yikes drama

Your family doesn't mean to hurt you. They just do.

It's the same every reunion, somebody's hand landing warm on your shoulder. When are you going to bring someone for us to meet? Are you ever gonna get married? That boat's sailed, hon. You missed your shot.

And their newest addition, just now: So, when's your turn? We really thought you'd be the next one walking down the aisle.

You're in your thirties now. Two cats, an apartment that's exactly how you want it, and you learned a long time ago to deflect, to laugh, to change the subject before anyone got too invested in your answer.

But those words stung.

Because god knows you've tried dating. You wanted the thing everyone kept asking you about, but you couldn't seem to hold onto it. Somewhere along the way you accepted that maybe you weren't meant to, just like the cards said once.

When the answer your cards gave you wasn't good enough, you tried something else: the oracle, rune-casting, pendulum, palmistry. You even ran the extra mile and paid someone to read your matrix destiny, but the answer remained the same: Not for you.

Apparently, the person meant for you was born over a hundred years ago, it wasn't meant to be in this life. Or at least, that's what the woman interpreted for you, it wasn't your line of work, but that night you pulled the cards alone and they confirmed it.

Your mom leans over, snapping you out of your thoughts. "They want you to say something."

You already knew this, you prepared days ago sitting in your apartment with your cats. You wrote and rewrote on your phone, trying to keep your words light and genuine.

"I've known Sarah since we were kids," you say. "She was always the one who knew exactly what she wanted. Not confused like the rest of us, not second-guessing. She just knew."

You can see her smiling, David's hand rest on her shoulder. You take a breath, your eyes are swelling with tears, but that's fine. That's normal at weddings.

"Sarah, David… you deserve each other, and you deserve the whole beautiful future you're about to have together. I hope you know how lucky you are, how blessed you are." Your voice wavers just slightly on that word. "Not everyone gets this, not everyone finds someone who loves them the way you love each other."

You're looking at Sarah and you mean every single word, even though it's cutting into you.

You raise your glass, trying to keep your hand steady despite the awful feeling sitting on your stomach. "To Sarah and David, and the future you deserve."

Later, when you're home at the outskirts of the city, with your cats curled on either side of you, you let yourself cry. Not angry tears, just the deep kind that come from watching someone else get the thing you've accepted you never will.

You think about the cards, about the woman who read your destiny and the words that have chased you since you were seventeen: The person meant for you was born out of time.

And your cousin's husband was born exactly at the right moment, in the right place, in the right life.

You're happy for her, you really are.

You're just so tired of helping everyone else find the life the cards promised would never belong to you.

The fair comes to the edge of your small town every spring, and you've been here for three years now. Your shop is small—just enough room for a folding table, two chairs, and the cards that you've been reading since you've been a teenager and decided to expand the gift you've inherited from your great grandmother.

The bell above the shop door chimes on a slow afternoon, and you look up from the velvet cloth you're arranging to find a couple standing in the doorway. The woman sees your altar in the corner, the crystals and the candles and her face lights up.

"Oh, this is perfect," she says, turning to him. "See? I told you we'd find someone authentic."

The man—dark hair, broad-shouldered, pierced-blue eyes and a very defined jawline— gives you a polite, slightly uncomfortable smile.

"Hey," he says. "She's been talking about you for weeks."

"Come in," you say, standing. You wipe your hands on your skirt. "Welcome to The Velvet Oracle, do you have an appointment?"

"I called yesterday," the woman says, stepping forward, hand extended. "I'm Hazel, this is Bucky. I want a couple's reading, we've been dating for four months and I just thought, you know, let's see what the future holds for us."

You gesture to the chairs across from you. "Sit, let's see what the cards have to say."

Hazel settles in, leans forward eagerly. Bucky sits back with his arms crossed. You don't let yourself look at him too long, because every time you do it you feel your stomach dropping, like when you miss a step in the dark.

You shuffle the deck, the familiar worn edges of the cards grounding you against your palms.

"Alright," you start. "For a couple's reading, I usually pull a few cards for each person individually, and then we'll look at the relationship as a whole. Sound good?"

Hazel nods enthusiastically, but Bucky's expression is somewhere between polite discomfort and outright skepticism.

"I gotta be honest," he says, glancing around the tent at the crystals and candles, "this isn't really my thing."

"I know, baby, but it'll be fun." Hazel tugs at his sleeve until he relents, uncrossing his arms. "Just let her do the reading, okay? For me."

He doesn't look convinced, but he nods and his expression softens for her. You don't know why, but that somehow makes you wanna cry.

You focus on Hazel, spreading the deck in a smooth arc across the velvet. "Go ahead and pull three cards when you're ready."

She leans forward, her fingers hovering dramatically before selecting. The first card makes you nod slowly—the Ace of Pentacles. A seed planted in rich soil. The second is the Empress, all abundance and growth. The third one is the World.

"Completion, fulfillment, a cycle coming to a close in the best possible way."

Hazel beams. "That's good, right?"

"Very good," you gesture at the Ace of Pentacles. "Pentacles are earth energy—practical, grounded, built to last. This is a new beginning with a solid foundation. The Empress suggests growth and nurturing, maybe even family, and the World is a major arcana card of fulfillment. Whatever you're building toward, the universe is supporting it."

"I'm a Taurus!" Hazel claps her hand together. "That's an earth sign. This is so accurate, oh my god! Earth energy for an earth sign, that has to mean something."

"It suggests alignment," you say carefully, because you've learned not to over-promise."The path you're on has stability written into it."

Hazel turns to Bucky with bright eyes. "See? I told you she was the real deal."

Bucky shifts in his chair, unmoved. "Great, so what about the rest of it?"

"Your turn," you say, trying to keep your voice light. "Three cards, same as before."

He looks at the deck like it might bite him. "I don't really believe in this stuff."

"It's just cards," you say. "They only have the power you give them."

Something shifts in his expression—not quite interest, but maybe a grudging willingness. Hazel nudges him with her elbow. "Just do it, Bucky. For me."

He sighs, leans forward and taps three cards with a soldier's precision. One, two, three. No hesitation, like he wants it over with.

You turn the first card: The Lovers.

Your breath catches. You force yourself to keep your expression neutral, but your fingers have gone cold against the velvet.

"The Lovers," you say, and your voice comes out steady, despite the static in your ears. "This card is about significant choices. A crossroad in a relationship or a deep connection that requires a decision."

Hazel practically squeals with excitement. "That's us! A deep connection!"

Bucky doesn't react. His eyes are on the card, but his face gives nothing away.

You turn the second card. The High Priestess.

The card you've pulled for yourself more times than you can count since you were seventeen. Intuition. The veil between worlds. The woman in the card stares at you from the table, and for a disorienting second you swear the woman on the card has your eyes.

"The High Priestess represents hidden knowledge," you manage. "Things beneath the surface, secrets, intuition… the parts of ourselves we don't fully understand yet."

"What does that have to do with Bucky?" Hazel asks, frowning slightly.

"I'm not sure yet," you lie, because you're suddenly horribly sure of exactly what's happening, and you want to sweep the cards off the table and pretend you never touched them.

You flip the third card with a trembling hand. The Ace of Cups.

The card of new love, emotional awakening. The beginning of something that fills the heart. It's the same card that you've always pulled up reversed for yourself every single time you ask the universe if there's anyone out there for you.

Now here it is, on his spread… along with your arcana.

"A new emotional beginning," you say after a moment of silence. "The Ace of Cups is the start of something in matters of the heart. It's a very powerful, personal card."

Hazel turns to Bucky, her earlier enthusiasm dimming. "Is that about us? Wait— water and earth complement each other, right? Bucky's a Pisces, that's a water sign, I'm earth. That's good isn't it? They balance."

"Water and earth can be very nurturing together," you say, because it's true, even if the cards aren't saying that. "But these cards feel more like a personal message for Bucky, something individual, not necessarily about the relationship."

You don't remember what you say after that. Something about water signs and intuition, something about the cards reflecting individual journeys within partnerships. You're very good at small talk, at telling people something they might want to hear while the cards tell you something else entirely.

Hazel pays you in cash, and she leaves with her hand tucked into Bucky's elbow, already chattering about dinner reservations. He lingers in the doorway for half a second, looking back at you with an expression you can't read. Then the bell chimes, and they're gone.

You sit in silence for a long time, staring at the three cards, still laid out on the velvet. You gather them up with shaking hands and slip them back into the deck, but you can feel them there, warm against the others, like embers buried in ash.

That night, you pull your own cards for the first time in months. You stopped asking about love a year ago, because the answer never changed—the reversed Ace of Cups, Ten of Swords, the Tower. But tonight, you need to know if you imagined it, if the shop was too warm, if you simply wanted something so badly your mind bent the cards to fit.

You shuffle the deck until your fingers ache and cut the deck three times before pulling: The Lovers. The High Priestess. The Ace of Cups.

Exactly the same spread from earlier.

You throw the deck across your kitchen table and watch the cards scatter like birds. You don't read them, you don't need to.

The dreams start three nights later.

You're in the shop, but once you pay enough attention you realize it's not your shop—it's larger, older, with windows that look out onto a street you've never seen, snow falling in thick, silent curtains. Bucky is there, sitting across from you, but he's different. Younger, somehow, though you can't explain how you know that. He's smiling at you, and he reaches across the table to take your hand.

You wake up gasping, your sheets are twisted around your legs, your heart hammering against your ribs.

The second time you dream of him, you're dancing. You're not able to see if it's anywhere specific. It's a dark room, there is music playing from somewhere distant, his hand on your waist, his cheek pressed against your temple. He smells like cedar and leather. You can feel the calluses on his fingers through the fabric of your dress. When you wake up, you can still feel them.

You start drinking chamomile tea before bed. You burn sage. You place an amethyst under your pillow and a black tourmaline at your door, but nothing works. The dreams continue, threading themselves through your sleep like a second life you're living in parallel, and in every single one, he seems like the answer to a question you've been asking for a very long time.

You don't tell anyone. Who would believe you? What would you even tell them? I had a tarot reading go wrong and now I'm psychically stalking my client's boyfriend in my dreams. You'd sound insane. Worse, you'd sound desperate.

You don't hear from Hazel or him again. You tell yourself it's a good thing. You tell yourself the dreams will fade, that the thread between you dissolves with distance and time… except they don't fade, they get worse.

In your dreams you're now in Brooklyn, walking down streets lined with brownstones, and he's beside you, close enough that your shoulders brush. He's telling you about his day, about his past, and you listen until his words start to fade. When you wake up, you can smell his cologne in the air.

You start taking walks in the afternoon, though you don't know why. You pull your cards again, desperate for something—anything—to change.

The Tower. The Star. The World.

Disaster, then hope, then completion. The cycle you've been trapped in for years, except this time the Tower doesn't feel like another heartbreak waiting to happen. It feels like change—the kind you can't stop even if you wanted to.

You don't sleep that night. You sit on your kitchen floor with your cats weaving between your legs, and you rearrange the cards in every configuration you know: Celtic cross, three card spread, relationship spread, past-present-future. Every single time, the same arc emerges: something is ending, something is beginning. And whatever comes next will leave you irrevocably changed.

Your aunt Margaret—Maggie, as you've called her since you were little—tells the family that she has broken her hip on the cellar stairs, that the surgery went fine, but she doesn't want a nurse or a help aide. She wants someone from the family who can come stay with her or she'll manage alone.

The call gets passed down through the entire family, but nobody offers to go take care of her. Your cousins have husbands, kids, mortgages, school pickups… Meanwhile, you have two cats and a tarot shop you can shutter for a season, and nobody says it out loud, but everybody means it: you're the one with nothing to leave behind.

You arrive on a Tuesday with your two cat carriers, three suitcases and the deck wrapped in a scarf at the bottom of your tote. Maggie is waiting in the front room of the brownstone, sat in a wingback chair with a cane across her knees.

"There she is, I knew you would come," she says. "Come kiss me."

You oblige before setting the carriers on the floor and opening them to let your cats wander around and recognize the place you'd be staying for a few weeks.

"I got two rules," Maggie starts, taking off her reading glasses. "The thermostat stays where I put it, and no cards in my house."

"Maggie—"

"I know what you carry around, I have enough ghosts in this old apartment, so there's no way I'm letting you welcome more through…that."

"They're just cards."

"Then it won't kill you to leave them in the bag," she settles back into the chair and picks her crossword up off the side table, and that is the end of it. "The kettle's on, you can take the room at the top of the stairs."

You know arguing with her would be useless, so you go and install yourself in that cramped old room and decide you'll read when she's asleep.

It becomes a ritual within the first week: you wait for the apartment to go quiet, wait for her snoring to even out and you sit at the kitchen table with the deck and a single candle as if you were a teenager sneaking cigarettes. Your cats take turns supervising from the counter, but you keep one ear on the ceiling the whole time, just in case.

Every single time, the same cards you pull at your shop with Bucky keep coming.

The Lovers. The High Priestess. The Ace of Cups.

The dreams don't fade with the distance from home, they sharpen. Now the businesses have names, because you've walked past it every time you go run errands for your aunt Maggie. The stoop where he sat beside you, close enough that your shoulders touched, you know it. You've seen the exact iron railing, three blocks east. In one dream he laughs at something, and you wake up missing something you haven't even seen in real life.

You try to build a reasonable conclusion: You've been here previously, you know this neighborhood. You just did one reading to a ridiculous handsome man eight months ago and your lonely, overworked brain latched on, and now it's trying to dress a crush in destiny because it's something you've been trying to change your whole life. That's all this is. A simple crush and a reader's block. It happens sometimes to some people, right?

At least that's what Reddit said last time you checked.

You've almost convinced yourself by the third Saturday in October, which is when you see him at the green market, standing at a fruit stall with a paper bag in one gloved hand. You stop so fast a woman with a stroller clips your heel.

Eight months and four hundred miles, and he's right here, wearing a canvas jacket with his hair shorter than you remember, frowning at the fruit, and your first coherent thought is run, but your feet are refusing to move.

He must've felt your eyes on him, because he looks up.

"You," he says it flat.

"Hi," your voice comes out steadier than you expect, and you silently thank god, the universe and every existent deity. "Bucky, right?"

He crosses the few feet between you, and up close you notice a tension in him that you don't remember from the shop. "What are you doing here?"

"Buying some groceries." You lift the bag as evidence. "I'm here taking care of my aunt and—"

"Right, so now your aunt happens to live here. Funny."

"You can come with me and check if you don't believe me," the bite gets into your voice before you can stop it. "Is there a problem?"

He laughs once, but there's no humor in it. "Is there a problem, you ask? Why don't you pull your cards and figure it out?"

"Okay—"

"Hazel broke up with me," he watches your face while he says it. "Three weeks after that reading, you want to know why?"

The market noise keeps going around you, crates and gulls and a vendor calling out prices, but everything is reducing to background noise while you feel the cold coming up from through your boots.

"She couldn't let it go," he continues. "You said something about a new beginning, some big personal message and she turned it over until there was nothing left. Every conversation we had circled back to it, who is she? When did it start? The cards don't lie. Four months, gone, because you laid out three stupid pieces of laminated paper and made it sound like some stupid prophecy."

"That isn't what I said— "

"Well, it's what she heard."

"I told her those cards were about you, individually. I was careful—"

"You were vague," he says, "which is the whole trick, isn't it? Say something soft enough to fit any shape, take the cash, let people destroy themselves filling in the blanks… there's a word for that." He shifts the bag of groceries to his other hand. "You're a fraud. The polite version is intuitive, a fraud with esoteric words."

You should let it go. He's a stranger, he's grieving a relationship, the market is crowded and you have other things to do, but you don't let it go.

"I didn't make those cards come up." You step in instead of back, and something flickers across his face—surprise, maybe, that you didn't fold. "I shuffled, you pulled three cards, it was your own hands, no hesitation. I read what was on the table and I softened it more than I should have, for her sake. What she did with it afterward isn't mine to carry, and neither is what you do with it."

A muscle moves in his jaw. For a second neither of you says anything, and you notice—stupidly, uselessly—that his eyes are exactly the color they are in your dreams.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry about Hazel."

"Yeah, you sure do." He steps around you. "Enjoy Brooklyn and stay the hell away from me."

You stand there with your own groceries until your hands stop shaking.

That night you don't pull cards. You lie awake instead, replaying it, building better arguments hours too late, and when you finally sleep, he's there—sitting across a kitchen table that doesn't exist, pushing a cup of coffee toward you, smiling at you the way he has never smiled once in real life.

You wake up furious at your own mind.

The radiator in the front room dies the last week of October, the same week the temperature does.

You find Maggie in her wingback with a blanket over her knees and the phone already against her ear. "It's the front one again," she's saying. "It clanks like the devil and gives nothing… No, don't be silly, after lunch is fine. You'll eat here anyway." She hangs up before whoever it is can argue.

"I could've called someone," you say. "There's a service the pharmacy recommends—"

"A service?" She huffs a laugh, like you've said something completely irrational. "I have James, he does the whole block—the Russo's gutters, Mrs. Ferreira's stairs… he won't take a dime, but I tuck it in his jacket when he isn't looking."

"James," you repeat.

"You'll like him," she says, returning to her crossword. "He's a serious boy, it's good with hands, single…"

The doorbell rings at one. You open the door and there he is, on your aunt's stoop, a tool bag over his shoulder, and you watch the exact moment his face goes through the market all over again.

"You gotta be shitting me," he mutters.

"Yeah, well, I'm not excited either, but I told you I was taking care of my aunt."

From the front room, your aunt's voice: "James! Don't let the heat out, it's the one radiator still working in here!"

You look at each other and there's a long moment where you genuinely cannot tell whether he's going to turn around and walk back down the steps, and then he exhales through his nose and crosses the threshold, being painfully obvious at avoiding brushing your shoulder in the narrow hall.

What follows is the strangest two hours of your autumn. Because the man at the market and the shop doesn't appear. With your aunt, he's somebody else entirely—patient, dry, gentle in an odd way for the way he's treated you. He kneels on the floor and bleeds the radiator and lets her direct him with her cane without complaining. Asks about her hip, and actually listens to the answer.

You stay in the kitchen, mostly. You make the coffee she orders you to make and when you bring it in, Nova—the bolder of your two cats—has installed herself on the tool bag, paws tucked underneath him, supervising, and for your surprise, Bucky is working around her rather than moving her.

He glances up when you set the cup down near him, just out of his way.

"Thanks," it's dry, but it's not nothing.

"You take your coffee black, right?" you say, and then bite your own tongue off, because you don't know that. You've been dreaming of that.

He pauses with the wrench mid-turn. "Lucky guess."

"Well, you look like a man who likes to keep it simple." You say it lightly and walk away before your face can do anything stupid, and behind you, Maggie says something about you reading people, and then you hear the small clank of metal as something in his hands slips.

He doesn't stay to eat, despite your aunt's best efforts. At the door, shrugging the tool bag back up, he stops with his hand on the frame. He doesn't quite look at you.

"Her hip," he murmurs. "If she needs anything lifted, or any errands to run, whatever… Maggie has my number."

"Okay."

"For her," he clarifies.

"I understood you the first time," you say sweetly and shut the door on whatever his face does next.

In the front room, Maggie has watched this entire exchange over her glasses.

"You didn't tell me you know James."

"Barely."

"Mm." She picks up her pen. "It seemed like more than barely to me. But if that's how you treat men no wonder why you're still single."

You gasped audibly and she winked an eye at you before going back to her crossword.

You start running into him in an almost daily basis. The neighborhood is small—twenty thousand people and somehow the same six faces every single day— and now that you know he's in it, he's everywhere. Outside the hardware store with a length of pipe over his shoulder. At the pharmacy counter, when you go pick up Maggie's medications and he's talking to an Asian man. Across the green market, where you both pretend with great commitment that the other one is invisible.

But there's no real conversation until now.

You've misjudged the sky and the distance, so you're hauling two grocery bags and a sack of cat litter up Pierrepont when the cold drizzle turns serious. You stop under sycamore to redistribute everything you're carrying, water running off the end of your nose, and a shadow falls over you. You lift your gaze and he's there, hood up, his hand already out reaching for you.

"What? Your cards didn't tell you there would be a storm?"

"Ha-ha. Very funny."

"Give me the litter."

"I've got it."

"You're going to put your shoulder out being stubborn. I said give me the damn litter."

You could protest, but you know it's pointless to fight with him, so you give him the litter and walk the last two blocks side by side without speaking, rain hissing on the pavement, his boots and your boots out of step.

He sets the sack on the second stair of your aunt's gate, but he doesn't leave immediately.

"At the market," he murmurs, to the gate rather than to you. "When I— when I said those things to you… I was out of line."

"You were rude."

"I was out of line," he repeats.

"You called me a fraud, and you said my intuition was exactly that, a fraud with esoteric words."

"Well, if you were so intuitive, wouldn't you have known about the rain?" It takes you a second to hear it, the dry shift under the flat delivery, and you laugh before you decide to. He looks surprised, like he wasn't expecting the sound either.

"Go home, Bucky," you say. "You'll catch a cold."

"Is that a prediction?"

You rolled your eyes. "There's no need for that, it's logical."

"Tell Maggie I left the wrench in the bin by the door… for the sink." He's already turning. "Don't let her do the sink herself, she'll try."

"I know my aunt."

"Then you know she'll try." And he's gone into the rain, shoulders up, and you stand at the gate watching him go for longer than you should.

That night you dream of him again, except the dream is just this: the two of you under a sycamore, rain coming down, but this time he's laughing—really laughing, head tipped, the whole architecture of his face rearranged by it— at something you can't hear yourself say.

You wake before dawn with your heart going hard and the echo of his laugh still in your ears.

It's a crush, you remind yourself staring at the ceiling.

Then why does your heart feel so heavy?

By November, your aunt has invented a maintenance schedule that no brownstone in history has ever required. The storm windows, the cellar light, a cabinet hinge you're fairly sure she loosened herself, because you watched her test it with her cane the day before she called him.

"You're matchmaking," you accuse, setting her tea down.

"I'm maintaining my property." She doesn't look up from the crossword. "Seven across, six letters. Foreseen by the stars."

"Fated."

"That's five."

"Destined is eight. Fated is five." You count it on your fingers. "What's six?"

Maggie hums thoughtfully and writes something down where you can't see it.

Bucky comes back on Thursday to check the storm windows. It's the fourth time, not that you're counting, and something has shifted in the dynamic between you—the hostility has burned down to a kind of wariness, and that wariness keep springing leaks.

He lets you hold the frame steady while he drives the screws, close enough that you can smell the cedar on his jacket. He answers your aunt's interrogation about his week in actual sentences. When Nova bolts for the open window, Bucky catches her one-handed without looking, absorbs the betrayed yowl and deposits her on the sofa with a flat "No". You expect retaliation, but Nova—who has never once obeyed you—stays.

"Traitor," you tell the cat.

"She respects the chain of command."

Maggie goes up for her nap at three with a theatrical yawning that should embarrass her. Bucky's packing up the drill in the kitchen and you're making coffee because it's cold and the radio on the counter—her ancient radio, permanently tuned to an AM station that plays classics—is murmuring under everything.

And you go still.

It takes you a moment to realize, and another to find why: he's humming. Barely, under his breath, and the song sounds pretty familiar.

The mug slips, you catch it against the counter, there's coffee slopping over your knuckles, and the burn makes you realize that song was playing in the dream where he danced with you in a dark room. You've never heard it awake in your life until right now. You don't know its name either, you only knew the next three notes after he hummed them.

"You okay?" He's looking at you now.

"It's nothing," you run your hand under the tap. "Just… wanted to heat my hands a little bit."

It's just an old song, it's an old radio station. Men hum old songs; it's logical. You repeat it in your head twice but your hands don't believe any of it. And god forbid you, you neither.

When you turn around, he's leaning against the counter, watching you with an expression you can't quite read.

"I've been meaning to ask you," he starts. "About the cards. Why do you do it? And I don't want the speech, I want the real answer."

You dry your hands slowly, deciding how much truth he's earned.

"My great grandmother read cards," you start, leaning against the counter across from him. "She read for people in her village back in the old country. My mom said she could look at someone and see the shape of their life, like… like they were made of glass. She tried to teach my mother, but the gift skipped her and landed on me instead."

You take a pause, watching the radio, the floor, anything but him.

"I was seven the first time I saw something I couldn't explain. I touched my grandmother's deck and I knew things about her neighbor who was sitting at the kitchen table. That she'd lost a baby the year before, that her husband was sleeping with her sister, that she was going to leave him by spring." You swallow. "I said all of it out loud, like an idiot child, because I didn't know you weren't supposed to just say those things."

Bucky's quiet. You can feel him listening, like he's cataloguing every word.

"My mother was horrified. My grandmother on the other hand wasn't. She said the cards chose me, and that I should learn to read them properly so I'd stop blurting out unfiltered truth at dinner parties." A small, humorless laugh leaves you. "So I learned. By the time I was a teenager, I was pulling cards for friends, for strangers, for anyone who asked. And most of the time, it's just… pattern recognition and intuition working together. The cards are a tool, not a magic trick, but sometimes—"

"Sometimes what?"

"Sometimes they show you something that doesn't fit any pattern you know. And you have to decide whether to believe what you're seeing or pretend you didn't see it."

The radio changes songs.

"Is that what happened with my reading?" he asks quietly.

No, you think. It's worse than that.

"I read what was on the table," you say instead, because it's the truth, even if it's not all of it. "I didn't make it up, Bucky. I've never fabricated a reading in my life. The cards that came up for you were clear… unusually clear. And I softened them because Hazel was sitting right there and I didn't want to hurt her, but I didn't lie."

He studies you for a long moment, and you can see the war happening behind his eyes—the part of him that wants to believe you fighting the part that needs to think you're a con artist, because the alternative is harder.

"Okay," he says finally.

"O—Okay?"

"I'm not saying I believe in it. I'm saying I believe you believe it, and that's… different."

It's the most generous thing he's said to you since the market, and it lands somewhere under your ribs.

It's a Tuesday in late November, and Maggie has sent him to fix a leak under the kitchen sink that you both suspect she caused by hitting the pipe with her cane. He's on his back under the counter and you're handling him tools, trying not to notice the way his shirt rides up when he reaches for the wrench.

When he slides out, wiping his hands on a rag, he looks at you for a while.

"There's a place two blocks over. They make decent coffee, if you're done pretending you don't need a break."

"That's the worst invitation I've ever heard. You're just observing that I look tired."

"You do look tired."

"Wow, thank you. A true gentleman."

His mouth twitches. "Do you want coffee or not?"

You want to say no, because saying yes feels too much like stepping off a cliff, but the word comes out before you can stop it. "Fine, but only because you're paying."

Maggie, from the front room calls out: "Take your time! I'm perfectly fine!"

You both know she's been listening to every word.

The walk to the café is silent.

The place looks cozy—it's small, warm and smells like cinnamon and cardamom. He orders black coffee and you order a latte and a slice of walnut cake. You sit t a table by the window where the afternoon light comes in, and for a few minutes neither of you says anything.

It should be awkward, being here without Maggie or your cats between you, but it isn't.

"Would you mind if I ask you something?"

"You're going to ask whether I say yes or not."

"Smart man." You turn the cup slowly. "Why do you do this? The handyman thing… Maggie says you work for the whole block. But you don't charge, you won't take money—"

"I take money, I just don't like to ask for it, besides, Maggie always invites me to eat."

"She tucks money in your jacket while you're not seeing."

"She's not as subtle as she thinks." He takes a sip of his coffee and ten looks at you. "I like fixing things, always have. When something's broken, there's a right way to fix it, and when it's done, it's done, it's done. You can see the result, it's not…"

"Ambiguous?"

"Yeah, exactly. It's not ambiguous."

You understand suddenly why he hated the reading and everything related to it. You gave him a puzzle with no solution, a fix with no steps… you made him sit with something unfixable.

The conversation moves easier after that. He tells you about the neighborhood, about Mrs. Ferreira, about Yori—the Asian man you saw the other day who feeds pigeons from his window, about the old man on the fourth who swears at everyone in Italian. You tell him about your shop, about your cats—Nova and Salem, about the time you accidentally read cards for a man who turned out to be an undercover cop investigating a psychic scam two towns over, and how you spent forty-five minutes proving your cards weren't marked.

You see him laughing, not the polite sound from always, but a real one. You drink your coffee and eat your cake and try to not think about the dreams.

It becomes a thing. He finishes a repair at Maggie's or passes by to eat and you end up at the café, or walking the two blocks to the park where the benches face the water, or simply sitting on her stoop in the last cold light of the afternoon while you both drink coffee.

You learn things about him in pieces. He's from Brooklyn—born and raised, he says, but the tone on his voice tells you it's partly a lie. He has a best friend named Sam who's a pain in the ass. He doesn't talk about his family, but you don't push. He served in the military, a long time ago.

He learns things about you too, like the fact you talk with your hands when you're passionate about something, or that you hum when you're thinking and that hum is always off-key. He learns about your habit of reading strangers on the street and narrating your observations under your breath.

The first week of December arrives with an ugly wind that rattles Maggie's windows and makes your cats burrow under the blankets. Maggie has graduated from the cane to limping short distances without it, which means she's mobile enough to meddle full-time.

Bucky comes by Wednesday to check a draft Maggie swears she can feel coming from the baseboards. You both know there's no draft, but he comes by anyway.

You open the door and he's standing on the stoop with his hands in his jacket pockets, his tool bag over one shoulder, and there's snow in his hair—not much, just dust, but it's there, melting against the dark of it—and your heart does something complicated because of how good he looks.

"Maggie's napping," you say.

His hand comes out of his pocket. He's holding a folded napkin, and he holds it out to you like it's a wrench.

"I made reservations," he murmurs. "At Valentino's, this Friday, seven o'clock."

You stare at the napkin. "Did you just… write it on a napkin?"

"I didn't have a paper." He shifts his weight. "Sam says you're supposed to give the person a specific time and place, so… there it is."

"You asked your friend how to ask someone on a date?"

"Well, he tells me a lot of things, more of it is useless." He's looking at the doorframe while he speaks, then he glances at you. "This part seemed right."

You unfold the napkin. His handwriting is surprisingly neat—small, precise letters. Friday, 7 pm- Valentino's on Henry St. —B

"Is this because Maggie put you up to it?" you ask, because if this is charity or pity or Maggie's matchmaking you'd rather know now and bleed later.

"No. She might take credit for it, but no. I was going to ask you at the café last week, but then you started reading people and I lost my nerve."

Bucky lost his nerve.

"So, Friday… at seven."

"Is that a yes?"

"That's a yes."

He nods once, and you can see his shoulders drop half an inch. You want to laugh, or cry, or both, so you just fold the napkin carefully and put it in your pocket.

"Are you going to come in and check the nonexistent draft, or…?"

"Might as well, just to keep the appearances."

He brushes past you in the doorway, and unlike the first time, he doesn't avoid your shoulder.

When Friday night comes, you don't understand why you're so damn nervous, but here you are, changing your outfit twice before settling with a blue dress and a pair of boots that Maggie claims make your legs look like they go on forever. You're halfway down the stairs when the doorbell rings.

He cleans up well. That's the first thought you have when you open the door. He's wearing a dark jacket over a sweater, and his hair is pulled back in a way that shows the sharp lines of his face, and he smells so good you have to resist the urge to lean closer and breathe him in again.

"You look nice," he says when you open the door.

"You too." You grab your coat from the hook. "Don't wait up, Maggie."

"Go. Don't come back before ten, I have a television program."

"We're going to dinner, Maggie, not—"

"Door will be locked before ten o'clock," she insists, and shuts the door on your face before you can answer, letting you at the bottom of the stairs.

You turn to face Bucky and the way he looks at you makes you forget every argument you've ever had with yourself about why this is a bad idea.

"Ready?" he asks.

"It depends. Are you going to accuse me of fraud tonight?"

"Not tonight."

"Then I'm ready."

Valentino's is tucked between a laundromat and a bookshop. The hostess greets Bucky by name and leads you to a corner booth where the candlelight flickers against the red-checkered tablecloth.

"Fancy," you tease.

"I said it wasn't fancy."

"Exactly," you unfold your napkin and look around—warm brick walls, fairy lights strung along the ceiling, and and old man at the bar arguing with the bartender about baseball. "I like it."

He orders wine for the table without asking, but it's the good kind, the kind that tastes likes blackberries, and when he catches you watching him over the rim of your glass, he doesn't look away.

You're talking about the shop—what you'll do when you go back, whether you'll reopen at all—when he leans back in his chair and takes a deep breath. "I want to ask you something, but I don't want to fight."

"That's a promising start."

"Why do you believe in it? The cards, destiny, all of it. You're smart. You read people like they're open books. How do you also believe that pieces of cardboard can tell the future?"

It's not hostile. It's genuine curiosity, and that's worse, because you owe him a real answer. You down the rest of your wine for a bit of liquid courage.

"When I was seventeen," you start, and your voice is careful, like you're walking on ice, " my great grandmother died. She'd been sick for a while, and when I went to see her in the hospital she… she told me she'd been reading my cards since I was born. That she'd asked about my future every year on my birthday, the way she did for everyone in the family. And every year, the same cards came up."

The restaurant noise fills the silence—the clink of glasses, a murmur of conversation from the next table—but you're hyper aware of him.

"She said love wasn't meant for me." You trace the rim of your glass with your finger. "I didn't believe her, I was seventeen, I thought she was a dramatic old woman who loved tragedy, or that maybe she was way too high on her meds. So I started reading for myself, I pulled my own cards every week, every month, every time I met someone I thought could be something. And every single time, the same answer. Reversed Ace of Cups. Ten of Swords. The Tower. Not for you, not in this life."

You laugh, but it comes out humorless.

"I even paid a woman to read my destiny matrix, I tried runes, I tried everything because I wanted so badly for the answer to be different; but it never was. I tried dating, I did. I wanted so bad to be loved. Apparently, the person meant for me was born over a hundred years ago, and I was born now, so the timing was wrong, and that's it."

Bucky is very still across the table. He hasn't moved, hasn't reached for his glass, hasn't done anything except listen with an intensity that makes your skin prickle. The silence between you stretches. He's looking at you with an expression you can't decode.

"Bucky?"

He exhales slowly, and his jaw works twice. Then he leans forward, resting both forearms on the table. "You don't have any idea of who I am?"

"Should I?" you ask, confused.

He stares at you for a long moment like he's looking for some sign that you're joking. "You really don't."

"Bucky, you're freaking me out a little. Are you in the mob? A famous musician? Because I have to be honest, I don't really follow the news, and history was never my strong subject. I know the major stuff, but—"

He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out his wallet, sliding something across the table toward you.

It's his driver's license. You pick it up, squinting at the tiny photo—he looks exactly the same, of course he does, that hot bastard—and then your eyes drop to the birth date.

March 10, 1917.

You read it three times, but the numbers don't change. You look up at him, and he's watching at you with an expression you can't read.

"I was born in 1917," he says quietly. "Here in Brooklyn. I went to war in '43 and… I didn't come back the way I left. They did things to me, changed me. I don't age the way normal people do, and there's a lot of years in between that I'd rather not talk about in a restaurant."

Your hands are shaking. You set the license down on the table between you like it might burn you.

"The matrix destiny," you whisper. "It said a hundred years ago. You were born a hundred years ago."

"Yeah." He leans forward. "And here's the thing. I don't believe in fate. I don't believe in stars writing our stories for us, because if I did—" His voice breaks, just slightly, and he catches it. "If I did, then I'd have to believe that what happened to me was determined. That the things that I did, the things that were done to me, they were written in stone before I was even born. And that's too cruel, that's a crueler god than I'm willing to worship."

He's breathing harder now, and you realize with a start that he's scared. Bucky Barnes, who caught your cat mid-air and argued with you in the rain, is scared of what you might say next.

"But you," he continues, softer now. "You showed up in my neighborhood reading cards and talking about things you shouldn't know. And I kept seeing you everywhere, and I kept telling myself it was a coincidence, that Brooklyn is small and you were just… there. But there's something here. I feel it every time I'm in the same room as you, and I don't know if that's fate or if it's just—" He stops, running a hand over his face. "I don't know what it is. But I know I haven't wanted to spend time with someone like this in a long time. And if that means the stars finally decided to do something kind for once, then maybe… maybe I'm not as angry at them as I thought."

You don't know what to say. The pasta arrives and sits cooling between you, forgotten. You think about every card you've ever pulled, every spread that ended in the same lonely answer, every time you accepted that love wasn't meant for you. And now, he's sitting across from you, born in 1917, a hundred-year-old soul in a young man's body, and the math is so simple it makes you want to laugh and cry at the same time.

"You're quiet," he says.

"I'm not quiet," you manage, but your voice sounds like it's coming from very far away. "I'm just… I don't know what to say. You don't— you don't just drop 'I was born in 1917' into a conversation and expect someone to have a response ready."

The corner of his mouth twitches. "Fair."

"You fought in World War II."

"Yeah."

"And you're telling me you don't believe in fate, but you just handed me proof that the answer I've been getting my whole life wasn't wrong."

"I'm telling you that I don't care what the cards said," he reaches across the table, his hand hovering over yours for a moment before he covers your fingers with his palm. His skin is warm, calloused, and you feel it everywhere. "I care that you're here, right now. And I'm here. That's enough for me."

You look down at your hand under his, at the candlelight pooling in the hollow of his palm, and you think about the High Priestess card, the one you've pulled for yourself a hundred times. Hidden knowledge, the veil between worlds, secrets.

Maybe the secret was that you weren't waiting for a ghost after all.

You eat eventually, though you barely taste it. He tells you about Sam, about the boat they worked on together, about the neighborhood changing and staying the same all at once. You tell him about your cats, about the way Maggie pretends to be asleep every time he comes over so you'll have to answer the door alone.

But mostly, you sit in the candlelight and let yourself have this. Whatever this is.

He insists on walking you home. It's not far—five blocks, maybe six—and the December air is sharp enough to make you tuck your hands into your coat pockets. He walks on the outside of the sidewalk, closest to the street, the way men used to do when he was young, and something about that makes your chest ache.

"You okay?" he asks as you turn onto Maggie's block.

"Yeah." But you're not, not really. You're overwhelmed, full of things you don't know how to say. You want to tell him that you've dreamed about him, that you've known the shape of his laugh before you ever heard it, that you pulled his cards in your kitchen and you threw the deck across the room because it was too much to believe. You want to ask him if he feels it too, this gravity, this sense of falling into something you never expected to find.

But you don't say any of that. You just walk beside him in the dark, and when you reach Maggie's stoop, you turn to face him.

The streetlamp behind him casts a halo around his shoulders. You think about all the years he's lived, all the winters he's seen, and you can't believe any of them led him here. To you. To this moment in your aunt's cracked concrete steps.

"I had a good time," he says.

"Me too."

He steps closer. You can smell the wine on his breath, the cedar of his jacket, the cold night air clinging to his air. He's close enough that you have to tilt your head back to look at him, and his eyes are darker in the shadows.

"I don't think I need to." Your voice is barely above a whisper. "I think I already know how this goes."

"Yeah?" His hand finds your waist, tentative, asking permission. "How's it go?"

And then he kisses you.

It's soft at first, careful, like he's giving you time to pull away. But you don't pull away. You reach up and curl your fingers into the front of his jacket, and he makes a sound against your mouth before deepening the kiss. His hand slides to the small of your back, pulling you closer, and you can feel the warmth of him through every layer between you that suddenly feels like too many.

He tastes like red wine, and his jaw is rough under your palm, and when you break apart you're both breathing hard, foreheads pressed together.

"Okay," you whisper. "Okay."

"Okay," he repeats, and he sounds almost drunk with it. He kisses you again, lighter this time, on the corner of your mouth, your cheek, your temple. His lips brush your ear as he murmurs, "I don't care about fate. But if you want to tell me what the stars said, I'll listen."

You laugh, a little watery, and push at his chest. "Go home, Bucky. It's cold."

"I know." But he doesn't move. He tucks a strand of hair behind your ear, his fingers lingering against your jaw. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow."

He finally steps back, down one step, then two. He's smiling, the kind that reaches his eyes and rearranges his whole face into something boyish and new. "Night, then."

"Night."

You watch him walk down the block, his hands in his pockets, his shoulders relaxed in a way you haven't seen before. You watch until he turns the corner and disappears, and you stand there for a long moment with your fingers pressed to your mouth, trying to remember how to breathe.

The front door opens behind you.

"You're welcome," Maggie says.

You jump so hard you nearly fall off the stoop. "Jesus, Maggie!"

She's standing in the doorway in her robe and slippers, her crossword in one hand and a cup of tea in the other. She looks entirely too pleased with herself.

"You were watching!" You accuse.

"I was observing, there's a difference." She steps back to let you in. "I told you he was a good boy, serious, good with his hands." She winks. "And now you know for sure."

"Maggie!"

"Don't 'Maggie' me. I didn't raise you to be ungrateful." She shuffles toward the stairs. "You can thank me properly at breakfast. And don't think I didn't notice you sneaking cards at my kitchen table for three months straight. I may be old, but I'm not blind."

You stand in the hallway, coat still on, cheeks burning, and listen to her cackle all the way up the stairs.

Your cats appear from the front room, twining around your ankles, and you bend down to scoop Nova up, burying your face in her fur. She purrs, loud and indignant, and you laugh against her soft orange head.

"Okay," you whisper to him, to the empty hallway, to no one in particular. "Okay."

You don't know what happens next. You don't know how any of this works, a tarot reader and a century-old soldier, two people the universe apparently decided to throw together just to see what would happen.

But as you climb the stairs to your cramped little room, you think about the spread you pulled the night before you left for Brooklyn. The Tower. The Star. The World.

Disaster, then hope, then completion.

Maybe The Tower wasn't heartbreak after all. Maybe it was just the world rearranging itself to make room for something you never dared to ask for.

You fall asleep that night without pulling any cards, without any dreams at all, and when you wake up in the morning, the first thing you hear is Bucky's voice downstairs, asking Maggie if she takes one sugar or two, and the sound it's better than any spread you've ever read.

June.

The summer breeze at Coney Island smells like salt and fried dough, and you were wearing the jacket Bucky lent you because you misjudged the wind off the water. It's still too big, the sleeves past your knuckles, and he keeps reaching over to roll them back up for you, his thumb brushing your wrist every time.

You can't remember whose idea it was to come here. Maybe yours, maybe his. Maybe it doesn't matter, because Bucky's hand is wrapped around yours. You've been official since January, though the line between before and after has blurred into something that feels like it started long before either of you were brave enough to name it.

The boardwalk is crowded with families and couples and teenagers laughing too loud, but Bucky moves through them like he was made for this—for cotton candy and carnival lights, for the easy joy of a Brooklyn summer night. He fits here, you realize. He fits now. A hundred-year-old soul learning how to be young again.

"Step right up! Test your luck!" A barker's voice cuts through the noise, and you follow it to a row of old arcade machines tucked beneath a stripped awning. Skee-ball, claw machines, a racing game with a faded steering wheel—and then you see it.

A fortune teller machine.

It sits in the corner like something out of another era, which, you suppose, it is. Madam Zola's Mystical Fortune Cards, the peeling gold paint reads. Insert coin. Receive Your Destiny. The mechanical woman inside has painted glass eyes and a silk scarf draped over her plastic hair, and her hand rests on a deck of cards that probably haven't been mystical a day in their life.

Bucky follows your gaze and laughs. "You're kidding me."

"I'm absolutely not kidding you." You're already digging in your pocket for a quarter. "Madam Zola and I are colleagues, I need to know if she's legitimate."

"She's made of plywood."

"So judgmental." You find two quarters and press one into his palm, your fingers lingering against his. "For you, professional courtesy."

He looks down at the quarter, then back at you, and something softens in his expression. "Alright," he says. "But if this thing tells me I'm gonna die alone, I'm blaming you."

"Fair."

You drop your quarter in first. The machine whirs to life with a dramatic creak. Madam Zola's hand moves across the cards in jerky, mechanical motions, and after a moment, a small white card drops into the brass tray below.

You pick it up. It's not a real tarot card—just cardstock, cheap, the edges already soft from humidity—but the image printed on it makes your breath catch. Two hands clasped, reaching across a starfield. Beneath it, in gold script: The Lovers.

And underneath that, smaller: You've found the one. Don't waste time doubting it.

You stare at it. Bucky leans over your shoulder to read it, and you feel him go still.

"Huh."

"Your turn!"

"I don't need a card to tell me—"

"Your turn, Barnes."

He huffs, but he drops in the quarter you gave him. The machine grinds and another card falls. He picks it up. You don't see it at first, but you see his face—the way his jaw loosens, the way his eyes soften at the corners.

It's the same image, but the text beneath reads: What was written in the stars has come to pass. Trust the path, trust your heart.

The noise of the fair fades to a distant hum. You look up at him, and he's already looking at you.

"Bucky—"

"I don't care if it's rigged. I don't care if every card in that thing says the same thing. You're—" He stops, swallowing thickly. "You're it for me. You know that, right?"

Your heart is doing that complicated thing again, the thing it does every time he looks at you like you're the only person in the world.

"I know," you whisper. "Me too."

He kisses you then, right there in front of Madam Zola and half of Brooklyn, his hand cradling your jaw like you're something precious. When you pull apart, you're both breathless, and someone's wolf-whistled from the skee-ball line, but none of you seem to care at all.

"Come on," he says, lacing his fingers through yours. "I saw a ring toss on the way in, I need to win you something."

It takes him four tries and an embarrassing amount of money, and by the end he's swearing at the rigged bottles while you laugh so hard you have to lean against the counter for support. But on the fifth throw, the last ring catches, and the barker hands over the prize with a grudging nod.

It's a ridiculous bear, oversized and caramel-colored, wearing a tiny red bow tie. Bucky presents it to you as if he was handing you over the Holy Grail.

"For you. I was gonna go for the giant panda, but this one looked like it needed you more."

You crush it against your chest, burying your face in its soft synthetic fur. "I love him. I'm naming him James."

"You're not naming him after me."

"I'm absolutely naming him after you. Look at him, he has your expression."

Bucky stares at the bear's blank button eyes and then at you, and then he laughs, tilting his head back and you want to take a picture of him like this—careless, happy.

"Let's go to the photobooth," you demand, grabbing his hand. "Before the light changes."

"Bossy."

"You love when I'm bossy."

He doesn't agree, but he doesn't deny it either.

The photobooth is tucked behind the funhouse, a vintage four-strip model with a faded red curtain and a sign that flashes OUT OF ORDER every third flicker. But when you slide your money in, it whirs to life, and the first bulb flashes before you're ready.

"Wait—" you laugh, still adjusting the bear on your lap.

Too late. The first picture capture you mid-laugh, Bucky leaning in with his mouth open, probably saying something sarcastic.

"Okay, okay, be serious," you say, turning toward him.

"Serious," he repeats, but his eyes are dancing.

The second flash catches you pressing a kiss to his cheek, his hand coming up to rest on your waist. The third finds him turning his head at the last second so your lips meet his instead, his fingers threading into your hair. The fourth flash finds you both laughing into each other's mouths, your foreheads touching, the bear crushed between you. You don't remember who kissed who, but you don't care.

When the strip slides out of the machine, you hold it up to the light, watching the images develop in slow motion. Four tiny windows into a perfect moment. You look at them, and you think about al the cards you've ever pulled, all the lonely spreads and reversed cups, all the years you believed love wasn't meant for you.

And here you are. Here he is. A love out of time.

"I'm putting these on the fridge," you say. "When we get back to the apartment."

"Our apartment," he corrects and your heart flips.

You're moving in together next month. You found a place in Brooklyn with a windowsill wide enough for two cats and a fire escape that gets morning sun. He's already planning on building a spare room for your appointments, and built a shelf for your cards. You told him he didn't have to, that you'd find another place to do your readings and keep the cards in the closet if he wanted, and he looked at you like you'd suggested drowning a kitten.

"It's your gift," he said. "Why would I want you to hide it?"

Later, when the moon is high and the fair lights are starting to dim, you sit together on the boardwalk with your shoes off, toes buried in cool sand, sharing a funnel cake.

"We should get home," you say, but you don't move. "Salem and Nova are probably destroying something."

"They're fine, Nova's probably sleeping on my tool bag, and Salem's judging her from the windowsill."

"How do you know that?"

"Because that's what they do every time I'm there." He licks powdered sugar off his thumb. "Those cats have a very established routine. Nova loves me, Salem tolerates me… it's a good system."

You smile, leaning your head on his shoulder. "Salem tolerates everyone, that's just his personality. Nova loves anyone who gives her attention. They're not a good benchmark."

"Okay." He pauses. "Then you love me. And you're a much better benchmark."

You go still. The word hangs in the air between you, but he doesn't take it back. He just turns his head and looks at you, waiting, his eyes reflecting the last of the carnival lights.

"I do," you whisper. "I love you."

His smile is small and yet so full of hope it makes your chest ache. "I love you too. I think I started loving you the day you shut the door on my face."

"You have terrible taste."

"Must be the century I was born in, we liked 'em feisty."

You laugh, pushing at his chest, and he catches your hand and presses a kiss to your knuckles. You sit like that for a long time, watching the tide come in, his thumb tracing slow circles in your palm. Eventually, he reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out the fortune card from Madam Zola's machine.

"Do you think it's true?" he asks quietly. "The whole destiny thing. Do you really believe we were supposed to find each other?"

You look at the card, then at him—the man who was born over a hundred years ago, who fought a war and survived things you can't imagine, that sometimes admit not knowing how to do any of this, but that tries anyway for you.

"I believe," you start, "that the cards pointed me in a direction. They told me to wait, to not settle for something that wasn't right." You turn his hand over, tracing the lines of his palm—his life line, long and unbroken; the heart line, deep and sure. "But I don't think they made this happen, Bucky. I think we did. I think you showed up at my shop and you were rude and impossible and I couldn't stop thinking about you anyway. I think we let Maggie manipulate us into falling in love. The cards didn't do that, we did."

"Okay," he says. "I like that better anyway."

"Me too."

He folds the car again and tucks it back into his pocket, over his heart. "I'm keeping this, though. As evidence."

"Evidence of what?"

"That sometimes the universe gets it right."

You don't pull cards that night, haven't done it for a while, because you don't need to. You fall asleep with Bucky's heartbeat against your back, Salem purring at your feet, Nova curled on the pillow between you like a furry chaperone, and you dream of nothing at all—just the deep, peaceful dark of a life that's finally exactly where it's meant to be.

you've been to enough of joe's concerts to know exactly what happens when the lights go down.

the screams start before he even walks onto the stage.

it doesn't matter if it's a small venue or a sold-out arena. the reaction is always the same. people immediately start cheering, phones rise into the air, and somewhere in the crowd someone inevitably shouts that they love him. tonight is no different.

you find yourself smiling before he even appears.

then the stage lights flicker on.

and there he is.

for a moment, you forget to breathe.

which is ridiculous, because you've seen him this morning.

you watched him wander around the hotel room looking for a clean shirt. you listened to him complain about the terrible coffee downstairs. you kissed him goodbye before he left for soundcheck.

and yet somehow the second he walks onto a stage, something changes.

the crowd erupts around you.

girls scream.

someone behind you starts crying.

a group near the barricade is already chanting his name.

joe laughs into the microphone, shaking his head as he adjusts the strap of his guitar, and the reaction somehow gets even louder.

you should be used to it by now.

you aren't.

throughout the show, you catch yourself watching him more than listening to the music. not because of the performance itself, but because of the way people look at him. every time he smiles, the audience melts. every time he pushes his hair back, hundreds of phones immediately point in his direction. it's almost fascinating.

sometimes you wonder what it's like from his perspective.

to be looked at like that all the time.

to have complete strangers decide they adore you before they've ever spoken to you.

during one of the slower songs, his gaze drifts toward your side of the crowd.

you know he can't properly see you through the lights.

or at least you think he can't.

but somehow his eyes settle there anyway.

his smile softens.

the lyrics are about love.

about wanting someone so much it becomes impossible to ignore.

and suddenly your heart does that annoying thing where it starts beating too fast.

you look away first.

like a coward.

when the concert ends almost two hours later, you're still smiling as security leads you backstage. crew members move around carrying equipment while distant voices echo through the corridors. somewhere nearby someone is discussing tomorrow's schedule. another person is rolling flight cases toward the loading area.

you've done this dozens of times.

waiting for joe after a show has become familiar.

comfortable.

normally, you enjoy these moments.

tonight is different.

it starts with a conversation you weren't supposed to hear.

you're leaning against a wall, scrolling mindlessly through your phone while waiting for him to finish talking to staff, when a group of girls walk past. they're close enough that their voices carry easily through the hallway.

"he looked so good tonight."

you don't pay much attention at first.

people say things like that constantly.

"seriously," another girl says. "he's so hot."

their friends immediately agree.

you stare at your phone.

pretend you're not listening.

pretend you can't hear every word.

"i wish i was his girlfriend."

laughter follows.

"same."

"can you imagine?"

"i'd never stop bragging about it."

you swallow.

for some reason, your stomach twists.

you tell yourself it's stupid.

they don't know.

they have absolutely no idea who you are.

they're just fans.

there's nothing wrong with what they're saying.

and yet you stay rooted to the spot.

unable to stop listening.

"honestly?" another voice says. "i bet he's an amazing boyfriend."

"oh, definitely."

"i bet he's good in bed too."

the entire group bursts into laughter.

heat immediately rises to your face. you look down at the floor. suddenly very interested in absolutely anything other than this conversation.

because the thing is—they aren't talking about a celebrity to you.

they're talking about your boyfriend.

the boy who falls asleep during movies.

the boy who steals fries off your plate after insisting he isn't hungry.

the boy who kisses your forehead every single morning.

and yet, to everyone else, he's something completely different.

something unattainable.

something desirable.

something everybody wants.

the thought settles heavily in your chest.

because they aren't the first people you've heard talk like that.

they won't be the last.

there are thousands of them.

millions, probably.

people who look at joe and immediately fall a little bit in love with the idea of him.

people who would say yes without hesitation if he ever looked their way.

people prettier than you.

funnier than you.

more successful than you.

girls who belong in his world far more naturally than you ever have.

before you can spiral any further, a familiar pair of arms wraps around your waist.

you jump slightly.

joe laughs.

"there you are."

his voice instantly pulls you back to reality.

you turn around and he's already smiling at you.

his hair is damp with sweat from the show, his cheeks slightly flushed from performing, and despite the fact that you've spent the last five minutes questioning everything, your heart immediately softens at the sight of him.

"hi," you say quietly.

"hi." without thinking, he leans down and presses a quick kiss against your lips.

easy.

casual.

natural.

like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

"did you have fun?"

you nod, "you were amazing."

he grins, "i know."

you roll your eyes, "you're unbelievable."

"you still like me."

unfortunately, he's right.

the drive back to the hotel is quiet.

not awkward.

just quiet.

joe talks about the show, tells you a story about something that went wrong backstage, complains about one of the venue's dressing rooms, and occasionally reaches over to squeeze your knee.

you answer.

you laugh when you're supposed to.

you participate in the conversation.

but part of your mind remains stuck in that hallway.

stuck on those girls.

stuck on the realization that everyone seems to want him.

and for the life of you, you can't understand why he chose you.

the days after the concert don’t change anything on the surface, which is almost the problem.

joe is still joe.

he still texts you in the morning asking if you’re awake yet, still sends you stupid photos of his breakfast with captions that make no sense, still shows up at your place like he belongs there without ever needing to announce it. he still laughs the same way, still reaches for your hand without thinking, still looks at you like you’re the most natural thing in the world.

and you still love him.

that part doesn’t change either.

what changes is everything you don’t say.

it starts small. you reply a little later than usual. you stop sending him the random thoughts that used to fill your day. you hesitate before agreeing to plans, like you need to calculate whether you deserve to take up space in his schedule. joe notices, of course he does, but at first he doesn’t push. he just watches you with that quiet patience he has, like he’s giving you time to come back to yourself.

but you don’t really know how.

one afternoon you end up in a café you used to like. it’s nothing special, just warm light, soft noise, people typing on laptops and turning pages, the smell of coffee that feels familiar in a way your thoughts don’t. you’re sitting near the window when you see him through the glass reflection, even before you properly register it. joe walks in wearing a cap, sunglasses, hoodie pulled up like it could ever actually hide him, and the moment he steps inside the atmosphere changes. you feel it before you see it.

two girls at the counter notice him immediately.

you don’t even need to hear them at first to know what’s happening. it’s the same pattern. the pause, the double take, the sudden whispering like the world has tilted slightly off balance. then one of them laughs too loudly, nudges the other, and you catch fragments of it through the noise of the café.

“that’s him, right?”

“oh my god, it is.”

“he looks even better in person.”

you stare down at your coffee like it might offer answers.

joe orders calmly, politely, like none of it is unusual. like being looked at like that is just part of existing. he thanks the barista, steps aside, and for a second his eyes scan the room until they land on you. his expression changes instantly, softening in a way nobody else in that café gets to see.

he walks over.

you try to smile properly.

it almost works.

“hey,” he says, sliding into the seat across from you like he’s been doing it his whole life.

“hey.”

he studies your face for a second too long.

“you’ve been quiet.”

you shrug, stirring your coffee even though it doesn’t need it.

“just tired.”

he doesn’t answer right away. he never calls you out directly when you lie like that. instead, he just reaches across the table and takes your hand, turning it over gently like he’s checking if you’re still there with him.

“you’re slipping away a bit,” he says quietly.

your chest tightens.

“i’m not.”

but even you can hear how unconvincing it sounds.

the silence between you stretches. outside, people walk past the window, laughing, living normal lives that don’t feel like this. joe’s thumb moves slowly over your knuckles, grounding you in a way you’re not sure you deserve.

“talk to me,” he says finally.

and that’s the thing. he always says it like it’s simple.

like you can just open your mouth and fix everything.

you take a breath you don’t fully finish.

“it’s stupid.”

joe shakes his head immediately.

“don’t do that.”

you laugh once, but it breaks halfway.

“you don’t get it.”

“then help me.”

you look at him properly for the first time in days. really look. the person everyone screams for, the person people build entire fantasies around, sitting across from you like none of that exists in this moment. like you are the only thing that matters in a world that refuses to stop wanting him.

and it comes out before you can soften it.

“everyone wants you.”

joe blinks slowly, like he’s trying to understand where this is going.

“okay.”

you swallow.

“like, all the time. everywhere we go. at the concert, at cafés, online, everywhere. and it’s not even their fault, it’s just… you. people look at you like you’re something they can just reach for.”

you stop, because your voice is starting to shake and you hate that it is.

joe doesn’t interrupt.

he just waits.

so you keep going, even though it hurts.

“and i just keep thinking… why me?”

that lands differently.

you can see it in his face.

“what do you mean, why you?”

you shrug helplessly.

“you could be with anyone. literally anyone. there are people who fit your life better, who understand it better, who don’t feel like they’re constantly standing in the wrong place next to you.”

joe exhales slowly, like he’s trying very hard not to react too fast.

“is that what this is about?”

you don’t answer.

because if you say it out loud, it becomes real.

he leans forward slightly, elbows on the table now, eyes locked on yours in a way that makes everything else in the café disappear.

“do you think i’m just… waiting for someone else?”

your silence is answer enough.

joe laughs once, but there’s no humour in it.

“that’s insane.”

you flinch a little.

“i don’t mean it like that.”

“then what do you mean?”

you hesitate.

then finally, barely above a whisper:

“i mean i don’t understand why you chose me.”

that’s it.

the truth sitting between you like something fragile and dangerous.

joe stares at you for a long moment, like he’s trying to find the exact place where your thoughts started to break away from reality. when he speaks again, his voice is softer, but firmer too, like he’s decided something.

“look at me.”

you already are, but you do it again anyway.

he reaches across the table and takes both of your hands this time, holding them like he’s making sure you can’t drift away mid-sentence.

“you think i don’t see all that stuff?” he asks quietly. “you think i don’t know people look at me? that people say things? that they’d all line up to be with me if they could?”

you nod slightly, because yes. obviously.

joe shakes his head.

“it doesn’t matter.”

you blink.

“it has to matter a little.”

“no,” he says simply. “it doesn’t.”

there’s a pause, heavier this time, but not uncomfortable. just full.

then he adds, like it should be obvious:

“because i’m not looking at them.”

your throat tightens.

joe’s thumb brushes over your fingers again, slower now, steadier.

“i’m not thinking about them. i’m not choosing between people. i’m not… whatever story you’re telling yourself in your head.”

you want to interrupt him, but you can’t.

he doesn’t let you.

“i chose you,” he says, very clearly now, like he needs it to land properly. “not because you were the safest option. not because you were convenient. not because you were the only one who said yes. because it was you.”

your vision blurs slightly, which is annoying, because you were trying very hard not to cry in a café.

joe notices anyway.

of course he does.

his expression softens immediately.

“hey,” he says, quieter now. “you’re here with me. not with them. not with any of that noise. just… here.”

you take a shaky breath.

“it just feels like everyone wants a piece of you.”

he nods slowly, like he understands that part at least.

“yeah,” he admits. “they do.”

then, after a pause: “but i don’t belong to them.”

you look at him.

he gives you a small, almost tired smile.

“i go out there, i do the concerts, i do the interviews, whatever. and then i come back. and when i come back, i don’t want applause or attention or any of that.”

he squeezes your hands gently.

“i want you.”

the café around you keeps moving like nothing important is happening. someone laughs near the counter. a cup clinks against a plate. outside, life continues completely unaware of the way your chest feels like it’s finally unclenching after weeks of holding its breath.

you don’t suddenly stop caring about everything.

that would be too easy.

but something shifts.

not everything.

just enough.

joe leans back slightly, still holding one of your hands, like he’s not fully done making sure you’re still there.

“next time you start disappearing,” he says, softer now, almost teasing, “just tell me. don’t do the silent mysterious thing. it’s annoying.”

you let out a small laugh despite yourself.

“i’m not mysterious.”

“you are when you’re stressed.”

you roll your eyes, but your fingers tighten around his.

and for the first time in a while, when you look at him, you don’t just see everything other people want.

you see what he’s actually choosing.

and it’s you.

Joe's messages came just after four in the morning.

baby 🧁🩷 Wrapped early, landing tonight Home around six Can't wait to see you, hug you, kiss you, my wife

You smiled, that was all you needed.

By eight in the morning, your apartment already smelled like your cafe. Batter splattered the countertop. Cooling racks covered every available surface. One hundred cupcakes sat neatly lined across the dining table, each decorated with pastel frosting and tiny sugar flowers.

You wiped your forehead with the back of your hand, admiring your work. "Welcome home, Joe," you whispered proudly. You’re planning to have a welcome home party for your future husband. Then, out of habit, your thumb brushed over your ring finger.

Your right hand felt nothing, you looked down, and your engagement ring was gone. Your entire body froze. "fuck." Your soul genuinely left your body. "No no no no, no."

You checked your other hand. Your apron pockets, kitchen counter, nothing.  You practically threw yourself onto the floor, checking beneath the dining table. Neither in the bathroom, bedroom, closet, laundry basket, under the pillows, inside Ponkan’s cardboard house, inside Cookie’s little tunnel.

You stopped in the middle of the apartment, suddenly remembering exactly what you'd been doing all morning. You slowly looked toward the mountain of cupcakes. 

"I decorated one hundred cupcakes while wearing my engagement ring." You stared at the cupcakes. "Oh my god."

Thirty minutes later, your apartment looked like an emergency meeting.

Your café staff had arrived first, you bought everything available in the café and told them to give it away so they all could come. Then, Jake, Matt, Javi, Dalton, and Wesley came together.  Eventually, even the old man from 6D appeared, carrying his usual walking cane. 

It was two in the afternoon. You stood in front of everyone with your hands on your hips. You took a deep breath. "Okay, I need everyone's help." They nodded seriously. "You all have to eat these cupcakes."

"YES!" Javi shouted immediately. The apartment echoed. He cleared his throat. "Sorry, please continue."

You pointed at the cupcakes. "And if anyone feels something hard..." You swallowed. "raise your hand."

Your co-baker frowned. "Why?"

You answered much too quickly. "No reason."

Matt narrowed his eyes. "Y/N, you lost the ring, don’t you?."

"What? No way, fine, yes I lost it. So, please.” You sighed dramatically. "I only have four hours before Joe gets home." The apartment collectively gasped.

Jake immediately cracked his knuckles. "I volunteer."

Before anyone could respond, you added, "The person who finds it gets one month of free pastries."

Complete silence filled the apartment. Dalton lunged for the table. Matt shoved him aside.

"You moved first!"

"Not so fast!"

Jake quietly grabbed six cupcakes while they argued. Your barista immediately slapped his hand.

"Excuse me."

"What is your problem?"

"I'll find the ring and get the free pastries I want."

"You'll find diabetes."

Yes, Jake and your barista get on each other’s nerves. You don’t mind them, all you care about at the moment is finding your ring. 

The old man from 6D calmly selected three cupcakes. "I'll have these."

"Only three?" your cashier asked.

"I'm seventy-nine, I’d like to see eighty." He smiled politely.

Meanwhile, Dalton already had frosting on his nose and on his cheeks. "I've eaten fifteen."

Matt swallowed another cupcake, icing splattered on his shirt. "Sixteen."

Dalton grabbed two another. "Seventeen."

Matt immediately took two. "Eighteen."

Wesley pinched the bridge of his nose. "This isn't a competition."

Both of them answered at the same time. "Ooh, it absolutely is."

“You only say that because this ain’t macarons. If this is macarons, you’re throwing yourself at the tabl—”Javi didn’t even finish his sentence when Wesley shoved a cupcake in his mouth. 

“Eat, man. Eat.” Wesley said, unwrapping one more cupcake. 

Your youngest employee suddenly stood up. "I...cant" She covered her mouth, she sprinted toward your bathroom. The sound of the door slamming echoed through the apartment.

Jake watched her go. "Weak."

Your barista glared. "She's just had eight."

Jake shrugged. "I've had twelve."

“Just keep eating, I don’t care who ate more.” you bite three cupcakes all at once. Completely under pressure. 

Hours passed. Cupcake wrappers covered the coffee table. Crumbs everywhere. Plastic cups on the floor.  The apartment smelled aggressively like chocolate, vanilla, and regret.

Javi had somehow fallen asleep sitting perfectly upright in a dining chair, still holding half a cupcake in one hand. Every now and then his head dipped forward before jerking back up again, only for him to continue sleeping as if nothing had happened.

Dalton sat slumped against the couch, one hand dramatically over his stomach. "I don't think I’ll ever eat again." he muttered weakly.

Across from him, Matt looked equally miserable, yet somehow still refused to surrender. "I've had...twenty-two," he swallowed carefully.

Dalton immediately lifted his head. "...Twenty-three."

Jake, meanwhile, attempted to reach for another cupcake from the table. His hand made it halfway before giving up and slowly dropping back onto his lap. "You know what never mind."

Your barista watched the entire thing unfold with the most judgmental expression imaginable. "I told you."

Jake sighed dramatically. "You always do."

"And I'm always right."

Wesley had completely disappeared into the bathroom nearly fifteen minutes ago. Every now and then, his exhausted voice drifted through the hallway. "I don't even like cupcakes anymore. I won’t even eat cupcakes for a year."

Your youngest employee sat on the rug with tears streaming down her face. "I don't know why I'm crying."

Your cashier gently patted her shoulder. "It's the sugar, girl."

"I miss vegetables."

Your co-baker had reached the stage where everything was funny. She pointed at Dalton and started giggling. Looked at Wesley and laughed even harder. Then glanced at absolutely nothing before dissolving into another fit of laughter.

"I can't stop," she wheezed. "It isn't even funny anymore." Which only made her laugh harder.

In the middle of all the chaos, the old man remained perfectly composed. He crossed one leg over the other, lifted his teacup, and took a slow, civilized sip.

After a thoughtful pause, he nodded once. "I believe I'm done investigating."

You checked every empty wrapper, nothing. Your eyes burned. "Oh god, what am I going to tell Joe?"

Just then, Cookie suddenly launched himself across the living room. Zoomies is the biggest enemy when it comes to Cookie, if Ponkan doesn’t care about the world, Cookie is the total opposite. 

Cookie went straight toward the couch. He bounced against the cushions repeatedly, pawing at something. Ponkan, who had been asleep for the last six hours, barely opened one eye.

"Mreow." Cookie kept bothering him.

"Cookie," you sighed. "Leave your brother alone."

You walked over, gently scooping Ponkan into your arms. The orange cat stretched dramatically. A tiny sparkle caught the afternoon sunlight.

Everyone froze.

There, your engagement ring was perfectly nestled into the couch cushion. Looks like Ponkan slept on it.  The apartment fell silent. Everyone exchanged glances. Your barista slowly lowered her cupcake.

Dalton whispered, "No way."

Wesley looked at the mountain of empty wrappers. "We ate ninety-three cupcakes."

The old man from 6D quietly took another sip of tea. "Could've been worse. We could've eaten one hundred." Nobody had the energy to laugh. 

You burst into relieved tears instead, laughing so hard you almost dropped Ponkan. "Oh my god!" You slipped the ring back onto your finger, kissing the top of Ponkan's head over and over. "My sweet boy!" Ponkan blinked lazily. Completely unaware he'd just ended the most ridiculous investigation in history.

Right on cue, the front door unlocked. Joe stepped inside carrying his duffel bag and suitcase. "Honey, I’m home!" He stopped. His eyes slowly scanned the apartment. “Did I miss something?"

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minor inconveniences stacked upon each other that just made his day seem to drag on. he discreetly checks his watch for the umpteenth time during the signing and sighs. almost over.

“excuse me, mister joe?”

joe’s gaze shifts back to the table in front of him, eyes slightly wide in surprise at the small voice. his eyes land on a little girl, no older than five, peaking over the table, a copy of the crux cd clutched in her hand.

“oh, hello there.” joe smiles, leaning forward across the table.

“hi!” the girl beams with a wide smile. joe fondly notes the missing front tooth.

“what’s your name?” joe asks, reaching his hand out as she slides her album across the table.

“sarah!”

“it’s nice to meet you, sarah. i’m joe.” he says as he signs her cd before giving her his undivided attention.

“oh my gosh!” the girl whispers loudly to herself causing joe to chuckle. he reaches his hand across the table, holding it out towards her. she stares at it with wide eyes before she places her small hand in his large one. that was all it took.

the girl’s eyes became glassy and her bottom lip wobbled.

“i love you so much,” the girl wails softly bringing joe to full alert.

“oh, don’t cry sweetheart.” joe says as he stands up and rounds the table to crouch in front of her, holding his arms out. “can i have a hug?”

the girl nods quickly and falls into joe’s arms. she sniffles against his chest and joe swears he can feel his heart melt.

he doesn’t pull back until the girl does, and when he does, he smiles warmly at her.

“can i tell you a secret?” joe asks, and the girl once again nods, tears slowly drying up. joe leans in and lowers his voice to a whisper.

“you’re my favorite fan. i’m so lucky to get to meet you.” the girl’s eyes lights up and she lets out a soft gasp. she glances back at her mom in disbelief while joe just smiles fondly.

they snap a quick picture and he gives the girl one more hug before she’s skipping away, exclaiming to her mom that she hugged joe keery.

it makes something warm settle in joe’s chest as he watches her walk away. the feeling lingers through the rest of the signing and follows him on his way home. on the train, he can’t help but let his mind drift back to the interaction and how much that little girl stole his heart.

his mind began to drift towards you and how you interact with children. the two of you had never talked about it seriously, but joe knew he wanted a family with you someday. and he knew you would be a great mom.

the image of the little girl in his head slowly began to morph into a different version. one with your nose and smile and, hopefully, your eyes. one with joe’s messy brown curls and freckles. one that was a perfect mix of both you and him.

the thought brings back that warm feeling in full force. a soft smile settles on joes face and stays there the entire way home.

when joe stumbles into the apartment, kicking off his shoes and setting down his bag, you’re in the kitchen looking through the pantry trying to figure out dinner.

you glance you as he enters the kitchen and smile. “hi baby. how was your day?”

“long. missed you.” joe mumbles as he walks over to you, wrapping his arms around your waist and resting his head against your shoulder.

“yeah? how’d the signing go?”

joe smiles against your sweater before he pulls back enough to look down at you.

“it was good. really good.” you catch the fond look on his face immediately. you raise a brow, unable to help but mirror his soft smile.

“what’s that look for?” you ask, wrapping your arms around his neck.

“there was this girl there.”

“should i be worried?”

“no, not like that. a little girl. she had to be, like, five or six. cutest damn thing. she came up to the table with her own album and everything. she called me mister keery.”

you snort. “mister keery. that’s adorable.”

“yeah. and then she started crying.” joe adds.

“joseph, did you make a child cry?”

“no! no, not like that. she started crying and said she loved me so much. it was really sweet.”

you could tell by the look on his face that it really affected him. he had this soft look on his face that he got when he was feeling sentimental.

“i don’t know, i just,” joe shakes his head, emotion welling up in his eyes. “it just made me start thinking.”

your heart jumps in your chest at the tone of his voice and the implications of his words. you smile, bringing one of your hands to brush against his cheek.

“oh yeah?”

“yeah. i started thinking about you and how good you are with kids and how you’d know just what to do with the girl so naturally. then i started thinking about our own little girl.”

“our little girl?” you ask, your smile widening slightly.

“yeah. she’d have your nose and eyes and your smile. maybe my hair, probably my freckles. she’d be kind like you. i would teach her about music and we would go to the beach house during the summers. i dont know, it’s probably silly.”

“it’s not silly, joe.” you insist. in fact, his ramblings filled you with that same warm feeling that joe held in his chest. “i can see it.”

joe’s face lights up softly as he looks at you. “you can?”

you nod. “i’ve always been able to see it. our family. definitely a little girl. i think it’s in the cards for us one day.”

“yeah? good, that’s good.” joe smiles, clearing his throat to keep his voice from cracking with emotion.

“i want all of that with you. our own little family. you’re the only person i’d dream of doing life with.”

you smile at joe’s words before leaning up to peck his lips. “good. because you’re the only person i’d wanna do that with too.”

joe grins, squeezing your hips as he pulls you in closer. “i can’t wait.”

you stand in the kitchen in each others arms for a few moments, relishing in the warmth of the moment until joe breaks the silence.

“so, i guess we should practice, huh?” he teases in your ear. you pull back and slap his chest softly.

“I saw pictures of you and Malcom yesterday.” You know his tone is off.

“Yeah, he was nice I guess.” You subtlety answer not wanting to bring up his tone or lack there of.

“Looked like it.” He says looking past the camera.

“Babe.” You look at him with a really? kind of tone.

“What?”

“Come on, seriously babe I was talking to everyone last night.”

“I know” his gaze leaves the screen again.

“Do you? Because I think you’re jealous…”

He laughs with a breath “No I’m not I was just saying he looks nice.”

“Alright babe whatever you say.” you laugh. “I’m excited to see you tomorrow.”

“Me too. You still up to do Last Goodbye?”

“Yeah!”

He nods and smiles sensing your excitement to preform and see him.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · · · · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · · · · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · · · · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · · ·

The next day comes fast. The minute you land Joe is all over you. His arm is always around you or he’s hugging you from behind. You’re sitting on his lap in the green room waiting for him to go on.

“Ok” you say beginning to stand up before he pulls you back on his lap with a smirk. You laugh flopping back. “Joe I need to get dressed.”

“You are dressed” he says pressing his face in your neck.

“Babe I have to get dressed for the show.” You pull his face out of your neck and run your hands through his hair. “You’ve been so clingy all day for someone who claims they were not at all jealous.”

He pulls back in fake offense. “So what if I was I missed you.”

“I missed you too and I can assure you there is no reason to be jealous.” You rest your hands on his shoulders.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · · · · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · · · · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · · · · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · · ·

Joes voice echos through the stadium as he announces your presence. You run through the barricaded pathway to the stage high fiving and smiling at fans. You climb up the stairs and greeted by a tight hug from Joe. He releases you with a smile, bringing the microphone to his lips. “Come on everybody! Look who it is.” The crowd cheered as you laughed and walked over to the mic stand snapping the mic into place. The chords to the intro rang out and you could see some fans recognize instantly.

Joe gazed at you the whole song there was something in his gut he couldn’t shake. After tonight he would be far away from you again and people at events would steal your attention. He knew you would never cheat it wasn’t you he was worried about it was the lingering glances some people gave you. The obvious flirting in conversations, leaning in closer when you talked. When the song needed he walked over to give you another hug as you waved bye to Javi, Wes, the rest of the band and the crowd. He watched you disappear back into the arena.

· · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · · · · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · · · · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · · · · ─ ·𖥸· ─ · · ·

The green room was cold and quiet, you throw on one of Joe’s hoodies and a cap. You check your phone, he has 20 more minutes on his set. You make your way down the narrow hallway leading to side stage.

“Hey!” You turn to the voice to see Kevin getting ready for his set.

“Hey! You excited for another night?”

“Always. You did great tonight!” He smiles taking a mic pack from a stage hand with a quiet thank you.

“Thank you! I had so much fun!” You both begin to walk closer to the side stage discussing the night and how much longer you’re staying.

What you didn’t realize is Joe noticed you two on the side and once he noticed he couldn’t stop looking. The feeling had returned it was a mix of nausea and something that wasn’t quite anger. He knew Kevin would never he had a wife and was nothing but friendly but it was the thought of you with someone else.

Kevin had left to gather last minute things as you finished watching Joes set. He glanced over often way too often. His performer self usually wouldn’t waver from the moment and audience for too long but something caught his attention and you know exactly what it was.

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The hotel door creaked when you opened it stepping inside. Joe walks straight past you hopping on the bed in exhaustion. You giggle at his dramatics.

“I had so much fun tonight.” You lay next to him both staring at the ceiling.

“Me too.” His answer was short.

You turn on your side. “Alright drama queen what’s wrong?” His eyes don’t move from the ceiling

“Nothing just tired.”

“Babe.” you spoke softly but strongly. With that he turns his body to face you.

“It’s stupid.”

“If you’re this upset it clearly isn’t.” you laugh out

“I trust you, you know that.” you nod because it’s true there is a strong mutual trust in your relationship that you both had a hard time finding in previous endeavors. “I just have this irrational fear you’ll decide you want better.” he says every word looking right in your eyes.

“I would nev-“ his lips crash into yours. A suprised gasp escapes you when he immediately pushes his tongue past yours lips. He was not taking it slow, not tonight. You can’t even register how fast every thing before he flips his body to tower over yours breaking the kiss to look into your eyes, a silent look for reassurance before he dives back into your lips.

His hand moves to the hem of your shirt and (his) hoodie pulling it off revealing nothing underneath. He pulls away in shock.

You shrug. “Needed to get comfy after my 5 minutes of fame.” He lets out a breathy laugh and moves his head to your neck licking and nipping at the soft sensitive skin. Gasps whisper from your lips as you move to take his shirt off, discarding it on the floor. He returns to your lips as his hands knead your bare breasts peaking the buds. You slot your knee between his thighs pressing gently on his obvious hard on. A whine leaves his lips when you put your knee down. You take that as a sign to work the button and zipper of his jeans.

“Fuck babe I guess we’re both in a rush tonight.” He says drawing circles on your hips. You pull his jeans and boxes down in one swift motion. You look between your bodies.

“God.” you throw your head back. The sight never failed to make your thighs clench. He noticed immediately pulling your shorts and underwear down. He moans at the sight of your soaked core.

“No need for foreplay huh?” You shake your head. “Gonna make sure you know you can never leave me.” You moan throwing your hand on his shoulder gripping tight at the thought.

He wasn’t joking when he said no foreplay because the next second he slams into you harshly making you arch off the bed with a loud moan.

“Fuck Joe” He keeps pounding into in steady hard motions that hit the spot that makes your whole body tense every time.

“That’s it baby.” He says looking between your bodies with a groan. “Never gonna forget are you?”

“Fuck no I’m not” you say with a cry as you feel his lips attach to the sweet spot on your neck. The coil in your gut grows tighter. “I’m close fuck i’m so close.” You murmur between breathy moans.

“Me too baby” He whispered in your ear making you shatter at the sound you clench around him as his thrusts begin to falter. “Quick babe where do you want me?” he says between groans.

“Inside fuck.” you’re still riding out your high.

“Oh fuck.” The sound of your voice sent him over the edge spilling deep in you. He lays gently on top of you. Sweat and heavy breathing fill the atmosphere as you sit in silence.

“I’m never leaving you ever Joe.” He looks up with a grin and light in his eyes. “I love you way too much.”

“I love you too baby.” he places a gentle kiss on your lips.

“Plus you’re way too good in bed.”

“Oh i know” he says full of pride. “You don’t just make those sounds for fun.” You slap him playfully.

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Thank you for reading!! I’m sorry it’s so short I’ve been in a really bad slump recently!!

Being Robin's friend had its perks.

You have so many funny stories with her, you knew each other's deepest secret. And of course, you used to have free ice cream when she was still working at Scoops Ahoy, even if it led you to Russians and weird monsters. And now you get to be able to give back tapes a bit later than you should.

And needless to say, one of the best perks has to be Steve. You weren't fond of him at first, the high-school image that you had of him was still engraved in your mind. But when you saw him for the first time in his ridiculous sailor outfit being so awkward at every interaction he had, yeah, maybe he wasn't that bad.

Unsurprisingly, fighting monsters that shouldn't even exist and Russians that were convinced that you knew more than you were telling made you way closer to Steve. Going from acquaintance to friends to maybe something more now.

Since they started to work at Family Video, you went almost every day. At first, it was to mainly see Robin after your own work, needing to rant about those awful customers at the record store. But Steve quickly involved himself in the ranting. And he was always so supportive of any story you were telling. His big brown eyes were so focused on you, hanging on every word you were saying like it was the most interesting thing he got to hear all day. And it probably was with how little things were happening in the store.

And recently, you were starting to feel like he was caring more than the stories you were telling. Each time you were being upset about something that happened earlier in the day, you could be sure that his hand would find any part of your body. A hand squeezing your shoulder, fingers brushing yours, or even his arm wrapping around your shoulders.

He was always dropping you off knowing that you were taking the bus to come here, and those moments were dragging since you were always speaking for ages about everything even when you were already stopped in front of your house.

You even had some 'friendly dates' on your rest days, going to take a coffee or just going at each other for movies that could escalate to some cuddles while rewatching Blade Runner because it was your favorite, and Steve just wanted a good reason to hold you close.

You always tried to brush it off, thinking that Steve was just being affectionate and caring as a friend, even if Robin always told you that it was anything but friendly. He has always been touchy with his friends. And you didn't want to have your hopes up because it had been easy to fall for Steve.

But it had also been easy to know that you weren't really Steve's type.

You weren't the type of girl that he went for. You weren't some flirty girls, giggling at every dumb joke he was throwing at them. You were awkward, not really comfortable with social interactions, and absolutely not a flirt.

But when Steve started to show even more interest in you, starting to even kiss you, after making sure you were comfortable with it, you couldn't help but hope that maybe, just maybe, you could be his type.

One night, after dropping off Robin, you stayed together in his car, his hand around the back of your neck, his thumb brushing the skin there.

"Are you free Saturday night?" You heard him ask, his head getting closer to yours, his breath warm against your skin.

You blinked at him before nodding. "Yeah, I think so. Why?"

"You, me, and the restaurant at the corner? Your favorite?" Steve asked, a big grin on his face.

The question didn't even really register that you were already nodding, your cheeks feeling warmer.

"Yeah, sounds good."

"Perfect. See you tomorrow, baby." His lips went on your cheek, leaving a long kiss before waving at you the moment you were getting out of the car.

You couldn't wait for Saturday to arrive.

You opened the door of Family Video with your feet, your hands holding two cups of coffee, still hot and ready to be consumed by your two favorite persons.

As you were about to knock on the rest room's door, you heard them talking, and you couldn't help but listen when you heard your name.

"So... you two?" Robin asked, and even without seeing her face you could hear the smile on her lips.

"Us two?"

"Yeah, dingus. You're all over each other. And she's always so comfortable around you. Which means a lot coming from her." She says, and you smile as if you were hearing Robin.

"Oh, yeah, I mean... she's nice and pretty and all. But I'm not sure if this could work actually." You heard Steve shrug before continuing to talk. But you were too focused on what he previously said to even follow the rest of the conversation.

It was like everything around you disappeared. Your ears were ringing, your breath getting heavier as his words were repeated over and over in your head.

Not sure if this could work.

He said it so easily, like what you did together was nothing. Like every kiss, every date that wasn't labeled as a date but definitely was, every sweet word whispered in the middle of the night meant absolutely nothing for him.

The burning sensation of the hot cups in your hands brings you back to reality, and you quickly take a big breath before knocking on the door, your eyes a bit misty as you enter the rest room, your gaze focused on Robin.

"Coffee delivery." Your voice lacked the usual jolly tone you usually had around them. It was obvious you were seconds away from breaking down.

"You're a lifesaver, baby, thank you so much." Steve said as he stood up, arm wrapping around your waist, pulling you closer to plant a kiss on your forehead before taking the cup.

"Yeah, thank youuuu... Today is way too long, it's hell... I swear I will start hallucinating customers if no one is coming." Robin spun on her chair, looking like she was seconds away from breaking down.

You just gave them a small smile that didn't even reach your eyes. And unfortunately for you, Steve was good at noticing that.

"You okay there?" He nudged his nose against your temple, a frown on his stupidly perfect face.

"Yeah, just tired. I... I think I'm just going to head home." And the moment you said that, you saw the way Steve was getting pouty, a sad frown taking place on his lips.

"Yeah? You need anything? The store is dead, I'm sure I can drop you off."

You just shook your head, not wanting to stay longer here. "I'm okay. Thank you, Steve." You pushed yourself away from him, his warmth leaving you.

"Okay, be safe, baby. Call me if you need anything." Steve leaned down to plant a kiss on your lips, but you were quicker than him, and you were already at the door, waving them goodbye.

The moment you were gone, Steve gave a confused look at Robin, and she could only respond with the same look, not sure what happened for you to act like that.

After that day, you didn't come after work to see any of them. You were feeling bad for your best friend because she didn't do anything to you. But it's not like you could separate them. They were attached to the hip. And seeing Robin meant seeing Steve. Which was what you were trying not to do.

You spend your nights getting in your head, thinking about what made Steve want to keep things casual. If you were maybe too much or not enough. You didn't have much experience with boys, maybe that was a turn-off, especially for someone like Steve. He could have anyone he wanted. Why would he choose you? He probably just liked the attention you were giving him so easily after being rejected for way too long.

Your thoughts were cut short by the sound of the phone ringing. You were too tired to even think that it could be Steve, so you answered, voice low.

"Yeah?"

"Thank god I thought you weren't going to answer." Steve's voice could be heard on the other line of the phone, relief obvious in his tone.

You gulped at his voice, tempted to just end the call. You were silent, not really in the mood to make conversation.

"Are you okay there, baby?" He asked, and you could hear how confused he was.

"Why did you call?" You finally asked, trying your best to not let your voice shake.

Steve scoffed at that question like it personally offended him. "Because I'm worried? I barely saw you this week. I miss you."

"If you say so." You whispered to yourself.

"What do you mean if I say so? You don't believe me?" He sounded hurt by your words.

"I don't know, Steve... I'm sorry."

"What do you mean you're so—" But you hang up before he can finish. You weren't ready to have that discussion now. And even if it was killing you to ignore him all week, you needed time for yourself.

Eventually, Saturday came, and you were sure that he wasn't going to come for that date you planned. Why would he when you ignored him for a week and hung up on him?

But, oh boy, you were so wrong because three loud knocks were heard at 7pm sharp. And you did open the door, thinking it would be someone other than Steve. You had been stupid enough to think he would give up that easily.

The moment the door opened, you were met by a cleaned-up Steve, pretty polo on, hair done nicely, and flowers in his hand.

"Hi." Steve said, his breath short, almost like he was nervous to even be here.

"Hey." You whispered back, fingers curling around the knob of your front door, unable to know what to do in this situation.

"So... I wasn't sure if you still wanted to see me. So the reservation is still available, we can go if you want. Or maybe something less fancy if you prefer. Or, uh, maybe I can cook for you if you want to stay home. Which is completely fine. Or I can just leave if you really hate me now. But the flowers would be yours no matter the choice." He rambled, eyes never on you as he talked.

The silence was deafening after that. You weren't sure what to say. You weren't sure if you even wanted to say anything.

But being horrible at social interaction made you say things when you didn't want to.

"Is it casual?" You asked, gaze fixed on his shoes.

Steve blinked a few times before shrugging. "I mean, you can dress however you want. It's not like a super fancy restaurant. So as long as you're comfortable, I'm happy."

Your lips quivered a bit, fighting the urge to smile at his answer. It wasn't what you were expecting him to say at all for that question.

Your fingers tightened their grip around the door handle, your eyes finally gazing up to meet his, seeing how full of hopes they were.

"I mean... is it casual between us?" You finally asked, voice quivering a bit.

It was the first time you saw Steve so lost, no word coming from his pretty pink lips.

"Casual? Why would... baby, why would that be casual?" He was completely panicking, the flowers falling from his hands, not caring about them at all, before he cupped your cheeks to force you to look at him.

You tried to look away, an embarrassed smile on your lips. "I heard you last time with Robin." You shrugged, trying to act like it didn't bother you when it was the only thing you could think about for the last days.

His thumbs were brushing small circles on your cheeks as he leaned even closer, noses touching. "So you heard what we said with Robin and thought that what I wanted was casual?" He asked, and you couldn't even be more confused. Was he playing dumb because he knew he hurt you?

"Uh, yeah? You said that you weren't sure if this could work between us. And, and if you want casual, that's okay. I... I just... I don't think I want that. S'not my thing, I mean... I'm serious about you, and if that's not... I mean, yeah." You started to ramble, hands coming to grip Steve's wrist, needing something to anchor yourself.

What you weren't expecting was to hear Steve laugh. A deep and honest laugh leaving his parted lips as he looked at you with the most confused and endearing face ever.

"And after that?" He asked.

"What do you mean after that?" Now you were the one confused.

"After I said that I wasn't sure if this could work. Did you hear what I said after that?"

You shook your head, not remembering any of the words that he could have said after. You just remember the way your throat tightened and your chest felt hollow after you heard that, heart beating so loudly you could only hear it.

Steve just smiled at the admission before pecking your nose. "Okay. So... after I said that, Robin threw a pen at me because she thought I was being an asshole. And I can understand because that sounded awful now that I think about it."

A small smile made its way onto your lips at his words, and Steve couldn't help but lean to gently peck those lips that he missed so much during those last days, letting you have the time to pull back if that wasn't something you wanted to do. But he was happy you didn't push him away.

"So I made myself clear and said that I thought you were too good to me." He mumbled against your lips. "Because you're so kind to the others, always thinking about their well-being even when you're not comfortable yourself." He kissed the corner of your lips. "You're actually really pretty it's kinda hard to stop looking at you." He smiled when you squeezed his wrist at his words. "You always make me smile and happy when you're there even when I'm not in the mood. Like wow, you're the sun in person." His fingertips were still rubbing small circles on your cheeks.

"And I'm not used to all that serious shit. I don't think I'm good enough, and I don't want to hurt you in the process of whatever you want to become. Can't say I've been the best with my past relationships. So yeah, I thought us being casual would be easier. But I was so wrong. So so so wrong. It's harder knowing you're not mine officially, and I want that. To be official with you, being able to scream to everyone that you're my girlfriend."

You never thought you would hear Steve say that one day. Not to you. But when you thought you were just a background character in his life, you had been his whole damn world the entire time.

"I... I thought you didn't want me." You whispered, embarrassed to even admit that.

"I know I'm dumb but not that dumb." He rolls his eyes playfully at your words, earning a giggle from you.

"I just, I let the thoughts in my head get the best of me."

"You should have talked to me, baby. You know I'm here for you." He hummed before kissing you again. "Okay?"

"Okay, I'm sorry for ignoring you instead of talking. I just didn't want to face you when I thought you didn't want me like I wanted you." You mumbled, your voice a bit muffled by his lips still so close to yours.

"It's okay. We can talk better about it later. For now, I'm going to cook whatever you want because you deserve it after being sad all week. Showing you that I'm a good boyfriend." Steve said as he wiggled his eyebrows, warm eyes looking at you with so much love.

"Sounds good to me, boyfriend." You giggled, the weight of the week finally off your shoulders.

His arms went around your waist, pulling you in a big hug, his body surrounding yours completely. His scent was so strong as your face was hidden in his neck, enjoying the way he was hugging you.

"Just need to hold you, if that's okay." His voice rumbled against your head.

You just nodded against his neck, sighing happily that every bad thought you had for the last days was just your brain making up things.

You were happy that you opened that door tonight.

There was just something about Joe's arms.

Maybe it was because he always rolled his sleeves up the way his forearms flexed while kneading dough, or how his biceps looked unfairly good in the simplest white T-shirt.

Whatever the reason was, you found yourself staring far more often than you probably should. God really took his time making those, you thought.

Which was unfortunate because you were currently supposed to be measuring ingredients. Instead, your attention had wandered completely toward your boyfriend, who was happily kneading bread dough on the kitchen island. The muscles in his forearms shifted with every push. You blinked and blinked again.

"Honey?"

"Hmm?" you answered absentmindedly, eyes never leaving him.

Joe looked over his shoulder. "I think you just poured three cups of powdered sugar."

"What?" Your eyes dropped to the bowl. "That's flour, right?" Joe slowly shook his head. You dipped a finger into it before cautiously tasting it. shit.

At first, Joe didn't think much of it.

He simply assumed you were naturally affectionate. Holding his hand. Looping your arm through his. Leaning against his shoulder while reading. Normal couple things.

It wasn't until the old man from 6D pointed it out that Joe began noticing a very specific pattern.

The three of you had just finished dinner, the old man had invited both of you over, insisting he'd "accidentally made too much food," despite the fact he cooked enough for three every single week.

Now the dishes had been cleared away. The old man and Joe sat across from each other discussing whether Frank Sinatra was better than Dean Martin.

You, meanwhile, had curled up beside Joe, completely absorbed with Wings of Starlight. 

Without realizing it, your fingers had wandered to Joe's arm. You absentmindedly traced tiny circles over his bicep, occasionally giving it a gentle squeeze whenever you reached the end of a chapter. Joe didn't even react. Apparently, this happened so often that neither of you noticed anymore.

The old man watched for a full minute before finally setting his teacup down. "Young lady," You hummed, eyes still on your book. "If you keep petting him like that he's going to start purring."

Both of you looked, your hand was, in fact still gently squeezing his bicep. "...ooh."

You immediately hid behind your book.  "I'm not petting him," you mumbled from behind the pages. Joe laughed so hard you wanted to smack him with your book. 

Eventually, Joe started paying attention. He noticed that whenever you walked together your hand somehow always ended up on his arm, aways his bicep. 

A week later, the two of you were grocery shopping. Joe reached for a box of cereal while pushing the cart with one hand. Without thinking, you wrapped both arms around his other.

An older woman passing by slowed with a knowing smile. "You two newlyweds?"

Joe smiled politely. "Not yet."

"I could tell."

You tilted your head. "How?"

The woman pointed toward Joe's arm tucked securely against your chest. she chuckled warmly. "girls don't hold onto a man's arm like that unless they're completely gone." She continued down the aisle, laughing softly to herself.

Your entire body heated with embarrassment. "...Oh."

You immediately let go. Joe looked at the empty space beside him for exactly two seconds.

Then, without a word, he reached over and gently tucked your arms back around his. "There." You looked up and he kissed the top of your head. "Sweetheart, I'd be offended if you stopped."

You couldn't help smiling. "really?"

"Mhm." He flexed ever so slightly, but you knew, you freaking knew.

You immediately looked at him. "...you just flexed."

"I stretched."

"Nope, you flexed."

"I breathed." Joe only laughed.

Maybe he had started doing one extra set at the gym. Purely coincidentally. Definitely not because he knew exactly where your hands would end up afterward, nope, absolutely not. (yes, he was lying)

That night, you were curled against Joe's side beneath a mountain of blankets, your heating pad resting over your stomach.

Your period always made you a little strange. A little clingier. A little sleepier. And, a little more obsessed with your boyfriend's arms. Joe looked down as your fingers found his bicep again. "Honey, you've been petting at my arm for fifteen minutes."

"I'm just thankful.."

He laughed. "You appreciate it every day, huh?."

"Because it's cute." You nodded seriously. "It looks squishy."

Joe flexed instinctively, poked it too. "It isn't squishy." He relaxed again.

You gave it another squeeze. "See?"

Joe rolled his eyes. "I don't think muscles are supposed to be described like marshmallows."

"They're not but yours are."

Joe chuckled, shaking his head. You stared at his arm for another few seconds.

Nom.

Joe let out the most offended gasp imaginable. "OW!"

You immediately pulled away, eyes wide. "Sorry."

"You bit me! It looked—" Joe looked down at the tiny crescent-shaped teeth marks blooming on his arm.

"I couldn't help it!"

"You absolutely could've helped it!"

"I really couldn't."

Joe tried so hard to look annoyed. He lasted exactly three seconds before laughing into one of your plushies. "I can't believe this."

You buried your face against his shoulder. "Are you mad?"

He wrapped an arm around you. "No honey, maybe slightly offended."

"I'm sorry."

"You'd better be."

"Can I still hold your arm?" you pleaded with puppy eyes. 

Joe sighed dramatically. "You never lost arm privileges."

You smiled. "Thank you."

"But no more biting."

"i'll try." and yet, you still keep biting it, and Joe doesn't have much choice but to endure it.

Morning came, and Joe walked into the studio carrying two coffees. Javi looked up from his guitar. "Joseph, my man. "

Joe blinked. "What?"

Javi pointed toward his arm. "What happened there?"

He thought for exactly half a second. "Ooooh, Ponkan happened."

Javi frowned. "That cat with lots of attitude?"

Joe nodded with complete confidence. "Yep."

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Truthfully, you thought he was being a bit of a drama queen. But you weren’t going to tell him that when you were perched on his lap - curled up against him as he ranted on about how Keith was making his job at Family Video harder than it needed to be.

“He’s doing it on purpose too. The asshole wants to torture me into quitting,” Steve huffs.

“That’s so unfair,” you muse, shifting yourself closer to wrap your arms around his neck.

He continues to gripe about Keith being an asshole, Robin egging it on, and the never ending flow of customers who are rude to him.

And you’re trying to listen, really you are. But he’s looking particularly gorgeous today - clad in his light wash jeans that hug his thighs and the cute little polo shirt that peeks out from under his work vest. The first couple of buttons are popped open, exposing a small tuft of chest hair underneath that’s practically begging you to feel him up.

Your eyes wander to his lips as they move rapidly, then to his eyes that look dark brown in the moonlight and hazel in the shine of the daylight. You move on to tracking the unlimited amount of freckles and moles that dance across his skin, the same ones you swear you could count one day if he held still long enough.

God he’s a vision, and you just have to let him know.

“You’re so pretty, Stevie,” you grin, interrupting him mid rant.

Steve raises his eyebrows, “Oh you think so, honey?”

“Mhm,” you hum, pressing your lips along his jawline - giggling when you notice the kiss prints drenching his skin.

“Why’d you stop?” He frowns playfully, arms locking around your waist.

Your thumb rubs at the smudges littering along his jaw, “Lipstick’s getting on you.”

“Don’t wipe it off,” he complains, “I like being marked by you.”

The statement makes you bashful, and you can feel heat creeping up your cheeks.

“You blushing, baby?” He grins, which furthers the flush that you feel rushing to the tips of your ears.

“No,” you mutter, ducking your head.

He pouts, “Oh c’mon, sweet girl, don’t hide from me.”

Steve’s thumb and pointer finger hook under your chin, coaxing you to look at him.

But when you do, there’s something off about him. You can’t tell what it is, but it’s there - like a slight glimmer wavering around him, coating his being in something sickly that you don’t understand.

“Steve?” Your eyebrows furrow, trying to make sense of the image in front of you.

“Don’t hide from me,” his voice turns sour, becoming bitter and dark as it envelops you.

You try to move, desperate for answers, but something is tethering you to him - forcing you to stay still.

“It’s only a matter of time before I find you,” he sneers, face twisting and contorting - human flesh turning into grotesque veins.

You’re no longer in Steve’s living room, cozied up next to him while he frets about his day. Instead, you're in the lap of an all too familiar figure that you’ve been relentlessly trying to run from.

“Let me go!” You scream, fighting with every fiber to break away from his hold.

When it gives, you’re thrust backwards - landing in a puddle of remains, trying not to think too hard about whose they might be.

Your body is heavy, aching with exhaustion as you stare up into the abyss of the world you can’t comprehend, the one you’ve been trapped in since that fateful night Vecna consumed you.

You know you’re a target out in the open like this, a sitting duck for him to hunt down, but you’re tired of resisting - growing weary that you may never return to the physical realm.

And so you let yourself drift, succumbing to sleep from one world of nightmares to the next.

The combination of the bright fluorescent lights, low drum of machines whirring, and strong scent of disinfectant never failed to give Steve a headache.

It throbbed menacingly, a strong stinging sensation that felt like a bruise being poked over and over again - almost like it was warning him that each time he stepped into the miserable place of Hawkins Memorial, he’d be leaving disappointed.

But he would take a headache every damn day of his life if it meant you weren’t the one resting on the hospital bed in front of him.

“C’mon, honey. Need you to pull through this,” Steve mumbles, thumb stroking along the frigid skin of your hand that’s wrapped in his.

You’re unresponsive, as you have been for the past year and a half, and Steve’s never been more anguished than watching each day tick by without a sign that you could hear him.

“I don’t know how much longer I can do this without you. Things are,” he sighs heavily, shaking his head, “not great.”

He grasps onto your hand more firmly, threading his fingers through yours and brings your arm to his lips. He tenderly presses kisses to your skin - careful to avoid the needle digging into the tissue underneath your forearm that's connected to an IV drip.

“This quarantine is driving people stir crazy. The crawls keep leading nowhere. And your brother,” he trails off, pinching the bridge of his nose with his free hand.

Dustin had been a huge pain in his ass for the past few months. Steve knew the teenager was grieving - knew that he lost a piece of himself when he lost Eddie and couldn’t fathom the idea of having to live in a world without his older sister too. And he knew that Dustin also had far too much pressure thrust upon him than he should at his age.

But your brother was taking it out on Steve - constantly snapping, snarking, and throwing harsh quips his way.

Steve was nearing his boiling point over it - ready to open his mouth and release words of fire that he wouldn’t be able to take back. Each time he almost did so, he was reminded of you.

Reminded that he barely had time to say goodbye before you were ripped away from him, which ultimately always made Steve resist the urge to lob something hurtful back towards Dustin.

So instead of telling your motionless body that your little brother was being a raging prick to him, Steve simply says, “He needs you.”

Steve thinks about the night he lost you often, though it continues to rip open the wound in his heart again and again each time he replays it in his memories.

“You can’t,” Steve had protested.

“I can,” you replied firmly, thumb easing against the little wrinkle that formed over his brow bone.

Steve swallowed thickly, “Why are you doing this?”

“Because you have Nancy and Robin to fight with you. Dustin has Eddie to protect him. But Max and Lucas need one of us. I’m going with them, Steve,” you answered, set in your decision to not leave them behind.

“That wasn’t the plan,” he retorted, gripping your waist tightly.

“It wasn’t. I’m sorry, but I can’t let them go alone,” you countered.

Steve felt his throat tighten, felt the familiar sting of tears threatening to fill his eyes, “I don’t want you to leave me.”

“Steve,” you cupped his face, fingers splaying out gently along the expanse of his neck, “I need you to trust me.”

“I do trust you, but I’m scared. You said it yourself, this time is different. Heavier. One of us might not make it out of this, and it cannot be you,” he implored, reaching up to grasp lovingly at your wrists.

You took a deep breath, “Steve, I love you, and-.”

He shook his head, cutting you off, “No. No, don’t do that to me. Don’t act like this is goodbye.”

“But it could be,” you whispered, “and I need you to know that you’ll be fine without me if something does happen.”

Steve scoffed at the thought, “I would never be the same without you.”

“You’d have to try. For Dustin. For me,” you leaned in, pressing your forehead to his.

He closed his eyes, let his hands slide down to your elbows - tried to ground himself in the moment, because if it truly was the last time he touched you, then he wanted to soak in your presence - bathe himself in these tiny pieces of yourself you were giving him before you were gone.

And when Steve heard the four chimes of that fucking clock a couple hours later, he thought Max was a goner - didn’t realize he was the one that would be brought to his knees at the sight of you, broken and bloody in her arms.

Steve still can’t shake Dustin’s cries that night - had to watch him scream his lungs out over Eddie dying before he repeated the same devastating noise at the sight of you.

He hears it in his nightmares, hears the screeching of the demobats, hears the own strangled sound of despair he let out when he saw you lying lifelessly in the aftermath of the battle.

The steady beep of your heart monitor drags Steve out of the horrific things that plague his mind, trying to focus back in on the sight of you in front of him - not moving, but at least you’re breathing.

“I need you,” he admits brokenly, forehead dropping down to rest against your thigh.

His palm lands against your knee, thumb brushing lazily over the thin material of the white cotton blanket that covers you.

“Please, honey. If you can hear me at all, find a way to show me,” he begs, feeling an overwhelming amount of agony from the lack of your reply.

A light knock at the door makes him look up to see Robin poking her head in, lifting her fingers in a brief wave to announce her presence.

She tentatively walks across the room towards Steve, quietly taking a seat next to him. She knows better than to ask if anything has changed at this point, and Steve finds her silence sickening, because god when Robin is silent - it meant that she thought things were bad.

“Steve,” she eventually says, placing a hand on his back.

He makes a rapt noise of recognition for her, but doesn’t take his longing eyes off of you - admiring your beauty even in the dullness that’s taken over your features from being stagnant for so long.

“When was the last time you showered?” Robin probs, no judgment in her tone - just pure concern for the well being of her friend.

“Dunno,” he mumbles desolately.

“Go home,” she presses, “take care of yourself. You know she’d be heartbroken if she saw you wallowing like this.”

Steve hates that she’s right, but still doesn’t move from his spot, “I don’t wanna leave her alone.”

“She won’t be alone. I’ll stay with her. Plus, I brought another visitor,” Robin tilts her head to the hallway, silently insinuating whoever came with her is out there.

“Dustin?” He questions.

Robin nods softly, “Yeah. The little twerp insisted he come today. Said he had a feeling she might wake up soon.”

“God, I hope so,” Steve admits.

“Me too,” she agrees quietly.

They sit in silence for a few minutes before he sighs, untangling himself from you before standing up.

“Gonna go home and freshen up, then I’m coming right back,” Steve declares while heading for the door.

Dustin’s leaning against the wall when Steve exits, “No updates?”

Steve closes his eyes briefly, disappointment washing over him at the question, “No. You doing okay, man?”

Dustin shrugs noncommittedly, “Could be better.”

“Yeah, same,” Steve replies dully.

He misses his friendship with the boy, hates the strained riff that hangs over their heads.

And he misses you. Misses how you could mediate things between the two of them. He often finds himself wondering if you never come to, if things will ever return to the way they once were between himself and your brother.

He places a soothing hand on Dustin’s shoulder, “I’m stepping out for a bit. Call me if you need me.”

Dustin nods solemnly, not bothering to bid Steve goodbye before walking into your room.

You wake up to the sound of Steve begging, watching as he clings to your frail body.

Please, honey. If you can hear me at all, find a way to show me.

His voice rings in your ears, the statement a loud roar echoing through your brain, but the sound of it is ripped away when you see the clouds beginning to shift - covering the vision in the hazy red of the sky.

“Steve!” Your throat feels raw from screaming his name, pleading for him to return to you.

You’ve lost track of how many times reaching him has been at the tips of your fingers, only for the illusion to fade - like a carpet being yanked from under you with nowhere soft to land.

Tears stream down your face as you frantically spin around, praying that you could see him one more time.

“No, please, no,” you cry, stumbling over a gnarled root that sticks out from the ground.

You land harshly on your knees, hands cutting open from the fall - nauseated by the blood that starts to seep out.

You squeeze your eyes shut, “It’s not real. It’s not real.”

The phrase is what keeps you going - playing on repeat because you know that your physical body is intact, have seen it when that blissful image of Steve appears in the thunderous clouds above you.

You’ve watched him hopelessly for months now, maybe longer, but time has been too hard to keep track of in this prison world that Henry has locked you away in. You’ve been hiding from him - somehow finding holes in his mind, and he lets you linger in pockets of memories that he won’t enter.

It feels like he’s toying with you sometimes, willing to let you go if you can play his game and find the way out. But as each day passes, you find it harder to distinguish what’s tangible and what’s not - slowly dwindling into madness.

The only thing keeping you from spiraling completely has been the glimpses of moments with Steve that flash in brief seconds before withering away.

You can feel one starting to creep into the crevices of your brain; the time you admitted you saw a future with him.

You were at Lover's Lake, watching the sun set across the horizon - fading into faint pinks and oranges as it drifted down.

The two of you were lounging on the hood of Steve’s Beamer, basking in the warmth of the summer evening - listening to the chittering of nightlife taking over.

Steve was leaning backwards, extending his legs to let your head rest on his lap, and his hand was combing gently through your hair.

“You’ve been quiet for a while, Stevie,” you mumbled, eyes growing heavy in content from his fingers working at your scalp.

“Hmm,” he hummed softly, eyes flickering towards you.

“I wanna know what you’re thinking about,” you rolled over, allowing yourself to look up at him.

If you could burn the image of him behind your eyelids you would, because the look on his face was one of pure adoration - staring in awe of your radiance.

“When I was younger, my parents would take me here during the summer,” he moved his thumb to brush gingerly along your jaw.

“Yeah?” You prompted, curious to know where he was going with that lead.

“Yeah. They were always distracted though. They’d be giving each other the silent treatment after an argument, or they were too focused on worrying about appearances in front of other families. Forced me to get really good at being creative since I didn’t have anyone to play with,” he continued, letting his index finger skim over the delicate skin under your eyes.

“There had to have been other kids there,” you remarked.

He shrugged, “There were, but uh, if you can believe it, I was kind of shy back then.”

Your heart faltered at the thought of him being a child and feeling the weight of being left out, even if it wasn’t intentional.

“I’m sorry,” you murmured, curling a hand into the fabric of his shirt.

“Don’t be. It made me realize that I won’t ever let my kids have to experience that,” he mused.

Your breath hitched, “Your kids?”

“Well, our kids. They’d have each other at least and-,” Steve cut himself off after realizing what he revealed.

His eyes squeezed shut, and he pinched the bridge of his nose in embarrassment, “God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that.”

You watched him internally panic for a second, before pushing yourself up so you could relieve the tension that you saw settling over his shoulders.

“Hey,” you started, pressing a reassuring hand against his thigh.

“That was stupid, forget it,” he groaned, dragging a hand roughly down his face.

“What if I don’t want to forget it?” You refuted.

“You mean it?” He asked timidly.

You crossed your legs underneath you and wrapped a hand around his bicep.

“I’ve thought about it too,” you admitted.

His eyes grew glassy as he let out a sharp breath of disbelief through his nose, “Seriously?”

You released a quiet laugh, “Of course. I know we’re young, but I see a future with you, Steve. And I can’t see myself having any of it - kids, marriage, whatever it may be - if you’re not there with me.”

“Fuck, I think I’m falling in love with you,” he confessed.

You let your eyelids flutter closed - nose nudging his, “It’s about time, Harrington. Because I know I’m falling in love with you.”

Steve slotted his lips with yours, no longer able to hold himself back from proving to you the unadulterated affection he has for you - capturing your mouth hungrily in swift, greedy presses to emphasize his appreciation.

You pulled back just a fraction, “Plus, we’ve got practice carting Dustin around. He’s kind of like our trial run, isn’t he?”

Steve laughed against your mouth, giddily pressing his lips against yours until you were light-headed with want.

The memory jolts something within you, like numb limbs gaining strength after falling asleep, and suddenly you can see it; the picture of yourself opening up in front of you, nearly paces away.

A sudden burst of sentences reverberates throughout the inner workings of your being.

Fight for Dustin. For me.

I need you, honey. We all need you.

I can’t do this without you, baby.

Please, come back to me.

It’s the last one, spoken so rawly by your lover that it spurs you on, forces you to move your feet from a trudge to a sprint - recognizing that this moment is critical, the one that could change the tides and tip the scale towards your loved ones victory against the sinister world you’ve been bound in.

There’s only one name that echoes inside of you as you get closer to a taste of the world - the real one, the one that you’ve been separated from for far too long - and it’s Steve.

Steve.

Steve.

Steve.

Steve throws his keys on the kitchen counter, scrubbing his hands over his eyes, pressure building from yet another day without you waking up.

He leans against the cold surface, back digging into the granite as his eyes find the coffee cup that sits idle by the sink. It was your favorite to use when you spent the night at his place, and there’s a faint lipstick stain that’s wrapped around the rim - dust collecting inside the unwashed dish.

Steve can’t help but feel haunted by the ghost of you in his own home.

He lets himself pretend through the fragments of you he has left, because he’s starting to forget what your voice sounded like, what your touch felt like, what it felt like to be looked up and down by you when he wore your favorite yellow sweater of his. The same one he was wearing when you recognized that you were in love with him. Which was now gone, and yet another torturous reminder of his loss.

It’s why the coffee cup sits untouched, why he can’t sleep on your side of the bed, why he can’t bring himself to wash the last t-shirt you slept in. He swears there’s lingering traces of your perfume wafting through the air sometimes from it.

He imagines you dancing in the emptiness of his living room, twirling in his arms because if he lets himself sink into reality; he fears it means accepting that he’s lost you, that there’s no hope for you to return to him.

The first thing you notice when you come to is the darkness that reigns behind your eyelids. You can feel your muscles twitching, aching to move, but your body is not cooperating with the messages that your brain is signal firing.

You hear a sharp intake of breath, feel the warm press of someone’s hand slip into yours, the scrap of a chair indicating they’re moving closer.

The familiar rumble of your little brother’s voice infiltrates the room.

“Dusty?” You slur, tongue feeling heavy from not being used.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he squeezes your hand.

“Where, w-,?” You stutter, feeling an aggravating pain shoot through your vocal chords.

“Hey, take it slow. It’s been a while since you’ve talked,” Dustin reprimands.

“Steve,” you whisper, voice cracking - desperate to know where he is, eyes in a flurry of movement from trying to peel open.

Dustin slowly swims into your gaze, though it’s still blurry, and the intensity of the lights shining in your eyes causes streaks to glide across the room.

Another head comes into frame, and you recognize Robin’s voice before you can even see her clearly.

“Holy shit, Henderson. You’re awake,” she squeals, making your face pinch up in a wince.

“Robin,” Dustin seethes.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s just so good to see you moving. Harrington’s going to be beside himself,” she says eagerly, voice lowering significantly.

At the mention of your boyfriend, you try to fight against the lethargy that’s taken over your body.

“Steve, I need Steve,” you croak, feeling like cotton’s been shoved in your mouth with how dry it is.

Robin jumps out of her seat, “I’ll call him.”

“Can you get the nurse after?” Dustin asks, and she nods her head before swiftly exiting the room.

You try to force yourself into a sitting position, wiggling around in frustration at the fact that you can’t seem to control your body.

Dustin places his hands on your shoulders, “You’ve been immobile for a long time. You need to stop before you hurt yourself.”

“Dustin, I need Steve,” you repeat, tears quickly filling your lash line.

“Wow, not even a hi for your favorite brother?” He jokes, reaching out to brush a stray tear of yours away with his knuckle.

“I’m so sorry, Dusty,” your head starts to clear, fog disappearing - realizing your only brother is the one here for you, and all you can think about is Steve.

“It’s okay. I just missed you, you know?” His throat constricts, leaning forward on his knees.

“I missed you too,” you utter, giving him a small smile.

Dustin catches you up to speed on the things you’ve missed - Eddie passing, Hawkins splitting open, El returning, searching for Vecna, and the list goes on.

“Steve brought me out of this. I don’t know how, but he did,” you murmur once he’s finished.

“That doesn’t surprise me. He’s been hovering over you nonstop. Usually isn’t gone for more than an hour at a time if he can help it,” Dustin grins.

“Really?” Your smile wobbles, heart swelling at the thought of him waiting for you.

“Yeah, he,” Dustin pauses, because it was once hard for him to believe his next words, “he really loves you.”

It’s then that the nurse comes in, paging for a doctor before hustling over towards you.

“It would be helpful if you stepped out so we could run some evaluations on her,” she instructs him politely.

“No way. I’m not leaving her,” Dustin scowls.

“It’s okay, Dusty. I’m okay. Just, get Steve for me, please?” You request weakly.

He sighs at your insistence, “If you need anything, have someone get me. Robin and I will be in the hallway.”

Robin frowns when she sees him step out of your room, “He’s not picking up.”

“He’s probably on his way back,” Dustin guesses.

The two of them sink into the chairs that line the hallway, feeling antsy at the span of time without being able to check in with you.

Finally the doctor leaves, sharing some brief updates about the stability of your condition - leaving to contact Claudia Henderson, who no doubt will be making her way to the hospital in record time when she hears the news.

Dustin stands, stretching out his arms, and Robin immediately seizes his hand - lugging him to crouch behind a medical cart that just happens to be big enough to hide them.

“Robin, what the hell?” Dustin yelps, and she swiftly covers his mouth with her hand.

She points down the hall towards Steve, who’s rounding the corner.

“Why are we hiding from Steve? We want him to know,” Dustin slaps her hand away.

“Because if we run into him, I’m gonna blabber about it and don’t you think it’ll be better for him to find out on his own?” She quips back, gesturing at the melancholy look on her best friend's face.

Dustin gives a hesitant pause, but ultimately concedes, “Yeah, guess you’re right. But I call spying on them from the doorway.”

Robin rolls her eyes, “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

Steve’s perfected the route to your room where he’ll avoid running into nurses that like to give him looks of pity each time he shows up.

He first stops by the vending machines to grab himself a shitty coffee and a snack for you. It’s a habit he can’t put down, buying something for you despite the fact that you can’t eat it right now.

There’s a whole box full of items that sits untouched in your hospital room - overflowing with expired food at this point, but Steve doesn’t have the heart to throw them out.

He trods up the back staircase, avoiding eye contact with anyone who could possibly stop him and ask where he was headed. Finally, he stops by your door which is now closed - probably Dustin’s doing he assumes, who likes to claim it keeps the noise level to a minimum. The walls are paper thin not matter what, but Steve doesn’t have the energy to debate him on it.

He swings the door open, and starts to chatter, which is his typical routine when he’s visiting you.

“Well, honey, I got you the regular M&M’s today. They were out of the peanut ones. Can you believe that shit? What kind of establishment runs out of the best type of-,” Steve’s rambling is cut off when he walks into your room and sees you, sitting up - on your own.

The coffee in Steve’s hands crashes to the floor, black liquid seeping across the vinyl flooring - soaking into the bottom of his jeans and coating his Nike shoes with the maroon swoops, arguably having just ruined his favorite pair, but it’s the least of his concerns.

His jaw drops in disbelief, blinking rapidly to decide if you were a figment of his imagination, wondering if his brain is making you up due to sleep deprivation.

“Hi Stevie,” you rasp, wishing you could throw yourself at him.

Steve’s frozen, planted on the spot he’s standing in, because hearing your voice - the same one that he swore he might’ve been forgetting - has just bloomed out of you, flooding his brain as it ricochets around the room.

“Steve,” you whimper, can’t help but let out a breathy sob at seeing him just a handful of feet in front of you.

The whine that escapes you knocks him back into motion, practically skidding through the spilled coffee and kneeling down by the edge of your bed - legs digging into the hard floor.

“Am I dreaming?” He asks, hands reaching out to you - stopping himself from touching you because he’ll surely be wrecked to find that none of this is real.

You smile faintly, “I don’t think so.”

Steve carefully lets his fingers glide across your palm, and when your fingers twitch - feebly curling around his own for the first time in ages, he can’t help but let the tears track down his face which sets off your own.

“God, I can’t believe you’re real. And here. How are you here?” His lips part, uncertainty still keeping him at bay.

You’re not ready to disclose the torture you’ve been through, so you simply lock your fingers through his and plead, “Hold me?”

Steve’s mouth flounders, letting himself finally believe he hasn’t somehow conjured up a replica of you, “Course I can, honey. C’mere.”

He scooches himself onto the bed, maneuvering your body to rest against him - back pressed to his chest, head tucked under his chin while his arms wrap tightly around you.

“I’m so sorry,” he groans, “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here when you woke up, honey.”

“It’s okay, Steve,” you try to reassure him.

“No, I knew not to leave you today. Dustin had a feeling you'd come back to us soon. Little shit is always right,” he grumbles, hating himself for not being there.

Fragile laughter bubbles up within you, “He always is, isn’t he?”

“God, I’m so sorry,” he cries, tucking his face into the crook of your neck.

“Steve,” you tilt your head back just a fraction, the best you can do for now, “you have nothing to be sorry for, baby. I know you’ve been here every day.”

“Because I knew you’d come back to me,” he tenderly dots kisses to the back of your neck.

“And I knew you wouldn’t give up on me,” you murmur, sniffling as you feel the pressure behind your eyelids build again.

“Never,” his voice is warm, laid bare with honesty.

Steve continues to grace you with his devotion, mapping your body with his hands, and it’s intimate in a way you’ve never experienced with him before.

“Can’t believe you’re here,” he repeats himself, letting the phrase hang between you two as he continues to lavish you - nose grazing your jawline, lips attaching sweetly under your ear before catching the corner of your mouth.

You suddenly feel the wet droplets that roll down his pretty face and land on the slope of your collarbone, making you itch to wipe his tears away. You try your best to shift, but no matter how much effort you put into it, you can’t get your body to move, which makes you grunt in irritation.

“What’s wrong? Does something hurt, honey?” He implores.

You bite your lip in annoyance at not being able to comfort him, “No. It’s just, I can’t move yet, and you're crying.”

Understanding ripples across his expression - knowing you're aching to provide him solace. He brings your hand up to his cheek, guiding your fingers to wipe swiftly under his eyes, along the highs of his cheekbones, before trailing down to catch the tears that puddle under his jaw.

It’s messy, but a reminder that you’re miraculously here in his arms.

“I love you,” he rasps, inhaling sharply - still in astonishment that you haven’t slipped away yet, that you haven't dissolved like ice melting under the ray of the burning sun.

And when Dustin and Robin sneakily slide in the room later, pretending like they weren’t on the verge of crying themselves, giving you the space to open up about what you’ve experienced, Steve continues to keep you grounded - unwilling to let you go, declining the notion of letting you go for even a moment, because he’ll be damned if he has to dance with the ghost of you again.

well, this started as a part two to they don’t know about us because i had some requests for that, but it just didn’t feel the same. hence why there’s hints of similarities if you’ve read that imagine!

Divider credits to @lobster-graphics

Main Masterlist If interested

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