#I was going to do more but I the started hating the colouring etc so let's just leave it there before I get more frustrated lmao | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

rinhaler · 1 year ago

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So Tell Me What You Need

oliver aiku really really likes you ♡

✧˖*°࿐: 18+ only, no minors. ✧. ┊ ⁭yandere!oliver aiku x f!reader

Genre: college!au (++ smut) Notes: thank u 2 @chososdoll for doing gods work with this fic i hated it hehehe Warnings: 18+, serial killer mention, murder mention, weed mention, smoking, stalking ♡, manipulation, dub/noncon, 'just the tip' ♡, coercion, oral (m receiving), cock slapping ♡, facial, creampie ♡, praise, degradation, pet names (baby, sweetheart, princess, etc.) ♡ Words: 7.2k

The body of a young woman was discovered in the early hours of Thursday morning. It’s the third body in the last five months to be found, and an inside source has revealed that this is thought to be a pattern by one killer. The victims are all female and—

Your heart pounds as you shut off the TV in your front room. It’s the last thing you want to hear as the windows reveal the dark night sky outside. You don’t even see the stars above; the light pollution takes that comfort from you. All you can see is rows of apartments opposite to your own, some lit and some dim. Some with funky colours but most are warm white.

And your face flushes with heat as you notice one of the latter have a couple fucking up against a window before you turn away to face your roommate.

She notes your concern, but chooses to smirk and poke fun anyway.

“Maybe it’s your stalker,” she teases you. “You might be next.”

“That’s not funny.” you sigh, storming off to your room. You wince as you look at the abandoned study materials at your desk. You’ve been putting everything off for weeks, but your coursework and exams are the last thing on your mind.

You find yourself pacing around a little before you eventually decide to sit on the edge of your bed. There’s no way you can possibly sleep after hearing that. And your roommate’s poor joke has only made you more paranoid. So, what is there left to do?

Music might help, you think to yourself as you unlock your phone. You can barely do anything as your fingers begin to tremor while you look through your playlists. You’re interrupted, though, as a call from an unknown number fills your screen.

You mask your fear with anger, grunting as you swing open your bedroom door to yell at your friend.

“Stop it, Lacey! I’m going to have nightmares, I’m serious!” you yell. She looks at you, confused. You hold up your phone to show her the incoming call. But her eyes drop to the coffee table, her own phone discarded on top of it in favour of smoking from her bong.

“Answer it.” she urges you.

And you gulp, nodding, sliding the button across the bottom of the touch screen to take the call. You steel yourself, already knowing what’s coming as soon as you speak. It’s the same thing every single time. You don’t say a word, not for a few seconds. There isn’t a sound from either of you as you sit on the couch while your roommate’s eyes follow you.

“Hello?” you say, meekly.

It begins.

The heavy, repetitive breathing that sends a chill down your spine. She looks concerned, now. It’s the first time she’s been present when you’ve received a call. You’d started to suspect she didn’t believe you.

“Who the fuck is this?” she yells, snatching the phone from your hand. Their breathing stutters, it’s barely noticeable but you both pick up on it. It’s enough to make her hang up. “I— you should stay in my room tonight. W-With me.”

“Are you scared?” you ask her, earnestly. She doesn’t respond, but the fact that she’s packing away her drug paraphernalia is answer enough. “Thank you.” you smile, though you leave the room as you do.

You start scrolling through your contacts on instinct, tossing your phone onto your bed as you find the number you’re searching for and put it on loudspeaker as it dials. It rings and rings, and you start to worry you won’t get through. You undress, taking off your clothes from the day to change into your pyjamas.

“Hey you,” he starts. “S’pretty late, baby. Somethin’ wrong?”

“Oliver…” you start, legs buckling at the sound of his voice as you feel a combination of relief and guilt surge through you. You sniff, the pressure of your fear and other underlying emotions doing their best to overwhelm you. “My— The stalker called. Again.” you tell him, and you’re instantly met with a sympathetic coo.

“Do you want me to come over?” he asks. “Or do you wanna come here? I’ll pick you up, princess, s’not a problem.” he continues. You shake your head despite him not being able to see.

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. Sorry, I was just freaking out. Nice to hear your voice, though…” you smile a little, feeling shy all of a sudden.

“Alright. Only if you’re sure.” he speaks, clearing his throat. “I miss you, though. You better let me see that pretty face of yours soon.”

“Okay,” your smile widens. Once again nodding knowing he can’t actually see you right now. “Goodnight Oli.”

“Goodnight, gorgeous.”

Sharing a bed with your roommate helped. You didn’t even mind her snoring, it’s not like you’d expected to get much sleep anyway. You got enough to get you through the day, though. Classes went by without incident, and you didn’t feel yourself wavering at lunchtime like you have been recently.

The calls are unpredictable, you’re always on edge. There’s no specific times or days or even how many times he’ll call.

You walk back to your apartment alone. The winter sucks. It’s not particularly cold, but it’s dark when you get to your classes and then it’s dark again when you leave for the day. You feel like you’re going crazy, and you can’t pretend you aren’t scared of being outside alone when it’s so dark out.

A text notification frightens you enough to almost drop your phone. You don’t even remember turning your phone off silent. Though you can’t help but grin when you see who it’s from.

Oli: Wanna hang out tonight?

You: I’m too behind on my coursework ☹

You: Another time? x

Oli: Okay princess x

You take a deep breath, pocketing your phone as you continue your journey to your apartment. The elevator isn’t empty, but you don’t mind. If anything, you feel a little better to be around people. Your music plays softly through your earphones the whole time, and your anxiety finally begins to dissipate.

Although, it comes flooding back when you get to the door of your apartment.

It’s locked.

And, normally, that would be fine. But Lacey always finishes early on Monday’s. And she’s always home before you get here. Your mind instantly flickers to the phone calls. The stalker.

The news report last night.

Little hands tremble as you search pathetically through your tote bag until you find your keys. The metal clings and clangs as you search for the right one; you jump as they fall from your hands. Eventually, though, the right one is in your grasp and you open the door quickly.

There’s no sign of her. She isn’t smoking in the front room like you expect. You open her bedroom door without knocking, only to discover she isn’t there either. Deep breaths are taken in vain. You try to call her, but there’s no answer.

You: Are you okay?? Call me ASAP

Lacey: I’m fine! I’m at the frat hanging out with Eita 😇

“Oh thank God.” you sigh, all but falling to your knees when you read her reply. Instantly, you can’t help but think about what a slut she is when you think about her failing to tell you her plans because she’s decided to sneak off to ‘hang out’ with her toxic friend with benefits.

Your mind is clear, though your heart is still beating a mile a minute.

Oli: You’re really just gonna study all night? X

You: Thinking about ordering a pizza :P x

Oli: I like pizza you know 🙄x

You: Next time! Promise x

It’s crazy. It’s embarrassing, actually, how quickly he can put you at ease. You’ve only known him for a few months, but it feels like you’ve known him forever. You sigh, dreamily, as you recall how he had introduced himself to you and Lacey during welcome week. He had to squeeze in the fact he was the president of the most popular frat on campus.

Even then, he made you blush. Though you couldn’t act on it; you’d had a boyfriend at the time. But you’ve been single for almost as long as you’ve known Oli, since you dumped him a week or two after; when you realised you didn’t love him anymore. And, still, nothing has happened between you and Oliver.

You’re scared, truthfully.

You’re scared because you know he’s experienced and he’s confident. You know girls throw themselves at him and he knows he’s popular. You’re not a virgin, but compared to him you may as well be.

After clearing your throat and shaking your head to dismiss your train of thought, you start looking for food to add to your basket from your favourite pizza place. It’s so hard to choose, as much as you’d love to get everything, you’re basically broke.

Incoming call.

“Please, no.” your voice breaks as you speak out loud.

You shouldn’t answer. The number is private and you already know what’s going to happen. But you’ve tried that before. You’ve tried ignoring them, but they just keep calling until you answer.

You’re frozen, paralysed with fear as you contemplate what to do. Lacey isn’t here to support you this time. She won’t be coming back, either. So, do you really want to answer? Do you really want to deal with how many calls you’ll receive if you don’t?

The burden of dealing with this alone is too much to bear.

But you’ve been left with no other choice.

“H-Hello?” you whimper, eager to get it over with. The breathing starts, and you’re surprised that this time it’s enough to make you cry. And it’s not just a few tears falling. Whoever is on the other end of the call will undoubtedly know what you’ve been reduced to. “Please stop doing this. W-What do you want from me?” you cry.

It's useless, though, the breathing just continues.

“I can’t t-take it anymore, please, p-please…”

“Mmmmpf,” you hear, it’s cracked and strained and it makes you feel sick. You aren’t sure if you’re imagining things, or if this sicko is actually getting off to the sound of your anguish and desperate pleas. “Thank you.” they say, the voice is deep and distorted but it’s clear as day.

Your breath is trapped in your lungs. And for the first time, they hang up.

You just can’t anymore.

Can’t breathe.

Can’t function.

Can’t think.

You can think enough to call Oli, though. Tremoring digits manage to navigate away from the takeout website to bring up your text thread with Oliver once more. And you don’t hesitate to press the call button.

Your eyes are soaked, vision blurry like a smudged camera lens as you look around your barren apartment while you wait for him to pick up.

“Hi gorgeous,” he answers, a seductive lilt in his tone. If you weren’t so worked up, you’d be flustered. You can picture the smirk on his face as he talks, though you aren’t really listening. “What’s up, baby? Calling to brag about that pizza?”

“O-li.” you sniff, voice cracking after each vowel. He’s silent, but you hear him move. Like he’s sitting upright suddenly, ready to spring into action to rescue you. “He c-called. Again, Oli… again—”

“Shit.” he sighs. “Do you want me to—”

“Please… come get me. ‘m so scared, don’t wanna be here a-alone.” you whine.

“I’m on my way.” he tells you. “I won’t be long, baby. I promise. See ya soon, princess.” he finishes, cutting off the line as he rushes to his car.

Your body stiffens as the silence of your apartment hits you once more. You can’t waste time, though. So, you pack. You’re quick about it, too. You fill your biggest bag with toiletries, a change of clothes and sleepwear… and your coursework.

There’s no way you’ll be doing any work tonight, but you can at least pretend you’re functioning like normal. You can’t let this creep dictate your entire life, right? Maybe being with Oliver will actually keep you calm enough to actually get some of your work started.

Oli: I’m outside x

The black night sky makes your heart race as you walk out of your apartment. The winter cold is harsher in the bleak evenings. Your thin sweater isn’t enough to protect you from the air nipping at your skin.

It’s the least of your worries; all you can think about is the fact this stalker of yours could be watching you right now. It could be anyone. Someone from your class, someone you shared the elevator with, your next-door neighbour. The very thought makes your steps quicken. You’re hurrying to the elevator and bashing the button until it arrives. It’s the first time you’ve felt safe since you left your apartment, because you’re alone. But even then, your skin breaks into goosebumps as you look up at the CCTV camera in the corner.

You’ll never feel safe, not really.

You rush down the road when you see Oliver’s car in the distance. He honks, and it’s all you need to run to him. You’re running like an athlete, and it feels more humiliating than it should. You’re sure Oliver understands why you’re frightened; and you’re sure he won’t judge you for sprinting to the car. But, still, it feels pathetic.

You open the door roughly before you practically dive into the passenger seat. He moves out of the way a little as you throw your overnight bag into the back seat.

“Hey, you’re alright now. Yeah? I’ve got you.” he speaks softly, doing what he can to relax you. You almost melt into his touch as he tucks a hair behind your ear. You do, a little, your body almost melds to the plush leather seat. Your head falls backwards onto the head rest, and your lip begins to wobble. “Poor thing…” he sighs.

“D-Drive, please…” you say, voice weak and strained.

He nods, driving off towards the frat house.

“I wouldn’t worry, you know.” he tells you, putting his hand on your thigh as he drives slow and carefully. You don’t object to his advances, in fact, it’s a comfort to feel his warm hand on your bitter flesh. Even his rough thumb stroking your skin is a welcome feeling. “It’s probably your ex, princess.”

“You think so?” you wonder. “I don’t know… he didn’t take the breakup well, but—”

“You never know what people will resort to when they’re heartbroken, baby.” he tells you, uneven eyes focus on you even as he drives. It makes you nervous, but his calm demeanour forces you to ignore it. You trust him, wholly. “Plus, he knows he lost the best thing that’ll happen to him in his pathetic life.”

“… Oli.” you smile, looking down at your knees as you try to avoid his cocksure stare.

He doesn’t say another word for the rest of the journey.

You come face to face with Lacey as you walk through the grandiose double doors. You feel like a guest of honour as you enter the castle that Oliver Aiku reigns over. Everyone is filled with warm smiles and happy faces as you see them. But your expression in return is feeble. You try to smile, but you’re so downtrodden, and Lacey immediately knows why.

She doesn’t even care that you don’t say hello when you run by her on the stairs and hurry to Oliver’s room. Oliver remains at the bottom while he watches you flee.

“She got another call.” he informs your roommate.

“Fuck.” she hisses through her teeth as she looks back up the stairs. Her voice is filled with remorse as she thinks things through. “I shouldn’t have left her alone; I knew she was—”

“S’alright, Lace,” Oliver smiles, his pristine pearly whites instantly put her at ease. “You can’t be with her every second, don’t blame yourself.” his eyes are so warm and full of love, she sees it every time he talks about you. He’s good for you, she thinks. He’s so sweet about you and he’s crazy about you.

“Give her our best.” Eita tells him, putting a hand on Lacey’s shoulder as they descend the stairs. “We’re going to smoke in the garden.”

“Enjoy yourselves, kids.” Oliver smirks, winking at them before chasing after you.

He sees you making yourself comfortable in his room. You’re already undressed, and you don’t care that he can see you. He doesn’t dare look away, either. But you don’t mind. He watches as you put on the mismatched pyjamas you threw into your bag, and he sits beside you on the bed after you collapse backwards onto the mattress.

“I’m gonna change my number,” you whisper. “I should have done that in the first place…”

“Good idea.” he agrees. Your eyes flutter shut as you feel his hand rest atop your head, his thumb delicately stroking your forehead again and again. He swears he sees you fall asleep for a second before you scare yourself awake with a too heavy breath. “Should we get you that pizza?”

You nod, lightly.

“I’d like that.”

He’s the perfect gentleman. You’re lucky to know Oli, you think. That’s how you feel anyway, as he watches you in silence while simultaneously encouraging your efforts in getting your schoolwork done.

He was kind, and he was helpful. Telling you that you could take a break or stop all together for the evening when your food arrived. And so, you spent a good while making notes and studying textbooks.

“Atta girl.” he winks at you, teasingly, when you begin to scribble down words onto pages. “I’m proud of you, baby, don’t let that idiot get under your skin.”

“Thanks Oli, I—” you’re cut off by the sound of your phone vibrating. You look over your shoulder and back to the desk you’ve been sitting at for the last 35 minutes. “O-Oli…” you whimper, showing him your phone.

He sets his own phone down on his bedside cabinet as he focuses on yours. It’s them. Oliver takes your phone, eyes furrowed as he debates whether to answer or not - choosing to answer brazenly. He puts it on loudspeaker, if only so you can confirm it is indeed the man who’s been harassing you endlessly.

The breaths are heavy but also stifled. It’s like he’s trying to control himself. He’s trying to be quiet. Oliver looks at you for answers, but you don’t have any for him. You haven’t got a single solitary clue on how to deal with these calls anymore.

Nothing works.

“Keep messing with her, I’ll fuck you up.” he says sternly. He eyes you up to make sure you’re listening to him. He wants you, needs you, to know he’s going to protect you at any cost. “We know who you are, so knock it the fuck off.”

He presses the big red disconnect button and puts your phone down beside you on the desk. He’s a little taken aback when you rush into his arms, your head resting on his firm chest while your arms wrap tightly around his torso. His hand comes down gently on the crown of your head and hear him emit a soft chuckle. You can’t see the small smile etching its way across his face, but you know it’s there.

“I’m not gonna let anything bad happen to you, okay?” he assures you. You feel like a different person, with him. It’s like you’re having an out of body experience when you find yourself lunging forward on your tippy toes to place your lips against his. His eyes widen in surprise, but he doesn’t pull away. Not right away, at least. He holds your shoulders after a few seconds go by. “Where did that come from?” he smirks.

“I don’t know, sorry… I just—” you’re interrupted by the sound of the doorbell ringing. You back away a little, smiling. “Saved by the bell.” you joke.

“I’ll go,” he closes the gap between you again, bending down to capture your lips in a soft, chaste kiss once again. “Find a movie or something, anything you want.” he whispers against your skin before parting from you.

You shiver, slightly, after he closes the door behind himself. The rational side of you knows that you’re fine. Nothing bad is going to happen right now. But you can’t help feeling safer with Oli around.

Maybe that’s why you kissed him.

You’re just so grateful to him.

“We should prob’ly go to sleep.”

You nod, agreeing when you see the time tick tick ticking on the plain black clock above his desk. A few hours had passed since the most recent call. You didn’t even pick a movie, you ended up watching some silly gaming videos on YouTube while you ate together.

It was divine.

And you can’t deny the possibility that it tasted better with a smile on your face and good company.

You get under the covers, your body feeling warmer as you watch Oliver circle the bed to turn off the light. He’d decided to forgo wearing anything to cover his chiselled body, and you suspect he did it on purpose.

The room is plunged into darkness until he uses the flashlight on his phone to guide his way back to bed. The mattress sinks behind you as he gets under the covers, and you only just manage to suppress a yelp when he presses his body against yours. You could quite literally dissolve under the pressure.

He smirks against the juncture between your neck and shoulder as he kisses you there, a desperate mewl escaping you in an instant. His hand rests on the curve of your hip, though his thick fingers begin to sink into your malleable flesh. You can’t even bring yourself to protest as you feel him not so subtly nudge his hips into you. And you can feel him.

“Oli… w-we shouldn’t.” you say, softly, the desperation clinging to your tongue gives away your true feelings instantly. You shouldn’t? That’s your opinion, clearly, as a rough hand winds its way around your body and up the baggy unflattering t-shirt you’d decided to wear.

“Are you sure?” he whispers against the hairs standing on end on the back of your neck. Words formulating in your mouth crumble to pieces when he squeezes the supple flesh of your breasts, alternating between them like he’s deciding which is his favourite. He experimentally rolls one of your nipples between his finger and thumb, and he’s mesmerised by the sound you release and the way you back your ass up against his aching length. He offers his own breathy sound in response. It’s almost a gasp. “You like this?” he wonders aloud despite knowing.

And you could cry as you nod.

It’s been so long since you’ve been touched. Since you’ve been loved.

And why should you put your needs on hold just because you’re a little scared?

“What about just the tip, princess?” he mutters, you feel your panties soak through as gravelly words enter your ear canal. He’s that desperate. He needs you that badly that he’s prepared to settle for just the tip. “Don’t you get it? Don’t you understand how much I need you, baby?”

“We r-really shouldn’t…” you tell him.

Even through the material of the top you’re wearing, you feel his rock hard body pressed heavily into your back. His hard-on makes you dizzy, you may as well be drunk from how much the room is spinning as you do all you can to resist.

“But you want to.” he tells you. He moves you onto your back and cages you in. He brushes his bulging sweats into your heat, his head drooping as he feels so close but so far to what he’s always wanted. Since the very moment he set his sights on you, he wanted this. “I can feel you, princess. You can feel me too, yeah?” he asks.

“Y-Yes, Oli… I feel you.”

“So stop fightin’ it.” he commands, though there’s a level of desperation interlaced with his words. He pulls down his sweats and his cock springs free, slapping against his abs and leaving a sticky smear against his tensing muscles. You whimper when he repeatedly taps his cockhead against your clit, even through the layers you’re wearing to cover it. Your toes curl. “Just the tip, sweetheart. C’mon, for me… been waiting so long for this.”

You don’t even answer before he hooks deft fingers into the waistline of your shorts. He leaves your panties, though. And you yelp as his fingers tease the pretty lace covering your drippy folds. He hums, he moans as his fingers run along the clothed length of your slit.

“You’re fucking soaking, baby. You need this cock, please. Let me fuck you. Why are you tryna deny yourself of a good time?”

And with that, you find yourself nodding dumbly.

He growls at your muted answer. It’s all he needs. It’s all he fucking needs and he’s happy his odd coloured eyes even manage to pick up on the gesture even in the dark. Could he have imagined it? He doesn’t know, nor does he care when your legs spread open for him like a flower once he moves your panties aside. The dewiness is cold against the crease of your thigh, but it’s barely noticeable as Oli spits down on your pulsing clit.

“Just the tip, o-okay?” you stutter.

“Mmm,” he answers. He hisses as your tight cunt swallows him, practically sucking in the head of his cock as soon as your entrance feels him. His eyes lose focus for a second and his breathing is erratic.

It’s happening.

It’s really happening.

He almost loses balance, hands settling on your bent knees so he can stabilise himself. You’ve been playing so hard to get for so long. And even you aren’t sure why.

He cups your face as he lowers his body on top of yours. His lips slot against your own as he kisses you passionately, though he breaks it soon enough.

“’m sorry.” he apologises. And you’re confused, only for a moment, before you feel his full-length plunge into your unprepped walls. Your hands fly to his back, nails digging and scratching over beautiful musculature and marking him like he’s yours “You’re fucking tight, baby.” he chuckles, kissing you again as his hips begin to gyrate.

“Oli, I said—”

“Don’t care.” he argues, already knowing what you’re about to say. “You feel too good. So tight f’me, princess. ‘n I’m making you feel good, yeah? Let me fuck you, stop thinking and take it.” he tells you, hips snapping harder to accentuate his point.

“Nngh—!” you moan, your nails still claw and mark at his back. He chuckles, darkly, as you draw blood. He doesn’t care, not in the least. He hadn’t expected you to be like this, but he can’t say he isn’t enjoying it. He kisses your neck as his thrusts get deeper and harsher. You feel his lips curve as you clench around him tighter.

He’s found your spot.

That perfect spot deep inside of your perfect cunt.

Your tight walls that now he’s certain were made for him to fuck. He pulls out, and it’s so brief. But the way you’re whimpering tells him how much of a good girl you are. You’re trained without even needing to cum. You’ve never been fucked so good.

After all of the sex you had with your ex, you didn’t know missionary could feel like this.

Doggy was always your favourite because it was the only time you could really feel anything with him. But this… you can feel him in your fucking throat. Your mind is blank as he pounds into you again and again at an unrelenting pace.

“Who’s making you feel good?” he mumbles into your ear. You feel close to passing out when he nibbles on your earlobe right after. Your cunt clenches and he laughs because he swears if you do that again you might actually break his cock. “Who’s fucking you so good, hm? Tell me who’s making your pretty pussy purr.”

“Y-You!” you gasp. “Oli, please! Please don’t stop.” you wail.

You can’t even feel embarrassed at the thought of anyone hearing you. Not when he’s dangling your first penetrative orgasm right in front of your face like a donkey with a hanging carrot. You mumble his name like it’s a prayer as he batters into your g-spot as if it were his soul reason for living.

“Waited too fuckin’ long for this,” he admits, the scruff of his facial hair scratches your skin as he gives you a filthy, sordid tongue kiss whilst continuing to assault the button deep within that will lead to your eventual ruin. And it’s close. It’s so fucking close and the two of you can feel it. “First time you’ve been fucked properly. That pathetic ex of yours—”

“D-Don’t,” you warn him, having no desire talking about your potential stalker when you’re so close to reaching your peak.

He grabs your face and squeezes until your lips pucker for him. Your eyes widen as he stares into them. You will listen to what he has to say, he’s making damn sure of it.

“Had a perfect pussy right in his face ‘n he didn’t know what to do with her.” he smirks. “No wonder you didn’t want him anymore.”

“Oli,” you sob. “Oli, please.”

“But I can make you cum.” he tells you. He frees your face and holds his hands under the bends of your knees. You feel every breath in your lungs escape as he folds you in half. He can’t help but laugh, not quite at your expense but it feels like that regardless. Only because he’s shocked. He can’t believe such a simple change could have you cumming so quickly for him. “Good girl, that’s it, baby.” he praises you.

“Haah, hah, aaaah! O-Oli! Mmmpf—!” you gasp, creaming around him pathetically as he drills his length in and out of you.

“I’ll make you cum t-that hard. Every fucking time, princess.” he stutters as he nears his own end. He isn’t sure, but he’s almost certain he sees your eyes cross as you cum for him. God you’re such a slut. He can’t believe you’ve been acting so coy and hard to get for so long. You’ll be addicted, now. You won’t be able to get enough now that you’ve experienced what a good fuck can really do for you. “Fuck. Fuuuuu-ck…” he finishes, still thrusting into you.

The warmth you feel coat your insides has your self esteem at an all time high. And you hate how much of a simple-minded girl you really are. As if guys won’t cum in anything they stick their dicks in if given the chance. And, still, you feel so special that Oliver Aiku chose you to be his own personal cum dump for the night.

His sweet words and ability to make you unravel make you feel more meaningful to him than you really are. He kisses you repeatedly before collapsing by your side. His seed dribbles out of your spent cunt and, now, you feel disgusting. But it doesn’t take long for him to catch his breath and move to spoon you again. He puts his softening length back inside, intent on keeping you plugged up with the goal of falling asleep like this.

“T-Thank you… Oli…” you whisper.

He doesn’t speak.

But a sweet kiss on your shoulder is all you needed from him.

“Oliver.” you whisper.

He grunts in response, and that’s all. You consider saying his name again. You consider saying it a little louder this time so he’ll hear you. But instead, you drop it. If anything, it’s probably a blessing. You raise your head a little to check where all of your belongings are. If he’s so out of it that he can’t even respond to his name, you should take the chance to sneak out before anyone can tease you about your antics.

You’re expecting an earful from Lacey. She’ll want to talk about every sordid detail. And, truthfully, you’d rather die. You’re embarrassed. You’re ashamed of yourself for even having sex on your mind when you’re dealing with a stalker.

The thought of the other guys seeing you is filling you with embarrassment, too. You know already without even seeing them that everyone knows what you did. You were so loud, both of you were. And in the moment, you didn’t care. Oliver didn’t either, but he’ll wake up not caring too.

Guys that hadn’t heard you fucking will have definitely been told by now. You’ll be greeted by smirks and torment on your way out of the frat. You should have known this would end up happening. It’s been obvious how much Oliver wanted this for a long time, and you held off, but last night you were weak.

So weak, and now you want to runaway from the scene of the crime.

You’re taken aback as you try and get out of bed but you’re pulled straight back into Oliver’s arms.

“Where’d you think you’re going?” he asks.

Fuck.

As if he couldn’t get any sexier, of course his morning voice is hot. It’s coarse and rugged and you instinctively melt back into his arms. You’ll tell him. You will tell him that you’re leaving. Right after you grind on him a little bit.

Just a little bit.

“I h-have to go,” you lie. “I’ve got things to do, Oli.”

“Mmm, don’t care. Got morning wood, feel it?” he asks. His arm snakes around your body and his palm flattens against your stomach so that your ass is pressed against his erection once again. “Can’t go ‘til you do something about it.”

“Oli I, aah, fu—! N-Not fair…” you mewl as his fingers dip into your panties and his fingers begin to play with your silky clit.

“Suck me off.” he commands, his touches on your clit become lighter and lighter until he stops completely. “I’ll finger you ‘til you’re droolin’ if you suck this cock f’me, princess.” he stuffs his wet fingers into your mouth so you can taste yourself. It catches you off guard, and you sputter around them. But as he continues to finger fuck your face, you begin to mewl around his thick digits. “Good girl, just suck my cock like that.”

He reaches behind his head and throws a pillow to the ground for you. He lifts you so you’re facing him, and can’t quite believe how seamlessly he manages to carry and move you exactly where he wants.

And then you remember, he’s experienced.

He sits on the edge of the bed whilst your legs are wrapped around his waist as you make out. He bites your lip and encourages you to drop to the ground. You nod, reluctantly, worried that you won’t be able to give the performance he’s hoping for.

But regardless, he watches as you move the pillow across the floor and between his feet so you can kneel on it.

You whimper a little as your legs widen as you kneel, feeling last nights ejaculate slowly drip out of you and onto his fresh, pristine pillow. He doesn’t care, though. His dick is soaked from your cunt and his pre. And it’s all you can think about as he lightly slaps it against your nose and lips.

Your jaw loosens and your mouth is a perfect ‘O’ shape for him to slot into. His fingers lace through your hair as he slowly lowers you onto his cock. You hadn’t noticed in the dark, but he’s uncircumcised. You’ve never seen a dick like his before.

Your hand wraps around his length as you take him into your mouth, but you soon pull away again. You can’t believe how much easier it is to work someone with foreskin.

He smirks, seeing the thoughts go through your head. He’s so sensitive and receptive and you’re clueless. He’s practically putty in your hands and yet you think he’s the one in control. You’re so cute and naïve.

He loves girls like you.

“Suck it, princess.” he commands. “S’not a toy, y’know. Suck my dick clean.”

You clear your throat before sinking down onto his length once again, finding a steady rhythm to suck and lick and take him down your throat. He’s average length, but he’s girthy. It’s hard to take, honestly. Compared to your pencil-dicked ex, your eyes are watering and you’re doing anything and everything not to choke or gag.

He sees it, too, he’s got a perfect view as he tugs at your hair to make sure you’re keeping eye contact with him as you suck him dry.

“That’s a good slut,” he smirks through a heavy breath. “Take this dick, jus’ like that…” he continues.

Your thighs squeeze together as he degrades you. You don’t like it, you don’t like that you’ve become a slut after being his princess. But at the same time, you love it. You want to hear it again. So you take him deeper. And deeper.

“Such a dumb girl letting that loser ex of yours stick his dick in you.” he says, licking his lips as he pushes your head lightly. His chest rises and falls rapidly as the pressure of his hand intensifies until your nose brushes against brunette curls, and then squishes against his pubis. “And now he’s stalking you… what do you think he’d do if he knew you were sucking this cock?” he asks, his voice breathy and desperate as his hips start to buck.

You try to pull away, but the barely trying effort of his hand keeping you in place is somehow stronger. He coos as you stutter, struggling to breathe through the desperation.

“Breathe through your nose, stupid.” he tells you. “Good cock makes pretty girls like you real dumb.” he smiles.

He yanks at your hair until you’re fully removed from his cock. Pre and dribble pools from your mouth as you gasp desperately. You want to be mad at him, you want to tell him not to speak to you like that.

But you can’t.

Not when his lips are on yours and you feel yourself getting off from the idea of him tasting himself on your tongue. You’re breathless and out of words when he breaks it momentarily, and the sound of tacky masturbation is like a tidal wave in your ears.

“My pretty little slut, aren’t you?” he asks, kissing you again before you can answer. You can’t answer when your head is so empty. Is that really what you are? It doesn’t matter, you suppose. He’s already decided for you. “God, don’t you have any self-respect? Don’t you think you deserve better than being a stupid slut for me?”

His face contorts as he jerks himself harder and faster. You’re too busy thinking about his question to notice, though. You suck his tip into your mouth before he forces you away. His intimidating glare telling you that he’s looking for an answer this time.

“M-Maybe…” you pout, eyes wet and wide as you wonder aloud. Do you deserve better? Isn’t this all your good for? He’ll keep you safe, at least. He seems to like you more than any other girl on campus. He’s the best fuck you’ve ever had and you’re way more into him than you’d ever let on.

And just the as word leaves your lips, he’s moaning boisterously. Your face painted in white, pearly cum. A showing of just how much worth you have in his eyes. It feels almost endless as he gives you a full facial, hissing as it drips from your eyelash and into your eye.

He scrapes some of it from your face and force feeds it into your mouth.

You’re disgusting, too, because you suck without question.

“Fuck, you’re nasty.” he laughs. He lifts you up from the ground and tosses you onto the bed with little care. You almost want to cry from the stinging sensation you feel in your eye. You should have left when you had the chance. Instead you’re starting off the morning and Oliver Aiku’s cum rag. You don’t feel much better when he throws your shorts at you. “Clean yourself up.”

You try your best, focusing the material around your eye area as you try to do some sort of damage control. You see him tuck his dick into his sweats with your unaffected eye, and he swaggers towards the bedroom door.

“Where are you going?” you ask.

“I’ll get you a towel, wait here.” he tells you.

He hastens down the stairs and walks into the kitchen. The frat is bare, he suspects most of the guys must still be in bed. Though as soon as he rounds the corner, he notices Eita sitting at the kitchen table. They share a knowing smirk, silently celebrating the fact that Oliver finally got what he wanted out of you.

Oliver pours himself a bowl of cereal, leaning against the counter as he crunches it between his teeth. Eita looks up from his phone after a few moments of silence and finally speaks.

“Did you fuck her, then? Or—”

“Fucked her stupid. ‘n she sucked me off this morning.” he smirks, slurping the milk on his spoon as he thinks about your pretty face covered in his seed. “All thanks to you, my friend.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Eita laughs, pulling a cigarette from behind his ear and igniting it with a lighter from his pocket.

“No no, really, thank you.” he laughs, “I got to be her knight in shining armour when you called her last night. She was so easy to fuck after that.” he grins, holding a fist out for him to bump. Eita chuckles, trading which hand holds his cigarette before returning the gesture.

“You’re such a sick fuck.” Eita laughs, scrolling through his phone. “Look,” he shows his screen to Oliver. He can only laugh when he sees yet another article about the psycho serial killer that has made your anxiety worse than it already would be with a stalker on the loose.

“I’m not the one killing girls, am I?” Oliver comments, “Just scaring one girl with some heavy breathing.” he shrugs.

Even he isn’t twisted enough to think whoever this local serial killer is isn’t completely fucked up. But he can’t deny that it started happening at the perfect time. After he set his plan in motion to be your stalker. After he planted a seed in your mind that he’d always be there for you if you needed him. He’d always protect you no matter what happened, and he wasn’t about to let this stalker get to you.

You fell for it. Hook, line and sinker. You’re even starting to suspect your stupid limp dick ex because he told you to suspect him. Oliver Aiku, the guy who’s always around when you need him most. The guy who’s always just a phone call or text message away. The guy who’s always offered to be by your side and jump in harms way to protect you.

Oliver wasn’t even on your radar.

Perfect Oliver.

Sweet Oliver.

#oliver aiku x reader #oliver aiku smut #oliver aiku x you #aiku x reader #aiku smut #aiku oliver x reader #blue lock x reader #bllk x reader #blue lock smut #bllk smut #blue lock x fem!reader #tw smoking #tw stalking #tw manipulation #tw dubcon #tw coercion #tw praise #tw degradation

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captainuranium543 · 8 months ago

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Ft headcanons nobody wanted part 2

-natsu will occasionally get genuinely jealous over his friends owning appliances for heating. Why should they need those things when they have him, if they just call him over her do a way better job then any of those stupid gadgets. He finds out gray owns a hair dryer and immediately becomes a jealous ex girlfriend. He confronts Lucy in her apartment one night acting so serious he she doesn't even get mad that he broke in, then just goes "care to explain this?" And puts a lighter on the table.

- Wendy is very very quiet. Creepily so. Not elaborating but I think you can imagine the kinds of situations this leads to.

- Mira's eyes glow in the dark and it creeps everyone the fuck out

- erza has the worst hoarding problem. Her dorm room is entirely piled floor to ceiling with boxes of meticulously organized random items she refuses to throw out for some reason

young Mira: "alright this is ridiculous why do you even have this"

Young erza: "say what you want but when you need 746 packets of Mcnolias sweet and sour sauce and find your supply baron I'll be laughing"

- levy is one of the few members of the guild who actively sought it out to join. Before fairy tail she was an orphan and a student studying magic. She left to join fairy tail to learn more about magic in general from real world experience.

- laki will sometimes build creepily realistic wooden statues of her guild mates and leave them around in inconspicuous places so when you find them they scare the shit out of you. Sometimes she hides them too well and it takes years to discover them.

- Lucy has actually written several unpublished novels and the only other person who's ever seen them is levy. Lucy thinks their crap but levy carefully annotates every single one.

- laxus used to occasionally be forced to go on jobs with erza and Mira when they were young both to help and to make sure they didn't kill each other and he hated it.

- I think I might have said this before but I firmly believe levy, Lucy, freed and jellal later on all form a book club because they love reading, the problem is they all have vastly different tastes in book so they can never decide what to read each week and usually just end up playing Scrabble and talking shit about their various teammates

"please guys trust me this one's good"

"I am NOT reading Colleen Hoover Lucy and that's final"

- this one's based on city hero but I personally believe erza and Erik find a shocking common ground over motorcycles. Erza likes vehicles in general and Erik took up bike racing as a hobby, since discovering this is the longest they've been able to be in the same room together without someone throwing a punch.

- Wendy visits lamia scale regularly still to hang out with chelia. she usually brings romeo and they all go out to do whatever dumb kid stuff they want. (Tbh I just like her having friends her own age)

-lucy sometimes randomly lets her rich girl's heritage show in random conversation and it's always jarring. You'll be having a normal chill convo with her and then she'll look you dead in the eyes and ask you what colour your personal carriage was growing up.

- Natsu is genuinely a really good cook he just has a terrible taste so nobody wants to eat his food. For reference he only ever cooks his food because he enjoys doing it to him it tastes fine either way.

- if you had asked the fairy tail guild who the scariest guild member was in early season 1 the answers would have been erza, guildarts, laxus etc all the usual suspects. Once season 2 starts however the answer is unanimous. It's juvia. Juvia is fucking terrifying when she gets mad. You don't realize how scary water can be until it's filling your lungs and as your vision blurs until all you can see is her merciless stare.

- Mira and freed can drink blood for demon reasons. gray can too after getting devil slayer but he thinks its gross. Surprisingly so can gajeel because of the high iron content.

- gray the type of guy who's bed has only the smallest thinnest blanket on his bed and usually it's on the ground cuz he gets too hot

- meanwhile erza is the type of girl to have so many pillows, blankets and plushies on her bed you wonder how she fucking sleeps in it. Mf has a NEST.

- Lucy isn't even surprised anymore when she finds people in her house, she doesn't know how they keep getting in and honestly she doesn't care anymore she's to tired to deal with it.

- freed plays a lot of really fucking weird instruments. Idk it just seems like something he would do.

- bixlow can speak most languages and it's always really surprising when he randomly says smth like "oh yea I can speak ancient nirvid no prob" like that's totally normal

- if laxus and freed ever did get together (in my heart it's cannon) evergreen and bixlow would be their biggest haters. Yea they love them and they're happy for them but also EW. GROSS. GET A ROOM.

#fairy tail #natsu dragneel #lucy heartfilia #gray fullbuster #mirajane strauss #laxus dreyar #jellal fernandes #levy mcgarden #gajeel redfox #erza scarlet #wendy marvell #freed justine #erik/cobra #laki olietta #headcannons

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mtchacrvle · 9 months ago

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- 🌹Yandere! Clingy prince Alphabet.

🪻note🪻yandere behaviour. And a little bit of NSFW if you squint hard enough. ( not proofread )

Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

-🌹 yandere prince or his real name Raizel, love to show his affection with physical touch. Such as, kissing, hugging, cuddling, etc. Any sort of physical touch as long as it's from you, he'll love it.

It could get pretty intense honestly, well, his name ain't clingy prince for nothing lol. Anyways, if he wakes up from his sleep/nap, and you're not there besides him, he'll turn the whole castle upside down. And when he finally finds you, baby girl, there's no way you're getting out of his grasp. You have other plans ? Cancel it. Cause

His clingy percentage is at 99%. Going to the bathroom? He'll be there. Going out to have a tea party with the other noblewoman? He'll be joining you in disguise, wearing a soft pink dress with a big ass hat to protect his face and you know damn well he'll demand the maids to put make up on his face and make him look like a woman. This mf would even learn to walk in heels just for you. And trust me when I tell you he has done this before, I mean it. Going on a walk at the garden? He'll excuse all the maid and he'll gladly hold the umbrella for you, with his right hand holding the umbrella and his left hand on your waist.

Overall, his very freaking clingy man. Since the minute he realises his feelings for you. that's your queue to say bye-bye to your freedom and your personal space. But mostly your personal space lol.

———

Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

-🌹 Very messy. If someone hurts your feelings, even for a little bit. Their head will be off. He can't wait to be the emperor so that he can publicly show who you belong to and how much you guys are in love with each other.

He can have blood head to toe and still loves you dearly. He never sees this as a burden. No no. They disrespect you. They deserve this. You are an angel, his angel. Nothing can get between the two of you. He'll be torturing the prisoner while laughing and smiling and while thinking of you.

To sum it up, he is cray cray for you and would do anything. (⁠⑉⁠⊙⁠ȏ⁠⊙⁠)

———

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

-🌹 Never. It won't take long until he snaps, but after he kidnapped you, he won't mock nor made fun of you. But it's more into the opposite.

He'll be very gentle and soft with you. He'll even go as far as change the whole castle to your liking. Just say the word. You don't like dark colour? You want to change it to pink and purple? Sure! He'll fill out his room and office with all the books you like. You like sweets? Just nod and you'll have more than 60 different kinds of deserts and sweets in front of you.

———

Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will?

- 🌹 uh yes? If you are not into physical touch, that's something he'll force on you. He'll kiss, hug, cuddle you even tho you clearly stated that you don't like it. He just doesn't care.

He lives for your touch. He needs to touch you even a little bit so that he won't lose his sanity. You're the only one that has been keeping him sane. He even goes as far as tying you up if you won't stop squirming and hitting him when he tries to give you affection. If you still won't stop squirming, he'll cry so damn hard. Snort even started to fall out of his nose, his eyes were red. And he'll keep on asking " why can't you just let him love you ", " I don't care if you hate it! You don't have to return the affection just let me love you! ".

Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

- 🌹 It won't take long for him to open up for you. To him, when 2 people are in love with each other, there would be no secrets between them. So he would rant out to you about his whole childhood to you. He is very good and communicates too, he'll reassure you if you ever felt insecure or if you feel like he doesn't love you anymore.

____

Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

- 🌹He would be very hurt by it but would won't show it to you because he don't want you to view him as "weak". Again he'll gladly tie you up if you won't stop fighting back. But don't worry, he won't hurt you. He'll only suffocate you with his hugs and love. So it's not THAT bad.

_____

Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

- 🌹 Nope. These whole things aren't a game to him. Even tho sometimes you would question his actions either he really loves you or he just plays with you. And every time you ask him this, his face will drop immediately because how can you say that? He would be so confused as why would you even think that. " What makes you say that my love?! ", " am I not giving you enough love? Is that it? ", " don't EVER say that, my love for you is not a stupid game. I wish you would be able to see just how big my love for you ".

Enjoy if his darling escape? Babe the second he didn't see or have you by him he would go berserk. Sweet puppy like and clingy Raizel that you know? Gone. It's like you don't even know him. And speaking of escape. Yea, the chances of you escaping are very..very..low. with how clingy and touchy he is, yea you won't be able to escape. The top 3 reasons why you WON'T escape :

1. He's very fucking clingy (duh)

2. The security is tight af. If he can't or won't be able to cling to your side, he'll send not 1, not 2, nor 3 knights, but 5. Yea.. you bet all 6 of them are bulky ASF lol. Why 5 you ask? Well... 1 for you left, 1 for your right, 2 from your back and 2 sitting in front of you. (As if you can't protect yourself)

3. The maids, servants, butlers, knights, gardeners, cookers, everyone there would tattle if you even set food outside the bedroom. Yea all of them are snitches. Can't trust none of them.

So...yea.

____

Hell: What would be their darling’s worst experience with them?

- 🌹 Other than his clingy and touchy tendencies, he also very jealous, possessive and obsessive. When the emperor throws a welcoming party for Raizel younger brother, a duke from different nations has been hitting on you right in front of him. (Yea not a very smart move) he tries to be nice at first but when the duke won't budge, that's when he punches the duke nose and stab his eyes with a sword in front of the other guests.

The emperor saw this and he is proud. Yup you read that right. He is PROUD. Well the emperor ain't that sane and innocent either. He kidnapped Raizel's mother and baby trapped her. So you could say that he's proud because Raizel has his yandere and cray cray tendencies. Like father like son. And did the guest say or did anything? Nope. They just pretend nothing happens and just continue with what they're doing.

____

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

-🌹 Babies. Lots of em. Sure he's clingy, but he still needs an heir. And plus, he can imagine what it's like when you guys have children. Whose eyes would they have? It would be so adorable if the kid has your features and his personality, so that they can protect and keep an eye on you when he's not around.

The second he gets the news that you're pregnant, the whole castle would be baby proof. Every stairs would have at least 5 guards. 2 maids, 2 butlers, 4 knights would entertain your kid.

When you're pregnant, he's clingy tendencies would only increase. Whenever he goes, he would pick you up and bring you with him. He did most of the work for you, feeding you, dressing you, bathing you, picking your clothes. Everything. Oh your tummy hurts because the baby won't stop kicking? He'll rub and scold his child for hurting you. Your back and feet hurt? Come here, he'll rub and massage you until you feel better. He'll even go as far as rubbing and sucking for breast if that hurts too. Overall, he's not a bad husband or a bad father. As long as you just accept your fate and just become his, he'll give you everything you could've asked for. Nothing is too expansive or too impossible when it comes to you.

____

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

_🌹 He'll lash out his jealousy, but don't worry he won't harm or lash it out on you. He would find something or someone to take his anger out. Preferably someone who makes his jealousy kick in.

Let's just say if one day his jealousy gets out of hand and you're sure he will be throwing hands, you can "calm" his jealousy by holding him back while giving him a kiss on the cheeks or holding any part of his body. Touch his bicep or hand and ask him to calm down, he'll FLOP. He will forget why he is mad in the first place and will demand ask you to not stop touching him. If you did stop, he'll pout and sulk so bad that you started to feel bad. In the end, you always gave in, so he pout and sulk did its job lol.

____

Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

-🌹On my first post about Raizel, he is a brat that always try to get y/n on trouble, he is the pain in the ass and yet, y/n still being patient with him. But what if you are not his knight? Perhaps a princess from a different kingdom?

If you are a princess, he'll approach you rather normally. Well normal in his eyes. Raizel doesn't believe in love at first sight and it would take a lot for him to like you. Let's just say that he has been keeping an eye on you for a couple of months. He'll probably ask you to dance with him and he'll make sure that your first dance is with him. After the dance is over, he won't let you go. He'll ask you if you would like to take a walk with him and he would try to get you to know better. He'll slowly try to seduce you before kidnapping you.

____

Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

-🌹 He's sweet and soft ONLY to you. His darling. In his eyes, you are fragile and soft. He couldn't even have the heart to get mad at you. You never do wrong in his eyes. And yes, he's very different from everyone else. Even with the emperor and the empress. So it would shock both the emperor and empress when they see how affectionate he is when he's with you. But once you are not with him? Forget different, he's a whole new person. Everything irritates him. Someone sneeze or cough? He'll be yelling and throwing hands. All the servants walk in an egg shell when you're not around him. That's why, whenever you suddenly show up to his office,the prince would smile and run towards you. While the servant relaxed. He'll always send the servants out because he wants you to pour affection for him and he doesn't want anyone to see it.

____

Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

-🌹 He's the type to "punish" you with his presence lol. He'll tie you on the bed, and would cuddle, kiss you however he likes. And in the morning, if he has work to finish, he'll drag you with him. One time, he dragged you to one of his meetings with other kingdoms, you want to go to the bathroom. He insisted on coming with you. And he did. The emperor just smiles and shakes his head. In the emperor's eyes, the prince reminds him of his younger self when he first laid eyes on the empress (Raizel mother). Oh good ol days.

____

Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

-🌹 Eh..tricky question. Depends on how you actually act. If you just accept your fate and go along with his clingy nature, you would have some freedom (but not much personal space). He won't lock you in the bedroom all day. But, if you want to take a walk or something, he has to come with you. So that he can protect you :).

If you refuse to accept him, then say bye bye to your freedom AND personal space. So my advice is just to let it all happen and you'll be happy.

____

Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

-🌹 On a scale 1-100, he's in between 60-70. He is patient, but not THAT patient. It won't take long before snap. And once he does, you have 0 chances on escaping and stuff. So better accept him from the start when he is still patient.

____

Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

-🌹 You? Escape? HAH, you won't. But if you did, IF you did, he'll burn the village down and would target every kingdom. His sanity is gone. And when he finds you, he's not the same.

The second he found out you are dead, he didn't waste any more seconds and would kill himself. And before he kills himself, he will hug and kiss you after that, he'll lay you in his chest and off himself while saying he'll love you and he'll see you soon. (that's quite depressing than I thought.)

____

Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

-🌹He would feel a bit sad and guilty. But only a little bit. To him, you being with him and him taking you with him are better and safer. He views the world to be very vicious and you are too fragile to be in this kind of world.

He would never let you go. letting you go never were the options. He would rather die than let you go. You are his life, without you, he won't be able to last even a day.

____

Stigma: What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc)?

-🌹 him being the oldest, meaning he didn't have much happy childhoods. Never really had any friends to play with or even someone to be affectionate with. The emperor loves Raizel, but he just doesn't know how to show it. And the least he could do is love how he was taught by his father (Raizel grandfather). The emperor would sign him the best teacher in the kingdom and would pack his schedules with learning, swordships, dancing class, basic etiquette and more. That's what makes Raizel don't have much friend and free time when he's younger. He doesn't know how to love or how to express his emotions.

____

Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

-🌹 No, the only different about him are his personality toward his darling. He still killed, torture, and kidnapped his darling like a classic yandere. He may not hurt you physically but he will mentally, by keeping you in his bedroom and would take all of your personal space.

____

Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

-🌹 the fastest way for you to escape, if to let it all happen. Let him love you, worship you, touch you, cling to you. And you'll be escaping in no time. The moment you start to give in to his affections, he believes that you finally love him as much as he did to you.

____

Wit’s end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

-🌹 you are the love of his life, why would he hurt you? He will and can hurt you by not giving any personal space but that's it. He'll never hurt you physically. He would rather die than hurt you. You pouting broke his heart into a million pieces, there's no way he can hurt you.

____

Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

-🌹 The amount of love he has for you are unexplainable. He would kiss , lick breath on the ground you walk on. Everything your body touch is something pure. In his eyes , you’re a goddess , his goddess that did no wrong in his eyes.

- he would do anything to win you over , you like cats ? He will fed all the cats in town. You like fancy things ? Everyday when you wake up , there would be new jewellery on your vanity table. You name it , anything that you fancy , he would buy it for you. He has no problem spoiling you if it means you would be his happy.

—————-

Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

-🌹as you all aware , he’s clingy. Like , very clingy. So he doesn’t have that much of a patience when it comes to waiting. If you still doubt him in any way , but still let him touch you ( affectionately ) he would still be sane. But , if still doubt him and won’t let him touch you , that would set the ticking bomb. He could hold on for about 1 month max. ( it is what it is babe )

—————

Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

-🌹 If it means you would be only with him then yes. For fun , nope. One of the things he scared of the most is when you giving him silent treatment or not speaking in general. Maybe because you’re just tired and don’t feel like talking but still , he hates it. He couldn’t bare the feeling not hearing your voice.

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🪻 A/N 🪻I'm sorry if this look rushed. I also would like to apologise for not uploading more. I'm not in my best self this past month and I'm still recovering. But don't worry, I'm fine compared to before. Millions of thank Yous to whoever that liked my previous work, it means a lot to me. My grammar is not the best, I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but English is not my first language and I'm still learning. I'll try to upload more in the future, and I would love it if you guys leave some suggestions or requests for my next post. And thank you to those you follow my blog, all love for you guys (⁠ ⁠◜⁠‿⁠◝⁠ ⁠)⁠♡.

#yandere #yandere x reader #oc #obsessive behavior #yandere oc #clingy yandere #clingy af #female reader #yandere male #yandere prince #male yandere #soft yandere

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ferrarifinnick · 5 months ago

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WHO WANTS TO BE A DADDY | THE HUNGER GAMES HEADCANON

i absolutely loved exploring this with thg boys. we only ever really see katniss’ opinion on parenthood in the books, and it was so much fun exploring these perspectives. also i know everyone hates gale but honestly he’s so fun to write for. moody and stoic. just how i like ‘em!

set post-rebellion. if they want kids + how many/genders that suits them best.

includes: gale, finnick, peeta

warnings: none

gale would absolutely want to be a father, but just not for some time after the rebellion is won and over. i can see him moving back to the new district 12, building a new house for you both to live in, far away from the ruins he watched go up in flames. i think this would be his project for a while. it would be his way to grieve the loss of his old life, while focussing on building a new one. with you. i can see this being therapeutic for him, and i can see his younger siblings helping him with painting the walls and his mother cooking a meal for you to eat together once the project is complete. and as gale is eating in your new home with his family, i think he would realise that he no longer has to provide for them like he has since his dad died. they will be alright without him now, and he can finally live a life of his own. after his family goes back to their new home, i think he would finally tell you that he’s ready and wants to start this new chapter right away. but most importantly, he wants to start it with you.

i think gale would shine best with two boys, partly because he can fill the void his father’s death left in him, and to turn them into better men than he was growing up.

i’m going to defy canon and say that finnick doesn’t really have a preference. i think his attitude would be that if it happens, it happens, and if it doesn’t, that’s fine too. it would be something he’d like fate to decide, i think. after all, finnick is much more interested in all things you than about what you can or can’t give him. but that’s not to say he wouldn’t be completely overcome with excitement if you did happen to fall pregnant. i think he would occasionally wonder what your baby would look like, if it would have your eyes or his smile, and he’d spend a lot of his free time thinking of names that incorporate your favourite flowers and colours, just in case. but if you didn’t ever fall pregnant, i can see him being equally content in taking the number one spot on the list of people that you love.

finnick is definitely great with kids. i think he’d shine best as a girl dad or as the fun uncle katniss and peeta’s kids see occasionally for holidays.

peeta has three priorities in life: propose to you, marry you, and then have beautiful babies with you. plural, because peeta has so much love for you that it couldn’t possibly be contained to just you. no, he needs extensions of you, so that he can share his love with them, too. i think peeta would take his role as a husband and father incredibly seriously, and that would include cooking every meal for your family, organising family game nights every week, etc. but he would even do little things like filling up a vase with fresh flowers every week for you, crafting his own stories to read to your kids every night (and he’d definitely make a picture book to go along with it), and really taking the time to meet the emotional needs of your family. most of all, he wants to make the kind of loving family that he wished for but never had.

he would do best as a father to at least one girl and one boy, if not more. he would definitely make saturday mornings a baking day, with you and the kids helping to bake some treats for game night later that evening.

lmk what other headcanons you’d like to explore. like, comment, reblog. love <3

#the hunger games #finnick odair x reader #peeta mellark x reader #gale hawthorne x reader #the hunger games x reader #thg x reader #finnick x reader #gale x reader #peeta x reader #thg #the hunger games headcanon #thg headcanon

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waterloggedchest · 24 days ago

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Finn the Fishbowl~ "That was clam-orous!" "Can't wait to seal ya later!" "You're being reeeeeel quiet today"

FINNIEEEEEE FINNFINNFINFINFIFNFIFNFNFJJFBFFJJDKSNDHSJFGGF~ Below the cut you can find my HCs for him!!

This is the first of many references I'll make of the cast! Upcoming you can expect Gigi & Shrimpo <3

THEME SONG~ A Trout, No Doubt — The Bean Tones

AMAB masc agender aka libraboy + it/he prns.

Omni ace demiromantic.

Blue colour <3, no text variation.

Dating Gigi and Shrimpo! More about that later.

When he gets flustered/embarrassed/really mad the water in his head starts boiling (poor Barnaby Wilikers be getting cooked 💀).

Autistic as shit.

Super confident, blunt and forward when in a group, gets shy asf when alone with people he likes (cough Gigi & Shrimpo cough cough). Though he gains his confidence back after starting to date them.

Has some kinda speech impediment due to his missing tooth or just speaks funny in some way.

If he wore shoes they'd either be anti-slip + steel-toed, crocs or flip flops :P.

If you tap his glass he gets dizzy and disoriented, like tapping the aquarium of a fish.

He also gets very disoriented if all the water is taken out of his head, but he does adjust after a bit. This also applies to him getting flustered/embarrassed/etc. since the water starts evaporating. While the water in his head is not essential for his survival, the rest of the water in his body is like blood.

Under high stress his glass cracks a bit, heals over time (just slap a dand-aid on it!)

Scraps sometimes just calls him over to clean her brushes in his head 💀.

He'd let Pebble sip water out of its head on a hot day.

Gigi styles him like a cocktail; with a straw, umbrella, orange slice n all (ngl missed opportunity for the actual prismatic pal skin).

Both him and Teagan need to put in a big ahh cork to go to sleep [This is canon n confirmed by qwel, I just wanted to add it here cuz funny].

On good terms with: Teagan, Rodger, Brightney, Goob, Sprout, Poppy, Connie & Dandy.

His friends are: Gigi (qpp <33333), Shrimpo (boyfie in denial), Scraps (moot friend with Gigi), Shelly, Yatta, Boxten, Looey, Razzle (best buddies, supposedly canon).

These people despise him: GLISTEN, Vee, Cosmo, Dazzle.

Anyone I haven't mentioned uhhhhh I'll get to it when I do their ref sheets.

He doesn't hate anybody, he's too bbg for that ❤️

He's Poppy's brother cuz like... she's a bubble.

NGL likes to be praised a lot (good boy— WHO SAID THAT??).

Has spilled all of his water over Gigi/Shrimpo multiple times when cuddling (tries limiting his pda now, he refuses to wear a cork in public).

Smooch giver n enjoyer. I imagine him to bend down to smooch Gigi/Shrimpo on the forehead and giggling, repeatedly.

He does NOT eat fish. If you eat fish in front of him or even just mention doing so he gets upset. Doesn't like meat very much either but that's just a preference. He can forgive Scraps for it tho, she has the cat-like creature pass.

His toon room is half normal and half pool, his bed is an inflatable mattress in the water; anchored there with chains so it doesn't float around a lot. IDK WHO I PARTIALLY STOLE THIS FROM I THINK IT WAS A DW HCS ASK.

DESIGN NOTES~

His torso is see-through like those transparent frogs and fish! He gets shy about it tho so he's covered up 90% of the time. Due to this his blood is just uh... water?

His head is hard glass and doesn't break easily, as mentioned above the rest of his body is like transparent fish :].

Has small scales all over his body, they're soft tho?? idk how to explain this mannnnn.

The darker parts in his tail resemble the bones inside! Just like the torso + some random splotches to make it look less empty loll.

His regular pants are like,, skin tight and waterproof?? Like some kinda swimming suit IDK. I still draw paw-like feet on him cuz i think it's cute :3.

Body hair mghfhmfhmfgmfmh....,,,.,,.,

While in the reference it isn't shown, the prismatic pal version has like... an iridescent coating? His scales slightly change colour depending how you look at him.

SHIP INFO~

Him and Gigi started dating pretty early on, they just got along really well. They are both very affectionate (except for pda as mentioned in the headcanons above) and are pretty open about their relationship. Gigi was also getting closer to Shrimpo, even if he hated Finn with all his heart. Due to Gigi dating the both of them and needing to give them both attention, they just got pushed together for it to be easier for them. Finn liked Shrimpo quite a bit already and was very nervous around him, feeling the need to fidget and distract himself. At times he acted a bit irrationally around Shrimpo and this causes them to get into...questionable situations; random hugs, caressing Shrimpo's tail, grabbing his hand, trying to get closer to him, etc. Shrimpo was just in denial the whole time, he had heavy internalised h0mophobia and refused to accept his polyamorous status.

At first, Shrimpo just didn't react to Finn's advances and looked at him weird most times; when it happened around Gigi, they just decided to push them together even more—Inviting them both to group activities and bringing them both on dates together. Finn just got clingier and Shrimpo got more frustrated for letting him do so. Gigi and Scraps started plotting even more to make them date, and since she needed an extra pair of hands for a project (and needed to clean her brushes in SOMEBODY's head) she invited them over to help. Finn & Shrimpo really didn't do anything the whole time, Gigi and Scraps were the only ones working, they instead sat there in a corner to chat a bit. Shrimpo accidentally let the fact that he didn't actually hate Finn slip out, after that their interaction became a whole lot more awkward.

Shrimpo tried to damage control by immediately doubling down with his regular jabs at Finn. But seeing how he started to recede and be nervous again made Shrimpo feel guilty; he stopped talking to him all-together for a few weeks. Gigi had to step in to bring them close again, physically locking them together in a room forcing them to talk. Shrimpo had to apologise and promise to never hurt Finn again, it was awkward but they made amends and held each other for a bit.

Gigi always thought that it'd be cute for them to get along, especially due to Shrimpo's initial commitment to "hating" Finn. They wanted the best for all three of them, and knowing how jealous Shrimpo can get of others this was the best option. Over time, they got closer and closer, Shrimpo started to respond better to Finn's advances. He gave in and started to be affectionate with Finn like he did with Gigi, not minding the three of them cuddling together; the awkwardness of him being there gone.

This will get updated over time, hopefully! Seal ya later!

Last updated: 27/05/2025

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novlr · 9 days ago

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How can I make my editing process quicker and less stressful? I feel like I’m spending way too much time on it and not really getting anywhere, so I’d love some tips on how to keep it simple and actually productive.

I think that most writers have a love/hate relationship with editing. It feels so good to see your manuscript go from a rough draft to something really polished, but at the same time, the editing process itself is painstaking and laborious.

The editing phase can feel like wandering through a maze without a map. Every writer has been there, staring at their manuscript, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work ahead. But editing doesn’t have to be a source of stress. With the right approach, you can make your editing process both efficient and effective.

Break it down

While some writers thrive taking a do-it-all-at-once approach, this isn’t one that works for everyone. If you feel overwhelmed, you can try to divide your editing into distinct passes, each focusing on a specific aspect:

Story Structure – Focus on plot, pacing, and narrative flow.

Character Development – Examine character arcs and relationships.

Scene Level – Look at individual scene construction and transitions.

Language – Analyse word choice, clarity, and style.

Technical – Look at grammar, punctuation, and formatting.

By tackling one element at a time, you’ll catch more issues and avoid feeling overwhelmed. And you also don’t need to do them back-to-back.

When I do my first editing pass, I look at only story structure and character development. After draft 2, I look at a scene level analysis, with some attention paid to language. If I need to, I’ll repeat this for as many revisions as I need, leaving a deep-dive on language and the more technical proofreading aspects until my final draft.

Create a system

No two writers write alike. Your process will be as unique to you as the writing you produce, so never take someone else’s routine as gospel or as the only “right” way to approach it.

What you will need to do is experiment. Try different things. See what works for you, and what doesn’t. Things you can try might be:

Set clear goals

Before each editing session, define what you want to accomplish. For example:

“Review chapters 1-3 for pacing issues.”

“Check all dialogue in Act 2.”

“Analyse character motivations in transition scenes.”

Having specific targets can help give you focus and give a sense of progress, as it’s a task that you can tick off.

Track your progress

Monitoring your progress lets you actively see what you’re accomplishing. It can be a huge motivator when you can see your manuscript start to take shape.

Keep a spreadsheet of completed editing tasks.

Use a notebook to log issues that need addressing.

Create checklists for common problems you want to catch.

Track time spent on different editing tasks to identify where you might be getting stuck.

Organise visually

If you’re a visual learner, then being able to see your editing process taking shape can be a game changer. You could try to:

Highlight plot threads in different colours.

Mark scene transitions with clear breaks.

Flag areas that need deeper revision.

Use comments or sticky notes for bigger structural issues.

Create a colour code for different types of edits (dialogue, description, pacing, etc.).

Incorporate these colours into your tracking if you decide to use it.

Set a sustainable schedule

Editing can be just as time-consuming as writing (in some cases, it might be even more time consuming), so it’s important to make sure you don’t overwhelm yourself. Don’t expect your editing to be done in a week. To keep a routine that’s realistic and sustainable, you can try to:

Block out specific times for editing.

Set deadlines for completing different passes.

Build in buffer time for unexpected issues.

Schedule regular breaks to give yourself a fresh perspective.

Plan rewards for hitting milestones.

For me, the rewards are the biggest part of the process. I need that little serotonin bump when I finish something and give myself a treat. That can be anything from taking a break, to buying myself something. You can even involve a housemate or family member in the reward!

Keep reference materials handy

If you’re the kind of person who likes to remind yourself of the task at hand, then it can be uesful to keep reference materials or a style guide handy. This could include:

Your story bible or outline.

Character profiles.

Setting descriptions.

Style guide preferences.

A common error checklist.

Notes from previous drafts to make sure you don’t repeat mistakes.

You don’t need to have all references handy at all times. You can pick and choose what works for you, and what is important for that editing pass.

Know when to step back

Fresh eyes make better edits. If you’re tired or overwhelmed, there is absolutely no shame in stepping away. You’ll be much more productive if you approach editing when you’re not exhausted, because it’s very easy to miss things and get distracted if you’re not in the right headspace.

Make sure you take regular breaks between editing passes to maintain your perspective. And don’t be afraid to take a week or two away from your manuscript can help you return with renewed clarity. Read something else. Watch television. Just make sure you do something other than constantly working on your manuscript.

Get outside input

If you’ve done a few self-editing passes and feel you need to start polishing, you might want to look for outside help. This can take many forms. Some are free, while others will cost nothing more than your time. You’ll need to decide what is best for you. You can:

Share your almost-finished product with beta readers (I recommend you read this guide to get the most out of your beta readers, as they can be such a valuable resource).

Consider hiring a professional editor once you’ve done all you can.

Join a critique group for regular feedback during the drafting and editing process.

Find a writing partner for accountability and reciprocal labour.

Trust your instincts

Try different editing processes to see what works for you. Don’t try to force something that isn’t, and be willing to change tack if you need to. If something feels right, stick with it. If it doesn’t, let it go.

But no matter what editing process you choose to pursue, don’t aim for perfection in your first pass. Instead, focus on steady improvement through multiple editing rounds. With practice, you’ll develop a rhythm that makes editing feel less like a chore and more like a natural part of your writing journey.

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elodieunderglass · 2 months ago

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I've become obsessed with your jockeyposting and Killie (beloved wet cat), and i wanted to ask a question about racehorses. you've mentioned that Killie competes both flat and jumps, and this is unusual but not unheard of for jockeys. is it similar for the horses themselves or do they always keep to one discipline? if so, which one does Thunder compete in??

(thank you so much for sharing these guys, they're so fun to ponder!! <3)

Thank you so much, it’s lovely to hear that and I love to ponder them too! Thank you for pondering with me!

Racehorses tend to keep to a discipline! There is SOME crossover (Tiger Roll is a horse who moved from flat racing to jump and did well) but they tend to be bred for one discipline or the other. They're all Thoroughbreds, so keeping VERY tightly within the same exact breed of horse, but they're on different career tracks and prioritise different things.

O Holy Thunder is a great big jump racer. He's a reasonable age, around 9 years old, I think, and has known and hated Killie for a long time. <3 their relationship is so beautiful

I really liked this throwaway quote from coverage of the Golden Button, which puts the difference in horse builds in terms of cars: “Flat racing horses are the Formula 1 speed machines, National Hunt [jump] horses are more like World Rally Championship, and the horse you need for the Golden Button [rough cross-country race open to mixed-breed horses and amateur riders] is something out of Mad Max.”

I go off on some explanations/tangents below:

Flat racing is what most of the world does. High purses, dirt tracks, super fast-paced, SUPER young horses, super lightweight jockeys, all over in 2 minutes. Horses start their training as toddlers and are thought of as investments - expensive pieces of property that might win large purses of cash and retire to breeding where they could command high stud fees. It’s also an international sport, with major players including Japan, the UAE and Hong Kong. In general, with flat racing, the animals are the jewels of capitalism, and breeding pressures reflect that - increasingly favouring animals that can be the fastest sprinter in two minutes at the age of two. Breeding for the international market increasingly means breeding fast little burnouts with expensive gametes for this purpose.

Jump racing, called steeplechasing in the States, is also called National Hunt in Europe. It is mostly really popular in the UK, Ireland and France. It’s slower, more dangerous and takes longer; the horses are bigger, older, stronger, better trained, and have more temperament and focus. Interestingly, for a long time, there hasn’t been the same emphasis on stud fees - and many male National Hunt horses are gelded! Their owners pass up the chance to make breeding bucks in favour of bringing out the horse’s focus and behaviour. (Thunder really ought to be gelded, but his owner doesn’t want him to be.) this is a distinct contrast to flat racing, where horses are raced young and hard, to build up their value, and then bred a lot and then minced. Steeplechasers are objectively less valuable as bloodstock and cost more to feed and train - they seem to start around age 5 and are shiniest around age 9 - but are more Serious Athletes With Careers.

National Hunt horses need to be moderately intelligent, expensively trained, have good judgment and stamina, and be very good at jumping. Their races are longer - the Grand National’s like 10 minutes long and over four miles with seven MILLION thirty jumps, most of which are like 5 feet high and some of which are also insane.

Brown thoroughbred horsies always look exactly the same, but steeplechase horsies are a bit heavier, favouring stamina and strength.

Forever Young, 4 yo Japanese flat racer / I Am Maximus, 9 yo French-bred British jumpy boy. Almost identical horses in an almost identical pose, same breed/colour/etc, but the flat racer looks like A Baby to me, you know?

Steeplechases are also the ones that get protested more by animal rights activists, because you might see a horsie die falling at a jump. Jockey deaths, and the fact that flat racers are generated and privately culled in far larger volumes, as a sort of convoluted way for rich people to support the dogmeat industry, are far less aesthetic, and therefore unimportant. And the fact that the rich owners are mincing the PLANET for their day jobs is not important or worthy of protest at all 😌

In a separate post at some point, I'd like to go off on a rant about the racing industry and how it's separating the flat racers into a strain of freakout-out little puppymill creatures, because Right Wing, but it accidentally turned into a land justice/political/animal rights post, and I am trying ✋not to get into it

Gosh, thank you so much though, I really love meeting and chatting with people about BONKERS SPORT WITH SOOOO MUCH INFORMATION and my rancid OCs 💖

#Killie and oholythunder #jockeyposting 🏇

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moonshynecybin · 2 months ago

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I love your same age au in every way but especially how it explores how Marc and vale reach different aspects of adulthood faster and how that colours their relationship. Like Marc close knit sheltered family vs child of divorce Valentino sparking gossip for days in small town Cervera by calling Marc’s mum by her first name instead of mrs marquez!! BUT at the same time serious and mature Marc being the breadwinner of the family at like age 15 vs vale free to piss off police and hit da club

All this to sayyy Marc puberty latebloomer?? I feel like it somehow still preserves the whole ingenue-dirtbag thing canon rosquez have going on. Like wyd when your established biggest rival/fellow prodigy/lowkey racing soulmate has wlf on his leathers and is doing an impression of these girls begging him to sign their tits and you laugh because it’s vale and he’s wild but there’s a squirmy jealous longing twist in your gut because the tabloids love vale and let his lanky golden frame get away w anything but u could never risk that. And you’re STILL not taller despite drinking the juice your mama prepares you every morning but your voice has suddenly dropped an octave and your jawline is sharper and your aunts are calling you handsome now, not cute. And sitting in his motorhome (which is just his, no extra beds for his father and brother) you can’t stop staring at his adams apple as he talks and wondering how his newly grown in stubble would feel against your still smooth cheek. Yknow????

screammmm i LOVE this ask so smart… yeah it’s vale keeping tabs on marc for yearsss visiting his house as gunshy codependent frenemies and feeling weird about it but also not consciously regarding him as a sexual prospect bc marc was like. pimply and had a bad haircut and looked like he was twelve for a hot fucking minute and they’re both teen boys in the 90s so it’s simply not an emotion he will allow himself to feel. no way. BUTTT then suddenly marc is 18 and still has a baby face, but it’s a baby face with cheekbones ! and girls are paying attention to him. and he’s paying attention to girls. and then marc sends it too hot up the inside of him one weekend and smiles all huge at him on the podium and vale starts sweating in his little robin hood teen pop idol outfit or what the fuck ever… like look at their teen years marc gets his face all at once and vale retains teen androgyny for a few years in ways marc simply cannot access (they are. 15, 16, 17, 18 here)

and then the weird moments that they hang out like cats in each other’s motorhome in between sessions trying to figure each other out (vale) and trying to get the other to visit their house (marc) and talking about racing (both) take a distinctly illicit vibe turn. not doing anything maybe but. thinking about it.

PLUS you also have such a good point about marc as this comparatively more shy and serious and small kinda kid bc of his late blooomer status in relation to vale as well… vale spinning like a mirrorball doing fun little pranks and getting all this attention while marc is a little less of a natural at that sort of thing (he GETS THERE but i think in lots of ways vale is a roadmap lol and baby vale wouldn’t be into the joint thing in this regard so. he has to figure it out a little bit by himself)… idk like it’s interesting to think about marc as an athlete existing in the time of those crazy tobacco money ragers and all that jazz because i think they’re both like to party (obviously…) but the vibes of those parties are perhaps a leedle different a to me (babynflames brought up marc HATING ibiza recently while vale was like. probably sucking off sete gibernau in a club bathroom in ibiza semi regularly for a couple of years there in the early aughts. there’s also i think some generational stuff here, not just their raw personallities etc) but of course the FUN route on this highway is to think of vale as a somewhat horrendous influence wrt to marc who is. maybe wrestling with what it means to have valentino as his biggest competitor and also to want to be the person he’s sucking off in club bathrooms in ibiza. and they’re like 19/20 at this point and trying to kill each other every other weekend and no one has the emotional articulation skills or bravery to break the sexual tension equilibrium so i could conceive of a scenario where marc gets invited on a group clubbing vacay of vale’s and then has to see him making out with a different (dark hair, dark eyed, spanish) girl across the club for multiple days (while hyperaware of where marc is at all times) and that’s part of why marc hates ibiza… but then eventually the girl notices and re-enacts the movie challengers with them because it’s WOMEN’S HISTORY MONTH and it’s not gay if it’s in a threeway

#the family stuff as well it’s like mutual envy of each other bc marc wants to be the darling of the world #and vale wants to have a family where no one leaves !!! fuck !!!#motogp #callie speaks #asks #in this scenario i think vale actually takes it a lil personal when marc’s parents split up #and feels weird about it bc it’s MARC’S arm and family falling apart #but he’s been tooling around tracks with them forever being silently jealous #and now not only can marc not race (biggest touchstone in his life kinda) but he can’t even go to cervera and have everything be like it wa #when he was 19 and tagging along after the catalan races…#like it’s another little abandonment but he can’t say that to MARC obviously bc it’s not HIS parents #anyway vale hates brutalist house in this verse ? i guess ?#and marc growing into his media monster role feels weird for BOTH esp after like 8 divorces lmao #rosquez #same age au

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mclalan · 1 year ago

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Can you share what your art-making process is? What software and tools do you use?? I'm falling in love with your work!!

Thank you, I'm so happy you like my work and are interested in the process. The short answer is I mostly use Adobe Animate.

I hate how I'm using an Adobe product (although I still regard it as a MacroMedia Flash product), but there's just no other software that compares to its jankiness. Perhaps it's just my long familiarity with the program, but nothing I've experienced matches how it simultaneously feels like drawing in MS Paint and using Microsoft PowerPoint vector shapes. The result is something that feels in-between the two; handmade yet computer-generated.

Typically, I'll start with a hand-drawn sketch, often beginning as a thumbnail done with pencil and paper.

I'll then do a mix of hand drawing and vector shape tool rendering. I use the Paint Brush tool to hand draw strokes, and the line and shape tools mixed with transform to make more geometrically accurate shapes. The design is rendered into divided closed loop shapes, ready to be filled with a solid. The strokes are kept or removed depending on the design.

These fill shapes are then either coloured and rendered in Adobe Animate, using fills, gradients, or a more complex process of masks and effects.

Alternatively, I'll bring all these vector shapes into Photoshop and use them as clipping masks. The vector shapes act like masking taped areas or shields to maintain sharp edges, while the brush is like an atomized airbrush used to build soft volumed forms.

Please excuse all that horrible Adobe Cloud and AI bloatware...

And there we go!

Variations in the process include just using MS Paint, index color in Photoshop, or 3D programs.

Very old works of mine were almost abstract, just exploring digital mark-making, which was a trend I was following in the mid 2010s that I loved. This kind of stuff.

While my current work uses its digital material specificity as an intermediary to the subject in the illustration.

For example, #ersatz.world parodies clip-art and flash edutainment styles but imagines the characters living within that kind of world. The designs are meant to be cute, easy to read, light in computer processing, but also irreverent, janky, and generic too.

People typically regard this sort of clip art style as ephemeral trash, but I always found them charming. I use Ersatz World primarily as a satire vehicle, parodying educational formats to spoof corporate explainer content and digital media.

However, part of the problem with Ersatz is I've made it look too polished, complex, and I've grown too attached to the characters, which I imagine is a typical issue with overbuilding a world. So recently, I've made an even jankier Ersatz-like set of characters to play about with, using an even simpler style with less cohesion. I like to try and use slightly different styles and digital material styles to relate to the property at hand.

That’s why #autonymus has a bitmap digital material and a denser feel to it. Unlike Ersatz, Autonymus is not meant to be an overt semi-meta fiction. It’s not exactly pixel art, but the pixels are just about visible, as the intention is to create a digital expressionist depth to the setting. Although it’s still stylized and not realistic to our world, I definitely still want to evoke semblances of our world. That’s why there’s attention to landscape, plant life, and implied life beyond what you see in the frame with the characters, etc. But I'm still making a cartoon, and I still want it to feel at ease with itself being a digital material work. Characters are therefore flat, simple, stiff, and the speech style is like a bad Shakespeare parody. I like to balance between ugly and appealing, simple and complex, familiar and unfamiliar.

In regard to things like inspiration, references, and my relationship to aesthetic genres; these things certainly factor into my work, perhaps I'm even overtly dependent on them. My work can definitely be post-modernist in method; creating new, ironic, or fragmented interpretations through deconstructing a mix of various styles or methods. But at the same time, I'm still trying to make a digital gestural representation where the aesthetic is driven by my relationship to the software and techniques directly—not simply in an attempt to reference a style. For example, I like drawing lines in sweeping strokes, not to a point of geometric perfection, but just in a way where the curves are smooth and simple. But if I want perfectly curved or straight lines, I'll use the vector tools.

Working this way, you can sort of learn why certain styles and design choices in past vector aesthetics were made, as they would have also needed to make similar choices. That’s why I’m more mindful of using digital material specificity as a foundation to build narrative and subjects upon these days.

For example, genre references like cyberpunk clichés for #cyberhell or late medieval design for #autonymus or 2005 to 2015 era subculture fashion for #gradientgoblinz.

I think it’s important to take inspiration and reference from a wide variety of sources, but I think they’d mean nothing without having something to say or express. Autonymus, although it is a collection of tropes and clichés, isn’t just about that. It’s a story about the tensions of socially constructed systems and how that shapes faith, technology, and the natural world, or at least that's what I'm aiming for anyway.

But despite all that, I think there’s a danger of locking myself into the past by using these methods. For example, using nostalgia and references to past aesthetics can result in just recreating the past in a form of role-play. To avoid that, I try and evoke the past through a messy, inaccurate pastiche rather than caring to accurately re-enact anything. I’m probably not always successful at communicating the deliberateness of this, and it can certainly get very frustrating and pedantic. To be honest, I do kind of hate aesthetic labels (terms like Y2K, global coffee house, utopian scholastic designs from a pre-9/11 world).

I do not believe that a project aimed solely at mapping history through aesthetic styles is worthwhile. Sure, they can be handy for organizing style trends, but they can also be reductive and ahistoric. Who are these people to define the history of these design eras? The result is a kind of suffocating simulation of design history but removed from context, perfect for moodboardism. I wish it felt more tongue-in-cheek, less absolute of itself in its own practice. Instead, it acts to legitimize and engender those making these labels, almost giving them ownership of the design styles. It’s similar to the logic and process of generative AI and its databases in a way, just done manually.

I’m very inspired by artists like Oneohtrix Point Never in this regard, as I think he’s able to create an aesthetic portal to all kinds of memories, feelings, and worlds reminiscent of the past, while still being in the present. It’s more a reflection of how timelines are messy now, like a memory or dream, rather than an audacity to say the past was actually like that, or to try to actually map some kind of timeline.

I think the benefit of this process is how it avoids the other side of the spectrum—being locked into chasing the cutting edge of digital processes. I don't necessarily think using an old digital process means your work inherits the semiotics of old aesthetics. Non-digital mediums don’t have this issue to this degree, as you can still paint in oils and be considered contemporary, or at least it's not frowned upon to such a degree. And I also don't think anyone in the heyday of Flash ever made work the same as I do, especially as computers are more powerful now so can handle more. I probably shouldn't boast too much about that though, as artists at the time probably just had more sense than to use Flash like a painting program! So then, why is my use of Adobe Animate critiqued as obsolete and an aesthetic dead-end? Because to whose standards is this process obsolete? If you value digital aesthetics as an apparatus in industry practice, then sure, my work is redundant.

But as wonderful as the latest tech can be in creating new aesthetics, I do feel it can be overtly dependent on the trends and directions of tech corporations, and therefore act as an indirect propaganda tool to their hegemony over digital aesthetics, such as the ever-demanding processing power needed for simulated realism. If anything, work that does follow in the direction of the latest tech trends is ironically the quickest to date once the trends move on.

I've noticed I've not really described what my work is about, just the process, in this text. But I don't know, maybe I like Flash because it is regarded as redundant. No one really cares about it, so I feel free to make whatever I want, and can decide on form myself, to my own standards, the quality of my work. As fun as making images is, I find it difficult to put into words what it is exactly I'm expressing in my work, and perhaps that would spoil it anyway.

#mclalan #art process

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sreppub · 3 months ago

Note

Restaurant owners/chefs/waitstaff AU.

The Robins in their cute waiter uniforms, Bruce the manager/owner trying to herd them, the Batgirls as the chefs lol

Green Arrow as a Definitely Not A Knock Off version of the Batcave(?), but THEIR menu is all organic and vegan (it’s GREEN, get it??) versions of what Bruce’s restaurant offers

The Batcave(?) was a high end dining establishment that is more of a family restaurant these days? Or it’s super fancy still and the all Robins leave to open a less strict establishment aka: Dick is the one that owns Nite-Wing (the wing shop the silly character that Nite-Wing takes his name from lol), Tim opens a coffee shop, etc

The Iron Fam has the Chuck Cheese style entertainment&arcade “restaurant” that also has laser tag and their animatronics are just robots lol.

The Super’s have a farm->table BBQ stall at the farmer’s market

The Flash has a food truck? Or they are the deliver guys?

Green Lanterns are the food inspectors

The Wonders have a Themyscira Food place. It’s very classy but cozy place

Who has the local pizza place?

The villains have like, Chik-à-fila

The Teen Titans all quite their parent’s restaurants and run the local Mall food court for a summer

You sent this super quickly after I said I wanted new AUs and I am so impressed anon. Did you just have this ready?!! Thank you!!!

Anyways I love it! I love wings and I would go to Nite-Wing all the time lol. And maybe also to see the cute dog and hot wings guy. I think it’s a tiny place with stupid bright colours and like 2 bar seats. (I hate it. I would hate this place) I know, coloured floor grout is futile, AND the black through-colour ACT, who ARE we??? Well, the reno was bankrolled by Bruce, so that’s who we are. The drinks fridge wasn’t even secondhand, that’s who we are. Also, Dick had Damian paint a wall mural, not pictured because I didnt wanna draw it lol

I know what you’re thinking. There’s a second street entrance/back of house corridor behind the pink wall, and the front counter is ADA compliant. I’m not an animal.

Secondly, I would love if the Waynes used one of their properties, a townhouse in the city, and converted it into a restaurant inspired by Alfred’s cooking 🥹 Classy, but has gotten homier and cozier over time. The kids multiply, and their friends hang out there and suddenly adults and young people hang out here…. This kind of thing! Two floors for the restaurant and an event space/gallery, and then lofts up top. 3-4 storeys, in my mind. They probably own the block.

Wouldn’t be crazy for Green Arrow to buy a property across the street 🤣

Idk if I’d have Tim running a cafe day-to-day… He does do a pop-up for their gallery events. Maybe he’s on the business side. If you’ve ever seen Chef, I’m thinking of RDJ’s character giving Casper a loan and the food truck…

Not to say he’s too good for food service. The YJ98 crew definitely hop around their families restaurants at will, for fun and enrichment.

IRONFAM PIZZA-ARCADE IS AMAZING AND I WILL BE THINKING ABOUT THIS FURTHER. you really oughta take the credit for this, anon, before I go off the rails and people start thinking I’M smart or something 😂 A robot-garage-themed restaurant sounds rad as HECK. Dum-E serving food would be a show in itself.

Farmer’s market stalls, my beloved.

They’re all going to live in one big terrible amalgamated city/group of cities and Gotham/Metro/Star/etc are neighbourhoods/cities within it. Oh damn.

#srpbreplies #uhhhhh. name this AU later

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writingsfromhome · 1 year ago

Text

If you Love Something

A/N: this has been an idea sitting in my drafts for a while. You and Harry had a brief but intense relationship as teenagers, were forced to make a serious decision then, and it’s aftereffects have lingered for the rest of your lives. It deals with some heavier topics so read with caution (alcoholism, depression, unwanted pregnancy etc). I’d describe it as sad but hopeful.

Part 2

—————————————

Age 17.

It started in secret. We’d found each other on the roof of a house party. Truth be told, I saw him sneak out of the window where people were crowded around the TV watching some controversial music video I hadn’t heard about. And I’d followed.

I knew who Harry was. Had him in English, Maths, and Biology last year. He was well spoken, thoughtful, and silly. I never spoke to him once though. Only admired him from afar.

Tonight I had my first drink and then another. I was feeling buzzed and despite being painfully shy for most of the time I’d known everyone here, I was suddenly gripped by the realization that we were approaching the last year we would all be together. Why had I waited this long to pursue someone I thought was cute?

I snuck out after him, when my friends weren’t looking. I even tilted the window more closed than usual so no one would suspect anything; I had the attic room at home so I knew how to maneuver the angled roof to get comfortable.

“You need any help?” Harry’s voice is clear in the silence.

“I’m alright.” I stand up to peer at him. He’s climbed near the top.

“Sure? You don’t seem steady.”

“Oh I’m steady,” I prove it to him by climbing up to where he was. “See?”

“I’m mistaken. My bad.” He holds out a hand to help me sit beside him and the night sky flashes brighter for an instant when I grasp his hand. My stomach is in knots.

“Harry. Styles.” I don’t know why I say his full name but I was nervous.

He repeats my full name back to me. I don’t know why I’m surprised he knows it. It’s not like we went to a big school.

“What brings you out here?”

I try to be bold about it, “You?”

“Party was getting too much.” He says. I stare at him in confusion while he complains about something his friends had gotten up to.

I replay my answer and realized it sounded like I’d skipped answering his question and asked the question back. Bugger.

“You know my name.” I interrupt him, forgetting he was telling me a story. Awkward.

“Yeah? Of course I do.”

“We’ve never talked.”

“We talked. Once in Maths. We had to grade each other’s answers.”

Oh yeah. I burn when I remember the 4/10 he’d given me with a smiley face saying that maths was masochistic.

“Barely.”

“I know you though,” he says with a softness that makes my heart stutter.

“Do you?” I look to him, resting my chin on my shoulder. He gazes down at me and I swear I could taste the colours around us.

His eyes draw me deeper as he inches closer. Was he going to kiss me? Oh my god.

I look back out to the roof and he jerks away. Omg.

“I do.”

“Oh,” I don’t know what to do after that awkward moment.

“I know you’re really quiet and shy but your smile is so loud you can see it from across the room.” He says and my breath catches as he continues. “You’re yourself with your friends, you really like Harry Potter and field hockey. You would kill Mal Adams if you could get away with it and you hate Maths just as much as you love art. You’re dating Oli Graves but your smile is only ever shining half as bright when you’re around him. Can I go on?”

I stop breathing completely halfway through his declaration of knowing me. All this time I had my eye on him, I didn’t know he was watching me too.

“I didn’t ask you for your opinion on my relationship.”

“You didn’t. I didn’t give you one either.”

I glare at him. He was right. He smiles knowing he was. I’m mad that I’m not mad at him. That he was right.

“What are you doing with a guy like that?”

Oli and I had been dating for 7 months now. He was loud and fun in a way I wish I could be. That’s why I liked him so much. That’s why I was at a party like this to begin with.

“He’s a good guy.”

“That’s all?” He asks. I look over but he’s looking up at the sky. I follow his gaze and get lost in the great expanse of nighttime.

“I think you deserve someone who sees you. Don’t you?”

“Did Ally see you?” I ask with a hint of aggression I didn’t mean to have.

“Ally and I broke up during Easter. So there’s your answer.” He’s unbothered.

“Well what do you want?” I ask.

“Right now? Or in life?”

I shrug. “Both?”

“I want to explore the world and meet all kinds of people. I wanna make the world a better place by being in it. It’s cheesy as shit so if you ever said I said this I’ll deny it and you’ll look like-“

“My lips are sealed.” I turn his way to promise him that. It makes me laugh at how serious he looks saying it all and when I do his face relaxes.

“You laugh is nice too. I forgot to mention that.”

That quiets me very quickly.

“And right now,” he continues. “I’d really like to kiss you.”

My ears ring. Did I hear him right? Could you get so drunk you hallucinate? I swear the cold air had sobered me-

“Did you hear what I said?” Harry’s moved in closer to me. Did I? I don’t know.

“What d-“

“I’d like to kiss you.”

I nod, afraid to talk and realize I’d hallucinated him saying that.

The world melts away when he kisses me. It’s tender, nothing like Oli and his jagged pushy kissing. In the nighttime air it’s warm, and soft, and easy.

“I know you,” Harry says when we part. I’d nearly climbed into his lap and I try to edge away, embarrassed, but he keeps a hand firm on my thigh.

“I know you too Harry,” I breathe. He smiles and it crinkles his luscious eyes.

I think I was falling.

***

We keep it a secret after I break up with Oli. For months, until mid-August when I invite him over for dinner after my mom insists on meeting “the boy I was all doe-eyed over”. The night with my family goes so well—Harry is the picture of a courteous gentleman that even my sister is swayed by him despite saying boys were gross. I ask him to hang out, in public, the next day. He doesn’t hesitate to say yes.

That’s what I love about Harry—yes love. He’s not pushy, he lets me go at my own pace. He respects me and sees me for everything I am and loves me anyway. I wanted to spend my whole life with him.

It was so intense and relaxed at the same time. It felt like no relationship I’d been in before. I felt different being with him, even my friends noticed.

When final year started, Harry and I were official but we didn’t flaunt it. We didn’t need to. My friends knew about us and they were happy for us, they told me I was more me. Whatever that meant.

Life was phenomenal and I was living in a dusky haze. Nothing could touch us.

Until one day in February. I was out with my sister, mum didn’t want to take her out and since I recently got my driver’s license with plenty of lessons from Harry, I was driving her to the mall. She needed Valentine’s Day cards.

“I thought you said love is stupid.” I remind her on the way.

“It is.”

“So why the hell am I driving you to buy cards for a made up holiday?”

“Because!” She crosses her arms and stares out the window. I flick her arm at a red light.

“You have a crush.”

“I do not!”

“Do too. Who is it? James? Mattie? Hamid?”

“Ew! They’re freaks.” My sister continues staring out the window.

“Why do you want to buy cards so bad!?”

“I just want them! For my friends!”

“Okay then,” I didn’t believe her. But I couldn’t bring her home crying or mum would ground me.

A lot of places have slim pickings. Wandering the aisle of Waterstones I catch sight of a family friend. She was my dad’s uni friend’s daughter, a few years older than me but by the time I got to secondary she had dropped out after getting pregnant. I remember the buzz when everyone found out.

I avoid her and find an aisle to occupy myself.

Harry and I were always careful, mum had already given me the talk and he never pressured me to do anything I didn’t. I imagine Harry as a dad. He would make a good one I think.

As one thought leads to another I go cold as I realize something. My last period was during the holidays.

I feel like I’m walking in a swarm of locusts as I walk to the edge of the aisle, scanning for my sister. Maybe I can pop into a pharmacy before she’s done. Maybe…

This was crazy. It was probably just a missed period.

But if it isn’t, another voice asks. I felt it in my gut. I had to do this.

I don’t remember getting home. I don’t remember anything about the rest of that day except two faint lines, and then two faint lines again, and a third time. I fall asleep before dinner that night and shut the world out.

***

“I know something’s wrong.” Harry’s walking me home after school. It’s Valentine’s Day and he’d been nothing but sweet. He bought me chocolates, flowers, and we planned to cook dinner together after school. I had bought him chocolates too, and had written him a heartfelt note with a bunch of photos of us weeks ago. The box was in my room, waiting for tonight. “Do you not like the flowers? Or is it dinner? We can go out somewhere instead?”

“No everything’s lovely.” I’d never heard Harry this desperate before. It gets under my skin even though part of me knows that’s not really it. But having him hover over me all week trying to figure out what was wrong was too much.

I’d spent every night this week with a hand over my belly. Thinking about it. I hadn’t told anyone. I didn’t know what I wanted to do. All I can think of was Jenny and I didn’t want that life. I couldn’t. I couldn’t be a mother.

“Please. What’s the matter.” Harry asks again, tugging at my hands but I pull them away.

“I just need some space!” I shout and he flinches. “I’m sorry Harry. I just need space right now.”

“Right now like…” he scratches his head. “I don’t get you. It’s Valentine’s Day, we’ve been talking about this day for weeks what do you mean you want space?”

“I can’t do this right now. Please.”

“Are you-are we…”

“I’m not breaking up with you.” I look at Harry with tears in my eyes, I didn’t want to cry out here. But every time I look at him I remember the reality. What’s growing inside me. I can’t take it. “I just can’t do today.”

I go inside my house. Leave him without further explanation. I feel awful, I can’t hold the tears in long enough to get to my room.

***

“Hey love?” My mum and dad knock on my door at half past 5. I lay in the dark, having cried myself dry. “We’re worried about you. Can we talk.”

“I can’t.” I say, voice stuffy.

“I thought you and that boyfriend of yours had plans,” dad says. He liked Harry but he rarely called him by his name. “Did something happen?”

“No!” I wanted them to leave me alone. “I just. I had to cancel. I’m fine.”

“Don’t sound fine to me love,” I feel the mattress dip as mum sits down. Dad strokes my hair. They whisper something I can’t hear and a pair of footsteps pad out of my room.

“Mum just leave me alone.” I try again.

“I’m not.” She pushes me further into my bed and leans down, tugging my blanket down. When I finally look at her she smiles kindly and kisses my forehead. That fills me up enough to start wailing again. “Oh love, what’s wrong?”

“Everything!” I sob into my blanket. Mom lays down beside me and I let myself be cradled like a child. God, I had a child. This was so fucked.

“Talk to me. We can figure it out together.”

I don’t know how my parents would react. They were never particularly strict, especially after what happened with Jenny I remember them always being sympathetic. We even visited her in hospital with a gift.

Mum strokes my hair and whispers that it’ll be okay. Slowly my sobbing eases into light sniffles. I had to tell her. She would know what to do. And if she hated me for it, I would just have to deal with it.

“Mum don’t be mad-“

“I won’t honey I-“

“No. Mum.” I cut her off. She moves back on the pillow so she can see my whole face, moving a strand of hair so I couldn’t hide. “Something…messed up. Happened. And…I was careful. We were always careful I don’t know what happened but I-“

I watch her face changed. Like she knew. She knew what was coming but she waits patiently as I muster up the courage to say the words that felt too real once I said them.

“Mum I’m…I’m pregnant.”

Her eyes fill with tears and she bites her lip. What was she thinking? Was she crying for me or with me? Why wasn’t she saying anything!?

“Mum-“

“C’mere.” She wraps me in her embrace again and kisses the top of my head. My body feels drained and limp. I finally told somebody. It was real. This living thing inside of me was real.

“What happened?” She asks next. And I tell her what I think happened. When. How I found out. She listens, holding my hand in hers. When I’m done and it’s poured out of me she smiles supportively. “This isn’t a bad thing okay? It’s okay. Any decision you make is up to you. I’ll talk to your dad but just know you call the shots okay? I love you.”

This is what carries me. The love.

She asks me it I told Harry yet and I tell her the truth. She urges me to tell him. I tell her I wanted to so bad but I was scared.

She leaves shortly after that, I hear her talking softly outside my room. Nobody calls me for dinner until 7, a soft knock on my door. My sister would never be so soft, I assume it’s dad so I tell him to come in. I was scared to face him.

It’s Harry instead.

“Harry!” I cover my splotchy face with my blanket, why was he here? Did mum invite him? This was soo embarrassing.

My heart pounds and Harry is silent until he takes a seat where mum had previously been.

“I came over, your mum invited me. She explained.”

She did what? For a moment I feel betrayed.

“She said you weren’t doing so well. Stressed? I could make you some tea if you’d like. But I told you y/n, you’ll get into unis. You don’t have to worry so…”

I sigh. Mum had told him a half-truth. But he had come. Of course he had.

I couldn’t even think about uni right now because that lead me down a road of what if I couldn’t go because I had a baby. And that life felt so bleak it made me depressed.

“Harry.” I inch my blanket down a little and his eyes go round when he looks at me.

“You look…awful.”

“I know.” I cover my face with my hair but he brushes it away and kisses my forehead.

“No. I’m worried about you. I brought dinner-“

“Oh Harry.” I spot the bag he brought with him.

“I made it all for us. With my mum’s help but mostly me. I packed it to bring to you.”

I didn’t deserve him. And I had to tell him. And he was going to break up with me. What high school boy wanted a child?

“Harry it’s not uni.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I was carrying another living thing. It was the size of a seed but I was carrying it inside me. Like a living breathing pot. I was a potted plant.

“Then what is it?” His brows crinkle. “Is it us?”

“No!” I rush to tell him. “I…I don’t know how to say this. And I don’t know how you’re going to react but it’s okay either way.”

“What are you talking about?” His hands slide up my lap. “What is it?”

“Harry. I’m um, I’m pregnant.”

I watch him freeze and stay exactly how he is, his brows pinch ever so slightly. I knew this look. He looked still on the outside but his mind was racing. And I was scared what was racing through it.

“Pregnant?”

“Yeah. From…the holidays.”

“How did-I thought we-“

“I guess it’s not foolproof.” I whisper. Mum had told me to go on the pill, and I hadn’t listened because all my friends told me it made them gain weight. If only I had listened. Now I was gaining weight anyway.

“What are we going to do?” He asks next. And I never realized six little words could weigh the world. If I could cut those words out and surgically implant them into my heart I would. Just to remind me the equal parts relieved and comforted they made me.

I hold his face in my hands, new tears springing to my eyes. He was in this. With me.

He kisses me and pulls me into a hug. I cry into his shirt again and he holds me so tight I swear I could break.

“I don’t know if I can keep it Harry,” I finally whisper to him.

His hands fist in my shirt, he holds his breath and after a long minute he lets me go with it.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Was he really okay with all this?

“It’s…I can’t make you keep it.”

“You’d want to keep it?” I couldn’t believe it.

“It’s…” he swallows his sentence and keeps his gaze on my stomach. I tug his hand and lay it over it. When his eyes meet mine I see a hint of heartbreak. We were going to break our hearts either way I think.

Not once did I think he might want to keep it.

“It’s okay.” Harry finally says. “We’re so young right? How would we keep a baby and go to school, and do everything we always talk about?”

“Yeah I don’t…I don’t know.”

“I love you.” He says with such a sudden passion. I wrap my arms around his and return the sentiment.

Eventually we lay down and just talk about everything. Truthfully, my head was telling me not to keep the baby but everything else felt dead thinking about it.

Maybe that’s why it took me until April to finally make a decision. It was the size of a plum by then, and a tiny bump was starting to show but only when I stood naked in front of the mirror. With clothes on, nobody was the wiser. But the longer I kept it, I think the more Harry fell in love with it. The idea of it.

We have a long talk during our Easter holiday. We talked in my bedroom until the sun comes up. I tell him I was sure of my decision.

I’d gotten accepted to Cambridge by then. Harry was staying in London. We knew it wasn’t feasible. To live the life we always wanted, we had to get rid of this new life we never knew could happen.

I don’t know why but I don’t tell him the day I go to do it. I go with my mum. Mum drops my sister off at school—she didn’t know. Mum said she had a big mouth.

We drive in silence. When we park mum asks how I feel.

“Sad.” It was the truth. I knew this was right. But it felt like shite.

“Yeah.” She rubs my hands. “Want to go in?”

“I just want to sit here for a bit.” I tell her.

“Okay. I’ll go sign you in.”

She takes my purse and hers and leaves me there. I take the moment to ground myself. Say goodbye to the other future.

When mum knocks on my window I jump.

“Yn? Is everything alright?”

“Yeah yeah I’m coming in.” I open the door.

“You know you’ve been sitting here half hour?”

I pause, one leg out the door and one still in. “I…I must have got lost in my head. Sorry mum-“

“Look. Do you want to do this?”

“I don’t know…I have to.”

“There are other options love-“

“But how can I give it up and live my whole life like that?”

“We can help raise her. You can go on and live your life-“

“I’d be a horrible mother.” Mum and I had this row so many times before. It always ended in me storming away but I couldn’t here.

“You don’t need to make the decision today.”

“But I do.” I tell her. “Otherwise it’ll drive me insane.”

I tuck both feet back into the car and rest my hand on my belly. I’d allowed myself to do that only in my room, when I was alone. Doing it out here made it feel even more real. Suddenly I couldn’t imagine going through with the decision.

“I can’t do this.” I tell my mum.

She smooths my hair down and kisses my temple. My door closes and a few seconds later she climbs in beside me.

“Think about it.”

“I can’t. But I can’t keep it either.”

“Okay.” Mum pulls me into her and I think I should cry but I can’t. I’m calm, maybe I know I’d made the right decision. Or just a decision. I was going to stick to this.

“I can’t raise it. I’m just a child I…maybe someone out there wants a baby and can’t have one maybe-“

“I’ll look into it for you.” Mum promises. “You set the rules remember?”

And that’s how it goes. Mum looks into it, we decide to go for adoption. We go to the hospital on the first warm day of the year. By then I’d taken to wearing jumpers over flowy dresses and been thankful for the first time in my life that I wasn’t skinny like other girls. At most angles you couldn’t tell my belly was so perfectly round.

By then too, Harry had accepted the decision. He seemed relieved. Thinking aloud he’d said maybe he could raise it, but quickly turned around when I asked him what he’d do about uni.

“Someone out there can take care of it better than us. Someone will love the baby like we do.”

During the summer, I tell all my friends I was staying with family in midlands. And I do go up there, that’s where the couple who was adopting lived. Harry and I meet them with my mum and his. It’s awkward, we run out of conversation fast. But their house is big and they already have a 2 year old from an adoption last year. My baby was going to be loved here. And have a sibling.

“We did want to discuss one last thing,” they’d said before we left. We all listen intently. “We…find it best when it’s a no contact adoption. We’ve had a lot of friends who keep contact open and it gets messy-“

“What?” I hadn’t really thought about this until now. Hearing I’d have to give the baby up and go on like it didn’t exist felt wrong. Harry’s hand slips into mine.

“This is typical,” Harry’s mum says from his side. “Let’s hear it out.”

“Right. So just to prevent future complications, we do no contact. Of course when baby’s older and wants to seek out the real parents we can’t stop them. But until then…”

“Thank you.” My mum steps in when it goes silent. I could hardly wrap my head around what they were saying. When it gets older?

Pretty soon mum is ushering me out and Harry’s hand is still clutching mine. We don’t let go until we reach my Uncle’s where we were staying until August. The baby was due in September. I was going to miss the first week of class.

“I can’t do this.” I tell them later. “How can we just have no contact.”

“I thought you knew.” Mum says. “I explained that some parents want this when they adopt.”

She might have. Ever since I hit the third trimester like my doctor said, I’ve had a hard time listening and understanding what someone was saying after they spoke too long. I was glad school was done—for obvious reasons, but also for not having to sit in a class and learn.

“We have no other choice.” Harry says from beside me. He rubs my back and slowly, I zone back into the conversation. “We can find another family but they might want the same thing.”

“What if the baby never looks for us?” I turn to him, our heads press against the other’s. “What if we go our whole lives just wondering?”

“What’s the other option?” Harry whispers. He was right. I just didn’t want to get it.

Acceptance slowly creeps into me over the course of the summer. It was always hot carrying another person around, I was always hungry and thirsty, and very cranky. Harry came up to see me every other weekend when he could, mum stayed with me and that summer was one I could never forget.

It was September 1st, a particularly hot day. Rain fell in the afternoon and by the time the unforgiving sun set, the cool air was heavenly.

I sat by the bedroom window, moisturizing my belly like mum had shown me, talking to the baby. I wrote it a letter last week all about me, that I loved them and hoped the best for them. I told the baby about my family, how Harry and I met, and then I sealed it in an envelope with a picture of Harry and me. It was taken last Halloween when we’d both dressed up as each other. I tell mum to give it to the new parents. In case the day came the baby wondered about who we were.

As I spoke softly, I felt a gush of something wet down my leg.

“What?” I stand up, confused. “I…”

It takes me a second. I was going into labour.

“Mum!” I shout. “Mum! Come here!”

She rushes in and confirms it. It was happening.

“But it’s supposed to be next week!” I try not to panic but that’s all I can do as mum grabs our things and my aunt rushes to the car. “Does this mean something’s wrong? Is the baby o-“

I freeze as a contraction forces me to fold. I’d felt the kicking and the nausea and everything in between but these. These were a bitch.

Somehow we make it to hospital. Somehow I lay on a bed and push when the doctor tells me to. I nearly pass out. I just wanted Harry here with me. He didn’t know his kid was being born.

With a final push that felt like I was ascending my body and leaving it behind, I hear a wail and I cry. The baby was out, they cried and everything was okay.

“Okay congratulations mummy,” a nurse crouches down to me. “We’re going to clean you and baby up. She’s healthy and looks okay.”

“What?” I can barely see with my hair in my face and the nurses around me. It was a she? I had a baby girl?

We were never told the gender, so we wouldn’t get attached. But I had a baby girl. The nurse just called me mum.

I feel the tears on my cheeks, I was crying too. I try to look around me but a new nurse is talking in hushed voices to the doctor.

“…outside…call…adoption…shouldn’t or….contact-“

“What’s going on?” I can barely get the words out. “What?”

“Oh my love,” suddenly mum’s in the room and things are a bit better. A bit better.

“Mum what’s going on?”

“The baby’s born. The parents are outside they’re going to meet her soon.”

“What?” I look at mum’s face and it’s shining with tears. Why was she crying?

“Oh she’s beautiful love, she’s perfect. But your job’s done now. You should rest.”

“Mum,” I cry. “Where is she? Can’t I hold her?”

“No love,” mum moves my hair out of my face. I feel something break in half inside of me. I couldn’t even hold the baby? The baby girl? Mine and Harry’s baby girl?

“Why? Mum why? I just want to see her-“

“I’m sorry,” mum says through tears. “It’s just the way it is. She’s going to a loving home okay? She’s good. You’re okay.”

I can’t stop crying. I was going to lose her last April and I stopped that but I lost her anyway. My baby, I was never going to see her.

I remember when my sister was born. I was 5 and I was angry she’d taken the attention away. But when I saw her with her perfect toes and angel face I was obsessed with her. I even remember her first steps, she’d taken them at a park with mum and dad and me together. I was never going to know these things about my own baby. I was never going to know her.

I must pass out soon after. I remember waking up to the nurses instructing me about something. I’m half asleep and barely remember what I did when I get up. When I do wake it’s morning and there’s a figure on the chair beside me.

“You’re up.”

Harry. Relief washes over me knowing he’s here.

“Harry they took her,” I tell him.

“I know. I know yn.”

I move aside and he crawls into bed with me. I must look disgusting but he watches me with love brimming in his eyes. I can tell he’s been crying.

“I feel empty,” I whisper. Like someone had carved me out like a pumpkin. Something I’d had with me all year was gone. “How can I just move on? Start uni and all that when I…they just took her.”

“I keep thinking that.” Harry says. “Khalil invited me to a party to meet some blokes from uni and I just sat in my car the whole time. I couldn’t even go in. She…she was never going to be ours.”

“I feel awful.” I burrow into his neck as he strokes my hair. “A baby girl.”

“A baby girl,” Harry echoes.

***

I head to uni a week later. My body still feels like it fought a war and lost. It’s like it still thinks there’s a baby there. I produce milk for a few days, continue to have contractions, my belly is saggier than usual and I can’t stop crying about everything.

My dad drops me off to uni. He tells me he was proud of me, that I was always his baby girl. I cry then just like I cried at home when I said bye to mum, or when my sister hugged me which she never does. I can’t stop crying.

When I move into my dorm I feel like a completely different person than I thought I was going to be. My dormmate fills me in on everything she’s learned, complains about a boy and a party and it just feels so irrelevant to me. Did I used to care about those things? I had a baby. And now I didn’t.

By October, Harry and I are in different worlds. We hadn’t broken up but we talk weekly. Each week there’s less to talk about. When I visit home in October, being around him just makes me sad. He tries to cheer me up, make it like old times, but I know he’s hurting inside too.

I decide to do the breaking up. And at first he’s angry, insisting we could make it work. He actually refuses and walks away. We don’t talk for a whole day.

But at a house party in South where his uni mates were from, he accepts the end.

Through tears we kiss each other one final time, we whisper sweet nothings, we pour into each other all the hopes and wishes we had for each other.

When he hugs me for the last time I leave something behind. It’s similar to waking up the morning after my delivery and knowing something was gone. I really feel the shape of the loss. It sits in my sternum, a hole that grows smaller with time, but not just yet.

I fall into a depressed state for most of my first semester but my dormmate doesn’t give up on me and eventually I go to my first uni party. Eventually my brain fog clears and I actually go to all my classes. Eventually my life, on the outside, looks like it could be back to normal but inside I ache with the loss. So much that it becomes part of me. I don’t know where it ends, and I begin. It lives in me.

Age 23.

“The first of many hey?” Mal clinks his bottle to mine. I barely knew Mal but we were both friends with Khalil and therefore both at his stag.

“Before you know it we’re all going down,” one of Khalil’s friends joins in. “Stag after stag, suit after suit, it’s gonna be a blur man.”

“Let’s enjoy it while we can!” Someone cheers and everyone raises their beers. I toast with a smile; blokes loved to act like being in a relationship was the last thing they wanted when I knew most of them were mush in their girlfriend’s hands.

I also smile knowing I bought an engagement ring a few weeks back. I wanted to propose to Shannon, we met on her 22 when a friend invited me along. I couldn’t keep my eyes off the birthday girl. We’d been together since.

“Who do you think’s next?” The bets start going and nobody bets on me. Everyone always thought Shan was too good for me, they were counting on us breaking up. I was going to prove them all wrong.

The night gets sloppier until we all head back to the air bnb we’d rented for this. Tomorrow we were all supposed to go play golf like we were cosplaying old money bastards when we all knew we were just broke blokes from East. But I guaranteed they’d all be too hungover. We would get to the club and just drink the hangovers away.

And I’m right. I update Shan that I’m right when the boys stay in the dining area of the club. They decide on lunch and I step out to talk to my girlfriend.

“No birds allowed this weekend,” someone pipes in when I excuse myself.

“That’s just cuz you’re miserable Eli.” I brush past as the boys laugh. At me. And him.

I catch up with Shan. It was a bright day for September and I stay a little longer after the phone ends. Shan was in med school, she was always stressed or sleep deprived. I tried to support her the best I could—right now she needed moral support that she was going to get an internship she was applying for.

“Mummy doesn’t like when I have sweets,” a small voice says to my left. I look at a father with his daughter. He’s crouched down zipping her sweater up while she rambles on.

“Well it’s going to be our secret.” The dad says. “Sundays are for sweets aren’t they?”

“I love sweets.” She responds.

The father catches my eye and I shoot him a smile.

“Her mum’s going to hear every detail when we get home,” he says as he stands. “Can’t keep a secret to save her life.”

I laugh. The way she was rambling on, I didn’t think so. “How old’s she?”

“6.” He says, smiling down at her fondly. My heart aches.

“Almost 7.” She corrects her dad.

“Birthday’s in the spring.” He says more to me. “But almost 7 sure.”

I see them leave with one more shared smile, like we’re in on something. I imagine that’s how it would feel to be a parent. Always knowing something your kid doesn’t.

My daughter was 6. Wherever she was.

Thinking about the daughter I never had, the girl I lost always leaves me a little winded. Today’s no different.

Yn and I both made an agreement and it had been the hardest thing I’d done. Letting her go. It took me a proper year to even think about moving on.

I liked to think about yn, doing everything she wanted to do. But when I thought about the baby I spiralled into a dark pit. Sometimes when I drank too much, it pulled me in too deep to get out of. That’s what Shan liked to call my depressive drinking. She’s limited me to 3 drinks since.

Before I go in I take a minute to think about yn, where she might be. I hear from friends in high school random facts about her life. But I wonder how she’s doing. If she thinks about our baby like I do. How life would have been if I’d been here, calling her on the phone instead, asking if our baby girl was doing alright.

Age 29.

I stare at the nape of the man in front of me. It couldn’t be, but I’d memorized the back of his head—amongst other things, nearly 2 decades ago and I would bet £1000 I knew who this was. But I continue staring until the cashier rings him up.

In the same voice I remember, the one from my memories and my fantasies, I hear him say: “debit.”

I wait for him to pay before saying, “Harry?”

He turns so quickly he drops his card, wallet, and keys.

“Hi!” I laugh awkwardly and crouch down to help him pick his things up. There’s an awareness that the people in the queue behind me are witness to a moment that feels more intimate than a grocery store chat and it makes me shrink a little in my shell like a spooked turtle.

“Hi I-uh,” Harry short-circuits in front of me as the bored cashier holds his receipt out and stares at him with eyes that have worked one shift too many.

“I’ll just bag-“

“Yeah we can talk later.” I give him what I hope is a reassuring smile but it feels watery. I couldn’t believe of all the places I’d run into him, it was a grocery queue. How intense in such a mundane place.

As I watch my total rise on screen I risk a glance at Harry. His hand hovers over a white reusable bag, I wonder if that was his. Or his wife’s. If they did their weekly shop in a mismatch of bags that looked like that or they were the type of couple to have a set.

His eyes are on me though, somehow here and not here. I feel the same way.

I look back to the cashier asking me how I was paying. She glances between Harry and I. I don’t look back at him. Or the growing queue a few feet away.

I take my groceries—just some items my mum asked me to pick up, and stuff them into the tote I’m wearing. Harry waits for me by the exit.

“Hi.” He says as his eyes scan my face. I do the same, taking in all the ways time had spent with him. It must have been good—he looked good. “I can’t believe-“

“A Whole Foods of all places.” I laugh. A grin splits his face but his eyes stay on me.

“That smile, that laugh. God I’ve missed you.”

“I…missed you too.” How I could miss someone I’d known for one year and then never again for nearly two decades…I didn’t realize it was possible until now.

“Are you busy?” He asks. “Maybe we can grab a drink or?”

“I don’t…drink.” I hated that I had to announce it to people. I was still at the stage where I was figuring out how to say it confidently, or find a way around saying it.

“Oh.” Harry glances down at my belly and I realize he’d misunderstood but it’s too unspoken to correct him. “Cafe?”

“Yeah. That sounds lovely.” Honestly going anywhere with him sounded lovely right now. I wanted to cancel all my plans for the day and just sit with him. Stare at him and catch up. I couldn’t believe he was here.

We walk in a comfortable but waiting silence, like taking a cold drink out to a park with the anticipation it’s going to be good , and no desperation to open it as soon as you get it.

“Usual? Tea?” Harry asks when we step into a nearby cafe. It’s big for a cafe but has enough students working on laptops to not feel empty. I nod, unsure how to feel that Harry still knows what I order at a cafe. Or that my order hasn’t changed since 17.

I find us a booth and pretty soon he’s sliding into the seat across from me. The two of us can’t stop smiling.

“Hi,” he says again.

“Hi…”

“You look good, the same but better.”

“I was going to say the same thing about you!” I exclaim. More smiling.

“How’s…I mean, how are you? How is everything? What-“

“There’s so much to ask-“

“I don’t even know how to ask what I want to know!” Harry laughs and I’m warmed from the inside out at the sound of it.

“This shouldn’t be hard!”

“No.” He scrubs his face. “I’m really buzzing that we’ve run into each other.”

“Me too. It’s a bit unbelievable.”

“I know.” He continues gripping his cup and not taking his eyes off of me. It’s the exact way he used to look at me when we were teenagers. It nearly takes my breath away. “You look good—but I already said that. Sorry.”

“No,” I laugh. “That’s all that’s running through my head.”

“Oh—I remember hearing you were engaged a few years ago-“

“Yeah.” I turn my hand so he can see the ring. “Married now. You?”

“Yeah,” he looks down at his own hand. He had so many rings on I couldn’t tell from a glance. “Coming up to 5 years now.”

“Wow. It’s only 1.5 for me but Tatum and I—my husband, we’d been since uni.”

“Took him a while.”

“Mhm,” it had been a sore subject way back then. Harry says it casually but he studies my face. I know he wants to ask more but he’ll politely maneuver around it.

“Are you happy?”

I let out a breath. “That’s more complicated than anything else you could ask!”

“Is it?”

“Yeah I-“ I shrug. “I don’t know if I am. But I also have no idea what I could do about it. So. There’s that.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” My stomach curdles with his words. I didn’t want pity, least of all from Harry. Harry. I can’t believe he was here. “I get it though. Everyone says your 30s are even more glorious than your 20s. We’ll see soon enough if they’re right.”

I meet his eye, they always intimidated me to look too long into. Even now, I glance back down at my drink. When I look up again he has a wry smile twisting his lips. He knew.

I was sorry to hear life hadn’t been as good for him. And then I understand, it wasn’t pity he was giving me. He truly was sorry like I.

I thought about Harry often. Of course I did. I liked to imagine him living out his dreams like he always talked about. I liked to imagine him happy and thriving.

“Do you ever think about us?” I have to ask. “If we did it all differently?”

“We would have had a 12 year old with us.”

Hearing him say it feels like someone had taken a screwdriver and opened me up. Raw and exposed. But looking at him I know he thought about her as much as I had. Both of us were apparently mourning a future neither of us had fought for.

“Yeah,” I breathe but I just sound winded.

“We were trying, at one point—Shan and I.” Harry fiddles with his ring. “Did all the tests and the trials and the shite. But no kids. It put a real strain on my relationship. I think we cracked instead of bending. And I don’t think either of us know how to make it right again.”

I grasp his hand and squeeze. “I know what that’s like. It’s hard. I…a couple years ago. I lost a baby. A baby boy. I felt like it was a punishment for-“

“Don’t.”

We hold onto each other, our drinks long forgotten. He holds my hand and it feels like being known again, like I wasn’t such an awful person. That someone could see everything I’ve done and still choose to have love for me.

“I’m sorry.” He tells me.

“Me too.” I bite my lip. With a sigh I let him go and lean back. Here we’d been so excited to bump into each other but we’d both been carrying sorrow and grief. It wasn’t very hopeful.

“So I guess you’re not drinking because you’re-“

“No.” I say, surprisingly without feeling awkward. “I’m just sober right now. Trying to figure out life without a drink.”

“Sounds like torture but I respect that. Sounds hard.”

“It was at first. I like the feeling now of thinking clearly. But I miss a glass of wine I do sometimes.”

We smile at each other.

“So do you live around here?” Harry broaches talking again after both of us had lapsed into silence for a while. I blink away the fog of the past.

“Yeah. You?”

“Nah. Shan’s out of town and I was feeling lonely. Came over to visit my sister. I’m just staying with her for the week.”

“Lucky me then.” I smile.

“Lucky me too.” He smiles back. It’s soft. We’re soft. It felt impossible to me after all this time the tenderness was still the strongest thing between us.

We chat a bit more, much about nothing. What we did for a job, anyone we still kept in touch with from school. Nothing that meant a lot.

“I need to head off now,” I say when my phone buzzes for a second time. “I was on my way to my mum’s. She keeps calling me.”

“Yeah. Don’t want to keep you.” Harry says but he stays seated. So do I.

We continue just studying the other until my phone rings again and I laugh. “It was…I really loved seeing you.”

I slide out and Harry mirrors me. I still come to his chest, he still smells the same and stands the same and looks just as handsome.

“How about uhm, how about dinner some time?” Harry asks. I knew it was coming, it’s still painful saying no.

“I…can’t. I…we can’t just do dinner, can we?”

“No,” Harry bows his head. We had too much history to just do dinner. From what he said—and I knew, both our lives were too complicated to add the allure of each other into the mix. I couldn’t do that to my life as tempted as I was. Especially not sober.

“Yeah.” He stands straight again and gives me space to head to the door. “Good seeing you. Give your mum my best if she doesn’t hate me.”

“She doesn’t.” I assure him. We stand awkwardly not sure if a kiss, a hug, or a wave was appropriate. We settle for a hug.

I remember the last time I was enveloped in his arms, tucked away into his tall frame. When we said goodbye forever, agreed to live our best lives separately. We’d both been too scarred to be anything together. Too much grief.

“Maybe we’ll run into each other again.” Harry smiles at me when we part.

“Maybe,” I say knowing full well I wouldn’t do groceries on the weekend anymore.

With a final wave we both part ways again, this time it doesn’t feel as much like closure.

Age 35.

“Graduation’s graduating, what a mouthful.” I say to Andie. We sit in the parking lot of a local pub back home. Both of us had avoided reunions after going to the first one 10 years ago and being reminded of how much people liked to remind you of who you used to be. But this year Andie found out an old flame was going and single. And this is the first year I saw that Harry had checked off going. So we’d decided to go together.

I could have easily reached out to him. Asked him about meeting up there. But I didn’t want to come across any way. I remember our run-in 6 years ago. We felt the same way—we would do anything for each other, and I didn’t want any affect over him coming. Last I heard he was still in a relationship. Just cuz I was didn’t mean I had to ruin another.

“Okay. We going in?” Andie passes me her flask.

I’d taken to drinking again. Originally I stopped after a particularly bad night when I was 28. It nearly cost me my wedding back then.

I stopped to get sober. To feel what it felt like not to rely on alcohol to keep from feeling my emotions. I had a lot of grief I never processed. And unfortunately being sober, and processing the grief and depression, had ultimately cost me my marriage. But I was better for it. I knew what unconditional love and support was. I didn’t want to settle for someone who only loved me at my best.

Now I felt in control when I drank. I knew when to stop.

“Let’s go!”

“Do you think he’ll remember me?” Andie asks as we walk up to the place.

“You comment on so many of his posts. I think he does.” I tease.

“Gah. It would have saved me so much heartbreak if I just told him back 18 years ago how I felt.”

“Maybe,” I think about my confessed love 18 years ago and the heartbreak that ensued.

“Well at least I would have gotten him outta my system. Oh god I see him-“

“Hi ladies,” we’re stopped near the front and given name tags, making small talk with the girls working the booth. I vaguely remember them from a club but I have to read their name tags to pretend I remembered them at all.

Andie ditches me pretty quickly but I don’t mind. I find some friends I saw a couple times a year. Guess this was the couple time this year.

The whole time my eyes scan the room. People had brought their partners and I wondered if Harry would do the same. Deep down, I prayed he didn’t. I just wanted to see him.

I spot him halfway through the night. He’s leaning against the bar talking to Khalil. I remembered they used to be friends, he was always nice to me while Harry and I dated.

I watch him talk and drink. I lose him for a bit and then catch him leaving. Shite.

I excuse myself and rush out but nearly trip over myself slowing down. He was just outside for a smoke break.

“When did that habit start?” I ask. He nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Fu-y/n you scared me.” He shakes his face dramatically, like he’s getting something off of it. I bite back a smile, he was pretty drunk. “When did you get here? I didn’t know you came to these things?”

“I don’t.” I correct him. I couldn’t tell him I came for him. “It was just the name of this reunion, Graduation’s graduating. How could I pass it up?”

This earns a laugh. Eases the air between us. “Did you see Oli in there? He’s gotten bald.”

“He looks like his dad actually,” I remember his dad was always coming to Oli’s football matches, screaming at his son to run faster.

“Glad you didn’t end up with him?” Harry smirks.

“Oh yeah. I heard last reunion he just kept going up for the karaoke sober. If I want my bloke to embarrass me, at least give him the excuse of being drunk.”

“Shit,” Harry laughs. “I remember that! I remember! Wish I could forget!”

I laugh with him. “Harry you’re getting pretty close to drunk yourself.”

“Ah yeah. More than 3 drinks that, I’m being naughty tonight.”

I scrunch my nose, no idea what he’s talking about.

“I can’t believe you’re here tonight,” Harry says again. “I thought I wasn’t going to see you again for another 12 years after our last time.”

“Thought I’d halve the time.” I watch Harry squash out the butt.

“Glad you did.” He looks at me and I’m 17 again. Why couldn’t we both be single? Why did I come here knowing I couldn’t have him.

Maybe I was as masochistic as the person who invented maths.

“Yn?” A voice calls out to me. “Oi! It is you I thought I was dreaming you up! What a sight!”

I’d been avoiding Oli all night. Not anymore.

I glance at Harry and he hides a smirk. Oli notices Harry then and his face hardens a little.

“Oli! Long time!” I go in for the hug he’s reaching for, unsure why he was so sweaty on an autumn night. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” he grins at me. “You look good! Not a day over 25.”

“Don’t flatter me Oli,” I roll my eyes. “It’s not going to get you anything.”

“I’m not looking! I swear it!” He says earnestly. “I’m just paying you a compliment. It’s good to see you. Hey, I’m actually in a good relationship. Gonna propose to her.”

“Are you? What’s she like?”

I stand in the brisk evening as Oli tells me about his girlfriend. I’m happy for him, what we had in high school wasn’t really a relationship but I never wished him bad. He was a good guy, I was glad he found his person.

I change the subject when he asks about my love life, tell him I was getting cold. We head back in and I tell him I’d catch up to him later. I’d lost Harry and wanted to find him again. I had more I wanted to talk about.

“Khalil,” I interrupt him playing pool. He goes in for a hug and I engage in polite small talk until I tire of it. “I’m looking for Harry.”

“Of course you are,” he wags a finger at me. “I saw him leaving ten minutes ago?”

“Jeez really?” I couldn’t believe I missed him! After coming here just for him. Maybe he had to get home, maybe he had a kid by now. Had to tuck him in.

“He’s not doing so well since the divorce-“

“What?” I stare at Khalil like he’s spoken gibberish. Why hadn’t I heard about that?

“Ehm yeah. He’s pretty private about it.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Yeah. He’s been separated a few years now but he just signed the papers a couple weeks ago. I dunno. He gets kinda depressed around this time of year. Probably the weather.”

It was September. It wasn’t the weather.

I had to find him.

I brush past the people I went to school with. I followed Harry outside to a roof 17 years ago and today I follow him out to find him again. We needed to talk.

I look both ways, hoping for a miracle.

I spot a figure slumped on the far end of the road. I recognize the church, it was where we went every Easter and Christmas growing up.

I walk towards the figure until I can make out the hair. It was Harry. Thank god.

“Why’d you leave?” I ask him when he looks up to my approaching footsteps.

“I drank too much,” he hangs his head again. I sit beside him.

“I heard about the divorce. I’m sorry.”

Harry shrugs. “We separated a while ago. It was coming for a long time.”

“Yeah. Still.” I say.

We sit in silence, the only sound is our breathing and the faint noises from the pub down the road.

“She’s in her last year by now.” I say without further explanation. I know he’d know.

“Our baby’s 17.”

Our baby? I feel choked up. All these years we’d been apart, built our own lives, and there was still an our even when there hadn’t been.

“It’s always been us hasn’t it?” Harry says. “Nobody understands.”

“They couldn’t. We were so young, making such a big decision.”

“Oh y/n.” He leans into me and I wrap my arm around his shoulder. He’s cold, his jacket pooled on the steps around him. I gather it to spread over his shoulder but he stops me. “How much heartbreak can you have in one lifetime?”

I sit, aching for the pain Harry was going through. Knowing it was mirrored in me.

“I’ve had enough for a lifetime. I know that.”

“Me too.” Harry sighs. “I miss you.”

“I’m right here.” I intertwine our hands. They still fit the exact same, all these years later. I examine them, but they looked the same too. I wonder if our baby girl ever looked at her hands, wondered who she inherited them from.

“D’you think she thinks about us?” Harry asks what I’m thinking.

“Maybe.” I say. “I like to think so. I just hope she doesn’t hate us for giving her up.”

“Yeah me too I think…” he hangs his head. I hear him sniffle. Seems like Harry hit the point of drinking where all you could feel is regret. I remember those days. I knew where he was.

When he doesn’t finish his sentence I fill the silence; “Me and Tatum split uh…four years ago now.” I update him. “You probably heard something about it. I remember my mum saying she ran into yours when it was happening. They probably talked all about it.”

I wait for Harry to give confirmation but he stays the way he is.

“I went sober a few years before then. Almost ruined our wedding cuz I was exactly where you were. Unprocessed grief and all I could do was drink about it. I’d given up a baby at 18, then lost a baby a decade later. It feels silly to say out loud, that something that never really came into this world—something the size of a fruit could act like the rock you push up the hill every morning. The grief you fight at your darkest times. How could we be haunted by something that didn’t even exist—not technically. But that’s just the way it was. And that’s the way it had to be when we were 18. I’m not always sure I made the right decision overall but I know it was a decision we had to make at the time. I’ve had to find my peace. So do you Harry.”

“Yeah. I-I have to. Y’know? Sometimes I wonder if I would have made her proud.” Harry sniffles. I had similar thoughts. My throat feels tight remembering. “I don’t think, right now, I would be.”

“She’s so loved. She is so loved Harry. Whatever…wherever she is.”

“I love you.” Harry turns to me. His face is raw with grief and emotion. “Never stopped loving you. But I don’t want to give you this version of me.”

“I’ll take any version of you Harry.” I reassure him. “I think we’ve seen too much of each other to be able to hide anything away.”

He tips forward slowly until his head rests on my chest. I hold him there, just like he’d done for me so many years ago. I tell him the type of thing that meant everything to me back then and I hope it helps him to hear it: “We’ll get through this Harry.”

***

“I don’t remember getting here.”

I look up from my book, Harry stands in my kitchen with a confused look on his face. It was weird seeing him here in my flat. But it was so right too.

“We walked home. I thought you sobered up.”

“Nuh-uh.” He takes a few steps towards me, hesitant.

“Coffee?”

“Maybe I’ll take a shower first?”

“First door on your right. Extra towels in the cupboard.”

“Thanks.”

We look at one another for a beat before he moves back. I make another pot of coffee and clean up from breakfast while he showers.

Next time he walks back in he looks a lot better. Smells nice too.

“Black please.” He says when I hold the coffee up.

I pour him a cup and watch him sip it.

“Thank you for last night.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” I tell him.

“I remember what you said to me. You’re right of course. I think I knew it, I just didn’t have anyone to talk to about it with. Nobody knew about us…”

“You didn’t have to keep it a secret ‘til this day Harry.” I was surprised he had. “You didn’t even tell any of your friends?”

“The only people who knew were my family, a-and Shan. But. Year after year it didn’t mean the same thing to her. I stopped talking to her about it pretty quickly. Think it made it worse because her and I couldn’t actually…”

“Yeah.” I understood.

“But I realized. I think it was losing both of you. I feel like you were taken away too. We just went from being around each other all the time to cold turkey. That was a loss too so…”

“Yeah.” Again, I understood.

“I’m 35. I’ve gotta…get my head on straight.”

I examine him. “Looks okay to me?”

He smiles and puts his cup down.

“I’m sorry to hear about your divorce.”

“Meh that was years ago. Hard then. Fine now. For the best.”

“I agree,” Harry moves around the table to stand where I am. My heart pulses just like it always does around him. He rests a hand on my hip, dragging it up to wrap around my waist. He must feel how hard my heart’s beating. “Did I tell you? That I love you?”

“Maybe?” I feel myself growing more present. The hole that always lived inside of me growing even smaller in this moment. It allows me to settle on the floor better; less air, more weight.

“Well I do. I love you. At 17, or at 35.” He says this with a soft kiss on the corner of my mouth.

“Well. I love you.” I return the kiss, relish in the way his hand grips my tank. “At 17, or 35.”

“Sometimes I wish I held on tighter at 17. But I look at you now and I’m excited to get to know you again.”

His words pour over me like honey. It was sweet we were still on the same page.

“I’m not letting you go this time.” Harry whispers in my ear. He pulls me in tight, swaying from side to side. “I want to spend 41 and 50 with you. I want all of you, every side.”

“Perfect,” I peer up at him. “That’s exactly what I want too.”

“And maybe one day,” he continues in a hush voice. “We’ll get a call from a young girl. She’ll tell us all about her life in a town up north. About a picture she has of her mother dressed like her father and her father dressed like her mother.”

“She’ll tell us she’s had a good life, and she’s thought about the people in the picture. She’d tell us she wants to meet them.”

“We would be able to show her the love we kept for her. Our love’s like a venn diagram, the bit in the middle is just for her. She’d know why she was born in the first place.”

“Closure,” I whisper to him. “We would know closure.”

I remember the day she was taken, how the loss of not even being able to see her felt bigger than the loss of her itself back then.

I think of a 17 year old girl, with green eyes and brown hair. With my smile and Harry’s dimples. My hands, and Harry’s height. She was loved by people, families, that she didn’t even know existed yet.

They say if you love something, let it go. If it’s meant to be it’ll come back.

As Harry and I stay intertwined in the kitchen of my flat, I send out a wish into the universe for her like I did most days. That she was healthy, happy, and one day curious enough to seek us out. That one day, she would come back.

Right now I focus on the man in my arms. The one I never thought I’d get to hold again. For now this was all I needed. I’d loved him, let him go, and after so many years apart, we were back.

#harry styles fic #writingsfromhome #harry styles x reader #harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles imagine #fic #harry styles angst #harry styles fluff #harry stylesxreader #read with caution #sad but hopeful #kinda nervous to post #this fic is qd

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