy said.
"The movie," Chim continued, ignoring him. "Dread Pirate Roberts? Princess Buttercup? Death cannot delay true love? Have you not understood all my mostly dead references?"
"That's a reference?" Buck asked.
"Maddie, my love, did you think I was just complimenting your breasts this entire time?"
Buck made a face.
"Yes, I did," Maddie said, starting to look a little offended.
"And they are perfect, of course. I'd show you if we didn't have company, however-"
"Also a reference to, what was it?" Maddie said.
"The Princess Bride," Tommy said. "ROUSes? Six fingered man? You killed my father prepare to die? None of this is ringing a bell?"
"No," Buck said.
"Howie, how have they never seen The Princess Bride."
"That is a question I have been asking myself for 5 years, Tommy. I still haven't gotten an answer."
"Evan, what were you even doing in high school if not watching these classics?" Tommy asked, returning to the table, cookie in hand.
"Having sex."
"Maddie?"
"Keeping my little brother from accidentally killing himself," she said.
"Thanks for that, by the way," Tommy said around a mouthful of cookie. "I quite like him."
"Love you too, babe," Buck said, with a soft smile.
"Well, before you two get started on that, we have to rectify this frankly atrocious gap in your pop culture knowledge."
It was not the first time Buck and Maddie had been subjected to an impromptu movie night, as their friends discovered gaps. Buck automatically turned to Tommy, eyes wide.
"Oh don't give me that look, Evan. It's movie time," Tommy said with a smile. He reached across the table to take Buck's hand. "I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it atrocious, but you'll love it. I promise."
Buck groaned, Maddie echoed him.
"Fine," Maddie said. "But we aren't sharing the rest of the cookies."
@desert--moonchild @bibuckkinard @buddiekinard @judesstfrancis @ohlookitsthearkhamknight @rdng1230 @diazsdimples As always let me know if you want added/removed
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This one is very much still in the vibes stage, and I don't have much to say about it, but I can walk you through how it came to me:
So back when I was deep in the bvddie endgame trenches, there was a specific pretty popular fic which I absolutely adored (and honestly I still do, even though I don't ship them anymore) in which Buck randomly buys a lottery ticket one day and wins several hundred million dollars. Now, in this fic, Buck spends huge chunks of that money on his firefam - setting up trust funds for Jee and Christopher, paying off Hen's student loan debt, etc.
But I don't think it would play out the same in a post-s8 setting. Why would Buck give all this money to Eddie, who has done nothing but treat him like shit since even before Bobby died? Why would he even tell any of the core team, knowing full well that it would just lead to him being seen as 'useful' again and them taking advantage of him for the money he now has?
Don't get me wrong, Buck is obviously generous to a fault, and I think some of what he would do with the money would stay the same - for example, donating huge chunks of it to charity, and I can especially see him donating a lot in Bobby's name - but the main point of this fic would be to really zoom in on who he isn't helping, their reactions if they ever find out, and what that says about their relationship.
Like, he very well might set up trust funds for Jee and Baby Boy Buckley-Han (I don't care what the show says, I'm never going to call him Bobby) because nothing that's going on between him and their parents is their fault, but I think there would be strict restrictions on who can get money out and what for; I have no doubt that Chimney would just assume that Buck would be happy to top it up if he or Maddie takes some because they're family, and Buck wouldn't want to risk it not being there if the kids ever needed it.
Likewise, I think he would help out Christopher, if only out of misplaced sentiment and nostalgia for the little boy he first met (before all the Kim stuff and the ghosting from Texas), but I can't see him ever giving Eddie a single cent after how he's been treated - certainly he wouldn't without a sincere apology, which Eddie would never give because he doesn't seem to think he's done anything wrong.
And on a lighter note, I've seen a lot of sugar daddy Tommy fics, where he has a lot of savings and he uses them to spoil Buck absolutely rotten, and I do love that! But also I think it would be good for Tommy to get spoiled himself - he deserves nothing but the best and Buck could give that to him!
His heart slammed against his ribcage, feeling he'd not felt for years. Thirty-two. Today he turned thirty-two years old, and the last time he'd felt his heart trying to remove itself was when he had been sixteen. His first kill. The first time he'd had a gun in his hands. The first time he'd even faced down with someone bigger, scarier, and tougher than him.
The first time he'd won.
His eyes darted around the place. It was fit to be a theater, but it hadn't seen a show in a long time. He doubted it ever would again. Not after today. He landed on a man across the stage, a brief flicker in his own eyes exchanged with the other was signal enough. His gaze returned to the man bound to the chair, flickered towards the don, then back to the man again.
Vincenzo di Angelo didn't like to be cornered.
Anyone who had ever had some sort of run-in would know that much. Cornering him was the last thing you'd ever do. Those who had survived were only survivors out of sheer luck. Vinnie wasn't merciful. He'd never been and he never would be.
The Don had cornered him.
A choice. Vinnie kills Sal or the Don kills them both. He was given a choice. The sharpshooter didn't like either. There were always third options.
One door closes, you force it right back open.
@orionion07
Sorry for any mistakes, English isn't my native language, haha)
Enjoy!
------------
Darkness.
It was the first thing Wheeljack saw when he opened his optics. There was nothing to see around, and it was impossible to tell which was up and which was down. A thought flashed through Wrecker's processor that he was levitating in space. However, this assumption was immediately refuted: his pedes felt a firm ground under them, allowing the white mech to stand up steadily.
Strange. Where was he? What kind of place was this?
Puzzled, Wheeljack lifted his servo to rub his neck cables and froze dumbfounded. Something was wrong, but what exactly? Why does his frame feel different?
Slowly lowering his servo, the Wrecker stared dumbfounded at what he saw in front of him. His own hands, white with red stripes. No claws. No spiked appendages on the forearms. No fangs in his intake. Wheeljack began frantically touching his body, still not believing in what he saw.
There was nothing. Everything that made him a predacon was gone.
Did that mean he was back to his old self?
Smiling dazedly, Wheeljack covered his faceplate with a servo and lifted his helm up. Then he laughed loudly. At first, his short nervous giggles escaped from his throat, then his quiet laugh turned into the laughter of a maniac released from a madhouse. The Wrecker couldn't believe what he was seeing in front of him. He couldn't believe that what he saw was real, that he wasn't a mutilated mech turned into a predacon. Is this really a nightmare, too real to be true? Maybe it was just a hallucination, and now he is lying on the platform on Nemesis? What if he blacked out, exhausted by the tortures of the Decepticons who wanted to find out where the rest of the Autobots were?
Well, they made a little mistake with the choice of an autobot informant. Not to mention that they seriously missed. Although, even if Wheeljack knew where his comrades were, like slag he would have told them.
Damn that one-eyed lunatic who thought he could break him and turn him against his own fraction. May all the Decepticons who killed his comrades fall into the Pits.
Then a sudden rumble like the roar of a wild animal sounded in the dead silence, causing Wheeljack to freeze. He immediately unsheathed his katanas, ready to defend himself from... whatever it was. The "ground" shook, and the Wrecker recognized someone's heavy footsteps, apparently sharp claws grated, and something clicked a little higher up. The white mech pursed his lips, suppressing the fear that showed its ugly head for a second, and put his weapon at the ready.
The footsteps approached, the darkness suddenly opened up, and a beast that had long been considered extinct appeared in front of Wheeljack. A huge white predacon was rushing towards him, menacingly flashing its amber-yellow optics. A spiked tail with thick gray and gold quills curved behind it like a white snake, and gray-golden bird wings with bright red feathers moved on a mighty snow-white back.
Wheeljack gripped his katanas’ handles tightly. Letting the monster get as close as possible, he avoided the blow. Dodging, the Wrecker slashed at the beast's muzzle with all his might, hitting somewhere in the eye.
As soon as the blade of the katana touched the beast’s body, his processor exploded in pain. The mech screamed in surprise and, dropping his weapon, he put his servo to his left optic. The cybertronian felt as if he himself had been hit on the faceplate, deliberately aiming at his organ of sight. A painful growl was heard at the same time as his scream, accompanied by the crash of a fallen body and the screech of metal. Wheeljack sucked air through tightly clenched dentures into the vent systems, trying to endure the pain, and carefully removed his servo covered with energon. Blue. So he's an ordinary Cybertronian. Or not?
What just happened?!
"Slag, that hurts," Wheeljack hissed softly and, blinking, stared at his internal fluid in confusion. "What the..."
His optic was intact. The soft metal of the front plate was the only thing that was damaged, but the pain did not decrease. It was also surprising that the wound that was supposed to appear on the predacon's muzzle somehow ended up on his faceplate.
Slag, the Wrecker thought dejectedly, getting to his feet and picking up his weapon. This is not a dream. This is a slagging nightmare.
The fallen beast rose to its feet again. It turned to Wheeljack and with an angry growl ran towards him again intending to kill him. The white mech froze, trying to figure out how to deal with a leviathan twice his size. His swords and grenades are unlikely to help him, on the contrary, they will only make things worse. He didn't want to repeat the experience with the optical sensor at all. So Wheeljack decided to resort to a really crazy method. Once was enough for him to understand the futility of fighting.
He folded his swords behind his back, closed his eyes tightly and knelt down, humbly bowing his head. There was a surprised growl, then claws gnashed, and the beast fell silent, stopping right in front of the Autobot. It blew a stream of heated air over the white mech, hissing at him in displeasure, and began to sniff him. Wheeljack carefully opened his optics, slightly squinting his damaged "eye", and stared ahead of him in a daze.
It wasn't just someone's optics staring at him. He was looking at himself.
Once yellow optics became blue, the same as his own. The beast in front of him, the predacon, looked at him with anger, rage and... fear. The same fear that the animals having been mistreated usually look with. There was even a hidden hatred for the offenders and a desire to revenge for all the evil that had been done to it.
Wheeljack shook his helm furiously, staring at the predacon in disbelief. How?.. What was that? How could he feel someone else's emotions? It wasn't a simple assumption about how someone who was treated like a monster and who was feared might feel. He seemed to be experiencing the same emotions himself, as if he were a monster himself.
A guess shot through his processor. This predacon in front of him is him. He is the monster.
Somewhere in the distance, a muffled female voice could be heard shouting someone's name.
Bulkhead!
Then there was a loud scream with a screech that Wheeljack instantly recognized.
Predaking.
Miko! Find shelter!
Miko and Bulkhead... They are... here? Then where was the Wrecker himself? And why was he out?!
"Grr..."
Wheeljack blinked and returned his attention to the predacon, who slightly tilted his head, showing a nasty dent on the left side of his muzzle. The Wrecker grimaced a little. Right. Predaking threw him off with his tail. Yeah, that was very painful. The white mech cautiously stood up to his full height and raised his hands in a peaceful manner, showing his non-hostility.
"Hey, Buddy," he said to the predacon. The beast hissed in displeasure. "Okay, okay, I get it, you don't like "Buddy". What kind of name would you like?"
The white predacon hissed again in displeasure and shook its head. Its blue optics looked at him reproachfully.
"Yeah, right. Now’s not the time for giving names," Wheeljack guessed and grinned nervously. "Huh. I'm talking to a predacon. Looks like I’ve Iost my mind. "
The predacon let out a rumble, shaking its head negatively. The Wrecker chuckled again. No, he's not crazy. Okay, maybe he's a little crazy, because he always rushed headfirst into battle, not caring that he might not survive. A monkey with a grenade, as that guy, Agent Fowler, once put it. He was offended, of course, but in a way it was true.
"Okay, okay, I'm not crazy, " Wheeljack gave up, letting out a chuckle.
Miko's voice rang out again, full of genuine horror.
Bulkhead!
Run, Miko! Hide! Bulkhead shouted back.
I’m not leaving you, Bulk!
Miko, I’m supposed to protect you, not the other way around!
Wheeljack clenched his dentas. He couldn't remember exactly if there had been any reaction to his appearance from his friends. The Wrecker didn't want to admit it, but... He was afraid. He was afraid that the other Autobots, including Bulkhead, would not recognize him, exposing him to the fate of an outcast. To some extent, Wheeljack was not afraid to be alone, after all, he had been plowing the expanses of space for a long time on his trusty Starhammer. But now, without his Jackhammer, he wasn’t very happy about this outcome.
The predacon approached Wheeljack and cocked its head to the side. It purred lowly, attracting the Wrecker’s attention. The white mech turned to the beast, distracting himself from his sad thoughts. The corners of his lips twitched.
"Well, big guy, looks like you and I are stuck here together, " he chuckled. The beast let out a long howl and poked its muzzle into the Wrecker’s chestplate. To his surprise, Wheeljack understood what the predacon wanted to tell him. "You want to... work together?"
The beast growled again with a nod.
"You are giving me your strength and returning me full control over my body?" The Wrecker raised his optical ridges in surprise, once again amazed that he understood something from this inarticulate speech. "Deal!"
The predacon leaned its head forward, allowing Wheeljack to touch it. Hesitantly, the mech raised his servo and put his hand on the dark gray muzzle.
"Remind me to give you a name, okay, big guy?"
The predacon growled in agreement, nodding slightly so that the white mech's hand would not leave its nose. The beast and the Cybertronian simultaneously closed their optics, trusting each other with their lives.
---
His blue optics snapped open. His whole body trembled, and the internal systems began to disperse the frenzied heat, making its way along the neck cables to his mouth. His fire was bursting out, crackling with displeasure. His energon was seething with rage and a desire for revenge.
Keep talking, keep laughing
One day you'll wish you hadn't...
They wanted to make a monster out of him to eliminate the Autobots. To kill his comrades. His friends. His family. Well, the Decepticons brought his wrath upon themselves by daring to hurt the ones he cares about. And they all will pay for it.
All the people want fire, fire...
His paws abruptly lifted his body, the large boulders flew apart, freeing his wings. Wheeljack shook his head and fixed his sharp gaze in the direction of the fight. The fire in his energon began to boil with renewed vigor at the sight of Predaking.
Maybe it's time they meet their dragon.
And his bright turquoise blast from his mouth hit exactly its target. The face of an Autobot Hunter.
------------------------
Man, sometimes I hate my inspiration. If it hits it won't leave alone until I write the idea down or draw it. But, honestly, it wasworth the effort, hehe)
Of Flesh And Steel AU rightfully belongs to @sugarand-everythingnice
Summary - Things between you and Chris aren't great. You're hopelessly in love with him (your best friend) and continue to avoid him because of it. But what happens when Chris decides he's had enough?
Warnings - Best friends to lovers, smut (eventually), drunk!Chris, some angst, alludes to depression and lack of self worth
Work Count - 3K
A/N - For all the best friends to lovers who didn't work out. Maybe we'll love each other in another life
You were having the most pleasant dream when he called.Â
 You had rolled over to decline the call when you saw his contact picture taking over your screen and hesitated. Considering it was four in the morning, you decided he most likely had a damn good reason for calling you.Â
You picked up the phone.
“Hey, Chris,” you mumbled into the phone, voice thick from sleep. “What’s up?”
The other end of the phone was noisy, like he was somewhere crowded.  He hiccupped once before breaking his silence. “Were you asleep?” He finally asked, his words slurred and clumsy.Â
Your breath caught in your throat. “Are you drunk?”
He let out a dramatic gasp, followed by a short giggle. “I asked you first.”
Definitely drunk, then. “No,” you lied smoothly, knowing if you told the truth he would probably feel guilty and hang up the phone. “What’s up?” you asked again, hoping to get a real answer out of him.
Someone shouted something in the background of the call, sending Chris into a fit of slurred giggling. “I’m drunk,” he finally said, as if remembering you were there.
A smile cut across your lips. “Yeah? Mr. I Don’t Drink is drunk, eh?”
He giggled some more at that, occasionally squeaking in that adorable way of his. “Can you come get me? I don’t think I should be driving right now.”
Your heart skipped a beat in your chest. “Of course I’ll come get you,” you said softly. “Just send me your location, I’m on my way.”
You had your jacket already on as he hung up the call, claiming he was being summoned for another round of shots. You had simply told him he had better not drink so much that he would throw up in your car as he laughed. His laughter was the last thing you heard before the call ended.Â
Seconds later your phone had pinged with his location: a popular night club among idols.Â
You’d never seen Chris drunk before, you realized as you slid on your shoes and grabbed your keys from the hook by the front door. He always preferred to be the designated driver, always making sure everyone got home okay, always protecting. Your heart squeezed uncomfortably in your chest, hoping everything was alright and he had just decided to finally let loose and have some fun with his friends.Â
The club was pretty easy to spot, with the neon lights out front illuminating the name, and the ridiculously long line that wrapped around the block, meticulously corded off with red velvet rope.
“It’s three in the morning,” you muttered to no one other than yourself. “Don’t you people sleep?”
Parking the car a block down, you sent a quick text to Chris where you were and waited.Â
You weren’t exactly sure why your heart was beating funny in your chest, or why your palms felt vaguely clammy.Â
Or perhaps a better statement would be you knew exactly why these things were happening but refused to acknowledge it.
In college, you had fallen in love with your best friend. He was your person, but you had never been his. Eventually, the two of you had stopped speaking, and it had broken you to lose so much of yourself along with him. So much that you felt as though you had never really recovered from it.
Until you met Chris.Â
The very first night you met, he had somehow filled in the gaps that your best friend had left in you, soothed those ancient, aching pains that haunted you day and night. He had you laughing like yourself again, a feat no one had even come close to in all those years afterwards.Â
So maybe that was why you felt yourself slipping again, letting those rose-colored feelings into your very bones as Chris became a constant in your life, as he pieced your broken soul back together again.
It wasn’t that you wanted to fall in love with Chris, it was that it was virtually impossible not too when kindness and beauty shone from him like the sun. He hadn’t just become your best friend, but your twin flame.
But you weren’t enough, you never had been. He would never notice you the way you noticed him, not when so much of yourself had been ripped to little pieces and he deserved someone… whole.Â
You hadn’t noticed the tears burning against your eyelids until one danced unbidden down your cheek.
But no matter what, you were determined not to fuck things up this time. You would not let your feelings get the best of you, not like they had previously. You would not let something as trivial as your feelings for him get in the way of the most important friendship you’d ever had.Â
So you wiped away your tears and steeled your nerves, bracing yourself for when he would join you in the enclosed space of your car, willing the tears back at any cost.Â
A sharp knock on the car window had you bursting from your solemn thoughts. You immediately recognized the dimples framing the excited smile and the eyes upturned into crescent moons as Chris grinned at you through the glass.Â
You unlocked the car and he opened the door, swaying slightly as he did.Â
“Careful,” you reminded him softly, your heart lurching behind your ribs.Â
In one fluid motion, he threw himself into the passenger seat and slumped back with a groan, the door shutting next to him.Â
 Immediately the scent of him hit you, of alcohol and citrus and beechwood, so playfully boyish and thoroughly him it had your grip on the steering wheel turning white as you fought the urge to lean over and brush away the strands of hair laying across his face.Â
“How was your night?” you asked him, hoping talking would distract you from your devilish thoughts as you pulled the car back onto the road and began the drive to his place.
“It was pretty good, its better now, though,” he answered, looking at you with a roguish grin, his eyes glazed from the alcohol.Â
You desperately hoped he couldn’t see the blush that rose up the column of your throat and stained your cheeks.Â
“Where are you taking me?” He asked suddenly, sitting up straight in his seat.Â
“Uh… your apartment?” You replied, clearly confused.
He looked at you with an expression you couldn’t quite read as you tried to keep your eyes on the road in front of you.Â
“Can I come over to yours?” He asked, his voice uncharacteristically shaky. You chalked it up to the alcohol.
Your heart was beating so loudly in your chest and a small, desperate part of you hoped he couldn’t hear it.  “Sure,” you said quickly—too quickly. “Although I probably won’t be much fun, I’m pretty tired.”
“That’s okay,” He said, sounding disappointed. “I just… don’t want to be alone right now.”
“Is everything okay?” You asked, nerves on high alert.
Out of the corner of your eye you watched him shrug. “I guess.”
You let out a low chuckle. “That isn’t much of an answer.”
He shrugged again, not responding.Â
You left it at that.Â
You easily changed your course on the road and headed towards your apartment. The idea of being alone with him in your apartment had your blood pressure spiking.Â
Your friendship had always been physical; he loved to hug you and cuddle with you whenever you saw each other, but recently it had gotten much harder to deny the way your stomach churned with butterflies or how your ears got warm every time he touched you.
And right now, drunk as he was… your stomach sank at the thought of spending another night in his arms, feeling as alone as you ever felt.Â
It had become hard, as of late, to deny your growing feelings. To deny that you wished the way he’d sling his arm around your shoulders and pull you closer meant something more to him than it did.
The truth was you had been ignoring him for the past several weeks. Your feelings made things too complicated, too painful, for you to deal with; not that you even wanted to deal with them in the first place. They were a constant reminder of what you had lost, and that you were letting yourself fall into the same situation all over again.Â
When you got to your apartment, Chris had no trouble making himself feel at home. He immediately threw himself onto the couch, arms outstretched behind him.
“Want some water?” you asked, dying for an excuse to flee the room, flee from him. The realization left you feeling oily with guilt.Â
“Yes, please,” he murmured, suddenly focused on a spot on the carpet.Â
You disappeared into the kitchen without a second thought.Â
When you returned, you handed him the water and slumped down next to him on the couch.
He sipped from his glass, still studying the carpet.
“Is everything okay or are you just drunk?” you asked cautiously, trying to deflect the seriousness in the room with humor.
He suddenly pinned you with a stare, all traces of alcohol gone, his eyes surprisingly clear. “It feels like you’ve been pulling away from me recently. Why?”
His question left you in a free fall. Your heart hammered in your abnormally tight chest, breathing becoming difficult. “I-I don’t know what you mean-“
“Bullshit, Y/N, there’s clearly something wrong and I want you to tell me. Did I do something?” His voice cracked a bit on the last word, your heart fracturing with it.Â
“No!” you all but shouted, eyes looking into his and wishing you could heal the pain you saw there. “You didn’t do anything wrong; I’ve just been… stressed recently. I haven’t been sleeping well,” you offered, a small smile displayed across your features. Â
“Stressed about what?” he pressed, looking intent on hunting down this invisible enemy that was plaguing you.Â
You shook your head. “It’s nothing—”
“Its clearly something if its causing you to lose sleep,” he said softly but not gently.Â
You suddenly felt a headache coming on. “Chris, really, I promise, I’m handling it.” A half-truth, if nothing else.
He leaned towards you, brushing a tear from your cheek you hadn’t known was there.
“Please tell me,” he whispered, gazing into you with such softness and understanding you wanted to blurt those three words out right then and there.Â
But in the back of your mind you remembered the risk, what you stood to lose if you ever told him, and so you kept your mouth shut.Â
You shook your head, not trusting yourself to verbally respond.
Tears were brimming in his brown eyes when he spoke again. “I hate seeing you like this. Like you’re wasting away. Its like the very life is being poured out of you and you’re putting up these walls…” He shook his head slowly. “I don’t know what to do…” His voice cracked, the tears suddenly streaming down his face. “I don’t know how to help.”
Your traitorous hands reached out to cup his face, wiping his tears away with your thumbs. You could’ve sworn he leaned into your touch.Â
You shook your head sadly. “You’ve helped me more than you know, Chris,” you murmured. Because he had helped you, perhaps more than you would like admit to yourself.Â
While your ex-best friend had left you completely and utterly shattered, Chris was the one to face the woman that rebuilt herself, had helped you piece together the salvageable parts and forge anew what was lost. Together, you had rebuilt your entire world, and somewhere along the way he had become its center. You couldn’t lose that. Wouldn’t. Not again.Â
A broken sob bubbled from his lips as he stared at you, a strange expression on his face you couldn’t quite place.
“Tell me how to help you,” he rasped, his voice barely above a whisper.
You began to shake with your own sobs, tears streaking down your face as you looked into his honeyed eyes. “You can’t,” you finally whispered, your forehead falling against his.Â
This touch, this intimacy—it was all you would allow yourself, knowing that any more would have you revealing secrets best kept in the dark.Â
His large, calloused hands circled your wrists, removing your hands from his face and settling them in his lap. His thumbs gently brushed the back of your hands, sparks flying from his touch.
You couldn’t tell anymore if you wanted him to stop.Â
“I got drunk tonight,” he began slowly, shakily, “because I knew I wanted to have this conversation with you and I was scared shitless of this very outcome.” A noise that sounded like a sob broke from him as he lifted his tear-stained gaze to yours. “Please don’t leave me,” he begged, fresh tears covering his red cheeks. “You’re the most important person in my life and I know I’m not always… the best at being there, but I promise I’ll be better. I’ll do anything, anything for you to stay. So please—just… don’t go.”
Your heart couldn’t take anymore of this. You were breaking him. You were doing this to the proud, confident, selfless man sitting in front of you.
This man, who was not your ex best friend, was setting his pride aside and begging you to stay in his life, the very thing you would’ve given your very flesh and blood to get before.Â
You wanted to scream at the top of your lungs that you loved him more than anything else in the world, that you were being this way because you didn’t want to go anywhere, you were doing this for both of you.Â
But you couldn’t stop the angry, choking sobs that exploded out of your chest as you yanked your hands back.
Chris looked like you had slapped him.Â
You didn’t want this. You didn’t want any of this to happen. Not like this. You were losing him regardless and hurting him to boot. You realized you couldn’t continue down this path, not if you ever claimed to love him.Â
“Please,” he whispered, pouring all his pain and desperation into the word.
Your heart shattered.Â
So you did the only thing you could think of and told the truth.Â
“I’m not avoiding you because I don’t care about you anymore,” you began slowly, not able to meet his gaze which was focused wholly on you. You felt yourself began to tremble as you carefully chose your next words.Â
“I’ve been avoiding you because I’m falling in love with you, and its… difficult, sometimes, to control my feelings when you’re around.”Â
You quickly glanced at him, noting how his jaw went slack; his brown eyes, rich like the earth, burned with intensity. But he said nothing, so you continued.
“Its… painful, sometimes, to be around you and realize that I’ll never mean to you what you mean to me, but I couldn’t lose our friendship, not when it’s so important to me—the most important relationship in my life. So, I was determined to accept whatever you were willing to give, no matter how small, because even that was better than losing you altogether. But it’s hard, Chris, it’s so hard, because you’re so incredible and just so… perfect, how could I not fall in love with you? How could I not want more? And I was set on not telling you because of… you know, what happened last time, I didn’t want to put myself in that position again, but I could see you breaking, and I just can’t do that to the man I love, so… yeah. Now you know.”
“You… love me?” the words were barely above a whisper, disbelief etched across his face.Â
“Falling in love with you,” you corrected him, eyes focused on the floor to avoid looking at him.
Silence filled the room. Finally, he whispered, “Since when?”
You shrugged. “I don’t really know, I guess I kind of just realized it one day when we were cuddling in bed. I realized I could spend the rest of my life like that and I would be happy.”
He just stared at you, letting that awful silence fill the air once more. You didn’t think he was breathing. “I’ve loved you since the aquarium.”
Your blood froze at his admittance. “What?” you demanded softly.Â
“I’ve loved you since I took you to the Seoul aquarium and you held my hand for the very first time, dragging me from tank to tank telling me random fish facts. I’ve been hopelessly in love with you since.”
You still couldn’t look at him, not believing this beautiful, perfect man was in love with you. Not until he reached out and grabbed your face with both hands, forcing you to meet his eyes.Â
“Its always been you,” he whispered before his lips crashed against yours.
The kiss surprised you as much as it took your breath away. His lips were soft as they moved against yours, salt coating your mouth as your tongue swept against his bottom lip.Â
“I love you,” he whispered in between kisses. “Always have.” He kissed you again. “Always will.”
You didn’t realize you were crying even harder until he pulled away, a gentle expression across his features.Â
“Baby,” he cooed, wiping your tears with his thumbs.Â
A small laugh bubbled out of you. “Pet names already?”
He silenced you with a kiss.Â
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this,” he murmured against your mouth, his lips softly brushing over yours.Â
“Why didn’t you say anything?” you asked suddenly, pulling away slightly to meet his gaze.Â
He shrugged, his attention still on your mouth. “I couldn’t bare the thought of losing you,” he said simply.Â
This time you leaned in for the kiss, and he gladly accepted.Â
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the way i was like “oh i’m gonna write a little zhuiling oneshot just to get it out of my system :)” anyways i’ve gone insane and written more than i have in the last few months over the span of like… two days
Thanks for the tags @ileadacharmedlife @mostlymaudlin and @johnwgrey!
Exciting news - I'm on the list for an invitation for an AO3 account so hopefully by the end of the month I'll be able to upload all of my existing fics there!
I don't have anything new I can share atm so I'm promoting an old one again. This snippet is from my COC fic To Be Young And Stupid, which you can read here.
This is only 5 sentences but 🤫
We drive all the way home from Watford in silence. Natasha is sulking in the back seat; she’s wearing her hair in French braids and she’s spelled it bright pink – Bunce taught her that. It does suit her, but now doesn’t seem like the appropriate time to say so.
