Waw

Waw

I've asked an AI to draw pictures of Narnia and it did not disappoint

I'm a sucker for bestfriend to lover with xavier and this is a masterpiece

inevitable ⟐ xavier thorpe

pairing: xavier thorpe x reader oneshot (second person pov - she/her pronouns used for reader - occasional use of Y/N)

warning(s) : mild language, best friends to lovers, mutual pining

word count: 6.4k

⭑•⊱✩masterlist✩⊰•⭑

═══ -ˋˏ *.·:·.⟐.·:·.* ˎˊ- ═══

summary: you and xavier had been best friends since you were 7, and nothing could change that - that is until you start to develop a new power that makes you question everything you think (or rather, what everyone else thinks)

═══ -ˋˏ *.·:·.⟐.·:·.* ˎˊ- ═══

Normies usually strayed away from adopting outcast kids. They just didn’t know how to appropriately handle their slightly more complex needs.

Unfortunately for your adopted mothers, the realisation that you, their child, possessed psychic abilities hit at around the 5-year mark when they walked into your nursery and discovered that all of your bears were floating around the room, performing beautiful and elaborate ariel tricks. At first, they jumped to the conclusion that they were being haunted. In some ways, they wished that were the case. Ghosts could be exorcised, but a child who could undo a childproof lock (or five) to get into the cabinet where the candy was kept within mere seconds wasn’t easily fixed with a call to the local priest.

So, as soon as they could, they would ship you off to outcast summer camps and school programs. It's not that they didn’t love you; they just didn’t know how to help you manoeuvre your powers. 

Naturally, you resented this for a lot of your childhood. You couldn’t understand why your adopted siblings got all the time with your moms while you were sent away. Fortunately, as you matured, you grew to understand it and accept that what they were doing was for your benefit as much as theirs. Your moms were doing this to help you learn more about your powers from others who shared them, not punish you for having them. 

Of course, understanding and accepting the decisions didn’t exactly make the feeling of abandonment go away, but it was enough to subdue and push it down for some therapist in 20 years to pull out and deal with.

There were some plus sides to being sent away so often, one of which being the best friend you had made on day one of the very first outcast summer camp you had been sent to when you were 7 years old.

You and Xavier Thorpe got along like a log cabin on fire, which is coincidentally what almost got the pair of you kicked out of that summer camp on your first week. 

Xavier was sent away by his father while he was on tour. Touring the world would be far too stressful for a child; at least, that was the excuse that was given whenever anyone questioned where Xavier was.

Both of you being sent to Nevermore Academy was inevitable. Under the promise of not burning it down, together, you had fixed up the old shed so Xavier could use it as an art studio. You had occupied one of the corners where the two of you had set up a desk where you could work on your writing.

Together, you spent most of your free time tucked away like that, talking about anything and everything as you individually let your artistic creativity fill your individual pages. You would only stop talking when you demanded silence so you could focus, which would last about 10 minutes before the two of you got distracted and started talking about something else.

You were about 6 minutes into one of these silent periods when Xavier slowly stepped back from his canvas and inched towards your corner. Engrossed in your work, you didn’t notice he was in front of you until he spoke up.

“You’ve got some paint on your nose,” He pointed out. You closed your laptop instinctively; you had never liked sharing your writing with anyone, not even Xavier. 

You looked up at him in confusion as you hadn’t touched any of the paint scattered around the studio that day. “Really?” You asked, crossing your eyes to try and look at your nose. “Are you sure? I don’t feel-” You were cut off by Xavier swiping his thumb over your nose and smearing some paint on it.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” He laughed, trying to step back as you made a grab for his arm. You just about caught his sleeve and used it as leverage to pull him down and wipe your nose clean with it.

“You are such an ass!” You groaned, trying to hide the laughter that threatened to bubble up. It was the third time that week he’d gotten you with that trick.

“Speaking of ass,” Xavier grabbed his own chair to sit opposite you at your desk.

“I have a great one?” You grinned, trying to use a tissue to wipe the remaining paint residue from your face. “Thank you, I know!” You froze when you could have sworn you had heard Xavier respond with a quiet ‘true’ but shook it off as your mind playing tricks as you hadn’t actually seen his lips move.

“That is not what I was going to say,” Xavier playfully rolled his eyes. “Speaking of ass, have you done Mr Cooper’s homework?”

“Are you suggesting Mr Cooper is an ass, or that he has a great ass? I mean, I’ve never looked myself, but I respect the-” You yelped out as your leg received a kick from under the desk. You pouted dramatically as he shook his head at you, but you cast your mind back to your chemistry class the day before. You hadn’t been paying much attention as it was the final class on a Friday, and you were just excited to sleep past 6am the following day. “Did he assign homework?”

“I’ll take that as a no; you haven’t done it,” Xavier grabbed his rucksack, which you had been using as a footrest. “Though I already knew that because I picked up your sheet when you left it on the desk.” He pulled the worksheet out and waved it in front of your face.

“This is such bullshit!” You groaned as you plucked it from his grip and scanned the questions. “He never assigns homework!”

“I think the words you’re looking for are ‘Thank you, Xavier! You are such a good friend!’” Xavier teased, doing his best impression of you… His best was awful.

“A good friend would have just done the assignment for me,” You sighed dramatically, putting the sheet down on the desk and pushing it back towards him.

“You mean the way I do half of your other assignments for you?” He pointed out. You had mastered one another's handwriting years ago and often took turns in doing one another’s assignments depending on who was better at the subject or who could bribe the other better.

“Yeah, half of them!” You fired back. “That only makes you half of a good friend, an okay friend, if you will!” Your friendship was built on this sort of playful teasing. 

“Well, as an okay friend, do you want to work on this together after dinner?” He asked, checking the time on his phone. “Which started like 5 minutes ago.”

“Shit!” You exclaimed, shooting up from your chair and shoving your laptop in your bag. “Come on! Get your butt in gear, or all the good food will be gone!” You frantically urged, walking around the desk to tug at Xavier’s arm to get him up and going.

“I’m coming!” He laughed back, getting up intentionally slowly. “Just give me a minute or two to pack up all my stuff. Save me a tray!” With a distressed groan that echoed through the shed, you let go of his arm and walked off, mumbling something along the lines of ‘snooze, you lose’ as you went. Xavier laughed and checked the time again one last time before he stuffed his phone back in his pocket, knowing that dinner wouldn’t actually be ready for another hour and preparing for the hellfire that you would rain down on him when you realised he’d tricked you again.

═══ -ˋˏ *.·:·.⟐.·:·.* ˎˊ- ═══

Studying sucked. That was something you had acknowledged a long time ago. But studying while you had a bad case of hiccups was so much worse. Especially when the hiccups caused your powers to go absolutely wild; with each hiccup, the pen you were holding flew out of your hand and launched itself to a new corner of the room.

At first, Xavier thought it was an elaborate plot to get him to do your work again as revenge for the dinner incident. However, when your pen launched out of your hand and stabbed the door, he realised you weren’t joking around.

With a grunt of frustration, you got up to retrieve the pen once again, mumbling a ‘sorry’ to the door as you pulled it out from the wood.

“What did that poor door ever do to you to deserve such a vicious stabbing?” Xavier joked, trying to lighten up your tense mood.

“Don’t tell me you forgot about the time it smacked me on the ass on the way out!” You gave the door an accusatory glare. “Which it still hasn’t apologised for.”

“How could I forget?” He groaned, recalling the situation in great detail. He’d talked himself into a corner when he’d tried to defend the door by saying that your ass just got in the way and then couldn’t figure out if it would be more offensive to say that your butt was big or backtrack and say that it wasn’t big at all. In the end, he realised he was losing that conversation no matter what he said and just accepted the consequences. “You know, that is the second conversation today that has ended up on your ass.”

You couldn’t contain the laughter at the phrasing, which caused your hiccups to match the energy, and the pen flew from your hand and into the ceiling.

“Oooookay! I think that’s enough pen time for you, or I’m going to be accused of practising archery in my room again,” Xavier laughed nervously as you, still in fits of giggles, stumbled back over to the spare bed in his room that you had basically taken over as your own. It had your favourite blanket draped over it and some of your pillows from home. 

“Your hiccups are just like you,” Xavier pointed out, jumping up to get the pen out of the ceiling before it caused any structural damage. He was tall, so it didn’t take much to reach it.

“Oh yeah?” You asked, your laughter finally starting to calm down. “How's that?”

“Violent and cute,” He shook his head with a smile, but you just froze, unsure if you had heard him right.

“What was that?” You asked.

“Violent,” He repeated, dropping the pen onto his desk.

“No, no,” You shook your head, questioning your own sanity a little. He didn’t have that teasing tone in his voice he usually did. “The second thing.”

“I only said one thing?” He looked at you in confusion. “Are you feeling okay?” As if on queue, you hiccuped again, and a pillow went flying across the room, narrowly avoiding hitting him in the face.

“Never better,” You mumbled, laying back on the bed. You really could have sworn you had heard him say that the hiccups and you, by extension, were cute. It was quieter than he usually spoke, but you could have sworn it in his voice. 

Even though you joked around a lot, he wouldn’t lie to you about saying or not saying something if you asked. So maybe it had just been in your head? It was a weird thing for your head to make up.

“Are you staying here again tonight?” Xavier asked, snapping you out of your spiralling thoughts. “We can watch a movie and finish off those cookies from last night?”

“I hate to be the bearer of bad news,” You smiled sheepishly, glancing over at the trash can by his desk to see the empty packet still there, evidence of your crime. “But I ate the rest of those cookies while you were asleep last night.” 

“I know. I woke up and saw you at the end of my bed, hunched over like a little gremlin, shoving them into your mouth three at a time. I thought you were a sleep paralysis demon for a good few seconds. I wanted to record it, but you were like a wild animal, and I didn’t want to startle you by grabbing my phone,” A second pillow flew across the room and hit him in the face that time. Unlike the last, this one was intentionally flung at him. Laughing, he paid no mind to it and reached over the side of his bed and pulled something out from underneath. “I bought two packs and hid one from you- wait, are these open?”

“I may or may not have found those ones while you were in the shower,” You got up and flopped down onto his bed next to him, grabbing both of your pillows to lean on. “I didn’t eat them all, though! I won’t lie; I would have, but you came back before I could.” Rolling his eyes, Xavier reached under his pillow and pulled something else out.

“I bought the third pack,” He admitted, placing them down on the bed in between the two of you. “Hey, your hiccups are gone!” You were about to cheer when another hiccup bubbled up out of nowhere, sending the open pack of cookies flying everywhere.

“Well….” You looked around at the crumbs that scattered the once relatively clean room. “Shit.”

═══ -ˋˏ *.·:·.⟐.·:·.* ˎˊ- ═══

You woke up groggily to your name being called out in a hushed whisper. When you opened your eyes, you realised it was still nighttime. Yawning, you pushed off the sheets you had been sleeping under and made your way over to Xavier’s bed.

It was a routine you knew all too well by that point. Part of you questioned why you even bothered sleeping in the spare bed in the first place. Almost every time you would sleep over in his room, you would fall asleep in the spare bed only to be woken up by Xavier after a couple of hours, usually because he’d had a nightmare. He didn’t ever want to talk about it, and you didn’t ask. He’d tell you about them when they were really bad, but he preferred to sketch them out.

Xavier was holding the covers up, and you crawled under them, bringing your arms to your chest using his arm as a pillow. He brought the covers down again over you both, and you closed your tired eyes once again.

That was how you usually slept in the same bed. You didn’t usually ‘cuddle’ when you slept like this. Your arms and legs always kept to themselves, with the exclusion of Xavier’s left arm, which you usually used as a pillow. However, this time, Xavier brought his spare arm over you and held you close to him. Instinctively, you moved one of your arms to wrap around him in return. It was a wordless sign to say that you were okay with this. You could have sworn you had heard a hum of contentment from him, but you passed it off as the start of a snore. Xavier always fell asleep fast, and his light snoring was comforting.

You chalked the change in behaviour up to a particularly bad dream and decided that you wouldn’t bring it up in the morning. Instead, you would just enjoy the added warmth for the night.

═══ -ˋˏ *.·:·.⟐.·:·.* ˎˊ- ═══

“Enid, my sweet, your tag is sticking out,” You jogged ahead to catch up with Enid’s impossibly fast walking. “C’mere!” Enid stopped and took a step back so you could tuck the tag of her sweater back in.

“Thank you!” She cheered and held her arm out. “Walk and talk?” With a laugh, you linked arms with Enid and started walking together. “I’m so glad you’re here because I was supposed to be shopping with Yoko, but then Divina showed up, and I was totally third wheeling, so I left them to it.”

“Are they actually dating yet, or are they both too scared to make the first move?” You asked, causing Enid to laugh. 

“They’re still dodging around the question,” She sighed playfully. “Reminds me of you and Xavier.”

“What?” You stopped, pulling Enid to a halt with you.

“I said they’re still dodging around the question,” She repeated.

“No, no,” You shook your head. “The other thing you said!” 

“That was all I said?” Enid looked ask confused as you felt inside. “Are you feeling okay?” Instead of pushing things and questioning them further, you took a deep breath and shook it off. Enid was a terrible liar. You had probably just mistaken the wind for words or something.

“I’m fine. Everything is fine,” You smiled and shrugged. Together, you continued to walk.

“Did you have a fight with Xavier or something?” Enid asked. Glancing at her from the corner of your eye, you shook your head with a frown, wondering how she’d come to that conclusion. “He was pouting at breakfast today, and you’re here without him.” Realisation dawned on you, and you laughed.

“He wasn’t pouting!- No, actually, that’s a lie. He was pouting a little bit, but only because he felt sorry for himself,” You explained. “I mistook him for my alarm clock this morning and tried to hit the snooze button, which in this case happened to be his mouth, and now his lip is a bit swollen. I’m here to get an apology gift and some numbing gel.” You reached into your pocket and pulled out the numbing gel you had just picked up from the pharmacy and a bar of chocolate. You had technically bought 3 bars of chocolate, but you had already given in and eaten 2 of them, and the last one was on thin ice.

“How did he get into your room?” Enid asked. “If I remember correctly, which I know I do, your windows have enchanted locks on because he kept sneaking into your room last term.” 

You snorted as you remembered how many times Xavier’s tall figure had been caught trying to climb through your window. Or, more accurately, how many times he had gotten stuck trying to climb through your window, and you had to call for help to get him unstuck.

“I was in his room,” You explained with a shrug. “He’s got a spare bed, and I love Yoko, but goddamn, does the girl snore like a chainsaw. Plus, she wakes up at 6am every morning and starts playing her ‘meditation’ music. I usually stay with him on the weekends because it's the only decent sleep I get! I swear I’ve told you all of this before?” 

“The Yoko part you have definitely complained about to me on multiple occasions,” Enid confirmed. “But how am I only just learning that you have weekly sleepovers with your ‘best friend’.” She used her free hand to put air quotes around the last two words.

“Why are you saying it like that?” You asked. “He is my best friend? You know I love you, Wednesday, and Thing, but Xavier and I have been ride or die since we were seven. He earnt the best friend title way before I knew any of you.” 

“Just admit you both like one another,” Enid groaned, causing you to stop walking again, halting her.

“What are you on about?” You interrogated. “We like one another as friends.”

“I said nothing!” Enid protested, her face easily portraying the confusion she felt. You were about to protest again, but Enid spoke before she could. “No, Y/N, I literally said nothing! Whatever you think you heard, it wasn’t me! Maybe your mind is telling you what you want it to hear?”

“Absolutely not! I heard you! It was your voice!” Your phone started ringing before the conversation could progress any further. You didn’t have to check the contact before answering it. You had set a personalised ringtone for him. “Xavi, I’m on my way back now, I swear! I have the gel and a-” You stopped yourself before you mentioned the chocolate. Truthfully, you knew it would never even get back to Nevermore. “I have the gel!” You repeated.

“I will start this movie without you and then spoil all of it,” He threatened playfully. 

“Don’t you dare!” You gasped, but he’d already hung up. When you looked back up at Enid, expecting to continue the conversation you had been having, you recognised the look on her face as her signature ‘I’m telling everyone’ smile. “What?”

“Xavi?” She teased. “Really?” “Drop it, and I’ll split the chocolate with you,” You bargained, pulling the sweet snack out of your pocket again and waving it around. Enid simply responded by holding her arm out so you could carry on walking together and her other hand ready to receive her share of chocolate.

═══ -ˋˏ *.·:·.⟐.·:·.* ˎˊ- ═══

“This show has gone to shit,” You groaned, sinking down into the sheets in disappointment.

“What?” Xavier pulled his head away from the screen to watch your movements instead. “You used to love it. It was all you’d talk about.”

“I did love it!” You agreed with a sigh. “But then they had to add all that forced romance in, and there are like 7 different love triangles that all interlock- it’s a pyramid scheme of love!”

“A pyramid scheme of love?” He laughed at your phrasing. “God, could you imagine the dm’s you’d get from people you’ve only spoken to once who had joined that?”

“Hey, girlboss! Long time no speak!” You put on your best bubbly voice as you spoke, replicating one of your moms’ friends who had been pulled into 8 different pyramid schemes. “Are you tired of settling down the old-fashioned way with one person? I was too! But insert a name of a multi-level marketing scheme here helped me take control of my love life!”

“Please never do that voice again,” Xavier pleaded through laughter.

“I think I gave myself a headache doing that,” You snorted, bringing your hand up to your head. It was a fruitless endeavour as you pulled them away again immediately. “Urgh, my hands are too warm. C’mere, you always have cold hands.” You grabbed one of his hands and held it up to your forehead, leaning against it.

“I always have cold hands?” Despite his verbal confusion, he didn’t protest about you using him as a cold pack. “Is that… a good thing?” 

“On this occasion, yes,” You smiled contently, closing your eyes. “During the colder months, not so much.”

“If we held hands more, it would warm them up,” You almost didn’t catch his words.

“You wanna hold hands more?” You asked, confused. Admittedly, you already held hands probably more than most friends did, but that was because you had a tendency to get lost in crowds. It was hand-holding, or one of those leash backpacks parents used on their kids, but Xavier shut that down as soon as you jokingly suggested it.

“How did you-?” Xavier pulled his hand away from you with a frown. You pouted at the lack of contact and opened your eyes again. He paused to look at you, searching for an answer in your eyes, but he gave up as soon as he’d started and just shook his head. “Sorry, I didn’t think I said that out loud.”

“We can hold hands more,” You shrugged, smiling at him. “Come on, let's try and get a couple more episodes of this nauseating shitfest in before I have to go back to my own room.”

Xavier perked up at that, leaning over to press play on the next episode.

“I’m calling it now; there will be an unexpected kiss by the end of this episode,” You sighed, leaning your head on Xavier’s shoulder as your eyes settled back on the screen.

“If we’re placing bets, it’ll be between those two,” He added, pointing at the pairing on the screen. You really could have sworn you had heard him say ‘between us?’ just before the actual words left his lips. But you knew for a fact this time that he hadn’t, as the words slightly overlapped, and, as far as you knew, Xavier wasn’t secretly a talented ventriloquist. Though you supposed if you did know that, it wouldn’t be a secret.

Instead, you brushed it off as your tired mind playing tricks on you. Weird tricks for a weird mind.

═══ -ˋˏ *.·:·.⟐.·:·.* ˎˊ- ═══

Four more days.

That’s how long it took you to realise what was going on. Or rather, what you thought was going on. You had to test your theory out, and you knew the perfect person to help.

“Enter,” Wednesday’s voice instructed before you even had a chance to knock on her door. Without questioning how she’d know you were there, you opened the door and closed it behind you once you were in Wednesday’s shared room with Enid.

“I need your help testing a theory,” You pleaded, leaning against the door. “I feel like I’m going crazy- and not the good kind.”

“There’s a bad kind?” Wednesday’s tone barely changed, but you knew her well enough to know she was teasing you in her own way. “I’m intrigued; go on.”

“I think I can read minds,” You confessed with a groan. “Not all the time; I think I can only do it if I’m purposely seeking them out or if the thoughts are… loud.”

“I imagine there are some people who have very loud thoughts,” Wednesday glanced over at Enid’s side of the room.

“Exactly!” You nodded. “And I wanted to test with you because I know I won’t just be reading your body language and facial expressions for clues.” 

“What number am I thinking now?” Wednesday asked, turning her head away from you to look at her desk. Closing your eyes, you tried to push for the connection that you had felt when you accidentally used this possible new power on Ajax just a few minutes beforehand. He had been moping around, and you wanted to know why. It turns out he’d stoned himself again and had missed all of his morning classes, and subsequently got in trouble for being ‘careless’. He was banned from visiting Jericho for two weeks.

When you had sympathised with his struggles and offered to buy him some snacks when you next visited Jericho, he’d looked at you like you had grown a second head which had started speaking Latin. He asked how you had known he was banned. After some confusion and back and forth, you made up some lie about overhearing one of the teachers say something about it and excused yourself.

“37,” You announced confidently to Wednesday as soon as you had felt the connection be made and heard your friend’s monotone voice. It seemed fitting that even her internal monologue was as dry as she was when speaking. “Which US state am I thinking of?”

“Trick question,” You answered proudly. “You’re thinking about Poland, which, unless I missed a memo, isn’t a US state.”

“Very good,” Wednesday didn’t seem the slightest bit surprised that you had gotten it right. “Final one, what line from which of Edgar Allan Poe’s works am I thinking of?” She asked.

“But evil things, in robes of sorrow, assailed the monarch's high estate,” You echoed the exact line out loud. “From The Haunted Palace.”

“I think that settles it,” Wednesday confirmed. You opened your eyes to see her turning around to face you again. “Considering I didn’t say a single word out loud throughout that. Not even the questions.” Wednesday’s mouth was pressed firmly closed, though you could still hear her perfectly clearly.

With a small gasp, you intentionally severed the connection and stopped reading her mind.

“Okay, you can think freely again,” You informed Wednesday. “Thank you for helping me test that.” The door you were leaning on was suddenly pulled open, and you only just managed to catch your footing before you had the chance to fall into Enid.

“Y/N!” Enid instinctively held out her arms, just in case you did still fall. “Why are you here? Are you planning a surprise birthday party for me?”

“Enid, your birthday isn’t for another 9 months,” You shook your head with a smile. “Why would we be planning a surprise party now?”

“Because if you do it too close to the time, I would get suspicious when you were sneaking around making arrangements! But if you start now, by the time I’m thinking of it, the party will have been fully planned!” Enid explained cheerily. “I didn’t realise I’d said the party thing out loud? I hope I didn’t ruin the surprise!”

“You didn’t say it out loud,” Wednesday told her. “Y/N can read minds.”

“That’s why you were being weird with Ajax!” Enid immediately pulled out her phone, but you grabbed it out of her hands. “Hey!”

“Please, please, please don’t say anything to anyone yet!” You pleaded. “I need to talk to people first. I need to talk to the teachers. I don’t want people to think I’m going around snooping in on all of their thoughts. That’s not how it works.”

“How exactly does it work?” Enid asked as you wearily handed her back her phone. You didn’t entirely trust Enid not to at least tell Ajax… and then Yoko… and Divina since she would ‘just hear it anyway’ from Yoko… 

“I mean, I don’t know exactly how it works, but from what has happened so far, I need to be talking to someone and wanting to know what they’re thinking. So when I spoke to Ajax earlier, I wanted to know why he was upset, and I guess I accidentally made that brain connection thing happen without realising what it was,” You explained, trying to properly make sense of it yourself and using actual words to describe what happened. “And sometimes people just have one-off loud thoughts that I hear? Some more than others….” Realisation dawned on Enid when she heard the last sentence.

“Well, I’m sorry if my thoughts are too ‘loud’ for you,” She huffed, using air quotes around the word ‘loud’. “I can’t control the volume of my own mind.”

“I know. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way,” You apologised. “But I can’t control what I hear either, at least not yet.”

“Has Xavier thought loudly about how in love with you he is yet?” Enid asked.

“Xavier isn’t in love with me….” You protested but trailed off as you recalled some of the things that you had thought you had heard Xavier say over the past week, only to now realise that some of them may have been thoughts.

“Oops, did I think that one too loudly as well?” Enid smiled slyly, pointing at you. “Wednesday, look at her face. I asked if she’d overheard Xavier thinking about how in love with her he is.”

“I gathered that,” Wednesday mumbled, wanting nothing to do with the whole ‘love’ ordeal.

You remembered the other night when you had talked about there being an unexpected kiss, and you thought he’d said ‘between us?’ over the words he actually did say. It had been a few nights, and you couldn’t remember the tone he’d said- or rather, thought it in. Was he confused? Hopeful? You raked through your brain but couldn’t remember any of the details for the life of you.

And the comment about hand-holding? That was just in a friendly way, friendly hand-holding. You had held hands as friends before, multiple times, you were usually the one to initiate it, and it wasn’t like you were in love with him. You weren’t in love with him at all, right?

Right?

Shit.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

You were. You absolutely were. Whether intentionally or not, you had never allowed yourself to think about it, always pushed the thoughts and feelings down before anything could become of them. Always pulled the weeds up, leaving the roots, not realising the roots were just growing and growing under the surface until one day, your whole garden was full of weeds. Except instead of weeds, they were possible unrequited feelings towards your best friend that threatened to ruin everything you had built up over the years you had known one another.

“I need to go,” You excused yourself and pushed past Enid to get to the door, ignoring whatever she was saying in the process. It would have been some sing-song ‘I told you so’, but your mind was too cluttered to pay attention.

You had to find Xavier and talk to him as soon as possible. 

It hadn’t taken long to find him. You knew where he’d be. You always knew where he’d be.

You didn’t knock before letting yourself into the shed; you never had to. It was your shared space.

“Y/N! Are you okay?” Xavier looked at you in concern as you sunk against the door as you closed it behind you. “You look-”

“Xavi, I need you to please be quiet and let me talk at you for a bit because I need to say something now before I mess up the words in my head,” You interrupted him before he could finish. With a small nod, he had agreed. His mouth remained shut while you pulled away from the door and paced back and forth. “I’m just going to cut right to the chase here. I have somehow picked up the power to read minds. I hadn’t done it on purpose until like five minutes ago when Wednesday let me test it on her, and then I came straight to you because you have the right to know because you’re my best friend, and we talk all the time, and sometimes I accidentally hear people’s random thoughts because some thoughts are just really loud and some people have a lot of loud thoughts, like Enid, so I just hear them more, and I’m not saying that you have loud thoughts like that, but I think that maybe sometimes you do, which isn’t a bad thing but I wanted you to be aware so-” You had rambled so much that you hadn’t even noticed that Xavier had crossed the room until he had stopped your frantic pacing and held your face in his hands, squishing your cheeks together in what you assumed was a successful attempt and politely shutting you up.

“Deep breaths and calm down, yeah?” He said it so softly that it worked almost instantly. You hadn’t realised quite how fast your heart had been beating and how heavy your breath had become until he’d stopped and helped slow it down. 

You weren’t sure what exactly had caused it, whether it was the fast-talking where one word flew into the next, or the flood of emotions that had hit you, or the fear of how he’d react to it all in the end, or just a mixture of it all. No matter what it was, Xavier had successfully calmed you down.

“Dare I ask which of my thoughts were particularly… loud?” Xavier asked, his hands still cradling your face.

“There were only a few?” You replied uneasily. You thought back, trying to differentiate between everything. It was hard when she didn’t realise what they were when they happened. “There was the… hand holding? I think that was one… and, uh…. you called me violent and… cute?”

“Could be worse!” Xavier breathed a sigh of relief. “Could have accidentally admitted I’m in love with you.” One look at your face was all it took for him to realise what he’d done. You stood there, wide eyes staring at one another, each almost daring the other to make a move.

Xavier broke first.

“That was a loud thought, wasn’t it?” He asked, already knowing the answer.

“It sure was,” You whispered, your hands coming up to take his own away from your face. Dejection crossed his face for a split second but was erased immediately when you just held his hands instead, cradling them against your chest. You broke eye contact, deciding that looking at the ground made talking easier because you didn’t have to worry about analysing every change in his expression to find the answers.

“Was it…. Truthful? Or did you think it jokingly?” You ask hesitantly, worried about the response it would elicit. Truly, you didn’t know if your heart could take it being a joke.

If the lack of response had worried you, when he pulled his hands away it all but shattered you. However, as soon as the pieces of you had been shattered, it was like Xavier scooped them all up again when he reached for your face and pulled you into a kiss.

It wasn’t a soft and gentle kiss. It was clumsy, frantic, and full of emotion and confusion. It wasn’t perfect, but it didn’t have to be, because it was with him.

You returned the kiss as soon as your brain allowed itself to switch back on and be present in the moment. Your arms wrapped around the back of his neck, holding him to you as though you were worried he would change his mind and back away again.

It was over all too soon for your liking, the two of you having no choice but to pull away to gasp in the air again. Xavier’s head ducked down, and he nestled his face into your neck. His breath tickled you as he spoke.

“It scares me how truthful it was,” He admitted, planting a small kiss on your collarbone. “I think I’ve known it for a while, but I didn’t want to risk you not feeling the same way.” He pulled away very suddenly to look at your face again. “Wait, you do feel the same way, right?”

You answered him this time by initiating the kiss yourself. This one was slower, the raw emotions you had both been feeling now having settled as a pleasant buzz in the air as the reality of the situation became clear.

You were two idiot best friends who had been in love with one another for longer than either of you could fathom.

You had always known you’d spend the future together, but now, you could spend your future together.

A/N - so I set out to write what I assumed would be a 2k-ish one-shot... then I think I blacked out and woke up foaming at the mouth 6k words later... if there are any accidental pov/tense changes, please let me know! I wrote this in third person, then decided I wanted it to be second person 5k words in so I went back and edited the whole thing which was a pain in the ass and I had to stop myself from rewriting it a third time in first person

feel free to suggest some more one-shots! I can't promise I'll get to them all, but watching Wednesday has filled me with inspiration and motivation to write! *cough cough* I'd be a sucker for a bianca x reader request *cough cough*

and lemme know if you'd like to be added to a taglist for future wednesday one shots <3

We love him

thinking abt edmund pevensie.. who gets cranky when tired, who has a fondness for food especially sweets, who ate dirt he thought was chocolate.. thinking abt 10 yr old edmund pevensie who wanted to build roads in narnia.. thinking abt 11 year old edmund pevensie who fiercely defends his older sister, abt early twenties edmund pevensie who at all costs will protect his older sister.. thinking abt edmund pevensie who is a rock climber, who had once beat susan in archery, who had swiftly beheaded someone in battle.. thinking abt edmund pevensie who enjoys reading detective novels, who is interested in trains & railways.. thinking abt edmund pevensie who is his older brothers right hand man, who is his younger sisters most loyal ally,

WHY IS THIS ME LMAO

Birthday Buzz

Mattheo Riddle x Reader 

A/N: hi! loving your feedback and constructive criticism, so if you feel like sharing your opinion, feel free to do such! love ya 

Summary: How birthday day can go in such a different way than initially planned. 

Warnings: oh yes! language, some mild graphics (make-up lol), bitchy Pansy, and… have I mentioned language??

Word Count (bruh): 5.1k 

XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO

No one would have convinced Y/N in the morning that what had just transpired was coming around, in such a slapdash rapidity as it had. Even so, with that clear-cut fact smacking her right across the face was it still so damn hard to believe that… that it was true.  

She must be hallucinating. Or dreaming. Even the phenomenon of swines with the wings in the air would have been more feasible than… what was that exactly?  

It all started with Y/N descending to the Great Hall, the walls woven with the luminant sunlight of the spring. Entering the room, humid and somewhat irksome (it was Monday, everything is irksome on Mondays, alright?), she instantly noticed a few details: McGonagall’s new insipid hairstyle, the plate with her go-to breakfast already stowed in her regular sitting spot, Pansy’s huge grin tacked on her lips, and Blaise missing. The latest part surprised Y/N the most because she knew that Blaise would never skip a breakfast, and these were his usual hours of arriving; maybe he had already eaten?  

Also, what’s the Pansy’s deal with smiling like a madman who overdosed on the crack?  

What in the world…  

“Haiya you!” Pansy scrambled to her feet, without giving Y/N a chance to query. “Guess what! Or no, you are so bullshit at guessing anyways… Slytherin is throwing a party today!”  

The last part of her sentence came out in a feverish murmur, so that the Teachers’ Table wouldn’t overhear their conversation, and only loud enough for Y/N to hear. Still, her excitement was speaking volumes and Y/N wondered quickly whether Pansy really hadn’t dosed on a shot or two before the breakfast. Not that she wasn’t like that on a daily basis.  

“What? It’s literally the beginning of the week.”

“But not every week does someone have a birthday!” As Pansy’s elation gently receded, was then Y/N able to finally to abscond herself at the table and munch on the already-prepared food. Upon seeing Y/N frowning, Pansy let out a shrill shriek which made a few people nearby glance crabwise at the two. “You didn’t forget, did you?”  

“About what?”  

Another shriek followed. “Mattheo’s birthday!”  

An awkward grimace popped on Y/N’s face, brows knitting together. “Well… if you haven’t noticed, we are not precisely on the friendly terms.”  

Pansy made a fish-like O with her mouth, obviously about to say something appeasing, but the grunt next to Y/N interrupted. Promptly, she looked for the owner of the voice and was astonished to learn that the rest of their group was siding just next to her and Pansy, ostensibly listening to their exchange from the starters.  

“Well, well… just look who has finally decided to acknowledge the rest of her friends. Good morning to you too, Y/N.”  

She smirked. “No need to be so bitter, Theo. A few more years of practice and you may replace Snape in his disgruntlement.” A snort issued at the table and Y/N, complacent, grinned cheekily at Theo who only huffed. “Oh, don’t be like that, Theo, you know I love you.” Laying her head against his shoulder, she patted him at the top of his head. “There, there…”  

“So… party you say,” spoke up Draco for the first time. He was chewing on his morning toast, evidently amused by the entire scene, but his eyes had a ghost of a question in them. Y/N already knew that this topic wasn’t going to slip by as easily. “Have you really forgotten about Mattheo?”  

A smear of naked embarrassment splattered on Y/N’s cheeks. A part of her wanted to tell everyone to back off and just let her be, but at the same time, she knew she had blundered. It didn’t matter if they were close with Mattheo or not; they belonged to the same coterie, so it entangled some commitment. Even if that indicated associating with the bombastic entitlement of Mattheo for longer than the ideal time.  

“Mhm… Yeah. You know. How was I supposed to know, really. We barely talk.” While saying so, Y/N made sure to perform the best glower she could pull off. She felt extremely petulant while doing so, but she wanted to fend for herself and not let anyone manoeuvre her into culpability.  

“I told you about that, like two days ago!” Pansy had a distinct air of displeasure, as though personally offended by the occurrence. “I specifically highlighted ‘please, try to remember, it’s important’ and you said ‘fine’!”

“Well, I did not remember. And so, what? Don’t make such a big fuss about that. It’s not like he cares anyways,” Y/N said that with a nose in her breakfast plate, trying to avert the gaze from the rest, especially from Pansy who seemed to be at the brink of incredulity.  

She should have remembered though. She should have.  

Shit, shit, shit…  

Theo grunted again. “It’s not the end of the world, Pansy, we only have to find a way to… make Y/N appear like she’s not an ignorant brat who forgot about her friend’s birthday.” A beat. Theo peeked at Y/N goadingly, but she was already shooting daggers at him; that made him smirk. “She can pin her name on the present we got with Blaise.”  

“Thank you, that’s really sweet,” said Y/N, making a U-turn and smiling gratefully at her friend. Gosh, she didn’t know what she would have done without this insolent arse. In order to take the limelight off herself, Y/N continued: “Why did you decide to organize the party so last-minute, anyways?”

“We didn’t know till now if we would be able to smuggle the booze,” said Draco through the half-full mouth.  

“And how ar–”  

“Don’t ask,” interjected Pansy with the look that explicitly indicated that Y/N wouldn’t like to know that piece of information. “Blaise is fixing everything.”  

In response, Y/N merely nodded.  

“So here is a deal,” Pansy continued after a beat. She lowered her timbre as if revealing a top-secret gossip to a bunch of nine-year-olds. “When Mattheo comes down, we are going to pretend like we don’t remember about his birthday. He is going to be sulking all day long and stuff-”

“Highly doubt th-”  

“However.” If the looks could kill, Theo would be surely laying prostrate, French-kissing the floor. “At around…” She looked at her wristwatch. “8-ish, Y/N will ask Mattheo if he could help her out, at the same time hauling him to the Common Room. And that’s when all of us will jump out and hold a fucking “Surprise” banner right in front of his pretty face. Clear much?”  

Y/N exhaled, with one nagging thought in her head. Why was she always the one to be arranged in such a setting with Mattheo? Her friends were acutely aware of the enmity between the two, yet they always impelled them to work together, both if it came to the school projects or even the group hangouts when everyone – beside her and Mattheo, obviously – would suddenly mingle out of the gathering last-minute.  

As if sensing the ongoing dissension in Y/N’s head, Pansy critically eyed Y/N and furrowed, precisely addressing her concerns: “Something to add, Y/N?”  

“No, I love the plan,” she replied quickly, after a moment of contemplation. “It’s that I’m not sure about the latest bit. I—I don’t know if he will accede, you know, with helping me out. We aren’t that friendly, so it may seem a tad suspicious that all of the sudden I’m asking him for a favour.”  

No one said anything for a couple of seconds, but everyone seemed to be having the same hardwired thought as they threw each other the same bemused look, chewing the silence away. The tension of the message, so palpable it was, that it made Y/N snap out of the anticipation; she turned to Pansy, catching the waft of her strong double expresso, and then ogled each of her friends with an expectant eye.  

“What?” Her tone seemed brusque, even to herself. “Why are you all acting so… meek? Is there something I don’t know about?” And then, the thought dawned at her: “Has Mattheo said something about me?”  

Another round of chary looks followed, but before anyone was able to lodge a definite answer to the barrage of Y/N’s questions, the voice from behind echoed:  

“Morning, everyone.”  

Y/N whirled so abruptly, it almost cost her a whiplash, but when she saw the way Mattheo suited himself today, it most definitely caused her that whiplash. He was clad in a button-up shirt, the last couple of buttons undone and exposing the cleavage; his hair of the usual dark-brown curl was tumbling in its usual haphazard style and accentuating his prominent cheekbones; most definitely, the vague scar across his face did not make Y/N anyhow randy. Anyhow!

What struck Y/N the most, however, was the halo above his head – sunlight seeping through the Great Hall’s windows and highlighting Mattheo’s figure. The image was so angelic, so lofty, it suddenly caused the dryness in her throat. She thought she must be melting under those caramel-brown eyes like a humongous puddle of sweat and adoration.  

No, she most definitely did not develop a crush on her frenemy, that couldn’t be right.    

Y/N suddenly realized that she might be gawking, so she promptly returned to her previous position, all her aptitude to eat and breathe gone. Sidewise, she also noticed Pansy grinning knowingly at her, and when Y/N gave her an evil eye, she merely shrugged in a manner of “you know what I mean.”  

Mattheo, instead of occupying his usual spot at the table, squeezed in between Y/N and some Slytherin second-year. Y/N had a vague impression that he was awaiting his friends to suddenly burst singing “Happy Birthday” or bestow him with wishes, because his lips were pressed in a thin line, and he was silently scooping the porridge from the ornamental bowl.  

“So, what’s new, Mattheo?” asked Theo which felt so widely inappropriate that Y/N suddenly had an urge to boot him.  

From this proximity, Y/N could perceive the brief flash of hurt across Mattheo’s features, but that was only for milliseconds. He plastered a sham smile on his face, and only tipped off with a short: “Not much.”  

“We were actually talking,” started Pansy, carefully. “That Y/N needed some tutoring in Potions.” This time, Y/N seriously contemplated booting someone. Namely, Pansy. “Maybe you could help her, Mattheo? You are good at Potions, right?”  

Dismissing Pansy’s last question, Mattheo finally eyed Y/N who was maxing out the redness of her face. She gave him a bashful smile. “Really? I thought you were good at Potions.”  

The blankness overcame her. Y/N, clearly at whom the question was directed, tried to contrive a blatant lie but failing more and more as the seconds elapsed. Panic-stricken, she looked at Pansy who was witnessing the entire fall with a pained expression.  

Shit.  

“I– I have a problem with this n-new topic. Something connected with Pepperup Potion,” she finally spluttered out, after what felt like forever. Once more, she glanced at Pansy who gave her the thumbs-up (that crone!), but she made the point of averting Mattheo’s gaze. “But sure, if you don’t want t–”  

“No problem,” he broke off Y/N’s exhausted ramble. “Around 6-ish then?”  

“Actually,” said Pansy. “Me and Y/N are headed to the Hogsmeade at that time. Girly things, you know. Maybe you can meet up, afterward, like 7-ish?”

“Mhm, yeah, why not. As long as it’s okay with Y/N.” He shortly looked at her but she, mortified, merely responded with a nod of agreement.

“It’s settled then!” Pansy exclaimed a coda with a sort of exuberance which, apparently, nobody else shared. And Y/N couldn’t help but think how interesting her one-to-one with Mattheo is going to be.  

XOXOXOXXOXOXOXXOXO

Precisely two minutes before the appointed time, Y/N was at the foot of the library, taking in deep breaths.  

She didn’t know why she felt so overwrought. She thought she must be overreacting. It’s not like her and Mattheo hadn’t been alone with each other before.  

Rather, the opposite – they had been. Plenty of times.  

The worst part was, or the funniest – Y/N wasn’t sure in which terms she should regard that case – she constantly kept recollecting the same printed image of Mattheo from the morning. In his unbuttoned shirt, with that tousled hair which really gave him a look of a lead vocalist from the “Weird Sisters.” And the weirdest bit was that Y/N found that immensely attractive.  

Maybe there was something wrong with her? Maybe it was her hormones butting in, her pre-period thirst for what’s been chucked by the universe? And again, why would the universe be afflicting her?  

Deciding that she would probably not find any answers to those unabating thoughts, Y/N thought that there was no longer point of dangling in front of the entrance like some kind of mule. She pushed the door, treaded through a couple of book sections before finally localizing Mattheo with his usual cavalier aura. He was scribbling something rather intently on the piece of parchment in front of him, so much was he absorbed that he didn’t even flinch when Y/N strode over to the table.  

She cleared her throat, announcing her presence. “Hey.”  

He ultimately quirked up, and gosh was he so unbelievingly charming. Even after a day of meandering in the same clothes, he still made an impression of impeccable, and when his eyes met Y/N’s irresolute gaze, he smiled at her softly. Something flittered in Y/N’s stomach, and she only hoped that it was that sketchily-looking croissant that she had eaten.  

“Hey,” he spoke in a stoic manner, simultaneously gesturing at the chair next to him. “Take a seat.”

And so she did; from that distance she could smell the scent of his cologne – cedarwood mixed with an enticing trace of bourbon. Damn him.  

“Huh, so shall we start?” he asked as Y/N’s eyes were transfixed on his face. “Or will you just keep staring?”  

At once, Y/N tore her gaze away from his face, a blush blotching her cheeks; she felt positively mortified, warmth venturing from the chest to the nape of her neck. Well, it will take her some time to recover from that… “Yeah,” she laughed out, breathlessly. “Sorry.”  

He merely shook his head, then plucked the course book from his satchel, and dragged it between the two of them. Without further ado, he commenced explaining the topic to her (“Pepperup Potion is quite a facile topic” Yeah, no shit, Flamel) in his calming voice, tracing his finger over the ingredients and elucidating their cruciality in finalization of the potion.  

And while he was explaining all of that, composed and unbothered as if it were his daily lark, Y/N was on the other side of the spectrum – never had her body undergone something like that: her brain muddled, thoughts garbled, heart doing cartwheels whenever she looked up at Mattheo. She even noticed those little things about him, like the way his fingers smoothly flipped the pages, the way he pursed his lips whenever he was deeply immersed in his thoughts, or even that he had this sweet, little habit of raking his fingers through his hair.  

Y/N, at the same time, absolutely detested herself for having those thoughts – superficial, distractive, unnecessary, delusory, egregious, and…

She was staring again and, from the peripheries of his vision, Mattheo had noted that because he was eyeing her again in the matter of seconds, clearly saying something but Y/N couldn’t string those words together. Only after a couple of seconds did she parse what he had asked.  

“Yes, I’m fine…” she answered, swallowing the pit in her throat. Then, she inspected her watch – 7.47 – and decided that it was a high time for them to bestir. “I’m just feeling… tired. Maybe we should get going, you know.”  

Mattheo eyed her for a few more jiffs before finally nodding. Y/N had a dim impression that something in terms of acrimony flashed across his face for a split moment, but that was quickly gone, and he was already shoving his belongings into the satchel.  

Once they were out in the corridor, Y/N started: “Thank you for your help, you know. That means a lot.” She thought it a good idea to pass over her gratitude by touching his shoulder but boy was she wrong. The reaction was immediate: Mattheo stiffened under her touch and, like a scalded cat, took a stride backward; his breath hitched and even in a dull lighting as it was, she could discern how his pupils dilated; he raked his hand over his hair like he had done before.  

Y/N froze, halting just as he had. Not sure what else to do, because she hadn’t done anything wrong really, she simply waited how this debacle was going to progress; she could have anticipated many things – him throwing cusses at her, him laughing the entire situation off, even him casting curses at her. What she hadn’t expected, however, was Mattheo suddenly rushing in a different direction than the Common Room and leaving her lingering in the spot, not able to process rapidity of the shebang.  

Maybe she should have felt contrite at the moment, maybe she should have given up, and simply informed her friends that the plan clearly hadn’t worked out, and that Mattheo was a prick, leaving her hanging like some kind of scum in the middle of the corridor. But she would be lying to herself then and poorly attempting to talk herself into believing that she didn’t care.  

Yet she did, that’s why Y/N suddenly felt like the blood was curdling within her. Without administering that the words were spewing out of her mouth, she was already shouting after him:

“What’s your problem?” Mattheo stopped in his track, not turning around nor snorting at her, but simply standing still. He was waiting for her to continue. “Every time we are supposed to hang out with each other, every time I try to initiate the conversation with you, every time I smile and you ignore me, every time… I try so hard to be nice to you, try to act… civil, at least in front of our friends. But you always bring me down.” She didn’t even fathom how she had come up to him, but here she was – standing in front of Mattheo Riddle and cannoning the grudges that she had been keeping for years at him. It felt so… emancipating. “Even that one time when I cooked the brownies for Christmas, especially for you, and later you gave them away to Blaise. You know how humiliated I felt? That I spent time doing something for you, and you… so carelessly dismissed that? And, and… by the way, how much of the psychopath do you have to be as not to like brownies, on Merlin’s Beard!”  

Her voice sounded so reedy in her ears, but she knew that she was just poorly trying to outshout the quiver in her voice or the prickling tears in her eyes. When a tear tumbled down her cheek, not wanting to unveil any accompanying emotions, she angrily wiped it away with a sleeve. Her gaze travelled downwards because she felt more waterworks coming about.  

“I realize that you might hate me bu-”

“I don’t,” interjected Mattheo. For the first time, he shifted in his spot and when Y/N scrutinized his countenance, his lines had a note of desperation in them, earnestness that clearly stressed the truthfulness of his words. “I don’t hate you.”

“You don’t have to lie, Mattheo, I-”

“I don’t hate you,” he retaliated, sounding stern. And angry, in a way? Y/N must have misheard.    

“Listen, Mattheo, I appreciate you trying to patch things up, but there’s no poin-”

But her sentence spiralled into the distant corners of the corridor, and Y/N piped down as Mattheo took a step closer, curtailing the distance between the two. Y/N cast her face downwards under Mattheo’s intense stare, but his hand travelled to her chin, forcing her to look at him once more. His thumb swiped over her cheek where the tear stain was, and it seemed like he was contemplating her dejection with a sour expression. For a moment, Y/N could swear that the air in her lungs disappeared altogether, and she just kept waiting for his next move, her eyes turned into the deer-in-the-headlights expression.  

With the intent look, he bent over her, Y/N’s nostrils catching the scent of his cologne yet again, and he was leaning over to her ear. One of his hands moved over to her arm, clutching it lightly as if she was the most exquisite dainty porcelain set, and his mouth was just centimetres away from her earlobe. Y/N’s body went entirely rigid.  

“I. Don’t. Hate. You,” he spelled out every syllable of his sentence, gravely, gutturally, slowly.  

Something clicked in Y/N. No longer was she standing there spellbound, but maybe because of his intoxicating scent, maybe because of the intensity with which he had uttered his words, she was tugging him by his collar with both of her hands. She normally, a brief thought crossed her mind, wouldn’t have enough nerve to do something like that, but she kissed him – her desperate, parched mouth travelled onto his.  

For a moment, she asked herself if maybe she might be out of her mind for doing that or if Mattheo felt the same way she had this morning, or if he had ever considered her as more then… well, whatever they were. She soon found out the answer, however, because his lips momentarily detached themselves from her skin, and he was scanning her face with dilated pupils.  

Instantly, Y/N pulled away and put her hands on the level with her head in the defensive mode like a child who had been caught red-handed while sneaking out the chocolate bars. The air was sucked out of her.  

“I’m so, so sor-”  

“It’s not the way I envisaged that…” His voice sounded positively berserk, feral even. Her hands pending mid-air, Mattheo drew them back to their previous place. In the middle of that maelstrom, Mattheo capitalized Y/N’s confusion by placing his hands on her lower back, flipped her so that now her body was positioned against the wall, moulded against him.  

“And how have you envisaged that, exactly?” she muttered, her voice barely audible. She blinked a couple of times, disorientated, observing as a smirk curved on Mattheo’s lips.  

“Let me show you how…”  

His lips smashed against hers, and Y/N was happy to note that her feelings were requited after all. At first it started off gentle, but that quickly morphed into this voracious battle for dominance. They were devouring into each other’s taste (Mattheo’s peppermint toothpaste), and he slid his tongue over her bottom lip, silently soliciting her for deepening the kiss.

She permitted, of course she did, parting her lips ever so widely, deliberating that if she ever were to die, that’s probably the only way she would have accepted the Grim Reaper in her warm, hospitable embrace. Much to her surprise, Mattheo took her by both of her wrists, pinned them above her head while his other hand was caressing the skin underneath her shirt.  

His kisses were so fierce and zealous, Y/N couldn’t help it but feel the sudden yearning to be as close to him as possible; she draped one of her legs around his lower waist, aligning his body with hers as if they were the unity. It felt like they belonged together the whole life, just like yin and yang, and it was so ludicrous that they hadn’t realized that before.  

His tongue flicked over her lips a couple more times, making the want pool around her abdomen, before he finally dipped lower and lower, reaching her neck and planting the sloppy kisses on it. It was as if though he couldn’t get enough of her taste, so ardent in his actions he was, and when he finally discovered the weak spot on her neck, he started sucking on it ever so roughly. Not quite able to quell it, she let out a small moan which apparently must have worked marvels on Mattheo because Y/N could suddenly sense the bulge of erection ramming against her thigh.  

She was torn. From one side, she wanted to do this so badly, the knot in her lower parts specifically betrayed that, but she knew that it would be so wrong and thorny if they elevated that to another level.  

Yet, it was so hard to focus with Mattheo’s lips leeched to her neck, signaturing her skin in the most conspicuous way.  

“Don’t… you think… that we sho…uld talk this over… first?” Y/N rasped out with an evident difficulty.  

“What’s there to talk about?” he muttered in between the kisses, his hand still circling on Y/N’s belly and dangerously nearing to her bra. “I’ve wanted this since forever. And clearly, so did you.”  

Y/N released an amused, hoarse chuckle but that silenced her only for a few seconds before she finally deciphered his words. Particularly, the one resonated in her mind: forever. A paroxysm of joy sprung up in her.  

“So, you felt like that for a long time?”  

Mattheo, apparently cognizing that Y/N wasn’t going to relinquish the topic easily, halted. He withdrew both of his hands, instead placing them on each side of the wall where Y/N was residing. His chest was still moving rapidly, hair rumpled, and pupils almost entirely replacing the irises of his eyes. As Y/N examined him briefly, she thought she must be out of her mind for ceasing their make-out in the first place.  

Too late for reversion, anyways.  

After a few inhales, he finally started: “Well, haven’t you noticed? This entire time, that I-” With a small gloss of hesitation, he looked her in the eyes, assiduously. “I have been crazy about you. For so long. I don’t even remember how it feels to be sane, because whenever I’m around you I just… want to grab you and kiss you senseless.”  

Y/N balked. Things got another notch inexplicable, and Y/N wasn’t sure anymore if she was dreaming and perhaps was stuck in a different universe where cats were the heads of the Ministry, Pansy was Gryffindor, and Mattheo was besotted with her. That would be more possible, from all Y/N could think of.  

“Really?” A blush suffused her cheeks. “I thought you hated me! All those signs – always avoiding me, never talking to me… This didn’t necessarily appear to me as… what you just said.”  

“Listen.” His palm covered hers and he squeezed it lightly a couple of times. “All of that was just a game. I didn’t want to weird you out nor did I know if you reciprocated my feelings. That’s why I tried to… avoid you, if you will.” He stopped for a moment, just staring Y/N, enchanted, as if there was nothing else in the world, both of them captured in slow-motion where nothing else around them mattered. The silence between them was only raptured by their quick breathing and the hammering in their chests. “In truth, the way you… move and talk, it’s all driving me mad. Fuck! I want to be with you, be able to kiss you whenever I desire, want to touch you and be there for you whenever you feel down… Y/N, I want to do so many things with you, and you don’t even know that. But how could you, right?”  

As if pained, he closed his eyes with a microscopic grimace and he licked his lips, as if reminiscing the tastes of her on his skin. With guilt flaring up, Y/N cupped his cheek in her palm and stroked over it again and again. He seemed to be enjoying that as he leaned into her touch, his frayed nerves somewhat tranquilized.  

“You know, I like you too,” Y/N said, and before Mattheo was able to protest as he opened his mouth with the clear intention of doing so, Y/N proceeded: “I really do! It was just that… I was trying to tell myself otherwise because I wasn’t sure of how you would react. And when you waltzed into the Great Hall today, looking like that, I realized that… I’ve been lying to myself. And- and are you mad?”  

He furrowed. “Mad? What for?”  

“For screaming at you earlier.” Y/N pursed her lips.  

Gently smiling, he smooched her lips shortly, and Y/N fleetingly missed the heat of his body on hers. “No, I was a dick.” Another smooch. “Although, I would specifically like to highlight that I didn’t give these cookies away to Blaise. He stole them.”  

With poorly faked disapprobation, she shook her head but soon enough, a grin adorned her features. “That shithead.”  

Mattheo chuckled and he was about to kiss Y/N again when…  

“There you two are, I was looking all over for you two and–” Pansy prowled from around the corner, clearly with annoyance painted on her face but when she discerned the view right in front of her, with Y/N positioned against Mattheo, she smirked. “Well, well… Y/N, I told you to sneak him into the Common Room, not to woo him.” Y/N palm-faced herself but Pansy, not taking on the social hints, continued: “But have it your way, I guess…”

“Pansy, I think we would like to be left alone for now and if you could-”  

“No,” Pansy interposed, folding her arms together. “It’s your birthday party, Mattheo! It was supposed to be a surprise, but someone…” She leered at Y/N with a pointed look. “…clearly can’t control themselves and restrain her animalistic instincts, irrespective of the plan that her other friends set up.”

“In her defence–”  

“And I’m not going to be a shitty friend who forgets about her best friend’s birthday! So, collect yourself a little and schedule bumping uglies on a different time.” With that, the pitter-patter of her stilettos faded away, while both Mattheo and Y/N stood stunned in their spot.  

“That’s not how I planned it,” Y/N explained quickly. “Especially the “bumping uglies” part.”  

Mattheo chuckled with hilarity sparkling in his eyes. “I know.”

“And I’m sorry about your birthday, we were supposed to act like we have forgo-”  

“Doesn’t matter.” Mattheo smiled finally at her, covering her mouth with his. “It’s still the best birthday I have ever had.”  

in my “in love with xavier thorpe” era