#I dunno what I’m doing in all honesty

[loveinhawkins]

Steve knows that it’s Eddie from the way the RV door sticks awkwardly before it opens, which makes him smile. The guy can break in and hotwire the thing, as smooth as you like, but then apparently turns into a klutz as soon as the pressure’s gone.

Eddie doesn’t notice that he’s inside at first, seems more focused on tying a few makeshift spears together with string so they don’t fall about the place. It’s only when he looks up, does a double take and says, amused, “Sorry, didn’t realise I was interrupting something,” that Steve remembers he isn’t exactly cutting a fine figure right now.

To put it bluntly, he’s currently hunched over, sat at the little table, eating canned frosting with a teaspoon.

“What are you even…?” Eddie sits down opposite him, peers closer and sees the label on the can. “Harrington,” he says, like someone reading out orders of execution, “that’s fucking gross.”

“Hey, I found it sealed in the cupboard, it’s not expired. And it’s chocolate, man,” Steve defends.

A pause. “Can I have some?”

Steve laughs. “Sure.”

He finds another teaspoon, moves the frosting so it rests in between them. Smiles when Eddie knocks their spoons together, like they’re sharing wine instead.

They sit in comfortable silence. Steve has the sudden thought that if it wasn’t for the impending everything, he could pretend like it’s a lazy Saturday, where they’re free to do harmless, juvenile things, like just watching movies all day. Like sharing frosting out of the can.

“God, you’re so unbothered by all this, aren’t you?” Eddie says around his spoon, which makes Steve suspect that perhaps their thoughts aren’t exactly aligned at the moment. “Steve Harrington. Mister Cool.”

He says it softly, a little like Robin had—and Jesus, Steve thinks, did everyone in school have such an idea of him?

“Unbothered, meaning?”

Eddie shrugs. “Alternate dimension. Real life monsters. Uh, I dunno, the potential end of the world? Take your pick, man.”

Steve thinks for a little while, scrapes the bottom of the can repeatedly even though they’ve already eaten it all.

He doesn’t know how to say that over the years, fear has become normal, a reassuring background noise. It’s when he doesn’t feel it that he’s really, truly scared shitless.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Steve says, “I think we all just got so used to it, that—”

“Yeah, that doesn’t make me feel better,” Eddie interrupts with a huff of a laugh. “If I think about it for too long, I might actually cry for you all, Steve.”

“Nah, don’t do that,” Steve says lightly—though he thinks that a part of Eddie really means it. “It’s more like… like I’m a duck, y’know? Calm on the surface, but…” He drums on the table in demonstration. “Freaking out underneath.”

Eddie’s looking at him with a little smile Steve thinks he hasn’t quite seen before—almost like he’s charmed.

He wonders just how many smiles Eddie Munson has. Wants to have enough time to find out.

“And you’re like an upside down duck,” Steve says, matter-of-fact.

Eddie snorts—another smile, wide and bright. “Excuse me?”

“Like, you might think you’re freaking out on the surface, but underneath, when it comes down to it, you’ll be…” Steve moves his hand in a straight line, imitating a duck calmly gliding along.

Eddie shakes his head. “Think you’ve got too much faith in me.”

And sure, it’s said like it’s a joke, but Steve holds his gaze when he replies seriously, “No, I don’t think so.”

You think I’d trust Dustin with just anyone? I saw you pull him back from the edge of the lake. That’s all I need to know.

Eddie glances away almost like he can see Steve’s thoughts dancing in front of him, as if the honesty is too much to witness.

“Plus you’re, like, my guide for what’s a normal reaction to all of this shit. You’re good for us, man. Keeps us grounded.”

Eddie laughs again. “Christ, I’m the guide for what’s normal. God help us all.” He drops his spoon into the empty can with a clatter. “It’s getting late. We’d better, uh. Round up the troops.”

He stands up, shuffles out from the table.

And Steve finds himself standing, too, with the sudden fear that he’s watching a window close before him.

He reaches for Eddie’s wrist—just two fingers, barely a touch—and Eddie turns to him immediately.

“Hey, Eddie, you’re—you’re good with them, y’know? The kids.” Steve laughs quietly. “God, they’d be… scared far sooner without you. When you were messing around with Dustin, and… Jesus, it’s the most I’ve seen Max laugh in a… in a while.”

Eddie’s smile turns gentle. “Nah, man. Any fool could do that.”

“No,” Steve says.

No, don’t you get it? Only you could. We’re all… we’re better with you, happier with you. I wouldn’t want to do this with anyone else. Please fucking understand how important you are.

You matter.

Eddie’s eyes flicker across Steve’s face. Like he’s understood without Steve having to say a word.

“Careful there, Harrington,” he murmurs.

Steve’s suddenly aware that he still has one finger on Eddie’s wrist. “What?”

Eddie stares at him. Shrugs with one shoulder, but it’s slow. Thoughtful.

“Just thought I’d get ahead of you, in case…”

“In case?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie says, abruptly sounds a little breathless. “Could be the end of the world, right? And you’re…” He glances over at the frosting can, smirks slightly. “You’re kinda under the influence. Don’t want you saying anything you wouldn’t mean in any, uh, normal circumstances.”

Fuck normal. This is my normal.

“And what if I meant it?” Steve says.

Eddie swallows. Calm on the surface.

“If you’re sure,” Eddie says slowly, eyes never leaving Steve’s face. “Then… go ahead.”

Steve steps closer.

Kisses him.

Eddie’s mouth tastes sweet from the frosting. Steve can feel it when he laughs, can feel him shaking from where he’s leaning up against the edge of the table.

He pulls back. “You okay?”

Eddie’s smile is tremulous, like he’s one second away from crying.

“Freaking out,” he says, but he pulls Steve in for another kiss, so Steve knows he’s not referring to…

“Yeah,” Steve admits. “Yeah, me too.”

Eddie laughs breathily, and the sound is enough to finally drown out the background buzz of terror. He’s so close Steve can count every eyelash.

“You’d never know, Steve.”

“Think this—” A last kiss, pressed to the corner of Eddie’s mouth. “Think this is the most scared I’ve ever been.”

“Me too,” Eddie echoes.

And just before he pulls Steve along, just before he opens the RV door and calls for everyone, he leans in close, whispers against Steve’s lips:

“Worth it.”

[reminiscingtonight]

Eras Of Us (Pt. 2)

Alessia Russo x Reader

Word Count: 1.5k

Part One

[WOSO Masterlist]

Nothing can break your high. 

Playing in your first London derby, scoring in your first London derby, is a feeling you’re never going to forget. 

Until someone so graciously reminds you of the implications of such a win. 

“Emma Hayes is gonna be my new coach,” you moan.

“Rough,” Alessia snorts, ignoring the way you smack at her arm.

The two of you are out with the rest of the girls, capping off the win against Chelsea with a couple of drinks at a bar near the stadium. Around you are a mix of reds and blues, all of the players good friends despite the outcome of the match. 

Despite starting your night hanging by Leah, the blonde basically mothering you to death since your move overseas, you somehow find yourself tucked into Alessia’s side merely a few minutes later. It makes your heart skip a beat when you feel her fingers absentmindedly playing with the hairs on the back of your neck. 

“It’s not funny! What if she takes me wrecking her club team personally and doesn’t give me a call up to the next camp?”

Alessia gives you a look.

It’s enough to make you feel chastised. You sigh, hanging your head. “Fine, she wouldn’t do that. But she might make me run extra laps as punishment!”

Alessia laughs again, shoving at head when you wack her arm again. “What ever happened to the (Y/N) who would run extra laps for fun?”

You know Alessia’s thinking of you dressed Carolina blue, sprinting up and down the pitch after practice ends, wanting to get in extra reps to keep your fitness up. It’s a fond memory, the player you were when you were younger, but you shudder, thinking of how it was really just a ploy to get Alessia to give you a backrub when you got home, the forward always quick to crumble to your sad eyes and exaggerated whines.

You pout. “She grew up.”

“Poor you,” she teases, pinching at your cheeks. 

You can’t remember the last time you’ve laughed this much. 

You and Alessia have fallen into a good routine since you both joined Arsenal. There was no awkward tension around the two of you, no weird ‘I’m on the same team as my ex’ drama. If anything, there’s more ‘annoying years-in-the-making inside jokes’ shenanigans that you’ve brought with you. It’s almost like no time has passed. 

Once in a while you catch yourself thinking about the what-ifs. What if you never broke up. What if Alessia wanted to give this another shot. But you’re more than happy to live in the now. You and Alessia are friends now. That’s not something you’re willing to give up just for a shot at what you once knew. 

Looking down at her empty cup, Alessia lets out a low groan. You sheepishly hand her your empty cup as well, sweetly asking for a refill. She grumbles under her breath but grabs your drink nonetheless. “Don’t miss me too much!” she hollers over her shoulder as she disappears into the crowd. 

You find yourself staring even long after she’s gone.

With nothing left to distract you, you turn your attention back down to your phone. It’s funny seeing all of the posts on social media by the fans. Giggling to yourself, you like a couple of them before your attention is quickly captured again when you feel a small nudge against your arm. You look up to see Lotte smiling back at you. 

Scooting over, you give her enough space to plop down next to you in the booth. 

“Whatcha been doing hiding away here all night?”

You shrug, easy smile floating to your lips. “Haven’t been hiding. Less and I’ve just been hanging out. Lots of things to catch up on.”

The mention of the blonde striker has Lotte frowning a bit. You watch as she seems to think through her words. “Are you and Less…” she starts cautiously, pausing to gather her thoughts once more. 

“Are me and Less what?” 

The brunette shrugs. “I dunno, back together? Working things out? You guys just… you seem close again.”

It’s your turn to pause. In all honesty you haven’t really been thinking about what you and Alessia have been doing. Yes, you spend a lot of your free time together, and yes, Alessia always seems to seek you out when you all go out with the rest of the team, but that doesn't mean anything, right? 

Right? 

You settle for a half-shrug. “I’m not sure. I think… I think we’re just seeing where things go.”

Lotte nods, the look of unease still on her face. “Just be careful, alright? I’m happy if things work out between you guys but just don’t forget the history the two of you have.”

Lotte’s words stick with you.

Even days later, when Alessia and you are taking a stroll towards a nearby farmer’s market.

You’re not thinking when her hand automatically slips into yours, hands freely swinging between the two of you. Alessia’s telling you a story you’re only half listening to, more caught in your head than the walk in front of you.

Spotting a booth with your favorite flowers, you head towards them. Only to be yanked back by a firm hand. 

Alessia doesn’t let go of your hand.

You pull again. 

You can hear an amused noise but Alessia still doesn’t let you go. 

“Lessi! Let me go see the flowers,” you whine. 

This time when you pull, she lets you go with a chuckle.

They’re beautiful. 

The purples, the blues, the pinks. You run your hands over them, marveling in all of the beauty. 

You must be looking for too long, because your heart lurches when you feel the familiar weight of an arm wrapping around your waist, Alessia’s head dropping to your shoulder. It’s habitual, the way your hand drops to rest on top of hers.

You can feel Alessia smile against the side of your head.

And it hits you then. 

This feels familiar. Too familiar. 

This feels right. Too right.

This feels like everything you’ve been missing. 

“Less?”

The blonde hums, eyes not moving as her fingers continue to trace shapes on your stomach.

You huff. It isn’t until you’re shuffling around, fully facing Alessia that her eyes drop to meet yours. She’s clearly not expecting it, mouth dropped into an ‘o’.

“Hi?”

“Alessia, do you want to date me?”

It’s almost comical, the way her eyes widen, mouth somehow dropping even wider.

When it becomes clear that Alessia is at a loss of words you run a hand down your face, effectively pushing the blonde away from you.

“Look, I get it if you think I’m just imagining things, and I’ll totally understand if you want some space if all of this is just in my head, but I can’t help but feel like these are dates, these little trips around London you’ve been taking me. I haven’t felt this ‘wined and dined’ since the two of us first started dating all those years ago.”

You pause, leaving plenty of time for Alessia to interject.

She doesn’t.

Instead, she swallows. 

You watch as Alessia clenches and unclenches her hands, nervously shuffling from foot to foot.

Neither of you say anything as the seconds pass, ticking into minutes. 

Eventually, with her eyes trained to her feet, “Do you want them to be dates?” Alessia asks quietly. Timidly.

A little too timidly.

And that’s when you realize what this is.

What it’s been about this entire time.

Alessia’s afraid you don’t want her.

“You’re an idiot.”

Fisting a hand into her shirt, you yank Alessia towards you. Her eyes widen just as your lips meet, hands floundering about until they rest on your waist.

When you break away, you make sure to memorize the look on her face. Eyes closed, peaceful lit to her face, it’s something you want to ingrain in your memory and never forget.

When Alessia’s eyes flutter open you give her a soft smile.

“I’m always going to want you,” you murmur, tucking a wayward strand of hair behind her ear. 

You duck down, pressing your face into the crook of her neck as her arms automatically wrap around your back.

“I’d spend a lifetime trying to get over you, just to get to spend a single second as yours.”

You feel more than hear Alessia’s shaky breath in, arms tightening just a fraction around you. 

“I don’t want to ever get over you.” Your heart skips a beat at her confession. Her words are paired with a kiss on your hairline, signaling what you know is the end of this limbo, the beginning of your story starting anew.

No, things didn’t work out the first time.

But you aren’t stranded on opposite coasts this time. You aren’t leaving Alessia to start your professional career elsewhere. Alessia isn’t leaving you to go back home. 

You’re both in England. You’re both on the same team. 

Maybe this time things will work out. 

Because you love Alessia and she loves you. And that’s all you really need to know.

[maxillness]

Tell Me Your Sounds || Ferrari!KR7 x Reserve driver!Reader

Warnings: 18+, blowjob, sub!kimi, (slight) yearning, biting,

Wordcount: 1.1k

Might do a part 2, dunno

Kimi never spoke, and when he did, it was short answer, and she hated it

She wanted to have an ongoing conversation with the man, but he kept his answers short, almost like he didn’t want to speak to her

All his silent conversation got her to thinking “Do you think he’s silent in bed too?” She asked, Sebastian almost choking on his water

He looked with a confused expression at her “First of all, it would be interesting to know, but I don’t want to know. Second of all, why are you thinking about that?”

“How the fuck did that make sense what you just said?” It was now her to be confused “And… I can’t sleep at night, so I think, and sometimes it’s weird stuff” She shrugged

“You might as well just find out” He said, taking another sip of his water “I’m joking” He said, seeing her thinking face

“I know, wasn’t even thinking about it” She said, obviously lying

“If you say so”

She definitely needed to find out. One way or another

Over the next few weeks, so tried getting closer to him, tried getting to know him better

She was the one who started texting him first, until he was the one to strike conversation

He was way more wordy over text then when you spoke to him face to face

As they grew closer, her thoughts got dirtier. She could be doing anything, and she would imagine what he would sound like

Her fingers moving inside her, coming around them to the thought of his sounds

It was the race week, and she was talking with Sebastian before FP1

“You’ve gotten your answer yet?” He asked, a cheeky smile on his lips

“No” She sighed “Ask me again on Sunday” She answered, matching his smile

“You’re something of your own” He chuckled, walking away from her again

They had been talking to each other as much as they could when he wasn’t in the car, every now and then placing innocent touches on him

Qualifying rolled around, and both the drivers god an okay end. Both finishing in Q3

“Good job, man” She said, fist bumping Sebastian as he walked into the garage

“Oh, sorry, rakkaus” Kimi had accidentally bumped into her, but in all honesty, she just wanted his touch, no matter how he did it

“It’s quite alright” She smiled, turning around to face him “You did good by the way” She loved the way his eyes lit up and a slight blush crept up on his cheeks at the praise

“Thank you” His words almost got stuck in his throat as he looked down into the floor

She felt a kind of confident boost she never had experienced before, encouraging to take the shot of hearing his sounds

She took a step closer to him, and just below a whisper she said “If you ever wanna celebrate, you know where to find me”

She didn’t let him react before she walked away to talk to some of the machines and engineers

She expected him to react, but not the way he did

He had grabbed her wrist, pulling her roughly away from her conversation without as much of an apology

“Kimi-“ She didn’t get to finish her sentence before she was shoved up against the closed door of his drivers room

His lips was on hers immediately, holding a hand behind her head to not hurt her

“Kimi…” She shoved softly on his chest, pushing him away from her

“What? You said if I wanted to celebrate-“ “I know” She panted slightly looking up into her lust blown eyes

“I was just startled, that’s all” She took her hands back to his face, smashing their lips back together in a wet and sloppy kiss

His suit was already hanging on his hips, so it was easy for her to slip her hands down his torso and under his fireproofs, feeling his skin on her fingertips

They parted their lips so she could pull off his fire profs, throwing it carelessly on the floor before attaching her lips above his collarbone

He let out a whimper as she sucked softly on the skin, creating a purple bruise

She pushed on his abdomen, guiding him towards the small couch in the room. She pushed him down once the back of his legs hit it

She got on her knees in front of him, hands tapping his hips, making him buck them up so she could pull the suit down

As the suit was discarded on the floor as well, her hands went to the waist band of his boxers, pulling them down as well

He whimpered at the way her lustful eyes looked up at him. She kissed his inner thigh, forcing him to spread his legs

She scooted forwards, lips still kissing his skin. She bit softly down, pulling a whimper from him

“Please” His hands grabbed the edge of the couch beside his legs

She pulled away from his thigh. Her hands went to his hips, holding them there as her tongue drew over the tip of his cock, drawing out a high-pitched moan from him

He sounded so much prettier than she had imagined. His head threw back as his eyes closed shut as her tongue began to swirl around him

His moans were loud, not giving a shit if anyone could hear him, which they probably could

His whole body shook at her tongue drew over his slit, his moan shuttered, knuckles turning white

He bucked his hips up, wanting her to swallow him

She swirled her tongue around him twice before swallowing him whole. She gagged slightly as he hit the back of her throat

“Mm… Feels so good” She moaned as she started bobbing her head up and down his shaft, spit starting to pool in the corner of her mouth

“Fuck, just like that” The sounds that came out of him was almost embarrassing if he wasn’t fucked out

Her nails dug into the pale skin of his hips as she sped up, her tongue dragging on the sensetive skin of his vain

“Fuck- please- yes… Fuck, so close” His cock started twitching inside her mouth, leaking pre cum on to her tongue

She hummed at the taste of the salty taste, sending vibrations into his cock, sending him over the edge, shooting his cum down here throat with her name rolling off his tongue

She popped off of him, swallowing his load, feeing the sticky substance go down her throat

She stood up, knees hurting and wobbly. She leaned down to kiss him between his knitted eyebrows

“You sound so fucking pretty” She softly placed a kiss on his jaw “You should really talk some more”

“Just for you. Only you’ll hear me” He panted, coming down from his orgasm, his hands caressing the sides of her body

[heavenlyvision]

While hell freezes over

Word count: 10.4k

Pairing: Bi-Han x F!Reader

This is a part three to my 'When hell freezes over' series, parts linked in order below :3

part one, part two

A/N: Even longer fic this time guys! I got carried away :3 thank you all for the continued support, kind words and patience! I hope this is satisfactory and lives up to expectations. And well… if you thought Bi-Han went off in the last one, then, I dunno what to tell you about this one. I have a few requests I’d like to get through before I start the next part, if you’ve sent me one and think I’ve been ignoring it, I haven’t, I see it! I have plans and ideas for them. I’ve just been writing 10k words of Bi-Han brain rot but trust me, I’m on it :)

Summary: Someone heard you last night, an embarrassing conversation ensues, and the day doesn’t get better from there. You find yourself in a compromising position and Bi-Han does not appreciate it, he finds himself needing to remind you of who you belong to.

Warnings: 18+ only, smut, fingering, p in v sex, creampie, overstimulation, squirting, inappropriate use of Bi-Han’s ice powers, possessive!Bi-Han, jealous!Bi-Han, pussy slapping (more like tapping), inappropriate use of Bi-Hans official title, return of mean Bi-Han, slight Soft!Bi-Han, no use of y/n

It’s early when you wake up wrapped up in Bi-Han’s arms, he never gave you the chance to leave last night and now you have to figure out how to get out of the room without anyone seeing you. Carefully, you try to wiggle yourself free from his large arms.

“Trying to sneak away?” Bi-Han’s voice is deeper than usual, thick with sleep.

Looking at him, you can see both of his eyes are still closed. Too tired to be bothered to open them.

“Not really… I mean… kind of?” You reply bashfully at getting caught.

He grumbles softly, too tired to answer you properly.

Waking up in his arms has you feeling some kind of way, he’s surprisingly warm, he makes you feel safe, and the low timbre of his voice is making you feel fuzzy. It all feels so domestic, and it makes you feel like your heart is about ten times too big for your ribcage, threatening to spill out of your chest.

The feeling is foreign, you’ve never cared so deeply for someone, it’s frightening in all honesty. You have no idea what to do with the sheer force of your feelings, so you settle for leaning up slightly and pressing a chaste kiss to Bi-Han’s lips.

His reaction is another soft grumble, before he pulls you closer. Your face resting under his chin. You allow the moment to last, never wanting to leave it but knowing the longer you wait the harder sneaking back to your own room will be.

“I have to leave; someone will catch me if I wait any longer.” You’re trying to convince him to release you from his firm grip.

“Don’t care,” either he really doesn’t care or he’s too tired to try.

“Bi-Han, I came over last night in nothing but my robe.”

He lets out a long groan, an internal battle exiting through it, sharing his disdain for you having to leave but also disliking the possibility of someone seeing you wearing only a robe.

“Jus wear some of my clothes.” He shrugs, rustling you a bit as he does.

“I’m like nowhere near your size and people will be able to tell I am wearing your clothes.” You feel like this back and forth will never end.

He’s smiling, “why are you smiling?” You ask him, this isn’t funny.

“Like the idea of someone seeing you in my clothes.” He’s still not opened his eyes for this conversation, still in the same position, holding you close.

It’s your turn to let out a grumble, “you are the one who initially said no one could know we were sleeping together.”

“Two things can be true at once.” Is his simple, smart-ass reply.

Best bet of getting out of this situation is to distract him, you lean up again and kiss him. He kisses you back, moving his hand down to rest on your bare hip. He pulls your lower half towards his, he’s already hard and that surprises you slightly. It shouldn’t, you swear he could look at you fully clothed and get hard.

Your thoughts are abruptly distracted when the hand on your hip skates down to your leg, pulling it over his hip. His cock slides through your folds, the light contact of it gliding over your clit has you gasping into his mouth. He lets out an appreciative hum at your reaction, this is bad, you think he might be distracting you now.

Pulling your lips from his you tell him, “Bi-han, I really do need to leave.”

He pulls another gasp from you as he continues to rock his hips, eyes open now and heavy with sleep and lust.

“Hmm, that’s funny, I don’t think you need to leave.”

And then suddenly, there’s a knock on his door. Bi-Han’s face immediately scrunches up in annoyance, his distaste at the intrusion makes you smile before you purse your lips; trying to hide your amusement.

He holds a finger up to your mouth, before he whispers to you, “Be quiet.”

You nod your head in response to him before licking the length of his finger, he gives you a heated gaze. Equally annoyed and turned on.

“Bi-Han, hurry up, I know you are in there,” It’s Kuai-Liang’s voice.

He grunts at his brother, “Give me a moment.” He rolls his eyes as he moves to let you go and get himself out of bed. You’re still smiling at his annoyance, he’s a bit of a drama queen, you think.

After he’s out of the bed you flip onto your stomach, pulling the blanket to properly cover your bottom half. Your arms slide under the pillow, pulling it closer, you press the side of your face into it. Facing Bi-Han as he pulls his robe from last night back on, tying it in the front quickly.

You can’t help but watch as he moves to the door, he stands in the way of you before opening the door a crack, shielding your form from Kuai’s sight. From where you are laying you can only see Bi-Han’s back, a very nice view indeed. You flop your head back onto the pillows, neck sore from craning it to watch him walk across the room.

“What do you want?” Bi-Han is straight to the point.

“Good morning to you too, Bi-Han.” Comes Kuai Liang’s unbothered response.

Bi-Han says nothing further but you’re guessing it’s more than likely he’s pinned him with an annoyed look.

Your theory gains more merit when Kuai Liang continues speaking, “It is getting later in the morning, Lui Kang asked to see us today, remember?”

“I remember.” Bi-Han is also unbothered.

You roll your eyes a bit, he has a meeting with the Fire God, defender of Earthrealm, Lord Lui Kang and he’s wasting his time in bed with you. Like meeting with Lui Kang is the least important thing he has to do today. It makes you feel soft and gooey inside, like you’re special and you’re suddenly struck with the realisation that, perhaps, to him you are special.

Kuai lets out an exasperated sigh, already sick of this conversation, “also, Bi-Han, if you’re going to have…” there’s a palpable silence before he continues on, “…guests you should at least try to be more discrete.”

You feel lightening go through you, you shoot up from your position on the bed; now sitting with your knees tucked under you. Eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights.

Bi-Han grunts a little at his brother, he doesn’t get to ask Kuai Liang how he knows, he’s already telling you both, “You were both, not quiet, and my room is close.” He’s a little bashful as he informs you both.

“Does anyone else know?” You ask Kuai.

“As far as I know, no, I don’t imagine they would. The others rooms are further away.” He considers his words for a moment, not looking you in the eyes, which confuses you. He continues, “Tomas might have heard, but he is usually a heavy sleeper.”

You ruminate on the layout of the quarters for a moment, Bi-Han and his brothers are clumped together, yours are further away from all the men, hence the sneaking through the temple to get here, and the rest of the guys are further from Bi-Han’s room. They’re still in the same area but not as close, which you are grateful for right this moment. You think if Johnny were the one to hear you both, you’d die of embarrassment on the spot, he would not be able to keep it a secret and if he did, it would only be to torture you for his own amusement.

Bi-Han turns around to look at you, his eyes go wide, “cover yourself!”

You look down at yourself and realise the blanket is around your waist, you’re shocked but you also find Bi-Han’s reaction funny.

Giggling nervously, you pull it up over your chest, “Sorry, Kuai Liang.” You’re holding back a smile as you apologise.

“It’s fine.” Kuai brushes you off, a slight pink tinge visible on his cheeks.

“No, it is not,” Bi-Han groans out, “You’re gonna kill me I swear.”

You smile at him, “Sorry, Bi-Han.”

He grunts at you before facing his brother again, “Is that all?”

“Don’t be rude, invite him in.”

You imagine Bi-Han has made a disgruntled face at your words but invites his brother in all the same.

You’re certain Kuai has some questions and considering he was forced to listen to you both last night, answers are the least you can do for him at the moment. Bi-Han shuts the door behind his brother before picking up your robe and moving to face you. He slips your arms through it and closes it over you properly, dressing you while hiding your frame from his brother. Not that it would matter, Kuai Liang is being very polite and looking up at the ceiling as Bi-Han dresses you.

“You can look now,” you tell Kuai gently.

Bi-Han cuts in, “It would be preferable if you stayed staring at the ceiling though.”

“Ignore him,” you lightly poke Bi-Han in the side, and he slaps your hand away gently.

Kuai Liang answers you and ignores Bi-Han’s comment, “I normally do.”

You chuckle at his response, very much brothers, you think. Kuai finds a chair and pulls it up for himself to sit in, both Bi-Han and yourself stay sitting side by side on the bed.  

With the way things are going you suspect they would both just stare at each other all morning, engaged in an unspoken staring contest.

You decide to interrupt their wordless conversation, “I am sure you must have questions, Kuai. We will answer any you may have.”

“No, we won’t.” Bi-Han deadpans.

You give him a side eye, but he stays staring at his brother, trying to tell him it is not okay to ask questions.

Kuai Liang carries on anyways, having mastered the art of ignoring his brother, “This is… not the first time you both have…?” He trails off but you know what he is asking.

Bi-Han is quick to hit him with, “None of your business–”

“–It is not the first time, no.” You cut off Bi-Han, answering the question.

“When did it start?” He carries on.

You think on it for a second, it feels like so much longer, but it’s only been, “about a week.”

Kuai considers his next question carefully, “is it just… do you two like each other?”

You aren’t really sure how to answer that, you know you like Bi-Han, and he likes you, but you’ve not actually spoken about what this is between you both, or how you would define it to others.

Surprisingly and thankfully, Bi-Han answers that, “yes.”

His admission of liking you to a third party makes your insides giddy and you smile softly to yourself.

Kuai Liang looks a little shocked by his brother, whether it be his admission or just liking someone in general you aren’t sure, but he says, “I guess that explains why you were staring at her.”

You laugh a little at that, but Bi-Han predictably replies with, “I don’t stare.” You say it in tandem with him, much to his chagrin. “I don’t like when you do that.” Bi-Han directs at you.

You’re still amused, “I don’t like when you don’t admit to obvious truths.”

He rolls his eyes at you, something you’ve found yourself growing fond of. Now enjoying annoying him just to see him either roll his eyes or raise an eyebrow at you.

“We are trying to keep this from everyone else, so it would be appreciated if you didn’t tell the others.” You tell Kuai Liang.

“What she means is, I will hurt you.” Bi-Han threatens.

You jab him lightly in his ribs with your elbow, he is unphased, your action not even moving him.

Kuai nods his head anyways, once again paying his brother no mind, “I will not tell anyone, but it would be better if you both tried… keeping it down.”

You look as guilty as you feel, Bi-Han has no shame though, “Don’t listen, then.”

“It was not intentional!” Kuai looks annoyed and flustered.

“Bi-Han, we should’ve been more aware of those around us.” You tell him quietly.

His face is pulled up in a scowl, he shoots you a dark look, one that tells you something you already know. He likes when you’re loud in bed, and he isn’t going to stop fucking you till you scream. He does not care that others will hear, and knowing someone did hear, changes nothing for him.

You determine that you will have to talk with him privately because you would really rather the others not hearing you getting your brains fucked stupid.

“He can buy some ear plugs,” Bi-Han shrugs.

“Not the issue right now,” you’re incensed with him, he’s being intentionally dense again.

Kuai looks between the both of you, he seems lightly amused by you both. He goes to talk again, “In any case, those are my most burning questions, we have to meet with Lui Kang.”

He makes a move to stand up, “Now, or we will be late, Bi-Han.”

Bi-Han looks irritated, he closes his eyes and huffs out a sigh, “I know, I will be with you both shortly.”

Kuai goes to complain about him being late again, but you stop him, “It’s okay Kuai, I’ve got it.”

“Thank you,” he replies before slipping back out the room, on his way to meet with Lui Kang.

You turn to face Bi-Han on the bed properly, “We were not careful, that is our fault.”

“He should have minded his own business.”

“He did us a favour by informing us, now, get changed properly, you apparently have a meeting today.” You smile up at him, that whole conversation was beyond embarrassing, but you can’t seem to mind right now. The morning had been perfect otherwise and considering the alternatives, Kuai being the one who overheard you both is a blessing in disguise.

He flops back on the bed, “I do not want to go to the meeting, I wanted to stay here, in bed with you.”

“You know I have training today anyways; I would’ve had to leave.” You’re trying to reason with him.

But Bi-Han knows no reason when it comes to you, “fairly certain I could have convinced you to stay in bed with me.” He props himself up by his forearm, the shadow of a smirk on his lips.

Leaning down you quickly peck his lips before getting off his bed, stretching your sore muscles. “You have the biggest ego I have ever seen on someone.”

“Not just my ego that is big,” he retorts.

You ignore his cockiness; it will somehow end up with you back in his arms if you do. Instead, you walk into his bathroom, rinsing your face and using the toilet.

When you emerge, he is half dressed, wearing his pants. He looks up at you when you exit, “I will walk you back to your room,” he offers.

“It isn’t on the way to Lui Kang, you will be late.”

“It will be fine; I’d rather see you get back unseen and safe.” He says as he walks into the bathroom himself.

When he’s back in your view you watch him finish dressing himself, pulling his hair back quickly into his signature bun. He looked breathtaking with his hair down, remembering last night makes you blush. Mindlessly you continue to watch Bi-Han get himself ready.

His eyes catch yours and he walks towards you, leaning down to you he asks, “Why are you blushing?”

“No reason,” you smile at him, kissing him on the nose.

He hums softly, “I’m sure.”

He turns to put his boots on, when they’re on he looks back at you, reaching his hand out. You take it and he pulls you to him, he gives you a heated kiss. The kind he gives you just to take your breath away and leave you wanting more.

When he pulls back, he says to you, “Come on, sweet girl.”

You pull him in for a hug, feeling the need to hold him close for a moment. He allows it, rubbing his hands up and down your back. Soothing you, it’s another intimate moment that has you feeling warm.

When you pull back you say, “okay, I’m ready now.”

He smiles at you curiously but you both walk out of his room and head toward your own, you are grateful for the company on the walk back. You are also grateful that he shows you a path less crowded, avoiding anyone who might be up and around.

Both of you remain unseen, but Bi-Han is particularly alert to your surroundings as you walk back regardless. It makes you feel safe, having him keep a watchful eye. For the first time in a while, you don’t feel like you have to be attuned to everything around you and you’re thankful for it.

Now that you are both alone you broach the topic of being more alert of your volumes while in the throes of passion, “we should be more careful Bi-Han, it’s embarrassing to me that Kuai heard us last night.”

He sighs, “Mmm, you may try to be quieter, but I doubt you will be successful.”

“I will be quieter, next time.” You feel determined now, as if he issued you a challenge.

He hums thoughtfully, “we will see.”

The rest of the walk is pleasant, albeit electric. You want him badly, but you’re aware of what is important right now. He has a meeting, and you have training, you kept repeating this to yourself as a reminder.

In front of your room, you look both ways before leaning up and kissing him, you go to pull away, but his mouth follows yours. He groans into your mouth, deepening the kiss for a brief moment before ultimately pulling back himself.

You’re a touch out of breath as you say, “thank you, for walking me back to my room.”

“You are most welcome, sweet girl.” His hand reaches to your cheek, thumb rubbing your cheekbone. He double checks the area and then leans in again, pressing a quick peck to your lips that you return.

“I will see you later.”

And then he’s gone, walking back the way you came. Yes, this morning had been perfect indeed.

❆˖°

Lucky for you, you are not late to training. Even though you had to spend extra time finding a shirt with a neck high enough to cover the hickey’s you had forgotten Bi-Han had given you. The very orange training outfit sits on top of the borderline turtleneck you’re wearing under it.

As you walk through the Fire Temple, you realise that Kuai would have seen your skin littered with marks earlier and that makes you feel so fucking embarrassed. It’s bad enough that he heard you last night, it’s worse that he saw obvious evidence of it. You try to push it out of your mind, the damage is done now anyways.

Though when you walk into the training area, you are praying that no one asks you questions about the turtleneck, it’s sleeveless so it’s just the neck poking out from under your shirt. You aren’t sure if that’s more suspicious though, maybe you should’ve just worn make up, or are you overthinking again? Probably the last option.

If you’re being honest, this orange outfit is very bright. Not your personal tastes, you feel like a large, well… orange. Or maybe a traffic cone. If you had your own pick, you would be wearing something else, but you also find it cute how you’re all matching.

“Happy morning, boys!” You call out to everyone, is that a phrase people use? Are you too chipper? Do you usually behave like this? You’re very self-conscious after Kuai Liang heard everything last night.

You’ve been taking it like a champ but if you find out one more person heard you, you might cry on the spot.

“Happy morning?” Kenshi asks.

“Yeah, it’s the same as good morning, I don’t understand your confusion.” It’s not something you’ve said or heard other people say before, so you do understand his confusion actually, your nervousness is turning you into a gas lighter.

They all stand there looking at you like you’re boo boo the fool, Raiden breaks the awkward silence, “…happy morning to you too.”

You are going to explode into a shower of blood rain, you need to get it together. You’d think it’s your first day on Earth.

Thankfully, Johnny also brushes right past your weirdness, “you ready to face me today, darlin?”

Ah, you’re sparring against each other today, you had forgotten. Sparring against Johnny isn’t necessarily something you’re worried about, it’s the fact that you got fucked into next week and your muscles are yelling at you. Today is gonna be one bitch of a day.

You don’t falter though, “you know it, I’ll be taking you down, Hollywood.” That felt more normal, pats on the back for you.

You guess Johnny just signed you both up for going first. A new problem has formed of this situation though, if you let him get the upper hand you can bow out while he spars with the next person, which means you could take it easy for the first half of training. However, you are competitive and don’t want to throw the round. Which, if you manage to out manoeuvre him, will mean you continue to spar with the next person.

This exercise is meant to be light-hearted, hand to hand sparring. Learning to get a feel against a real opponent. You’re going to have to make a real attempt to not be so competitive. Afterall, this isn’t a competition. It’s a sparring exercise.

Both you and Johnny move over to a clear area and position yourselves in the official defensive stances you’ve been taught. Something that does not come naturally to you, you’ve had previous fighting experience, and it contradicts the methods you’re being taught while here.

He moves at you first, kicking out and aiming at your side, very predictable of him. You move back at the kick, dodging it. He continues to move closer towards you, a right hook coming at you, you duck down and punch his side, throwing off his centre of balance slightly. You move, rounding him until you’re facing his back. You kick the back of his knee, and he goes down.

His palms stop him from faceplanting into the ground, you step on his back pushing him down further. You drop on him and bring your arms around his neck, putting him in a chokehold. His arms come up to yours wrapped around his neck and try pulling you off. You’re being careful not to actually apply any pressure to his neck but you’re holding firm in your position. Pulling back on him slightly, his back bends.

His hands give up on trying to pull out of the choke hold and instead he flops to the ground properly. He rolls taking you with him, you imagine it’s quite the scene to watch. Laying all of his weight on you manages to loosen your grip around his neck and he takes the opportunity to quickly switch around so he’s facing you.

He has the upper hand now and he’s pinning your arms to the ground by your wrists, “Wanna tap out, sugar?”

Such a flirt, you think, “I don’t think so, sugar.”

It hurts a bit as you do it, due to the fact you were in this kind of position under very different circumstances last night. You reach your legs up, and knee his stomach slightly as you do, giving yourself more room to move. They continue up and through his arms that are pinning you down. Manoeuvring them around his neck and clamping down. Using the momentum, you’ve gained to sway him to the side.

Once you’re on top again, your thighs are by his head, or more accurately, squeezing his neck. You lean your upper half back slightly and grab his wrists in both of your hands, pulling his arms back behind you to pin him to the spot. Thighs holding him in place.

The position is unorthodox, something that you were not taught during your time here, but you didn’t want him to win. Not that you’re being competitive or anything.

You look down at him and he wiggles his eyebrows, “I don’t mind this position.” He has a shit eating grin on his face.

You shake your head at him, “Does that mean you’re tapping out?”

“If I do, can we stay like this?” His question filled with suggestion; he is very bold.

“I am not releasing you until you tap out.” Your gaze filled with nothing but the desire to win.

His grin gets wider, a full-blown smile now, “then I don’t tap out.”

“Johnny, c’mon,” your voice is laced with a pleading annoyance.

He tries to supress his smile but fails, you can hear the guys off to the side groaning too. You look to them for support. “Guys, help?”

Kung Lao looks at you with an apologetic albeit amused face, “I don’t know what you want me to do here, just let him up.”

You make an unhappy face at Kung Lao and look back down at Johnny, “just tap out man, I need to hear you say you concede.”

“I don’t.” He says cheekily.

You roll your eyes at him but then you feel it, the tell-tale sign that Bi-Han is staring at you. A shiver running down your spine, one that you’ve learnt to suppress the outward signs of.

Looking up, you lock eyes with Bi-Han, he’s off to the side, Lui Kang, Kuai Liang, and Tomas with him. He’s giving you angry eyes; you aren’t really concerned with why right now though. You are concerned with winning.

You continue to pin Johnny, unwilling to let him up until he admits defeat, but it’s almost like an unstoppable force meets an immovable object.

“Johnny, just say you tap out.” You ask him again.

“He does,” comes Bi-Han’s booming voice from above, cutting off anything Johnny was about to say. He had moved closer surprisingly quick.

“Hey man, I can speak for myself,” he looks up to Bi-Han.

This whole situation is ridiculous, you look over to Kuai and he looks very on edge. Bi-Han’s eyes look like he’s considering various way to commit murder right now.

Johnny looks up at you, ignoring Bi-Han, “I concede.” He smiles at you.

“Thank you,” you sigh, moving to unpin him and get up.

He keeps smiling at you, laying on the floor, “you can stay where you are though if you’d like.”

You roll your eyes at him, “In your dreams, Hollywood.”

When you’re off him, you lean down and offer him your hand, helping him off the floor. You found it all quite funny if you’re honest, but by the look on Bi-Han’s face, he did not. Not by a long shot.

“Alright, who do you want to spar against next, sugar?” Johnny asks.

You laugh, “that’s all you, I need a break after putting up with you.”

He chuckles at your response but points at Kenshi, “C’mon tattoo, you’re up.”

Kenshi lets out a sigh and rolls his eyes at Johnny, already reaching his limit for putting up with him for today. That’s a new record, Kenshi can normally put up with him until lunch.

You walk off to the side and move to stand beside Kuai Liang, Bi-Han follows behind you, and he stops when you do. You’re sandwiched between the two of them right now, you feel nervous, like you’re in trouble with the principle or something. Lui Kang and Tomas are next to Kuai Liang on his other side.

The position you had Johnny in was compromising, sure, you can see that. But on the other hand, you literally had him in a choke hold. You were sparring with him and trying to win, you’re missing something that would make Bi-Han’s borderline repressed rage make sense for you.

Lui Kang breaks the tension, “very impressive, how you took him down, I am sorry to have missed most of it.”

“Thank you, if only he didn’t enjoy it so much, I’d take more pride in it.” You tell Lui Kang, though you’re grateful for the compliment.

You had felt pretty proud of yourself at the takedown of a man larger than yourself, especially when your muscles are sore and achy today, but that was a little undone when Bi-Han was emitting murderous vibes.

“I don’t think he can help himself,” Lui Kang says in reference to Johnny.

You snicker a bit at Lui Kang’s statement, you don’t think Johnny can help himself either, but he seems kind-hearted. The friendships you’ve created amongst everyone here are very important to you, and most important to you is Bi-Han.

Your hand is itching to reach out for him, but you feel like he’s cross with you, and you aren’t up for the embarrassment of him possibly pulling away from you right now. Not after such a good morning with him, waking up in his arms is what has kept you so positive today.

Looking up at him you try and decipher what he’s thinking right now, his face has fallen back into his usual stoic look. Though he is staring at Johnny, eyes alight with thinly veiled anger.

You turn to your other side and look at Kuai Liang, he meets your eyes and leans down to whisper to you, “he has never been good at sharing.”

Oh. Oh.

It’s clicked for you; you knew he was angry, but you didn’t know exactly why. It was just a training exercise, one you were trying to win however you could, but to Bi-Han it might have looked different.

You whisper back to Kuai, “thanks.”

He nods once at you before looking forward again, watching Kenshi and Johnny spar. It is quite the sight, they’re a bit less restrained than what your round with Johnny was. You don’t know if that’s because Kenshi is actually trying to harm Johnny or because you’re a woman and they go easy on you. That stings a little if it’s the latter, you deserve the respect of a proper fight.

You go to move closer to Raiden and Kung Lao, planning to re-join the training but Bi-Han’s hand grabs onto your wrist. Keeping you in place beside him, it makes your heart flutter. He pulls away fairly quickly, not lingering for too long, for fear of the others seeing. But the small action makes you feel a little better, he’s pissed but he still wants you near him.

Johnny loses to Kenshi; you think if he hadn’t fought you first, they might have ended up in a stalemate.

Kenshi points to you from where he’s standing, “you’re up again, sugar.”

You laugh, apparently that’s catching on amongst the group. You can feel Bi-Han stiffen beside you. Not enjoying any of this.

“Gimmie a sec,” you call out to him. Turning to Bi-Han you say, “calm down, please.” You say it softly enough so to anyone else it’s inaudible.

You walk over to Kenshi, ready to spar again. Bi-Han lets you go this time, knowing he can’t make a scene but really wanting to.

You beat Kenshi but only barely, you’re tired and sore. Which you do complain about, but after Kenshi, you stop trying to go so hard. You spar against Raiden and Kung Lao, but you are stuck on defensive, attack isn’t your strong suit and with how tired you are the most you can do is hope to out manoeuvre them, not able to pull anything like what you did with Johnny in the first round. Not unless you want to injure yourself.

If you were using a weapon, you would fare better but alas, you are but a woman who got fucked silly last night and already sparred against two men. And two out of two, is a pretty good score. You take your losses like a champ and take your wins like a champ too.

The rest of training was hell for Bi-Han, you could tell by the way his eyes never left your form. His anger increasing with every hand that was on your waist or flirtatious remark made, ones you did not return. Ones that had him pissed anyways.

He normally wouldn’t stay for this, finding it a waste of his time to watch armatures train but he stayed today. The whole time, he stayed, and he watched you.

❆˖°

There wasn’t a second of the day where you were alone, and not a second you could slip away either. You probably could’ve made an excuse, but you feel that might have been too obvious, mostly because if you had managed a moment to yourself Bi-Han would’ve followed you wherever you went. Meaning any attempt, you made to be inconspicuous would have gone out the window.

Either way, the result was your whole day being spent with everyone, while a very watchful Bi-Han never strayed too far from you. You have only just now been released from the company of everyone, and it’s already evening.

Finally, back in your own room and able to shower, enjoying the hot water running over your body. It’s been a long day, and the heat of the shower is helping to cleanse the hard day off your skin. Muscles completely relaxing under the stream, you’ve been tense all day, partly because of training but mostly because of the eyes watching you.

Your mind drifts to Bi-Han, jealousy looked hot on him, it also looked… deadly. You might have to sneak back over to his room again tonight, to talk with him. Assure him that you want no one else, maybe talk to him about what exactly is happening between the two of you.

Spending the night in Bi-Han’s bed sounds inviting, waking up in his arms tomorrow would be nice. The urge to be domestic with him is growing, something simple, like breakfast together or maybe a date? You think you’d like that, being asked on a date, taken somewhere and doted on. The idea makes your cheeks blush softly, not that it’s noticeable, the water is running hot; your skin already flush. Turning off the water, you exit the shower. Pulling the fresh towel off the sinks basin, you dry yourself off and then wrap it around your body.

When you leave the bathroom the last thing you expect to see is Bi-Han waiting for you, standing in the middle of your quarters; arms crossed over his chest and an angry look in his eyes. It isn’t what you expected to see but if you’re honest with yourself, you could have predicted it. He looked like he wanted to speak with you all day, it’s not shocking that he didn’t wait for you to go to him. He is not patient; you already know this about him.

He just stares at you, like he has been doing all day, so you speak first, “Hello?”

You probably could have picked something more eloquent to say but you aren’t sure of yourself right now. Plus, you feel exposed, he’s fully dressed and you’re in a towel, and you’re damp. Really, he could’ve waited an extra minute or something and you would’ve been more prepared for whatever he’s about to say.

“I am not… pleased,” he’s straining himself trying to express how he honestly feels. It would be amusing if you didn’t feel so self-conscious right now.

“I noticed.” You don’t really know where he’s going with this, so you don’t have anything else to offer in response.

He takes a breath, “Today was a challenge, for me, watching others touch you, flirt with you.” His words come out with empty space between them, empty but filled with his bitten back rage.

You feel bad, honestly but you felt like no lines were seriously crossed, not for you anyways.

“Bi-Han, it was harmless, they are harmless. I am not interested in any of them.”

You can tell he is trying so hard for you, trying so hard not to lose his cool, “That may be true, but they are certainly interested in you.”

“They’re my friends, they are not interested in me.” You tell him because you genuinely believe it.

“They want you.” His upper lip pulls into a scowl.

You shake your head at him, “What makes you think that?”

“The way they look at you,” he says, his arms straining against his chest.

You don’t really know what he means, “they… look, at me?”

“They look at you how I look at you.” His eyes squint at you, adding emphasis to his statement.

You smile a little, “and how do you look at me?”

His head lowers to his chest, eyes harsh as he pins you with a look “with want.”

You don’t really know what to offer him right now, “What would make you feel better?”

“Their deaths,” he shoots back quickly.

You roll your eyes at him, “you aren’t killing them.”

“Then, I want them to know you’re taken.”

You exhale sharply, “But you said–”

“–I know what I said,” he cuts you off abruptly, his eyes emotive.

The room is quiet, you’re giving him time to pull his thoughts together. It’s obvious he has more to say, he just doesn’t know how to. Your gaze wanders over him, his arms, his chest, his neck, lips, eyes, his very pretty eyes.

You go to speak, not able to keep your thoughts to yourself, “Bi-Han, I like you, and I only want you. I don’t know how much that helps, but it’s what I’ve wanted to say to you all day.”

His gaze softens slightly at your words, you’ve offered him at least some solace, “It helps.”

You’re glad it does, “now, I need to change, could you turn around, please?” You ask. Preferring to continue this conversation fully clothed.

He makes a face, like he’s deep in thought, “why would I? I’ve seen you naked before.”

You look at him, unamused. To get dressed in front of someone is a very vulnerable display, you’d rather he just turns around for a minute. Especially since his eyes have a way of devouring you.

He shrugs his shoulders at you, “I wouldn’t bother dressing.”

“And why is that?” You ask.

“Cause I’m ‘bout to fuck you.” He stalks toward you, placing a hand on your hip and the other on your face; his thumb traces your bottom lip. “Gonna fuck you right, enough so you can’t train tomorrow.”

“Should I be concerned?” You ask, mostly to tease but he’s also got the look of a beast hunting its prey. It sends chills through your body, his words making you buzz with excitement.

“Yes.” His eyes look over your neck and collarbones, the marks he left last night still there. They’ve bloomed into dark purples, the softer ones a yellow.

His hand on your cheek slides down to your neck, touching the marks he had left. His eyes have fire in them, pleased with the hickeys he’s left on you. His expression is making your body temperature rise. You don’t know what he’s going to do to you but it’s thrilling, the way he takes you in.

“It’s a shame you hid these today, left them to be seen.” His eyes don’t leave the marks on your skin.

“It was embarrassing enough for Kuai to see them.”

He smiles and looks into your eyes, his smile is humourless, “I don’t care.”

You pout at him, you wish he would, he’s completely shameless. The one who brought up keeping this entanglement a secret but not doing anything to keep it that way.

“Mmm, you’re at my mercy tonight, completely.” He informs you.

That surprises you, “I wasn’t last night?”

His smile turns ravenous, “not even close, sugar.” He spits out the nickname, like it’s burnt him. Showing his disdain for your newly ordained nickname amongst the guys, courtesy of Johnny.

“Don’t call me that.” You don’t wanna be called that, not by him.

“Why not? Don’t like it?”

You shake your head at him.

“Like when I call you sweet girl?” He asks, gently.

Nodding your head at him, you say, “prefer it.”

“’Course you do.”

He leans down to you, lips catching yours, this kiss is languid at first. Searching, he takes his time, working you open slowly. His thumb eventually pulls your jaw down, opening your mouth for him, tongue entering it. He hums against you, always pleased at how pliant and willing you are.

Pulling back from your lips, he says as much, “the virtue of politeness, sometimes think you’d let me do whatever I want.”

“I would.” It’s honest, your words. You don’t mean for them to come out at all, let alone that quickly.

It should concern you, how willing you are. But the man has such an odd effect on you. Nothing has ever felt like this, you’ve had very few relationships, and they don’t even hold a candle to the way you feel for Bi-Han. The vulnerability you display with him makes you feel… well, vulnerable.

His eyes are bright at your admission, loving the way you agreed, “good, sweet girl.”

His face leans into your neck, inhaling your skin. You tilt your head back, giving him more room and he hums appreciatively. He lays gentle kisses against your skin, at least, at first he does, then he bites you. In the crook of where your neck meets your shoulder, he bites down hard enough to leave a mark.

The pain makes jump slightly, a strangled noise coming from you. His tongue laves over the spot, soothing it. His lips kiss up your neck and jaw, before taking yours in a heated kiss. Fervent, filled with need. His kiss deep and long, it pulls a whine from you, a noise you were trying to conceal. You haven’t forgotten you want to try and be quieter.

Bi-Han keeps kissing you, tongue borderline reverent, worshipping your mouth. Swallowing the noises you make against him. Your arms clutching the fabric of his shirt, holding on. Feeling as though, if you were to let go, you’d fall into an invisible pit below you. Your grip on him grounding you, barely.

When he pulls back, it’s to let you catch your breath for a moment. Huffing against his mouth faintly, he takes the opportunity of your mouth being open to lean in again and place more full kisses on your lips, pulling back after each one but they’re all filled with the desire he carries for you.

His kisses are overwhelming you, your eyes wet with need, he’s done nothing but kiss you and it’s setting you on fire. Using the hands on his chest you push him back slightly.

His hands move to cradle your face, one of them brushing your damp hair back, “what’s wrong, sweet girl?”

“Devastating, your kisses… are devastating.” Eyes big as you look up at him.

He smiles down at you, “good, they’re meant to be.” His eyes, always his eyes, so much depth, yearning, “I want you needy, want you overcome by me, want you to think of nothing but me, consumed by your own cravings.”

He pauses for a moment before adding, “want you to feel, how I feel about you.”

Heart pounding at his words, you need him to know, “I already do feel that way.”

“No, you don’t… but you will, when I’m finished with you.”

He kisses you again, holding your head in his hands; moving you so your mouth slots against his, the cruel kiss a contrast to the gentle cradle he's holding you in. Sliding his hands down to your hips he guides you to your bed, removing his mouth from yours to push you back on the bed.

Holding your towel as you fall, you flop against the mattress, bouncing a bit as your back hits it. You adjust yourself, so you’re resting on your forearms, Bi-Han is watching you from above deliberating his next move. He settles on undressing his upper half and removing his boots, leaving his pants on. The process takes a bit, the man wears far too many layers, but you enjoy the show anyways.

Then his hands are reaching for you, he pulls at your towel. You go to hold onto it and his eyes move to yours, “off.”

“I’m shy,” you sulk at him.  

He scoffs in return, “too bad.” And then he’s pulling it off and out from under you, your back lying flat on the bed again. The display of his strength making your pussy throb.

Your hands move to cover your chest, legs closed together. Being completely bare in front of someone is always a little nerve-wracking at first. Especially when he’s making you feel like you’re about to be eaten whole. That and because he’s still wearing pants, it’s making you feel overexposed compared to him, you guess, at least he took off his shirt.

He shakes his head at you, he crawls onto the bed and over top of you, knees resting either side your thighs. He nods towards your hands covering your chest, “c’mon, sweet girl, be good for me.”

Damn, well now you have to, you want to be good for him. Bastard. You move your arms away, dropping them beside your head.

“Thas a good girl.” He smiles at you; he has a pretty smile.

His praise goes straight to your core, your thighs rub together mindlessly in response. Seeking friction on their own accord. He’s dragging this out, not touching you anywhere, not with his hands anyways.

Moving closer to you, his lips peck yours, and then the side of your face, down to your neck again. He licks over the bite mark he left, before moving further down, marks being left in his wake. More hickeys will be blooming on you tomorrow morning. He’s trailed down between your breasts, sucking a mark between them both before catching one of your nipples in his mouth.

The feeling has your back arching off the bed, his tongue flicks at it. He bites it softly as he pulls away, switching to the other and giving it the same attention as the first.

His mouth moves back up your body, sucking more marks into you as he goes. You don’t think you’ve ever been this wet, this needy, you didn’t think you could get this wet.

Slick spread over your inner thighs, leaking from you as he presses his wet mouth against your skin. It’s the longest he’s teased you with his mouth without speaking. You, yourself are breathless, not able to string together a coherent sentence. Actively avoiding it too, biting at your own lips to keep your sounds from reaching the air.

He leans back to marvel at your skin, shiny from the wet marks his mouth has left, already beginning to bloom pinks and reds. He looks unbelievably pleased with himself and his handy work.

“Mm, perfect, look fucken perfect all marked up by my mouth.” His eyes look back into yours. Eyes thrilled at the need in your own.

“Bi-Han, please.” You aren’t quite sure what exactly you’re asking for, but he seems to know.

He shushes you as he shuffles a bit, slipping one of his legs between yours to spread them open. When he can see your pussy, he sees how wet you are, and he lets out a wolf whistle at it, grin enthusiastic as he looks at the evidence of your arousal.

“Fucken, look at you, sweet girl, sweet, needy girl.” His gaze is greedy, “haven’t even fucken, touched you.” He’s sincerely astonished by your bodies reaction to him.

Both his hands go to pull your legs apart properly, moving them to the outside of his thighs. Manoeuvring you how he pleases, your mind numbed and agreeable. Having forgotten your previous shyness.

“Gonna touch you now,” he warns you; you aren’t really sure why.

His thumbs pull your lips apart, and then he moves a finger through your slit; you understand his warning now. He has used his powers to make his hand ice, the cold a shock to your system. Both of your hands shoot up to cover your mouth.

The glide of his finger on your pussy is smooth, the wetness coming from you making it slick. He notches two of his fingers at your hole and then he’s pushing in, stilling them when they’re in as far as they’ll go, the freezing cold a shock, a whiny gasp coming muffled behind your hands. Your pussy hole flutters around his fingers, Bi-Han is awestruck, watching your cunt react to his cold fingers.

“Look at you, mmm, so wet, so messy, perfection.” He’s mumbling it more to himself than you, wouldn’t matter if he was talking to you, you’re a bit preoccupied right now.

His thumb reaches up to your clit, the sudden cold feels like a lot, feels devastating. He doesn’t move his thumb, just holds it there, adding pressure. Your hips rise marginally, seeking friction, wanting more. Wanting his fingers to move.

Taking the hint, his fingers start moving, pace increasing slowly, sliding in and out of you, then back into you, crooking to rub against something cataclysmic. The cold of his fingers a deep contrast to the hugging heat of your walls. Your cunt clenches down on his fingers harshly, the wet of your arousal and his ice fingers too slick to slow down his movements.

Your hands stay covering your mouth, muffling your whimpers but not stopping them. He’s finger fucking you in full earnest now, eyes never leaving the way your pussy pulls his fingers back in. He doesn’t want to miss a single moment, enjoying the shudders and clenches of your cunt against his fingers. The thumb on your clit starts moving, rubbing controlled circles into it.

It doesn’t take you long to cum at all. Your back bows off the bed, toward him, your eyes roll back in your head and a silent cry is pulled from you. Bi-Han groans, enjoying the sight of you blissed out.

“Mmm, thas it, perfect, just like that, sweet girl…” He continues babbling praises to you as you cum all over his ice-cold fingers.

The pleasure is foreign, never having experienced an orgasm this strong from just someone’s fingers. A statement that also was previously said about Bi-Han’s ability to finger fuck you into next year, he’s now bested his prior record. The introduction of his ice powers having an incredibly overwhelming effect on your pussy.

“Always so fucken sensitive,” it’s a compliment, he means it as one anyways.

He moves to press soft kisses onto your face, giving you a second to catch your breath and come back to Earth, having levitated to a higher plane temporarily.

When you can think coherently again you look him in the eyes, they feel foggy. He reaches his hand up and brushes a stray tear from your cheek, one you hadn’t realised fell.

“Not even close to being done with you yet, sweet girl. Need you to fucken, pull it together.”

You nod your head at him, “I’m here.”

“Good.” He replies simply.

He hops off you for a moment, removing his pants before coming back into your view. Back between your legs, positioning them on his hips again. He drags the head of his cock through your folds, he taps it against your clit a couple times, each tap sending a small shock through your body.

“Fuuuck, I’ve got an idea.” The smile on his face is downright diabolical. It sends a rush through you.

He puts the tip of his dick at your pussy hole, having used your arousal to coat his cock, easing the stretch and helping the slide as he presses into you. You let out small, contained whimpers, biting your lip again, hoping to remain quiet.

Bi-Han groans at the feel of you wrapped around him, closing his eyes, trying to control himself as he sinks deeper into you. Both his hands have an iron clad grip on your thighs, holding you open and grounding himself.

“I fffucked you last night and you’re still this – ngh – goddamntight.” He huffs out.

He pauses for a moment, takes a deep breath and then pushes all the way into you. The way he suddenly fucks into you taking you off guard.

“Bi-Hannnn” you moan out his name.

“Ah, there she is, my sweet, whiny, girl.” He has a cocky smirk on his face, “told you, you couldn’t be quiet.”

You roll your eyes at him, and he grinds down into you in response, unhappy at your response. “Don’t be rude, I’m being nice.”

“Doesn’t feel like it,” you retort.

The smile on his face is amused, “trust me, I’m being downright chivalrous right now.”

He readjusts his gaze down to your cunt, a hand coming off your thigh and moving to your clit. His fingers begin thrumming against it, the first orgasm lingering in your veins. The taps serve your overstimulation, body and pussy jumping at each tap.

He smiles wide at your bodies reaction, groaning lightly at each jump of your cunt. Your hands move back to your mouth to conceal your moans again, he allows it, for now.

He starts tapping his fingers against your clit harder and faster, the pleasure sending you over the edge far quicker than your first orgasm. You clench down on his cock and cum all over it. Bi-Han lets out a repressed grunt at your orgasm.

“Haah – thas what I fucken wanted,” He’s satisfied with himself, hypothesis being proven correct, he can slap your pussy into an orgasm. “Tight little – do you think you can do that again?” He asks you.

You shake your head no at him and he tuts in response, “I think you can.”

He continues slapping your clit, the force he uses increasing. Speeding up once again, slapping your clit, forcing another orgasm from you. You cum with a yelp, the overstimulation becoming too much on your clit. Reaching your hands down you hold the hand that was slapping it still.

Looking up into your eyes, you can see a devious smile on his face, “you really are sensitive.”

His dick is twitching inside you, his own arousal evident. Rock hard and wanting but not giving himself anything more than kissing your cervix with the tip of his cock. He lets you hold his hand back, enjoying the way you’re squirming under and around him. Letting you have a moment to come down before he does whatever he has planned next.

“I want you to know, this is me reminding you who you belong to.” He’s removing your hand from his, placing both his hands back on your thighs and grinding his dick into you.

“I don’t – mmph – need a reminder – hah.” You never forgot.

“Seems like you do, gonna have to mark you up, have you cum around me so much that anyone else is completely ruined for you, by me.” He’s huffing softly, “Gonna fill you with my cum, leave marks on your body, have your muscles aching and sore, just so you can never forget who fucks you this good.”

You whine, cunt clenching down on him, you bite your lip again halfway through your whine, remembering to keep the volume down. Something not overtly necessary since your quarters are furthest from everyone else’s but not willing to take the chance anyhow.

He chuckles cruelly at you, “mine now, sweet girl. Can’t even leave if you tried.”

“Okay,” is your simple response because you are okay with it.

You gasp, “you can’t either though.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.” He begins to draw his hips back, fucking back into you unforgivingly, beginning a rough pace.

His cock bullies its way into you, over and over and over again. Fucking you stupid, making you dizzy, the previous orgasms furthering the euphoric, fucked out look on your face. Bi-Han lets out a wry laugh at the expression you’re making, only to be cut off by his own moan.

His hands move your thighs up, folding you in half, positioning himself up slightly and fucking directly down into you. Using your thighs as leverage.

His eyes watch the way your cunt swallows him, loving the way you take all of him. His head moves forward and bites the part of your thigh just about your knee. The pain sending pleasure rolling down your spine, hips rising to grind into his thrusts, pussy clenching down onto him.

“Gods, the way you let me do whatever – ngh – I want to you, gonna blow my load thinking about it.” He gasps melodiously.

The room filled with the sound of skin slapping skin, your supressed whimpers and Bi-Hans bitten back gasps. You clamp down onto him so tightly his pace falters for a second, you’re cumming around him again.

He stops thrusting immediately when he realises you are, he rubs at your clit to help it along but won’t continue thrusting into you. You ride out your high, waves of pleasure crashing over you, eyes dazed and unseeing as you spasm around his length. Soft groans and whimpers are coming from Bi-Han as you cum around him for the third time.

When you’re back in your body, Bi-Han looks feral from holding back, holding off on his own orgasm. Wanting you to cum on his dick an undetermined number of times.

Once he’s calmed down and is sure he isn’t going to cum prematurely, he starts fucking back into you, same burning pace. He moves your legs over the crook in each of his arms, cradling your legs and holding onto your hips.

Including the three he coaxed from you, it’s another additional two orgasms before he says, “last one, last one and then – nghhhh – I’m cumming inside you so – mphh – deep, I’ll be leaking from you tomorrow.”

You blush at his words, babbling nonsense, having given up on repressing the noises you make an orgasm ago, “mmmkay, I – ngh – want it Grandmasterrr…”

“And you’ll – fffffucken take it – nghhh–”

He fucks into you, hitting something deep, it feels different from all the other orgasms, you try to warn him, “fffeels different, Bi-Hannnn, is too much – I can’t –”

“You can and you – mphh – will,” he bites back.

You’re shaking your head at him, eyes large and wet, “nooo, mm feels like I’m gonna pee–”

His face lights up excited, “you aren’t going to pee.”

You’re still shaking your head at him, but his hand reaches up, off your hip and grabs onto your face, squishing your cheeks between is large fingers.

“Look atme – ngh – let. it. happen.” His tone is demanding.

“Yes, Grandmaster.”

His smile is large and beautiful, his pace never stopping. Now dedicating his full attention back to fucking you. The tip of his cock bullying the spot that’s responsible for the foreign feeling. Specifically angling his thrusts to drive into the spot.

His hand slides from your face down to your tits, grabbing one of them and twisting your nipple, sending a sharp pleasurable feeling through you, before continuing the move down and landing on your hip again. Using his grip to encourage the force of his thrusts.

And then suddenly, you’re cumming, hard, Bi-Han’s eyes watch, fucked out, as you cum around him. Cunt tight, vice like grip on his cock. The sight of you cumming and the feeling driving him over the edge. A sharp biting sensation at your hips, you’re too fucked out to register what caused it at the moment.

His cum fills you up, spilling out around his dick, leaking out onto the bed between your bodies.

You’re gasping as you begin registering the things around you again, first noticing the thin layer of ice on your hips, evidence of Bi-Han completely losing control for a moment. And then noticing how wet Bi-Han’s pelvis is, all down his thighs, all down your thighs.

You stumble over your words, “I – I’ve never, I didn’t think–”

“–You fucken, squirted all over me, hottest thing I’ve ever seen, my sweet, sweet, sensitive girl.”

He drops your legs from where they’re resting on his arms, untangling you from him and then leaning down and kissing you deeply. You return his kiss and whimper into his mouth. When he pulls back, he kisses away the tears you shed from the devastating force of the orgasm he just gave you.

His pride is practically blinding you, his ego massively inflated right now, “you’ve got such a creamy little cunt, I thought you’d be able to squirt for me–”

Your hands shoot up and cover his mouth to stop him from talking, his words that serve as compliments to him always embarrass you. He’s too blunt, it makes your skin hot.

“Too descriptive.” You tell him.

He mumbles against your hands, “what?” You ask him and pull your hands back.

He smirks at you, “you like it, I can be even more descriptive, if you’d like.”

You shake your head at him, “that was embarrassing.” Your words are all slurred right now. No energy to talk properly.

“Shouldn’t be, it was hot, means I fucked you right,” he whispers into your ear, “means I’ve ruined all other men for you.”

And he has, but “that was true before,” you turn your head to the side and press a kiss to his cheek.

He pulls his cock out of you, both of you hissing at the feeling, then he rolls off you and lays flat on his back.

“Sweet girl, always trying to kill me.”

You look over to him, eyes glazed, “do you feel better now?”

“Slightly, would feel better if they could all see the marks I left on you.”

You chuckle, “nice try, they’re not seein the light of day.”

He groans out, “we’ll see.” He pats his chest, signalling for you to cuddle into him.

You move over slightly before giving up, too tired and too sore, “can’t move.”

He rolls his eyes at you but gently moves you towards him, also moving closer himself to make it as painless as possible for you.

Your head rests on his chest and you cuddle into his side, “you’re changing my sheets,” you inform him.

He sighs from above you, “fine, but next time, you’re sitting on my face.”

❆˖°

A/N: You guys know the drill; I do not apologise for the horny, we embrace it here! Thank you for reading the whole thing!! I love you all and I hope you enjoyed it, please, if you have any thoughts, feelings, or requests, leave a comment or message me! I love the feedback I have been getting, I added some peoples suggestions into this chapter, I wasn’t super active this week because I tried functioning like a normal human being (I mostly failed) but I saw comments and likes coming in and it keeps me motivated and super grateful to you all. <333

Part four <3

[messylustt]

late night calls — carlos oliviera

you rubbed at your eyes as you heard the rather alarming buzz of your phone on the nightstand. your eyes squinted against the light that came from your phone. through the brightness you saw carlos’ name. with furrowed brows you answered, rolling over in bed as you placed your phone to your ear. “carlos?”

“oh, thank god you’re awake.” he muttered somewhat groggily on the other line. “why, did something happen?” your body becomes tense, but carlos quickly consoles you. “nah, nah, just…i dunno…needed to chat” you raise your brows in the darkness of your room. “needed to chat?” you repeat.

“yeah, what’s wrong with that?” he replies with an almost seeable shrug. “it’s like two in the morning, carlos. i thought you were in trouble.” he chuckles on the other end. “don’t worry, you wouldn’t survive without me.” you scoff. “right now i think i can.” you go to hang up, but carlos’ almost desperate voice stops you. “wait, wait! y/n. don’t…don’t hang up.”

you pause, placing the phone back to your ear. “if nothings wrong, then why did you call?” carlos breathes out a small laugh. “do you gotta be a stickler all the time, huh? i don’t see nothing wrong with talking.”

“this early? also I’m not a stickler.” your voice turns slightly defencive. “right, right. yeah, no, definitely not.” carlos replies smoothly. you sigh, resting back against your pillow. “was there anything in particular you wanted to talk about?” you can hear carlos shift on the other end. “and what if i said i just wanted to hear you talk?”

“i’d rethink about hanging up.” you sweetly say. “oh come on...” carlos drags out, his voice still low from sleep. “you gotta a nice voice. is it so wrong that i wanna hear you first thing in the morning?” you can feel your face slightly heating up at that. you cough. “then you should have called me in the morning.”

“it is the morning.” he indignantly replies. “so you’re telling me you wake up everyday at this time?” you scoff. “sometimes.” he replies. “hey, these muscles don’t just appear.” despite it all and your tired form you manage a laugh. on the other end carlos awakens more at that. the sound reverberating through him. he liked your voice, even more your laugh. it was…comforting to him.

“get any sleep? before i kindly interrupted, of course.” carlos asks, back against his bed as he kept the phone close. his hair was a mess, and his shirt was somewhere across the room. “kindly, huh?” your eyes are slightly fluttering from tiredness. “always.” carlos replies. you lightly chuckle, though carlos can hear the sleepiness drenching your words.

“and uh, yeah, i guess my sleep is alright.” you continue, rolling over again in your bed, your right cheek now against the pillow. “how about you?” now your words are drifting. you don’t mean to let them, but your fried brain can’t help it.

“ah, with the size of me and the unfortunate size of my bed i wouldn’t say it’s top notch.” carlos replies. he waits a moment, and that’s when he catches the faintest sound of a sleepy breathe. you had fallen asleep. “is my voice that soothing?” carlos chuckles to himself. he had wanted to talk to you. but he hadn’t known what about. correction — he had wanted to hear you. as much as he could. but now it seems it’s not enough. he doesn’t think he can let his head hit back against his pillow, he doesn’t think he can sleep.

he hasn’t been sleeping. at all. the last time he remembers is when the two of you were stuck in an abandoned apartment, while the infected prowled outside. it had been cold. and you two had decided to use body heat. he had slept so soundly pressed against you like that. in all honesty he misses it. even if it occurred for a brief night. a good sleep is hard to forget.

he couldn’t help it. the soft sound of your breathing on the other line was almost begging for him to come. you wouldn’t mind, right? either way he’s already made it to your apartment. he’s already inside, the spare key you had leant to him in the panic now coming in handy. your apartment is silent, dark. he silently reaches your room, your phone hanging precariously now over the bed, your face squished up against your pillow. god he couldn’t help it. he creeps forward, slowly, quietly.

reaching the bed, it creaks, his body weight a little more than yours, your bed clearly not used to it. then he was under the covers, the sheet already feeling more comforting. he shifts closer to you, his front now at your back as his arm carefully drapes over your stomach. this is probably the most comfortable he’s been. his hand finds solace a fraction under your shirt, the heat from your skin bringing him even closer.

he actually manages a sigh as his breath hits your neck, his mouth close as his head hits the pillow. you slightly shift, a small airy groan leaving your lips. but carlos stays put, gently stroking your stomach as he whispered soothingly in your ear. “shh, it’s okay. it’s jus’ me. lie back, sweetheart…jus’ rest…”

© messylustt.tumblr please don’t steal, copy or translate my work onto other platforms.

[hotluncheddie]

💕🪱Wiggly Wednesday🪱💕

ty for tagging me: @runninriot @just-my-latest-hyperfixation @whimsicalwadewinstonwilson @someforeignband <3

I’ve had these worm thoughts for a while but I dunno if I'll turn it into anything. Think bc of the nuance that I would need to put in it. <|:3

But basically! I’m thinking about autistic Steve again. My lovely lovely high masking autistic Steve. Who struggles to ask for help and struggles with how much he’s allowed to share, struggles to look after himself and is still learning about his needs and his desires.

Thinking about how he’s so good at following rules, because most of the time that genuinely makes the most sense to him. It’s how he navigates the world, how he’s built his mask and scripts. How he’s kept his secrets, kept himself safe.

As long as he’s not effecting anyone else, he doesn’t need them knowing the rules he’s made, the ones he breaks and why - what that might mean. So it can be to his detriment, it can be to people please, it can be a way for him to ignore himself. But they’re also a part of him, an important part; they're all he’s ever known.

But what makes it complicated is thinking about all of that, in the context of navigating a d/s dynamic. With Eddie and him exploring that part of their sex life a little.

Because, thing is, Eddie knows how good Steve is at following rules, how willing and eager he is to be good. But Eddie’s doesn’t want to hurt him. So they would both have a lot to learn, about each other, and about communicating.

- So maybe it starts as:

‘What do you think baby? Would that be hot, you’re not allowed to cum unless it’s with my permission?’ Eddie asks, kissing over Steve’s stomach, looking up at him all sprawled out and cozy on his bed.

Steve traces the line of Eddie’s nose, lips pouting in thought. ‘Like we did the other day?’

‘Kind of, but more like, when I’m not there too. You have to wait until the next time you see me.’

Steve liked what they did the other night, Eddie going slow, teasing him a little. Telling him when to touch and when to stop and when to finish is a slow syrupy haze.

But, if Eddie’s not there. He usually likes to touch himself before bed, to help him sleep. Pretty much every night. Like, like a routine…

(And that’s the thing. Working through Steve asking for things he needs, understanding that some changes could be for his benefit. Never meant to be to his detriment. What that means for his masks and scripts and taking real care of himself. To let Eddie into the world of his rules and maybe let him make some of his own - that requires a lot of honesty, and that's scary.)

- And so maybe there's a bit of angst, some hard talks and hard truths, but then maybe it shifts into something with a bit of comfort, like:

‘How about this, we can try rules, but things that are about taking care of yourself, and we don’t have to do punishments. It’s more, like, I want you to tell me when you’re struggling Stevie, and maybe this will be something that can help.’ Eddie says, pulling Steve’s hand into his lap, connecting them.

‘You like how showering feels right? You said it makes you feel good?' Eddie waits for Steve's nod. 'Ok, so I want you to shower for me, each night, it can be quick and the same as your always do it, same with your hair.’ Eddie continues, tucking a lock behind Steve’s ear. Steve curls toward him, pulling his knees up to his chest and resting his head in Eddie’s shoulder. Not looking, but listening.

‘And it might help, you know, if you think you can’t do it but remember that Daddy’s rooting for you, yeah?’ Eddie drops his voice, speaking softly into Steve ear. ‘Daddy knows his baby likes to shower and brush his teeth before bed so that’s what I want baby to do okay?’ Eddie asks, smile blooming sweet and cocky on his face as Steve squirms, shifting himself closer, throwing a thigh over Eddie’s and seating himself in his lap. That word always makes Steve feel a little crazy. Makes him feel gooey and loved.

‘But, and this is the important part baby, if you can’t, if it’s too hard, I want you to call me okay?’ Eddie asks, linking their fingers again and looking Steve in the face, waiting for his small nod.

‘And you don’t have to use that word when you call, if you just want to call me Eddie, that’s perfect too. Or if you call and say it’s a bad night and can’t get any more words out that’s fine. I just need you to call me yeah? That’s your rule. Okay Stevie?’ Eddie finishes, shaking their joined hands and smiling when Steve gets out a little ‘okay’, looking Eddie in the eyes for a flash, smiling, leaning into Eddie’s arms, moving closer for a kiss, and another, and another.

yeah! Just ideas!! Maybe I’ll write it all down one day, but maybe not. Hehehe.

✨Tagginggggg✨ : @scoops-aboy86 @pearynice @steviewashere @devondespresso @marvel-ous-m

@wynnyfryd @wheneverfeasible @thefreakandthehair

[itsohh]

Can Live Without Him

A/N: G/N reader, once again, square brackets mean speaking in Spanish. Alejandro is endgame in this, it an’t ending well for Graves.

Summary: After finding catching Phillip in the act you end things much to his despair. Years later, your job unknowingly for you brings you to Las Almas. The city you have somewhat acquainted with due to your current fiance, Alejandro. Yet, things get a little messy when your ex shows up.

Word count: 4078

Warnings: Angst, canon-typical violence

AO3 Masterlist

In all reality, you couldn't help but feel dumb. You didn't yell, you didn't scream. You leaned on the doorframe with your arms folded. Your eyes glid over them. She was young, so young. You wouldn't have been surprised if he was her first. In all honesty, you felt a bit sorry for her. The wedding ring twirled on your finger all the meanwhile she moaned louder.

Then she let out a scream, one different from the breathy moans. Her clawing at his bare back turned into pushes and she practically shoved Phillip to the side in preference for the sheets. He followed her gaze and his eyes met yours. You watched him swallow and your eyes flickered down to the ring that rolled between your fingers. He whispered out your name and she frantically looked between you, unsure what to do.

"No aftercare? At least give the girl some water." Your tongue ran over your teeth and your eyes narrowed.

"Who-"

"-Leave." He interrupted the girl and she practically sunk into the bed. Terrified.

"Tsk tsk, that's not very nice of you." You pushed off the doorway and picked up some of her clothing. Your steps were nonchalant as you made your way over to her. With a kind but pissed smile, you gave them to her.

"Get dressed honey, you deserve someone better." She nodded at your words and franticly started to get dressed.

"I- I'm sorry I didn't know." Her voice was small and scared.

"It's not your fault. Im sure it just slipped Phillip's mind that he's married hmm?" You leaned into her. "Don't worry about it. How old are you anyway?"

"Twenty." She started to get her pants on and you leaned back. Her sandals were quick to get on and you followed her to the door which she practically sprinted from. Her tears started to fall and you could see her shoulders shake and you could only hope she could get home safely.

The door closed with a click and you spin around to see Phillip standing there, uncertain how to approach you.

"You put pants on. A good look for you." He spoke your name, head tilting and he took a step towards you.

"What's up, Phillip?"

"I know you're angry, it was a moment of weakness and I-"

"A moment of weakness!" You bitterly laughed. "Let me guess, I'm never around. I'm always at work, you're always at work. Spare me."

"I love you I do, she didn't mean-"

"Come on Phillip if you loved me you wouldn't have done it. Simple as."

"It's not that simple-"

"I literally walked in on you fucking some girl and you think words can solve this?" You took a step forward with a bitter laugh.

"We can fix this-"

"Fix what? I didn't do jack squat."

"Just tell me what you want me to do, what to say." He pleaded. You licked your lips and took a step towards him.

"Tell me you love me, tell me you will do anything for me to stay. Tell me you will never do it again."

"Yes." He swallowed with a breath. "Yes, I do- I love you." You found a strand of his hair and focused on fiddling with it as he continued. "It was a mistake, I promise you I'll do better. I'll never do that again, anything you want. I'll make it happen."

"Good." You cooed out. Then a sudden hard snap in your entire tone and body. With a hiss, you continued, "Now tell me you will sign the divorce papers."

-

A groan left your lips as you followed Soap up from your seat. "Dunno why Laswell even had me come. You guys can handle this." You stretched as the bright morning sun hit you through the windows.

"Maybe it's because you speak Spanish or because you know Mexico."

"Um excuse me, Mexico's a pretty fucking large place. Just because I know a small area doesn't mean I know the whole damn place."

"I don't know, maybe because you know the people?" She shrugged.

"Perhaps attending the briefing would help answer your questions." Ghost spoke up and you let out a huff.

"I was busy okay. Your lucky I made the flight at all. Also you-" You elbowed Soap next to you. "-I know maybe like twenty people total in this country. The likelihood of me actually interacting with them is so fucking low-." Your eyes met the man waiting in front of you and a smile spread across his face. You wiped a hand over your mouth and walked a few steps back inside the plane for a moment before you circle back next to Soap.

"Not a fucking word more." You hissed and he shrugged.

"Problem Doctor?" Ghost barked next to you.

"Negative sir." You swallowed.

"Alejandro, nice to meet you." Soap greeted the man with a curious look on his face.

Alejandro made his introduction with Ghost but paused when it came to you and you could see the debate going on in his eyes.

"[Good to see you again darling. Should thank Laswell, didn't think I would see you again so soon.]" He smirked and you let out a breath.

"[Christ save me, at least try to be professional.]" You muttered and he let out a laugh.

"[I'll try anything for you my love.]" His eyes glanced back to your squadmates. "Introductions out the way, shall we?"

Ghost started to speak about the plans and you raised a brow.

"We working with mercs?" You leaned over to Soap and whispered.

"Oh no you don't, you gotta tell me what happened there with Alejandro first." He grinned as you got into the vehicle in the middle.

"He's my fiance." You mumbled as quietly as you could.

"What was that?" Soap laughed, eyes wide with slight disbelief.

"You heard me. Now spill."

"Shepard got some outside help to get past red tape. Gonna be our backup for this."

"Fuck I hate working with mercs."

"Why's that?"

"Never trust a loyalty you can buy."

"Ah, never heard something so agreeable." Alejandro's eyes met yours as he looked over his shoulder and it became painfully aware that everyone had been listening to your conversation. Your eyes met Rudy's in the rearview mirror and had it not been for the current circumstances you would have strangled him for his snickering.

-

God, you knew that voice. You fucking knew that voice well. When that voice came up on the coms you kept your mouth shut. As shut as it could be. You focused on the job and getting out alive. No one questioned why you were quiet the entire time you got Hassin out.

Never in your life had you been so thankful for sunglasses and the mask over your lower face. "Do you speak Arabic?" Hassins voice came.

"The Doctor does." Soap spoke and you felt eyes land on you. "Shame it's time for their break. They never did like interrogations."

"Or torture." You added in, voice muffled by the mask. You made sure to keep your eyes off Phillip. No way in hell could you look at him, in all honesty, you prefer to look at Hassin. At least then your anger seemed reasonable to everyone else.

"Take a walk Doctor." Shepard's voice came clear through the laptop.

"Don't need to tell me twice."

-

"Ghost a moment of your time when you're not busy." In the side of your eye as they got prepared to release Hassin.

"Free now. Is this about you and Alejandro?"

"Huh? What? No, that wouldn't be an issue. It's uh about me and Graves." You looked away from his gaze and eyed everyone around you.

"Graves?"

"Is my ex-husband. I stress the importance of ex."

"Will it be a problem?"

"On my side? A bit awkward but no. Graves is an unknown entity. I'd prefer to keep my identity discreet while we work with them."

"Understandable, I'll tell Soap to refrain from using your name. Will the Los Vaqueros give you away?"

"Negative, I don't think that any of them have used my name for a long time now."

"Tell me if the situation changes."

"Will do sir."

-

"Can't we stop after we get into the base?" You groaned and got out of the car. The thought of a nice warm shower already plagued your mind and standing out in the cold was not your ideal situation. There was a shift in the air and you slid your glasses up. Your eyes went to Ghost's who made strong eye contact with you. Be on alert.

"This is a sizable covert facility and I admire it. So I'm taking it." You swore under your breath. You knew he was a bastard, you knew he couldn't be trusted. But this? Betray his own allies? That was a new low for him. Your hand subtly found your pistol, the Shadows were too focused on keeping an eye on Ghost to notice you. Graves continued to talk and your eyes silently communicated to Ghost. His eyes caught a glance of your gun and he tilted his head ever so slightly. You weren't supposed to have that on you anymore. Good thing you did though.

"Now that makes me wonder what else I don't know about your affiliation with a drug lord." Alejandro looked over his shoulder for a moment and his eyes met yours only for a second. It felt almost shameful that you used to be with Graves and your mind couldn't help but wander to what if you never caught him that day.

With each and every second that passed by you couldn't help but become more aware of how outgunned you were. You guys needed to retreat. This was not a fight you would win. Soap eventually stepped back which lowered the tension ever so slightly. That was good, he was further from their reach. His eyes locked with yours and Ghost.

"Your men have been…" Your heart dropped as horror spread through you. Did he execute them? "Detained." Oh, thank god.

Your relief wasn't felt by everyone as Alejandro charged at Graves. All hell broke loose and you raised your pistol. "Alejandro!" You called his name and three sets of eyes fell on you. Alejandro, Graves and the Shadow next to you. Alejandro moved just in time for the bullets to pass him and hit Graves in the chest. It wouldn't kill him but it wouldn't be painless either, there was only so much a bulletproof vest could do.

The Shadow next to you immediately dived for you. You jumped back in time but they managed to rip the mask from your face in their attempts.  

Ghost was there to back you up with a knife in the Shadow's neck. Your eyes locked with Graves's and recognition washed over his face. Gun in your hand you fired again and Graves was instantly snapped out of his frozen state. That and the punch from Alejandro. Ghost slammed you back against the car out of the way of gunfire while Phillip hit Alejandro over the head.

On the other side of the car, Soap used a Shadow as a meat shield and you tried to cover him but your gun clicked empty. "We have to get out of here." You breathed to Ghost." He dashed to the side of the car and you threw your pistol at a Shadow that charged you. The Shadow fell back but you didn't have the time to flee after Ghost and suddenly there was a hand on your wrist.

"Let go you fucking bastard." You hissed and when you turned to look at the Shadow you discovered it was Graves who had latched on to your arm.

"Don't think I won't shoot." He aimed the gun towards you. It was a bluff you couldn't afford to call.

"Ghost get Soap outta here!" You called out which earnt you a solid smack to the side of the head. Knocking you out instantly.

-

A groan left your lips as you woke. "Fucking cunt."

"Oh, you're alive. I thought they had brought me a rotting corpse as entertainment."

"V-Valeria?"

"So they speak! Ohhhh, I know you. You're the Colonel's little plaything aren't you?"

"Fuck Valeria give me a second my head's killing me." You looked down to find yourself stripped from your kit and left in the most basic of clothing. She rolled her eyes at you and slowly you gathered yourself off the floor.

You stretched out your body and blinked a few times. Valeria looked rather smug sitting on her chair. "Alright I'm now awake, you can commence whatever mocking you want to do."

She laughed at your tired voice and leaned back. "A fun one aren't you?"

"How the fuck do you even know about my relationship with Alejandro?"

"I know everything about Las Almas. Especially when some big hotshot surgeon starts visiting. One thing I couldn't find out, what rank are you, Lieutenant, Sergeant? Captain? Nobody seems to know."

"Doctor. My title is Doctor."

"Mmm the military doesn't work that way now does it-"

"No rank they give me will trump Doctor. Besides it reminds people ultimately my job is to save lives."

"And yet you take so many. Hypocritical oath?"

"Prevention is the best medicine."

"And are you going to prevent me?" She leaned forward.

"No. I'm not a judge or a jury, I don't have any orders with you Valeria."

"Oh? What a good little thing you are, Alejandro must love that in the bedroom-"

"-Why the fuck is my sex life the topic of today. What about your life eh? What was his name, Diego? Did you let him take charge or treat him like a dog like the rest of your employees?"

"He was a tool, nothing more." She has that mocking tone to her voice before she laughed." He wished he could have seen even an ounce of my skin."

"Shit Valeria maybe that's why you're so pent up, sounds like you need a good dicking down." You hissed back at her. Before she could open her mouth the large metallic door to the shipping container opened. Valeria’s eyes were on you with interest as you put distance between you and the door. Graves.

“Come with me.”

“Are you letting me go?” Your voice came without hesitation as you sized up the single guard with him.

“No, figured we could talk somewhere more… private.” He huffed.

“I’m not going anywhere with you. You can’t fucking hold me, you can’t occupy this base. The second that it comes out an American has taken a Mexican base your fucking over-”

“-I can do what I want.” His teeth pressed together. “Now, come or I will make you come.”

“Actually I think they have a point,” Valeria smirked, amused by the situation.

“Excuse me, this is between me and my spouse.” He snapped at her, stress obviously taking its toll on him. Valeria's head fell back and she let out a bitter laugh.

“You? Spouse?”

“Ex.” You corrected with hatred in your eyes.

“Oh, that makes a lot of sense because I mean. I don’t see Alejandro here now do I?” She knew exactly what she was doing.

“Pardon?” His eyes fell from yours to hers with the tilt of his head.

“You didn’t know?" She faked surprise at Graves and turned to face you. "How many months have you been visiting Las Almas? Years even? That's why they sent you no? No one plays nice with the locals like you do.” Her head weighed on her shoulders rather proudly as she spoke.

“Really? Alejandro? That's who you left me for?” He stalked towards you, obvious that his previous intention had been put on the back burner.

“I didn’t leave you for anybody Phillip. You fucked our relationship down the drain. You know what? Shame I didn’t stay with you 'cause I only got half of your shit but hell if I stayed I probably would have got all because you're going to be fucking dead before the end of the week. Hell, I'll be surprised if you even last a day out here.” At your words, he went to grab you but you dodge back and put Valeria between you and him.

Yet your options weren’t looking great when the Shadow who had been silent the entire time came into play. He approached you intending to grab you as Graves had. His arm came for you and you grabbed it with one hand. With your other hand, you went for his throat, the hidden blade between your fingers went to work and with one quick smooth swipe, you ran it across his throat. Directly across his artery, the balaclava over his face did everything in its power to stop the blood from making a mess, but still, a spray of it washed over your face.

Graves used your momentarily distracted state to grab the arm that had been on the Shadow. You went to swipe at him with the blade but he was careful and hit the side of your wrist. With a strong grip, he wrapped his other hand around it while his eyes bore into yours. “That was my man you just killed there.”

“Should have listened and fucked off. Cunt.” You brought your head forward and with a solid smack, it hit him dead in the middle of his head. It hurt, a lot. But not as much as it hurt him. Graves staggered back and let go of you. Done with your shit, he pulled the pistol on his hip and aimed it at you.

“Do it. If your gonna fucking shoot me, don’t let me stop you.” Your chest heaved while red dripped off you.

“If you're so determined to sit with this drug lord here fine. I’ll be back.” He wiped the blood from his head and made his way to the exit. Two men came into the container a moment later and you thought they would go for you but instead, they retrieved the warm corpse on the ground next to you.

The door closed once again and slowly against the side of the container you slid down against it. Clap. Clap. Clap. Your eyes looked up to see Valeria smiling at you, clapping. “Bravo, what a show. Such a fire. Real barracks bunny aren't you.” A piece of you wanted to tell her to shut up but instead, a tired sigh left your mouth. You really wanted that shower now.

“So what did he do? There's obviously no love left on your side.”

“Why should I answer you?”

“If you would rather to sit in silence be my guest.”

“Yeah, that would be great.”

“But we don’t know how long the pair of us are going to be stuck here. There's no need to be hostile.”

“God your a fucking bitch.” You hissed under your breath and let out a sigh. “He cheated.”

“And no second chance? No trying to fix your marriage?”

“Why would I? I know my worth and it's more than what he has to offer.” Valeria crossed her legs, her arm balanced on the chair as she listened to your reasoning.

“You fit Las Almas well. You're an interesting one. You know, if you looking for employment…”

“You fucking joking right?” You leaned forward and she laughed.

“Of course, I simply wanted to see your reaction.”

“Christ.”

-

Lying on the bottom of the container, Graves didn’t try to talk to you again. You had to admit, even if she was a bitch, idle conversation with Valeria wasn’t too bad. “Prision going to suck for you.” You yawned out and your head turned on the floor to face Valeria. “Like this is boring as hell and you're going to spend the rest of your days like this right?”

“It's cute you thought I wouldn’t be walking out of her by the end of the day.”

“You really think Graves is going to keep the end of his deal and let you go? You're insane. He's not a man of his word. Maybe if one of the boys was here sure but him? He couldn’t keep his word to his allies, his own goddamn partner. I think it's cute you think he will keep it for you.”

“I’m counting on something else.”

“What's that? Your cartel won’t be able to take on the Shadows.”

“No, but your boyfriend won’t let a man like Graves take his home.”

“Alejandro won’t let you walk out of here.”

“He won’t like it but he's a man of his word.” A loud banging on the side of the container had both of you look towards the door. You got up from the floor and exchanged a look with Valeria.

“Valeria!” It was Alejandro. Immediately you rushed to the door and banged back on it.

“Alejandro!” Your voice came and a couple of moments later the door opened. Disbelief was written on his face, and his eyes went wide. Without hesitation, Alejandro accepted the embrace you rushed him with.

“Good to see you, Doctor.” Your head snapped toward Gaz who you blinked at. “Price we picked up another package.” He spoke into his com.

"What's that?" You heard the voice and Gaz offered the mic to you.

"Good to hear your voice again sir."

"Is that the Doctor that I hear?" Soap's voice broke through the coms.

"Affermative on that." Gaz clicked.

"Had us worried when you weren't at the prison with Alejandro." Soap laughed, the mood had certainly lifted.

"Stick with Alejandro and Gaz. We'll get this shit sorted." Price's voice came.

"Copy." Gaz patted your shoulder and you smiled at him.

“So, Gaz what are you lot doing here? Thought you were in Holland.”

“Not anymore, Shepard burnt us all. I’m here correcting that.” You pulled back and spared a glance towards Valeria who hadn’t made any attempt to move. A smile on her face. Gaz continued. “Are you alright, your covered-”

“It’s not mine.” You turned to face him and flashed the surgical spare blade between your fingers. “Graves wanted to talk, I made an example of his Shadow that I didn’t want to.”

“Ex’s don’t normally like hearing no do they?” Valeria laughed and you shoved the door closed. Alejandro gave a look, one that was also on Gaz’s face.

“Graves is my ex-husband. Trust me there are no conflicting feelings there. ” You huffed and both of them looked at you in surprise.

“Well, that explains why he kept you here,” Kyle spoke.

“Yeah, not my favourite topic.” You walked over to one of the dead Shadows and picked up their gun. “What's the plan?”

“Ghost, Rudy and Soap are after Graves. Price is air support.” Kyle explained.

“We secure this spot. Are you alright?” Alejandro handed you a handkerchief which you used to wipe your face.

“Aside from having to room with Valeria? I’ll live.”

“Good, I’ll secure the outside doors.” He nodded and there was a look on his face. One that told you that he wanted to say more, do more. Yet this wasn’t the time. A few seconds later he left you to Gaz. There was a look in his eyes, hard to tell with the mask on.

“So…you and Alejandro huh?”

“And how did you figure that out?”

“You willingly hug anyone?”

“I hug Soap all the time.”

“No, Soap hugs you all the time. There's a difference with that Doc.” He laughed and pulled you into a half hug. One you accepted without complaint for once.

“Shuddup Garrick.”

"Good to see you too."

[painted-bees]

part i

  Hitting a cafe during rush hour wasn’t Raf’s definition of a fun idea, and he was well practised in the art of saying ‘no’. Yet, for some reason or another, that skill failed to find him when the wide-eyed little Portasound busker insisted on treating him to a coffee.   

  The streets outside Granville Station were abuzz with traffic of all kinds. The wide sidewalks were, at least, accommodating to the amount of pedestrians that relied on them during the city’s busiest times of day. The same could not be said for the roads as cars rolled slowly forward, bumper to bumper. Still, the ambience was manageable despite all the bustle. Only the hissing, honking noises of transit bus breaks would coax the occasional wince out of him in their random, unpredictable intervals.

  The little Portasound busker, ‘Magritte’, kept up beside him in lock step. She hadn’t stopped talking since they began their walk together and, in honesty, he preferred it that way. She was a disheveled little thing, more than a head shorter than he was. Her manner of dress was as sloppy as the thick bundle of curly, dark red hair that flopped loosely atop her head. Her grey sweater was several sizes too large, covering her to the knees. With sleeves that hung far past her hands if she didn’t scrunch them in her palms. Black leggings were tucked into knock-off ugg boots whose soles had eroded so severely on the outer edge, Raf was concerned she’d roll an ankle if he made her walk too briskly. She smiled so vehemently as she spoke, that her lips rarely closed around consonants, making it difficult to understand her at times.

  “–so when my dad was like, ‘you can stay here and work, or you can move out and do your music stuff’, I moved out. That was like…oh–almost three years! I was eighteen. I just turned twenty-one today!” She accompanied that last sentence with a joyful little skip that caused Raf to turn his head and watch her.

  “Well, happy birthday.” He exhaled a small laugh. “Vancouver’s an expensive place to live, but house hunting here probably already gave you the full story on that.”

  “Rent’s insane,” Magritte echoed his small chuckle. “But the weather’s way more agreeable in the winter, which is what I’m after. And the music scene! I heard there were tons of musicians in Van, and look–I’ve already met two in the first few hours of being here!”

  “Oh, you’ll meet more.” The way he said it made it sound more cautioning than he intended and he diffused it with a snort. “Guess the music stuff must have paid off after all, if you can afford a place in the city.”

 There was silence between them and Magritte chewed the nail of her forefinger for a moment. “It actually hasn’t, I’m not a professional musician by any means. I’m just really good at finding a lot of short term work and stuff. Sometimes it’s music related, but not often enough to call it a living.” 

  “Mmh.” Raf glanced down at her. The bounce in her step had vanished and he watched her chew on her lip beneath a knitted brow. With a shrug he said, “You sounded good in the station, all things considered. You stopped, you listened, you came in at appropriate moments, you improvised really well. The pieces I played weren’t really…great for busking…and demanded a lot more than what your little keyboard could reasonably provide, but even your rests were composed and natural. You didn’t drop off abruptly any time the melody brought you past the range of your keys, you played into it.” He smirked. “I’m not gonna lie and say we did a great justice to Paganini today or anything, but I was very surprised by what you were able to pull off. I dunno, seemed like the chops of a professional to me.”

  That brought the bounce back into her step, though she continued to chew on her lower lip. Raf was content to see her spirits buoyed at least somewhat by his sentiments. He hadn’t embedded a single white lie into his assessment.

 They arrived at the cafe of his choosing; a popular spot, very near to the station, named Caffe Artigiano. The outside seating was full up with patrons, but Raf hoped the inside would be a quieter space to sit anyways. Opening the door, he followed Magritte in. It was busier than he would have liked, but he couldn’t have expected differently, considering the hour. Still, one thing he appreciated about the place was that it did not play music. Only the sound of numerous quiet conversations filled the air. Raf gravitated towards a freshly vacated table in a far corner, and Magritte followed him to it. Her gaze hung on the coffee menu that loomed above the counter. 

He waited for Magritte to pick her seat before gently offloading his violin case onto the seat across from her. “I’ll go order. Was it a latte you said you wanted?”

  “Actually…” She let out an indecisive little sigh. “A mocha, I think. I want…choco. Oh, but–!” She dropped her duffel bag onto the ground before unzipping a side pouch and pulling out the twenty dollar bill that had found its way into her upturned ball cap at the station. She held it out to him. “With this! Please?” 

  He hesitated before taking the bill from her. “Yes, ma’am.” There was no point in telling her that the twenty had been his before it became hers. The thought was what mattered.

  The line at the counter wasn’t long, despite the busy patronage, and Raf soon returned to their table and evicted his violin case out of the seat across from Magritte. Finding an unused chair from a nearby table, he pulled it up next to him and sat his carrying case on it.

  He reached over the table to hand Magritte the change, and she stared at it blankly for a moment before saying, “–Oh!” with a bit of a start. She turned her palm up to receive it.

Magritte stuffed the money back into the pocket of her duffel bag. “So, Question.” She sat back up and looked to Raf. “You say you’re not a professional, but you sound like...you know…Properly trained, or whatever.”

  “Mmh.” It was a predictable topic, but not one he wanted to stay on. “Or whatever.” He laughed. “Yeah. Parents pushed it onto me a little too hard. I’ve got the training, but playing it is a chore and I kinda hate it.”

  Magritte’s eyes grew wide and rueful and she shrank against the backrest of her chair. “Wait, really?” She covered her face with the sleeves of her sweater and threw her head back with a guilty little groan. “I’m sorry, I made you play so many songs!”

  Raf patted the air in front of him in a placating gesture, “No, no. You didn’t make me do anything, relax.” He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I did that to myself. I meant it, though, when I said it was fun. It was the first time in a long while where I actually enjoyed myself once things got going.”

  Magritte drew in a deep breath, recollecting herself before tentatively asking, “Enough that you’d wanna do it again sometime?”

  A beleaguered laugh escaped him, “No.”   He had given her much of his time and energy already, and being asked for more put a bitter taste in his mouth. The arrival of his iced americano and her hot mocha couldn’t have been better timed. As soon as it was placed in front of him, he brought the drink to his lips and took a long sip. 

  Magritte sheepishly turned her gaze down to admire the little white hearts in the foam of her coffee before she started to drink it. She placed the cup back down but kept both hands curled around it. “Did you enjoy it when you were younger?”

  “Music?” Raf shrugged. “I don’t remember. It doesn’t really matter.” His gaze turned down towards her duffel bag as he grasped for a better topic. “Is your main instrument the piano?”

 “Yeah! It’s what I had access to, growing up.”

  “Who taught you?”

  “Oh, I, uh…mostly just the internet and stuff. My parents didn’t wanna waste money on it, and my highschool didn’t have like…a music class or anything. Just choir. None of my friends played music.”

  “...You learned online?”

  “Well, like…on Myspace and LiveJournal. Lots of people share what they know there, and I made some really good online friends who tried to teach me things. We’d share music with each other and do weekly challenges and stuff. It was fun.”

  “So, self-taught, more or less.”

  “Mostly. Oh, except–!” Magritte ducked down to unzip the main pocket of her duffel bag and dove her hands into it. She rummaged around until she produced a small mp3 player and earbuds attached by a chord. “There was a year when I was living in Montreal, my girlfriend was a jazz pianist. And then we met other, um…friends who taught me more in that one year than I think I ever learned in my entire life. It was her and a whole lotta horns. They all let me use their instruments and taught me proper technique and stuff. I think they liked watching me stubbornly struggle with it. In the end, I was only able to record one song before I had to, um, move on. But I’m still kinda proud of it. I dunno if you wanna–it’s instrumental and kinda eclectic, but I loved making it.”

  In response, Raf extended his hand, and Magritte spent a second scrolling through her library of mp3s before stuffing the little music device and earbuds into his open palm. 

  She performed an excited little wiggle in her seat as Raf wordlessly placed an earbud into his ear. “Just hit play, and it should be the right song.”

  Raf wasn’t sure what he had expected to hear. He was, at least, perfectly comfortable with listening and offering his honest input. He didn’t believe in ‘bad’ music. There was skilled and unskilled music, there was music that fit his tastes and music that really didn’t. But none of it was bad. All music created deserved to be created and allowed to exist–if only for the satisfaction of the musician who produced it. He was prepared to tell her that the best music she could make is the music she enjoyed making, even if it didn’t resonate with his personal tastes.   He pressed ‘play’.

 What hit his ear was an uptempo half-time funk sound carried on a unison horn line; crystal clear, well mixed, high quality audio. Right from the jump, the sound had a quirky, catching character. He fitted the other earbud into his ear as a sustained note leapt into an energetic, off-beat ska groove. His brow furrowed deeply as he tried to discern the instrumentation. The drum fill might have been digital, but the winds sounded far too dynamic to be synthetic. And there were…three of them; the two horns he couldn’t quite specify, and then a baritone sax. The horns took centre stage, confident and playful, supported by a jaunty walking bassline and synthetic, bubbly organ accompaniment. Despite its G minor key signature, the character of the piece was lively and a little goofy, smart but playful; it was simply–fun. A smile lit across his face as the melody modulated G minor into G Phrygian for the bridge section. The effect was a jesting ooh gonna getcha vibe.

  He listened to the end of the song before he began to comment on it. “Very cool. Your jazz friends weren’t sleeping on their music theory classes. I assume the organ is you?”

  Magritte shifted nervously in her seat as her thumb smoothed over the handle of her coffee cup in small, repeated strokes. “I borrowed instruments for this one and recorded it in…um, my girlfriend’s parents' house. They had a music room where I was allowed to record things.”

  “You borrowed–right. But the horns..?”

  “Yeah.”

  Raf levelled a measuring stare at her.

  “I recorded each instrument separately,” she began explaining, “It’s uh, piano, trumpet, trombone, and–oh! The baritone sax was played by Sadie, one of my, um…jazz friends.” She let out a weak laugh. “And then, like…a bass, I also played. And a synthetic drum fill ‘cus…none of us knew how to actually play drums.”

  “You played each instrument? Learned them and recorded this song within the span…of a year?”

  “No, just the trumpet and trombone! I already knew piano and bass.”   Confusion must have been apparent on Raf’s face, and she tried to address it by saying, “It’s all digitally processed, so it sounds a little more–”

  “No, I–I know that.” Raf massaged an eyebrow with one hand. “You’re the songwriter too, I assume?” His tone was a little more sharp than he’d have liked it to be. It betrayed his incredulity.

  Magritte picked up her cup and eyed him nervously over the rim as she sipped from it.

  “No, I don’t know how.” She sounded embarrassed. “I can’t read or write music. I just sketched a bunch of it out digitally first, and then–”

  “Fresh compositions? By ear?”

  “Yeah. And then I recreated it with the correct instrumentation.” She chewed on the nail of her thumb. “It works, I think.”

  “That’s still songwriting. It counts.” Raf sniffed and leaned back in his seat. “I gotta be honest, and don’t take this the wrong way but…it’s a little hard to believe.”

  Magritte’s nervousness dissolved into a flattered grin. “Yeah?”

  Raf’s brow twitched downward as he tried to read past her demeanour. He had expected a more sheepish response, if not a more defensive one. His doubt wasn’t intended as a compliment, but if she were being wholly honest with him, perhaps it made sense that she’d take it as one.

  He drained the last of his americano. “So, you’re not pursuing this professionally, because..?”

  “Oh, I am!” Magritte shrugged and turned her eyes to the upper right corner of the room. “It’s just been kinda…difficult.”

  “Yeah? Why’s that?” It was a stupid question he already knew the answer to. Music was more easy to find nowadays than ever before, but discoverability still relied on knowing how to promote the work and get the right ears onto it. And, across the entire spectrum of skill, this is what everyone tended to blame for the inability to live off their–

  “Money.”

  “M–!” The response was so sudden and matter-of-fact in tone, Raf couldn’t stop a bark of surprised laughter from escaping him. He’d have laughed the same way if someone had just dumped a bucket of ice water over his head.

  Magritte slapped her palms down on the table and leaned forward with wide eyes to state her defence. “Instruments are expensive, lessons are expensive, computers are expensive, software and sound libraries are expensive! Everything’s so expensive!” She slumped back in her seat, turning her palms over in an exasperated gesture. “If I could afford to go to school and actually like–learn music, and if I could afford to rent instruments and recording equipment and stuff, I could make more songs! I could upload like…whole albums! I’ve got all these doodles with my shitty midi libraries and they might sound actually good if I could just record them properly! But it’s been like…four years since I left home, and the only properly produced track I have to show for it is that one.” She flopped her hand towards the mp3 player on the table. “So, I just make my little digital doodles, and I come up with tunes that suit the sounds I have access to. I like it. I’m happy I get to make any music at all, but it’s a bit niche, you know? And I have all these other ideas in my head that need like…better, less…synthetic sounds. There are libraries that sound pretty convincing, but all the best ones are…expensive. And vocals are hard to record with the stuff I’ve got.”

  Raf held up his hands in effort to placate her. “No, I know, you’re right–money. I just–” It wasn’t a struggle he had ever faced, and he couldn’t help but feel like a bit of a heel over the fact that he hadn’t even considered it as an obstacle to the extent that she was describing it.

  “On the other hand,” Magritte’s voice took on a capitulating tone, “With the right skill, I should be able to produce bangers with whatever I’ve got, yeah? And,” she took up her coffee cup in one hand, staring into its contents, “if I was better at saving money, I’d be able to afford those really good sample libraries just fine, probably. I just like my sweet foamy lattes too much.” She sighed a little laugh at herself.

  Raf let out a low groan of disagreement, but didn’t elaborate on it. “I kinda…want to listen to those ‘digital doodles’ you mentioned.” If nothing else, it’d give him an idea of how much input her jazz friends had over the composition of the song he heard. If the obvious compositional prowess flexed in that fun-loving jazzy ska piece were completely absent in her little sketches, he wouldn’t chalk it up to being just a fluke. 

  Drawing in a deep breath and holding it, Margritte reached for the mp3 player and scrolled through its contents before handing it to Raf. “You can just skip through these as you like. It’s all a little–” She wrinkled her nose and let out a grunt in place of any real adjective.

  With an affirming little snort of his own, Raf took the little music player and put the earbuds into his ears once more. He pressed play, and immediately understood what she meant. The synthetic instrumentation was wholly lacking in dynamics, and the musical ideas present in the melodies begged for more colourful phrasing. As he skipped from one song to the next, he grew more frustrated. The compositional writing was good. Consistent with the first song he had heard, Magritte seemed to really love playing with eccentric progressions and modulations that were unconventional for the mood or emotion that the song was attempting to capture. And ever present in each little composition was this boundless sense of joy. But god, the instrumentation (or rather, the lack thereof) really, really held it all back.

  As he listened, his lips pressed into a thin line. Finally, with a low groan that betrayed his thoughts, he took out the earbuds and handed the music player back. “Yeah, that sucks.” The end of that statement stuck in his throat as he sputtered to clarify, “Not the music–”

  “Yes, the music.” Magritte’s giggle was one of genuine affirmation as she tucked the mp3 player away into her duffle bag.

  “No,” Raf argued, “your toolset. There’s a lot of skill here, but the cheap synthy sounds aren’t doing it any favours. You went absolutely ham on those horns in the first song, and I don’t hear any of that in these sketches because it’s just not possible. There’s a lot of energy that is just…missing. Even watching you play at the station, yeah your keyboard suffers the same limitations, but at least in person I noticed you’ll even make use of like…the percussion of your fingers hitting the keys, which, you know…is dynamic.”

  As he spoke, Magritte retained a smile and provided small nods before asking, “You like it, then?”

  Raf leaned back, folded his arms and chewed on the question for a second before replying, “Yeah. I do. A lot.” 

  A lot.

  There was a corner of his mind that begged him to get back home to his apartment and try out the melodies with an instrument that could do it proper justice.  Jesus Christ, this actually makes me want to play the violin.

  The realisation made his lip curl with a feeling in his gut that he couldn’t quite identify. “You know…”

  Magritte, taking the last remaining sips of her latte, turned her eyes up at him with a little “Hm?”

  There was a pause while Raf wrestled with himself. “I, uh…work at a recording studio not too far from here. Just down on uh…Powell Street.”   He felt his jaw clench. There was no good reason for him to tell strangers about where he worked. There was no possible good outcome in doing so. Mentioning it felt too much like an open invitation for her to pop in at any time, for no good reason at all except to make things uncomfortable.   “It’s called Hi-Note, and it’s got like…a pretty standard assortment of instruments to rent out and such. It closes early.” He wasn’t looking at her. Brow furrowed, he stared at the ice melting in his otherwise empty glass. “Swing by tomorrow night, after eight, and maybe we can jam for like..half an hour or something before I head home.”

  He didn’t glance up to see her expression, but her voice was slow to rise to his ears. “..Wait, really?”

  No. “Yeah.” What the fuck? “Really.”   Unable to unfurrow his brow, he managed to at least turn his gaze towards her. Her eyes were so large on that petite face of hers, and her lips parted slightly, muscles tense with the anticipation of some kind of catch or condition. Or, perhaps she had picked up on his apprehension and was waiting for him to revoke the offer. For some reason, the idea of doing so suddenly felt…unconscionable to him.

  In a small voice, she said, “I’d really like that.” The restraint of her response was belied by the way she wiggled in her chair. Beneath the table, her leg wagged restlessly like an excited dog’s tail. “Eight o’clock?”

 “Mmhm.” Raf felt some of the tension in his browline relax as a slight smile passed his lips. “Let's see if we can revisit some of those tunes you have. Just–for fun. No recording, nothing serious.”

  It seemed that Magritte could never keep a smile off her face for long, and once again, that broad, delighted grin of hers painted her features. “Yeah, yeah! I’d like that a lot!”

  “Alright then.” Raf knocked his knuckles twice on the table like a gavel, before standing up.

  As he reached to retrieve his violin case off the chair next to him, Magritte pressed her fingertips to her temples. “Hi-Note, eight o’clock.”

  Raf favoured her with a lopsided smirk. “Don’t forget.”

  “I won’t. I’ll see you there!”

  He provided her with an affirmative little wave, but by the time she had realised he was taking his leave, Raf was already halfway to the door.

  He heard her call out to him, “Thank you for the–um–everything!” 

  Looking back to her, Raf returned the sentiment with an appreciative nod before pushing through the cafe doors; exiting onto the busy sidewalk outside.

  He wanted to get home before sundown…

  To play his violin.

[avocadoguru]

He was staring at her in a way no one had in her entire life. She couldn’t read anything in his eyes - not surprise, not fear, not malicious intent - nothing. (wolfrry, werewolf!harry, alpha!harry, ranger!y/n)

Lupus Noctis- Masterlist, Author’s Note & Warnings

Chapter 1 (word count: 4.1k) / alternatively, read on wattpad

“Ready to head out for patrol?”

Y/N looked up at her colleague before switching off her laptop for the day “Yeah, let’s go. Finished for the day, anyway.”

“Good. Eager to get home early, I never sleep well on a full moon, I’ll just toss and turn the whole night, least I can do is try and turn in early.”

“Really? Thought that was just a myth or something. Just close the curtains.”

Nick shrugged as he locked up the station behind them “It’s not that, it’s not even shining directly through my window. For the longest time, I didn’t even make the connection until an ex of mine figured out I could never sleep through full moons.”

“So then why aren’t you the one on watch duty tonight?”

He furrowed his brows at her as they started going down the trail they usually took when they started their nightly patrol “What, like you don’t sleep while you’re on watch duty?”

“I do, but the bed in there is awful. So it’s not a good sleep anyway. You could’ve taken one for the team.”

“I mean, I’ve been stationed here long before you came along, so I did actually spend quite a few full moons while on watch duty, thank you very much. It’s guaranteed no sleep. At least at home I maybe get 2-3 hours in.”

“Awh you poor man, you,” Y/N teased as they ascended an area of the trail where it became steep.

“Right? Speaking of. You’ve been here almost 2 months now. How are you liking it so far?”

“It’s… definitely not what I was expecting. But in a good way, I think. The only thing that I’m most phased by is how secluded this place seems most of the time when it’s not even that far outside town. I was expecting a bit more… action?”

Nick laughed lightly “Action? Like what?”

“I dunno. More wildlife interaction, for one.” 

“God, Y/N. You’re such a rookie” he snickered. “You’ll get your fair share of wildlife, don’t you worry.”

Y/N wouldn’t call herself a rookie in general. Maybe for this particular job, but she was confident in her skills. A trained survivalist and ranger. She could identify species of birds, reptiles, mammals, and plants from sight alone. She knew how to build a fire, climb a tree, make a shelter from only what the forest could provide, and forage for food. She could do it all, despite being a newbie to the team. She felt like she was probably even more skilled than Nick. But as much confidence as she had in herself, she knew the forest, mountains, and wildlife were due respect. Especially during the night.

“I mean, don’t you find it odd that the bears are so few around here? Like ok… boars and rabbits and what have you, but where are all the bears? I’m convinced they’re hidden somewhere in the deeper parts of the forest.” 

“Haven’t you patrolled deeper in? With Karl, maybe?” Nick asked with brows raised.

“No, I have, but we hardly saw anything exciting. You can’t really believe we only got the 3 bears we’ve spotted this year around here. I mean, the place is massive,” Y/N's breath was slightly labored as they continued along the steep path, "The highest points are so difficult to access, the few times we actually get up there can’t really give us that great of an insight.”

“Bears are nosey. They’d have come down to explore way more had they really been cooped up high up there. I know it’s odd, but there’s just not that many. I’m sure there’s more than the 3 we’ve inventoried, definitely. But I wouldn’t expect many more deeper in.”

“What does Karl think? He’s not much of a talker.”

In all honesty, Y/N preferred patrolling with any other of their colleagues. She wasn’t big on small talk, which Nick seemed to have a penchant for. She much rathered be vigilant and actually do her job whilst patrolling instead of listening to his mindless chit-chat. Or maybe it just irked her ‘cause she had a feeling he had a thing for her and was worried he’d try more one day.

“He’s on the same page. He’s been here the longest and has seen most of this forest, but it’s always been like this. I’d say we’re lucky not to be handling that many bears. Maybe look for excitement outside of work.”

Y/N let that comment at the end slide. She got the vibe that Nick might have been trying to flirt with her once or twice but she wasn’t about to entertain any workplace romance. Especially not with him, since that would definitely not amount to much excitement if she was being honest.

“Maybe if we were stationed at the highest point we’d have a better understanding of what really goes on in the deepest parts…”

“Yeah, no. You’ll see once we hit winter, there’s no way to make it to the top, no SUVs or ATVs are gonna get you there unless we hiked up there and stationed for longer periods of time. And that’s definitely not in the job description for me, I didn’t sign up for ranger life full time.”

“Suppose you’re right… It’s a difficult climb even when dry. I don’t think I could’ve driven the 4x4 on my own up there. Karl definitely knows the trail like the back of his hand and we got stuck a few times anyway – what was that?” 

“What was what?”

“Didn’t you hear that?”

They both perked their ears up and listened intently but there was nothing to be heard except for the usual forest noises. “Sounded like a wounded pup.”

They kept on listening for a while and then slowly resumed their trek, “Well if it was a pup, you know what that means. Where there’s a pup, there’s a she-wolf guarding it with her life. Honestly, I’d have much rathered had more bears on our hands than all these wolves.”

“At least they keep their distance, not as nosey as bears are, as you put it.”

“Unless you get in their way,” Nick cautioned.

Y/N knew the story, knew who she'd replaced when she got this job, and what had happened to him. Safe to say, she didn’t want to stumble upon any wolves while patrolling on foot. Whenever they were inventorying fauna they would take their jeeps for a reason.

“But the pup sounded like it was hurting…”

“Virtually impossible. They’d never let a pup stray from the pack. You’re just not used to hearing them up close. It’s deceiving, even the young are quite feral. And never by themselves.”

Y/N was not convinced, she knew what she’d heard, but then why wasn’t the pup crying out again? Maybe she’d imagined things. And Nick was definitely right about not going near a wolf pup.

After finishing doing their nightly rounds, Nick got in his car and drove away, leaving Y/N to peace and quiet. 

She filled her water bottle and turned the radio on. The radio station Y/N usually listened to began crackling and the fuzzy noise was more annoying than silence, so she turned it off. She wondered if the moon was affecting the equipment at all. Normally she had no issues listening to the station. It was one of the few that typically came in crystal clear. She shrugged as she sipped her water.

The night shift wasn’t all that bad. It could be a little creepy. The dark, dark night, the noises coming from the forest, the chill in the air, the silence inside the station… She tried to ignore the strange feeling she had in her chest. Something felt off. Perhaps it was because it was her first night shift during a full moon. Perhaps it was nothing. Perhaps it was just that she couldn’t listen to a little bit of music while she did her paperwork. The music made things feel lighter.

The tiny station wasn’t anything special, but it did have some very high-tech equipment, medical-grade kits, room for a bed, a table, a bathroom, a desk, and an entry area for any wandering humans. The daytimes are for people. During the day shift, she was used to encountering a person here and there. People would occasionally come into the station with a question during daylight hours. But at night, it was animals. They’d usually run off before she could spot them. She’d hear them, she’d take notes and infrared pictures, and use the data to compile for inventorying and informational purposes.

Finishing half of her bottle of water, Y/N locked up the room with the computer and turned the sign on the window to the station so it read ring bell for help just in case anyone were to wander toward the station. After dark, the forest park was closed, except to registered campers, but that didn’t always stop people from finding their way inside anyway.

She was about to settle in with her book when she heard the same wail as before, much fainter this time due to how far away she now was from the place she’d heard it initially. And even then, she registered it would’ve been across a clearing that was most probably amplifying it and making it sound way closer than it actually was. 

Her keys in her hands, she debated what to do. What if it was hurt? It sounded like it was hurt. After all, part of her job as a ranger was to ensure the wildlife’s safety, and poachers were unfortunately hard to keep at bay. 

It didn’t necessarily have to be a wolf. There were all sorts of pups that sounded about the same at an early age. Could’ve very well been a stray dog even, not unheard of, and actually much more probable to roam on its own than a wolf. Maybe it was attacked by a wolf and left to suffer, maybe it wasn’t poachers at all. Maybe, maybe, maybe. The possibilities were endless.

She thought to call Nick back in, after all, how far could he have gone? But she felt a sense of urgency taking over her, well, if worse came to worst - she was armed and knew her way around the woods.

Wolves travel in packs. There’s no way there was just this one pup and maybe its mother - no, she’d have heard them from afar. And especially with the full moon, they were bound to be vocal. 

Just to be safe though, she took the Jeep. Making sure to keep a low profile - after all, the moon was up and was definitely aiding her way around the forest without having to turn on the headlights - she knew the general direction she was going in, but couldn’t help but wish the pup would make some noise so that she’d be able to locate it more easily. 

She kept her window down and her engine revving to a minimum as she made her way as close to the clearing as possible. She’d have to go on foot soon, but she would leave the car close enough to make a run for it if needed. 

The cracking of twigs underfoot and the bright moon rising above made her feel grounded. The moon gave her a sense of direction, while the dried twigs let her know she was stepping on solid ground. Though it was only visible when the curtain of leaves opened every ten feet or so, it was the moon that would help guide her back toward the path.

Y/N stopped and closed her eyes. She wanted to hear it again, the noise that she’d heard earlier. It could have been a wolf. It was very likely a wolf or stray dog. But she wanted to hear it once more and then she’d turn back, she promised herself. With her eyes closed and the sounds of the wind blowing through the brush and the tree limbs, the scent of pine and wood all around, she felt calm. These moments were the ones she considered a perk of the job. Being in nature, still, and quiet with a cry of an owl or a small peep of a fox.

She sighed and opened her eyes. Her heart rate had calmed considerably. The silence of the moment (though not without the noises of nature all around) had made her feel peaceful. Y/N shook her head and laughed at herself. She was silly to wander off the path in this off-limits zone. It was dangerous at night. It was time to head back to the trail.

And there it was again! The whimpering of the pup, but this time around, she could also hear muttering. Human muttering. Poachers, then. Just her luck. She knew she had no choice but to call in reinforcement in this case - there was no way she was gonna arrest people on her own, even if by some miracle there was only one person, which was never the case anyway. She went for her walkie-talkie and then fumbled for her phone instead, realizing yet again she was alone at the station for the night. Nick was gonna have to make that u-turn after all.

But just when she was about to make the phone call, she stumbled upon a very peculiar scene. 

There was just one man - oddly enough, probably an amateur since he didn’t know this was definitely not a one-man job, and he was holding the pup close to him, while he was kneeling on the ground in front of it. 

She couldn’t tell the exact breed of the pup. She was too far away and it was too young to tell, but the man was the one she was casting all her attention upon now. He seemed to be in some sort of physical pain, he was contorting and grunting, which was what was making the pup whimper. It didn’t seem to fear the man, but it was clearly compassionate to his suffering. 

Still - what the hell was this man doing? Had the pup been the one to cause him harm, he’d have hurt it by now, she’d seen her fair share of human cruelty. But the pup was not budging. Also, the man was speaking to it, whatever he was muttering was more than just grunts of pain - he was actually speaking to the animal.

She took in the appearance of the man, or at least as little as she could make out of him from a distance. He had long hair, he was definitely a tall person, even knelt on the ground, she could tell. His appearance was overall very… unique. Certainly not your average Joe the poacher. 

An idea came to her that made her grasp her rifle more tightly than before. What if he was some sort of hippie weirdo, some sort of witchcraft enthusiast that was looking to perform some sacrifice on the pup? With the way his body was contorting, and the chants he was seemingly performing, his overall appearance, the dark clothes, the long hair - it all added up. He was gonna sacrifice the pup for some pagan ritual and she wasn’t about to sit there and watch him take out a knife or something right before her eyes, hurting the pup before she could intervene!

“Stop right there!” 

The man’s eyes darted toward her immediately and she could’ve sworn they shined a bright yellow hue when they made eye contact. Clearly, her imagination was running wild with this whole pagan ritual scenario she’d been envisioning just earlier because the closer she got the more the man looked as normal as any.

Well. Maybe that wasn’t quite the right way to describe him. Aiming the rifle at him and advancing slowly, she couldn’t help but take in his appearance more closely. His eyes were in fact piercing, but they were a very light shade of bright green. His complexion seemed quite ghostly but that was surely due to the intensity of the moonlight that was shining brightly upon them in the clearing. His hair was unlike anything she’d ever seen on a man before. Long, silky curls, reaching slightly over his shoulders, it appeared to be wild and soft at the same time. She couldn’t make up her mind, because his mouth kept catching her eye the most, his large mouth with luscious, almost feminine lips that shone temptingly in the moonlight along with his irises. She had to stop inspecting his appearance as soon as her eyes landed on his cross pendant that hung low on his torso, his shirt open to his ribcage. She’d gotten close enough, and also, she was getting distracted.

Yes. He was unusual looking for sure. She was probably not far off in her assumptions since there was an eerie vibe to him, but what really confirmed it was the intensity of his stare.

He was staring at her in a way no one had in her entire life. She couldn’t read anything in his eyes - not surprise, not fear, not malicious intent - nothing. But she felt incredibly vulnerable under his scrutiny. She barely had a chance to glance at the pup, which, at a closer inspection, she still couldn’t quite tell whether it was wolf or not. It was weird how it just stood there next to the man, though. Like it was his pet he’d trained for years and years, and the pup couldn’t have been more than 7 maybe 8 months old judging by its build. 

The man was still panting heavily, his jaw slightly set, but whatever was happening to him before - pain or him performing a chant or whatever it was - had seized. She made sure her demeanor and voice were unwavering “What are you doing with this animal here? Are you aware you are trespassing in a prohibited area?”

“Officer. I was not aware. I’ll be out of your hair, and back on the trail.”

“Stay put.” she gestured with her rifle, discouraging him to get up as he was about to. “Why didn’t you log into the station if you were going to camp overnight? You are violating a number of laws here, sir. Is this animal yours?”

She tried her level best to read him, but his eyes weren’t giving away anything. It was like looking at a psychopath, oddly enough, that was the only comparison that came to her mind. She’d never seen anything like it.

“I wasn’t planning on camping… the pup is my pet. He wandered off a while ago and I’d been looking for him ever since. Now that I’ve found him, we’ll be leaving.”

“Sir, I will not warn you again. You are to stay put until I give you clear instructions otherwise.” She looked at him some more, scanning him head to toe as best she could. He was wearing chelsea boots. Heeled chelsea boots. Velour, heeled chelsea boots… to go for a hike? “Did you drive here?”

“Yes, my vehicle is parked at the southeast entrance into the forest.”

“That’s the furthest exit. A long trek over here, at least a 9-hour walk. You’re telling me you made it all the way over here dressed in those?” she pointed her rifle to his boots and for the first time she saw a hint of a reaction on his face, if only for a split second.

A smirk.

The man had smirked. 

Was this entertaining to him? 

“I stopped for a quick walk, just to get some fresh air. I wasn’t planning on spending the whole day here. My pet wandering off left me no choice, I’m afraid.”

“What’s the dog’s name? Why isn’t it collared? What breed is it?”

The man looked over to the pup who was just standing there dumbly. This was the oddest dog she’d ever seen. If she didn’t know any better she could’ve sworn he’d placed some spell on it to stand so still - she’d never seen a dog behaving like this in her whole life.

“I don’t know. Haven’t had him long.”

“Sir, have you stolen this dog?”

There it was again, that smirk, only this time, it seemed like he was doing it with his eyes somehow. They sparkled with mischief. “No.”

“Do you have any means to prove this is, in fact, your pet?”

“He obeys me.”

Y/N whistled and tried to make the pup come to her, but it didn’t even budge. 

“I’m his owner.” the man reiterated.

“I’ll have to take it in until you can make proof of ownership, I’m afraid.”

“You’ll do no such thing.”

Y/N scoffed “Sir, you are in no position of bargaining. Let me see some ID.”

“I don’t have any on me.”

Y/N pondered the situation. Did she really want to take him into the station? She wasn’t prepared for that, she didn’t call in for reinforcement as per protocol, and she would’ve just gotten herself into unnecessary trouble. She could easily just take the pup - the sweet little thing was obedient and well-behaved, check its chip to see if it was in fact stolen, and have the man bring in proof the next day. Yeah. That sounded a lot more reasonable.

“I’m taking the pup into the station until you make proof of ownership tomorrow. You’re lucky I’m not fining you for trespassing.” She unclasped a key from her keychain and threw it at him, he didn’t budge to catch it so it hit him square in the chest “That’s for the tourist cabin down west from here, it’s a 5-minute walk. You can’t miss it. Stay on the path, and don’t try and take any shortcuts. This area isn’t tourist friendly. This is why you should log in at the station when you plan on camping. Make sure to check for snakes, otherwise, it should make do to get you through the night,” she also threw a flashlight in his direction. “Use that.” She whistled again, trying to get the pup’s attention “Come here, boy, c’mon.”

The pup wasn’t budging, if anything it began whimpering. The man looked at it and without having to say a word, it unglued itself from him and made its way toward her reluctantly.

This man was definitely into some dark magic at the very least. The whole thing sent shivers down her spine. It was as though he had the dog hypnotized or something.

She tied a makeshift lead around the pup’s neck and secured it to her belt, as best she could while still aiming the rifle at the strange man. “You may get up now.”

He didn’t even bother picking up the keys and the flashlight in doing so. He stood at an impressive height, even taller than she’d originally assumed. He was clearly concealing his displeasure with the way he had to give up the dog, that perpetual scowl on his face was the only thing trading any kind of emotion, though she suspected that was his default expression.

“I expect you tomorrow at the station with proof of ownership. If you don’t show up it’s considered a federal offense. Am I understood?”

“Understood, officer.”

She nodded and lowered her rifle for the first time since coming upon him. “Be safe.” 

She waited for him to start towards the cabin, but he was just standing there, staring at her. “It’s that way,” she gestured the rifle in the direction she’d indicated earlier.

He reluctantly took a step back, and then another, and then turned and disappeared into the woods. It was as if he’d never been there.

She looked down at the puppy who was seemingly distressed, looking after its owner “It’s alright, boy. You’re safe,” she whispered at it and then tugged on the lead to make their way back towards the jeep. 

It wasn’t until she got inside and secured the pup in the crate she had in the back that she realized the man hadn’t picked up the key and the flashlight from the ground.

Oh well. His problem. She’d done her duty.

The drive back was much shorter now that she could use the headlights and not worry about being as silent as possible. Just as she was about to unlock the station though, she heard a wolf howling. She’d not heard one as close in the whole 2 months she’d been stationed there. It made all her hair stand up on her body.

The last thing she expected was for the sweet little pup by her side to start howling in return. 

“Guess you’re not exactly a dog, are you, boy?”

She knew it. That man was not its owner. And whatever hold he’d had on the pup was not exactly human either.

Chapter 2

A/N: (@fkinavocado and @gurugirl here) We're so excited to begin this series and we really hope you love it as much as we do! ❤️

please remember to like & reblog if you enjoyed this, and most importantly, come share your thoughts on it with us here 💌

if you feel so inclined, you can buy us a coffee here☕

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[calicozmbie]

Hi! First of I wanted to say I loved your social media blurbs! If you can could you do a social media blurb or a one shot of y/n at Harry’s finale show with Gemma and Anne and you get engaged at the end :)

Notes: Heyy, thank you so much! Of course I can, I wasn’t too sure if you wanted the engagement to be publicised or in private so I did private. Also I apologise for posting this so late! And, don’t forget my requests are open so if anyone wants something wrote, send one!

Thanks for the request! ❤︎︎

ENGAGED

Pairing: Harry Styles x fem!reader

Summary: It’s the final show and Harry has been extremely nervous for this particular night, but not for the reason you think.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆟 𓆝 𓆟

It’s the final show, and you’re stood here with Anne’s and Gemmas arms wrapped around you as Harry plays his piano Ballard . Your eyes a filled with adoration, tears threatening to fall. It gives you a moment to reminisce on the most special moments you’ve shared together. The best moments.

June 2009, the revelation

“Harry!” You squeal out, running towards his open arms. Them wrapping around your waist, lifting you into the air with a spin. He places you down gently with a soft smile.

“How’ve you been doin’?” He asks, you smile brightly.

“I’ve been great! I’m glad you’re back though, I got lonely.” You let out a nervous laugh, he laughs along with you—making you feel slightly less nervous. “How was the trip? Did you see any cool sights?” You ramble, he gestures you to slow down and your cheeks heat up.

“I saw loads! It was awesome.” He beams, before his face becomes serious. “I’ll tell you all ‘bout it, but I want to speak to you about somethin’ yeah?” Your brows furrow and you give him a look of confusion, you lead him to your room where it’s more private.

“Soo..what’s up?” You sit crossed legged on the bed, him eventually joining you with a shaky breath.

“I need to tell ‘ye something but I don’t want you to freak out,” Harry explains, eyes avoiding you until you softly grab his hand with a reassuring look.

“I promise I won’t freak out, you can tell me anything.” Your voice is soft, calming and gives Harry a familiar feeling once he hears it. He’s nods, exhaling loudly before looking you in the eyes with a nervous look.

“I like..you. I have for a few years, y/n, I’ve liked you for so long. I mean, what’s not to like? You’re smart, pretty, funny and your personality..if I start now I don’t think I’ll ever stop.” He breathes out, a slight smile on the corner of his mouth. “You don’t have to say that you like me back..I mean how could yo-“

You cut him off with a small peck on his lips, pulling away and both of your cheeks are bright red. “I like you too Harry, a lot.” You giggle, he lets out a sigh of relief and leans in to place another kiss on your lips.

“I don’t want this t’a sound too cliché but do you wanna..I dunno, go out with me?” He speaks, looking at you hopefully with his dough eyes that you could just stare at all day. You nod, smiling widely which is immediately mirrored on his face.

“How could I ever say no to that question?”

July 2014, the promise

“Okay..you’re worrying me. What’s going on?” You ask with a light laugh, though a frown settles on your features. Harry is currently dragging you by the hand down a dimly lit path to the ‘beach’ near your house. You reach the end where he sighs, dropping your hand as you feel the now cold feeling in your hand. “You okay baby?”

“I love you, so much y/n. I always have and I want you to have something to show you that I promise to always love you. That I promise no matter what, I’ll always love you and be by your side.” Harry says, tone full of love and honesty making your heart flutter. Butterfly’s fill your stomach as he pulls out a small box.

He chuckles lightly, “don’t worry, I’m not proposing just yet but this is a promise that one day I will.” Your heart warms, smiling at him softly before letting out a small gasp when he opens the box to reveal a gold, flower engraved ring.

“Oh..Harry it’s beautiful.” You gasp out, looking at him with wide eyes.

“It’s a promise ring, I promise everything to you y/n. I’ll never leave your side, not once.” He takes it out and holds it at your finger, giving you a look which you understand in a second. You nod quickly, smiling widely as he places it on your hand and squealing as you jump into his arms.

“I love you, so much.” You whisper whole-heartedly.

August 2021, the surprise

“Oh! Harry where are we going?” You giggle out, following him inside one of your houses together. It’s dark, the dim light reflection from the moon settles in the living room—you gasp out when you see a box full of animal toys and a few other accessories. “What..what is this?”

He gives you a lazy smirk, walking to the side for a moment to grab a cardboard box. You furrow your brows trying to take a peak at the box but he laughs a hides it away, until you hear a small sound emit from the box.

“Harry..you didn’t,” you gasp out in shock, awe and just a mix of many different feelings.

He nods, placing the box down in the wooden floor and he’s about to open it but a small paw peaks out—followed by a quiet ‘meow’ as a little kitten struggles to climb out of the box. “Surprise lovie.”

You let out a breath, getting down onto your knees and opening the lid and immediately tearing up at the sight of the animal. “Oh my god! You’re so precious..hi sweetheart!” You say softly, taking the kitten out. “Is it a girl?” He nods and you smile widely, cooing as she leans into your touch.

You stand up after placing her down, watching as she waddles around the new area with a curious sniff. You smile at Harry lovingly, his arms coming to wraps themselves around your shoulders—love and adoration shared within the room. He kisses you softly, smiling into it. “Do ‘ye like her?” He asks with his soft eyes.

“I love her..just as I love you.” Your hand caresses your boyfriends cheek and he smiles widely.

“I love you too y/n.”

Present time

You’re so caught up in your own thoughts you haven’t realised the shows over, until a security guards hand is guiding you backstage where Harry is waiting patiently for all of you.

“Oh..he did so well, I’m so proud of him.” Anne says, still in shock with tears rolling down her cheeks. You smile at her softly, stroking her hand as Gemma holds one of your own.

“We all are,” Gemma says wholeheartedly, eyes also glistening. You look forward with awaiting eyes when the three of you stand together backstage. Harry emits slowly, his face still damp with tears from one of the greatest moments of his life, but he still looks nervous?

Anne let’s out a sob-laugh before jogging into his open arms, he kisses his face repeatedly as he laughs lightly. “Oh my boy I’m so, so proud of you!” He’s out of his outfit now, dressed slightly more fancy in black slacks and a white button up; the top few buttons undone to reveal his chest.

Why hasn’t he changed into his regular comfy clothes?

“Thanks mum.” He breathes out in the midst of her tight hold, Gemma soon joins the hug and you grin at the family. His eyes meet yours over their shoulders and they tell you everything you need to know, they pull themselves away so you’re able to run into his arms with a happy sigh. “Hi lovie.”

“Hi baby, you did so well out there—I’m so proud of you.” You whisper into his neck, pulling away so you’re able to angle your neck just right to give him a small kiss.

“Thank you..will you take a walk with me?” He asks, a shaky breath following his words, which makes you frown with concern. You nod, stealing a glance at his family and friends who all have a knowing look on their face.

After walking for at least twenty minutes, security with you for the most part as they have only just finished the show, you reach a small secluded path that’s lit up with multiple candles and fairy lights. The hue of the sunset is hitting his face perfectly, making him look like an Angel in disguise.

You giggle softly, Harry’s arm tightening on you when you almost trip over, “Harry, where are we going?” Though he doesn’t answer, you gasp out-loud when you reach the end. Flower petals lining the floor, a few pictures of you both from all the moments you’ve had together decorating the railing. “Oh..this is, Harry what is this?”

You then turn around expecting him to be stood there where he was but you get a whole different view. He’s kneeling..on one knee.

Your hands come up to cup your mouth in shock, unable to say anything when he reaches into his back pocket and pulling out a small black, velvet box.

“Y/n L/n..I love you so much I can’t put it into words, if I even just began to talk about how much you mean to me and what makes you, you..then we’d be here forever,” he speaks with a shaky breath and looks down quickly with a light laugh before looking back up to you—his eyes glistening along with yours.

“I really don’t know what I’d do without you, I don’t think I’d be able to survive without you,” he pauses for a moment, anxiety still clear in his movements, “will..will you marry me?”

You suck in a deep breath, tears falling as you stutter out words. Looking into his hopeful eyes full of love you nod slowly, humming, “yes, yes of course I will!” A breathy laugh, tears and a small squeal coming from you when he gently slides the ring onto your finger. You jump into his arms, both of you whispering small affirmations to each other.

“Y/n Styles..has a ring to it right?” He says breathily after placing you back onto your feet, a lazy grin on his lips. You nod, kissing him deeply which he quickly responds to. “I love ‘ye, so much.”

“I love you too, Mr styles.”

—

[watermelonsugacry]

Hey! Hope everything’s going good! Was thinking if bandmember did anything like the vanity fair Billie eilish videos when they watch back all those interviews. Would love to see how far our girl has come

YN YLN: Same Interview, The Sixth Year | Vanity Fair

A/N: Christmas break is coming up so been busy but I also have some stuff coming out soon for your lovies! 💚

SINCE 2010 masterlist

“Year six, baby,” YN smirks at the camera. “Alright—” She pulls on the tops of her pink sheer opera gloves that match her pink corset before clapping her hands together. “—Let’s do this. ‘Ello, m’name is YN YLN. Today’s date is October 18, 2022.”

How old are you?

“I’m 23 years old.”

“I’m 24.”

“25.”

“26.”

“27.”

“M’28 years old,” YN kisses her teeth. “M’pushing 30, mate.”

How many followers do you have on Instagram?

“I have 573K followers on Instagram.”

“8.7M.”

“60.9M.”

“94.8M.”

“106M.”

“I currently have 287 million followers on Instagram. Dunno why I have so many; I make a lot of shit posts.”

What is your most liked picture on Instagram?

2017:

“My most liked picture is one of me and the boys huddled up backstage after our last performance together with 654K likes.”

2019:

“It is a picture of me in my home recording studio with about 5 million likes.”

2022:

“It’s currently one of me photo dumps on tour. The first picture on that one is a selfie with Harry taking a bite out of m’cheek. This one has 60,036,819 likes. Which is way too many likes if m’being honest.”

How are you feeling today?

2022:

“M’feeling really good. I always look forward to these interviews. I try me best not to look at the old videos more than once so that I can best prepare meself for my current answers, yeh know? But I love that I get to do this every year. There’s a lot of like, time lapse compilation videos on meself on YouTube that show off how far I’ve come over the years but these I feel are the least cringy ones,” YN lets out a laugh.

Biggest thing to happen in your career?

2021:

“I won a Grammy for producer of the year?” YN furrows her eyebrows as she juts her chin out. “Wha’ is life? That’s insane. The highlight of me career. Hands down.”

2022:

“It’s still the highlight of me career. And I got nominated for it again for Grammys 2023. To even be nominated and be the only woman in this category a second year in a row is just super fookin’ wild. Um...I got seven other Grammy nominations for next year. I’m also on tour again—a world tour—and it’s definitely me favorite thing to do aside from making the actual music. Harry’s new album that we’ve been workin’ on for over the past two-ish years finally came out earlier this year. I’m dropping me third album before the year is up. So many good things have happened this year that it’s honestly too long to list.”

How often do you get recognized in public?

2017:

“Pretty often,” She nods her head, a chuckle pushing past her lips. “It’s pretty hard to just go out and grab a bite to eat without getting surrounded.”

2020:

“Public? Who is she? I dunno her,” YN teases. “It’s pretty rare that I’ll go out nowadays and the masks only help so much with trying to be lowkey on the street on stuff like tha’.”

2022:

“I have to admit, v’gotten a lot better at being discreet when going out in public,” She nods her head with a knowing smile. “I think I was just so used to not being ‘allowed’ to go outside or if I did I wouldn’t enjoy meself because I knew I was gonna get recognized by paps. It was really hard for baby YN there because of how everything started. Everything I did was in the public eye and no matta’ what I did, me fans always knew where I was at all times it seemed,” YN hums. 

“I love me fans and I love the times when we happen to see each other on the street, we can have like a genuine conversation instead of shoving yeh phone in me face and putting yeh hands on me without me permission. I’ve had the most amazing conversations with fans like tha’ those moments are super special to me.

But in all honesty, they need to get hired by the FBI or somethin’. Knowin’ where m’gonna be before I even do,” She huffs out a chuckle.

What’s most important to you right now?

2020:

“The relationships within me life. I think this year has really made me recognize that. Whether those relationships are with me mum, me boyfriend, me tour team, me dancers, the fans—they’re all super important to me. Makin’ sure that we’re all safe and healthy—mentally and physically—now more than ever.”

  2022:

“All of which are still very important to me. I think v’also learned to stay in touch with me emotions. I think in an industry like this, it can be very easy to just put on a mask or passively go through events to maintain an image. If I’m doing something—wether it be somethin’ major or not, I want to allow m’self to be in the moment.

I did a show recently in Austin and...” The crease between her eyebrows disappear and smile etches itself on her lips at the memory, “I was singing POV and I just stopped singing and the crowd took over. I quite literally just stood there, took out me earpieces and just listened to a stadium full of people sing my song back to me. It made me feel so...it made me feel really good, really happy.”

Do you feel pressure?

2017:

“I do yeah,” YN nods with a sincere furrow of her eyebrows. “But I have been feeling pressure for the majority of my career so I’m mostly used to it by now; It doesn't bother me as much anymore.”

2022:

“Of my fookin’ word,” She throws her head back. “I can’t even—like even the way I spoke, man. Can yeh hear that? Like, I was still in the mindset of having to change the way I talk, tweak me accent and act all prim and proper,” YN points a finger into her mouth as she sticks out her tongue.

“And what a lie. Like of course that pressure bothered me still! I was fresh into the hiatus, just dropped me first solo album, about to do a world tour by meself for the first time. I was dealin’ with so much that I remember the pressure of everything was just...it felt that I was gonna be squished into a pancake. Being in the band and being as big as we were, there was an immense amount of pressure for everything to keep going well; everything seemed like it had to get bigger and bigger and if I didn’t live up to that standard as a solo artist, it was the end of the world to me.”

“I do still feel some pressure but definitely not to that extent anymore. It’s more of like, a good pressure, I’d say. It keeps me from resting on me laurels and it makes me continue to work hard to improve meself. Like, just because I won an award for produce of the year doesn’t mean that m’gonna let it get to me head and just not work to better meself in that craft. 

But I have to admit that a lot of that pressure has been lifted off of me from me fans. They’ve just continued to give me their unconditional love and support—whether it be for a year, 2 years, 12 years—m’just super grateful that they just allow me to be me, flaws and all.”

What did you eat today?

2020:

“I ate some grilled chicken—that I made all by myself—with a side of some beans,” YN giggles as she knows by now that the fans have been having a laugh about her boyfriend’s baked beans comment over interviews in quarantine.

2021:

“I had a chicken caesar salad bowl that I probably put way too much dressing on to be considered healthy anymore,” She chuckles, playing with the chunky chain sitting on her collarbones.

2022:

“I actually had an amazing chicken wrap this morning. Just the right amount of protein and yumminess,” She pats her tummy with a content smile. “Yeh girl likes chicken, what can I say?”

Are you aware of people when you're playing?

2019:

“I think so yeah. It’s crazy because for me, it’s scarier to play in front of 6 people than 60 thousand people. But on the other hand, the noisiness of big crowds is super calming to me. I can’t really explain how. Like right before m’gonna go on stage, I like to take out me ear-pieces and just listen to them scream...which now makes me sound like a serial killer of summ’wat,” YN’s shoulders bunch up to her ears as she giggles.

2022:

“I would say that m’more aware of the audience members now more than I ever have before. This current tour that m’on is probably the funnest tour so far and it’s really because of the fans. When m’on stage and when I’m performing, I make sure to look at the people in the audience, yeh know? Like, I can still remember when the band did our first stadium tour, I honestly couldn’t see anything; they were all just blurbed together. 

But with this tour, I make sure to take the time during the show to talk with fans. And I make an effort to sing to them and look at them dancing in the pit, the outfits they recreate, the way some of them are just closing their eyes and just being in the moment. As a musician, to see people come to me show and to see how they create this environment where everyone can have fun and let loose and just have a good time is just super amazin’. It’s a really indescribable feeling.”

Are you more confident this year compared to last year?

2018:

“From last year to now? 100%,” She answers with ease, leaning back into her seat. “I think this is the most confident I’ve ever felt, I think. M’not too worried about what people are sayin’ about me because let’s face it, they are always saying something. So if yeh like me, cool. If yeh don’t, cool.”

2022:

“She’s not wrong. 2018 YN’s ego was pretty up there. Granted, me ego is still growing and sensitive so—” YN shamelessly shrugs and puts her hands up in defense. “—Take tha’ as you will. But I definitely feel more confident and secure in who I am as a person and as an artist. When the boys and I went our separate ways musically, I had a hard time sort of, figuring out what I like and the kind of music I wanted to make for meself. Even the way I thought about fashion, I knew people saw me in skirts and things like that but I remember entertaining the idea of if I wanted to continue that as a security blanket of sorts. 

When I was in the band, I took things with a grain of salt and m’very happy that I’ve kept that with me.” 

Biggest rumor about you?

2017:

“That I’ve slept with each of the 1D boys,” YN lets out a nervous laugh. “Which is gross because they’re all like my brothers.”

2018:

“Where do I even begin?” YN blows out a raspberry. “I’ve been gettin’ this one for literally years now but that m’dating my old bandmate, Harry—which is getting really old at this point,” She scrunches up her nose with a roll of her eyes.

2022:

YN bursts out laughing as she watches her old self answer, knowing full well that during that time period she was in the midst of her on-and-off relationship with Harry. 

She tilts her head to the side with a quick raise of her eyebrows, “I mean, she’s not wrong. V’been getting that question/comment asked since we were on the XFactor. And believe it or not, I still get asked that question. I just answer it differently now,” She cheekily brings her shoulder to her chin.

What do you hate being asked?

2018:

“That. The ‘who are you dating?’ question. For a long time, I just had to suck it up and just answer the question but I don’t have to answer if I don’t want to, y’know? Also, I’m my own person,” She begins to list things off of her fingers, “I’m not someone’s arm candy, m’not so-and-so’s new girl. I’m YN YLN and if all you ask me is if I’m dating anyone rather than me music, you don’t deserve my time.”

2022:

YN drops her jaw and the corners of her lips tug up in a smile.

“A feisty little thing she is,” She chuckles. “But no truer words have ever escaped me mouth. She’s right, and I still stand by that. 100%. My career is not based around a guy or who m’dating. That’s not to say I hate talking about Harry—I love to talk about him but don’t make it the whole point of the interview, yeh know?”

Craziest fan moment?

2021:

“Me first show back on tour after being held back in 2020 was really heartwarming. It a stadium show—not intimidating at all for me first show back—” YN sarcastically comments. “—so there were three levels of seating: the pit, the middle section, and then the top. While I was singing, the audience did a fan project where on the top section held up lights to read welcome back, and then the middle said we missed you, and the pit held up pieces of paper saying we love you. M’not even gonna lie, I was bawlin’ me eyes out. Like, just thinking of the amount of work that went into that...” She shakes her head in disbelief. 

2022:

“I did a show last week in LA and at the barricade, I saw this lineup of these 5 girls wearing my current and past tour outfits. I have seen some really good recreation of me fits before and it was honestly like a copy and paste, I was so shocked. After talking with them for a bit—now I don’t ever do this—but I invited them to come up on stage with me,” YN laughs. 

“I suggested we ditch the choreography for Kiss Me More but they insisted they knew it and sure enough,” YN throws her hands with another laugh. “I almost hired them on the spot!”

Do you have a boyfriend?

2017:

“Um, no. I do not have a boyfriend. I’m just really focused on my music at the moment. That’s my boyfriend,” She lets out a chuckle.

2020:

YN playfully rolls her eyes and throws her hands up, “Well I’d be the biggest liar in the world if I said no.”

She huffs out a giggle as she refers to the entire world finding out about her secret relationship with Harry on New Years Eve of that year.

2021:

“I do have a boyfriend,” She smirks at the camera with a shrug of her shoulder, leaving it at that.

2022:

YN takes a second longer to answer this question and stares at the laptop screen with a fond smile. She technically doesn’t have a boyfriend anymore, but will she let them know that? Nope.

“Well, you’d all be happy to know that Harry and I are still very much together. Still got that boy locked down, ladies,” She playfully winks at the camera with a click of her tongue. 

What makes you happy in a relationship?

2022:

“I like quality time. From staying inside 24/7 in 2020 to easing back into my busy schedule made H and I realize that it was important to set some time aside for ourselves, just the two of us. Like, we don’t even have to be talking just as long as we’re together during the business of it all. And...” A smirk grows on her lips, “One of me love languages is physical touch. It definitely wasn't on the list before so you can probably guess who made me this way but yeah. And music, of course, that’s me main form of love language. Whether we’re listening to good music, making it, singing it—anything to do with it m‘in love.”

Describe your style in 3 words.

2017:

“Figuring it out.”

2018:

“No more skirts,” The 24-year-old rolls her eyes.

2019:

“Whatever is comfy,” She laughs as she wraps her light green cardigan tighter over herself.

2020:

“Trying new things.”

2021:

“Trousers and blazers.”

2022:

She tilts her head as she bites her lip, looking up as she thinks about how to compactly frame her style now. As she says the next three words, she holds up her hand to count it off on her fingers, “Pretty in pink. And 2018 YN was a lie. I still fancy a skirt every now and then.”

Biggest thing you’re struggling with?

2019:

“I think, just being honest with meself in terms of how I feel. I think I struggle a lot with allowing meself to feel the way I feel about certain things,” Or about a certain someone. “And that it's okay to feel those things. I know, super detailed,” She chuckles.

2022:

“Yeah, 2019 YN was certainly going through some personal issues. S’crazy to look back at these videos and remember wha’ I was feelin’ during that time. S’pretty crazy. I can say that v’grown immensely from that time of my life which is very comforting to know. It’s still hard for me, don’t get me wrong, but allowing myself to feel things like love or sadness or happiness is something that I’m subconsciously reminding myself to do. 

I think the biggest thing that m’stuggling now with is to have check ins with meself. It’s safe to say that m’back to my busy, hectic, never-ending schedule so I want to take a breather every now and then. It can be a whole day, a whole 20 minutes, just a pause to check in with my mind, me body, me spirt to make sure m’okay and then be off to a career that I love very dearly.”

What advice would you give your future self?

2017:

“Have some fun and enjoy this new chapter that you’re venturing onto,” She nods with a smile.

2019:

“I would say to allow yourself to feel uncomfortable. Step out of your comfort zone and take that leap of faith.”

2022:

“What a genetic piece of advice for that first year, eh?” YN chuckles with a smirk, “Enjoy this new chapter you're venturing onto like yeh can hear how professional I wanted to sound,” She playfully rolls her eyes with a sigh. “I would say that 2019 YN’s advice is a good one though. It’s a good reminder to not play things safe all the time. As a narcissist, I want everything to be perfect, especially me music, so to be in the studio and not fall back to me old habits of what I think sounds good, try something different, yeh know? I like that a lot, actually.”

This is my mum...

2017:

“Everyone, say hello to Penny,” YN proudly presents as her stepmum comes up to her side, placing a hand on the back of her chair as she waves at the camera.

“‘Ello, lovelies,” Penny beams.

2018:

“Penny!” YN smiles brightly. When she wiggles her fingers towards her stepmum the sound of her rings clinking together can be heard.

When Penny walks up to her stepdaughter’s side, she puts her hands on top of YN’s red leather jacket to give her shoulders a squeeze.

“Hi baby,” Her stepmum gives a warm smile and gently presses her chin to YN’s temple.

2019:

Penny tucks her long, black hair behind her ears before wrapping her arms around her stepdaughter’s shoulders. 

“I love you, my baby,” She says into her hair before planting a kiss on her head.

“I love youuu so much,” YN sings as she holds onto her stepmum’s forearms over her chest.

2020:

“Y’already know what time it is,” YN dances in her seat, her arms already extended out by her side. She lets out a laugh as she watches Penny shimmy her way to her stepdaughter’s side. The tight high waisted jeans show off her curvy, fit figure and a mask covers the lower half of her face.

“It’s Penny time,” Her stepmum throws finger guns at the camera.

2021:

“Come over ‘ere, mum,” YN nods her head over to Penny. Once she’s close enough, she takes a hold of her stepmum’s hand and pulls her over for her to sit on her lap, wrapping her arms over her torso, “Love you.”

“I love you more, baby,” Penny smiles as she leans her head back to rest beside YN’s. 

2022:

“This is me mumma,” YN smiles warmly before cooing out a chuckle. “Wha’ happened?” She questions when she sees Penny walk over to her side with glossy eyes.

“Sorry, m’sorry,” She chuckles, dabbing her under eyes with the sides of her index fingers. “S’just really fookin’ cool to see how far you’ve come. Like look at her—” Penny points to the laptop screen that has 2017 YN on display. “—me lil’ baby.”

“Mum!” YN laughs when Penny wraps her arms around her daughter’s head and pulls it to her chest.

Taglist:

@wobblymug @be-with-me-so-happily @ashtongivesmebutterflies @kiwiskiwiskiwi @darlingdesire @obsesseddd @hopefulwastelandcreation @cacapeepee @breezie-b00 @harrysfolklore @theekyliepage @sunshinemoonsposts @nervousspiderling @tbslonelyhes @tenaciousperfectionunknown @harrystylesrecs @certified-nalayak @itsjustsel @iknowyouthinkimbulletproof @gviosca @behindmygreyeyes @twobluejeans @allisonxmcu @theemeraldbutterfly @jean-love @marvellover-sam @b-reads-things @reveriehs @rach2602 @thurhomish @perrypughstyles @luvonstyles @mxltifxnd0m @teamspideyman @c00chiemonster @juiceboxrry @s8tellite @folklorehrry @illicithallways @claramllera @eunoiaax @hoya122 @nichmedder @sleutherclaw @gloriousmoneyrascalbiscuit @harianaswhore @teawithcyb0rgs @vrittivsanghavi @vc55bughead @futuristiccroissantlampsludge @onecrazydirectioner @valluvsu @itsgabbysblog @awkwardbisexuall @rosehel @sucker4angstt @isalove @diorchives @mrshiddlestyles02

[crazychaoticizzy]

TRACK ONE: Pilot/Heart Attack

Heart Attack: the greatest rock band in history. Decades after the nasty breakup that followed their final performance in Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, the six band members finally agree to separate interviews that reveal how they came together and their rise to fame.

And what led to their sudden downfall.

EREN X READER X JEAN

CONTENT: multipart fic, rock band au, love triangle, slow burn, angst

WORD COUNT: 1.1k

Series Masterlist

AOT Masterlist

DODGER STADIUM, LOS ANGELES After their highly anticipated performance at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles, Jean Kirschtein tore off the neck of his bass on stage and ripped a hole in the drums. After announcing his resignation from the famous band, Heart Attack, Eren Jäger punched him.

Following Jean Kirschtein's resignation, Heart Attack fell apart. The performance in Dodger Stadium was their last, and the six band members have not been seen together since.

This biography is made up of a series of interviews compiled over the years by Olivia Russo. This is the first time the band and others involved have spoken on their scandals since they broke up.

JEAN KIRSTEIN, bassist for Heart Attack: Just sit here?  Alright. Yeah, of course. Sure you don’t want anything to drink? Okay. [smiling] Hi.

EREN JÄGER, main male vocalist for Heart Attack: We’re gonna make this quick, ‘kay? I don’t wanna talk about this shit. Ask your questions, get a snack or something, and leave.

ARMIN ARLERT, guitarist for Heart Attack: Do I look okay? I dunno, I just feel nervous, I guess. I haven’t really talked about this in years, especially on camera.

SASHA BRAUS, keyboardist for Heart Attack: Oh, I’m so excited for this. Did my hair curl weird? No? Okay. What do you want me to do? Introduce myself? I don’t know, everything’s changed so much since the last time I did a one on one interview like this. Hi, my name is Sasha Braus. I was the former keyboardist and supporting female vocalist for Heart Attack.

CONNIE SPRINGER, drummer for Heart Attack: Ready, kid? You’re in for a ride. I hope you brought snack or something to hold you by, this is a long story.

MIKASA ACKERMAN, photographer and costume designer for Heart Attack: This is for a documentary, right? Or a novel? Oh, okay. Either way, I’ll try to remember everything as best I can.

Y/N L/N, main female vocalist for Heart Attack: Hey. Yeah, of course. Mess with whatever. Maybe you can hide the circles under my eyes. [laughs]

What did you think of Heart Attack?

MIKASA: Well, it was Eren’s dream, so I just kind of went with it. It was fun, though. I really liked everyone we worked with. Most of them were really nice.

EREN: We were on top of the fucking world. The biggest band of the century. Everyone knew our name and we were making millions. I don’t know why Jean wanted to throw that shit away.

JEAN: You want honesty? I fucking hated it. Every single second.

CONNIE: Ooo, getting into the deep shit already? Well, I personally thought it was so fun. More so after we got famous, but it was great even back when we were just teenagers in Mrs. Yeager’s basement.

ARMIN: I kind of felt… indifferent? I mean, yeah I liked it. I was spending time with my best friends. But I would have preferred something quieter, maybe? Something that didn’t have us at each other’s throats all the time, at least.

SASHA: Well, it was definitely stressful. God, especially when I was pregnant. I was so worried about what we were going to do then. I mean, I couldn’t be up on stage at almost nine months. Are you crazy? But then for half of our songs the keyboard is a really big part so it’s not like I just couldn’t be there.

Y/N: I really enjoyed it. Yeah, there were a couple times I maybe wanted to kill someone, but it was fun. Lifelong friends, some of them. All of them, actually, but . . .

SASHA: Oh, well. We figured it out in the end. [smiles]

Y/N: It didn’t end well, as I’m sure you know.

JEAN: What were we? A rock band, according to Google, but what we were doing wasn’t rock.

CONNIE: It’s kind of funny, actually. Before Sasha we were all so uncreative and couldn’t come up with song titles. With good reason, too, that shit is hard. Trying to sum up your song in a couple words? Pfft. We were all useless, especially Eren.

ARMIN: Only the super old fans know this, but our very first song ever, track one on our debut album, was originally called “Pilot.”

EREN: Yes, like the fucking first episode of a show that doesn’t know if it’s gonna do well or some shit. It was not my idea.

JEAN: It was Eren’s idea.

MIKASA: I tried convincing them to name it something else, but they wouldn’t budge. I suggested just their band name and they said, “No, that’s too basic. We need something unique.” They didn’t change it until Scout Records told them to. And guess what they changed it to.

CONNIE: We changed the first song to “Heart Attack” in… let’s see, 2018 or somewhere close to that. 2019, maybe?

JEAN: Naming our first album “Debut” was Eren’s dumb ass idea, too. Uncreative prick.

EREN: No one else had any better ideas, so we just went with what I said by default. It’s not like anyone cared, anyway.

What can you tell me about Marco Bodt?

SASHA: Sorry, darling. I don’t know much about him other than he was the band’s first keyboardist.

Y/N: Just what Annie and everyone else told me way back when. I don't remember much.

MIKASA: Oh, I wasn’t around them enough at the beginning to know him. That was around the same time my mom had started getting me ready to take over the store, so I spent almost all of my free time with her.

ARMIN: I don’t really remember him. I had him in my Chemistry class before I dropped out. He was my table partner, I think. He was nice, though. We tutored each other sometimes. And, of course, he was over at Eren’s with us a lot.

CONNIE: I loved Marco, man. If you met him, you knew you had just met the sun. He always had such a bright outlook on everything. He was like Switzerland when we started arguing. And he always came up with the best compromises.

EREN: Marco was amazing. I felt bad all the time because he was always breaking up arguments. I have no clue why he was friends with us.

ARMIN: We were definitely annoying. It took a special kind of patience to deal with us, especially at that age. Marco always handled it so well, though. I think he and I would’ve ended up being much better friends if we were given the chance.

JEAN: Someone did their homework. You know about Marco? Course you do, you’re fucking [incoherent]. Uhm, Marco… God, I haven’t talked about him since he died. I don’t even think the really old fans know about him, to be honest. Well, Marco was . . . I think he was the first boy I ever loved.

i'm so excited for this series you guys don't even know. i have so much planned and i hope you guys have as much fun reading it as i had writing it

TAGLIST: @arlerts-angel if you'd like to join the taglist please comment to let me know!

next part >>

[electricbathsalt]

(from kainagant) psst what are your extensive headcanons/thoughts on hero!overhaul au? i'd love to hear what you think he'd be like as a hero.

I AM SO GLAD YOU ASKED!! Idk why I didn’t talk about this sooner—it’s like I have to be prompted on a topic before I remember “oh yeah, I actually have thoughts on this matter, that I can speak out loud!!” 💀 also, I apologize in advance for how long this is. I’m basically summarizing the entirety of this AU in my mind, and it’s like. The longest-standing AU for Chisaki I have.

Anyway, first things first—he got taken away from the Hassaikai when he was young (like, maybe eleven or twelve?) and gets plopped in a Youth Recovery & Rehabilitation Center, which he was extremely pissed about at first, but his eyes kinda opened over the years as he learned more and more about how families and such are actually supposed to function, and how abnormal his entire life actually was up to that point.

Basically; he gets a stable, safe environment and therapy!! Yay!

By the time he reaches fifteen-sixteen, him going into hero school kinda just. Happened. He initially just wanted to shadow Recovery Girl, but they ended up making him take the entrance exam, and well… he passed with flying colors and all of a sudden he was a 1-A student. Luckily, that means instead of simply shadowing Recovery Girl, he gets to work as her official assistant! Cool, right.

And oh boy, does he learn a lot under her tutelage. Namely bedside manner. I imagine Chisaki who got away from the yakuza and had therapy wouldn’t be as blatant an asshole (obviously), but he would still be a bit lost on social norms and also honest/blunt to a fault. He doesn’t understand “putting things gently”, or “softening the blow”, and so Recovery Girl works to teach him when, where, and how he can be “nicer” to people/which situations require delicacy. She grows unexpectedly fond of him and actually finds his unwavering honesty refreshing because she knows he isn’t malicious and is simply stating exactly what he thinks. You just have to get used to his straightforwardness and he becomes rather endearing.

Recovery Girl also discovers that he’s actually capable of extreme kindness. Turns out when you coax him into telling you what’s on his mind, sometimes he’ll really surprise you with how much he cares, even if he himself doesn’t realize it, either (Without Pops and with therapy, Chisaki slowly grew back into caring about others. It took a lot of work, but without anyone weaponizing kindness against him, he felt he could allow himself to slowly feel it again (this is because doesn’t canon slightly imply Chisaki used to be kind like Eri with how he’s sort of like her if she never got saved? What if the way he escaped AFO’s facility was because he finally threw away caring about others and that was the difference between her and him? The fact Eri never got pushed to that point because she was rescued?))

Now, about his hero training. With his quirk-training, there’s not a lot to say/do. I’d say his quirk-training would involve a lot of “make this into this, as quickly as possible”. Basically, training him to be as precise and fast with his quirk usage as they can get him. I’d like to imagine that with training, they push him into being able to manipulate matter in all sorts of different ways, on the fly. He’s trained a lot in using environment to his advantage and whatnot. And maybe also one day, he ends up gaining the ability to use his quirk in areas other than his hands. Dunno.

For physical-training, I think they would heavily concentrate on making him extremely agile. Because hear me out—imagine Toga’s quirk awakening fight scene where she turns into Uraraka and sprints through all those people and takes them out. Imagine if Chisaki was able to move like that. He’d be fucking terrifying. They’d probably also want him to be extremely agile just on the front of being able to hit his hands against surfaces from as many positions as possible.

He absolutely would carry around things like painkillers and anesthesia like you said. Also hear me out, he’d carry around small bags of scraps that he’d then Overhaul to seal people’s wounds, since if the wound is big enough, he’d need some sort of substitute material to close it without sacrificing other parts of the person’s body.

He’d also sometimes work with the support course. He knows a lot about the human body and how quirks function, not to mention his quirk itself would be very useful in creating support items.

He’d get dragged into a lot of search-and-rescue missions because he’s literally perfect for those.

Pops eventually manages to get back into contact with Chisaki—to ask him to take a look at the girl he’s recently in possession of since her quirk is a dangerous mutation, and he’s such a fancy-pants doctor/support hero and quirk expert nowadays. Chisaki goes (he’s panicking internally from the moment he hears Pops’ voice over the phone to the moment he’s standing in front of the girl herself). He asks to take Eri for a couple days to run some tests. He never brings her back. He obtained full-custody of her via spilling every damn thing he’d ever learned and been through under the Shie Hassaikai.

(Seeing her sitting so lifelessly at that table, waiting to be prodded at like some sort of science experiment, reminded him of himself so much that it had been physically painful. The decision to ask to take her for only a while and then go back on his word was a rash one. It’s also one he doesn’t regret even slightly)

Huge advocate for quirkless people, and brings lots of awareness to quirk experimentation, since he’d been a victim of it himself.

And yes, becomes one of UA’s now multiple official on-site medical professionals. (They switch out as necessary)

So basically, he’s an extremely busy guy who never gets a moment’s rest thanks to the many… energetic people in his life (all the UA students give him migraines galore. Don’t even get him started on his coworkers), he’s slightly (very) terrifying, and SURPRISE! It’s good parent!chisaki AU as well, because I’m not leaving Eri to rot in Pops’ care.

I also play around with the idea of him never getting separated from his bio parents and becoming a hero from there, which mostly impacts his personality versus the actual stream of events that happen.

If there’s any further questions or if you wanted to know about anything specific, ask me and I’ll be happy to answer!! (Goes for anyone who may or may not be reading this)

[lunamaraproject]

LUNAMARA: Fragments [8]

👑

The old paper crinkles pleasantly under Felix’s fingers. For all he loves the sleek design of the tablets he usually teaches from, sometimes the tactile realness of paper is more enjoyable. Plus, when it comes to educating the princess, such luxurious materials are nigh on expected, so he can get away with requesting them.

“So this is you,” he explains as Elsie leans halfway over the desk, her hair spilling over her shoulders and nearly blocking his view.

“It doesn’t look like me,” she critiques with the honesty one can only expect from a girl barely 60. She grabs the nearest pencil and starts drawing hair and a dress onto the anatomical model.

“Okay, you fix it. Will you listen to my explanation while you fix it?”

“Mmhmm!”

She’s fairly good at multitasking, so he presses on. “When you eat manna, it goes down into your stomach here,” he both holds his hand on his belly, and taps on the diagram with his highlighter. Helpfully, she draws a star where he tapped. “Yes, there. Once it’s in your stomach, your body takes the manna, and breaks it down. What does it break it down into?”

“I dunno,” she says first, but he waits, until eventually she hedges a guess. “Maen?”

“Yes!” he grins brightly. “Maen is the energy that makes up all magic in the universe. It’s actually a shortening of ‘magical energy’, neat right?”

Elsie is too busy adding frills to the hem of her dress to actually agree with him about how interesting etymology is. A shame.

“Once the maen is in your body, it travels around it on the maen circuits. They run right next to your veins and nerves, and have special ‘pools’ all over, where the maen gathers. Can you draw more stars where I point?”

“Yeah,” she agrees, and he begins working around the body. First, travelling up the chest, then the neck, then the head. She has to draw the stars very small here, because there are so many points particularly on the face and skull. It looks like the figure sneezed on a constellation. “I can’t even see the eyes any more…”

“That’s okay, we’ll draw a bigger head in a minute so you can fit the stars in better,” Felix chuckles. “It’s important to know where the pools are, because they’re the places where maen exits the body when we use it to cast magic. Different kinds of magic use different pools on the body. So when I give you a kiss on your booboos, it’s not because I’m trying to eat you up!”

Elsie gives him a dry look. “I know that. I’m not 40.”

“I know you’re not!” he holds his hands up in surrender. “But I’ll always remember the time when I pretended to eat you, and you got really scared!”

“Well I don’t remember that at all,” she sniffs, then turns back to adding more details to her dress on the paper. “Are there pools on the hands?”

“Yes there are, very good! And also all up the arms here…”

It doesn’t take long to cover the rest of the figure in stars, on the front and the back side. Meanwhile, Elsie’s dress design is also coming along swimmingly.

“Did you get the idea for this dress from the present you got from the Naribians?” Felix asks.

“Yes, but I’m making it better with my own parts,” she says airily.

“You know, humans have maen circuits too!”

Now this finally gets her full attention. She looks at him like he’s grown a second head. “They do?”

“Yep! They’re veeeery thin and don’t get used much. Unlike starfolk, humanfolk can’t use their maen circuits by just thinking about it. So do other animals and plants, but even smaller, nearly not there at all.”

“Ohhh…” she trails off, mulling this new information over. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

“No, it’s not like with us where it hurts them to not use magic every now and then. They can live their whole lives and never use it, and be perfectly healthy!”

She continues to chew on this new fact for another minute of silence, before suddenly saying. “But what if that’s why they die fast? Humans, and animals.”

Admittedly, Felix wasn’t expecting that. Leave it to kids to come up with unexpected questions. He’s struck silent for a moment, pondering this himself. Who knows, maybe that was the reason. He’s not educated enough to know for sure. But then, when he’s not even an adult himself, he’s not sure what people are expecting.

“You know what, I don’t know!” he finally says with a laugh. “Let’s make a note of it, so we can look it up later in the library or with one of the professors.”

“Okay,” she agrees, scribbling the note in the top corner of the paper. “It doesn’t make much sense that the plants like trees live almost as long as we do, but the humans don’t. Humans look almost just like us, but their ears are weird and small and their bodies are big and hairy.”

“Sure do!”

"Do you think if I tried I could grow hair on my face like them?"

"... Maybe one day, Elsie!"

����

More from LUNAMARA:

Fragments: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]

Comics: [Good Night] [Good Morning]

Art by Luka (http://nousanti.tumblr.com/) Story by Pidge (http://pidgestories.tumblr.com)

[drivestraight]

really enjoyed your new fic ahhh!! do you think you'd ever share the other ending that you cut out? im so curious to see what the alternate happy ending was like lol

ask and ye shall receive 😎

i still think something like this happens. i just don’t particularly like how it’s a dramatic tone shift from the rest of the fic. it just felt disingenuous to me, like i was trying to force some happy end closure sort of vibe. I also just found it boring

there was supposed to be like. a short scene or two after this (but this is the “main” ending), but i never wrote it because, again, i didnt like the direction that would have me heading.

BUT ANYWAY it is cute so here :)

Oscar takes a long time to come to. Lando’s kissing the side of his throat, gentle about it, pressed up against his back, smoothing a hand down the sweaty curve of Oscar’s hip, his knot huge and swollen, blood-hot where it’s stretching against his rim, filling him full. Oscar feels it through his entire body, endorphins flooding him from head to toe; it feels, perhaps, better than his orgasm, he thinks, being knotted, and he thinks he gets it, a little bit, the whole deal about being an omega. It is, no matter how much he tries to pretend it isn’t, a part of him.

He takes the time to put himself back together, ground himself back into time.

As Lando noses at his scent gland, preening and purring and sated, Oscar decides to finally ask it. No better time than the present.

“Hey Lando.”

Lando grumbles, his stubble rough against Oscar’s nape. “Mmh?”

“You fancy me, right?”

Lando squawks, like it’s a dumb question, and maybe it is, in the end, but that wasn’t Oscar’s point.

“I mean, yeah,” he murmurs, sounding a little shy. “Was frickin’ obvious enough.”

Oscar hums. He tries to think of a good way to word it, but he can’t settle on anything gentle without missing the heart of it. He goes for it, straight-on. “Is it only ‘cause you found out I’m an omega?”

If it was, Oscar doesn’t think he would mind it, really, but he also wouldn’t know what to do with it. He’s just curious, really. He wants to understand.

Lando snorts, like he said something funny. “You must be frickin’ blind, mate.”

Oscar is thankful they’re on their sides, spooning as Lando’s knot deflates. This way, Lando can’t see the look on his face, the impossible heat on his cheeks when he asks, “Yeah?”

Lando is quiet for a long time, like he’s trying to find the right words, and Oscar thinks, realizes, that he is trying his hardest—maybe he has been, all this time. Eventually, he says, mouth moving against Oscar’s shoulder in a slow and easy drawl. “You being an omega doesn’t have much to do with it. I’ve liked you for a while now.

Oscar’s eyes widen. “You—”

“Yeah,” Lando says. “It’s been a long time.”

Heart thudding and thundering, Oscar swallows and asks, “Since when?”

“Since—” Lando starts, then stops. “Dunno. Sometime last year, I reckon. I don’t really think about it that much.”

Oscar breathes in deeply, and considers the last year and a half, tries to find a moment in time where maybe there were signals and signs, but he can’t find anything. He frowns, feeling like the rug’s been pulled under him, a little.

“You really didn’t notice?” Lando asks after a long beat of silence. Oscar shakes his head; it’s the truth, anyhow. Lando scoffs, but he doesn’t sound mad about it. “Figures. You were so busy with Mark.”

Oscar doesn’t really know what to say, so he doesn’t end up saying anything at all. He doesn’t think it’s particularly true, but it might be one of the things you can only clock from the outside looking in.

They fall back into silence, but Oscar can tell that something’s still bothering Lando, can smell it, can feel it. He doesn’t push, only waits for Lando to speak up. He reckons they’re both loose-mouthed and open-hearted enough tonight for that sort of honesty.

Lando’s voice is quiet when he confesses, like it’s something secret, something new, “I don’t like it.”

Oscar doesn’t bother asking what don’t you like? He doesn’t think there’s any point in asking questions he already knows the answer to, anymore. Something has to change. He thinks it’s time for something to change.

“Okay,” he says, simply.

“You can—” Lando goes on, stuttered and aborted. “Your heats, with me—”

“Okay—” Oscar repeats.

“But only if you want to—”

“Okay—”

“I didn’t mean, if it sounded like I—”

Oscar can’t help but feel a little fond. He scoffs, and decides to put an end to it. Twisting around, he grimaces at the knot jostling inside him—it’s starting to deflate, so the movement causes a bit of cum to drip down his arse, but it strangely feels kind of good, like a reminder of what they did.

“Lando,” he says, once he can see Lando’s face and Lando can see his.

“What?” Lando says, blushing, and he looks awe-struck, for a moment, and Oscar realizes it might be because it’s his first time looking at Oscar, face-to-face, while they’ve been knotted.

It’s an awkward angle, but Oscar manages to make do. He kisses Lando, short, sweet, and chaste, but hopefully enough to get his point across. When he pulls away, Lando chases his mouth, and it’s terribly cute, but with how sore he is, Oscar can’t hold the position too long, and he twists back around until he’s comfortable again.

“Reckon we should get some shut-eye,” Oscar says, starting to feel himself dozing off.

Lando makes a noise. “Our flight’s in, like, two hours.”

“I set an alarm,” Oscar says. His phone’s somewhere on the floor, he thinks, clattered out of his pocket sometime between when they were snogging at the door and started tearing each other’s clothes off on the bed.

Lando squeaks, shocked. “You planned this, didn’t you?” he observes, delighted and teasing. He pokes the heel of Oscar’s foot with his toe.

Oscar bristles, warm in his cheeks and warm all over. “I think things through.”

Lando laughs fondly, and he buries his face in Oscar’s neck, nosing at him gently again. “Yeah, alright,” he says, and starts to stroke Oscar’s hip again, and Oscar doesn’t even mind how his hand is cakey and sweaty all at once.

Seconds, or maybe minutes later, as Oscar is halfway into a dream, bathing in sunlight, on some beach, he hears Lando say, “Hey, Osc.”

“Mmh?” Oscar asks, eyes still closed.

“Sorry about the race.”

“ ‘S fine,” Oscar mutters, because it really is fine, now that all the dust has settled. Still, he can’t help but add, writhing a little around Lando’s knot, “You kinda made it up to me, anyway.”

And then Lando’s laughing against the back of his neck, the sound blanketing him with warmth, and it’s the last thing he registers before he’s pulled down under.

[simonalkenmayer]

this is so random but I dunno, you seem wise. If you don’t have any response or advice, then that’s quite alright, it’s not like this is your responsibility.

I’m in a dilemma where I am so attracted to this girl(I say girl not woman because we’re both teenagers) but I don’t know if I could have any kind of intimate relationship with her that wouldn’t be me using her. As in, even if she consented, I think she might just be too vulnerable and I’m not.

Because I believe that that wouldn’t be right, because I don’t think it would be ethical, I’ve decided I shouldn’t proposition her. But how should I move forward with these feelings? They’ve been hard to cope with. She’s so cute and I’m just someone that feels emotions intensely. How should I let go and just be friends with her?

Don’t worry, I’ll also consult a therapist about it soon.

Thank you.

Wisdom? Ha. I am not so stupid as to claim wisdom. Perspective? Age? Those I will claim.

Here is my reply.

Why do you have the right to decide what she is allowed to experience? That’s very self-centered, don’t you think? Doesn’t seem like you actually have a high opinion of her, if you think somehow you’re entitled to determine whether or not she is “being used”. Seems as if you think you’re smarter/more capable/more knowledgeable, and speak of her as if she’s fragile or weak, compared to your machinations or whatnot. No idea what sex you are, but that’s the kind of thing men tend to do to women that vexes them most.

My reply sounds harsh to you? Well, good, because hopefully it will show you how silly the above situation is.

It is perfectly fine to ask someone if they’d prefer to have only a physical relationship, with extra features to that, friendship and so forth, to be added as desired. There isn’t one type of relationship. There are many. And you can build one that suits you both. You could have a conversation about your mutual thoughts and make a decision together instead of deciding you ought to choose for her.

Don’t decide things for her, because that tells her you don’t respect her agency.

Or…could it be you’re making that choice so that you never have to face actually walking up to the girl and telling her how much you admire her. Terrifying, but one of the only experiences humans seem to feel with any intensity. Don’t deprive yourself of that emotional rollercoaster. I hear it’s one of humanity’s chief delights.

If she has a vulnerability you can see, then simply don’t exploit it, but instead make her aware of it and strengthen her. That, my friend is the active form of “love” such as humans feel it. By helping her tackle those things that make her vulnerable without exploiting them, you prove you are the sort who truly does have what it takes to be a safe place for her.

Do yourself a favor. Tell her you like her and end the debate. If she says no, you move on. Because now the question is moot. If she’s interested, well then you get the fun of establishing your boundaries and deciding what sort of relationship would be equitable. With her input, since she is a thinking feeling person and not an object.

Humans waste so much time agonizing rather than just solving. To hell with fear or nerves. Just do the thing and enjoy the next phase of existence.

I advise forthright honesty in all things. Yes it can make you vulnerable to others, but it’s also something that can provide you with incredible strength further down the road. being vulnerable with someone shows them you trust them and is the basis of a relationship.

Do the thing. Then agonize, if such is required.