#missmodelsexx

in which gunner spends the day spoiling reader. (lowkey giving sugar daddy, but who wouldn’t want that???!)

gunner texts you at 11 a.m. like it’s nothing.

gunn: u up?

gunn: get dressed ma. im takin you shopping.

you stare at your phone for a solid ten seconds before you type back why??? and he just sends back three purple devil emojis and a location pin.

by noon he’s outside your place in the same bright red corvette he’s always driving you around in, bass rattling, windows up, sunglasses on even though he’s in the car. he leans over and pushes the door open instead of getting out.

“finally,” he says, like you kept him waiting. “get in, we got a whole day.”

“a whole day of what?”

“spending money on shit you probably already have.” he grins, grills showing, pulling off before you could even fully click your seatbelt on. “c’mon. you look at me like that every time you think i’m about to do some stupid shit.”

“maybe because you are about to do some stupid shit.”

“nah.” he reached over without looking, squeezes your thigh once, easy, like it was a habit of his. “i’m about to do something stupid for you. that’s different.”

━━━

the first stop is chrome hearts and you know you’re in trouble the second you see the storefront— that gothic cross lit up over the door like a warning label. gunner doesn’t even slow down. he walks in like he owns the floor, hood down now, chain out, and one of the associates on the floor light up like christmas morning.

“my guy,” the associate says.

“wassup,” gunner says back, doing some handshake you didn’t catch the mechanics of. then he turns to you, and something in his face softens the way it only does when it’s just you two, even in a room full of people. “okay. don’t worry bout the price ma. if you see something you like, get it.” “if i see you lookin at the prices im takin your phone.”

“you’re insane,” you laugh.

“that’s the only rule ma.” he’s already pulling a ring off a display— silver, heavy, cross detailing— and reaching for your hand before you can protest. slides it on your finger like it’s the easiest thing in the world. “i fuck wit this one. imma get it for you.”

“gunn—”

“ring.” he holds up a finger. “bracelet.” he picks on off the wall, drapes it over his own wrist, testing it out first, then yours. “hoodie, ‘cause you keep takin mine.”

your laughing now, the kind that makes your stomach tense up, while he piles things into the associates arms with zero self-consciousness, occasionally holding something up against you and going yeah—yeah, that one to nobody in particular, like he’s documenting how right he is.

“you’re not even asking me if i like it.”

“‘cause i already know what you like. and im asking with my face,” he says, gesturing at himself. “look at my face.”

“that’s your normal face babe.”

━━━

gucci is quieter, marble floors and soft lighting, and gunner turns down the volume on himself a little— still grinning, still got a hand finding yours or your waist every few minutes like he needs the contact to keep his hands from getting bored— but he lets you actually look around this time. lets you run your fingers over a jacket without immediately declaring war on the price tag.

“this one,” you say, testing him, expecting the usual say less— but he just watches you in the mirror, quiet for once.

“yeah?” he says. “you like that?”

“yeah. i like it.”

“then it’s yours ma. was before you even touched it.” he steps up behind you in the mirror, chin near your shoulder, and for a second the performance drops out of his voice completely. “i like watching you want something. even when you don’t want me to pay for it.”

you don’t really have a comeback for that, so you don’t try.

he buys the jacket. he also buys a belt he insists “just goes” with a pair of loafers because he “couldn’t decide” and clearly never intended to, and a bag that he carries out himself, looped over his own shoulder, daring anyone with his eyes to say something about it.

━━━

chanel, he behaves— mostly— charms the entire staff into laughing within four minutes of being there, and somehow end up sitting in one of the little velvet chairs by the mirrors, legs spread wide, phone out, filming you turn around in a coat like he’s stageside at a runway show he’s personally invested in.

“that one,” he says to the mirror, to you, to the associate. “that one, right? somebody back me up.”

“sir, that coat is—”

“i’m not worried about the price.” he said, still filming you. “turn around for me. one more time.”

you turn again. he doesn’t stop smiling the whole time, soft around the eyes, not performing for cameras, but in a way only for you.

━━━

by hermès he’s started narrating like a documentary— and here we see the exclusive y/n, unaware of her own existence, entering her natural habitat— low under his breath just for you, until you’re both nearly kicked out for laughing too loud near the scarves. alo happens fast and easy, matching sets, him holding two colors up and going pick fast, we got more places to go to, and you better not tell me no either.

at tory burch he finally slows all the way down. doesn’t perform. just walks beside you, hand loose in yours, bored-looking security guard trailing a respectful distance back, and lets you pick two things in total silence before he speaks again.

“you tired?” he asks.

“mhm. a little.”

“good.” he kisses your temple. “means i did it right.”

━━━

by the time you’re back in the car, bags packed in the trunk, he doesn’t turn the engine on right away. just sits there a second, looking at you with a lovesick look.

“was that too much?” he asks, a for once there’s no joke behind it.

“a little.”

“yeah.” he grins, but it’s smaller now, real. “that’s the point though.” he finally starts the car. “next week?”

“gun—”

“i’m trolling.” beat. “…mostly.” he laughs.

next →

ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ: @sweet2sin . @spectranix . @luvvconceal . @2bun22 . @chesspend . @gabisohot . @kingoveverything . @punkarchangel . @y-yasminn . @glitterandviolence13 . @angelbbyunicorn . @nothinlikeuuu . @watercolorskyy . @misoeepy . @xa6i. @mommyevie . @monstertramp .

ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀꜱ ɴᴏᴛᴇ: shidd hopefully i dont end up scrapping ts. n e ways disregard any typos.

in which gunner spend the day spoiling reader. (lowkey giving sugar daddy, but who wouldn’t want that???!)

his place always smells like weed, cologne, and candles he definitely didn’t buy himself— because you bought them. you know the complete layout of his house by heart now— seeing as you’ve been together for a while now. the walk from the front door to the couch— around the shores he never lines up correctly, past the studio room with the door always left ajar, l.e.d lights always left on, like it was a habit of his to leave them on.

he drops the bags just inside the door in one motion, then goes back for you like he forgot something more important the first time.

“c’mere.” arms out. “you survived ma.”

“you’re the one who almost got us kicked out of chanel.”

“almost.” he pulls you in anyway, chin on your head, swaying a little to the nonexistent music playing. “almost doesn’t count. i’m undefeated ma.”

you let yourself get folded into him for a second— he’s warm, always, like his body runs half-degree hotter than everyone else’s out of sheer stubbornness— before he pulls back, grabbing one of the bags off the floor like a kid who can’t wait to open presents on christmas morning.

“ight. fashion show. c’mon, i’m the judge.”

“it’s four in the afternoon.”

“and?”

━━━

you give in, obviously. you always give in to him, and he knows it, which is the most annoying part.

he sets himself up on the arm of the couch like a judge at a panel, one leg up, chin on his fist, doing his best serious-industry-executive face while you disappear into the bathroom with the first bag.

the gucci jacket was first— the one that made him go quiet. you come out already smiling before you could even see his face, because you know the exact face he was about to make.

it does it. his whole posture changes, leg comes down off the couch arm, and for a second he just— stares. no joke spews from his mouth. no sound at all.

“fuck,” he says finally, quiet. “told you.”

“you’re staring.”

“i’m admiring.” he pats the cushion next to him without breaking eye contact. “c’mere. don’t change yet.”

you sit. he doesn’t do anything extra— just reaches over and fixes the collar that wasn’t even messed up, fingers brushing against your jaw after, like he needed an excuse to touch you and fixing the collar was the next best thing he could find on a short notice.

“i like buying you shit,” he admits, low, like it costs him something to say it normal instead of in a joking manner. “not ‘cause i gotta prove nothing. just—” he shrugs, searching for the words. “watching you have shit you actually like, on you, ‘cause i picked ‘em, or you picked ‘em and i got to be there for it. that’s it.”

“you’re being so serious right now. i don’t know how to feel.”

“i have a serious setting. it might be rare, but it’s there. brat.” beat. his grin creeps back in at the corner. “now go put on the chrome hearts hoodie so i can go back to being unserious, this is uncomfortable for me.”

━━━

the rest of the fashion show goes exactly how you’d expect— him narrating every outfit like a commentator, occasionally getting up to “adjust” something that didn’t need adjusting just to have a reason to have his hands on your body, filming half of it on his phone with zero shame about where the videos are going ( nowhere, he swears, just for me, and somehow that makes you believe him.”

by the time you’re both tired of the bit, the living room floor is a warzone of tissue paper and shoeboxes, and you end up back on the couch, alo set still on because you couldn’t be bothered to take it off, half his weight on you— hands slowly roaming down your body.

“today was a lot,” you say into his shoulder.

“mm,” he noses at you hair, setting in like the conversation was over, then, quieter, almost to himself: “you don't ask me for shit. ever. i noticed that.”

“because i don’t need to.”

“i know. that’s—” he exhales, some laugh caught in it that isn’t really about anything funny. “that’s why i do it, probably. ‘cause you never ask. feels different giving somebody something they didn’t beg for.”

━━━

later, way later in the day, candles actually lit this time, delivery boxes— of items that he’d bought you without permission, he’s got your feet in his lap, absentmindedly tracing shapes on your ankle while some show neither of you is watching plays in the background.

“next week,” he says, not really a question, “we doing the other side of the city. there’s a spot that does custom shit. bags, jewelry, whatever you wanna build from scratch. some shit nobody else has.”

“you’re gonna bankrupt yourself for me.”

“worth it.” he says it instantly, no hesitation, like he’s had the answer loaded before you even asked. then, softer, glancing over: “you’re worth it.”

you throw a pillow at him for getting sappy. he catches it, laughing, and pulls back against his chest anyway, hoodie sleeves too long, both of you smelling of a dozen different stores and the lit candles around the house, and for a second the whole loud chaotic day goes quiet and soft, the way it always does when you’re with him once the audience clears out and it’s just you two left in the room.

“love you,” he says, like it’s nothing. like it holds the same weight as saying hi to someone.

“love you too,” you say back, same weight, same ease.

he grins into your hair. “good. ‘cause i already texted the place. we got an appointment.”

“gunner.”

“what? i told you i like spending money on you!” he already laughing, dodging the next pillow. “ima make this my whole personality, this is who i am—”

← prev next →

ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ: @sweet2sin . @spectranix . @luvvconceal . @2bun22 . @chesspend . @gabisohot . @kingoveverything . @punkarchangel . @y-yasminn . @glitterandviolence13 . @angelbbyunicorn . @nothinlikeuuu . @watercolorskyy . @misoeepy . @xa6i. @mommyevie . @monstertramp .

ᴀᴜᴛʜᴏʀꜱ ɴᴏᴛᴇ: hai chat, this was gonna be one and done but i decided to keep adding to it. enjoy.

pairings: 2hollis x fem!rockstar!reader

in which one late studio night hollis interacts with upcoming rockstar y/n aka rivka via twitter in 2023.

tags: hollis x reader, mutual pining, smau, rockstar gf.

→

taglist: @2bun22.

a/n: everything included in this fic is, you guessed it right FICTIONAL. comment for taglist. (big thanks to @/2bun22 for semi helping me <3)

— hollis x girlfriend!reader (one shot)

in which reader watches hollis perform at summer smash.

The bass from the stage below rattled through the soles of your boots even up here, vibrating up through the floor of the elevated section like a heartbeat. You gripped the railing and leaned forward, watching the crowd below surge and jump around like waves.

There he was.

Hollis moved across the stage the way he always did— like he owned every inch of it, like the crowd’s energy was something he was pulling out of the air and feeding right back into them. The sun was still high enough to catch the sweat on his skin, turning everything into a golden hue. You’d watched him perform before. You’d watched clips and sat in rooms and stood backstage at venues. But this— thousands of people outside screaming his lyrics back at him— this was something you could never forget.

“He’s something else up there, isn’t he.”

Kathryn’s voice came from just beside you, warm and soft over the noise. She was leaning on the railing too, sunglasses pushed back up into her hair, watching her son with the same adoration she probably had since he was a little kid doing everything little thing he’d enjoyed doing— making her proud. There was no performance in the way she said it. Just a mother. plain and simple, witnessing her kid do something he enjoyed.

“Yeah,” you said. “He really is.”

She glanced over at you with a small smile, the kind that said she sensed everything in those words— the awe, the love, and every other emotion you were still figuring out how to hold quietly. She didn’t say anything else about it. She didn’t need to.

Below, Hollis called out some to the crowd and they erupted, and you felt yourself laughing without meaning to, gripping the railing tighter. He was so good. You knew that, obviously, you knew that— but knowing it and standing above a festival crowd watching about fifty thousand people lose their minds over him were two different things entirely.

The set felt both endless and over in a second. The last song hits its final tunes, the crowd roar crested into something almost physical, and Hollis threw his hand up once before jogging down the stage’ connecting stairs.

You and Kathryn moved back from the railing, and you smoothed your hands over your shorts, suddenly a little nervous in a way you couldn’t explain. You’d met her before. On several occasions. It wasn’t that. It was something about today feeling like a moment, big and real.

You heard him before you saw him— that familiar laugh, breathless and electric, still interacting with the crowd. And then he came up the stairs and his eyes found you both immediately, like he’d been looking the whole way.

He leaned over the railing looking down at the crowd, grin wide and a little wild before crossing over to his mom first, pulling her into a deep hug. She laughed and patted his back.

“i’m proud of you, baby,” she said into his shoulder.

“Yeah?” He squeezed her once before letting her go, and there was in his expression when he looked at her— a quieter version than who was just performing. “Good.”

Then he turned to you.

He was still hot and sweaty from the moving around, from the sun, from all of it— you could feel the heat radiating off him even before his arms came around you, pulling you in without preamble, one hand at the back you your head. You placed your arms around him, still aware of fans recording a few feet away, and held on.

“you fucking killed it,” you said into his shoulder.

“Did you watch me the whole time?”

“Every second.”

He pulled back just enough to look at you, chest still rising and falling faster than usual, and whatever he saw in your face made something settle in his. The noise from the festival was everywhere around you— crew moving, music from another stage in the distance, his security standing nearby— but he only looked at you like there was no one else around.

He kissed you softly. Just once, unhurried, his hand still at the back of your neck. The kind of kiss that wasn’t to prove anything.

When he pulled back, you could feel your face heating up.

“Hi,” he said quietly, just to you.

You laughed a little. “Hi baby.”

He kept his arm around your shoulders as he turned back toward Kathryn, and the three of you stood there for a moment before heading back down to grounds. The golden light shining down— making everything feel more permanent and natural than anything.

ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ: @2bun22 @luvvconceal @kingoveverything @angelbbyunicorn @spectranix @sweet2sin @fakeeminkk @punkarchangel @y-yasminn @glitterandviolence13 @chesspend @gabisohot

a/n: and look at nana, wtf does she know about summer smash🫨

pairings: nettspend x stripper!reader

In which while heading backstage to meet her best friend after dancing at a private rolling loud pop-up y/n bumps into gunner as he's leaving his rolling loud set.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

nett: "Yo -- you going to the after?"

You: "Depends on who's asking"

nett: "I'm asking"

You: "Then yea, I'm on my way to my best friend"

nett: "Let me get your insta"

you grab the phone extended towards you, typing in your username and handing it back.

He held eye contact for exactly one second too long before his team pulled him away. You stood there in the hallway for a minute longer, your heels loud in the concrete floor as you finally continued your journey towards Jade. Then your phone buzzed.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

30 min earlier

You were still in your stage outfit— no time to change between your set at the club’s pop-up stage and getting to the festival grounds. Heels, bodysuit, the whole thing. Your access pass was swinging around your neck as you speed-walked through the backstage corridor, head down, texting Jade your location. You didn’t see him until you walked directly into his chest.

nett: “yo—”

You: “Oh my god, I’m so sorry—”

nett: “Nah you good, you good.”

You looked up. Red hair, bright eyes, silver chains catching the backstage lights, a little out of breath from being on stage. He was a taller than you expected. He looked genuinely unbothered that you’d just walked into him at full speed. You knew exactly who he was. You just weren’t gonna be weird about it.

You: “Good set tonight.”

nett: “Word? You watched it?”

You: “Not the whole thing, caught the last twenty minutes. The crowns was crazy though.”

nett: "Yeah it was cold. You perform tonight too?"

You blinked. The pass. The outfit. He’d clocked it immediately.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

You: "Pop-up stage. Club set.”

nett: "Which club?"

You: "Live."

nett: "Oh word, my boys were there earlier."

You: "Hmm, small world."

nett: "What's your name?"

You told him. He repeated it once, like he was testing the sound of it.

nett: “You got instagram?”

You: “You asking for my instagram while backstage at Rolling Loud.”

nett: “Yeah.”

You: “…Okay.”

He handed you his phone— unlocked, instagram already opened. Just like that. Nothing extra about it . You typed in your username and handed it back. He looked at it— and followed you immediately.

nett: “Follow me back.”

You: “I’ll think about it.”

He laughed—quiet and surprised. Like he didn’t expect you to say that. Someone called his name from behind him. He glanced back, then at you. Nodding his head, he headed towards his crew.

── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ──

→

taglist: @spectranix. @sweet2sin. @luvvconceal.

a/n: I know jack shit about rolling loud so please bear with me😞. also everything written is FICTIONAL. the pictures include are FAKE and were created by me.

— player!ryan x watcher!reader

in which reader is dared to download the NERVE app via her friend/roommate Stas with no knowledge of what it is.

“Watchers don’t get paid. Players do.”

“Then i’ll be a Player.”

The notification came at 11:47 on a Thursday night.

You were sitting cross-legged on your bed, laptop balanced on your knees, pretending to study for your Intro to Media Ethics midterm when your phone buzzed. The screen lit up with a push notification from an app you’d downloaded three weeks ago on a dare from your roommate Stas and then completely forgotten about.

NERVE

Are you a Watcher or a Player?

You’d been a Watcher ever since. It was easier. Safer. You could observe from the comfortable remove of your phone screen while other people did the stupid, terrifying, thrilling things— kissed strangers, climbed buildings, ate disgusting combinations of food in public, stood on ledges. You watched and you didn’t feel anything except a low-grade envy you refused to examine too closely.

Tonight the feed was quiet. Some girl in Chicago doing a dare involving a mechanical bull. A guy in Seoul standing on the roof of a moving subway car, which seemed genuinely life-threatening and not fun at all. You scrolled past it quickly.

Then a new stream went live.

The username was CONCEAL.

The thumbnail alone made you sit up straighter. He was standing on the railing of what looked like a bridge— not the railing on the safe side, the pedestrian walkway side. The other railing. The one with nothing but dark water below. The camera was handheld, pointed at him from behind, catching his silhouette against the city lights. He was perfectly still.

The dare text appeared at the bottom of the screen.

DARE

Stay on the railing for 60 seconds. No safety harness.

No net. Just you.

PAYOUT

$800

He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t wobble. He just stood there, perfectly balanced, arms slightly out from his sides, and the camera rotated slowly around him so the watcher could see his face.

You stopped breathing.

He was beautiful in a way that almost felt unfair— sharp jaw, dark eyes that caught the light of the city in a way that made them look almost amber, dark hair blown sideways by whatever wind came off the river below. He looked like someone who had never once been afraid of anything.

But you’d been watching Nerve streams long enough to recognize when someone was performing fearlessness versus actually feeling it. And this boy— this Conceal— looked neither afraid nor performing.

He just looked alive. Completely, electrically, dangerously alive.

The sixty-second timer in the corner of the screen ticked down.

Forty-seconds. Thirty. The chat was exploding.

nerve_watcher: omg omg omg

777_nerve_fan: HOW TF IS HE SO CALM

watcherXO: he’s gonna fall, someone go to him.

nxghtrider: this is by far the best one i've seen tonight

anon_000: CONCEAL CONCEAL CONCEAL

Ten seconds. His eyes moved, scanning the bridge, the river, the city beyond— and then, for just a fraction of a second, he looked directly at the camera. Not at the person holding it. into it. Like he knew there were thousands of people watching through it and he was looking at all of them simultaneously.

Zero.

He stepped down from the railing like he was stepping off a curb. Smooth. Easy. The crowd of watchers watching in person— you could see them in the background— erupted. The chat was in shambles.

The stream cut.

You realized you’d been gripping your phone so hard your knuckles ached.

You went to his profile.

CONCEAL

Joined four weeks ago.

Forty-seven dares completed. 100% completion rate.

$22,000 in earnings. Following: 847,000

You followed him.

You turned off your lamp and lay in the dark for a long time, thinking about his eyes.

You didn’t expect to run into Nerve in real life the next day. But that was the thing about Nerve— it had a way of bleeding into the real world whether you wanted it to or not.

You were at the corner coffee shop near campus, the one with the exposed brick and the barista who always spelled your name wrong no matter how many times you corrected him, when you heard the familiar chime of a dare notification. You looked up.

Three tables away, a guy was looking at his phone. His jaw was set in a way that meant he was reading something he wasn’t sure about.

Then he looked up, and your heart dropped straight to the floor.

Conceal.

He was even more striking in person— taller than you’d expected, wearing a black leather jacket pushed up to his elbows, backpack slung over one shoulder. His eyes were scanning the coffee shop with the same calm, measuring quality they’d had on the bridge last night.

They landed on you.

You looked away fast. Stared at your laptop screen—face heating up.

Nothing happened for a moment. Then a chair scraped, and you heard footsteps, and someone set a coffee cup down on your table.

“You were watching last night,” he said.

Your head snapped up. He was standing across the table from you, one hand resting on the back of the empty chair, looking at you with an expression that wasn’t quite a smirk— it was more curious than that. More careful.

“I— what?” You hated how flustered you sounded. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’re a watcher. You follow my stream.” He said it like he was stating a fact, not making an accusation. “I can always tell. You all get this look when you see me in real life— like you've seen a ghost.”

“I’m not—” You stopped. He was right, and lying about it was pointless. “Okay. Yeah. I watched last night. You did that bridge dare.”

Something shifted in his expression. “What did you think?”

“I thought you were going to fall.”

“I wasn’t.”

“I know. You clearly had a plan.” You paused. “That’s actually what freaked me out more, honestly. That you were sure.”

He studied you for a moment, then pulled out the chair and sat down across from you like you’d invited him, which you hadn’t but also didn’t want to argue with. Up close, his eyes were lighter than they’d looked on camera, with faint shadows under them like didn’t sleep enough.

“I’m Ryan,” he said. “Off-stream name.”

“y/n,” you said.

“Are you going to keep watching, y/n?”

The way he said your name— like he was tasting it— made you briefly lose track of the question.

“Probably,” you admitted. “You’re compelling.”

“That’s a very careful word.”

“I’m a careful person.”

He tilted his head slightly. “I can tell.” He picked up his coffee. “You should think about playing.”

“I’m not a player.”

“Not yet.”

He said with zero smugness, which was somehow more unnerving than if he’d been smug about it. Just a statement. A prediction. The he stood, picked up his cup, and walked to a table by the window without looking back.

You stared at your laptop screen, not reading any of it, for approximately fifteen minutes.

⤶ ⤷

ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ: @spectranix @2bun22 @luvvconceal @kingoveverything @angelbbyunicorn @sweet2sin

@y-yasminn @fakeeminkk @chesspend @gabisohot @punkarchangel @glitterandviolence13 @watercolorskyy @misoeepy

ᴀ/ɴ: omfg i’ve been wanting to make this for so long, I love Nerve🥹

— toxic!gunner x toxic!reader (oneshot)

in which they both know they’re toxic together but can’t fathom the amount of pain they’d suffer being apart.

The first thing you hear when you wake up is the sound of him pacing.

Bare feet on the hardwood, slow and deliberate, like he was counting each step. You’ve learned to read the rhythm of gunner’s moods through sound alone— fast means anxious, slow means he’s thinking about something he doesn’t want to say out loud.

You pull the blanket tighter and stare at the wall.

It's 3am. It’s always 3am with him.

ᯓ

“You’re awake,” he says. Not asking.

“Yeah. And so are you.”

He stops pacing. The silence between you two is a living thing— it breathes, it shifts its weight, it knows exactly how much it can get away with.

He comes back to the bed but doesn’t get in it. Just sits on the edge with his back to you, elbows on his knees, head down. You can see the knobs of his spine through his t-shirt. You want to tough him. You don’t.

“We were fine yesterday,” you say.

“I know.”

“And then you—”

“I know.”

You sit up. The streetlights cut through the blinds and stripes him in orange. He looks like something that was made to make people feel emotions they shouldn’t.

“I’m tired, gunner.”

“Then sleep.”

“That’s not what I mean."

He finally turns to look at you. His eyes are red-rimmed but dry. He wasn’t crying. You’ve seen him come close— lips pressed together, jaw tight, something crumbling somewhere behind his face— but he never actually lets it happen. You used to think that was strength. Now you think it’s the thing slowly killing both of you.

“So leave,” he says. Flat. Like he doesn’t care. Like it wouldn’t hollow him out.

You hate that you know better.

“You don’t want that.”

“You don’t know what I want.”

“I’ve known you for three years.”

“And yet, you still don’t fuckin get it.”

You laugh. It comes out wrong— too sharp, too tired. “I get it fine. I just don't understand what you want me to do if you won’t talk about it.”

ᯓ

This is the part that no one warns you about. Not the big blowouts, not the screaming, not the night he left and came back six hours later smelling like weed and perfume and wouldn’t tell you where he’d been. Those parts are bad but they’re legible. They have edges.

The part no one warns you about is this: the quiet afterward, the way you end up sitting in the wreckage of something you both caused and neither of you knows how to stop building.

He’s not a bad person. You have to keep reminding yourself that’s not the issue, because it would be so much easier if it were. He’s sharp and strange and sometimes unbearably kind. He leaves voice memos on your phone that are four minutes or longer of him mumbling half-finished thoughts and song ideas, and somewhere in the middle he’ll say your name like it means something important, like it’s part of whatever he’s working through. He remembers things you said months ago. He shows up.

He also disappears for days. He lies about small things and tells the truth about big ones at the worst possible timing moments. He pulls you close and then acts like he doesn’t know why you’re there. He says I didn’t ask you to care this much like you had a choice. Like you hadn’t tried to care less. Like you weren’t still trying.

ᯓ

“You called me selfish,” you say.

“You are.”

“How the fuck am I selfish, You’re the selfish one.”

“Yeah.” He rubs his face with both hands. “I know.”

“That’s the whole problem, isn’t it. We both know. We just don’t—” you stop. What’s the end of that sentence? do anything about it? That’s not even true. You’ve done plenty. You’ve fought about it, cried about it but, had whole conversations where you both agreed this isn’t working and it’s getting worse and something has to give.

And then one of you reaches for the other and the con ends and you’re back to step one. Back at 3am with the blinds casting stripes across his face and you hating yourself for still thinking he looked beautiful.

ᯓ

He moves. Gets into bed properly, lies down on his back beside you, not touching, staring up at the ceiling.

“I don't know how to do this differently,” he says. Quiet. Honest in the way he gets when he’s exhausted. “I don’t know how to be with someone and not—” He stops.

“Not what?”

A long pause. “Not ruin it.”

Something in your chest caves in slow. You turn to look at him. He’s still looking up.

“You haven’t ruined it,” you say, and it’s the most painfully true thing you’ve ever said because it would be so much easier if he had.

“I will.”

“Maybe.”

“Then leave before I do.”

“You’ve been saying that for eight months.”

He finally looks at you. Something flickers across his face that you can’t name, something between aching and furious, like he’s angry at you for staying, like he’s scared you’ll stop.

“I know,” he says again. His voice is different now. Smaller.

ᯓ

You look at each other in the dark.

You should say something decisive. Something that ends this— one way or the other— because the in-between is eating you alive and you know and he knows it and the knowing has become its own kind of cruelty.

Instead you reach out and put your hand flat on his chest. Feel his heart going. Fast, despite everything. Despite the slow voice and that flat expression and his practical stillness.

His hand comes up to cover yours. He pressed it harder against him, like he’s trying to make sure you can feel it.

Neither of you say anything.

The streetlights shift as cars pass by. Then it’s dark again.

ᯓ

You’ll have this same fight in another week, maybe two. Something will set it off— something stupid, something that’s not really what it’ll be about. You’ll both say things that'll land in the wrong places. He’ll go cold in that very particular way he does, like door slamming, and you’ll push because you always push, and he’ll pull because that’s just what he does, and you’ll both be standing standing in the aftermath wondering how you got to this place once again.

And one of you will reach out for the other.

And the cycle will start over.

ᯓ

you should go, he had said.

You close your eyes. His heartbeat is still under your palm, steady now, steadying.

You don't go.

You stay.

You always stay.

And that’s the thing about you two— it’s not that the love isn’t real. it’s that the love is the most real thing either of you has, and you’re both too scared of what’s outside it to find out if you’d survive.

© ᴍɪꜱꜱᴍᴏᴅᴇʟꜱᴇxx.

— hollis x spiritual!witchy!reader

tags- reader insert, spiritual/witchy! reader, slow burn, dreamscape.

in which reader wants hollis’ undivided attention and he doesn’t seem to pay her any mind.

𝒯𝐻𝐸 𝐹𝐼𝑅𝒮𝒯 𝒱𝐼𝒮𝐼𝒯

It started the way most things in your life started— with intention.

You sat cross-legged on the floor of your apartment at a quarter past two in the morning, the only light in the room coming from the seven white candles arranged in a half-moon around you and the pale blue glow of your phone screen, which you’d since turned face-down. Salt traces a careful line at every threshold— the windows, the door, the space between the hallway and the room. Dried lavender and mugwort sat in a small iron dish at your knee, the smoke of it thin and silver, cooling upward like something alive and searching.

On your alter— a low wooden table draped in deep plum velvet— sat a photograph. Nothing dramatic. Just a still from a music festival video: a boy with heavy-lidded eyes and a mouth set in the particular way of his, like he was thinking about something too private to say out loud. 2hollis. You know. The music artist. The one whose music had crawled into your chest six months ago and hadn’t had the decency to leave.

You weren’t in love with him. You needed to make that clear to yourself, because love was a thing of the waking world— sticky and complicated and rarely worth the paperwork. What you felt was something older than love. Recognition. Like finding your grandmother’s handwriting on a piece of paper you’d never seen before.

You’d been watching him for months. Not in an ordinary way— you weren’t standing outside venues and clubs or refreshing his instagram. You watched the way a person watches the weather. The patterns of him. The space he occupied, the energy he carried. Something in his music sat right at the frequency of the unseen— he wrote from somewhere deep and did not seem to know it. He was, as you’d confided to your friend with only a little dramatic flair, unknowingly tuned. Like a radio tower that had no idea it was broadcasting.

And you had decided, after considerable deliberation, that you were going to get his attention.

The waking world felt like the wrong venue. You’d tried once— a single message through some intermediate channel, something careful and deliberate— and it had dissolved into the void of digital noise like everything else. He was busy, probably. Surrounded by people. The world was always pulling at people like him.

But sleeping was different.

Sleep was sovereign territory. In sleep, the noise dropped away, and what was left was the true signal of a person. You had been moving in dreams since you were fourteen, since your grandmother pressed a sachet of herbs into your palm and said, the doors are different when the lights go out, baby. Learn which ones to use.

You knew how to use them.

You breathed slowly, letting the mugwort smoke settle into your lungs and your mind settle into the particular softness that preceded deep work. Your hands rested open on your knees. You fixed the photograph in your memory— not just the image but the frequency of it, the specific energetic signature you’d spent weeks carefully mapping through his music, his words, the rare interviews where he forgot to be guarded.

⏾⋆

𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒷𝓊𝒾𝓁𝓉 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝒶 𝓈𝒾𝑔𝓃𝒶𝓁: 𝓁𝑜𝓌, 𝓌𝒶𝓇𝓂, 𝒽𝑒𝒶𝓋𝓎. 𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝓈𝑜𝓊𝓃𝒹 𝑜𝒻 𝒷𝒶𝓈𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝓇𝑜𝓊𝑔𝒽 𝒶 𝒸𝒶𝓇 𝒻𝓁𝑜𝑜𝓇. 𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒻𝑒𝑒𝓁𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝑜𝒻 𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓃𝒹𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝑜𝓊𝓉𝓈𝒾𝒹𝑒 𝒶𝓉 𝒻𝑜𝓊𝓇 𝒶.𝓂. 𝒶𝓃𝒹 𝒽𝒶𝓋𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒸𝑜𝓁𝒹 𝒶𝒾𝓇 𝒻𝑒𝑒𝓁 𝓁𝒾𝓀𝑒 𝓇𝑒𝓁𝒾𝑒𝒻 𝒾𝓃𝓈𝓉𝑒𝒶𝒹 𝑜𝒻 𝒹𝒾𝓈𝒸𝑜𝓂𝒻𝑜𝓇𝓉. 𝒮𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓊𝓃𝒻𝒾𝓃𝒾𝓈𝒽𝑒𝒹 𝒾𝓃 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒸𝑒𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇. 𝒮𝑜𝓂𝑒𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔 𝓈𝑒𝒶𝓇𝒸𝒽𝒾𝓃𝑔.

⏾⋆

You followed it in.

The dream took shape slowly, the way they always did— color before form, atmosphere before geography. You found yourself standing in what appeared to be a hallway, dark-paneled, indeterminate length, the carpet under your feet that thick burgundy you only ever saw in hotels or old films. Doors lined on both sides. None of them had numbers.

He was at the far end.

His back was to you. He was wearing something dark, the hood of it pulled up, and he was standing very still— the way people stand in dreams when they’re not quite themselves, when they’re only the version of themselves that the sleeping mind conjures. He had headphones on. Of course he did.

You walked towards him. Your footsteps made no sound.

When you were close enough to almost touch, you said his name. Not loud. Just— placed in the air between you the way you’d place a stone at the edge of a stream.

He turned.

For a moment— just a moment— his eyes met yours with the full, blunt force of someone actually seeing. The headphones were around his neck now, though you hadn’t watched him take them off. His expression was not startled but wondering. His mouth opened slightly.

And then the dream shifted. The hallway lurched, the doors multiplied, and he was already several feet away, half-turned toward something you couldn’t see, his attention pulled sideways by whatever the dreaming mind fills the periphery with. You recognized the pattern: distraction by the subconscious. Even in sleep, people found ways to stay busy.

“Hey—”

But the hall folded in on itself, and you were back on your floor, candles guttered, the iron dish cold, dawn just beginning to press its pale thumb against the curtains.

You sat with it for a long moment.

Then you reached for your journal and wrote, in small careful letters: contact made. Partial. He looked. Try again.

⟡ ⟡ ⟡

⤶ ⤷

ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ: @spectranix @2bun22 @luvvconceal @kingoveverything @angelbbyunicorn @y-yasminn @sweet2sin @fakeeminkk @chesspend @gabisohot @punkarchangel @glitterandviolence13

ᴀ/ɴ: shoutout to my mommy for teaching me about spirituality and witchyness, love her muchness.