type :: fluff tw/cw :: none summary :: when you've finally given up on chasing paul so you try to move on, but he won't allow it for some reason? bestfriends to lovers - inspo is bags by clairo obv f1 masterlist || f2 masterlist || more here!

liked by paularon_, aronralf, olliebearman, and 62,783 others

yourusername: sick of hot girl summer, i am now hunting for a bf 😞 (i dont want to pay for dinner)

bestie01: am i not good enough for you 😢 → yourusername: ofc you are, but we're both broke girl

fanpage01: are there any requirements to apply??? → yourusername: be hot and rich, preferably blonde → olliebearman: 😞 → paularon_: bro???

paularon_: so instead of a job,,, you want a man...? what happened to feminimism? → yourusername: you can't even fucking spell it

aronralf: submitted my application, how long till you reply? → yourusername: asap for you 😆 → paularon_: BRO????? WHAT???? → paularon_: (Y/N) HE IS TWENTY SIX. → fangirl01: i always knew she liked older guys → fangirl02: who DOESNT lilke old guys???

smau/irl

TikTok Secrets (Paul Aron X Fewtrell! Reader)

Fandom: RPF/F2/F3

Requested: Clearly (I love this so much, side note, I'm open to writing for Max Fewtrell now)

Warnings: sexual inuendos ig

POV: Second Person (You/your/They/them)

W.C. 1427

Summary: A quadrant video unearths a secret crush (at least, to Max it was a secret)

As always, my requests are OPEN

MASTERLIST // HITLIST

~~(^Pinterest)

Estonia in December felt like an elegant old woman, carrying the marks of a glory never truly lost beneath the neat layers of snow — snow that had a special way of quieting everything.

When they had landed, the frenzy of the rest of the world seemed to slow down, as if everything had understood that this time of year was meant to be savored among love and lights.

The arrivals terminal still bore the traces of the latest snowfall, which during the night had laid down an enormous white carpet for Estonians to wake up to. Her hands were buried deep in the pockets of her jacket, the scarf wrapped around her neck and pulled up enough to double as a hood as she checked for notifications from the driver.

Paul was late.

Not dramatically late — just late enough to irritate someone who didn’t know the place she was in, nor how to get to the villa where the Aron family lived.

Her phone vibrated.

Don’t move, I see you.

She looked around, a small smile spreading across her face as she spotted him a few meters away, wearing that relaxed, charming air that seemed to have convinced the entire world to move at his pace rather than the other way around. He wore a jacket similar to hers, heavy and dark, yet he didn’t seem cold — except for the faint redness on his cheeks, probably from the contrast between the heated car and the temperature outside.

“You’re late,” she said as he approached.

“I’m Estonian,” he replied, opening his arms and pulling her into one of his big hugs, the kind where both of them inevitably melted into it. “This is punctual.”

He took her backpack and suitcase, slinging the first over his shoulder as if it weighed nothing, before she could even protest, and started toward the car. The snow crunched under their shoes, and the morning was slowly asserting itself beyond the soft clouds and the headlights of cars pulling into the lot, waiting for loved ones or setting off toward a new adventure.

“How was the flight?” he asked.

“Long. Uneventful. I sat next to a man who chewed with his mouth open for countless hours,” she said, smiling at him as they left the parking lot behind.

“Tragic,” he grimaced.

“You invited me to Estonia in December. I think we need to acknowledge that you’re partly responsible for any suffering I experience.”

It was as if the six months they had spent apart hadn’t been more than a week — because the way he looked at her, amused while she teased him on purpose, brought all the familiarity between them rushing back at once.

“You’re alive. You’re wearing a scarf. You’ll be fine.”

It had happened a few weeks earlier, when she’d stepped out of the place where she volunteered and found a voicemail from him. They’d stayed on the phone all evening, ending up eating pizza at opposite ends of the world, stretching the conversation late into the night without either of them noticing. They talked about their families, the people they’d met, and those who, unfortunately, had drifted away.

“My niece has a Christmas play,” he’d said, stirring his drink absentmindedly. “Kindergarten thing.”

She’d smiled. “That sounds adorable.”

“It is,” he said. Then, like an afterthought, “You should come.”

He’d been half-lying on the couch, his best friend’s dog curled up at his feet, the pizza box abandoned on the coffee table he’d shown her the first time she visited his apartment the year before.

She’d blinked. “To Estonia?”

“Yeah.” A shrug. Casual. “If you want. We’re all going anyway.”

He hadn’t put any pressure on her. He hadn’t tried to convince her. She had walked right through it — and now she found herself, during the happiest time of the year, in what felt like a snow-covered dream. Along the side of the road, people loaded fir trees onto pickup trucks, and outside the window the houses began to grow closer together.

“This still feels insane,” she said, half to herself.

Paul tapped lightly on the steering wheel in time with a Christmas song that had taken hold of his memory, glancing at her every so often as he studied her face the way he always did — attentive, curious, amused. “You’ve been on planes before.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Well, no existential crises yet.”

She laughed, stealing one of his favorite Estonian candies from the center console, while the radio filled the car with festive melodies and words she would never understand. “Give it time.”

“They’re not even scary,” the man laughed as he turned onto the driveway leading to his childhood home, blanketed by a soft white cover that left no patch uncovered.

“Says the man who shares their last name.”

The house stood just outside the city, surrounded by trees coated in snow and embraced by the smoke from a wood-burning fireplace — something straight out of a Christmas postcard or a famous architecture magazine. Cream-colored walls, a spacious patio, large windows through which colorful lights could be seen.

Before they could even finish unbuckling their seatbelts, the front door opened.

A woman stepped out first — she had to be Paul’s sister-in-law — followed by a man who wore Paul’s smile and clear eyes, just carried differently. Behind them, a blur of movement: small boots venturing into the snow.

“Onu P!” he shouted, soft cheeks already flushed from the cold.

He lunged forward without thinking about coordination, tripping over his own feet as the driver instinctively crouched and caught him mid-fall, lifting him as if he weighed nothing.

“There he is,” Paul murmured, pressing a kiss into the boy’s hair. “You get taller every time I see you.”

The little boy smiled, plunging his hands into the young man’s blond curls before turning and noticing her.

He was curious — almost calculating — but something told her he was a sweetheart underneath it all.

“This is—” she waved hello at the child, who studied her for a moment before looking up at her from beneath impossibly long lashes and poking her cheek with a wool-gloved finger, making her laugh instinctively.

“Is that how you say hello?” Paul asked, smiling, earning a solemn nod in response. “Fair enough.”

When they stepped inside, the kitchen was already in full working mode.

It smelled like everything beautiful December carried with it, and as they hung their coats by the entrance, they could already glimpse Paul’s grandmother’s hands buried in fresh dough, while his sister rolled it out into long, pale sheets across the floured counter. There was a strong scent of spices — cloves and apples — blending into a single sweet, almost sticky aroma, while candles burned along the windowsills beside walls covered in family photographs.

One of Paul’s aunts had placed a glass vase at the center of the table, filled with pine branches, red berries standing out sharply against the dark needles.

It felt as though the room itself was alive — warm, loud with laughter, frantic in the way only the holidays could be.

Paul had said that a lunch like this was a kind of rite of passage, a parade of traditions he’d grown up with. Glasses clinked together as conversation flowed in three different languages. His grandmother sat at the center of the table, beside her, carrying on several conversations at once — the glue holding the whole family together.

When she gently raised a hand to hide her laughter, her eyes sparkling, the old woman’s gnarled hands cupped her face affectionately, as if she were one of her own grandchildren.

“You remind me of someone,” Paul’s grandmother murmured.

“I hope that’s a good thing.”

Paul, meanwhile, continued his campaign of distraction.

At the most inappropriate moments, he’d step closer, sling one strong arm around her shoulders, and point out every small mistake at the table — the cousin who had taken too many potatoes only to leave them on his sister’s plate, or his mother pretending not to notice when Ralf swapped his spoon for the one meant for the green beans. Every comment was crafted to make her laugh, and every time she gave in, softening, he grinned — fully aware she’d scold him immediately afterward.

When they stepped outside again, the snow was thick.

It had started falling shortly before, and within minutes it had grown heavy, dropping straight down without wind to move it, as if the sky had decided to take its time.

She was cold. Incredibly cold.

Where she came from, it hadn’t snowed at Christmas in years, and scarves were pulled from the closet only to shield against sharp air — not heavy white flakes.

People filled the streets, wrapped tightly in coats, and when they passed each other, they wished one another happy holidays as if they’d known each other their whole lives. The spontaneous warmth of it all surprised her.

Paul noticed how she seemed to disappear inside her jacket, despite the thermal layer beneath her favorite sweater.

Without saying a word, he reached over, took her bare hand, and tucked it into the pocket of his coat, shielding it from the worst of the icy wind.

“Hey,” she smiled at him, her nose red from the cold.

“You’re freezing,” he replied simply, like it was an objective fact.

Snowflakes had already nestled into the pilot’s blond curls, making him look like a character from those silly Christmas movies people watched during the holidays to escape into sweet stories.

He wasn’t cold. He was calm — as if he had been built for winter and unforgiving temperatures.

“I’m fine,” she insisted weakly.

“Mhm,” he hummed, unconvinced.

They kept walking at a rhythm entirely their own. Paul translated conversations for her when his relatives forgot to speak English, and she smiled, a little lost, while his thumb brushed over her knuckles inside the warm pocket.

A moment later, the boy ran back toward them, his boots slipping as he made his way stubbornly in their direction.

“Hey, careful,” Paul smiled.

“You’re going to fall,” her voice was warm, loving.

“I don’t fall,” the little one declared.

The pilot crouched slightly to his level. “You said that before you fell into a snowbank.”

“Lie,” the child replied again, as if Paul were trying to embarrass him in front of the girl he liked just a little bit.

“Don’t worry about him — I believe you,” she whispered, watching him run back toward his parents.

“That’s what I’d call betrayal,” Paul said, a playful smile shadowing his face as his nose began to redden too and the scent of busy restaurants drew them onward.

Now the snow clung to his eyelashes, catching her gaze.

Paul was devastatingly beautiful — the kind of beautiful anyone could recognize immediately. And the softness, the gentleness that defined him only added to his charm.

A charm he knew he had, but never wielded heavily.

As they walked, he slipped off his scarf — expensive, thick, and incredibly warm — removed hers, and wrapped his around her neck instead, brushing her jaw as he did. With a few careful movements, the scarf became a makeshift hood, swallowing her up and making her look even more special.

He was careful. Unhurried.

And she was in love.

She just didn’t know it yet.

“There,” he said. “That’s better.”

She looked up at him. “And you?”

“I need it far less than you do.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

He smiled — soft, unguarded. “I know.”

Before they could realize it, his nephew ran toward them again, arms lifted to be picked up. He fit perfectly into the curve of her side, his little face pressed against his uncle’s scarf, leaving its scent on both her and the child.

“You know,” Paul teased, pressing a kiss to the boy’s cheek as they waited in line to enter the theatre where the Christmas play would take place, “for someone who insists we’re just friends, you’re very domestic right now.”

“You’re the one acting like a concerned boyfriend.”

“That’s called being a gentleman.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Is that what you call it?”

“Yes,” he said smoothly. “Old-fashioned. Dangerous, I know.”

Slowly, families began filing into the theatre, taking their seats in the festively decorated hall, weaving past mothers’ stalls selling cookies, cakes, and hot drinks with names she could never hope to pronounce.

Paul held the door open with his shoulder, his curls slightly damp from the snow and wilder than ever.

“After you,” he said, bowing his head slightly in mock formality.

She smiled, snowflakes melting on her jacket as she chatted with the little boy. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Inside, it was warm, and the scents blended once more into a symphony of papier-mâché, acrylic paint, and something sweet — vanilla or plum. The theatre buzzed with voices: mothers shrugging off coats and humming traditional songs, fathers helping grandparents sit and adjust themselves in their seats.

The pilot followed his father, who had managed to secure seats in the fifth row. As the others chatted and settled in, recognizing familiar faces nearby, he slipped off his coat and took hers as well while she gently removed the child’s hat.

“I can manage,” she protested lightly when he held her jacket.

“I know,” he said, smiling. “Let me.”

She held the child’s hand; Paul rested his on her back — natural, attentive.

“Wow, you can see everything from here,” she said, seated between the pilot and his brother Ralf.

“You’ll be fine,” he replied. “Worst case scenario, we become part of the performance.”

They both laughed, sinking into their seats as parents around them whispered to neighbors, complained about costume costs, and prepared phones and cameras to capture memories of their children’s first performances.

Paul leaned in, voice low. “You ready?”

“For what?”

He gestured vaguely toward the stage. “The chaos.”

She smiled. “Always.”

For a moment, she got lost in Paul’s blue eyes before he turned toward the stage and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. The lights dimmed, sealing the room in a soft shimmer.

The teachers were the first to step onto the stage, their eyes kind and youthful.

“She’s going to forget the words,” he whispered.

She turned to him, eyebrows raised in utter indignation. “Paul,” she whispered.

“I’m just predicting,” he shrugged, meeting her gaze in the dim light.

The music came to life as children peeked out from behind the long red curtains, searching for their parents — excited, uncertain.

Paul’s nephew sat in the row directly in front of them. He turned around on his father’s knees and spotted them immediately, waving enthusiastically.

“We’re like celebrities, don’t you think?”

“Shut up,” she laughed, pinching his arm as she sat up straighter than him.

The curtains opened, revealing the first uneven line of children, and the blond man’s commentary began almost immediately — all once again perfectly calibrated to make her laugh. He pointed out the child with the crooked sweater, the friend on the verge of tears, puffing out his chest to hold it together.

“That one’s already lost,” he murmured.

She pressed her lips together, shoulders trembling slightly. “Stop.”

“He just bowed early.”

“Paul.”

“Mom never sits next to me because of this — you should’ve known better.”

And when she turned, meeting his gaze, something in his expression softened — just for a moment — before he looked away again as if nothing had happened. Maybe it was the fullness of her cheeks, or the perfect way her hair fell over her shoulders, or the way she played with the child’s hands in front of her, as if he were her own nephew.

The play was the sweetest thing she had ever seen — a little chaotic, imperfect.

Every so often, she stole a photo of Paul’s niece, one of the main characters, careful not to block anyone else’s view. Some children tripped, others missed their cues, and a few girls were so confident in front of their families that they ended up singing entirely the wrong melody.

Every time, Paul sighed, shoulders tensing as he fought the urge to laugh.

She looked at him as if to say don’t you dare.

And every time, he managed to hold it in, nodding solemnly.

Three seconds later, a child moved recklessly, knocking over a couple of cardboard backdrops behind him.

And the pilot’s control broke.

A small, silent, helpless sound escaped him — something between a snort and a laugh. He ducked his head immediately, shoulders shaking.

“I’m going to hell,” he whispered.

They both slid lower into their seats, sinking just a bit, trying to pull themselves together before the most important moment of the performance.

On stage, the children began the next song, bells chiming out of sync, lyrics tumbling over one another.

Paul’s niece stepped forward.

She wore a red dress that looked slightly too big for her, with paper snowflakes pinned to the skirt. Her long blond hair had been brushed carefully, though a few strands had already escaped.

She watched her teacher closely — with those eyes she knew so well, and pink lips just like her uncle’s.

When she forgot a word — just one — she looked around, searching for something to give her the strength to continue.

And in the distance, she found Paul’s smile — and the girl sitting beside him.

Proud smiles. Steady. Leaning slightly forward, as if their posture alone could give her the reassurance she needed.

They were holding hands. Their attention was entirely on her.

So she remembered everything.

Paul watched the stage.

Then he watched her.

The way her smile changed — softened, deepened. The way she mouthed encouragement without realizing it. The way she tilted her head, eyes bright with something like pride.

She lifted her phone with careful, unhurried movements, framing the moment perfectly. She didn’t rush. She didn’t fumble. She waited until Paul’s niece found her footing again, until her voice came back — thin but determined.

He brushed his thumb over her hand as the song ended and applause filled the room, children bowing in different directions. One waved enthusiastically and nearly knocked the friend standing beside him off the stage.

Another song began — this one involved bells.

And this time, half of them rang too early. The other half, too late.

And they were back to square one.

The pilot covered his mouth with his hands, eyes squeezed shut as he fought laughter once more. It took only a glance from her — who managed to hold it together better than he did — to make him draw a deep breath.

Then another child began spinning in circles instead of singing, a teacher desperately trying to stop him, completely ignored.

“I see you’ll be coming to hell with me,” she whispered, trying to smother her laughter with a couple of coughs — but Paul noticed everything.

She bit her lip, eyes shining. “We’re already there.”

He laughed silently, his forehead dipping toward her shoulder before he caught himself.

The show ended a few songs later, leaving them smiling.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

“For what?”

“For… keeping me from being escorted out.”

She smiled at him. “Anytime.”

The lights came back on, and all the parents stood as the children filed off the stage in orderly lines, dissolving into happy dances and proud smiles.

They stood slowly too, stretching a little, suspended in an atmosphere of paper snowflakes, crooked bells, and a scent that felt unmistakably like belonging.

For the first time, Paul didn’t make a joke.

He just looked at her — close enough that anyone could have understood.

And he thought, quietly, Oh.