#(while still feeling terribly sad but not like in a betrayed way)

[dazais-guardian-angel]

Break 🤝 Ebisu - waiting for years to die and then realizing when the time comes that they want to live...

anon i don't know who you are or what prompted you to send this, but....... yes, I suppose? but also Ow why did you have to make me think of this

[1d1195]

Most IV

Read Most here | ~ 5.9k words

From me: I wanted this part to be longer but I think you'll like the next part the most.

Warnings: not really anything special about this part. You are going to hear from Lauren again though, lol

Summary: Harry is desperately trying not to scare her away. She is wondering if this was a terrible idea.

The boys were in the living room putting together a bookshelf and a coffee table that she had to buy since the ones in her apartment at school belonged to Addie. It still left no room for anyone to sit but true to their word, they didn’t need it. They sat around chatting and catching up. Making each other laugh. Harry sat beside her and she could feel his gaze on her every time she shifted. Like she was going to disappear.

When all the pizza was gone, the girls had brought empty boxes to the kitchen but again, she didn’t even have a trash can to throw stuff away. “I don’t think I can live three weeks without some stuff,” she admitted wrinkling her nose. The package of water bottles that the boys picked up with the new pizza was already significantly depleted and the empty bottles they had all drank were lining her counter. The boys were going to need trash bags to put the empty boxes and pieces of Styrofoam somewhere too.

She also thought about how she had packed most of her clothing away in the storage pod as well. Underwear was definitely a necessity.

“A good old fashioned shopping trip would do us some good!” Eleanor proclaimed seeing her friend’s frustration grow. Immediately she ushered her towards the door. She glanced back as she grabbed her purse off the counter just in time to see Harry’s head perk up as he looked at her.

It killed her to see the anxiety on Harry’s face as if she was going to disappear again when she walked out that door. She didn’t just ruin the trust between them, she murdered it. “Um...” she swallowed digging in her purse and gently moving away from Eleanor’s hand. “I don’t have any room in my car anyway,” she shrugged and placed her set of keys on the counter. A quiet assurance she would be back. The relief on Harry’s face was almost as painful to see as his anxiety. Both of those sad emotions on his gorgeous face were entirely her fault. “Do you mind driving, Sarah?”

“Of course not,” she shook her head. “El, can you help me move some stuff in the car so there’s room for three of us?”

She figured there was nothing in her car that required two people to move it. But the girls headed out while Mitch and Louis focused intently on the shelf. Niall nudged Harry silently reading the next set of directions on installing the lifting mechanism for the coffee table. Harry got up from the floor and approached her the way a person would approach a deer in the middle of a hike. Terrified that the poor thing would skitter away at the slightest movement. Their friends were still in earshot, and it seemed weird to have a private goodbye when they were only running to get her some necessities. “I’ll be back,” it felt horrible to reassure him of such a fact.

He nodded and forced a smile that tensed on his face a hair too much. It didn’t reach his eyes. Her stomach was in knots at the sight; she felt so horrible. “Do you need anything?” She asked.

He shook his head. “M’good, kitten. Thank you.”

Her heart continued to flutter at the word kitten. Like he didn’t know what else to call her. “Thank you for helping, I’m sure you’re exhausted after your shift, and you probably want to get home or something—”

“No,” he cut her off. “M’happy t’help and be here,” he looked at her like she was the only thing that mattered. It broke her heart all over again that she betrayed his trust. How was she going to make this right?

“Well, thank you,” she repeated graciously. “Really.”

He glanced back at the living room and the boys and then silently, quietly, pushed her into the hallway. With the door closed, he cleared his throat and rubbed his hands on his thighs. “I don’t know how t’say this because I don’t know what the rules are. I don’t know what we’re supposed t’do or feel but I jus’ know m’really jealous of the hugs everyone else got and I know I got t’hold your hand and chat with you for a while on m’own... and I know it’s silly m’so jealous of a hug m’friends—who probably missed you in some ways jus’ as much as I did—but m’incredibly jealous and I jus—”

Her arms were around his neck. Her chest against his, even though there were two layers of clothes between them, she swore she could feel his heartbeat. They fit like puzzle pieces. Because of course they did. If it wasn’t for their words, she wasn’t sure she would know they were ever apart at all. Harry’s arms wound around her waist; he sighed so content. Buried his nose in her hair and breathing quietly beside her ear. He was holding her so close; like she might wriggle out of his arms at any moment. Being this close made her stomach flip. It felt new and familiar at the same time. His body felt so warm and strong but very much the same arms and embrace she was used to from years ago. Her face tucked into the curve of his neck; where his cologne gathered and smelled so intoxicatingly of him, she could have cried. His muscles were more defined, but he was still her Harry.

Except he wasn’t, actually. It reminded her of the final scene of a tragic romance movie where the couple should have been acknowledging how they felt about one another all along. But instead, they moved on.

So, her brain turned on again and slowly, begrudgingly, she pulled away. Slow enough that when she was able to view his face, he was looking at her like she wasn’t going to disappear again. A layer of trust had returned for which she was so grateful it ached like nothing she had felt before in the pit of her stomach. “Don’t want to keep the girls waiting too long,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he nodded and put his hand on her doorknob. “We’ll try not t’trash the place,” he smiled, that dimple making her weak all over. She didn’t even want to go shopping. Not without Harry attached to her hip. But he wasn’t hers anymore and it was her own fault.

So she quietly laughed at his joke and turned to the elevator after her friends.

*

Did you know you owned everything?

I was JUST thinking the same thing about you. Carter had nothing useful either. We’ve been shopping for HOURS.

She smiled at her phone while Eleanor and Sarah pushed the cart and walked through the store like they were the ones moving into a new place. Her phone rang and she was quick to pick it up. “Did you see him?” Addie asked excitedly. “Was he overwhelmed? Did he cry? Did he kiss you immediately?”

She sighed, blushing, grateful her friends were distracted so they didn’t see nor hear Addie nearly shouting her questions. “Yes, probably, no, no.”

Addie blew out an annoyed breath. “Well, what are you waiting for?”

“Addie,” she groaned with frustration and Eleanor glanced back briefly to see her on the phone. She smiled and then turned her attention back on the array of dishware. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what? If you remember how to kiss?”

“Jesus. Christ.”

“I’m sorry about your storage pod,” Addie tried instead. “I bet you miss your notebooks.”

There was a pang of anxiety about the fate of her notebooks on a trip across the country that she couldn’t control. If something happened to them, it might make her insane. She really should have at least scanned them onto the cloud. At least she would have something to do when she got them back before the semester started and she was alone in her apartment with her thoughts. “It’s alright,” but it reminded her to snag a notebook from the office supplies aisle as they walked by. She tossed it over the side of the cart. “Once it’s here and I’m settled, I hope you’ll come for a visit. I’m going to have this super comfy air mattress you can sleep on since my bed isn’t here either.”

Addie laughed. “Excellent.”

“I miss you,” she admitted.

“Miss you too. But this is good. Because you won’t get rid of me. I’m so proud you jumped.” Her cheeks flushed.

“Thank you.”

“Talk to you later.”

“Bye.”  

With her phone back in her pocket she glanced at the items in the car that Eleanor and Sarah had selected. They had similar tastes throughout their lives, so she wasn’t worried about the aspect of overall décor and color; but her budget was a bit depleted without a job lined up and dipping into her savings this much was a little worrisome. “We’ve missed you,” Sarah said softly interrupting her thoughts before they spiraled too far. “Think you balanced out the lot of us.”

“I’m freaking out,” she admitted.

They both stopped their leisurely strolling and looked at her nervously. Because terrifyingly enough, she didn’t look like she was freaking out. So the internal side of things must have been bad and they probably had about as much fear as Harry that she might just leave again without warning. She hated that she did this and part of her thought leaving again might be best. Because why would they trust her? After all that. She left without explanation. “Why?” Eleanor asked.

Her voice broke and she sniffled. “He’s going to hate me,” she whispered.

“Oh, for the love of God,” Sarah rolled her eyes and pushed the cart forward not even bothering to entertain her worries. It wasn’t mean and part of her was glad Sarah wasn’t treating her like she was made of glass—she was treating her the way she always had. As if she had never left.

Eleanor smiled sweetly, put a hand on her back and ushered her after Sarah. “Harry will never hate you,” she promised. The relief she felt released a burst of dopamine and made the anxiety she felt disappear almost instantly.

“I hate me,” she grumbled. Eleanor laughed and squeezed her hip.

“We’re so happy you’re back. I don’t know if you heard everything, but Harry wasn’t himself without you,” she explained.

Her cheeks warmed and she swallowed thickly. “It made sense in my head,” she whispered. “I swear.”

Eleanor looked at her sympathetically, a smile that was warm but full of empathy filled her pretty face and she was overcome with how much she missed her friends. If it wasn’t for Addie, there was a good chance she wouldn’t have survived the last three years. “I know. I know you wouldn’t do that without thinking it through,” Eleanor nodded encouragingly. “I just wish you had told us what you were feeling.”

“Yeah, how did you stay off social media like that? I could use a lesson, honestly. All I do is scroll,” Sarah called from in front of them putting a toilet bowl brush into her growing cart.

She was grateful for the kindness her friends shared. “Thank you,” she smiled at Eleanor and then turned to Sarah. “Both of you.”

The pair of them smiled back. “Anything for you, babe,” Sarah assured her.

*

They returned with the items needed and the boys were waiting, ready to take more bags and boxes than she thought the girls could fit in Sarah’s car with the three of them already inside it. They were like an assembly line of grabbing items and bringing them to her apartment. When everyone else was ahead of her, she grabbed the air mattress box. It was heavy and large enough to make it awkward to carry and Harry frowned watching her struggle to lock her car as she tried to balance it on her hip. All while he carried nothing more than a box of pots and pans that weighed probably a fraction as much.

“Swap with me,” he ordered and placed it on the trunk of Sarah’s car.

“Oh... no, it’s alright. It’s heavy and you’ve already worked and—”

He ignored her, pulling it from her grip as she protested, and he marched toward her building. With a sigh, she grabbed the pots and pans, feeling useless and needy again. The elevator signaled the rest were already on their trip up leaving Harry and her in wait for it to descend again. They stood in silence holding their boxes while waiting patiently. “Thank you,” she said again. It felt like a constant in her mouth as the afternoon progressed. “I can’t imagine how tired you must be.”

“M’fine,” he smiled. “Happy t’see you in exchange of m’nap. Also, would’ve gone home t’Mrs. Peterson asking me t’fix her closet door or check her dryer vent.”

She laughed and Harry thought he won the lottery or was struck by lightning. It was the most beautiful sound in the world, and he felt lucky to hear it. The elevator doors opened, and they reverted back to quiet. Her phone vibrated in her pocket; it was a message from Carter.

Addie misses you so much. I don’t think I’ll ever be as good a roommate as you.

“A friend from school?” Harry asked, unable to keep his interest in who messaged her to himself. Harry never saw himself as jealous. But he never had three years of time without her—a whole college career without him by her side. He didn’t know if she had a relationship and quite frankly she was terrified to ask.

“Yeah, umm... his name’s Carter.”

She was replying to his message reminding him where she kept the emergency chocolate for when Addie spiraled. So at first, she didn’t see the way Harry’s jaw flexed so hard she thought he could have cut the sudden tension in the elevator better than the sharpest knife in the world ever could have. His eyes stared straight ahead as the elevator ascended. Her cheeks heated in the small space, feeling mortified that she made Harry feel jealous. God she couldn’t even come home without making him feel bad.

“I met him at my roommate’s dance recital. You would love him,” she whispered because it was the truth. “He started chatting with me all by myself. He calls me gorgeous when he greets me. But the day I met him, I didn’t want to talk. But he was insistent. It’s why I think you’d like him. He inspired a little thing I wrote, I’ll have to let you read it sometime. But anyway... I showed him a picture of my roommate—Addie—and he fell in love with her. Like right there. In the auditorium right as the curtain was opening for her recital. Just her picture, Harry. It was like when Allie saw the picture of Noah in the newspaper in The Notebook. I watched him fall in love with her. I watched it happen,” she smiled at the memory. “He also calls me my favorite matchmaker. He helped us move three times to two different apartments and he never lets me carry heavy grocery bags even though I’m not his girlfriend,” she explained emphasizing that she was not dating Carter. “And he really liked my writing—thinks I’m going to be an instant cult-classic writer. And he was really excited that I decided to come home—even though Addie is being mean to him now, I guess.”

The little story eased the tension in his jaw. She watched it disappear slowly and she wondered if he was going to develop a TMJ dysfunction from how clenched it was for the last few moments. The elevator stopped and he gestured for her to exit first. Before they opened the door where she could hear the rustling of paper bags and the tearing of boxes.

“Where’s the scissors!?” Louis shouted.

“I told you we needed to buy two,” Sarah said grumpily.

“I didn’t know Niall was going to lose them in the first twenty seconds of opening them!” Eleanor protested.

She turned to face Harry, each had a box in front of them, like armor to protect their hearts, whether they knew it or not. She thought about writing that down as soon as she found her new notebook and a pen. The sadness she felt for making him feel jealous still lingered in her. All of the bad choices she made (even though she loved Addie and Carter and wouldn’t have met them without leaving) made her feel terrible on Harry’s behalf. “I’m so sorry, Harry,” she whispered, shame creeping through her body. Without another word, she turned inside before she could say anything else.

Harry stood in front of the open door, noise and chaos ensuing just five feet from him, he worried she was going to get a noise complaint because of the lot of them. He entered the apartment after a few more seconds of silence on his part and even though the apartment wasn’t all that big, he found her instinctively, dropping the box he held onto the counter. He grabbed her wrist like he had a thousand times before, it made her heart flip and flutter like an acrobat in the circus. Without a care of his friends shouting and creating more commotion he leaned in close, so his lips were so close to her ear, she almost closed her eyes to savor the feel of the moment. It wasn’t even that intimate, but it felt like it was.

“I would like t’take you out t’dinner, kitten,” his voice was low and almost gravelly. It warmed her skin and body like nothing she had ever felt before—except she had. Because he always made her feel like this. Ever since they were young, and she knew they were soulmates—even if he didn’t believe in them.

Silently she nodded, meeting his gaze again and smiling. His soft, answering smile was so beautiful she wanted to scream. Thank God she was home.

She excused herself to her bedroom after that, closed the door, where she slid the notebook from one of the bags, found a pen in her purse and drew a heart on the inside cover, listed two names inside it as she always did.

On the first page she scribbled down some notes about how home wasn’t a place, a town, or a building at all.

It was green eyes and a kind smile that made her feel whole.

*

They hadn’t made it to dinner yet. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Her moving in, especially without all her stuff, took a tremendous effort and amount of time. It took a ton of phone calls to stay on top of it and make sure it didn’t get lost along the way because its destination wasn’t meant for a cross-country road trip or any of the stops along the way back to her. In addition to that, she found a job at one of their local restaurants—Niall was happy to call in a favor to the owner who knew his mum so well, so she began working so much. Mainly because she worried about her savings being dipped into because of the move and missing items.

She also had to visit her own mum now that she was closer to her again. Meanwhile, Harry was still on the schedule to work overtime and all his regular hours as well—at least through the cycle of the schedule he was currently on.

So, two and a half weeks had passed since she moved back. Other than the first day they helped move her in, there had only been a handful of sightings. A few of them visited her while she worked, happy to report back to Harry (even though he insisted it was unnecessary but was nonetheless grateful for their intrusion) she was still in town. When he drove past her apartment building (because he was creepy now and scared beyond belief she would be gone in the middle of the night) and saw her storage pod with her mum’s furniture had been removed he felt a ripple of anxiety course through him. It was only alleviated when he saw her car still parked in the same spot that he relaxed. Their group of friends invited her to their weekly summer bonfire but the first week Harry had to work and the second week she had to work.

There was no time for a dinner date to rekindle the love that never left nor ask questions that Harry needed answered.

By then, everyone outside their circle of friends had heard she was home. People eyed Harry like he was a whole new person. “Ran into her,” Gemma smiled excitedly. “She looks beautiful, college was kind to her.”

Harry nodded, the pair of them in his backyard while his mum was inside cooking for them. They insisted on helping but naturally Gemma told him he was grating cheese the wrong way which resulted in a bickering mess of cheese on Harry’s floor and his mum ushering her grown children outside so she could cook in peace.

They were lying in the grass and Harry sighed feeling like the air had been bogged down with pollutants he didn’t even notice for three years because the air was clean now. “Nearly cried on the elevator when she talked ‘bout her friend Carter. Guess he’s dating her college roommate,” he explained. “He called her gorgeous and I thought I was going t’throw up, Gem,” he rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes and sighed. “M’crazy, aren’t I?”

“No more than usual,” Gem smiled. “I told you she’d be back.” Part of Harry doubted Gemma. It was small, but gnawed at him late at night when he missed her most and thought about how nice it would be to have her to snuggle with in his bed. It had been ages since he held her like that. They only had a small number of sleepovers at their age. They were very much still under the watchful eye of their parents at that time. He cherished those memories and often looked at the twinkling stars when he thought about how she would feel in his bed when he couldn’t sleep.

“Yeah,” Harry smiled back. “You were right,” he sighed with relief.

“She’s scared Mum is going to hate her.”

Harry rolled his eyes; irritation of the slightest bit filled his body. “Of course she is,” he huffed out another exhausted sigh.

“I told her that was ridiculous.”

Harry didn’t tell Gemma about the dinner date he was waiting for (again) because she already knew. “M’hoping she’ll tell me why.”

“I think we’re all hoping that, Harry,” she reached for his hand and squeezed it. “M’sure if you ask she’ll tell you.”

“Gemma, I hugged her, and I think it cured me,” he swallowed. The way her body fit into the frame of his like they never stopped hugging was so incredible. Gemma smiled fondly at her little brother and nodded. She was certain he was telling the truth. Gemma believed they were made for each other just as much as the rest of everyone else believed. “M’afraid that if I kiss her, I might propose on the spot.”

“Over my dead body,” Gemma laughed. “Mum and I would kill you for not letting us be there,” so Harry couldn’t do anything else but laugh along with her.

*

They were approaching week three and other than run ins as a group and waves as their lives quietly skipped past one another through no fault of their own. But finally, he ran into her at the grocery store. She was in the checkout line waiting and Harry was just grabbing a cart to fill for the week.

“Hey, kitten,” he smiled. She had a basket on her arm that looked like the handles were digging into her skin and he wanted to take it from her but instead she placed it at her feet and smiled back so sweetly as they began chatting.

“Finished with your shift?” She asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. M’gonna go home and take a nap. But m’low on a lot of food.”

“If I were you, I would have bought something to go and went and took that nap.”

“Well, then I wouldn’t have run into you,” he reminded her with a smile that took over his lips before he could stop it. It wasn’t meant to be cute or sweet, but it was anyway. It made her cheeks turn pink and it did feel like fate—even though if this were three years ago, she wouldn’t have even noticed she had run into Harry by chance. It would have seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

“That’s true,” she bit the inside of her lip.

“How ‘bout you? Working tonight?” He asked.

She shook her head. “You can go ahead of me,” she said to the woman waiting behind her who smiled kindly in return. “No... I did a double yesterday and I’m awfully tired myself. A nap sounds like the right idea,” she grinned knowingly.

Harry couldn’t help it. The words came out of his mouth before he could stop them, and he thought it was now or never because they had been doing some kind of dance that he was certain she would write about. Ships passing in the night and all that. Just missing one another and their free time so he had to ask right then. “Are y’free tonight?” He asked. “Other than napping?” He amended with a tired smile. “For that dinner?” He reminded her.

“Yes,” she nodded quickly, immediately. A relieved sigh fell from his mouth, and he thought it was the best news in the world. Maybe even better than the news she was home. Even though he was there in person to see that for himself. She giggled slightly at his relief. Not because it was funny, but because she was relieved too.

“I’ll pick y’up at six.”

*

She was bubbling with excitement as she left the grocery store. Her heart in her throat and she headed to the coffee shop because if she was going to skip her nap to get ready for her date with her ex-boyfriend but also the very same man she’d been in love with since she understood the emotion, then she was going to need caffeine. And back up. A text to Eleanor and Sarah telling them it was date night set them into motion.

“Hey Lo,” she smiled downright gleefully. A date with Harry. It felt like the very first one. “Can I have my usual?” She asked.

Lauren nodded eagerly, a smile on her lips. Her kind friend chatted with her, asking how her day was going, how her studies were and the like. It was unbelievably nice to have her back in town. It had eaten away at Lauren for what she had insinuated. Keeping it a secret from her friend group was abhorrent. She knew it was and so the fact she was home was a good thing.

She was happy to have her friend back. Even though she knew it was her fault she left in the first place. “Harry and I are going to dinner,” she was smiling the way she used to when Harry texted her asking if they needed anything for their study time.

Just like that a switch went off in the pit of her stomach. The envy she felt was atrocious and she wanted to stop it but it was growing like it had the day she had told her Harry deserved more. “Like a date?” She asked in surprise.

She nodded. “I know. It’s...kinda crazy right?”

“Yeah... yeah it is. I’m surprised... he uh...” Lauren swallowed begging her mouth not to say anything worse than what she had suggested three years prior. She had already lost her friend, she knew it. It was a miracle she was home. She didn’t deserve the heartache at the hands of her jealousy. But the green little monster was vicious. “He doesn’t usually go on dates during the week,” she murmured, putting her drink on the counter. It was horrible, watching the bubbly bright smile fall off her face. Literally slid from her lips to the floor in seconds. Lauren turned to the customer that was next in line. “I’m sure it’s fine,” she said as she made the next drink. “It’ll be a nice date.”

But just like before, she knew she planted a seed of doubt as she left the coffee shop.

*

Eleanor and Sarah were already at her apartment when she got there. They had clothing options that they had scrounged together as well as a plethora of makeup pallets that she didn’t have since most of her stuff was still a day or two out. “At least my stuff will be here soon.”

“I cannot wait to see your shoes,” Sarah sighed dreamily. “You always had the best shoe collection.”

“Do you still have your curling iron?” Eleanor asked. “That thing was the most amazing hair styling tool known to man and I don’t know how I have lived without you and it all these years.”

She giggled, grateful for the distraction from her conversation with Lauren. Because honestly, if they hadn’t already been there, she might have cancelled on Harry and thought about moving back with Addie and Carter. Thinking of Addie made her miss her. “Do you guys mind if I FaceTime Addie? She’ll want to know I’m going on this date.”

“Of course not! We’ll need her opinion too,” Eleanor assured her.

So she rang Addie who picked up on the second ring and was immediately squealing with excitement. “I told you he wouldn’t have moved on!” She shouted.

“Holy shit, did you think he moved on?!” Sarah asked.

“Well... I mean... it was three years.”

Sarah and Eleanor exchanged a look of disbelief. “You’re joking, right?”

“I told you,” Addie quipped again. Eleanor was putting eyeshadow on her and her reflection in the mirror suggested she wouldn’t need any of the three cream blushes that Eleanor had laid on the counter. She glared at Addie on her cell phone screen.

“Well...I don’t know. I just figured...”

“Hi Addie,” Carter said. “Wow, aren’t you all dolled up, Gorgeous,” he winked at the screen. Nice to see you.”

“Oh no wonder Harry was jealous of him,” Eleanor whispered delightedly.

“Shut up, he was not,” she gasped.

Addie giggled, pecked Carter’s warm cheek. “Nice to meet you ladies,” he said to Sarah and Eleanor. “Heard tons about you. I’m gonna start dinner, love,” he kissed the top of Addie’s head. “Can’t wait to see the finished product, Gorgeous,” he winked at her again as he left their view.

It was great for her aching heart that her two little families liked each other so quickly. She wanted to ask Eleanor and Sarah about what Lauren had said about him dating but she was scared to know the answer. But if she didn’t know, then it would probably ruin the date. “How... how often does Harry go on dates?” She asked.

“None,” Addie was the one that answered with a shake of her head.

Eleanor snorted. “She’s right,” Sarah nodded. “Harry has been on zero dates. Unless you count Mrs. Peterson needing him all the time to fix something at her house. Then about a thousand, I’d say,” she smiled.

“None?” She asked. “I...” she swallowed. “I thought I heard someone say...he was dating.”

“Who the fuck said that?” Eleanor looked at her in the mirror in absolute shock.

“Oh I just...” she should have told them. They would be able to assuage her worries immediately. “People talk about me pretty loudly; with Harry being a town staple now,” she shrugged. “They think I’m deaf or something,” she explained quietly.

“Harry hasn’t dated anyone,” Sarah stated matter of fact, no room for argument.

“I told you so,” Addie sang through the phone. Eleanor and Sarah smiled sweetly at their new friend within a cellphone screen. “You left your picture here,” Addie said and moved to the kitchen.

“What picture?” Sarah asked.

“Addie...maybe don’t make me look insane?” She suggested and wished she could cover her face with her hands but didn’t want to ruin the makeup.

But Addie was already showing them the picture of her and Harry from their days in school when they first got together. “You had that on the fridge?” Eleanor looked at her with astonishment.

“Yeah, literally from the moment we moved in,” Addie reminded her.

“Harry has the same one on his fridge,” Sarah explained.

“Same what?”

Her head snapped up to the mirror reflection and saw Harry’s frame hovering near the doorway. “Holy shit, sweetie, he’s even hotter in person,” Addie was already swooning.

“Addison!” Carter called from behind the screen.

Harry chuckled, his cheeks the slightest shade pinker. “Hi Addie.”

“Harry,” she smiled unabashedly, unaffected by her compliment. “I can see why she said she would spend thousands of dollars on your calendar.”

He snorted and caught her gaze in the reflection again. He squinted, the screen that showed the picture of the pair of them on the fridge miles and miles away. “That’s on your fridge?” He asked.

“Every morning I stare at it while I drink orange juice from the carton.”

“I told you it was her, Carter,” she said knowingly.

“How did you get in?” Sarah asked.

“Door was unlocked. I heard you guys squealing, so I figured I’d see what you were all up to. Also it’s five fifty five and I said I would be here at six.”

“So punctual,” Addie smiled brightly.

“Well, she’s all set,” Eleanor tapped her shoulder. “Just need to swap out this cute comfy look with a dress.”

“How fancy is the place we’re going?” She frowned.

“It’s not,” he assured her. “You could go like that, honestly. You would still be prettier than everyone else.”

“That’s notebook worthy for sure,” Addie murmured.

“Addison,” this time it wasn’t Carter that said it.

“Have fun, sweetie. Nice meeting you all.”

“Bye Gorgeous!” Carter called as Addie gave a wave and hung up.

Eleanor and Sarah ushered Harry out of the bathroom and she changed quietly. Immediately calling Addie back and pressing the phone to her ear. “Lauren said he’s dating,” she whispered so quietly Addie could barely hear her.

“Lauren can go eat dirt. She’s probably jealous. He asked you on a date.”

She sighed. “This is a horrible idea.”

“No,” Addie was serious, shaking her head even though she couldn’t see. “It’s a wonderful idea. He’s your soulmate who has waited three years for this date. Let him have it,” she whispered. “You deserve this, sweetie. You love him. You just need to jump,” she assured her.

She took a deep breath and looked away from the mirror. “Okay,” she whispered to Addie. “I’ll jump.”

--

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[hees-mine]

𝐋𝐚𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞 - 𝐋. 𝐡𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟏𝟏

Pairing: heeseung ⚥ reader

Warning: angst, cursing, crying, taboo relationship, single dad.

Genre: 18+, best friends dad, smut, single dad, taboo relationship, minors do not interact! Sorry it’s short I had a headache so there might be some errors too :/ lil filler chap in the meantime

WC: 1562k

⟱⟱⟱

Confused and hurt.

That’s how you felt after leaving heeseung’s home your eyes brimmed with tears as you let out a shaky breath your legs felt wobbly and your mind was flooded with nothing but negative thoughts about heeseung and what just happened.

So it was all just a mistake nothing was ever real to him all the times he begged for you back was a mistake all the times he kissed you were a mistake all the times he said he loved you were a mistake.

He practically told you none of his feelings were real and he just used your body to get himself off that’s how it translated to you anyway.

You felt so disgusted with yourself not even a week ago you let him put his face between your legs you gave him head and you let him have sex with you round after round all while he told you how happy you made him how he’d do anything to make you his officially and how much he loved you.

Your stomach was in knots as you attempted to wipe your tears only for a fresh stream to fall just seconds later. “I’m so stupid” you muttered to yourself.

And the worst part is if you two didn’t get caught you’d be none the wiser he’d still be using you for his pleasure saying what you want to hear just to have you laying under him at night.

You’d still be lying and arranging your schedule so it would aligned with his you’d still get butterflies when he came over to your house when your parents were away you’d still miss him and text him daily just to see how he was doing.

But maybe it was good you two got caught cause even though you lost a friend in the process at least you were away from that no good fucking liar at least you couldn’t be used by him anymore and at least you wouldn’t waste more time with him than you already had.

You just wished you had of went with your gut straight from the beginning if only you had of done the right thing and avoided him to begin with none of this would have happened.

You would still have your friend and you’d both be happy together and Heeseung would’ve never even been involved.

Your whole life was ruined because of heeseung and the worst part about it all was when he first approached you in his kitchen you didn’t say no you wanted it just as much as him and now that you think about it you probably wanted it more than him given the circumstances that you actually fell for him and he never cared about you to begin with so it was probably just fun seeing you struggle to say no to him it probably boosted his ego having a younger girl to toy with that was like putting his hands so unsuspecting of his true self.

You were such a dumb and easy target why wouldn’t he come for you.

And of course he’d continue to come back over and over again especially cause after all you were giving yourself to him every free chance the two of you got.

You had a hard time figuring out how he could have raised such a great daughter but be a complete piece of shit himself and thanks to him and partially yourself you lost your best friend all for a mistake.

Getting over this felt impossible especially knowing that you’d have to face her tomorrow at school

You had such a terrible headache when you arrived home and the tears just wouldn’t stop falling no matter how hard you tried to stop them.

You felt hurt sad and betrayed how could someone do what he did to you and be fine with it like nothing ever happened like you didn’t have feelings like you didn’t spend so many intimate nights with him in his home.

Your mind came up with blanks you couldn’t fathom how a person could screw with someone else’s emotions the way he did with you you took some medicine for your headache and tried to shut out all these ridiculous thoughts nothing mattered now anyway he got what he wanted threw you to the wayside and that was it you’d have to accept that you got played and in the process lost life as you knew it and a best friend.

-

Like you assumed you were getting ignored all day at school she wouldn’t even look at you when you sat next to her you tried to speak with her but she tuned you out and it hurt like hell because this used to be the person you talked to about everything and now you were like strangers.

You got up and went to an empty seat giving her her space you understood she wanted nothing to do with you and you didn’t even blame her you were a terrible person and a terrible best friend you broke her trust you lied to her you were secretly doing her dad behind her back hell if you were her you wouldn’t want to be friends with a person like you either so you accepted it were you okay being ostracized by the lee family of course not but there was nothing you could do from here on out you could only try your best to move on.

You were upset because you didn’t even get to explain yourself but what was there to explain? You fucked up period there was no getting around it.

If you felt this hurt you could only imagine her pain and with that thought you realized you didn’t even deserve to be sad anymore because this was all your fault you’re just happy that at least her and heeseung were able to hash things out you’d never be able to live knowing you broke up that special bond they had together.

-

“Welcome home sweetpea!” Heeseung greeted his daughter at the door. “I’m almost finished with lunch you can shower and come down when you’re ready”

“Hi dad! I thought you had work today?” She kicked her shoes off at the door and walked into the kitchen stealing a strawberry off the plate he was making to which he glared at her and only received a sheepish smile in response plus another strawberry being stolen.

“I did but they were cutting hours and offered me the day off so I took it” he shrugged.

“Ah I see you need a break your eyes bags are getting really bad lately” she grins.

“I’m going to take that as concern and not an insult” he dismissed her silly comment.

She giggled and ran upstairs to take a shower before having lunch. “Getting bolder by the day” he shook his head and sighed loudly while finishing lunch.

-

You hated how your brain worked cause why couldn’t you stop thinking about heeseung even though he told you he didn’t love you and that you meant nothing to him and you were nothing but a mistake he’s still all you could think of and you hated how you still shed tears for a man that didn’t deserve them.

But you couldn’t fucking help it you loved him and unfortunately those feelings weren’t just about to wither away within a week just cause you wanted them to.

For the seventh time in a row you were under your blankets head buried in your pillow as the tears flowed like an endless river.

Just how many tears were you going to cry for a man that didn’t care about you?

How many nights would you get lost in thought about how you could have gone about things better.

For how much longer was it going to feel like someone had a fucking knife pierced straight through your heart.

You didn’t know.

-

Heeseung lied awake in his bed scrolling through a few of your old texts together he can’t believe he almost ruined his relationship with his only daughter all because he was stupid enough to think he was actually in love with you.

Thank goodness he got caught with you sooner than later because he doesn’t know how long he would have kept you around thinking he cared about you and telling you he loved you when deep down he didn’t.

His rational side understood what he did was wrong he should have let you go but he was confused about his feelings for you but it all became clear when he had to pick between you and his daughter he didn’t even have to think twice it was a no brainer his daughter over you any day of the week.

He shut off his phone and placed it on the nightstand sighing deeply his compassionate side felt for you or rather his guilty conscience side felt for you he was truly sorry for stringing you along though that was one thing he was actually sincere about but what’s done is done you and him are over now he just hopes you were taking the break up as well as him but something told him you weren’t by the shattered look on your face when you walked out of his home for the last time.

⟱⟱⟱

Thanks for reading please reblog and leave feedback.

[r0-boat]

I have a fever and feel terrible, do you have any headcanons of Volo being sweet to reader? 🥺

- Litwick anon

Your wish is my command!

Volo at his sweetest

We all know that Volo's love for you and hatred for you are the same. Especially after the incident, he seemed to forego a lot of his nice performative mask for something a little more snarky and devilish. To him, you are an idiot, but you are an idiot he can't help but love. His words can be sharper than an Overquil's spine, but he could never hurt you in the way he wanted to in the past. Where am I going with this? Dear sweet reader I'm about to tell you the way he reacts when he sees those tears fall from your face. When he realized that he had gone a little too far. That's snarky smile disappears, betraying a horrified look on his face. His sultry voice turning into a soft one as he bends to your eye level to wipe your tears from your face with his thumbs, murmuring apologies and calling you the sweetest words.

However, if it weren't him that made you cry, that softness that he used as comfort, you would turn into pure white-hot rage. As he stares down his newest victim like they are the scum of the Earth. If it weren't for you holding his sleeve, he would have killed that man.

Is it weird that Volo wants to be the only one to see your tears? When you're crying he tries to stress you and wipe them away and when someone comes looking for you, he either hides you or shoos them away. Is it strange that Volo finds it sort of cute that you could be so vulnerable with him than you trust him so much even considering 'the incident.'

Maybe you're not feeling sad perhaps you're sick? Volo is exceptional at medicine he had to be when he would go backpacking in the wilderness for days weeks on end. As much as Volo claims how annoying you are and how much he hates you, he does tend to get overprotective in your most vulnerable moments if you so much as move from your bed while you're sick, you won't hear the end of it, as he urges you to lay back down. Even though he is a stickler for your well-being, he would still ask for a kiss. Even If you deny him he would just laugh and smirk. "as if I care a sickness can't stop me."

He does not want you to say a single word the next morning when he ends up being sick.

When Volo is laying with you he just cannot be part of you. He has to have his body lying as close to you as possible with one hand wrapped around you or maybe both. With his face buried in your shoulder. Perhaps he was just too tired to be his usual snarky bastard self as all he had energy for was holding your body close to him and gentle kisses on your shoulder and neck.

And if he catches you nodding off in the soft grass, he can't help but have his heart swell. His cheeks go pink when he carefully stalks closer to you, the storm gray eyes Shining as he brushes your hair out of your face to get a better look at you. Captivated by how cute you look sleeping there underneath the warm sun, he wished he had that weird Contraption with him so he could take your picture and keep it forever.

[johnwickb1tsch]

The Girl Next Door - V

A Constantine x FemVampire!Reader (feat John Wick!) fic based on this imagine. all chapters warnings: nsfw, blood, biting, violence, divider by animatedglittergraphics

5.  fight the good fight

When you wake again you are bouncing, bent in half slung over a man’s shoulder; the vampire hunter’s. You can tell from the intoxicating scent of his cologne, his sweat, his blood–him. It’s like catnip to you, and for a moment you just want to go back to sleep, and let him take you wherever he’s taking you. 

That’s a very bad idea, of course, and good on you for recognizing it through the haze of bloodloss and whatever other hold he has over you. You still do not understand what he is, or why he has such power over you. 

From what little you can see, it seems like you’re in a dark alley. There are sirens in the distance–the aftermath of the massacre in the club, you presume. He has got you far away. How long have you been out?

You struggle again, managing to worm free and get down, before the vampire hunter pins you against the wall of the building. “Stop that, you’ll hurt yourself,” he grouses, annoyed. He seems in much better shape than before, having stolen your blood. You, on the other hand, feel so weak you can barely stand. 

“Let go. Please let me go.” 

You must sound so pathetic that even this brutal killer softens for you. His grip changes slightly, holding you up against the wall by your waist. You have no delusions, however, that that can change in an instant. Yet…he’s looking at you with those sad dark eyes, like a man drowning. Even with the splatter of blood across his face and the crust of it dried in his long dark hair–he’s so handsome it hurts, and your fingers clench in his jacket, torn between pulling him closer and pushing him away. 

“I’m not going to hurt you, vampling. I saved you.” 

“You…ate me!” 

There is a tick at the corner of his well-formed mouth, betraying his amusement. 

“I took too much. Here, have some back.” He unbuttons his shirt further at the throat to display the strong column of his neck. Your vision zeroes on his jumping pulse like a laser sight, and you notice that intoxicating scent engulfing you again. It’s warm spices and your favorite flowers and pure man–it’s so good that you want to mold yourself to him and never let go. 

It’s a good trick, for a vampire hunter, and at least you are conscious enough to know now that it is a trick. 

“Stop that,” you scold, squeezing your eyes shut as you try to fight it.  

“I can’t help it,” he answers, his voice gone low in a way that shuts down your brain and skips straight your loins. He leans closer, his forehead nearly touching yours, engulfing you with the pure size of him and his hair swinging down to brush your face–he also smells like blood, which does not help you at all. “It’s…you. It’s us.”

“No,” you answer, mostly because you're afraid of someone having that kind of control over you, again. 

“It’s…rare,” he admits. “Who are you?”

“No one,” you insist. “I’m just a girl…who’s really good at being in the wrong place at the wrong time.” And really good at keeping a soft spot for the wrong man. You cannot stop yourself from thinking about John in that moment, and how just one night with him flung you into this strange and terrible supernatural world. Would you change it, if you could? Will there ever come a time, when the thought of him does not feel like talons digging your heart out of your chest? 

“Hmm. Maybe.” He lifts his hand to his throat, and you watch as his fingernails lengthen to sharp points, perfect for breaking his own skin in one neat, bloody line. “Here, milaya. My apology to you.” 

That ruby welling of his life’s essence smells marvelous, and you want to seal your mouth on it more than you’ve wanted anything in a good long while. Somehow, you manage to shake your head, even if minutely. “No, you’ll…enthrall me again or something. I don’t trust you.” 

He sighs. 

“I admit that I want you,” he acknowledges reluctantly. “But you need blood.”

“Yes. Let me go, and I’ll go get some. Again.” It annoys you in that moment that the efforts of your hunt all went to this man’s benefit. Dhampiro, don Juan had called him. Dhampir, you translate to English. Not human, by his own admission. 

Obviously.

He smirks a little down at you. “I saw you feed earlier. Why did you pick him?”

“He killed his wife.” 

“Ah. You like to play jury and executioner.”

“I didn’t kill him.” 

“You’ve killed others though. You’re sloppy about it too.” 

“Am not.” 

He laughs at you, a short, amused, huff, which is as good as an ‘are so’.

“What do you care?” 

“The High Table might start to care, if you make a big enough spectacle of yourself. Naughty little vampires get a visit from the Boogeyman, you know. You aren’t supposed to draw attention. There are rules.” 

“I don’t…know what any of that means,” you’re loathe to admit. 

There’s so much John Constantine could have chosen to fill you in on. Maybe he thought you’d figure it out on your own. Or maybe…he has as much trouble thinking straight around you, as you do him. If he felt a fraction of what you did, when this man before you took you–it’s no wonder you scared John off. Surrendering to that would not be easy for a man like John Constantine. 

“I’d say you need a coven to teach you, but considering what I’m going to do to the locals here…you’d better stick with me.”

“You’re…going to kill them all?” you ask, more intrigued than horrified by the thought. 

“Yes.” There is zero doubt in this man that he can do it, too. After what you saw…you guess you agree with him. Constantine is dangerous, but he could never wreak the sort of massacre this man unleashed in the club. 

And here you are, in his grasp. Well done. 

“Why?”

“Don Juan’s scheming to overthrow the High Table. They don’t like that.” 

“Wait, wait.” A hunger pang washes through you, and you grip his jacket a little harder, your knees weak. The blood dripping down his beautiful throat smells so good, but you realize this might be your chance to finally get some answers. “Who the fuck are the High Table?” 

“How do you not know that?”

“Why does everyone always ask me that instead of just fucking telling me the answer?” you snipe, practically vibrating with frustration. 

“You really have been so alone this whole time?” he asks, his dark eyes inexplicably softening for you. He looks down at you, cupping the side of your face with a paw of a hand, stroking your cheek with his thumb. Maybe it just feels good to be handled like you are something precious, rather than like a farm animal. Or maybe…you are losing your mind, but you have to close your eyes again, shielding yourself from the weight of that blackhole gaze.

“Yes.” You’re not proud of the way your voice cracks as you utter that one word. You hate it, that you think of John, and how he said he’d help you, but mostly he just disappeared on you. You know he has his own life, and his own problems…but he practically abandoned you, all while living right next door. 

It was a good trick, truth be told.  

“That’s a hard way to live. I would know.” His thumb is still stroking your cheek, and it feels so good, and you know this is madness. It has to be a trick. Everything is a fucking trick, with these guys. And yet…it’s as though you can feel this man’s loneliness, the weight of his solitude pressing down upon you, every time you look into his eyes. 

Maybe it’s because he kills everyone, you remind yourself, marveling at your unflagging ability to empathize with the most unavailable men you can find. 

“The High Table?” you prompt again through gritted teeth, trying not to give in to the urge to pull him close, to hide in the bend of his neck, to lose yourself in the heady taste of him and forget everything else. 

“They rule the Underworld. You. Me. Everything that goes bump in the night answers to Them.” He tells you this without condescension, and you could kiss him for that alone. 

“Demons too?”

“No, they’re Hell’s problem. Usually.”

“Then…the High Table are vampires?”

“Vampires. Weres. Sirens. Fey.” He tilts his head in thought. “I’m sure I’m missing something.”   

You nod, trying to digest this information while you are so starved you can hardly think. He’s named more things you didn’t even know existed, but you shouldn’t be surprised at this point. But then…if demons are Hell’s purview, what system of belief do the rest of them answer to? The magnitude of this question makes your head spin. Finding out that the Christian God was real was wild enough for you. What about the rest? 

“Wait…does this mean…all the Gods are real?”

Your leap of logic to the biggest existential question known to man seems to amuse him, the corner of his mouth curling for you. “Malyshka,” he scolds you softly. “You really want to discuss this here? Come on.”

He seems to think he’s taking you somewhere, but you resist again, bracing against the wall.   

“I’d rather…go home, if it’s the same to you.” you admit, winning yourself a tired sigh.

“I can’t…let you do that yet.” 

“Why not?”  

Again, he strokes your face with that big hand, and you feel as though he’s looking into your very soul. 

“You remind me of someone I once knew,” he admits. “A long time ago.”

Someone he lost, you infer from the longing that is woven into those words. Why does that make your heart ache for him?

“I’m sorry,” you whisper. “But whoever she was…I’m not her.”

“No,” he agrees, but he tilts his head to examine you, like you are an amoeba under a microscope.  

“But the universe moves in circles, and something is happening here.” He inhales, and you see a flash of that eerie electric blue in his irises again. “I have to know what it is.”

Whatever you meant to say in answer is swallowed up by his mouth lowering to yours, a kiss that is somehow demanding and languorously slow. He claims your lips for his own, holding you to him as his tongue slides into your mouth, teasing you like you’ve done this a thousand times before. Maybe you don’t need to breathe, but he leaves you breathless all the same, overwhelmed by that pheromone scent and his hands on you, one paw at the back of your head guiding your mouth to his neck. He tastes like a miracle, strong and heady and so delicious as you drink him down mouthful by mouthful. His blood is so potent you feel your strength begin to return just from the first swallow, and the rest is pure high. 

You start to see some things, about this man whose blood is in your mouth. You see flashes of a forbidding dark forest, and fighting, so much fighting. A quaint little cottage in the woods, so humble, so warm. There is a woman whose touch feels like sunshine. ‘Yelena,’ he calls her. And with her hands in his hair and a smile on her lips she calls him…

“Jardani?”

 He jerks back to look at you with haunted eyes, pinning you to the wall with his big hand spanning your chest. Drunk on the want of him, you whine like a thwarted kitten, trying to return to the bloody font of his throat. He searches your face as though desperate for the answer to some crucial riddle written upon your features. “How…?” But does not give you the chance to answer, his mouth crashing over yours again with a new ardor, gripping you so hard that even you will have bruises. 

You cannot think. 

There is only the taste of him, intoxicating and wonderful and you cannot stop yourself from pulling at his clothes, holding him to you. You want to climb him, devour him, be inside him, as surely as his lightning-charged blood is raging through you. 

“Fuck,” you hiss when at last you manage to pull away, not for breath but just a break from this madness. What the fuck is he doing to you?

“Yeah?” he asks, seemingly with all seriousness, hoisting you against the wall with hands on your thighs like you weigh nothing at all. Your legs wrap around his waist out of instinct; he pins you with his hips, his manhood rock hard against your center. He grinds against you, his lips on your neck again, teasing open the wound he left earlier, and you can’t help but moan, soaking wet and aching to be filled. In that moment you don’t care that you’re in a dirty alley with a man you don’t even know. You know the heart of him, and right now you would swear unequivocally that he belonged to you. 

“Wow. You High Table assholes sure know how to treat a lady.”

The sound of that familiar voice makes you freeze, some small modicum of sanity returning to you. 

Your would-be lover is less civil, snarling at the newcomer in the alley. “Not a good time, Constantine.” 

“No time like the present, Wick. Put her down.”

With his attention fixed somewhere else, some modicum of clearer thought returns to you. Your first stop is pure mortification. 

There is John, standing tall with his legs spread in his usual black and white suit, and to his shoulder he is holding a large, golden…cross gun? Like he totally intends to use it if he has to. 

The sight of him makes your heart ache with longing. No tricks. No magic. You just…adore him, even while wrapped up in another man’s arms, and you realize you are as hopeless as you are smitten. That connection between you glows again. You feel it in your chest, and it helps clear the lustful ardor that a moment ago gripped you so completely.

Dhampir magic is some scary shit.

The vampire hunter–Jardani?–Wick?–looks at you as though you’ve said something out loud. His eyes narrow; he doesn’t seem to like it one bit. He does put you down, but holds you in front of him like a shield, his big hand at your throat. 

“Never thought the John Constantine would turn vampire’s familiar. Who knew?” taunts the dhampir behind you. 

“What?”

 Both men ignore your question, fixed on each other in this standoff. 

“Call it what you want,” Constantine answers stonily. “I’m the one holding the gun. Let her go.” 

“I don’t want to.”

“I see that. Nice, you always gotta use your Blood Lure to get laid?” 

“Hardly. Your little vampling here is a special girl.” 

“Yeah. But she doesn’t belong to you, Wick, so let her go.” 

“You love her?” 

Wide eyed, you can’t stop yourself from fixating on John at that question, gone grave-still in Wick’s unrelenting grasp. 

In answer, John mostly just grinds his teeth, his lower jaw jutting. “It’s complicated,” he finally admits, and though that’s never a good answer from a man, your treacherous undead heart still skips a beat.  

“I think she deserves better than it’s complicated.”

“Not from you, half breed. Let her go.” 

You feel Wick tense behind you, and you remember the absolute whirlwind of carnage he caused in the club a few blocks away, that supernatural berzerker rage that mowed down vampire after vampire. John is formidable, but you can’t help but think no one can stand up to that and live. “Please,” you say, appealing to the wall of a man behind you. “Please, just let us go.”

Wick growls deep in his chest–a chilling, primal sound that resonates through you, your every hair standing on end. 

His grip upon you flexes, as though his physical being abhors the very idea of it. You’re not really afraid for yourself now. You’re afraid for John, and unbidden you start to cry those bloody tears. “I love him,” you say in the most hushed whisper you can muster, and the moment it leaves your lips you know it’s true, and maybe it has been true since the night you made that grouchy man dinner, and he made you feel like you mattered to someone in this big mean city. “Please don’t hurt him.”

Somehow, this is the thing that seems to call this dangerous man down. For a moment his grip around your waist tightens; he inhales your scent deeply, his nose behind your ear sending a warm thrill down your spine. He speaks low, though you think John can probably hear him anyway. “He doesn’t look good, vampling. I won’t have to wait long for you.” 

Suddenly, he’s just gone. Disappeared into the shadows, as though he is made of night. 

Unsupported, you stumble, and fall right on your butt. 

John looks around warily with the strange gun at the ready, sweeping the alley like he can’t believe the dhampir had actually retreated. Slowly he crosses to you, impossibly tall from your vantage of the ground. He seemingly reluctantly offers you a hand. “You ok?” 

“No,” you answer truthfully, taking his hand, the warm strength of his grip a welcome boon. When he pulls you to your feet you want more than anything to just be in his arms. 

But all he offers you is a hard stare, and a brusque, “Come on,” as he pulls you towards the other end of the alley. 

It’s complicated, he’d said.  

Why does that have to feel right then like he hates your guts?

You’re getting tired of crying for this man. You remind yourself of this as the ball of despair rises in your throat and your eyes sting like mace. 

Did he hear you? If he heard your heartfelt confession to the dhampir, even if it saved his life…he did not like it at all. 

[beigepillow]

Yashiro And Doumeki: Chapter 58

With this chapter, I think a lot of us are feeling very bad for Yashiro. He seems so hurt by what Doumeki is doing. Typically, I make posts trying to defend Doumeki or look at things from his pov but I wanted to try to take into account both of their feelings and thought processes for this chapter because honestly I think they’re both feeling terrible about this whole fuckbuddy situation. Side note: I know some people don’t like the word fuckbuddy for their situation but Idk how else to refer to it. They’re not together but I know they’re in love and my use of the word fuckbuddy isn’t intended to diminish their relationship in any way.

I’ll start with my thoughts on Doumeki. There is a reason I make sure to emphasize that a lot of our analysis on Doumeki is based on interpretation and not necessarily how he really feels. If you have the opinion that Doumeki is planning and making moves with the endgoal of being with Yashiro, this whole situation where he has sex with Yashiro and leaves makes him look like a real asshole. I think it is easier to think that Doumeki is doing okay because he doesn’t really express that he is not. Compared to Yashiro, he seems better adjusted and since we don’t see his thoughts it is easier to assume he is less affected by all of this than Yashiro is. But I think we need to recall what Yashiro used to tell Doumeki. He used to say that he doesn’t think he can have romantic relationships and that he is only interested in sex. Doumeki seems to have taken that to heart as well as the fact that he doesn’t know that Yashiro has moved on from Kage and is no longer in love with him. Doumeki seems to think that Yashiro didn’t value the moments they had outside of sex because honestly that hasn’t been shown to him. I think we can sometimes underestimate the amount of pain he went through when Yashiro kicked him out. I think Doumeki is having sex with Yashiro because he wants to have some kind of a relationship with him and he is also HOPING that having sex with him will keep Yashiro from seeking out sex with others partly due to jealousy and partly to keep Yashiro safe since sex is a self destructive behavior for him. I emphasize hoping because he is not forcing Yashiro to be with him nor is he constantly hovering around to make sure that he doesn’t go to Inami or anyone else. He is giving Yashiro space while trying to satisfy something Yashiro claims he needs. The emphasis has always been on Yashiro’s pleasure because Doumeki still has his own issues on sex. Doumeki doesn’t want just sex but he feels that he has no other option. He also seems to be repeating the behavior of leaving because that is what he seems to think Yashiro wants based on volume 5.

As for Yashiro, we can see that he is deeply affected and saddened by this change in their dynamic. But when looking at the conversation of Yashiro’s flashback, I think he feels betrayed as well. The last page is amazingly done with the rain almost symbolizing his tears but his mouth seemed both angry and sad to me. I shared the page of Doumeki answering Yashiro and letting him know that Yashiro was different from others because it stands out to me more in comparison to the moment where Yashiro rips off the bandaid. Doumeki told him he was special but then seemingly is with Izumi and treating Yashiro like everyone else does? Doumeki’s words must feel like a lie. I think this feels different from Kage’s rejection not just because he loves Doumeki more but because Doumeki made him feel special only for him to act like he didn’t mean any of it. It isn’t very rational of Yashiro considering everything but both get blinded by emotion. At the end of the day, they’re both very hurt and acting in ways they think the other wants but it is important to keep in mind that both agreed to this kind of relationship. I feel that Yashiro will end up giving in but I also think he has a separate journey to go through before he can be truly with Doumeki that I may write about in a separate post.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for the way I dated people in high school?

💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥 so i can find it later

I am like pretty sure I'm TA but I would like second opinions on this because a lot of factors are complicated and makes me wonder if i was 100% in the wrong or not.

When I was in high school (14-17NB) i had dated three people.

(I know for sure that I had been TA with my first girlfriend M because when we dated i liked her a lot but not enough to feel anything romantic and as soon as I realized I didn't like her as much as she liked me i broke it off to spare her any long term pain. We remained friends, but I think she and eventually my ex friends held some sort of resentment against me for being fickle.)

The main issues were with my second and third partners.

Firstly, I dated my second partner A (we were 15 then) out of pity because her ex treated her terribly. I didn't like her back, nor did i really pretend to, i just wanted to be the one to take care of her because it seemed that no one else in her life was looking out for her.

Then a mutual "friend" S (14M) told me she cheated on me. While I was not into A romantically I still felt betrayed for some reason I am not sure i understand even now. When i confronted her, she told me this mutual friend was unreliable and wanted to break us up. I believed this because S was a creep towards the both of us. (Later, S would stalk me for about 6 years but thats a different story).

But then A asked if we could have an open relationship, and I got upset but agreed because i was too much of an idiot to say no.

After more time, A and i grew apart and she started expressing interest in other people in front of me that i tried at every opportunity to break up with her because i was just over it. But everytime I'd almost bring up the subject she'd do something romantic and sweet to me and i felt like an asshole for wanting to break up with her, so i didn't. Eventually, I just updated my online profile to single to be done with it, which i know for sure was a dick move.

Later, A and I (both 17) met someone online named Y(19NB) who was nice enough, but i didn't feel anything romantic for. Instead, i was interested in another person named R(17M). But R didnt return my feelings and i felt really sad, so A pressured me into a relationship with Y and i agreed because I was still an idiot I guess.

I was still thinking about R, so A flirted with R to "get me to focus on Y". I will not say what exactly happened between them but it was horrible enough for me to feel deeply betrayed and hurt. Obviously, I could not focus on Y and because Y's friends were cyberbullying me and threatening my life because they assumed that I would naturally hurt Y's feelings due to my dating history that i just decided to be a massive dickhead and break it off with them shortly after.

When Y started to cry and everyone was calling me a villain for doing that I gave up and just let them assume the worst of me. (Later on it turned out that Y and all their cyberbullying friends were all accounts run by one person claiming to have DID but thats another story).

I still want a romantic relationship but I worry I'll mess it up for being fickle so I havent entered any since high school. I wouldn't do some of the things I did back then. I am much more honest now about rejecting people. I guess my fear of saying no was to blame. But I would like to know if I was in the wrong 100%.

So AITA?

What are these acronyms?

[llamaisllama777]

TSAMS/LAES THEORY/PREDICTION TIME!

Okay, so since Creator is now a rezurrected dark star entity, I have a few theories on what could happen next...

Theory 1# Calm before the storm

Solar goes to Sun and Moon probably still covered in blood with a giant smile on his face and tells them "I killed Creator!" And of course Sun and Moon are shocked and maybe horrified but immediately get over it and start celebrating that the man who caused them so much torture is dead. Sun, Moon, and Solar probably throw a party celebrating his death and eventually Earth finds out and she's probably gonna be conflicted cause he was a terrible, awful, downright evil human being but he was still her dad. She'd probably be sad that her dad is dead but Sun and or Monty will comfort her

(probably Monty cause he can sort of relate to having a bad dad)

Then I think Monty will propose to Earth cause in the episode Solar snaps, he mentions a surprise for Earth. Now I know it could be something completely different, and this would be some interesting timing to propose considering everything that's gone down, but I can see it. Earth might say yes or she might say not now

(Not No, just not yet)

The point is that there will be a few months of peace for the family. A huge weight will be lifted off their shoulders cause they all think Creator is dead. Sun will feel relief that that monster is gone and might even try looking for someone cause Sun mentioned he wanted to but was afraid that something might happen to them so with Creator being 'dead' Sun will feel a little bit safer to start dating and might actually find love. Moon will still be Moon, but probably a lot happier since his Creator is dead, Earth will be a little sad but will eventually understand that Creator HAD to be killed and if she says yes to Monty her and him will have a lot more stuff to worry about wedding and all. And Solar will probably feel like he's on cloud 9 since now his family is safe... or at least he thinks.

After a few months (maybe 2 or 3), right at Earth and Monty's wedding, probably at the most dramatic part of the wedding, Creator and Rez will show up.

Creator will probably walk in slow clapping and laughing and attack the wedding. Everyone will be shocked and horrified, especially Solar cause he saw him die! He killed him himself! A huge fight will break out and this might result in a death or two

*Cough!* Monty!*Cough!*Maybe Jack or Solar! *Cough!* Maybe one of the Astrals, too! *Cough!*

(Monty, Solar, Jack, please don't die.)

This is so evil, but I genuinely feel like this is something he would do. Let his kids think they're safe and then attack at the happiest points of their lives.

Theory 2# Into the storm

Creator wastes no time and attacks Sun, Moon, and Solar at the house immediately after Solar tells Sun and Moon he killed Creator. He's like "Are you sure about that?!"

Creator nearly kills Solar, but Sun or Jack attacks him. Saving Solar, but if it's Jack that saves him, Jack probably gets infected with more negative starpower, which will probably corrupt Jack and turn him into Dark Jack, and then since Creator failed to kill Solar he'll decide to go after Earth. He will confront Earth and Monty and while Monty is busy dealing with Dark Jack, Creator will basically give Earth a choice to come with him or die and Earth will basically tell Creator everything she's had on her mind and tell him to get lost and that's she's not afraid of him. Creator will then probably corrupt Earth cause of the negative starpower residue in her and turn her into Dark Earth or Kepler or whatever the heck he'd call her. And then dip. This will lead to Creator building an army to try and betray Cetus so he can become a god like how he wanted whil Sun, Moon, Monty, Solar, Lunar, and The Astrals will work together to find a way to save Jack and Earth and stop Ivanoff. (<- Still getting used to the fact that that's his last name)

But hey, this is just a theory....

A TSAMS THEORY!

Thanks for reading!

So that's my theories/predictions let me know what you all think down in the comments.

[generalluxun]

Chloe goes back in time AU in terms of enemies, who does chloe see as her worst enemies an people she despises the most, I go in the order of her parents, ladybug, hawkmoth, later adrien and Sabrina and then rest.

For why her parents first, well she built herself after them in terms of looks, mannerism and personality all her life out of the believe they genuinely love her and treasure her, only to realize that they despise her and believe her a waste of time only useful for an ego boost.

Ladybug and hawkmoth for different reasons, the first one who I can guarantee chloe truly admired in her life outside her parents and who broke her heart and made her feel used, the second one who well just use as his personal attack dog all time wether she want it or not.

Adrien and Sabrina, I get she would think of them as false friends who stuck with her for lack of options and always despise her, but never actually voiced.

The rest of the people in are more in her mind back room noise at best ignored.

Special mention goes to Zoe who just like her parents convinced for a while that they were family and like adrien and Sabrina only stood by her side out of lack of options.

Different people have different reactions. Ranking isn't quite easy though some more intense than others. (These are all Chloe's opinions, not objective truths)

Her Father- The ultimate betrayal. He was her parent for most of her life. most of what she knows, she learned from him. He abused his power, so she abused his power. She did everything 'right' and it failed her. As soon as Zoe showed up he replaced her, up to and including banishing her. Her contempt for him was mimickry of her mother before, now it is genuine.

Her Mother- Her mother doesn't love her and is cruel to her. Chloe tried to be everything her mother wanted and it wasn't enough. Chloe is more sad than angry at her mother, but since sadness turns to anger with her often, it's angry too.

Zoe- Zoe cheated and betrayed her. Chloe took Zoe in and tried to teach her all the rule that Chloe had lived by. She 'caimed' Zoe when a lot of kids wouldn't touch some rando from overseas with a 10 foot pole at age 14. Zoe's betrayal works in two ways. One is that Zoe obviously picked the others over Chloe, the second is that Zoe didn't follow any of the rules and she still 'won'. That's not how it works. That being nice could work runs counter to everything Chloe knows and has experienced herself, so it causes her pain to think about it.

Ladybug- Chloe idolized her, and Ladybug abandoned her. Chloe made genuine efforts to be a good hero, she fought to protect others. She backed up her comrades when they were in danger. She rejected Hawkmoth! And... she was abandoned for it. Chloe sees Ladybug as 'fake' and two faced(which you now ties into everyone else too) She wants LAdybug to acknowledge her screw up more than anything else. She wants to show she's a better hero than Ladybug.

Marinette- They've been rivals (Derision isn't canon) forever, and Marinette won. Marinette 'stole' Adrien. Marinette went from being picked on, to picking on Chloe. Losing hurts. This isn't an extremely deep cut though honestly.

Adrien- False friend, someone who went right for others the moment he got a chance. How many times did they hang out in canon? Zero? One? Maybe? Both Zoe and Adrien basically did the same thing on different time scales. She doesn't hate him, she's hurt and angry.

Sabrina-Sabrina's backstab hurts. Chloe *does* know deep down that she was pushing Sabrina too hard. She had developed a deeper set of insecurities after Miracle Queen and so leaned even harder into emulating her mother. She doesn't know what else she could have done though, so she blames Sabrina some for leaving. She thinks the underhanded sneaky betrayal was terrible too. How can she trust Sabrina, knowing betrayal lurks in her heart? This breaking-off hurts the most out of everything though. She misses Sabrina.

Hawkmoth- He's a jerk. She would punch him in the face if she could. Same with Mayura. There's not much deep here. It's just contempt for a couple of losers.

Lila- Chloe knows in a nebulous way that Lila tricked her... somehow. She isn't smart enough to sift through it all, so it's a vague sense. She was wary of Lila before she hit her low point in S5, she's back on being wary. She doesn't think Lila has anything to offer her. All she did was lose things once she got involved with Lila.

Others-Vague sense of 'you are lame and always hated me' all her other anger/emotions are clouding up the fact they MAY have had reasons for it. None of them come up to direct ire though it's just 'Keep away from me, you suck.'

Did I miss anyone?

Felix-Oh, F that guy. She hates him. He always tricked her.

[ceruleanwhore]

In my soul, I feel disgusted and betrayed by this finale and I am shocked that the same writers who were able to give us such a truly wonderful show somehow came up with such a terrible ending for it. This episode directly opposes the very nature of the show more than any other episode in such a way that then calls into question the rest of the series. This episode feels every bit as hollow and sad as Ted himself seems to be throughout the finale and makes me wonder if we ever were actually supposed to believe and to hope at all in the first place, even though I thought that was the point of the series. 

The first of many issues I have with the episode is how they handled Rupert. The whole show is about belief, but specifically believing in others’ capacity for good and ability to change for the better. It’s about believing in redemption and reconciliation, which they actually could have done for Rupert even this late in the show. The scene in episode 10 where we get a glimpse of the inner child that’s still tucked away somewhere inside him showed us that even he still had this potential, up until they did what they did for the finale. While I, personally, tend to be more like Sassy was in that scene — gleefully cheering for the downfall of an odious scoundrel — it felt completely wrong for this show in particular to include that kind of public humiliation, which we the audience are all supposed to be cheering for, and in the middle of Ted’s last game ever with Richmond.

Where we actually could have used a side bit about a scoundrel getting his comeuppance is with Ted’s ex wife and their ex therapist. I think it’s absolutely terrible that they went and set up Rupert’s downfall the way they did while Jake apparently gets off scot free and never gets his license revoked or anything. There also is never really any acknowledgement of just how wrong what he did was, how he should have his license revoked, and how his actions call into question every bit of therapy Ted and Michelle got from him. No one ever questions ‘Oklahoma,’ never mind the entire divorce, relative to this man’s breach of ethics and it bothers me to no end that the most we get is his absence at the end from scenes with Ted, Michelle, and their son. We didn’t need Rupert dressing up like Darth Vader and physically assaulting someone, we needed Michelle realizing how completely wrong her whole relationship with Jake is, dumping him, and reporting him.

The next issue is Ted himself. Obviously, he was in a gloomy sort of mood throughout the whole episode, but I think it’s really important to point out how that didn’t actually clear up once he got home. I do believe he was happy to see his son but, from the plane ride onward, it’s like he’s just hollow. We see him coaching little league soccer for his kid and yet there isn’t any of the heart and soul in it that we’ve seen him put into his other coaching. It’s like he’s depressed, which is understandable because he just left a whole incredible, supportive community to come to Kansas where, like Odysseus at the end of the Oddyssey, he’s a stranger in his own home. He goes from having a whole city around him to support him to seemingly having nothing and not even being a welcome member of his own family since he’s still divorced. Also, as others have pointed out, that montage that seems to be a dream sequence when he’s on the plane ride home is all about him writing himself out of the lives of everyone he just left behind. He’s decided that it’s better for everyone there to just forget about him and move on with their lives as though he was never there and he’s literally dreaming about how happy they’ll be to do that. 

This is a major thematic issue for this series because one of the main points of the series is the idea that everyone can change for the better and, more importantly, just about every character does. Ted spends all that time in England working on his own shit like everyone else, and even gets over his aversion to therapy in order to seek help for the first time ever, just to throw all of that away at the very end because apparently he’s just back on his bs and that’s it. This is where it would maybe be alright if there were another season after this one to address and fix this, but there isn’t. In the very last episode of the whole thing he’s throwing away his entire community, dreaming about how happy they’ll be without him, and there’s nothing and no one there correcting that. To me, this is like if right at the end of the last episode with no room left to fix it, they just had Beard go steal another car and then act like the audience is supposed to be okay with it.

The other thing, going off of that, is how they handled some of the relationships, and I specifically want to start off by talking about Ted and Rebecca. They have the distinction of being the only ship to truly be baited, more than once, and very unnecessarily so. The bait scene at the start of the final episode contributes nothing to the plot, the characters, or their relationship with each other — all it does is mock the members of the audience who were foolish enough to believe they ever could have been together. This, to me, also goes against the core values and themes of the show, because ship baiting like that is inherently mean-spirited and Ted Lasso at its core is meant to be kind. There is nothing kind about essentially dangling something over someone’s head, playing keep away with it, until you finally just chuck it in the river and laugh at the person for being so foolish as to think they were ever going to get it. It’s mean for the sake of being mean and again, for the umpteenth time, it contributes nothing.

So then let’s get to Roy, Jamie, and Keeley. Jamie and Roy are another example of a strong relationship that’s developed beautifully over the course of three seasons regressing at the very end because oh no, people ship it and we can’t have that. I do think that Keeley turning both of them down was necessary but Roy and Jamie literally getting into a fistfight over her was completely unnecessary and detrimental to their individual characters. By this point, they both are mature enough and respect Keeley enough that it’s genuinely ooc for them to be fighting each other about who gets to date her while she’s not even there. Season 3 Jamie and Roy would’ve been leaving the decision to her without reverting back to macho Neanderthal crap. 

To me, this is also about the creators recognizing that people in the fandom have ships and, for whatever reason, feeling the need to try and shut that down rather than just leaving well alone. If, instead of getting in a fight like they did, Roy and Jamie had a conversation about their shared experiences of wanting to be with Keeley but not knowing where they stand with her and recognizing how hard it is for each other, then it could end up contributing to the further growth of their relationship and, along with it, shipping and oh no, we can’t have that. Just like with Avatar: the Last Airbender, the presence or lack of romantic relationships is not the issue here, the problem is with writers accidentally setting up an incredibly compelling ship and then being like “oops, we didn’t mean to do that,” and trying to ctrl z it in the finale, at the detriment of the whole story. Why oh why do writers keep feeling the need to sacrifice the quality of their whole story for the sake of trying to get people to stop having opinions?

So then last up is Ted and Trent. As many others have pointed out, that bit where Ted’s reading the book and makes that comment about the ‘laugh police’ in response to Trent’s excitement and anxiety is extremely out of character. Ted “but he’s our dork” Lasso would never say that and I was horrified to hear those words come out of his mouth. However, this goes in with the destruction of his entire character arc and every bit of growth he’s done throughout the past three seasons all in this one episode, because that was him actively pushing Trent away because, as previously acknowledged, he’s back on his bs.

One issue with this is that Ted then never has a proper goodbye with Trent and the closest thing to that is the note he left asking Trent to change the title of the book. It’s not that I necessarily think he needed individual goodbyes on screen with every other character but Trent in particular was hugely important for Ted, like how Rebecca was. Do you really mean to tell me that Ted wouldn’t actually say goodbye to the journalist who wrote what, coming from him at the time, was essentially a glowing review when he was actually hired with the intention of destroying Ted’s career? Do you mean to say he wouldn’t get a proper goodbye with the man who threw away his whole career over him? The man who then decided the first thing he wanted to do after leaving said career was to write a book about him and his team? Seriously?

The other thing with Trent is that, where Ted’s ex wife and even Rebecca have felt the need to use ‘Oklahoma’ with him to get him to tell the truth, Trent has a talent for discerning the exact truth from Ted regardless of what he does or does not say. It would have been perfectly in character for him to go talk to Ted like Rebecca tried to but then actually succeed where she failed because he would be able to clearly read Ted’s signals and throw that all back at him. Unlike Rebecca, he could directly call out how much Ted didn’t actually want to leave.

That is actually the biggest issue this episode had — cowardice. The only reason I can think of why they wouldn’t even consider doing something like what I just described is because, like with Roy and Jamie, they are perfectly aware of the chemistry between those characters and how they have set them up so it reads like they’re in love with each other, and a scene like this would be just about impossible to do without coming across as romantic. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Ted and Trent would’ve already been snogging by the start of the season if one of them were a woman. This show did the thing where they’ve decided that they can have a couple gay characters, but those characters can only get with specifically devised side characters because God forbid you just have your two existing characters of the same gender kiss a bit. Between the pairings of Ted and Trent, and Roy and Jamie, there is enough textual evidence of mutual attraction and the potential for real, romantic relationships that one could write over a hundred pages about it, and that is not an exaggeration. When I look at this finale, one of the things I see is the titular character being destroyed because they decided that was better than letting people think that he could maybe not be straight.

The last issue I have here is that there really were no goodbyes. Rebecca showed up at the airport and that’s it and I thought that was very weird and, again, very much not in accordance with the entire rest of the show. Even if they didn’t have the entire team show up at the airport to say goodbye, it didn’t make sense to not even have just the Diamond Dogs show up for that. Where tf was everyone? Because just from watching the whole rest of the show, I think it would be impossible not to expect the team, the dogs, the folks from the pub and maybe also Shannon from town. It was a cold, empty departure far from fitting for the show at all and it left me coming out of that finale feeling cold and empty from the crippling disappointment. They had a whole show centered around interpersonal relationships and support and then had the coldest, loneliest ending anyone there could have devised.

My final thought here is that this is not an ending and the only way to salvage this wreckage is with another season. This feels like something they’re doing to drum up attention and interaction so that it’ll be successful when they do come in and announce that they’ve changed their minds and there will be another season, like an encore at a concert. However, if this really is the end, then I am absolutely disgusted and feel very betrayed right now because this show told me to believe and taught me that maybe hope isn’t actually a bad thing that’s out to get me, just to turn around and crap all over that. This show didn’t just apparently waste hours of my time, it was actually helping to get me to move on from past pain and start to accept hope as a good thing, until it shattered mine. They desecrated the very art they created and then expected the audience to applaud such disrespectful destruction, and I am disgusted by it.

[1d1195]

Traditional X

You can read the rest of Traditional here.

We are getting to the end of what I believe is the main storyline here. Maybe one or two more parts but I already have at least three little extras lined up in my head too.

Additionally, I added in the days because it was kind of getting all over the place and I wanted to make sure the timeline wasn't too confusing--especially since we're winding down on days until the internship is over. I hope it doesn't detract from the story. Also, another reminder I don't know anything about running a business.

This part has some minor character death/trauma mentioned, sensitive topics, grief, angst, and I may or may not have cried a bit while writing, so that should put it in perspective I think. Try not to hate me at the end I don't think you're going to like it. Thank you, thank you, thank you for continuing to read.

Just wanted to hear your voice, kitten. Didn’t get to see you much today other than tea. Get some sleep, of course. I’ll see you tomorrow. Sleep well, love.

So now she texted him: I’m awake now if you want to hear my voice.

The phone rang almost instantly. “Hi,” she whispered.

“S’like music,” he said sleepily. She giggled. “That’s a symphony,” he murmured.

Friday

Louis and Eleanor were lying on her couch (and one another) while she lay on the rug in front of the coffee table, facing the TV. Her phone vibrated with a message from Harry.

Can we chat sometime today?

That sounds like a terrible way to break up with me. Don’t tell your other girls that.

Don’t be ridiculous, kitten. All of it.

I’ll call you when Louis and El leave.

I’ll be waiting impatiently.

“Must be Harry. She definitely doesn’t smile at Niall’s messages like that,” Louis chuckled.

She rolled her eyes and tilted her head back to her friends. They were watching a movie trying to decide where to eat or if they should order in. It was a regular, run of the mill day. They worked their Friday shifts and now they were lying about her pretty apartment that she hardly felt she’d been spending any time in. Mondays of course were still dinner out with Harry, Thursdays were movie nights at his place (and with any luck something a bit cheekier, now), and she spent many Saturday nights at his place sleeping beside him until one in the morning where they spoke quietly, candidly about anything. In the morning, she woke up to a rotation of pancakes, waffles, or French toast.

And kisses.

She woke up to a ton of kisses.

So, this Friday evening, she spent with Louis and Eleanor watching a movie that was so trashy it was wonderful. “How’s the job search?” Louis asked.

She frowned. The one sore spot that seemed to get sorer each passing day. “I really thought interning at Styles Incorporated was going to give me a leg up,” she sighed. “I don’t know... I’ve applied to some top places and they’ve either passed or ghosted me. Maybe I need to lower my standards.”

“Absolutely not,” Eleanor said immediately. “You deserve the top. You deserve it all,” she said.

Smiling, she looked at Eleanor, snuggled under Louis who was draped across her lap, and he winked at her. “You deserve the very best, babe,” he told her.

She shrugged and let out a sad sigh. “I don’t think these places think I do though,” she mumbled. “But it’s fine...I... I don’t know... I’ll figure it out. I’m not going to let it stop me now. Another month and I’ll be done.”

There was a pause. “Speaking of,” Louis began. “I’m told your program does in fact, have a graduation ceremony.”

She blinked surprised by the idea as if she didn’t already know. “What?”

“Harry told me that of course your college has one and you—”

She only vaguely heard the end of Louis’ sentence. She was feeling...anger? Anger at Harry? It didn’t seem like that was a reasonable conclusion. She had never been mad at him in the eight months she had known him. But her chest started to ache, and her blood felt hot, and she didn’t want to be mad at Harry, but she was sad he betrayed her trust in what she told him at one in the morning. Even if it was a silly little thing like making sure she had people at her graduation ceremony. She shook her head. “I’m not walking,” she interrupted. “I don’t want to.”

“Love, you worked so hard!” Eleanor gasped. “Please! It would mean so much to us to see you do it. We want you to have that.”

While the kindness and the meaningfulness of their words was not lost on her, she was serious in what she told Harry. But maybe she left out the part that she didn’t want to walk across the stage because it would remind her of the last graduation ceremony she attended. The last time she remembered a big happy family memory. “When did Harry tell you?” She asked quietly.

“He didn’t know for sure when it was...He was probing around, I think, because he might be trying to get you something,” Eleanor said so excitedly she was practically clapping. “Oh, I bet it’s going to be amazing whatever he gets you.”

“We weren’t that surprised, but we told him that you weren’t walking because there wasn’t a ceremony...and he told us there most assuredly was—which did surprise us. Most interns went in the past, so what’s the scoop on that, love?” Louis smirked, throwing a piece of popcorn at her. It caught in her hair. “Lying to your best friends?”

She didn’t feel like rehashing all the sad details and explaining why she didn’t want to go. “I just didn’t want it to be a big deal,” she shrugged as casually as she possibly could. She should have just told them, but she didn’t want it to be a thing.

However, Louis sensed there was more to her hiding it, immediately. It was why he was her best friend. But he didn’t press. Maybe he would later when he could get her alone. Every once in a while, he managed to pick up on something in her voice that said something of her past was coming through. “Hmm,” he hummed. “Well, that’s fine. We’d still like to go. A couple pictures and that’s it. Then dinner. Nothing else. I won’t even get you a card to commemorate the day.”

“Oh, I’m getting you a card,” Eleanor nodded fiercely. “Gonna write you the mushiest proud letter there is to write,” she smiled wrinkling her nose at her.

So, how could she say no to them? They loved her so wholly it really was unfair to exclude them after their endless support. Sighing, she shook her head. “It’s Saturday, the 14th,” she rolled her eyes. Both pulled out their phones and tapped rapidly putting it in their calendars.

“Good,” Louis smiled. “Now let’s go get dinner,” he said kissing Eleanor on his way off her lap and helping her up as he nearly ran for the door all in one movement. Eleanor rolled his eyes.

“You picked him,” she reminded El. “In high school too,” she shook her head and wrinkled her nose in distaste.

“I know, aren’t I lucky?” El said with a mocking dreamy tone in her voice but she meant it. It was obvious on her face, and she loved that about Eleanor most of all. Letting Louis be himself, unapologetically. Louis was the very best and she was glad someone else saw it too. Eleanor squeezed her arm and followed him. She took a second to take in the moment. She couldn’t help but smile so completely happy with her life for the first time in a very long while.

*

She woke up at some point in the night by herself on the comfiest mattress she ever owned all thanks to Harry. She peered through two of the slats on the blinds of her window to get a better estimate of the time without having to look at her phone in hopes of falling back asleep in a few moments. It was still pitch-black out, save for the moon illuminating the sky.

After tossing and turning for nearly five minutes without drifting off quickly, she decided she may as well make good use of her time. She grabbed for her phone. As expected, the clock told her that if they were sharing a bed, it was time to have her nightly chat with Harry.

When she came back from dinner and before she fell asleep this evening, she told Harry she was a bit tired. She would call, of course. But she might drift off while talking.

Just wanted to hear your voice, kitten. Didn’t get to see you much today other than tea. Get some sleep, of course. I’ll see you tomorrow. Sleep well, love.

So now she texted him. I’m awake now if you want to hear my voice.

The phone rang almost instantly. “Hi,” she whispered.

“S’like music,” he said sleepily. She giggled. “That’s a symphony,” he murmured.

Her heart was bursting. “Yeah?”

“M-hmm.”

“Did I wake you?”

“Yes,” he said simply. She frowned. But it was like he knew she was frowning, because he continued, putting her mind at ease. “I would probably wake up from a coma t’hear your voice.”

She was so close to saying she loved him out loud. How could she not? But how would she be any different than any intern or companion before her? She was determined to wait until it was over. Until he stopped paying her and then she could at least tell him. So he knew and he could...decide if she was worth it. “Did you have a good day?” She whispered instead.

He yawned and she heard the rustling of his sheets. Sitting up against his fluffy pillows, she assumed. “S’alright,” it sounded as if he were shrugging it off. “I was in a crummy mood all morning.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” she wished she went into his office earlier to see how she could have helped.

“Not something y’could have helped with, beautiful,” he had a smirk in his voice. It left her breathless that he could tell how she was feeling without seeing her. “Before y’worry.”

“Me? Worry?”

He chuckled that beautiful breathy laugh of his. She imagined his dimples, his glittering eyes. “Mmm...”

It was quiet for a moment and since he wanted to hear her talk, she thought she may as well get it out of the way. “So...” she sighed. “Louis and Eleanor found out about my graduation ceremony actually happening somehow...and they’re making me go.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment, which told her he already knew that they had found out because of him. “I think y’should go, love.”

“I know. I’m going to.”

He sighed with relief. “That’s good.”

“If...” she swallowed awkwardly hating how she was even asking in the first place. “If you wanted to come...I think I get a ton of tickets...it is a Saturday so you wouldn’t miss wor—”

“Kitten, of course m’going t’be there,” he promised. “I’d sell m’company t’be there for you.”

She scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’d sell it t’Niall, maybe. But I’d still sell it.”

She giggled. “Do you think Niall would want to come, too?”

“Yes, absolutely. We wouldn’t miss it.”

She clutched the phone tighter to her ear enjoying the sound of Harry at the other end. The irritation she felt was only a nagging little bite on the inside of her head that she pushed away. Because really, this whole month had to be the most, and totally, happiest she had been in years.

*

Saturday/Sunday

“I blame myself for my brother’s death,” she said it softly. She didn’t even ask if he was awake. Either she somehow knew, or she wasn’t looking for him to answer. Harry frowned, trailing his fingers up and down her arm. It was a sudden comment, but it was the middle of the night. It was what they did.

“I don’t think that’s possible, kitten.”

“I went to some stupid school party. I didn’t want to get in the car with the person offering a ride home. So, he came to pick me up, no questions asked. Not a care in the world that it was almost two in the morning,” she shrugged against him. “A car hit us,” she said simply. It was silent for a minute. Harry hardly moved. “He must have seen it coming before I did... because he turned...so his side of the car took the brunt of the hit.” He squeezed her. “I tried to pull him out. Begged him to breathe,” she shook her head. “It was awful,” her voice cracked. Harry couldn’t imagine what she had seen. Couldn’t imagine what it took for her to get in the car. No wonder she walked everywhere.

“Y’don’t have t’tell me, love,” he told her, and he meant it. That was plenty. He could fill in the gaps if it meant she didn’t have to relive it again. He was sure she relived it every day.

“It’s why my parents hate me.”

Harry sucked his lip into his mouth. “They shouldn’t,” he fully believed that. He may not have judged them for the way they grieved but they lost one child in that accident. It easily could have been two and yet somehow, they chose to lose them both even though she was right there, alive and in need of love more than ever.

Harry wouldn’t say it to her now, but he would think part of his heart would feel like it was missing if she had been lost all those years ago. Whether he knew her or not.

“Sometimes I think they’re right to,” she sniffled. “I’d hate me, too. He was the best,” she whispered shakily.

“Kitten.”

He loved the dark and their little chats every day since they started. Today, he hated it. It was too revealing. This was hurting her. And he hated that most. “I should have died.”

“Thank God, you didn’t.”

“It’s not fair,” she whispered. How many times had she said it to herself, her therapist, to Louis of all people? The only person who consoled her and not her parents...the only person who needed to be consoled as much as her was Louis. As he was breaking down, he was trying to keep her together. It wasn’t fair at all.

“No,” Harry shook his head. “It’s not.”

“I miss him.”

“I know.”

More silence. “I told you the dark is revealing.”

He smirked sadly. He wished he could tell her something just as revealing. But telling her he loved her so wholly when they weren’t in a relationship, not an actual one, after she was grieving for a moment in time, didn’t seem right. Harry wanted to tell her it was easy. Easy to love her. It was effortless having her in his life. He wanted to reveal something of equal weight. If only so she wouldn’t be sad. “I like getting t’know you,” he said instead.

“Even though I’m the reason someone died?”

He shook his head and gave her a reassuring squeeze. “Someone else made a dumb decision, love. Of course, your brother would come t’help you. I’d do the same for Gem,” he promised. “S’in the brother handbook.”

“Louis said the same thing...he has a bunch of younger sisters...and me.”

“Louis would still do it for you, too; I’m sure.” They were silent again. He thought she fell asleep. Sometimes she would do that. So, he asked the question that had been burning in his mind forever. “I don’t want t’pry...What happened with your parents...after that?”

She shook her head. “Maybe another middle of the night talk. Not this one,” she mumbled.

He nodded. “Yeah, of course, love.”

“Thank you for...everything Harry. Really,” she yawned and nuzzled closer to his chest.

“Course, love,” he repeated and let her fall asleep beside him peacefully.

*

Wednesday

There was yelling from the other side of the door as she knocked, then immediately entered his office with tea. Right as she opened the door, he slammed the phone down to his desk. Then picked it back up and slammed it three more times into the receiver. She blinked and cringed with each hit. He slid a hand over his face and turned to face the window. Part of her thought he didn’t register she was in the room.

“Harry,” she said softly.

He shook his head. “Love, please jus’ leave the tea and go,” he grumbled. “M’gonna snap and I don’t want it t’be at you,” he sounded infuriated. Interns never seemed to work out because of his anger... She knew Niall worked hard to keep her away from Harry’s outbursts. Mostly because Niall knew Harry would never forgive himself if he ever broke her heart or scared her because of his job. But she still knew the stories. The whispers in the breakroom and by the copier about his anger weren’t something she could ignore. Sometimes Harry’s angry tone filled the whole floor. She bit her lip at his warning and nodded silently.

After she set the tea on his desk, she sat on the couch across the room. She sipped at her drink watching him tap on his phone screen searching for something. He turned back around after a moment looking at his computer and then she saw his eyes flicker over to her. “I know I told you t’leave,” his voice was icy. But she saw his gaze soften just a hair.

She didn’t say anything because she didn’t want to set him off or make him any angrier than he already was. She was content to sit there...just wanted to wait there in case he needed her because that’s what she did. Even if he was going to pretend that she wasn’t there.

His phone was ringing from the other end while he called someone. “I need the file we looked at this morning...” A pause and she watched him clench his fist and he squeezed his eyes shut angrily. “Well, I don’t have it!” he snapped slamming his fist on the desk. “If I had it, I wouldn’t have called! Can’t you just do what I fucking ask and bring—"

She hurried to his computer after he slammed his fist down. Not caring even a little, when he hardly moved out of her way and continued yelling at the poor person at the other end of the line. The words he snarled into the phone didn’t reach her ears. With three clicks and a few taps it was on his screen. She stepped out of his way and sat back on the couch waiting for the next mini blowup. He put his phone down again as his eyes scanned the screen. He grumbled about something unintelligible under his breath and he tapped on his phone screen again and brought it to his ear for all of five seconds.

“Come here,” he said into his phone.

Within moments, Niall was there. He frowned seeing Harry’s anger but managed a quick wink at the sweet girl sitting quietly on the couch. She sipped her coffee while Niall went behind Harry’s desk. He looked at the screen for a few moments and she saw his face falter a bit; he rubbed his hand on the back of his head. “Well, we knew this was coming.”

Harry turned away and paced to the other end of the room. Hands on the back of his head. Niall scrolled on his screen and sighed. He glanced at her. She hadn’t taken her eyes off the pair of them since Niall stood next to Harry. “C’mere,” he said to her. She hurried back over. He pointed to several itemized lines and murmured a few things that she only had a vague understanding of due to her limited understanding of things that happened here at Styles Incorporated solely because in the grand scheme of things, she hadn’t been there that long, and she was just an intern.

She looked at the numbers, pursed her lips in concentration and did her best to calculate quickly. “Can you shrink this number?” She asked, pointing at the screen.

He glanced at Harry who looked ready to jump out the window. His head pressed to the glass taking deep, angry breaths. “No, darling.”

“How about this one?” She pointed to a different cell. He shook his head again. She looked over at Harry who was clearly distraught. Sighing, she thought for a few quiet breaths and Niall frowned as he scrolled. She thought back to all her classes, every lecture, and every assignment she had ever worked on. Unfortunately, she came to only one conclusion.

“You can have them file for bankruptcy,” she shrugged.

Niall pushed her behind him as soon as the beginning of that b-word left her mouth. Harry hated that word. At the same time, Harry spun rapidly, took three long strides, and menacingly glared through Niall in her direction. “Are you fucking serious?” He hissed but he was staring so angrily at Niall, but the expression was really meant for her. She gulped audibly. This had to have been the nightmarish things that previous interns spoke about. It made her stomach churn and she thought she might throw up. God bless Niall for standing in her way—she knew Harry wouldn’t resort to physical violence. Not even a little. She felt it in her soul. But part of her wondered if it would hurt less than his cutting, angry voice.

No wonder Niall never let her be around Harry when he was mad. This was terrifying.

“Harry—” Niall started.

She blinked in surprise at how angry he got. At her. But he did warn her. Her heart felt like it was going to beat right out of her chest. “I am not having them file,” he growled.

Her face definitely turned red, and she swallowed nervously. “It’s your only option,” she whispered standing her ground anyway. He flung the cordless keyboard across the room. It smashed into the wall and many of the keys fluttered off in a heap against the wall. She flinched at the sound as he paced back to that side of the room.

“Darling, kindly shut it,” Niall whispered over his shoulder.

Harry paced and paced. Niall was still standing in front of her protectively as Harry grumbled to himself trying to make sense of it. “Why?” He practically barked at her. “Why’s it my only option?”

She took a deep breath. “The legal fees would equate to more than the bankruptcy payback.” He stopped pacing and turned to look at her. Niall even turned around and stared at her in surprise. “What?” She felt like this was a worse thing to say than bankruptcy. Niall stepped from in front of her and used the mouse to click through different screens on the computer, it took a moment because he no longer had a keyboard. He glanced at Harry and nodded.

Harry took a deep breath. “Can y’please explain that for me, love?” His voice was still tight with anger but at least he wasn’t barking at her or throwing things.

So, she did her best to explain that she remembered this once case she studied in her quantitative decision-making class. How it was expensive but kept the company afloat to file for a chapter of bankruptcy that allowed them to pay back the debt and keep going on if they could make it a few years. “She’s right...” Niall said clicking on the computer and gesturing to the screen. “Obviously,” he muttered under her breath.

Harry looked at the screen. While they did, she did some calculations on her phone. “So, they keep their assets?” He asked, looking up at her from the screen while Niall searched something on his phone to show Harry.

She nodded. “As long as they make this much,” she said and held her phone up to the two men.

Niall smirked. “I like her,” he said knowingly.

Harry sighed, still embittered. “Can you go buy me a new keyboard, love?” He asked.

Feeling like she had finally made a difference and helped a bit, she grabbed her coffee and nodded. “Sure,” she said softly.

“Don’t spend your own money on it either,” Harry said knowingly without looking up at her. She smirked to herself and left his office before she could say any more wrong things.

*

Since it was a Wednesday, she hadn’t seen Harry outside the office for two days. After getting the new keyboard and plugging it in, Harry was swamped for the remainder of the day. Lawyers, Niall, and others kept filing in and out of his office. At five in the evening, when most everyone was leaving, they were still coming and going. Niall hadn’t seen her in hours while she sat at her desk sending him files, answering calls, and taking messages. She knocked on the door before entering, carrying five or so pizzas and an assortment of drinks. Niall was the only one who noticed.

He winked at her, mouthed thank you, and watched as she left.

It was another hour before Harry noticed he was eating pizza...with pineapple on the slice. “Who got this?” He muttered.

“That cute intern of Niall’s,” one of the lawyers said.

“That’s your intern Niall? I’d be begging for her to alleviate the stress—”

“I wouldn’t finish that sentence if I were you,” Niall said calmly. Harry was glad he had a bite of pizza in his mouth and Niall interrupted that sentence before it finished. After the day Harry had he wasn’t sure he had much self-control left to not physically attack someone—especially on behalf of her.

How did he not notice the sweet girl bringing pizza? He was certain even if the room was on fire, he would still take the time to notice her. He frowned. He had no idea she did this.

“I think this is enough for tonight, Mr. Styles,” someone said after hours of being there. Harry hadn’t looked at the time in ages. Since before lunch at least. He was only vaguely aware that it was after one at some point only because she brought his daily tea. He nodded silently, still upset about the day but also that he had no idea the perfect girl was there.

“You screamed at her, y’know,” Niall said condensing the pizza boxes. Placing the empty ones by the trashcan for the maintainers to take care of. After everyone left. Harry was helping clean up as well and packing his things.

Harry tended to get a little fuzzy on his consciousness when he was mad. “I told her to leave.”

“You’re stupid for thinking she would,” he rolled his eyes. “She’s quite brilliant,” Niall said knowingly. “When are you going to offer her a job?”

“It’s complicated,” he remarked. “I think if I create a job for her, people...will get suspicious.”

“Who cares?”

Harry worked extremely hard to get Styles Incorporated where it was so quickly. You didn’t become a thirty under thirty member without working hard. In all that time, Harry made every decision he could to the best of his ability. He always wondered if he made mistakes. He loved this company. It was his pride and joy.

The idea of losing pieces of it broke his heart. Since it happened twice within the last three months, and she managed to save both those pieces from falling to the wayside...

She seemed to know how much he loved his job, his legacy. He didn’t like her idea all that much today, even if it was good or his only option. Even when he yelled at her and snarled like she wasn’t the most special person he knew. She still voiced her opinion, and he knew that had to have been hard for her.

It hurt him to think of failing in even one little branch. But he couldn’t argue with her that it was the best option he had for this moment. “This was a brilliant idea,” one of the lawyers said as they typed furiously on their laptop. It was hours after the lovely girl left the new keyboard on his desk. Harry didn’t respond with anything but one little nod. “We should keep this in mind...would have saved you some money a few years ago,” she remarked with a gentle smile.

Niall saying “who cares” suddenly sparked something in him. Why did he care? She was brilliant. He didn’t have to convince anyone of that. It was obvious when she walked into any room, took a passing glance at whatever document they were discussing, any graph they were looking at and she casually pointed out inconsistencies and almost always managed to save him money.

“Have the other interns been like her?” He asked quietly. He had been so closed off, so worried about the reasons they were truly there... The thought of that horrible woman who made comments to the sweet girl about sleeping with him... Harry would feel terrible if he was so cynical about the entire intern process if a quarter of them were as smart as her.

Niall smiled at his best friend. The relief flooded him before Niall even spoke. “Harry, I don’t think there’s anyone like her.”

*

The knock on her door surprised her. She thought it might be Louis or Eleanor who couldn’t be bothered to walk the last five blocks back to their place after a late-night dinner. It was nearing ten and she was snuggled up on the couch with her book and music playing on the TV.

Harry was leaning against the opposite wall as she opened the door. “Oh, hi,” she said softly.

Harry stayed where he was, and he smiled at her, tiredly. “You’re so cute,” he mumbled.

She glanced down at her pajamas. A mismatching pair of shorts and a tank top. One sock on because only the left one was cold. Harry looked tired but beautiful as ever. His button-down sleeves rolled up to his elbows, tucked into his dress pants. The tie he had been wearing all day was gone, the button at his neck undone. His hair looked as if he ran his hand through it a few too many times but his tiredness seemed most evident on his face.

“Come in,” she said opening the door wider. “Do you need something to eat or drink?” She asked.

“No... had the pizza y’got us,” he murmured finding his way to the couch, he folded the corner of the page where she was reading and set the book on the coffee table. He waited for her to sit beside him and once she did, his head was in her lap. “M’sorry I screamed at you. Y’didn’t deserve that.”

“I knew you didn’t mean it,” she threaded her fingers through his hair and lightly rubbed at his scalp. “Is it all taken care of?”

“Thanks t’you,” he mumbled. She smiled softly, grateful she could ease his anger and allow him to sleep. She didn’t say anything for a bit and soon enough he was asleep in her lap. She reached for her book and read for the better part of an hour while he snored gently into her leg.

When an hour had passed, she gently pulled herself out from his head and began undressing him down to his boxers. It took effort but once he was mostly naked, she tugged him off the couch holding him up as much as she could with his tall frame to drop him into her bed. She curled up to him, grateful for the extra night with him. The first one at her place, at that.

The moon was bright even through the closed blinds, making his skin practically glow as she faced his sleeping figure. His arm beneath her pillow outstretched so she fit neatly beneath his chin if she was close enough. Their legs twisted together, his much longer than hers.

She was quiet for a bit, tracing the sparrows tattooed just below his collarbones. “They stopped talking to me,” she whispered. It wasn’t quite the standard middle of the night, but it was pressing on her mind because it was rapidly approaching the seven-year anniversary of that horrible day and it hurt so freshly, so sharply. Like it was only a week ago. She wasn’t sure Harry was even awake, but she said it anyway...maybe it was better he didn’t hear anyway. “Except for when they had too much to drink. Then they just yelled and yelled. At each other, at me...” she swallowed the pain down. “If I didn’t go out, he wouldn’t have gone to get me. We would still be a family...he was their prince,” she explained.

Her fingers drifted over his arm that rested gently with his hand at her hip. She traced the heart tattoo, the rose, and then the anchor at his wrist. “They stopped caring about me, but I couldn’t stop caring about them. I made dinner for them even if they didn’t always eat. If they did, they complained about it. I stopped eating with them. We didn’t watch movies together on Sunday evenings. We didn’t celebrate Christmas. Part of me thinks they only kept me there because they knew deep down, I was still a minor and they had to—I could ruin their lives worse by reporting them...” she bit her lip. “I don’t even think I would do that... At some point... they were the only people that ever took care of me... but then they just stopped and honestly, I don’t blame them.”

Harry didn’t make any note that he could hear but she kept going anyway. “So, I started taking care of everyone I crossed paths with...” she paused for a moment just to see if anything registered on Harry’s mind. It didn’t seem like it. But it made it easier for her to tell the story.

“When I turned 18, I invited Louis over to help me. I didn’t say with what. But the second he saw my parents...the ones that didn’t love me anymore... Louis moved me into his place... I felt so horrible, but I actually asked him to stay there just until... until I left for university at the end of the summer. He looked... betrayed. Like I let him down... He gave me the lecture of the century and Eleanor just braided my hair while he did. They made my favorite food. Neither of them said Happy Birthday once and I didn’t even care because for even just one day someone was taking care of me again,” she had done well up to this point not crying.

She sniffled and shook her head. She reached up and outlined Harry’s eyebrows, the shape of his nose. The curve of his lips and the jawline that ached her to the core. “Louis doesn’t talk about it, but I know he saw more than I ever wanted him to. I know he resents the way I hid. I think part of him wished I still lived with him. He insisted I stay the summers I came home from university,” she told the sleeping figure.

“But I got a boyfriend part way through university. We moved in quickly. Of course, I took care of him... and I didn’t mind. I liked it. He liked it. He was easy... food, sex, cleaning...” she mumbled. “But I still went to visit my parents because I couldn’t help it. I’ve never told Louis that. I didn’t tell my therapist that either...I’m sure she would be mad. And you know, I still go twice a month without telling anyone. Well, except you now... I don’t know why... I don’t know... I couldn’t leave them...they...they have to be in there still, right? The people that threw me princess birthday parties and put Band-Aids on my knees after a fall on my bike? Even after...after all of it...they’re my parents somewhere in there. Every time I go it’s just...yelling and hating me. I clean, make sure there’s food in the fridge, and then I leave,” Harry didn’t answer her. “I was supposed to stay the night at a hotel because I was supposed to move some of the last of my things...but it was a bad day. I just wanted to go home... I guess I got the sex part right with him,” she said with a smirk but without humor in her voice. “Just...not with me. Guess I didn’t do a good job there either,” she sighed sadly. “So... There it is. They just...acted as if I died too.”

Harry didn’t move a muscle. She smiled softly and kissed his cheek. “I think that’s everything,” she whispered. “I think you know everything now,” she told him. “Good night, baby,” she whispered tucking herself against his chest.

There was no movement for at least a full minute and then his arms came around her so tightly, he squeezed her like he was trying to press all the broken pieces back together. “You’re so lovely,” he murmured. “Don’t forget that,” he pressed his lips to her temple and she closed her eyes tight trying to keep the tears from spilling over like a waterfall. “S’great t’know you,” he squeezed her again. “S’an honor t’know y’care ‘bout me,” he mumbled to her.

She nodded her head in recognition that she had heard him but if she spoke, she would either cry or, worse, tell him she loved him. So, she sighed deeply against his chest and slowly fell asleep while he pressed another kiss to her forehead. Like he was trying to heal her from the outside in just by kissing the front of her tired, sad brain.

Part of her thought that with Harry it might work.

*

Next Wednesday

Harry was going to lose his mind. When he started the day, he was so excited that he finally had good news for the sweet girl and was excited about their future. He couldn’t wait to surprise her during their movie night the following day, at home snuggled on the comfy couch.

Instead, he was totally blindsided by the fourth of the same type of phone call of that same day.

The call started out the same as all the other ones he’d been getting. They introduced themselves. “Aye, Harry. Zayn. How are you?”

Harry blinked in surprise at the voice at the other end. Zayn was CEO of his own company, located a few towns over called Malik Industries. Rarely did they interact with one another because their clientele was very different. But every so often at big black-tie shin digs and philanthropic events they’d run into one another. In this business, it was all about networking. He was hoping he wouldn’t get this call only because Zayn was closest to his age... which was closer to her age... “Right, good. Yourself?”

“Great. Listen, I’ll make this quick, I know you’re a busy guy. I have an application in front of me and it lists you and Niall as references, and I’m used to seeing Niall’s name... but I had to ask you. You never give your name as a reference.” His heart stopped because he could only guess who the application belonged to.

She applied here too?

“Harry?” He asked. “Did I lose you?”

“Uh...” he shook his head trying to regain his composure. He was absolutely confused. She didn’t say anything about applying to any of these places and this was the fourth phone call he had to sit through with an aching heart. “No, sorry. Untimely email,” he muttered quickly. He wasn’t even facing his computer.

“Right, I understand. I’ll keep it short... you think she would be good here?”

His breath caught in his throat. She would be good anywhere. But the idea of not seeing her smiling face each afternoon carrying tea in her hands to his office (not that she would continue to have to do that if she worked here full time) was the last thing Harry wanted. “Uh...yeah, she...she would be great.”

There was a pause and a short chuckle. “I know you don’t usually do these reference calls, but there’s usually a bit more than that.”

Harry swallowed the lump in his throat trying to get the words to spill out. How could he tell her she was perfect? How could he just give her away? He wanted her there all the time in every facet of his life. She made everything better. “I know, I know,” Harry shook his head again in an attempt to get his verbal processing to work again. “She’s perfect. She can do anything. Fit in anywhere. If she doesn’t know how t’do something, she’ll figure it out. Brilliant. Truly. It’s cutthroat out there and she still manages t’be an angel. Doesn’t even bat an eye in the face of adversity. She’ll keep morale up by decorating for holidays and she makes the best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever had.”

“See that’s what—”

“You can’t have her,” Harry interrupted flatly.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought she applied because there—”

“Yes. No. I’m sorry,” he shook his head. “She did apply. She would be perfect. You can’t question that. Seriously. Y’would probably hand her the keys t’your office if she joined y’in any capacity. I want t’do that somedays...but I want t’keep her here.”

“I see,” Zayn sounded agreeable. “She sounds quite special. Her recommendations, her transcript, everything is incredible. She seems like a wonderful asset Harry. Are you sure you have room for her?”

He prickled at the notion that he wouldn’t make room for her. “Yes,” he said definitively.

“Alright. Well, good for you. I hope she’s happy there. I’ll take her application any time in the future if you see a reason she needs to go elsewhere.”

Harry didn’t see it happening ever. “Sorry t’disappoint.”

“Not a problem at all. You know a good one when you see them, I get it. Have a good one,” the call ended abruptly. As if on cue, she knocked and opened his door at quarter past the hour. Clockwork. She closed the door quickly.

“Hi baby,” she winked as she whispered the pet name at him. “Brought your tea. And I got us some cake pops. I think they’re yummy. Maybe we could try to make them from scratch this weekend.”

There is no way she could just go. His heart fluttered at her words, and he smiled. He felt the ache in his chest melting away as it always did when she was around while he was upset. “Whatever you want, kitten.”

Harry didn’t tell her about the good news during movie night. He was too upset about all the phone calls.

He didn’t tell her while they were making cake Pops on that Saturday either.

*

When she chose to just exist that weekend a couple months ago, and not remember anything that happened over her horrible couple of days and not think about her parents, she did catch up with Louis and Eleanor that following Tuesday. Harry watched from her kitchen as the pair of them cooed over her and she let some tears fall.

“Your mum’s not having a memorial,” Eleanor told her. So that was that. It was over.

“Oh,” she said like it was a surprise.

Louis glanced at Eleanor and pursed his lips. She combed her hair back and gave her another hug while Louis pressed his hand to her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. Louis glanced at Harry and shrugged. Harry thought that meant her mum wasn’t having a memorial that she could attend. It hardened Harry’s heart while he set some mugs of tea on her counter out for the three of them.

The lawyers managed to get some information about her inheritance. The house was already in a trust under her name. “Harry, we’re grasping a bit at straws here. We don’t practice family law,” he reminded him during their next movie night.

“I know, I know. M’sorry,” he said rubbing the back of his neck while he watched from the kitchen as the girl swayed quietly on the porch swing. At the end of February, she was still insistent on sitting in the freezing cold. “I jus’ want t’make sure she’s taken care of.”

“Unfortunately, I don’t think this woman cares,” he said bluntly.

Harry frowned and ended the phone call before heading to the swing with mugs of hot chocolate. She lifted the blanket, a beanie hat almost falling into her eyes as he slid in beside her. She rested her head on his shoulder and for the moment Harry just let her live knowing that as long as she stayed here, she was cared for.

Which is why he was so happy when the lawyers finally informed him that she would have the house... eventually. The life insurance policy was never changed out of her name, and it wasn’t like they could change it now. All of it was something that could ease the ache of the worry she had.

Harry attended the memorial service, too, a week or so after that. He told her and Niall he was attending to business out of town. Niall looked at him suspiciously and he felt bad lying to the sweet girl but he...he wanted to...well he didn’t even know what he wanted. He just wanted to know what her parents were like.  There were many people there. He was surprised that they still had friends after cutting off their sweet daughter. But Harry was trying his best not to judge their mourning.

He saw Louis and Eleanor there gently consoling her mother without it truly reaching their eyes. Louis saw Harry at the edge of the mourners at the cemetery, he gave him a succinct nod and then tilted his head discreetly to the right.

When everyone left, he headed to where Louis gestured, totally alone.

He read the dates on the stone, did the math, and he sighed. “I’ll do anything for her,” he knelt and pulled some weeds away from the flowers laid there. Quietly to her brother’s grave, he whispered “I promise.”

*

Monday

Now seemed like it was too late to tell her anything about the good news. She had seemed off all evening. Maybe it was the stress of graduation and her internship. The office had been so busy lately they hardly had a moment to have tea in the afternoon.

It was his own fault, however. When all said and done.

Now, he was walking her home from dinner. Well, actually, he was nearly running after her. She refused to get in the car. Despite how late it was. So, Harry followed her on foot. She was fast, even in the little heels she wore. The driver was close behind on their trail as well.

“I didn’t ask for you to do that!” She snapped at him. She never snapped at him. Not once. And there were plenty of times she could have over the last eight and a half months. But he thought he was being helpful. Figuring out the stuff with her mum, finding a way to finally split Niall’s position. All of it.

He thought things were going so well and even with the end of her internship coming up at the end of the next month, he was so hopeful for their future in so many ways. He didn’t really know what went wrong. He kept the conversation light trying to figure out her slightly soured mood. It didn’t seem completely fair, but he was heartbroken that he made her upset.

But it was the email that was the final straw. She received it in the middle of dinner. Mr. Malik stated there must have been miscommunication as she would be staying with Styles Incorporated. He would love to have her, feel free to apply in the future if so needed, but of course, she should stay where she’s comfortable.

Harry was in mid-conversation with the waiter, ordering dessert. Something she was reallylooking forward to when she read through the email. But the second she finished it she was angry and didn’t want dessert. She called Niall quickly, while Harry was still chatting, holding one finger up as she put her phone to her ear.

He winked at her, continuing his conversation and didn’t mind at all whether she was using her phone nor questioning it. He’d done so many times before and she was always so kind and patient about it. If he did question it, so shortly after the email, maybe he would have seen it coming. But he didn’t...he didn’t see it coming at all. “Did you...talk to Mr. Malik?” She asked him when Niall answered.

“No, darling, I haven’t heard from him or...or anyone yet about your applic—”

“Never mind,” she hung up. The second she uttered the name of another company Harry’s voice died in the conversation he was having, and he directed his attention to her.

“Did you?” She asked, point blank.

“Yes,” he said. “I told him you would be a perfect fit.”

She blinked. “Then why does he think I’m staying at Styles Incorporated?”

Harry frowned. “Don’t you want to?”

She wasn’t going to lie. “I mean...yes...but don’t you think you should have told me you were going to hire me before—”

“I just figured—"

“Harry...I’ve been rejected or ghosted from everywhere I applied to. I’ve been crying to Niall so stressed and anxious that I’m not good enough and—have you been telling everyone in the area?”

“You’ve been crying about—?”

“Harry,” she snapped.

He was surprised by her tone. “Of course...I want t’keep you,” he whispered.

“Well, what if I can’t,” her voice cracked, her hand fiddling with her silverware on the plate.

“What are y’talking about? Of course, y’can,” he said quickly reaching across the table for her hand but she pulled it back. “Kitten.”

“I don’t want dessert,” she said and stood up and marched out of the restaurant. He hurried to throw money on the table and follow after her.

When they made it to her apartment building, she was huffing. She was angry the entire way there not listening to Harry call after her, not stopping even though he begged. Harry felt like he was losing her with every step. When they reached her door, he tried again to console her as best he could. “Love, I just wanted to hel—”

“I know you feel entitled to everything I am and do because of what we are, but I didn’t ask you to do any of that! Stay out of my business.”

“Kitten,” Harry felt crushed, like she stole all the air out of her lungs.

“I know you told Louis and Eleanor about my graduation ceremony, and I let it slide... because part of me is hoping they forget that it’s in two weeks because right now, I don’t want to go. It hurts to think about my brother’s ceremony—the last time we were a family. And I know you had your lawyers talking to my mom because she called me today all up and arms about how I’m selfish to even take what she’s giving me and of course I hadn’t a clue what she was talking about. I thought it was a prank,” Harry was silent as he listened. “I know you have your driver follow me around whenever I’m out walking. Not even at night,” still quiet. But he dropped his gaze to the floor for a moment before looking back up at her. It did sound controlling when she was so angry. “On top of all that, I hadn’t gotten any notice about my student loans so I called my servicer to inquire. And guess what?”

Harry’s lips pressed together. He didn’t say a word. Because of course he already knew why she didn’t get any info about her loans. “Now this? Harry, I’ve worked my butt off to do this on my own and you just...told every company within a twenty-mile radius that I’m staying, and I didn’t even get to know that I could do it on my own? That all my hard work and all those hard things I had to face on my own just meant nothing? I thought I failed so miserably.” She was crying so hard, and she wished she wasn’t but every time she felt anger coursing through her it was an unfortunate consequence. Harry just wanted to console her and make it stop. He felt so terrible.

Every day she showed up to work and made everyone’s life so much easier. She baked brownies for the breakroom, made copies for anyone that asked because she was the only one who could stop it from jamming, and of course she went out every day, snow, sleet, hail, or rain to get himself and Niall their Starbucks order. She took care of him when he was sick and saved such a large chunk of his company, he could never repay her. All he wanted to do was help her the way she helped everyone else.

“Love,” he whispered reaching for her. She stepped out of his way.

“Just go,” she snapped as she slammed the door shut in his face. His heart felt broken, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. Because as always, she was right. He just...did everything for her because he could. Really because he wanted to, but he should have at least asked.

He could hear the sniffles and her tears through the door. He waited a minute listening to her gasping breath hoping something in his head would click. Something would appear in his mind that he could say to her. But in times like this, it was usually her that knew what to do. So of course, he couldn’t ask her. As he turned to leave, he heard her croaked voice whispering Louis’ name into the phone.

--

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[oc-tournaments]

ROUND FIVE - THE FINAL MATCH.

THE HERO vs SALVANAN vs TAMARA

THE HERO: @technoria

SALVANAN: @the-demoness-next-door

TAMARA: @wokeuptraveledstraightintothesun

VOTE BASED ON THE INFORMATION BELOW CUT!!

Propaganda Content Warnings: Abuse, manipulation, suicidal thoughts for SALVANAN, abandonment, experimenting, cult mentions for TAMARA.

THE HERO:

PROPAGANDA: while their story is still a work in progress the main important detail about them is that they are so fucking doomed to fail their one main goal no matter how close they get to success and this is driving them absolutely batshit. video game protagonist that lost the job of player character to some mass produced level 1 enemy. not once have i drawn them happy

THEME SONG:

SALVANAN:

PROPAGANDA: this poor man. buckle in, you have a LONG one coming. he's very old, he's the god of plants + the earth and he's great i love him but man i have not been nice to him. so. way early in his life, he had a very sweet boyfriend named azyll along w lots of mutual friends. except oops, sal developed chronic anxiety and depression and decided that he did not think he would be good for azyll and broke it off w him. it was amicable but it still sucks. fast forward a bit, one of the friends in their circle, jekath, is being manipulated and hurt for no reason and sal knows but for magic reasons he's incapable of telling anyone, just has to watch. and then he eventually has to watch jekath finally snap under the pressure and betray them all and go evil. no bueno. so he spends a long time feeling terrible and eventually he plans to just. yknow. off himself. but oh surprise this little boy named safari shows up in his garden! and he's like well shit guess im a dad now. and he loves this little boy very much. it's good times! except when he's a teenager two of the little boy's biological brothers drop him off a cliff and nearly kill him, which is, yknow, terrifying. that's his son! his son was almost murdered! no! bueno! anyway, azyll's mortal so eventually he dies of old age, now sal's even sadder. least he's still got his other friends and safari but Man. anyway fast forward again, whole world is at war. and his two best friends, arona and morana, both die in it. but if that was not bad enough, arona was killed by jekath. you know, the old friend that was abused and eventually betrayed them all. so the friend he felt like he failed has now murdered one of his best friends. and his other best friend is ALSO dead. things are just going Great. flash forward another little while and his goddaughter's husband, sibrum, goes evil against his will too. he's known sibrum since he was a kid so now he's got ANOTHER person he felt responsible for gone evil against their will. then sibrum's daughter dies. are you seeing a pattern yet. anyway, sibrum soon kills jekath so now sal feels like he's double failed both of them and also even MORE of his original friends are dead now. so he is trying So Hard to relax! but then safari is turned into a terrible person against his will too! and because they were so so close for so so long they end up in a toxic dynamic instead of cutting each other off. sal finally figures out how to break the spell on safari and it's all Okay Now (they're both traumatized and it's definitely not okay). he gets to relax for only a brief time before his other child's son, volta, has a villain arc too. and what happens? you guessed it! sal tries to stop him and help him and he's not able to. and feels like he failed someone AGAIN. yeah this just happens over and over through the course of his life. he's so tired and sad man

THEME SONG:

TAMARA:

PROPAGANDA: let’s see, lost her family at 7 years old (none of them died there was just a house fire where she was put inside an iron stove to “protect” her by her father (her father doesn’t like her can you tell) and they left her there (the rest of her family thought she’d left already)), (un)fortunately picked up by a guy who took her to a very ethical lab where she was healed! And then forced through many painful experiments. Also she was the executioner for a Lot of people later in the lab time and she’s not even 16 yet. So she escapes at age 16 and spends a year with her girlfriend just existing and processing (poorly) what she had to live through and trying to acclimate to life outside of The Lab. Then her girlfriend (who is a cyborg fun fact) got a virus and so she had to be decommissioned which was not a good time for Tamara.

Other physical details: One of the experiments was a test in how high someone’s empathy can get and. Tamara’s the highest Kyne (the one guy who loves experimenting on her) got. So she’s having a Time. She has lost sensation in her extremities, her bones are weak as Fuck due to being part bird (because of very little bone marrow and airy bones), and she just always looks soggy regardless. Also she’s trans

So she just can Not catch a break and she unfortunately gets exploited by her need for parental love and general guidance in her life and joins a cult :( Like can you see the fact that she just cannot stop being kicked while she is down. (I love her to bits and she is my favorite oc I promise)

THEME SONG:

[discopaddock]

BIEVRE RIVER - PIERRE GASLY

PAIRING: pierre gasly x fem!reader

GENRE: angst, fluff

NOTE: english isn't my first language so im sorry for any mistakes

WARINGS: sad and heartbroken pierre :(, mentions of crying, google translated french

PART TWO

Pierre never ever had felt in his whole life that ridiculed and betrayed. The love of his life ran away from their wedding, plus with his own cousin. He looked pathetic in front of his friends and family.

It was supposed to be his day, his great day and what? And a dick.

During his great day, he was sitting with tears in his eyes and on face, with McDonald’s and a bottle of Absolut in his hands on the beach by the river Bievre.

He dropped his phone on the floor in the church, probably pulling it down, while he was running away by sacristy with face all in tears.

He had with himself a wallet, bottle of vodka, food, car and Alexander McQueen on himself.

He was feeling woefully, but still he was wealthy and handsome. She didn’t take these from him.

And when he was sitting the next hour, virtually alone on that beach, he heard a voice behind him; small, brokenly and crying a little bit.

“Sorry, mind if I sit here?” Gasly turned around and saw a girl in white shirt and long black skirt with heels and a bottle of wine in one hand and a box from one of the best bakers in Paris in the other. She had red eyes, just like him, which didn’t make him feel better.

“No, no problem” he answered, and she nodded her head in thanks and dropped the shoes on the sand.

“I’m Y/N, by the way” she said, when she finally sat down. Pierre shouldn’t have been ready at that moment for any conversation, but something attracted him to that girl, who just like him had to cry for some reason on that day. So because of that he told her his name. “Sounds nice. What brings you here, Pierre?”

“Ah, putain” he slipped out, when he was thinking for a while in silence. “Ma fiancée s'est enfuie de notre mariage” he said eventually, hoping that she didn’t speak french. Ah, fuck. My fiancée ran away from our wedding.

“Je suis vraiment désolé. Désolé de demander” the girl said quickly, which made Pierre want to hit himself on his forehead. She wasn't stupid. I mean, in his opinion, she didn't look stupid. I’m so sorry. Sorry for asking.

“D'accord. Je suppose que je devais en parler à quelqu'un” he laughed and then took a sip of vodka. “Et qu'est-ce qui vous amène ici?” It’s okay. I guess I had to tell someone. And you, what brings you here?

He was curious. Maybe it was her boyfriend? Or girlfriend. Or completely something else.

“Dure journée de travail” Y/N answered him, looking for something in her bag. A hard day at work.

“Dure journée de travail?” Where do you work?

“A l'Ambassade,” the girl said. In the embassy.

“Alors tu es intelligent” Pierre told, making her laugh. So you are clever.

“J'ai à peine réussi mes examens finaux! Je suis terriblement stupide” she announced and then took a corkscrew out of her purse. I barely graduated! I’m terribly stupid.

Pierre thought that Y/N was cute. Pretty also. Her H/C hair cascaded down her back, and her E/C eyes, freckles on her straight nose, and dimples on both cheeks gave her charm. She definitely wasn’t ugly, that was something he could tell after watching her wrestle with the wine stopper for a while.

“T'aider?” Do you need help?

The girl nodded, then handed him the bottle, taking his vodka from him so that it wouldn't spill.

“Sur quelle chanson étiez-vous censé danser la première danse?” she asked completely out of nowhere, and when she heard the title of Ed Sheeran's most popular song from him, she twisted her mouth in a grimace of disgust. “Oh God! C'est la pire première chanson de danse! Sérieusement? Il n'y en avait pas d'autre?” What song were you supposed to dance your first dance to? This is the worst song for a first dance! Seriously? There was no other?

"Je voulais quelque chose en français, mais elle a choisi Ed," he confessed, pouring wine into the glass she was holding. He had no idea where she got it from, but he liked it. I wanted something in French, but she chose Ed.

“C'est peut-être encore mieux que tu ne l'aies pas épousée. Totalement insipide de sa part," she said, sticking the bottle and glass into the wet sand before opening the box. "Aide-toi." She pushed them under his nose and he took out two yellow macaroons. Maybe it's even better that you didn't marry her. She is literally so tasteless. Help yourself.

“Merci”

Pierre thought that Y/N might have been right, that it was better that he had not married Dulcinea. Yes, she was pretty and he really felt something for her, but he wasn't bad at writing stories either.

"Je suppose que je devrais rentrer à la maison," he said, when the sun had long since sunk below the horizon and both bottles had run out of alcohol. "Mais j'ai perdu mon téléphone quelque part et je n'ai aucun moyen d'appeler Charles," he laughed at his stupidity. Drunk him told her the whole story of his life, but he regretted nothing. I should probably go home. But I lost my phone somewhere and I have no way to call Charles.

Y/N put her phone in front of his face. Already unlocked with a view of the Dune Paul Atreides wallpaper. Or Timothee Chalamet, because he played him in the last film adaptation, after all.

"Entrez l'indicatif régional devant ce long numéro” she announced as he took the smartphone from her. Enter the area code before this long number.

“Quel est l'indicatif de pays de Monaco?” What is the area code for Monaco?

“+377.”

"Comment sais-tu cela?" he asked, typing in his best friend's number. How do you know this?

"Je travaille à l'ambassade, ça doit être clair," she replied as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. I work at the Embassy, that's obvious.

About five or seven minutes after Charles answered the phone, he appeared on the beach looking very worried.

“Salut Charles! Tu me manques." Pierre greeted the Monegasque, whose expression changed to a concerned one when he saw Gasly's condition. The Frenchman got up from the sand and hugged Leclerc, who also wrapped his arms around him. He had never felt so sorry for him. And he knew him most of his life and was there when they kicked him out of Red Bull and moved to Toro Rosso. Hey Charles! I miss you.

"Je te suis aussi, Pierre. Je m'inquiétais pour toi" he replied after a moment as they pulled apart. I follow you too, Pierre. I was worried about you.

"Ah j'ai oublié! C'est Y/N. Mon nouvel ami. Y/N, voici Charles, mon meilleur ami” the blue-eyed man rushed towards the girl, dragging Charles with him. The brown haired woman hastily got up and almost spilled her wine from the glass, but she extended her hand towards the newly met man, shifting. Ah, I would forget! This is Y/N. My new friend. Y/N, this is Charles, my best friend.

Leclerc thought that Y/L/N was a really pretty girl. In Pierre's type.

"Comment rentres-tu à la maison, ma douce?" Gasly turned to her as she stowed her things into her rag bag. How are you getting home, sweets?

A red light bulb went off in Charles' head at that moment. His friend never asked his possible mates for one or two nights about transportation home.

“Métro," she replied shortly, and the brunette immediately shook his head. Subway.

“Non non Non! Nous vous conduirons avec Charles. D'accord, Charles?” The green-eyed man only nodded, because that was all he had left. The girl at first did not want to agree, but under Leclerc's pleading eyes she did, because she knew that drunk Pierre would not let her go so easily. No no no! We'll drive you with Charles. Right, Charles?

And so Y/N ended up sitting between Gasly's legs in a black Ferrari 488 Pista Spider. Brunette got his phone in his hands and after seeing it, he said that the next day he would go to the salon to replace the glass.

After a while, he also took a photo of Y/L/N looking out the window and showing her left profile in the frame. Pierre then thought that he had never seen a more beautiful woman in his entire life.

He encouraged the girl to give him her phone number, which she didn't want to do at first because he wouldn't remember her the next day anyway, and Charles was looking at them strangely. I mean, he was looking pityingly at Gasly, not at her. He was the one who felt completely sorry for her being stuck with his friend in this situation.

“C'est mon domaine. Merci beaucoup pour le trajet, Charles," she said finally, and the brunette sighed in dissatisfaction. This is my estate. Thank you very much for the ride, Charles.

"Je te reverrai, n'est-ce pas?" asked the sad Frenchman, not wanting to let go of the brunette from his arms. Leclerc gave Y/N an apologetic look, and she had no option but to agree. We'll see each other again, right?

Y/L/N quickly said goodbye to the men and then got out of the car.

"Je pense que je suis amoureux, Charles," Pierre squealed as he watched the girl enter her cage. The Monegasque slapped him on the back of the head, muttering that he was an idiot. I think I'm in love, Charles.

In the meantime, the girl entered her apartment and leaned against the front door, then sat on the floor, and finally began to sob.

Her roommate, Eszter, heard her crying and immediately went to her best friend. The girl was perfectly aware of her entire afternoon and evening. She may have drunk all the wine herself, but it was almost alcohol-free, so she wasn't drunk at all (unlike Pierre).

"What's wrong, sweets?" Balog asked, crouching beside the younger girl.

“I met a guy whose wife ran away from the wedding and he was drunk as fuck and wanted my number, so I gave it to him, but it was a mistake, because he won't remember me tomorrow anyway. And at work this cunt had a problem with me and I cried and all, I'm fed up, I want to sleep." Esz barely understood anything of her friend's gibberish as she helped her up off the cold floor. She led her into the living room, then sat her down on the couch and gave her tissues.

"He was old and rich, wasn't he?" The brunette knew her platonic soulmate type very well, so she knew what to expect.

“He was maybe ten years older. And definitely rich. He showed me his Ferrari... And his friend who was driving us also had a Ferrari” Y/L/N dreamed, leaning against the back of the sofa. “But his fiancée ran away from the altar. Guess it's not that great. Or she was cheating on him. I don't know, I want to forget about it. Just like he does about me.

But Pierre did not forget. Same as Y/N about him.

[picturejasper20]

Bismuth is an interesting character to talk about because, in spite of her having just few appearances in the show, she is almost treated with the same importance that characters like Peridot and Lapis Lazuli have, who show up from the first season and their arcs are spread out through the series.

I believe this comes from how key her introduction episode is, as it mark a ¨before and after¨ in the series, when Steven and the audience begins to learn more about the dark secrets that Rose Quartz kept and how her image of ¨perfect hero¨ for Steven and others starts to break down.

Bismuth is described as the ¨biggest Crystal Gem¨, in the sense she was very passionate about the cause and she was pretty well loved and respected in her team. She seemed to be one of the closest Rose's friends along with Garnet and Pearl back during the Gem War.

It is unknown how Bismuth met Rose Quartz and decided to join the Crystal Gems but based on her dialogue we can get an idea that she was moved by Rose Quartz's ideas and later became part of the movement.

¨And she asked me what I wanted to build, and I'd never heard that before. And Gems never hear they can be anything other than what they are, but Rose opened our eyes.¨

So Bismuth was sent to Earth and when she met Rose Quartz who was ¨just another Quartz soldier¨, she was asked what things she was interested in building. I assumed that Bismuth was taken out by this and over time started to question what she wanted to do and be.

Based on Unleash the Light, Bismuths as gems appear to have an overall sentiment that they aren't respected for their work and they are overlooked. They seem to be gems that are more likely to rebel or demand proper respect than other type of gems- at least based on the game events. I think Bismuth shared a similar feeling as well that made her become a Crystal Gem not so long after meeting Rose.

The other idea that got her was that she could be something different- she didn't have to only build what the Diamonds told her. She could try building her own things! So she choose to use her own skills to create and make weapons for other gems in the war.

Bismuth really looked up to Rose- she adored her- so much that she built a statue dedicated to her. She believed in everything that Rose said and she was willing to do anything for her.

This passion and idolization ended up backfiring on Rose Quartz in a way, as her constant words about how terrible Pink Diamond was had a clear effect on Bismuth, thus making her a fanatic Crystal Gem- someone who considered taking some more extreme measures than the ones Rose had been applying so far.

Rose have indirectly created her own enemies, if it could be put in that way.

One day Bismuth comes up with a weapon- which looks more like a torture device than something to be used on battle- and shows it to Rose. She believes that this could change the outcome of the war and maybe lead them to victory. She shows how it works, probably shattering some statue to prove her point.

Then, for one reason or another, Rose didn't seem to be fond of this idea that Bismuth had- perhaps because she didn't want to be shattered herself or she didn't want that for the other Diamonds, maybe she was scared of this being used in more innocent gems or she didn't want to be like the Diamonds. Whatever was the reason, Rose decided to hide the Breaking Point and poof Bismuth, hiding her inside Lion's mane at some point.

She never told to Pearl and Garnet what happened to Bismuth- not even centuries after the Gem War ended. Probably because she wanted to keep the idea of Pink Diamond's shattering being faked since she previously rejected the breaking point? Maybe it was out of fear of not knowing how Pearl and Garnet would react?

What it is sad is how Bismuth still kept talking good of Rose after being freed by Steven. She went on for a while like she hadn't been betrayed by one of her best friends until she has that fight with Steven near the end of the episode- for what was a misunderstanding and her being too confused at believing that Steven was Rose Quartz for a moment.

After coming back in ¨Made of Honor¨ having some chats with Steven about what happened and learning that Rose was Pink Diamond, Bismuth changed the way she refer herself to Rose. Based on the interactions she has with Steven, she appears to have changed her admiration for Rose Quartz to looking up to Steven now. She tells to Steven about how he has been able to bring the whole team together and how they are more following him rather than Rose Quartz.

In the time skip both in the movie and Steven Universe Future she is seen helping in Little Homeworld, building it or talking to other gems. There isn't much comment on how she feels about Rose in the scenes she shows up, but the overall feeling is that she is still a Crystal Gem because of her friends and Steven and not so much for Rose. It is unknown if she hates Rose- or if it is more of feeling mixed about her. I want to think it is more the latter, as she still kept talking good about her to Steven on ¨Bismuth¨.

Bismuth and Rose Quartz's relationship is a very sad one. Bismuth was betrayed by someone she really looked up to and was close friends with ( and very likely had romantic feelings for) for reasons that not even Rose herself understood. Fortunately Steven freed her and decided to give her the chance that Rose Quartz didn't after she got bubbled. She remains part of the Crystal gems, but more for herself and her friends than for the gem she once idolized.

[twola]

Seven Deadly Sins - II

PAIRING: low to mid honor Arthur Morgan x Fem!reader

Summary: Because if one thing is true, it is that Arthur Morgan is a sinner. Pure, organic, non-GMO smut. A continuing series.

Warnings: Smut, Violence, Low to Medium Honor Arthur (and all that entails)

Gluttony: excess in eating or drinking, greedy or excessive indulgence.

➵ AO3 Link

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“Pájaro que abandona, cielito lindo, su primer nido,  Si lo encuentra ocupado, cielito lindo, bien merecido…”

The mood of the camp, for the first time in a while, is lifted, as Abigail’s son is returned to her after the fiasco with the Braithwaites, Bronte, and moving from Clemens Point deeper into Lemoyne. The group has taken up at an old, decrepit plantation in the swamps.

Javier plucks his guitar strings as he finishes his ballad, to which the other members of the gang drunkenly shout the refrain.

Arthur sits on an upturned crate around the campfire, tossing an empty bottle of whiskey behind him in the tall grass, taking one last drag on the cigar Dutch had given him in celebration before dropping it to the ground and crushing it under his boot.

Across the fire, he spies you, halfway through a bottle of brandy, leaning on Mary Beth’s shoulder as Javier begins to strum again.

His gaze locks with yours. You immediately sit up straight and lift the bottle of brandy you’re holding to your lips, taking another swig.

Maybe it was the copious amount of whiskey in his belly. Maybe it was the alluring dip of your blouse to show the slightest bit of cleavage in the sticky Lemoyne night.

Maybe it was just the basest, deepest part of him that he had been fighting for weeks that he wanted you. That he wanted to sink into your wet, warm heat and feel the constriction of your body on his.

He had been avoiding you since your last foray. Perhaps it was a momentary weakness, fluttering like a bird in flight. Not that there had been terribly much time for chasing skirts, between his run-in with the O’Driscolls, the mess between the Braithwaites and Grays, and now getting Jack back to his mother, he had been running this way and that for weeks.

But he didn’t miss the look in your eye when you crossed each other’s paths in camp. The hurt, betrayed, questioning look that would make him flee.

Arthur was still mortified about how he acted with you. He woke up the next morning realizing just how bad it looked, that he appeared out of nowhere watching you bathe, and had proceeded to rut you like a damn animal on the lakeshore.

But watching you tonight, in the pit of his stomach, he knew. He knew he wanted you. He had been lying to himself for weeks.

Arthur places his hat back on his head, and stands up, announcing that he’s retiring for the night. After a good bit of ribbing, he rolls his eyes and starts to make his way toward the dilapidated plantation house and the room upstairs he was afforded.

He knows someone is following him. Even with how much whiskey he’s drank tonight, he has lived his life on a razor’s edge and is always prepared.

“Arthur.”

He turns partway around, knowing that you followed him into the house, and your meek, sad-sounding voice just made the pit in his stomach even deeper. You’re standing there, your hair slightly mussed, holding a bottle of half-drunk brandy by the neck.

“I thought you wanted me.”

He breathes out heavily, and every part of him fights against what he wants, the gut pull and baser instinct.

No, not ever, he has never been a good person. He steals and cheats and lies and kills. He takes what he wants from men with little regard.

He should stop lying to himself, at the very least.

“If you don’t want to do this, just please, tell me.” You plead, a hurt tone in your voice, uninhibited by decorum and urged on by brandy.

He turns around fully, his hands resting on the buckle of his gun belt, as he was apt to do in flashes of discomfort, and he looks down to the worn floor of the decrepit house before looking back up at you again.

Arthur’s gaze rests upon you and his cock stirs. Your cheeks are blush red and lips soft and damp. Every fiber of his self-control snaps as he traces your curves under your rumpled blouse, the winnowing of your waist where your skirts flare over your hips. How he knows what you look like underneath those layers. The whiskey his blood serves to burn off the inhibitions that have been dogging him for weeks.

“Get over here, woman.”

A hesitant smile crosses your face, as you take a small step toward him. One of his hands leaves his belt and reaches toward you. He closes the distance and grabs your free hand and yanks you to him bodily, and his lips press against yours insistently.

A noise from the other room makes you jump as you pull away from him, and he pulls you down the hallway and out the back door. You’re a stumbling mess as Arthur drags you away from the main house. Your hands interlace in an almost sweet way. The two of you make your way toward a dilapidated dock house over the bayou, a ways away from possible prying eyes and the celebration going on in front of the old plantation house.

Arthur spins back toward you, stopping you in your tracks as you both reach the dock house.

“I thought we were gonna do this more often.” You hiccup, your hands on his chest as he leans back against the stacked crates on the dock.

“We’re doin it now, ain’t we?”

“I ain’t askin’ for you to marry me, Arthur. I just want ya not to ignore me like you have the last few weeks.”

You lean in and kiss the side of his neck, your teeth gently nipping at the skin there. “…nd maybe a bit more attention at night…”

He groans, pulling your shoulders back, and you gaze up at him questioningly.

His silence makes you nervous.

“D’ya not want….-“

“I reckon that we wouldn’t have time for much else if it were up to me,” Arthur confesses, and in the time since he’s pulled you back, one of his hands has trailed down the curve of your waist to rest on your rear, squeezing it slightly, affectionately.

Slowly, a smirk crosses your face. “Then it’s settled. Sounds like you should get to work, Mister Morgan. You’ve kept a lady waiting.”

“Yes ma’am.” Arthur glances backward quickly and yanks the both of you a few steps closer to the dock, where he sits down on a crate and pulls you against him, almost devouring you with the force of his lips on yours.

You taste of the sweet brandy you’ve been swilling. And peaches, the tart, syrupy, saccharinity of the fruit he knows you have a weakness for - cans of peaches have gone missing from his wagon and he didn’t need to be a lawman to figure out who the thief was.

He’s got you on his lap, your arms wound sweetly around his neck, his hands spread across your lower back and thigh, keeping you firmly seated and safe from the murky, gator-infested swamp water below the dock.

His tongue pushes against yours, and he’s sure that he doesn’t taste quite as sweet as you do, with his belly full of whiskey, and the two cigars he smoked with Dutch earlier in the night.

You grab at the collar of his black shirt with greedy fingers, and his hand moves further down your back to grab at your rear, smacking it lightly as he nips at your bottom lip.

“Inside.” You whisper, pulling your lips from his and glancing back over your shoulder toward the rowdy, loud gathering near the main house. Though the two of you were a good hundred feet away, the sound carried in this grove in the swamp, and with how much the both of you had to imbibe, staying quiet was likely impossible at this point.

You slide off of his lap as he stands up, and follow him as he looks around at the old dock house and its boarded-up windows and doors. Rounding the corner, he looks at the old door leading inside and braces his forearm against it to push on it. The door doesn’t budge.

Arthur grumbles, backing up and rolling his shoulder slightly. He shoves his shoulder against the boarded-up door of the dock house. Arthur had not put much force into it, and you raise your eyebrows as he swears under his breath, making out a few choice curse words.

“Mm.. big bad outlaw stopped by a locked door. You’re losin’ your touch, Arthur.” You joke, a sly, overly sweet tone to your voice.

Arthur turns his head and glares at you, a cold, angry stare that reminds you that yes, indeed, he was a big, bad, outlaw. Your smile falls.

He takes a step back, and before you can prepare yourself, the heel of his boot hits the door with the full force of his body. You yelp, shielding your face with the back of your arms as dried-out wood splinters and the door flies open.

“Y’ were sayin’?” Arthur goads, his cocky airs returning.

“Hmph.” You huff, brushing by him with one hand on your hip, the other still gripping the neck of the bottle of brandy. You enter the small, dusty dock house and look around, the light from the moon shining through the gaps between the wooden walls.

There was not much to look at. A few crates, a work table littered with tools, a canoe with a hole rotten out on its keel.

A large hand braces your lower back and pushes you forward a few steps toward the table. You turn around, only to come eye level with Arthur’s barrel chest as he continues to push you backward. You almost trip, but he grabs one of your arms, keeping you upright.

“C’mon now, girl. Up you go.”

Your hip bumps against the edge of the table, and Arthur leans over you and with a swing of his arm, the cluttered table becomes clear with a loud clatter. You giggle at the noise, and Arthur frowns slightly before his hands fly to your hips and heave you onto the table with little effort.

Your giggles stop as you stare up at him. He seems to be in no laughing mood, the shadow from the brim of his hat shading one of his eyes from your view.

“Mister Morgan… you look like y’wanna devour me.” You retort, drawing your skirts up past your knees and spreading your legs.

“Reckon I do.” He drawls back, hands joining yours to push your skirts further, to your hips, and his eyebrows raise as a smug grin is painted across his face.

“No drawers? Y’expecting somethin’ like this to happen?”

“I told you, Arthur, you’ve kept me waiting.”

He snorts, “Well for that, I apologize, milady. Let me make it up to ya.”

The outlaw drops to his knees in front of you, pushing your skirts all the way up to your hips. You cannot help a gasp as you feel his warm lips against the inside of your knee.  Your legs spread wider as he moves further up your thigh, toward the jointure of your hips.

The rim of his hat brushes against your inner thigh, and you reach forward and pluck it off his head with a giggle, placing it on your own head, and flicking the brim up so you can see past it.

Arthur looks up at you, his head between your legs, a mischievous, tempting look in his eyes.

“Back to your thievin’ ways, I see.”

“We all gotta eat somehow, Mister Morgan.”

His arms wrap around your thighs and he pulls your whole body forward on the table, so that your hips nearly fall off. You yelp as he nips at your inner thigh before looking at you again.

“That we do, Ma’am,” He gives one long lick up the seam of your core, “Speakin’ of which…”

You gasp, your thighs involuntarily tightening slightly around his head, as your hand shoots into his hair, tufts of his honeyed locks askew from wearing his hat all day.

“God, Arthur.” You groan out loudly, throwing your head back, tilted toward the ceiling.

He breathes a hot breath against you, making you shudder, before nipping slightly at your thigh again.

“Y’gotta stop confusin’ us, Miss. That’s a hell of a mistake to make.”

You relish in the blasphemy of it all. Finally letting go of the bottle of brandy, your other hand falls behind you, bracing yourself against the table to keep you upright as Arthur pushes his tongue between your folds and presses against your entrance.

You let out a high-pitched wail as his tongue slips inside, laving the warm, wetness of his mouth against your core. He moves up, up, away from your throbbing entrance to give a long, slow lick at the bud of nerves that makes you squeal and yank at his hair. Arthur groans happily against you, muffled by your thighs clenching around his head.

You have no idea how long he’s between your legs. A minute, ten, a year, time was irrelevant. Not when you felt as if you were dangling cliffside waiting for the wave to take you and drag you under. Unabashed moans escape your lips as Arthur feasts upon you, as if he were never to eat or drink again. You throw your head back and his hat flies off, landing somewhere on the dusty floor.

Your orgasm sweeps like a wave as he suckles on that sweet spot, and you scream his name to the heavens, voice breaking with the crescendo of energy working through your veins.

He pulls back, grasping the top of your thighs as anchors as he stands from his knees. His short beard shines with wetness before he swipes his palm down it quickly while standing up.

You’re panting, still delirious from your orgasm, feeling high and oversensitive.

“I hope y’got another one in ya, 'cause I don’t plan on stopping.” Arthur drawls, pulling on the buckle of his gun belt and letting it clatter to the floor.

The man is sin incarnate. The stuttered moonlight coming from the holes in the ceiling shine down on him in fractal pieces, half of his face shadowed, the strong line of his jaw, the muscles of his arms both beneath the fabric of his shirt, pulled taut, and peaking out from where his sleeves are rolled up. He is hewn from hard labor and violence.

You sluggishly prop yourself up on your elbows, hair wild, pupils blown, still breathing heavily. Arthur slides his thumbs into the crease of your hip joints, smirking as you shiver from his touch. He then moves to peel his suspenders down his arms and works on the buttons of his pants.

He glances back up at you, all breathless and needy, your cunt glistening while your skirts are hiked up around your waist.

Arthur frees his hard cock from the confines of his trousers, stroking it a few times as he leans over you, one of his forearms on the table next to your head, and you lay back down as he chases your lips with his own. Your legs widen, nearly of their own volition.

The head of his cock notches against your opening as you whine against his mouth. His other forearm brackets in your head as he slides in slowly, finding little resistance after he dragged your earlier orgasm out of you.

He nestles his hips in between yours, and when he bottoms out, he cannot help but to groan loudly, in his state of inebriation, keeping the volume down is very, very low on his list of priorities. He pulls back, standing at his full height to tower over you, spread out on the table beneath him.

You’ve propped yourself up on your elbows, mouth slack, pupils blown, watching as he firmly grips your hips with his large hands. He looks down at you, and his lips part as he lets out a deep breath, collecting himself while buried deep within your heat.

Arthur rolls his hips, dragging his cock back slowly, his hot flesh moving against your walls, to the point that he’s nearly pulled out of you. He watches your face, his mouth hanging open, as he pushes forward, relishing as you have to close your eyes and grit your teeth against the moan bubbling up from your throat.

He repeats the motion, only this time, twice as fast. As he pushes back into your core, you curse aloud, your voice crackling.

“Shit, Arthur.”

“Y’like that, girl?” The outlaw pushes in again, snapping his hips against yours.

You whine, your head lolling back as you cross your ankles behind his back, “Yes.” You’re able to hiss, your heels nudging him back toward you as his hips roll.

The table shakes with the movement of your bodies, the crashing of his hips into yours, the wet smacking of skin on skin. The moans and grunts and groans punctuate the night, and in one instant you hear the far-off melody of Javier’s guitar and are thankful that there’s probably enough noise by the big house that the rest of the gang cannot hear your raucous coupling.

Arthur finds a punishing rhythm, his large hands on your hips, fingers digging into your skin sure to leave bruises. The still, humid night is punctuated with his low drawl, that’s it, c’mon and good girl and a thousand other little things that make your breath stutter. Your second orgasm comes over you without warning, and you fall back from your elbows to your back, thighs clenching hard around his hips, moaning unintelligible words broken by gasps.

Arthur’s pace falters, and he swears as your cunt clenches around his cock. One, two, three more thrusts and yanks himself from you, groaning loudly as he strokes himself to completion, spilling on the wooden floor of the old shack.

Arthur tiredly drapes himself over you, his head against your ribcage, panting as he shakily comes down from his own high. Your hands float, nigh of their own volition, to run affectionately through the tufts of his sandy brown hair, mussed by wearing his hat all day. His hands lay on the table, one of his thumbs caresses at the side of your hip.

“Told you we should do that more often.” You laugh, as he starts to tuck himself away and rebutton his pants, his head remaining on your ribcage. You feel the man chuckle, his body still pressed against yours on the table.

He slowly raises himself from you, smirking back at you as he gives your thigh a pinch.

“‘M serious, Arthur.”

“Alrigh’, alrigh’.” He drawls, pulling your skirts down over your thighs and letting them fall over your knees. He takes a step backward from the table, allowing you to sit up and slide yourself off of the surface and to your feet.

You sway slightly, between the blooming soreness in your hips or the empty bottle of brandy you’d left on the table, but Arthur’s hands find your waist to steady you.

“Easy there, girl.” He drawls, keeping you upright.

“Quit talkin’ t’ me like I’m yer horse….” You fuss before trailing off, lost in thought, staring up at him dumbly.

“What?” He asks, tilting his head slightly, questioning.

“Actually… kinda like how you talk to ‘er. Y’can keep talkin’ to me like that.”

[areasontoismile]

This is me reliving my tumblr so I can get some feelings off of my chest

I’m 12 years old. A family member is sitting on a computer desk and calls me to watch this performance of five boys singing so nicely. “The blonde one is so cute!” they say. I have no idea who they are but the blonde one is in fact cute.

13. My life kinda sucks right now because everything is changing too fast and I can’t handle it. The only thing that helps me cope with life is coming home from school and watching every single video, interview, performance and learn lyrics to their songs - and I don’t even understand what they’re saying most of the time.

Now I’m 14. It’s a hot day and we’re celebrating Mother’s Day in my country. My mom drives me to the stadium and my heart is so heavy with excitement I can’t contain myself. I stand there from 10 am till midnight, no food, not using the restroom, sun on my head and I’ve never been happier. I see them, I’m so close to them I can see how in between the vocals Harry is thanking everyone for coming to see them - all that off mic. I can see Louis making funny faces for us, I see zayn picking my friend’s flag and lifting it up. I can see Niall smiling and enchanting everyone. I see Liam being the nicest human being ever - always on center, like the north of the band. Harry dedicates the concert for all the mothers for letting us go see them. I leave and hug my mom so hard, it’s the best day of my life and I’m terribly thankful to her for letting me be there.

I’m 16. I’m logging on my Facebook after school and my heart drops: zayn is leaving the band. I could see that coming but why is it so sad? I hope everyone is ok.

I’m 17. They’re taking a break. It’s ok, I guess. They need to rest. Can’t wait to hear their solo songs.

I’m 18. I’m sitting on the bus on my way to college and my face can’t hide the giant smile on my face while listening to all the solo song from the guys. They’re so good they should be in a band.

I’m 21. I become an orphan due to Covid. Life is not worth living. I can’t listen to music anymore because it feels like I’m betraying my parents by doing something good for me. I deserve to suffer. Hey, liam is doing a live on Instagram and Niall is joining him! I can’t believe they’re still close. It makes me happy. Maybe I deserve to numb the pain sometimes. Maybe my parents would like to see me happy.

I’m 25. It’s a sunny day and the day before I had to go to the cemetery wich always makes me emotional. I think today it’s gonna be better. I open Instagram. My heart stops for a second. What do you mean Liam died? What? That must be fake. No way. But what about his baby? What about his family? My heart is so broken it doesn’t make sense - he didn’t even know me. I feel like part of my childhood is gone.