#I just want to throw a tantrum and scream and scream until someone fixes even one of my problems | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

watchmegetobsessed · 4 years ago

Text

Floating Through Space - Harry Styles

a/n: im literally bursting from excitement over this, i’ve been working on this fic for so long and im pretty satisfied with how it turned out so i hope you’ll like it too! pleas please PLEASE don’t let this flop bc it means a lot to me 🥺 the song featured in the fic is obviously an existing one, i linked it into the right place so you can listen to it and get the vibe of it, that song is what inspired the whole story so i recommend giving it a listen! leave your thoughts and reactions, i can’t wait to read what you thought about the fic!!

pairing: Harry x Famous!Reader

warning: drug use, smut and everything thats wrong with patriarchy lmao

word count: 25.7k

masterlist

This dressing room is no different than the other one thousand you’ve been to. The plaster on the wall is all cracked up, the red bricks peeking from under it in the corner, the dusty couch looks like it’s been through hell and just sitting on it would probably give you STDs. The mirror on the wall is cracked, the few water bottles you’ve gotten are not even cooled, they’re a warm room temperature. The glorious life of a musician, right?

Moments like this you question why you didn’t just choose to be the obedient daughter and became a surgeon like your parents always wanted you to be. You’d have a steady future and a nice income, a decent career instead of having to perform at a different bar every other night for nicks and pennies that barely cover your rent at the end of the month. But that wouldn’t be you. Wearing scrubs, smiling at patients, throwing out your dignity along with your dreams, you wouldn’t have been true to yourself if you chose that life. Besides, you’d still be in school, barely nearing the halfpoint of your education if you decided to go along with your parents’ plan and it’s clearer than daylight that the school system is just not for you. It would be pure torture if you had to sit in classes for a decade just to work a job you never even wanted.

Looking around the small dressing room you cast your eyes over your band that consists of three people. It’s a temporary set up from three guys you met along your way, all of the struggling musicians as you and you saw the as opportunities. Places would rather have a band play with several men in it than just put one single woman on stage and pray for the best. It’s the sexist part of the industry not enough people talk about. You can’t even count how many pitying stares you’ve gotten through the years when you stated that you want to make a career as a solo female singer.

“Honey, you ain’t making it without at least one man behind you,” is what they’ve always told you. So you’ve gotten yourself three until you could stand on your own two feet without a male backup. You’re using them just as much as they are using you. They were already a band when you joined them, the lead singer just disappeared to thin air with her boyfriend and left them incomplete, so you joined forces to navigate your way together in the depth of the music industry, looking for that big jump everyone is dreaming about.

Standing in front of the cracked mirror you fix your eyeliner, checking yourself once again. Your thrifted checkered suit looks radiant on you especially with the neon green see-through top underneath, showing off a black bralette. It’s a male suit, hanging a little baggy on you at places, but you still feel like you’re pulling off the look. Your thick eyeliner makes your eyes appear even bigger than they already are and your hair is in an unruly mop of curls, making your appearance complete.

You’ve received tons of critiques over your outfits, but they are the only thing you are not changing on yourself.

“Don’t wear men’s pants.”

“You’d look better in a dress.”

“Why do you look like a guy?”

“What a shame to hide such a gorgeous body in clothes that weren’t meant for girls.”

Each and every comment is burned into your mind forever and you’ll never stop fighting against the judgment women has to face for not being the conventional beauty all females are expected to be.

There’s a knock on the door and the person behind it barges in without waiting for an answer. The tall, bald guy rushes in, looking a little stressed, but that’s kind of the normal for the owner.

“I’m not sure how to say it, but… you are not performing tonight,” he simply states and your anger sets in faster than ever. You’ve had gigs get cancelled, but not minutes before going on stage. However, he is still not done with his little informative speech. “And your instruments need to be used by another band tonight.”

“What the fuck?” Trey, the drummer jumps to his feet. “No way I’m letting someone else play my drum set!”

“You’ll get half the money if you let it happen,” the owner answers.

“Wait, what band did you find minutes before start?” you ask in complete shock.

“There’s this group celebrating a birthday in the VIP section and some boy band is apparently with them. Birthday girl requested to have the stage for them.”

“And you’re just cancelling on us that easily?” you snap.

“Not that I have a choice. If I don’t do it they are leaving and I’m losing a big amount from the night. Sorry guys, but this is strictly business.”

“I can’t fucking believe this,” you laugh bitterly, staring up at the ceiling. This would have been a great chance for all of you, you’ve been trying to get a gig here for months, knowing that a lot of people from the industry fancies it, you might have caught someone’s eyes, but it’s definitely not happening now.

“Are you letting them use your stuff or not?” he urges, hands on his hips as he looks at the four of you impatiently.

“But what about our gig? We’ve been on the waiting list for months, when can we actually perform?”

“Uh, I don’t know. We’re pretty booked, maybe sometime in the summer?”

“Summer?” you gasp in disbelief. “It’s fucking February!”

“Are you lending them your stuff or not? I don’t have the time for your little tantrum!”

“Yeah, if we get the money they can use it,” Connor, the bass guitarist answers before you explode right then and there. The owner walks out with that, leaving the four of you behind, forgotten and humiliated.

“I can’t fucking believe it,” Trey groans, plopping down on the couch, covering his eyes with his tattooed arm.

“This is fucking bullshit,” you scoff under your breath, reaching for your bag to grab your pack of cigarettes you keep in it especially for cases like this, whenever you are about to go around and punch every living thing in the face in your reach.

Kicking the backdoor open you lean against the cold brick wall as you light the cigarette and start puffing vigorously, trying to get as much nicotine into your system as possible. You notice a group of guys standing near you in the alleyway, laughing on something, having a great time, oblivious to how hurt and angry you are feeling just a few feet away. You hear frictions of their conversation and it’s clear they are British judging from the accents that are hitting your ears. You finish your cigarette pretty fast and immediately reach for another one even though you know you shouldn’t have even smoked that first one, but you just can’t help it. It’s either the smoking or you’re going after the owner and kick him in the balls for being a bitch.

“Oi, can I ask for one?”

Glancing to the side you see that one of the guys has approached you, smiling at you warmly he nods towards the pack in your hands. Nodding you hold it out for him and he takes one. Before he could even ask for the lighter, you throw it at him and he catches it easily.

“Thanks,” he nods, holding the cigarette between his lips before lighting it and passing the lighter back to you.

“Lou, you really shouldn’t smoke,” you hear one of the others speak up as the rest of the group slowly joins you and the one you just helped out.

“S’fine, don’t act like me motha’,” he shrugs, taking a drag from the cigarette.

“At least not before we go on stage,” the blonde one shakes his head at his friend and your eyebrows shoot up.

“Oh, so you’re the band that’s gonna play?” you ask with a forced smile, already feeling your blood boiling. Who the fuck they are and why do they deserve to steal your gig?!

“We’re just playing a couple of songs,” another speaks up shrugging his shoulders. “No big deal.”

“Glad it’s no big deal to you, because it would have been to the band that was robbed from tonight because of you,” you spat at them, clearly surprising them with your harsh reply.

“I assume you are part of that band, right?” the on with the curly hair speaks up, his green eyes burning down at you.

“Nice job, Sherlock,” you groan, taking another drag from your cigarette.

“You could play with us,” he offers, the others nodding in agreement.

“I don’t need your pity,” you scowl at them. “Bringing me on stage to try to make yourselves look like the good guys is not necessary. I’m just fed up with people like you.” The truth is coming out of you easier than ever. All the years on injustice is seemingly erupting from you, pouring down on these five.

“People like us?” the dark haired one asks with a confused look.

“Yeah,” you nod with a bitter chuckle. “Five conventionally hot guys grouped together for a band, making every girl between the age of ten and thirty scream just by a wink. I don’t know where you came from, but I’m betting my head that you’ve had it easier than others.”

“It’s not nice to assume things when you don’t know anything about us,” Curly speaks up, tilting his head to the side.

“Oh, I’ve seen enough not to care about what’s nice and what’s not,” you chuckle shaking your head as you take another long puff from your cigarette and throw the butt to the ground, stepping on it. “Who are you even? Some Back Street Boys 2.0?” you ask, folding your arms on your chest, earning a heartfelt laugh from the blondie.

“I kinda like her,” he smirks around his friends. “We’re called One Direction, you haven’t heard of us?”

“Not even once,” you shake your head.

“That’s kinda humbling,” the one with the cigarette smiles. “We’re from the UK. I’m Louis, that’s Liam, Niall, Zayn and Harry.”

“I would say it’s nice to meet you, but it would be nicer if you guys didn’t just take my gig and lessen me with half my paycheck,” you smile at them sweetly before rolling your eyes.

“Wait, what? They’re not paying you because of us?” Liam asks.

“We only get half the money for lending you our instruments.”

“Let us pay the other half then,” Harry offers right away, but you just laugh at him.

“It’s not about the money, Prince Harry,” you smirk at him, tilting your head to the side. “It’s about justice. How is that air that you just waltz in here and take our time and chance? What if there’s a producer out there who would have liked our music and offered a record deal? What if someone would have taken a video of us performing, put it up to YouTube and it would have gone viral? I assume you never had to go through this phase where you have to beg for every minute on stage so you can at least earn enough money to pay rent. You don’t seem like the type of band who had to perform in smelly bars four times a week for a ridiculous amount of money.”

They stay silent and you know you were right.

“I’m not saying you had it easy, but I’m sure you have no idea what it could have been. And I’m fed up with men walking over others just to have what they want.”

“Look, it wasn’t our intention to ruin your gig. Have your set with your band and then we’ll play a few songs too after that,” Liam offers, but you shake your head.

“No, we weren’t supposed to be just your opening act and it’ll turn into that. So have a nice evening, enjoy your showtime, I’m out.”

Pushing yourself away from the wall you walk back into the building and grabbing your stuff from the dressing room you move out to the bar area, desperately needing a drink.

Sitting on the last stool at the bar you ask for straight tequila and two vodka shots knowing it’ll do the job for the evening and pulling your phone out of your bag, you open up Google. Searching the name One Direction you’re met with quite a few hits and you start scrolling through them, reading about the five boys you just had an encounter with. Just as you thought, they didn’t start off as a traditional band, having put together at a talent show just three years ago, getting such a major push so early in their career, they have no idea how struggling it is to make it in the industry. They surely had their fair share of ups and downs, but they will never know what it’s like to sweat blood and tears for your dream when everyone just wants to drag you down and tell you you’ll never make it.

The shots and half of the tequila is gone, your band joined you to at least get wasted as you watch the technicians set the stage for a band that’s not you, but gonna play with your stuff. Sitting on the stool you’re having a fairly good time thanks to the alcohol when you spot Harry making his way towards you in the crowd.

“Aren’t you supposed to be getting ready backstage?” you ask with an eyeroll as he joins your little circle, the guys eyeing him curiously. Ignoring your comment he pulls out a piece of paper handing it to you. As you unfold it you almost want to throw it back at him.

“This is to make up for what you lost tonight,” he says nodding down at the check in your hands.

“I told you I don’t need your money,” you firmly answer, but Trey grabs the check from your hands.

“But I do!” he snorts. He is such a pig.

“Let us do at least this one thing for you. We really do feel bad for taking your time and the offer to come on stage with us still stands.”

“No thank you,” you shoot him a fake smile before downing the rest of your tequila, the drink burning down your throat. Looking back at Harry you keep your eye locked on him as he watches you intently. He is a good-looking guy, you have to give that to him, but the circumstances you’ve met under just made it impossible for you not to hate him for the privileges he is being handed every day while you fight your way through life.

Harry sighs in defeat nodding as he licks his lips. For a split second, guilt takes over you for the way you’ve been acting towards him and the other boys, but then you remember that you don’t even know him. For all you know, he can be a royal asshole with the face of an angel. You can’t let guilt chew you and spit you out, you have to keep your guards up.

“Alright. We really are sorry. I’ll… see you around,” he nods before turning around to walk away.

You watch them perform their biggest hits, the whole place going crazy over the impromptu One Direction concert they just got for basically free. The VIP area is going crazy over the boys and with each sang song, you feel yourself getting more and more hopeless about your future as a musician. Here you are on a Saturday night, robbed from a job you’ve worked hard for, watching five British boys take your place on the stage that’s supposed to be yours tonight. You catch Harry’s eyes quite often while he is on stage, he keeps glancing in your way, a hint of guilt glistening in his green irises as he sings their songs with perfect vocals. You can tell he feels bad for the situation and you didn’t make it any easier on him or any of the boys, but you’re not really one to beat around the bush. They deserved to know what others in the industry below them have to deal with every day. It’s not always as glamorous as people might think and you’re the living example of that.

You don’t stick around for long after the boys are done on stage, you help your bandmates pack their stuff and head home before Harry or any other members of One Direction can find you.

Walking past the news stand that’s on the corner of your street, you stop upon seeing your own face smiling back at you from the cover of People Magazine, the title catching your attention.

“Grammy nominee Y/N Y/L/N shares her secret to her one of a kind fashion style.”

Grabbing the magazine off the stand you pay for it and continue your way home, holding the copy to your chest with a warm feeling in your heart.

It’s been only a week since the nominations have come out, but it still feels like a dream. You didn’t just get nominated in the category of Best New Artist, but your album Hands of Power got nominated as Best Album and your biggest hit of last year, Sleepless is running for the title of Best song. Three nominations the first time earning a spot on the list. Not bad.

Just as you walk into your place, your phone buzzes, the ever so smiling face of your manager staring back at you from the screen.

“Hey!” you sing into the phone, holding it to your ear with your shoulder, taking off your boots as you walk further down the hallway.

“Are you home already?”

“Yes, just arrived.”

“Great, I’ll be there in ten,” she announces and ends the call. Chuckling you just shake your head, dropping the phone to the coffee table before you move to the bedroom and change into something more comfortable. The flared jeans looked fire on you today, but you rather wear something looser when you’re at home.

You barely have the time to start the water for a tea when Taylor storms through your door using her keys you’ve given her some time ago. She is wearing all white that looks fantastic with her almond skin tone, a knitted sweater tucked into a maxi skirt, paired with strappy heels, she is always so elegant and perfectly dressed for whatever occasion.

“I have knee-shaking news, girl!” she announces as she throws her purse to the couch before joining you in the kitchen.

“I’m going to be the next Bond girl?” you joke smiling to yourself as you get two mugs from the cupboard.

“Better than that!” she cheers. “You are going to perform at the Grammy’s, baby!” she screams throwing her hands into the air as your jaw drops to the floor.

“You’re not just kidding with me, right?!”

“I would never play such a dirty joke with you. It’s one hundred percent true, I had an hour long phone call with some bloke today and they want you.”

“Yes!” you scream in excitement, jumping up and down like a child that just got a pack of candy. “I’ll make the Grammy’s my bitch!” you cheer, making Taylor laugh.

“Alright, Miss Dominatrix. We still have a lot of things to discuss and there’s one more thing about the performance.”

“Oh God, is this the part where you say something that ruins it completely?” you sigh in defeat as you take the kettle and pour the water into the mugs, dropping a filter into each.

“I don’t think it ruins it,” she shakes her head, but you have a feeling you won’t like what she has to say. “They want it to be like a… joined performance. You’d start off with Sleepless, then it would kind of mesh into your partner’s song and they would end it with one of their own songs.”

“Okay, that doesn’t sound bad,” you nod.

“See?” she smiles warmly.

“Do we know who I’m going to perform with?”

“Harry Styles.”

You almost drop both mugs the moment the name is mentioned, but you manage to get them to the kitchen island and slip them to the counter, Taylor giving you a questioning look at your wide-eyed expression.

“Uh, I’m not sure that’s… gonna work,” you clear your throat.

“You’re not sure your duet with the biggest male artist can work? Why is that?”

Licking your lips you try to find the right words to say it, but you’re not even sure why you got so shocked over it. Probably because the last time you saw him, you were still nobody, playing gigs at no name bars and he took your spot on the stage with One Direction. It’s weird, but since you’ve finally made it in the industry, you haven’t crossed paths with him and this would be the first time you meet after seven years.

“I’m not sure if he remembers it, but we’ve met before.”

“You and Harry?”

“Yes. I was playing with The Gambits years ago, it was before I started putting out covers on my own. We were supposed to play at this bar but they cancelled on us, because One Direction was there that night and someone wanted them to play instead of us, so we lost the gig. I had a pretty… harsh conversation with him and the band, basically telling them that their pretty man privilege is what ruins the careers of talented women.” “Oh Jesus, Y/N. Why haven’t I heard of this before?” Taylor sighs leaning on her elbows on the countertop.

“Not that it’s something that would just come up in a conversation,” you shrug. “And as I said, he might not even remember it. It was a long time ago.”

“I know you are all about your rebellious past, good for you, but sometimes you’re making my job really fucking hard,” she sighs, grabbing her phone, already typing a message to God knows who. “Starting beef with Harry Styles before you even made a name for yourself? Who does that?”

“It’s not beef!” you protest. “I just gave them my piece of mind.”

“We’ll see what he thinks about it. I have to make a few calls,” she announces before walking out, already on the phone with someone.

Sitting on a stool, staring into your mug you think back at the time you met him. It feels like a lifetime ago when you were fighting to stay afloat, trying to make through the days, barely hanging on a thread. You didn’t know that five years later you’d sign your first record deal as a solo artist and seven years from that night, you’d be a Grammy nominee. It was a long and challenging time for sure with way more downs than ups until you finally got on track and you’ll never forget where you came from. Not when even as an acknowledged artist, you still face judgment and hatred no matter what you do. Being a solo female singer sometimes feels like harder than being president of the country and there are just so many things that need to change in the world of music, you will never stop fighting for girls that are in the same shoe you once were.

Through the years you’ve followed the career of the boys, especially Harry’s. You read about Zayn’s parting, their so-called hiatus and how they all went solo soon after. Genre-wise Harry’s work is what stands the closest to you, and you’ve witnessed all the backlash he has faced during his time in the spotlight. The shaming for whatever women he chose to date, his choice to get into acting and the way he has been dressing. People just don’t seem to understand they can’t have control over any of these and they’ve tried to bring him down one too many times, but he has been thriving lately, anyone can see that.

Your mug empties out by the time Taylor returns, taking her previous stop at the kitchen island.

“Alright, I set up a meeting with Harry and his manager for tomorrow. They still haven’t decided on the performance and apparently, Harry would like to meet you before giving his answer.”

“Oh God, he remembers me,” you growl under your breath.

“Or maybe he doesn’t and just wants to meet the person he is supposed to perform with. We can never know. We’re meeting them at his manager’s office at eleven tomorrow.”

One night is enough to make you go crazy over such a small thing as meeting someone. It’s not like you are nervous to see him because of who he is, it’s more about knowing what he thinks about you after all these years, in case he remembers you. He saw you as a struggling artist at rock bottom and though your encounter didn’t last long and he didn’t know you on a deeper, personal level, you still fear that he remembers and thinks that you’ve lost yourself over the years.

Authenticity has been a huge issue in your life. Early in your career, everyone wanted to change you. The way you dress, your hair, the style of music you write, nothing was good enough as it was, they wanted you to become someone else, someone who was not you. You fought all attempts until the right person came through and accepted you as yourself, but a tiny voice in the back of your mind kept telling you that they succeeded, that somewhere along the fight you did lose yourself and became what you always feared to be.

Meeting Harry is like meeting a piece of your past and having to face what you’ve become. It’s going to be like a mirror right in front of you and what you’ll see might not be what you expect.

Wearing your bright red dungaree with an oversized vintage shirt and a pair of white sneakers, you definitely don’t look like you’re dressed for a business meeting, but when did you ever? Pushing your hair back with a pair of cat eye shades, you leave a little earlier, knowing well traffic is horrible in these hours. You arrive to the office building just minutes before eleven, Taylor has already texted that she has arrived and which office you should come to. When you finally find the door you’ve been looking for, you take a moment to yourself before knocking.

“Come in!” a male voice calls out and you walk in. Taylor is sitting on the sofa that’s pushed against the wall on the left, a man is sitting behind the enormous desk and then there is Harry, standing by the window, his hands hidden in the pockets of his black slacks, and old Rolling Stones t-shirt hanging loosely on his frame as his eyes meet yours upon your arrival.

“Hey, I would say I’m sorry for being late, but I’m actually exactly on time,” you smirk, closing the door behind you. The man stands from the desk and walking around he meets at the front, holding a hand out for you.

“Perfectly on time,” he smiles warmly. “I’m Jeffrey Azoff, nice to meet you.”

“Y/N Y/L/N. Nice to meet you too.”

“And this here is Harry,” he motions towards the man who has stepped closer and as you look back at him, you’re met with a blank expression for a moment so you can’t figure out if he remembers you or not. But then, a tiny smile tugs on his lips as he holds his hand out for you.

“We’ve met before, right?” he simply questions, and your eyes flicker over to Taylor in a kind of “See? I told you!” manner before you look back at Harry and shake his hand.

“Yeah, we have,” you nod. “A long time ago.”

“Congrats for your nominations,” he smirks, his hand letting go of yours and your let out a soft chuckle.

“Well, thank you. Back at you.”

“Alright, why don’t we start this discussion? We have a lot to go over,” Jeff suggests and you sit beside Taylor while Harry stays near the window, as if he is trying to soak up the sunshine coming through it that’s painting his skin a golden shade.

The concept is simple. The performance would be a mashup from Sleepless and Harry’s song Golden with an exciting and fresh way of mixing the two songs together in the middle, making your song flow into his in a smooth and effortless way. The songs sound compatible and you already have an idea how to mash them together for the transition, but you can’t help but feel doubts over the performance.

“What are your concerns exactly?” Jeff questions.

“Not to come off too harsh, but why is my song the first one?” you ask, earning a few puzzled looks. “If Harry finishes it off, he is going to be the one people will remember more and he’ll get the applause as well. The riffs in the songs allow them to be switched, how come it’s not me who comes second?”

You can see the shock on Jeffrey’s face at how straight-forward you were about your concern and that you even dared to speak up about the issue. He clearly hasn’t had to face anything similar before and when he glances at Harry you follow his gaze as well, but instead of shock, what you see on his face is amusement. He is smirking, tapping his fingers against his chin as he stares back at you.

“She has a point,” he nods and you take a deep breath. For a moment, you really thought this is going to be the part where you are thrown off and Harry makes the performance only his.

“I, uhh—this is what’s been requested,” Jeff answers and you tilt your head.

“Okay, can we make a request to change it?” you simply ask, eyeing Taylor next to you who is typing on her iPad vigorously, taking notes of everything that’s said. She is already used to what you’re like, she is not even surprised you came up with the prompt to change.

“Hold on, so just because you want to be second, you get to be?” Harry questions, but he doesn’t come off as harsh, it seems like he is entertained by the conversation. “Does this mean I don’t deserve to be the second one?”

“That’s-That’s not what I meant,” you answer, taken aback from his accusation and you hate to admit, but he is right. You addressed the issue, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t deserve the spot either.

“Alright, so then we need to seek a solution that benefits the both of us,” he offers, walking closer from the sunlight and you follow his every movement.

“We could do some kind of medley? Do an ultimate mashup from more songs and have more smaller parts split between us, finishing it together,” you suggest and he nods.

“That could work, but I have something else on my mind.”

“And what would that be?” Jeff asks, a little lost about the situation as he watches the two of you exchange ideas.

“We could write a song together, a duet, and perform that instead of our solo stuff.”

“What?” you snap right away. “You want to write a whole new song just for the Grammy’s?”

“Why not?” he smiles carefreely. “We have almost two entire months to do it, albums have been written in shorter periods, I’m sure we can handle just one song. And I think a collaboration would be a hit for the both of us now.”

You look at Taylor who just stares back at you, ignoring the panic in your eyes.

“Don’t look at me,” she tells you. “I can see the collaboration working, it could be a huge hit.”

“And what, we’re gonna release it as a single after the show? Whose song is it going to be? I don’t have an album coming up until next year, do you get to have it on your third one then?”

“We can put it out as just a single. No one has to have it on any albums,” Harry replies. “If we released it after the show, it would be just the right timing. Neither of us had any new songs out in a while.” Clenching your jaw you’re trying to find a way out of this collaboration, though you’re not even sure yourself why. Taylor sees right through you, knowing well you’re planning your escape, but she has other plans apparently.

“Y/N, let’s have a few words outside,” she pushes herself up and pulls you with her. Once the door is shut behind the two of you she starts right away. “What the fuck is your problem? The song is a huge thing, it would be an instant hit with him on it!”

“Why do I need a song with him to stay relevant?” you question, folding your arms on your chest.

“No one said it’s about that. But we both know it would be a great push to your name that Jordan has stomped over not so long ago, calling you a Feminist Nazi.”

“Don’t even fucking mention him!” you whisper yell, refusing to even think about that trashbag of a man that ruined your life with his fake accusations.

“Look, I know what you are thinking, that you’ll be seen as just an object next to him, a pair of boobs and nice legs, but that’s not his brand. He doesn’t need you to be sexy next to him, he is known for his honest and real works that go farther than just twerking and being a hoe. We both know he produces meaningful music, so why are you so against it?”

“I just… I-I’m scared to work with him,” you finally admit and it’s the first thing today that surprises Taylor.

“Scared? Thought you’re not scared of anything,” she huffs.

“I never said that,” you give her a look. “Harry met me when I was nobody, it was just me and my big mouth, trying to find my breakout. What if we start working together and he sees that I completely lost that version of myself? I would feel like a liar, an impostor.”

“You are overreacting,” Taylor sighs. “You’ve changed on your way here, but I doubt you are that far from the girl he met before. I know we didn’t meet just a few years after, but I can assure you, you’re still that big-mouthed pain in the ass who fights every norm in the industry like no one else.”

You know she is right, she is always right. Taylor knows you too well, that’s why you love working with her, but sometimes, her honesty throws you way off, especially when she is stating the truth.

The two of you rejoin the two men in the office and they both look at you with anticipation as you fold your arms on your chest and move your gaze over to Harry.

“I would… love to work on a song with you.”

When you agreed to work with Harry you didn’t think you’d find yourself heading over to his house a few days later to have a writing session, but he offered right away that day in the office and Taylor accepted it before you could protest. You’ve had a day filled with meetings and fittings and now you’re rolling up his driveway after punching the security code in that he shared with you over text.

You’ve exchanged numbers on the spot and just like that, you’ve become one of the few people on this world that could contact Harry Styles anytime they want to.

You chose to be casual for the occasion, wearing a pair of black sweatpants and a white hoodie, you like to be comfortable whenever you’re working on new music and Harry’s presence won’t change your ways about that. You’re not sure what to expect, if you’re being honest you’re still afraid of being alone with Harry and do such an emotional thing together as writing a song.

The front door opens just as you get out of your car, grabbing your bag from the passenger seat. Harry walks out wearing a pair of shorts and a green hoodie, looking like he hasn’t left the house all day.

“Hey, you found the address easily?” he asks smiling as you walk up to him.

“Yeah, everything went fine.”

“Do you want something to drink or eat maybe?” he offers as the two of you walk inside. If you’re being honest, you’re starving, the last time you had anything to eat was between two meetings around ten, but nothing since then, just a granola bar. But you’re a first time guest, you can’t just eat up his fridge, like you’re old pals, right?

However, Harry can see right through you.

“You haven’t had anything in a long time, right?” he softly asks and you purse your lips, feeling awkward already and you haven’t been here for more than two minutes. “I can make you a sandwich, if you’d like.” “Harry, no need, I—“ “No need, but I want to. Come on,” he nods at you, making you follow him into the kitchen. “So, who would have thought we would be here now, huh?” he smirks at you as he gathers the ingredients and starts working on your food while you sit on one of the stools at his kitchen island.

“Not me,” you admit chuckling. “I kind of didn’t think I would see you again, I mean, personally. I was seeing you a lot on TV after that.”

“Now might be a good time to confess that, that night wasn’t the last time I saw you.”

“What?”

“I went to one of your gigs a few weeks later. Stayed at the back, I just really wanted to see you play.”

“And what did you think?” you ask tilting your head to the side. Harry smirks, his eyes meeting yours before they return to the food under his hands.

“You absolutely smashed it. And I felt even worse for taking your time away that night. The people were robbed from a mind-blowing performance and had to see five annoying guys clown on the stage,” he laughs making you chuckle too. “I wasn’t surprised when your name surfaced a few years later. Knew you’d make it at one point.” He joins you at the island and slides the plate in front of you with a warm smile.

“Thank you,” you mumble smiling shyly before you start eating and only after the first bite you feel just how hungry you’ve been. “Now that we are at it, I want to apologize for the way I talked to you guys back then. I feel like I was a bigger asshole than I should have been and the whole situation wasn’t entirely your fault.”

“No need to apologize,” he shakes his head. “You were absolutely right. We had no business being on stage that night and what you said actually made us think about where we came from and appreciate our career more. You were right about having it easy at the beginning. We never had the phase where we had to push our way to the top like other artists, our first days were broadcasted on TV, giving us the biggest push ever.”

It’s good to hear he is not holding grudges against you for whatever went down in the past. You eat in silence while Harry types a response to a message on his phone before turning it with the screen down to pay his full attention to you.

“I actually just messaged Niall that we are working together and he is losing his shit over it,” he chuckles softly.

“You guys still talk?”

“Yeah, sometimes. Not all of us thought,” he adds, pressing his lips together.

“You miss being with the band?”

“It’s… good to rely on someone in certain situations. As a solo artist, you only have yourself and that’s about it. But I think you already know that.”

“I never really liked being in a band,” you admit.

“How come? I think you fit in well with The Gambits.”

You shrug, chewing on your bite slowly. It’s probably not the best time to admit that you prefer working on your own, when you’re about to get into a duet with him.

“I uhh… I always imagined myself being a solo artist and I just couldn’t stay with the guys too long, especially when I got my record deal.”

“Why?” Letting out a long breath you lick your lips looking at him.

“I would have never made it in a band with three guys. It would have always been about which one I’m sleeping with, who am I having an affair with or if I’m lesbian because I’m not hooking up with any of them. This is just how it goes for women.”

Harry stays quiet, taking your words in as you finish the sandwich that was literally lifesaving. You wash the plate even when he tells you to just leave it in the sink, and once that’s done, the two of you move over to his little home studio in the basement of his house.

“So, where do we start?” you ask, making yourself comfortable in one of the armchairs while he grabs an acoustic guitar and sits on the one next to you.

“How do you usually start writing?” he asks scratching his chin before he rests his hands on the body of the guitar.

“Well, most of the times I write when I’m pissed about something,” you huff and Harry smirks at you.

“Nothing pissed you off lately?”

“Not enough to make me write a song,” you point out. “See, this is one of the reasons why I was hesitant to write a song with you. It doesn’t come that easily for me.”

“And what were the other reasons?” You shut your mouth at his question, you weren’t expecting him to pick it up, but apparently, he listens more than you thought.

“It’s… a long story.”

“And we have all the time,” he smiles slyly. “But of course, don’t feel pressured to share. I just thought it would be nice to get to know each other more so we can work together easier.”

Harry starts strumming his guitar gently, playing random riffs as you watch him, chewing on your bottom lip. Taylor asked you to try and be more open than you usually are and though part of you wants to keep the wall high between you and him, something is telling you to try and reach out to him.

“I didn’t want to do it, because I didn’t want to be seen as just a pretty face next to you. In duets between a man and a woman, females are often seen as just an object, a sight for the eyes but not as serious artists. I worked hard to be taken seriously and I was hesitant about collaborating with you even though your music is not necessarily what I should fear.”

Harry looks back at you with an unreadable expression and you feel like he is judging you for standing up for yourself. Your fight for yourself is often mistaken as “being a bitch” or “being too sensitive” and the amount of times you’ve been told to just chill is upsetting.

“Well, good thing then that I won’t write music about twerking,” he then finally speaks up, a smile breaking his blank expression.

“But you do write a lot about sex,” you point out with a smirk.

“That I do, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be sexist at the same time.”

“You’re right,” you nod smiling.

The writing process turns out to be harder than you thought. You’re not specifically inspired and Harry is the person to just throw things around until he finds something he likes. The two of you put together is kind of chaotic as you try to come up with something useful.

Two hours later you have a raw version of a melody that could serve as a chorus, but nothing else, no full melody, no lyrics. And if you’re being honest, you don’t like that chorus that much either.

“It’ll be fun to just stand on stage for three minutes and do absolutely nothing, because we couldn’t write anything,” you groan, sliding lower in your seat, rubbing your face with your hands.

“It’s literally our first session and we have plenty of time, Y/N. Don’t stress about it.”

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“You don’t know how not to stress?”

“I literally haven’t had a stressfree day since about 2007, so no, I don’t know.”

“You can’t chill even when you smoke?” he asks and you give him a puzzled look. “What, you smoke, don’t you?”

“Cigarettes? I put it down in 2015.”

“No, I’m not talking about cigarettes,” Harry chuckles softly. “You don’t smoke weed?” You shyly shake your head. “Really? I would have sworn you’re the type to relax with a good joint. Want to try it?”

“What? Now?” you ask with wide eyes.

“Why not?” he shrugs and walks over to the little side table in the corner of the room and reaching into it he simply pulls a little plastic bag out with three joints in them.

“Are you just casually keeping joints around your house?”

“I don’t really smoke them, they make me feel sleepy. But some of my friends like it so I keep a few around,” he explains as he takes one out and puts the rest back. “You want to try?”

“I-I’m not sure… I have to drive back home.”

“You can stay for the night, I have three guest bedrooms,” he shrugs before his eyes meet yours. “Again, not trying to pressure you, I’m just offering.”

“Are you gonna smoke?”

“We can share one if you want. I would recommend smoking one by yourself for the first time.”

“Okay,” you nod shortly as you watch him tip-tap the joint a little, rolling it between his fingers before he takes it between his lips and reaches for a lighter. “Wait, shouldn’t we do it somewhere outside? The smoke is gonna get stuck in here.”

Harry stops, thinking about what you said and he nods. Grabbing the guitar he asks you to follow him and the two of you move up and out to the terrace, sinking into his lounge chairs. You bring your knees up to your chest, hugging them tightly as you watch Harry light the joint and take the first few puffs. As he exhales the smoke he holds the joint out for you and you take it, hesitantly putting it between your lips as you inhale for the first time. You can’t help but scowl at the taste, the whole act of smoking feeling strange after years of smoking your last cigarette. You keep it down a little before puffing the smoke out and passing the joint back to Harry.

You keep switching until you make it past half of it and you finally start to feel the effect of it. You feel light, like you’re floating in the pool that’s in front of you, you can almost feel the water touching your skin yet you’re still dry.

“How are you feeling?” Harry asks, blinking at you with hooded eyes.

“I’m feeling… fine,” you chuckle softly as you take the joint from him and drag from it again. “Do you do other drugs?”

“I’ve done shrooms a few times, not often though. I’m not trying to pick up an addiction,” he smiles softly, running a hand through his hair. “Have you done anything?”

“No,” you shake your head. “Didn’t have the money for it before and then didn’t have time later. But I never really felt the need either.”

“And you said you put down the cigarette as well?”

“Yeah. I knew I had to do that sooner or later, it was starting to change my voice and I couldn’t have that.”

“That’s what we always told Louis, that his voice will turn to shit if he keeps smoking,” Harry chuckles softly, dragging from the joint before he passes it over to you, not much left of it.

“Did he ever stop?”

“I think he put it down when his son was born, but I don’t know if he started again.”

You give the joint back for him to finish it and you watch him put it out in the ashtray before he sinks down in the lounge chair, closing his eye for a bit, breathing steadily. You find it amusing how you can still see the guy that handed you a check years ago at that bar, trying to make things right, but he also looks like a completely different person at the same time. He is more mature and open in his mindset and just the way he approaches things in general. The Harry you met seven years ago was still searching his way, but the version lying next to you now is a lot more confident in who he really is.

“Want to take a picture?” he hums keeping his eyes closed.

“What?”

His eyes peel open and turn to face you, a smug smirk on his lips.

“You’ve been staring at me. Take a picture, it lasts longer.”

“You are way too full of yourself,” you scoff and pushing yourself up from the lounge chair you walk over to the edge of the pool, mesmerized by the way the light is dancing on the surface.

You never really thought about what weed would feel like in your system, but it feels oddly tranquil and relaxing. In a way your body feels a little strange, like it’s not even yours, but you also sense everything very… loudly.

“You alright?” you hear Harry’s voice coming from behind, the tapping on his feet signaling that he is walking closer to you.

“Yeah,” you nod without taking your eyes off of the water.

“Do you want to go for a swim?”

“What?” you breathe out turning to face him.

“Do you want to go in?” he rephrases his question with a small smile.

“I don’t… have a bathing suit,” you answer and the moment the words leave your mouth they feel so ridiculous even when you were just stating the truth.

“Okay, but you are wearing underwear, aren’t you?” he smirks. “Or I’m completely fine if you want to go in naked,” he adds smugly.

“Shut up,” you chuckle. “Can you… maybe give me a pair of shorts? I’m fine without a bra when I come out but I would rather have my underwear on dry.”

“Sure,” he hums and turning around he jogs back into the house while you stay right there, staring at the water again.

With each passing moment you get calmer, the outside world and everything in life that’s not happening right in this moment eases into nothingness, your mind numbs in the best way possible.

When Harry returns he is wearing a pair of yellow swimming shorts, two towels are thrown over his shoulders and he has a pair of white shorts in his hands.

“This is the smallest thing I have, I think it’ll be fine,” he comments handing you the shorts.

“Thanks,” you nod before he shows you the way to the closest bathroom where you change out of your clothes leaving them in a neatly folded pile on the counter, you put on the shorts that are a little big on you, but once you’ve tied the strings it seems to be staying up steadily. Your simple black bra is not showing more than what a bikini top would, so you feel fine walking out in your attire.

Harry is sitting at the edge of the pool, his legs moving around in the water. His head lifts hearing your steps and he smiles at you, standing up when you arrive.

“Fits fine,” he nods, taking a look at the shorts.

“Yeah,” you chuckle.

Walking over to the steps you dip your feet in first, testing the temperature before you start going in further, Harry following you right behind. Just as you expected, the water feels smooth against your skin, warmly caressing and swallowing your body as you get in, the surface reaching your chest. You let your arms move around, feel how the water runs through your fingers, it’s amusing and you enjoy it probably more than you should. It’s just water, but right now it feels like a pile of clouds.

“I know I suggested to smoke and then swim, but please don’t drown into my pool, I won’t be able to talk myself out of that,” he chuckles, easing him into the water until it reaches his neck.

“My life is in your hands, Harry,” you smirk at him before you follow him and let the water swallow your whole body up to your neck. “This feels so nice.”

“Yeah? You like it?” he smirks.

“Mm, like I’m… floating through space.”

“In a sense, you are floating in the water,” he chuckles. “You don’t feel sick, right?”

“No, I’m fine,” you smile at him shortly.

You move over to the edge of the pool, laying your arms to the side, holding yourself up so your legs could float in the water. You watch Harry dive under and swim across the pool, reaching the far end before he pushes himself over to you.

“When I went to see you perform there was a song I really liked, but I never found it anywhere later.”

“Which one?”

“The chorus went like… Crashing and crumbling, I’m fighting for my breath, Today won’t be the day I’m meeting death…”

You suck on your breath, surprised how well he remembered the lines even after so many years. He recalled them perfectly, even singing the melody a little with them.

“I never recorded it in studio,” you admit quietly.

“Why not?”

“Because it felt too emotional and I didn’t want it to be just out there.”

“What was the name of the song?”

“It’s called Till I Die. I wrote it when…” You take a deep breath, feeling heavy just by talking about it, but something is urging you to share it with him. “I left from home right after I graduated high school, broke contact with my parents completely and I had a few very rough years, trying to just… keep myself alive, I guess.”

“Can I ask why you left your parents?”

“We had very different visions of what I should become. And I didn’t intend to live the life they imagined for me. My parents are very… traditional, my career in their eyes is just some kind of circus when I’m the clown on the stage. They don’t take any of it seriously and they made it very clear at the beginning that they don’t want me to become a musician. I was supposed to become a surgeon, my dad is one and my mom is in criminal law, they both worked very hard to get to where they are, but they don’t think that’s exactly what I’m doing as well.”

The last person you shared it with was Taylor and though it feels odd to open up about these old wounds again, but having Harry as the one listening to you just feels right.

“You haven’t talked to them since you left?”

“No,” you shake your head.

“And they didn’t even try to contact you?”

“Well, I made sure they couldn't. Changed my number first thing I set my feet outside the house and I never left them any of my addresses. I know it sounds cruel, but I didn’t want to do anything with them after the shaming they put me through when I told them I don’t want to become their perfect little daughter. They told me that I could consider myself disowned from the family if I dare to even write a song.”

“Woah, that sounds really tough.”

“It was,” you nod. “I wasn’t asking them to support me in any other way apart from just being there for me. It’s not like I wanted to spend the money the put aside for my tuition to buy guitars and tour the country, I just wanted them to… accept who I am, but apparently, I asked for too much.”

You feel tears forming in your eyes, but you wipe them quickly. It’s been long since the last time you let the thought of your parents, you’ve been good at keeping these feelings bottled up and in the deepest end of your mind. It’s not like you’re going around and just share your trauma with anyone you meet, but it felt comfortable to share it with Harry.

“I’m sorry about that. Everyone should have a support, especially in our job.”

“I had… myself,” you chuckle bitterly. “Became pretty good at relying only on myself.”

“I’m guessing it’s another reason why you prefer working alone, right?” he smiles at you softly.

“You could say that,” you nod into the water.

“I know it’ll sound cheesy, but… if you ever want to talk, I’m here,” he offers.

“Oh, are we becoming friends?” you ask chuckling.

“We’ve known each other for long enough to be friends, am I right?” he smirks, splashing some water in your way.

“We met a long time ago, but that doesn’t mean we know each other. Everything I know about you is from articles and gossip sites and I think you can only say the same thing,” you point out.

“Okay, then let’s get to know each other.”

“What, do you want to play 21 questions now or something?” you huff.

“Damn right,” he smirks.

And that’s exactly what you do. Swimming around in the pool you ask each other questions, some are funny, some are more serious and you slowly start to get to know each other, seven years after meeting for the first time, but in a way it feels like it’s been just last week when you were talking in the alleyway.

The weed soon dies down in your system, leaving you incredibly tired and it’s only then you realize it’s already past one am. Pulling out of the pool, you both grab a towel drying yourselves up before making your way back into the house.

“The guest bedroom next to mine has a bathroom so I think that’s the best one. I can give you something to sleep in if you’d like,” Harry offers as you follow him down the hallway.

“I think I’m fine in my sweats, but thank you.” He shows you the room, tells you how to change the AC if you feel too cold or hot and then bidding goodbye he is about to go to his own room when you stop him.

“Thank you for… today. I know we didn’t get far with the song, but… I liked hanging out with you,” you admit with a shy smile, leaning against the doorframe.

“Don’t worry about the song, it’ll be fine. And I liked it too. We can make it a regular thing, if you want. You can come over, we’d chill and try to cook up something for the song.”

“I, uhh… Yeah, that sounds good,” you nod, he shoots you a smile before turning around and disappearing in his room.

The morning doesn’t turn out at all any awkward, especially because you don’t get to stay around too long. You have a meeting at eleven so you have to leave in time to go home and get changed before that. Harry makes you coffee, which is lifesaving, the two of you sit at the terrace as you drink it and you arrange to meet in two days to try and have another, hopefully more successful session for the song.

You genuinely enjoyed your time with Harry and to think that you didn’t only smoked weed for the first time with him, but also opened up about your parents, you feel a kind of connection forming and you can only hope you’re not gonna regret it later.

You move on with work after leaving from Harry’s that morning, you have some fittings for upcoming photoshoots and an interview scheduled, so there’s not much time for you to sit around. Tonight you’re supposed to meet Harry again at his place for another session and you feel buzzed about it. You meet Taylor for lunch, sitting on the terrace of your usual place she is talking you through everything that’s coming up the next week, just like you always do so then you can put work aside and have a real chat.

“So how did the writing session go?” she asks, digging into her salad that she always asks with extra chicken.

“The writing? Not so well. But we had a good time,” you truthfully admit.

“Good, good! You’re finally making friends!” Taylor grins, satisfied with the news. You just roll your eyes at her, turning back to your food right when you notice that your phone has been blowing up with notifications.

Huffing you grab it from the table with the pure intention of muting it down completely, but then you see that several people have texted you the same link and it bugs your curiosity so you open one of the messages and tap on the link.

“You have got to be kidding me,” you groan, feeling your rage already pushing up your spine, clouding your vision in red.

“What?” Taylor snaps, reaching for her phone out of reflex.

“That fucking asshole dragged my name again!”

“Who? Jordan? That fucker never learns?” Taylor hisses, her thumbs vigorously typing on the screen immediately.

“Someone asked him about me on Twitter and he dared to call me a lying bitch! I can’t fucking believe this man!”

You and Jordan worked together on a project a while ago. You were supposed to write lyrics to a song he was composing and it was meant for an upcoming popular Netflix show, so the anticipation around the song was huge, especially when word got out that Ariana Grande might end up singing it. During your time working together he very blatantly tried to hit on you, which you politely shut down, because one, you didn’t intend to date someone you were working so close with and two, you just simply weren’t into him. However, he couldn’t take rejection the way a mature, almost thirty years old man should. It started off very subtly, but once you’ve had a chat with him to stop posting obnoxious and suggesting things about you on his social media, because it’s making it hard for you to be taken seriously as an artist and that people will just see you as another celeb which you don’t want to be, he just completely lost his shit. He called you different names on Twitter a few times, the worst were Feminist Nazi and a cock teasing slut, and he just somehow never fails to mention that you lied about your intentions with him, when you were clearer than daylight that you didn’t want a thing from him other than work.

When you realized he isn’t going to be stopping anytime soon, you took him to court, dragged his ass in front of the judge and won the case, which ended with him having to pay you thirty thousand dollars and he was ordered to clear all his platforms from your name for good. You really thought that taught him a lesson, especially because against your will, the case got some publicity and he ended up making headlines about the fault accusations he made about you, but it seems like he didn’t have enough.

You wouldn’t worry that much about his new tweet, knowing that he is the one lying, but the trials took a toll on you. It was at the beginning of the time when you were making yourself a name and even though you won, his accusations stung for some people and some even thought him to be the victim. You fell out of two brand deals and an important interview in the upcoming months which was a major setback and all for what? Because a man couldn’t accept rejection? The sad part is that if it would have happened the other way around, he wouldn’t have had to suffer any effect of it, people don’t tend to question a man’s words when he is showing this charming and nice persona to the public. If you accused him the same way you would have been dragged and titled as a sour crybaby and Jordan’s life would have carried on the same way.

The peaceful lunch soon falls through as Taylor turns on her beast mode to at least get the tweet down as soon as possible, already contacting the legal team you worked with before. It has to be against what you agreed on at the end of the trials, he can’t just go around and drag you again without any consequences.

In just about twenty minutes, the tweets disappear from Jordan’s feed, but you know it was already late the moment he posted it. If something gets out on the internet it never goes away, there are probably hundreds if not thousands of screenshots floating around that will preserve his words forever.

You part ways Taylor as he heads to an immediate meeting with the lawyers you worked together previously, she tells you to try not to worry about it, but you can’t just turn it off in you, that’s not how it works.

Making your way home you keep riling yourself up about it, thinking about what it’s gonna cause you this time, what opportunity is going to be taken because a man has called you a lying bitch, even after winning the previous trial against him that proves how big of an asshole he really is.

Changing into a casual attire you head to Harry’s place a little earlier, hoping it’s not a problem you get there an hour before you were supposed to. Arriving you’re a little taken aback seeing that there is another car parking on the driveway that’s not his and you immediately regret coming here, but before you could leave, the front door opens and Harry walks out. You couldn’t have left without noticing, the security system must have signaled your arrival when you punched the opening code in.

“Hey, everything alright?” he asks instead of questioning your early arrival.

“I uhh—I’m sorry for being early, I could go—“

“Don’t be silly, come on in!” he waves at you and you walk up the stairs. “Two friends are here but they were just about to leave soon,” he explains as you walk in.

“Sorry for crashing the party,” you let out a soft chuckle.

“The more the merrier,” he smiles. “You seem a little stressed, everything okay?”

“Yeah, I just… It’s nothing,” you shake your head.

“Oh my God, is that who I think it is?” you hear a woman’s voice from behind and turning around you see a smiley brunette walking towards you, a shy looking guy following behind her.

“Sarah, this is Y/N. Y/N, this is Sarah, my drummer, and that wanker over there is Mitch, my guitarist.”

“Nice to meet you.” Shaking hands with both of them you realize they look familiar from pictures you’ve seen from Harry’s tour.

“I saw that ugly tweet today, that guy needs to be kicked in the balls,” Sarah sighs with a sympathetic smile, Harry’s ears perking up.

“What tweet?” he asks, eyes switching between you and Sarah.

“Oh, just… Jordan Wells thinks it’s fine to drag people with absolutely no truth behind his words,” you answer with a tight-lipped smile.

“Jordan Wells? The name rings a bell,” Harry hums.

“He is a music producer,” Mitch chimes in.

“I think he was supposed to write for 1D one time, but the deal fell through. Guess we didn’t miss out on anything,” he jokes and it brings a genuine smile to your face.

“You surely didn’t,” you comment under your breath.

You chat with Sarah and Mitch for a bit before they decide to head out, but Sarah asks you to come around sometime they are hanging out and you gladly say yes, wanting to know her and Mitch better, they seem like great company and even greater musicians, it’s always good to meet people who are like you.

As Harry walks his friends out you make yourself comfortable on the couch, reading Taylor’s texts about the update on the recent actions, she has gotten in contact with Jordan’s team and legal steps will be taken if Jordan doesn’t show any sign of improvement in the very near future.

“Hey, want something to drink? Wine or beer maybe?” Harry walks in as you look up from your phone.

“Wine sounds fucking fantastic,” you breathe out earning a soft chuckle from him. You follow him into the kitchen and watch him get a bottle of white wine with two glasses. “I hope Sarah and Mitch didn’t leave early because of me.”

“Oh, not at all. They knew you’d be coming over and would have left around this time, so don’t worry about it.”

He joins you at the kitchen island with the two glasses handing you one and you take a sip from it with a satisfied hum.

“So, want to talk about this Jordan ordeal?”

“There’s not much to talk, really,” you shrug. “He is a jerk and I just can’t seem to get rid of him and I didn’t even date the guy…”

“What did he do this time?”

“Oh, he just casually called me a lying bitch on Twitter, so that’s fun,” you let out a fake laugh, raising your glass before taking a big swig from it.

“Not that creative, if you’re asking me,” he jokes making you laugh. “It’s a very plain choice of words.”

“Yeah, not as good as his best which was calling me a feminist nazi.”

Harry almost chokes on his wine as you say the words, coughing a little while you watch him with an entertained smirk.

“That’s… an interesting way to express his opinion about you,” he answers diplomatically.

“Right? I was thinking about getting a sign of it, like a Live, Love, Laugh one, in the middle of my living room.”

“Would be a wonderful touch of décor,” he smirks. “Alright, I have a proposal for today’s session.”

“Shoot it.”

“You seemed to enjoy your weed experience the last time, I thought we could give it a try again, but we would try to write this time as well.”

“You want to write while smoking?” you ask raising your eyebrows at him.

“Only if you want to. I just thought it would relax you a bit, might even come up with some interesting ideas for the song.”

“Are you trying to turn me into an addict?” you narrow your eyes at him and he just holds his hands up innocently.

“Told you, no pressure,” he smirks angelically.

“I feel like I’m not even coming here to work but to meet with my new dealer,” you chuckle making him laugh. “Okay, we can… give it a try.”

An hour and one joint per person later the two of you are lounging in his living room, he is sprawled out on the loveseat with a guitar on his arms while you are curled upon the sectional, fumbling with the strings of your hoodie.

“We should just… fucking steal a song,” you snort, finding your comment hilarious.

“Which one were you thinking about?” Harry smirks your way, his fingers gently strumming some random melody on the instrument.

“I really want to have a Madonna song to be mine,” you sigh dreamily.

“You’re a fan?”

“Oh, I grew up on her. I have an elaborate choreography for Hung Up,” you snort.

“You need to perform it for me.”

“No fucking way,” you laugh shaking your head. “Not even weed can make me dance for you.”

“Come on, I need to see that choreography, you can’t just hint it and then never show it to me!”

“Nah, not happening,” you laugh, sliding lower down in your seat, your head resting against the armrest of the couch.

You listen to him play the same melody over and over again with your eyes closed and though you really like what you are hearing, no words are forming in your mind that could serve as lyrics. Your phone buzzes on the cushion next to you and grabbing it you see a text from Taylor.

Taylor: Lawyers are on the case, we’ll have more tomorrow, don’t stress about it too much. Night! Xx

Sighing you drop the device back next to you, covering your eyes with your arms.

“You alright?” Harry softly asks.

“Nah, I just want to… disappear,” you sigh, tired of this fight you’ve been fighting for way too long.

“Is this about Jordan? He is a fucking ass, most people know it.”

“But not everyone!” you snap throwing your hands up. “And that fraction that still believes that he is saying the truth is enough to ruin my life. I’m fucking fed up with the injustice women have to face because of the patriarchy we are forced to live in!” Pushing yourself up you run a hand through your hair, hugging your knees to your chest. “It’s so fucking upsetting, like everything I do goes straight down the drain because of one little thing and I’m stuck with trying to rebuild my whole future plan.”

From a sudden urge, you move down to the floor, lying down on the fluffy rug that runs under the couches and the glass coffee table. It feels nice, kind of grounding to lie flat on the floor, especially because your senses are all messed up again because of the weed, but in a good kind of way.

“You worry way too much on longterm things. Try to stay in the moment a little more,” Harry tells you, putting the guitar to the side so he can move his feet to the floor, leaning onto his knees. “You can’t control this much what happens in the future, you should only care about today. And today, you’ve done good, you made it through another day, you did what you had to do and that’s it. Stressing about tomorrow or the next week or next year is just way too much to deal with all the time, twenty-four-seven, three-six-five, that’s just no way to live.”

Lying on the floor you stare up at the ceiling seemingly blankly, but your mind starts to swirl over what he just told you. The worlds are running around, mixing and mingling until something starts to form, making you gasp.

“Grab the guitar,” you tell him, sitting up abruptly. He pulls his eyebrows together, but does as you told him to, holding the instrument on his lap as he waits for you to instruct him more. “Play that… that melody you’ve been playing, but a little faster.”

He turns his attention at the guitar, trying the strings out a few times, feeling the melody under his fingers before he starts playing it just how you asked as you slowly start to sing the lines you have just thought about.

youtube

“You made it through… another day, you made it through another day… You did it, let’s celebrate…”

The lines fit perfectly with the melody he has come up with and the more you sing, the wider his smile grows as you move along in the forming song.

“Some days you feel you’ll break, but you made it through another day, yeah, you did it, let’s celebrate…”

“Don’t fucking stop!” he chimes in, never stopping the riffs, trying out new things as you go, slowly perfecting it together with the lyrics.

“Twenty-four-seven and three-six-five, you made another day, you made it alive! Made another day made it alive!” You sing loud and clear, completely lost in the melody Harry is playing, the lines just flowing out of you, like a dam has been taken down and now everything washes over you at once.

When the chorus is about to come up however you run out of ideas, your eyes meet Harry’s and he sees that you’re stuck. His eyebrows knit together, tongue runs along his lips before he starts playing the melody of the chorus and takes over the singing as well.

“So today, baby, remember it’s okay! We’re all floating through space, today, baby, remember you’re okay! We’re all floating through space…”

He plays a little with the lines, repeats them, tries a few times before he stops singing, you are now standing up, watching him end the melody, neither of you saying a word as he room grows silent. A sudden urge drives you to go closer and you sit back down to the floor in front of him, your eyes casting over the now silent instrument on his lap. Looking up your eyes meet his and you feel like the air is kicked out of your lungs.

You’ve heard so much about moments when you feel yourself pulling towards someone, when it’s like a magnetic field but you never actually experienced it until now. Staring back at Harry you feel that pull everyone has talked about and you finally understand what they were trying to say. It’s like there’s a string coming from your chest that’s connected to him and he is tugging it without even doing anything.

Reaching forward he tugs a loose strand of hair behind your ear, his fingers dancing down the side of your face as you catch his eyes wander down to your lips. Sucking on your breath you feel the moment, you know what he is thinking about because you think about the exact same thing. Kissing him. You are desperate to find out what his lips feel against yours, what he tastes like, what it’s like to have him so close to you.

“You want to kiss me,” you whisper and it’s not a question, more like an observation.

“I do,” he admits with a soft smile, but doesn’t move closer. “Can I?”

“I don’t think it’s an appropriate thing to do in our situation,” you breathe out, though you don’t agree with the statement fully.

“You think too much,” he chuckles softly, leaning closer just a tad bit, but there are still a few inches between the two of you. “Do you want to kiss me?”

“Yes,” you admit.

“Then we should just do what we want to,” he suggests with a small smirk and he looks ridiculously handsome with his dimples and shining green eyes that are glued to you.

“And then what? We’ll just go on like it never happened or there’s going to be more happening? How are we supposed to—“

You don’t get to finish, because Harry closes the distance between you and him and presses his lips against yours, swallowing the rest of your stammering speech. Whatever doubts and hesitation you felt just a moment ago, it all vanishes into nothing as you melt into his kiss, his lips caressing yours gently, softly capturing them, savoring and tasting you with caution, giving you the chance to pull back anytime, but nothing in your body can make you stop kissing him in this moment.

His palms cup your jaw as you push yourself up, slowly making your way to straddle his lap after he has blindly put the guitar to the side, hands coming to rest on his shoulder for leverage. His other hand grips your waist, pulling you close until your chest is pressed up against his, lips never disconnecting in the kiss.

Kissing him feels like second nature, like it’s not even the first but the hundredth time, but on the other hand, every touch and tiny sparkle is so new and unusual, you’ve never felt like this before.

Harry slowly pulls back, pecking your lips a few more times before he stops, nuzzling his nose against you in an adorable and innocent way that brings a smile to your lips.

“Doesn’t it feel good to just do whatever you feel like doing?” he asks with a soft smile, making you laugh.

“Kind of.”

“Nothing has to change. Or something can, it’s up to you.”

“You are so upsettingly cool and respectful,” you blurt out chuckling and it makes him laugh, his head falling back against the back of the couch.

“I’m sorry, I guess?” he smirks with a shrug.

“See? Respectful!” you grin, your hands moving up to cup his face. The pad of your thumbs gently tap against his dimples that are showing thanks to the wide smile on his lips right now. You can’t stop yourself from leaning down and kissing him again, even though your rational side is trying to make you stop. You just can’t, his lips are screaming to be kissed and who are you to deny that?

You’ve been running errands all day. Following an early meeting you ran to your favorite vintage store to get another armchair for your living room. Then you went grocery shopping because your fridge has been ridiculously empty the past two days and later you had a quick fitting for a few outfits you are supposed to wear in the near future. You’ve ran into a few fans too, having small chit-chats with them, taking photos, so it’s been a busy day.

It’s been a week since you and Harry have kissed and despite your fears, it hasn’t been awkward at all. He didn’t bring it up, but you don’t feel like he is pretending it never happened, which is kind of a great balance. He is giving you just enough time and space to figure out what it really meant to you, because quite frankly, you have no idea.

Obviously, you find him attractive. You’d have to be completely blind to say that he is not handsome and just simply good to look at. You’re attracted to him and not just to his looks, but to his whole persona.

It’s just you’re not sure it’s a smart idea to start anything with the man you’re working with and though you know Harry is nothing like Jordan, part of you is still scared the whole thing will happen all over again if you get involved with another man from the industry.

Workwise, everything is going well. You’ve successfully finished the song you started that ominous evening and have started recording it in Harry’s home studio, working some more on the melody, bringing a lot more into it than just a single guitar. What more, you’ve been coming up with new ideas for other songs, lyrics popping up in either your or Harry’s head and you just keep sharing them with each other, saving them for later once the song for the Grammy’s is done.

Heading back to your place you get a call from Harry, his smiley face appearing on the screen of your face as you accept the call and his accent fills the car through the speakers that are connected to your phone through Bluetooth.

“Hey, hope I’m not calling in the middle of a meeting,” he greets you and you can tell he is smiling.

“No, I’m just on my way home. What’s up?”

“I’m meeting with Sarah and Mitch for dinner tonight, thought you’d like to join us.”

“I wouldn’t want to intrude on your time with your friends, I feel like you’ve been spending all your time with me.”

“But I like spending time with you,” he chuckles softly, a blush making its way to your cheeks at his words.

“Are you sure you want me there? What about Sarah and Mitch? I crashed your last meeting with them as well.”

“You didn’t crash anything, Y/N. And I’m positive I want you there, I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t. And just so you know, Sarah asked if you’d be joining us, so I assume they wouldn’t mind it either.”

“Oh, well, okay then. Send me the time and place.”

“Wonderful!” he beams, his enthusiasm making your chest warm.

By the time you arrive home he has already texted you the details and you have just one hour to spare before you have to head out. You opt for a quick shower and an outfit change, switching up your ripped mom jeans and simple t-shirt to one of your favorite jumpsuits. It’s a little baggy, but the waist is cinched in with an inbuilt corset, giving the whole fit a very interesting twist.

Arriving at the restaurant Harry has texted you the address of, the waiter escorts you to the terrace at the back that’s a lot more secluded and you feel yourself relaxing that you probably won’t get photographed. Harry is the only one who is already at the table, sitting with his eyes fixed on his phone, but he immediately puts it aside when he sees you approaching, a wide smile stretching across his face.

“Hey! You look amazing!” he greets you pulling you into a quick hug.

“Thank you,” you smile shyly. He is wearing a pair of brown slacks, a simple white shirt tucked into it, a knitted cardigan thrown on, a typical Harry outfit. “And thanks for the invite,” you add as you take the seat next to him, assuming Sarah and Mitch would like to sit next to each other.

“Don’t even mention it. We’re friends, it’s really nothing. I’m glad you could make it.”

The way he called you friends is giving you mixed feelings. Part of you is happily jumping up and down at the fact that he considers you as a friend, given how you don’t have many of those. It’s been hard opening up to anyone since you’ve made a name for yourself, you’ve ran into occasions a lot when people wanted more than just your friendship from you and it made you rather closed off when it comes to making friends.

On the other hand, you can’t help but feel a little disappointed. Is that all you are? Just friends? More importantly, is that all you want to be, or more?

Sarah and Mitch arrive soon after, joining you at the table and the waiter takes the orders before leaving the four of you alone. It seems like they genuinely like it that you’ve joined, so you can enjoy the evening a little more relieved.

Sipping on some amazing wine, you eat and talk and you feel like you’ve known these people your whole life. You especially like Sarah, she is so open-minded and funny and you think they make a great couple with Mitch who is obviously more closed off, but it’s obvious how much he worships his girlfriend.

Sometime in the evening, when you’ve already had two glasses of Chardonnay and you’re feeling a lot more relaxed and comfortable, you move closer to Harry without even noticing, leaning against him gently and his hand rests on your knee, giving it a soft squeeze under the table, making you want to move even closer to him to feel more of his touch, to get more of him.

Neither Sarah, nor Mitch questions the two of you being a little cozier and you’re thankful for the safe and stressfree environment they are providing, not making you overthink what you do, just letting you enjoy the moment.

At the end of the evening, you can’t shake the thought that you don’t want to say goodbye to Harry just yet. He pays for everyone’s dinner, leaving a generous tip for the waiter and you stay back at the table while Sarah runs out to the restroom and Mitch takes a quick call from his father, leaving you alone with Harry. His hand is still resting on your leg, a little farther up, but still in a very safe zone in the middle of your thigh.

Turning to face him your eyes meet his, his green irises glistening in the soft lighting and he looks so beautiful, you just want to kiss him again.

“Do you have plans after this?” you find yourself asking.

“Not that I know of.”

“Do you want to come over to my place?”

“That sounds like a nice plan,” he smiles at you warmly and you just know that if you weren’t out in the public, he would have leant in for a kiss and you wouldn’t have stopped him.

When Sarah and Mitch return all four of you head out and they don’t question when you follow Harry to his car. They say goodbye and Sarah makes you promise to join them some other time too and you happily say yes to the invitation.

Not much is being said on the way back to your place, he plays some music quietly as you navigate him through the streets.

“Welcome to mi casa,” you smile as you key the two of you into your apartment you’ve been living in for the past few years.

It’s nothing luxurious, just a tad bit bigger than what one person would need as a home. You would have been fine living in your previous home you lived in before you’ve gained fame, but you needed a much bigger closet so you were forced to move. It’s a two bedroom apartment with one big bathroom, an open concept kitchen and a spacious living room. And of course, a closet as big as your bedroom. It’s the perfect size and you haven’t even thought about buying a bigger place just because you can, it would be a waste of money and space. The interior is very much vintage with all your mismatched furniture and colorful walls, but you think it’s quite cozy and just the ideal space for you.

“Would you like something to drink?” you ask, walking into the kitchen to get yourself some water.

“Some water would be great, thank you.”

Filling up two glasses you hand him one as you lean against the counter, silently eyeing each other. It should be clear to him that you had intentions with asking him to come over, especially after being your cozy with each other during dinner, but you’re a little lost in what you should or even want to do. You just know you want him close.

He drinks up his water, his eyes meeting your gaze as a small smirk tugs on his cherry lips.

“You want to kiss me,” he states, using the exact same words you used the night when you kissed for the first time.

“I do,” you nod, feeling a little breathless.

“Then do it,” he simply answers, making you smile.

“Cool and respectful, as always,” you grin at him as he moves closer, stopping just a few inches away from you, your feet almost touching. Reaching up his fingers gently caress the side of your face and you feel yourself already melting under his touch.

“You’re beautiful,” he murmurs, a shiver running down your spine at his words. You close your eyes for a moment, giving yourself the chance to pull out of it, but you realize you don’t want that, not even the tiniest bit. Opening your eyes they meet with his gaze before you move closer, closing the distance between you and him, lips meeting in a warm and chaste kiss.

Though it grows a little hungrier, you can tell he is still holding back a little, giving you the chance to stop whenever you want to, but you don’t intend to. Pushing yourself closer to him, your arms curl around his neck as his hands grip your waist, your tongue meeting his as you deepen the kiss and melt into his embrace.

Pulling back you grab his hand and head to the bedroom, going back to kissing him the moment you reach it. You easily slide his cardigan off his broad shoulders, pulling his t-shirt out of his pants before taking it completely off, throwing it somewhere to the side. You smirk against his lips, hands wandering down his naked chest and you can’t push down a moan as you feel the warmth of his chest muscles under your touch.

When you feel him try to blindly figure out how to get you out of your jumpsuit with not much luck and this clears your head for a moment to realize what is about to happen. Pulling back your gaze meets his and he stares back at you with caution, ready to stop whenever you tell him to, but that’s not what made you pull back.

“Harry, I…” “We don’t have to do anything,” he softly tells you, his fingers dancing down the side of your face until they reach your chin and he pulls you in for a delicate and slow kiss.

“I want to,” you whisper. “It’s just that… I want you to know that I’ve never… I’ve never been with a man before.”

Searching in his eyes you look for any sign of what’s going on in his head wishing you could just simply read his thoughts.

“You’ve never been with a man?” he asks, seemingly not as surprised as you expected him to be. You nod, licking your lips, waiting for any kind of reaction, a part of you expecting to be upset, though you know he has no right to be mad at you for any of it. “Do you want me to be the first man?” he then asks, with a loving and warm smile as his hand on your hip pulls you against him playfully.

“Yes.”

“Then help me get you out of this jumpsuit, because I can’t figure it out for my life,” he chuckles making you laugh too.

You show him where the corset opens and then get you out of it with joined forces, finally leaving you standing in just your underwear. Harry’s gaze runs down your body, a look of hunger and passion shining through his green irises as he pulls you close again, kissing you with a lot more vigor this time.

Soon enough, his slacks slip to the floor and you climb to your bed, Harry following closely, climbing on top of you before rejoining your lips. Your knees open up wide for him, allowing him to sink his hips between your thighs, his crotch meeting your heated center, a moan slipping out your lips when you feel his erection rubbing against you through the material of your underwear. He kisses his way down your jawline and neck, gently sucking on the soft skin, peppering kisses along your collarbones before he reaches your chest. He easily unclasps your bra and slips the straps down your arms before getting rid of the barrier that’s been keeping him away from your naked chest.

“Fuck, Y/N, you are so damn beautiful,” he breathes out shakily, before his lips wrap around your right nipple, his hand cupping your other breast. You keep whining and whimpering as you feel his tongue swirl around your nipple before his mouth moves over to the other breast, giving it just the same amount of attention.

He kisses down your stomach, glancing up at you as he hooks his fingers into the elastic of your panties silently asking for your permission to go further, still so respectfully looking out for you. As an answer, you lift your hips up so he can easily slide the material down your legs and throw it to the side.

“Oh fuck!” you moan when his tongue and lips press against your bud, playing with it oh so perfectly, making you shudder. If you didn’t think Harry was perfect, his tongue work is now surely making a statement on that.

With every lick, kiss and suck he pushes you closer to your release that’s nearing in a fast pace like never before. Reaching down you lace your fingers through his chocolate curls, tugging on the lightly, making him moan against your core. You’re not sure how long you’ll last, but you want to cum with him inside you, so you pull him up, lips meeting again as you still taste your own juice on him. It’s heavenly.

Without breaking the kiss you reach down and into his underwear, palming his fully hard cock, earning a satisfied growl when you wrap your hand around him. The feeling is quite unknown, you’ve only once had to face a penis before, it happened back in high school when you were still figuring out what sexuality meant to you. Gave a wobbly and quite short handjob to a guy from the grade above you, never even talked to him again. The experience left a major effect on you, never even got close to being intimate with a man, but being with Harry now is putting everything into a whole new light.

“Do you have a condom?” he mumbles against your lips, clearly just as excited to carry on as you are.

“Yeah,” you nod and let go of him, rolling to the edge of the bed so you can dig into the drawer of your nightstand, successfully finding the little silver packet. Tearing it open you hand it over to Harry and get back to your previous position as you watch him kneeling up, rolling the condom on carefully. Your lips part when your eyes fall on his cock, seeing now how big he really is. Harry catches your eyes and leaning down he kisses you softly.

“Tell me if it hurts and I’ll stop, okay?” he kindly tells you, but you smile at him coyly.

“You might be the first man I’m with, but your dick won’t be the first thing to be inside me,” you answer with a smug smirk and it brings an amused look to his face.

“You are so fucking hot,” he murmurs, pressing his lips against yours in a hard kiss as he settles himself back between your legs.

Though you really tried to sound confident the other moment, you still feel a little nervous about it and Harry senses it right away. Holding himself up on one arm he cups your face in his other, kissing you slowly, taking his time with his lips, as if he is trying to make you forget about everything else but his lips.

“Are you still sure about this?” he softly asks, looking for any sign of hesitation in your eyes, but there’s none.

“Yeah, I want this. I want you,” you nod and reaching down between your bodies, you take him in your hands again, positioning him to your center.

Harry captures your lips in another passionate kiss as he pushes into you slowly, filling you up inch by inch. You gasp at the sensation, feeling a little tight around him, but not in an uncomfortable way.

“You alright?” he asks once he is almost fully in.

“Yeah, go ahead,” you breathe out with a small nod. He pecks your lips and slowly pushes all the way in before he starts to move out and then slide in again, picking up a not too fast but still firm pace with his movements.

You gradually get used to the feeling of him sliding in and out of you, it’s surely a whole different experience than using a dildo or any kind of toy you are used to. The thought that it belongs to him is bringing you a sense of intimacy you haven’t felt in a long time.

Wrapping your arms around his shoulders you dig your fingers into his hot skin that’s coated with a thin layer of sweat as he keeps moving, slowly picking up his pace as you both get closer to the endgame.

“Harry, faster, please!” you plead, legs coming to wrap around his waist so he can thrust in deeper, making you go completely nuts from the way your orgasm is already forming in the pit of your tummy.

He obeys without a second thought, slamming into you faster and harder, making you continuously moan his name, the room is filled with moans and panting, the slapping noise of his hips meeting yours.

Harry buries his face into the crook of your neck, kissing and sucking on the soft skin, definitely leaving a mark, but you couldn’t care less. You just grab a handful of his hair, shutting your eyes closed as you feel yourself nearing the end.

“Harry, I’m gonna cum,” you pant, barely hanging on.

Instead of stretching it out and trying to play with you, Harry clearly wants you to combust. Reaching down between your bodies his index and middle fingers find your clit and he starts circling on it, adding that little extra you needed to fall over the edge.

Moaning and whimpering under his massive body, your orgasm washes over you in waves, bringing you such an intense satisfaction you’ve never felt before. He keeps up his thrusting and just a few moments later his movements fall out of his rhythm and mumbling your name over and over again, he gasps as he rides his high while you’re still trying to catch your breath following your own.

With a heaving chest Harry rolls off of you, gets rid of the condom and throws it to the small bin you keep next to your night stand and then lies flat beside you as you both just silently stare up at the ceiling, very much in the best kind of after sex haze.

“How are you feeling?” he then asks, rolling to his side, his hand coming to rest on your bare stomach. Turning your head to the side you crack a smile at him.

“I feel like I’ve just been properly fucked,” you bluntly answer, making him laugh wholeheartedly. Rolling to your side his arm falls to your waist as you scoot closer, your face only a few inches from his. He is so pretty up close, his features never fail to amuse you, hard to believe he is a real human, lying right next to you.

He closes his eyes a little, letting his head sink into the pillow as his fingers delicately dance up and down your side and back. You feel like you owe him to say something, dropping a major detail about yourself in a heated moment.

“I had two girlfriends,” you speak up, his eyes fluttering open to your words. “The first one was when I was eighteen, we dated for almost a year, then I briefly dated a guy, but it was barely just a month. And I had my second girlfriend when I was twenty. We were together for two years.”

“Are you still friends with them?”

“I still talk to the second one. Her name is Mila. We broke up because she moved to Spain for a job for a year and we didn’t want to do long-distance. Then we just… grew apart, but we still talk sometimes. She lives in Atlanta now, she has a girlfriend and she told me that she is planning to propose soon.”

A soft smile tugs on your lips as you talk about her. She was an important person in your life in a time that was truly challenging. Mila supported your dreams, she went to a lot of your concerts and she was the first one you called when you got your record deal even though you weren’t together anymore. She has seen you go from performing in dodgy bars to rocking the stage of arenas.

“Congrats to her,” Harry smiles through tired eyes. Reaching up he tucks your hair behind your ear before leaning closer he envelopes your lips in a soft kiss.

“We really shouldn’t have done this,” you hum, though you can’t wipe the satisfied smile off your lips.

“Why not?”

“Because we work together.”

“So what? We aren’t allowed to like each other?” he smirks cockily.

“You like me?”

“Thought I made that pretty clear,” he chuckles rubbing his eyes. “But yeah, I do like you, Y/N. A lot.”

“I… like you too,” you admit shyly. Leaning in he kisses you again before pulling you to his chest as he lies on his back.

“Can I stay the night or you want to throw me out?” he hums closing his eyes. Chuckling your snuggle to him, making yourself comfortable, enjoying the warmth of his body after so spending so many nights alone in this bed.

“You can stay, but you have to behave.”

“Oh I will behave my best, don’t worry.” A chuckle rumbles through his chest as you both fall silent and soon enough, drift off to sleep.

You wake up tangled in the sheets, but no one else is lying in bed with you. Blinking the sleep out of your eyes you look around and though there’s no sign of Harry in the room you spot his clothes on the floor. That’s when you hear the pots and pans clinking somewhere outside and you smile to yourself. You pull a t-shirt on with a pair of clean panties before heading out, finding Harry in your kitchen, wearing your pink fluffy robe and nothing else as he is making what seems to be pancakes.

“I don’t remember hiring a chef,” you joke walking closer, sliding a hand down his back as you lean against the counter next to the stove.

“Good morning,” he smiles. “I really wanted for you to wake up but I was afraid my growling stomach might wake you up,” he chuckles as he flips the pancakes in the pan with the spatula.

“Found everything you needed?” you ask, walking over the fridge to grab the orange juice.

“Yeah, you have a neatly organized kitchen,” he hums. “Sorry for snooping around though.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Pouring the juice to two glasses you hand one to him which he thanks softly before placing the golden pancakes to the plate on the counter and pours another bunch into the pan.

Sipping on your juice you watch him move around, making breakfast in your robe and you can’t help but smile at the sight of this fine man in your kitchen. Harry catches you eyeing him and he cocks an eyebrow at you.

“What’s gotten you so smiley?” he asks, his voice still a little groggy and husky.

“I just… really want to kiss you,” you shrug placing the glass to the counter.

“I think we are over this whole asking for permission thing,” he smirks, stepping closer he leans down and kisses you gently, tasting like orange juice and something sweet, he has probably ate one of the pancakes. His hand that’s not holding the spatula finds your waist, the t-shirt bunches up on your side as he pulls you closer, deepening the kiss before you hear sizzling coming from the stove.

“Whoops, not trying to burn the place down,” he chuckles as he turns to the pan and flips the pancakes. You wrap your arms around his waist and kiss his jawline before stepping away from him to set the table for breakfast.

“Do you have any plans this weekend?” he asks over breakfast.

“I have a meeting with my label on Saturday, but nothing else.”

“I’m having a few friends over Saturday evening, kind of a late Grammy nomination celebration. Want to come over?”

“Yeah, that… sounds good,” you nod smiling.

“I was thinking that maybe you could spend the night and then we can finish recording on Sunday.”

“Alright, I’m in.”

Harry takes a quick shower after breakfast before heading out, promising to call you later and though it still feels a little odd that he says goodbye with a kiss, you very much like this new setup between the two of you.

Friday evening Taylor is over at your place, she loves helping you sort out promo stuff you get sent all the time, especially because you let her take whatever you don’t want, half her closet was meant to be worn by you.

Sitting on the floor with boxes surrounding the both of you, you’re digging through them with a bottle of wine, some 90’s music playing in the background, it’s a nice and relaxing evening.

Your phone lights up with a text on the coffee table and you already know it’s from Harry. You haven’t stopped texting since he left from your place just a few days ago.

Harry: Do you think it’s a look for the Grammy’s?

He attached a photo of himself in all denim, looking very much like 2001 Justin Timberlake at the AMA.

Y/N: Should I match and pull a Britney?

Harry: Is that even a question?!

“Okay, who’s the girl?” Taylor asks, making you tear your eyes away from the phone’s screen.

“Huh?”

“Last time I saw you smiling like this at your phone you were talking to that girl you met at that award show. So who is it this time?”

“It’s… not a girl,” you admit, placing your phone back to the coffee table.

“Oh, did a guy finally manage to sweep you off your feet?” Taylor gives you an amused look, genuinely surprised to hear that this time it’s a guy that has you wrapped around his finger. “What is his name?”

“Harry,” you shortly answer and see her eyes widen.

“Wait, is it… Harry as in Harry Styles?”

“Yeah,” you admit with a soft chuckle.

“Oh my God, I knew I could feel some sexual tension between you two at Jeff’s office!”

“There wasn’t any, what are you talking about?”

“You didn’t see it because you were too busy trying to blow off the duet, but it was radiating from him.” She gives you a look, putting the sweater she’s been examining to the side. “So, how are things? Are you guys an item, or…?”

“We didn’t label anything, he just said he likes me and I like him too. And he… spent the night the other day.”

“Wait, what? Spent the night as in—“

“Yes, we had sex,” you confirm blushing.

“That’s like huge! The first man you’ve been with!”

“I know,” you chuckle.

“How was it?”

“Fucking amazing,” you truthfully admit with a sigh. “I didn’t think it could be this good with a guy. Maybe it’s just because it was with him.”

“He surely looks like a guy that takes good care of his girl. So what’s gonna happen? Are you guys together?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t seem to care about names and labels, he just likes to do whatever he wants and if I’m being honest it’s kind of refreshing. We are just… enjoying whatever we have.”

“That sounds very liberal,” Taylor chuckles. “But I’m happy for you. You’ve been alone for way too long, I think he might do good to you.”

“I really hope,” you nod with a sigh.

“How is the song writing going?”

“We’re finishing up recording on Sunday. I’ll send it to you when it’s done and we can start all the paperwork and everything.”

“Amazing, you are doing great, Y/N, I’m proud of you,” she smiles and climbing over she wraps you in a tight hug.

“Thanks, Tay,” you smile at her. “Alright, now do you want these lace socks or should I burn them?” you ask holding up a whole pack of them, making her laugh.

Harry said it’s just a chill get together, nothing fancy so you decide to wear a khaki maxi skirt with a shirt tucked into it that was a gift from a fan, your first album’s name embroidered to the front. It’s one of your favorite pieces and you like wearing things your fans make you, gives the whole fit a plus.

Arriving to Harry’s place you spot that there are a few cars already parking on the driveway. You leave your overnight bag in the trunk, grab the bottle of wine you’ve brought and head inside. Unlike every time you’ve been here, the silence is now switched up with soft music and chatters, quite a few people lingering around the house already.

Just as you walk farther inside, Harry appears on the stairs and his face lights up at the sight of you.

“Hey! Did you just arrive?” He jogs down the rest of the stairs and walking up to you he pulls you close for a quick kiss without hesitation.

“Yeah. I know you said not to bring anything, but I hate coming to parties empty handed,” you chuckle softly, holding the wine bottle up.

“Thanks. Have you eaten? Jeff is grilling outside, but help yourself with anything.”

“I’ll be fine, thanks.”

“Sarah and Mitch are already here, but come on, let me introduce you to a few people.”

Harry takes your hand, lacing your fingers together with his. He drops the wine off in the kitchen before joining all the other guests. It’s really not that many people, just about thirty of his close circle. Musicians, people he has worked with and stayed close with, people he has known for long. Everyone seems welcoming and open, many already know who you are and it’s always a good conversation start, so there are not many awkward silences, especially because Harry is always near you, making sure you feel comfortable around his friends and it means a lot to you.

“Hey, everything alright?” Harry asks, when he finds you in the kitchen, refilling your glass. He walks up to you, placing a hand to your waist as he kisses into your hair.

“Yeah, your friends are nice,” you smile at him.

“I know, that’s why they are my friends,” he smirks, so full of himself. “Want to hear something interesting?”

“Always.”

“I was talking to Adam and our song came up and then out of nowhere I referred to you as my girlfriend.”

Seemingly he is testing the waters, trying to see how you react to the title, even a little afraid of what you might say, but it doesn’t scare you.

“Yeah? That’s interesting indeed.”

“Are you okay with it? I wasn’t really thinking about it, just slipped out.”

“It’s fine,” you smile at him softly.

“You don’t have to call me your boyfriend, call me whatever you want. It’s just a habit of mine, I guess,” he explains, popping some nuts into his mouth from the little jar on the counter.

“Alright,” you nod. Harry stares back at you for a moment before a smile stretches across his face and leaning down he kisses you shortly before taking your hand and walking back to the living room with you.

The last guests leave around midnight. After bringing your bag up to his bedroom you start cleaning up while Harry walks out the last couple leaving. You start loading the washer and put away things you’ve cleaned before.

“Oh, thank you for cleaning, but you don’t have to. I can take care of it later.”

“It’s nothing, I want to make myself useful,” you chuckle softly as you start the washer. Harry comes up behind you, his arms wrapping around your waist as he kisses into your neck.

“I have other ideas for that,” he murmurs, his nose nudging the side of your face.

“Yeah? What kind of ideas?” you teasingly ask, closing your eyes when you feel his hand slide under the waist of your skirt, moving down your abdomen until it reaches your core.

“Fun kinds,” he chuckles lowly. His other hand turns your head so his lips could meet yours, you’re still pressed up against him, melting against his chest with your back just right, like you’re two puzzle pieces.

“Fuck,” you breathe out when his fingers wander into your underwear and they start doing their magic. “Harry!” you whine, reacting intensely to his actions.

“I fucking love hearing my name from your pretty mouth,” he growls, kissing you hard before his lips part from yours and he starts bunching up your skirt.

You don’t protest, in fact, you lean forward, grabbing onto the edge of the counter as he pulls down your panties and you hear the zipper of his pants. Glancing over your shoulders you see him pull out a condom from his pocket and you can’t push down a laughter.

“Did you keep that in your pocket all evening?”

“Wanted to be ready when I finally got you all for myself,” he smirks, pulling his cock out of his boxer briefs, rolling on the condom.

His hands come in contact with your hips and ass cheeks, giving them a light squeeze before you feel him lining himself up with you. His palm slides up your back as he pushes into you, both of you moaning at the fulfilling sensation.

“Fuck, baby, you feel so good,” he breathes out as he pushes all the way inside before starting to pull out.

“Go hard, Harry. Please!” you whimper as he starts thrusting into you. Harry lets out a growl and slams into you, making you gasp at the harshness of the movement, but that’s exactly what you wanted.

The kitchen is filled with the noises coming from the washer next to you and the slapping noise of Harry’s hips meeting your ass with every forceful thrust he makes. His ring clad fingers dig into your hips, probably already making them red, but you couldn’t care less. You hold onto the edge of the counter, but then you move one hand to cover his on you, needing to touch him in some kind of way.

Leaning forward Harry kisses your back between your shoulder blades through the thin material of your shirt and you moan his name when he hits the perfect spot inside you.

“Shit, Harry! I’m g-gonna cum!” you gasp, perking your ass up more so he can go as deep as possible.

“Let go for me, baby. Come on!”

“I want to cum with you.”

“Yeah? Then hold on for a little longer, I’m almost there.”

You try your best to keep everything inside you under control, your orgasm is really on the edge and you can only hope he is nearing his end too.

“Harry! Please!”

“Fuck, okay, okay, cum for me! Let me feel you!” he moans and his words bring you the release.

You clench around him, moaning and whimpering and it finally pushes you into his bliss too. His thrusts slow down but they are hard and go deep, helping you ride the last bits of your high.

He pulls out and gets rid of the condom before wrapping his arms around you, pulling you up from your position so he can kiss your lips.

“How about we take a shower while the washer finishes?” he suggests, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

“Mm, good idea.”

Once the song is fully finished you submit it to your label after an agreement that it should come out through yours, but it wouldn’t be tied to your or Harry’s upcoming album. Everyone seems to love it, Taylor is over the moon when you show her the final version and Jeff is just as happy about it. Having only three more weeks left until the Grammy’s, you send them your request to perform the duet instead of the medley they asked. Their answer comes the next day and they are more than happy to have you premiere your new duet at the show. Everything seems to be on track.

Following a rehearsal for the Grammy performance, you’re staying over at Harry’s, just eating takeout and having a lazy evening after a whole day of working. You’ve put on a new Netflix movie, but every time you look at Harry you feel like his mind is somewhere far away.

“Want to share what’s on your mind?” you ask softly, not wanting to be pushy, you’re just trying to be there for him.

“I’ve just been thinking.”

“About what?” He looks up at you, clearly hesitant whether he should share it with you or not.

“About what you said about your parents.”

“Oh,” is all you can say. Pausing the movie you turn all your attention to him. “What about it?”

“I was just talking to my mom the other day, she is coming here for the Grammy’s and I thought about how you… won’t have your parents there with you.”

“There’s a reason for that.”

“Yeah, but then I thought about how you said you haven’t even let them contact you since then and that maybe they’ve changed their mind about the whole situation. You’ve clearly proved them wrong with building yourself a career, maybe they can now see that what they did was wrong.”

You remain silent, chewing on his words. You’ve been great at not thinking about your parents these past years, it feels weird to have a conversation about them out of nowhere. Harry takes your silence as a warning sign, though that’s not the case.

“You know what? I’m sorry for bringing it up. It’s not really my business, I shouldn’t have brought it up, sorry,” he shakes his head.

“What… would you do if you were in my place?”

Harry looks at you, surprised you are willing to continue the conversation. His hand finds your thigh and he gives it a gentle squeeze.

“I think it might worth a shot to just… contact them. See if they want to maybe get in touch again.”

“And what if they don’t?”

“Then… you know you made the right decision leaving. I know it’s scary, but I think you should take a chance.”

“I’ll… think about it,” you nod shortly.

“Take your time, do whatever you feel comfortable with.” He pulls you into his arms, pressing a kiss to the top of your head as you get comfortable in his embrace before starting the movie again.

Two weeks before the show you are headed to a fitting with Harry, your matching sets are nearly done, but they needed you to try them on and make sure they fit just perfectly. True to your and Harry’s extravagant fashion, this performance won’t lack any over the top fits either. It was clear from the beginning that you would be matching, but you made it clear that you want to bring it to the level where you’d be wearing the exact same outfit, so now there are two sets of suits in the making, the pattern of the whole two piece is recalling a kind of space vibe, blues, purples and black meeting in the colors with hundreds of embroidered stars and planets littering the fabric with additional crystal stars to make it even more extra. It’s truly one of a kind, especially paired with the sheer, tulle shirt you both will be wearing underneath.

“We look fucking great, babe,” Harry smirks as the two of you stand next to each other, examining yourself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror on the small podium.

“We really do,” you smirk, satisfied with how the performance is coming together. It’s gonna be the perfect way to celebrate both your first Grammy nominations, a huge milestone in your and Harry’s career as well.

Grabbing his phone he quickly takes a picture in the mirror of the two of you, pulling you to his side as you smile into the camera through the mirror. Then you leave him alone on the podium as they are pinning his pants to make it the perfect size. Stepping to your bag you fish your phone out and reading just the first few words of Taylor’s last message she sent about ten minutes ago, you feel all blood rushing out of your face. Tapping on the notification you start reading.

Taylor: Please don’t lose your head, but we are dealing with this.

She attached several articles and you start digging through them.

“Is Harry Styles dating his new duet partner?”

“Harry Styles cozied up with Y/N Y/L/N at dinner with friends.”

“Can we expect some hot make out sessions at the Grammy’s from Harry and his new beau?”

And then there’s the absolute worst.

“Is Y/N Y/L/N going to take Harry Styles to court too?”

“Shit, shit, shit,” you mumble under your breath, vigorously typing back to Taylor to take them down. Two pictures have been leaked from the time you had dinner with Sarah and Mitch, it’s so odd because it’s been weeks since then, where were these pictures all along? Not that it matters, all you want is for them to be gone.

Against your better judgment, you go online and check your social media even though you know you shouldn’t snoop around now that it’s out there. No surprise, you and Harry are trending, but the reactions are very much mixed.

The impact of your case with Jordan is still major. It doesn’t matter that you won, people are still questioning whether he said the truth or not and now they are afraid you might drag Harry down just like you did with Jordan. That you are just trying to use his fame to get more attention and then ruin his career, making a victim out of yourself again, because apparently that’s what you’ve been doing.

You’re not only being dragged, but all of a sudden, nothing is about the music and the art you are making, people just want to know if you’re fucking Harry Styles or not. A lot of the times you’re not even named, only referred to Harry’s new lover or what’s worse, his hookup. You’ve lost all the credit you worked so hard for and for what? Because you dared to have dinner with a man?

“Baby, what’s wrong?” Harry asks walking up to you. Your eyes snap up at him and he immediately sees the shock and anger in them, setting panic in him as well. “What is it?”

“The fucking… pictures,” you hiss handing him your phone so he can see the articles for himself. He scrolls through them with furrowed eyebrows, his teeth sinking into his bottom lip before handing the phone back once he has gotten to the end of it.

“Let’s finish this up and head home, okay? We’ll figure it all out.” He presses a kiss to your forehead and you nod, trying your best to keep your anger at bay while the designers finish up on the outfits.

An hour later you walk into your place, talking on the phone with Taylor, discussing the situation though there’s not much you can do at this point. It’s all out, the pictures can’t be taken down. She suggests to just keep quiet for now, she’ll call Jeff to see what could be done as damage control.

Throwing your phone to the bed you feel your whole body shaking from the anger, it’s agonizing to know there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

“Hey, it’s gonna be fine. We’ll figure it out,” Harry speaks up, trying his best to calm you down, but it’s not really working this time.

“Stop saying it, you don’t know that for sure. I can’t believe this bullshit is happening all over again,” you breathe out shaking your head.

“Again?”

“Yes! I’m being fucking dragged for something I shouldn’t be.”

“People will always have controversial opinion on everything, you can’t get them all to like you.”

“It’s not about liking, Harry!” you snap. “I couldn’t give a damn about people liking me, but they discredit my work. Have you read those articles? I’m seen with a man and suddenly, I’m not even seen as an artist anymore. I’m not even my own person in some of them, just a girl who is linked to you. How is that fair?” “It’s not, but stressing yourself about it until you’re sick is not gonna help anything,” he retorts in a firm voice.

“So I should just sit around and so nothing while watching all my work go to shit?”

“Nothing is going to shit! This is how it goes, there’s always something people talk about but they will forget about it in a week. That doesn’t take anything away from what you’ve proved through your career.”

“Now that’s a lie. Because if they did forget about things in a week, they wouldn’t be bringing up the whole Jordan thing now. I dared to stand up for myself against a man and look where it took me to! I’m the drama queen, the lying bitch who likes to ruin men for apparently no reason and they see me as a threat when it comes to you too. People are talking about how I’ll take you to court as well, they think I’m just using you even though they know nothing about me! And the worst part is that it wouldn’t be like this if I weren’t a woman. Whatever happens, however we react to the situation, it will never have the same effect on your career than it will have on mine.”

“So what, you’ll just live your life without ever doing anything that’s gonna upset people? There will always be someone who’ll judge whatever you do, you can’t do anything about that and if you let them get to you now, they’ll know they can mess with you easily.”

“So I’m just supposed to ignore everything? And not do a single thing about it? It’s easy for you, you’ll walk away from this without a scratch on your name, because you are a white man who can do no wrong in the eyes of the world.”

“Okay, now you are being mean for no reason.”

“I’m telling you the truth,” you retort. “And you know what else is part of the truth? That I’m not even having it the worse. There are women who are even more targeted because of their religion, their skin color, their nationality or sexuality and people don’t even realize how hard it is for any of us. I’m sick of the injustice we have to live with just because of our gender!”

“I do acknowledge the problem on hand, I’m aware of it and I’m all for doing against it, but we are not gonna solve it instantly, it’s a long process. Sometimes we just have to pull back a little, be smart about things.”

“They will never stop about this,” you shake your head, stubbornly clinging onto your opinion. “I won’t be seen as a serious artist anymore, just some girl who was linked to you. It’s fucking done, over.”

“Y/N, what are you trying to say?” Harry asks with caution.

“Exactly what you are thinking about,” you reply with a bitter laugh. “I can’t be a respected artist if I’m with you.”

“That’s not true. It will die down, they will see that you are more than just who you’re dating and everything will be fine.”

“What’s not fair is that I have to work for it to be fine while you are still the same artist you were before it all blew up. Don’t you think it’s unfair?” you call him out and part of you knows you’re being mean and unnecessarily rude to him, but you just can’t control it any longer. You need to let it out and unfortunately, he is the one who is here to take the blame.

“It is, but what are you expecting me to do about it? Release a statement asking people to only talk about my dating life to make it equal? What can be done is that we try to fight this together, show them that you’re more than just a woman who is linked to a man in any kind of way.”

“Yeah, like realization is just gonna hit them,” you snap. “I’m at a turning point in my career, Harry. Whether I win a Grammy or not, this time is going to have an impact on my future. If I’m seen as just a girl linked to you, I’ll never make it. I’ll be forgotten and dragged again and I can kiss my career goodbye.”

You know you were way too harsh, but it’s what you think to be the truth. You didn’t fight your way to this point in life just to be seen as a man’s girlfriend rather than the artist you truly are. And right now, you can’t see yourself get out of this situation without letting go of Harry.

“Y/N, please don’t let this ruin what we have. We can get through this, you can’t let them control your life this much. Who are they to tell you what to do? That’s not the Y/N I know, come on!”

He tries to step closer, reaching out for you, but you take a step back, wanting to keep the distance between the two of you.

“I would prefer to be alone now,” you sternly say, folding your arms on your chest, closing yourself off from him as you don’t even look at him, because if you did, you know you would break.

“Y/N, please don’t do this, we—“

“Alone!” you snap, cutting him off.

He stares at you, hoping you might change your mind, but you’re quite set on this. He knows you well enough to know you won’t budge anytime soon. He lets out a shaky breath and slowly turning around, he heads towards the door as you’re already fighting your tears back. He stops right before he is about to walk out.

“I’m really sorry, Y/N,” he quietly says before walking out, the door shutting closed behind him.

The sobs start immediately and you fall to the ground, tears soaking your cheeks, already missing him more than anything in your life. You really thought it would be different this time, that things might get better, but you were naïve.

The next two days go by in a blur. The whole fucking internet is filled with those damn pictures of you and Harry, nothing has been about any of your Grammy nominations or even about your music, you’ve officially became the woman Harry Styles is dating.

Harry was titled as a Grammy nominee in every goddamn writing that surfaced, he was completely credited for his work while you could be happy if your name was written correctly. With every new article, your faith in having the career you worked so hard for lessened until you felt hopeless. You’ve officially became a dumb celebrity, just a woman who was known to be dating a man in the industry.

On the evening of the second day you have enough. You just read yet another degrading piece of you that was clearly written by a man, they once again talked about your case with Jordan, joking about history repeating itself and you swear you could scream and throw a tantrum like a baby at how useless and helpless you feel.

You put your laptop to the side and reach for your phone, dialing Taylor’s number.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” she asks right away, knowing well how hard these past days have been. She came over the evening you sent Harry away and tried to comfort you, but nothing could help you that night.

“Hey, I want to ask you to do something and not try to talk me out of it.”

“Oh God…” she sighs, already knowing you’re about to do something stupid according to her.

“I don’t want to perform at the Grammy’s.”

“What? With all due respect, are you fucking stupid?”

“I’m not stupid. But I don’t want to do it.”

“Well, this has got to be the most ridiculous move you’ve ever tried to pull. Why do you want to throw such a huge thing away?”

“I can’t… sing that song with Harry. If I stand on the stage and sing with him… I just can’t do it, Tay.”

“Of course you can! Suck it up! I know you miss him and it fucking sucks what’s happening, but you have to do it!” she tries to convince you, but you’ve already made your mind up.

“No. I’m not doing it. Please let them know that it’s going to be just Harry performing.”

And with that, you end the call.

Taylor knows better than to try to fight you, she doesn’t call back though you know she wants to murder you right now probably, but she’ll come around, she always does. You make yourself a tea hoping to relax your nerves with it though you know nothing can help you now. You wish you had someone to rely on, someone you could talk to right now, but usually Taylor is that person to you and lately Harry has been your support, but you can’t call either of them. The rest of the people you consider friends… they are just not that close to you. You’re left alone, again.

As your gaze wanders over to your phone, a thought pops up in your mind that makes your hands sweat. You think back to the conversation you had with Harry about your parents and you can’t shake the urge off to finally make that call.

“Fuck it,” you breathe out and grab the device, opening up the contacts until you find what you’ve been looking for. Your thumb hovers above the call button for a while before you finally tap on it and start the call. It rings four times before a voice speaks up on the other end.

“Halo?”

“Hi mom,” you reply and hear a gasp from her at your voice.

There’s less than a week left until the Grammy’s. For your own sake, you haven’t been online outside of answering work emails, you just can’t deal with the shit show your life has become on the internet.

You haven’t left your home unless you really needed to go somewhere, did most of your meetings over the phone or videochat and postponed a fitting as well. You’ve officially caved yourself up in your apartment and you are not planning on leaving anytime soon.

Taylor keys herself in, she hasn’t even mentioned that she might drop by, but you’re not surprised. She is probably here to try to bring you out of this pity party you’ve been holding for days. When she sees you lying on the couch in sweats and messy, unwashed hair, she sighs, shaking her head.

“You really need to pull your shit together, Y/N.”

“I’m fine,” you mumble, pulling your fuzzy blanket up to your chin.

“No, you’re not. This is not the bad bitch I know.”

“Bad bitches have bad days too.”

“This is not a bad day, you look like a fucking zombie. This is not what a Grammy nominee should look like days before the big show.”

“Doesn’t matter, it’s not like I’m performing or anything,” you shrug, but the look in Taylor’s eyes make yours go wide. “Taylor, I’m not performing, you informed them about it, right?”

“This is why I’m here,” she sighs walking closer, sitting on the other end of the couch. “I never cancelled on your performance.”

“I told you I’m not doing it!” “I know, but I was hoping you might come around. But you seem to be still acting like a stupid bitch, so that didn’t happen. However, I’ve gotten an interesting email today.”

She pulls out her phone and opens the email before handing it over to you. Shooting her an unhappy look you start reading.

Hi Taylor!

I got your email address from Jeff, wanted to write to you myself. I’ve officially pulled out of the Grammy performance so it’s going to be only Y/N in it. We are also working on a statement to release over the whole ordeal and my lawyers have been after the bigger gossip sites to get the articles down. I want Y/N to have the Grammy experience she deserves and I know it can’t happen with me in the performance. Tell her that I’m sorry for ruining it for her, she deserves so much more. I’m sorry she was brought into this.

I hope to see you soon, take care!

Harry

With parted lips, you look up at Taylor who is smiling softly at you.

“He… pulled out for me.”

“He did. Talked to Jeff on the phone, they have already let them know Harry wouldn’t be performing, they will make it official tomorrow.”

“But he deserves this just as much as I do. He is a nominee too.”

“Well, seems like he values you more than his own success.” Taylor lets out a long sigh and scooting closer she places a hand to your knee. “Look, I know you’re upset about how the media treats you just because you were seen out with Harry, and I know that you’re afraid of getting labeled as just the girl he dates and not get taken seriously as an artist, but you can’t let them stop you from living your life how you want to. There will always be judgment, there will always be men who are worse than trash and want to bring you down, but you are stronger than that. Pushing Harry away and being alone for the rest of your life is not a solution. What you can do to put them to their place is give them a big fuck you, date the hottest man in the industry and continue being the bad bitch that you are, fighting against the way you are being treated. Speak up, show them who they are dealing with, share your truth, like you always do! But you can do all of this with Harry by your side. You deserve to be happy and he makes you happy, don’t make yourself miserable because we live in a world where men are still placed above women. Fight for the change but don’t forget to think about yourself as well in the process.”

You feel the tears sting in your eyes. The weight of this past week is just way too heavy to carry, but Taylor is right and you are realizing that you’ve made it harder for yourself. The sobs come before you could stop yourself and Taylor pulls you into a hug.

“I know, I know. It fucking sucks, but you can’t let them win,” she soothes, running her hands up and down your back. “Show them how big of a bad bitch you are and get the man too.”

“You think Harry still wants to be with me?”

“I think that man would be on his knees for you in a heartbeat if you asked,” she chuckles pulling back. “Statement about the performance will be released tomorrow. That’s how long you have to figure it out,” she tells you with a knowing look before leaving you alone with your thoughts, however you don’t have to think long what you have to do.

You have not been the only one these past days took a toll on. The fight the two of you had left Harry completely drained, angry and helpless. He hated that he was the reason you weren’t credited as the talented artist that you are and he couldn’t stop thinking about ways to make it better. That’s when he came up with the idea of pulling out of the performance.

Now he is ready to spend the remaining days until the award show hidden from the world, not even leaving the house. Everyone close to him knows he is better not to be disturbed now, so he is quite surprised when the security system lets him know that someone has arrived.

As you drive up to his house you spot him immediately, stepping out the front door with a shocked look on his face, probably expecting you to be the last person to be there at the moment. You wipe your sweaty palms against your thighs as you walk up to him, feeling anxious to see him and talk to him, especially after the last conversation you had.

“Hey, I’m sorry for coming here without calling or anything…” you shyly start, stopping in front of you.

“Don’t be silly. Come… Come on in,” he clears his throat inviting you inside.

You’ve walked through this front door so many times in the past almost two months, but this is the first time you feel so odd, standing out, like you have no place in here and it’s all thanks to yourself.

“Do you want something to drink? Are you hungry?” Harry walks past you but then turns to face you, talking to you with such warmth and kindness, even after how you acted, putting blame on him for something he has no control over. It completely breaks you and can’t stop your eyes from watering as you look at him. You really hoped you’ve run out of tears in the past days, but it seems like that’s not the case at all.

“Harry, I’m so sorry,” you breathe out shakily and you step closer to each other at the same time, he envelopes you in his strong arms and you fist his shirt at his chest. “I know it was none of your fault, I just got so desperate and afraid that it might ruin what I worked so hard for.”

“I know. And you were right about everything. Everything you said was true and I’m sorry you have to deal with it.”

“Yeah, but it wasn’t right to be mad at you just because you have different privileges, it’s not like you can change who you are. So I’m really sorry about that, and also for pushing you away when you were just trying to be there for me. I was so stupid,” you breathe out, wiping the tears sliding your cheeks down away.

“You just panicked, it’s okay. Don’t apologize for wanting to protect yourself.”

Resting your forehead against his shoulder you wait for your sobs to die down before you look back up at him. Reaching up he tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear, smiling down at you warmly and that smile alone ensures you that you are exactly where you are supposed to be, with the right person.

“Taylor showed me the email you sent her,” you bring it up, clearing your throat.

“You deserve it all to yourself so people can see how amazing of an artist you are.”

“I’m not doing it without you,” you shake your head stubbornly. “We wrote the song together and we’re gonna perform it together or else I’m not doing it either.”

“Y/N, you know if we step on that stage together they are gonna twist the whole thing and make it about something else. I want you to have this opportunity for your career without me ruining it with just my presence.”

“Fuck them, if they take it as something it’s not. They are not gonna take the chance away from us to perform our song. If they are such fucking dumbasses that they make it all about what’s between us, that’s their own personal problem. If I need to, I’ll go on a Twitter rant and tell them this myself. I want you on stage with me or else I’m not doing it either.”

Harry breathes out through his nose, pressing his lips together as he stares back at you, probably realizing you are dead serious about pulling out of the performance and he is right. He doesn’t even know you were the first one to cancel on it, you’d do it again without hesitation.

“I guess we are performing then,” he cracks a small smile and throwing your arms around his neck you pull him down, lips smashing against his, the kiss mingling with giggles and smiles.

Harry wraps his arms tight around your waist, pulling you up from the ground as he spins you around, making you squeal as you hold onto him.

“I have to call Jeff to call the Grammy’s not to post the statement,” he hums against your lips and he pecks them a few more times before letting go of you to quickly make a call to his manager.

You move over to the couch in his living room as he talks to Jeff, who is luckily very understanding about the sudden change. Hugging your knees to your chest you watch him pace the floor, exchanging a few more words with the man on the phone before ending the call, his gaze dropping to you again. Sitting beside you, he kisses your temple, dropping an arm around your shoulders as you lean against him, head resting on his chest.

“I called my mom,” you drop the bomb suddenly and you can feel him tense up for a moment, probably shocked by your words.

“You did?”

“Yeah.” Lifting your head your gaze meets his as you carry on. “She was… very shocked to hear my voice.”

“I bet,” he hums. “What did you talk about?”

“I just… asked how they are doing and told her that I’ve been thinking a lot about them. She sounded genuinely touched by it and said I’m always welcomed for dinner or lunch if I’d like to see them.”

“That’s amazing! See, I told you they would love to hear from you!”

“Yeah,” you smile at him softly. “I think I want to go over sometime after the Grammy’s.”

“I’m sure it’s going to go well.”

“Would you please come with me?”

Your question catches him off-guard he seems surprised that you would want him there, but then his expression softens as he leans down and kisses your forehead.

“I would love to, if you want me there.”

“I do,” you nod.

“Then it’s settled,” he smiles warmly as you lay your head back to his chest, his fingers gently dancing up and down your arm and for once in your life you finally feel settled, like everything is going to be fine.

Highlights of the 63rd Annual Grammy Awards: Y/N Y/L/N blows up stage with new hit duet

The killer duo surprised us all with a brand new duet titled Floating Through Space, performed it together on their big night. Wearing matching galaxy themed suits, Y/L/N and Styles have closed off the evening with probably the most success, the latter winning two out of his three nominations, receiving the award for Best Music Video and Best Pop Vocal Album with his latest album, Fine Line, while Y/L/N was titled best new artist, becoming a Grammy winner early in her career.

Tabloids blew up earlier this month when the two singers were photographed cozied up at dinner with friends, speculations started about their possible romance, but Y/L/N has made a clear statement on the question with her red carpet appearance before the award show. Wearing a head to toe black Gucci gown paired with a dramatic cape, the message “I’M AN ARTIST, ASK ME ABOUT MY ART” painted onto it in red, making a bold statement about her opinion on the way the media has been treating the star.

Both singers remained silent on their alleged romance, but proved to be the best of their time with their joined performance with their new emotional duet. Following the song’s debut on stage it was released to the public as a single right away, taking over all charts with its overwhelming success.

Listen to Floating Through Space now on Spotify and Apple Music!

Your knuckles are turning white from the tight grip on the steering wheel as you stare up at the home you grew up in. It looks almost the same, sometime through the years you haven’t been around your parents have painted it a light blue color from the paste yellow, but it’s still… the same.

“Hey.”

Turning to your right you look at Harry who is smiling at you warmly as his hand reaches over and squeezes your knee gently.

“It’s going to be fine. I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you, you’re still their daughter.”

“That’s not what they told me the last time I was here,” you whisper, feeling your throat closing up.

“We all say things in the heat of the moment. Seeing how happy they were about this lunch proves that they regret what happened.”

Nodding you take a deep breath to get ready for whatever is going to happen. Leaning over the console you pull Harry in for a kiss and it calms your nerves a little. Getting out of the car he takes your hand and squeezes it to let you know he’ll be right by your side all along. As you walk up to the front porch a sense of strong nostalgia washes over you.

You didn’t have a bad childhood, your parents provided you so much growing up, it’s sad to think what it has become. In a way you feel more anxious than walking the red carpet a week ago for the Grammys even though you’re just meeting your parents, but this is a turning point in your life that needed to come sooner or later.

“I’m right here, baby. It’s going to be fine,” Harry murmurs, kissing your forehead before you ring the doorbell, feeling weird that you come here as a guest, not as someone who belongs here.

You hear footsteps approaching on the other side, two frames appear through the clouded glass of the front door and then it flies open, pushing all air out of your lungs, clinging tightly onto Harry’s hand. There’s a moment of silence and just staring at each other before the tiniest smile tugs on your lips.

“Hi mom, hi dad.”

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed it!

#harry #styles #harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles oneshot #harry styles one shot #harry styles imagine #harry styles fiction #harry styles au #harry styles angst #harry styles fluff #harry styles smut #harry styles x you #harry styles x reading #harry styles x y/n

1K notes · View notes

fuzzy-footie-pajamas · 2 years ago

Note

Can you do what each V2 character would do with Fuyuhiko had a massive tantrum?

(Hmmm, good question. Unfortunately, I think most, if not all of his tantrums could be classified as massive. He has a lot of self-regulation troubles, and no one has really taught him proper ways to handle his impulses when he is escalated, or how to handle these big feelings. I feel like the way the other V2 characters would response range from helpful, to harmful..)

Akane: He needs a way to express that anger, she thinks. So, she's encourage the hitting, but she'd give him something more appropriate to hit. A pillow, or one of her punching bags. This does help, as he's able to get out a lot of that angry energy stored up in his chest! And afterwards, he's usually tired out enough that there isn't any risk of an aftershock. But that also means he's a bit too tired to talk about what happened in the first place...

Chiaki: She's most likely to get up and walk away from a situation like this. She doesn't feel like this is really any of her business, and she wouldn't know what to do anyhow. So, she leaves once she senses the incoming tantrum.

Gundham: He is also quick to walk away. He's curious to know what happens afterwards, but he does not want to be in the area as the tantrum is happening.. It's much too loud to him!

Hajime: Oh no, not again... Hajime is perturbed, but he knows he can't walk away, or wait for someone else to fix it, despite how badly he wants to. Tantrums aren't really his specialty, but he'll try! He tries to talk to Fuyuhiko at first, but Fuyuhiko isn't responding. He'll try this a few more times. But when it's clear it's not working, he'll offer to give Fuyuhiko space instead. Though, he does wait outside the door for it to stop so he can check on him afterwards.

Hiyoko: It depends on how she's feeling. But, she's likely to bounce off of his negative energy, and rage with him. She has a sense of what's fair and what isn't that's very similar to his. So, she might feel just as wronged when he tells her what happened. It's a revolution against the caregivers, she decides. And, she helps him to trash the playroom...

Ibuki: This big fit doesn't seem super necessary, but she gets it! sometimes, you just need to rage and get it all out! So, she encourages him. 'Yeah, throw that doll! Hit that wall! Rip that paper! Freak out man!' But when he's done and out of breath, she throw an arm around him, and ask if he feels better~

Kazuichi: Very likely to get hit in the process. His luck isn't very good, so I can see him being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Fuyuhiko intimidates him enough as it is, so he'll be quick to do as Fuyuhiko says in order to not get hit again! Whether that means getting out of there, or giving Fuyuhiko whatever it was he was tantruming about, if it was a tangible item.

Mahiru: She doesn't approve of the way he's conducting himself, and isn't afraid to say it. 'Fuyuhiko, that is enough! That is no way to behave, now you stop that!' He's likely to try and hit her, but she has no problems with holding him back. If he's in his bedroom, she'll step out and close the door, holding it shut as he bangs and screams at her. He can stay there until he calms down she tells him. Sometimes this works, and she comes back in when he starts to cry. Other time, he just becomes angrier, and rages for even longer.

Mikan: His loud screams and swinging fists frighten her, and she doesn't know how to react. She would try to talk to him at first. But when he doesn't listen, or screams AT her, she's more likely to run away, and find someone who CAN help. Or, she would simply go find a place to hide, not sure what more to do...

Nagito: He finds it amusing. He'll sit in the room with him, and egg him on for the most part, wanting to see what will happen next. Surely Fuyuhiko is in a lot of distress. He'll need quite a bit of hope to pull him out of this angry whirlpool. 'You must feel so angry after what happened hm? I'll bet your blood is simply boiling! Mine would be too~' He's not a fan of how loud it is, but it's worth it to see what happens next~

Nekomaru: If Fuyuhiko is being unsafe, hitting people, throwing things, or threatening to do so, his go-to would be compression hugs. Wrapping his arms around Fuyuhiko from behind, he would hold him tight to his chest. He'd let Fuyuhiko scream himself out, neither agreeing nor disagreeing with whatever he had to say, as he knows it's in the heat of the moments. This does help somewhat, as Fuyuhiko can get his anger out without hurting anyone, or himself. Afterwards, they can talk about it~

Peko: I want to say she'd be the most helpful. But for the most part, she almost feeds into his tantrums. She wants to do whatever HE wants her to do. So, she would follow his directions. If he told her to leave him the hell alone, she would. If he didn't tell her this however, she would sit with him, and agree with everything he said, even if it's irrational. She doesn't feel she has the right to use logic, and talk him through what happened. She will agree with every vulgarity and angry insult he screams about the person who made him angry. While it somewhat helps in the moment, he does feel more vindicated then he should afterwords, thinking that he was in the right for breaking things and shouting and hitting.

Sonia: Sonia would use that princess tone with him when he starts behaving that way. Hands on her hips, she tells him, 'Fuyuhiko! Now you stop that this instance!' Little to no success. He's likely to turn his attention to her if she tries to scold him. She's stronger than she looks, and is able to hold his wrists if he tries to hit her. He doesn't appreciate it, and will switch to throwing himself on the floor instead. But unlike Mahiru, who would use a similar approach, Sonia would sit next to him instead and wait out his screaming so they can talk.

Teruteru: He's a little freaked out! Despite Fuyuhiko being small, Teruteru is still smaller then he is, so he is a bit worried about getting hurt in the process of this being storm! So, he is likely to run away from the situation. Let a caregiver handle this!

Twogami: He's a bit more logical about the situation. In a firm voice, he can tell Fuyuhiko, 'I can see that you're very angry right now. We can talk about it if you'd like, but not until you're calm enough to talk. Let's take some deep breathes together.' Twogami genuinely cares about his friends in the school, and is honestly concerned for him. But that doesn't mean it's okay to behave in this way and expecting something to change. He'll stay with him until Fuyuhiko is calm, and even after that~

#Danganropa #Danganropa Age Regression #Danganronpa AgeRe #Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu #Akane Owari #Gundham Tanaka #Kazuichi Souda #Peko Pekoyama #Twogami #Teruteru Hanamura #Mahiru Koizumi #Nekomaru Nidai #Mikan Tsumiki #Nagito Komaeda #Hajime Hinata #Chiaki Nanami #Sonia Nevermind #Ibuki Mioda #Hiyoko Saionji

19 notes · View notes

queen-yalo · 4 years ago

Text

FFXV | Headcanons | S/O getting hurt during a battle

Request: Okay then 😌 May I request HCs of the chocobros (separated) with a S/O that gets really hurt in battle? Like, almost dead xD Ohhhh and for extra angsty points, they argued before the battle 👀🔥 Pfff I forgot, with a fluffy ending in the end, like you wanted 😅💕 [by @kirahhhh]

A/N: This is the stuff I need!! ♥ Hope you enjoy!

Pairing(s): Gladiolus Amicitia x reader; Ignis Scientia x reader; Noctis Lucis Caelum x reader; Prompto Argentum x reader

+++

• Gladio could be an ass sometimes, no doubt about that. You always knew he was protective and slightly on the jealous side... but sometimes it just got ridiculous and constricting. You couldn’t take this anymore. While you didn’t want to break up with him, something needed to change. So, you tried talking to him about it. Of course he would dodge all your attempts to talk this out with him. He would never admit that he was jealous. Or that this jealousy was just so intense because he was SO afraid to lose you. He felt so stupid for being insecure like that. But he couldn’t help it.

• So naturally, you two ended up fighting. And fighting with Gladio was never pretty. You two would yell and scream at each other, throwing around insults and finally going over to ignoring each other. It was always a hell of a mess until you two would sit down and actually talk it out, which would usually happen the next day. In the end you could never go long without each other.

• Until that one day where stuff went down before you two could make up. What was supposed to be a normal hunt, nothing extraordinary, ended up being a fight for life and death. Who could have known that a damn Behemoth would lurk in the forests? Gladio could punch himself for not checking beforehand. At least all of you got out of the fight alive. More or less as he had to admit when he saw the huge gash along your side where the Behemoth got you with his horns.

• Gladio hated himself. Why did he say all those awful things to you? How could he ever let that happen? Why didn’t he protect you? You deserved so much better than him. What if those words were the last thing he ever said to you? What if he couldn’t apologize and make things right? Could he live with that kind of guilt for the rest of his life?

• He stayed at your side until you finally woke up. He was a mess. He actually tried to break up with you. Gladio was ready to let you go - to protect you. From himself and this lifestyle. But you wouldn’t let him. It took some time but in the end you convinced him that this is what you wanted. All you were asking for was a little more reason and communication when things didn’t go well between the two of you. Gladio was more than ready to work on that. You both were. It goes without saying that you both never had a fight like that anymore.

• Ignis spent a lot of time at the Citadel. It was frustrating sometimes. You always seemed to be on second place. Of course you knew that his jobwas important. But sometimes... just sometimes you wished you would feel equally important for him. It was almost impossible to really fight with Ignis. He could stay incredibly calm, even in the most stressful situations. Arguments or fights were no exceptions. But even Ignis had his limits. And when he felt like he was about to snap he “officially” ended the discussion and would simply ignore you if you tried to bring that topic up again.

• But there was one time where Specs just... exploded. Not in public of course, but once you two were in the private of your own home. You went out with a friend of yours. A male friend to be precise. On a night that was usually reserved for you and Ignis - but he was working. Naturally you didn’t see a problem with spending that now free time however you wanted. If Ignis could turn you down for work, you could go out with someone else, right? It’s not like this was a date or something. Just two friends having coffee.

• But Ignis was livid. You had never seen him like this before. He was yelling and swearing... and at one point you just walked out. You wouldn’t let him talk to you like that, nor would you get down on his level and talk back like that. How dare he? Treating you like property, pushing you away all the time only to act like he owns you when things don’t go his way?

• When you left, Ignis finally cooled down. This wasn’t fair. It wasn’t and he knew it. He knew he was acting irrational. But he couldn’t help it. He had been botteling up his emotions for too long. He wanted to spend time with you. He hated disappointing you by cancelling yet another date. He hated it. But alas - what could he do? He had a duty to fulfill. But then again... he didn’t want to let you down. He was scared to lose you, which is why he snapped when he saw you with your friend. He couldn’t stand the thought of being without you. The thought of you finding comfort in another man’s arms. No. He needed to talk to you. Now.

• Unfortunately... he was too late. You got involved in a fight just around the corner and were badly injured. Someone tried to rob a bank. Yes, you were able to stop the robber... but at what cost? Ignis was heartbroken when he stood next to your bed at the hospital, watching your unmoving form, being kept alive by those various tubes and machines. It was horrible. Would you ever wake up again? The doctors were unsure. Ignis knew you were strong... but... well maybe that was his punishment for being a disappointment.

• He was so relieved when your eyes fluttered open after countless, excruciating days. He half expected that you would tell him to leave as your eyes landed on him. But to his surprise you smiled at him. Weakly... but it was there. Ignis knew as well as you did, that this was neither the time nor the place to talk about what happened between you two. For now you were both glad you had each other again. Life wasn’t finish with both your stories yet.

• “Princes will be Princes.” Prompto once said. And when it came to this... there was no Prince like Noctis. He was a spoilt brat. And sometimes he acted like one too. And sometimes... that was driving you crazy. He could have the worst attitude if something happened that he didn’t like. It was ridiculous. Frustrating. Nerve-wrecking even. It was like he turned into a pouty 4-year-old. You couldn’t talk to him properly, let alone reason with him. All you could do was to accept his pouting and wait for it to go away... or do what he wants to make him happy again.

• You were so sick of it. Sick of that man-child always getting his way. Sick of always having to act like you were okay with his tantrums. And one night, you had enough. You snapped. Yelled at him. Called him out on his ridiculous behavior. And what did he do? He yelled back. It wasn’t pretty. You had never seen him like that. Did you go too far? No, it was about time somebody did something about his antics. Maybe snapping at him wasn’t the right way to behave. But him telling you that he didn’t need you and that you were annoying anyway, was definitely worse.

• You two had your occasional quarrels, but it never escalated into a fully blown fight like this. Neither of you knew how to deal with that, so you both did what you thought was best: Ignored each other until the other one would cave. Who would have thought, that a Granhorn would run you over before you two could sort things out?

• Yes, your head wasn’t fully in the game when the five of you went hunting - understandably. And the fact, that this Grandhorn was hidden, until the very moment it came out of the bushes and trampled you, didn’t make it any better. You instinctively curled in on yourself and wrapped your arms around your head, but you still took quite a bad beating. Bones were breaking, skin was tearing, and you felt all of it.

• Noctis panicked. This wasn’t supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to get injured like this? How dare you? He yells at Ignis to do something, to fix you. He can’t stand the slight whimper that escapes your throat, it tears his heart apart. You shouldn’t suffer. Not mentally, not physically. And now you were suffering in both ways - just because of him and his incompetence to deal with his life. He wanted to slap himself. It was all his fault.

• Noctis refuses to leave your side once Ignis patched you up and tucked you into your sleeping bag at the camp. Night had already fallen, so driving back to Insomnia was much too dangerous. The men just hoped that you didn’t have any internal injuries and that you would make it through the night. Noctis felt helpless as he watched your unconscious form, your chest barely rising and falling. His hand stroked your hair gently as he made the decision to never let it come to a point like this anymore. He didn’t want to fight with you. He didn’t want you to hate him. He was determined to fix things as soon as you woke up. Until then, he would just sit there next to you and read you some of your favorite stories. That was the one thing he could do for you right now. After all, you loved listening to his voice.

• Fighting with Prompto was almost impossible. Almost. After all, he was a very soft individual and needed harmony at all costs - which is the reason he never talks back, even if he’s being pushed around. He never speaks up and he does everything to make everyone happy... without looking out for himself. Yes, it was great that he always wanted to maintain the peace and harmony within the group - but at what cost?

• You were trying to help him with his insecurities, supporting him whenever possible, teaching him to stand up for himself and his opinions. But when it came to it, Prompto always caved and took the easy way out of a confrontation by backing down. This happened one too many times now.

• Yes, you were angry. Yes, you yelled at him. Yes, you were a tiny bit unfair to him. And yes, it was unexpected that Prompto found his voice right in that moment. Of course you were glad, that he finally stood up for himself... you just wished it wouldn’t have been like this. It was ugly. You were screaming at each other, throwing around harsh words and nasty insults - neither of you deserved that.

• Prompto felt incredibly bad when you slammed the door shut as you left. He had such a bad conscience about lashing out at you like that. It wasn’t like him. What had gotten into him? Was it because it was a generally stressful time currently? Or was it because you were constantly trying to change him? He had to talk to you about that. He knew that you weren’t actually trying to change him, you wanted to help him. But maybe... just maybe it was a little too much. He needed to make things right with you. Now.

• He sprinted after you - but it was too late. The only thing he found was your unconscious, bleeding form in the middle of the street. Prompto was freaking out. What was he supposed to do? Get you to safety. Get you to a doctor. Find whoever did this. Thoughts were racing through his head. He tried to sort them, tried to find the right thing to do. But... he only came around when someone was calling for help and tending to your wounds.

• It had been the worst couple days of his life, until the doctors finally said that you would be alright. It was close. Too close. But you would make it. You would come back to him. Until then, he would sit right next to you and read your favorite stories to you and tell you about his day, how he finally managed to assert himself in a certain matter. He could have sworn that the corners of your lips twitched slightly when he told you that. Even when being in a state like this, you were still showing Prompto, that you were there for him. You truly were the best thing that ever happened to him.

#final fantasy xv #final fantasy 15 #final fantasy xv headcanons #final fantasy 15 headcanons #gladiolus amicitia #gladiolus x reader #gladiolus amicitia x reader #ignis scientia #ignis x reader #ignis scientia x reader #noctis lucis caelum #noctis x reader #noctis lucis caelum x reader #prompto argentum #prompto x reader #prompto argentum x reader

701 notes · View notes

absolutepokemontrash · 3 years ago

Text

All Demons are Entitled to Vacation Time (Because The Devildom Isn’t a Dystopia)

Part One (you are here!) Part Two Masterlist

Genuine friends in the Devildom were hard to come by, and the human exchange student had noticed that the brothers had been working her new friend to death, so she decided that the poor bastard needed some time off. The brothers agreed, but come to notice that they may have become a tad dependent on their makeshift assistant’s help.

(Just a heads up, this fic features an OC and my personal MC, so the MC will be using she/her pronouns, if you’re uncomfortable with that, no harm no foul, see you next fic. Anyway, enjoy Paimon’s mental breakdown and the boys being jerks!)

“Do you need anything else, Lord Lucifer?”

“Yes Paimon, get me a coffee.”

“The usual?”

“Yes, and do hurry up, I have work to do.”

Paimon quickly nodded and scampered out of Lucifer’s office at RAD. Sure it was after school, and sure Paimon had other things to do, and sure, he needed to sleep, but when the seven rulers of hell declare you their assistant, you be their fucking assistant.

“Oi!” Paimon felt the back of his uniform get balled up and he braced himself to be thrown into the nearest locker. “Pipsqueak, I need help with my homework.”

“H-hi Lord Mammon, s-sure, when do you want-”

“Nah nah nah,” Mammon spun Paimon around to face him. “I need, ‘help’ with my homework.”

The purple haired demon winced as he rummaged around his backpack and pulled out the assignment that Mammon had neglected to do. “R-remember to change up some words so-”

“I know how to copy homework! I’m not some dunce!” Mammon not so nicely set Paimon free from his 80s movie bully shirt grab and walked off. He whistled some made up tune and sporadically grumbled about finding his missing human.

Cheating on assignments was punishable by hanging from one’s thumbs in the glorified torture chamber known as the detention hall. Paimon had never been down there due to the fact that the place was reserved for the worst troublemakers, but he was pretty sure Mammon was familiar with it. Why didn’t he learn..?

While entranced with his thoughts of torture and mayhem, (see, Paimon could be a demon sometimes) Paimon didn’t notice the Avatar of Envy peeking around the nearest corner and nearly ran right into him.

“S-sorry Lord Leviathan!” Paimon sputtered. Levi’s head swivelled to Paimon as he began to stutter out a reply.

“G-good! You’re here! Get rid of them!”

“Get rid of who..?” Paimon looked around the corner and noticed a group of students just milling about and chatting. “Oh, right away sir.”

This wasn’t the first time Paimon had to do traffic control for Leviathan, and it wouldn’t be his last. He made up some bullshit lie about the hall needing to be cleaned and the students grumbled and slowly filed out. Once the hall was clear, Levi brushed past Paimon without even so much as a thank-you. He mumbled something about sending normies to deal with normies and disappeared down the hall.

Next up on his trip to get Lucifer a coffee, he ran into Satan, thankfully, he didn’t literally run into him.

“Ah, Paimon, give these to Barbatos, last time I saw him he was in the colosseum with Lord Diavolo.” Satan, barely even looking at the poor demon, slapped a huge stack of papers into his arms and strode down the hallway like he didn’t have a care in the world. Shit, and Paimon still had to get Lucifer coffee…

“Ah, there you are Paimon dear,” Paimon needed to muster up all his willpower to not openly roll his eyes as he met the gaze of the cheery Avatar of Lust.

“Lord Asmodeus,” Paimon said blankly. “How may I help you?”

“Take these to Majolish after you’re done… whatever you’re doing. On the double, sil vou plait!” Asmo shoved a massive stack of fabric on top of the paperwork Paimon was holding, causing him to stumble back a bit. “And if any of those touch this disgusting floor, I will personally claw each of your little freckles off your face.”

“Yes sir…” Paimon barely suppressed a growl as Asmo sashayed away from what one could barely call a conversation. As much as Paimon wanted to throw both the fabric and the paperwork into the nearest trash can, Paimon knew that both things could be recycled, and he also valued his life and his freckles.

Maybe he could run to the colosseum on the way to getting Lucifer’s coffee, torture two traitors with one tool, or however the saying goes! Paimon picked up his pace, his vision almost completely obscured by the massive pile of fabric. Despite nearly tripping twice, he made it to the kitchen, started up the coffee maker, then ran to the colosseum to drop off the paperwork.

“Mr. Barbatos?” Paimon’s call for the butler’s attention was cut off by a growl that sent shivers down his spine. Right in the centre of the colosseum the Fangol team was getting into “oh fuck” formation. That could only mean one thing and one thing only… oh no… Lord Beelzebub was hungry… really hungry… who didn’t order snacks?!

“Dammit dammit dammit…” Paimon squeaked as he shifted the paperwork and fabric and rummaged through his bag for his lunch. If Beel didn’t get some sustenance quickly he’d wreck the entire school! “L-Lord Beelzebub?! D-D-Do you want my luh-lunch? Sir?”

Beel’s head swung around to the sound of Paimon’s voice and before he could blink, the Avatar of Gluttony was towering over him. Paimon gulped and held out his lunch bag, and Beel snatched it up and ate the entire thing whole. Well… Paimon needed to replace the lunch bag anyway… and he could always eat later. His stomach growled pitifully. He had made the mistake of skipping lunch…

“Mmm… more.” Beel said, Paimon was still shaking in his designer knockoff school shoes.

“S-sorry, I don’t have anything e-else but the cafeteria has leftovers I think…” Paimon squeaked, Beel nodded and lumbered off towards the cafeteria, his hunger tantrum momentarily halted. Paimon breathed a quick sigh of relief before he heard the sound of someone stirring from a nap next to him.

“Mmph…” Belphegor shot Paimon a glare that only those who just woke up from an hour long nap could. “What took you so long?”

“M-my apologies, Lord Belphegor.” Paimon adjusted his glasses and frowned. “Pardon, but do you know where Mr. Barbatos is?”

“The kitchen, he was making something for Beel.”

Paimon had… he just left the kitchen… damn it. Paimon nodded in thanks and rushed towards the kitchen. The coffee was done, the paperwork was delivered, the fabric hadn’t touched the ground, and Paimon was on his way to give Lucifer his stupid- I mean needed beverage.

He limply pushed open the door to Lucifer’s office with his shoulder and placed the coffee on his desk. Lucifer didn’t look up from his paperwork and raised an eyebrow. “I did say quickly, didn’t I?”

Paimon bit down on his lip, a tic developed under his left eye and he clenched his fists until he felt blood trickle from his palms. “S-sorry, Lord Lucifer. I’ll do better next time, sir.”

“You’re dismissed, Paimon.”

The moment those words left Lucifer’s lips, Paimon turned on his heel and walked right out of the office. He was done, so tired and… and so angry! He just wanted to relax, he just wanted to relax. Paimon’s feet led him to the concert hall. Ah, he was supposed to be the president of the school’s band, not the student council’s resident doormat. He could just call on his undead parade and play some music… that always kept him calm.

His thoughts of relaxation were brought to an abrupt halt the moment Paimon felt the sting of recent magic in the air around the hallway that led to the concert hall. Oh no, please tell him there wasn’t a fight near the concert hall, please tell him-

Two of his band members were in their true forms and hurling insults at each other. Phenex and Eurynome were standing in the midst of a completely destroyed concert hall, the instruments were scattered around the room, dented and completely broken… the two brawling demons paused when they noticed Paimon at the door.

“Prez! You won’t believe this shit! Someone vandalized our stuff, and Phenex’s accusing me!”

“Paimon! You hafta believe me! I walked in and Eury was-”

Their voices had become unintelligible background noise, Paimon’s eyes were glued to the destroyed instruments, his instruments… he felt his shoulders shake and his chest begin to tighten. Why… why!? Why him?! Why today?! Paimon dropped the fabric and his backpack onto the ground and slowly dug his partially bloodied palms into his hair. To his absolute horror, he felt tears threaten to spill from his eyes. Don’t cry- Don’t cry! He can’t cry!

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHGHGGHHHHH!” Paimon let out a screech like a wounded animal, he felt his true form beg to be released so he could wreak absolute havoc on everyone and everything in a mile radius, but he yanked down on his hair and brought himself back to reality.

“Paimon?” The demon in question slowly turned, the human exchange student herself awkwardly stood a few feet behind him, seeming to not be sure exactly what to do. “Are… are you okay..?”

“Y-yes…” Paimon mumbled, his fists began to shake. “Th-thank you Ms. Himiko but I’m fi-”

Paimon’s voice broke and Himiko fixed the other two demons behind him with a glare that could probably kill a man. “YOU TWO. Clean this up right now!”

Before he could react, Himiko pulled Paimon into an empty classroom and slammed the door behind her. “Pai, what happened? Do you need to sit down?”

“Nuh-ne-no! I-I-if i suh-sit down I’ll fu-fall aslee-eep…” Paimon awkwardly hiccuped. Trying to talk through the lump in his throat was proving to be very difficult.

“Paimon… do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” Himiko’s voice was oddly gentle, almost sisterly in a way as she sat Paimon down in one of the desks in the room. “I’m here to listen.”

“Thanks Ms. Himiko… sorry…” and with that, Paimon began to explain.

———————

“BOYS!”

The scream of rage was punctuated by the slamming of the front door of the House of Lamentation and the angry clicking of heels going towards the living room. Six of the seven rulers of hell sat dead straight in their chairs, geez this little human had really whipped them good.

“Stupid human! Let go of my ear-yeeeeeeOW! Sorry! Sorry! Have mercy, tiny overlord-” Mammon was dragged into the living room by the ear and shoved onto one of the couches. She let her glare rest on each and every one of the demons before she spoke again.

“So, Asmo,” Himiko turned to Asmo with a calm smile, but the Avatar of Lust was anything but calm. “You think you’re too good to deliver your own fabric to the place where you work?”

“Uh… what are you talking about Himi?”

“Paimon! You told him to deliver your fabric to Majolish!” Himiko then turned to Mammon, who was already looking for an opportune time to bolt to the exit. “Mammon! You took his homework to copy, didn’t you!?”

“I-uh-”

“Satan!” Himiko stamped her foot and swivelled to glare at the relatively calm Avatar of Wrath. “You can’t just dump your paperwork on him like that!”

“Himiko-”

“CRAM IT!” Satan’s mouth clamped shut and he levelled an absolutely murderous glare at the human, but remained seated. “Levi! What the hell’s the matter with you!? Did anyone ever teach you that it’s polite to say THANK YOU?!”

Levi awkwardly shifted in his seat and sputtered out a barely intelligible reply, but Himiko was already turning to Beel and Belphie.

“Belphie! Beel! What the fuck were you two on during Fangol practice?!” Belphie grumpily lifted his head from his pillow and Beel mumbled out an apology. “Beel! You cannot just throw your hunger tantrums whenever you don’t have food handy, I thought you had enough common sense to realize that the kitchen wasn’t that far from the colosseum! And Belphie! Why didn’t you pack snacks for Beel like you were supposed to!?”

“Himiko why the fuck are you so upset about-”

“Shut UP.” Belphie was in the same boat as Satan in a matter of nanoseconds, the Avatar of Sloth rolled his eyes and went back to resting his head on his pillow.

“And you, Lucifer, the eldest and best of the bunch.” Himiko’s words were laced with enough poison to take down a fully grown grizzly bear as she stared down Lucifer with a glare cold enough to snuff out a fire. “I have one question: would it kill you to show some appreciation to the people who help you? A thank you? An appreciative nod? Or is your head rammed so far up your own ass you’ve forgotten basic courtesy?”

In a blink of an eye Lucifer was standing in front of Himiko. He was a good foot taller than her even in his human form, but she looked right back up at him with zero fear.

“Care to repeat that, Himiko?” Lucifer’s words were as sharp as a razor, he narrowed his eyes when Himiko didn’t even flinch. “If I were you, I’d choose your next words very carefully.”

“Or what?” Himiko asked, tilting her head slightly. “You’re going to try and kill me again?”

The room went completely still. It was so silent that they could hear Cerberus rustling around in the Underground Tomb. No one said a word as Himiko casually smoothed down her skirt. “You know what they say, third times the charm. Are you going to listen to me or are you going to explain to Diavolo why I’m a bloody smear on the wall?”

Lucifer held her gaze for a few more seconds, until he sighed and sat back down, still not breaking eye contact with the human. “What do you want, Himiko?”

“I want you all to give Paimon a week off, or, you pay him to be your actual assistant. Putting up with you boys’ crap should be a full paying job.” Himiko raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. “Give him a week off, live without him for a bit, and treat him nicer when he comes back. Unless of course, the seven rulers of hell can’t survive without their assistant?”

Lucifer bristled and crossed his arms. “…fine.”

———————

Sleep went by too quickly… way too quickly. Paimon rubbed his eyes and trudged through the hallway. Stupid mondays… stupid school… stupid Mammon… wait did Paimon say that out loud, because the Avatar of Greed and Lucifer himself were standing right in front of him.

“Sup pipsqueak.”

“Hello Paimon.”

Oh, Paimon must have fucked up bad somehow for the Avatar of Pride and the Avatar of Greed to have stopped him in the hallway. Great. Wonderful. Fantastic. The sweet release of death was coming. But what exactly had Paimon done? Was talking to the human exchange student a punishable offence?!

“Lord Lucifer! Lord Mammon! Uh… how can I help you?” Paimon smiled nervously, at this point, nervous was his default state, so this was his normal smile.

“Ya can help us by handin’ over your lunch mon-”

“Oh for fuck’s sake Mammon,” the signature clicking of Himiko’s heels on the stone floor alerted the three demons to her arrival before her voice did. “Stop being a douche.”

“We’re here to offer you a week off.” Lucifer ignored both Himiko and Mammon and kept his eyes fixed on Paimon. “Himiko noticed you were five seconds away from a stress induced heart attack so she campaigned for you to get some time off.”

“I-I-I’m fine, that’s very nice of you to offer but I’m coping well with my extra duties.”

Extra duties, also known as ‘nice things Paimon was doing for a group of demons he respected, which those demons then began to expect him to do all the damn time.’

“Paimon,” Himiko raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “You’re left arm is shaking.”

Paimon silently cursed his stupid arm. “Those are normal shakes!”

“Fuck dude… I don’t even like ya and I want you to take a vacation.”

“Consider it less of an offer and more of an order.” Lucifer said sternly. “Take the week off and come back refreshed. Your school responsibilities will be waived during your time off, now shoo.”

Lucifer waved his hand and strode past him down the hallway. Geez, what a charmer.

“Have fun, Paimon!” Himiko gave him a wave before gesturing Mammon to follow her, class was starting soon after all.

“Th-thank you Ms. Himiko.” Paimon mumbled and began to turn to leave, but Mammon caught the back of his school coat. Huh, a goodbye locker shove perhaps?

“Before ya leave,” Mammon cooed. “What’re ya doin’ with my human?”

“I’m not doing… anything?” Paimon said truthfully.

“Plannin’ on doing anything?”

“N-no?”

“Are ya sure?” Mammon tilted his head, his eyes began to glow dangerously. “Not planning on trying anything?”

“No sir!” Paimon began to wave his hands in an attempt to communicate some extra ‘NO’. “N-not at all! Ms. Himiko’s just a friend!”

Mammon raised an eyebrow and Paimon felt his stomach drop right to the floor. Apparently talking to the human exchange student was a death sentence. Wasn’t the point of this exchange program for demons and humans to get to know each other???

“Really now? How’d you two get to talkin’?”

“I-I uh, she um…” Paimon stuttered. “She swore me to secrecy…”

After blinking a few times in surprise, Mammon dropped Paimon right to the floor. “Alrighty then, I’ll just ask ‘er myself.”

Mammon then sauntered away like nothing happened. Geez… Paimon silently made a wish that Himiko could swallow her pride and actually admit the reason the two became friends so Paimon wouldn’t end up getting his ass handed to him by the Avatar of Greed himself. What a shit way to go…

————

Himiko gave Mammon a glare that could wither roses the moment he began to pepper her with questions about her friendship with Paimon. Geez, couldn’t a lady have some friends who didn’t want to date her? Was that too much to ask?

She let out a sigh and looked around to make sure that she and Mammon were alone in her room and that there was no one walking around in the hallway outside. Good, nobody. “Mammon, Paimon and I exchange gardening tips.”

Mammon blinked a few times and debated pinching himself to see if he was dreaming. His mean little human liked something like gardening..? That was… that was… so fuckin’ adorable! “You… you like gardening..? Really Himi?”

Himiko’s cheeks reddened with embarrassment, which really hindered the effect of her scowl. “Yes. In case you didn’t know, the plants here are very different from the plants in the human world, and I miss having a garden, so,” she gestured to the window out into the HOL’s garden where Mammon noticed quite a few new flower bushes. He had to admit, they were really pretty.

“Oh, so you two aren’t smoochin’ or anything?”

“Mammon,” Himiko smirked and fluttered her eyelashes. “Just because you’re hopelessly in love with me doesn’t mean everyone else is~.”

————

The moment Paimon stepped foot into his apartment he collapsed onto the couch like a… like a… tired person. The man hadn’t had a proper staycation in almost a thousand years, give him a break.

When he was done being a lump on the couch, he looked up at his plants. He hadn’t properly been able to look at them for a while- shit almost all of them were dead. Perhaps Paimon should have invested in a nice garden of cacti instead of fussy water-needing plants. Oh well, he had things to worry about other than his failing garden. His apartment was also a complete mess. After defeating his chronic anxiety by going on a massive cleaning spree, Paimon decided that he had a hankering for some sweets. He ordered in from Madame Scream’s and collapsed back onto the couch.

His pastries arrived and he was fully prepared to dig in until- A knock on the door startled Paimon from his stress free thoughts and the demon rushed to answer the door. The familiar faces of Mephistopheles and Satan awaited him.

“Hey buddy!” Mephisto gave Paimon a friendly (and a little too hard) thwack on the shoulder and walked into the apartment. “I smell foooooooood!”

“Paimon,” Satan flashed a grin and a friendly nod.

“L-lord Satan,” Paimon nodded dumbly, after registering what he was seeing, he stepped aside and let Satan into the apartment, thank fuck he had cleaned it. “What are… what are you doing here? Do you need me to do anything?”

“No, no,” Satan waved Paimon off. “I heard you and Mephisto were trying to solve a mystery and I thought I’d offer my help.”

“Oh! Thank you!” Paimon sputtered, he then turned to his pie, that Mephisto was busily shovelling into his mouth. Mephistopheles gave Paimon and Satan a thumbs up.

“S’great Pai!” Mephisto laughed at his own pun.

The mystery Satan was referring to was the mystery of the vandalized instruments. Paimon had asked Mephisto to help look into it, he was the former president of the newspaper club and had a penchant for getting into trouble and finding people responsible for trouble. It was a last resort kind of thing, really, Mephisto and Paimon never really spoke outside of their few shared classes.

“O-okay, did you guys find anything out..? Do you need me to answer any questions?” Paimon asked, sitting down at his tiny dining table across from Mephisto and Satan.

“We didn’t find much out today, suspect, but we do have some things we’d like to know.” Mephisto pointed a pie-filling covered finger at Paimon. “How do we know it wasn’t you who vandalized the instruments?! I can see the headline now! ‘Band president vandalizes instruments, Mephistopheles hailed as hero and reinstated as newspaper club president!’ I love it!”

“E-eh?!” Paimon jumped backwards in his seat, nearly knocking himself right onto the floor. “Wh-what?! Why would I do that?”

“That’s what I wanna know!” Mephisto slammed his sticky hands down on the table and leaned across to look Paimon right in the face. “Why’d you do it?!”

Satan grabbed the back of Mephisto’s shirt and yanked him back into his seat and gave Paimon an apologetic look. Ah, good cop bad cop, that was the game they were playing.

“Paimon, do you have an alibi?” Satan asked, his tone measured. Paimon meekly nodded.

“Y-yes, technically my alibi is you and your brothers, sir… I was busy all day, and that morning was the last time I saw the instruments before they were wrecked.”

“Mmm, just as I thought,” Satan nodded. “Paimon, does the band have any enemies you know of?”

“N-no,” Paimon said on reflex. “Wait! Yeah… um… a few demons… I have a list…”

He quickly began to write out a list of names. For someone who seemed so meek and pathetic, he had made a lot of enemies… well, less a list of enemies and more of a list of people who found it fun to bother him.

Satan raised an eyebrow as he looked over the list. “Paimon, how?”

“Wh-what do you mean?”

“How does a high ranking demon like yourself have this many petty enemies that you haven’t dealt with yet?”

A shrug was all Paimon could give. He preferred not to hurt people due to petty grudges, which was not a very good trait for a demon to have. No wonder no one respected him…

Satan huffed and nodded to Mephisto. “Well, we’ll look into these leads. Try and have a nice week off, Paimon.”

—————

Day One:

Lucifer needed his coffee, he sat up in his chair and leaned over to look at the clock, 3:30 pm. Paimon should be- ah, right, Lucifer gave him the week off. No matter, he rose from his seat and prepared to get his own coffee. He was a strong independent demon who didn’t need an assistant thank you very much.

When he walked into the kitchen, he nearly choked on air when he saw the technological monstrosity that was the new coffee machine. It had to be new, he had gone into the kitchen all the time to make his own coffee, hadn’t he? No, Paimon had taken care of that for the past how many years..? Geez, when was the last time Lucifer actually had to walk into RAD’s kitchen?

It’s just a coffee machine, Lucifer reasoned, he’d be able to figure it out in no time.

Riddle him this, why did this infernal thing have so many buttons?! The machine let out an unhappy groan and Lucifer was tempted to repeat the sound himself. Stupid coffee machine… back in his day coffee was made with magic, sure it exhausted the person more but… that’s what the coffee’s for!

After about twenty minutes of nearly fruitless labour, Lucifer finally figured out how to get the machine to make coffee to his tastes. He’d throw the machine at the wall if it made him decaf…

Lucifer (eventually) returned to his office and his massive stack of paperwork with his hot mug of caffeinated salvation and sat back down at his desk. His mind began to wander back to the conversation he had with Himiko the day prior.

Had he forgotten basic courtesy? He had known Paimon longer than Himiko could probably comprehend, was Paimon always this willing to get walked over? Lucifer wracked his brain trying to find the answer. He grimaced when he thought back to his time as an angel, but even then, Paimon was the same. A constantly frazzled Dominion who fell from heaven only to end up a frazzled and even more anxious demon.

It was so odd, when they all first became demons, Paimon was one of the large amount who decided that the best way to figure out their new demonic identities was to cause complete and utter chaos. It was an embarrassment, really, but Diavolo knew that no one could get that number of newly turned demons under control without ripping apart the Devildom, so he sent them up to the human world. It was devastating for the humans, but Diavolo knew it was necessary to save his kingdom. While up in the human world, everyone’s powers were tested and the pecking order if you will, was established. Paimon was right near the top.

One of the most powerful demons in the Devildom, one that watched kingdoms burn for his amusement just mere days after falling from grace, had become nothing more than an assistant. When and why? That was what Lucifer was wondering.

Tsk, he didn’t have time to wonder about the motivations of his little fake assistant, he had way too much work to do. He downed his coffee and stared down his paperwork. He was going to do this himself, or collapse from exhaustion trying.

——————

Day 2:

Mammon mindlessly gnawed on his pencil as he stared down at his homework. He was stuck in the library at RAD and couldn’t go home until his stupid work was done. His human had gone off with Asmo to go shopping… dummy… not that he cared or anything…

He needed help, but the great Mammon didn’t grovel! Wait, yes he did. But he usually didn’t have to when it came to his homework. That little nerd Paimon was always down to let Mammon copy his homework. Sure, if Lucifer even dared to ask if Paimon had let Mammon copy his homework, the purple haired demon would sing like a canary. Stupid little snitch….

…Mammon could have really used that little snitch right then…

He searched his mind for anything to daydream about to distract himself from the lame homework. Ah! His human! He liked to think about his human. Her cute little smile… her deep dark eyes… her soft hair that tumbled over her shoulders… her dumb but still somehow cute little headband…

Not that he liked her or anything! Uggggghhhh… this was going to be a long ass study session…

——————

How did things get this way..?

Paimon was once again lying face down on his couch, apparently cleaning only temporarily staved off his mental illness. At least he was spiralling in a clean house…

His concert hall got completely wrecked and his status wasn’t a deterrent to the stupid vandals… Paimon could and had crushed kingdoms beneath his heel! He’d sown discord across entire countries! Humans and demons alike begged to have the privilege of his favour, and now, nothing. Paimon hugged his knees to his chest and tried to ignore the feeling of his glasses digging into the side of his face. The tightness in his chest and gut was indicative of one thing:

Guilt.

Paimon was guilty. After being called back to the Devildom and seeing what he had done to the human world, he felt the worst most roiling and disgusting sense of guilt. He was completely alone, if any other demon that went up there and did the things he did felt guilty about any of it, they were amazing at hiding it. He had been an angel just a few days before he went completely ballistic…

Was his behaviour for the past thousand years some sort of bullshit atonement for him? Tsk, he didn’t have time to give himself a therapy session. He needed to go to sleep. He earned it, after all.

——————

Day 3:

Levi absentmindedly tapped his phone screen, the colourful gacha game was completely failing to fully entrap his attention. Ugh… just get the daily rewards and log out…

A crowd of chattering students walked into the formerly empty classroom to sit and eat lunch. Stupid normies… whenever he had to show up to school he at least had the ability to eat lunch by himself.

It was Paimon’s doing, obviously. After hearing that Levi was having a tough time being at RAD, the demon took it upon himself to make Levi more comfortable. After the first few times, Levi enlisted him as his personal crowd disperser.

He often wandered the halls during lunch making sure everything was alright like the world’s most anxious hall monitor. Whenever Levi happened to notice the sound of Paimon’s feet pattering against the stone floor, it was usually followed by Paimon’s meek little voice telling some wandering students that the classroom was occupied.

Tsk, dumb normie on his dumb vacation. Levi huffed and slid his headphones on to drown out the sound of the other students talking.

Paimon needed to hurry up and get baaaaaaaaaaack…

—————

Day Four:

“Alright, the scene of the crime…” Satan placed his hands on his hips and looked around the concert hall. The Avatar of Wrath had let Mephisto loose on Phenex and Eurynome for questioning. Satan now had the crime scene all to himself for investigating.

Most of the instruments were dented and ruined, hm… maybe he should have viewed the crime scene earlier when it was fresher. Man… all the fictional detectives Satan knew of would be so disappointed in him. Not perturbed, Satan began to peruse the room and take it all in. Well, until Asmo broke down the door shouting his name.

“Saaaaaaaataaaaaaaan!”

“I’m right here, Asmo, you don’t need to yell.” Satan turned and gave him an annoyed look. Asmo only beamed and clapped his hands together.

“No need to be so snide, Satan dear, I’m gracing you with my presence!” Asmo cartoonishly pouted as he almost skipped towards Satan. He looped his arm around Satan’s and began to try and pull him out of the room. “Come on! We’re going to have a self care day!”

“No, no we’re not.” Satan gently removed Asmo’s arm from his and shook his head. “I’m trying to solve a mystery, here.”

“Really?” Asmo raised an eyebrow and absentmindedly twirled a lock of hair with his finger. “Why? Isn’t this Paimon’s business?”

“Yeah, but Paimon asked Mephisto for help and Mephisto asked me, so here I am.” Seeing that Asmo wasn’t convinced, Satan dragged a hand down his face and prayed to the Demon King that his gossip of a brother could keep a secret. “There are no exams to study for, my favourite detective book series just ended, and Lucifer just rehomed a cat I took in. I have nothing else to do and I’m bored as hell.”

Asmo wrinkled his nose, then shrugged and nodded. “Eh, legit enough for me. I’ll help too!”

The two somewhat carefully rummaged around the room, searching for literally any kind of evidence that wasn’t destroyed in the fight between Phenex and Eury.

“Tada~ evidence!” So quickly? Satan had to stop himself from sighing as he turned to face his brother. Asmo proudly presented what looked like a neon orange fake nail, Satan crossed his arms and gave his brother a deadpan stare.

“Groundbreaking.”

“Satan, for a detective you can be really dense sometimes, I swear.” Asmo huffed and fixed his hair. “People who play musical instruments keep their nails short. Fake nails like these are expensive and are stuck onto the actual nail and sealed with magic. This obviously came off by accident, and it doesn’t belong to some band kid.”

“It belongs to the culprit then…” Satan murmured, digging through his pockets for his list of suspects. “Asmo, tell me, does anyone on this list have these kinds of nails?”

Asmo scanned the list of suspects and hummed to himself before snapping his fingers and grinning. “Only Amii would wear something as garish as that.”

Ah, one of RAD’s resident assholes. Amii and their partner in crime, Murmur, were frequent visitors to the detention hall due to their rampant idiocy. Their combined ability to learn absolutely nothing from their past punishments rivalled Mammon’s, and that was saying something because Mammon had gotten strung up at least once a month for the past two thousand years.

So, the little bastards had taken to bothering Paimon recently… perfect! Mystery solved!

Satan scratched his chin, then grinned. “I think we’ve found our culprits. Thanks Asmo, you were a real help.”

“It’s no problem Satan, really, you can repay me by keeping me company while we both have a nice spa day.”

————

Spending time rethinking one’s entire life and trying to cultivate a garden really sapped up Paimon’s energy. He wasn’t lying down on the couch this time though, his new breakdown spot was his kitchen table.

As he expressed to himself multiple times, he was sick and tired of being walked over, he may have hated being a demon, but he still was one. A damn high ranking one at that! He wasn’t some midranking Dominion anymore! He should be treated with basic respect!

The sudden ringing of his phone jolted him from his mini identity/respect crisis and he fumbled to pick it up.

“H-hello?”

“Paimon, you’ll be pleased to know that I have found the culprits.” Satan’s voice rang out from the phone and Paimon let out a sigh of relief. “Though, Amii and Murmur aren’t on school property at the moment.”

“Y-yeah…” Paimon was too emotionally drained to act surprised. “I think they’re on an overnight trip or something… they’ll be back on Monday.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I uh… I checked the budget documents you sent out at the start of the year to make sure no one was skimming funds again…” Paimon pursed his lips and sighed. “Remember what happened last year? I wanted to make sure Mammon didn’t cause you any extra trouble.”

“Ah, right.” Satan said. “Thanks for that.”

A genuine thank you! Paimon’s eyes practically sparkled as he nodded enthusiastically before realizing Satan couldn’t technically see him. “Y-you’re welcome!”

“So, I know it’s your club but this is also RAD property and I assume you know how much musical instruments are to replace…”

“Yeah… rest assured, I’ll deal with those two.” Paimon mumbled.

“Hm, I’d like to be there, if you don’t mind.”

You see, that was code for ‘I’m going to watch you to make sure you’re not just going to give them a lecture on not hurting other people’s feelings.’

“It’s no problem, Lord Satan.” Paimon said. “Come by if you have the time after school. I’ll put on a show.”

——————

Day Five:

Asmo was practically skipping through RAD’s hallways like he was following the yellow brick road or something. What had him so chipper? Some of his friends in the sewing club had agreed to help him sew some of his clothing designs and make them legitimately wearable! EEEEEEEE! He was so excited! He threw open the doors to the club and everyone… did not shower him with affection and praise. Pardon but what was this bullshit?

“Sorry Lord Asmodeus… but we’re in a bit of a crisis. Some of the sewing machines broke and we don’t have any way to replace them right now.” One of the club members said.

“How’d this even happen?!” Asmo huffed. “The sewing club never shuts down! There was a miniature hurricane going through RAD about a century ago and literally none of you skipped your club meeting!”

“W-well, normally we’d call Paimon to order some new machines or call a repairman because the student council usually gets really busy around this time of day…”

“UGH.” Asmo threw his head back and dramatically groaned. “Are there any machines in here that actually work?”

“Y-yes, about three of them…”

The demon pointed to three in the back and Asmo stomped over to begin sewing the one outfit he could do. He had bought nice fabrics and everything…

Asmo pulled out his sketch of the design, he smiled and set it down next to the sewing machine. He remembered how to use these… right?

‘Paimon usually fixes this’ ‘Paimon deserves a break’ ‘Paimon Paimon Paimon’ Asmo had to stop himself from openly rolling his eyes whenever that little pipsqueak’s name was mentioned. The Avatar of Lust had the stinking suspicion that the bespectacled demon wasn’t particularly fond of him. Everyone loved Asmo, that was a known fact, but Paimon had a funny way of showing it.

He never went exactly out of his way to help Asmo with anything. If Asmo requested help, it was always met with a cold ‘yes lord Asmodeus’. Hmph, Asmo had to hold back a bit of a smirk as a thought crept into his mind.

Paimon’s behaviour was truly a testament to how hard the Avatar of Lust is to get over~.

—————

Ready? Okay! The first step to becoming a respected demon was fixing the way he was perceived by others, and people mainly made their judgements on outward appearances.

Paimon was going to fix his self image! No more dorky glasses! Wait… he couldn’t see… damn. Okay, get contact lenses instead! Aaaaaaand he was out of those. New plan, the dorky glasses were staying on for the time being!

Hmmm… maybe he should flatten down his weird little crescent moon shaped Ahoge… Yeah, not going to happen. His hair kept flying right back up no matter how much hairspray he used.

Looking into his bathroom mirror, Paimon wondered how long it had been since he actually fussed over his appearance. 400… 500 years? Geez, that lined up awfully well with the last time he had been on a date… and that ‘relationship’ did not end well.

Oh well, he looked… well he looked like himself. That was fine. He just needed to fix his posture really quick-

The audible crack of Paimon’s spine may have scared his neighbour’s cat and caused the neighbour on his other side to wonder why their hellhound started barking, but at least he was standing up straight again. It was nice not to be slouched forward like the world’s most nervous Igor. Paimon stretched and shook out his shoulders. Huh, he forgot he was supposed to be 5’7 and not 5’5. He should have done this a while ago.

——————

The Weekend:

School was out for the next two days but the student council was still in the stupid building. Lord Diavolo had decided that the school year needed yet another festival week and it was up to the student council to budget, manage, and plan this entire thing, and to top off the sundae of stress, two of their members were missing.

Beel and Belphie were on the complete opposite side of the school, and their dear little human was having a hell of a time dragging them to the meeting. This was Himiko’s reward for not being an asshole.

“Beel, for the love of all things good in the world, I’m sure there will be snacks provided at the meeting, now get your face out of the fridge.” The long suffering Himiko practically begged. The attic nap club were stuck in the cafeteria despite the borderline desperate efforts of the human.

“You can’t know that for sure…” Beel sighed mournfully before he took another bite of whatever eldritch horror those demons called food. “Paimon or Barbatos would usually bring the snacks and neither of them are here…”

Foolishly hoping that the younger of the two twins would be able to do something, Himiko turned to Belphie, who was passed out with his head down on a cafeteria table.

“Belphie, wake up and help me get Beel out of the cafeteria.”

“No. I am asleep.”

“Belphie I swear-”

“Sh. Sleep.”

Beel usually carried Belphie’s unconscious ass to those stupid meetings because Beel knew for a fact there’d be snacks there, and now neither twin would move from the cafeteria. Great. Time to use the pacts Himiko worked so hard to obtain.

This. This was what it was like to be the one master to rule them all. It was glorified babysitting.

“BOTH OF YOU HAUL ASS TO THE ASSEMBLY HALL RIGHT NOW. BRING THE FOOD IN THE FRIDGE WITH YOU.”

Monday couldn’t come soon enough…

——————

To be concluded!

Author’s Note: Not too satisfied with this one, but honestly when am I ever satisfied with my own writing? Pai will go politely apeshit next part I promise

TFW you’re royalty and the local brown-noser goes on vacation and you now have no one to boss around :/ totally relatable right guys?

#obey me #obey me!#obey me! shall we date?#obey me shall we date #obey me Lucifer #Obey me Mammon #Obey me Leviathan #Obey me Satan #Obey me Asmodeus #Obey me MC #Obey me Beelzebub #Obey me Belphegor #Obey me OC #Obey me fic

90 notes · View notes

whump-town · 3 years ago

Text

Stubborn

Everybody taking care of old Hotch because... I don't like it when old Hotch gets left to just die on his own :( don't ask why that's where I draw the line

No pairings

No warnings

In Jack’s second semester of his junior year, Hotch collapses again. He’s home this time, out in his garden under the glaring sun. The day had begun no different than any other. The birds on the powerline chirping and causing their disturbances, as eager for the day to begin as the school-aged children shouting in the street. He’d watched them from the sliding glass door facing the street, his tea warm in his hands. He’d waved at a few, the older ones who recognize him as a mystifying adult with stories to be unlocked. The younger children give him a face akin to a monster’s, his mystery horrifying in their already confusing enough lives.

It’s an hour before lunch. Two hours before Spencer shows up because it’s Thursday and he teaches a class on this side of town every Tuesday and Thursday at 2. One that he occasionally asks Hotch to attend -- as a guest lecturer, as a treat to his students, or just for the company.

He could call just about anyone.

Emily’s downtown, on her way back from a meeting with the Department of Justice. She’d be thrilled for an excuse to not go back to the office and spend an hour or two in his kitchen telling him about those pretentious assholes.

Garcia’s about ten minutes away, working at a nonprofit teaching “at-risk” kids how to code. Being the guiding hand she’d needed as a teenager so that they might not repeat the same mistakes she made. She was lucky, Hotch saved her but he’s not around to catch any more kids like her.

Morgan got hired by a family two streets over to fix up their house before they move in. He’s there now, tearing out rotting beams.

This collapse is not of the life-threatening kind. Not to Hotch at least. There’s no internal bleeding, no emergency surgeries. He doesn’t even need stitches but he’s on so many medications that thin his blood that it’s just on the safer side. From the hospital, he calls who he needs to. Reid first, he’ll worry when he gets to Hotch’s house and sees his truck gone. Then, Jack, it’s better to hear this sort of thing from him and not Emily in half an hour when she needs to yell at someone and who better than the son of the idiot she hates right now? Dave and Emily follow and he trusts them to carry the news the rest of the way. Rather, he simply doesn’t want to talk about it anymore and he’d rather Garcia and JJ and Morgan and everyone else just be mad at him than go on to have another conversation about how he’s feeling.

Fine. He just got light-headed. It was the heat and his perpetually low iron and probably his thin blood (the killer had been his blood pressure but they’re working on that). He just needs to get better about remembering to eat breakfast -- a larger breakfast than just tea and toast. Fainting, he assures Dave, happens. Jack’s seen it happen. The heat makes it worse, the summertime drains him. He’s come in from the garden and gotten weak in the knees plenty of times. He actually moved some chairs around the sliding glass door to the yard, prepared for this exact problem.

This over clarification does not help.

Made only the more complicated when he explains his head is fine. The fainting thing really isn’t a big deal, he just needs a ride home. He’d landed weirdly and pulled his back. He left with a new problem entirely, a torn ligament in his shoulder. That is a problem for a different day.

The surgery is set for the week just before Jack’s finals. Armed with a suitcase full of textbooks, his laptop, notes from this semester (and a few from last), and just enough clothes to recycle a few and still be fine, Jack shows up on his father’s doorstep. “I mean, the hospital isn’t exactly the library… but it’s not the worst place I’ve studied.” It’s far too late to send Jack back but Hotch is reluctant to let him stay. Even if he does prefer Jack be his ride rather than the likes of Penelope and that tiny green eye-sore of a car she drives or leave him to Reid and his defensive, jerky driving.

To the sound of “Aaron Hotchner November 2, 1971”, Jack settles down with his books. He tries to put himself in the right headspace for studying but it’s harder than he anticipated. The constant motion of the room unsettles him and he looks up several times to see his father’s reaction. To gauge the anxiety in his face, in the deep breathes that he pulls in through his nose. In how tight his fists are holding the sheets underneath him. It’s a simple surgery and they’ll be out of here in no time.

“Young” his heart had not handled the heavy sedatives and morphine well. Then again, those incidents are always hard to measure against a thing like this. Rushed into the ER with nine chest wounds and having nearly bled to death, it’s natural to conclude the stress of his depleted blood supply and his very recent trauma had caused his heart to stop on the table. That said trauma was the reason his heart had maintained to be a steady problem up until they released him. Again, when he was brought in with some of the worst internal bleedings the staff had ever seen. His heart had given them trouble too.

Jack is staring blankly at his flashcards when the doctor comes out.

Hotch had gone to Georgetown to be a lawyer like his father and his grandfather. Jack went to Georgetown to get an Art History degree. He was lead by something else. Not chasing some shadow, clutching at a lie he spoonfed himself. Jack didn’t live in anyone’s shadow, never felt the pressure to look and act a certain way. Was never beaten into submission or told to hold his tongue. Jack went to museums every Saturday with his father, preferred them to the aquariums and the zoo. Hotch held him close to the artwork, pushed his dense schedule around to go to new shows, and learned the names of pieces just to recite the knowledge back to Jack.

In his lap, Jack is memorizing pieces of art like his father had years ago for him. He’s stuck on The Anatomy Lesson, eyes glued to the details. The way colorless skin is held in forceps, peeled back to reveal angry red. He can feel the pinching teeth on his own skin, feels the heavy flow of hot blood spilling down over his arm.

“Hotchner?”

Jack flinches, caught completely off guard. He stands, flushing as he tucks his notecards into his textbook, and stands. “Ugh, yeah. That’s me.” He wipes his hands off on his pants, rubbing away the nervous sweat he’s built up.

The doctor recognizes him from earlier. He’d watched Jack and Hotch get out one last goodbye. Jack pulling up a nervous smile, dirty-blonde hair, and light eyes a complete contrast to Hotch’s ever-darkening features. Somehow more solemn, voice taken by the sedatives already working through his body. He hadn’t said a word, eyes vacantly following Jack’s movements but unaware.

Jack expects the same monologue he hears every time. The one that comes out so dry and perfect that they must practice it in front of the mirror, say it softly to themselves as they as they get ready each morning. He’s got it memorized himself -- the bits about recovering in post-op, make a full recovery, and whatever on the fly timeline they give for access back to the room.

“But he’s-- He’s okay? He’s--”

Jack feels impossibly childish. Five years old and Emily’s chilled fingers brushing his tears away, “baby, I know you miss your mommy. But you’re being so terribly mean to your daddy.” He had been, a terrible little monster squirming away from his father and refusing to eat anything. Throwing tantrums about nothing and everything. Screaming and crawling under his bed every chance he got. Pushing himself to the wall knowing he couldn’t be reached.

Now he can remember Hotch just sitting at the edge of the bed. There on the floor for hours. Sometimes he read, would pick up a book, and just start from wherever just to make it so his voice was reaching where he couldn’t. He slept there too, on the hard ground just to make sure Jack knew he was there. Slipped strawberry pop tarts on crazily designed animal plated under there, offered bites of his own food to the darkness under the bed. Sippy cups full of chocolate milk and juice.

He feels like a little boy again, getting news that he has no idea how to handle.

“He’s okay?” Jack stammers. “He’s going to be okay? I can see him?”

Hotch remembers those days under the bed too. Waking up in the middle of the night as Jack groggily curled close to him, still under the bed but crawling under his blanket. The ends of those awful sobs, Jack’s little chest jerking as he hiccuped. The force of his sorrow was too much for his little body. And Jack would fall into his lap, exhausted and needing comfort. His little fingers tracing the scars on Hotch’s face. How he whispered “thank you” and “please” from underneath the bed and how he’d pop his head out to say, “Daddy, I’m going to potty. I’ll be right back.”

Jack’s legally old enough to drink now and Hotch still sees that little boy. The three-year-old wiping his snot on Hotch’s dress shirt. The six-year-old holding his hand and reminding him to look both ways twice before crossing the street. The eight-year-old he left the hallway light on for, old enough now to think he needed to brave the night without a nightlight. So Hotch would offer to keep the hallway light on, not for Jack but for him because he doesn’t like the dark. The ten-year-old sheepishly offering him a father’s day gift he bought with saved allowance, a t-shirt he’s now worn the words off of. The fifteen-year-old curling up beside him on the couch, seeking his comfort but not sure how to ask anymore. The eighteen-year-old as tall as him talking his ear off while he tries to get dinner ready, sticking his fingers in the pan and sitting on the counter.

How did he grow up so fast?

He’s not a little boy anymore. Hasn’t been for a long time.

The creaking of a chair moves Hotch’s attention and he looks away from Jack. Away from the sight of his little boy curled up on a cot, drooling onto a pillow and notebook still open, a pen dangling from his fingers. He looks over and Emily’s sitting up, her reading glasses precariously sat on the tip of her nose. “Oh look,” she mumbles. She stretches out, groaning as her joints complain from being held in this miserable hospital chair for hours. “You’ve decided to join the land of the living.”

Hotch watches her fold the thin black frames of her glasses up, gently sits them down by his hand as she stands up. Jack had called her, even though he promised he wouldn’t worry anyone. Hotch didn’t want anyone else coming to the hospital over something so small and though Jack protested that their concern wouldn’t be because he was bothering them but because they love him. The very same reason he’d come home is that people gather after these sorts of things. They need reassurance that he’s alive and he’s just going to have to accept that. They compromised in the end, everyone could come to smother him in worry after he got home from the surgery.

But Jack was scared. He called the only person he could think to, the woman whose role in his life that was never really clear. She’d gotten on him about his grades, smacked the back of his head when he said something stupid, and always let him taste-test her wine at Thanksgiving dinner. Emily knew things that not even Jessica knew and she could be sterner than both Hotch and Jessica and also more relaxed, more understanding. She was always there for both of them, in the same capacity as Jessica and yet her own unique one. A friend Hotch trusted and loved and Jack could understand that. His friends always wanted to know if they were dating and he knew intuitively that the answer was no but he would hesitate to try and explain. But he didn’t understand the gravity that pulled them together, adults and their relationships far too complex to fit it into his simple understanding of love.

He did understand she was the only person to call.

“What’d he do this time?” she asked and knew she was playing the wrong role for the wrong Hotchner because no sooner than she could ask she had an armful of Jack. She sat with Jack for hours, let him get his fear out. Held him while he sobbed, felt pulled to the past. When it was Aaron on her shoulder, terrified he’d lose his son. Life has this very odd way of bringing everything full circle.

“I bet you’re hurting.” Emily moves to the table and pours water into the little paper Dixie cup left by the nurses. “Been right dramatic this afternoon,” she informs him, a dissatisfied matter-of-fact tone in play. “I know you find that to be particularly taxing.” She holds the cup for him, gentle despite her annoyance. She’s close enough to see the iodine on his skin. Dark orange swipes across his pale skin, the smell burns with its strength.

He pulls greedily from the cup, mouth impossibly dry. Stopped only by how little she poured, he sinks back heavily into the pillows behind him. His shoulder hot and angry from forcing himself upright.

“They’re going to let you go in the morning,” she says, sitting back down. He won’t remember this in the morning. Emily holding his hand, whispering thickly how angry she is with him as tears fall down her face. How scared she was getting that phone call from Jack, racing down here to be a composed person to comfort his son thinking her best friend was in the morgue.

He’ll wake up with a pit in his stomach, residual feelings from the night before he can’t tie down to memories. Emily shows no inclination to repeat herself, just coldly informs him that she’ll have Penelope make him a cardiologist appointment (it’s unspoken that no one trusts him to do this himself). Jack walks on glass, close by but terrified of being pushed away. Hotch is too out of it to put up much of a fight, by the time the morning shift has their hands on him he’s silent. Properly dosed up for a ride home and out of his mind.

He’s groggily propped up on pillows, watching Jack and Emily fight over if he has the right to wear shoes or not. Emily wants to hold them captive, he won’t run off or refuse the wheelchair without them and Jack shakes his head, “he’s not our P.O.W, Emily. He’s even going to get that far if he does try to run.” He’s given his shoes but Emily makes a point to collect his cane, holds it while the nurse helps him into the wheelchair. He’s a flight-risk and she’s not going to trust him, he’s run off on her too many times for that.

At the house the other’s have gathered up, having nothing better to do evidently on a Wednesday at ten in the morning. Penelope’s frying eggs and bacon, the carnage it takes to feed their brood spread out on his kitchen counter. Reid sitting on the counter, Hank in his lap, and the two of them watching Penelope. Derek’s on the sofa, feet kicked up on the coffee table, and Savannah learning on his shoulder. Dave’s getting orange juice from the store declared them all lawless, and didn’t trust them to get the right kind.

Hotch is granted his cane to get back inside the house but Emily threatens to kick it out from underneath if he tries anything fast. He smacks her ankle and Jack has to actually step between them to keep them apart. It’s in times like these where Jack finds himself wondering how these two ever had any role in raising him at all.

“Don’t you have jobs?” Hotch asks, hooking his cane over the coat rack and toeing his shoes off. He ignores the hand Emily places on his arm, afraid he’ll knock himself over. He manages just fine, has the whole house set up so that every other step is within arms distance of something to lean on. Fingers trailing the back of the couch he limps past Derek, smiling when Savannah offers a soft “glad you’re okay”. She pats his hand and he nods back.

“Up for some food, sir?” Penelope asks and she’s not taking no for an answer. They might be having heaping servings of eggs and bacon and gravy and orange juice but she’s made two small bowls of oatmeal. She takes the medicine Jack tosses up on the counter, puts it at the end where the rest of his medication sits. “I cut up apples,” she tells Hotch with a wide grin, sliding the bowl in front of him. “Dashed a little cinnamon and sugar in there, it’ll stick to your bones. Keep you healthy.”

He’s at a healthy weight at the moment, not as thin as he leans to when he’s sick but with Hotch, it’s always a good thing to have some collateral weight for the “in case”. Lifting the spoon in his left hand he scoops some of the oatmeal up, doing his best to hide his annoyance at how weak his extremities still are. How his hand shakes under the light strain of the oatmeal. He looks up, watches Spencer carry Hank over to the highchair sitting at the table beside him. He’s distracted so Emily swoops in, takes his spoon from his hand, and tries his oatmeal. He lets her do it. He raises an eyebrow and she shrugs. She likes it. He nods, it’s pretty good.

Hank immediately knocks his spoon on the ground and makes a low whining sound in the back of his throat. “Hop help,” he whines, pointing down at his spoon. His speech is still developing so he pronounces help and hop nearly identically but Hotch understands the difference. He just can’t bend over like that. His right arm is still pinned to his chest in an intricate web of gauze and this sling.

“Reid,” Hotch calls. His voice is deep, strained from intubation and anesthesia. It makes him sound sick. “He’s dropped his spoon.”

Reid nods, he already knows.

Hank points to his shoulder and frowns, “Hop fall down?”

Hotch nods, that is pretty much what happened and at the same time, Emily sweeps in and tickles Hank. She presses kisses to his face and making him laugh loudly. “That’s what happens,” she says. “Hops is just old.” Hank is too distracted by the ongoing attack to defend Hotch not that a toddler rising to his defense is very helpful.

Hotch sighs as Jack comes up behind him, stealing his spoon too. He takes a bite of the oatmeal and deems it nearly as good as the kind that Jessica makes. Hotch wants to be annoyed by it and yet all he does is nod and finds himself smirking just a little.

Penelope calls everyone in for breakfast and Hotch ignores the kisses pressed to his cheek as people drag chairs to the table around him. To the hands that slide over his back, assurance of life he remembers Jack calling it.

Derek slides him a mug of tea, made exactly how he likes it. He sits across from Hotch, close to Hank in case either needs assistance. Emily sits to his left, slides her coffee up beside his tea so he can have some if he’s quick about it. Jack sits beside her and the rest is a blur, too much motion at once for him to take in without his contacts or glasses. Penelope slides a tea plate to him, his medicine on it, and kisses his head while he’s still scowling at the plate.

They don’t leave him alone all day.

He ends up taking a nap with Hank, the toddler’s sticky little fingers holding onto his shirt as he finds himself unable to fight off the effects of the medicine and his full stomach.

He’s squished on the couch between Derek and Dave, forced to watch baseball because he can’t worm his way upright again just yet.

They change the dressings on his shoulder, his teeth clenched tightly so that he doesn’t let anything slip.

At midnight he wakes up on the couch. Jack’s bedroom door is shut, he’s sleeping peacefully inside. His heating blanket is pulled up to his chin, the heat turned up all the way. He can’t remember getting into this state himself but he has a fate memory of JJ helping him move his hand to his mouth, encouraging him to take the pain killers before bed. Of Derek making sure he didn’t just fall straight over onto his side. He manages to find Dave stretched out on the Lazyboy -- the chair he got Hotch for his fifty-something birthday. He’ll wake up in the morning to more food being made in his lonely kitchen, JJ this time. She’ll make blueberry waffles.

If he’d wanted attention, Emily will tease the next morning, he could have just asked. And he didn’t even know he wanted this. He never finds the words to ask for it to continue but every Saturday morning it happens anyway -- his kitchen and living room full of pajamas and suits in varying degrees depending on who has what to do that morning. The fainting thing is not cool but he considers this to be a good trade.

#criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds #aaron hotchner #derek morgan #savannah hayes #hank morgan #jack hotchner #emily prentiss #david rossi #penelope garcia #spencer reid #jennifer jareau

63 notes · View notes

jimlingss · 4 years ago

Text

Moirai [2]

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3

➜ Words: 6.2k

➜ Genres: 60% Fluff, 40% Angst, Isekai!AU

➜ Summary: Death is supposed to be the end. Or at least that's what you assumed when you're hit by a TRUCK. But the moment you open your eyes again, instead of being sent to the afterlife, you've become a baby. And not just any baby. You're the female villain of a video game.

You turn the corner and dart down the hall. “My lady!” There’s a parade of maids chasing after you, Joan included in the bunch, and a frightened guard whose metal armour clanks with each movement. You grin, swinging your wooden sword around at them with a ‘huzzah!’. Pretending you’re a champion, you twirl around the pillar with one arm. But even with your theatrics, they’re still meters away and out of reach. “Please! Come back! You have your dance lessons!” You stick out your tongue. “Then catch me!” It’s been one full year since you’ve started learning swordsmanship and admittedly, it’s become one of your most favourite times of the day. It beats sitting at a desk with the old fart droning on and on about dumb things you already know or having your posture criticized over and over again during dance lessons. You’re frankly getting tired of having information and insults shoved down your throat. Sword lessons are the only time you can be out in the sun and do whatever you want. You can tell that you’re improving too. It’s a pain in the ass to get the guards to take you seriously, but sometimes the tips and tricks they give are pretty helpful. It’s fun. Especially when there are people desperately chasing you. “P-Please!” one of the girls cries out, running out of breath. One of the best perks about being a five-year old is having endless energy in your body. And you’ll happily take advantage of that while you still can. “Pirates never give up! Argh, matey!” But your play time is unfortunately interrupted by a deadpanning voice— “What are you doing?” The familiar sharp voice sends shivers up your spine and you freeze. Your parade halts on their heels as well, immediately dropping their heads to the ground and placing one hand over the other reverently. “Your grace.” “What is going on here?” Your mother’s footsteps echo through the marble hall, ball gown dragged behind her as her scrutinizing eyes lay on the help, the knight and then to you. “I’m so sorry,” Joan is quick to confess, “The lady refuses to attend her dance practices.” And she’s quick to throw you under the bus. If you could, you’d stick up your middle finger at her. Your mother turns, her glare laid upon you. You brace yourself. “This is not how the future Devereux head should act.” Her voice is above a slight murmur, yet chilling and heavy. Her narrowed eyes have dimmed as they look upon you. She doesn’t need to yell to be frightening. “The Chevalier household has their youngest daughter playing piano and they recently went to the castle to show her talent. How will you compete, Anastasia?” “I—” “Or will you continue to tarnish our family’s name by being a child?” You are a child. Technically. The woman looms over you, her demeanour imposing and the burden of the household’s name lays upon your shoulders. You can’t help but feel small. It’s no wonder Anastasia took the Prince’s kindness as love and fell for him so quickly. Moments with him were her moments of freedom. You stay quiet, solemn, knowing it’s not worth arguing. Your eyes instead focus on a younger maid who’s silently snickering to herself and before you can make note for later, your vision blurs. “From now on, your swordsmanship lessons will be retracted until you’ve caught up with the rest of your lessons,” she says while looking straight ahead, not sparing you a glance. “The only places you are to be permitted in for the next month is your room and the study—” It’s unfair. A punishment that doesn’t fit the crime. But your voice doesn’t come out of your mouth. The world tilts on an axis. It swirls. Your head is lightweight. And before you could figure out what’s happening, there’s a shrill cry for you — “my lady!” — and you feel yourself falling back before the universe becomes pitch black. An abyss of nothing. // “Why did she faint?!” When you come to, your first thought is that you’ve died. Again. Illness. Heart attack. Maybe from the plague. Fuck. It’s frightening and you feel an urge to cry, knowing that you yet again didn’t complete your goal of living a long and fruitful life. That the years spent fighting for your survival were ultimately useless. But then you hear far away voices and realize your fingers can twitch. The soft mattress underneath you registers soon after and it sinks in that you’re in your room, bedridden. “Well….your grace…” “On with it! I didn’t bring you here to waste my time!” “Herrick…” Oh right. It’s the Eve of the Solar Festival, isn’t it? A day where commoners celebrate the empire and wish for its everlasting prosperity. You remember since you’ve never gone before. Around this same time last year and the year before that, you fell ill in the exact same way — cold, chest aching, dizzy spells. It’s odd. Usually you aren’t so weak and yet somehow, you always get better in the morning once the festival is over. You don’t remember this ever being mentioned in the original game either. Or at least Anastasia never said anything about it and she would’ve totally milked it for the Prince’s attention if she could’ve. But maybe it’s an outside detail. Something the game developers were going to include in a future DLC. “We don’t know what’s happening to the lady, your grace,” the healer says. Your father bellows from his stomach, “Excuse me?!” “H-Her pulse reads well and she has no fever either. I-It’s a very unusual case.” In your half-consciousness, you perceive the bitter silence. “Heal her at all costs.” Your father’s footsteps fade and your mother sighs. You wish you couldn’t hear. Otherwise, it would be easy to demonize the pair as unsympathetic, psychopathic parents who only consider their daughter a chess piece. You’re sure the only reason they’re expressing so much concern is because you are the only heir after all. They really have no future if Anastasia dies. But it’s still hard to quell the hope that they actually care for your wellbeing. Still, you wish you couldn’t hear their desperation. It wouldn’t have to be so conflicting. Or bittersweet. The only time they show an ounce of their affection is when you’re on your deathbed. You muster the strength to open your eyes once everyone’s left the room. Most likely, you’ll live through this. You still have yet to have any of the game’s encounters or even start. Anastasia was alive for most of it, enough to terrorize the main character, so you’ll live too. Shit. When does the game start again? The opening scene was right before the debutante ball was held for all the girls in the empire. You count on your fingers — give or take, there’s twelve or thirteen years left…. But you remember from the wiki fan page that Anastasia became engaged to the Crown Prince when they were kids. Oh god. If you weren’t so weak, you’d roll over and scream into your pillow. There’s an unsettling feeling boiling in the pit of your stomach. No matter how much effort you put forth, you don’t know how you’re going to avoid that arrangement.

Turns out, it’s unavoidable. It begins two years later at seven years old, the D-day that you were dreading, the first domino that begins all the others. “No! Please!” The entire household is stunned at how you’ve grabbed onto the Duke’s leg and wrapped your limbs around his appendage, practically dead weight and not allowing him to move a single step. All your life, you’ve kept a good amount of distance between your parents — never daring to overstep your boundaries or sass them back no matter how much you wanted to. It’s more trouble than it’s worth anyway and it’s better to play on their good side. But you’ve thrown in the towel. This is your last desperate attempt. “I’ll be good, I promise I’ll go to all my dance lessons and all my history lessons and all my math lessons. Please, papa! Please!” You’re practically crying aloud. You wish someone would help you. “I don’t want to go to the Royal Palace!” Edith is shaking her head while Joan is mortified at the sidelines. Your mother’s expression is twisted in disgust while your dad is wholly aghast. Hey — it’s not like you wanted to do this either, alright?! But your pleas fall on deaf ears. To them, it’s merely the whining of a child. A temper tantrum. “My lady, please stop this,” Joan harshly whispers and rushes to pry your grip off of the Duke’s leg. Several others come too, maids and kitchen staff alike. Your strength is no match for theirs. “My stomach hurts!” Your father has no sympathy. “We’ve delayed enough times, Anastasia. If we postpone the meeting with the King again, it would be shameful to our house. Now get up.” He’s done hearing the excuses — and while you’d usually internally call him out for being an ass, the moment you heard he wanted to take you to the palace, you did claim you have a fever. Then you claimed diarrhea. A cough. Hid for several hours. You’re actually surprised you managed to delay it for this long. “There’s no choice, my lady,” Joan mutters quickly as she fixes the ribbons in your pretty hairdo. “You must go with the Duke today.” Deep down, you know it’s true. You’ll be pulled along anyhow. But you wish they would understand that this is a matter of life and death for you. Your silence is a sign of raising the white flag and Joan retracts back to her place as your dad turns to leave the manor. He adjusts his hat as he’s escorted to the carriage and you’re about to trail after him, but your mother stops you. You expect her to reprimand you, give an earful of what you should and shouldn’t do. But you’re surprised when she lowers herself down to your eye level. She catches you off guard when she reaches out to button up your pea coat, attentive and careful in each swift movement. “This is a really important meeting, Anastasia. Do you understand?” Her voice is soft, quiet enough that no one else aside from you can hear. You nod. “You must be on your best behaviour. Your father, me, all the workers here, and the whole House of Devereux will be relying on you.” Wow. Way to not pressure a seven year old. “Today is the day that might change our lives for the better.” As she finishes buttoning, her hands stroke your shoulders down your arms. The Duchess smiles gingerly, tiredly. For a moment, you feel guilty for being so selfish — for prioritizing your own survival and desires when everyone else was quite literally relying on you for their livelihood. You find yourself swallowing hard before nodding again. You get into the carriage without another word. Well fuck. What now? A part of you wishes you ran away when you had the opportunity — even though there was a good chance you would’ve been kidnapped and sold at an underground market or gone hungry or be shipped back right to your parents. Ashea, like any other place, doesn’t take kindly to wandering children. But at least then you would’ve had more control and choice. You know this isn’t just a fun field trip to the palace. The only reason the Duke and the King would meet like this is to seek an engagement. Your engagement with the Prince’s. Half an hour later, you peek out the carriage windows to see the castle at the horizon. Stone walls, seven towers, lookouts, the empire’s flag fluttering in the breeze — it’s a beautiful place with rolling green hills and beds of flowers that wind up the path. It’s a hundred times more grand than the Devereux estate and ten times the size too, stretching across for miles. But it’s also the location where all of it happens. The beginning. The climax. The end. “Anastasia.” Your attention is taken when your father steps off the carriage. You take the servant's hand and hop down onto the cobblestone, following your father closely. He greets an important person or two and you lower your head to them in greeting as they complement how mannerly you are. The two of you are led through open, lavish halls full of life-sized portraits and marble statues, and then through the garden. Even in both your lifetimes, you’ve never seen so many different kinds of flowers and vivid hues in one place. Pansies. Orchids. Marigold. Magenta. Lavender. Marmalade. But you don't get to admire it for long. Not when the gazebo comes into sight. A man with straight posture, dark hair streaked with gray to show his age and deep set eyes sits at the rounded table. Even with the absence of his crown, his status is shown through his navy cape ornate with golden swirls held together by an emerald jewel embellished with the royal crest. Wrinkles around his mouth, he has a fiercely stern expression until he cordially smiles as your father approaches. Beside him is a spitting image, a smaller boy slumped in the white chair, visibly bored. “Herrick! Good to see you, my old friend.” “Your Majesty.” Your father bows and you follow suit, giving a curtsy and lowering your head. But at the same time, you can’t help peeking at the boy. His eyes meet yours and you look away. Oh fuck. It’s the first meeting between the Prince and Anastasia. You’re sure for her it was impactful, nerve wracking, life changing. And it’s like that for you as well, but not so much on the positive side. “Please, the formalities. Is this the daughter you've been speaking so highly about?” “Yes, this is my only child, Anastasia.” You plaster on a perfect, little smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Your Majesty.” The King hums. “A very lovely child indeed. The Devereux House is blessed.” The Duke smiles. “Thank you.” “Please sit and make yourselves welcome.” The King gestures and the servants nearby scurry over, pulling out your chairs, pouring tea and placing plates of biscuits on their table. In a blink, they’ve finished and you can’t help but muse how much better they are than the servants back at home. The King smiles and looks at his son. “Jungkook, don’t you have anything to say?” “Nice to meet you,” he deadpans before his doe eyes wander out to the gardens. Jungkook is wholly disinterested in you and this entire affair — you don’t blame him. You bet any seven year old would be itching to get out of their seat. But looking at him, you can’t believe you liked him so much in the game. You even had him as your phone wallpaper for a few months. But from the perspective of Anastasia and knowing your outcome and your impending demise, he’s not even cute as a kid. If anything, sitting across from him stresses you the fuck out. You weren’t supposed to even meet him. This was the exact opposite of your battle plans. And yet the engagement is going to happen whether you like it or not. The greatest irony of all is that you know he’ll end up falling in love with the main character anyway instead of you. Aka. the orphaned girl who ends up adopted by a baron. This whole ordeal only serves to make you suffer. The only way you could sabotage this meeting now is by slamming the teapot over Prince Jungkook’s head. And that would either get you thrown in jail for treason and executed or sent back to the Devereux estate on house arrest where your mother would kill you. Oh god. It’s death either way. “Are the sweets not to your liking?” It takes a second for you to register that the King is looking at you. That he’s speaking to you. You go wide-eyed, realizing you haven’t had a bite of the cakes, the biscuits or sipped on any tea. You’ve completely tuned out their conversation. But he’s been watching you and Jungkook from the corner of his eye, assessing your interactions closely. Your palms go clammy as you open your mouth before closing it. “She’s just shy,” your dad swiftly informs with a polite smile. It’s a complete lie, but one the royal monarch believes. “Ah. We shouldn’t bore them with adult talk then.” The man turns to his son. “Jungkook, why don’t you go off and play with Anastasia here?” “Okay,” he mumbles and slides off his chair. You follow suit, a bit relieved that you were dismissed from the overly formal atmosphere. The two of you go deeper into the gardens until the gazes of your father and the King’s fade from view. Jungkook is wearing a white ensemble with a cape which he dirties with the way he’s kicking rocks in his path. He seems burdened that you’re beside him. “What do you like playing?” he asks. You’re perplexed on how to answer. You’re not sure how you should play with an actual seven year old. Then again, you like to run away from the maids and swing your sword around on your down time. But that’s just because you like their reactions. “Sword fighting.” Jungkook blanches as if he just bit into a lemon. “What kind of girl plays with swords?” Suddenly, you’re overwhelmed with an urge to kick the royal prince right in his shin. But as the annoyance floods you, an epiphany comes along with it — if you can’t avoid Jungkook, maybe it’s time to switch strategies. Maybe you can start sowing the seeds of your future survival right here, right now. If one day, he’ll be condemning you of countless crimes and looking down at you as an evil villain, maybe you can turn his perception in the opposite direction. Harmless. Overbearingly nice. Arrows that practically point ‘I’M NOT A THREAT WHATSOEVER!’. You’re a genius. You force the highest pitched giggle you can. “Really?” Jungkook kicks another rock. “Girls have flimsy arms and trip every time you touch them.” Ah. The ancient version of: girls have cooties and so you should stay away from them. Alright, alright. You can work with this. “What do you like playing, Your Highness?” “Anything that’s not with girls.” You pause and laugh, hoping it doesn’t sound too stiff. Jungkook suddenly lifts his head and turns to you with the swivel of his heel. You stop as well and his index finger juts right in your face. “Since I’m the prince, I’ll have mercy on you. We can play servant and king.” “What’s servant and king?” “I’m the king.” His thumb pokes himself and then he’s back to pointing right between your eyes again. “You’re the servant. You have to follow me and all my orders or off with your head!” What a little shit. How is this going to be any fun for you?! But you draw an enormous grin on your face, left eye twitching in the process. “Sounds like fun, Your Highness!” He strolls off. “Let’s go, dumb dumb.” Your teeth grit and you inhale a deep breath. It hurts your pride to be insulted by a literal seven year old, but you can handle it. When it comes to life or death, you’ll easily befriend the hero. “Fetch that stick, peasant!” The prince points at the distance and looks at you expectedly. Your teeth grit. But you muster a smile and dash forward. When it comes to life or death, you’ll befriend the hero……….probably. “Here you go, Your Highness.” You present the stick to him with both hands and the brat smirks. A rush of air leaves his nose and then he takes the stick. You’re not sure what to expect, but your entire body freezes when he hurls it as far as his arms can go. He points between your brows a second later. “Go get it!” Motherfucker. “Yes!” Once Jungkook’s tired of having you fetch like a dog, you trail after him closely. The green hedges are triple your size, acting like corridors of the garden before they open up to certain areas filled with beds of flowers or a fountain. Some paths are unpaved, so you listen to the crunch of rocks underneath his shoes amidst the quiet. When you’re not out of breath and running at his command, it finally sinks in that it’s the first time you’re with a main character of the game. For the seven years of this lifetime thus far, there was only really you. Your parents were supporting characters at best who just took the opportunity to slyly diss the main heroine a few times at royal gatherings. But other than that, you’re currently facing the backside of someone you know a lot about. Who he will become. What his future holds. What his desires are. You pipe up, “Prince Jungkook—” “That’s Your Highness, peasant!” You clench your jaw. “Your Highness…” “What?” You quicken your steps until you’re beside him and he turns his head. “I’ll support you forever if you want to fall in love with anyone! I don’t care about being the crown princess or the queen!” For good measure, you flash a wink and a thumbs up. “What?” His boyish face is twisted up in disgust. “Why would a peasant be a queen?” You hold in your sigh. “I’m just saying. If we ever get engaged or something, it can always be annulled when we’re older. So feel free to love on, Your Highness. Make love, not war!” Your words completely fly over Jungkook’s head. His face reads that he has no clue what you’re talking about. And he turns away from you. “You’re weird.” You scoff. You’re not sure how you can become friendly with a seven year old when you’re internally twenty years older than he is. If you had chocolate on you, you’d use that as a bargaining chip. But clearly, you only have your body, brain and the surroundings at the moment…. What do seven year old boys like? What do they like? As you scan your surroundings, your eye catches something in the bushes. You stop and get closer. At the same time, Jungkook realizes you’re not following him anymore and turns around. “What are you doing, peasa—” His words are cut short by a shrill shriek of absolute terror. Your brows furrow and you thrust your hand closer to him. “It’s a ladybug.” The tiny red and black polka dotted bug is crawling in your hand. Jungkook screams again. He’s stumbling back, nearly tripping onto his butt, doe eyes reflected with complete horror as if you just chopped off his mom’s head. “Get that thing away from me!” his voice cracks up and down two different octaves and realizing his weakness, you grin. You know your plan was to seem as harmless as possible, but it’s just too much fun teasing him. “What thing, Your Highness? Your servant is merely showing you a small forest creature.” “No! Stop!” He scrambles and starts running away. You chase after him while giggling manically. “Prince Jungkook! Where are you going!” “Get the bug away from me!” He turns over his shoulder with eyeballs nearly falling out of their sockets, face bright red, and you take the opportunity to toss the ladybug at him. Jungkook’s shrieks echo, pitched and earsplitting. You’re forced to stop with how hard you’re laughing and by then, he’s ran for the hills, completely gone from sight. Oh god. You can’t believe he’s so scared. You can’t believe you were so scared — he’s just a kid. Your giggles taper off as you wander the gardens by yourself. It’s freeing to stroll at your own pace without a brat demanding you to fetch sticks or barking at you to do this and that. It’s a chance to finally admire the surroundings. You’re sure the first time Anastasia saw the castle, it became her dream home. The place is similar to the aesthetic background graphics of the game and it was always described as beautiful by all the characters. And it really is that way. But this is also the place of her demise and possibly yours. You’re sure the only time you’ll be able to enjoy the palace and be this carefree is right now. You’re admiring the blooming carnations, peony and roses as you turn the corner. The figure standing by the sprouting fountain doesn’t register until after a delayed moment and your eyes lift to see a woman — mysterious in her gray dress. It’s simple attire, but the fabrics are layered on top of one another, light enough that they drape down and flow to the breeze. Her brunette hair is tied into a bun and as if she feels the pressure of your eyes, her bright irises turn towards you. You realize you’re staring and you blink several times, approaching her politely. She pulls her charcoal shawl closer to her and smiles. The light wrinkles around her kind eyes crease. “Are you lost, child?” You shake your head. “No. I’m just looking.” She crouches down to match your height, gazing at you tenderly. “Where are your parents?” “My dad’s talking to the King.” You point off in the distance as curiosity eats at you. She doesn’t look like an ordinary worker but not a visitor of the castle either. “I’m Anastasia.” She searches your expression as if she’s endeared by you. “That’s a beautiful name.” “Thanks! Who’re you?” She’s soft-spoken, voice above a quiet murmur, “My name is Erena Robane.” You frown. The name rings a bell. “Lady Robane?” “No.” Her laugh tinkles. “I’m no lady.” Before you can press your mind any further and pick apart your brain at why her name sounds so familiar, she reaches into the small pouch she was carrying and hands you a wrapped piece of candy. “Would you like one?” Your eyes light up at the pink square. “Yes, please!” You know better, as an internal twenty seven year old, than to take candy from strangers, but the Duke and Duchess never give you any sweets. So you’ll happily take what you can. Erena smiles and drops the treat into your outstretched palm. Not wanting to risk getting it confiscated by Edith, Joan or your mother if you brought it home, you quickly unwrap it and throw it into your mouth. It’s peppermint and it’s pretty damn good. The woman looks at you patiently, waiting for a reaction, so you give her a thumbs up and a “Yummy!” She laughs faintly. “Do you like candy?” “Yep!” You hold out both hands as if you’re trick-or-treating. “Can I have another one, please?” Might as well seize the chance while you can. It’s a dog-eat-dog world. “You have very good manners.” She smiles, taking another out of her endless pouch and dropping it in your hand. Oh man, you’re starting to really like this lady. “My son likes chocolate, but I only managed to get candy for today.” You chew the hard candy in your cheek, crunching down on it. You hope it rots your teeth and makes Edith’s life a living nightmare when she has to deal with it. “Your son?” Her lips part to speak. But she’s interrupted— “Mom?” By sheer coincidence and coincidence itself, a boy with floppy, brown hair turns the corner of the garden. Thin lips, but chubby cheeks and bright eyes of deep mocha. You’ve known him the second your eyes have laid on him. A younger form of the person you fear most. Taehyung. You gasp and immediately spin around, hoping he didn’t see you, pretending you didn’t see him. “I have to go now!” Before Taehyung’s mom can utter another word, you run away. You don’t notice how Taehyung slows as well, brows furrowed at your receding form. To see Jungkook is one thing. But to see Taehyung, the one who will use, coerce and lead you to your doom, is another. Jungkook handed down your judgment, but Taehyung is the one who led you there. He’s the villain. // “You did decently,” your mother informs a few days after the whole affair. “We might have to go to the palace more often from now on.” You nod, unable to dwell in her approval, mind still lost in a daze. Taehyung — a half prince born a year before Jungkook. He has the blood of a royal with his father as the King, but his mother is merely a palace maid. You remember that he seeks revenge for her death after she’s poisoned by the jealous Queen. But if she’s still alive, that means it’ll happen soon. This year. Springtime. You’re slowly recalling the details of the event, the catalyst that begins Taehyung’s descent into madness, how he became the game’s villain. But you can’t involve yourself. You just can’t. You shouldn’t have met any of them in the first place. You shouldn’t get entangled in their story, in their lives. If you want to live, if you want to survive, you have to avoid Taehyung at all costs. So you can’t. You can’t. Can’t. A day passes as you focus on your studies. You can’t. Another two days goes by, six meals eaten. Can’t— On the seventh, your silver spoon clanks noisily against the porcelain bowl, slipping from your grasps, dropping downwards in your deep trance that throbs your temples. Joan turns at the ruckus and you look at her, already standing up. “I have to go to the castle.” The guilt eating at you has won its battle. “Pardon me?” “Today. Right now.” You rush out of the room and down the hall, determination set in your strides. Maybe you can avoid this. Maybe if you do, he won’t become the game’s villain. Then he won’t be a threat to you, and you won’t be a threat to anyone. You’ll live and so will his mom who’s done nothing wrong. The maid struggles to catch up to you. “My lady! Please! Wait! What do you mean?” “I forgot something really important!” “Y-You can’t just go. My lady! You must ask permission from the Duke and Duchess!” “There’s no time to.” You’ve never been more serious and somber. There isn’t an inch of mischief, no childish selfishness. Twenty seven years has amounted to this very moment. And you use your status as the Duke’s daughter to command the girl. “Come with me. If the Duke or Duchess gets mad, I’ll take the blame.” Joan sighs, annoyed as she looks around as if someone else could reason with you. But as you turn to her, looking her dead in the eye, she shifts on her feet and hesitantly calls for a carriage. You’re in it before you can blink again. There must be time. There hasn’t been any news yet. No reports of a death in the castle. You can warn him. You can avoid this tragedy. “We’re here, my lady,” Joan informs, peering out the window at the enormous stone walls and towers looming high above the clouds. The carriage doors open and she guides you out. Your feet land onto the cobblestone. But there isn’t any welcome. No guards that ask what your business here is. No servant passing by. Instead, there’s chaos in the distance. Your head whips to the noise and Joan shouts as you dash off towards it. Yet no one notices you in the midst of the pandemonium. No one would pay mind to a small child. You’re left to linger in the open halls, butlers that quickly walk past, maids whispering amongst themselves— “Did you hear?” Your head turns towards two girls. “The King’s mistress just died!” You came a moment too late.

No one cries. The arrangement is short and unluxurious, the bare minimum of what would be acceptable for a royal family. A priestess in front drones on impassively about the afterlife, but as you look around, no one grieves. After all, they wouldn’t shed tears for a mere maid. This is merely a charade to quell away scandalous rumors and to give nobles an excuse to come to the castle and be acknowledged. You’re overwhelmed in black, a tulle skirt and puffed sleeves. Your parents stand on either side of you, your father in a jacket with the house’s emblem and your mother with a veil covering the right side of her face. Like many others, your family has come for appearance sakes. But for you, it’s different. The woman inside the closed casket has shown you a kindness that you so seldom receive. And because of your hesitation, because of your self-preservation and selfishness, this happened. Once the burial ceremony is over, your parents mingle amongst the nobles, laughing cordially behind gloved hands as you follow after them and cutesy. It feels like you’re a show pony, brought around to show what the future of the Devereux looks like. But after a while, you manage to slip away from the scrutiny. And by sheer coincidence and coincidence only, you find him. At first it’s the noise of heart wrenching sobs. It’s unrestrained wails and choked hiccups in between that attracts your attention. You twist through the familiar hedge corridors and the moment you turn the corner, your eyes lift to a small figure underneath an oak tree. He sits alone. He cries to himself. The boy with floppy, brown hair has his knees pulled together. He incessantly rubs at his eyes as if that alone could stop the tears that well and pour. He cries enough for the tens of people at the funeral, substituting their apathy with his anguish. His entire body wracks and the moment he whimpers “m-mom” in-between, it’s shaking to your core. This is the beginning. The start of his path of destruction. In this entire castle that stretches across the horizon, only his mother ever loved him. The half-prince. The Forgotten Prince. The one dirtied by regular red blood, not blue enough for the golden crown. Taehyung mourns, vision blurred by his grief. But as he rubs his eyes with his small fists, black shoes appear between the gaps of his hands. He looks up. Your arm is extended in front of him. Taehyung looks down to your folded, pink handkerchief. He looks stunned for a moment, as if he’s surprised that there was someone here. That someone actually heard him. That someone came. He takes your handkerchief and sniffles. “I’m sorry,” you murmur. Sorry that she passed away, that he has to endure this, that you didn’t save her when you could’ve. This isn’t just a game you’re playing anymore. All these people aren’t just characters. You’re living a new life. And all these people have emotions, desires, thoughts of their own. You’re not sure how you can comfort Taehyung. What you can say to make it better. “Your mother loved you a lot. I’m sure she wouldn’t want you to be crying so much by yourself.” He hiccups, snivelling uncontrollably. “B-But if I don’t cry for her, who will?” You don’t know what to say. Tears continue to slip down his cheeks and as you linger awkwardly, you decide there isn’t much that you can say. So you sit beside him. You sit underneath the canopy of the tree and branches of rustling leaves, on the soft bed of grass, looking out at the garden. This is all you can do. You don’t notice the way Taehyung looks up in-between his mourning, glossy eyes pinpointed on the profile of your face. The pair of you sit next to one another in the silence of his sniffles until it levels. Until he can breathe again— “Anastasia!” There’s a sharp call of your name, one that can only belong to your mother. You immediately come to your feet again as if a dog whistle has been blown. But as you hurry away, you turn over your shoulder. Your eyes connect with Taehyung’s brown ones, and for a moment you slow. You leave a second later. You twist down the hedges and turn the corner, nearly bumping straight into her. She looks down at you with her brows furrowed. “Where did you go?” You smile. “I got lost.” It’s futile. You know it now. Trying to avoid the three that will lead you to your demise is like trying to wish you’d suddenly vanish off these lands. You know it won’t be the last time that you see Taehyung. It won’t be the last of Jungkook either. Or whoever the heroine will be. It seems like the more you try to run, the more you inadvertently become involved. But you’ll hold your head up high and face whatever is to come head on.

#bts fanfic #bts scenario #jungkook fanfic #taehyung fanfic #jungkook scenario #taehyung scenario #jungkook fluff #taehyung fluff #BUT WHO'S GONNA BE THE ENDGAME GUY HMMMM?

408 notes · View notes