#I have no idea if we’re meant to buy that explanation | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

m1ckeyb3rry · 8 months ago

Text

── THE GLASS PRINCESS // TEN

Series Synopsis: You wake up in a strange room with no memories, broken glass at your bedside, and a prince named Zuko as your only chance at figuring out who you really are.

Chapter Synopsis: You and Lee spend some time in Ba Sing Se, where you meet a familiar girl. Afterwards, you tell Lee the story of Quynh and how she came to be.

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Zuko x Reader

Chapter Word Count: 7.2k

Content Warnings: complicated relationships (strangers to friends to lovers to enemies to strangers to lovers to enemies to lovers), amnesia, alternate universe, lots of secrets and lying and mystery

A/N: PLEASE DO NOT SLANDER ME FOR THE FATHER GLOWWORM REPRESENTATION I HAVE NOT READ THE KYOSHI NOVELS ‼️ idek what he’s up to in canon but his powers fit the situation so he got to feature in the fic…pretty sure he’s way more heinous in the atla-verse but oh well!!! glass princess father glowworm is just chill like that ig 😰

“Lee,” you said from where you sat on the kitchen counter, watching him scrub dishes. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, and he wore his signature scowl on his face, though every time you spoke, it abated in favor of something resembling a smile.

“Y/N,” he said. “Are we introducing one another or something?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” you said. “Now that we are friends, I want to ask you a question.”

“We’re not friends,” he said, as was customary, taking a rag and using it to dry the mug he had just washed. “But go ahead.”

In the days since you had happened upon the refugee gate, you had not seen the Blue Spirit at all. Every night, you waited for him, and every night you returned to the palace disappointed. Eventually, you understood what he was saying by not arriving, and so you turned to the only other source of companionship you had been offered: Lee and Mushi from the tea shop.

Mushi had been delighted, but Lee had been more than a little annoyed at the prospect of having to spend everyday with you. This time, though, you did not relent. You followed him around the tea shop as he worked, chattering to him incessantly, and finally he grew resigned enough to your presence that he stopped complaining about it and began speaking with you somewhat normally.

For the most part, the two of you talked about books and tea and other, safer subjects. You were still trying to understand what you had seen the other day, and you had no idea what Lee’s opinions were on the matter, so until now, you had not even considered broaching any of the more sensitive topics.

“How did you end up in Ba Sing Se? I don’t mean why you came. I mean, how did you get in here?” you said.

The question was still unclear, but Lee did not ask for further explanation. He finished drying the mug and put it with the rest before taking a plate and running it under the water.

“We took a ferry,” he said. “We had to buy tickets and show our passports, of course, but it went relatively seamlessly otherwise. By the way, if you’re just going to sit there, you might as well be useful and sweep or something.”

“What about the entrance fee?” you said, sliding off the counter and taking the broom he handed you, leaning on the handle and batting your eyelashes at him without even trying to sweep. This earned you a scoff as he once again shifted from washing to drying, though his trademark red flush crept up his neck at the same time, which meant he wasn’t really upset.

“It wasn’t a thing when we came,” he said. “Or, at least, it wasn’t that high. I’m pretty sure that it was included in the price of our tickets. They were so expensive that it would only make sense. Possibly not, though. Last I checked, they just raise the prices because they can nowadays.”

“I can’t understand it,” you said. “Why is there such a desperate need for people to come here? Surely you must know. Can you tell me?”

Belatedly, you realized this might give away your identity in some way, because who else would have such little sense for what was happening in the world but the princess who had been locked away for so long? But if Lee was suspicious, he did not show it, only exhaling heavily and shaking his head.

“There’s quite a lot, and none of it is safe to discuss here,” he said. “Sorry, but I don’t want something happening to my uncle or I.”

“It’s okay,” you said. “I don’t blame you. If I had known it was like that, I wouldn’t have asked.”

He shrugged his broad shoulders. “It’s a strange place we live in.”

“That’s for certain!” you said, pointing the broom at him for emphasis. “Do you know the situation at that one gate?”

“The second southeast gate? Yeah, it’s in a bad shape, but almost all of them are like that,” he said. “It’s common knowledge, but that doesn’t mean anyone’s about to do anything about it.”

All of them were like that. That meant that every day, the entire perimeter of Ba Sing Se was flooded by people trying to get in, people like the ones the you and Blue Spirit had seen. It was human suffering on a scale you could not comprehend, and the broom clattered to the ground as you attempted to envision it. How many hundreds of them were there? What were they seeking refuge from? What reality was worse than the one they were running towards?

“Every gate,” you said. “But Ba Sing Se has so many…”

“Some of them are wealthier entrances,” Lee said, using a towel to wipe his hands off and unrolling his sleeves. Picking up the broom, he began to sweep. “It’s not that bad at those ones. Apparently, things at the second southeast gate are improving now, too.”

“Are they?” you said. It was only a modicum of reassurance, but even the knowledge that one less person might be hurt was enough to cheer you. “Why is that?”

“Apparently, some rich woman came with someone dressed as the Blue Spirit and donated half of her life savings so that no one had to pay the entrance fee there,” he said. “Things haven’t devolved into sheer chaos only because what she did is still a relatively unknown thing, so it’s mostly only had positive consequences so far.”

“Half of her life savings?” you said, thinking back to the amount you had given, which had really been nothing but pocket change. “Um, wow. That was — very generous of her to do. She must be a charitable person.”

“Must be,” Lee said flatly. “And I guess there really is a Blue Spirit in Ba Sing Se. Sorry for doubting it. Even though he’s obviously not the same person as the one from the play, namely because that Blue Spirit would’ve done something instead of just standing around when there’s people in need.”

“He was doing what he could!” you said. Lee raised his eyebrows at you, and this time, it was your turn to cough to disguise your emotions. “That is to say, I’m sure there was more going on than either of us are aware of.”

“Right,” he said. You glared at him.

“Really! The Blue Spirit is a good person!” you said, feeling honor-bound to defend him. Even if you hadn’t seen him in so long, he was still the man who had saved you. You still harbored some feelings you could not quite name for him. “Maybe it only looked like he wasn’t doing anything, but he was. I know he was.”

“Whatever you say. Super-fan,” he said, muttering the last under his breath.

“You’re the one who likes the play so much,” you reminded him. “If anyone’s a super-fan, it’s you.”

Lee was saved from responding by Mushi’s entrance. His uncle was the kind of person that was impossible to be angry around, and he had an uncanny knack for knowing exactly when you and his nephew were arguing. His presence quelled you both, and it was probably the only reason the two of you had not, in the earlier days, read one another to filth.

“Good, you got all of those cups washed!” Mushi said. “I was worried you’d be too distracted, but I’m glad to see that that didn’t happen.”

“What would I be distracted by?” Lee said, putting the broom away. You had picked up very quickly on the fact that Lee had no interest in helping out around the Pao Family Tea House, and that tea was not really something that excited him, but it was the only way that he and his uncle could make money, so he did what he could, albeit without a smile on his face or any passion to his motions.

“If I had a lovely lady to talk with all day, I’d hardly get anything done!” Mushi said.

“Uncle!” Lee hissed.

“It’s okay, Mushi. You can think of me as more of a taskmaster than anything; I make sure Lee gets everything done in a timely fashion,” you said when it became evident that Lee was far too embarrassed to say anything more.

“And she doesn’t even offer to help while she’s at it,” Lee added. “So, ha.”

“It feels like you were trying to get the last word in there, but I don’t think you were successful in that endeavor,” you said. “Just so you know.”

“Shut up,” he said.

“Lee, please be kind to your friend,” Mushi said.

“Yeah, Lee,” you crowed. “Be nice to your friend!”

“Y/N,” Lee said, pointing a threatening finger at you, though it was hard to genuinely be afraid of him when he was so relatively harmless in everything he did. “You’re not even my friend, so you don’t get to pull that card!”

“I’m the only person you talk to, besides your uncle, so doesn’t that make us friends automatically?” you said.

“No, it just means I don’t have any friends at all!” he said haughtily, leaning the broom against the wall and dusting his hands off against his apron.

“Once again, I don’t think that that’s quite the closing statement you were aiming for,” you said. “It has more of an embarrassing effect to it than a victorious one.”

“Now, now, both of you should stop quarreling,” Mushi said. “Lee, your shift is almost over. How about you and Y/N take some time to explore the city together? It’ll only improve your spirits!”

“Believe it or not, I’d actually rather work,” Lee said, though he did untie his apron and hang it up.

“Just be back in time for your evening shift!” Mushi said.

“I’ll make sure he is,” you promised, following after Lee as he all but raced out of the tea shop, waving at Mushi, who waved cheerfully back. “Hey, Lee, wait up!”

Luckily, Lee did slow down a bit, allowing you to catch up with him, the two of you walking side by side down the street in the afternoon sun. It was a different context than you were usually in; he had been forced to take the evening shift more often than not nowadays, so he was normally still working by the time you left for the fountain. Today was the first time you had come early enough to be there for his break, and without the tea shop in the background to smooth your interactions over, there was an awkwardness that filled the air.

Who were you and he outside of the Pao Family Tea House? Who was Lee when he was not working as a server? Who were you when you were not protected by the secrecy of being just another patron of the shop?

“It’s you!” a soft, feminine voice said. Suddenly, you were being accosted by a pair of arms thrown around your shoulders, holding you in the sincerest embrace you had felt in many years.

“Me?” you said, wriggling free from the hug to peer at the girl. She beamed up at you, holding onto your hands, and though you couldn’t quite place it, you knew that you did recognize her from somewhere.

“Yes, you,” she said. “Everyone’s been saying you’re a spirit, since you don’t match the description of anyone living in the Upper Ring, but I’vealways believed in you. I’ve always known that you were a real person.”

Your eyes widened as you realized where you knew her from: she was the girl who had been helping the man with the burnt leg at the second southeast gate. She must’ve seen you when you had given the captain the money, and somehow, despite the days that had elapsed since then, she had recognized you.

You glanced at Lee, but he did not seem surprised nor intrigued by the conversation. He was diligently reading a street sign, which really could not have been all too fascinating, but he was an odd boy with odd habits, and it afforded you some semblance of privacy to converse with the girl, so you did not say anything to him about it.

“You’re the reason my father is still alive, lady,” the girl said, squeezing your hands tightly. “We thought we might have to cut his — cut his leg off or something, but because of you, we were able to get to a doctor in time.”

“That kind of doctor must be expensive,” you said. She nodded.

“Oh, yes, he was one of the Upper Ring ones,” she said. “But he saved my father’s leg, so what does it matter? I’ll figure it out.”

“You will?” you said. “What about your mother? Or your elder siblings, if you have any?”

The girl glanced around nervously before beckoning you closer. You offered her your ear, wondering what kind of terrible secrecy she was sworn to that she had to be so careful.

“I know we’re not supposed to talk about it, so please don’t repeat this to anyone, but the truth is that my mother and my little brother were killed by Firebenders. They set our house on fire while they were taking over our village. It’s how my father got his leg burnt,” she said, her small voice choked. “He went back in to save them, but he couldn’t. The only reason I’m alright is that our cat had run away and I had gone to find her.”

She was barely more than a child, and yet she had had the responsibilities of a woman thrust upon her. How could a little girl be expected to take upon the sole burden of providing for herself, for paying back the doctor that her father had needed? It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair, but if not her, then who else could even do it? By that definition, she was alone now.

You thought that maybe you and she were not entirely dissimilar. In the end, you, too, were alone. Even if you could not relate to anything else, you had that much in common with her.

“Here,” you said, taking her hand, pressing a handful of coins into it. “I’m not sure if this will be enough, but it will be better than nothing. At least, it should tide you over until your father is feeling better and he, too, can find work.”

Her eyes shone, and she dipped into a bow. Cursing under your breath, you caught her by the shoulders, looking around to make sure that nobody had seen. The last thing you needed was to be caught and dragged back to the palace by the Dai Li or some other such authority.

“Lady, I only came to thank you, but you’ve done me such a favor that I don’t know how I can ever repay you for it,” she said. You smiled at her.

“You needn’t repay me. In truth, I should’ve been doing these things long ago; it’s only thanks to, ah, extenuating circumstances that I haven’t been. I hope you stay well, dear girl, and that your father may recover swiftly. I’m sorry that you have had to suffer so greatly already,” you said, ruffling her hair.

“I hope I get to see you again, lady,” she said before gasping. “Not because you’ve given me money every time! It’s because you’re really kind. I want to thank you properly one day.”

“If it is our destiny, then I’m sure we will meet once more,” you said. “And you needn’t thank me. It is only my duty.”

“Destiny?” she said. “But how can I ensure that that destiny comes about?”

“Hm,” you said, tapping your chin in thought. “When you are older, please work very hard. Work so hard that even the royal family cannot ignore your efforts, and then go to the palace and ask for Quynh. Even if I am not allowed to meet you, I will find a way. If you can do that, then I will do my part so that our fates can collide another time.”

“Quynh!” she said, sucking in a breath. “Oh, I didn’t know…! I’ve treated you so flippantly!”

“It’s not a problem,” you said. “Now run along. And — and I know it won’t do anything, but I’m very sorry about what happened to your family. I wish there was something I could’ve done to stop it.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “It was — you know. Them. You’re the one who’s helped me. I’m really grateful to you, so don’t apologize.”

“Maybe that’s how it is,” you said. “Anyways, welcome to Ba Sing Se. The city is improved by your presence.”

“Thank you!” she said, bowing again before you could stop her and then scampering away. You watched her go until she disappeared into the crowd, and then you turned to Lee, who was still steadfastly reading the same sign.

“There must be something fascinating written on that sign, for you to be so intently reading it,” you said, jabbing his arm with your pointer finger as you read over the sign yourself. “Mm, very interesting indeed. Left to the Firelight Fountain. Right to the Pao Family Tea House. Straight to the First Southeast Gate. That’s the kind of content you just can’t pull yourself away from.”

“I was trying to be respectful and not listen in on your conversation!” Lee said.

“Oh, thanks,” you said. “That was surprisingly good of you to do.”

“What was it about, anyways?” he said. “Why’d she recognize you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” you said. He pursed his lips before turning away, continuing to walk down the street, towards the Firelight Fountain where you spent your evenings waiting for the Blue Spirit.

“Who is Quynh?” he said after a second. You frowned at him.

“How do you not know who Quynh is? She’s the patron spirit of the Earth Kingdom!” you said. “Or at least of Ba Sing Se.”

“Sorry I never had much time to study theology of all things while I was out…there!” he said, vaguely gesturing around.

“Out there,” you said. “Where, like the Fire Nation or something? I thought knowledge of her must be common throughout the Earth Kingdom.”

“No!” he said quickly. “Just — we traveled a lot, you know, and mostly in rural areas, so we, um, never heard the stories.”

You supposed it made sense. What guarantee was there that the legend of Quynh had reached every single corner of the Earth Kingdom? It made sense that someone like Lee, who must’ve spent his formative years in some place closer to the border than Ba Sing Se, wasn’t quite educated on the tale of the great mother bear.

“What business did you have traveling, anyways?” you said.

“It was for, er, work,” he said. “We were in, uh, a circus! Yeah, a circus.”

“A circus,” you said. “I’m sure you attracted all sorts of patrons with your charming and outgoing personality.”

“I wasn’t a performer! My uncle was. I just maintained his equipment,” he said.

“That’s a little more believable,” you said. “What did he do in the circus?”

“He was,” Lee began, his eyebrows low over his eyes in thought, “an acrobat! Mhm. He was an acrobat.”

“It’s not as believable anymore,” you informed him. You couldn’t imagine Mushi doing flips and cartwheels anymore than you could imagine Lee juggling. When he had said that his uncle had been a performer, you had been expecting him to be the ringmaster, perhaps, or even an animal trainer, but not an acrobat.

“Why? Uncle Mushi is plenty flexible!” he said. You made a face.

“I shall take your word for it,” you said. “But I’m sure he’s pleased to be retired by now.”

“Very pleased,” Lee said. “In fact, he’s so pleased to have put that part of his life behind him that he becomes really upset when people bring it up again. So I’d recommend you don’t.”

Upsetting Mushi was the last thing you wanted to do, given how well he always treated you when you visited the Pao Family Tea House, so you nodded at Lee and mimed sealing your lips together.

“I won’t mention it,” you said.

“Thank you,” he said. “But back to the original topic. Who is Quynh?”

“Ah, right,” you said. “Although she’s known as the guardian spirit of Ba Sing Se, and of the Earth Kingdom in general, it’s a little more complex than that. You see, she’s not meant to guard the entire kingdom; her loyalty is to the royal family and them alone.”

“Then how’d it get confused?” he said.

“Once upon a time, when she was the most active, the interests of the royal family and the interests of the kingdom were not so separate,” you said. “Maybe it’s not the case in the recent era, but no one’s even seen Quynh in so long that by now, her name has been solidified in history as the great mother of the Earth Kingdom.”

“Is that all there is to the story?” he said as you reached the Firelight Fountain. Of course, in the daytime, there were no lanterns lit, but in lieu of the eponymous firelight, there was a family of turtleducks floating in the placid waters.

Digging in his pockets, Lee produced a bunch of grapes. Breaking off a few, he dropped them in your palm before taking a couple of his own and tossing them into the fountain for the turtleducks to peck at. You followed his example, secretly pleased that he had known that bread was bad for the turtleducks’ stomachs and had been appropriately prepared with a better alternative.

“No, naturally it’s a long tale,” you said. “Do you really want to hear it?”

“Sure,” he said. “It beats working the afternoon shift.”

“I suppose that’s fair,” you said. “Alright, then. It’s an old story, for Quynh is an old beast, but it’s widely considered to be timeless, so I hope that you do not find it to be at all dated, despite its age.”

Contrary to popular belief, Quynh was not born a spirit. In fact, she was a mortal animal, a bear — a true one, of the same form as King Kuei’s Bosco. Even she was a child once, a mere cub, small enough that a person could heft her in their arms.

In that time, bears were considered to be a great threat to the world. They were thought of as vicious, cruel creatures, with swords for teeth and knives for claws. Larger than any man could ever hope to be, they were frequently hunted, both for sport and for safety, and so it came to be that by the time Quynh was all of two moons old, her and her mother were the only known bears left in the world.

Her mother, who was scarred and gray at the muzzle, knew that it was only a matter of time before she and Quynh, too, followed in the paths of their brethren. She was a canny bear, and so she took Quynh to a river and sank her teeth into the scruff of her daughter’s neck, dipping her into mud to disguise her scent and then dragging the whining cub into a cave that promised to have what she needed.

It was some time before she reached it, but eventually, she made it to the center of the cave, where its inhabitant resided. It was one of the massive, blind badgermoles, though something set this one apart from the others: she was in mourning, hunched over the frail body of her young, which had drawn only a few breaths before passing.

Quynh’s mother nudged the badgermole before dropping Quynh at her feet. The badgermole, deprived of her sense of smell because of the mud slathered over Quynh’s body, accepted her as her own — or perhaps she did not want to question the stroke of good fortune, that she had just lost her child and then so soon had been given another to care for, even one as tiny as Quynh.

Her mother nuzzled her one last time before leaving the cave. It is unclear what happened to her after that; until recently, it was agreed that she must have been killed like the others, but since the discovery of Bosco, her fate was no longer quite as certain. Perhaps she and a few others managed to survive for all of that time, leading to the birth of the king’s companion…or perhaps Bosco was unrelated to Quynh and the descendant of another strain entirely.

The badgermoles raised Quynh as if she were one of them. She learnt to Earthbend from them, though it was not in the same way; she was not blind, and so did not have the same reliance on the element, and because of her comparatively smaller stature, she never gained the strength needed to command the earth in the way of her family. Still, she did what she could, and though she remembered her mother fondly, she thought of her only on the coldest of nights. The badgermoles were the ones who reared her, and though she could never forget that she was not one of them, that she was a bear, she was never ostracized for it. They loved her, the badgermoles, and as she had spent much of her life with them, she loved them back.

It was when she was four years of age that someone else came to the cave of the badgermoles, though this visitor was neither bear nor badgermole. He was a boy, one with a kind smile and soft hands. His name was Shan, and according to him, he had come to learn from the badgermoles. Earthbending was their art, and if he ever wanted to master it in a meaningful way, then he would have to become their disciple.

Quynh did not trust Shan for many moons after his arrival. She remembered what his kind had done to her own, and though the badgermoles harbored no such misgivings, she would always snarl at him when he visited, gnashing her teeth until he backed away with his hands in the air.

Stubbornness, though, was a family trait. Just like the rest of his line, Shan was not willing to give up. He knew not why Quynh despised him, only that she did, and it was something he could not live with. Every day he tried, and every day, in small increments, she forgave him. The sins of his forefathers were not his own, after all, yet he still endeavored to make up for them. He would bring food for Quynh, tell her stories about the sun and promise to take her there one day — after all, she was a bear, not a badgermole, and bears were not meant to live in the darkness.

That was why, when Shan could no longer learn anything from the badgermoles, he did not leave immediately. Instead, he hesitantly reached out and placed his hand in between Quynh’s eyes, splaying his fingers over her broad forehead and asking her a question: will you come with me?

She hesitated for only a moment, but when she glanced back, the badgermoles had already left, for they, too, knew the truth of her being. They had raised her, and they had loved her, and it was because of those years of affection that they were doing her this last favor and letting her go, letting her rejoin the world that she was born to live in.

It was only once they both stood in the sun that Shan revealed something new to her: the continent which they lived on was in a state of perpetual war. It was composed of many small provinces which were constantly battling one another for as many reasons as there were creatures under the sun. For food. For land. For resources. For perceived insults. For women. For riches. It went on and on, and it was to one such war that Shan had lost his parents.

This was why he needed Quynh’s help. He wanted to unite the provinces, to turn them into one kingdom, so that the wars might cease for some time, but he could not do it alone. He needed her strength, alongside the strength he had received from the badgermoles. She thought that she might feel angry, but in truth, there was a kind of joy she felt at being needed. So she, in her own way, agreed to his request. She agreed to help him turn the disjointed provinces into one united Earth Kingdom — just as long as she could stay by his side when doing so.

Quynh had come to love Shan. It was like that. Sometimes it was as if she had been born to meet him, to be his companion; if she were a human, then she might’ve called him her greatest friend, but since she was not, since she was but an animal, the only word she had for it was brother. Shan was her brother, though much more delicate than she and without nearly as much fur, so she guarded him with all the ferocity of an elder sibling.

Their combined mastery of Earthbending was too much for the warlords and their paltry armies. It was not long before their dream was realized and they had a proper kingdom. The warlords hailed Shan as their ruler and crowned him the Earth King, but then they ran into a new problem: what was a king without a palace?

Thus began their most ambitious undertaking, even more ambitious than the unification of the Earth Kingdom. They were to build a city, one that an ordinary man could not even conceptualize, one that even the greatest army could not take. It would be named Ba Sing Se: the impenetrable capital of the greatest kingdom the world had ever seen.

Scores upon scores of men were enrolled in academies to learn Earthbending, so that the city could be built in a timely fashion. Things went excellently for a time, and Quynh thought that she might finally be happy. She had her beloved Shan at her side, and now that the wars were over, she could spend most of her days sleeping, allowing the sun to warm her dark fur as she dozed in the gardens behind Shan’s childhood home.

But things were not meant to be like that. A kingdom in its infancy would always strain against its new rulers; that was the way of things, a way which Quynh had not yet learnt. It was because of this that, during one of his tours of the site where the palace would soon be constructed, an assassin tried to kill Shan.

Quynh was the first to sense his arrival, but he was too fast for her to do anything. She could only roar out a warning to her brother as she ran towards him, her ears flat against her head, her swords for teeth and knives for claws extended, even though it was futile. She would not reach him in time. The man rushing at her Shan would stab the dagger into his back, and she could do nothing about it but push herself faster, faster, in the hopes that she could make it, in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, she could at least take the dagger in his stead.

It was not the dagger which killed her. It was her own brother’s student who cried out in alarm and sent a stalagmite shooting up from the ground and into her heart. It was that old fear which all men possessed, the insidious one which said that bears were vicious, cruel creatures, which spelled out her end, as it had spelled out the end of every other bear before her.

Shan had heeded Quynh’s warning and made quick work of the assassin, who was nothing in the face of a master Earthbender such as himself, so he had not understood at first why his faithful companion had stopped roaring. It was only when he turned and saw her bleeding and heard his pupil rambling on about how she had almost killed him that he understood what had happened.

He cast the boy aside, banished him from the Earth Kingdom and told him to never return, and then he fell to his knees in front of Quynh’s lifeless body. For, as she had loved him, he had loved her, too. The skittish bear who had detested him thoroughly…in the process of winning her over, an indescribable fondness had blossomed in him. Quynh was the only reason he had a kingdom. Quynh was the only reason he had anything. Why, then, was Quynh gone? How was he supposed to rule without her at his side? His Quynh. His bear. His greatest friend.

For three days and three nights, he prayed. He prayed to every spirit he could think of: Tui, La, Agni, the Mother of Faces, and even the more unsavory ones, such as Koh the Face-Stealer. He prayed only for one thing: Quynh’s return. He would give up everything, he repeated, as long as she came back to him. That was his promise. That was his vow.

Only one spirit heard him. He was a being who claimed to be a father, though he held such a disdain for everything that it was uncertain whose father he was meant to be, exactly. Shan would never have dared to converse with such a spirit unless he was truly desperate, but he was truly desperate, and it was for this reason that he opened himself to conversation with one of the most malevolent beings in both the spiritual and physical planes: Father Glowworm.

Father Glowworm was the conniving sort, but he was, in his own way, fair. It was not pity that drove his actions, of course, but a hunger, a lust. He told Shan that he could not bring Quynh back, that it was against the laws of the universe to breathe life unto death, but that there was something else he could do — for a price.

Shan agreed. It didn’t matter the price. He had lost his entire family already; he could not lose Quynh, too. Father Glowworm warned him that he would not like it, but Shan swore that there was nothing more important to him than Quynh.

But the price itself was Quynh, Father Glowworm said. He would subsume her body. Shan would have to watch him tear her apart and eat her, and if he could manage that, if he could manage to watch as Father Glowworm ate the body of his greatest friend, then Father Glowworm would give her spirit some of his powers, the ones which allowed him to tunnel between the physical and spiritual worlds.

There was still another catch. According to Father Glowworm, what he was about to do was the highest form of offense. By offering Quynh’s body to Father Glowworm, Shan was desecrating it thoroughly, and by agreeing to watch, he was essentially forsaking her, declaring that she meant nothing, was nothing to him but rot and garbage. Her spirit would not know the meaning of the ritual, only that it was being done, and so, even if he went through with it, there was a high likelihood that she would not manifest ever again. She would never dare show herself to the man who had allowed her to be devoured by such an evil being, who had stood by and taken in the gory scene without so much as flinching.

She would have to love him so much that she returned in spite of that, Father Glowworm said. Those were the conditions. That was the only way it could be.

Even though it was wrong, even though she would most likely hate him for the rest of time, even though he knew he was ruining everything for the mere chance that he might see her again, Shan agreed to it. Because there was that chance. Because if Quynh loved him as much as he loved her, then she would come back. Because if it had been the opposite way, he would’ve come back. For Quynh, no matter what she did to him, he would’ve come back.

Father Glowworm did nothing to spare Shan’s feelings. His eye remained focused on the man as he did exactly as he had promised, gorging himself on Quynh’s body piece by bloody piece, until there was nothing left of her but a pile of gleaming bones. Those bones, too, were not safe, as he absorbed them, humming as the power and life which had once been Quynh’s filled him instead.

The entire time, Shan stared straight ahead, his gaze never wavering from Father Glowworm’s singular eye. And finally, when the spirit was finished, he began to laugh.

Foolish man, he told him. Everything you have done has been for naught. Do you think that any creature is loyal enough to return after you allowed its body to be destroyed like that? I thank you for the meal, but this is where we must part.

Shan clenched his fists and kept staring into that eye, asking him only one thing. Did you give Quynh the powers you promised? Is she a spirit now?

Of course, Father Glowworm said. Consider it a gratuity for how delicious she was.

Though it seemed hopeless, Shan did not fret the way Father Glowworm was urging him to. As soon as he had the confirmation that Quynh really was a spirit, he allowed himself to relax, nodding at the pulsating mass that was Father Glowworm’s body.

Father Glowworm was naturally confused. In this kind of situation, Shan should’ve been screaming, should’ve been cursing him for the unfair deal — the deal which was by design uneven. He had made it so many times, and it had never mattered. The end result was always the same. The dead ones never came back. They wandered the spirit world in a haze of confusion and anger, hating a person whose only crime had been loving them too much — not that they knew that, of course. Watching their grief and ingesting their mourning was how he amused himself in his eternal existence, but Shan provided no such amusement. It was only a moment later, as the ground began to shake and an enormous form made of shadows emerged from a doorway in the air, that Father Glowworm understood why.

Quynh loved Shan. And so, Quynh came back.

“That’s the tale of her origin, anyways,” you said.

“I didn’t know that Father Glowworm made deals with people,” Lee said. “In all my studies — limited studies, of course, given that I was doing, uh, circus-y things most of the time — he was just a bloodthirsty killer.”

“Even spirits get bored,” you said. “He was also that, but from time to time, he would do this type of thing for no other reason than because he could. Because he wanted to. Are you following?”

“I think so,” Lee said. “Is this a true story?”

“If you believe in Quynh, it is,” you said. You had heard the tale from Quynh herself, so of course you knew that it was real, but it remained that not everyone was aware that Quynh was more than a legendary concept. And surely you could not give away that you had met Quynh personally — many times in fact — so the non-answer was the best way you could hint to Lee just how verifiable the so-called myth was.

“I see,” he said. “It’s really fantastical.”

“Perhaps,” you said.

“But maybe not entirely so,” he said. “Is it known what powers Father Glowworm gave her?”

“It is,” you said. “Though if you didn’t believe that story, you’ll scoff at what they are. They’re very power-of-love based.”

“Sappy,” he said.

“Most assuredly,” you said.

“Just tell me. You’ve gotten me interested now,” he said.

“The palace is built around Quynh’s Den,” you said. “It’s where Quynh resides, so that she may look after the royal family — the descendants of Shan, who she considers to be like her own children — and it’s a place outside of time or space, in a way. It’s said that her den is made in the same place that her body died and her spirit was reborn. In fact, all of Ba Sing Se was built around that central location, with her Den serving as a support to the entire city.

“Because of this, and because of Father Glowworm’s tunneling powers which he gifted to her, she’s also known as the Keeper of Doors. It’s said that every door in Ba Sing Se is a place sacred to Quynh, and that’s why you’ll sometimes see people praying while standing in doorways. From Quynh’s Den, she can open doors to anywhere in the city, though she has trouble with extreme precision or accuracy. Some say that her doors lead you to where you need to go, not where you want to.”

“I don’t see what’s romantic about that,” Lee said. “It’s typical spirit world stuff.”

“Let me finish!” you said, accidentally throwing a grape too hard into the water. It hit the surface with a splash, dousing the nearby turtleduck, who honked at you in irritation. You mouthed an apology at it.

“Look what you’ve done,” Lee observed. “You’ve gone and made the turtleducks upset. Great going, Y/N.”

“Hush!” you said. “Anyways, the romantic part is the best part of the story, I’d say, but it’s the least accepted. You see, Quynh obviously loved Shan.”

“Obviously,” Lee said.

“She loved him so much that it manifested in her powers, too. There’s only one door that she never closes and which always has the same destination, no matter where it’s opened from: Quynh’s Door, which leads to the inside of the palace itself,” you said.

“Isn’t that dangerous?” Lee said.

“It would be,” you said. “Think of how many invasions would be successful if the aggressors could find Quynh’s Door! But it’s not one of her normal doors, which can be seen by anybody. Sometimes, it can’t be seen by anyone at all. It’s a door that only appears to those who Quynh deems worthy.”

“And how is one deemed worthy?” Lee said, clearly enthralled as he leaned in towards you slightly, all pretenses of feeding the turtleducks abandoned. You grinned at him.

“It’s the same way Quynh came back as a spirit,” you said. “You have to be loved by Shan, or, in modernity, someone of his line.”

“You don’t say…” Lee trailed off.

“Do you see what I mean? It’s almost out of the realm of probability that it’s the case, that she really loved Shan that much, but it’s the truth,” you said. “The only way that a person can find Quynh’s Door and enter the palace without restriction is if they are loved by someone in the royal family.”

taglist (comment/send an ask/dm to be added): @rinisfruity14 @c4ttheart @blacky-rose @shizko @marsbars09 @happyplaidpersonfestival @catborglar @camilleverreault @nerdybouquetofkittens-blog @lovialy @heart4hees @stefnarda

#zuko x reader #zuko x y/n #zuko x you #zuko #avatar the last airbender #atla #reader insert #canon au #the glass princess #m1ckeyb3rry writes

103 notes · View notes

starbylers · 10 months ago

Note

Monologue anon here! Thank you so much for that whole post, I wasn't expecting something this detailed when I wrote the ask lol. It definitively made me understand the purpose of the monologue more, and I love that interpretation. I can finally have an explanation for why the monologue had to happen, so thank you for that!!

But at the end of the day I guess I'll always be a bit skeptical and wonder if all this could just be bad writing, and we're just reading too much into it. Like the fact that it has lies, I could see the writers think it actually doesn't, like they could be thinking that Mike genuinely fell in love with her in that moment even if he didn't know what it was yet. They've done other retcons, because back in season 1 the full story wasn't complete yet. And the "surprise, it was all Will, that means he's the one Mike actually loves, not El!" argument feels a little cheap and I'm not sure the audience will buy it. But we'll see, I guess they could write it in a way that makes sense. Anyway I really really hope we're right! Fingers crossed!

You’re welcome! And I understand being skeptical but I mean, agree to disagree I guess haha. I don’t think their writing is without flaws by any stretch of the imagination but the evidence for Byler goes past bad writing—it’s at the point where several of their choices would be completely illogical and against their own interests if the purpose was for Mlvn to be endgame.

And about retconning stuff, I suppose it can happen? But the writers account have said that they don’t believe in love at first sight and in season 4 they literally made fun of the trope with Argyle and Eden. In my opinion, they don’t believe in it. I mean they are grown adults, I find it really hard to believe that they are seriously advocating for the idea of love at first sight being a thing that is real and happens. Romance in Stranger Things also always comes from a foundation of friendship.

I also don’t think it’s as easy as ‘surprise it was Will, Mike loves him now’ 😭 I was just trying to put it in simple terms, I only meant Mike finding out makes it clear to the audience that he could only confess after he heard how much Will loves him, and will be a key factor in him beginning to realise that Will is actually the right person for him. I don’t think it’ll be this immediate switch, it’ll happen over the course of the season in conjunction with Mike and Will getting even closer and their dynamic becoming more explicitly romantic. They won’t just spring Byler on us with no build up lol. But yeah fingers crossed, I hope we’re right too :)

#byler #byler doubt #< not me but yeah #yw again! idk how it became so long I just have so much Byler knowledge sitting around in my brain lol #gotta put it to use somehow

23 notes · View notes

dodger-chan · 1 month ago

Text

The second part of my hurricane distraction fic (part one is here)

There was no way to get alone time with Eddie in the mobile home, nor were they likely to get a private moment before they took on Henry and his psychic bat army. But their plan was too dangerous, had too many potential points of failure, for Robin to feel comfortable postponing the conversation until the dust settled. So she sat next to him on the floor of the RV and hissed into his ear,

“What are you doing, Munson?”

“Um, staying out of sight?” he answered.

“I meant with Steve. Big Boy? Really?” Robin muffled her snort. She didn’t want to draw the attention of the little ones. “I’ve worked with Steve for months and that was one of the most pathetic attempts at flirtation I’ve seen. Including whatever it was that he thought he was doing at Scoops last June.”

“Do you think he noticed?” Eddie asked. Robin rolled her eyes. She held her hands out in front of her like a scale.

“Well, on the one hand, the world might be ending, we’re all on the run from both the law and Steve’s old friends, and one of his kids is cursed and might die horribly even if we do manage to save the world. Plus his first love is having issues with the guy she left him for and is leaning on him in a way I find kinda gross, even if I don’t think she’s doing it on purpose.” Robin hefted her right hand like she was weighing everything she’d just said. Then she let her left hand drop to the ground hard and fast. “On the other hand, he’s Steve Harrington: if there’s one thing he knows, it’s flirting. So, yeah, I think he noticed you flirting with him, I think he noticed exactly when you started flirting with him, and the second he and I can have a completely private conversation he’s going to ask me for advice so I am asking you: what is it you are trying to do?”

“Set myself up for a beating if we all make it through this, apparently,” Eddie grumbled. Robin smacked his arm. “Ow!”

Nancy turned to look at them with a questioning frown. Robin just smiled sweetly and waited for the other girl to go back to navigating for Steve.

“The only person who might beat you up here is me,” she whispered. “And then only if you make Steve cry, which honestly is really hard to do. He’s internalized a lot of deeply damaging ideas about men not crying, which - I do not have time to get into with you right now. Or possibly ever. Depending on your explanation for why, after years of mostly ignoring him except when he was buying pot, and days of horror-filled proximity, you decided to start flirting with Steve while we were trapped in a hell dimension.”

“He’s hot?” Eddie seemed a little uncertain.

“Agree to disagree there, but he doesn’t look any different than he did yesterday or the day before. Except for the bat bites. And your vest.” A thought struck her. “It’s not just the clothes, right? Because he might wear your clothes if you invite him to a concert or something, but that whole preppy jock look really is what he’s most comfortable in.”

“He ripped a bat in half with his bare hands. I damn near proposed marriage right there.”

So weird. But not any weirder than Steve confessing to her that he was maybe not as over that crush as he’d previously thought shortly after Eddie had almost killed him with that broken bottle.

“Right,” Robin said with a nod. She moved to get up, but Eddie stopped her with a hand on her arm and a curious look. She sympathized, really, but…

“I can’t spill Steve’s secrets; best friend confidentiality,” she apologized. “But, uh, when Steve asks me what he should do, I’m gonna tell him to flirt back.”

#stranger things #robin buckley #eddie munson #robin buckley: wingwoman #i'm leaving part three unwritten for now #because when tried to keep going it got canon compliant #so one of y'all needs to write the happy version #my fic

5 notes · View notes

jonathankatwhatever · 2 years ago

Text

There are too many places to begin. I want to pick a math one. Oh, I think we said a few days ago that dinosaurs got big in relation to the amount of abstraction injected into them before awareness levels grew. Oh, right, we can tell this as a story because it can lay out as a story. That doesn’t mean the story is THE explanation, but that Observer levels exist where this story is told because that is where this story inverts to and from, which I think we’re trying to say is 1-0-1 in the sense of an Identity Space in which 2T are attached by 1-0Segments to an intervening structure which manifests the potential between them. That enables basic reactions at primitive levels, which we see at higher levels in expressions of disgust, horror, joy, lust, etc. Oh, I see: this is a consequence of 1-0-1 Identity because, if we weren’t clear before, that enables the interior perspective and the exterior perspective, which means these come together at the boundaries of the Things, which means to some underlying tObject or Objects through iObjects. Like how taste in music is meant to drive others away.

The most obscene commercial for a perfume called Splooge just ran by me.

So, the key point is that 2T exist outside this ‘potential between’. Those together make an Identity Space. That is, the 1-0-1 Model forms an Identity Space when the 0 is 1 in 0-1-0. Seem simple, but this idea unifies Ends and 1Segments, and also converts 1Segments into 1-0Segments. You can see that as the 1-0 is now matched to 0-1 so the line together reads a string of 1’s and 0’s. That means we’ve finally generated binary properly: it counts Identity Spaces as 1-0Segments, which is why sits at the ‘bottom’ of all counting.

I only recently have accepted that ideas like the above are rigorous. This is rigorous because we have constructed a dimensional model, which maybe we should call DM, in which these 1’s and 0’s stand for actual complex spaces which count in various ways. That was difficult to say, and it’s clearly true, though obviously not the last word on the matter. I’m trying to capture the idea that binary has Pathways built in, so if you count 1 and a string of 0’s to a 1, etc. then that series of choices contains all the grid squares and grid boxes, etc. of process which actually ocur in that count of 1 and a string of 0’s to a 1, etc.

I’m going to take a break. This is fantastic work! I am exceedingly glad because the horror show in my head this morning has been fierce.

—————-

Oops: it’s 24 Feb 2023

———-

I spent some minutes looking in the mirror. Took some photos. Posted one. That was me, hair not combed, having rubbed moisturizer into my face so it was reddish. I note two things. One is, you can see the effects of the facial and cerebral tensionings. Two, the images I would catch of myself are sticking, instead of flickering away. I can hold them, and I can take photos and see those images of me in those photos, which is all new to me. I can be this or that, and can hold those. It isn’t a dream of what might could be maybe if. That has actually happened.

I can of course interpret this as increasing dementia, but that doesn’t give me immediate mathematical results. What does is that what were flickers are indeed stable images attained, that these were and are ‘in me’ and could be brought out of me by intensive interior work, all connected over an Identity Space to you because you are the only candidate. You are acclaimed by unanimous vote, because you are the only one not self-disqualified. You have to vote for yourself to be with me.

So, a solution would consist of ‘this is how you can look’, with the work connecting you to that look, End to End. So that imposes a Counter, which consists of a symbol like a vertical line or a dash so the symbol contains the dimensionality which actually processes at that Counter. As in, you go to buy a gift and you process how much you want to spend versus what you can afford at this store, and whether you should go elsewhere, and so on, while the Counter is represented by the actual sales act or non-act, because you may come in and not buy. So the space itself is set up as a CounterSpace. I’m comfortable saying CSpace because a gestural C is 1-0-1 in Triangular, opened up on the open side, on the space’s way to becoming other things, like a G or an O.

I need a break.

————-

Piano just died. Shorted out as I was playing. Heard a pffft and it went dark. I don’t know how long I’ll last without that creative outlet. The pressure builds inside me.

As it happened, I was wrestling with why I find it difficult to visualize the exact notes in my mind, why I have trouble remembering basic mappings like Bminor is D, and that Gminor is only a note change away? It’s like I know these, but I can’t untangle them on demand, that I can’t eliminate all the processing which practicing reduces. That’s a nice model for how practicing works: the end result is a map of what went in, both in terms of time and ability, nurture and nature.

————

Piano rose from the grave. Died twice more. Has risen again and so far it’s still Easter.

I was suddenly able to raise my bad foot all the way to the toes, which lightened my movements, while expanding their range, and which pushed me to get being up on your toes.

So, there’s a literalization, which means a tObject which compares to an ideal because that has representations as tObjects or near tObjects, like a perfect score on a gym routine compared to doing a somersault as a kid. Those tObjects are surrounded by the iObjects which contain the processes which place that tObject in that context with those capabilities, etc. Can that be broken down more? We have a structure which compares the dimensionality of you as a kid doing a somersault on the living room floor to the dimensionality that goes into Simone Biles.

So what this is saying is that we have 2 tObjects existing within the same field of physical activity, each touching that field and tapping into the potential within that field. That is, we don’t need an exact pairing because we have ideal pairing, which means that someone or something does it as well as can be done to that current state of contextual existence. Like the 4 minute mile seemed unreachable until it was reached.

————-

Hesitated using the word ‘field’ above. But I’m trying to understand orthogonality, meaning the pairing over a grid square, which is what I think of as a field because that is where the game is played. You could call it a pitch, which is in some ways more accurate because the field tilts 1-0 and 0-1, and thus everywhere in Between, including flat.

That is inherent in Coordinate Rotation. Just imagine an entire ‘hidden’ plane rotates. Again, that says the ideal rotation of a really big 3 ‘fills in’ with the ‘invisible’ counts. And to complete this thought, that literally attaches this Winding to the End which was 0 and which thus is also 1. And since we also count Triangular on a bed of nails or 1’s, then this is also 4, meaning it attaches at the 0 End of the original 1Segment, and it attaches at the far End, at the 1 End of that same 1Segment. It’s always arriving.

So we’re saying the Informational Limit fits within a Winding.

And we’re saying we construct to ideal through tObject representations, which of course then spurs improvement, one hopes, though that seems to be more the case in athletic feats rather than intellectual ones, which makes sense because it’s the tObject representation. And thus the ‘geek cool’ of making something that has effects on many tObjects, which is a version of age-old enhancement of value within the field.

How does this work with people? One way is influence, meaning that the pairing over the ideal influences. Another is the extent to which your perspectives are entangled, meaning how close you come to being inversions of the other in which you pair over ideals, over some the same and others different, but in such number that you closely identify because you are the same underlying existence divided in 2 as all Things are. The HG conception of 1-0Segment over End to 1-0Segment, and the fD conception of an End over a 1-0Segment to an End. Literally, 1-0-1 and 0-1-0, with the labels flippable depending on the meaning sought.

Reduction of choice requires understanding choice, which means getting rid of the conception that it’s choice. It’s Conformal Reality enforcing Tractable Reality, which is the Dimensional Reduction to the individual Identity Spaces within the larger one, meaning solutions or possible Pathways appear over a Counter to an Observer. Need a short-term solution? Long-term? Eternal? DR means D4-3 threads of iObjects reduce to what can happen, what is likely to happen, what may happen, etc. I can say that better. I sense a notation issue in the way threads leads to iObjects without mentioning Things. We can say the Thing which includes the tObject, like a you, experiences DR in relation to other Things with their tObjects inside them. A thread of iObjects describes the potential Pathways, meaning this is where the processing works out like Storyline except it’s actually happening.

We have choice because we are Things with some degree of awareness. A Thing with less awareness has the choices it is endowed with, like instinct or simply having a capability, like slime mold. Choice is a label for being aware that Conformal Reality exists and that it becomes Tractable. This is where that farce version of the Barber paradox appears again: It’s Tractable when it becomes a farce about a guy who wears multiple hats with conflicting rules. That is how the larger pressure or tensioning of Conformal Reality operates. Get that? Tensioning? I think we can phrase the entire tensioning conception using dimensions, that when we tension and work out the kinks and gain range of movement and functionality, then we are extending the Thing’s reach and that appears in the tObject of self. So, tensioning essentially lifts or places the solution in view so it can attach across the structure to be continuous.

Did I just get the long-standing bugaboo about the apparent consistency or continuity of your presentation, though it varies immensely? That is, tensioning requires it because then the pieces are not only in place but are lined up properly to work with the other pieces. Need to go for a walk.

0 notes

doc-hudson · 2 years ago

Text

Ah, Simba’s flame shone through, once again.

Bizarre as the whole thing might be, seeing the other’s expression change was a good signal for Paul -because that meant he was paying attention to what was being said, that he somewhat understood the implications of it all and, just like before, wouldn’t hesitate to chew him for what he perceived as (what he knew was) wrong.

The indignation, the disbelief, weren’t all that bad: they were mere signals of just how much he’d fucked up, how a normal person , and actually unbiased third party perceived the whole fiasco and a silent reminder that no matter how much he tried to minimize, to rationalize it, it'd been a idiotic, inconsiderate thing to do-

-necessary as it’d been.

‘Did you even give her an explanation –an excuse-- …’

Paul’s eyebrow’s shot up at the other’s words. Did he really look like the kind of man who’d just walk away without a word?!

...granted, he’d done that, sure. Multiple times, yeah. But not to Louise.

“We’re divorced not just separated, o' course we had plenty o’ chats ‘bout the whole thing. Both o’ us had to sign the papers, after all” which, granted, might be a way of indirectly stepping away from the question, to buy himself a second to think his next words “she knew -hell, I was kinda expectin’ her to be the one to...you know, be the one to call it quits after the accident”

Doc shook his head, a nostalgic smile on his lips.

“But, nah, that wasn’t like her”

Louise ‘Barnstormer’ Nash, the woman that had decided to steal a spot to compete in the Magick Grand Prix after she’d been rejected? The Louise ‘Barnstormer’ Nash that could out-run and out-drink most of them?!

“ ‘Givin’ up’ ‘s a foreign concept to her, really” which, granted, made the divorce a bizarre tale, didn’t it? “but she also had first row seats to the whole shitshow my life had turned into. I made sure to become fuckin’ unbearable and remind her that she could do better, that- that my bullshit didn’t have to drag her down, specially not when…”

Well, the Fabulous (ugh) Hud Hudson was out of the picture, Heming had been too demoralized after the Thomasville defeat to continue racing with the same enthusiasm, River and Junior were about to retire… That could have been the perfect moment for her to shine, to reclaim her very deserved spot as the top of the sport.

It was her chance.

...but…

“...she could’ve been the next big thing, you know? I didn’t want to- you know, demoralize her or be her distractin' an' sorry excuse o’ a husband that the papers dunk on” he chuckled at that last part, unaware of just how little sense it made without any context and mostly entertained, instead, by the idea of the press trying to do that (they would. Oh, they so would, if given the chance) “Nah, we… I just managed to- I dunno, tire her so much that she eventually went with the idea, I guess? It was an amicable thing. Nothin' as dramatic as you may imagine”

Lay Down Your Weapons /./ [Soc]

#t: Lay down your weapons #c: Simba #/30 years have passed but this man WILL still simp for his ex if given the chance to #/meanwhile; said ex would probably kick his ass on sight #/THAT'S why he loves her #/re-posting because I forgot to turn Beta on. Oops

14 notes · View notes

icemankazansky · 2 years ago

Note

What are your thoughts on Iceman cutting Mav off during that training exercise? He's not being a team player there and is going against his own advice to Maverick. I've always wondered what was going through his mind when he did that? Ice cold no mistakes but did he let Maverick get in his head that one time?

Ohhhh I love this question.

Number one, if the question is: Did Maverick Mitchell get under Ice’s skin? The answer is yes. Maverick, it seems, has been under Ice’s skin since the moment Ice first saw him. The classroom scene the first day at TOPGUN introduces Ice as a character, but in world it is Ice’s first time seeing Maverick. And he doesn’t take his eyes off him. This is not a casual glance. Ice has tone on Maverick. And he maintains it for more than a minute and a half. (Yes, I really did just time that.) A couple times he breaks visual contact, usually to focus on Viper, to whom he is meant to be paying attention, but it’s always brief, and it goes right back to Maverick. At this point, they haven’t even spoken to each other.

By the time the hop in question comes around, they have spoken. They have argued. They have intimidated each other physically. They have competed against each other, both at TOPGUN and on the beach playing volleyball. On Hop 31, they are tied for first in the TOPGUN competition, and there are only two weeks left in the session. Not only is each hop becoming more challenging, but each point matters more, because they are running out of time.

The hop seems to start on a friendly note. Maverick smiles at Ice, who then asks a very interesting question: “You up for this one, Maverick?”

Maverick answers breezily, with another smile, and Ice just kind of nods and turns away, focusing on his work. On paper, this interaction could read as a jab, trying to provoke each other as they have done before, but I don’t think it is. Maverick doesn’t read it that way, and he is very sensitive to what other people think of him, perhaps Ice especially. And Ice doesn’t seem sharp in any way when he asks. He’s looking at Maverick, studying his reaction, and his expression is intent but not bothered, and his voice is even and assessing.

It’s logical to assume that Ice is a section leader at his station. He is used to being in a leadership position, responsible for other pilots. Ice asks Maverick this question because he cares about the answer.

Put a pin in that.

Now we’re to the scene in question. Slider reports on the bogies in the area, and Maverick is first to respond.

Ice has a different opinion about the best approach.

They have to race for it. Ice gets there first.

It’s an interesting move from Ice, and it clearly catches Maverick off guard. Ice has dressed Maverick down more than once for not supporting his fellow airmen, but honestly I don’t know enough about the logistics and protocols of this type of flying to know whether “teamwork” in this instance means one guy calls the shots, and regardless of who he is and what his idea is, you support him. It might be that Ice is still thinking as a section leader, and he thinks it’s his place to call the play for him and Maverick both. I can buy that. The problem I have readily endorsing this explanation is that this is the first time we’ve seen Ice fly. I don’t know if this behavior is typical of him, if it’s typical of him at TOPGUN, or if it’s typical of him around Maverick. The only other time we see Ice fly is at the end, the Layton rescue, and Ice takes the lead there, too, but it makes more sense for him to do it in this context than during exercises at TOPGUN.

Honestly, the thing that influences my instinct the most is the tone in which Ice says, “I’m in.” He sounds decisive, and he sounds annoyed. We know that both Ice and Maverick are competitive, and that, really, they are each other’s real competition for the Top Gun trophy. We know that they are both way under the other’s skin, that the stakes between them are higher than they are between anyone else. But I don’t think Ice would be annoyed with Maverick if he was driven purely by competition. A question we can take from Ice’s arguments with Maverick is the question of whether Ice trusts Maverick in the air. And I’m not sure he does. The last time Ice speaks to Maverick before this hop, he calls him, “dangerous and foolish.” My instinctual read of Ice taking this action, cutting Maverick off on Hop 31, is that Ice anticipates Maverick causing some sort of problem or not taking things seriously, and he doesn’t want to deal with it. Maverick says he’ll take the lead, and Ice decides, “Nope, we are not doing this today, I am at work and I am here to perform and I don’t trust you not to fuck this up for me.”

It’s absolutely a personal decision that is based on Ice’s perception of Maverick as a person and a pilot. He doesn’t trust him, and he doesn’t have time for any fucking around, and he decides just not to take the risk.

#asks answered #top gun #top gun og #iceman kazansky #top gun meta #long post

53 notes · View notes

cornfarm · 3 years ago

Text

nurse’s office debacle

saiki kusuo x reader

word count: 0.5k

synopsis: you walk in on saiki using his powers. you’re somehow the best and worst person to find out. he panics.

cw: n/a

genre: fluff

reader is gender neutral!

================================================

notes:

WOW i’ve been writing SO much recently, i have way too much time on my hands heh

i’ve been pumping through these fics like CRAZY but i just have so many ideas! i haven’t written fanfic in about a year and the fandom i used to write for was so limiting in ideas so i’m a bit off the walls cuz i can express more themes and settings :D

i’ve been thinking about potential ways to integrate variety in a reader character, and i’m a little bit into crystals myself so i decided to give y/n a crystal pendant as their like... “character thing”... you know? black tourmaline (which i definitely didn’t purchase), is actually a crystal that does what i say it does in the fic which is awesome! i’m actually using the same prompt in a longer fic that’s quite different from this one.

you can buy it from jewelers on etsy in case you’re crazy like me <3

enjoy!

================================================

You walk in on Saiki Kusuo apport the cough syrup in place of generic cold medicine in the empty nurse's office. You had been feeling a bit weary, and had used the lunch break as a chance to get some medicine. He didn’t see you were there until you met eyes.

Fuck.

You knew.

He doesn’t know why he didn’t know you were there. Stunned, he spots a small black pendant around your neck, it sticks out like a sore thumb on your uniform.

“Saiki, did you just-”

He lunges towards you, and with his hand clasp over your mouth, backs you against a corner, unable to escape. He closes the door and locks it with his telekinesis, effectively trapping you in the room with him.

You don’t move too much against him or try to speak, just staring up at him in both awe and horror. His eyes glare down at yours, unsure of what to do. If he wipes your memory, it might cause more problems, you already saw him do it, you might just replace it with something worse.

He was mostly flustered- he was using his powers because of you. He couldn’t say that, of course, but to say he had been keeping an eye on you was an understatement. He was interested in you, even if it was just a little bit, because nobody was interested in you.

Saiki noticed you dozing off in class, you were frequently tired, sure, but this time you were especially lethargic. He went to check if the school supplied any cold medicine that you could take, and they only had cough syrup. He decided that wouldn’t have been good enough and took initiative.

Anyways, back to the problem at hand, the fact he didn’t sense you standing in the room: the pendant around your neck was the only explanation for it.

Before he can ask, you reach up and gently pry his hand off your face, “Saiki, are you a-”

“Don’t say it.”

“I’m just confused, that’s all.”

He reaches at the rock around your neck, examining it between his fingers.

“What is this?”

“Uh, it’s um,” you stutter, “it’s black tourmaline, it’s a crystal- a friend got it for me for my birthday. It’s supposed to shield you from negativity and psychic attacks. To be honest I don’t really know what the last part means- I suppose it’s for protection.”

That’s the answer he wants, he suspected as much.

“I won’t tell anyone about your powers.”

“How can I be sure?”

“I don’t have anything to gain from it.”

“Yes you do, don’t lie.”

You bite your lip, frustrated at his persistence. He steps a bit closer, is he trying to intimidate you or is he nervous? You can’t tell.

“The truth is,” you begin, “I had a dream last night that this exact situation happened- it’s total deja-vu. I’ve never been to the nurses office either so it has to have been prophetic.”

Saiki doesn’t say anything.

“Maybe we’re meant to be friends”, you smile.

He was very nervous for two reasons. First, you can use this incriminating information as blackmail, holding him by the reins and having him under your thumb. Second, he got way too close to you, he can feel how warm you are, and how fast your heart’s pounding in your chest.

He’s overjoyed.

#am i spending my summer writing anime fanfic? yes. am i good at it? yes.. am i productive? yes.#the disaster of psi kusuo saiki #the disasterous life of saiki k #saiki k #saiki kusuo #saiki kusuo x reader #saiki k imagines #saiki k headcanons

297 notes · View notes

eponymous-rose · 4 years ago

Text

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E131 (March 30, 2021)

Tonight’s guests are Liam O’Brien and Sam Riegel!

Brian points out that a lot of Caleb’s greatest fears have come to pass. Liam: “It’s funny, because he’d kind of believed for a while that those things weren’t going to happen. After a while, he got complacent.” He notes that it was extra wild because everything with Trent popped up again in the midst of that complacency. And how did it feel to be defiant toward Trent? “I think Trent successfully made Caleb question if Caleb really was in control“ at the dinner party. “I feel like anything that I do is part of his plans for me, or is that just gaslighting? I’m legitimately scared of that dude.” Sam: “Of Matt?” Liam: “Sure.” He highlights the disconnect between knowing that the M9 is mechanically powerful and could possibly defeat Trent in a dice-and-stats battle, versus fearing him in a story sense and being convinced he can do almost anything.

Sam, on Luc’s death: “That was brutal, man. Matt Mercer is a-- he hates children! Clearly. He actively sought to kill a child in the campaign in as brutal a way as possible. He hates children and wants them dead. Canon. No, but to RP, that was horrible.” He highlights that so much of Veth’s arc has been about trying to get back to her family. “We had to choose something and we thought we were making the right choice. It was all Veth’s fault, and it was pretty rotten. My heart was beating pretty fast, and I certainly didn’t want to have my son die live on the stream. I don’t know what Veth would have done. That’s the end, that’s over. It’s almost worse than when your own character would die. This is something that would also kill Veth.” After the episode was over: “just shaken. I also didn’t know what to do next! That felt like a turning-point moment for my character, weirdly so close to what we assume to be the end arc of this campaign. I texted Matt later that night and was like, that’s it, Veth’s out, I’m tapping out.”

There’s an interlude in which Sam discovers a new dream to record an episode of this show from his Peloton. Dani informs him that she will not be inviting him back.

On Astrid, Liam: “I literally don’t know what she’s doing. I know that she’s dangerous, she always was ambitious, and there’s not been a moment where Caleb let his guard down with her. He’s not trying to reestablish what they had. He cares for the both of them, for Astrid and Eodwulf. He thinks about it a lot, still. He can’t tell how much she buys into everything that she experienced and is now living as a full-grown adult. He suspects that she’s bought in and is not going to change things, because she believes in the system, as much as he’d like to peel her away. He does believe that they want what’s best for the Empire, and stopping whatever wants to come vomiting out of a hole in the frozen north is good for everyone. And they’re powerful. They’re not trustworthy, obviously. But there’s enough at stake to make it worth it. He could imagine a situation where they fight each other to the death.” He was convinced Astrid was going to stop them when they left the tower and was really shocked when she held back. Sam: “Not me! I’ve trusted Astrid since day one. She’s the greatest! I sent a letter to her, she’s very nice, I think you guys would be a nice couple. I believe every word she says.”

On having to decide on Veth deciding to go off and save the world after Luc’s death. “Like I said, I was ready to be done. And then I decided somewhere in there that that’s not very D&D. So I thought I’d leave it up to somebody else, so I asked Caduceus to decide for me, essentially. She knows she’s putting her other family in danger if she doesn’t go. It’s an impossible choice, you know?” Liam: “I love watching you grapple with it, because you’re a lovely father and love your kids.”

On the Sanatorium, Sam: “That was brutal, man. Matt lulls you into a sense of complacency. We’d forgotten that Caleb was a stone-cold killer! It had been a while since he went on a murder spree. Still got it!” Liam: “I never meant for this character to be perfect sunshine.” Brian: “You don’t say.” Liam: “He’s very not-perfect, and I think in his brain, he was going in with the impression that they needed to get in and get out as soon as possible. The place is crawling with people with magic ability, and I didn’t have faith that we wouldn’t be sussed out or something wasn’t going to blow an illusion.” Everything was about getting out of there as fast as possible.

Did the conversation with Yeza help with Veth’s decision? “First of all, every conversation with Yeza is a beautiful one. Every time she talks to Yeza, it makes her feel good. In some ways, she’s gotten to the point now where she knows Yeza’s going to be supportive, she knows he’s going to allow her to do what she wants, but maybe that’s too much. Maybe she needs to not listen to him, basically, and be like, no, you need to be selfish now, dude, you need to say ‘come home, I’m sick of you leaving’. At a certain point, being supportive can turn into being enabling.”

Cosplay of the Week: Jester in the snow! (liljerbear47, photography by kairiceleste on Instagram)

On Trent’s motivations for chasing Caleb: “I really don’t know. The simplest explanation is to just hammer down the nail that’s sticking up. It has crossed his mind that all high-level wizards are in danger of their own ambition and egos, so it’s occurred to him that Trent might have the same kind of ideas that Halas had in the past, and maybe Caleb was always meant to be another body to jump into. Maybe in some sick, disgusting, twisted way, he wants him to be his successor. I am thinking of the next campaign, without getting too deep in, trying to do something that is much more ride-along. Caleb is very, very specific, and I thought long and hard about all the different pieces on the chessboard for him. For campaign three, I’m looking forward to seeing what happens.”

Dani: “Do I need to be keeping lore on your fucking ads?”

On the cursed dagger: “It was a tricky one, because in campaign one, one of the characters was under the influence of a cursed weapon, but it interacted with him and he knew what it was and what it did. And it affected his gameplay as a character. For me, Veth didn’t know what it was, ever. I as a player knew what it was doing, but Veth didn’t know at all. So it was kind of like my dirty, dark secret for many months. I knew this thing was coming perilously close to killing me, but my character didn’t know enough to bring it up to her friends. Nobody ever asked! So I was like, well, I guess this thing’s just going to kill me one day, and it’s kind of going to be a surprise.” Liam: “Sam, you love danger and self-destruction so much, you might as well be Mollymauk.”

On the fight in Yasha’s sequence, Sam: “You gotta put a character in your storm giant creature. It was so fun! It was so great of Matt to involve us in this encounter. It would’ve been fun just to watch, because Matt would have made it amazing and Ashley was sweating bullets, which is always fun to watch.” Sam notes he felt guilty, but Liam was going for the kill. Liam: “Matt’s gotta be careful about giving me that kind of story beat. I do not fucking care, I just fucking flip, I’m like, well, I’m going to destroy you, and I have no qualms about it. It’s too much fun!”

The Beau/Yasha tower date was in part inspired by not being able to give gifts as easily this last year. “This thing that we do together is a gift, but I love finding these moments, like the book for Jester and the tower for Yasha and for Beau. I really just wanted to give both of them a little magic for a night. I wanted them to leave this-- we’re trying to be as entertaining as possible, but shit is having an effect on all of us too, and I wanted them to have an escape, a great place to escape to.”

Fan Art of the Week: an amazing group shot, plus Marion, Yeza, and Luc! (vocaz on Twitter)

On choosing Essek over Trent, Liam: “It would have been so interesting and awful and great! Essek and Astrid and Eodwulf are everything that Bren used to be attracted to that are terrible for him. Essek, hopefully he can with time find a way out of the hole that he dug himself into, but it was only two months ago where he was found out and his ambitions came crashing down around him. Long-term, I have high hopes for him, but I think it’s going to be hard.” In contrast, Astrid and Eodwulf are still “deep in the shit. It would have been really hard to navigate, but fun to play at the table. We made the right choice with what we went with. Essek’s just getting started, and Caleb doesn’t trust him entirely, because he was burned so hard not too long ago. He’s still more trustworthy than the other three. So it’s the better choice. While Caleb has all these ties on the other side, they’re really fucking dangerous. So if you have to choose, you choose Essek. But fuck that die.” Sam: “Veth, much like Sam Riegel, makes instant decisions about whether to trust someone or not and sticks to it forever. Astrid, 100% trust. Eodwulf, 100% distrust. Essek, completely distrust. I still don’t think he’s a good guy. Ikithon? Trust. 100%. Because you know where he’s coming forward, you know what he wants. I still want him dead, but I trust him.”

On Veth’s post-adventuring plans: “Veth is probably still too in it right now to think about what comes next. I, Sam Riegel, have a good idea of what I want Veth to do post-campaign.” Brian: “Maybe you shouldn’t tell us. Save it for the show!” Sam: “All she knows is she can’t do this anymore. It’s very unhealthy to be battle-wounded every other day. It’s fun for a while, but college has to end at some point, and she’s gotta go home.”

On Frumpkin changing appearance and returning to the Feywild: “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but the way it feels now for Caleb is that he feels too enmeshed in everything that has happened, and too much good has happened, and too much needs to happened, that that really narcissistic, selfish goal has the risk of harming everything else, which is more important. And that’s how he looks at it now. So he’s gearing towards letting everything from the beginning of the campaign, and where he started, go, and trying to figure out what use he’s going to be now and what he’s going to do if they’re not all dead. If Matt throws that shit down, I don’t know what I will do, I think about it a lot. But turning Frumpkin white and saying you’re free either way is him preparing to let go of everything he’s been holding on to for a really long time. He’s addicted to that idea that he can fix himself, and we’ll see if that hard choice gets presented, what he might do. But where he stands now, he doesn’t think that’s going to be reality, and he sees a way that he can be of use that he never really anticipated before, so he’s slowly shifting gears towards living with the pain he was trying to remove.”

On the last request scene and confidence heading into Aeor, Sam: “I feel like that’s a good request. I think all of us realized that if we die, that probably bodes badly for the world. I feel like all of us are at a point now as characters and as friends, that the first order of business would be to take care of everybody else’s shit, although we probably have different ideas of how to do that.” Liam: “I want the Empire to be healed, Caleb has all these memories of his parents and what they wanted for the world, and he wants that too. It’s clearly not in place now, the system needs to be broken and replaced. That could be a part of Caleb’s sunset. I don’t want Caleb to die, so maybe he can work on that after. As everything starts to shake out and we start heading towards our destiny, Caleb’s just free-floating. He’s not even going after the same thing he started for. So he’s looking at Veth’s family, and Luc specifically, and seeing that’s me, that’s a little boy in the Empire.”

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long text post

551 notes · View notes

siriuslydimwitted · 3 years ago

Text

Liar, Liar, Liar // d.m

a/n: disclaimer: this blog is not for draco, i just wanted to write for draco but i will write for other characters too

warnings: manipulative sad boi draco, underage drinking, swearing ig, this is unedited so pls be kind, thank you

summary: you gave him too many chances

word count: 1k

~~~~~

I promise I’ll change hmm…

How many times have you ever heard those words come out from the same lips, from Draco Malfoy’s lips

He always says those when he did something that might hurt you, but he’s doing it over and over again. I will never be an asshole again, I promise. The moment he says ‘I promise’, you will melt and will believe every lie he said

Of course, he promised so he will never do it again, a promise shouldn’t be broken.

“Your boyfriend’s drunk again,” you heard your friend shout from the top of her lungs, the commonroom was filled with loud sound and chattering “and eyeing someone again,” she continued to shout whilst drinking her whiskey every yell

You didn’t respond and the only thing you could do was to look at your boyfriend’s dancing figure and a girl clinging on his body like a leech. Tears started to flow from your eyes down your chin

I promise I promise, I promise. In the end, it was all just words from a liar’s mouth

Unconsciously, you walk forward them with your fist folded. Every pace you make, the faster your heart is pounding, the closer they got to each other

You did something you don’t know you could do, your hands ran up to the girl’s hair and grab it fistful. As if the girl was not there you yank her away and face the tall, pale, blond boy who were shocked. Ignoring the gasp from the other student you spoke “Let’s talk,”

“Hey, hey let me explain,” he quickly said after following you outside, his eyes were painted with worry. Afraid that you might leave him that you might cry, that he might hurt you again. Which he did.

“I don’t need an explanation, Draco,” you spat dangerously, but your body couldn’t move. Your heart is bursting with resentment and sting. You wanted to end this but you’re sure as hell you will be the one who will miss him the most “Let’s end this,” risking it wouldn’t hurt him

That’s what you thought, not until you heard a light sob from him “please,” his voice was soft as a pillow “you know I can’t find nobody else as good as you,” sob, sob, sob until he got on his knees and hold your waist. “I need you to stay,” he never did this before, you know he’s in pain but you also know damn well that he’s manipulative

“One. Last. Chance,” how foolish of you. How many times have you ever said those? But you still gave him another chance

For the last few weeks, you can say that he’d improved. He always helps you with your homework and always peppering you with kisses and so on. They said once a cheater, always a cheater, he might not have cheated on you sexually but he does mentally

“Draco!” you snapped at him when you see him looking at someone

“s-sorry I was just thinking,” he said making an alibi which you didn’t buy that much but you still wanted to believe that he’s changed

Weeks have passed and the old Draco came back, the deceitful one. The coldness hit your cheeks, he said he will make it up to you. He wanted to take you on a date at least once a week, that’s why you’re at Madam Puddifoot’s waiting for your boyfriend

Other Hogwarts students started to come and go but a blond Malfoy is nowhere to be found. Maybe he doesn’t deserve all the chances you gave him.

At last, you decided to go back to the castle instead of waiting for him. Too many sacrifices are made and too much pain had suffered, enough is enough, another chance was not worth to give and it’ll never be worth it if the person you had given a chance is always tossing it away

But your heart is always ready to forgive and to grieve another pain for him not until

“draco?” all you can do is whisper his name, you can’t move an inch as you saw the person who caused you pain is doing something to hurt you again. That’s the reason why he didn’t show up, because of another girl. Because of a temporary happiness

His arms are wrapped around her much smaller waist and the other are holding her neck to deepen the kiss. Both of their eyes are shut and their lips are dancing in harmony like he wanted it forever. He forgot everything for an impermanent pleasure

“Is it good?” what kind of question is that? But you ask it anyway the moment you arrived in front of them. You felt a cold zephyr again like what you felt outside earlier but this time, it’s in your heart that causing it to suffer more

“y-y/n?” draco spoke in a raspy voice, “let me explain, love,” blah blah blah, you already saw it! What else do you need to hear?

“we’re over,” you said it again but this time it’s real and no hesitation. All those pain you’ve suffered and all those chances he chose to jerk away, another chance wouldn’t heal anything

Draco called you continuously but you didn’t turn back, he called you but never ran for you. He’s not in love, he just wanted to feel your existence and the attention you’re giving him

“Please don’t leave me,” you know it’s a shit idea, but you waited for him at the commonroom “i can’t live without you,” that’s when you know, he’s not worth it

Beg, beg, beg, he begged you but all you can do is to stand there and remain silent. He stood up and hold both of your cheeks, he kissed you, he moved his lips in hopes you will reciprocate it but you didn’t

“h-hey,” he chuckles bitterly as you wipe the saliva on your mouth “hey, I love you, I’m sorry, I’ll change I promise,” promises are not rules but it was meant to be broken… for him.

You turn away from him and didn’t say anything, it’s over. He will never change.

~~~~~

requests are open

#draco malfoy #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy x reader fluff #slytherin #gryffindor #ravenclaw #hufflepuff #draco malfoy x reader angst #draco malfoy x reader one shots #harry potter #hp #draco malfoy x y/n #draco malfoy x you #draco malfoy x reader imagines #draco malfoy x reader fanfiction

332 notes · View notes

hacked-by-jake · 3 years ago

Text

Headcanon

Summary: Your Christmas days with Jake.

Pairing: JakexGn!MC

Genre: Fluff/ little bit angst (?) Shortly spicy. :)

Words: 5272

A/n: Oh, what am I saying now? So I have no idea what that is, a long headcanon? Many short imagines? I’m still not able to write real fanfictions, so this is not a oneshot, but more detailed for a real headcanon. Tbh, I’m not happy with this thing. But they’re five thousand fucking words, that’s more than I’ve written in the last six months, so I’m posting it anyway. I’ve been writing this for three days, which is not normal, because otherwise I have to write it all at once, because I hate it otherwise. And it was supposed to be much shorter, but well, now we’re here. Like I said, I’m not satisfied but 5k words written and translated for nothing? No. Blah blah blah, more words and explanation, blah blah blah.... !!! It’s just a little spicy at one point so I marked these spots with a snowflake, so you can just skip it if you don’t want to read it. The song I have chosen in one place is just my idea, you can of course imagine it to you with your wish song. Oh, and it’s the first time I’ve incorporated NYMOS as a talking artificial intelligence, I liked the idea. Okay, I’ll stop talking now. I'll read over it again but if I read it more often I start to cry. So, sorry for the mistakes. Merry Christmas.❤️🎄

🎄 You two had talked a lot about Christmas together. Jake was definitely not a great fan of those holidays and the more he told you, the more you could understand why.

🎄 You knew, of course, that his life wasn’t wonderful. You knew that he had lost his mother early, that he had grown up in foster homes, and that not every one of them had treated him well.

🎄 So most of his memories of Christmas were not really nice, and when he got permission to live in his own apartment at 16, he decided not to keep such days any longer.

🎄 So he always lived as if these days were the same as everyone else, and he completely lost touch with them.

🎄 But now he had you. He was in a serious relationship, no longer alone and you had firmly planned to show him the beauty of the festive days and to pull him along.

🎄 In the beginning he was still struggling with it. Again and again you had to explain things to him and make it clear that these were Christmas traditions, which were mostly only aimed at spending time with the people you love.

🎄 And that was the only reason he started enjoying it, the amount of time he could spend with you. He enjoyed seeing you so happy, seeing how much all this meant to you and how much fun it was for you. And automatically he started to enjoy it, too.

❄️☃️❄️☃️❄️

🎄 At first, to start with something, you decided to create a common playlist that of course only included Christmas music.

🎄 Typically classic and well-known songs, but also other genres such as trap and hip hop could find their place.

🎄 It actually took some hours until you could fill a reasonable time with music without songs repeating themselves, but it was definitely worth it.

🎄 Next you suggested that it would be a nice idea to buy decoration for the apartment and the Christmas tree together.

🎄 It was your first apartment together, as well as the first Christmas together. It was a new beginning for both of you, and so it should be something new for both of you.

🎄 So, you drove off to Colville and spent a whole day exploring the various shops, bending everything critically and then deciding together for the decoration.

🎄 Even if Jake usually just pretended to have a right opinion. He certainly did not find your wishes bad, but this area was not necessarily one in which he had much knowledge. Which made it all the more beautiful for him to see your Radiant Face.

🎄 That alone was a gift for him.

🎄 However, where it became more difficult to decide together, was when it came to the tree decoration.

🎄 After all, Jake also had some thoughts before and had looked at pictures from which he was inspired.

🎄 Well, in terms of color you had different ideas, which is why you decided that everyone would take what they wanted and not pay attention to whether it fits together in the end color scheme or not.

🎄 After all, your tree should not be displayed in a catalogue and serve as an advertisement, but it should give you a homely and warm feeling. It definitely didn’t matter about any colors.

🎄 Unfortunately, it was already very late when you came home from your shopping trip, which is why you postponed decorating until the next day.

🎄 The rest of the evening you had only time and desire for ordering Chinese food, lying together in bed and looking at inspirations for the decoration on the Internet.

🎄 The next day you calmly started and carried out your daily routine. Unfortunately, Jake also had some work to do, which is why you postponed your deco project until the afternoon.

🎄 But when finally everything was done, you were fire and flame, while Jake stood a little perplexed beside you and his joy was still limited.

🎄 You had already placed everything you bought on the floor in your living room to get a better overview.

🎄 Your playlist found the first opportunity to show what it could do and you were pretty sure that your neighbors also could enjoy the music because of your selected volume.

🎄 Together you started to clean the windows, tidy them up and make room for the decoration.

🎄 And together with the music, your good mood and your singing and dancing, Jake began to merge more and more with the mood, until you sang the lyrics loudly, and Jake nodded his head to the beat of the music.

🎄Shake it up Shake up the happiness Wake it up Wake up the happiness Come on y'all It's Christmas time

🎄 Everywhere in the apartment there was space for small figures and other christmas stuff.

🎄 The neon LED lights from your living room has been swapped with Christmas fairy lights. A net of lights was hung on the ceiling and thus offered a view like a starry sky.

🎄 Some cushions on the sofa also got a new and more Christmas cover, so that at the end Santa Claus, Rudolf the reindeer and the Grinch watched you as you put the rest of the apartment in order.

🎄 When, after about three hours of work, you had everything as you liked it, you were exhausted but still satisfied, and let yourself fall on the couch and let the evening end with a Christmas movie that you loved as a child.

❄️☃️❄️☃️❄️

🎄 Dressed warmly and full of anticipation, you went to the gates of hope the next day to buy one of the there exhibited Christmas trees.

🎄 Already in the car you explained to Jake that you would like the Christmas tree to be a little bigger than it would fit into your apartment.

🎄 Simply because it would definitely come to funny moments during the set up and it would take more time for everything to be as you want it to be.

🎄 Spending more time with the beautiful things was one of your big endeavors during the Christmas season. The world has become so fast-paced that you really appreciate it if you can focus completely on a beautiful thing.

🎄 Even if Jake was a little skeptical, he still agreed with you when he noticed your hopeful face. The shine in your eyes and the light smile on your wonderful lips would persuade him to do anything.

🎄 Fortunately, it didn’t take that much time to find the right tree. There was still quite a lot of choice and one tree immediately caught your eye when you arrived by car.

🎄 You had nevertheless taken the time and have walked hand in hand and cuddled closely together the rows along, looked at Christmas trees and philosophized what it would look like with your ornaments in your apartment.

🎄 Cleo’s mother, as always, was friendly and smiled wide when she saw you two and showed you some of the most beautiful trees that still existed at the moment.

🎄 Also the tree that you liked from the beginning was there, and so you decided to take it.

🎄 Back home you decided to wait until the next day to set up the Christmas tree and take a little stroll instead.

🎄 Jake gave you his NYMOS hoodie to make sure you wouldn’t get cold and simply for the reason that it always filled him with pride to see you in his clothes.

🎄 It was already 10 o'clock in the evening when you leave the warm apartment together and the cold air took your breath away for a few seconds.

🎄 Jake’s gloved hand affectionately clasped yours and in the shine of the streetlights you both strolled through the streets of Duskwood without a way or goal.

🎄 Most of the time, it was quiet between you two. You have only enjoyed the clear air and atmosphere that comes up and casts a spell on you.

🎄 You felt like time was standing still around you.

🎄 No cars were visible far and wide and could not be heard. Most houses were lit up and you could catch glimpses of families who also spent a quiet Pre- Christmas time with each other.

🎄 After about 10 minutes, something happened that you called Spaßeshalber a "Christmas miracle". Tiny, in the yellowish light shimmering and glittering snowflakes fell on you and announced, in your eyes, the official beginning of the Christmas season.

🎄Enthusiastically you clapped your hands and looked at Jake, who already looked at you with a smile on his lips and waited for your reaction.

🎄 The snowflakes became larger and larger and multiplied rapidly.

🎄 You left the side next to Jake and tried to catch the flakes with your mouth, but were interrupted when a flash of light stole your attention.

🎄 You looked confused at Jake’s apologetic face.

🎄 His phone was still pointed at you and you quickly understood that he had taken a picture of you.

🎄 "Actually, the flash should be off," he muttered, scratching his neck slightly nervously.

🎄 You said nothing about it, just a broad smile on your face and a warm feeling spread in your chest.

🎄 You were flattered that he actually took a picture of you in random situation.

❄️☃️❄️☃️❄️

🎄 In the afternoon the next day it was finally Christmas tree time.

🎄 Of course you had also insisted on turning on your playlist and getting yourself into an absolute Christmas mood while you could sing along the lyrics of Mariah Cary and Michael Bubbly.

🎄 Setting up the tree was not as easy as expected at first. Due to the size there were some difficulties and some furniture had to make way.

🎄 Admittedly, neither of you was really good at putting up the tree straight, but after a while it worked.

🎄 There was a little discussion between you but nothing that could not be cleared quickly. And you were right about the possible funny moments. Even if you were a little annoyed, it was funny when one piece of furniture was moved, but then the other had not fit for the tree.

🎄 Jake’s murmured curses were pure comedy in your eyes.

🎄 Your highlight of decorating the Christmas tree, however, was Jake, who had completely tangled up himself in thefairy lights and had not managed to get out without help.

🎄 You broke out in a roaring laughter when you came out of the kitchen with two cups of coffee and saw the young hacker wrapped from top to bottom.

🎄 His face looked desperate, his hair was messed up, and you had absolutely no idea how he’d done it.

🎄 But it was a picture for the gods. And you couldn’t let it take you away, despite his asking, to put the string of lights in the socket and take a photo of the now glowing hacker.

🎄 It was just incredibly funny and another wonderful moment.

🎄And Hannah and Lilly agreed after you sent them the picture, under your boyfriend’s great protest.

🎄 When he was finally free again and the fairy lights hang in the right places, you started to decorate the tree with the purchased things without a concept.

🎄 Every time Jake ran past you to hang new Christmas bubbles on the tree, he stole you a quick kiss and let your heart jump in a circle. Each time after that, he smiled at you satisfied and continued without saying anything.

🎄 He was just so incredibly cute.

🎄 After you have used up everything, all you had to do was change a few little things until you were completely satisfied. It looked really beautiful.

🎄 You jumped happily to the light switch and have turned of the ceiling light to admire the glowing Christmas tree.

🎄 Jake stood next to you and wrapped an arm around your back to gently pull you to his chest.

🎄 Sighing, you leaned against him and closed your eyes for a few seconds and did nothing but enjoy his warmth that only intensified the homely feeling.

🎄 In the background the music changed to a slowed down version of 'Sia - Snowman', a song you both liked very much.

🎄 Without opening your eyes, you let Jake grab your hand, which was also placed on his chest and could feel how his others hand lying on your back and exerted slight pressure on you before he began to move slowly to the beat of the music and so silently asked you to dance.

🎄 You have no idea how long you have moved gently to the music in the end, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered to you was togetherness.

❄️☃️❄️☃️❄️

🎄 Saturday a week before Christmas you spent together with the others from the group at the big Christmas market in Colville.

🎄 For the Duskwooders it was a tradition to go there and that meant, of course, that it would now also become tradition for both of you.

🎄 Even if Jakes had really resisted at the beginning and didn’t want to go with you, what you would have found unfortunate but could understand, he could still convince himself, for fear he might miss the beautiful moments there with you.

🎄 Even though he was quiet as always, you had a lot of fun and did a lot of different things.

🎄 You bought an incredible amount of roasted almonds.

🎄 You drove with a ferris wheel.

🎄 You went on a chairoplane.

🎄 Bumper cars although Jake did not participate.

🎄 You ate pizza, you drank cocoa, you bought gingerbread hearts.

🎄 You got a helium filled balloon that was your favorite character from Disney, but to be honest, it was pretty annoying at the market, so you later gave the balloon to a little girl who was incredibly happy.

🎄 And your personal highlight, in which Dan and Jake unfortunately had not participated, the large ice rink that was built in the middle of the city center.

🎄 Together with Hannah, Lilly, Jessy, Cleo, Richy and Thomas you were ice skating and you have loved it incredibly.

🎄 Even Jake and Dan got along relatively well and again and again you could see the two talking to each other.

🎄 And here, too, you could catch Jake taking pictures of you.

🎄 "You really are the most beautiful couple I know" Lilly had suddenly gently bumped you with her elbow and smiled as her gaze parted from Jake and was then pointed at you.

🎄 At first you were a little surprised but then smiled broadly.

🎄 Then you wrapped an arm around her and turned in the direction of Jake and waved to him.

🎄 The young hacker understood your plan immediately and so a beautiful picture with two of his dearest people was created which also made him smile.

🎄 His family.

🎄 Since you didn’t want to keep Dan and Jake waiting that long, you left the ice rink after half an hour and strolled along the entire stalls with food, decoration and handmade things.

🎄 You spent a few hours there and when it was already dark, and you slowly became really cold, decided to go back home. After all, the way back to Duskwood would take another two hours.

🎄 But just before you left the area of the Christmas market, you could hear Hannah squeak loud.

🎄 You and Jake were walking a little in front of the group and talked quietly about the beautiful lighting. You had your hands wrapped around his arm, your head leaned against his shoulder, and his hand was buried deep in your jacket pocket.

🎄 You had turned to the middle sister of Jake to see what was going on.

🎄 With a diabolical grin, she pointed to you and her brother, and then up.

🎄 You followed her finger and quickly you understood when you saw the mistletoe attached to the roofing of the Confectionery booth hanging directly above your heads.

🎄 Jake rolled his eyes as he saw Hannah take out her phone and point at both of you.

🎄 "Come on, my dearest and wonderful big brother," she goaded him.

🎄 Jake wasn't really a big fan of putting his love for you on display like that. Of course, holding your hand or kissing you in public was not such a big topic, yet he liked to be cautious.

🎄 You didn’t want him to feel pressured, which is why you gave Hannah a pleading look to tell her to stop, but it did not come to that.

🎄 The next moment, Jake’s lips were on yours. His cold nose pressed against your cheek and it took you two seconds to realize it, closed your eyes and wrapped your arms around his neck.

🎄 The sound of Hannah’s phone told you that she held the shutter release of the camera to capture every millisecond of this situation.

🎄 The kiss did not last long, but you were more than satisfied with this sweet end of the day.

🎄 "Here you go," Jake grumbled, nodding to his sister, reaching for your hand again to keep running.

🎄 Giggling you let yourself be dragged along and quickly the others caught up to you again.

❄️☃️❄️☃️❄️

🎄 For baking the cookies you came up with some little specials in to increase Jake’s joy here as well.

🎄 You got food color and two special cookie cutters. The first form was a memory card and the second cutter would make small laptops out of your cookies.

🎄 You thought it was a funny little idea to bring Jake even closer to the reference to baking cookies.

🎄 You had chosen different types of cookies to have a larger selection and to spend more time here.

🎄 In addition, Cleo had shared a lot of her recipes in the group chat to give you all inspiration. So you were presented with a perfect selection.

🎄 Of course, the baking was full of chaos and lubrication, but this only contributed to your pleasure.

🎄 Again with Christmas music in the background, you set out to make dough after dough, even if that was more your job and Jake was more your handsome sidekick.

🎄 "Two eggs!" " The flour from the bowl!" " No, the other bowl of flour." "Last Christmas, I gave you my heart." "No, the red bowl. Yes, this, thank you, baby"

🎄 While you kneaded one of the dough by hand, Jake’s arms curled around your body from behind and he crowded close to you.

🎄 Carefully he breathed a few kisses into your neck and made you lose a little laugh.

🎄 You tried to get the sticky dough off your hands as much as possible and then turned to the young hacker who gave you a bright smile and wrapped his hands around your lower back.

🎄 Your body nestled against his as you gently pressed your lips on his.

🎄 He ended the kiss after a short time and leaned his forehead against yours. "I love you," he whispered, but before you could answer, he implicated you in the next kiss.

❄️ This time with more determination and quickly your mutual desire grew for each other.

❄️ Jake pulled you away from the overcrowded work surface to pull you directly to the next and freer surface while your kiss intensified and sent you little exciting electric shocks through your body.

❄️ His hands reached for your thighs to lift you up. You wrapped your legs around his hip and the next moment you found yourself sitting on the countertop.

❄️ Jake’s lips left yours again, made their way across the corner of your mouth, your cheek, your jaw, and down to your neck.

❄️ His tongue gently passed over your skin, his breath left a hot trail on your likewise heated skin and your head fell to the side to give it more space.

❄️ You could feel the slight pulling as his teeth gently drilled into your skin and elicited you a gasp.

❄️ Quickly the dough on your hands was completely forgotten. You let your fingers slide through his soft, deep black hair and bit your lower lip when you felt the slight suction of his lips again.

❄️ The spot began to tingle and a slight burn spread, which you have only welcomed.

❄️ Automatically your body pressed more firmly against his, your crotch grazed his and you could clearly feel the excitement emanating from Jake and immediately your heartbeat accelerated by 10 beats.

❄️ Pretty roughly, you grabbed his hair to lift his head and bring his lips back to yours.

❄️ Just when Jake wanted to grab your t-shirt to pull it over your head, the loud voice of Nymos sounded above your heads and made you drive apart in shock.

🎄 "Sir, the timer for the cookies has now expired."

🎄 Carefully you pushed Jake away from you to get up and get the sheet with finished cookies out of the oven.

🎄 "Very bad timing, NYMOS" Jake grumbled and all you could do was shake your head in amusement.

🎄 "Excuse me, sir, I will now withdraw, let me know if you need anything else"

🎄 With the prospect that you both have to go for a shower one way or the other, you have then turned back to the cookies, even if Jake had started some more approximation attempts, which you have only dismissed with another chuckle.

🎄 Your wish was to finish the cookies before you could rest together, and Jake, of course, accepted this.

🎄 One baking tray after another, and one batter after another has been processed by you. On them a lot of little cute memory cards and laptops.

🎄 Jake loved you idea a lot and couldn't stop using the cutters.

🎄 During the process you have talked about all sorts of things, thought about what gifts you still need, thought about what good gifts would be.

🎄 You sat across from each other, rolled out the dough, gouged out the dough, kneaded the dough again, rolled out again and gouged out again.

🎄 You laughed, kissed countless times and learned to know and love each other even better.

🎄 In the end, you used the food color to paint the Nymos-Eye shaped cookies in the Nymos colors, red, black and white.

🎄 However, you had done this without the presence of Jake, because it was supposed to be another minor surprise.

🎄 And in fact, those were the cookies he liked the most in the end.

❄️☃️❄️☃️❄️

🎄 Snuggled up to Jake you slowly opened your eyes on Christmas morning, only to find that he had already watched you through his lively and dreamlike blue eyes.

🎄 You smiled and covered your mouth with your hand as a hearty yawn rose up your throat and forced you to close your eyes again.

🎄 You slipped a little closer to the young hacker and placed your head on his uncovered and wonderfully warm chest. He immediately wrapped his arm tighter around your upper body to push you to himself and be able to be even closer to you.

🎄 "Good morning, you stalker" you mumbled and left a gentle kiss on his skin.

🎄 "Good morning" he whispered and placed a kiss on your forehead without paying attention on your pet name for him.

🎄 "Merry Christmas, my angel," he added, taking your hand with his free hand to entangle your fingers with each other.

🎄 "Merry Christmas, Jake," you answered and raised your head to connect your lips to his this time.

🎄 "So," you started, "Keep lying here, breakfast or gifts first?"

🎄 Jake’s head rushed forward to steal another kiss, "Well, if you’re my gift then..." he whispered playfully against your lips and turned you on back to immediately lean over you.

🎄 Quickly you pulled your head back to refuse him the opportunity to kiss you again but he dodged to your neck.

🎄 Giggling, you wrapped your arms around his neck and your legs around his hip, you used the momentum you got to turn you both and now press him back into the mattress.

🎄 "No, no, no, there’s plenty of time for that later," you assured him with a wink and descended from him to get up.

🎄 You didn’t miss the pout from him when you picked up his sweatpants and pulled them over your bare legs.

🎄 "These are my pants," he informed you, and you shrugged, "I know, you can wear mine if you want."

🎄 Amused, he shook his head to get up as well, to get a new sweatpants out of the closet and then pull a sweater over.

🎄 When he was finally ready, you took his hand into yours and pulled him out of the bedroom.

🎄 "First we have to unpack the presents."

🎄 "All right" he confirmed, "But first I need coffee"

🎄 "This is of course a prerequisite," you winked with a cheeky grin.

🎄 While Jake quickly disappeared into the kitchen, you threw yourself on the couch and stole one of the homemade cookies from the plate on the table.

🎄 You took a lot of time to unpack your presents, no stress and no hurry.

🎄 Jake’s happy face made your heart explode.

🎄 In fact, he looked like a little boy when he saw the things he had talked and raved about so many times. You had tried to filter the things he wanted most and apparently made more than just the right decisions with what made you happier than anything else in the world.

🎄 "And that’s why I wanted us to unpack the presents first," you explained to him when he unpacked the waffle iron, which represented the shape and pattern of a computer keyboard.

🎄 You found it by chance on the internet some time ago and couldn’t help but give it to the young hacker and computer nerd for Christmas.

🎄 Your plan had been to make waffles for breakfast from the beginning, so it was only convenient for you.

❄️☃️❄️☃️❄️

🎄 Your breakfast was pretty quiet.

🎄 Luckily you had already prepared the dough for the waffles the day before and stored it in the fridge so that she now only had to prepare the new waffle iron.

🎄 You had all kinds of things like fruits and chocolatey sweets to pep up the waffles. You got here some inspiration from Cleo and from the Internet again.

🎄 Of course, the coffee could not be missing.

🎄 After breakfast you cleaned up together and Jake had to quickly do something in his study, but that was okay for you.

🎄 You wrote with the group during that time, wished everyone a Merry Christmas and then briefly called your family, which you would visit together with Jake the next day.

🎄 Jake and you spent the afternoon closely cuddled together in a castle of blankets and pillows in front of the TV and did nothing but watch one movie after another.

❄️☃️❄️☃️❄️

🎄 In the evening you went to Hannah’s and Thomas' apartment for your meeting with the group.

🎄 You decided to make a less traditional meal and then just relax together.

🎄 You came up with the idea of doinga secret santa together to avoid the gift chaos and only give a gift to the person who was on the slip of paper which you have drawn out.

🎄 Jake pulled Dan, you had Lilly, which is why you traded with each other without anyone knowing.

🎄 You first ate together, then you exchanged your secret santa gifts.

🎄 The rest of the evening you sang karaoke to Christmas music, played board games that were built like a mystery case.

🎄 You all just talked, took some drinks and reviewed your year.

🎄 You talked about your meeting for New Year’s Eve and the plans and just sat there quietly, you again, cuddled up to Jake, and just enjoyed the atmosphere.

🎄 Another beautiful Christmas evening.

❄️☃️❄️☃️❄️

🎄 Your next day went the same as the one before, only with the difference that you visited your family instead of the group.

🎄 And there, too, the time with Jake was beautiful. He luckily got along with your family and they had accepted him even though they knew who he was and for that you were incredibly grateful.

🎄 When you lay in bed together in the evening, it was quiet and each of you followed his personal thoughts.

🎄 And although you have been full of joy for the last few days, there has been a growing concern within you.

🎄 Did you force Jake to do something? He probably wouldn’t have said anything if it was.

🎄 He would always put his welfare behind yours, but you didn’t want that, especially during the days of love and family.

🎄 Maybe you should have paid more attention to his wishes? More to do what he wanted?

🎄 Maybe he also had wishes for the Christmas season. You had a lot of program and were often busy.

🎄 You dragged him to the Christmas market, even though you knew that a lot of people weren’t what he liked. And a lot of people had been there..

🎄 Sure, he decided to come along voluntarily in the end, but the reason was you again.

🎄 You didn’t want him to do things because of you, although he did not enjoy them, might even make him uncomfortable.

🎄 In your head ran a gallery full of moments from the last two weeks, and every facial expression of the young hacker popped up in front of your eyes, analyzing any signs that might indicate an unhappy Jake, but you didn’t notice much.

🎄 Were you so ignorant? Or was he really happy?

🎄 Your thoughts were so deep that you couldn’t even hear Jake say your name to get your attention.

🎄 Only when you could feel his lips on yours did you emerge from your thoughts world and look at him startled.

🎄 His face was worried, yet with a small smile on his lips.

🎄 "What’s going on?" he asked and laid his head crooked.

🎄 "Did you like the last few days? Were you happy?" it immediately shot out of you, "I mean, we only did what I wanted. I didn’t even ask if you wanted to do something, maybe you had plans? Maybe-"

🎄 But he quickly interrupted you, a little rough laugh left his lips and made you tighten your eyebrows.

🎄 "MC, this is my first Christmas after 8 years. We have known each other for a year and a half, and before that there was no Christmas in my world. Moreover, even if I wanted to, I would have been alone; I was used to it, so it didn’t bother me anymore. But the last two weeks with you have been more beautiful than I could ever have dreamed of. I did a lot of other things that didn’t happen in the apartment and in front of my computer, like every other day of the year. I was at your side, spending time with the person that matters most to me. I had time with my sister who also shared your joy of Christmas. The three most important people in my life were happy and satisfied. No matter what would have been, it is the time of love as you say, and the people I love were satisfied. That’s the only thing that matters to me, as long as you are happy, so am I. Even if it’s on a Christmas market next to Dan on a cold bench. Where you are, is where I want to be, and where you are, is my happiness. I could not enjoy the feast of love and the time of the family, because I had no family to share with. But now I was given a family last year. And there’s nothing better than that. So yes, I was the happiest person on earth and I won’t forget a single second of it."

❄️☃️❄️☃️❄️

I want you to know that I'm never leaving 'Cause I'm Mrs. Snow, 'til death we'll be freezing Yeah, you are my home, my home for all seasons So come on, let's go

Let's go below zero and hide from the sun I love you forever where we'll have some fun Yes, let's hit the North Pole and live happily Please don't cry no tears now, it's Christmas, baby

Masterlist

P.S. I noticed again how little I am a Christmas person. xD

#duskwood #duskwood jake x mc #duskwood jake #duskwood hacker #duskwood mc #duskwood headcanon #duskwood fanfiction #duskwood jake x player #everbyte studio #everbyte duskwood #duskwood everbyte #duskwood game

89 notes · View notes

soulmate-game · 4 years ago

Text

Useful Part 2

fluff with a little hurt and comfort. If you want answers as to the lack of angst, look through my recent posts for an explanation.

—* — * — * —* —*

“Wait, you have a WHAT?” were the first words that the rest of the Gotham-based vigilantes heard when they finally were able to track down where Damian had gone. Dick looked over at Bruce, who was noticeably tense. No surprise there, the man had just found out that he had a second biological child. One who was apparently a superhero already, without his intervention, and also apparently had a tragic background in the League of fucking Assassin Assholes. Not to mention that Damian’s track record with meeting siblings wasn’t great, even if this one wasn’t actually new to him. Nobody had any real fear of Damian relapsing on his no-kill rule, they knew he had matured far too much to be at risk of killing for something as immature as sibling rivalry anymore.

But there was still fear. Because this new Wayne was an Unknown Factor, and as a rule the Bats hated Unknown Factors. And they had no idea what the relationship between the two had been before they had been separated, or what it would become now.

“That wasn’t Damian’s voice,” Dick helpfully pointed out the obvious. Bruce only frowned, doing his best (and failing) to hide his anxiety about what they would find. Silently, the group inched forward to the edge of the abandoned building they were on top of so that they could look over at what was happening. What they saw was a girl, presumably the same one who had been in a ladybug onesie and had fearlessly begun to ask them to leave Paris— until she had laid proper eyes on Robin and fled, that was. That girl was sitting down next to an unmasked Damian, who had his arm around her shoulders and let her lean into his side. He even smirked cheerfully at her question before continuing to speak to her.

“A dragon-bat. I knew you’d love hearing about him, I’ll introduce you when you come visit the Batcave. His name is Goliath,” Damian admitted smugly. Despite the familiar attitude and pride behind his words though, his spying family couldn’t help but notice that he kept periodically rubbing the girl’s (they really needed to find out her name) shoulder in reassurance. None of them missed the tear tracks on both of their faces, or how red the girl’s eyes were. Clearly they had missed something big.

But nobody wanted to try to figure that out yet. This scene was too precious, too breathtaking for them to interrupt just yet. They had never seen Damian this vulnerable around someone outside of their little circle before, someone from the Time Before Bruce, no less. Most of the time, only Nightwing was able to see this side to Damian. And usually the roles were reversed, with Damian being the one consoled. They had never seen him in the position of the comforter before. The pillar of support.

It really cemented just how far he had come.

So they watched silently as the girl flinched, pulling away a bit and hunching in on herself. The laugh she let out was small and overflowing with self-degradation.

“You make it sound as if the rest of your family actually wants me to visit,” she replied sourly. Damian gently cuffed her over the head, frowning.

“Two things,” he held up two fingers from his free hand. “One: They will. They accepted me, and I was— well, you remember how I used to be. Once they actually meet you, and process the fact that there’s another Wayne now, they will bombard you with more welcoming than you will know what to do with. Two: It’s Our family, Marinette. Not mine, ours.”

Well, at least they had a name now. But it seems like they had bigger issues now, like Marinette’s clearly damaged sense of self. Jason and Tim traded knowing glances; it wasn’t hard for them to guess where, or how, she might have been damaged enough to think so lowly of herself.

They watched as Marinette shook her head.

“I don’t know. It’s one thing to try to… to get to know you again. We used to be close before… everything,” she haltingly argued, voice small and frail and uncertain. But she never once looked away from Damian’s eyes, trying to convey as best as she could what she was feeling. “But they’re different. They don’t have any reason to trust or like me, Dami. And I’m bad at, well everything, but especially,” she waved her hands frantically as if indicating the whole situation they were in. “I mean, listen to me! I can barely articulate right now, and I’m talking to someone I’ve known my whole life! I’m a mess. Nobody wants a mess.”

It was Damian’s turn to snort, and he pulled her right back into his side. “Please. If anything, that’s exactly the type of child Father goes looking for. We’re all a mess. Especially Father, trust me.”

“You’re just trying to make me feel better,” she accused suspiciously, but sank into his sideways embrace anyway. Damian chuckled.

“No, I’m being honest. He’s terrible at emotions, not that I really have much room to talk. We all are pretty bad with them. But he’s the most obvious when it comes to that issue,” Damian smirked over at his sister conspiratorially. “For example. He still tries to tell people that he works alone, and pushes people away because he has this intense desire to protect, but doesn’t know how to say “I don’t want you to get hurt, stop worrying me,” so instead he says “Go away, I don’t need you,” only for us to see through that nonsense and remind him that the amount of people in his team is in the double digits already. He doesn’t want to admit he cares about us and is vulnerable—”

“Sounds familiar,” Marinette teased with a watery grin, startling a short laugh from her twin. He nudged her a little roughly (but not to roughly) and playfully glared at her. Marinette just giggled.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he lied with a grin before waving his free hand in dismissal. “Anyway. Another example. He has no idea how to tell a stranger, “hey, I’m your father and I will not reject you. In fact, I’m completely willing to adopt you right this moment and whisk you away to Gotham and relative safety and hire an entire team of therapists to help you and buy you half the world if you asked for it,” so instead he and the rest of our emotionally constipated family just lurks on the edge of a building in broad daylight eavesdropping on us and expects us not to notice.”

“Wait what,” Marinette’s gaze instantly whipped up towards the sky, taking only half a second to locate the aforementioned eavesdroppers. Everyone except Bruce at least had the courtesy to duck down and pretend not to be there when they noticed she had seen them, leaving Batman standing seemingly alone on the concrete roof. Marinette blinked once. Twice. Then turned to Damian. “I’m gonna blame the fact that I didn’t notice them on emotional turmoil, because there is no way I’ve gotten THAT rusty.”

Damian smiled, but didn’t laugh. He knew that was a deflection to try and distract from Marinette’s quickly resurging self-consciousness. Her hands were already trembling again, and the fear from only minutes ago had resurfaced. The insecurity. He could practically see the words “I’m not good enough,” written in her irises.

“You’ll be fine,” he whispered, standing up and pulling her with him. “If anyone has to worry here, it’s me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Marinette whisper-hissed right back, eyes wide in disbelief and confusion. “You’re— You! Mister Perfect!”

Damian rolled his eyes, and his self-deprecating smirk matched the laugh Marinette had given just a few minutes earlier. “For the League, maybe,” he shrugged. “Never the Wayne family. Which is why I know you’ll be fine. If they put up with everything I’ve done and still call me one of them, they’ll accept you with barely a second thought.”

Marinette’s next argument was cut off by the sound of a dozen soft footfalls stirring up dirt not far ahead of them. The BatClan had landed from the rooftop.

Marinette gulped.

But if there was one thing— one thing she still remembered from her days as Marie Al-Ghul, it was how to fake pride and confidence. She straightened her shoulders automatically, lifted her chin, and pulled away from Damian’s supporting arm around her shoulder. Damian let her.

A little bit of old resentment flared up in him as he saw Batman walk up close enough to comfortably talk with them. Resentment that he no longer held onto, but that had haunted him nearly every night of the first two years he spent with his dad. The realization that maybe his twin was the one that was meant to be a Wayne. Marie had the blue eyes, the compassion, the more specifically detective-oriented mind. The calm head. Sometimes. Marie was exactly who he imagined when he thought of a naturally born member of the BatClan. Stubborn, clever, morally just. She had risked immediate death just because she refused to fight him, for crying out loud. Because she didn’t want to hurt the boy who used to be her best friend. The only ally she had ever had, growing up.

Meanwhile, he still had issues reigning in his anger sometimes. He had too much blood on his hands, he was more of a battlefield tactician than a long-term strategist. Still stubborn, but also completely unaware of the pain he brought others with his words or actions a lot of the time. He used to be such a rage fueled little demon, and thinking about how his sister fit the classic Wayne outline more thoroughly than he did had made him destroy more than a few practice dummies in frustration.

But now, looking at Marinette trying so hard to appear strong and proud when he knew she was still so shattered inside, relief overpowered the old and dull resentment. This was what she needed, he could sense that easily. She, just like him all those years ago, needed Bruce and the others to start to heal her and reforge what the League had badly molded.

“... Marinette, I suppose?” Damian nearly facepalmed at his father’s awkward attempt at a conversation starter. Marinette herself was clearly too keyed up and overthinking things to even register any amusement at the lame attempt, merely nodding with an overly serious expression on her face.

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Monsieur Wayne. Or that’s my name nowadays, that is,” She stumbled a little in her response before clenching her fists and forcing herself to continue as calmly as she could muster up. “My birth name was Marie Al-Ghul.”

Bruce’s eyebrows visibly furrowed underneath his cowl. “Was?”

“I…” Marinette finally looked away, shame creeping back onto her face. “I was explicitly told that I was stripped of the Al-Ghul name and would be killed if I ever dared lay claim to it again. So I not-so-legally changed it. And I was later adopted.”

Several sharp gasps or the hiss of breath through teeth bit through the quiet breeze. Nobody was necessarily surprised, Marinette could see it when she looked through her eyelashes and examined the winces and sympathy on the faces of the vigilantes before her. Batman’s shoulders were stiff, as if someone had paralyzed only his shoulder blades.

“And the people who adopted you?” Batman pursued. Marinette couldn’t read his tone very well, but it sounded vaguely angry so she quickly raised her hands in a placating gesture and her eyes widened significantly.

“They’ve been amazing! They don’t know anything about my past, or who raised me, but they are endlessly patient with me. I mean, honestly! Sabine caught me when I was trying to steal one of her gold bracelets in Hong Kong— and I know I’ve never been as good of a combatant as Dami, but I’ve always been better at sleight of hand and stealth so honestly that’s impressive— and she saw my dirty eight-year-old face and for some reason decided, ‘yeah I want this one as my daughter’ and roped Tom right into it and next thing I know they somehow tailed me to my hideout? I still don’t know how the hell they managed that, but Tom had a huge plate of steaming buns and I was so hungry and suddenly it’s two years later and I’m adopted and we’re on a plane to Paris—” Marinette threw up her hands. “I still don’t fully grasp what happened sometimes.”

She belatedly seemed to realize that she had just gone on an entire breathless rant at the speed of sound, and slapped her hands over her mouth before lunging into a deep bow. “I apologize! I spoke horridly out of turn!”

To her surprise though, she was met with a soft laugh instead of a scolding. She jerked in surprise, whipping her head up only to see Batman holding a hand over his chin to hide his large grin. It only took another second for the boys behind him to laugh a lot LESS softly. Nightwing strolled over casually and swung an arm around both her and Damian’s shoulders, playfully nudging her brother with his knee.

“I think she fits right in, don’t you little D?”

“Of course,” Damian scoffed, though his eyes were playful. “She is a Wayne by blood. She ‘fits in’ more than you strays.”

“Dami!” Marinette whipped back to him and puffed out her cheeks. “That was uncalled for!” she barked. Damian held his hands up in surrender.

“Relax,” he said as soothingly as he could manage. “They know I’m joking,” he dropped his hands and a knowing smirk took over his face. “And besides, now you’re relaxed so my plan worked,” Marinette could only blink at that. She… did feel more relaxed, actually. “Also. I told you you’d be accepted easily. They already consider you one of us.”

“Wha— there’s no way—” she frantically looked at each of the older men around her, but each of them just shot her a smile or grin and a short nod. Her shoulders and jaw both fell, and it broke a little of everyone’s heart.

Marinette looked so utterly shocked, bewildered to be accepted as if it was still something profoundly foreign to her. And there was that disbelief in her eyes, that distrust that screamed that she expected some sort of lie here. That told that she thought this would all crumble away at any second. If anyone had any reservations about bringing her into their inner circles, it vanished right that moment. She needed support, or she’d crumble away and they all knew it.

“How about we start by talking about the situation with Hawkmoth?” Red Robin spoke up, walking forward to stand beside Batman. “I assume that’s a little more in your element?”

Damian silently vowed to thank Tim later for that. In a silent, completely anonymous way of course. Couldn’t have Tim thinking they were friends or something now, could he? Marinette instantly straightened up and nodded, her confidence returning with a little more sincerity this time.

“Yeah. Yeah, let me transform again. It’ll be easier to explain.”

—*—*—*—*—*

It was three weeks later, on Marinette’s third now-weekly visit to the Batcave, when the question finally came up. Jason had asked to spar with Marinette for the first time, having seen her in action as Ladybug and wanting to test the girl when she didn’t have superpowers to rely on. Damian hadn’t been down in the cave to warn him, and the result was Jason’s gut sinking as Marinette scrambled as far away from him as she could, eyes wide and chest heaving in the beginnings of a panic attack.

“Shit,” Jason muttered before he quickly knelt down and did his best to talk her down, to calm her until her breathing slowed and her pupils were back to normal. It wasn’t long afterwards that Marinette started hugging herself, refusing to look at him. But he wasn’t going to just back down, he wanted to solve this issue. If even the mere suggestion of a spar was enough to set her off, he needed to figure out why and fix it.

So he carefully lowered himself so he was sitting only a foot away from her, resting his arms across his knees casually.

“Sorry,” he apologized. “Didn’t think it would be a sore subject. That’s on me.”

Marinette just shrugged, but didn’t answer him. She just buried her face in her arms and took a shaky breath.

Jason let the silence linger for a while before trying again. “Does this have to do with certain Asshole Assassins?”

That startled a slightly hysterical bark of laughter from her, and she had to wipe away a few tears when she raised her head and finally turned it in his direction slightly. Not enough for her to be looking at him, but just a subtle turn to show that she was listening and speaking to him. “Yeah.”

“You know, you never told us why you got disowned,” Jason tried to make his words as casual as possible, but wasn’t surprised when Marinette still stiffened and took a sharp breath. He didn’t push. The stage was set, and he’d wait until either she took the opportunity to open up or told him to leave well enough alone. Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips, and her foot tapped on the ground a bit. Clear signs of her anxiety around the subject, and Jason’s hopes vanished a little. He would probably have to wait longer for her to be ready to share.

But, to his pleasant surprise, he was wrong. She took another few minutes to gather her thoughts, but she did eventually open up to him.

“I refused to fight Damian,” she admitted. “It was… We were seven. It wasn’t supposed to be a fight to the death, but it was a very important spar. We were using live weaponry, and we were told to fight until we couldn’t anymore. Whoever fell first would be relegated as a mere soldier, and have to fight for status like any other assassin in the League. The winner would officially be named as G— as Ra’s Heir. I didn’t want to fight, because I knew Damian would win but I also knew that it wouldn’t be as easy as Ra’s probably expected if I gave it my all like he wanted. I knew both Damian and I would be heavily injured if I did as he asked, and it wouldn’t be worth it. If I misjudged anything, any single hit, I could have accidentally injured Damian permanently and ruined his worth in Ra’s eyes, and that wasn’t an option. I didn’t care that throwing the fight was as good as giving up my life, because at least I could be sure that Damian kept his. I could make sure that he was treated well, or as well as anyone could hope for in the League anyway. I could, with only a few words, make sure he became indispensable. Ra’s and Talia never liked me as much as Damian anyway, I figured… I figured it was nobody’s loss,” She swallowed heavily, clenching her eyes shut. “I was always just the spare. The extra. Damian was their crown prince, the one with actual value. Even to me. I saw him, and I saw everything I wanted to be. I… I tossed down my weapons and let him stab me, because I figured I owed it to him for being such a failure in comparison to him. That I owed it to him to do everything I could to make things easier for him, since I was just an unnecessary obstacle—” strong arms wrapped around her, and she turned to sob into Jason’s chest as he just silently held her.

“Idiot,” Damian whispered, making Marinette jump. Her twin sat only a few feet away, though only Jason would have known when exactly he had gotten there with them. He shook his head at her. “I never would have gotten as far as I did without you,” he whispered, looking up at the cave ceiling. “You were the only real rival I had. When you left, everything was either too easy or nearly impossible, nothing was the same as trying my best against someone who was just as good as me. And when I got here and met the others, I didn’t think any of them were worthy of taking your position, you know,” he scoffed a bit as he got lost in his memories. “That’s why I hated Tim for so long, I think. He reminded me of you so much that I wanted nothing more than to punch him for daring to replace you—”

“Heh, the Replacement twice over, huh?” Jason joked. Damian chuckled with a small eye roll.

“Plus, he just has a really punchable face,” Damian added, trying to distract from the emotion behind everything he had just admitted. “Part of me thought you were dead. The other part refused to believe that. And seeing Tim and how some of his mannerisms were the same as yours,” Damian shrugged a little. “It stung. Especially that second year, when I started to regret that you never had the chance to come here and join them with me. Meet them with me.”

Marinette sniffled. “... Who are you and what have you done with Dami? He’s never this sappy.”

Damian flicked a pebble at her head with a good natured glare, successfully diffusing the serious air a little. Marinette wouldn’t ever be normal, and it would take a while before she was no longer fragile, but she could get there. Especially now that her bridges with her brother had been mended, and and a whole new family had cropped up to help support her.

She was glad Damian had convinced her to try, again.

#maribat #platonic daminette #sibling daminette #bio!dad au #bio!dad bruce wayne #ml x dc #mlb x dc #Useful

573 notes · View notes

americangirlstar · 3 years ago

Text

Now that both Courtney books are out and I’ve read and processed them both, I do want to say that I think they’re the least well-written of any of the AG books, but not through any fault of their own- let me explain.

(Note that for this discussion I’m ignoring the Doylist criticisms- Courtney and 3/4 of her friend group being white again, the lack of gay discussion in-text in regards to the HIV crisis, etc. These are valid complaints and concerns, but not what we’re talking about right now.)

The Problem with the Current Book Length

I think the main problem with Courtney stems from the fact her books are so short. American Girl has literally been doing the stupidest things in regards to their books lately, almost as if they’re trying to sabotage them on purpose. First they remove illustrations in 2015- when their target audience is about nine years old. I don’t know about you, but when I was six and getting into American Girl, the illustrations were the highlight for me. Not because I had no attention span and loved pretty pictures, but because it showed me firstly what the girl’s life was like, whether it be 1760s wilderness or 2001 Chicago. It was like stepping into their world, really helping you get into their heads, which was basically what the dolls were supposed to do, to let you know that girls like you exist throughout time and space.

As well as that, the illustrations were free advertisement. I can’t tell you how excited me and my sisters were as children to go to the American Girl place and look at the doll displays, shouting that that’s the dress Felicity wears to the ball! or look, Josefina’s goat looks exactly like the book! AG cut that from 2015 to 2020, as if they were trying to appeal to an older audience- while at the same time changing all the doll outfits, accessories and marketing to appeal to a younger demographic.

Now, this isn’t about the illustrations, as Courtney got those- it’s about what they did to the historical characters after the Illustration Outrage™ happened. See, they’d condensed the historical six-book format into two books- not necessarily a bad idea, parents would be more likely to buy two books for their kid than consider buying six. However, they then claimed that if they put illustrations back, they would have to abridge the books- literally my nightmare.

First of all, American Girl, we know for a fact you can fit all six books plus illustrations into ONE VOLUME, let alone two. You’re just being cowards here and trying to nerf your own stories for... some reason.

So that meant a lot of important things got cut- Rebecca’s Chanukah story, Melody’s cousin’s house search, Maryellen’s Christmas adventure... all things important to the girls’ histories and character.

The Problem with Courtney’s Writing

Now, Courtney was the first doll to be released after the abridging began, meaning her books were released, in their entirety, just as short as the abridged stories. So it basically means she gets four books while the others get six- and unlike the others, Courtney doesn’t even have mysteries or short stories to pad out. (And honestly, looking at her book’s amount of content, I’d even argue that she basically got two while everyone else got six, but I digress.)

The problem with her books isn’t that they have an author writing them poorly (I really feel like her author was doing the best with what limited time she had), but in how cramped American Girl made them. Because, well, Courtney has to deal with a lot in such a short amount of words.

Let’s compare her to Julie, for instance- Julie pretty much has a new 70s thing every book. In order: feminism, rising divorce rates, San Francisco’s Chinese culture, environmentalism, the country’s bicentennial, anti-bullying and deaf acceptance. And adding to this, we also have her own personal journies through her parents’ divorce and move, her basketball team, her friendship with Ivy (and later Joy), overcoming her fear of horses, student council, detention... It’s a lot, and yet her books don’t feel rushed or forced at all. It’s just a year in the life of a girl going through a lot of new and sudden events, and how she grows and changes throughout them. She may not be as deep a character as Addy or Kirsten, but not every girl goes through the trials and tribulations they do, and it’s a good series overall.

Courtney, meanwhile, does feel rushed and forced, because of the short timespan. Instead of fitting everything into a six-book format- or even at two-book format that is the same length and content as the six-book- everything has to be fit into two short books. Everything Courtney has to cover includes the topics of divorce and stepfamilies, feminist and technological advancement, the Challenger explosion, the HIV crisis, Hands Across America, and the founding of Pleasant Company. And in Courtney’s own journey, she has to cover her learning to stand up for herself, her relationship with her stepsister and Tina’s own character development, her mother running for mayor and how that affects her, how much she misses her Dad after he moves, her friendship with Sarah (note on that later), her basically getting hate-crimed after standing up for her friend... that’s a LOT of stuff, and I didn’t even include the non-AG 80s product placement they shove into her collection.

But without the longer format, everything is pushed together to its detriment. Tina’s development and Maureen’s mayoral candidacy are two plotlines that are literally dropped and almost completely ignored in the second book. The Challenger and HIV issues were handled decently, but the Challenger only lasted a few short chapters, and the HIV topic was not as informative as it could be, leaving out several things like Reagan’s refusal to treat it for so long, and its effect on the gay community. Honestly, the HIV scare was more shifted to focus on the mob mentality of a new and scary disease- which, while needed right now, also ignores many of the bigotry-related reasons it became an epidemic. Pleasant Company’s inclusion feels forced in, and I think was the only resolution she had to her Dad plotline?

And don’t get me started on the Sarah plotline- every Girl of the Year since Kanani- sans Isabelle and Luci- has had the story of “oh no I’ve been ignoring my friend and now they’re mad at me :(” and it’s SO old. Seriously, I counted the contemporary dolls that have had that storyline, and it’s thirteen*. Thirteen times we’ve covered this issue- almost all of it in quick succession- and now we have to deal with it in a historical character book while much more important things are going on! Yes, it sucks when a friend ditches you while you’re being attacked and bullied for something you’re standing up for, but once again, with how much is happening in such a short book, it just feels like a forced-in plotline that we’ve seen a billion times, and with their falling-out happening mainly due to the attention Courtney was given Isaac, it serves to make Sarah seem closed-minded at best and bigoted at worst- it’s clarified that she’s not, she’s just scared and upset with Courtney, but when you put those events so close together, it leads the reader to lump them together and get the impression that, you know, Sarah is a worse person than she is.

*Full count: Nicki (book 2), Chrissa (book 2), Kanani (2), McKenna (1 iirc?), Saige (both books), Grace (2), Lea (3), Gabriela (1 and 3), Tenney (2), Z (1), Blaire (1), Joss (1) and Kira (1).

It’s a bit weird, too, that Courtney’s... what’s the word? Vibe? with her how her story is written and marketed Is closer to the Contemporaries than the Historicals. Am I the only one feeling this? My best explanation for it is that the author, Kellen Hertz, had only written contemporary books for American Girl before- the third Lea Clark book and all four Tenney Grant books, both of which contained the Friendship Issues™ plot. I’m not at all saying she’s a bad author- I honestly love the way the Tenney books are written- and I’m not saying she couldn’t write a historical book, but it’s clear American Girl didn’t ask her to change up her style or content from what she’d done for them before, as well as giving her way too much to cover in such short books.

Conclusion

Honestly, this conclusion should be obvious- American Girl needs to expand their books again. Whether they simply allow the books to be unabridged, or go back to the six-book format, Courtney's books are too cramped to tell an effective story, let alone the poor abridged girls.

The other girls were given six-book length, so if they went back to that length or format, Courtney would have to be rewritten, at least a little- and that’s okay! There’s a lot of things that could use expansion or connection, such as her Summer trip with her Dad that was given basically one sentence in the text. Her growth with her stepfamily could be acknowledged- and honestly? I think that if these books were expanded, her mother’s mayoral arc should either continue through the books, or Maureen should become mayor before the book 2 arc. I’ve mentioned this before, but having Maureen as mayor (or even still a candidate) would put a lot of pressure on Courtney to be perfect so that nobody can say “look at how awful this woman is for doing politics instead of raising her family right”- which means that when the Isaac stuff happens, it has even more stakes for Courtney and her family. Does her Mom still support her with her own reputation on the line, and what does that say about Maureen’s character, how does it affect Courtney and the D’Amicos... that’s all fascinating stuff that was completely missed out on.

And if she was turned into a six-book format- honestly, here’s how I’d do it, just off the top of my head. It would involve a bit of event shuffling, but honestly I think it would work!

Meet Courtney - pretty much the setup for everything happening, her starting to get her Crystal Starshooter plans and her mom’s campaign beginning.

Courtney Learns a Lesson - her relationship to Tina, culminating in the Challenger incident.

Courtney’s Surprise - we move the founding of Pleasant Company over here, since Molly’s basically her Christmas Present. We’ll probably need an additional plotline- maybe similar to Julie, she can have a story on spending the holidays in different places.

Happy Birthday Courtney - end of summer, aka meeting Isaac and her trip with her Dad.

Courtney Saves the Day - Beginning of the HIV arc, ending at her presentation to her class.

Changes for Courtney - Continuation of the HIV arc as things get worse for her and Isaac, ending where Friendship Superhero ends.

Is that a perfect sorting? Probably not, I came up with it in ten minutes. But would it give Courtney space to breathe and more time to explore everything happening to her? Probably!

The tl;dr of this is honestly that American Girl are absolute cowards right now, and need to expand their books back. Their abridging is only harming their stories- which, as Courtney herself points out, are the reason girls got into their company in the first place.

#courtney moore #american girl #american girl dolls #american girls #1986 #negativity #mine #americangirlstar

163 notes · View notes

hogwartsmarvelmommy · 3 years ago

Text

Its been you (H.H)

Warnings: fluff. Brief mentions of sex.

Masterlist

You heard the front door of the apartment open. You were sitting cross legged on your over sized couch typing away for an essay that you had due in less than five hours. Your roommate had been traveling and you weren't expecting him home yet, but the guy never really gave you much of an update, so you figured the door opening was him coming home early without warning.

“Y/N?” you heard a familiar voice call from behind you. Your head shot to look at the boy. Tall, blonde, blue eyed.

“Haz, what are you doing here?” you asked.

“Harry told me I could come crash in his room tonight, Liv and I,” he paused and looked down at his feet. You could tell something was wrong, but you weren't sure exactly what. “I walked in on her in our bed with someone else, and i, i don't have anywhere to go,” You could see the tears pooling in his eyes as he spoke. You lifted your hand for him to stop talking. That was enough of an explanation. Your apartment was an open door to friends, especially when they needed somewhere to escape their own reality.

“Come here,” you said as you set down your laptop and stood up, opening your arms to comfort him. He needed a friend in a dark moment, and though you hadn't known Haz for as long as other friends you had, you still considered him a close friend.

He walked over to you, and buried his head in your neck, wrapping his arms around your waist and you could feel the tears slipping from his eyes onto your skin. How someone could do this to him, you weren't sure. You were sure that he didn't deserve it though. After a while, and a few more tears, you both sat on the couch, a movie playing in the background.

“Sorry Harry didn't give you a heads up,” Haz mumbled.

“Well he knew i wouldn't mind, so don't fret it,” You told him.

“What is it with you two anyway?” he asks you, catching you off guard.

“What do you mean?” You had an idea of what he was going to say but you stayed hopeful that he wasn't referring to that.

“I mean, three years you two have lived together, and neither one of you has ever dated or anything. Is there something going on between you two?” His question struck a nerve in you, but you were a calm person so you wouldn't let him know that.

“Well, I mean we're close, but nothing like you would think I'm sure. Just haven't found the right person, either of us, you know?” It was a stupid excuse and you knew it. Of Course you never wanted anyone else to know why you haven't dated anyone in three years, You were ashamed of the reason.

“So, you guys have never..?” you laughed at the rather personal question Haz had asked.

“Wouldn't you like to know,” You teased.

You felt your phone buzz under your leg and you grabbed it to check what it was.

Harry: Haz there? Told him he could crash in my room. Having a bad night.

Y/N: He's here.

Harry: Thanks love. I'll be home soon. Won't have to miss me much longer.

Y/N: What makes you think I miss you Holland?

You knew you did. Of course you did, he was your best friend and had been for years. You felt the buzz of your phone again and looked down.

Harry: Well cause I miss you. Like a lot.

Your heart skipped a beat as you read that last message, and you had to pull yourself together.

Y/N: I miss you too. Like more. Hurry home.

You shut your phone off, knowing anything else he could say would probably turn your cheeks a permanent red and you didn't want to try and explain that to Haz.

“He loves you, you know?” Haz's voice was quiet but you heard him clearly.

“What?” you asked.

“Harry, he loves you. Maybe just as a friend, but sometimes i'll catch him looking at you in a way that friends don't look at each other,” his words were soft and true. Friends shouldn't look at each other the way you and Harry often did, but what could you do?

You woke up the next morning still on the couch. Your neck hurt from sleeping in an almost upright position but you tried to ignore that. Haz was sprawled across the other side of the couch, sleeping peacefully. You heard a noise come from Harry's room and you felt an uneasy tightening in your stomach.

What was that?

You got up quietly and walked over to Harry's door and pushed it open to reveal the curly redhead standing in front of his suitcase.

“Hey you,” You said, making him jump. He turned around and smiled at you, a lovely toothy smile you had missed so much.

“Hey you,” He said, rushing to you, throwing his arms around your waist and lifting you up. Your arms wrapped around his neck as you buried your head into his messy mop of curls, taking in his wonderful scent. “I missed you,” He told you, setting your feet back on the floor, you loosened your grip on his neck but didn't fully let go.

“I missed you more,” You teased. He laughed and rolled his eyes burying his head into your neck, his lips resting on your bare skin sending a fire down your body.

“I have so much to tell you, so many stories. I should probably shower first though, i’m sure i don’t smell great,” He told you, letting you go and walking back farther into his room. You stood in his doorway admiring him, as he rambled on, he slipped his shirt over his head revealing his bare chest, making your cheeks flush a pink hue.

“Harry,” You interrupted.

“Huh?” he asks, turning to you.

“I'm glad you're home,” you tell him sweetly. He smiles at you, rolling his eyes. You shut his door and go to walk to your room but you notice Haz sitting up looking at you. “What?” you ask.

“Not a way friends look at each other,” He teases you. You grab his hoodie and throw it at him.

“Shut up Haz,” you tell him laughing.

You walk into your bedroom, strip off your clothes from the day before and walk into your bathroom. You stood and looked at yourself in the mirror. Sometimes you didn't even recognize the reflection looking back at you. You rolled your eyes and got into the shower.

You finished drying your hair and getting a pair of black leggings on and a blush pink hoodie that didn't belong to you. You walked back out to the living room where Harry and Haz were both sitting on the couch. You walked over and sat down next to Harry in the open space that had been left for you.

“I was wondering where that one went,” Harry said pulling the string on the hoodie, “Where did you find it?” He asked.

The truth? The truth was he had left it in your room, on a drunken night, a few months back. Were you going to tell him that in front of Haz? No way.

“It must have gotten mixed up in my laundry or something,” You tell him. His eyebrows raise and he looks at you with a certain look that makes you know. He remembers leaving it all those nights ago.

“Looks better on you anyway,” He tells you. You smack his arm laughing.

“Shut up Holland,” You tell him.

“Mind if i shower?” Haz asks Harry.

“Go for it,” he tells him. Haz gets up and walks to Harry's room shutting the door behind him.

“Must have gotten mixed up in my laundry or something,” Harry's voice mocks your own as he laughs. “What, couldn’t just say, ‘you left it in my room a while back when we both stripped down to nothing and had sex all night long,’?” You stare at him, mouth open and can't help but laugh.

“I can't stand you sometimes,” you tell him while rolling your eyes and laughing.

“Sure you can't,” he said to you rubbing his hand up and down your thigh.

“Harry,” you groan.

“What love?” he asks.

“We can't keep doing this.” you tell him.

“Sure we can,” he tells you, as he gets off the couch and stands above you. His hand rests on your cheek as he leans down and connects your lips. He runs his tongue across your bottom lip making you moan, he kisses you harder, his tongue going into your mouth now. Your arms reach up and go around his neck pulling him down to you. His fingers tangle themselves in your hair and he pulls your head to the side, leaving wet sloppy kisses down your neck.

“Harry,” you giggle.

“Hey mate you know there is a bra in your bathroom?” Haz says as he comes out of Harry's room. Harry jumps up but falls over his own feet instead and you pull the hoodie up farther on your neck, hiding your glistening skin from where Harry's lips had just been.

“A what?” Harry asks, trying to play it off.

“A woman's bra,” Haz says, looking back and forth between the two of you.

“Oh, Uh, i, uh,” Harry stuttered.

“Must be mine, i had to use his shower last week cause mine wasn't working,” You tell him, hoping Harry's stuttering didn't seem too obvious.

“Come on guys,” Haz rolls his eyes not buying your excuses.

“What?” you and Harry both ask.

“I’m not blind,” Haz says. You sigh and Harry gets up to his feet.

“I promise you it's not what you think,” Harry tells Haz.

“Then what?” Haz asks.

“I don't have an explanation, if i'm being honest,” Harry laughs.

“So if i walked over to her right now and kissed her, it wouldn't even phase you?” Haz’s words shocked you., and you could see Harry's shoulders tense up.

“Don't do that mate,” Harry's voice came off even deeper than usual.

“Why, she's not your girlfriend, right?” Haz’s voice was taunting, and I could see he was getting the reaction he wanted from Harry.

“It doesn't matter, you're not going to kiss her.” Harry told him. Harrison took a step towards you, and Harry scoffed. “I swear Haz, if you lay a hand on her,”

“You’ll what harry? Admit that something is going on.” Haz demanded.

“Hey,” your voice came out louder than you expected, causing both boys to look at you. “You,” pointing to Haz, “Are not going to kiss me,” you looked over to Harry and your tone went soft. “It's okay,” You tell him, causing a slight smile on his face.

“Fine,” harry says. “I'll admit it,” You look back at him to see what he was going to say but his words shock even you. “I’m in love with Y/N”

The last few years, you haven't dated or talked to anyone because you were always hopeful that Harry would eventually notice you in that way, and then one night you had both been drinking and had kissed. It meant something to you, but he seemed to have just brushed it off like nothing. From then you just figured you were a meaningless booty call to him, and you had accepted that, but you always wanted more. You guys had been messing around for the past two and a half years, and yeah you were in love with harry, like head over heels in love with him, But you were sure you were just a quick fuck, or a booty call, because he never had time to meet anyone with how busy he always was. So to hear him say he was in love with you. You sat staring at Harry, your jaw practically on the floor.

“Oh shit,” Harrison said looking at you, who was obviously experiencing some shock.

“You what?” You whispered, knowing fully well what he had said. Harry looked at you, and took a few steps closer to you.

“I didn't mean to spring that on you,” Harry said apologetically.

“How long?” you asked him. He laughed and started counting on his fingers.

“Since that first kiss, probably two and a half years ago,” he told you. You reached up and swatted his arm. “What?” he asked.

“You have had me thinking i was a damn booty call all this time you shithead,” you tell him.

“I thought I was the booty call,” He laughed at you. You rolled your eyes.

“You guys have no idea what's going on between you, do you?” Haz asked. You and Harry both shake your heads no while laughing. “Go talk, you weirdos,” He tells you. Harry grabs your hand pulling you up and to your bedroom.

You walk over and sit down on your bed, looking at Harry who is leaning on your door. “I shouldn't have blurted that out, especially in front of him,” he says to you with a sorry look on his face.

“Why did you never say anything?” You ask him while fiddling with your fingers.

“I didn't think you thought of me as anything more than a friend, who you sometimes kiss, and shag,” He laughs, reaching up and grabbing his shoulder.

“You're an idiot then Harry,” You tell him. He looks at you surprised, “Why do you think I have never dated or talked to or about any other guys. I was always hoping that one day you would realize that i'm the one you want,”

“But you are,” He walks over and sits down next to you putting his hand on your thigh, causing your stomach to do flips.

“Don't say that if you don't mean it,” You whisper. He grabs your hands in his own and you look over to him, his boyish brown eyes staring deep into your own.

“I mean it, Y/N.” You're sure your heart is going to explode at this moment. This boy who you have held so near and dear to you was telling you that it's you, it's been you the whole time.

“Harry Holland, I swear you are going to be the death of me,” You tell him as a tear falls down your cheek, he rubs it away with the swipe of his thumb, and in this moment, you know everything is perfect

#harry holland #harry robert holland #harry holland imagine #harry holland x y/n #harry holland fluff

165 notes · View notes

hugespace · 3 years ago

Note

Prompt: van, thunderstorm, link is scared and rhett is there for him and gives him hugs and kisses

Thanks love 😘

There you go! 🥰 I ended up writing some high school Rhink - lots of fluff with a dash of angst. Hope you’ll enjoy it!

*** (~2k words) ***

"How the crap did you miss that, Rhett?!" Link rapidly turned his whole body in the passenger seat, making his bleached blonde locks flap around on the top of his head. "How are we even out of gas-? Didn't you just say, like yesterday, that you'd fill it up?!" he threw his hands in the air, staring with disbelief at his friend who sat quietly behind the wheel.

Rhett muttered something in response, his head downturned and eyes focused on his own lap.

"Rhett!" Link exclaimed impatiently, not having gotten a clear answer out of the other boy.

"I thought we'd make it, okay?! I was gonna buy gas with some of the money we'd get after the gig!" Rhett repeated his explanation in a raised voice this time, finally looking his friend in the eyes and shrugging in the process.

Link only returned the look with wide eyes.

"Are you serious-? You're so irresponsible!" he answered even louder after a few short seconds of processing Rhett's words. "You're telling me you wanted to buy gas with the money we won't even get now because we won't get to the damn concert- because. You didn't. Get. Gas. In the first place?!" Link continued thought clenched teeth. "What the crap, Rhett?!"

The taller boy felt his face grow warm. Sure, perhaps Link was right, it wasn't the smartest decision of his life, or even of just that day, probably – electing to risk not reaching their destination in a borrowed van full of equipment for the two of them and the other members of Wax Paper Dogz just to be able to spend the last of his cash for the week on snacks. But he certainly wasn't going to give the other boy that, or the full reason for getting them stranded in the middle of a road on the way to the farm they were supposed to play at, for that matter. Truth was, Rhett didn't do well with criticism. Not even when it was earned.

He opened his mouth and got ready to match Link's tone, when a powerful crash of thunder resounded directly above them all of a sudden, immediately preventing the shouting match that was surely about to ensue.

"What was that-?" When Link's voice reverberated to Rhett's right again, it was remarkably smaller and less filled with anger than just seconds ago.

"Shit" was the only response the older boy could muster as the sky opened up, letting thick and heavy drops of rain fall onto the world around them, drumming angrily against the van's roof.

"At least we don't gotta worry about the gig-?" Rhett tried for a reassuring smile after a few beats of silence between them ticked by, interrupted only by blaring sounds of the summer storm they’d apparently gotten caught in. "It ain't gonna happen now with that rain-" he conceded, hoping it won't anger Link any further.

The younger boy was silent, the unexpected arrival of thunder seemed to have not only taken away his temper, but his voice as well.

"Link?"

A pair of blue eyes, still wide open, met Rhett's. The fire that burned in them just moments before the first loud crash fizzled out completely, giving way to a cold shade of fear, and the face they belonged to quickly became visibly paler, taking on a greyish colour only intensified by the sudden lack of sunlight.

"I don't like this-" Link whispered, clutching the edges of his seat with such force that his knuckles soon matched the paleness of his face.

Now, Link didn't exactly suffer from a deadly fear of thunder, not to Rhett's knowledge at least, which after more than a decade of being best friends meant it could as well be equalled to a fact. On the other hand, he wasn't especially keen on those either, and the aspect of being trapped in a metal can in the middle of a country road with absolutely nowhere to go to seek refuge only added another dimension to that.

Instinctively, Rhett reached out a hand and rubbed the other boy's shoulder soothingly.

"Hey- Hey, look at me. Link-?" he leaned forward trying to catch his friend’s eyes again and grasp his attention, temporarily directed towards the sky where bright flashes of lightning cut through the dark graphite clouds one after another. "Hey"

Link finally directed his attention back to Rhett, gulping loudly, almost comically, if it weren't for the entire situation. "We're gonna be fine. The car's safe, we're better off here than anywhere outside probably, just don’t touch the doors. We'll wait till the rain passes a bit and then I'll go get us gas, okay? The station's not that far. We'll be good." Rhett added in a calm voice, still keeping his right hand on Link and gently rubbing his upper back.

"Okay" the boy replied, still in a weak voice, and drew in a deep breath, only to be startled by another instance of rumbling thunder and hastily clasp Rhett's other hand.

"Sorry..." he cleared his throat and tried to compose himself once the sound of thunderclap died down, leaving them only with the deafening banging of raindrops against the van. Link went to retract his hand but was stopped by Rhett's before the taller boy could think about it.

"Ssh, don't. S’okay, brother."

The split-second decision to comfort Link and hold him like he hasn't since they were kids came from the feeling of guilt for getting them in that situation in the first place, he told himself. And sure, he did feel responsible for making Link endure the storm in a car stuck in the middle of nowhere all because of his stupid idea. But it wasn't just guilt; the vulnerable look on his friend's pale face combined with the fear in his big glassy eyes made him look like the boy he was when they were still in grade school - small and innocent, and it tugged at Rhett's heart in a way he didn't fully comprehend, awakening an instinct to protect Link no matter what.

"Do you... Maybe we'd- Should we...?" Yes, Rhett did make a decision but was suddenly struggling to articulate it. The scared boy next to him wasn't really listening anyway, his whole attention focused on the sky again and his free hand grasping Rhett's sleeve and trembling. Rhett cleared his throat and tried again. "We should move to the back."

"Whaa...?" Link started but was cut off by his friend gently removing his fingers from the fabric of his shirt and swiftly moving to the row of seats behind them.

"C'mon. It's gonna be more comfortable. The stick's poking my leg when I lean over like that." the older boy offered from the expanse of the middle row, gesticulating to the gap between Link and the now empty driver's seat.

If Link was hesitant to join him, another growl of thunder must have been enough to persuade him because suddenly, he was clambering to join Rhett, inadvertently nudging his thighs and elbowing him in the process.

"Auch! Okay, okay- Com'ere" The older boy grabbed the other's shoulders once he was situated next to him and moved his body even closer, encircling it with his long lanky arms and squeezing hard, making Link's head fall onto his chest.

To his surprise, his best friend didn't protest, he only burrowed his face deeper in the front or Rhett's bunched up flannel and breathed in deeply, obviously trying to relax.

"Good, good" Rhett praised absent-mindedly and slowly stroked Link's smooth hair, temporarily stunned by the feeling of warmth and peace holding the other boy so close gave him. After a couple of minutes of stillness, he felt Link's arms move, too, and wriggle in between the backrest of the seat and Rhett's lower back, finally hugging him back around the waist. It made the taller boy instinctively seek even more contact, and he lowered his head, positioning his face on Link's hair and eventually, before he could rethink it, leaving a kiss on top of it

Link froze and tensed up again, though this time there was no crash of thunder or flash of lightning to blame it on.

Oh no. Rhett's action caught up to him. This was weird. He was being weird. They never kissed each other, not even like that, not even when they were kids. His heart sped up from embarrassment and he was sure his friend could feel it, with the way he was still clinging to his chest. But he wasn’t letting go- In fact, he seemed to hug Rhett even tighter now, nuzzling his face into his body, left cheek smushed against his sternum.

Shyly, Rhett risked another smooch to Link's head, this time as close to his forehead as he could reach in the position they were in.

In response, the boy let out what sounded like an appreciative hum, or maybe even a tiny whimper, and a warm breath against Rhett’s skin, making his heart pick up the pace again. Continuing the pattern of acting before we could talk himself out of it, Rhett gathered his friend and tried to pull him even closer, not even sure if it was possible at that point, and was rewarded with Link landing almost entirely in his lap.

The face of his best friend was now nearly level with his. It was blushed, he realised, the earlier sickly tone of his complexion gone almost completely. His hair, equally blonde as Rhett's though significantly longer, was dishevelled. The sight was endearing, there was no other word to describe it, and the look in Link's eyes, blue as ever and soft now – not as filled with fear anymore, only made the effect it had on Rhett more intense.

Blinded by the affection that flooded him all of a sudden, he leaned in again, now able to kiss Link's forehead, and left another peck there, keeping his lips pressed to it for a bit longer. Before Rhett could really get used to the new sensation, Link straightened his back, making himself taller in Rhett's lap and as a result, bringing his own lips to the same hight his friend mouth was at.

The taller boy flinched slightly and almost recoiled on instinct, seeing how there were no more than two inches of tense air filled with petrichor separating their faces, and nothing else.

Almost.

Instead, he gathered all of his courage and closed that gap, planting his lips square on Link's.

They were incredibly soft, almost cushiony, and oh so warm. And they were moving against his! He realised, stunned, as the other boy's hand reached up to his face and gently cupped his jaw.

Rett felt his own lips form an involuntary smile, soon matched by the lips he was kissing. As they started to separate, both beaming and searching each other’s faces with sparkly eyes, he took in the near silence that surrounded them.

The rain stopped, there was no banging on the roof of their van and no rumbling of thunder above. It was like the clouds dissipated the moment they kissed, giving way to sun again, Rhett thought not caring about how silly and romantic at the same time that idea was.

Divine intervention or a simple coincidence, he didn't care. The sky was clear now and so was the fact that he just shared a kiss with the person he loved most in the entire world. How he hadn't realised that earlier was unimportant. It might have taken being stranded in the middle of a road, surrounded by nothing but trees and crops and a thunderstorm worse than any other time that summer to get there, but they did, in the end - that was all that mattered.

And with that thought, Rhett embraced Link trying to put all of his love into it, and went to kiss him again.

#Rhink #rhink fic #my writing #jonesy84 #thank you so much for the prompt Lovely!

66 notes · View notes

trulymadlysydney · 4 years ago

Text

Scorpio Season: Two

Harry is the ghost that haunts the sorority house, Misty is the only one who can see him, and Scorpio season is far too short.

tw: Death, brief mentions of sexual assault, lots and lots of filthy smut

(This is also 26.k words so like... be prepared for a long read)

Read Part One Here

***Do Not Repost Without Permission***

It’s Halloween, and Misty is drunk.

Okay, so perhaps she isn’t quite drunk, but she’s getting there, and Harry is doing his best to take care of her. (And his best isn’t exactly good enough, considering she’s the only one who can see him.)

It takes him fifteen minutes to get her attention, and he lets out a sigh of relief when he finally sees her walking towards him- dressed head to toe like the devil (if the devil were, of course, sexy and wore a skin tight red dress and fishnets).

When she reaches him, she smirks, and he doesn’t know why. “What?” She asks, raising her eyebrows challengingly.

For the sake of Misty’s pride, Harry turns away before anyone can see her talking to nothing. “Follow me,” he says, nodding over his shoulder and leading her into the hallway.

They turn the corner into her bedroom, and Harry gently closes the door behind them. When it’s just the two of them, Misty grins. “What’s up, buttercup?”

Harry smirks. “You doing alright?”

“M-hm!” Misty says with a nod. “You want a drink?”

“Can’t, love.”

Misty’s smile slowly fades into a frown. “You mean ghosts can’t let loose? Have a little fun?”

“Who says I’m not having fun?”

Misty considers his words and offers him a shrug. “I mean you’re just watching a bunch of drunk college kids in stuipd costumes get even more drunk and make out with each other. That isn’t really my idea of a good time.”

“And yet here you are.”

Misty giggles. “You know what I meaaaan.”

“I’m watching you,” Harry says smugly. “That’s all I need.”

She laughs again, turning away so he can’t see the tinge of embarrassment on her face. “Don’t watch me,” she says. “Creep.”

“Not a creep,” Harry insists, plopping onto her bed. “Just want you to take care of yourself. That’s all.”

“I wish you could take care of meeee,” Misty says, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively and punctuating her sentence with a half-hiccup, half-giggle.

Harry doesn’t know if Misty meant to say that, or if she even meant it in the way that he’s taking it, but he knows that if he had a beating heart, it would be racing at her words. He brushes it off, smiling at her softly. “M’taking care of you right now, aren’t I?”

“S’not what I meaaaaan,” Misty says, through another giggle, and now Harry knows exactly how her sentence was meant to be taken.

He laughs. “Sunshine why don’t we get you some water, hm?”

“I like it when you call me that,” Misty says, sauntering clumsily towards Harry. “‘Sunshine.’ Makes me happy.”

“I like making you happy,” Harry replies softly. “Now, will you make me happy by getting yourself some water please? I would get you some myself but, you know.” He gestures vaguely with his hands.

“You can’t!” she says, tittering to herself. “Cause you’re a ghost. I know that.”

Her words sting just the tiniest bit, even though Harry knows she doesn’t mean it in a negative way. He laughs them off anyway. “You’re stalling, Misty.”

“I’m not stalling!” Misty says. “I wish I could stay in here with you all night.”

And God, Harry wishes that too.

“And miss all the fun of the party out there?” Harry asks, eyeing her as she wobbles a bit around the room. “I saw the way those guys were looking at you.” He wiggles his eyebrows, and laughs as she gags.

“Ew,” she says, face twisting up in disgust. “They’re the worst.”

“You didn’t like their flirting? I thought that the trick the one guy did with the beer can on his head was very appealing. Especially with him dressed like a Greek God and all that.”

“You’re stupid.”

Harry grins. “Water, Misty, “ he reminds her. “You need to get yourself a glass of water.”

“Alright alriiiiight!” Misty holds up her hands in surrender. “You’re so neeeeeedy.”

Harry giggles, rising to his feet just in time to steady her a bit when she wobbles. She laughs softly at the feeling of his cold hands against her hips, turning in his arms to face him.

“You smell good,” she says, her face mere inches from his. “Have I ever told you that?”

Harry realizes that he’s held his hands in the same spot for just a tick too long, and he quickly drops them to his sides. “No,” he says, “Never told me that. What do I smell like?”

“Like…” Misty sniffs the air dramatically. “Like cinnamon. You’re laughin’ at me but it’s true! Smells really good.” She frowns up at him, as if a new thought just crossed her mind. “What am I gonna do when you’re gone?”

Now her words really sting, and Harry struggles to just laugh them off this time. Still, he knows tonight isn’t the time for sadness, and he doesn’t want to ruin Misty’s buzz. So he grins. “Buy a cinnamon candle?”

Misty pouts. “Not the same.”

Harry laughs, booping her nose with the tip of his finger. “Now I know you’re stalling.”

“Is it working?” Misty grins mischievously up at him, and Harry shakes his head.

“No,” he says through another laugh. “You little sneak.”

Misty giggles. “But you’ll stay with me, right? All night?”

“If you want me to.” Harry nods. “Yeah. You can’t talk to me though. Unless we’re in here.”

Misty frowns. “I know. Sucks.”

She turns like she’s going to leave finally, but then stops again. “Why can’t you show yourself in front of everyone?” she asks, as if the thought just dawned on her.

Harry sighs, because as much as he knows she’s stalling, it is a valid question. “I suppose I could,” he says, “If I really wanted to.”

“Don’t you want to?”

“Not really, no.” Harry offers her a half hearted shrug, and when he sees her face drop he quickly tacks on, “Not that I don’t want to be able to openly spend time with you, of course! You know I do. It’s just difficult.”

“Why is it difficult?” Misty cocks her head to the side like a curious child, and it’s so cute Harry could burst.

“It’s exhausting,” he explains. “As ghosts we only have so much energy. And it’s affected by the energies of others in the room as well. Manifesting takes up a lot of that energy, especially when you’re manifesting in front of a lot of other beings.” He smiles, pausing to allow her to process what he’s just said before continuing his explanation.

“When it’s only you who can see me, the amount of energy I’m putting forward is far less than, say, the amount it would take for me to manifest in front of everyone else. On top of that, being around all different energies-- feeling them interact with your own-- you sort of adopt those energies as well. You take them upon yourself. I don’t like doing it. It doesn’t feel good.”

“Oh.” Misty frowns. “That sucks.”

“It does suck,” Harry says, nodding his head. “Especially since I can’t walk around tonight and show you off the way you deserve.”

Misty giggles shyly, and Harry beams at her before continuing. “Now if you don’t go and get yourself some water, I’m going to have to expose myself to everyone.”

Misty’s laugh is louder than it usually is, and Harry has no choice but to laugh along with her. “Okay!” she says. “Sorry! God.”

Misty makes her way over to the bedroom door with Harry close on her heels. He holds his arms out just in case she needs extra stabilizing. As soon as the door opens, she’s met with a loud cheering from the people in the hallway.

Harry recognizes Rosie and Greg, but there are two other guys there that he’s never seen before. And by the looks of their cheers, they’re super happy to see Misty.

“Mistaaaaay!” One of the guys, who is dressed as a lifeguard, shouts. “What were you doin’ in your room all alone?”

Harry scrambles to come up with an excuse for Misty, when she surprises him and comes up with one all on her own.

“My little sister was calling me, weirdo,” Misty says. “She forgot our parent’s wifi password.” She glances over her shoulder and shoots Harry a very subtle wink, and honestly Harry’s impressed. He chuckles to himself, shaking his head.

“Quick thinking there, sunshine.”

Misty ignores him but her smirk does not go unnoticed. Her attention is quickly pulled, however, when the original guy speaks up again.

“You’re lookin’ good tonight, girl. You know Josh is looking for you?”

And just like that, Harry’s ears are perked and his stomach is sinking.

“Yeah?” Misty asks, completely uninterested as she tries to push through the crowd. “Well I’ve been here!” She almost seems to sober up, and Harry is intrigued as to why.

“You should go see what he wants.” Lifeguard wiggles his eyebrows, and Harry takes a protective and unintentional step forward.

Misty rolls her eyes, seemingly unbothered. “If it’s really that important he can find me.”

Lifeguard whistles. “Damn, Misty, alright! Not interested?”

Misty spares a quick glance in Harry’s direction. “I’m not, no.”

It should make Harry feel much, much better. It really should. But it doesn’t.

Misty, of course, offers no time for explanation-- which she shouldn’t, Harry knows, but still. She only continues to push through the crowd, with Harry close behind-- and he tries to ignore the random shivers from the people he accidentally walks through.

“Misty--” He says quietly.

“It’s fine.” It’s barely audible, and of course Harry can’t blame her for that; for fucks sake, she can’t look like she’s talking to herself.

Misty stumbles a bit as she enters the kitchen, opening the fridge and reaching inside for a jello shot. Harry keeps a close eye on her-- not because he feels he has to, by any means, but mostly because it’s getting to the point in the night where things are starting to get a bit nutty. The boys are becoming handsier, the girls are becoming more giggly and loud. In his lifetime, Harry had been to quite a few parties-- so he knows exactly the direction this night is headed.

Misty is about to close the fridge when Harry offers her a pointed look. “Forgetting something?”

“Water!” Misty says out loud, without thinking. “Duh! Sorry.”

She reaches into the fridge just as a voice comes from behind Harry. “There you are, babe! Who are you talking to?”

Harry and Misty turn at the same time to see who the voice belongs to, and Harry immediately frowns.

He comes to the conclusion (based on little to no evidence) that this must be Josh-- just by the way he’s eyeing Misty like prey. He’s dressed like Tom Cruise from Risky Business, only he’s left the shirt unbuttoned far enough that his abs (or lack thereof) are visible.

Misty speaks, confirming Harry’s thoughts. “Hi, Josh.”

She sounds less than thrilled to be seeing him, and she goes stiff when he throws a hand around her waist and pulls her in for a hug. He leans in to kiss the side of her head, but Misty quickly ducks away, regaining her distance from him and opening her water bottle.

“Not happy to see me?” Josh pouts.

“No, I am,” she says, unconvincingly. She opens her water and is about to take a sip when Josh scoffs.

“You’re drinking water? Lightweight. Thought you were gonna get lit with us!”

“I am!” Misty insists. “Just don’t want to end my night with my head in the toilet.”

“You know I’d take care of you babe,” Josh says. “What’s in your cup tonight?”

Misty takes a few long sips from her water bottle, eyeing Harry pointedly, before she speaks. “Uh. I don’t know exactly, Kennedy made it for me.”

“Hell yeah,” Josh says, eyeing her glass. “You’re runnin’ low though, want me to get you another?”

Before Misty can even answer, Josh has taken the cup from her hands. He’s walking over to the stash of various liquors on the counter, and Harry immediately moves to stand beside him. He watches carefully as Josh pours the liquor into Misty’s cup.

“Heard you talkin’ in here,” Josh says. “Who were you talking to?”

“What?” Misty and Harry share a quick glance before she speaks. “Oh. No one. I was talking to myself.”

“Yourself?” Josh scoffs, still pouring vodka into Misty’s drink. Harry has to stop himself from reaching out to stop him from pouring. “You’re a little weirdo sometimes, Misty. You know that?”

Harry lets out an annoyed sigh, wanting more than anything to put Josh in his place. Misty only smiles passively. “I know.”

“Quite a bit of fuckin vodka he’s putting in there,” Harry says. “He’s trying to get you drunk, love.”

“I know,” Misty repeats, both to Harry and to Josh.

“Hot little weirdo though,” Josh says, adding only a tiny splash of cranberry juice before turning around to offer Misty her cup again. He pauses, just as he’s about to hand it to her.

“Did it suddenly get cold in here?” he asks, glancing around him.

“I could kill him,” Harry states, emotionless.

Misty has to fight a giggle, reaching forward to take her drink from Josh. “No, I don’t feel anything,” she says. She takes a quick sip, immediately regretting her actions when her esophagus is burned with the taste of vodka.

Misty shivers and gags, coughing in an attempt to get the horrible taste out of her mouth. “Jesus, Josh, what did you put in this?”

“Vodka cran baby!” Josh says. “Know you like those!”

“Vodka with a fuckin’ shot of cran,” Harry adds.

Misty coughs, putting her cup down on the counter. Josh frowns. “You don’t like it?”

“No,” Misty chokes, “I mean it’s fine but… fuck, dude, how much vodka did you put in there?”

“Nothing you can’t handle, Misty!” Josh steps forward, hip checking Misty and nearly knocking her over. “You’re a tough little girl aren’t you.”

“I really could kill him,” Harry adds.

Misty clears her throat, finally done with coughing. “You need to work on your bartending skills, Josh.”

“Yeah?” Josh puts his cup down, moving in on Misty. Before she even has time to react, he has her pinned against the counter, with both his arms trapped on either side of her. She leans her head back in an attempt to get further away from him. He, completely oblivious to social cues, only grins. “Maybe I do. But I know of one skill I don’t need to work on.”

“Josh—“ Misty couldn’t lean any further back if she tried, and she glances at Harry out of the corner of her eyes.

Josh leans in, pressing his lips to Misty’s neck. “C’mon, baby, you know what I’m talking about. Don’t you remember how good it was?”

Harry takes a step forward as Misty manages to get her hands unpinned and shoves them weakly against Josh’s chest. “You’re drunk,” she says.

“And you’re not?” Josh licks his lips, trying to kiss Misty again. “Take another sip then.”

Harry has never felt so helpless in his entire existence, and he doesn’t even think twice before reaching forward to yank Josh off Misty. Misty coincidentally pushes at his chest at the exact same time, sending Josh practically toppling over.

He regains his balance after a moment,, glancing at Misty with a confused look. There’s a thick silence in the air, and Harry instinctively takes a step between Josh and Misty. Josh glances around, as if searching for whatever just yanked him, and Misty shoots Harry a nervous look.

A menacing grin spreads slowly across Josh’s face, and he swipes his teeth with his tongue. “Damn, girl. You’re strong.”

Misty blinks back at him, swallowing. “Josh,” she says slowly. “I’m not interested.”

“That’s not what you said last time.”

Harry feels like his insides are on fire with anger, and Misty rolls her eyes.

“Yes, it is actually. Interesting how you don’t seem to recall that.”

“Say the word and I’ll kill him,” Harry says.

Misty rolls her eyes, which goes completely unnoticed by Josh as he continues his tirade. “Look, I know you’re just being stubborn and I get it! I do.” He picks up Misty’s abandoned drink, sloshing the cup around in his hand. “Why don’t you just finish this drink I made you and then come find me when it hits you and you stop being such a prude?”

Harry can’t hold back any longer, and he doesn’t even think twice before he moves in- slapping the cup and tilting it all over onto Josh’s skin and his stupid white shirt.

Josh shrieks, and the look on his face is a mix between shock and confusion. He eyes the now empty cup in his hand as if he can’t believe he just spilled it all over himself. Misty scoffs quietly to herself.

“Wow Josh, you might want to lay off the drinks.”

“Fucker,” Harry adds.

“I’m not that drunk!” Josh insists, raising his voice and taking a step towards Misty. Harry immediately steps between them once again, ready to push him away at a moment’s notice.

It’s at that exact moment that Kennedy walks in, saving the day. She instantly notices the tension in the room, and her eyes dart between Misty and Josh. She laughs when she notices his spilled drink.

“Woooow,” she says. “What happened here?”

“I stumbled,” Josh laughs, trying to regain his composure and play the situation off. “Misty saw it, huh?”

Misty shoots Kennedy a glance before muttering, “Yeah. It was crazy.”

“Mm,” Kennedy says, and it’s obvious that she seems to have an idea of exactly what happened. She doesn’t like Josh, that much is obvious. Harry is immensely grateful for her, knowing that she’s going to take care of Misty in a way that he can’t. “Well you should probably get that cleaned up, huh? And maybe lay off the drinks a bit.”

Kennedy immediately walks to Misty’s side, and Harry can tell Josh knows his game is over by the look he gives. Neither Kennedy or Misty hint at being upset, and Misty shoots Harry a thankful look.

“I’m not drunk, Kennedy,” Josh lies, a smile on his face that makes it very obvious that he’s offended.

“Okay,” Kennedy scoffs. “How bout you, Misty? Need another drink?”

Misty’s eyes dart from Kennedy to Josh to Harry, who watches her with helpless and sympathetic eyes. Misty wants more than anything to curl into Harry’s side, but she knows she can’t, and she’s thankful for Kennedy for stepping in when she did.

“Uh,” Misty says, clearing her throat. “Yeah, actually, I do. This idiot here spilled mine.”

Kennedy rolls her eyes, but it’s apparent she knows about the situation with Josh. “What a douche,” she teases. shooting Josh a look as if to say she’s not actually teasing-- she means what she’s saying. “Why don’t you go clean yourself up. Misty, I’ll make you another drink.”

Josh rolls his eyes, scoffing as if he can’t believe what just happened. “Yeah,” he says. “Alright.” He winks at Misty, shooting her an overly confident “I’ll see you later” before exiting the kitchen.

Kennedy, Misty, and Harry all watch him exit most ungracefully before Kennedy turns to Misty. “You okay? Like, actually.”

“Yes,” Misty lies.

“No,” Harry adds.

Kennedy rolls her eyes as she gets to work making Misty another drink. “He’s a fuckin douche canoe. I can’t believe he even still thinks he can talk to you.”

“I know.” Misty grabs a paper towel to clean up the bit of the drink that spilled onto the ground. “I don’t either.”

Harry watches Misty, continuing to feel helpless— almost as if he’s butting in on a conversation he shouldn’t be. But he doesn’t move. He remains still, almost frozen in place as he watches Misty clean up the mess he made.

“I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I should’ve planned that better.”

“It’s okay,” Misty says, both to Harry and Kennedy. “I’m fine. He didn’t do anything.”

“He wouldn’t have given up though,” Kennedy says, pouring the actual correct amount of vodka into Misty’s cup. “He’s a creep.”

Misty sighs. “He is. But—“

“No buts.” Kennedy and Harry both say this at the exact same time, and it takes Harry a moment to process.

“God I hate him,” Kennedy says. “Don’t let him intimidate you. Here.” She finishes mixing the drink in Misty’s cup and hands it to her. “Stay with me, yeah?”

Misty smiles gratefully at Kennedy. “Thank you.” She glances over at Harry, a soft grateful smile directed in his direction as well.

Kennedy and Misty make their way out of the kitchen, and Harry once again feels helpless as he follows them. Should he leave her alone? She asked him not to, but now he feels awkward and, if he’s being honest, angry that he couldn’t help her more.

Harry numbly follows Misty and Kennedy through the house and into a cozy but messy living room filled with tons of other drunk people. He feels a slight sense of relief when, immediately upon sitting down, Misty’s eyes search for him. She seems to visibly relax when she sees him, and he smiles sadly at her. He reaches out to stoke lovingly at her cheek, and try as she might to not react, she can’t help but flutter her lashes closed for a brief second and lean into his touch.

The rest of the night seems to pass by slowly. Misty hardly touches her drink at all, and as normal as she’s behaving around everyone else, Harry-- and Kennedy, it seems-- can tell that something is wrong. She seems sad, her eyes less bright, and as the hours tick on she becomes less and less secretive about her glances towards Harry.

The party ends-- finally-- around 3am, with most of its guests falling asleep in various places throughout the house. Misty moves slowly, helping Kennedy clean up the apartment, and Harry follows her anxiously-- wishing he, too, could help.

“Are you okay?” Kennedy asks, once she and Misty-- and Harry-- are alone in the kitchen. “Like, actually.”

“Yeah,” Misty insists. “My buzz just wore off and like… I dunno. I just want to sleep.”

“I get that,” Kennedy says, turning on the sink to wash out a glass. “Well why don’t you go up to bed? I’ll finish up in here.”

“I don’t want to leave it all to you--”

“I’m good! I’m just gonna do a couple more dishes and then head up to bed myself. We can do the rest tomorrow.”

Misty hesitates, glancing from Kennedy to Harry before sighing, smiling a little relieved smile. “You’re the fucking best, Ken.”

Kennedy grins. “Duh. Go get some sleep.”

Misty throws her arms around Kennedy from behind, giving her a big squeeze and pressing the most obnoxious kiss to her cheek before bidding her goodnight. She still seems upset-- something is still very clearly on her mind, but she seems a bit relieved that she’s finally able to leave.

As she pulls away, she shoots Harry a questioning glance, as if asking him to come with her. He nods, holding up his finger to indicate that he’ll be right there. Misty smiles, nodding her head before disappearing out of the kitchen.

Harry turns back to Kennedy, making his way slowly towards her. He reaches forward, hesitating before giving her shoulder a gentle squeeze. He’s thanking her, in the only way he knows how to without revealing himself, and much to his relief, Kennedy only jumps slightly before giggling.

“I knew you were here,” she says softly. “Whoever you are. And I know you care about our girl, too. Don’t worry, I’ve got her.”

Harry smiles to himself, wishing he could verbally thank her. But just her knowing about his existence-- and being okay with it, at that-- means more to him than he can explain. So without any more delay, he disappears from the kitchen and makes his way to Misty.

He finds Misty in her room, waiting in the doorway, and she smiles when she sees him. He makes his way quickly into her room and she closes the door behind him, her face immediately dropping the moment it’s closed. Harry waits for her to speak, but she doesn’t-- she only busies herself with retrieving the items she needs in order to get ready for bed.

“Are you alright?” Harry finally asks, voice gentle. He doesn’t know if he should step closer, touch her, hug her, or just stay away, so he stands awkwardly off to the side.

“I’m alright,” Misty says, most unconvincingly.

“You sure?” This time he does take a step towards her. “I don’t think--”

“It’s nothing,” Misty insists. “Seriously. He’s a creep.”

‘You shouldn’t have to deal with him,” Harry says. “Does he treat you like that often?”

Misty pauses, then sighs, nodding her head slowly. “And everyone kinda just… lets him get away with it because….” she scoffs cynically, “He’s Josh.”

“Fuck Josh. Where does he get off?”

Misty shrugs, opening a drawer and rummaging through it in search of a t-shirt. “It’s just who he is. I don’t know.”

“Well I mean…” Harry isn’t sure how to word his next question. “What makes him think that he can mess with you like that?”

“It’s literally nothing,” Misty says, exasperated. She pauses, considering her words before turning to face Harry. She opens her mouth, then closes it, and then finally decides to speak.

“You really want to know what happened?”

“If you don’t mind,” Harry says.

Misty sighs again, removing her little devil horn headband. “We were drunk at a Kappa party my freshman year. We kissed a little. I was… stupid. He kept pouring me drinks, and I just… kept taking them. And….”

Harry waits for a moment, before gently pressing her a bit more. “And?”

“And stuff happened. We didn’t like, have sex or anything. I know that for a fact. But he…” She trails off, lost in thought, before continuing. “I don’t remember a whole lot of it.”

Harry is furious, and he wants more than anything to go find Josh and kick his ass. But he knows that isn’t what Misty wants-- and definitely not what she needs right now. So he stays put, offering her a sympathetic sigh. “Oh, Misty.”

“It’s okay,” she offers. “I remember he made me a drink that was particularly strong. We went up to his room and then… next thing I remember I was throwing up in the yard.” Misty laughs bitterly. “My big was the one that found me. With him, I mean. That’s how I know we didn’t have sex. But she saw what we were doing and I—“ Misty trails off, shaking her head. “I don’t remember it at all.”

Harry swallows heavily as he takes in her words, scanning her face. The way Misty is looking at him right now, with her big soft eyes and genuine smile, he’s feeling guilty for even bringing it up.

“So. That’s what happened.” Misty shrugs. “I wish it didn’t, but it did. And that’s it.”

Harry runs a hand through his hair, feeling for the first time just how cold he really is. The only thing Harry can settle on in this moment is a sigh, and so he lets all of his anxieties out in a big puff of air that actually, admittedly, does make him feel better. As soon as he’s pushed all the air out of his lungs, his guilt increases, and he meets Misty’s eyes.

“Misty,” he says softly, “Sunshine. I’m so sorry.”

Harry reaches for Misty, nervous that he’s pressured her to talk about something so personal. She does lean into his touch-- thank God-- and she lets out the deepest sigh she feels she’s ever let out in her life.

“Harry….I don’t know how to navigate a situation like this,” Misty admits, voice hardly above a whisper. “I only want to make you happy.”

“Darling, you do make me happy. I can’t believe he would ever—“

“It’s not about him,” Misty says. “I’m okay. I’m talking about you. I don’t know how to navigate… this.”

Harry pauses, realizing that she’s talking about the blatant chemistry between the two of them. “Well, I—“

“You’re just…. such a wonderful guy. And I wish—“ she trails off, as if second guessing her words, before starting her next thought. “All I know is that you’re someone I just… want around. All the time.”

“I want to stay around,” Harry says gently. “I wish I could stay around longer.”

“Me too.” Misty smiles sadly up at him. “Our situation is unique.”

“Unique,” Harry repeats. “That’s a nice way of saying ‘weird as hell.’”

Now Misty giggles. “But I like it,” she tacks on quietly. “I like…” She trails off, closing her mouth as if the rest of that sentence hangs heavy on her tongue.

“I know,” Harry offers. “I do, too.”

They stay like this for a moment, before Misty sighs. “I have to get ready for bed now. So--”

“I’ll go!” Harry says quickly. “I’ll let you get to sleep and--”

“No, wait!” Misty holds up her hand. “I’ll be right back. I’m gonna change and stuff in the bathroom. But then I’ll come back so we can… say goodnight.”

Harry wonders what exactly she means by that, but he doesn’t even allow himself to question her. He smiles. “Alright. I’ll be here.”

Misty looks almost relieved. “Alright.”

Misty disappears into the hallway, leaving Harry behind with the silence and his own thoughts. He knows Misty is still a bit buzzed, sure, but her words were pointed. He tries not to overthink what she could have potentially meant by ‘say goodnight.’

He sighs, walking around her room and trying to distract himself from the nervous feeling in the pit of his stomach. He looks at the pictures in the frames along her dresser, the unfinished homework lying on her desk, the paddle made by her “big” hanging on the wall. All these pieces of Misty’s life make him smile, but what really gets him is the framed picture on her bedside table.

It’s a picture of her family, taken from when Misty couldn’t have been more than fifteen years old. She’s smiling the biggest smile Harry thinks he’s ever seen, and she’s the spitting image of her beautiful mother, who stands behind her, laughing.

Beside her mother stands her father, a tall, broad man with some wrinkles around his eyes and graying sideburns. He looks like the kind of guy that Harry would love to chat with, sharing a whiskey neat or two while giving each other shit. He seems pleasant, and he seems like a wonderful man just from this picture alone.

Surrounding Misty are her siblings: an older brother, and a younger sister and brother. Harry wants more than anything to be able to meet them. To have to earn the respect of Misty’s older brother, to spoil her younger siblings and make them love him. He wants to be close to the whole family, really. He wants to be the boyfriend that Misty brings home one year for spring break. The boyfriend who brings a new plant for her mother, who watches football with her father and impresses them with his knowledge of American traditions, despite being british.

Harry wishes, more than anything in the world, that he was still alive.

He doesn’t realize how long he’s been staring at the picture until he’s startled by Misty’s presence as she enters her room once again. He jumps a bit, and Misty giggles.

“Hi,” she says. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Hi. Ghosts don’t get scared.”

“Debatable,” Misty says. Harry gets a good look at her, and he’s completely enamored. He’s just watched her transform from a sexy demon, with dark makeup and long lashes and the plumpest red lips he’s ever seen-- to the most adorable person he thinks he’s ever laid his eyes upon.

Her makeup-less face reveals a few zits on her cheek, her lips look chapped, and she’s dressed only in a long t-shirt and shorts. She discards her costume into her hamper without a second thought, completely unaware of the way Harry is watching her.

“You look cute,” he says, as she pulls back her comforter.

“Shut up,” she says, rolling her eyes as she crawls into bed. “Ew.”

Harry snorts. “I’m serious. You’re so pretty.”

“Well,” she says, plumping up the pillows behind her. “You’re so nice, but I’m going to have to respectfully tell you that I think you’re lying.”

“Well,” Harry mocks, “agree to disagree then.”

Misty relaxes against her pillows, rubbing sleepily and adorably at her eyes for a few moments.

“Thanks for being so wonderful to me,” she says after a bit, pulling the covers up tighter around her hips. “Like, all night I mean. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Don’t be silly,” Harry says. “I care about you. I had fun.”

“Me too. I just…” she sighs, and Harry takes a step towards her.

“What, love?”

“I just wish you could’ve actually like… had a good time. Like, drank and hung out with us and stuff. I wish I wasn’t the only one who could see you all night.”

“You don’t like havin’ me all to yourself then?” Harry fake pouts.

Misty rolls her eyes, but she smiles anyway. “It is nice to have my own personal ghost, but I just… wish you weren’t one.”

Harry smiles sadly. “Me too,” he says. “But I like watching over you. Like your own personal guardian angel or summat.”

Misty giggles. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Feelin’ okay?” Harry asks, trying to change the subject. “Need more water or anything?”

“No,” Misty says. “Think I just need to sleep off the rest of this buzz.”

“Yeah,” Harry agrees. “Sometimes that’s best.”

“Yeah.” There is a weird sort of tension fizzling in the air between them, as if Misty has something else she wants to say.

Harry waits patiently, watching as she avoids his gaze. She seems deep in thought and on the verge of asking something, but when she doesn’t Harry realizes that maybe he’s the one being awkward. Maybe she wants him to leave now and she’s too polite to tell him so.

So Harry clears his throat. “Alright. Well. Goodnight, bug.” He nods in finality. After a few more seconds, he takes a step back before vanishing right in front of Misty’s eyes. He’s about to actually leave, and he figures he can go inspect the house. Maybe see what damage has been done, and try to discreetly clean up a bit in order to help speed up the process tomorrow for what he knows is going to be a very hungover group of girls. But something catches his attention that he absolutely cannot ignore.

“Wait, don’t go!”

Misty’s voice sounds so pitiful that Harry can’t even pretend like he’s not going to come back. He manifests immediately in the corner of her room and he coos at her. “What is it, sunshine?”

“Can you sleep with me?”

She seems so embarrassed to be asking, it makes even Harry’s cheeks flush. “You want me to… get in bed with you?”

Misty nods, eyes bigger than Harry’s ever seen. “Yeah,” she mumbles. “Can you?”

Harry doesn’t remember the last time he spent a night in a bed-- much less with a beautiful girl-- but the thought of doing it tonight excites him. He doesn’t want to come across as too eager, of course, but he can’t help but feel touched by her request, and he all but runs to her side.

As he makes his way towards the bed, he speaks. “I might be a little bit cold,” he offers. He looms over her, reaching down to brush a bit of her messy hair off of her forehead.

“S’okay,” Misty sighs, “I have lots of blankets. Just wanna cuddle. Is that okay?”

Harry smiles at how cute she looks, bundled up and sleepy in her bed. He chuckles softly, reaching to tug gently at her covers to pull them back for himself. “Yeah,” he says, “That’s okay. I can do that.”

As Harry settles himself in bed, he tries not to beat himself up too hard for the slight shiver in her body. She obviously doesn’t seem to mind as she cuddles up close to him instantly. The feeling of her warmth is almost too much for Harry to handle-- similar to the feeling of getting into a hot tub too quickly-- but he doesn’t mind. It feels so good, and if he closes his eyes he can pretend, just for a moment, that he’s human, too.

“Can ghosts sleep?” Misty asks abruptly, tearing Harry from his fantasy and reminding him of his actual form.

Harry chuckles. “Yeah, we can sleep,” he says. “It’s not exactly the same as how you sleep, though.”

“What’s it like then?”

Harry thinks for a moment, choosing his words carefully to explain this in a way that it makes sense. “You know how I mentioned I can visit dreams? When I’m… gone.”

“Yeah?”

“So if I go to sleep while I’m here, I’ll just go there. To the dreamscape. Where I can visit anybody’s dreams that I want. That’s usually how I visit my mum or say, a friend.” Harry chuckles. “Or someone who wronged me in the past. So I can haunt their ass.”

“But you’ll still be here when I wake up right?” She sounds so sleepy, almost needy, and it makes Harry hold her that much tighter.

“If you want me to be,” he answers.

“I do,” she says softly. There is a beat of silence before she’s changing the subject again. “Tell me what it’s like.”

“What?”

“The dream stuff. Like how do you just… do that?”

“Mmm. It’s like… how can I explain…” Harry thinks carefully once again. “I’m in a black… room? Sort of. Like where I go when I’m gone. And there are a ton of doors, right? In this room I mean. And I can enter any one of them that I’d like, at any time. Anywhere in the world.”

“You can enter anybody’s dream?”

“Mhm.”

“At any time?”

“At any time.”

“Woooooow.” Misty’s sleepy exclamation tickles softly against his neck. “That’s so cool.”

“It is yeah,” Harry says, smiling to himself.

“Can you come into my dream tonight?”

“If you want me to, yeah.”

“Can you make me dream about you?”

“Well,” Harry says, tracing a circle into Misty’s spine. “Yes and no. Whatever you’re dreaming about, I can enter it if I want to. But I won’t know what you’re dreaming about until I’m in there.”

“Oh,” Misty says through a yawn. “Ew.”

Harry snorts. “Why ‘ew?’”

“Because what if I’m dreaming something embarrassing?”

“Then I can embarrass you about it forever,” Harry says. “How fun!”

Misty pulls Harry closer, burying her face deep into his neck. He can feel her visible frown, and it makes him smile. “Don’t pout,” he coos, scratching at her back.

“Don’t tease meeee,” she whines, but the way she says it sounds like she has another thought to add on.

Misty hesitates, and Harry gives her time to think about what she’s going to say. She arches her back the teeniest bit, leaning into a particularly good scratch, and it makes Harry smile. Finally, she finishes her thought.

“I actually did have a dream about you the other night,” she says, “although now I’m guessing you already knew that.”

Harry nods. He did know that, because it was his doing. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened; if anything it had just been pretty mundane-- similar to every day he’s spent with her in real life. But it felt more real, more permanent, more tangible. Harry had been careful, of course, not to be too obvious with it-- he didn’t interfere with the natural plot line of her dream as much as he normally would if it were a real visit. He had just wanted to spend more time with her, and it had been lovely.

“Was it weird?” He asks, although he already knows the answer.

“It wasn’t weird,” Misty says. “You were just kinda… there. But I…” he feels her body tense up, and she curls herself even further into his side, as if hiding herself. “I wanted to kiss you so bad.”

Harry feels his breath hitch in his throat, and his fingertips cease their movements along her spine. “Yeah?” he chokes out.

“Yeah,” she whispers back. “Is that weird?”

“It’s not weird, sunshine,” Harry whispers. “I wanted to--” He trails off now, letting the rest of his sentence fizzle out in a sigh. “It’s not weird,” he repeats.

“I’m falling asleep,” Misty announces through the softest yawn Harry thinks he’s ever heard. “It’s not weird right? Like, things between us aren’t weird just cause I got drunk and kinda… confessed some shit?”

“Confessed what?” Harry says. “You’ve told me nothing.”

Misty giggles “You’re a good man, Harry.”

“I’m not a man,” Harry teases. “I’m a ghost.”

“Can you not be annoying for like, one whole second?”

It’s Harry’s turn to giggle now. “Alright, I’m sorry. I’ll chill.”

Misty yawns again, and the feeling of her breath against his neck makes him shiver. He smiles, snuggling his cheek against the top of her head. “Well,” he says. “Goodnight, sunshine.”

“Goodnight, Harry,” she mumbles. Without thinking, she presses the softest little peck against his neck that almost goes unnoticed by him. It makes him freeze, letting out the rest of the air in his lungs in a little sigh. He doesn’t know if he should kiss her back or not, but she doesn’t seem to mind either way. So he lets it slide.

But he spends the entire night replaying the feeling of her lips against his neck over and over and over again.

------

Misty sighs as she reaches into the fridge for a bottle of water. Somehow she’s been roped into a conversation that she wants no part of; gossip between Lindsey and Rosie about Lindsey’s boyfriend who’s been openly cheating on her for weeks. Perhaps she had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, but somehow Misty has found herself listening to the girls chat away, one feeling sorry for herself, and the other kissing her ass.

When Misty closes the door, she jumps when she sees Harry, who has manifested right in front of her. She lets out a frustrated sigh through her nose, and Harry grins cheekily at her, raising his eyebrows and daring her to speak.

“What’s wrong, Misty?” Rosie asks, and Misty realizes her little scare hadn’t gone unnoticed.

Misty glances between Harry and the two girls, who stare expectantly back at her. “Uh,” she says, “Nothing. I… thought I saw something. Sorry.”

“Is it that fucking ghost again?” Rosie’s face grows pale at her own words. “I swear to God if that fucker is back I--”

“No,” Misty says, cutting her off. “He-- it-- isn’t back. Continue with your story.”

Lindsey launches right back into it, hardly giving Misty’s words a second thought. “Anyway, Brad was like, totally flirting with me that night right?”

“He totally was,” Rosie replies.

“Thank you! I thought he was, and Jade thought he was, but then now he’s back with Jessie again and--”

“God who cares about any of this?” Harry’s voice drawls in Misty’s ear. “She’s been going on and on about this for ages.”

Misty sighs softly so that only Harry can hear her. She knows she can’t verbally respond to him, but he hears her response and smirks. It’s then the idea pops into his head.

“Whatever you do, don’t smile,” Harry says, voice low and teasing in Misty’s ear-- a surefire way to make her smile.

The corners of Misty’s lips twinge and she visibly gulps, and Harry knows he’s got her.

“I said don’t smile,” Harry, sing-songs, inching closer to Misty’s ear and trying his hardest to get her to break. “You’ll look like a crazy person. Can you imagine? Lindsey’s pouring her heart out, and you can’t stop smiling? What will they think?”

Misty clears her throat a bit more aggressively than normal as a desperate plea to get Harry to shut the hell up.

“No,” he replies, with a cheeky grin, knowing exactly what her noise meant. “I’m not going to stop.”

Misty holds her breath as an attempt to hold her composure as Harry continues. “Imagine if Lindsey’s water like, came out of her nose right now. Wouldn’t that be crazy?”

Harry notices the way Misty runs her tongue over her teeth, setting her jaw firmly so as not to slip up again. And honestly, he’s impressed. He presses her further. “Did you know I could make that happen?”

This time Misty’s breath hitches, and she eyes Harry threateningly out of the corner of her eyes. “I really can,” he says. “I can snap my fingers and she’ll be like a faucet. A free flowing spirit.”

Harry thinks he’s almost got her, her lips twitch up again and she raises her water bottle to her lips to cover it up. Harry snorts.

“Nah, I’m fucking with you,” he says, “you think I could really do that? Who do you think I am, fuckin Harry Potter?”

Misty rolls her eyes without giving it a second thought, which luckily goes unnoticed by her sisters-- but not unnoticed by Harry. He raises his eyebrows.

“Ope! Careful there. Going to give yourself away, eh?”

When Misty stares blankly ahead, Harry laughs.

“Wow,” he says, “so you’re really not gonna smile, are you? You’re good at this.”

His tone makes Misty think he’s giving up, and she gives a subtle smirk of satisfaction in his direction.

But Harry is nothing if he isn’t persistent. And he is not going to give up that easily.

It’s when Misty raises her arm to run a hand through her hair that Harry gets his idea. He doesn’t even allow himself time to think about it before he’s setting his plan into action. Before he knows it, he’s going right for Misty’s ribs.

Harry digs his hands into Misty’s lower ribs, squeezing a few times, and Misty folds instantly into his arms. She lets out a surprised shriek mixed with an almost honking laugh, and both Lindsey and Rosie stop the conversation immediately to shoot her a puzzled look.

It’s all too good, and Harry is so utterly pleased with himself right now. He’d be lying if he said this kind of power didn’t go to his head, especially when Misty immediately realizes that she’s got to stop giggling. Harry doesn’t let up on her ribs, lowering a hand to pinch softly at her side, and Misty tries desperately to cover up her remaining giggles with a cough.

Harry would also be lying if he said that seeing her laugh like this didn’t turn him on. But that is neither here nor there.

After a few more seconds of tickling her and watching her desperately try to contain her giggles and cover them up with the fakest coughs Harry’s ever heard, he decides to show the poor girl some mercy. He removes his hands from her torso, and it takes her a few seconds to realize she’s free.

The silence that follows is charged with awkwardness, and Harry almost feels a bit bad. Misty, whose face is visibly hot, reaches for her water bottle on the counter and takes several long sips from it.

“You alright?” Rosie asks, slowly raising an eyebrow.

Misty gulps down one more sip and gestures vaguely at her throat. “Yeah, sorry I just--”

“Have a tickle in your throat?”

Harry beams, voice low in Misty’s ear. “Something like that,” he says.

Misty closes her eyes and lets out a long sigh, as if she’s just heard the worst joke of her life. Harry snorts. “I know,” he says. “That was a good one, wasn’t it?”

“Linds, I’m so sorry to interrupt,” Misty says, “But I have this huge paper due in a couple of hours and I’m super behind so--”

“Oh is it that stupid paper for english?” Lindsey nods sympathetically. “I worked on it like, all night last night.”

“Yeah,” Misty lies, “I have to work on it. I promise in a few hours I’ll be right back down to--”

“No worries, baby, do your thing!” Lindsey says, shooing Misty with her hand. “I get it. You’re good.”

“Thanks.” Misty begins making her way out of the kitchen without even sparing so much as a glance in Harry’s direction. “I want to hear all about it later though.”

Misty storms up the stairs with Harry close on her heels. He is giggling the entire way, but Misty doesn’t even smile. It’s about halfway up the stairs that Harry begins to get a bit nervous.

“You have to admit that was good,” he says through his laughter, obviously trying to lighten the mood. “Come on.”

Misty ignores him, continuing her path to her room. When she arrives, she doesn’t even check to see that Harry is behind her. She closes the door a bit harder than she intends, and Harry effortlessly glides through it. The silence that follows is absolutely deafening.

She turns, agonizingly slowly to face him, and the look on her face is unreadable. Harry isn’t sure if the smirk on his own face is appropriate or not, so he tries his best to suppress it while he waits for her to say something. When she doesn’t, his lips twitch.

“I take it you’re angry,” he tries.

“How could you do that?!” Misty hisses, the sort of whisper that’s stupidly loud. He knows she isn’t angry, not fully, but he almost worries he took things a step too far.

“Sunshine, I’m sorry, I didn’t--”

“Made me look like a fucking idiot.” Misty runs her hands through her hair and shakes her head at him. “And for what? So you could get a laugh?”

Harry tries desperately not to smirk, but the corners of his lips turn up ever so slightly-- giving him away. “Yeah.”

Misty stops, not exactly expecting that answer. She pauses for a moment before sighing through her nose and closing her mouth. “Ridiculous,” she mumbles, before brushing past Harry to rummage through her closet.

“I really think you should lighten up,” Harry says, walking over and plopping himself on her bed. “Wasn’t meant to be a personal attack.”

“Lighten up?!” Misty says, whirling around on her heels. She hesitates, realizing that she’s raised her voice a tick too loud. She takes a step towards Harry, lowering her voice significantly before speaking. “You think I need to lighten up? Harry, you--”

“I didn’t mean to ruin your bloody day, Misty, Christ. I was just trying to make you laugh.”

“Well don’t.”

“Fine.”

There’s an intense pause between them, and Harry doesn’t shy away from Misty’s intimidating stare. In fact, there is hardly any emotion on his face at all, and Misty can’t tell whether it infuriates her or turns her on. She can feel the blood rushing to her cheeks growing hotter by the second, and she lets out a flustered sigh.

“You seem like you have something else to say,” Harry states calmly.

It’s so unfair, Misty thinks. It really fucking is. She scrambles to find words to express how she’s feeling, but her brain is cloudy with the thought of how goddamn attractive he is. When she really thinks about it, she isn’t angry at all, really. The thought of Harry being able to do whatever he wants to her- whenever he wants- in front of people both embarrasses her and makes her excited.

Truth be told, she’s never been more excited in her entire life.

Harry raises his eyebrows expectantly. “Well?”

“I don’t have anything else to say,” Misty says quietly.

“Are you sure?” Harry asks, rising to his feet and taking a cautious step towards her.

Misty lets out a frustrated breath, reaching up to push her hair off of her face. “Yes, I’m sure! Will you stop doing that?”

Harry scoffs, mockingly. “Stop doing what, Misty? Trying to call you out on what we both know is true?”

“No!” Misty’s voice is dangerously loud, and she catches herself again before she can get any louder. She rolls her eyes at herself before continuing at a much softer pace. “Stop… looking at me like that.”

And oh, now Harry understands.

Harry shakes his head. “I’m not looking at you like anything.”

“Yes you are!” she insists, closing the space between them just the tiniest bit more. “You’re always looking at me like… like that!” She gestures indistinctly.

Harry licks his lips, eyebrow subconsciously raising challengingly. “I’m going to need you to be more specific, Misty.”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“Sunshine,” he drawls, voice thick as honey, “all I ever want is to make you happy. That’s a promise.”

Misty swallows, nostrils flaring as she tries to get her breath under control. “Harry, I…” She trails off, because truth be told she doesn’t know where she was even going with this thought.

“What?” he asks, taking another step towards her. “Tell me.”

After a beat of intense silence Misty groans. “I don’t know! You’re so annoying and you’re so perfect and you make me so happy and I just--”

“What?” Harry says, inching closer. “You just what?”

Misty lowers her voice, eyes thick with sadness. “I just… don’t want to be feeling this way about you. I can’t. But you make it impossible to not.”

“To not what?”

“Fall for you.” Misty sighs. “I’m trying so hard not to because… well, you’re not actually here are you?”

“Can you see me?” Harry asks, matter-of-factly.

“Well, yes, but--”

“I’m here.” Harry reaches forward, lightly caressing Misty’s arm. “I’m right here Misty.”

Misty glances down to his hand, then back up at him. “Harry, I don’t know what I’m feeling.”

He pulls away, not wanting to pressure her into feeling any type of way at all. “What do you mean?”

“I mean-- God.” She lets out all of her air and shakes her head, almost cynically. “Harry I… really, really like you.”

If Harry had blood running through his veins, it would run cold at her words. “You do?”

“Have I not made it obvious?” Misty scoffs. “Fuck, dude, you’re so perfect.”

“I’m not,” Harry says in a breath. He steps forward. “Misty, I’m not.”

“You are,” she insists. “I want you so bad, Harry. And I’m scared.”

Harry processes her words slowly, and he knows he shouldn’t say what he’s about to say. But he does it anyway.

“I’m scared, too,” he admits softly, feeling more human than he’s felt in a long time.

“I’m scared that I’m going to really fall for you,” Misty continues, “because I know you’re just going to have to leave in the end. And I’m going to be sad, and I’m going to miss you, and—“

“Well then why don’t we just pretend?” Harry tries. “We’ve still got a few more weeks, haven’t we?”

“Yes, but the thought of you leaving won’t go away, Harry! It’s all I can think about. Every time I feel something for you I’m reminded of our situation and how you’ll never actually be mine.”

“I hate it,” Harry agrees, his own voice matching hers in volume now. “I absolutely hate it, but Misty, we can’t let that thought hang over the time we have left like a raincloud.”

“But--”

“You make me feel alive again, Misty!” Harry doesn’t mean to cut her off, but he can’t help it. “I know that’s forward, and we haven’t known each other for all that long, but it’s true.”

Misty looks like she wants to cry, and her eyes feel thick and heavy. She wills herself not to break, taking a moment to regain her composure before speaking. “Harry, I don’t know what to do,” she whispers. “I don’t… we can’t--”

Harry leans in, taking Misty’s chin in between his thumb and forefinger. He tilts her head up softly, effectively quieting her, and she realizes her lips are still parted. Harry can feel her breath, and it feels far too intimate to be real.

“Can I kiss you?” He asks, voice tender and quiet.

Misty blinks up at him. “God,” she breathes, “I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that.”

Harry smiles, leaning in gently and fastening their lips together slowly. He takes her top lip between his own, and he can feel her instantly relax against him. She smiles faintly into the kiss as well, but makes no movement to pull him closer— as if she’s still a bit unsure. He kisses her again, then pulls away, scanning her face for any sign of discomfort.

“How do you feel?” He asks after a moment.

“Like I want to do that for the rest of my life.” Misty reaches up to cup Harry’s face and bring him in for another kiss.

Harry, of course, happily complies to her nonverbal request, snaking his hands around her waist and holding her gently to him. He timidly peeks his tongue out, gliding along her lip as if asking for permission, and she willingly submits— opening her mouth for him to lick into.

Misty giggles into his mouth the minute their tongues interact, and it makes Harry pull away. “What?”

“You taste good,” she says. “You taste…. sweet. I don’t know. I love it.”

“Oh.” He grins, pulling her back into him to pick up immediately where they left off.

It’s beautiful, and Harry feels happier than he’s felt in a long time now that he’s finally kissing her. He licks into her mouth softly, trying to convey all the words he isn’t yet brave enough to say.

“Harry.” Misty pulls away, smiling up at him. She’s so happy that it feels like everything her eyes land on is glowing. “God, I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to do this.”

“Why didn’t you do it then? I wanted it, too!”

“Well why didn’t you?!”

Harry grins. “Wanted to see how long until you gave in, I suppose.” When Misty rolls her eyes, Harry chuckles. “Alright I’m kidding. I guess I was just… scared.”

“Me too,” Misty admits. “I mean… feelings are scary one way or another, but then when you add our situation in there its…”

“Weird as fuck,” Harry says, nodding. “Yeah. I hate it.” He smiles, cupping the back of her neck and bumping his nose tenderly against hers. “But I don’t fully. I’m very happy that I have you, sweet girl.”

Misty smiles, leaning gently into his touch. “Kiss me again,” she asks, “Please.”

Harry grins, pulling her close to him and pressing his lips gently to her forehead. “With pleasure.”

They continue like this for a while, giggly and unsure and so, so happy. It is weird, as they both admitted, but it’s so incredibly wonderful and fills both of their hearts with a warmth that neither of them have felt for a while. And as Harry continues to kiss against Misty’s smile, he forgets his situation— if only for a moment— to revel in the fact that he’s kissing the most beautiful girl he’s ever known.

He doesn’t think his entire existence could ever get better than it is right now.

------

Later that night, Misty sits cross legged on her bed, fresh from a shower and rubbing lotion into her arms while Harry explores her vinyl collection. She’s wearing the cutest t-shirt and pajama shorts combo Harry thinks he’s ever seen, and it’s driving him crazy. Things are definitely not awkward between them by any means, but the whole situation feels silly and exciting, like two middle schoolers who just admitted they had a mutual crush on one another.

Misty nods towards the Fleetwood Mac record Harry currently holds in his hands. “I found that one at a garage sale,” she says. “Luckiest find of my life.”

“No kidding.” Harry turns, smiling at her. He holds the record up. “Do you like Fleetwood Mac?”

“Nah, just thought the vinyl looked cool. I don’t even know any songs by them.”

Harry halts all movement, eyeing Misty to figure out if she means what she’s saying. She’s got him for a moment, her expression remains completely unbothered as she rubs her vanilla lotion into her arms. But then she giggles, face twisting up like she can’t believe Harry would even ask her that. “What the fuck kind of question is that, Harry? Hello? Why else would I have that?”

Harry snorts. “You know what? I’ve had enough of your sarcasm.”

“My sarcasm?” Misty says. “You’re one to talk!”

“Me? I’m a dream!” Harry returns the record to it’s rightful spot and makes his way over to the bed. “You on the other hand--”

Harry reaches for a pillow to whack Misty with, but Misty is quicker. She grabs the other pillow on her bed and shields his attack, squealing as he continues his fight on her regardless. He eventually tosses the pillow aside, going for what he knows will absolutely get her to cave and digging his fingers into her sides.

Misty squeals, instantly bucking into his touch as he squeezes at her. “Wait, no! Fucker! This is cheating!”

“Careful!” Harry taunts, fingers wiggling up to her ribs. “No one else knows I’m here! Would be awful embarrassing if they heard you talking and giggling to yourself, wouldn’t it?”

“Well then fucking stooooop!” Misty whines, wriggling under his grasp. “Why are you making me--” She is cut off by her own cackle before she continues-- “Do this?!”

“Because I can.” Harry beams down at her, leaning down to press a kiss to her nose. “Because it’s cute and you like it.”

“I don’t like it!” Misty practically howls. “You’re annoying!”

“Oh,” Harry says, ceasing the movement of his fingers. “I’m annoying?”

“YES!” Misty whines, pouting up at him.

He smiles, leaning closer into her face and enjoying the heat radiating off of her cheeks. “Do you really not like it?”

Misty pants, catching her breath and smiling up at Harry. “No,” she admits after a beat.

Harry squirms so he’s fully on top of her now. “‘No’ you don’t like it? Or ‘no’ as in you do like it and don’t want me to stop?”

Misty reaches up to cover her face as much as Harry’s body pinning her will allow. “‘No’ as in… don’t stop.”

Harry grins, pressing a kiss to Misty’s nose. “I figured.”

Harry trails his lips lightly along Misty’s cheeks leading up to her mouth, pressing smiley kisses to the soft skin and loving the way he can feel her smile beneath him. “Pretty girl,’ he mutters. “You’re the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

When he finally fastens his lips to hers, Misty sighs. She opens her mouth willingly, allowing him to lick his way in, and she delights in the sweet taste of his tongue against hers. She allows her hand to trail up Harry’s icy neck, tangling her fingers in his hair before she tilts her head away slightly to speak.

“You know,” she muses, “You could be awful mean to me if you wanted to be.”

Harry quirks an eyebrow, cocking his head to the side teasingly. “Do you want me to be mean to you?”

Misty only sighs. “If you have to ask--” She trails off, fingertips lightly toying with the hem of Harry’s shirt. There’s a moment of tense silence in which she bats her eyes up at him innocently, and that’s all the starting gun he needs.

“Ohh, sweetheart,” Harry coos. “You’re going to have to be more convincing than that.”

Misty groans, her facade crumbling away little by little. “I cannnn’t,” she whines, hiding her face in her hands. Harry can see her smile between her hands however, and it eggs him on.

“You can,” he says, voice almost mockingly sweet. He rises to sit on his knees. “Know you can. You just won’t.”

Harry reaches up, trying to gently coax her hands from her face as best he can. “You know why you won’t?”

Misty peeks through her fingers, shaking her head but not verbally answering Harry. He flashes her his cheekiest dimpled grin. “Because you want me to make you say it. Am I right?”

Misty giggles as Harry successfully lowers her hands. “You can’t make me say it,” she says teasingly.

Harry shrugs, placing his hand on Misty’s calf and squeezing lightly. “It’s true. I can’t. Can’t make you do anything you don’t want to, baby.” He walks his fingers up her leg, tauntingly tracing his pointer finger around her kneecap and making her shiver. “But darling, this cute little act of yours is only going to get you so far.

“It’s gotten me far enough, hasn’t it?” Misty licks her lips subconsciously, reaching forward to scratch behind Harry’s ear. “Obviously things have gone my way.”

“Have they?” Harry says, cocking his head. “I haven’t given in yet, have I?”

“How much longer until you do?” Misty asks, giggling nervously.

Harry shakes his head, leaning in to press a kiss to the side of Misty’s chin. “Dunno,” he says. “Wanna see how long you’re going to act like this for.”

Harry presses a few more rapid kisses directly to Misty’s chin before trailing them up to the fleshiest parts of her cheeks. After a few kisses there, he pulls away.

“Your cheeks are so hot, sunshine,” Harry muses, reaching up and tracing a knuckle along the tender skin. “Why?”

“Hot in here,” Misty breathes, voice so low that Harry can barely even make out what she’s saying.

Harry’s honey drip of a voice sends shivers down Misty’s spine when he speaks. “No,” he says with a grin. “That’s not it.”

With his other hand, Harry trails his fingertips down the sensitive skin of her arm, making her squirm a bit. “Know what I think it is?” His fingers squeeze delicately over her hips before resting on her exposed thigh-- where he gives her a soft scratch. “I think somebody is embarrassed about how badly she wants me to be mean to her.”

Harry leans in, pressing an icy kiss to her neck that makes her instinctively tremble. A breathy moan floats past her lips as Harry ghosts his own along her collarbone. He takes his time with this, really inhaling her scent and her warmth as he makes his way down her body. His fingers trace delicately along the waistband of her pajama shorts, her stomach jolting a bit when he hits a sensitive spot on her hips. Misty watches his face with parted lips, so completely enamoured by him and his touch that she’s rendered speechless.

Slowly, gently, Harry lowers his hand to the spot between her legs, feeling the damp heat against the soft fabric of her short pajama bottoms. He grins, slowly adjusting to sit up on his knees once again. He takes her in, her entire body, and allows himself to really savor this moment. When his eyes fall on the beauty between her legs again, however, he stops.

“And you know what else I think?” Harry says, grinning over her as his fingers tease her waistband once again. “I think you like being embarrassed like this. I think you like that I can do this to you, and we’re the only two who’ll ever know about it. Hm? Am I right?”

Misty gulps, goosebumps prickling her skin and lips glistening. She nods. “Yes,” she breathes. “You’re exactly right.”

“I knew it,” Harry says, hooking his fingers into her waistband. “Filthy girl, aren’t you?” He begins lowering the shorts from her hips, never breaking eye contact and smirking at how willingly she complies with his movements. When he pulls the shorts past her feet he flings them carelessly to the floor, then glances down at the ever-growing wet spot on the fabric between her legs. He grins up at her. “Messy thing you are, too. Look how wet you get just from some teasing.”

“Harry--” Misty breathes.

“Love it when you say my name like that, darling,” Harry purrs. He leans forward to press a kiss directly to her bellybutton. The kiss is wet, and the sound of it mixed with Misty’s beautiful sighing is enough to make Harry melt. He can’t help but to close his eyes and take a deep breath in, sighing when he’s met with her heavenly scent. “Smell so fucking good,” he mumbles. “Haven’t smelt anything like this in years.”

“Don’t--” Misty breathes, “Don’t tease.”

“Ohh,” Harry tuts, tracing the spot where her inner thigh meets the fabric of her panties. “Poor thing doesn’t want me to tease?”

He glances up at her from under his lashes, and the look on her face sends Harry over the moon. Her eyes are wide and the smile on her slightly parted lips is so warm and inviting that Harry almost has a hard time keeping this up.

“Well, I find that hard to believe.”

He sinks his teeth into the waistband of her panties without any warning, and she gasps at the sudden sharpness mixed with the temperature of his mouth on her hips.

Misty lets out an unfiltered moan and immediately flings her hand up to her mouth to keep herself quiet. She gives herself only a few moments to compose herself before whispering, “Harry, I… I need you--”

“Aww,” Harry coos, his teeth still hooked around her panties. He shakes his head a bit, curls falling in his face as he pulls the fabric away from Misty’s skin. “Needy,” he mutters, tugging a bit in an attempt to remove the panties.

When the lower half of Misty’s body is exposed to the chill of Harry’s skin, she shivers, and he delights in the movement for the first time since he’s met her.

“Know I’m cold,” he says quietly, teeth still clenched around her panties as he drags them down her leg. “But it feels good, doesn’t it?”

Misty nods. “M-hm…” She’s eyeing him, and he’s moving slowly because he can tell she has something she wants to say. He discards her panties onto the ground and tries not to outwardly show just how fucking delicious she looks right now. He’s practically drooling at the sight of her, but she’s nervous, and he doesn’t want to push her too far. So instead, he trails his nails slowly up her calf, looking only in her eye and waiting patiently for her to speak.

“Nervous?” he asks.

“Well, no,” she says. “But I…” she trails off, squirming when his eyes land between her legs once again.

“What’s wrong?”

“I…” she starts, squirming a bit. “I didn’t shave.”

Harry almost laughs at her when she says this. “Oh, darling. That’s what’s got you so nervous?”

She nods. “Yeah. I mean, I didn’t think… I don’t know.”

“Your pussy looks amazing,” Harry says, deciding to just bite the bullet and be as forward as he feels. “Looks fucking delicious. Smells delicious as well. I certainly don’t mind a bit of hair.”

“You don’t?” she asks, sitting up.

“Are you kidding?” He reaches forward, brushing against some of the hair with his finger. “Fucking sexy as hell. Don’t be silly.”

“I mean,” Misty says quickly, “I suppose it’s probably been, like, a minute since you’ve seen a pussy. So I guess any pussy is gonna be fine. I mean, not to assume your preferences, or anything, but you know--”

Harry leans forward, biting Misty’s thigh and making her yelp. “Shh,” he mumbles. “Please.”

Misty giggles nervously. “Okay,” she says.

Harry leans down and kisses the spot he’s just nipped at, trailing his lips up her thigh and settling himself on his stomach. Being this close to her core ignites something in him that he hasn’t felt in years, and just the smell of her alone makes his mouth water.

With one hand Harry coaxes Misty’s leg up and over his shoulder, and now with a clearer view of her beautiful pussy he licks his lips.

“You’re already so wet,” he observes. “Wanted it this badly, did you?”

“Want you,” she replies, squirming. “So bad.”

Harry takes his time with it, eyeing her body up and down before leaning in to press the most velvet soft kiss directly at her center His scruff tickles her lightly, and she lets out a sigh.

Harry hums against her core before really diving into his work, peeking his tongue out from between his lips to lap delicately at her clit. He watches her from under his long lashes, waiting for a reaction from her as he explores her with his tongue— wanting to find the best spot to really devour.

She watches him intently, as if in a daze, while he sucks at her, and it takes him a moment to realize she’s holding her breath. So he pops off of her clit gently, making her jolt, before reaching up to place a hand on her belly. “Breathe, baby.”

Perhaps Misty didn’t realize she was holding her breath, because she lets it all out in a puff. Her tummy immediately grows a bit and Harry loves it, loves seeing her fully relaxed for him like this.

“You okay?” He asks. “Genuinely.”

“I’m okay,” she says.

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Cross your heart?”

Misty snorts. “I swear on my life, Harry, come onnnn.”

He giggles, “Alright alright.” Without any further warning, he leans down and presses the softest kiss directly to her clit, resuming his work and licking against her.

The only noises in the room are Misty’s heavy breathing and soft sighing, mixed with the wet noises of Harry’s mouth-- and it all feels so filthy and intimate that it makes Harry lose himself in his work. He moans, even louder than she does, and it makes her back arch a bit off of the mattress.

“Harry--” she sighs.

Harry tilts his head, ghosting his lips against her thigh. “Careful,” he says. “I don’t have to be quiet. You do.”

Misty smiles to herself, enjoying the feeling of his tongue between her legs. The sensation of his temperature down there is something she’s never experienced before in her life, and it makes the entire experience all the more intoxicatingly wonderful.

“God you taste so fucking good,” Harry mumbles, pulling his head back only slightly and reaching up to rub at her clit. “Like fucking honey. Delicious.” He lowers his fingers to collect her wetness, observing the stickiness coating the digits before raising his hand to her mouth.

He doesn’t even have to tell her to do anything, she’s already opening her mouth and sticking her tongue out. Harry rests his fingertips on her tongue, and she envelopes them with her lips, giving them a nice long suck that causes Harry to make a most obscene noise in the back of his throat.

The temporary distraction lights a fire in Harry’s soul, and he ducks down to bury his face in her pussy once more. She arches her back when he hits a particularly good spot, and she accidentally bites down gently on his fingers— which Harry is surprised to find that he loves the feeling of.

Harry hums against her, wiggling his fingers a bit as a silent request for her to loosen up. She opens her mouth, unable to contain the moan that escapes her lips when she does so. Harry envelops her clit with his lips and sucks harshly, and she squirms against him.

“Harry--” She breathes. “It’s so… fuck-- you’re so good…”

“Quiet now,” Harry mumbles against the skin of her thigh. “Unless you want them to know how filthy you are.”

“I don’t care,” Misty pants breathlessly. “I’ll blame my vibrator, I don’t care, I’ll--- oh fuuuuck.” She’s cut off when Harry sinks his teeth into the flesh of her thigh, and even he moans at the sensation.

“Fucking shit,” he mumbles as he pulls away, admiring the dents that his teeth left and the string of saliva trailing from his bottom lip to her plushy skin. “You taste good everywhere.”

“More,” Misty pleads. “Harry, more, please.”

Harry sits mesmerized by the imprint of his own teeth on her thigh. “They’ll think you’re crazy if they hear you.”

Misty groans, and Harry instinctively reaches up and covers her mouth without hesitation. He considers stopping, punishing her for not listening to him and being loud. But looking up at her, seeing how needy and fucked out she already looks has him weak. So he buries his face between her legs and prepares to finish the job, licking her out like it’s the one thing he was born to do.

Misty’s hand flies to Harry’s hair and she tugs so hard it makes him wince. Honestly, it’s the best feeling he’s felt in ages. No one has pulled his hair like this since long before he died, and the feeling alone causes him to moan out loud against her core.

“Fucking shit, Misty,” he mumbles. “Do that again.”

“You like that?” Misty cries breathlessly, her fingers moving frantically to grasp at his curls once again.

Harry groans, lapping against her clit and enjoying the most pleasure he’s felt in years. “Misty,” he breathes, relishing in the way she twitches against the tickle of his breath against her skin, “You’re so fucking perfect.”

“Fuck,” Misty groans. “Holy shit--”

“Is this good sweet girl?”

“I need more,” Misty cries, and who is Harry to deny her of her simple request?

He reaches down, fingering gently at the wetness pooling between her legs before teasing a single finger into her-- never once removing his lips from her clit.

He sucks harshly while his finger simultaneously searches for the spongy spot inside of her. She squirms around his digit, and Harry has to use his other hand to pin her hips down.

“Hold still,” he instructs.

“I can’t,” Misty whines. “I need another finger.”

She’s practically begging at this point, and it makes Harry so smug. “Ohhh,” he says, lips ghosting her thighs again, “So you’re the one calling the shots, are you?”

He’s teasing, of course, because he knows that she absolutely is the one in control of everything that’s going on right now. But the way she’s dripping, tugging on his hair and practically shoving his face into her-- as well as verbally begging him-- strokes his ego.

“Please,” she groans. “I want-- fuck-- I need to cum.”

Harry smirks up at her, tutting his lips. “Not even embarrassed to be so needy?” he teases. “My god…”

As much as he loves to tease her, though, he wants to make her cum more than anything else. And seeing her on the brink like this-- already-- makes him all the more eager. So he adds a second finger, pumping his digits in and out and lapping at her clit like it’s his last meal.

She lets out an obscene moan, louder than any of the others she’s let out, and he knows she’s close. But for the sake of her pride, he knows she has to stay quiet. So he removes his hand from her hip and presses it to her mouth.

“Quiet,” he instructs, giving her face a little squeeze before putting his entire heart and soul into eating her.

Misty is wiggling like mad now, and it takes everything in Harry to keep his mouth on her. He knows that if he lets go of her mouth to try and pin her hips down again, she’ll expose herself— loudly— so this is a challenge Harry gladly accepts.

She stills briefly when her orgasm hits, and then her thighs are trembling around his face. Her stomach is clenched and she’s drooling against the palm of his hand. Her muffled moans are music to his ears, but they do sort of catch Harry off guard because he’d never guess that she’d be such a vocal cummer. Of course, he isn’t complaining, and he wishes that he could hear her, completely unfiltered, with no one around to catch them.

Misty’s stomach relaxes a little bit at the same time she lets out a few little cries, and Harry realizes that she’s finished-- although her pussy continues to flutter with aftershocks against his tongue. He slowly removes his hand from her wet mouth and looks up at her from under his lashes.

She looks utterly fucked, with tears in her eyes and chest rising and falling gently as she tries to catch her breath. Harry is fascinated, thinking he’s never seen anyone so beautiful in his entire life, and he realizes that he hasn’t moved in a while when Misty squirms beneath him.

He removes his lips from her but continues to watch her, relieved when her features seem to relax and she lets out a breathy giggle. “My god,” she says, voice somewhat hoarse. “That was--”

“A dream,” Harry says, now allowing himself to relax a bit as well. He looks down at her soaked pussy and grins. “You’re messy.”

“Can you blame me?” Misty reaches up to run a hand through her hair. “Fuck, that was good.”

“Yeah?” Harry smiles. “I’m so glad.”

Misty hums, reaching down to playfully muss up Harry’s hair. “Now, come up here so I can take care of you, pretty boy.”

Her words hit Harry’s heart, causing it to sink immediately. “Oh, doll,” he tuts, “God, I wish you could.”

Misty frowns. “What do you mean?”

“No blood in my veins,” Harry explains sadly, still making no effort to remove himself from between her legs. “No blood… no boner. I don’t get hard. I don’t cum.”

“Holy shit.” Misty props herself up on her elbows, looking down at Harry and causing the cutest double chin Harry thinks he’s ever seen. “Seriously?”

Harry nods. “Seriously. So even if you did… I wouldn’t feel anything.”

“Do you…” Misty’s voice gets quiet, as if suddenly going shy. “Do you still get horny?”

“Yeah.” Harry kisses Misty’s knee. “Of course. You think I don’t feel anything while I’m eating your beautiful pussy?”

“I don’t know!” Misty whines. “I feel like there is so much about you that I’m still learning.”

“Well,” Harry says with a sigh. “You turn me on. More than anyone I’ve ever known. My body may not be able to physically show it… but you do something to me that I haven’t felt in years.”

“So I’ll never be able to suck you off?” Misty pouts.

Harry smiles sadly. “I’m afraid not, sweet girl.”

“Holy shit.” Misty frowns. “That fucking sucks.”

Harry laughs. “I mean… it’s not so bad. I get to make you feel good.” He licks softly at her pussy in an attempt to begin cleaning her up, and she flinches out of sensitivity, causing him to chuckle.

“I hate it though,” Harry admits, “kind of. I hate that I can’t…. well… pardon my French here but—“

“Fuck me?” Misty finishes. “You hate that you can’t fuck me? Because I want you to.”

Harry snorts. “Well damn, miss Misty. Never expected you to be so forward but yes, I hate that I can’t fuck you the way you deserve to be fucked.”

Misty frowns. “I just want to make you feel good.”

“You do make me feel good.,” Harry says with a smile. “Every second that we’re together feels better than the last.” He licks at her pussy once again, smiling at the way she wiggles against his tongue instantaneously.

“Now,” he says, “let’s get you cleaned up and get that English paper done, hm?”

-------

It’s the night of Misty’s sorority homecoming, and Misty is having a less than ideal time.

It isn’t that the venue isn’t wonderful, or that her friends aren’t being lovely. Everything seems perfect from the outside, and Misty knows she should be enjoying it. But her problem isn’t with the event itself— it’s the fact that she’s here alone.

Because the one person she’d wanted to bring as her date happens to be a ghost.

Harry had watched her get ready all day, constantly telling her how gorgeous she looked and laughing, amused, when she’d tried countless times to get him to give in and come with her. Of course he wasn’t going to do that, and she understood, but still.

He’d sent her off with a kiss, reminding her one last time how absolutely stunning she looked and promising to be waiting up for her the minute she returned home. And she’d left, reluctantly, because she knew he was right— she did need to go off and live her life.

But god, what she would give to have him here right now.

“Misty!”

Misty realizes she’s been staring at the wall, the drink in her hand nearly spilling over, when she’s startled out of her thoughts. Angie walks excitedly towards her.

Angie, of course, looks stunning. She’s wearing a long, blue gown that compliments her eyes nicely, and her hair is done up in curls that are so perfectly put together they don’t even look real. She flashes Misty a warm smile as she approaches.

“Girl!” she says. “What’s wrong with you? You alright?”

Misty smiles, realizing that she probably looks silly all zoned out like this. “Yeah, no, I’m good! Sorry. I didn’t sleep well last night.”

“You look sad,” Angie says, worry creasing her eyes. “You sure you’re just tired?”

Misty sighs, because god, she really wishes she could explain her situation to Angie. Or anyone really. “Yeah, I’m good. Sorry.”

“Well you should get out there and dance!” Angie says encouragingly. “The DJ kinda sucks but like, if you take a shot beforehand it’s not that bad.”

“He does kinda suck, doesn’t he?” Misty giggles.

“Oh, also…” Angie hesitates before speaking her next sentence. “Josh is looking for you.”

Misty rolls her eyes, but Angie continues talking. “I knoooow, I know he sucks but like… I don’t know, maybe if you got drunk and made out a little bit it would--”

“Why would I do that?” Misty asks. “He came here with Brooke anyway!”

“Oh yeah, and she’s pissed about it,” Angie giggles. “Everyone knows he was just trying to make you jealous. Poor Brooke.”

“Yeah,’ Misty says. “Josh sucks.”

“You know, I don’t know why you won’t give him a chance!” Angie leans against the wall, taking a sip of the bright orange drink in her glass. “I mean, he like, very clearly wants you.”

“I don’t want him,” Misty replies. “Like, at all. If he can’t take a hint, then--’

Misty trails off when she notices Angie squinting over her shoulder. “Who the hell--” Angie whispers.

“What?” Misty turns slowly, and her jaw drops when she sees what it is that Angie is looking at.

In walks Harry, physical body and all, waving at everyone like he’s known them all his life.

Is she dreaming? Surely she has to be. She shakes her head, then reaches up to her forehead as if to check her temperature. Can everyone else see him? How is he here?

Her movement catches Harry’s eye, and he beams at her, turning his full attention towards her and heading in her direction. “Misty!” He calls, waving at her.

Angie’s jaw is practically on the floor, as are the jaws of almost every girl in the room. “You know him?” Angie asks.

And honestly, Misty isn’t sure what the right answer to that question is. “I--” is all she can manage to get out.

Harry approaches, and Misty is not only greeted by his delicious cinnamon scent, but a strong, spicy cologne. He looks delicious in this suit, and when he hugs her she shivers, partly because of his cold skin and partly (mostly) because she can’t believe her eyes.

“Hiya, darling,” Harry says, wrapping Misty up in a chilly hug and kissing her cheek. “You look absolutely beautiful tonight.”

“Thank you,” Misty manages to stammer out, although her facial expression must give away how confused she is.

Harry only smiles down at her, reaching up gently to close her mouth. He then turns to Angie with a pleasant smile. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he says, extending a hand. “I’m Harry.”

Angie wastes no time, reaching forward to shake his hand quickly. She seems taken aback by the temperature of his hands, but Harry pays it no mind. Instead he brushes it off with a quick, “Don’t mind the cold hands. Can never quite get used to the weather out here.”

Misty giggles, awkwardly, wrapping her arm around Harry’s back. “Darling,” she says, as forcibly normal as possible, “I had no idea you were coming tonight.”

“Wanted to surprise you!” Harry answers cooly, before turning back to Angie. “I’m sorry, love, I didn’t catch your name…?”

“It’s Angie!” Angie blurts, cheeks growing redder by the minute. She giggles like a little schoolgirl. “Misty never mentioned she had a boyfriend… much less such a handsome one.”

Harry smiles. “I’m flattered, Angie. Thank you. But no, actually, Misty and I are just casual for now. We met a few summers ago during her spring break back home. We’re… oh, I don’t know what to call it… talking? I suppose?” Harry laughs, grinning down at Misty.

Misty, still in shock, misses a beat before realizing that he’s addressing her. She laughs stiffly. “Yes,” she says, “‘talking’ is a good word.”

Harry grins back at Angie. “And you? Where’s your lucky fellow tonight?”

“Oh,” Angie says, biting at her lip, growing visibly excited at the mention of her date. “He’s um… he’s somewhere around here. I guess we’re uh— talking as well.”

“Ah,” Harry says, “I see.”

He’s so ridiculously chipper, so casually cool, and Misty is growing more and more impatient by the minute. She laughs, accidentally cutting Angie off just as she begins a sentence.

“Angie, I’m sorry, but would you mind if I took Harry outside for a bit? I didn’t realize he was going to be here tonight and we… uh…” She looks up at Harry, who only grins smugly back at her, “We have a bit of catching up to do.”

“Oh sure!” Angie says. “Of course, babe, go have fun.” She smiles brightly at Harry. “It was so nice meeting you, I’ll catch up with you both later, yeah?”

“Yeah!” Harry says, warmly. “Of course!”

Misty smiles at Harry, but the look in her eyes informs Harry that she has a lot to say. He smiles, so ridiculously casual and sweet, and takes her hand.

“After you sunshine,” he says.

Misty rolls her eyes, but she does smile softly to herself as she leads him outside. Harry doesn’t know if she means to, but she gives his hand a slight squeeze as she walks. He gives her hand a squeeze right back, far more intentional than hers, and her breathy little giggle does not go unnoticed by him.

Harry eyes the room, taking in his surroundings and looking for who he has decided is his number one enemy in life (and technically death)-- Josh. He doesn’t find him at first, and he has to admit that his heart sinks a bit at the thought of not being able to show Misty off right to Josh’s face. But then he finds him, outside smoking a cigar with a few other guys, and Harry perks up once again.

Misty doesn’t even acknowledge the boys as she continues to lead Harry to a quiet corner of the garden, but Harry of course isn’t going to stand for that. Not when he has the satisfaction of seeing Josh’s face light up upon Misty’s arrival only to completely drop half a second later when he sees she’s with somebody. Harry’s not letting it end there.

“Evening, guys.” Harry raises his free hand to his forehead, giving the group an effortless salute. “Gorgeous night, innit?”

Josh takes the bait, immediately stepping out of the circle and making his way over to Harry and Misty. Misty doesn’t even notice until Harry is resisting her tug, and when she turns around to see who’s approaching she rolls her eyes. “Fuckin hell,” she mumbles.

Harry, of course, has the complete opposite reaction, smiling warmly right back at Josh.

“Hey man!” Josh says, holding out his free hand. “I’m Josh. Don’t think I’ve ever seen you around?”

“Never been around,” Harry says matter-of-factly. He takes Josh’s hand with a grip so firm Misty can sense it. “I’m Harry.”

“Nice to meet you, Harry!” Josh’s smile is so fake Misty wants to scream, and she wishes she could evaporate into thin air to escape the awkward tension in the air right now. “How do you know Misty?”

“I’m from her hometown!” Harry says. “Met her a few spring breaks ago. We’ve been casual for a while now.”

“Have you?” Josh looks pointedly at Misty, and she rolls her eyes. Harry never looks away from Josh.

“I would say so, yeah,” Harry smiles. “On and off of course.”

“I see.” Josh nods stiffly.

“Oh wait!” Harry says suddenly, as if a thought has just occurred to him. “Ohhh, you’re Josh! Misty here has told me quite a bit about you!”

Misty can feel the blood rushing to her cheeks as she glances frantically between Harry and Josh. Josh smiles.

“Oh yeah? All good things I hope!”

“Mmm…” Harry says in a questioning tone, shrugging a bit but maintaining his smile.

Josh stares blankly back at Harry, completely unsure of how to process what he’s just said, and Misty can’t help but giggle.

“Okay, well!” she says, trying and failing to hide the smile on her face. “This has been super lovely but Harry and I have quite a bit of catching up to do, don’t we?”

“We sure do, pumpkin!” Harry wiggles his nose exaggeratedly at Misty and she laughs. He turns back to Josh. “Nice to finally meet the famous Josh,” he says. “I’m sure I’ll see ya around!”

“Uh,” Josh stammers. “Yeah. See ya.”

Misty tugs Harry away from Josh and over to a secluded corner of the garden, and Harry shoots Josh a pointed and intimidating look over his shoulder before turning to Misty. She tries to be serious, but she can’t stop herself from giggling.. “Harry what the hell!” She hisses.

He smiles. “Surprised? Happy? Do you want to kill me?”

“Um, yes to all of the above!” Misty lightly slaps his arm. “What are you doing here?!”

“Wanted to surprise you,” he says, reaching forward to gently hook his pinky with Misty’s. “Figured a beautiful girl like you shouldn’t be alone on a big night like this. I wanted to help make it special.”

Harry leans in and places a kiss right on Misty’s cheekbone. “Besides,” he says, softer, “I couldn’t give Josh the satisfaction of thinking he had a chance tonight.”

Misty giggles, oblivious to the way the nearby group of boys are all watching her longingly. Harry laughs along with her, kissing her nose and then her smile. “Are you happy, sunshine?”

“So happy,” she says, kissing him back. “Beyond happy.”

Misty pulls away, eyeing Harry in his suit. Never in her life has she ever seen a more handsome man, and she lets out a hum of satisfaction. “But,” she says slowly. “I don’t… understand. Your energy--”

“I’ll be fine, love,” Harry insists. “It’s one night. As long as you’re happy.”

“Yeah but--”

“No buts.” Harry smiles. “Now, something tells me you haven’t danced much tonight. Is that true?”

Misty smirks. “Didn’t feel right dancing without you.”

“Well, that’s a shame,” Harry says. “We’ll have to fix that, won’t we?” He holds his arm out to her, raising his eyebrows.

Misty eyes his arm before giggling and linking arms with him. She shakes her head. “I can’t believe you.”

Harry leads her back inside, shooting Josh one more pointed look before holding the door open for Misty. She’s like a giggly schoolgirl as she walks through, taking Harry’s hand in hers and giving it a long squeeze.

Misty practically floats onto the dance floor as a slower song begins, and Harry can’t believe she’s real. He twirls her under his arm, admiring the way her skirt swishes and catches the dim lights. She beams up at him brightly before wrapping an arm up around his shoulders and pulling him in. They begin swaying together as Harry pulls her in closer by her hips; the scent of her perfume just below his nose. He can feel her sigh contentedly against his chest, and it makes him smile to himself.

“It’s so nice to finally dance with you like, out in the open and stuff,” Misty says. “Instead of looking like I’m possessed.”

Harry laughs. “I know. It’s nice to be seen. It’s nice to show off my dancing.” The minute he finishes his sentence, he spins Misty out, then in, before dipping her. She squeals, giggling up at him and going limp in his arms.

“Love hearing you laugh like that,” Harry says, mirroring what he’d told her the first night they danced together. “I mean it.”

He pulls her back up into him, her hair flying behind her. “No one makes me laugh the way you do,” she admits. “I love it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.’

A comfortable silence falls between the two of them for the next few moments, and they can’t seem to keep their eyes off of each other. Harry let’s out a boyish giggle and leans forward, pressing a peck to her nose.

“You know,” Misty says. “You’re actually a pretty good dancer for a ghost.”

“I’m not sure whether I should take offense to that or not.”

“It’s a compliment,” Misty laughs. “I’m just impressed. A lot of guys I know aren’t really good at dancing.”

“I was known to be quite the dancer in my day,” Harry says, spinning her out and then quickly back into him once again.

“Really?”

Harry gives Misty a soft little hip check. “Not at all.”

Harry and Misty laugh their way through the rest of the dance, hardly even realizing when the music slows to a stop. Harry leans down, pressing the sweetest kiss to Misty’s lips before she even has a chance to say anything, and she smiles into the kiss— communicating exactly how she’s feeling just by her kiss alone.

After a few more dances, they make their way to a table, giggling and out of breath. Harry orders Misty another drink, socializing with everyone at the table like he’s known them his whole life. And as Misty watches him through slightly buzzed and love drunk eyes, she allows herself to feel, just for the moment, that everything in her little world is perfect with Harry.

———

About an hour and a few drinks later, Misty wanders into the restroom, leaving behind a very happy Harry— who chats effortlessly with the other people at their table. She realizes halfway through her journey that her face hurts from smiling, and she giggles to herself quietly.

Her situation may be incredibly unique, but she’s so lucky to have Harry here on her arm this evening. She giggles, throat thick with the sweet drink she’s been sipping on and eyes hazy, before washing her hands and making her way back out into the hallway. No one is around, and she begins to make her way back into the large dance hall when she nearly runs someone over as she turns the corner.

“Oh, sorry!” She looks up, immediately relieved to find that it’s Harry she’s bumped into.

He smiles down at her. “Slow down there, speed racer. Where are you going in such a hurry?”

“Coming to find you,” she says, smiling at him. She rises up onto her toes and kisses his chin.

“Mm.” Harry hums, tilting his head to kiss her lips. “Having a fun night?”

“Yes.” She wraps her arms around his waist, pressing her face to his chest and inhaling the delicious cinnamon scent of him. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“Yeah?” Harry presses a kiss to the top of her head. “Me too. So glad.”

Misty pulls away, licking her lips and adjusting Harry’s bowtie that she’d accidentally muffed up. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine!” Harry insists. “Like I could run a marathon.”

‘Oh yeah?” Misty eyes him quizzically, and he laughs.

“I mean… no,” he says. “But I feel fine.”

Misty groans. “You’re using too much energy.”

“Will you stop?” He asks, pulling her closer by the small of her back. “I’m fine.”

“Promise?”

‘Promise?”

“Swear?”

Harry chuckles. “Swear.”

“Cross your heart?”

Harry boops Misty’s nose. “And hope to die.”

Misty rolls her eyes, reaching up to comb her fingers through Harry’s slightly messy hair. “You’re not funny,” she says, booping his nose right back. “But you are handsome as hell. Especially tonight.”

“Yeah?” Harry tilts his body, tugging at the ends of his suit jacket. “Like it? Picked it out myself.”

“How?”

Harry winks. “Magic.”

“Oh god,” Misty giggles. “Well, however you actually did it… I’m glad you did.” She runs her hands along his shoulders and down his arms, squeezing his hands gently. “You look fucking delicious.”

“Hardly. You’re far too sweet to me, angel, but I figured that if I was going to be this beautiful girl’s date tonight, I needed to look the part.”

Misty hums, pulling him in by his lapel and buttoning her lips with his. He smiles against her mouth, and she licks eagerly against his bottom lip. He knows exactly the kind of mood she’s in just by the way she’s kissing him, and he reaches up to cup the back of her neck.

“God,” she breathes, lips ghosting his. “The things I would do to you.”

Harry gulps, loving the forwardness coming from her pretty lips. “Yeah?” He nods, as if urging her to go on.

“Mm, I could devour you. It’s all I want.”

Harry tilts his head, pulling Misty closer and kissing her ear. “What else do you want?”

“To feel you,�� she says. “I bet you’re so big.”

Despite having no blood in his veins, Misty’s words stroke Harry’s ego and twist his stomach into knots. “Mm,” he hums, trying to maintain his smug demeanor. “I am, actually.”

“Damn.” Misty pouts, softly fingering at Harry’s bowtie. “God I wish I could suck you.”

Harry gulps, because fuck does he sure wish that as well. He raises a hand to brush Misty’s hair back from her face, eyes flickering between her lips and her eyes. “I know, sweet girl. Me too.”

They spend a few moments just looking at one another, speaking without words. Harry gently caresses her cheeks, wishing more than anything that his touch wasn’t so damn cold. He clears his throat softly. “We have to get back out there, you know.”

“I know,” Misty sighs.

‘You look so beautiful.” Harry smiles, reaching forward to take Misty’s hand in his own. “Never seen anyone so beautiful.”

“You’re one to talk,’ Misty says softly, making Harry scoff. “Can’t take my eyes off of you.”

“Then don’t,” Harry teases. “Does wonders for my ego when you look at me like that.” He wiggles his eyebrows.

Misty hums, reaching up to thumb at Harry’s cheek. “I want you,” she says quietly. “So fucking badly.”

“Yeah?” Harry says softly, gears turning in his head as he realizes the exact kind of mood Misty is in. “What is it you want exactly, baby?”

Harry has only known Misty a short time, comparatively speaking, but he knows her well enough to know exactly what buttons to push. He knows what that look in her eyes means, and he knows how to turn her on with only his words.

He also knows that making her put into words exactly what she wants turns her into a messy, embarrassed puddle that turns them both on. So he watches her expectantly.

“Well,” Misty says slowly, heat radiating off of her face. “I want…. To suck you off.”

“I know,” Harry coos, trailing his fingertips along her jawline. “Said that already. But you know you can’t, baby. Doesn’t work like that.”

“I hate it,” Misty pouts. “I just want to make you feel as good as you make me feel.”

“Making you feel good makes me feel good,” Harry says. He waits for a response, and when it doesn’t come, tense idea forming in his head comes to fruition.

He reaches around to cup the back of her neck, scratching lightly at the hair there. “You want me to make you feel good right now, pretty girl? Hm?”

Misty snaps almost fully out of her trance then, glancing around nervously. “Harry, we can’t right now. Are you joking? We’re in public--”

“Why not?” Harry grins down at her. “You know I can disappear. Make it so that only you could see me.”

“Yeah but--”

“Nobody would know,” he shrugs, tacking on a quick, “that is, if you can keep quiet for me.”

Misty sighs sharply at his words, and he chuckles.

“Sunshine, if you don’t want to, I won’t.”

“No, I…” Misty lowers her voice, despite the fact that they’re still the only two in the hallway. “I want to.”

“Yeah?” Harry asks. “You sure? Not trying to pressure you.”

Misty looks up at him, a nervous smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “You’re not pressuring me. I’ve always wanted to do some raunchy shit like this.”

“Oh yeah? Bit of an exhibionist are we?”

Misty giggles. “Harry.”

“I’ll go under the table. No one will even know I’m there. Even if they look.”

“But where should I tell them you went?”

“Hm.” Harry hums, considering this for a few moments. “Cigar break. Went out to smoke. You were out with me for a bit but I got a phone call and you got cold. So you came inside.”

Misty frowns. “You don’t smoke.”

“I’m also not a living human being, but here we are.” Harry grins, pulling Misty in closer and lowering his voice. “Gonna let me make you cum, pretty girl? Hm?’

“Yes,” Misty whispers back, shyly avoiding his gaze. “Yes.”

“In front of all these people?” Harry asks teasingly. “Naughty.”

“Harry--”

He laughs, pressing a kiss to her nose. “Alright, alright. Go sit at the table. I think they’re about to serve dessert anyway.”

“And you’re going to miss it?” Misty pouts.

“Misty,” Harry says, “You know damn well I’m going to be enjoying my own dessert.”

Misty rolls her eyes. “I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”

“You did, yeah.” He pinches her butt. “Now go. Please. I’m hungry.”

“Oh my godddd. Fine.”

She presses one more quick kiss to Harry’s cheek and turns to leave, but he reaches forward-- taking her hand and spinning her back around. “Wait.”

“Hm?”

“When I come in, you’ll be the only one who can see me. You’ll have to cover for me when I get under the table.”

“Okay.” Misty nods. “I’ll pretend I dropped something under there, and I’ll lift the table cloth.”

Harry grins. “Alright. Good girl.”

“God,” Misty laughs, “You’re relentless, huh?”

“What do you mean?” The way Harry’s smiling, he knows exactly what Misty means.

“You just want to get me as worked up as you possibly can, don’t you?”

“You caught me.”

Misty rolls her eyes. “God you’re annoying. Okay, I’m going. See you soon.”

“See you soon, bug.”

Misty turns once again to exit, and Harry gives her bum a quick and subtle slap, which makes her giggle.

As Harry watches her go, he tries to ignore the ache in his bones. He’s exhausted-- of course-- from exuding so much energy, but he doesn’t even care. It feels so good to feel alive again like this. To be on the arm of a pretty girl, in the midst of a bunch of young happy people with their whole lives ahead of them.

He sighs, pushing his yearning feeling far out of his head and ignoring the exhaustion in his body. He’s going to give Misty a few minutes to get settled in her seat before he joins her, and he thinks maybe he should go hide in the bathroom for a moment to give himself a bit of an energy break.

The idea is quickly shattered, however, when Angie and her date turn the corner, giggling all over one another. Angie stops dead in her tracks as soon as she sees Harry, and she grows visibly embarrassed.

“Oh! Harry! Hi!”

Harry smiles politely. “Hello Angie. This must be your lucky man.”

Angie smiles shyly up at her date. “Yeah,” she says, “this is Eric. Eric, this is Harry. He’s Misty’s date tonight.”

“Hey man!” Eric removes his arm from around Angie’s shoulders and holds it out for Harry. “Nice to meet you!”

Eric seems like a pleasant guy, a bit on the short side with big brown eyes and hair that has been perfectly gelled for this evening. Harry shakes his hand warmly, grateful for the fact that Eric hardly seems to even notice the temperature of his hands.

“Where you from, brother?” Eric asks. “Never seen you around before.”

“I’m from Misty’s hometown.” Harry nods. “Known each other for ages. It’s a sort of casual thing between us, you know?”

“Right on!” Eric grins. “Sort of casual for Ang and I too, I suppose.”

Angie’s face falls just the slightest bit for only half a second, and if Harry had blinked he’d have missed it. She smiles. “Yeah!” She adds. “Super casual.”

“How wonderful.” Harry grins. “You’re a lucky man, Eric.”

Angie blushes at Harry’s words, then gives Eric’s arm a squeeze. “Harry you’re way too nice.” She lets go of Eric’s arm, turning towards the restroom door. “I’m gonna run to the bathroom, if you guys will just excuse me for a second.”

Harry and Eric mumble their goodbyes as Angie makes her way quickly into the bathroom. Harry smiles at Eric, nodding his head as a parting gesture before turning to make his way to Misty.

“Wait, Harry.”

Eric’s voice surprises Harry, and he whirls back around. “What’s up man?”

Eric seems hesitant, opening his mouth and then closing it. He laughs, as if embarrassed of his own self, before speaking. “Man… I don’t know why I’m asking you this.”

Harry steps back towards Eric, his friendly smile never leaving his face. “You alright?”

“No I’m good! I just… maybe it’s cause I’m drunk… but I’m--” Eric sighs. “Dude, I don’t know what to do.”

“About what?”

“Angie,” Eric admits. “You know, like, I really like her and I-- I don’t know.”

“Mm.” Harry nods. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know if… if she feels the same.” Eric seems nervous, and Harry smiles reassuringly.

“Are you kidding me? Do you not see the way she looks at you?” Eric’s eyebrows furrow, as if what Harry is saying makes no sense to him, so Harry continues. “She looks at you like you hung the bloody moon, mate.”

“Seriously?”

“You know, I asked her about you earlier. ‘Course, I didn’t know who you were. But when I asked who her lucky man was, her face lit up like the sun. How long have you been an item?”

Eric smiles a dimpled smile, seemingly relaxed. “Almost two months now, I would say.”

“Why the hesitation, then? If you don’t mind me asking.”

Eric sighs. “I don’t know, man. I guess I just…I don’t want to do things wrong.”

“You want to know what I think?” Harry takes a step forward.

“Yeah. If you don’t mind.”

Harry takes in a big breath, pondering the words he’s about to say. He opens his mouth, then closes it, before taking a step towards Eric. “I think,” he begins slowly, “that life is too short.”

Eric chuckles. “Man, it really is, huh?”

Harry nods. “Way too fucking short—pardon my French- to let perfect moments pass you by.”

“Yeah?”

“Mate, if you really feel this way about her, and you know you have this beautiful connection… why wait? You know what I mean? There were--er, are-- so many moments in my life that I look back on and think, ‘god if only I hadn’t been so stupd. If only I had done this, or said that. If only, if only, if only. And I think…” Harry sighs. “I think that when it comes to telling someone how you feel about them… it’s important to be honest and vulnerable. That’s what makes you feel human.” Harry smiles, almost lost in his own thoughts.

“And feeling human,” he adds, “The good and the bad, is what life is.”

Eric doesn’t reply right away. He smiles, taking in everything that Harry is saying to him. “Shit dude,” he says, after a long while. “That’s some profound shit.”

“Nah,” Harry says, playing it off with a cheeky smile. “We’re just drunk.”

Eric laughs at this. “Maybe. But that was really good advice.”

Harry shrugs. “Just telling you what I wish someone had told me.”

“Yeah.” Eric grins. “Well thanks man. Ang and I were coming over here to like….” Eric lowers his voice, “.... do stuff, but like, I want her to know it’s more than that for me. You know?”

“I know.” The door to the women’s restroom begins opening and Harry raises his eyebrows cheekily. “Off you go then,” he tacks on quietly.

Harry turns to exit just as Angie enters, and he can’t help but feel somewhat giddy in his stomach for Eric. He hears Eric and Angie chatting softly behind him when he’a suddenly stopped by the sound of his own name.

“Harry!”

Harry turns on his heel. “Hm?”

“Thanks.”

Angie glances between Eric and Harry, a bit confused but still smiling. Harry shoots her a quick wink before raising two fingers to his eyebrow and saluting Eric loosely. Eric smiles, an unspoken confirmation between him and Harry, and Harry rounds the corner, leaving him and Angie to talk things out.

And now, there’s only one pressing matter on Harry’s mind:

Making Misty cum until she can’t think straight.

Misty’s stomach churns as she watches Harry enter the room. She is so nervous for what she knows is about to happen, and yet she’s so excited. She makes casual small talk-- of course about Harry-- with the others at her table. “Yeah he went out for a cigar and then got an important phone call from work” and “oh yeah, we met a few springs back. It’s been very casual” and “God, I know, he’s handsome, isn’t he?”

Harry’s eyes never leave Misty’s face, and he’s smirking so deeply it makes Misty’s stomach (and other parts of her) twitch. “Hiya, baby,” he says quietly, and Misty has to raise her drink to her lips to cover up the enormous smile on her face.

“You remember you have to help me out here?” Harry asks, and Misty doesn’t answer him. Instead, she subtly knocks her knife off of the table.

It doesn’t cause much of a commotion, just enough for the others at the table to glance in her direction. “Oops!” Misty says, “My bad!” She leans over, lifting the tablecloth and shooting Harry a subtle glance.

He grins. “Sneaky girl,” he mutters, before dropping to his knees and crawling under the bit of space that Misty has opened up for him.

Misty tries to cover up the rustling of the tablecloth as Harry crawls, and luckily the movement goes pretty much completely unnoticed by all of her drunken peers. Harry settles himself beneath the table, and grins at her. He presses a kiss to her knee.

“Still good with this?”

“Yes,” Misty whispers. “Are you?”

Harry scoffs, gently running his hands up her calves. “What a dumb question.”

Blood rushes to Misty’s cheeks as she drops the tablecloth and sits up straight. She offers the others at her table a forced smile, but no one seems to notice or care. She squirms, parting her legs ever so slightly.

Harry reaches for the bottom of her long dress, taking his time and really teasing her by building up anticipation as he drags the fabric up her calves. He kisses the skin he exposes as he goes, taking care to love on her knees a little extra because he knows they’re sensitive. Misty instinctively opens her legs a bit more, and Harry chuckles quietly.

“Gonna need you a bit more open than that, love.” He gently pries her knees apart, bunching up the fabric of her dress and gasping quietly at the sight before him when he realizes what he’s looking at.

“Ohhh, baby,” he breathes, “no panties?” He reaches forward with a single finger, teasing at where he knows she’s already damp. “My god, you’re a dream.”

She wiggles a bit in her seat, hoping for more friction from Harry’s finger, and Harry chuckles almost menacingly. “Squirmy little thing, aren’t you? Barely even touching you yet.”

Harry leans in, pressing another slow kiss to her knee before trailing his lips and tongue up her thigh. He drapes the skirt of her dress over his head, immediately shivering at the feeling of her warmth and wondering if she likes the sensation of his coldness.

Under the protection of her skirt, all Harry can see, hear, and smell is Misty, and he takes a moment to really soak it all in. Her scent is intoxicating, and he swears that if he were alive, he would be more than content to live out the rest of his days with his face buried between her legs.

Harry takes a big deep breath in through his nose, and exhales slowly, making a point to blow against her skin. He can feel her subtly shiver, and he grins. This is going to be easier than he thought.

For him at least.

“Now careful,” he taunts. “Gonna keep quiet for me?” He smirks, pulling away to tease her skin lightly with his finger. “That was a trick question. Know you’re going to because you don’t have a choice.”

Misty kicks lightly at Harry, and he grunts. “Ouch. Feisty thing.” He grins. “Alright, alright. I’ll stop teasing.”

And somehow, Misty doesn’t believe him.

Harry leans in, licking and kissing softly at her clit, just to get her nice and relaxed. His curls tickle at her thighs, and he hooks his arms around her legs to hold her in place. He’s hardly even started, and yet she’s already so wet. He’d be lying if he said that didn’t do wonders for his ego.

He can faintly hear the conversation going on above the table, but he does make out his name and something about missing out on dessert.

“He’ll be fine,” Misty says. “I’ll grab him a slice in a bit.”

“What a generous girl you are,” Harry mumbles, although he isn’t sure if Misty’s heard him or not. If she had heard him, though, he doesn’t give her time to react. He opens his lips wider, lapping at her clit from a new angle that makes her shiver. She squirms in her seat, lowering herself just a bit so that Harry has easier access, and he unhooks one of his arms from her legs to rub gently at her clit while he repositions himself.

Misty squirms against him, and her hands make their way under the table. Harry isn’t sure what exactly she’s doing until her skirt is lifted up from over his head, and he blinks in the dim light.

“What, baby?” he asks.

She threads her fingers through his curls, squeezing, before gently trying to push his head back down.

“Oh you want my hair?” Harry chuckles. “Cute.”

He licks gently at her clit, enjoying the way her fingers scratch a bit harshly into his scalp. He hums. “Fuck, that feels good.”

Misty jolts when Harry kisses a specific spot, and he chuckles. “Ohhh...You liked that, didn’t you?” Harry pulls back, examining the spot he just kissed. “Noted.”

Harry leans in then, attacking the same spot he’d just been lapping at, and the way Misty yanks suddenly at his curls informs him that it’s definitely a good spot. He moves his hand to grip either side of her waist.

“Misty,” Harry gulps quietly, grasping at her as if he can feel her slipping through his fingers. “Baby, please, I need—“

Misty’s fingers curl into Harry’s hair even more, tugging slightly until Harry finds himself with his forehead pressed to her thigh. He shivers, mumbling against her skin, “Need you to open up just a bit more for me, baby.” Without thinking, he presses a kiss to the fleshy spots just below her pussy as she continues to scratch affectionately at his head. “You’ve done such a good job. Been good so far. Need you open.” Harry sponges kisses along the hem of her dress.

Misty pulls Harry’s head up gently by his curls and rubs her thumb along his cheekbone before squeezing lightly at his cheeks, opening her legs more and pulling him closer to her pussy.

Harry needs only that squeeze as a starter gun, and then he’s off. His hands find their way up to her hips as he bunches up her skirt. He presses several chaste kisses to the velvet soft skin of her inner thigh, taking his time to soak in her warmth before attaching his lips to her pussy again.

He flattens his tongue along her, licking a long broad stripe just to get the wetness all soaked into his tongue before wrapping his lips around her clit. He sucks softly, flicking his tongue between his slightly parted lips to give her a heavier sensation.

Misty hums quietly, letting her nails trail along his scalp to the back of his neck. He knows she wants to moan, and it only encourages him to work harder. He removes his lips from her clit with a popping noise that startles her, and she lifts the tablecloth ever so slightly. Their eyes meet, and Harry can tell she’s already fucked. He grins.

“They couldn’t hear that,” he reminds her. “You’re the only one who has to keep quiet here.”

There’s a visible lump in Misty’s throat as she sighs, begrudgingly removing her eyes from Harry and focusing on the party occurring around her. Harry clicks his tongue.

“Ohh,” Harry coos, “poor baby. Feels so good and she can’t even moan for me, can she? Sweet girl.”

Harry pulls the tablecloth out of her hands, yanking it back down before resuming the movement of his tongue against her clit. She squirms against him, obviously growing impatient.

“You love this so much,” Harry says, “don’t you, sunshine?”

Harry doesn’t know if he’s ever in his existence had it this bad for anyone before, and somewhere deep down he knows that Misty fully cognizant of the power she holds over him. It’s exciting for the both of them really, and Harry knows that Misty does not take it lightly. Still, he loves the exhilaration of teasing her to no end-- he loves how wet it gets her and he especially loves being the only one who gets to see her like this.

Harry lets out a low-bellied grunt, and Misty sighs, an almost inaudible mumble of “oh god” passing her pretty lips. Harry removes his mouth from her clit, tilting his head to attach it instead to the sensitive skin of her inner thigh with a mumbled coo of, “Careful.” He sucks harshly, pulling until he feels her skin against his teeth and then he lets off with a pop. Misty wants to moan so badly it’s killing her, and Harry can see her toes curling in her heels. He kisses the spot he’s just bitten, where he knows a mark is already beginning to blossom.

“Feel how wet you are?” He asks. “Feel how messy you get just from a bit of teasing? Are you not embarrassed to be so wet??”

“Christ.” Misty’s voice is so low only Harry can hear it, but he smiles against her inner thigh when he does.

“How cute,” he muses, reaching out to feel the stickiness pooling between her legs. “I wonder what everyone would say if they knew how messy you get for me.” He brings his fingers to his lips, tasting the wetness against his fingertips and humming to himself. “Wonder if they can smell you.”

Harry buries his tongue directly into the center of her and shakes his head a bit, ignoring the one loose curl of his that falls into his face. He can feel Misty’s entire body tense up, and he knows she’s close. He takes his opportunity to make it a million times worse for her; with one hand he reaches up and spreads her lips further apart. With the other hand, he gently tickles at the back of her knee.

She squirms, partly from his touch against the sensitive part of her leg but mostly from the sensation of his tongue against her clit. He can see her fingers clench against her chair, and he smiles before buying his own fingers inside of her warmth. Misty all but lurches forward, and Harry is almost worried he’s given her too much too quickly. Still, he’s nothing if not a tease, so he curls his fingers gently inside of her.

He smirks, deciding that she’s had enough teasing and wanting to make her cum. He can hear her let out a quiet, breathy giggle, obviously confused at the sensations she’s feeling, overwhelmed with the desire to both laugh and moan, and when he thinks she’s had enough he pulls his fingers away from her knee.

Harry hums against her core, shaking his head. “Cum for me, sweet girl.”

Misty grips the edge of the table at the same time Harry notices her stomach clenches, and then he knows she’s cumming because her knees begin trembling. He can feel her orgasm pulsating through her, and he works her through it patiently with his tongue. He curls his fingers a bit more, and sucks a bit harsher, and for a moment he completely loses himself in his own actions.

He’s never seen Misty so wound up, and she lightly stomps her heels against the ground in frustration. He knows she feels good-- hell, he feels good, too-- and he tries his best to keep her as grounded and still as he possibly can.

It’s when she tangles her fingers in his hair to lightly tug his head away that he realizes he hasn’t stopped, and she’s completely spent.

Harry sits for a moment, staring at her soaked pussy and now slightly bruised thighs, and he admires his work. She combs her fingers lovingly through his curls, and he knows she’s thanking him for making her feel so good. It’s then, of course, that he realizes exactly how exhausted he is. He turns his head to kiss gently at her wrist, then allows himself to sit for a moment and catch his breath.

He doesn’t know how much longer he’s going to last like this. He’s never used this much energy in manifesting before, and he didn’t expect it to be this hard. But Misty is having a wonderful time, and of course so is he— he doesn’t want the night to end by any means, but god, is he ready to lay down.

Harry musters up all the strength he can manage and taps Misty’s knee. “Can you let me out, sweet girl?”

It takes Misty a moment before she lifts the tablecloth, pretending to mess with her heels. She gives Harry the softest smile the moment their eyes meet, and she looks completely wrecked in a way that only he would recognize. He chuckles.

“Got you that good, did I?” He begins crawling out from under the table, trying his best to cover how exhausted he is. As he passes Misty he presses a chaste kiss to her nose, making her giggle. “I’ll be back.”

He rises, weakly, to his feet-- and he hopes Misty doesn’t notice how slowly he moves, but she does, and she frowns. He brushes it off, refusing to make it into a big deal, and then disappears from sight.

Misty is left, trying to cover up the fact that she’s struggling to catch her breath-- and she smiles the moment she sees Harry physically enter the room.

He’s grinning- because of course he is— and his finger guns in Josh’s direction do not go unnoticed by Misty. She rolls her eyes as he approaches the table, smiling brightly at everyone in the small circle.

“Sorry,” he says convincingly, “my mum called.”

Misty smiles up at him. “Oh that’s okay, my love! Everything okay?”

Harry grins at her, reaching over to take her hand in his own. “Everything is absolutely fine. Couldn’t be better, in fact.”

Misty grins, obviously flustered just by the way he’s looking at her. “Yeah?”

He leans forward, kissing her nose lightly. “Yeah.”

Harry turns to everyone at the table, smiling that charming smile that Misty is so obsessed with. “Now,” he says, “Am I too late to get a slice of this cheesecake?”

----

Harry drops, completely spent, onto Misty’s bed. As soon as she closes the door behind her she rushes to him, immediately undoing the laces on his left shoe.

He’s paler now, his skin looking thin and white, and he smiles sleepily down at her as she gets to work tugging his shoe off. She seems worried, but he only chuckles.

“Had so much fun with you,” he says, voice weak. “Did you have fun?”

“Harry, you shouldn’t have put so much energy forward.”

“Wanted to,” he says. “Worth it.”

“Harry,” Misty coos, tugging the shoe off of his foot before working on the other. “My god, look at you.”

“Just sleepy,” Harry says. “I’ll be completely back to normal tomorrow. Promise.”

Misty is unconvinced; she frowns as she tugs off his other shoe before sitting fully on the bed, crawling up the length of his body.

“I’m gonna undress you,” she says. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” he sighs, “‘Course it’s okay.”

Misty begins by unbuttoning his suit jacket, then the buttons of his shirt. Harry watches her the entire time, reveling in her warmth. “Feels nice to be taken care of like this. Wish you didn’t have to.”

“Harry, it’s the least I can do. You’ve done so much for me. You shouldn’t have come out tonight. You should have…” She notices the way he’s watching her, and it catches her off guard. “What?”

Harry grunts, trying weakly to prop himsef up on his elbows. “Do you realize,’ he says, voice frail, “that this is the most fun I’ve had in years? That getting to feel alive, with the most beautiful girl I’ve ever known, is worth any pain I might be in now?” He catches Misty’s worried frown, and quickly tacks on, “But I’m not in pain. Just sleepy.”

Misty sighs. “I can’t help but feel like it’s my fault.”

“Awfully selfish of you,” Harry teases. “Not everything is about you, you know.”

Misty rolls her eyes, using all of her strength to sit Harry up and remove his jacket. Harry chuckles, a weak laugh that trails off into a cough. “I promise,” he says, as she settles him back down. “I’m okay. I’m just sleepy. It’s not like I’m dying.”

He watches her expectantly, waiting for a reaction and obviously proud of his stupid joke.

Misty shoots him a deadpanned glare that makes him cackle. “Come onnn,” he says, “that was a good one!”

“How can you still be so annoying when you’re so exhausted?” Misty says, chuckling as she works to unbutton his shirt.

Harry doesn’t answer her, propping an arm up behind his head and watching her work. She allows her eyes to trail down his body as she reaches the bottom button, pausing at a small patch of hair she notices leading from his bellybutton down into his trousers. Her breath hitches in her throat as she comes to the realization that she’s never seen him beneath his clothes.

Harry seems to realize this at the same time, and his smile fades just a hair. “What, baby?”

Misty doesn’t answer him. Instead she slowly pulls the two sides of his shirt apart further, exposing his entire torso. She lets out her breath slowly, surprised at how completely normal he looks. She reaches a hand forward but stops herself, unsure if she should actually touch him.

“You know I used to have a tattoo there,” Harry offers.

Misty’s eyes flicker from his tummy to his face. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I had a ton actually. But I guess when you die, they don’t come with you.”

“What were they?”

Harry trills his lips. “God I had so many I don’t even remember all of them. There was a butterfly right here--” he points to the direct center of his stomach, --”some swallows here--” his collarbones, “and…” Harry smirks, pointing to his hip bones. “Some ferns here.”

“God.” Misty continues to scan at his body, eyes landing on a soft purple mark on his ribs.

Harry knows immediately what Misty sees, and he smiles softly at her, taking her hand in his as his face takes on a far more serious expression. “Where I landed,” he explains. “When I—“

“Oh my god...” Misty is torn between wanting to touch the scar and wanting to leave it be, and Harry seems to be completely sympathetic to that because he only chuckles.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?” He asks. “Took me a while to get used to.”

“I didn’t…” Misty trails off, confused as to how she should even word her question. “I mean, I didn’t think—“

“I know,” Harry says. “It’s weird. I mean how could you ever even know what to expect to see on a ghosts body? How could you expect, like… a sign of death on another body.”

“I just—“ Misty genuinely doesn’t know what to say, and she’s so thankful that Harry doesn’t pressure her at all.

“I know,” he repeats. “It’s weird.”

“Can I…” Misty’s voice is hardly above a whisper when she speaks. “Can I touch it?”

Harry smiles softly. “If you’d like.”

“I--” Misty trails off, unsure of what exactly it is that she’d like to say. She reaches forward with a timid hand, almost pulling her hand completely back before touching the gentle purple mark. It’s not raised-- she doesn’t know why she was expecting it to be-- but it’s colder than the entire rest of his body. She gasps without even realizing what she’s doing. Harry flinches slightly at her touch, but he doesn’t move.

He allows Misty to run a loving finger over his scar, taking in exactly what it is she’s looking at, before he speaks. “Are you alright?”

“What?” It takes Misty a moment to realize what he means, and she tears her eyes from the scar immediately. “Oh god, yeah, sorry. I’m okay, I just--”

“It’s weird,” Harry says for what feels like the ninetieth time. “I know.”

Misty sighs, hesitating a bit, as if she wants to say something more. She scans his body again, glancing up at his eyes sadly, before slowly moving forward.

She moves as if in slow motion, and Harry watches her with baited breath. She squirms a bit, angling her body a certain way, and lowering her face towards his torso. Harry realizes with sadness what she’s doing, and pressure builds behind his eyes when she lowers her lips to the purple scar. She presses the most velvet soft kiss Harry thinks he’s ever felt into his flesh, and his eyes cloud with mist.

Misty trails her lips from his ribs up to his collarbone. There is nothing but love in her movements, and Harry tries to swallow down a lump in his throat. His breath is shaky as he looks down at her, loving on his body.

She seems lost in her movements, kissing all over his torso as her lashes flutter slowly. She lowers her lips to his stomach, and he can’t stop the single tear that slips from his left eye.

He hasn’t been loved on like this in years, and he’d almost forgotten what it felt like.

There is no sexual intention behind her kisses, and her low breath from her nose tickles gently just above his belly button. Harry reaches up to dab at his eye, trying to prevent another tear from escaping. “Misty,” he says, voice cracking the slightest bit. “Darling--”

“Harry,” she says softly against the skin of his tummy. She lifts her head, looking into his eyes and giving him a sympathetic smile. She reaches up to wipe at his cheek with her thumb, and she doesn’t move her hand away when she’s done. She sighs. “You are so, so beautiful.”

“Misty,” he says. “I don’t--” He trails off when she pecks at his collarbone, trailing warm, wet kisses up his neck. She noses at his cheek when her lips hit his chin, and then she’s kissing his lips. It’s all so gentle, so ridiculously intimate and sweet, and Harry doesn’t even realize he’s still crying when two more tears roll down his cheek.

“My sweet boy,” she says, pulling away to wipe gently at his cheeks. “My god.”

“It’s not fair,” Harry whispers. “It’s not fair.”

“I know,” she says, continuing to run her thumbs over his cheeks. “I know, baby. But it is what it is. And Harry…” She smiles softly. “We can’t let it hang over the time we have left like a raincloud. Hm? Remember that?”

Harry laughs in spite of himself, knowing that she’s repeating his own words. “I know,” he says. He reaches up weakly to cup her face as well. “I just want to be able to love you the way you deserve. Fully. Without fear.”

Misty’s heart freezes the minute she hears Harry speak the word “love” but she doesn’t react. Instead, she leans in, kissing his jaw. “Harry,” she says slowly. “I know it’s not ideal. But you have given me the best month of my entire life. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

“Don’t,” Harry says, “Don’t say that. You don’t need to thank me. Misty I--”

“Shhh.” Misty rubs her thumb along his bottom lip. “I know.” She smiles now, trying her best to hold back her own tears. “I’m so… so thankful for you. My beautiful boy. We will meet again, okay? I promise you.”

Harry swallows thickly. “I know we will. I’m coming back the moment I can.”

“See?” she says, smiling. “And next time will be even better. But you know what?” she sniffs, feeling herself slip further into sadness and begging herself not to cry. “We’ve still got a few more days, yeah?”

“We do, yeah.” Harry chuckles, reaching up to wipe at his eyes. “God, I’m a sap aren’t I? I didn’t think this was going to hit me so hard.”

“It’s good, my love! Sometimes it’s okay to let your emotions out like this. You’ve done so much for me. Let me love on you a little bit for a change.”

“You love on me constantly!”

“No,” Misty says. “Not enough.” She kisses him again before sitting up. “Let me get changed. We’ll go to sleep. We both need it.”

Harry watches her rise to her feet, and he reaches up to wipe at his damp face. “You’re too good to me, sunshine.”

“Yeah, yeah. You can thank me later.”

Harry snorts and Misty throws him a joking glance over her shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

Misty disappears into the hallway, making her way to the bathroom to wash her face, brush her teeth, and put on a t-shirt. She allows herself a few tears, crying quietly to herself for only a minute because god, it hurts so bad. It hurts feeling something so deep for somebody who isn’t even alive; for someone who she knows she’s going to have to spend 90% of the next year without.

As soon as she allows herself that moment of weakness, however, she forces it to pass. Wiping her tears away, she continues with her bedtime routine, making sure she doesn’t look like she’s been crying before making her way back into her bedroom.

When she gets there, Harry is fast asleep on top of her bed-- still in a state of various undress. She recalls him telling her that ghosts don’t sleep, not exactly, but he looks so peaceful-- wherever he is right now.

Misty works to gently undress him the rest of the way as he blinks sleepily, hardly even responding to her at all. And when he’s in only a pair of boxers, Misty crawls into bed beside him after turning off the light.

She rolls onto her side, watching him as he sleeps-- or, whatever it is ghosts do. He looks so beautiful, and she reaches forward to gently stroke at the scar on his ribs again. She loves him, she thinks. Even though she’s only known him for a short amount of time, she loves him. And there’s an ache in such a weirdly specific part of her heart that she can’t even begin to put into words.

Pressing the gentlest kiss to Harry’s temple, she cuddles into his side, and he subconsciously wraps an arm lazily around her. Misty wills herself not to cry-- not to think about the situation at all-- as she drifts gently to sleep.

-----

It’s a somber day. Colder than usual. Misty sits with her feet dangling over the side of her bed, and Harry stands off in the corner of her room, nervously fidgeting with some of the trinkets on her shelf.

They know it’s coming. They’ve known it was coming for the last few days, but they’ve both been avoiding the subject, pretending that if they just ignore it, it will go away.

But it won’t go away. And Harry has to leave.

Harry glances out the window. It’s gray outside, matching the atmosphere in the room. The trees blow angrily outside Misty’s window, and Harry swears he can feel the wind in his body.

“Looks like it’s going to rain,” he remarks casually.

Misty doesn’t reply, and he turns around to see her just staring sadly at him. She isn’t crying, not yet anyway, but her eyes look damp.

“Are you sure you can’t stay?” Her voice is quiet, like she doesn’t want to be asking the question, and she won’t even look directly at him. It makes his heart-- however dead it is-- feel like its shattering, and he takes a step towards her.

He brushes her hair behind her ear. “You know I wish I could,” he says, equally as quiet.

“And what would happen if you just… didn’t?”

“Didn’t what?”

“I don’t know. Didn’t… go?”

Harry smiles sadly. “It doesn’t work like that. I don’t have a choice.”

Misty opens her mouth, then closes it again. Her breath hitches in her throat before she lets it all out in a sigh. “What’s it like?” She’s speaking in a whisper.

“What is what like?” Harry matches her tone.

“When you… go, I mean. The process. Do you just like, fall asleep? Or is it like you just blink and you’re in the void?”

Despite the heaviness of their conversation, Harry chuckles. “Somewhere in between, I suppose.”

“Does it hurt?” She gulps subconsciously, and she looks so curious and cute right now Harry could scream.

He shakes his head. “No. Doesn’t feel like anything.”

“So one minute you’re here and the next you’re just…” She trails off, and Harry sighs.

“Gone,” he finishes somberly. “Yes.”

After a beat, Misty chuckles bitterly. “Seems a bit unfair.”

“I’ll be back the first moment I can be,” Harry says, then adds with a smile, “If you’ll have me.”

“Of course I will,” she says, finally turning to face him fully. She takes his cold hands in her own, and her warmth makes him shiver. “I’ll wait for you every single day.”

“Don’t say that,” Harry says, shaking his head and sitting beside her on the bed. “You have a life to live. I don’t.”

Misty’s eyes grow damp, but she blinks back the tears just as quickly as they arrived. “But I’m going to miss you so much,” she says through a shaky voice.

It all seems silly, really, for Harry and Misty both. But neither of them can help it. This connection they’ve formed in such a short amount of time weighs heavily on both of their hearts. And Harry is certain that he would do just about anything in the universe to get another chance at life, if only to be with her.

“I’m going to miss you so much it’s going to hurt me every second,” Harry says, not a trace of humor in his voice despite the slight exaggeration.

Misty lets out her breath in a loud, shaky sigh. She rests her head on Harry’s shoulder, and for a while they just sit there like this, him and her, pretending with all their might-- if only for a few minutes-- that this is just another day for them. That Harry is human, and that they can grow old together.

“I have a selfish request,” Misty says after a while.

“Anything.”

Misty takes a deep breath. “Will you come visit me? In my dreams?”

“You already know that’s my plan.”

“Every dream?”

Harry chuckles. “Well, that’s a bit of a tall order. I don’t know if I’ll be able to come every night. But, as often as I can, and as often as you’ll have me, I will come.”

“Promise?”

Harry turns to kiss Misty’s forehead. “I promise.”

Misty closes her eyes and leans gently into Harry’s kiss, breathing in the scent of cinnamon that she’s grown to love so much. “So when does it happen?” she asks, almost hesitantly. “When do you… go?”

“I don’t know the exact moment,” Harry admits. “Whenever the sun enters Sagittarius. Whatever that exact time is.”

“Is there gonna be a Sagittarius Season ghost?” Misty asks. “Ghost of Sagittarians past?”

Harry laughs. “I don’t think so, no. But if there is, don’t go fallin’ in love with him now. Sagittarians are nothin’ but trouble.”

“Don’t think I ever could,” Misty says, a bittersweet ache in her voice. “Think I’ll only ever have feelings for you.”

Harry sighs, patting gently at Misty’s knee. He savors her scent and her warmth for a few beats before he changes the subject. “Your sisters will be glad to have you around again,” he says. “I know I’ve been hoggin’ ya. They must think you’re really goin’ through something, the way you’re keeping to yourself.”

“They wouldn’t understand even if I did try to explain it to them,” Misty replies.

Harry nods sympathetically. “And you’re gonna have a hard time explaining to them what happened to your mysterious long distance boyfriend from back home.”

“Oh shit,” Misty says, worry suddenly showing on her face. “What am I gonna tell them when they ask?”

“Tell them he died.” The look on Harry’s face is so smug, and Misty can tell that he’d been holding onto that one for a while. She rolls her eyes, but doesn’t even try to refrain from smiling.

“Oh my god, Harry.”

“It’s not wrong!”

“That’s not funny!” The smile on Misty’s face tells Harry otherwise, and he nudges her shoulder with his own.

“Alright alright.” Harry smiles, reaching forward to interlace their fingers. There’s a moment of drab silence, and Harry sighs thickly before finally admitting weakness. “God, I’m going to miss you.”

Misty’s smile softens, but it doesn’t completely fade. She turns her head, pressing the softest kiss to Harry’s shoulder. “I’m going to miss you more than you know.”

There’s a comfortable silence that falls between the two of them, and Harry interlaces his fingers with hers. “Maybe you’ll meet a boy to take you to next year's homecoming,” he muses.

Misty frowns. “That’s not funny either.”

“Not trying to be funny! Trying to encourage you to live your life, darling. I wish I could still live mine.”

“You can live in my dreams. Rent free.”

With a snort, Harry stands up. “Oh I intend to. As much as possible.”

“Well good.”

Harry walks over to Misty’s window again, watching the trees blow in the wind for a few quiet moments. After a bit, he speaks again. “I have an idea.”

“Hm?”

“Let’s have fun tonight. Let’s watch a movie. I’ll manifest in front of everyone and we can end on a high note. Instead of being sad.”

Misty considers his words for a moment. “But I want you to myself.”

Harry grins. “So they won’t question it when we excuse ourselves early, will they?”

Misty rolls her eyes. “Well, when you put it that way--”

Harry laughs. “No one even has to join in with us if they don’t want to. But I figure my last night here shouldn’t be spent so upset.”

“Yeah,” Misty agrees. “But I’m still gonna be sad.”

“Don’t you want to remember me having fun? That’s how I want you to remember me, at least.”

“Yeah but--”

“No buts!” Harry holds his hand out to her. “Come on then. You get to pick the movie.”

The evening progresses unbearably fast, and it isn’t long before Misty finds herself curled up into Harry’s side on the couch, watching him giggle alongside all her sorority sisters and their various partners. She hopes he doesn’t notice her staring at him, but she can’t help it of course. He is so lovely, so full of some type of light that she has never seen before and cannot seem to get enough of.

As Misty watches him, she realizes how heartbreakingly human he really is. He may be a ghost, but he died a young college boy— with so much ahead of him and so much to look forward to. Never in Misty’s life has she seen a more genuine smile, nor has she ever met anyone as charismatic as Harry. Try as she might to forget it, she knows her time with him is coming to an end and she hates it. But watching him interact with everyone around him, as charming as ever, she realizes that he genuinely needed this. He needed to feel alive, to feel apart of something once again.

So Misty leans closer into him. He smiles down at her, looking so full of life and warmth. He reaches down, pulling the fuzzy red blanket covering both him and Misty up over her shoulders. “You alright?” He asks softly.

Misty tilts her head, leaning up to press a peck to his nose. “I’m wonderful,” she replies quietly.

Harry grins down at her, and for a moment the two are lost in their own little world— looking into one another’s eyes as if the entire universe existed in them. As if reading her mind, Harry gives Misty’s lips a soft kiss. The kiss is tinged with sadness, of course, because the darker it gets outside the less time they know that they have together. So he pulls away, bumping her nose with his.

“You sleepy?” He asks quietly.

And Misty knows exactly what he means. “Mhm.”

“Mm,” Harry hums. “Me too.”

He moves to rise to his feet to make a graceful exit with Misty. “Well,” he says, addressing the room. “Misty and I are going to go up to sleep now. I have to head back home pretty early tomorrow and—“

“You’re going to fuck,” Kennedy says, matter-of-factly. Misty and Harry both gape at her, and she laughs. “It’s alright! No shame in that. We’re all adults here.”

Misty laughs nervously, and Harry remains calm and smug. “You’re hilarious, Kennedy. I think I’ll miss you most of all.”

Kennedy laughs, winking and pointing finger guns at Harry. Misty rolls her eyes, but she’s giggling as she turns to exit. Harry follows close behind her and Kennedy calls out, “Be safe! Use protection!”

Harry and Misty giggle the entire trip up the stairs, and as they approach Misty’s bedroom, she speaks quietly. “Okay, but how are you feeling? Like, energy wise.”

“Fine,” Harry says, and he honestly means it.

Misty glances at him like she doesn’t believe him, and he snorts. “I promise, Misty. I mean it. I didn’t use that much tonight.”

She rolls her eyes, making her way over to her bed and sitting on the edge of it. Harry closes the door behind him, still buzzing from the fun he’s had today, and a playful smile spreads across his face. He turns slowly on his heels, eyeing her mischievously.

She looks back, tensing up a bit as a smile spreads across her face. “What…”

Harry growls playfully, bounding over to her and tackling her onto the bed before she can even say anything. She squeals, giggling as she and Harry come tumbling down. Harry attacks her face and her neck in kisses while squeezing at her hips, and she squeals.

“No!” She shrieks. “What are you doing?! NO!”

He growls, nipping at her cheeks before lifting his head and grinning down at her. “Gimme kiss.”

“If I do, will you chill?” She giggles.

Harry makes a face, pretending to consider her words. “Mm… maybe.”

She lifts her head slightly, pecking at his lips, and he shakes his head. “Better than that,” he says.

She kisses him again, but he only repeats, “Better than that.”

Misty lets her head fall back again, mouth falling open as the most lovely laughs bubble out of her lips. Harry seizes this opportunity, leaning down and kissing her open mouth with a dimpled grin.

Misty’s giggles die down the minute their lips interlock, but the smile never leaves neither her nor Harry’s faces as they kiss. Misty licks gently into Harry’s mouth, and he immediately grants her access, swirling his tongue against hers. He speaks between kisses. “You’re--” kiss, “so--” kiss, “beautiful.”

Misty rolls her eyes. “No you are,” she says, and Harry kisses her before she’s even finished her sentence.

He chuckles. “No you.”

“Nooo…” She pecks at his nose. “You.”

Harry snorts. “God we’re disgusting, huh?”

Misty hums, reaching up to brush a stray curl away from Harry’s face. “Yeah. Ew.”

He leans down, burying his face in her neck and sucking softly. He feels her melt against him, squirming a bit as she lets out a long, humming sigh. He smiles, lifting his head to press another kiss to her lips before speaking. “I have an idea,” he says.

“Another one? Do tell.”

“How about……” Harry sing-songs, “One more orgasm for you. As a parting treat.”

“Hmm…” Misty muses. “Only one?”

Harry snorts. “Or two. Or… however many you want.”

“How many do you want to give me?” Misty scratches lovingly behind Harry’s ear.

“Oh sunshine,’ Harry says, “If I had my way I would never stop.”

Blood rushes to Misty’s cheeks and ears, but she tries to hide it. Harry only laughs again, thumbing at her cheek. “Gonna miss that.”

“What?”

“How easy it is to get you hot.”

Misty rolls her eyes, but she laughs. “You’re an idiot.”

“Gonna miss that, too. Love when you insult me.”

“Oh my god.” Misty shakes her head. “Just shut up and kiss me.”

Harry hums. “With pleasure, sweet girl.”

They continue kissing for a bit as Harry undresses Misty gently. He loves on every inch of her body, reveling in every single reaction he gets out of her. He tries to remember every detail that he can, and everything about the evening they’re sharing. And when he makes her cum, four separate times, he savours her taste, her smell, and the noises she makes as best as he can-- without making himself even sadder than he is. He knows she feels the same, noticing the way she continuously glances at him with more love in his eyes than he’s seen in a long time.

After hours of messing around with her, loving on one another’s bodies and sharing giggles and playful kisses, they realize it’s time to go to bed. They undress one another, and Harry helps her remove her makeup-- which makes them both laugh the entire time.

When they find themselves in bed together, stroking lovingly at one another’s faces, they realize that they can’t run from the inevitable anymore. Their time together has been reduced to only hours, and there is nothing they can do about it at all.

“I’m going to miss you,” Misty says, tracing his features in the darkness. “Have I told you that already?”

Harry laughs softly. “Maybe once or twice,” he admits. “But I’m going to miss you more.”

Misty sighs, kissing his lips gently. “Promise to come visit my dreams as much as you possibly can?”

Harry leans into her touch, tilting his head to kiss the palm of her hand. “I promise.”

“I don’t want to fall asleep.” She looks on the verge of tears, and Harry wishes there was something he could do to stop her. At this point, however, he knows it’s inevitable. So he tries to make her smile.

“You need to,” he says. “Humans need sleep.”

“Maybe,” she says. “But I need you more.”

“That’s not true, baby. You know it’s not.” Harry strokes a spot just in front of her temple-- a spot he’s noticed over the past month that relaxes her more than anything else. As if on cue, she yawns.

“Listen to me. You are meant to live your life, sweet girl. You are meant to be happy, and grow old. Promise me you will.” She frowns at him, but he doesn’t allow it. “Promise me, baby.”

“I promise,” she whispers. Harry smiles.

“Say it like you mean it.”

“I promise Harry,” she whispers, blinking against the sleep in her eyes. “But I also promise that when you return, I will be waiting.”

“That’s fine. You can wait. But do not let it stop you from living. You hear me? Please don’t. I would give anything to live my life again.”

Misty yawns again, finally giving in to the heaviness of her eyelids and closing her eyes. She leans into him. “I promise. I’ll live every day in your honor, Harry.”

“Yeah?”

She smiles sleepily, still not opening her eyes.

Harry watches her, taking in every last detail of her sleepy face. He can feel himself fading, but she doesn’t seem to notice, so he says nothing. He ignores the pressure building behind his eyes, swearing to himself that he’s not going to cry.

Misty is also fading fast, succumbing more and more to sleep by the second. Harry knows it’s going to be a hard year without her, but he takes comfort knowing she is surrounded by people who love her.

And it also doesn’t hurt that he plans on haunting Josh’s dreams so that he leaves Misty the fuck alone.

He smiles softly, completely unable to stop the tear from leaking from his eye. He’s grateful that Misty’s eyes are closed, and he presses the slowest, most gentle kiss to her forehead.

“I love you, miss Misty.”

Without opening her eyes, Misty speaks with a distant, sleepy voice. “I love you too, Harry.”

Harry replays that moment in his head for the next few hours, reveling in the way those words sounded coming out of her mouth.

And when Misty wakes in the morning, Harry is gone.

#Harry Styles #Harry #Harry Styles fanfiction #Harry fanfiction #fanfiction #Harry Styles AU #Harry AU #Harry Styles smut #Harry smut #smut #Harry Styles fluff #Harry fluff #fluff

534 notes · View notes