Joshua Washington - Blog Posts

the washington's have the saddest endings and i do not appreciate it. beth sees her sister get humiliated, so she runs after her in the snowy mountains, falls off a cliff with her, and dies. hannah gets humiliated, so she runs out of the cabin, falls off a cliff with her sister and surprisingly doesn’t die. she then had to stay trapped in the mines with her dead sister's body, decided to bury her, but then EATS HER because it had been a month of her being stuck in there and chose not to starve to death. which leads to her turning into a wendigo. josh having lost his two sisters over a stupid prank brings everyone back to the mountain to have some type of closure, while going through withdrawals, and as a result is either killed by handigo or is taken by her to become a wendigo himself. and only in the remake, made TEN YEARS LATER, do they give josh the chance to actually survive like the others. not to mention that the parents will have now lost all of their children. the fact none of them get a happy ending makes me so angry. i need to lie down

i fear joshua washington did nothing wrong. if my sisters disappeared because not just my friends, but theirs too decided to pull a prank that humiliated one of them to the point of running out of the cabin and the other running after to console. i too would have lashed out. and to top it off, josh was highly medicated before they disappeared and then stopped taking his meds. COLD. TUEKRY. i'm surprised he didn't actually kill one of them

~❄️Until Dawn ❄️~

Me watching Berleey getting characters killed in Detroit Become Human, just like Until Dawn.

Me in 2038 if I don’t see Connor.

JOSH ILY (˃̣̣̥ᯅ˂̣̣̥)

best thing about being a lesbian who loves male characters is when i feel them getting too flawed i can just imagine them as butches and i’m suddenly okay with all of their faults

seeing until dawn get popular on tiktok because of the remaster is making me feel like a mother goose protecting her goslings… get behind me josh… get behind me sam…

Two lovers entwined pass me by

And heaven knows I'm miserable now !!

(captured by: @bratjosh / me)

Until dawn era coming back with a vengence

Here’s a cat

This is the SIXTH TIME I’ve been into until Dawn…

It’s annual at this point I think-it’s never leaving my life (LIFE CHANGING)

Inked up | Fem! Y/N x Josh Washington *Smut*

Masterlist

It's spring break, which means Y/N can finally show off the lower back tattoo she got months ago. Josh surely isn't going to complain, especially not when it's paired with such a tight Bikini. (WC: 5999 ) Warnings: Smut, AFAB! Reader, Alcohol, Dom!Josh, Dom/Sub vibes, Deep throat, Face fucking, Brief Slap, Tattoo Kink, kinda PWP, Pet Names, NOT BETA READ.

AN: Tattoo design isn't specified so it can be what ever you want.

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When Hannah had discussed getting a tattoo with Y/N, the Washington girl had expressed an understandable nervousness about getting anywhere near a needle for a long period of time. Which was why Y/N, as her close friend, had volunteered to go with her and also get a tattoo.

They weren’t matching tattoos by any means, but Y/N and Hannah both liked that it was an experience the two of them had shared together. Yet, it seemed no one else had really noticed that the Washington girl wasn’t the only one inked up.

Sam had, of course, come for moral support, as had Beth, but other than the four of them, no one else knew. However, this was mostly because of the placement of the Y/N new tattoo.

See, unlike Hannah, who had chosen her right arm, Y/N was afraid of what her parent would think, and so she had made the decision to tattoo her lower back. Essentially, Y/N was now the proud owner of a 'tramp stamp'.

She wasn’t ashamed of it by any means; she thought the design was beautiful and would’ve happily shown it off to her friends if she hadn’t gotten it in the middle of winter. Instead the intricate ink work was hidden under layers of fabric to fight off the frigid climate outside. 

Eventually, though the cold winter nights passed, and after a few months, it was time for spring break. Now as she sat upstairs in the Washingtons beachside house in Florida, a small, selfish part of her couldn’t have felt more lucky to be friends with the richest people in their town. 

When it came to spring break, all illusions of modesty went completely out the window. Ninety percent of the men went shirtless while girls simply went out in bikinis, which is exactly what Y/N planned to do. 

“What the hell is that?!” Y/N whipped around from where she was looking in the mirror and looked over at Emily, who was busy trying to look around her.

“What’s what?” She asked genuinely, not sure what the dark-haired girl was talking about.

Emily looked at her like she was stupid, replying like the answer was obvious, “Erm, I’m talking about the tattoo that’s suddenly appeared on your lower back.”

Y/N blinked as understanding came over her. Turning her head, she looked at her back through the mirror and realised her bikini felt low enough that the tattoo was fully exposed for the first time since she’d gotten it. Shrugging, she turned back to her friend and spoke.

“Oh yeah, I got it done at the same time as Han, just in a harder-to-see location.”

“So, you’ve just had this the whole time,” Her friend continued to question, “And just… didn’t think to mention it?”

“I don’t think a small tattoo on my back is life-changing information,” Y/N reasoned, “So it wasn’t something I found important to share.”

“Share what?” Jessica asked as she entered the room, clad in a skin-tight pink floral bikini. 

Emily turned to her best friend and pointed briefly to Y/N before speaking, “Y/N has a tattoo, a tramp stamp to be specific.” 

This perked Jess’ interest to immediately move over to her friend, “Oooo, let me see,” she said, followed swiftly by, “Oh my god, that looks really cute.” When the blonde had actually seen the bit of ink.

Y/N smiled appreciatively at her friend before turning back to the mirror and adjusting her bikini top one final time before looking back at the girls. “Is everyone else already downstairs?”

“Yes, so we better hurry before they get bored and leave without us.” Em spoke as she swiftly grabbed Y/N by her arm and led her out of the room and downstairs, Jessica following behind them.

Everyone else was already in the main living room. Matt was sitting on the floor next to Mike and Josh, laughing at some stupid video the two had found while Beth was sitting in an armchair talking to Hannah. Sam had her eyes locked on the TV, watching the game on the screen, her attention turning towards the sound of footsteps descending from the stairs.

“Alright bitches, let’s fucking party.” Emily announced as she confidently made her way into the living room, still pulling Y/N behind her.

Mike and Josh were the first in the small group to stand up; Mike was the one to speak up, “Bout time y'all got down here.” He joked in a mocking southern accent as he picked up a bottle of beer that was on the coffee table before taking a sip.

Josh, on the other hand, made his way over to Y/N and smiled at her genuinely, “You look… wow.” 

Y/N simply giggled and gave a little playful slow twirl to show off her ‘outfit.’. “Thanks, Sam helped me pick it out.”

However, as she twirled, a hand suddenly reached out and grabbed her waist to hold her in place. Y/N then felt another hand reach down to softly trace the tattoo on her lower back, causing her to shiver slightly.

“How long have you had that for?” Josh couldn’t help but ask, his typical smug smirk spread across his face.

“Got it at the same time as Hannah.” She replied as she pulled away from his touch, suddenly feeling very sensitive in that area.

He chuckled to himself as he watched her suddenly shiver from his touch; it wasn’t a secret to anyone that it was a sensitive area, and that just made it even more fun to him.

“I can’t believe you just hid a tattoo like this from me all year.” He gave her a mock serious look, a sly smirk on his lips, “I’m appalled, how could you?”

“I didn’t do it intentionally,” Y/N bit back, “I wasn’t about to walk around in low-cut jeans and crop tops all winter.”

He laughed brightly and took another swig of his beer before leaning in a little close, “Fair enough, but does that mean I’m gonna get to see it all the time now that you’ve revealed the secret to the world?”

“Ha, you wish.”

He gave her a wide smile, “You bet I do.” He wiggled his eyebrows playfully and pulled away.

Before Y/N could react to that, however, Chris and Ashley had emerged from the beach house’s kitchen. As Chris entered the room, he exclaimed dramatically, “Alright party people, let’s get this show on the road.

Matt was the first to respond to Chris, and while he may not have been as dramatic about it as Chris, he still let out an excited holler. “Yeah! Time to go get wasted!”

And soon, after several other shouts of excitement, the group made their way out of the house and straight onto the beach. The beach in front of the Washington’s house was already swarmed with college kids, equally if not more scarily clad than Y/N’s tight two-piece. 

The smell of alcohol and weed permeated the air, and music blared from several speakers that were linked to the stage where a DJ was jamming away on.

“Remember to at least stick in pairs,” Sam maturely said before grabbing Hannah and Beth’s hand and almost running off into the crowd in search of a good drink.

Josh smiled brightly as he watched his sisters having fun with Sam for a moment before turning his gaze back to Y/N. “Wanna go find a drink?”

“Definitely.”

With her reply, Josh started to walk to the makeshift bar that was set up by the other side of the beach, his hand finding the small of her back to lead her into the crowd of people.

“So what do you want to drink then?” He asked as he guided them towards the bar.

As the pair reached the bar, he gave her a small nod and turned to the man running the stand, pulling out a ten-dollar bill as he spoke, “We'll have two shots... something strong.”

The moment he said the word shots, the guy nodded and started to pour them out two shots and handed them both to Josh, who took them both and offered one to Y/N, “Here yah go.”

“Thanks,” She smiled at him before downing the drink. As the liquid hit the back of the throat, she could help but cough slightly, “Well, it’s definitely strong.”

He couldn’t help but chuckle as she spoke, and he turned to request another two shots, which the guy filled without delay.

“Y’know I had a feeling you were gonna say that.” He told her as he once again handed her a glass before taking the other for himself, “Ready?”

Y/N winced slightly as she remembered the burning sensation she’d felt just moments before, but it was spring break, and she wanted to get as drunk as possible. So, she picked up her glass and gently hit it against Josh’s, “Ready.”

This time, however, when Y/N downed her shot, her throat forgot to close properly, and she found herself choking as the burning liquid hit the back of her throat. Tears rolled down her cheek as she subconsciously gripped onto Josh’s arm for support.

Josh’s eyes widened slightly as he suddenly felt her grip his arm, “Oh—“ He started to say but stopped as he saw her struggling to breathe, panicking slightly.

“Hey, just breathe,” he said as he quickly put both their glasses onto the bar. “Take a second to breathe.”

When she finally got a breath back, Y/N gently patted him on the arm, “S-sorry, just went down the wrong way.”

He looked at her as he saw she was alright and let out a small laugh, his hand resting gently on her back, “It’s alright, just don’t do that again. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do if I have to perform the Heimlich.”

The smile grew wider on his lips, realising he had his hand on her lower back, right by her tattoo. Yet, before he had the chance to pull away, Y/N shifted her feet and leaned into his touch.

The moment he felt her relax and lean into his touch, he found himself unable to stop himself, letting out a small sound at her touch as his fingers lightly traced the tattoo on her lower back.

It was only when the man at the bar spoke, asking if they wanted another drink, that he reluctantly snapped out of it and quickly pulled his hand away. “Maybe we shouldn’t get any more,” he said. “The beach isn’t a nice place to vomit.”

"Let's go dance then."

Josh looked back to her as she spoke, a large smile on his lips, “That’s a dangerous proposition.”

He smirked coyly, “You sure you trust me enough to not have my hands all over you?”

Y/N stepped forward, a smirk growing on her face. "Maybe I want you too..."

As she stepped forward and spoke, Josh’s eyes locked with her own, his smirk growing even wider as his heart started to beat even faster. He couldn’t resist the temptation any longer, his hand running down her lower back once again, stopping when he reached the edge of her bikini.

“In that case, I won’t hold myself back.”

"Come on then..." she said before pulling away and disappearing into the crowd.

Josh took a second as she left to watch her walk away, a smile on his lips as he followed after her, his eyes fixed on her as he pushed through the crowd.

It didn’t take much time for him to catch up to her, and as soon as he was there, his hands were on her once again, this time her waist, as he pulled her back towards him.

As she felt herself being moved, Y/N couldn’t help but lean into the touch, swaying her hips against him as she began to dance to the music. Since Josh was only wearing a pair of swimming trunks, it wasn’t hard for Y/N to feel just how much he was enjoying it.

Suddenly, she turned in his arms so that she was facing him and tilted her head upwards so she could look into his eyes. “What if I told you there’s another tattoo you can’t see?”

As she turned around in his arms, a smirk spread across his lips, and he raised his eyebrows, a look on his face of both disbelief and lust, “You’re kidding me, you’ve got another tattoo that you’ve managed to keep completely hidden?"

Unable to control her face, she burst into giggles for a minute or two, and when she'd finally calmed down, she replied, "I'm only kidding; unless I had a tattoo on my tits, there's not really anywhere else I'd hide another tattoo in this."

It didn’t take more than a moment for his eyes to dart down her body as his thoughts ran wild, “That’s disappointing.” He eventually said, looking back up at her, “I was looking forward to seeing where you’d manage to hide a tattoo in this.”

"Well, maybe there's something else more exciting under this little swimsuit," Y/N replied before pouting her lips dramatically.

He raised an eyebrow at her as she spoke before looking down her body again. “I think you’d have to prove that for me to believe you.”

"How far are we from the house?"

Josh raised an eyebrow, a smirk on his lips that was full of lust and desire. “It’s a short walk. Why do you ask?”

A dark look crossed Y/N's face as she reached forward and pulled his face close enough that her breath tickled against his lips. "Listen to me, we either go to the house now, or I go off on my own and find a random stranger to fuck.”

His own eyes darkened as she spoke, her breath against his lips only making it even worse as he had to take a deep breath.

He stared into her eyes for a moment, the alcohol in his system giving him the bravado he needed before he nodded, “We’re leaving now.” He almost growled out as he grabbed her hand and started to pull her through the crowd.

With a proud, smug smile, Y/N happily allowed Josh to drag her through the crowds and back down the beach to the house. When they arrived, Y/N couldn’t help but cheer mentally that none of the others had yet returned, which meant she and Josh had the whole place to themselves.

Josh pushed her inside before stepping in and closing the front door behind them. As she heard the lock click, Y/N was suddenly pulled backward and nearly slammed against the wall of the entryway.

For Josh, his lust had completely taken over, and it didn’t take more than a few seconds before his lips crashed against hers roughly, one of his hands resting against the wall by her head while the other rested on her hip as he pressed himself against her.

Y/N couldn’t help but gasp into the kiss; in all her teasing, she’d never seen this side of Joshua before. He was so forceful compared to his usual soft nature towards her.

As she gasped into the kiss, he took the opportunity to quickly slip his tongue into her mouth. Yet, there was no battle for dominance; from the moment Josh had grabbed onto Y/N’s hand and dragged her away, it was clear who was in control.

“You’re such a fucking tease.” He murmured against her lips, “I bet you’re really fucking proud of yourself.”

“I don’t know what you mean…” She replied, playing coy as her hands moved into his thick curls and pulling slightly.

A low growl escaped his lips, one of his hands gripping slightly at her hip. “You know exactly what I mean,” he said, his lips now moving to her jaw as he leaned down to kiss her skin softly. “You just love to give me trouble, don’t you?”

“I’m sorry, will you ever forgive me?” She couldn’t help, whining slightly as he moved down from her jaw and began to kiss the hollow of her neck.

A grin spread across his lips as she spoke, and he pulled away from her neck just long enough to respond, “I don’t know.” He said, his hand gripping her hip slightly, “I think you’ll have to make it up to me in some way.”

"I'll do anything."

Josh’s hands now rested on her hips, his eyes burning with lust as he stared at her with a smirk on his lips. He took in a moment to admire her, unable to resist the image before him as his gaze raked over her. “Prove it then.”

And so she did, pushing him backwards Y/N led Josh into the living room and directed him to sit on the couch. Once he had settled himself down, instead of sitting next to him, she took a moment to stand in front before slowly lowering herself until she was kneeling on the floor.

Reaching forward, she began to gently play with the ties of his swimming shorts. “Will this make it up to you?” Y/N asked looking up at him through her lashes.

He nodded his head. “Definitely a start,” he replied, his fingers resting against the cushion as he sat there and watched her, his own eyes taking her entire body in.

Having been given the green light Y/N took the initiative and gripped the hem of his shorts and pulled them down, eyes focused on his cock which had sprung free. She couldn’t help but feel smug in that moment, seeing the evidence of how much she affected him firsthand. 

"Fuck, Y/N," Josh groaned, as he felt the cold air against his now exposed skin. His eyes darkened as he took in the sight of her, her gaze locked onto his aching member. His cock twitched in anticipation, a bead of pre-cum already leaking from the tip. 

Unable to hold herself back any longer, Y/N leaned forward and took just the head of his hardness into her mouth before swirling her tongue. With a groan, Josh’s hand quickly found itself in her hair, gripping the strands tightly.

"Oh fuck, Y/N," he groaned, his hips instinctively rocking forward to push more of his thick length into her mouth. "Your mouth feels so fucking good, baby. Such a perfect little cock slut for me.”

Y/N had never heard Josh talk like this before; he’d always been so mild-mannered and kind towards her. Yet, now as she knelt on the floor listening to Josh calling her a slut, all she wanted was for him to keep talking.

Spurred on, she hollowed her cheeks and quickly found her rhythm, and it was almost too much for Josh to bear. He could feel every flick and swirl of her tongue, every gentle grazing of her teeth against his skin, sending jolts of electricity straight to his core.

Through the pleasure-induced fog, Josh sensed just how much his words affected the girl kneeling in front of him. “Oh, you like that, do you?” he growled, his voice dripping with lust. "You love hearing me talk dirty to you, don't you?"

She tried to pull away to reply, but he quickly pushed her down, shoving his cock even further into her mouth, “Oh no, I don’t need you to speak right now, just let me fuck into that pretty little mouth.”

He began to fuck into her mouth with increasing fervour, his thick cock plunging in and out of her stretched lips. Drool dripped down her chin as he picked up the pace, the obscene sound of his hips slapping against her face filling the room.

"Shit, I'm gonna cum soon," he grunted, his grip on her hair turning painful as he chased his release. "I'm going to pump my load straight down your throat, and you're going to swallow every last drop like a good little slut. Got it?"

All Y/N could do was hum in agreement against his cock; she tried to nod her head too but simply served to push him against the back of her throat, causing her to gag slightly.

That seemed to be all Josh needed as he let out a shout of ecstasy as his orgasm hit him like a tidal wave. Y/N struggled to swallow as thick ropes of cum erupted from his cock and down her throat. 

Once he had fully ridden out his orgasm, she pulled away with a loud pop. Exhausted, she couldn’t do anything except rest her head against Josh’s leg, breath heavy as she tried to catch it.

Josh let out a low, satisfied groan as he slowly came down from his intense high, his grip on Y/N's hair loosening. He looked down at her with a smug, arrogant smirk, taking in the debauched sight of her—hair dishevelled, eyes glazed over and unfocused, cum dripping from her well-fucked lips. 

He tucked himself back into his pants before scooping Y/N up and pulling her onto his lap, cradling her against his chest. She melted into him, letting him support her limp, exhausted body as she struggled to catch her breath.

"That was... intense," Josh murmured, pressing a surprisingly tender kiss to her forehead. "You did so good, taking my cock like that. Such a good girl." His hand stroked through her hair, trying to smooth out the tangles he'd created.

He could feel Y/N's chest heaving against his own as she gulped in air, her body still trembling slightly from the force of his release. Josh held her close, enjoying the feeling of her soft curves pressed against him, the scent of sex and her shampoo filling his nostrils.

"You okay, baby?" He asked softly, tilting her chin up to look at him. His thumb brushed over her lower lip, wiping away the stray cum and smearing it across her cheek. "I hope I didn't hurt you. I just couldn't help myself; you felt too fucking good."

Y/N, on the other hand, had never felt better. She loved the fuzzy feeling in her head and wanted to keep feeling it. So, she subtly adjusted herself and began to gently grind herself down onto Josh's thigh.

"Mmm, someone's eager," Josh murmured, a smirk tugging at his lips as he watched her move against him. His hands slid down to grip her hips, encouraging her subtle movements. "You liked choking on my cock that much, huh? Got you all hot and bothered?"

"Mmm," she whined in a near squeal, "I need... fuck, I need..." God, she was such a mess she couldn't even talk.

“What?” He questioned, gripping her face and forcing her to look at him, “I need you to use your words, sweetheart.”

“I…” Her face scrunched in frustration when she still couldn’t speak, so she reached behind and quickly undid the ties of her bikini top before throwing it off.

Josh's eyes widened as Y/N frantically untied her bikini top and tossed it aside, exposing her perfect breasts to his hungry gaze. They bounced slightly from the motion, and he couldn't resist reaching out to palm the soft mounds, squeezing and kneading the supple flesh. Her dusky pink nipples pebbled under his touch, and he couldn't help but lean down to capture one in his mouth, swirling his tongue around the hardened bud.

"Fuck, these tits are amazing," Josh groaned around her nipple, sucking and nibbling gently before giving the other the same treatment. He could feel Y/N arching into his touch, her fingers tangling in his hair to hold him close. The taste of her skin, the weight of her tits in his hands, and the needy whimpers spilling from her lips—it was all driving him crazy with lust.

Pulling back, Josh cupped her face, forcing her to meet his intense gaze. "Tell me what you need, Y/N," he demanded, his voice low and rough with desire. "I need to hear you say it. I want to make all your dirty fantasies come true." 

His other hand slid down her stomach, slipping beneath the waistband of her bikini bottoms to cup her mound. He could feel the heat radiating from her core, the dampness of her arousal coating his fingers. "Is this what you need? To be touched, to be fucked until you can't think straight? Say it."

“Yes,” she said simply, but that earned her a soft chastising slap on her cheek from Josh. It was a playful slap but firm enough to make a point.

"Yes, what? Come on, baby, you can do better than that," he coaxed, his fingers teasing through her slick folds, not quite touching where she needed him most. "Tell me exactly what you want. I know you've got more imagination than that."

“Ah!” She moaned out in an almost scream from his touch, “Joshua, I can’t…”

Josh tightened his grip around Y/N's throat slightly at the sound of her desperate moan, his eyes flashing with intensity. "Can't what, baby? Can't form a sentence? Come on, sweetheart, you're going to have to do better than that," he growled, his fingers still teasing through her soaked folds without giving her the direct stimulation she craved.

“Please… fuck my pussy.” Y/N spoke rapidly between breaths, desperation evident, “I need your cock in my pussy, please; I wanna feel good.”

Josh let out a low, approving groan as Y/N finally begged for what she needed, her words dripping with desperation. "Fuck, that's my good girl," he praised, rewarding her by pushing two fingers deep into her dripping cunt without warning. He pumped them in and out of her hard and fast, curling them to hit that sensitive spot inside her that made her see stars.

At the same time, Josh captured her lips in a searing kiss, swallowing her wanton moans and cries. He bit at her bottom lip before soothing it with his tongue, his hand still wrapped loosely around her throat. Breaking the kiss, he leaned in to growl in her ear, "Get on all fours and spread your legs, baby. Show me this needy little pussy that's begging to be filled.

Drinking in the breathtaking sight before him, he felt his cock throb at the erotic image of Y/N presenting herself so perfectly, just for him. The way her back arched, her round ass up in the air and her dripping pussy on full display, begging to be claimed. He couldn't resist reaching out to squeeze one of her plump cheeks, kneading the supple flesh roughly.

"Fuck, Y/N... you're so goddamn sexy like this," he groaned, giving her ass a sharp smack before grabbing onto her hips. He rubbed his rock-hard cock teasingly along her wet slit, coating himself in her arousal. "This is what you want, isn't it, baby? To feel my big dick stretching out this tight little cunt."

Without warning, Josh thrust his hips forward, burying himself to the hilt inside Y/N's hot, slick heat with one powerful stroke. “F-fuck!” Y/N screamed out in a stutter as she felt him enter her so deeply.

He quickly set a brutal pace, fucking into her rapidly. The sound of skin slapping against skin echoed through the room, mingling with Y/N's scream and his own grunts of pleasure. He could feel her velvety walls clenching and fluttering around his cock, drawing him in deeper with each powerful thrust.

His hands found her waist as his thumbs traced the edges of the back tattoo that had started all of this; he thought it looked even more beautiful in this moment. Josh’s eyes focused on the intricate design, yet his pace never faltered.

“So fucking sexy,” he spoke in between thrusts, “Such a sexy little tattoo, but you know that, don’t you?"

“Yes!” She screamed out, cutting herself off with a high moan.

“Tell me,” he spoke suddenly, “Did you get it for me?”

Stunned by the sudden question, Y/N froze in place, her eyes growing wide. “Huh?” 

“Did. You. Get . It . For. Me?” As he asked, Josh emphasised each word with a sharp thrust into her pussy.

“I already told you, I got it with Hannah.” She mumbled, but that wasn’t the answer he was looking for, and almost as quickly as he entered, he suddenly withdrew from her pussy. Y/N lifted her head in confusion as she whined at the sudden loss.

Her head spun as Josh tightened his grip so he could flip her over, laying her down on her back so he could hover above her. Josh gripped Y/N's chin, forcing her to meet his intense gaze as he loomed over her. His green eyes blazed with desire and a hint of frustration.

"I'm not going to keep fucking this perfect little cunt until you admit the truth," he growled. "You got this tattoo for me, didn't you? Because you knew it would drive me fucking crazy seeing it on your sexy back while I fucked you senseless."

Josh reached down and circled her clit with his fingers, applying just the right amount of pressure to make Y/N's hips buck against him. "Tell me, Y/N," he insisted, his breath hot against her face. "You can't lie to me, Y/N. I can feel how badly you want this, how much you need my cock. So tell me the truth."

“Mhmm.” She hummed and nodded her head, struggling to properly verbalise it; her head was getting fuzzy again.

Josh leaned in closer, his lips brushing against Y/N's ear as he whispered intensely, "Not good enough, kitten. I want to hear you say it." His fingers continued their relentless circling of her clit, pushing her closer to the edge.

“It was meant for you,” Y/N breathed out, “It was always meant for you, only you.” As she spoke, she had reached her hands up and tangled her fingers in his, pulling him close, gasping against his mouth as her orgasm ripped through her. Spilling her juices all over his hand before pulling him down so their lips folded together.

Groaning into the kiss, Josh continued to gently stroke her as he helped her ride out the intense orgasm, pulling away to whisper in her ear, “That’s right, baby, it’s all for me.” Earning another whimper from Y/N, “You’re mine now, always meant for me.”

He hooked his arms under her thighs and lifted her up, encouraging her to wrap her legs around his waist. In one swift motion, he flipped them over so that Y/N was straddling his lap, his hard cock throbbing and pulsing beneath her. He gripped her hips and pushed her down against him, letting her feel how desperately he wanted her.

"Ride me, Y/N," he commanded, his voice rough with lust. "Show me how badly you wanted me to claim this tattoo, this pussy, as mine.”

The only problem was that after her orgasm, Y/N suddenly found herself unable to support her own body and collapsed against Josh’s chest. “I can’t move…” she murmured against his skin, before whining at the sensation of having him inside her once again.

Josh held Y/N close as she collapsed against his chest, her body still trembling from the aftershocks of her intense orgasm. He stroked her hair and pressed tender kisses to the top of her head, murmuring soothing words into her ear.

"Shh, it's okay, Y/N. I've got you," he whispered, his arms wrapping around her protectively. "You don't have to move, not right now. Just let me take care of you.”

Josh started to slowly roll his hips, thrusting up into Y/N with deep, languid strokes. He wasn't trying to make her come again, just enjoying the exquisite sensation of her tight heat enveloping him. His hands roamed over her curves, caressing and squeezing, worshipping every inch of her body.

"Oh shit," Y/N cried out from the sensation, "Keep going, please, Josh."

Josh groaned as he felt Y/N's pussy clench and quiver around his cock from his slow, deep thrusts. Her pleading cry spurred him on, and he started to pick up the pace, driving into her with more urgency.

"Fuck, you want me to keep going, baby?" He panted, one hand gripping her hip while the other slid up to palm her breast, kneading the soft flesh. "Want me to fuck this perfect little pussy harder?"

When she did a small but clear nod, he captured her lips in a passionate kiss, all tongue and teeth as he pistoned in and out of her. The wet, obscene sounds of their coupling filled the room, mixing with their moans and cries of pleasure.

Smoothly, he rolled them over again, pinning Y/N down into the floor as he loomed over her. Gripping her thighs, he pushed them up and back, nearly bending her in half as he hammered into her harder and faster.

They continued like this for a few minutes longer; soft moans accompanied the sound of flesh hitting against one. Each of them was chasing a high they both knew would soon crash down onto them.

Eventually, Josh’s thrust began to falter and stutter as he leaned down to speak into Y/N's ear again, “I’m gonna cum, baby; where do you want it?”

“Cum in me.” She replied without hesitation, “Please just cum in me.”

“Are you sure, baby?” He asked again but still made no move to pull out.

“Mhmm,” she moaned out before speaking in a strained voice, “I’m on the pill, so please just fucking come in me.”

At her profanity, Josh let out a small chuckle before speaking again, “Well, if you need it that badly, how can I refuse?”

A high-pitched shriek echoed through the beach house as he suddenly thrust harder than he ever had before, stilling inside her and reaching his second orgasm, spilling his cum inside her.

Y/N’s peak swift followed Josh’s own, pushed over the edge by his thick hot cum coating her walls. She found her eyesight becoming blurry and felt limp against the floor from the sheer force of her orgasm. Josh followed suit and collapsed on top of her, both of them panting and trembling in the aftermath of their intense lovemaking.

"Fuck, that was...holy shit," he breathed, nuzzling into the sweat-dampened skin of her neck. He pressed soft kisses to her racing pulse, feeling it flutter beneath his lips. "You okay, Y/N? I didn't hurt you, did I?"

She let out a deep, content sigh, "I'm okay, just feel exhausted now..." Just managing to tilt her head so she could look into his eyes, "Only problem is that I don't think I'll make it up the stairs."

Josh looked into Y/N's eyes, a lazy smirk spreading across his face at her words. He brushed a few damp strands of hair away from her forehead, tucking them gently behind her ear. “Don’t worry about that baby; I’ll carry you up, and we can take a nice long nap together. How does that sound?”

“Sounds perfect,” she breathed out before connecting their lips with a soft, chaste kiss before pulling away.

Josh brushed his thumb tenderly across Y/N's cheek, savouring the intimate moment. He could feel their hearts beating in sync, still recovering from the intense climax they had just shared. With great care, he carefully pulled out of her, his softening cock slipping from her well-fucked hole with a wet sound. He winced slightly at the sensitivity, but the discomfort was fleeting.

Holding Y/N close, Josh scooped her up into his strong arms, cradling her against his broad chest. He carried her effortlessly, taking slow and steady steps as he climbed the staircase leading to the bedroom. 

Y/N settled contently in his arms, eyes growing heavy. Feeling herself begin to drift off from sheer exhaustion, she embraced it and closed her eyes, tucking her face into his shoulder blade. She was content in his arms, and that’s all she cared about.

Chocolate Brownies | GN!Y/N x Josh Washington

Masterlist

After Y/N accidentally consumes some of Chris' *special* brownies, Josh is a sweetie and takes care of them through their first high. (WC: 3400)

Warnings: Weed usage, Accidently eating an edible, Alcohol, Horror movie, minor overstimulation A/N: I'm not super familiar with weed, apologies if it's not realistic.

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"Damn, I didn’t know Chris could bake.” Y/N spoke as they licked their fingers, finishing their second chocolate brownie. Sam half-listened as she was busy looking for a bottle opener in the lodge’s huge kitchen. “You should probably take a brownie before I eat them all.”

Sam froze as she realised what Y/N was talking about: “Are you eating the brownies Chris made?”

“Uh huh.” Y/N replied nonchalantly, reaching for another one, and stopped when Sam slapped their hand away. “Hey! What’s your problem?”

"Sweetie, those are Chris’ *special* brownies.”

Pause.

“You mean that these have-“ “Weed in them yes.” Sam interrupted them, reaching a hand out to feel her friend’s temperature. “You feel okay, sweetie?”

“Yeah… I think so... Is two brownies a lot?”

“For someone like you, probably.” Sam was right. Y/N hadn’t taken edibles before; they’d smoked it once, but that was a year ago, and they’d coughed it up immediately before stopping. “But it shouldn’t hit for another thirty minutes or so.”

"Okay,” they trailed off, “could I stay with you while you get sorted?”

“Of course.” Sam replied sweetly; she was like the big sister Y/N never had. They sat and watched as Sam finally found a bottle opener, laughing as their friend victoriously opened her bottle of beer. The two chilled in the kitchen for a while, until Y/N's head became fuzzy, but they didn’t mind; in fact, it felt nice.

Sam turned as her friend began quietly humming to themselves, “Has it hit it, you?” Her friend could only tilt their head and smile smugly, “I understand why you guys like this now.”

"Aww, sweetie, let me get you some water.” She stroked her friend's cheek before turning away to grab a bottle of water from the fridge.

“I think Josh would like these...” they spoke absentmindedly, swinging their legs as they sat on the kitchen counter. Y/N found it weird how their voice sounded; it had gotten slightly deeper as much as they tried, but it remained at a slow pace. “Where’s Josh?”

“He’s where we left him, Y/N, remember?” Her voice muffled as she reached into the fridge. “Do you want me to get him for you?”

"Oh, I don’t want to bother him.” Y/N felt a blush creep onto their cheeks. They’d always had a crush on Josh ever since Sam had introduced them to each other; that was only four years ago.

The blonde simply shakes her head before leaving the kitchen for a moment before returning, Josh following behind her. “What’s up?”

Sam simply pointed at Y/N, who was busy staring into space. He approached them, standing in front of their eye line, “Y/N? You okay?”

“Joshuaaa” Y/N smiled brightly as he came into their view. “You should try Chris’ brownies; they’re really good.”

His brows furrowed for a second in thought, reaching out to their chin and lifted their face to him. He assessed them for a moment before a smirk spread across his face. “Are you high?”

“Yep,” they answered, “Although I didn’t mean to be.”

He looked between them and the brownie tray before asking, “How many did you eat?”

Instead of speaking, Y/N shyly held up two fingers as an indication, “Jesus, you’ve barely touched the stuff, and you decided to eat two weed brownies?”

“I didn’t know they had weed in them.” They shrugged, ignoring Sam as she tried to hand them the bottle of water she’d gotten for them moments before.

“You didn’t know?” A laugh escaped him, and he crossed his arms. “How do you not know they’re weed brownies? What, you thought Chris was just that good of a baker?”

Sam tired to pass Y/N the water again but was waved away as they continued to defend themselves to Josh. “I thought it was one of his grandma’s recipes, like that cake he made for my birthday.”

“I doubt his grandma was the one that taught him how to make these.” He shook his head fondly before taking the drink from Sam’s hand and shoving it towards them. “Here, drink. It’ll help with that dry mouth.”

“Not thirsty.” They stated while pushing his hand away.

“Don’t care, drink the goddam water; you’ll thank me later.” His voice was stern, and he shoved the water back towards them. For as long as Y/N and Josh knew each other, everyone knew how protective he was over his younger friend.

Y/N knew they couldn’t argue with him, so they chugged the water and then quickly hopped off the counter, causing them to stumble a little bit.

Josh’s hands shot out and wrapped around their waist to keep them steady. “Woah, take it easy. You’re gonna fall on your ass, Y/N.”

"Well, you caught me,” they replied before tapping his nose. “So I’m perfectly fine.”

He smirked and kept a hold on them still. It was almost second nature to just keep their body close to his. “Just keep your feet on the ground next time, yeah?”

“‘Kay.” They replied simply, “Where’s Chris?”

“I’m sure he’s around; want us to go look for him?” He pulled away from them, taking a step back so they could move.

"I wanna thank him for his magic brownies."

“You really wanna thank him, or are you just wanting more brownies?” He asked with a raised eyebrow and crossed his arms. Y/N just shrugged in reply, earning a fond chuckle from Josh, “C’mon then, let’s go find Chris so you can thank him for the brownies.”

He carefully guided from the kitchen, walking to the living room, where Chris was sitting awkwardly making conversation with Ashley and Jess. Once Y/N eyes focused on Chris, they suddenly shot from Josh’s side. Nearly pouncing on him as they hug him from behind.

"BONJOUR MY MAGIC BROWNIE MAN!" They yelled in his ear as they kissed him on both cheeks.

Chris was clearly shocked, his eyes widening as he jumped from the couch and turned to face them. “Y/N, Jesus, you scared me.”

Without Chris sitting down, Y/N was now sprawled over the back of the couch, looking rather uncomfortable. He opted to ignore Josh’s mumble of “pussy” and turned to face his friend, “The fuck is wrong with you.”

"I'm high," Y/N replied simply, as if it explained everything.

“High? How can you be high? You don’t even smoke—oh, OH!” Chris’ eyes became wide with realisation, and he quickly lifted Y/N’s head up to look into their eyes. “How many did you take?”

"Only two," Y/N answered truthfully, their voice still slow and a hint deeper than it usually was. "Why? Is that a lot?"

Josh chuckled again at their confusion, while Chris looked even more shocked if that was possible. "Two? You're a lightweight; you're gonna be on your ass for three hours minimum!"

"Well, I didn’t mean to!” Y/N yelled back, “I didn’t even know they had weed in them.”

"That's your own fault, moron," Chris responded bluntly, but there was a hint of amusement in his voice. Then he turned to Josh, with eyebrows slightly furrowed in suspicion as he asked, "And where were you when our dear friend was getting high off their ass?”

Josh laughed quietly. "Relax, Coachie, I had nothing to do with this."

Y/N spoke up determinedly, "Hey, don’t be mean; Josh said he'd look after me.”

Chris rolled his eyes and let Y/N go, letting their head fall back down. "Of course he did. He's practically your knight in shining armour," he remarked sarcastically.

He turned back to a still-clueless Y/N. "Seriously though, how did you not realise they were weed brownies? They smell stronger than the skunk's den near my place."

By this point, Y/N was slowly sliding off the back of the couch and onto the floor. To the point their face was now in the sofa’s pillows, which muffled their voice as they responded.

"Alright, come on, let's get you somewhere more comfortable," Josh suggested as he walked over to Y/N, pulling them upright with ease as if they were a ragdoll. However, in this case, the ragdoll in question had a tendency to giggle at nearly everything and was finding the whole situation rather amusing.

“Chris is right, you’re my own personal hero.” Y/N said in between giggles, leaning their back into his, allowing him to drag them around the couch.

Josh simply hummed to himself, then he dragged them around the couch and made his way towards the stairs. "C'mon, you lightweight, let's get you to your room, yeah?"

Instead, Y/N fought against him by suddenly going limp in his arms. "Nooo, I'm not tired yet.”

“Shit!” Josh exclaimed as he struggled to hold Y/N up at the sudden added weight. “Jesus, stop doing that!”

“Can we watch a movie instead?”

Josh tried his best to hold the limp figure up. "Alright, alright, fine." He agreed, "We'll watch a movie."

As he spoke, he effortlessly scooped them up, with one arm under their legs and the other behind their back. He had never had a problem carrying them before, and it was the quickest way to ensure they didn’t fall.

He carried them to the couch and gently placed them down so they were sitting before heading to the DVD player and opening the cupboard with all the movies inside. “So what do you wanna watch?”

“Wait, I’m gonna text everyone and ask them to come." Y/N explained as they pulled out their phone and sent a quick text in the group chat, “We should decide together.”

Josh just raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing as he watched them quickly type out a message. Eventually the other’s made their way into the living room from wherever they were before.

“So Y/N,” Mike began with an amused smile as he read of his phone, “Mind telling us what ‘has gus come to live rom’ means?”

Emily stifled a giggle while Sam covered her mouth to hide a smirk. Mike was clearly the only one brave enough to ask the question.

Y/N furrowed their eyebrows in confusion. “I didn’t write that.” They said as they looked at their phone once more, “I wrote, Hey guys, come to the living room.”

“Are you fucking high or something?” Emily asked harshly, although she meant it affectionately, “You basically wrote in gibberish.”

"Yeah, I am..." Y/N answered honestly, a dopey smile on their face. "And Chris's brownies were really good."

Chris's face went bright red as everyone turned to stare at him. "You gave them weed brownies?!" Ashley gasped, slightly horrified. "How many did they eat?"

"Two," Chris admitted sheepishly, "I didn't think they'd actually eat them!"

"You ate what?" Matt asked, clearly shocked but more concerned about how Y/N would feel. He knew that a few of his friends smoked, but Y/N never did, meaning they had a low tolerance for that sort of thing. "Are they okay?"

Josh rolled his eyes and went to sit in the chair next to Y/N. "They're fine, Matt. Don't stress."

Y/N nodded fondly before grabbing Josh’s arm. “Josh’s taking care of me tonight!”

"Of course he is," Mike said with an amused smirk. "Josh always takes care of Y/N."

"I'm just looking out for my younger friend," Josh said with a shrug. "Anyway, what movie are we watching?"

"What if we watch a horror movie?" Matt suggested with a mischievous grin. "It'll be fun to see how Y/N reacts when they're high."

"No way, Matt," Josh said firmly. "We're not giving Y/N a panic attack."

At the same time as Josh’s words, Y/N also spoke up, “Great idea, Matt, we could watch The Conjuring!”

Josh frowned at Y/N. "You don't like scary movies," he reminded them. "I'm not letting you watch The Conjuring."

"I don't see why we can't watch it," Emily spoke up. "It'll be funny."

"It's not funny, Emily," Josh said, his tone bordering on annoyed. "Y/N doesn't like to be scared, and we don't want to take advantage of them when they're not in their right mind."

“Jesus Josh, no need to be so dramatic,” Jess spoke up from next to Emily with a smirk. “Y/N is a grown up; they can handle themselves.”

"That's not the point, Jess," Josh replied, his frustration evident in his voice. "They're not in their right mind, and I'm not letting you take advantage of that."

"Oh, come on, dude, lighten up,” Mike said as he patted Josh on the back. “We’re supposed to be letting go this weekend, remember?”

“Seriously Mike.” Josh muttered in reply as his eyes narrowed, ready to lay into his friend.

"Okay, okay, enough," Ashley interjected before the situation could escalate further. "How about we watch something light-hearted instead? Comedy maybe?"

Josh let out a sigh of relief, glad that the conversation had shifted to a more reasonable suggestion. "Yeah, that sounds better," he said, looking around at the group for their approval. "Y'all good with that?”

Unbeknownst to them, while they were all arguing over what movie to watch, Y/N had slipped from Josh’s grip and had approached the DVD cupboard. After finding the movie they wanted to watch, Y/N had simply placed it in the DVD player and pressed play. It wasn’t until the opening scene of a man loudly screaming in pain loudly echoed through the room did the others notice what had just happened.

"What the- Y/N! I told you we weren't watching a horror movie!" Josh exclaimed, his irritation clear.

Instead of answering, their eyes were fixated on the screen. They were completely silent for a while, until they finally spoke up when the movie versions of the Warrens appeared on screen. “Fuck. They’re so hot.”

Josh groaned in frustration, "Y/N. You’re way too high for this.”

"Come on, Josh," Sam said teasingly. "You can't blame Y/N for having a thing for Vera Farmiga."

“Shut up, Sam.”

“Oh Josh, that hurt’s my feelings.” Sam replied in mock hurt.

Meanwhile, Y/N had finally moved away from the TV and back towards the couch. Except instead of sitting back in the spot they were in, Y/N decided a better option would be to sit right in the centre of Josh’s lap.

"What are you doing?" Josh asked, slightly taken aback by Y/N's sudden intimacy. However, he didn't push them away, merely adjusting his position to accommodate them. He put his hands on their waist, holding them steady as they nestled into his lap.

“You’re comfy,” Was all Y/N said as the other’s simply smirked at each other before, taking their own seat to watch the movie; Sam now sitting in the spot Y/N used to be in.

As the movie continued, Y/N couldn’t help but feel a little shiver up their back and turned towards Chris, “Could you pass a blanket, please, Chris?”

“Sure,” he tossed them a large black fluffy throw, which Y/N happily placed on themselves and, as a result, Josh as well.

Josh was glad Y/N was comfortable, and he couldn't help but chuckle at the situation. "You're lucky I like you," he muttered under his breath as he tightened his arms around Y/N.

“Mhmm, I like you too.” They said as they shuffled further into his chest and rested their head on Josh’s shoulder. “Maybe I like you a bit more.”

“Shut up and watch the movie.” He responded fondly as he wrapped his arm around Y/N and pulled them closer.

The group continued to watch the movie in mostly silence, except for the occasional screams at the several jump scares. At some point throughout the movie, Y/N had adjusted in Josh’s lap and was sitting sideways with their head resting against his neck.

During the climax of the film, Y/N felt a bit dizzy and nauseous, so with a groan, they hid their face in Josh's neck. Yet despite not being able to see the film, the sound effects and voices were making them feel very overstimulated.

Noticing their distress, Josh reached his hand up and began to stroke her hair softly as he whispered over the movie, "Hey, you doing okay?”

Y/N couldn’t speak suddenly; their mind felt like mush; all they could do was mumble and shake their head against his neck.

Josh's concern deepens as he feels Y/N shake their head against his neck. He turns his head a bit to get a better look at their face, but all he can see is the disoriented look in their eyes.

"Hey," he says gently, "can you look at me for a second?"

Y/N tried to lift their head up but was struggling; they felt like it weighed nearly a tonne and couldn’t move. Their breathing grew heavy with panic, and tears weld in their eyes.

Josh noticed the tears welling up in Y/N's eyes and the panic setting in. "Hey, hey, it's okay," he said in a soothing tone. "Just take some deep breaths, okay? I'm right here with you."

Swallowing harshly, Y/N found their voice long enough to whisper into his neck, “I don’t wanna be here.” Before letting out a small sob.

"Shh, it's okay," he reassured, gently stroking their hair and using his own body to try and shield Y/N from the outside world. "We can leave, okay? We can go to your room if you want."

“Please…” Their voice was small now but still loud enough for Josh to hear.

Josh quickly gathered Y/N in his arms and stood; the others looked away from the movie at his movements. Watching as he began to carry them away from the room.

“Is Y/N okay, Josh?” Sam asked with a furrowed brow as motherly concern spread across her face.

He paused and turned back to the group. “They’re not feeling too good, so I think I should just take them to bed.”

"Alright, man," Mike spoke up. "Be sure to take care of them, yeah? And let us know if you need any help."

Josh nodded in agreement. "Don't worry, I've got it," he replied, his grip on Y/N tightening slightly.

With that, Josh turned back around and made his way up the stairs and into Y/N’s room. After a little struggle, he was able to push the door open and gently lay them down on the bed. He tucked them gently before moving around the room to make sure they had everything they needed: a glass of water, some painkillers, and a bucket, just in case.

He gently stroked their cheek before quietly moving to the door. “Wait!” A voice called back to Josh, caring for him to turn around, "Stay, please.”

"You sure you want me to stay?" he asked quietly.

“At least until I fall asleep.”

Josh nodded, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "Of course," he replied softly. "I'll stay."

He sat down above the covers next to Y/N and took their hand in his. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” Y/N answered, “sorry for freaking you out.”

"No need to apologise," he replied, shaking his head softly. "You were in quite a state. I'm just glad you're feeling better now."

He continued to stroke Y/N's hair, his fingers weaving through the soft strands. "You'll be okay, I promise," he said reassuringly. "Just get some rest, okay?

“Mmhmm,” Was all Y/N said in reply; their eyes were closed and their breathing was growing softer as they drifted to sleep. “Thanks for looking after me.”

"No need to thank me," he said quietly. "I'm just happy to be here. Now, go to sleep, alright?"

He stayed sat beside them for a few more moments, watching as they entered a full state of sleep. Once he was sure they were deep asleep, he carefully brushed a stray lock of hair from their face and sighed softly.

In their deep sleep, Y/N breathy felt a soft touch on their forehead. Sighing contently, they fell deeper in sleep, not realising that Josh had placed a kiss on their head.

“Sleep tight, Y/N.” He whispered into the quiet, “I’ll be here to take care of you, always.”

Zero Suit | Fem! Y/N x Josh Washington *Smut*

Masterlist When Y/N attends her long time crush Josh's party, she makes a plan to dress up especially from him. When she meets him at the party, tension quickly rise and she finds herself getting everything she ever hoped for. (WC: 3404 ) Song used: Into you - Ariana Grande

Warnings: Smut, AFAB! Reader, Alcohol, Drunk Sex

AN: This the first Smut I've ever written so please don't mind if it's a bit lackluster. Set in an AU where Beth and Hannah lived

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Y/N adjusted the arms of her body suit as she walked up to the Washington’s house. She walked next to her best friend Sam as they approached the door. Colour lights were flashing, and a sea of bodies could be seen from the windows outside.

“Do we even bother knocking?” Sam asked while smirking, her hands on her hips.

Y/N shrugged before reaching forward to grab the handle, twisting and watching the door open with ease, “Guess not.”

The two held hands and stepped inside, closing the door behind them. Sam took the lead and guided Y/N through the crowds and into the kitchen, where The Washingtons usually kept the drinks. As they entered, the distinctly slurred voice of an already drunk Chris greeted them.

"Hey, you guys finally made it!” He approached them and pulled them into a little group hug. “I thought I’d have to survive here all by my lonesome.”

The two girls laughed at their friend, even more so at his peculiar costume. “Are you wearing an ascot, Chris?” Y/N asked playfully, flicking at the orange piece of fabric wrapped around his neck.

“Ah well… it was Ashley’s idea,” he explained, pointing to the outfit Ashley was dancing in the crowd; the purple outfit alongside the green headband made it clear who she was dressed as.

"Wow, couples outfits already,” Y/N continued to tease, “I’m impressed, Chris.”

“Oh yeah, well, what exactly made you pick your costume then, huh?” He teased back in return, a blush forming on her face as a result.

The truth is she’d pick her outfit based on one night a few weeks ago when they were all comparing different childhood crushes. The group had all been sitting in the basement when Mike had brought it up. The conversation had quickly devolved into the boys comparing all the women they found hot, specifically video game characters.

“I’m a fine of the classics,” Josh had proudly exclaimed. “I’m kind of ashamed none of you have mentioned Samus. I mean, have you seen her in that blue suit she wears?”

At the time, Y/N had rolled her eyes while the other girls complained to the boys and forced them to change the topic. Yet, when the time came to plan her Halloween costume, her mind instantly went back to that one thing Josh had said. It wasn’t as hard to find the costume as she thought it would be, and so here she stood, leaving nothing to the imagination as the blue bodysuit clung to her body.

“Shut up, Chris,” she chastised him before turning to the kitchen counter and began fixing herself a drink. Her and Sam had drank together as they were getting ready, so she was already slightly tipsy.

“I still can’t believe me and Ash got together before you even confessed to Josh,” he shook his head in mock disappointment.

“Chris I swear to God I will throw you in the pool!” She threatened, Chris placing his hands up in mock surrender.

"Chris, come on, lay off; you know what it's like to have a crush on one of our friends.” Sam spoke up in your defence. Chris looked shameful for a moment and offered you a genuine apology.

“It’s okay,” Y/N hugged him again before noticing Ashley's wandering eyes on the dance floor. “Now go dance with your girlfriend.” She pushed him away in the direction of Ash, smiling as she watched the two hug when they reached each other.

She turned back to the corner and poured her and Sam some drinks while the blonde texted on her phone. Sam thanked her when Y/N passed her the drink before speaking, "Hey, listen, I’m going to go find Hannah; you wanna come?”

“I think just gonna chill here for a bit, you go.” She replied, and after a second reassurance to Sam that 'yes, it was definitely okay.', the blonde left the kitchen in search of her best friend.

Now by herself, Y/N leaned against the kitchen counter and glanced around the party for people she recognised. Chris and Ashley were still on the dance floor holding each other close, and next to them dancing a little more erotically were Jess and Mike. She hadn’t seen Emily and Matt yet, but knowing Emily, she had probably dragged him to the hot tub.

With her eyes focused on the crowd around her, Y/N didn’t see the person slowly creeping next to her. Sliding close, they leaned down and whispered in her ear. “Boo!”

She jumped with a small scream and whipped her head around, coming face to face with the new person. “Josh!” She yelled at him as he laughed, “Don’t do that!”

“Sorry, sorry, I just couldn’t help myself,” he apologised but was still laughing, leaning on the kitchen counter. Josh looked good; he was in a surprisingly simple jean and white t-shirt combo but had topped it off by covering himself in fake blood.

“So who are you supposed to be?” Y/N asked, moving past his little scare.

Instead of answering, he pulled a small white device from his pocket and lifted it to his mouth before speaking, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” It seems the device he was using was a voice modulator that deepened Josh’s voice.

"Oh, Billy Loomis!” She pointed at him as she realised, “You look so cool.”

“Thanks,” He replied before looking at her in a way Y/N couldn’t figure out, “You look... well, you lot hot, Y/N.”

She blushed and smiled shyly, "Thanks.”

There was an almost uncomfortably long moment of silence between the two; they both looked away awkwardly, each drawing a long sip from their drinks, “Are you... do you like the party?” Josh broke the party while looking at her expectedly.

“Um yeah!” She replied, and she turned to look at him, “You always know how to plan them.”

“Do you wanna go join Chris and Ash?” He offered gesturing to the dance floor with his thumb.

“Sure.” Y/N allowed Josh to take her hand and lead her onto the dance floor; although they didn’t find Chris and Ashely, they still stayed in the centre of the dance floor.

The crowd cheered as the next song played, and couples quickly gravitated to each other, Y/N blushing as she realised what the song was. However, the drinks were catching up, and her body relaxed as she kept dancing unashamedly.

I'm so into you

I can barely breathe

As she turned slightly as she danced, Y/N felt some hands tentatively reach out and hover by her hips.

And all I wanna do

Is to fall in deep

Turning around, she came face-to-face with Josh. He was looking intently at her eyes, hooded with an unreasonable expression on his face.

But close ain't close enough.

'Til we cross the line,

Before she could lose her nerves, she placed her hands on his and guided them so he was touching her hips. 

So name a game to play.

And I'll roll the dice.

She began to gently sway, allowing the gentle rhythm to control her movements. Josh kept a hold on her hips, slowly stroking her side in circular motions as he continued to watch her.

Oh, baby, look what you started.

The temperature's rising in here.

Y/N looked up at Josh, her stomach twisted as she made eye contact with his intense stare. She started to gently sing along to the words as she maintained eye contact, almost gasping as Josh pulled her closer.

Is this gonna happen?

Lifting her arms, she placed them around his shoulders, linking her hands at the back of his neck before pulling him even closer. Y/N continued to sing along, allowing Josh to feel her breath on his skin.

Been waiting and waiting for you to make a move.

Before I make a move

He paused as he listened to the lyrics she was singing, a spark of hope passing through him as he looked at her carefully. “Are you sure?”

“Uh huh” is the only sound she can make out of before pulling him forward and slamming her lips to his. The moment her lips touch Josh’s, her whole mind goes blank. His lips are slightly chapped, and he tastes like beer, but all Y/N wants is more.

She feels his hand squeeze her hips as he pulls her even closer; at this point he’s practically leaning over her.  When she gasps into the kiss, Josh takes the opportunity to slide his tongue past her parted lips.

A hand slowly slides from her hips to cup her ass gently. Josh smirked into the kiss as he slowly felt through the thin fabric. “Y/N…” He teases, “Are you not wearing underwear?”

Her face grew hot in embarrassment. "I... the bodysuit was too thin, and I didn’t want them showing.”

"Well, I’m certainly not complaining." Josh replied, giving her ass a rough squeeze, “If anything, it just makes you hotter.”

All Y/N can do in reply is pull him back down into another heated kiss. She whined into the kiss and subconsciously ground herself forward into him. Letting out a strangled moan that was drowned out from the music, Josh pulled back from the kiss so he could whisper in her ears.

“Do you wanna take this somewhere private?” His breath was warm against her ears.

“Yeah.” She lets Josh grab her hand and lead her through the crowd. They left the dance floor and made their way upstairs and walked down a long corridor full of couples just making out. Eventually the pair stopped in front of what she recognised as Josh’s room.

“Gimme me a second,” Josh said before pulling out a key. “Didn’t want any strangers doing it on my bed, so I locked it.”

Y/N leant against the wall, giggling as she watched him struggle with the lock for a moment before he was able to swing the door open. He pushed the door open, flicking the light switch on so the room was filled with a dim light. He grabbed Y/N’s hand again, leading her inside and quickly closing the door behind her.

As soon as the door was shut, he pushed her against it, pinning her there with his body as his lips found her neck. He started kissing and gently biting at her skin, smirking into her skin at the little whines she made.

“You have no idea... how much I’ve thought about doing this.” He whispered into her skin, causing shivers to spread through her body.

She pushed him backwards towards the bed and shoved him so he was sitting on the edge of it. “I think I might be able to guess,” she spoke seductively, and she carefully kneeled in front of him.

He leaned back against his elbows as he watched her, his eyes trailing down her body slowly. She leant forward and slowly moved her hands from his thighs up to his crotch, smirking at him as she felt his arousal through his jeans.

“I turn you on that much?” Y/N asked him as her hands absentmindedly stroked him through his clothes.

"Mhm," he hummed out, biting his lower lip slightly. Josh's hands gripped at the sheets, his hips slowly rocking against her hands as a quiet moan left his lips.

She giggled in pleasure at his reaction to her touch, moving her hands to his belt as she fiddled with the buckle. Once the belt was undone, Y/N quickly undid his jeans so she could pull them down, struggling slightly from her position.

Josh lifted his hips as much as he could to make it easier for her; once they were at his ankles, she lifted his feet to pull them off completely. Now only in his boxers, she went back to palming his arousal.

“Fuck Y/N!” He moaned, the feeling of her hands more noticeable through the thin fabric. “You gotta stop, or this is gonna be very disappointing for the both of us.”

When she didn’t stop, he reached down to grab her wrists to pull her hand away. His eyes were closed as he tried to catch his breath, still holding on to her wrist. “Shit… just gimme a minute.” Josh said between breaths.

Y/N pulled her wrist away from his grasp and stood up, moving close to him. She lifted his chin so he was looking at her. Without looking away, she moved even closer to straddle his legs. His hands moved to rest on the upper part of her thighs.

Josh leant forward so their lips touch, pulling back away she followed, lips still connected in a heated kiss. Y/N placed her hand behind his neck before dragging them up and into his hair, causing him to groan against her mouth. She rocked herself against him, gasping as she was able to feel his cock against her pussy between the two thin layers between them.

He hissed from the contact, wrapping one arm tightly around her hip so he could push her closer. His free hand moved from her thigh, gripping the back of your head and tangling itself into her hair.

“Fuck… I need you.” She said between kisses and small moans before pulling away to yank his jumper above his head, which he gladly raised his arms to help with.

In a quick motion, Josh picked Y/N up and turned to put her on the bed. He crawled on top of her so his body rested over hers, one hand gripping her hip, as the other rested above her head as he propped himself up.

“Wait!” She said as Josh started kissing the shell of her ear. “I need to take off the bodysuit.”

He laughed in her ear before responding, “You said you weren’t wearing any underwear right?”

“Yeah… why?”

Josh slowly pushed away from her ear and moved back to look Y/N  in the eyes, an evil smirk slowly forming on his face.

"Well, in that case..." He leaned back further, slowly sliding down her body and kneeling on the bed, “Spread your legs.”

She looked at him suspiciously but still slowly spread her legs for him. He moved further down on the bed, sitting back on his heels so he was level with her hips. He let his fingers slide along her thighs slowly, but then suddenly gripped the thin fabric of her bodysuit and pulled. Y/N's eyes grew wide as she heard a loud rip and felt the cold air on her now bare skin.

“Josh!” She yelled at him, earning a simple smirk in reply. Y/N was about to chastise him but was cut off by her own moan, caused by Josh’s tongue now massaging her folds.

He smiled and hummed into your folds at the sounds you made, causing you to moan louder from the vibration and reach down to pull his face closer. “Josh… please… oh fuck.”

Josh was relentless; as he continued to lap up her juices, he used his fingers to gently rub circles into her clit. His other hand then moved in to her entrance as he slowly inserted a single finger and slowly began to thrust into her.

“I-I’m gonna…” Y/N could barely speak as she was hitting her peak.

“Do it, lemme taste you.” He pulled back to speak before moving back, this time inserting a second finger as he licked. It was too much for Y/N, as she orgasmed not long after. She was thankful the music was so loud downstairs; hopefully it drowned out the sound of her scream.

“Mmhm,” Y/N barely heard Josh through her euphoria. “This might be my favourite taste.”

He lifted his head up from between her legs and looked into her eyes, asking a question without talking. Understanding what he meant, Y/N noted and allowed him to slide himself back on top of her. He paused for a moment, throwing of his boxers, reaching across to his bedside drawer, and pulled out a condom, making sure it was on, before he fully propped himself up above her.

“Are you sure?” He asked verbally this time, giving her a chance to back out as he lined himself up with her cunt.

“Please just fuck me.”

“With pleasure.” With that, he carefully inserted himself, closing his eyes in pleasure, “Shit Y/N, you’re so tight.”

He went slowly, giving her a chance to readjust to his size, stopping once he was fully inserted. Eventually Y/N started moving her hips to his in little thrusts, “I need you to move.”

Slowly he pulled his cock out of her cunt almost to the tip before suddenly slamming himself back, causing Y/N’s back to arch as she screamed out in pleasure. As he found his rhythm, she lifted her legs and wrapped them around his waist, creating a new angle that allowed him to go deeper.

"Fuck, shit.. go faster." She could barely speak between moans, as she felt the pressure building again.

Josh happily obeyed her and picked up the pace, slamming into her harder and faster. They looked into each other’s eyes for a moment before Y/N pulled him down into a heated kiss as his thrusts continued.

A low moan escaped Josh's lips as their lips met once more. Neither of them were thinking clearly anymore, too consumed in their own primal lust. He wanted her, all of her.

He pulled out for a moment, gripping her bodysuit from where he’d torn it previously. His muscles tensed as he pulled it apart again; it split upwards, exposing her entire front. With some quick manoeuvring, Josh was able to pull her arms and legs out of the tight fabric, leaving her completely naked.

“Oh god, Y/N, you’re so fucking beautiful." He said before entering her cunt again, thrusting far more erratically than before. When Josh felt his arms begin to give, he held onto Y/N’s waist and flipped them so she was now on top. “Ride me, baby.”

She took a breath, readjusted herself, and slowly began to rock. The feeling of Y/N slowly rocking over him caused a low moan to escape his lips, his fingers digging into her hips.

“Josh… I think gonna cum..." Y/N moaned out as the pressure increased again, indicating she was near her peak.

“Me too… Just keep moving,” he groaned out, pushing her down onto him by her hips. She moved faster and faster, chasing the high that she knew was coming.

Y/N threw her head back as her second orgasm ripped through her; she heard Josh groan as her cunt clenched around his cock. He came not soon after, the tightness causing him to spill into the condom. When she came down from her orgasm, she collapsed on top of him; her body felt numb, and she could barely catch her breath.

After pulling out of her, Josh gently pushed Y/N of him so she was lying at her side. “Just lay there a sec; I’ll be right back.”

She watched him stand from the bed, still completely naked, and make his way into his bathroom. He came back moments later with two glasses of water and a towel draped over his shoulder.

“Here, sit up and drink.” Josh said as he gave her his hand to help pull her upwards before handing her one of the glasses. As she drank, he parted her legs again and tenderly wiped her with the towel, making sure she would be comfortable in the morning.

Once he finished wiping her, he moved to his drawer and pulled out a T-shirt and two boxers. Josh walked back over to Y/N and helped her place his shirt over her shoulders and slide his boxers over her legs. After putting the second pair of boxers on himself, he lay back down next to her.

“Shouldn’t you get back to the party?” She asked as Josh pulled her to his side. “You are the host after all.”

“Nah, Hannah and Beth can deal with the guests,” he replied, pulling the covers over the both of them. “I much prefer this to any party.”

When she hummed in agreement and closed her eyes, Josh smiled softly and leant down to kiss her head before also closing his eyes. They could hear the muffled beat of the party still happening downstairs as they both slipped into sleep, Y/N resting her head on his chest as he held her close.

i sleep so i can see you (i hate to wait so long)

ੈ✩‧₊ chapter 3: sam likes girls?

view it on ao3 previous chapter

image credit: @bratjosh <3

pairing: josh washington x sam giddings, emily davis x sam giddings

synopsis: The first time Sam has a proper interaction with the twins' older brother, she's on the ground. When Sam is in the tenth grade, he's the reason she gets called to the principal's office. She's got her phone beside her pillow at full volume at all times and he's why. She realises that she'll be making excuses for him all her life. Josh and Sam in the years leading up to the prank. Or, all the boys people Samantha Giddings has ever had a crush on.

word count: 4.6k

a/n: hiiii guys !!!! sorry not a lot of jossam in this chapter; this is something for the samily girlies... i wanted to try something a little different and kind of build more on sam and her inner thoughts and feelings. but don't worry, LOTS more jossam to come in the next chapters :) :) we haven't even got to the good parts yet ! this one was loosely inspired by a headcanon written by @queenofbaws! she has sooo many cute jossam oneshots that i LOVE. thank you so much for all the support on this, i hope you all love reading it as much as i loved writing it <3

Sam figures that she likes shopping with Emily - it’s more fun than shopping with her mother, (who only takes her shopping once every six months when her clothes at home no longer fit her) that’s for sure. She was surprised that Emily had even asked her in the first place instead of Jess, who was usually her go-to whenever she felt like spending money; but Sam was glad to have a reason to finally use what she had saved up from her job at the animal shelter. 

She receives the phone call Friday afternoon after she gets home from swim practice. Sam rushes to her room to pick up her phone, because despite knowing her since middle school, she still can’t tell whether Emily likes her or not. When she answers, Sam pretends to be preoccupied and picks at her nails, even though Em can’t even see her. 

“We’re going out tomorrow,” she says. “I need to buy something for the dance and I don’t trust anybody else’s opinion.” 

Sam’s been talking to a guy for a while now - his name’s Elliot and he’s on the swim team and the track team like herself. While he’s sweet and patient and doesn’t mind that she’s rejected him more times than she can remember, there’s still something in her brain that tells her she shouldn’t be with him. When they had first started talking, he had asked her to go to the movies once after school. 

“I can't,” she said. “I need to visit a friend in the hospital.” 

What she likes about him is that he’s understanding and patient. He had asked her again the week after. 

“I can’t,” Sam said again. “I have swimming and track after school every other day.” 

He had joined the track team to see her more often, which she had rolled her eyes at. If it was Josh, she would’ve secretly thought it was endearing. There’s no reason why she should be thinking about Josh this much; she hasn’t spoken to him in ages. There’s no real reason why she shouldn’t reject Elliot anymore - she doubts Josh even thinks about her, and she figures she needs to get over him at some point.  So she had accepted Elliot’s invitation to the school dance in two months, and she realises that she wouldn’t mind going dress shopping. 

It makes her glad to know that Em thinks so highly of her, that she actually cares what Sam thinks. She’s also excited to feel like a normal teenage girl - something she always forgets to do amongst all her duties. It’s been back and forth from her mother and father’s houses every few days and she hasn’t had time for herself since god knows when. 

“Do you like this?” Em runs her hand down the train of a navy blue dress and cranes her neck in the mirror. Sam’s conscious of the fact that Emily is significantly cooler than her, with her glossy black hair and her perfect manicure. And it’s obvious, from how natural she looks in the dress. 

“It’s gorgeous ,” Sam gushes, eyeing the glittering beads. She takes a look at the tag - $2,000 - that’s worth more than probably all of the clothes in her closet.

“No. It’s disgusting,” she resolves, and crosses her arms over her chest. 

“What? Em, it looks beautiful!” 

“Not the dress. It’s me.” Emily rolls her eyes and begins undoing the back. “I need to be perfect .” 

Sam can’t believe that she doesn’t consider herself perfect . When she thinks of her, perfect is all she can see. Sam’s seen the tests that litter her desk - Emily’s a genius - she doesn’t think that her GPA has dropped below a 4.0 ever since high school started. And she’s drop dead gorgeous too (and it wasn’t a matter of personal opinion either, because all the guys in their grade seemed to think so as well). 

Emily unloops the dress from her shoes and stuffs it into the hands of the store attendant. She’s only in her bra with the curtain open, but she seems so confident in her body that she doesn’t even care that there are other people around them. Sam blushes and her head reflexively turns away like it’s being pulled to the side by a string. 

“Wait,” Em calls to the store attendant, who’s half running back to her the moment she hears the younger girl’s voice. Emily’s looking Sam up and down with a hand on her hip, and her insecurities suddenly feel glaringly obvious. “This might look good on you , though.” 

Sam instantly wraps her arms around her body. “No, today is for you !” But Emily doesn’t listen, and she’s pushing her into the change room, and stuffing the dress into her arms. 

“Turn around,” Em says, and her cold hands on her back makes a shiver run up her spine. When she laces up the back of the dress up for her, the tips of her nails graze her bare skin and it makes Sam’s hairs stand on end. Emily stands close beside her, their faces next to each other so that they can both have a look in the mirror. Sam can feel the warmth of her cheek on hers, despite them not physically touching. 

“You’re really pretty, you know,” Emily says, running a hand through her hair. 

A memory of Josh pops up in her head against her will - the two of them on the porch at Mike’s birthday last year. “ You’re like, the most amazing girl I know, ” he says, and she feels like her heart has expanded the size of an elephant. She can feel her cheeks burn red and she can’t tell whether it’s because of Emily or the memory. 

It’s crazy, but she thinks that she actually agrees with Em, because the blue looks nice on her skin and it makes her realise that maybe she actually is pretty. Sam doesn’t recognise the girl staring back at her, but she’s convinced it’s not the same one who’s grown man shoulders from four days of swim practice a week. 

“Are you joking?” 

Emily looks at her like she’s got another eye growing in the middle of her forehead. “Don’t lie to me right now bitch, you know you’re pretty.” She’s standing close to her now, her face right up beside her so they’re both looking at her in the mirror. She can feel the warmth of her cheek burning against hers. With one of her hands, she pulls Sam’s hair into a low ponytail, and with the other she pulls two strands out. 

“Do your hair like this, okay?” She uses her finger to tilt Sam’s head to the side so they can look at the hair with the dress. Her hands graze the back of her neck and goosebumps run up her arms. When she spends time with Emily, Sam’s always self-conscious of being perceived. It’s much like the way she feels when she has a crush. “And wear drop earrings. You’ll look hot. ” 

That’s how she feels when she spends time with Emily – she feels hot , and cool , and everything that a teenage girl is meant to be. She’s turning sixteen soon, but in her head she’s still an awkward twelve year old - although she can’t be that awkward if she’s here with Em. 

Sam feels her phone buzz and there’s two texts: one from Hannah - hows the dress hunt going? and another from Elliot - What you doing today Sam? 

She snaps a quick pic and texts it back to her: Would love to get this dress if it wasn’t like a billion dollars :( She ignores the other. 

Emily sees her take a photo and she pulls out her phone. “Hold on, I need one of us too.”  

That night when she gets home, there’s a photo of her biting her tongue into a smirk while Em kisses her on the cheek posted on @emdavisxo. It’s amassed 200 likes and it hasn’t even been an hour yet. It makes her blush when she notices that Em’s chosen that one. It’s funny - she has to pinch herself when she thinks about the fact that she went out with Emily today. Their relationship is immortalised on her Instagram account, and it makes her feel like she’s special to Em - she doesn’t even have an Instagram post up of her and Jess. She thinks, maybe it wouldn’t be bad if she liked girls - maybe it wouldn’t be bad if she liked Em . But before that thought materialises, she scrolls through the likes to check whether there’s one from @joshwashington.

Since their shopping trip, Sam sees Emily more times in a week than she has ever seen her since middle school started. Em texts her during classes that they don’t share and sits with her in the classes that they do share, doodling pictures on Sam’s notes and swapping jackets (because they’re the exact same size!). After school, they hang around the mall and sip smoothies and Sam tells her about her parents’ messy marriage and Emily tells her about her love/hate relationship with her mother (she loves to hate her). It feels different, intimate and tender, not like her other friendships with girls. 

“Since when were you and Em so close?” Hannah asks, and she doesn’t know what to say. Jess is in the same boat, because she’s blowing up Emily’s phone every day, trying to figure out why she feels like she’s intruding whenever she hangs out with Sam and Em in a group. 

She’s eager to please, responding to each of Em’s texts immediately and never missing a FaceTime from her. She’s scared for the moment that her friendship (relationship?) will inevitably fall apart when one of them gets a boyfriend. But in the meantime, they share beds like children and swap clothes and Emily sends her i love you ! at the end of every night and she’s not sure if she means love or love . 

It seems all her thoughts are consumed with Em, because she’s beginning to send Elliot one word responses and it almost doesn’t hurt when she sees Josh walking around with a girl at school.

During spring break Em takes her on rides in her Lexus and they play loud music and pretend that they’re famous, honking at boys on the side of the road and sticking their tongues out when they call back to them. They shop down Rodeo, and despite being able to buy out a whole store with her dad’s credit card, she stuffs clothes in her bag and flirts with security guards to get away. It’s exhilarating being friends with her, like a drug with an endless high. Friends - maybe more. She doesn’t know. She’s never loved a girl before, but this is coming close to it. 

Sam doesn’t tell anyone that it’s her sixteenth birthday, but the twins know anyway. Hannah and Beth invite her for a sleepover, pretending like they have no idea, but surprise her with balloons and streamers strewn around the living room. They’re not doing much, just a girls night at the Washingtons’, but Sam’s heart still swells at the gesture. Emily and Jess make her a chocolate cake in the shape of a heart and We Love You Sam in bright red frosting, and they eat it together on the living room floor with plastic spoons. Something about the fact that Emily wrote her the words We Love You is flattering. She can’t tell whether she loves Emily too , or it’s just the fact that she’s so in awe of her that she doesn’t seem real. 

It’s the end of spring break, and Josh is nowhere to be seen. She didn’t expect him to come - obviously - it’s not a big party or anything anyway, just the girls sitting around and watching movies. Josh has an on-and-off girlfriend now – “I think they’ve been together the entire spring break,” Hannah says – a pretty girl named Liz who he’s always on the phone arguing with. He’s been with lots of girls, she’s sure, so Sam doesn’t know why this bristles her so much. 

They exchange texts every now and again; though not enough to constitute conversation - sometimes he sends her trailers to new horror movies he thinks they should see, and she sends him silly Instagram posts she imagines him chuckling at. Sam notices that whenever she texts him first, it’s with bated breath, only finding herself exhaling when he responds. It was nothing, though, she assured herself. Conversations between friends, if anything. When the conversations thin out to maybe a couple texts every few weeks, she realises it’s probably best to let it go. 

These days, she prefers to ignore him rather than get her heart riled up. They haven’t spoken in person lately. She can’t speak to him, not able to return his witty banter like she once used to. Sam can’t tell what’s between them, what’s wrong with them, why she hasn’t been able to talk to him properly since she got suspended last year for claiming his cigarettes were her’s. Sometimes when she feels her affections growing stronger for him, she piles over the feelings with overexertion. She’s been bouldering to take off the stress. 

The other day during her track meet, she saw him sitting on the bleachers and smoking a cigarette. His girlfriend, presumably, was next to him, arms crossed over her chest, each finger decorated with dark red nails. She’s so cool, in an effortless way, with a sheet of long dark hair down her back, so long that she could sit on it, and a cigarette in her own hand too. Josh is different now - he’s elusive and aloof and every time she sees him it’s like he’s on a completely different planet. Sam immediately runs a self-conscious down her shirt to smooth it out - she was comparably not cool, in her track team t-shirt and baggy shorts. He raised a hand to wave at her. Sam kept running. 

They’d run into each other at the Washington house last week - she was on her way out while he had just arrived home. 

“Sam-my!” he calls, raising a hand to high five her. He seems reinvigorated from the last time she saw him; his eyes are brighter and he’s got a wide smile plastered on his face. “I haven’t seen you in ages.” 

She doesn’t know why, but she ducks under his hand, mentioning something under her breath about needing to wake up early for track tomorrow. 

On the other hand, she can’t tell whether randomly thinking about a girl all the time means you have a crush on them. But she finds herself thinking about Emily every now and then, wondering what she’s doing and whether she’s thinking about the late nights they spent during spring break together. Sam doesn’t think she knows how to separate platonic love from romantic love. Actually, she doesn’t even know if there’s a difference. But whenever Em passes her by in the hallways and blows her a kiss or squeezes her on the arm, or sends her a snap of her outfit of the day, it makes her heartbeat quicken. Attention from Emily is different- it makes you feel special and chosen , like you’re the coolest girl in the world . Nonetheless, whether crush or not, she's glad because it puts Josh out of her head for a while. 

Jess sneaks a bottle of her mother’s red wine in her handbag, so they drink themselves to giggles - sans Sam, of course, who only has a couple, making sure they’re all being safe and tucking them into bed at the end of the night. By one in the morning, all the girls are tangled in each other in front of the TV, Jess and Emily sharing the couch and the twins and Sam on the pull-out mattress. Emily’s on her phone while Jess and the twins are fast asleep. Sam clears out the empty pizza boxes and glass bottles and makes her way to the kitchen, being sure to sweep the crumbs off the floor before she gets to bed. 

She’s cleaning up the kitchen counter and Emily drops a big black Saks bag in front of her. “I didn’t get to give you your birthday present.” 

Sam laughs. “Aw, Em, you shouldn’t have.” 

She sifts through the tissue paper and then, in protective plastic, she sees it- the navy blue satin of the dress she tried on. It's like there are magnets behind her lips, sticking her hands to her mouth. It’s the most expensive gift she’s ever received - and probably the most beautiful one too. Sam has to run her hands over the fabric once more to confirm to herself that it’s real. 

A twinge of guilt echoes through her stomach. She’s not like the other girls in the Hills, in the sense that she can’t so simply drop two thousand dollars on a dress for a friend’s birthday. She’s not like the other girls who can just get their father’s driver to pick her up from school instead of having to walk to the bus stop. It’s times like these that she feels so alien to the twins, Emily and Jess. “Emily. I can’t take this.” 

“It was nothing. It’s your birthday .” Em picks at her nails and shrugs. Sam’s suddenly aware of how the Tiffany bracelet that hangs off her wrist glints in the light. Sam doesn’t say anything. 

“ God, Sam. It’s a token for how much I care about you, or whatever, okay?” 

It’s something about this sentence that makes hot tears well up in her eyes. Sam reflexively wraps her arms around Emily’s shoulders and squeezes her tight. “You’re crazy . Thank you Em, seriously.” 

Emily only pushes her off softly and laughs. “Don’t be dramatic.” 

Sam sits up on the barstool beside her and crosses one leg over the other. Em’s phone is lying face down on the counter, but it buzzes every few seconds so that the vibrations are like a steady drum. She looks annoyed, and puts her phone on silent before stuffing it into her pocket. 

“Okay, miss popular,” Sam jokes, kicking her foot lightly. 

Em rolls her eyes. “ Ugh . Please. High school boys are losers.” 

“So you’re going to the dance alone, then?” Sam figures she would much rather spend time dancing with Emily all night than standing around in awkward silence with Elliot. 

“I don’t know, that Mike guy from French is kinda cute.” She pulls out her phone and opens up his account. There’s not much, just a mirror selfie of him shirtless and a picture with some friends by the pool. Sam doesn’t know what everyone sees in him - Em could do so much better. “He’s such a whore though. Anyways, what about your boy toy?”

Sam shuffles in her seat and pulls her legs up close to her so that she’s hugging her knees. “If I tell you, will you promise not to judge me?” 

“Bitch. Have you met me?”

She hesitates, for a bit. 

“ Sam ! Come on, you have to tell me now.” 

Sam takes a deep breath. She’s still a little woozy from the alcohol, but whatever’s left of it in her system gives her the courage to say things that she would never usually admit. “I don’t even think I like Elliot that much.” 

“Oh my god, you tease ,” Emily slaps her jokingly. “Okay, so who were you talking about when we played Never Have I Ever?”

Earlier that night, her only finger down in Never Have I Ever was for Hannah’s question - never have I ever loved a guy before. Typical Hannah, the hopeless romantic. Sam didn’t mean to, but her finger went down reflexively. She still loved Josh, despite every moment they spent not talking – the feelings were still there, no matter how hard she tried to separate herself from them. Jess and Em started teasing her about Elliot, but the twins, all the wiser, raised their eyebrows at her.

Hannah corners her in her bedroom that night, when she’s grabbing her stuff. “Tell me you don’t love my brother.” 

Sam stops what she’s doing and looks at her, mouth agape. She’s come to realise that she’s never had this conversation with her before. “ Well- -” 

“There is no chance the guy you love is Elliot, you don’t even know his favourite colour!” 

She’s worried that Hannah would be annoyed, but she’s looking at Sam with the biggest smile on her face.

“ Han !” Sam groans, and covers her face with her pillow. “It’s not like that. Not anymore. It was like, ages ago. He has a girlfriend now anyway.” 

Hannah rolls her eyes and smacks her on the head with a pillow. “He only got a girlfriend because he was getting over you, dummy!” 

When she says that, Sam feels like her heart has frozen up and then been smashed to a million pieces. It feels like pins and needles have covered every surface of her body, crept up her spine and into her head. “He liked me?” 

Right now she’s not thinking about Emily, but thinking of him. 

“I thought you knew !” 

Sam stuffs her face in the pillow and groans. “Oh my god , I’m such an idiot.”

“Stop. For real? I knew it.” When she tells Em that it’s Josh, her hands fly to her face and she gasps. “You guys always act so weird whenever you hang out.” 

“And you know what’s even more insane?” Sam giggles and closes her eyes, tilting her head back. “I haven’t even kissed anyone yet.” 

“Sam! No way.” 

“Like I have no idea — how do you know your teeth aren’t gonna clash or anything?” She feels a little stupid, but it makes her happy to tell someone. Sam’s been pretending to Jess and Em that she kissed someone back at summer camp when she was fourteen for the last two years. 

Emily raises her eyebrows, and looks down at her lips, then back at her eyes. Of course, she’s probably thinking about how childish it is that she’s sixteen and never been kissed. Em’s probably kissed tons of guys, in the back of cars or in bedrooms at parties, things that Sam could never have the courage to do. Sam braces herself for the reaction - she’s always thinking about what Emily’s thinking, thinking about whether she’s judging her secretly or not. What she said next is the last thing that Sam expected. 

“Let me show you, okay?” 

Sam is at a loss for words. It’s like her heart beat has stopped and steadied to a slow, agonising pace that makes her feel like she’s submerged under water. She’s trying to formulate something, but Em quickly adds —

“But don’t get all lezzy up on me bitch.” The word makes her grimace. Her breathing is all that her brain can focus on. “I’m just showing you how it is.” 

She doesn’t want to confront whatever feelings might be there for Emily. It’s all muddled up in her head, and bringing another person into the equation would only make it worse. She can’t even make sense of her feelings for Josh or Elliot. But her pull is so strong that it makes her entire body feel like it’s on fire. 

“Okay, show me,” she says quietly.

It’s slow and soft and the world seems quiet, like it’s stopped to make time for this moment. They lock eyes before Emily leans in and drags Sam’s hair out of her face. Her lips are sweet with the taste of alcohol and lip gloss, and it’s like flowers have bloomed out of her heart and up her throat. When she pulls away it’s abrupt and Emily’s looking into her eyes like it was the funniest thing to have ever occurred. 

“Oh my god , Sam!” Emily’s giggling and tossing her hair back. “I can’t believe we just did that.” 

After Emily kisses her, there’s nothing else she can think about. It takes her everything not to grab her face and do it again. She’s not sure if she likes Emily or if she likes kissing, but she finds herself replaying the memory over and over in her head until it’s burned into her brain. 

She gets a phone call a couple of days later, it’s nine o’clock at night, and she’s getting ready to go to bed. Sam picks up the phone and sets it down on the table as she changes into her pyjamas. 

“Hey, Sam,” Emily’s voice crackles through the phone and she feels her heart quicken. 

“Hey Em,” she tried to appear nonchalant and occupied. “What’s up?” 

“I just wanted to say… I’m seeing Mike now.” 

It’s like the universe doesn’t want Sam to win. Like love isn’t in the cards for her, like it’s never been, not for girls like her who have to pick up the pieces of shattered hearts all around her and stick them back together.  

“Oh… Oh, okay. Wow, um- that’s great Em!” She tries her best to sound enthusiastic for her friend. Yes, her friend - that’s what she was. 

“No hard feelings, right Sam?” she says. “I just … Like, I don’t like girls like that. I just wanted to see what it was like… You get it, right?” 

It feels like somebody has shot her a million times. 

“Oh, um, yeah- No, totally, I was thinking the same thing.” 

“Yeah, we were so drunk the other night, right?”

Sam tries to bite back the sting of rejection. “Mm, yeah, soo drunk.” 

The sound of her fan hums in the background. It drags out the pause between their conversation even longer.

“Anyways, um. We’re still getting ready together at Hannah’s on Friday, right?”

“Yeah, I’ll see you there!” It takes all of her to infuse enthusiasm into her words so that Em can’t hear her voice cracking. 

“Okay, well… I’ll talk to you later.” Another long pause. “Love you, Sam.” 

She hangs up. 

How do you tell someone that you’re heartbroken, without there never being a relationship in the first place? She can’t confide in anyone – nobody knows about her and Emily except Emily, and she can’t bring herself to verbalise anything that happened. It’s like their time together was sacred, and bringing it to light will only destroy it. Sam needs Hannah. She FaceTimes her, and then calls her, and then calls her again and no answer. She wants the ground to swallow her whole, she wants the walls to close in on her and give her a hug and tell her it’s going to be alright. 

Her phone begins to buzz and she quickly picks it up, wiping the tears from her face with the back of her hand. “Han?” 

“Sam?” It’s not Hannah, but Josh. “Sorry, Han’s in the shower. I hope you don’t mind that I picked up, I just, uh, thought it was important because you called a few times.” 

He looks at her closely, and his face morphs into concern. “Oh shit, Sam?! Are you okay? Why are you crying?” 

She can’t say anything, just stuffs her face into her arm. “No, no, I’m fine. It’s fine. Just tell Hannah I need her.” 

“Fuck, Sam,” his eyebrows are furrowed, and he runs a hand through his hair. “I’m coming over there, okay?”  

That night, Josh picks her up and they sit in the theatre room at the Washington Estate, watching old horror movies all night. Hannah and Beth bracket her and the three of them share the one heated blanket and snacks, but they go up to bed after midnight. Josh doesn’t leave her side once, except to move into the empty space that Hannah had left when she goes up to her bedroom. She doesn’t want to talk, and he doesn’t ask questions, but the twins find them the next morning tangled in each other, Josh with an arm around her and Sam sleeping in his lap. It's like no matter how much the universe wants to separate them, they'll always find their way back to each other, like there's an invisible elastic tying them together, snapping back into place when it stretches too far. 

i sleep so i can see you (i hate to wait so long)

ੈ✩‧₊ chapter 2: sam likes a guy from her english class

view it on ao3previous chapter ○ next chapter

image credit: @bratjosh <3

pairing: josh washington x sam giddings

synopsis: The first time Sam has a proper interaction with the twins' older brother, she's on the ground. When Sam is in the tenth grade, he's the reason she gets called to the principal's office. She's got her phone beside her pillow at full volume at all times and he's why. She realises that she'll be making excuses for him all her life. Josh and Sam in the years leading up to the prank. Or, all the boys people Samantha Giddings has ever had a crush on.

word count: 4.6k

“Come on, Josh, it’s only one night,” Hannah urges, clutching at his arm. 

“No fucking way. I’ll be here, enjoying the comfort of The Hole, thanks.” He made a show of yawning and kicking one foot over the other like he could melt into his bed out of laziness. 

Josh had dubbed his room The Hole because of how much of his litter that it seemed to be able to consume since he had come home from the hospital. As it turns out, when you’re clinically insane, three weeks can very easily turn into three months. Old socks and pizza boxes had cluttered the floor and he was beginning to forget what colour his carpet was. It was exhausting, really, being this responsibility-free. He wasn’t allowed to drink or get high, had to adhere to a strict meal plan of a small handful of pills every few hours, and was prescribed an hour of outside time every morning. It was like being in prison, without the fun homoerotic parts. 

In his sixteen years of life, Josh figured that a good four of were spent in hospitals, therapy and waiting in line for prescriptions. He wouldn’t necessarily call himself crazy per se, but there was definitely a crazy quality to the way that he would frequently imagine his entire family dying gruesome, painful deaths. 

Hannah tries to pull him up but he doesn’t budge, instead concentrating all his energy in making himself as heavy as possible. 

She crosses her arms over her chest. “Is it because of Sam?”

If he had to be honest - yes, yes it was because of Sam. It was because they had spent their entire summer - hell, their entire childhood - before he left flirting and when he had finally thought things were getting somewhere, he had to get himself landed in the loony bin again. It was also because of her stupid new boyfriend, that absolute loser Elliot Coleman in Hannah’s English class - well - he wasn’t sure if he was her boyfriend, but he had seen them texting and there was no chance he wouldn’t snatch her up if he had the chance. 

He didn’t even realise he had a crush on her until two weeks ago - the first time they saw each other since he had gotten out of the psych ward - when Sam slept over. She was sweet, and tolerant of his mental state, which were two of his favourite qualities in girls. Though, it also helped that she had an insanely toned body from all those extreme sports she likes to do and a gorgeous twinkly smile. Of course, he had been with his fair share of girls - but none of them compared to Sam; no, - she was just a dream. An unattainable picture of what he could have if he was stable. Maybe he could’ve made a move at some point in the - what - seven? years that they had known each other. But in that time he had various other (greater) issues to attend to such as the tickling, persisting voices in his head reminding him that he needed to die. 

Since then, she had pervaded his every thought, coming to him in dreams and following wherever his mind wandered. Sam was her star - it had been that way for longer than he can remember.

Every day, Josh had two xanax (prescribed) and two percocets (for fun) before rotting on the couch for hours until his sisters came back from school. The house was empty, with Bob and Melinda being away in Spain for a work event, which left him mostly alone, to the ghosts of the Washington Estate. He was to stay home for the first week back from the psych ward to allow some time for himself to adjust, and most days he just played video games and slept for hours at a time. The first Friday he was back, his sisters had finished school early and came home with Sammy (to his drug-addled pleasure), who was happy to watch movies with him while his sisters took care of dinner. 

She’s so good, and he hates it. Sam baked him cupcakes and made him a card to celebrate his return home, with cute little drawings of them as animals. She’s fine to play Call of Duty with him all afternoon, bring him snacks and remind him to take his medicine, like a glorified three-year-old. And she cares, too, genuinely - she asks him if he’s going alright, and whether there’s anything she can do to help. He wonders if he really deserved this special treatment - or even worse - that it’s because she feels sorry for him, but no - it can’t be. This is just the type of person Samantha Giddings is. A person that’s way too good for him. 

He was weaving in and out of consciousness until he had woken in a sluggish dream in front of the television, watching a horror movie with Sam and the twins. 

If Josh knew anything in his current state (inebriated as hell), he knew that the girl beside him was gorgeous. She was only wearing pyjama pants and a tank top, but fuck, she’s glowing and he wasn’t sure if it was just the light from the TV. She looked different - he racked his brain trying to remember; was she always gorgeous or was it the fact that he was on so many medications that his brain went fuzzy? How did they end up on the pull out mattress together? He instantly reddened when he noticed that Hannah and Beth were asleep on the fold out couch behind them. They would never let him hear the end of it. 

When did Josh see Sam last? Last month, maybe, when she came to visit with the twins? He was irritated, despite it being his own fault - she had reached out plenty, but he hadn’t bothered to open any of her texts. 

Josh reaches over her lap for popcorn, suddenly aware of the way his arm brushed against hers. He shifted a little in his pants - how long had it been since they were together alone like this? She looked up from her phone and swatted him away, pulling the popcorn box closer to her. 

“Who you texting, Sammy?” He teased, inching closer towards her. She giggled and blocked his view with her shoulder so that it was pressed up against his arm. 

“None of your goddamn business.”

He reached for her phone and she jutted her arm forward, shouldering him hard with the other. Josh’s hand slowly creeps towards hers and before she can protest, he snatches it from Sam and holds it above her head, chuckling at the sight of her pawing at it. Every time that she grazed his arm with her fingertips trying to reach for her little old iPhone, it was like electricity was seeping from her skin. He had to admit, a pit in his stomach began to grow as he saw the name on her phone - all these years of being friends with Hannah and Beth and she had never once mentioned a guy. He wasn’t sure when it exactly started, but their relationship was of such an immensely flirtatious nature that he forgot that she actually didn’t belong to him. 

To be fair, he had been gone for a few months - who knows what could’ve happened in that time? Josh had only realised it now but every moment they spent apart from each other, a niggling itch spread through the back of his brain, reminding him that she could find somebody while he was in the hospital. What was it - some kind of jealousy? He was dizzy with greed, he wanted all of her time and dreaded the possibility of her forgetting him, forgetting the electricity between them - if there even was a them. She wasn’t his girlfriend, no- god, of course not. He was much too unstable for somebody like her. He wasn’t jealous. No; he just wanted the best for Sammy - his baby sisters’ best friend, the little girl with the pigtails from the fifth grade.

Elliot: Hahahah Sammy stop i cant with u

Josh clenched his jaw. Sammy. That was his nickname for her. Elliot’s a fucking loser - god, who even is he anyway? Elliot, Elliot, Elliot. That’s all he ever heard from Hannah on their nightly sibling FaceTime calls when he was at the hospital: Elliot is the hottest guy in the tenth grade, Elliot’s parents are suuuper rich (like come on, our father is the Bob Washington), did you hear that Elliot will be at that party next weekend? And now he’s with Sam. His Sam. Okay - maybe not his Sam - but the grip she had that wouldn’t seem to release itself from his heart seemed to say otherwise. Josh tried to free himself from his jealous inertia and relaxed his muscles, raising his eyebrow teasingly. 

“Ooh, who’s Elliot?” 

Sam reached to pull it back but he dodged, waving the phone above her reach. She let out a laugh - one of those magical Sam laughs that make you forget your name - and slapped him on the arm. “Give me back my phone, Josh!” 

“Come on, are you embarrassed?” He pokes her in the forehead and she giggles again. That damn giggle. 

Elliot: Ur so funny hahaha

He felt a pin prick his heart as Sam seizes the phone back and tucks it in her pocket. “Does he know you’re up all night watching movies with another guy?” He taunts, poking her in the rib. 

She traced a finger down his chest playfully. “You got a crush on me, Joshua?” 

They’re so close now, his face is up to his that if he inched any closer their noses would be touching. He’s imagining tasting the pink of her lips, imagining whether they would be hot against his and whether they tasted like the smell of her Coca Cola lip balm. Josh felt his cheeks flush. Is it a crush when you spent the last few weeks in the psych ward thinking about her? 

“Mm, yeah, I’m sooo in love with the way you have popcorn stuck in your teeth right now.” 

“God, Josh,” Hannah rolls her eyes. “She won’t know you like her if you never even tell her.” 

Josh groaned and pulled his blanket over his head. “I don’t like her. I just think it’s weird that she’s spending all this time with this Elliot guy.” 

He hadn’t told either of his sisters anything about his newfound feelings for Sam - but the twins had an eye for these sorts of things, and there was no hiding anything from them. 

Sam loves running. When she practices for the upcoming track meet, every morning she goes for a jog past the Washington house and hangs out with Hannah and Beth before they take the bus together. Upon noticing this, Josh coincidentally loves waking up early, and every morning he’s in the kitchen cutting fruit on the off chance she’ll want a snack before she leaves. This had only elicited eyebrow raises from the twins, who kept mentioning how strange it was that he was up so early.

Hannah and Beth knew it for certain from a couple days after the sleepover, when he had bounded into the living room while the twins were playing board games on the floor and dropped a stack of papers on their game of Scrabble. 

“There!” he announced triumphantly, crossing his arms. 

Beth glares at him and grunts, crossing her arms over her chest. “Josh. I was winning.” 

Hannah raises an eyebrow. “What even is this?” She leafs through the stack and tosses them back on the floor, the papers falling around her to reveal Elliot’s grinning school photo. Josh rolls his eyes at him; the loser - he even looks like a dickhead in his ID picture. 

“Elliot Coleman’s academic transcript.” 

The twins exchange a glance with each other and Beth takes one of the papers into her hand, squinting at the text. When she realises, a smile creeps onto her face and she surveys the next page. They try their best to humour him, Hannah trying to contort her face into a straight one, but Beth accidentally locks eyes with her, sending them both into fits of laughter. 

Josh swivels his head between the both of them, wide eyes darting between the two. “What’s so funny?” he demands, holding his hands up in exasperation. “This is totally serious.” 

“What-” Hannah giggles between hiccups, “what do you mean, Elliot’s transcript? Where did you even get this?” 

Josh scoffs, a finger stabbing accusingly at the forlorn papers. “Look at this shit - four D’s. Who the fuck even is this guy?” 

Beth stifles a giggle, moulding her face into a serious one. “What are you talking about?” A smile peeks out when she ends the question and her hands race to her mouth to keep from cackling. 

“This guy is not good enough for Sam. He’s fucking illiterate - I mean come on, an F for English? He’s from Tennessee. They don’t even speak anything there other than English. No wonder he’s taking a tenth grade class.” 

This is the breaking point for Beth, because she can’t hold in her laughter anymore and she’s hunched over, slapping Hannah’s arm. 

“Jesus, Josh, when were you gonna tell us you were into Sam?” Hannah’s in tears now too, taking off her glasses to wipe the fog from the lenses. 

“I don’t like Sam. I just think that she deserves more than a guy who’s stuck at a fifth grade reading level!” 

The twins exchange a look between giggles, and Beth furrows her eyebrows. “Sure thing, Josh.” 

Okay, so maybe he could’ve been a bit more lowkey. 

Hannah’s persistence lucks out in the end, because she manages to convince Josh to come to Mike Munroe’s birthday party - a party that she wouldn’t’ve attended without him. He wasn’t entirely sure what Hannah saw in the guy anyway; he was the type of loser that would like his own photos on Instagram and use the 100 emoji unironically. They were on okay terms - Mike and Josh were in the same circles, and on more than one occasion Josh had gone out for a couple of drinks with him. But as a potential love interest for Hannah? No fucking way. He couldn’t think of one girl in their year that Mike hadn’t talked to, slept with or seen naked. 

And that Elliot guy? Well, he couldn’t really find anything that bad about him that made him a bad match for Sammy. But also, he couldn’t find anything good about him either - his only A+ subject was gym class, for god’s sake. He was completely unremarkable in the sense that his only redeeming factor was probably that he was in the track team like Sam. Josh groaned at the thought of them waking up early together and going on a run and playfully flirting and sweating and the like. Loser, he thought. Even his name sounds stupid. 

When he walks out onto the backyard porch, someone’s standing, shoulders hunched and elbows resting on the railing, and he knows it’s Sam. Figures, he thought. Josh knew from the start that that Eliott guy was an idiot. Her hair falls in a halo around her head as it hangs over the fence and he reaches out and twirls it around his finger. 

“You alright, Sammy?” 

She looks up at him and shakes her hair out of her face lazily, making him let go so as not to hurt her. 

“Do you think I’m unlovable?” she says it with a whine and he involuntarily imagines himself covering her mouth with his own. He hardly thinks she’s unlovable; he should know - he’s basically been in love with her since the moment they met. 

“I think you’re a lot of things,” Josh starts, taking his place beside her and resting his weight onto the fence. They’re standing close now, so that their shoulders are bumped against each other. “But I wouldn’t necessarily say unlovable.”

She makes an annoyed murmur and swats at him with the back of her hand, his arms lifting in defense. “Hey, I never specified whether the things in question were good or bad!” 

“You know this is like, the third time a guy’s stood me up?” 

“Third!?”

“Every single guy I’ve tried to talk to turns out to be an asshole.” When she sighs, she sighs with her whole body, slumping forward and picking at the splintering wood of the fence with her nail. It’s like a pin pushed through his heart when he mentions other guys. Of course, he knew that a girl as beautiful as Sam would be stolen from him by someone at some point in time, but he liked it better staying ignorant to the idea, and living in their little bubble of somewhere between friends and flirting. 

“Sometimes I just think that I’m the common denominator.” 

“Hey, they’re probably all losers anyway,” he says. Josh pokes her in the shoulder and she shoves back into him playfully. “You’re probably much cooler than all of them combined, with your little Save The Manatees badges.” 

“Joshh,” she rolls her eyes. “That was like ten years ago. And I still stand by that - they’re a dying breed!” 

He laughs and punches her on the shoulder. The way that she stays grounded in her beliefs (even after years) can’t help make his cheeks hurt; it’s one of his favourite traits of her’s - the fact that she cares. Unwaveringly. About everything, with all her heart. She’s so selfless that he’s sure that she would forgo all the happiness in the world for world peace or something noble like that.

“Just …. Joshing.” 

She punches him back and they’re laughing now. It’s times like these when he realises that moments like these most likely won’t be in the cards for him - not for crazy guys who imagine voices in his head. The hole in his stomach grows. Josh puts his arms up in surrender, raising his palms to the ceiling. “Hey, I’m kidding. Anybody would be insane to stand you up.” 

Sam doesn’t say anything, but she’s smiling and crossing her arms at the compliment like she doesn’t believe it. “You’re like, the most amazing girl I know- I mean look at you.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You mean it?” 

“Scout’s honour.” He crosses one hand over his heart and uses the other to stick a Marlboro Red 100 in his mouth from behind his ear. He gives her his lighter, and there’s a split second when their hands are touching for a bit longer than they should. Josh leans over to her so that the tip of the cigarette is almost touching her nose. It’s their tradition, despite Sam’s vehement protests against his susceptibility to lung cancer. She cups a hand beside his mouth to shield it from the wind, a small, intimate gesture, and with her left she flicks it lit. 

“Thank you, madam,” he jokes, and makes like he’s tipping his hat to her. Sam curtsies and tucks the lighter into his breast pocket. It’s warm where her hand was, over his heart like it’s protected by her touch. She peers over him and watches as he takes a long drag and inhales it into the cool air. The breeze is cool, but the smoke filling up his lungs mixed with the after effects of the beer makes him feel warm. Josh isn’t allowed to be drinking, but his next test is on Friday and there’s no way he’s not getting away with it, what with how much better he’s been doing lately. Maybe it’s because of all the time that he’s been spending with Sam - her goodness is rubbing off on him. Whatever it is, he hopes that he’s done enough so that next week the doctors will reduce his therapy sessions from once a week to once a fortnight. 

“Loosen up a bit, Sammy.” She’s looking at him a bit funny, readjusting herself like she wants to say something. “All that good samaritan behaviour must be exhausting.” 

“Okay, don’t judge me right now,” Sam turns herself towards him and looks up directly into his eyes, a small smile playing on her lips. He almost wants to look away. “But you’re making me kinda want to try it.” 

He almost chokes on his next puff, spluttering and covering his mouth with the back of his palm. 

“No fucking way,” For a second, he thinks she’s joking, but he’s looking up at her so earnestly that he’s startled. “I didn’t mean that - cigarettes aren’t even vegan, anyway.” 

“I know, I’m terrible!” She raises a hand to her forehead and feigns distress. 

It’s one of the moments that he realises he’s going to ruin her. That he always can’t help but ruin her, and she always can’t help but to let him. She’s still looking up at her and he tries his best not to smile back at her, but he can’t and he breaks into a chuckle. 

“Fuck no, Sammy, I’m not entertaining any of your secret vices.”

She pouts and he sighs. He will ruin her, he’s sure - and this is just the start of it. So Josh gives in, and positions himself behind her, so that he’s reaching over her shoulder to hand her the cigarette. She’s tucked into him so close that if he moved any closer he’d be up against her. When Sam takes it from his hands, she leans a bit closer into him so that her leg is pressed against his. If there was a pin in his heart from his crush on her, she just pulled it out and watched him explode. 

“One drag, okay?” 

Sam looks back at him and it’s then that he realises that she’s dangerously close to his mouth. She has it between her index finger and thumb gingerly, careful not to get any ash on her bare skin. “How do I do it?” 

He presses a hand to below her diaphragm. She’s almost flat against his chest now, and he tries his best to hide the tightness in his jeans. “Just a breath from here.” 

She nods and takes a breath, but coughs immediately, and they break apart from each other abruptly, Sam snorting with laughter. It only makes him shake his head, her contagious laugh infecting him too. When she laughs she grips onto his arm and it makes him want to take off that bit of skin and frame it - a dirty part of him that she cleansed with only her hand. 

“Okay, wait, wait, one more time.” She inhales it and then exhales into the air beside him and gags a bit through giggles. He picks it from her hand and holds it above her head out of her reach. “That’s all you’re getting.” 

Their interaction seems to have sparked her back to life, because later that night she’s back to her bubbly self. She’s happy (with someone else) and that’s the worst part. That’s all that he can see. Sam’s throwing her head back and laughing, and her nose scrunches a little bit - a gesture that was usually reserved for him. Her arms are crossed and her head is cocked slightly to the left, peering up at the guy in front of her through her eyelashes.

It’s ironic that they just had that conversation about her not needing a guy, and now she’s laughing it up with one- a real normal guy too. It’s Elliot; apparently he had ‘car problems’ - whatever that means (he doesn’t even drive!). She catches his eye and shoots him a huge smile and thumbs up, to which he has no choice but to smile back enthusiastically. He should’ve known that someone would’ve been charmed by her eventually, what with her gorgeous eyes and sunny smile. Josh’s heart prickles every time she laughs and smacks the other guy’s arm. It prickles so deeply that he’s numb when he goes home on the arm of another girl, and sleeps with her without really knowing why. 

It prickles so fervently that his sour mood continues for the rest of the week. The next two weeks he lives life like it’s a long cloudy dream, skipping his therapy sessions to sleep in all day and coming into school late and half-high. The girl from Mike’s party keeps messaging him on Instagram - when can i see u again xx - but he hasn’t bothered to even follow her back; it sickens him. She wishes it was Sam instead. Chris frequently makes joking offhand comments about how much of a mess he’s becoming, but as the days go by, the jokes quickly turn into grimaces and recommendations to the school therapist. He gets into a fight with a guy in his History class and has to spend Thursday afternoon writing lines. He’s a mess the next week too, until Beth grabs a hold of him Monday morning at the breakfast table. She’s storming into the dining room with her makeup half done, boots clattering hard against the wooden floor. “What the hell is wrong with you?!” 

Josh is eating his cereal with discontent - steady, mechanical clinks of his spoon scraping against the ceramic bowl. He shoots her a cloudy look, milk splattering all over the table as he drops his spoon with a clang. “What, so I can’t eat cereal now?” 

“You better give me one good reason why I shouldn’t believe that you’re the reason that Sam got suspended.” 

His heart stops. 

It's at this moment that the world feels like jell-o, and he’s confronted with the full force of the destruction his mood has left in its path. “Sam got suspended?” 

She loves me. 

Josh has a bad habit of smoking near the lockers and hiding the pack near the science labs. There were two reasons why he liked to do this. The first was that he had to do mandatory checks with the school nurse every few days to make sure that he wasn’t smoking or drinking, so it was a good hiding spot. None of the teachers ever looked there, and if they did, they’d just pretend they didn’t see. The other, more salient reason, was that Sam’s locker was there, and he could sneak a smile and sometimes even a note to her before getting to his class. 

“Yeah, and you know why?” Beth slams her hands down on the table, and with her force, his spoon clatters against the bowl even more. “Because you had left that pack of fucking Red 100s in the science labs, and she said they were hers .” 

Sammy. Of course she did. He wonders what had happened in his childhood that had caused his entire mood to hinge on the affection of this one girl. 

“You don’t even know they were mine,” Josh murmurs, and crosses his arms. He knows they’re his. 

“Name one other person who’s pretentious enough to smoke those.” She sighs in exasperation. “She can’t run in the track meet tomorrow and you know how much that means to her!” 

She really loves me.

She would get kicked off the track team for me.

I can’t let her do that to herself. 

Josh’s mouth becomes dry and it’s like the Wheat-o’s have turned to dust in his throat. He’s overcome with guilt. He knows now, there’s no reality where they can ever be together - there’s no reality that he won’t ruin her. It’s best if he stays far away from her, far away from the mess that he seems to cause wherever he goes. If only Josh hadn’t taught an angel how to smoke. If only she hadn’t let him. 

“I’m telling you this because I’m your sister and I love you,” Beth says, clasping a hand over his and squeezing tight. “Please, for the love of god, leave her alone.” 

next chapter

i sleep so i can see you (i hate to wait so long)

ੈ✩‧₊ chapter 1: sam likes josh

view it on ao3 next chapter

image credit: @bratjosh one of my FAV accounts for screencaps!! <3

pairing: josh washington x sam giddings

synopsis: The first time Sam has a proper interaction with the twins' older brother, she's on the ground. When Sam is in the tenth grade, he's the reason she gets called to the principal's office. She's got her phone beside her pillow at full volume at all times and he's why. She realises that she'll be making excuses for him all her life. Josh and Sam in the years leading up to the prank. Or, all the boys people Samantha Giddings has ever had a crush on.

a/n: hi.... this is my first post on here officially - i am LONG retired from writing, but i have loved these two since FOREVER and wanted to give it a shot. expect many chapters!

word count: 4.6k

The first time Sam has a proper interaction with the twins’ older brother, she’s on the ground. It’s the scrape of wet gravel dragging across her back and stinging pain that makes her eyes water that embeds the event into her memory forever. She recalls looking up from the schoolyard floor and seeing a flannel with a white t-shirt under it, the fabric flapping wildly in the cool wind like a superhero’s cape. Even now, when she thinks back to that moment, it isn’t the fight that she remembers first - it’s the bright red on his white shirt from the other boy’s nose. He’s got the boy’s arm pinned behind his back.

She knew that middle schoolers got into fights, but it had never happened so close to her. And over her childish badge, too? Embarrassment bubbled in her stomach.

Sam is in the fifth grade, but she still wears a pink glittery badge with gold stars on her pencil case. It says Save the Manatees in big white bubble letters and she’s ashamed to admit that her dad bought it for her when they went to the conservation centre in Florida. That was last summer, before she was old enough to realise that the trip was the last time she would see her parents within the same vicinity of each other. Now she will spend her second Christmas alone with her mother, making do with Christmas movies on the TV and dinner alone because her mother’s on the night shift.

It was the last day before winter break and Hannah and Beth wanted to spend time at Sam’s before they went back to their lodge for Christmas.

“It’s nothing special, just so you know,” Sam said quickly.

The twins didn’t care, but Sam’s ears reddened at the thought of the twins stepping into her mom’s little 80s style apartment. Despite going to school in the Hills, the twins were rich - a whole different plane of existence than the other students. Their dad was the Bob Washington, but if you met them you wouldn’t even be able to tell, by the way that Hannah has kept the same pencil case since the third grade (she’s emotionally attached to it) or the way that despite receiving designer earrings from her father every Christmas and birthday, Beth still wears spiky rubber earrings from Claire’s (“but they’re cute!” she protests, whenever someone points it out).

So she had let them start to walk her home, before she had felt for her little pink pencil case and noticed that it didn’t occupy its usual spot linked around her bag strap.

“Just because your daddy’s famous doesn’t make you the boss of me.” The other boy chucks the badge to the floor. Sam couldn’t tell the boys apart through her blurred vision - through her dusty eyelashes their arms were linked like two bulls at the horns. The older boy chuckles like this isn’t even his maximum capacity, and twists the other’s arm further with effortless ease.

When Sam finally is able to blink away her tears, only mortification ensues. It was Hannah and Beth’s brother who had come to her rescue; the infamous Josh Washington, who had won the affection of all the girls in the fifth grade.

Before she was friends with the twins, she had heard all sorts of stories about Josh Washington. Sam had never spoken to Josh, only seen him around school with his cocky half-smile and bag on one shoulder decorated with patches of obscure rock bands.

“He’s really cute,” a girl in her class once told her. “But he’s scary."

“My brother’s in his class and he said a special anger management teacher takes him out of class for one period every day,” another girl mused. “It’s because he’s insane, I bet.”

Sometimes she had tried to sneak a peek at him when she was over at the Washingtons’ - she wanted to know how the oldest Washington actually lived - if he really lived up to his infamy. He occupied her imagination sometimes - she would always imagine what he did beyond that great oak door he hid behind. He danced, maybe - she imagined big, scary Josh Washington whose knuckles were always bruised - he would sway along in his room with his headphones on like she would sometimes with his hands clasped over the sides. Sam already decided in her head -yes, Josh Washington wasn’t scary one bit.

Hannah and Beth always spoke highly of their older brother, despite the whispers from kids at school. Nothing anybody said about him was true - well, only half true - Josh had a wild temper, but the baseball incident only occurred because the offending party called Hannah a baby; and he actually didn’t attend anger management classes - it was a visiting therapist prescribed by his (private, and very expensive) psychologist.

The twins had mentioned he had struggled with mental health issues, but assured her it rarely affected his day-to-day life and if he hadn’t had to go to the therapist every day, you wouldn’t even be able to tell. This didn’t bother Sam - she had realised that there was something deeply wrong with her parents since she was maybe eight, and was well-equipped with dealing with people of questionable levels of emotional stability.

The younger boy tries to spit on him, but Josh kicks in his calf so that he drops to one knee. “Pick it up and say you’re sorry.”

The boy mutters a sort of apology in the direction of Sam and kicks the pin towards her. He’s trying to break out of Josh’s reach like a wild dog, but her hero is stronger and he presses harder onto the boy’s arm. A tornado of dust is getting kicked up around her by the boy’s legs, flailing ferociously and she has to use a hand to shield her eyes. Through the smut she can see Josh like he’s suburban Jesus, light from the classrooms peeking out from behind his silhouette.

“Nicely." Josh says it like it’s a threat.

A choke escapes his mouth as Josh lets him sink to the ground like water.

“I’m sorry,” he coughs out. The boy and Sam are on even footing now - she reddens as he extends an arm to return the pin. He doesn’t want to look at her, eyes trained to the floor behind him but Josh nudges his head with his knee so they are face to face. It seems stupid now, and she raises a shaky arm to take it back. The badge is mangled, a great crack extending through the diameter of the plastic right through the stars.

“You’re a fucking psycho,” the boy spits, and he makes himself scarce, red rubies of blood trailing him.

Sam looks to his savior and his expression softens. She must’ve looked visibly shaken, because when he pulls her to her feet he’s taking care to act with gentle motions.

“Are you alright?” He dusts off the gravel from her back with a touch so light she can hardly believe that his fists were the cause of the blood dripping down his shirt. Josh double taps the middle of her back to signal Sam to lift her shirt. Her bare back is grazed with blood and dirt - she hadn’t realised how hard she had been pushed to the ground until now.

Years of having two younger sisters have taught him well, because he uses his drink bottle to clear out the dirt from her graze with a careful hand, then wipes it clean with his shirt. When the cool water makes contact with her skin she tries not to shiver - LA is rarely cold but it’s the middle of winter and the breeze makes it bite. With a careful finger he brushes the dirt out of the plastic badge and fixes it back to her pencil case.

“My badge,” she says dumbly. It’s all she can muster at the moment.

Ten minutes later, Josh is walking her back to her sisters, a gentle hand on the small of her back, so soft that she’d almost forgotten she had grazed her back on the gravel. When they walk together, the heat of his touch warms her so the winter breeze doesn’t hurt her as much as it should. He’s not at all like what the kids in her class say - he’s actually quite normal, because they’re talking about their favourite music and what movies they like to watch, and Josh promises her that he’ll show her some real horror movies next time she’s over at the Washingtons’. He has his schoolbag around one shoulder, and Sam’s on the other, her pencil case looped around the strap of her bag. Josh has a steady arm around her throughout the whole walk back and it doesn’t relent, even when she thinks kids are making fun of him because he’s hanging out with an elementary school kid.

“Oh my god, Josh, what happened to you?!” Hannah gasped at the red swelling skin around his eye.

“Oh, Sam, your poor badge,” Beth touches her hand to the fissure on the pin and then the gravel lines lining Sam’s back. “Was it that asshole from Ms Johnston’s class? I’ll show him next time I see him.”

“No need,” Josh says, proudly brandishing his bruise. “He won’t touch Sam ever again.”

From then he’s been her knight in shining armour - Josh makes it his duty to be her personal bodyguard, assuring her that he’ll walk her home from school every day, even when it rains. He holds her bag too, and proudly, even though it’s pink, which makes her flush out of embarrassment, but also secretly pride. She imagines they will get married when they’re older and get a house with two kids and a dog. When they’re back from Christmas break, Josh dons a Save the Manatees badge on his bag as well, to which Sam responds by ironing a The Cure patch onto her own. He gets them matching star pins for their bags, just like the stars on her badge, and Sam keeps it on the left strap of her bag, next to her heart.

This only makes them subject to the twins’ relentless teasing, and they sing “Josh loves Sam!” as the three of them walk home from school.

Hannah mostly likes middle school - when she has classes with Sam and Beth. She's jealous of the way that most of the other girls wanted to be friends with them, and wondered why it was that she ended up so weird. She has fourth period art class alone, which usually she would like if she actually knew anybody in her class. Everyone else has already packed up their kits, but she's sitting in her stained white t-shirt with her glasses folded in her lap. Sam rushes to her side and wraps her into her arms, dabbing her face with her sweater sleeve. Something that she's sure of is that middle school girls are evil - she's certain, by the way the girls in her class call her 'Hannibal,' because her dad makes horror movies, and the way they splatter blotches of paint on the back of her shirt.

"Oh, Han," she sighs, rubbing her shoulder. "Don't listen to them."

"Be honest," Hannah hiccups through tear-strained eyes. "Do you think my brother is insane?"

Sam brushes her fingers through Hannah's hair and smooths it back, tucking it behind her ears. She finds it endearing, that out of all the things that the girls have teased her about, Hannah's the most worried about her brother. That's the quality that she loved the most about the youngest Washington daughter - she loved her family as hard as she could, with every fiber of her being and with her whole heart.

"Everyone's insane. They were all over him like, a month ago," she rolls her eyes. "They're being ridiculous."

Hannah sobs softly into her hands, hot tears burning through Sam's sleeves.

"Hey, hey, don't cry." Sam picks up the fattest paintbrush on the table and draws a thick line running through her stomach, the red dripping down her shirt like blood. She pulls a face and makes a spluttering noise, like she's a horror movie victim, and the blood splatters on the table and onto Hannah's arm. "Look. I'm insane too."

She smiles, but Hannah's voice still cracks when she speaks. "You're going to ruin your hoodie."

"So? We'll be matching, at least." Sam dips her finger in the thick paint and traces out H + B = BFF :) on her chest, and then onto Hannah's back. "Don't be sad, Han. Who cares about those girls? It's me and you forever."

When they enter the ninth grade, Josh is happy to make them a part of his world, a world where he possesses the ability to spin everyone around his little finger. He always calls out to her in the cafeteria, surrounded by a throng of admirers, his smile always the widest and brightest. Sam rolls her eyes but there’s a part of her that thinks it’s endearing that so many people are enamoured with him.

Beth doesn’t need his help at all, because on the first day of high school all the girls in their homeroom are asking her opinion on their clothes and inviting her to the movies over the weekend.

“They don’t like me," Beth huffs. “They only wanna be friends to get close to Josh.”

She didn’t know when she started paying attention to the way Josh’s shirt stuck to his body, or when she first realised her heart quickened whenever he had texted her first. In a way, she understood why so many girls at school liked him - he was naturally charming; he had a way of leaning close and listening with his whole body whenever someone spoke to him, making them feel like they’re the most important thing in the world.

While having an objectively hot brother definitely added to the appeal, Sam understood why everyone wanted to be friends with Beth, too. She could find a way to make anybody laugh - she and Josh shared the quality of being able to mess around through life like it was all one big game - a trait that Sam never quite got the hang of.

Sam’s first high school party is a pool party at the held by Josh at the Washington estate. The oldest Washington had been entrusted the house by Bob and Melinda for the weekend, freshly out of the hospital, who responded by promptly buying a keg. It's September but it's still hot outside, and she hasn't spoken to Josh properly all summer break. Sam doesn’t think she’ll ever be one for partying, but she can’t help but to admit that she loves the rush of epicureanism that comes with holding a red cup in her hand for the first time. It’s 100 degrees, and Sam matches navy low-cut swimsuits with the twins. They’re racy - not something she’s ever worn in her life before, but she’s excited to get a taste of the high school life. Hannah refuses at first, but Sam and Beth convince her, and they sparkle in their silver beach cover-up skirts.

Sam helps Josh and the twins set up, unfolding the ping pong table for beer pong in the garage while Beth blows balloons. When she’s done, she gets up to look for Hannah, who said she was setting up snacks. Despite coming over every other week, she loves the intrigue of the Washington house - its tall ceilings and dark oak floors. Every time she’s here, she stops to take in the sheer size of it, and admire the gorgeous antique furniture Melinda’s decorated the estate with. She stops at the doorway of the living room to see Josh, dancing alone to the newly set up speaker system.

It’s an old 80s funk song, and he’s shaking his shoulders, singing along to the catchy chorus, until he catches her eye and sways his arms along to her, snapping in time to the beat. Something about the fact that he isn’t even embarrassed - and instead starts whipping out more elaborate dance moves - makes her feel proud to know him. The worst part is, he’s actually good at it.

“You know how to dance, Sammy?” he asks.

She breaks into a silly shoulder roll. “Baby, I know how to dance.”

He pulls her into a salsa and she can’t help but giggle. His hands are gentle and strong, clasping her hands firmly and it makes her blush. Josh claps in time to the beat, pulling her hands towards, then away from him and raising his hand to twirl her. The Washington living room is huge, and the newly set-up speakers make the music feel like it’s radiating below their feet. He drops a hand lightly to her hips and shimmies her along to the song. She has to admit, it’s fun - and she rolls her hips and claps as their laughter rings out through the room.

She accidentally locks eyes with him, but he only smiles and gives her a squeeze on the hip. Sam turns her body to him and he stops for a second, looking down at her lips and then back up at her eyes again.

“Hey, uh, Sam.” He pauses like he’s hesitating. “Thanks for, y'know ... looking out for my sisters while I’ve been gone.”

“They hardly need looking out for.” She puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes gently. “We’re all here for you, Josh.”

Josh reaches for her and her heart starts to quicken. She wants to know what it feels like to close the gap between them, to experience what she’s only seen in movies. They’re standing so close - all she would need to do is take a step. Her mind starts racing at the idea and she quickly waves it away - no - it can’t be Josh.

A beat of silence.

He brushes her shoulder with his fingertips.

“Sorry. Dust on you.”

Her gaze is abruptly interrupted by mock gagging noises at the door. They break apart from each other immediately, Sam sheepishly smiling and making herself busy with her hair.

“Um, gross.”

Hannah is at the door, crossing her arms. She’s peering at the two with an intense look of amusement and surprise.

“Get a room, lovebirds.”

“You’re no fun, Han,” Josh smirks, but another song starts playing and Sam takes Hannah’s hand and leads her into a rumba box step. Dancing with Hannah is easier, she thinks - she doesn’t feel the pressure of being perceived, unlike when she’s dancing with Josh.

When it gets dark later that night, Sam has to put a t-shirt on to keep the goosebumps from pimpling her skin. The alcohol seems to make everyone around her immune to the breeze though, because everyone’s still in their swimwear. She’s on the karaoke machine between Beth, Emily and Jess, who’s definitely had too much to drink, because the latter is holding on to her with a death grip and yelling expletives at any man who comes close to her. They’re singing a girly pop song, complete with some silly choreography from Beth and Sam memorised from years of playing Just Dance together.

She doesn’t notice, but Josh surveys her from beside the pool, smiling at her childish moves. When the song is about to end, she sees him watching and winks, pointing a disco finger at him.

“Sammy!” Josh calls out, and she excuses herself to make his way towards him. He’s following her with his eyes, until she reaches his side, which makes him look away as if he’s been caught. He's lighter now, maybe the effect of a few beers, because his shoulders are back and relaxed and he's moving in slow motion.

“Yes, Josh?”

“I just wanted to let you know that…” he leans down to get closer to her. There’s a split second where he pauses, and she can’t tell if she imagined it, or if he gazes down at her lips. They’re locking eyes now, for a beat too long, and Sam holds her breath waiting for the impact of his words.

“You got something on your shirt.”

He reaches down as if to brush something off her. Her heart jolts when instead, he loops an arm around her waist and tries swinging her into the pool.

But her reflexes are faster. She latches onto his wrist and pulls him in with her, giggling as they plunge into the cool water. They’re panting a combination of laughs and shivers now and Josh bobs to break the surface of the water, flicking his wet hair out of his eyes.

“You’re gonna have to do a whole lot better than that to get me, sweetheart.” He lunges for her waist and she feels him circle it with his hands, hoisting her above his head. His movements are strong and steady, and despite being in the water, it feels safe.

“Don’t you dare drop me Josh-” she starts, but she’s too late, and he chucks her in the water with a deafening splash. Sam tries to get him in a headlock, but he wrestles her off, hands clasping around her wrists, sending shivers down her spine. Josh moves both of her wrists to one hand and pokes her side with the other and it makes her squirm into him.

They’re wrestling now, hands intertwined as she tries to splash him in the face. She’s surprised at how strong he is - she realises he’s never seen him shirtless before, only hoodies and pyjamas - and he’s much more muscular than he expected, chiseled like a statue.

“Wait, wait, wait, shhh.” Josh pulls her close into him and pivots her body so their bodies are pressed together. His hands are closed over hers so that they’re steady, stopping her from splashing any further. He leans down to her ear, and she can feel the electricity flickering from his wet chest pressed against her back. Sam suddenly feels hot, and she inhales to get her bearings again.

“Do you see that?” he whispers. His alcohol breath tickles her ear and she tries her best not to flinch. He nods towards Chris and Ashley sitting by the side of the pool, almost social distancing from how far apart they’re trying to hold a conversation. Their bodies are turned in towards each other, and it’s endearing how obviously in love they are - despite neither of them knowing. Ashley giggles at a joke Chris says and shifts closer to him, to which he turns away and runs a hand through his hair.

“Aww, so cute,” she muses. Her back is still pressed against him and she’s aware of how warm his skin feels against her’s.

“I know you think I’m cute, Sammy, you don’t need to remind me.” A cocky smirk lights his face, and she splashes his face with water. He breaks away from her, shielding his face from the chlorine with his hands.

“You’re so annoying. I meant them.”

“Don’t you think that all they need to finally hook up-” he bumps her with his hip, “is a little push?”

That’s how by the end of the night, Josh has convinced Chris and Ashley to have a chicken fight with them, and Sam feels like her face should not be flushing this much thinking about her legs wrapped around her best friend’s brother’s shoulders.

Ashley lunges for her and Sam steadies herself, tensing her legs around Josh’s arms. He responds by tightening his grip around her shins.

“Watch out, cochise. My girl can fight.” Josh taunts. My girl. The phrase shouldn’t make her cheeks flush as much as it does - Josh would flirt with anything that walked. She swerves from Ashley’s grip, reaching for the other girl’s arms. Ashley swipes at her but she dodges, reaching down to splash her with water. The two interlock fingers, trying to twist the other into the water, but Sam’s stronger and she almost topples Ashley forward into the water.

Ashley steadies herself, obviously flushing from accidentally brushing Chris with her chest. If he’s also embarrassed, Chris is doing a really good job at hiding it, because he jerks forward, giving her the momentum to push into Sam. Josh is able to weave out of the way, positioning Sam at Ashley’s side. The girls hold onto each other’s arms, and finally, with a quick but heavy push, Sam is able to get the other girl into the water with a splash.

Ashley grabs onto Chris’ hand as she falls and the both are submerged, laughing and clinging to each other. They’re gazing into each other’s eyes as they both break the surface of the water, still smiling to each other. Sam places her arms on Josh’s head and drops her chin so she’s resting on them. “Aww. We won, but they really won.”

Josh laughs. “Mission accomplished, huh, Sammy?”

She reaches down and splashes him with water. “When’s it your turn to get a girlfriend?”

“When you get some better dance moves.”

Sam rolls her eyes.

She’s in the upstairs bathroom drying herself off, when she overhears Josh’s voice through the open window. It’s early in the morning - maybe 8am - and the party has well cleared out, so that now the only occupants of the house are Sam, Josh and the twins. The girls are heavy sleepers, especially after the excitement of last night, but Sam’s always been a morning person and she wakes at 6:30 to go for a run.

“So you’re not able to make it.” He says it like it’s a statement. His voice is gravelly - she doubts she’d ever heard it without its jovial tone before.

A pause.

“It’s important to me.”

“I know, Dad.” A sigh. “Forget about it. I’ll see you next weekend, okay?”

A click to signal the end of the phone call, and a loud crash. Sam tries her best to make haste before she catches Josh. The door of the bathroom bursts open and Sam’s hand darts to her shirt, legs still bare.

“Fuck!” Josh covers his eyes with his hands. His eyes are red rimmed, like he didn’t get enough sleep, and he smells lightly of beer. Josh clears his throat and his voice is almost back to normal. “Sorry, Sammy.”

She tries to pull on her leggings and t-shirt as fast as she can, cheeks reddening. “No, no, I’m sorry.”

He peeks through his fingers and smiles weakly. “You decent?”

Sam bats at him with her t-shirt. “Josh!”

“Hey, I just need the medicine cabinet and I’ll be on my way,” he smirks. “Unless you need some help here.”

“You’re incorrigible.” She steps out of the way so that he can reach the bathroom mirror, and she’s suddenly aware of his presence right behind him. He pops open a couple of bottles and swallows the pills dry, not even stopping to read the labels.

After Sam has been with the Washingtons for more than half of her life, she realises that being friends with Josh is like having an alarm clock and not remembering what time you set it for. Sometimes he would be genial and warm, and other times he would freeze over. Sometimes he would pass her notes in the hallway. Sometimes, he wouldn't look at her at all. When she makes the swim team, he draws her three little manatees on a sticky note with speech bubbles above them saying, "You did it!" and "You're amazing!". She keeps them on the inside of her binder. Despite knowing him for so long, she still can't figure him out.

When the fall turns to winter, Hannah calls her in tears from the hospital. Josh won't be home for three months.

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