#I’ve been to work once in november and I actually think this is the life

[aqpippin]

hi queen where have you been <33 working on a November fic 👀

hi bestie I’ve been on annual leave at work and just living my life for a while 🙂‍↕️ my dad came to visit for a few days, I spent like 3 days at my best friend’s house, went to Sydney for a few days and saw Hozier (!!!!!), cleaned my apartment from head to toe, rewatched the twilight saga, and have just started binge watching love island au ✨

also YES I have something planned for november 🤭 it’s still in progress but you’ll have the first bit up by the end of the month 😽

[mildlycursedhistoricalobject]

TW: SA

This is the only thing I’m gonna say about this, but yes, this post is about the Neil Gaiman allegations. Before I write my actual post, I’d like to say that my heart is with the victims and the victims only. I hope they receive both the support and justice they deserve.

Ok. Can we please stop attacking each other? People who are discrediting the stories of the women involved should stop, because surely they can see how the narratives they’re pushing are not only unhelpful but actively harmful. There really shouldn’t be “sides” here, because none us are involved in this situation, but it’s insane to me that some people have been so quick to completely dismiss the stories of each woman. People you like can be shitty.

However, everyone saying I told you so? That is equally NOT helpful. You’re not morally superior for disliking Neil Gaiman first, and again, the narrative that people “should’ve known better” is actively harmful for victims of SA.

In continuation, people are allowed to be upset that a work they’ve found solace in turns out to be created by someone accused of SA. I agree that this shouldn’t overshadow the emotional impact on the woman actually involved in the situation, but people expressing their own feelings about personal links to his work is not harming anyone, and shutting people down for doing that is once again NOT helpful.

I doubt I can seperate the art from the artist in this case, but those are my individual feelings. If someone doesn’t want to read his work anymore, that’s fine. If someone does, that’s also fine. Stop attacking each other, because like I said, the victims need to be put first, and forcing people to cut ties or not with Gaiman’s WORK isn’t doing anything constructive.

Now, in light of what I’ve just said I want to share two things (these are potentially triggering so please feel free to skip):

1. I was sexually assaulted in November last year by someone who I trusted, looked up to, loved, and I am still dealing with the consequences.

2. Do you know what novel helped me through this experience? Neil Gaiman’s “The Ocean at the End of the Lane.”

That book became very impactful in my life, very recently. So yes, as I said, I doubt I’ll be able to have the same relationship with it, or with Gaiman’s work, but I’m sure it’s pretty obvious that this whole thing has brought stuff up for me.

There are people like me all across various fandoms conected to Neil Gaiman. Stop assuming that you’re helping victims of SA by telling us we can’t feel upset because the work we found safety in was created by a man accused of the very thing that hurt us. You’re not helping.

I apologise of this post came across as irritated, or superior, because that’s really not my intention. I’m just saying there’s nuance here, and we should all think before we post. I’m just feeling pretty tired of all this “discourse” I keep seeing, and it’s distracting us from actual issues that we as a society need to be addressing.

To summarise, stop attacking one another. We should be supporting each other and the women involved.

(Edited a couple of words for clarity.)

[itslottiehere]

mors tua, vita mea — h.s

hello beautiful people 🤍 welcome back! i know, i know, it’s been a while, but i truly hope this story makes up for the lack of writing! i’ve had so much fun while writing this, and i hope you’ll like it as much as i do <3 please, let me know what you think! you can do so in your reblog, in your tags, or in my asks! if you enjoy the story, please consider reblogging! it really helps me and also make me want to keep going!! without further ado, happy reading! <3

— inspired by “getaway car” by taylor swift.

cw: angst, a bit of kissing, some swear words

word count: 6.5k

gif by @londonharry

masterlist | leave your feedback or requests here

—

the backstreet was dark, a few spots of light showing her the way to the car she hid before the heist took place. before chris could know that there was only one way that night could have ended, and that was with him locked up. 

she had been planning this for months now: their biggest heist, her biggest betrayal. 

she wasn’t sentimental about it at all, it was just pure business: she knew the cops were closing in on them, so she had to leave before shit hit the fan. simple as that. 

also, chris was becoming way too attached to her as it was, so it was really a two birds with one stone deal for her: she had always made it clear that their “relationship” was nothing more than work, but sometimes the nights in the safe house got boring and lonely, and the company was appreciated. 

still, a few nights of sex didn’t mean there were feelings involved or anything of that sort, and no matter how much chris said that he “got it”, she noticed the changes in his attitude, how protective of her he became, how his touch would linger for a second longer, how he would double and triple check with her if she got wounded, how he would always make sure she was safe before worrying about his own safety.

how he made it so easy for her to manipulate him.

the poor thing never saw it coming. the pink lenses of infatuation making him painfully oblivious to the fact that he was never gonna see her again. 

both her and the outside world, from her calculations: the cops would find plenty of evidence on him, in the safe house, that would tie him up with a pretty little bow and send him off to prison for god’s know how long, all the while making him the perfect scapegoat for her. 

she couldn’t know if chris would rat her out, — although she thought it not likely, given the lovesick puppy look he had ever since they slept together, — but even if he tried to, she made sure not to leave any trace of her identity in any document, in anything that had to do with any illegal activity. 

and even if she did, they wouldn’t have found her: the identity she used wasn’t hers, and she was gonna stop being the person chris knew as soon as she drove away, her new id card safely stored in the pocket of her jacket, the old one burnt to a crisp.

the soles of her shoes were scraping against the gravel, the ground wet from the light november rain, while she jogged to what would bring her into a new life, a new start. she had to get out of there, immediately. 

what she wasn’t expecting was a dark silhouette appearing on the other side of the alley, seemingly jogging towards her. 

fuck, fuck, fuck.

she was so sure she had locked the exit door on the back, so how did chris manage to get out? he would have had to figure out she was planning on framing him. 

if that was the case, this wasn’t gonna end well.

she opened up the door to her car, ready to bolt, when the unknown figure spoke slowly: “wait.”

that was not chris. the voice was deep, rough, and the way he pronounced just one single word made chills run through her body. 

or maybe that was just the adrenaline of it all, the fear of getting caught betraying her partner by said partner. 

“wait.” the figure spoke once more, getting closer to the car. “i need a lift.”

what the actual fuck? did he take her for an uber driver or something? 

she scoffed and got in the car, keys inside the ignition, ready to drive off.

which couldn’t be done since the tall figure decided to stand in the middle of the alley. 

she couldn’t really honk, not when the alarms inside the building were about to go off and the place was about to be stormed by cops. she had to leave, and if she had to run over him, then so be it.

she put her foot on the gas, put in the first gear and was very much convinced that the man would decide to move out of the way. 

but she had no such luck.

his hands hit the hood of her car, hard, while she pressed on the breaks with all her strength in order to not make him flat on the ground. 

so much for survival instincts, she thought.

“were you really about to run me over?” the man spoke — his figure now becoming clearer since he was nearer than before. a lazy smirk cut his face. “mmh. i like you.” 

and just like that he was opening the passenger’s door, seating down and buckling his seatbelt. 

she was utterly shocked, what the hell was going on, why was he- “who the fuck are you? and what the actual fuck do you think you’re doing in my car?”

the man chuckled lowly, casting two deep indents in his cheeks. “oh wow, they didn’t tell me the owl had such a filthy mouth.”

the name made her eyes go wide: the owl. working in the darkest hours of the night was her distinctive trait, hence the nickname she chose for herself while doing business. 

“‘m harry, by the way. don’t have a cool nickname like yours yet, but perhaps i should find one. what about the puma? what do you think?”

she scoffed, looking straight and finally driving away. “well, harry or the puma or whatever you wanna be called-”

“harry is just fine.”

“alright, harry, would you mind telling me why the fuck are you here?” her patience was wearing thin and she really didn’t want to lose any more time on this.

“oh right, sort of forgot to tell you, didn’t i? okay, well, my dear owl- hold up, don’t i get to know your name? i told you mine.” he turned his body to face her. 

judging by the deep frown of her eyebrows and how set her eyes were on the road in front of them, he assumed he wouldn’t get it that easily. 

“well, doesn’t matter for now. so, back to where i was: i have been checking you out for a while, saw your latest works and was very impressed. i’m in need of a partner, and from what i saw tonight, so do you.” he spoke, and in the far distance they could hear the police sirens and spot the blue and red lights: everything was about to go down.

harry coming to bother her on that particular night was really somewhat karmic, wasn’t it? she screwed over her partner, so fate had to bring an annoying man in her plans, once again. she cleared her throat, her tone dry.

“how did you know what i would do?”

harry turned once again towards the road. “i knew the police was closing in on you, so i thought that if you played your cards right you may have the chance to get away, and the better escape plan would have been to ditch your partner.” the man in her passenger seat stretched his legs, his arms raised up, his voice coming out a bit strained. “word on the street was that tonight something was going down, i thought to check it out to see if it was actually gonna be you. my lucky night, i’d say.”

harry had heard plenty about the owl’s operations and was extremely intrigued by her. the plans were intricate, but incredibly well thought out, and often went down without a hitch, and the chosen artworks to be stolen being invaluable masterpieces made it all the more admirable. he knew as soon as he saw one of her biggest heists go down so smoothly that he desperately wanted to be in business with her, so he began keeping tabs on her, which brought him in that alley, that precise night.

he didn’t expect to be so entranced to her. 

sure, he was in awe of her plans and the way she carried on her business, but he was struck by her. even more than her looks, it was the confidence she radiated from her stance, her set gaze, her clenched jaw, that was what drew him in immediately. 

he knew she was trouble, especially given her line of work. but it seemed like he couldn’t help himself to fall under her spell, and that was saying something, since she tried to run him over not even 20 minutes prior. 

oh, poor harry didn’t know what he was getting into.

she wasn’t dumb, nor blind: harry was a treat for the eyes, and obviously way more prepared than chris ever was. still to that day she couldn’t believe he didn’t see it coming, it was all so clear to her. she was sneaky, of course, but he must’ve had some clue, right? or well, she guessed that what people say is true: love makes you dumb. 

harry was another league, though. he kept track of her, which must’ve not been easy since she always took so many precautions to keep everything on the down low; he discovered her plan and also understood that the better route for her was to ditch her partner. 

he definitely had more experience than chris, and that could be an advantage: for once, she could have someone to bounce ideas off of, and since harry managed to find out her ironclad plans, it means that something wasn’t as hidden as she would’ve liked, and having him could help with that.

when she started her business, she swore that she had to be the one calling all the shots: being the perfectionist she is, she couldn’t relegate the responsibility of something so important like a heist to someone who wasn’t herself. she decided to get a partner — enter, chris — just because sometimes it was physically impossible to do it all on her own. that didn’t change the fact that he was merely a mean to an end, he had no voice whatsoever in planning anything, and not once had he complained about it, nor he had any reason to: the money was good, and once he even got to win her affection — or well, what he thought could’ve turned into something more — he was good with doing whatever she wanted.

she had the feeling it wasn’t gonna be like this with harry. 

or well, at least not that easy. 

“that was impressive, not going to lie. it mustn’t have been easy to keep track of my movements. so, bravo.” she spoke, her eyes quickly glancing towards him.

a smirk took place on harry’s face, the praise of such a pro stroking his ego. “it was, but very much worth it.” 

his voice was smooth like silk, and even the dumbest person walking on earth could’ve felt the flirty undertones of his words from miles away. 

she quickly thought about it, a new plan. a new, better plan.

“okay, pretty boy. if you can keep up, i can think about being partners. that is, if you prove worthy of my time.”

“deal.” he smiled, and again the dimples on his cheeks made an appearance. “pretty boy, huh? should that be my badass nickname?”

“still better than the puma.”

that night marked the beginning of a new era, four years of the most lucrative, crazy, exciting heists the both of them could have ever imagined.

and over the course of those years, the inevitable and not so unexpected happened: they fell for each other, and they fell hard.

endless night of planning, scheming, and building trust with each other turned them into real life bonnie and clyde, absolutely drunk on adrenaline and love. 

it was definitely not something she had planned, not something she had wanted either, but there was no denying chemistry: sometimes, things just happen, and you have no choice but to let them run their course.

harry was just as smitten: he was hooked from the beginning, and fought hard to win her over from day one. 

it started as a ‘business partners with benefits’ kind of deal, a way to ‘pass the time’, — at least for her, harry was already harboring feelings for the woman — but it bloomed into something more, somewhat organically. 

he still teased her that she became soft for him when he got injured during an escape: the rope attached to the top of the building didn’t hold up harry, who suffered a bad fall. his shoulder was dislocated, and she had to be the one who had to put it back in place, since hospitals weren’t really an option, and harry couldn’t ignore the look she held in her eyes, as if even just the thought of hurting him was physically hurting her.

he didn’t expect it, definitely not from someone like the infamous owl: she showed no remorse for her actions, no feelings for the first six months of them working together, and he made peace with the fact that that was just the way it was gonna be, but was pleasantly surprised when that revealed not to be the case. 

the world knew her as a scheming, logical woman, but harry had the privilege of being her soft spot.

he was always a pretty open guy, not scared of having big feelings or of falling in love. he had already felt it in the past, he just wasn’t prepared to experience how powerful it could feel with the right person: what he felt for her was something out of a novel, a perfect mixture of infatuation, almost obsession, adrenaline and maybe insanity, and it was so incredibly addicting.

the last heist was a perfect success, their biggest bag as a matter of fact. the artwork they managed to steal had taken months upon months of planning, but it all went down incredibly smoothly: 7 minutes, in and out, exactly like they had wanted. they were already far when the police arrived, harry behind the wheel, driving their getaway car.

with chris, she had never let him drive, ever: she had to be in control of everything, of every little aspect, probably because she never fully trusted him. but she did trust harry, wholeheartedly so. 

the drive to the dingy motel wasn’t too long, the night chill enveloping them thanks to the lack of a roof on their car. the adrenaline was running high still, and she couldn’t stop herself from leaning in and leaving a kiss on harry’s smiling lips, their grins quite too big to properly kiss each other. but it didn’t matter, the feeling was all the same, the rush quite impossible to describe to someone who never felt it.

harry disconnected their lips, not before leaving a quick peck once again, and looked back to the barely lit country road ahead of them. 

“very risky to distract me like that right now, sweetheart.”

“couldn’t help it, pretty boy. you’re just too damn good-looking.” she smiled at the nickname, and harry did too: it stuck ever since that first night, and harry definitely never complained. 

“c’mon, we’re almost at the motel.” harry’s hand took its rightful place on her left thigh, softly squeezing the flesh, awakening a storm of butterflies and inviting them to bat their wings in her stomach. she rested her hand on top of his, gently toying with his rings.

the motel neon sign was missing a few letters, its occupants nothing less than unsavory, but she didn’t care: she wasn’t one to be scared in the first place, much less with harry by her side.

once they got to their room, she locked the door and quickly found her back pressed into it, harry’s lips straight on hers. she knew what was coming, it happened every single time after a hit: the euphoria of a successful heist was a very powerful aphrodisiac.

harry’s lips pressed slowly against her own, he was in no hurry now. after he felt her body relaxing in his hold, he moved onto her neck, and smiled against her skin when he heard a shaky breath falling from her lips after he sucked lightly on the spot he knew would drive her crazy. 

her hand went immediately into his hair, tugging on the curls she loved to play with at every chance she got, while the other travelled down his torso, heading towards his belt.

knowing where she was going, harry detached his lips from her neck and looked at her: flushed cheeks, her eyes — his favorite feature of hers — slightly glazed over, her lips full and a raspberry colour. he smiled at the sight.

“sweetheart,” he murmured. “sweetheart, hey.”

“mmh?” she hummed, her hands roaming under his shirt, feeling the expanse of his tummy and chest, pressing her lips in the dip of his throat. 

harry hated to have to tear himself away from her and her touch, but a shower was in order, and also making her wait made the whole situation way more intriguing, her getting antsy waiting for him really did a number on him.

her forehead rested on his chest, a small whine falling from her lips when he felt him trying to move away from her, which made harry chuckle. he softly pressed a kiss to the top of her head, slowly walking backwards towards the restroom, but her arms refused to leave his body, so she was stumbling along with him, her cheek still smushed against his chest.

harry reached behind his back to untangle her arms from his waist, not without her protesting. he leaned in and planted a wet kiss on her cheek, murmuring a low “be right back”, before leaving the room.

she felt drunk, as she usually did whenever harry was in near proximity, but there was nothing she could do about it.

she laid down on the dingy bed, eagerly waiting for her lover to be back and, to kill the time, she decided to turn on the tv.

what she saw sobered her up real quick.

the news were reporting a robbery at a famous gallery, two figures with their dark hoodies up filmed from a camera at the end of the alley.

a camera both she and harry failed to notice.

they were lucky the camera was at the opposite end of the dark and unlit alley, and caught just a glimpse of their backs, but this wasn’t good. this was not supposed to happen. 

never, in all her years of planning, had she forgot to notice a camera, and the fact that this happened with their biggest heist made the blood drain from her face. 

she tried her hardest to lower her heart rate and to focus on what the newscaster was saying: two suspects, no faces identified, probably left by car, all the other cameras in the block were somehow off during the escape — somehow actually being the work of one of harry’s acquaintances — and the police had no leads for the moment.

all things considered, it wasn’t bad at all.

so why couldn’t she seem to catch her breath?

the bathroom door creaked open, a bit of steam filling the room. harry stepped out, a towel hanging on his lower half, his body glistening with little droplets of water, hair matted and still dripping a little. 

he had a dopey smile on his lips, which soon fell once he noticed that she wasn’t ogling at him as she usually would when he stepped out of a shower.

“hey,” he called out to her, “something wrong?”

she didn’t even notice that harry had walked back into the room, so she slightly jumped at the sound of his voice. her head quickly turned towards him, as she just as quickly turned the tv off.

“of course, yeah.” she smiled. “missed you.”

“could’ve joined me, you know?” he grinned, “never would refuse a beautiful lady like you.” he got closer to her and pressed his lips softly against hers.

she reciprocated the kiss, disconnecting it quite a bit earlier than harry would’ve liked, and murmured still close to his lips, “can we cuddle for a bit?”

harry’s hands cupped her cheeks, his thumbs slowly stroking the apples, “yeah, of course. want my shirt to sleep in?”

she excitedly nodded, staring at his back while he retrieved a shirt from his luggage.

sleep came quickly to harry, his arm holding her tightly against his chest, comforted by the feeling of having her safe in his arms.

she still couldn’t quite catch her breath.

.

harry woke up to an empty bed: the creamy rays of sun beamed through the worn blinds, rousing him awake. as he did every morning, he reached for her, looking forward to hooking his arm around her waist and feel her snuggle against his chest. but that day, his hand touched a cold piece of comforter instead of the warm, soft body of his girl.

his eyes opened immediately, trying to adapt to the light, his brows furrowed as he knuckled his eyes, trying to blink away the sleepiness. his slightly startled heart stopped once he saw her seated at the little desk the room provided, typing away on her computer, wrapped in his sweatshirt with her hair still damp from the shower she probably had just taken.

way too focused on adjusting the last details of the meetup with the buyer for that same night, she jumped when she felt two strong arms engulfing her.

“morning, love.” his morning voice was a gift straight from heaven, it never failed to make her feel warm and cozy. “don’t like it when i wake up without you.”

she could hear the pout on his face, and she smiled at the notion that he was so affected by her absence. “good morning, pretty boy. just had to take a shower and finalize the details for the drop off with the buyer tonight.” she turned around and looked at his still half closed eyes. she tilted her head up, puckering her lips a little, “kiss?”

harry didn’t miss a beat and laid his mouth on hers, moaning softly at the contact.

she hadn’t lied per se, she had to do all of what she said, but she also couldn’t stand lying awake in that bed for one more second: she had barely gotten any sleep the previous night, the video of them on the news flashing continuously in her mind. 

so she tried to focus on work, to get things right before they could go wrong. 

the day went by as usual, the two of them laying low, preparing for the meetup with this anonymous buyer. the sum of money this person was offering was definitely mind blowing, and there was no way they could turn it down. 

in the late afternoon, they left the motel to reach the location given to them: it was a rundown warehouse, obviously abandoned, and they were under strict orders to arrive at 8pm on the dot, to leave the car outside the main gate, and proceed by feet till they arrived to the container with the number 258: that was where they’d find an employee of the buyer. 

it was all routine, they almost never handled a deal with the buyer directly, and they understood the reason. she and harry never exchanged names as well, for safety reasons, or any other details, just informations about the drop. 

at 7:50pm, they were parked outside the warehouse. the chill of the desert air made the hair on her arms stand, a shiver running down her spine. 

“cold?” harry asked, after he noticed her shudder. it wasn’t that cold at the moment for him, and it was probably gonna be worse once the sun was set all the way, but nonetheless he put his jacket on her shoulders, his big hands running up and down her upper arms to give her some warmth. 

she smiled at the gesture, and tilted her head up, “thank you.”

he reciprocated the smile and took her hand, in the other one holding the bag containing the stolen piece of art. “of course, darling. now let’s go, wanna be back in that motel bed as soon as possible,” he cheekily remarked.

they walked hand in hand till they found the container 258, and knocked three times, as instructed. the shutter was pulled up, a man dressed in a suit, who looked to be in his forties, appearing behind it.

“welcome, you must be the sellers. please, come in.” the unknown man spoke, and she and harry made their way inside.

harry laid the bag carefully on the table, beside a briefcase, previously set down.

“thank you, sir. as per your request by email, the-”

“actually,” harry interrupted, “you didn’t speak with me. she,” he pointed to the girl beside him, who had a stony expression, “is the head of the whole operation, so if you want to explain something to someone, you can do so with her.”

this was also something they were both used to, but that didn’t make it any less annoying. if only they knew they were actually talking to the owl, they’d probably kiss the her shoes.

the deal was over in 5 minutes, the majority of which was spent with the two of them counting the money, making sure every penny was in that briefcase. after confirming so, they barely said goodbye to that sexist prick, and went back to their car.

the drive to the motel was quiet, but not uncomfortably so: harry’s right hand took place on her left thigh as usual, while her arm was stretched behind his headrest, playing mindlessly with his curls, scratching his scalp lightly. 

“hey, pretty boy.” she called, a soft smile on her lips.

harry smirked at the nickname, he couldn’t help it, “yes?”

“i really love you,” she softly said, taking her hand away from his hair and moving it to stroke his cheekbone, “you know that?”

harry couldn’t help but feel his tummy warm up at her words, his cheeks getting a bit flushed. “i do know, darling, but thank you for the reminder.” he snickered, “i love you too.” he said, and took his right hand off her leg to grab her hand, planting a soft kiss to her palm, and to every knuckle. 

once they finally reached the motel, harry turned off the ignition and turned to face her. his hand took a hold of her jaw, and pressed a kiss against her pouty lips. she sighed into the kiss, a thing that drove harry absolutely crazy. 

“what if-” she tried to talk, but was quickly interrupted by harry kissing her again, “we go to the room to-” another kiss, “put down our things and-”, yet another kiss, “then we have a drink at the bar?” she put her hand on harry’s chest to push him a bit further, or else she wouldn’t be able to finish the sentence. “if i’m not mistaken it’s right by the reception. sounds good?”

harry nodded, and to seal his agreement he kissed her once again.

after making their way down from their room into the motel bar, they sat down at the counter, harry’s hand on her back while she climbed on the stool. 

the bar was definitely empty, just a couple of old men sat in the corner of the room, a deck of cards between them. 

“two old fashioned, please.” harry asked the man behind the counter.

it was a sort of a tradition, getting that drink after a deal: the first time they did a deal together, he was the one suggesting going for a drink, which she — surprisingly to him — did not turn down. once they reached the pub nearby, she ordered an old fashioned, and asked harry what he wanted, to which he answered “the same”, and it became a tradition ever since then.

“oh wait-” she said all of a sudden, which made harry turn his head towards her.

“oh i’m sorry, did you want something else?” he asked, unsure of even his question, since she had never ordered something else.

she quickly shook her head, “no no, don’t worry, i just realized i forgot my phone in our room.” she stood from the stool, “i’m gonna go get it and i’ll be right back, alright?” after she spoke, she left a lingering kiss on his cheek.

harry hummed and with a little smile, he playfully said, “be quick, i’m gonna miss you.”

she returned his smile, and opened the motel bar door, “i’m gonna miss you too, pretty boy.” 

.

harry didn’t think any of it after ten minutes, she probably got caught up on something online, or had to answer to an email right away and couldn’t wait.

he didn’t think any of it after twenty minutes, thinking she may have had a call to make and it was taking a bit longer than usual. he settled on shooting her a message, asking if she was fine. the message was left on delivered.

but after thirty minutes, he needed to check on her. what if she was sick and he was there waiting for her at the bar like an idiot? what if there was a problem and she needed his help, even if she would most likely never admit it?

he left some banknotes on the counter, and rushed his way upstairs.

once he stood in front of the door, his blood run cold: the door was ajar. 

something was wrong, very wrong.

carefully, he pushed the door, reaching for his pocket knife; once it was open, his eyes darted around the room, looking for something out of place.

the thing is, it wasn’t that something was out of place, it was that something was missing: her bag, her clothes, her laptop, herself, they were all missing. there was no trace of her, as if she had never been there.

“what-” he rushed in, the door left slightly open behind him. he hastily opened the bathroom door, checking if maybe she was there, but, alas, she was not.

“what the fuck is going on?” harry muttered to himself, so confused that he was sure that his movements weren’t even making sense. his head kept turning from side to side, trying to find something, anything to help him understand what was going on.

he was never one to panic, always been a pretty clearheaded guy in every situation he’s found himself in, but not when his girl was involved, and especially when he was totally in the dark about what had happened. 

his eyes finally zeroed in on a piece of paper on the desk.

of course, of course she’d be smart and leave him some sort of trace, so he could find her and get her back.

he stumbled on his steps, his legs wobbling as if made of jelly and with frantic fingers, he opened the piece of paper, which showed just four, short words.

mors tua, vita mea.

“wh-what, no-”, he rambled, shaking his head energetically, choosing not to believe the reality that was downing on him. “no, no, it can’t-” he kept chanting, over and over, but his rambling was cut short.

in his peripherals, he saw the red and blue lights bouncing off the dirty white walls of the motel room, the sound of the police car doors closing and of the steps of the officers coming up the stairs, but the sounds were almost muted, the shock making his ears ring.

the door was pushed open, three officers coming in first, guns blazing, while the others were surely waiting all around the motel, pointing their guns at him through the windows. 

“put your hands up! over your head!”

harry robotically obliged, not in control of his body anymore. 

“harry styles, you’re under arrest. you have the right to remain silent, anything you say…”.

he didn’t hear the rest of the miranda rights over the sound of the faith he had in her shattering, puncturing his lungs and making it hard to breathe.

—

18 months later.

“styles, you have a visitor.”

harry’s eyes opened at the voice of the guard, the ceiling of his cell staring back at him. those were words he didn’t get to hear often, only two other times, and both times it was always a nosy journalist wanting to write a story about a pretty successful art thief. he laid still, pondering whether to go or stay in his shoe box of a cell for the rest of the day.

“styles, get up. i don’t have all day.”

harry dragged his feet along the corridor, and once he arrived to the designated room, he headed towards the seat the officer pointed. once he sat down, he grabbed the black phone receiver, and didn’t even bother looking at the person standing in front of him, his eyes closed already in annoyance.

“look, if you’re another fucking journalist, i’m not gonna say a word to you, so you wasted your time coming here and i’m asking you to leave.”

the person in front of him hesitated, as he heard a shallow breathe on the other end of the receiver.

“hi, pretty boy.”

harry’s eyes had never opened so fast, and his heart skipped a beat. 

no, no, this wasn’t real, this was just his mind playing tricks on him: stupid, fucking horrible and cruel tricks.

the voice didn’t match the exterior: the person in front of him had another haircut, a whole other hair colour, the eyes — the feature he most loved about her — covered by large sunglasses. 

but he knew. he knew it was her: the way her lips were set in her natural pout, the shape of her face, the freckle she had at the right corner of her bottom lip. 

the way his heart was going out of his chest trying to reach for her.

he was supposed to hate her — and he did, he so did — but the way his nickname fell from her lips lit up something in him, something that no matter how much he wanted it to be dormant, it was still there. 

his brain could only manage to ask her the one question that nagged at him ever since that day.

“why.”

he stared at her through the glass, green tired eyes boring into her soul. she knew it was risky, showing up at a prison under yet another false identity, but she knew she couldn’t leave without saying goodbye one last time. one real last time.

so she swallowed harshly, and opened her mouth, keeping her answers short in order not to break down.

“think about the place where you first met me, harry.” she murmured, while his stony expression was staring back at her. “i had no other choice.”

harry chuckled darkly, a grin so deranged that she felt her blood run cold. this answer of hers opened the gate to all the hatred that had been boiling in him for 18 long months.

“that’s such bullshit, and you know it. you had a choice — you  fucking did — and you made it. you chose to tip-off the police, you chose to leave your name out of every document, you chose to use a fake identity with me as well, and make it impossible to track you; you chose to pack your bags and steal the car, you chose to leave me behind and letting me take the blame for it.” his voice was laced with venom. “i spent 18 fucking months in this cell, with just one question running through my mind, all day, all night, every day: why did you choose to do this to me.”

“harry, i told you, i had-”

“bullshit!” he screamed, a prominent vein on his neck, while smashing his fist against the plastic glass, over and over again. “you ruined my fucking life, and you have the gall to give me that as the reason why you did it? tell me the truth! tell me the fucking truth! you owe me at least that.” 

the volume of his voice and the violence he was hitting the glass with made her stand up and hang up the receiver, scrambling to get away from him before his actions brought too much attention on her as well. three officers had to come in to stop harry from smashing down the glass and jumping on the other side of the window, and had to drag him away whilst he was still fighting with all his strength, his legs kicking and arms flailing trying to be freed, his voice repeatedly shouting just one word, over and over: why.

nine days later, harry found himself moved to a facility of a higher security rank: his violent act during the visit wasn’t an isolated episode, and basically opened the door to a side of harry that he never knew. he never knew such anger in his life.

the guard guiding him stopped in front of the nth same looking cell. 

“bradford, your new roomie is here.” the guard sarcastically said, making harry want to punch his face in, but unable to do so because of the cuffs on his wrists.

the man laying in the bunk barely scoffed and glanced at harry while he was walking into his new “home”.

once the guard went away, bradford turned to harry and looked him up and down, then returned to stare at the ceiling. harry could perhaps even manage to put up with the guy, if he always kept this quiet, but he felt like at least an introduction was to be done, to be the least civil. “‘m harry, harry styles. and you are?” 

his new cellmate groaned softly while standing up, putting his legs down from the bunk.

“i’m bradford, chris bradford. and i know exactly who you are.”

harry was definitely dumbfounded, “what? how do you-?”

“your case was all over the news, even inmates got to know about it. but most of all, i know you because i’ve been you.”

harry’s confusion must’ve been displayed clearly on his face, because chris just scoffed and kept on talking.

“we’ve been framed by the same person." he murmured, "and we’re gonna take her down together.”

—

the latin phrase mors tua vita mea, of medieval origin, means “your death, my life” (or: “your death (is) my life”).

beyond the dramatic tone of the literal sense, this expression is used when within a competition or in the attempt to reach a goal there can be only one winner: the saying indicates that the failure of one is an indispensable prerequisite for the success of another.

—

taglist: @a-strange-familiar @stilesissaved @harrysonlylover @walkingintheheartbreaksatellite @kittenhere @neverstaisfied

–

please, let me know what you think and please, please reblog! thank you so much for being here, it means the world <3 also, just a little fyi, there's no plan for a part 2!

[strangelittlestories]

My teammates tell me I’m gonna to croak on the job.

They don’t mean soon. They’re not, y’know, assholes about it. They don’t mean I’mma get myself ended because I’m not good enough. They don’t even mean I’ll bite off more than I can chew. I can chew a lot, metaphorically speaking.

(And, like, sure I’ve snuffed it once or twice in the course of a mission - but it never *sticks*. And, sure, my team would probs suggest I add ‘so far’ to that sentence. But ‘hell never sticks … so far’ is grammatically weird, I think, so I reckon I’m morally in the right.)

What they mean is: I’ll never let myself leave the job, so of course I’ll lose myself to it.

Which. Y’know. Fair.

A lot of folks in the profession have this issue, of course. When you’re in the world-saving game, it can be tough to justify quitting and letting someone else take a turn.

I call it the Heroic Paradox. The ‘Heradox’, if you will.

Paradox part 1: an apocalypse demands a ‘hero’ or ‘heroes’. If it does not find one, a hero must be created. This is rough for the hero, ‘cos they’re a normie with a normal life and the process of going hero mode will take that life away from them.

(I’m actually not a huge fan of the term ‘hero’, but ‘designated end-of-days preventer’ is lengthy.)

Paradox part 2: if an apocalypse begins and the hero(es) already exists, then job’s a good’un, just crack on with business and de-apoc the lypse.

Paradox part 3: if the hero(es) are a few apocalypses deep and now pondering retirement on a nice little island/farm/wizard tower/public office, you hit that awkward moment where a hero is called for, but not yet present. Best case scenario: some poor schmuck gets their life ruined by ‘destiny’.

Worst case? The hero refuses the call or gets snuffed out early or *there just isn’t anyone appropriate* and that situation really puts the ‘scat’ in ‘eschatology’.

So … yeah, I don’t see myself retiring.

But if I’m honest - if I peer really intensely at the squirming pile of neuroses that lurk beneath the justifications - I was this way *before* the stakes got this high. I’ve always been a ‘crisis mode’ kinda jerk.

Lurching from mission to disaster to disastrous mission has always been where I feel most *myself*.

Now you (or my team) might say: that’s no way to live. Everyone needs downtime. Rest. Enrichment.

It’s been the downfall of many a hero that they hit crisis mode so hard, they don’t bother going to *therapy*.

My answer to this is simple: if you treat self-care and self-maintenance as being *really fricking urgent*, you can roll that work into your *existing* crisis pattern.

This is actually pretty sustainable. Because first: that stuff *is* urgent and you’re a bilge-organist if you don’t realise it. And second: the best kind of therapy is always the one you’ll *actually do*.

So yeah: I’ll pass away on the job. Because even the soft fuzzy nonsense I do … it’s all for the job.

And you know what? If it means I’ll exit this world knowing who I am? I’m okay with that.

---

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[amalgamateofficial]

A Quick(?) Update

Hey, everyone. I never know what to say, and then because of that, day after day passes in silence. I guess I just want to say that yes, I’m still working on chapter 21 of Amalgamate, and also that I’m sorry for the absolutely ridiculous amount of time that’s passed between chapters. I know I’ve been “absent” a lot online, too. Rarely commenting on fics, taking days to respond to DMs, hardly livestreaming…

I’m sure it’s a no-brainer that the kind of person who writes a story like Amalgamate isn’t exactly a “well” person. Those who follow me on social media for my cosplay and art content see such a small, curated snapshot of reality. The smile doesn’t exist until I hit record, and it ends when the video stops. So every day, my followers see videos of me at my “best,” but I film as much as possible on a single day because the next “good” day could be weeks away. Sometimes I worry that the next good day isn’t going to come at all.

The most frustrating thing about it is that I’m well aware of the cycle. Every year, starting in August, the darkness starts to creep in. By September, it takes hold. By the end of October, it’s inescapable. November passes, then December. Last year, December almost ended in the worst way possible, but as cheesy as it sounds, Amalgamate convinced me to turn it around. I thought, “What kind of example am I setting here? How can I let people down like this?” 

So this year, I tried to prepare for the inevitable… and failed. I thought if I could post chapter 21 before the end of August, I could just curl up alone and wait for 2024 to be over. But then everything went to hell and I missed my goal, and when the darkness started to creep in at the edges, I tried to make another goal, and then another, but every single time, I was dragged right back down.

Then a mini cycle started to form within the larger cycle. Every day that goes by in which I don’t post chapter 21, I think the chapter needs to be even better to make up for how long I’ve kept everyone waiting. Then the pressure overwhelms me, and the terrible thoughts creep in, and then the guilt sets in, and then I’m curled up in the corner again with nothing accomplished. DMs are left to fester. Fics I want to read collect dust. I drift away, and I let everyone else drift away, and I sit and stare and wish things could be different. 

I suppose it’s not all doom and gloom though. I tried really hard to work on myself this past month, and I was actually successful in a few ways. I tried to clean myself up, and in some ways, I did a lot better than expected. I’m hoping that means I can turn things around again. I want to finish chapter 21, catch up on all the fics I want to read, start drawing regularly, and be an active participant online instead of just tossing out content in a desperate attempt to keep up appearances.

But it’s such an uphill battle. I feel worse now than I did last year, so I’m trying really hard to cling to that self-awareness and prevent things from going the way they did in 2023. But I know that’s not realistic. Everything in life is worse than before, and I see no evidence that it will improve anytime soon. So that means it’s on me to simply power through it and do the best I can.

So, for the sake of my own sanity, chapter 21 will get finished as soon as possible. I don’t know how much longer I can survive with this awful feeling, and that feeling will go away once the next chapter’s posted. In the meantime, I’ll try not to miss the mark with all my other goals. No matter what, I’m going to finish my Halloween cosplay special for 2024. Last year, I had some funds to help me. This year I don’t because I dropped out of most of my conventions, made a lot less art, and overall just kinda gave up on everything. 

But it’s not too late. I’ll dive into as many dumpsters as I have to in order to make a Halloween cosplay that will hopefully be as good as Mangle. This year, I’m gonna be cosplaying Spamton NEO – which is probably cheating since I’m already a failed content creator past their prime who has no choice but to wear clown makeup and wave their arms at anyone who happens to scroll by.

I never know what to say, so I guess all I can really say is that I’m trying my absolute best. I know my best is often really disappointing, but it really is the best I can manage sometimes. Even when I’m distant, just know that it doesn’t mean I love you all less, or appreciate you all less, or feel any less gratitude. It just means I’m in the dark, and I’m trying to crawl my way back. Which is very tiring. And overwhelming. But I never stop trying. In part because you all mean so much to me. Last year would’ve ended differently if that wasn’t the case.

Anyway, I don’t know what else to say other than thank you all for your continued support. I’ll try to make it all up to you and then some. Maybe this year I can end things on a high note for once. I’ll certainly give it my best shot.

Uuuh… I guess if you do want to see me at my best, though, you can always follow me on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. That’s the best version of me in between Amalgamate chapters, and I recently shared a ton of Danganronpa cosplay videos because of Dragon Con. I have a Patreon now too, and even though it’s a ghost town, I’m still posting as much content there as possible. I’ll keep dancing until the stage lights are forcibly shut down. I think that's the best way to guarantee that I can turn this ship around.

[writingsfromhome]

Dos and Dont’s Epilogue

Part 1 / 2/3/4

A/N: for those of you still needing more closure with this story this is for you

——————————————

6 months later:

My apartment was small but it was mine and I got to share it with one of my childhood best friends I’d reconnected with after moving back to the states last year.

Today the sun was setting on the beautiful November day. I had ordered in sushi and was enjoying a glass of wine, waiting for Deanna to get back home and tell me about her date.

These quiet evenings to myself always got me contemplative. Tonight was no different—I get to thinking about my day on set and how tomorrow was going to look.

After coming back from London and submitting my video proposal last spring, I had been rejected to nobody’s surprise. But that hadn’t stopped Harry from intervening and getting me a spot on set. It became a joke that I was a ghost intern there because really all I got to do was shadow people on set and help out where I could. And it had left me hungry for more.

I started building a portfolio and networking like crazy to get on more sets. So far I’d worked on three, once as a general assistant and twice as an arts assistant. I felt myself moving in the right direction I wanted to and it was thrilling.

I had Harry to thank for that really. And just like always, thinking about him sent a pang of achey regret through me.

I’m not sure what happened between us; we kept in touch loosely after I got back to the States. Mostly we talked about my future work and getting on set but after he actually got me on set and I got busy, our conversations fizzled out.

When I landed my second gig and had to maneuver my old job with Oretta she had ultimately let me go. I’d been bitter about failing something then but now I saw it as the kindness that it was—she had let me go and I had the room to pursue this new career.

It wasn’t easy though. The feeling of failure had driven me into the arms of a depressive episode that had taken me back home to Burbank. And when headlines were made of Harry’s new dates and women of the week, I’d taken it as a sign. We shouldn’t be in each other’s lives.

But I missed him every time I thought about him. And I always hated myself a little for not being brave enough to do anything about it, for pushing him away, and for liking him in the first place.

Clearly I was a very health person.

There was a knock on the door and I knew it had to be Deanna.

She distracts me with stories about her date and how well they hit it off. Apparently he kissed her goodnight right downstairs while I’d been drowning in misery on our living room couch.

The next morning, my phone rings at the ass crack of dawn. I expect it’s someone on set and end up being right. So with a few hours of sleep and a slight hangover from last night’s wine, I pick up a large coffee and get to work.

Last night’s thoughts bleed into my drive to work. It was when I was on set especially that I wanted to message Harry. I wanted to update him about all the cool things I was working on and hear what he thought. It was stupid but I wanted him to be proud of me too.

I wonder sometimes if I should have said something in London, been the bold one and taken a leap.

But I couldn’t have.

Harry was a damn rockstar and I was still figuring out my life. I can’t imagine it could have worked. So was it just the maybe, the what-if of us that kept looping in my mind? Or did what I feel for him mean something real, real enough not to shake so quickly.

A knock on my window scares me. It’s another one of the set assistants—Damien, waving at me. I guess I’ve just been parked staring into space. Oops.

“You need a coffee,” he tells me when I join him.

“Can you believe I’ve already had one?”

“I can probably find you a line of coke somewhere on set if you need something stronger?”

“Damien,” I pretend to be scandalized. But after working with these people over the last few years it was a pretty normal sight to see. “Ease into it first.”

He laughs, “I’m joking. I know you’re not…”

“I know,” it gets a bit awkward as it usually did with Damien and I when we started joking. “I’m joking too.”

His face flushes and I welcome someone calling me over to leave the awkward.

The day passes in a blur, the art director had a last minute change sending me to a local antique store trying to source props which was part of the job I enjoyed. With my headphones in I was in a world of structured creativity.

While I look through gold frames one of Harry’s songs comes on and I skip it automatically. I wasn’t quite ready to listen to his addictive voice croon about lovers of his past.

Not that I hadn’t tried going on dates of my own. But the thought of what-if kept me committing to anyone. If I thought about it for long enough it was actually annoying—how he somehow managed to still block my romantic life.

I’m invited for drinks after we’re done shooting for the day. Even though it’s pretty late I decide to say yes. Lately I’d spent my evenings when Deanna’s out just drinking by myself and being miserable. May as well drink with coworkers.

And I actually missed having regular coworkers, like I used to have Winnie. Shit talking about work to destress and drink was one of the highlights of making friends at work.

I have more to drink than I intended, and a small voice in my brain tells me that the amount of alcohol I’d been having recently might be a sign I’m losing it a little. But I order one last drink to shut it up.

At one point I start talking about horoscopes with someone in the bathroom and she ends up showing me how to use the lipstick I complimented them on to overline my lips, and I somewhat remember signing someone’s napkin and telling them to keep it for a few years and what it would be worth.

I also text Deanna an assortment of things and try to call my sister for a pressing matter that I can’t remember when it goes to voicemail. I end up babbling about drinking too much and needing to cut back.

I don’t know what time it is by the time I’ve ridden my high but I want to go home. I huddle by the entrance trying to remember if I came with a jacket tonight or not.

“You’re not driving home tonight are you?” Damien pops up beside me. We’d chatted throughout the night but I’d avoided any awkwardness by constantly inviting other people into the conversation. But right now he has me cornered.

“I’m a very responsible adult Damien,” I slur. “I am getting a taxi.”

“I can drive you home?” He offers.

“You were drinking too mister.”

“No,” he touches the tip of his nose. “I just had a beer and switched to soda afterwards.”

“That’s cheating,” I touch his nose and he laughs. I laugh too.

“We were invited out to drink,” he shrugs. His face flushes. “They didn’t specify what.”

“Cheater,” I tease. “D’you have a car?”

“I could drive yours home? And take an uber home from yours. We don’t live too far away.”

“No way!” I clutch my purse to me. “Nobody drives my car.”

“I didn’t realize you were so possessive.”

“It’s my car!” I let him know.

“But it’s parked on the street. You can’t leave it here weirdo.”

He had a point. Damnit.

“Fine,” I hand him my purse. He opens it tentatively and pulls the keys out.

“I just need these,” he hands my purse back.

“I need those back,” I remind him.

“I know,” he laughs, his hand coming down on my shoulder to lead me out. It sends a shiver down my spine. “I’m parking it in your garage and handing them right back.”

“Good.” I nod.

I pick the music until he tells me I shouldn’t go into singing and he switches the radio to a classical station. I pretend to snore.

“At least it might sober you up.” He pats my leg before snatching his hand off when he realizes he’d touched my bare thigh.

“I don’t feel so good.”

“I know, how much did you drink tonight y/n?”

“No I really don’t feel good.” I complain.

“Shit,” he mutters. “Just hold on.”

I do, I grip my door handle and will myself not to throw up in my car. I was at least lucid enough to know I would hate myself for having to clean it up tomorrow.

He pulls into a Trader Joe’s and I launch myself out in time to throw up on the pavement.

“Are you o-“

“Stop!” I splay my hand out behind me. This was embarrassing enough I didn’t need him to see me actually be sick. “Don’t come closer just…”

“I’ll get you some water.” He calls out and walks away.

How pathetic, I think. How pathetic was I.

Suddenly I want to cry and be left alone. I don’t want Damien driving me home, I don’t want to be drunk, and I don’t want to be here in the middle of nowhere.

When Damien gets back I’m sitting on the curb of a garden bed at the edge of a parking lot. He hands me the water and some electrolytes and gives me space which I’m grateful for. He does linger halfway in the driver’s seat and my anxiety builds until I get up and head back to the car.

“Someone kept calling you,” Damien mentions when I open my door. “I picked up after the third call. I didn’t want to bother you out there.”

“Oh, was it my roommate? Deanna?”

“No,” he scratches the back of his neck. I stare at him, waiting for him to sit back in the car and take me home. I wasn’t having fun anymore.

“Okay…?” I grab my phone from the centre console so I can check myself.

“Someone named Harry? He sounded worried?”

I look up at Damien, wondering if it was a joke even though I know it’s not. He doesn’t even know Harry. His face reflects back an awkward realization.

“Oh.” I can’t get out anything more. I could be decent and tell him that wasn’t my boyfriend—it wasn’t until this moment that I realized Damien was looking at me as more than just a casual friend. And a part of me wonders if that’s the only reason he was helping me out tonight. Then I banish the thought—that was rude. “Thanks for…letting me know.”

“I guess you don’t live with him if your roommate’s name is Deanna,” he tries to joke as he finally gets into the car.

“No that would be hard,” I reply. “He doesn’t live in the states.”

“Long distance,” he nods. I don’t reply and the car goes deathly silent as he drives me the rest of the way home.

I check my phone in the silence, Harry’s texted me. Before he called it seems:

Hey is everything alright?

Y/N I want to call you, you didn’t sound too good in your vm

I’m calling you

Shit! Did I call him first?

My face heats up with a stabbing sensation and I try to blink away the headache that was forming.

I check my call logs and sure enough after calling Deanna I’d called Harry. Why had I called him? I don’t even remember what I said in my voice message.

I groan.

“Is everything ok?” Damien asks.

“No I feel like shit-“

“Do you need me to stop again-“

“No.” I wave his concern away. “I just need to get home.”

I feel bad for him. I didn’t think I was leading him on in any way and yet he had driven me home because he liked me? I decide I’d call him his Uber myself to make it even. To feel like I didn’t owe him something.

When I finally drudge up my stairs to my bedroom I can barely be bothered to remove my clothes or take off my makeup. But my brain is wired thinking about Harry, how he called me.

I must still be somewhat drunk because as I lay horizontally in bed with half of my clothes on the floor I pick up the phone and call him.

H’s POV:

“Hi,” her voice is small and tired. My heart squeezes just hearing it.

“Y/n, you’re alright.”

“Yeah sorry, I think I mis-called you instead of my sister. Your names are beside each other.”

“So you were spilling your guts to your sister then?” I smile.

“Spilling my guts?” I can hear the strain in her voice.

I let her worry for a second longer, “No I’m joking.”

“Oh my god,” she sighs. “What did I say? Please tell me it was nothing embarrassing? It had to be bad if you called me right?”

“It wasn’t bad.” It wasn’t. But she sounded really drunk for a Wednesday night and she was blabbering about drinking too much these days, and needing to stop. It made more sense now that I knew it was for her sister. “But you sounded very drunk. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Sort of. I just wanted an excuse to call her and life had given me a pretty one.

It was stupid that I needed an excuse to call y/n after everything we went through. But truth was I had tried to get on with my life after we drifted away. And I think I did a decent job. I made the missing part shaped like y/n smaller and smaller until it didn’t bother me as much she wasn’t around. That we didn’t talk.

It was weird because she was a constant for a year—whether I liked it or not we had to be around each other all the time while she worked for me. Right up to the end even as things soured, as I wore regret like a second skin and forced myself to continue being the dick that she came to know me as.

And then she left and it felt like loosening my tie; breathing a little easier because I wasn’t always so hyperaware of her in the same room or next room over, about how she looked that day or the way she smelled, the joke she made or how angry she was with me.

Yet it didn’t help that she lingered everywhere.

But then I got to have her. All of her for a few weeks and letting her go after that felt more akin to torture than living with the regret for months while she worked for me. It was worse because I had her and I had to let her go.

I thought I knew what falling felt like, what it felt like to love somebody in all their flaws and be seen in return. But then I met y/n, fell for y/n, and everything changed.

“I’m okay,” she says softly. “I’m home in bed now.”

“Good,” I want to ask her about him. The bloke that answered the phone.

“Where are you?” She asks suddenly. “Isn’t it very early there?”

“Nearly half past 6,” I say looking at my watch. “And I’m at the gym.”

“That’s early,” she comments.

“I’m a morning gym person now.”

“Watch out world,” she says. It’s sleepy and makes me think of her curled into me on the sofa as our voices dim into sleep. Then nudging her to stay over and falling asleep in bed with me. So many hours of movies gone unwatched because we were too busy just being in each other’s presence.

The thing was, I had to let her go; you can’t cage a bright and vibrant woman like her. But it hurt doing that.

It sucked being selfless.

“You sound tired,” I say even though I want her on the line. Even if it’s to hear the sound of her breathing. “You should go to bed.”

“Sorry,” she whispers. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

My breath catches in my throat. I wanted to worry about her, to be close to her enough to worry. And the want of it feels like being punched in the gut.

“You there?” She asks.

“Yeah. Yep, sorry.” I clear my throat. “I’m still here. And it’s fine. I know what can happen when you get drunk, I’m glad you left me the voicemail.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” I miss you. I miss you so often I worry I’ll be stuck with the loss of you forever. And I care so much about you that I can’t risk ruining your life by having you.

“At least I didn’t have to go to the hospital this time.” She jokes. Her speech grows slower as I’m sure sleep pulls her in.

“No. Seemed like you would’ve had help though.” I comment. Fuck. I couldn’t resist.

“If I knew any better Mr. Styles,” she says. “I’d think that sounds like jealousy.”

She’s teasing me, I can hear it in her voice. But my heart pounds as she calls me out.

“Goodnight y/n,” I say cowardly.

“Goodnight Harry,” she replies. I wait for her to hang up first.

That morning, I have an incredibly productive gym session.

Your POV:

I remember last night in bits and pieces and I’m mostly embarrassed but I can’t stop hearing Harry’s voice in my head. The way he sounded when he said he was glad I left him the voicemail. How he sounded almost jealous at the idea that whoever picked up the phone could be more than a friend. I feel sucked right back to half a year ago when I couldn’t get him out of my mind.

The one thing I did know though, I had to really cut back on the drinking.

I go into work with a bag of doughnuts and hope nobody remembers last night in detail. I make sure to thank Damien and he’s as awkward as ever.

My thoughts are replaced by business and set instructions as the day goes on and I’m grateful for that.

At home I dissect the phone call with Deanna and when I’ve had enough I try to distract myself by asking about her life.

In a way talking to Harry again was like taking an elephant-sized step backwards—it felt like I was in the same headspace of wondering about him and yearning for him all over again. I found myself looking him up, checking to find new information on his life. Even when I could just text him and get the answers straight from him.

A couple weeks later as I park my car in my garage and make my way up to my apartment I get a call. It’s him.

“Hi? Harry?” I answer.

“There she is!” He says loudly into the phone. I have to pull it from my ear.

“Jeez you’re loud,” I comment.

“I need you to be louder,” he laughs. And I realize why he’s called. I check the time, it must be near midnight in the UK.

“Are you drunk dialling me?” My face stretches into a smile and it feels like a betrayal. Why did this man affect me so easily.

“I thought that’s what we did nowadays! Call each other drunk!”

“That was once,” I enter my apartment and put away my things while we talk.

“You’ve unlocked the garden door,” he continues. “And now I have stepped through. I am calling you.”

“He rhymes even when he’s drunk!”

“I write music!”

“I know,” I laugh. “Good music.”

“D’you listen to me?” He asks. “I never asked you that.”

“Mmm not really my taste,” I tease.

“S’cuse me?!” He sounds offended. “I have heard your taste and my music is for your palate.”

“No I don’t think so,” I was having fun.

“Y/n.” He says seriously. “I have heard you listening to Troye Sivan.”

“And? Are you comparing yourself with that fine man?”

He sputters and I continue winding him up until I finally confess: “I listen to your music. Just not lately.”

“Why?” He sounds sad.

“Are you drinking by yourself?” I ask. I imagine him in his living room, knocking back a few bottles.

“Yes. I’m drinking all by my lonely self. Because you’re not here.”

“Lonely self? That’s not what the papers say,” I say without meaning to.

“Y/n,” he lets out a small laugh. “Y/n y/n y/n. If I knew any better I’d think that sounds like jealousy.”

“Oh you’ve been keeping that in your back pocket!” I flush.

“Mhm,” he hums happily.

God, it hits me, what were we doing.

The line goes silent and I try to muster a positive voice to ask something to keep the conversation going but I find I can’t. I feel heavy and sad, like there’s a weight in my chest that’s pulling me down.

“Y/n,” he murmurs. Goosebumps erupt across my chest and I recall a memory of that exact voice in my ear with our hands entangled in his bed.

The ache in my chest grows stronger. So strong I nearly confess three words I barely admitted to myself.

I didn't understand it; how a man that made my life so miserable for so long could tug forth such intensity and longing.

He'd explained it to me—told me why he became what he did. And it just endeared me to him more.

Every man l've dated since, even the man I thought was it for me-Gray, never made me reach so deep into any feeling I was scraping the bottom looking for more.

He knew me enough to nudge me towards this new chapter of my life. This (forced) career change. He knew me in a way nobody else has. It was hard to let that go.

But he wasn't planning on sticking around for any of it—why.

“Why,” I start to ask. I bite my tongue before my impulsivity gets the better of me.

“What?” Harry asks.

“Oh nothing,” I try to play it off.

“You asking something?”

“Nope,” I deny.

“Just ask don’t be shy,” Harry taunts. “Y/n isn’t shy.”

“I-“ I’m tempted but I shake my head and then realize he can’t see me. “It’s nothing.”

“If it’s nothing then say it.” He pushes. He was pushy for being so drunk.

“Why did you stop talking to me?” I ask quickly.

The line goes quiet again.

“It takes two,” he replies. “To stop.”

“But why did you stop?” I ask.

“It wasn’t enough,” he states simply like it should make sense to me. But it doesn’t.

“What?”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk to me anymore. You got cold.”

“Cold?!”

“Yes!” He shouts again.

“Too loud,” I complain.

“Sorry,” he whispers. “You got cold like…like ice. You got icy. You iced me out.”

“No I didn’t,” I deflect his accusation.

“You did! And it wasn’t enough. And I thought y/n doesn’t like me so I let you go.”

What!? I try to make sense of his drunk ramblings. It’s because I was fired from my job, I was lost and spiralling and I stopped talking. I stopped responding to his texts as much until they stopped coming altogether.

“I didn’t like you a long time ago,” I tell him. “That stopped after we talked. After you explained things.”

“Why did you stop?” He asks me instead.

“I…I was going through a rough time. I didn’t mean to but after a while I just thought it was for the better.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were going through a rough time?” Harry asks with a surprising tone of clarity. “Why didn’t you let me help?”

“I didn’t want you to help.”

Maybe I did ignore Harry’s messages because I didn’t want to admit where I was. To admit that I needed his help. And I was too stubborn to admit that his connections in the industry could help me further kickstart my new career. That I could lean on him for help but it felt like cheating in an industry that liked to brag about working hard to earn where you got to. So I’d avoided him.

Jeez. I hadn’t even admitted that to myself until now. And suddenly the shame comes back tenfold. A creeping heat spreads up my neck alongside a slow squeezing of my chest as the silence stretches. I feel exposed and I want to bury myself under my blankets until the feeling passes.

“Why?” His voice breaks a little. I grit my teeth.

“I don’t know.”

“Y/n,” he says my name again and I want to cry. Because I say I don’t know but I do. And so does he. “Why are you building your walls again?”

I can’t speak, I’m so choked up with emotion and the last thing I want to do is cry over the phone to a drunk Harry. Unless this conversation sobered him up. Which is even more embarrassing.

"What do want us to be?" He asks suddenly.

"You can't ask me that," I say nervously, but the question zips through me in a frenzy.

"No you're right" he sighs noisily. "I think about you.”

"Me too," | whisper. Did he think about me when he was with all those women, I want to ask. Or was it subject to certain moments only.

"You ruined me y/n," he says it so softly I think maybe he hasn't said it at all. But he repeats it even lower and I know I didn't hear it twice.

My heart sings the same tune, and then I realize: how did I expect him to stay in touch and continue on with our lives when part of us would always be looking back at each other.

“I should go,” I try to keep my voice steady. “It’s getting late and Deanna’s coming home soon and I have to-“

“Okay,” he says but the word is laced with more. It’s okay.

“Okay.” I return. Will it be?

Silence again. The tears coating my lashes land on my cheeks and I wipe it away.

“I like hearing your voice,” Harry says.

“Me too,” I sniff.

“Goodnight y/n y/l/n.”

“Goodnight Har.”

***

I meant to text Harry after that conversation. I meant to apologize or say something—create a bridge that we can meet in the middle of. Even if it’s just as friends.

Me and him have been through a lot together, and so much on our own whilst around each other. We should be able to be friends, long-distance, pining but friends. It couldn’t be that hard.

And yet my fingers hover over his name every lunch break and bedtime. I think about him so much it becomes a permanent fixture in my brain.

And yet I never message him. Weeks go by and it stays quiet. Even from him.

On the final day on set I join some of the team for dinner and drinks. I stick to a single glass of wine and promise Damien I could drive myself home. I’d set him up with someone else on set who I noticed eyeing him with a lingering look and they had spent most of the night talking. It was sweet.

The group reminisces about the shoot and everyone pipes in about projects they were going to move onto soon. I didn’t have anything lined up right now so I listen to everyone else.

As night creeps up on us and people start to leave slowly, I text Deanna I was heading home too. After the night I spent drinking too much I’d taken to letting her know where I was and when I was heading home to make sure I stayed lucid enough on nights out. Otherwise we had agreed she would come and get me.

I step out with Damien and the girl he’s become attached to after tonight. We chat outside the place for a bit as her uber arrives and Damien points out he had driven today and parked nearby.

“I don’t know why we didn’t walk up long time ago,” I laugh and turn to Damien. “Don’t worry Damien I don’t need you to drive me home this time.”

“Uhh that’s good,” he says and motions behind me to my car with widened eyes.

“Yes,” I say with a smile. I spin around to my car and freeze.

The last person I ever expected to see leans against my passenger door, arms crossed and smiling with that smile that says I see you and I don’t care what you’re doing but I’m glad I’m here with you.

“Hi,” Harry says softly, his eyes twinkling under the street light.

“Hi?” I gape. “Wh-how-what are you…oh my god!”

His smile grows to a full grin as I throw myself at him and it’s like my mind and my whole world quiets. Like I never knew how loud everything was up until I felt the silence in his arms. Like everything would be okay because he was here.

“Oh god,” I turn back to Damien, remembering he was here too. “Sorry—I wasn’t expecting him to be here-“

“Is this Harry?” Damien asks.

I look at Harry and nod in response. Harry’s eyes flash with something as he leans forward and shakes Damien’s hand.

“I didn’t realize by Harry you meant Harry Styles uh it’s nice to meet you?” Damien’s awkwardness comes back in full force.

Harry’s eyes flicker between Damien and I and I remember that he thought there was something going on here.

“Damien and I worked together on set. Today’s actually our last day!”

“Yeah!” Damien fidgets. “It was a cool time…”

“Yeah?” Harry lights up slowly, realization dawning on him too. “Well I have to say thanks mate, for taking care of her the other night. That was you right?”

“Oh right when I picked up your call,” Damien nods. “Shit I didn’t realize who I was speaking to…” We laugh as Damien grows more awkward. “Anyway I’ll leave you two alone. G’night Y/N. Nice meeting you Harry.”

“Goodnight!” I wave him off.

I turn back to Harry with a huge grin. “You totally thought he was with me didn’t you?”

“Can you blame me?” He asks, his hand coming down on my waist, tugging me towards him. I go without hesitation.

“You’re here,” I take his face in my hands. “How? Why? When? Tell me everything.”

“I was in town,” he starts.

“Really?” I raise a brow.

He laughs, and hearing it rumble through his chest while his arms encircle me feels like a shot of espresso straight to my heart.

"Y/n," his mouth forms my name. I want to taste the way that feels again. See if that's changed too.

"You're here."

"How did you know?" I ask even though I knew it had to be Deanna.

“I have my sources,” he smiles secretly. We can’t stop smiling.

He brushes my hair to the side and it feels like a dream. He was here. He was gathering my face in his hands, hands I only dreamed of.

“I was in town,” he begins again. “Because I couldn’t stop thinking of you.”

My breath catches and I can't stop staring at him; he looks even more handsome and chiseled than the last time I saw him.

He looked like something that made my heart sing and my stomach tingle.

I trace my hand up his arm and around his shoulder. I want him to kiss me, I want to feel his arms around me.

He laughs which makes me laugh but neither of us take our eyes off of each other.

He reaches up, fingers threading through my hair. "Is this okay?"

"You're always okay," | say which makes him laugh again. What I mean to say is we're okay. Whatever you want to do is okay, as long as it's with me.

"I missed you." He whispers in my ear and it travels right to the centre of my heart.

"Prove it." I respond.

His mouth is delicate as it presses against mine, whispering soft words against them. They make me ache with a hunger I'd only ever felt around him.

When he looks at me again his eyes are more black then green but I recognize them the same. I don’t know how we’re going to make the trip back home when clearly we just want to soak each other in again.

I have an idea.

I open the backseat and Harry looks at me with a mischievous smile.

“Really?”

“You’re not getting lucky,” I roll my eyes with a smile. “But I really want to kiss you indecently and this is the closest place to do that.”

With a laugh he hustles in, tossing something in the backseat, and I follow, every inch of my body aflame. He shuts the door behind me and meets me halfway.

***

Waking up to Harry is better than catching up with him last night. Because things are so much more real when they remain the morning after. It doesn’t feel like just a dream.

“G’morning,” he mumbles when our eyes meet. He looks sleepy but content. Or maybe that’s just how I feel.

“Morning,” I smile, suddenly feeling shy. Last night was all passion and fun but the reality sets in this morning—what were we? Where were we going from here? “M’gonna brush my teeth.”

He follows me into the bathroom, luckily Deanna’s already headed off for work. He brushes with me in the small sink and we can’t stop looking at each other through the mirror. Like our eyes were magnets and they couldn’t help but find their way to the other’s.

“So did you really come all this way for me?” I ask as I brew us coffee. “Does anybody know you’re here?”

He tilts his head, “a couple people know I’m here but everyone thinks I’m just taking some time before we wrap up my album next month.”

“What!” I stop what I’m doing to give him my full attention. “You’re nearly done?”

“Yeah!” He comes closer to me, taking the coffee pot from my hand. “Final sound editing at the studio up north. So I’m s’pose to be here next month anyway but I’m just here early. For you.”

I’m afraid to ask, did that mean he was all mine for the next couple weeks of November? But the moment passes and I continue putting together a breakfast.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” I say for the millionth time.

“Me too,” he kisses the side of my neck and helps me carry our coffees to the table. “I intend to spend as much time with you as possible.”

He answers my unasked question and I feel like I’m glowing from the inside. “Yeah well I just finished on set so I’m unemployed until the next thing I’m on. So I’m all yours.”

“How’s that all going? Tell me.”

So I do. I take him through the sets I’ve been on and the people I’ve worked with. He asks great questions and I feel so deeply seen and not just because he doesn’t take his eyes off of me once.

The conversation leads to a repeat of last night and we end up spending most of the day in bed but I wasn’t complaining.

“I haven’t done this in ages,” he says with a kiss on my head. “Just stayed wrapped up in sheets all day.”

“I think the last time I did this was in London, with you.” I kiss his chin. “That feels so long ago.”

“Every day without you feels so long,” Harry says. “I shouldn’t have let it get this long.”

I shrug, “Yeah. I think I convinced myself it was good. We were fine like that. But now that I have you my god that was too long.”

He chuckles and pulls me into a deeper kiss. He tastes like sleepy familiarity and his hands grip me in places that have made a home for his fingers. I think I was in love with this man.

“What?” Harry asks. I must have paused. “You alright?”

“Yeah yeah,” I go back to kissing him but he pulls away. “No I’m fine! Promise.”

He believes me.

We spend a few days just doing nothing but everything with each other. I introduce him to Deanna and we do dinner together with Harry in a costume so he doesn’t get recognized. Deanna finds it very amusing and so do I. Harry seems tense and I worry it’s because we’re laughing at him but he reassures me it’s not.

I know it wasn’t going to last forever, Harry had a busy life to get back to, but I savour the slow moment we have all to ourselves.

Near the end of the week, while I’m driving us out to a hiking spot Harry brings up something on his mind.

“Can I say something, and you can’t get mad?”

“Well I can’t guarantee that.”

“Try not to?” He asks.

“Maybe.” I can’t promise him that.

“Fine I’ll settle with maybe,” he jokes.

“So are you going to tell me?” I eye him as I pull into the parking lot. He had gone silent.

“Yes, I’m getting to that.” He bites his lip. “Don’t take this the wrong way but you seem a bit distant. Not from me just…from yourself.”

“I seem distant from myself?” I laugh.

“Yeah,” he fidgets with his belt and we exit the car. “Like the y/n I know is only 70% there.”

“What?!”

“No see now don’t go getting mad love,” he says and his pet name only softens the moment slightly. “I just wonder if you’re really alright.”

“Of course I am,” I bristle.

“You always have this fire about you but right now-.”

“Jeez Har, if you’re comparing me to before in London I was more high strung than usual, constantly stressed and having personal issues with my ex. And you were making my life hell. Why are you comparing me to her?”

“No I know!” Harry tries to hold my arm but I brush him off and speed away down the trail. But his stupid long legs catch up easily. “This isn’t coming out how I meant to. But even when we were together last spring. You were still you. You just seem a little sad?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I pull away from him more. “You can’t go MIA for months then pop back into my life and tell me I’ve changed like it’s a bad thing.”

“Y/n you’re purposely not understanding me here,” Harry starts to grow frustrated beside me and it makes me less frustrated sharing the emotion. Like I said—I was very healthy. “I’m not saying you’ve changed. Or that changing is a bad thing! I think you’re a lot more confident and stronger than ever before. I’m just saying your light’s been a bit dimmer in the time I’ve been with you and I’m worried you’re going through something you’re not sharing.”

“Oh my god,” I feel tears prick my eyes and I blink them away before stuffing my glasses onto my face. “My light’s been dimmer? Seriously? I’m fine. I’m okay Harry. You don’t have to worry-“

“But I want to-“

“Well you don’t. And it’s a little late to try and pry me open and dissect what you think is wrong with me.”

“Well I’ve already pried you open it’s the dissecting part that—ow!”

I’ve hit him with my bottle and he shuts up. He was so not funny.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes. “But I’m here if you want to talk.”

Too little too late, I think bitterly. And the strength of the bitterness surprises me. I stay quiet, not wanting to spew anything I’ll regret later. He trails behind, giving me the space I need.

Apparently I was bitter about our time apart. But I know that wasn’t entirely his fault—I’d admitted to pushing him away because I’d been too embarrassed. Too stubborn to accept I could use his help. So what was it?

I didn’t think I was any less myself than I was a year ago. But as soon as I think it I know it’s untrue.

I sigh and let the sunlight filtering through the coastal oaks and shrubbery warm my skin. Harry continued a steady pace behind me and I feel slightly sorry for getting so defensive.

I continue one step at a time on the worn path walked by so many. I’d done this several times with friends and it was supposed to be special doing it with Harry but I’ve just ruined it.

I ruined it.

If I was any lesser than in my personality, like Harry said, it was probably because I ruined things. And I was upset with myself. I feel like I let Harry go, that I failed at the career I thought I was going to spend a lifetime. I ruined the thing between Harry and I with pride, by pushing him away! And life’s beaten me down with it.

I haven’t been being very honest with myself. Because the truth did hurt. And I’ve been a wimp.

I glance back at Harry but his head his down, his head of curls bouncing at the effort of the uphill slope. My heart floods with warmth just looking at him and I can’t believe I’ve been an idiot.

“Harry,” I stop in the middle of the trail and he nearly bumps into me. He steadies himself on my shoulder and I grasp his hand there before he can remove it. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be a bitch back there.”

“It’s alright.” He squeezes my shoulder, but his eyes are still wary. “I shouldn’t have been so insensitive. I do that sometimes.”

“No,” I rush to answer. “No you have a point. And I don’t expect you to ever stop calling me out-“

“Likewise,” he gives me a small smile that feels like relief.

“You’re right. I just don’t think I’ve sat long enough to accept it.”

His finger brushes my cheek, wiping the fallen tear. I was not supposed to cry!

“Let’s keep going,” he suggests and I’m grateful for that.

“I think,” I sniffle as my body strains to finish the final stretch of our hike. “I feel like I should be happy and grateful for where I am now. I’m actually really passionate about this new work I’ve been taking on! But a part of me feels like I’m going through the motions. And that makes me feel so shitty.”

My life in London had crashed and burned but it had felt full. Out here I was so spread apart from everyone, I no longer worked at a steady job, and the only person I had was Deanna. Sometimes I think I relied on her too much.

“I think you expect too much of yourself,” Harry puts his hand around my shoulder as we near the end and even though I’m sweaty and it’s kind of gross I let him. “I know how that goes.”

“Yeah maybe,” I brush away another tear. “I just don’t feel very present. I’m either living in the future or living in the past.”

Harry’s face twists into what I can only describe as a knowing grimace.

“Well we made it,” I gesture to the open water below us. We stand for a little while, breathing it in. It reminds me of the first music video set I’d been on with him. When we were getting along and he had seen my enthusiasm for that sort of thing.

“I’ve been living in the past a lot.” Harry admits. “More than usual.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Y/n,” he says and I turn to look at him. Right, I flush. Me.

“What the fuck did we do to each other?” I ask and we laugh. And then laugh some more, releasing a tension neither of us realized we were carrying.

We end up sitting in the ground catching our breaths again. He pulls me into his chest and kisses the top of my head.

“I don’t know how we keep screwing up.”

“It should be a record,” I laugh. “We really don’t know how to deal with each other.”

“Fucking hell,” he laughs.

“What do we do?” I look up into his eyes that are deeper than the forest we hiked through. They’re so full of love that I could drown in them willingly.

“Firstly I should tell you something, long overdue.” He says. He kisses me with a sweetness before telling me, “I’m madly in love with you. I never thought I could feel this way about someone.”

“Well I don’t know how that someone could be me,” I joke but mostly to cover up just how hard his words hit.

“You wound up in my life when I was at my worst-“

“And taken you even lower,” I joke again.

“No.” He brushes my cheek. “No, that was my own doing. You made me believe I could be better. That I should be better, that I shouldn’t be defined by past mistakes. I love you y/n.”

Woah. I wasn’t expecting that.

I scramble to sit up and face him. “Seriously?”

“So serious.”

“Harry,” I hold his face in my hands. It was true, something I barely admitted to myself but as I roll the words through my head it feels true.

“Don’t feel pressured to-“

“I love you too Harry. God. I love you. That felt good to say.”

He laughs and pulls me to him, and even though we’re smiling too hard to actually get a proper kiss in it’s one of the most romantic moments of my life.

“I don’t think this is going to solve our issues,” he says once we’ve dusted ourselves off and prepare to say goodbye to the view. “But I want to try to stay connected.”

“You’ve told me you love me there’s no getting rid of me now.” I warn him.

“I was scared,” he confesses. “I never told you I wanted you to stay. That I wanted you so fucking badly because I was scared you would get so overwhelmed by my life, how much is in the public eye and all of that. I don’t want to subject you to that-“

“We’ve already been papped together remember?” I raise a brow. He blushes as the memory surfaces.

“The night I acted like a complete arse yeah thanks for reminding me.”

“Look at you blushing,” I pat his cheek. He brushes me off. “But I know what I’m getting myself into Harry. I’ve worked for you! I know how public your life is. And we can figure it out.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!” I reassure him.

“Does that mean…?”

“What are you asking Mr. Styles?”

“Please don’t call me that again,” he groans. “I don’t want to be Mr. Styles to you anymore.”

“No?”

“Only if you’d be Mrs. Styles.”

Now it’s my turn to flush. He laughs at me the same way I did him.

“Harry I barely know what I’m doing with my life. But I do know I love you, and I want to be with you. So I’ll figure the life stuff out as long as I get to have you.”

“That’s very romantic.” He teases.

“I know,” I smile.

“Good. I’d give up the life I have now if it means getting to have you Y/N.”

“Romantic enough,” I tease.

“Remember when we realized we had been at the same Coldplay concert and-“

“Not this again,” I groan. “I’m not bloody asking you to give up your fame and money to start a family.”

“I know I know!” He laughs. “But I just want to tell you that you could. I wouldn’t mind.”

I fan myself, “It’s getting too romantic. Let’s get out of here.”

And that’s the note on which we make our way back down to our car, completely different how we made our way up. It sets the tone for the remainder of his time here.

8 months later:

“G’morning!” I wave to the front desk and walk to the elevator that would take me up to the apartment I called home now. It was spring in the city I’ve grown to love again.

“Is that you?” Harry’s voice calls out when I walk to the kitchen.

“Yes! And I have coffee!” I shout back. I couldn’t sleep last night—first day jitters that I always got when working on a new set.

“Bollocks!” Harry’s voice sounds closer. “I was supposed to do that for you for first day on set.”

“Too bad,” I push the coffee towards him on the island but he ignores it to come to me instead.

“Is it?” He arches a brow. His hands are already running up my sides and my breathing grows shallow. He never failed to pull this reaction from me. Even when we “hated” each other.

I can’t take the teasing so I lean up to press my mouth to his and the coffee is forgotten as he lifts me up on the island and trails his lips down my body. I didn’t need caffeine when I had this.

No. Wait. I had a job to get to.

“Harry,” I try to grab his face back up. “Harry, love, I can’t-fuck.”

“Sorry,” he smiles up at me sheepishly and if I could take a shot of that face it would seriously sustain me for the rest if my life.

“I can’t.” I pout.

“I know. Sorry I got carried away.”

“Drink your coffee,” I steal one last kiss. “Now I feel like I need a cold shower.”

His laugh echoes through the room. “I said I was sorry!”

He dramatically moves to the opposite end of the island and sits down, holding the coffee up to his face. “Mmmm.”

I smile at the man who had my soul and heart. I was so glad I’d made the plunge to move back to where he was.

After Harry left the States when he finished his album we had tried our best at long-distance. I was afraid to uproot my life to London again and he was willing to move out to San Francisco but I didn’t want him to. I knew his life was in London.

We tried going back and forth for a couple months. I’d invited him back home to Burbank during one of those trips and everyone had hit it off. It almost felt like the missing piece I was looking for to take the plunge. To decide once and for all I was moving away again.

The last time I moved I was running away from everything I knew because I thought it would gain me independence and a life I craved. But ultimately I came crawling back home.

This time I take the leap running to something.

I miss being closer to family, and living with my best friend. I beg Deanna to visit every time we catch up but recently she’s told me she’s moving in with the guy she’s been dating and it makes me feel less bad about leaving her behind again.

Harry decided to move his work life out of the flat to give me privacy, now his team worked out of a small office in central and sometimes I popped by when he was there. We tried to keep ourselves out of the limelight, and so far things had stayed private.

“I’m going to pick you up tonight,” Harry reminds me. “Are you sure I can’t give you a lift there too?”

“No I want to take the train,” I insist. I needed my first day to be independently mine.

We chit chat as we finish breakfast and then I’m out the door again towards my first day. It’s a cool morning but the sun climbs into the sky and I know it was only going to get warmer.

I had promised the city that I’d be back one day and this was it. I had laid down roots once before and I was back to try once more; my heart was open enough to embrace it, healed enough to love it again.

I was embracing life again and it felt like my glow was back.

Jeff keeps asking if you’re showing up to the album launch, Harry texts.

Obviously, does Jeff not want me there? I text—it was a running joke between us ever since we came out to Jeff that he hated us together. His reaction had been surprise and then resignation. He was tight-lipped about us any time he saw us together.

He’d rather you throw the party.

I didn’t miss that part of the job. Now when I look back at my old career I’m not sure how I did it for years. It was a stress I didn’t want back.

He’d have to pay me a million dollars, I text back.

I’ll let him know your new rates

I get to the tube and sit down. As I lose service I get one last text from Harry.

I love you. Break a leg

And then: but don’t get concussed or anything

I roll my eyes but the smile stays on my face. To be loved is to be known but to be loved is also to have someone else know all of your stupid moments and know you won’t ever live them down.

I send back a heart and an eye-roll emoji.

The tradeoff was worth it…most of the time.

[ricard-blythe-ffxiv]

DWC November 2024- Day 2 - Deceit

@daily-writing-challenge

There had been a certain…freedom he had gotten used to having in his adult life. 

He moved as he pleased, came and went with very little notice - sometimes he left a note, often he would let the office know out of pure necessity and he would simply…vanish. Because he could. Because his other work demanded it. 

And he’d reappear when he felt like it. 

There were no connections - outside of his parents - nothing to hold him down or in place, and he preferred it that way.

Or…that’s what he kept telling himself. 

And then things shifted and it felt like his whole fucking world turned on it’s axel.

Ricard sighed heavily, closing the file he’d been staring blankly at for the last…hour? Maybe longer - he’d lost track of time, before pulling open his desk drawer and retrieving a cigar from a tin within, as well as a lighter and a cigar cutter. He was distracted, again and that wasn’t going to get any work done. 

He’d barely managed to clip the end off the cigar when footsteps from the hall drew his attention away for a brief moment - his father narrowing his eyes in his direction as he picked up the lighter. 

“You know your mother hates that habit of yours.”

“She hates a number of my habits - this among them. I could be doing much worse.”

“You could not be doing it at all, Ricard.”

After barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes, he exhaled a plume of smoke instead as he leaned back in his chair, motioning to the chair across from him. “I’m guessing you didn’t come down here to admonish me for my bad habits…”

“No - I came down here to check on you. You’ve been quiet and oddly contemplative.” It took a moment, but Gerald eventually took the offered seat, gaze shifting over his son  as he eased down. “And before you try to tell me I’m reading too far into things - I’ve worked with you for far too long to be convinced that this is simply distracted, Ricard.”

Another plume of smoke as he paused, turning the cigar between his fingers. “Was there ever a point where you stopped and wondered…if the things you’d been pushing against for so long were actually the things you needed to be moving towards?”

Gerald’s eyes narrowed as he glanced over the contents of the desk. “You’re not drinking, are you?”

Here Ricard did roll his eyes. “No, I’m not drinking...Yet. It’s a serious fucking question.”

There was a long pause as the older man considered the question, his hands laced together. “Yes - though you’re not going to like the answer of when it was.”

Ricard’s gaze cut across to meet his father’s - the older man tilting his head and shrugging.

“Fuck…really?! Then?!”

“I told you, you wouldn’t like it.”

“Not. Helping.”

Gerald sighed. “Ricard. First and foremost, don’t let your mother let you talk like this or she’ll have women lined up for you to meet and court before you can say “for Fury’s sake”. Second, I think it’s reasonable to consider whether staying on the run the way you have been for the majority of your “adult” life is something you can maintain. It doesn’t mean you have to make a change right this second. Finish your cigar, finish what you need to with that file, then go home and get some rest - you’re overthinking things.” He stood, walking over and setting a hand on his son’s shoulder before moving towards the door, tossing a wave over his shoulder. “Don’t stay at the office too late.” 

Left once again with his thoughts, Ricard shook his head - glancing at the cigar before setting it down with a tired sigh. 

He’d spent his entire adult life moving from place to place as he pleased with nothing to tie him down, and he’d preferred it that way. 

That’s what he’d told himself - insisted. 

And then the events of the last year, of the last six months, of the last three weeks and come in and thrown all of that into disarray. 

His reconnection with Cordelia, Valeria’s death - suddenly everything seemed fragile and fleeting and the idea of delaying didn’t seem…acceptable.

He could try to convince himself that he was content to remain disconnected - to maintain his ‘freedom’ - but it was a lie not even he believed anymore. And if he couldn’t convince himself, how the hell was he going to convince anyone else?

He really fucking hated it when his mother was right. 

[wellntruly]

Blogging, vol. v

I’m having surgery tomorrow. Why this is always happening in November is beyond me, but it sure is an aesthetically kind month to not work and be extra-grade cozy in soft knits, sipping soups, while outside it rains grey on amber.

Unlike my gum surgery last year, this one I had no idea was coming for me, and the weeks getting up to the point of finally knowing what was going to happen were, not to exaggerate, not good. It's odd that it's better now, since it was indeed something you don't want to find. But then you can start to process. Process, process.

I actually tend to do quite well with surgery, both as a concept and a thing to heal from, even before I spent my recovery from the previous one watching a 50 year old TV show about surgeons. I find the kind of pain engendered by things you need stitches about to be quite reasonable mentally; it hurts, it hurts there, for this reason, you have pills to dull it, and it will gradually heal. Simply “feeling sick,” or worst of all nauseous, that’s what can make me wonder what it’s all even for. Miserable, derogatory.

So the fact that it really seems a predominantly surgical approach is going to be most of what we need to take care of this problem has me almost overwhelmed with gratitude. It could have been far, far worse for me. But I have all the most treatable metrics for this, even being rather young for it has the silver lining of meaning I should heal well. And I’m so lucky to have a warm, funny, exceptionally skilled surgeon who actually went through the same thing when she was also my age, and that honestly, I’ve absolutely the Edward Gorey illustration body type to probably even end up looking pretty chic going down to just a bit of an A cup, which is what she's going to be able to do, not to bury the lede. Surprise top surgery, is what I’ve been calling it, and thank you to the boys for the re-contextualizing dream that is the phrase ‘top surgery’, a concept of such positivity; life-affirming, life-saving.

It is a strange, swift-approaching change to reckon with though, impossible to avoid that. I've always tended to dress as if I don’t even have the actually, admittedly, great boobs that I've had up til now, but it is still the body I know. I’ll roll onto my stomach in bed and think, for one that I soon won’t be doing this at all again for a while, and that when I do, it’s going to feel different. Fascinating to consider.

I'm leaning into a sort of Orlando-like curiosity about it, this vague physical transformation just spontaneously befalling me in my adulthood. How will this be. What sort of opportunities might this actually grant. I’ll be endeavoring to hardly ever wear a bra again, I’ll tell you that for certain. Should I use this as the push to finally get a bespoke suit, soft and wide-legged, with a jacket that can fall in just a clean draped line from my shoulders? Will I be able to wear suspenders? I think about watching Margaret Qualley in The Stars At Noon this summer, how I watched her just drop a loose sundress over her bare body, entirely backless, and walk out the door. I think, of course, of "Keira Knightley Atonement," as my inspiration board folder is called.

I’ve also been thinking about this blog, what I think Tumblr user sashayed once called her secret public journal. Sometimes what I or others will post can break into the very real & personal, like this, for the benefit that comes from just releasing, sharing the large challenging things in our lives. I think about a long-time mutual who posted about some of the strangeness she felt during hospitalization for an accident, how recalling some of what she wrote about has brought me a feeling of solidarity in this.

But there’s also how I’ve actually been blogging about this for weeks and weeks, it’s just only been for me. Another kind of secret public journal. This butterfly coming out of a row of cocoons in a window: this was for how I was, fully insanely yes, watching A Zed & Two Noughts while I was wracked with anxiety over what might be going on with my body, but/and the idea of emerging after this surgery new and striking and light. This is self-explanatory. This tiny-chested witch vaulting skulls is “literally me” goals this time next October. This was actually exactly, exactly my vibe getting my biopsy, with the sweetest nurses.

And now at last it all comes together, the public and private journal, on the eve of really what we’re all waiting for, oh god me for sure: the return of painkiller diaries. Painkiller diaries is a lifestyle, actually, it’s an ethos. I let myself so wholly rest after my gum surgery last year that the rest of November was the happiest I’d been in years. Please, again. Return to cashmere convalescence. And would you look at this beautiful soup sippin' mug I’ve gotten since then:

Oh I think we’re ready.

[miastideclock]

a year with bang chan, "may 30th."

word count: 1057 warnings: not edited, cursing notes: not sure that i love how this turned out, but we're getting there

january 2nd ⁺₊ february 14th ⁺₊ march 2nd ⁺₊ april 17th ⁺₊ may 30th ⁺₊ june 4th ⁺₊ july 14th ⁺₊ august 1st ⁺₊ september 12th ⁺₊ october 3rd ⁺₊ november 1st ⁺₊ december 31st

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾ ⋆⁺₊⋆

int. kitchen. late evening.

you found yourself standing in the kitchen, watching the glass in your hand slowly fill up, your other hand on the handle of the tap, ready to shut it off when you had acquired your desired amount of water. once the water reached a specific level, you cut the tap, letting silence wash over the room. you were home alone, so not a single sound could be heard.

the ticking of the clock seemed to be gone, as was the humming of the electricity in your appliances. the street outside had apparently been abandoned as there wasn’t as much as a cyclist rushing by. the silence left you with your thoughts, which recently hadn’t been the warmest.

you’d felt shitty all week, and you couldn’t seem to properly figure out why - not until now at least. you missed your boyfriend. the two of you hadn’t had time to yourself in weeks, and you had a theory that it took a toll on you.

the jingling of keys broke you out of thought, and you finally raised your glass to your lips to take a sip as you turned around, waiting for the love of your life to enter.

“hey bubba.” you greeted as he shuffled into the kitchen, a smile on his face as he saw you.

“hello, my love.” he replied as he placed his bag down on one of the kitchen chairs, then stepped over to you to give you a hug. you copied his actions by placing your glass down and meeting him in the middle, wrapping your arms around his neck as his snaked their way around your waist.

“how was your day?” you asked after you had properly greeted him with a kiss.

“hectic to say the least, but progress was definitely made, so i’m happy about it. how about yours? how’ve you been today?” he reciprocated your kiss and pulled away as he returned your question back to you. he made his way over to his bag and started roaming through it, presumably looking for his phone.

“actually..” you trailed off, instantly sending a signal to chan that what you were about to say wasn’t as happy-go-lucky as he had been. his attention turned to you within a millisecond, a slight frown on his face. ”oh, no don’t worry! it’s not something bad!” you quickly assured him, even though you weren’t sure if you were being a hundred percent truthful. his frown fluttered away, leaving him neutral and in anticipation of what you were to say next.

“i just,” you started, tilting your head slightly as you looked at him. “i’ve had this icky feeling lately, and i honestly think it’s because i miss you. we haven’t had time just to ourselves in a while.” you smiled almost sadly.

chan’s expression soon changed into one you didn’t expect; confusion. “what do you mean? we just had that date at the zoo?” he spoke, returning a portion of his focus back to his bag as he kept looking through it for something.

“chan, babe, that was well over six or seven weeks ago. and i know i’m being unfair, because it sounds like i’m trying to put the blame on you, when i am equally at fau-” you cut yourself off when you grew frustrated with your partner. “will you look at me when i’m talking to you?” your tone wasn’t angry or annoyed, but rather desperate as you begged him to pay attention to you.

your words seemed to work as he soon pushed his bag away, turning so he was fully facing you as you hopped up onto the counter, your palms placed securely against the edge of it.

“yeah, sorry.” he started, shaking his head gently as he too understood that it was rude of him to not be fully in the conversation when you were expressing your feelings. “i hear you, but you know just as well as me that we don’t have all that much spare time anymore.” he trailed off as he looked at you apologetically.

“i know, but i could take a day off work, you could do the same! and then we can-” you were yet again cut off, but this time it wasn’t by yourself. chan scoffed at your statement, causing you to stop dead in your tracks. “what was that about?”

he sighed before he spoke up, giving you the impression that he would rather be anywhere but having this conversation. “i can’t just take time off work like you can. not just anyone can cover for me.” he said, leaning back on the kitchen table behind him, his arms crossed loosely across his chest. you were quick to conceal the grimace you struck on instinct, but not quick enough for chan not to notice your furrowed brows and pained expression. his only reaction was to lift a brow to question you.

“yeah, i know our jobs aren’t on the same level at all, that is not what i’m trying to say, but there is no reason to be so condescending about it. just because there is someone else out there that does the same thing i do, doesn’t make it less important.” you spoke, your arms soon finding their way over your chest to mimic chan’s stance, but yours was in a more defensive manner than he found himself in.

“see, this is why i didn’t want to say anything! you always get so damn defensive, and i feel like i have to walk on eggshells around you. it’s annoying as hell.” he let out a small groan, and you swear to someone you saw him roll his eyes.

you found your lips parting slightly as your jaw went slack. you had never seen him like this before. you had seen him get upset and downright angry, but this bitchy attitude was new.

“you know what? forget i said anything.” it was your turn to scoff as you pushed yourself off the counter, your bare feet landing safely on the kitchen floor. without as much as a word, you left for your shared bedroom to be alone.

[padfootagain]

Something Good (XV)

Chapter 15 : Wake-Up Call

Hello! Here is a new chapter for my Ben Barnes series!

The menu for today’s chapter : Liam being jealous, an interesting dream…

Hope you like this chapter! Tell me what you think!

****

Pairing: Ben Barnes x Reader

Warnings: A heated scene at the end!! No actual smut but heavy make-out. Slow burn, professor AU.

Summary: Coming out of a divorce and trying to get used to being a single mom, while teaching your classes at University, you thought your life could not get more complicated than it already is. But when you are asked to take care of the theatre club with the colleague that you really can’t get along with, you realize that everything can still get ten times more complicated in your life. And when you start actually liking Professor Barnes, the troubles only grow exponentially…

Word Count: 3113

Masterlist for the series – Ben Barnes’ Masterlist – Main Masterlist

November flew by in a blur of meetings, classes, research, and midnight calls with Ben.

It vanished under the piles of laundry, the meals prepared for Sally, the new paintings from your daughter hung on the fridge, the afternoons spent walking with Ben.

It faded into the cold weather, the first Christmas decorations, the efforts of your ex-husband, the laughter from the theatre club, the lunches shared with Ben.

You had not acted on your feelings for him, and he had not acted on his feelings for you. Both of you seemed to be in a quiet phase of acceptance, of getting-used-to.

But the more you looked at him, the more you loved him.

And the more he talked with you, the more he loved you.

Sally was used to Ben’s presence already, and you were surprised by it. She longed for habits, you knew she did, because of the divorce, because of her two homes, but also because her father had failed the two of you for a while. She was used to being promised things she wouldn’t get from him. And you hated to admit it, but you knew it hurt her more than Liam could realize.

But she was getting used to the habit of seeing Ben on Sunday whenever she stayed with you. She was used to hear his name spoken in your home, to ask about him herself, to call him on the phone.

You would have been lying had you pretended that it didn’t worry you, because it did. She was getting attached to someone, someone you had grown close to only recently, someone who could leave…

Perhaps you were a little naïve, a little too optimistic, as you simply pushed your doubts away. Perhaps you were running away a little, as you simply chose to believe in him. But it felt too good, to spend time with Ben and see Sally grinning at him.

Sally had told her father about Ben, of course, and at first Liam didn’t seem to pay the man any attention. Maybe because he didn’t think you could love someone else as much as you had once loved him. Maybe because he thought you still loved him just the same. Maybe because he didn’t pay enough attention to what his daughter said in general.

So, weeks flew by and he ignored this Ben you and Sally mentioned every once in a while. Until that Sunday afternoon he spent with his daughter.

First days of December, and Sally was painting in the living room while Liam worked on his laptop by her side, a safe distance between them to avoid paint being splashed all over his expensive computer.

He looked up when she called him.

“Daddy! Look! I’ve finished another one!”

She smiled with her toothiest grin, showing him some red and purple flowers.

“Good job, darling!” her father gave her a proud smile. “You’re very good at painting!”

“Thanks, daddy!”

“Who is this one for? For me? For mummy? Or for granny, perhaps?”

“It’s for Ben!”

Liam frowned hard.

“Ben? You mean… mummy’s colleague?”

Sally nodded enthusiastically, her smile unfaltering.

“He’s going to eat dinner with us tonight! So, I’m making him a gift!”

“He’s eating with you?”

Again, Sally nodded.

“And… you’re okay with that, honey?”

But Sally’s smile widened even more, if that was even possible.

“I like Ben a lot! He’s my friend!”

“Is he?”

“Yes! We went to the park, and to the zoo, and we went to see the Lion King, and we’ve played together and he painted with me and mummy last Sunday!”

“Did he?”

And Liam cursed himself because he should have guessed. He should have paid attention, and he should have been more careful.

He let Sally keep on painting while he blankly stared at his screen. The long lines of numbers were still displayed across the pixels, but he couldn’t see any of them. Instead, his mind was filled with questions.

Who was this Ben to you? Why didn’t you tell Liam about him before?

Could he… could he be a threat? For Sally? For you? For Liam?

Could you… Could you be falling for someone else?

But he shook his head. No, none of this made sense. Liam and you were soulmates. He was certain of it. And he would conquer your heart again, he had no doubt that you still loved him, you had merely buried your feelings deep into your heart, that was all. But he was making efforts, and he would make more of those. And you would come back to him.

When it was time for Sally to go back to your flat, that all her stuff had been packed, Liam decided that he would talk about this… Ben with you. For sure he had a say in this. An adult entering his daughter’s life was no minor detail, and he needed to make sure that he was a good man, that he had good intensions, that he wouldn’t hurt any of his girls.

Sally ran to you as you opened the door, and you picked her up, holding her close.

“How is my little angel today?” you asked in a tender voice.

“Daddy and I did some painting! I have one for you!”

“Oh! Thank you so much! Did you have fun with daddy?”

“Yes!”

You smiled up at Liam as he dropped Sally’s bags in your hallway.

“Anything to report?” you asked him, but he shook his head with a reassuring smile.

“Everything went fine. We went to the park on Saturday, went to buy some groceries, and she spent most of her Sunday painting and looking at books.”

“Did you read, angel?” you asked your daughter, who nodded proudly.

“I only asked daddy four times because the words were too long!”

“That’s amazing, baby!”

You gave your daughter a big smooch on the cheek, making her laugh.

But Liam was not leaving, as he usually did, and you frowned at the sight.

“Is everything alright?” you asked him, and he nodded, but turned towards Sally anyway.

“Darling, why don’t you go play for a little while? Mummy and daddy need to talk about something.”

She nodded, although she was reluctant to let go of you just yet. But you gave her a tender smile.

“It won’t be long, angel. After that, we’ll unpack all your stuff, and get ready for dinner, okay?”

Sally nodded again, but more enthusiastically this time, and as you put her down on the ground again and helped her out of her wintery coat, she sprinted across the flat towards her bedroom.

You turned to your ex-husband, but you didn’t invite him inside your home beyond the hallway where the two of you still stood, so he walked to the living room without asking for your permission and took a seat around the table there, taking off his warm coat and scarf.

“What’s wrong?” you asked, your tone worried now.

“Nothing, I just want us to talk about something. Or rather… someone.”

“Who?”

You weren’t sure what to do with the thought that popped into your mind.

Has Liam found someone else?

He tapped on the table, fingertips making a rhythmic yet annoying sound. Which was a bad sign. He only did it when he was angry, but trying to remain calm.

“Sally told me about this… Ben. Who is he?”

You sat down as well, your glance cautious as it settled upon Liam’s.

“He’s a friend,” you merely answered.

“Really?”

“Yes. From work. We’re working on the theatre club together, you remember that?”

Slowly, Liam nodded, clenching his jaw.

“I see… and… when did this… Ben become a friend of Sally’s too?”

You couldn’t refrain a smile at Liam’s words. Sally considered Ben a friend? Good, it was good…

And Liam hated this expression on your face now…

“We’ve spent quite a lot of time together since we’ve come back from London,” you explained. “And he’s great with Sally.”

“Is he?”

Liam’s tone was blatantly aggressive now, and you frowned at the sound.

“Why are you angry? He’s a good friend of mine, and Sally likes him, and he likes Sally.”

“Don’t you think you should have told me about him before introducing him to our daughter?”

And perhaps he was right, for a part. But you didn’t like his tone; you could feel your own blood starting boiling in your veins.

“Well, I didn’t think it was necessary. You didn’t warn me about letting your secretary watch over our daughter, did you?”

He rolled his eyes, which properly pissed you off this time.

“Really? You’re hitting low.”

“You’ve set the bar low.”

“I just want to make sure that he’s a nice guy. That he is trustworthy. That he won’t hurt Sally, or you, by the way. I’m also worried about you.”

“There’s no need to be worried about me. I know what I’m doing. Ben is amazing, he’s a dear friend of mine, and he’s amazing with our daughter. Don’t you trust my judgement on that?”

“I do…”

“But?”

“But how can you be so sure? I had never heard about this guy before September, and now, I’m learning through Sally that he’s taken the two of you to the zoo, and that he’s coming tonight for dinner!”

“We weren’t close before September,” you explained. “But we are now.”

“How close?”

You narrowed your eyes at him. Because you recognized the fire that burnt in his eyes now, and you didn’t like it at all. You were about to answer when the doorbell rang.

“IT’S BEN!” Sally cried, sprinting from her bedroom to the hallway.

“Don’t open the door, Sally!” you admonished.

You hurried in the corridor, and found your daughter jumping up and down in excitement, but waiting before the door, obeying your order.

You opened the door, to find a grinning Ben on your doorstep.

And all traces of anger vanished from your heart at the sight of Ben’s dark coat, of his gigantic woollen scarf, of his dishevelled hair and glimmering eyes.

“BEN!”

Sally rushed to him and he chuckled as he picked her up in his arm.

“Hello, Sally! How is my favourite meerkat doing today?”

“Great! I’ve made you a painting!”

“Another one? For me?!”

“Yes!”

“I can’t wait to see it.”

He put Sally back down so she could hurry down the hall again, and you let him step inside.

“Good evening, Y/N,” he grinned, his voice low and so warm…

“Evening!”

“How are you?”

“Fine. You?”

“Perfect! I brought dinner, as promised!” he added, showing you the bag of Indian food in his hand. “And the movie.”

You laughed at that.

“Can’t believe I have to educate you this way,” he went on, teasing to make you laugh, and succeeding with ease.

You had almost forgotten Liam still being there, but you were quickly reminded as you heard the scraping of a chair against the floor.

Ben was still taking off his coat when Liam appeared.

“Hmm… Ben,” you called, making him look at you again, and he frowned at the sight of the man before him. “This is Liam. My ex-husband. Liam, this is Ben.”

Ben didn’t relax when he forced a smile to his lips. He offered Liam his open hand anyway.

“Hi! It’s nice to meet you.”

Liam’s handshake was way too strong, it was painful, actually. But Ben didn’t let it show. He reciprocated the gesture with the same strength instead.

And Liam was ready to chop this man’s head off…

“Nice to meet you too, Ben.”

You frowned as your ex insisted weirdly on the name, but you decided to ignore it.

“We can continue this conversation later, Liam,” you spoke in a wary tone.

“On the contrary! We were talking about you, Ben.”

“Me?” Ben raised a surprised eyebrow.

“And the fact that I believe I have a right to know who enters my daughter’s life.”

“Of course… Well, what do you want to know?”

“Your intentions would be a good start.”

“Liam…” you warned him, but Ben answered with a shrug.

“I don’t have any, really.”

“No?”

“I’m a friend of Y/N’s. And I enjoy spending time with Sally too.”

Liam was about to speak again when Sally reappeared, handing Ben her gift.

“It’s for you!”

Ben’s frown instantly melted into a grin.

“Thank you so much, Sally!”

He accepted the gift, complimented the girl, and he chuckled as she opened her arms wide, her small hands opening and closing in grabbing gestures, asking to be picked up. He complied without a second thought.

“Did you buy Indian food? You promised you would!” Sally asked, and Ben let out a bright laugh.

“I did! Of course, I did!”

“YEEES!”

You were smiling so fondly at the two of them, Liam recognized something in your eyes, something… that used to be aimed at him, and solely at him…

And he didn’t fail to notice the way Ben’s gaze found yours with ease, how it softened, how his smile widened and grew more tender.

Liam’s head was spinning.

He cleared his throat, and all turned to him again.

“I’d love to eat some curry, too!” he spoke, but you glowered at him, while Ben frowned hard.

“Liam… I swear, don’t start.”

“Start what?”

“You know perfectly well what I mean.”

“I don’t, actually…”

“You do.”

You heaved a tired sigh.

“Look, we’ll talk about it properly, if you want. But not now. Now is not the time.”

“Really? Because I reckon that it is the right time, actually, as a stranger is about to spend the evening with my daughter.”

“Our daughter,” you corrected him. “And Ben is not a stranger at all, not to me. Trust me…”

“I don’t want him near my daughter.”

He spoke the last sentence while staring at Ben, as if he was a judge revealing his final verdict, his latest conviction.

Slowly, Ben nodded.

“Very well.”

Slowly, he put Sally back on the ground, and moved to grab his coat.

Because, after all, Liam was Sally’s father. And Ben had no right to go against his decision. And perhaps he was right, and this was a bad idea…

But when Sally started crying, all three adults froze.

“Where is Ben going?” the girl sobbed.

Ben’s heart cracked, bled, so much so that he felt tears form in his own eyes.

Where was he going, indeed? If Liam didn’t want him to see Sally anymore, what would he do? Would he lose you already? So soon…?

“Nowhere, angel,” you lifted your daughter in your arms. “Ben isn’t going anywhere. Daddy is just being silly.”

“I’m not…”

“Liam!”

You rarely snapped at people, and your ex was startled by your tone. You were properly angry now, he could see it written all over your features. The same anger he stared at for months when the two of you separated, when you signed for a divorce, when he failed you again and again. He had been better these past few weeks, he was getting used to see your smile once more, instead of your fury.

He heaved a sigh.

“Don’t worry, darling. Mummy’s right, I’m just being silly. Have a nice evening you three.”

Before you could speak another word, he was picking up his coat and walking out of the flat.

He still heard the words that followed though, and they broke his heart…

“I don’t want to be the cause for any trouble.”

“You’re not, Ben. He’s just being an idiot.”

“Are you sure? Do you really want me to stay?”

“Yes. Yes, Ben, I want you to stay.”

That night, you were dreaming.

You knew, even if you were lost in deep slumber, that none of this was real. It couldn’t be.

The images were vivid though, unbearably so. It was almost too much. And yet, even if this was nothing but a feeble dream, you hoped it would never stop.

Because in your dream, you were not alone. Ben was there. Ben was kissing you, actually.

As a matter of fact, he was doing much more than kissing you. His hands were everywhere: steady, strong, long fingers brushing against your skin and tugging at your clothes to get access to the burning flesh under them. It turned your whole body on fire, as if blood had been replaced by raging flames, and your heart was beating so loudly, it echoed in your ears, batted your eardrums, crashed against your ribs.

A rhythmic noise, tu-dum tu-dum tu-dum, frantic and longing for more at the same time. It wasn’t loud enough to hide your shaky breathing though, or the sound of Ben’s shallow breaths, or the soft moans he let out, or the wet sounds left by his lips all over your neck…

When he pulled on your shirt to take it off, you let him. When his breath caught in his throat, you heard him. When his eyes darkened, you held his hungry stare. And when he dove right back for a passionate kiss, you kissed him with the same strength.

And you didn’t want it to end… You wanted to keep his hands on your ribs, his fingers running up your spine making your back arch into his chest, his lips on yours, his beard under your palm and his pounding heart under the pads of your fingers.

But then, an alarm rang. Loud and unforgiving. And when Ben looked at you again, eyes completely black, hair dishevelled, glasses missing, lips redder than usual, you knew he was going to slip away, out of reach.

You blinked. Once. Twice. Thrice.

And Ben’s dark eyes were replaced by another kind of shadows. Instead of his eyes, you found yourself staring at the ceiling of your bedroom.

You hit the snooze button of your alarm clock, heaved a frustrated sigh, rubbed the remnants of sleep out of your eyes.

Ben was gone. He was just a passing dream…

Still, even as a dream, he had left your breath shallow and your skin too warm…

The alarm rang again. You needed to get up, get Sally ready, prepare breakfast, get her to school, head to work…

A smile formed on your lips at the thought of seeing Ben there, in his office. Just a quick hello, maybe a coffee. Then lunch. Then another coffee after his classes of the afternoon. A walk back to your cars. A struggle to part…

You pushed the covers away, turned off the alarm clock, got up. So many things to do, so early in the morning.

But first… you needed a cold, very cold shower…

********************************

Taglist : @sergeantbuckybarnes @reg-arcturus-black @wolfmoonmusic @idek-what-to-put @kpicard @rhapsodyonthethames

[zenkor123]

Peeta journal entry -The last stand

November 2 75 ADD

"I am consumed by fire , day after day filled with anger only stopped by morphling, and despair from the flashbacks of my time in the capital. I can't live like this any more! I want to finally culminate and for people in Panem to have the hope that I no longer have. Perhaps my last battle, combat will give this hope at least a small amount. Perhaps Katniss will finally have the hope to unite with Gale with my last stand in the capital." While I can survive in almost any environment something has always been missing. My work was supposed to mean something but it's significance Is much less now that I am being sent to Squad 451. What was it all for?

”I have a multitude of plans forming in my head, my first one is to run to the nearest pod, but that does not feel right, a death just as pathetic as my 17 year life it would be nice if those years actually meant something before they ended. A chance at redemption one might say. Death is so common that it is meaningless and the bodies, their nutrients sustain the earth and ultimately benefit other living creatures. But the deaths will feed the dark cement of the capital. In terms of who I touched who will remember me what is my life worth exactly? To who? Any impact on Panem is diminished by Panem's future under Coin. Our deaths will do nothing. Any freedom or hope I inspired among the Foresters and in 13 as the Jabberjay will fade put out by coin. Another option is to contact forester units and desert to those units. Katniss and her “Star squad” are dead man walking, I would not call them cannon fodder but pre packaged martyrs. Boggs, an influencial commander who she for whatever reason sees as a threat, Finnick, popular victor, Katniss, symbol of the revolution capable of endorsing a different candidate. I can go mutt and do a death charge into any amount of peacekeepers, I won’t be given a weapon it won’t do anything. A death charge is ultimately as impactful as running into a pod. And that none sense about giving Katniss hope? She has no hope. She is being hunted by 2 tyrants at the same time. I heard something from Johana about killing Snow, the capital owned us and our deaths meant the same as the death of Cattle. With his death a war can end, the capital will no longer own their deaths. How far would we actually get? I don't know how long I can hold on until I begin attacking anything that moves and Hallucinations begin ripping my flesh out. I've been thinking about a "final stand" but what can I actually do? Concerning my redemption and bringing hope am I asking for too much? Mutts exist to be used after all. And Katniss being a threat to Coin, She won her last election with 100 percent of the vote 7 years after she took power. I think it is that she has more to gain from Katniss then too fear from Katniss endorsing a controlled opposition candidate. Perhaps Boggs is the threat to her rule and she fears Katniss is the figurehead? My friends in the Cartel love Boggs, and think he would make a better president then Coin.

The deaths from Coin’s murder mission will hurt greatly, Finnick will never be able to see his wife Annie again, I’ve sold Morphling to Boggs wife and Kids, he is a lovely person, Katniss and her lover Gale will never be able to have a family of their own. Prim will never see her sister again. The capital after destroying me will in the end kill me. These deaths are unfair. They will mean nothing and be painful I might be responsible for all least one of them. And yet another twist of the knifes is that all these deaths are long overdue we weren’t supposed to live this long. I feel an emptiness and fill it with more morphling.

as I chug the bottle I see a River, once called the Mississippi it looks so peaceful, it does not care, it survived all Humanity threw it at it, and it always flows, I wish I could be like the Mississippi. I think of how humans are made out of mostly water, and how life subsists on death, and I think about how peaceful it would be to join the larger body of water. Yet without life, the algae it would be dead, it is living things that make it alive. But I will only feed the concrete in the capital, maybe I shall nourish rats, flies, and roaches though.

Becuase this is the end!

From Peeta’s journal written on the train to the capital

It is morning, I have not gotten any sleep.

This is the last entry in Peeta’s journal and I am overcome with emotion, I do not want to imagine rats consuming Peeta’s lifeless corpse. Peeta, is right about Coin and the purpose of this squad, nothing will ever change not even the hunger games. But I will make sure Snow goes down with us, only by killing Snow will our deaths have meaning. Peeta begins to wake up clearly in a haze in some place between fantasy and reality surrounded by hallucinations. I am eating breakfast with Peeta’s journal in my hand and am looking at Peeta. He opens his mouth, rubs his eyes shews away hallucinations with his hands and looks like he is about to say something but he quickly notices Boggs. I see Peeta look miserable thinking about the ways Coin is going to murder him, but this becomes a blank stare reflecting a sense of futility. Peeta sighs and shakes his head, but then is attacked by an hallucination he looks like a mutt and throws some broken glass at it he grabs his wrist which turns red from an attack by his hallucinations and winces in pain. I go and wake up him, as I approach Peeta, he grabs my hand, his wrist redder then before, I grab his wrist my other hand and it’s Color returns to Peeta’s normal skin colour that looks like the sun. Peeta gasps for air as I help him up, the hallucination probably wrapping around him. He must use his Morphling to cope with these attacks I’ve seen him drink his Morphling bottle first thing upon waking up in 13, first lucid, then the eye rubs, then the attack and struggle followed by a manic grabs for his bottle. Peeta’s eyelashes flutter reflecting light in the morning Sun. Jackson calls out to me “would you like the morning watch or do you need some rest?” I reply “it’s fine I will take the morning watch” I shrug like it’s no big deal. Peeta is staring at me trying to talk to me he looks like there are weights on his chest but also annoyed, it isn’t hard to guess what he is annoyed about, his Morphling and his journal, he also thought me figured out and now I am back in his life, despite me never having left it. Every entry in his journal mentioned me, but now he could no longer pretend anymore. But his face was only mildly discussed his eyes were wide open, his lips not curled, like before he wants to talk to me he looks more deep In thought then desperate to close out the world.

[fachefaucheux]

WriteFest! // Day 1 + Goals

It’s that magical time of year again! You know, the one where amateur writers all across the internet take on stupidly ambitious word count goals and drive themselves batty trying to reach them. I am no exception.

I’ve been doing word count goal challenges during the last two months of the year off and on since 2001 (really dating myself here, eh?). And despite all the terrible business that’s been going on with the most infamous one, I’m not going to quit a two-decade long habit just because other people are asshats. 

The OG Word Count Challenge helped me write my first “novel” Way Back In the Day, actually. That story was a bizarre fever dream about a guy who found a nuclear warhead in the supply closet of the care home he was working in…and getting rid of it required him to go undercover as vicar and infiltrate MI6??? Obviously, that didn’t end up going anywhere. But you can see glimmers of the same tried-and-true plot devices in it that I’ve been using ever since: a mix of action and humor, the fantastic and bizarre, shady con men pretending to be religious authority figures. (I don’t know why fake priests seem to be a running theme across my stories. I blame Catholic grade school and an overactive imagination.)

Since I tend to favor quantity over quality, I’ve escalated over the years to usually setting my word count goal for November at the 100k mark. But this year, I’ve been confronted with a challenge too insane for me to resist! I do a lot of my drafting on a website called 4thewords that I discovered nearly two years ago (great site, tbh, I highly recommend it to anyone who is more productive when they gamify their life), and this year, they’ve raised the challenge bar to a whole other level. For this year’s WriteFest, the top goal is to write 250k in 44 days. That’s roughly 5,700 words a day, for those of you who don’t feel like whipping out your calculator app.

So, of course, I had to do it.

Is this a good idea? Probably not. Am I still going to try my hardest? You’re goddamn right.

But I am cheating juuuuuust a little. I’m not doing it all on one WIP. This year, I’ll be working on completing Mushroom Picking Season (maybe 20k left? hopefully), the first volume of Canticle (if there’s more than 200k left on that, I’m totally cooked), and making a pitiful attempt at pushing my dissertation to the 25k mark, which is about halfway. (Yes! I do stuff other than write gay shit! My dissertation contains no gay lunatics, sadly. But it does contain an overabundance of (yugo)slavs.) Tally all those up, and you’ve got the 250k, with some wiggle room for just writing some unhinged smut to pad the total when I’m too tired to write anything semi-coherent.

As tradition dictates, I started on November 1st. Not at midnight, because I’m old and decrepit. But at six in the morning. And the results are in!

Day one, done and dusted. Total words: 8,226. For a brief moment, I’m ahead! Only 241,774 to go!

Of course, it’s the second now that I’m posting this. Once again, at six in the morning. I think I’ll try to snag another couple hours of rest before charging into the breach once more. Today’s goal is at least 6,000 words. But probably more, since I owe ya’ll an installment of Niv/Yule hijinks on Sunday. If I get really ahead this weekend, maybe I can even take a very small breather sometime this coming week. (I’m going to need it. For Reasons.)

Stay tuned to see how fast this project goes off the rails! (And snag a sneak peak at some writing snippets, if I’m feeling ambitious.)

[girlvinland]

I had deleted this post yesterday bc I almost feel. Idk. Bad for feeling happy/for having good things happening? Or maybe it’s like…after the past several months, I’ve had to experience so much betrayal and lying that it’s been hard for me to feel okay celebrating anything (since every time I felt like things were okay or heading in a good direction, there was another bad thing immediately popping up to push me back down). I never expected to have to go through those things that way.

I want to believe it’s okay to feel good about my life and dreams and everything. I know it sounds silly to have this kind of fear, but I honestly feel traumatized by what has happened since November, so it’s been hard to let my guard down and allow myself to actually feel any happiness or relief.

Anyway, I wanted to repost it because I want to try and let myself celebrate the good things again.

-

I got approved for the townhouse I wanted ;w;

Finally I can have my own space and life again, and it’s in one of my favorite areas in my city. I’m definitely going to have a lot to process, but I’m also really happy I can be on my own again so I can decorate precisely how I want and have friends over to a place I’m actually proud of and consider dating again if I want and all of those things I haven’t been able to do in so long. The new place kind of represents freedom from so much that had been holding me back for a while. It’s been ~6 years since I’ve had a living space that was purely mine, but now I can again, and the townhouse is everything I was hoping for and wanted since initially moving back to this city. I’m just kind of over the moon excited about it.

This is the week I can talk to the PI at work, too, about what steps I need to take to get on with doing a second Master’s (which tbh I’m only wanting to do bc it would be paid for by work so why not take the opportunity), so I’m equally excited about that.

I’m nervous about everything, but excited about everything too. I think once things are all more in place and settled it’s just going to be a lot of relief.

[theunstuffedpepper]

I’m in the office today for work - something of a novelty, lately, since I’ve been commuting in roughly once a week.

I told my boss this morning that I’m expecting - again - and we had a hearty laugh together over the fact that she could of course tell before I told her. The bump is out. I think I’m slightly in denial that I’m really showing that much because it still feels early and I can’t even really feel the baby kicking yet. Alas, people are side-eyeing my belly. Let ‘em. Baby bumps are cute.

I told my boss that three pregnancies was never the plan, but life happens, I guess, and here we are. She took it to mean that this pregnancy was unplanned, or somehow an oops situation, but what I really meant was that I never intended to lose a child. I expected to be pregnant twice and raise two wonderful children. I suppose it doesn’t much matter what she thought I meant, big picture.

Trying to work through the fact that I’m extra aware of judgment from other people with this pregnancy in particular. 1) it comes FAST on the heels of my second pregnancy and 2) it comes with a lot of extra emotions and whatnot because it also comes FAST on the heels of losing that baby. It’s a lot. He was born in early June, we lost him late August, and I was pregnant again in November.

What I know to be true is that when we lost him, I immediately knew without question that I wanted to try for another. Not to replace him, obviously, but because ultimately I want to raise pep with a sibling who is here on earth with us. I never imagined myself as a mom to an only child. Of course it goes without saying there’s absolutely nothing wrong with having one child, but it never felt right for me personally. I knew whether or not I was lucky enough to get pregnant again, that pip would always be mine. I’d always have three kids, just that two of them are here on earth with me.

Because of all this, I find myself reluctant to tell people that I’m expecting this time around. I just don’t want the judgment. I don’t want people to be forced to be like “oh I’m so happy for you!” .. I dunno. I’m sure it’s my stuff, not anyone else’s, and I’ll work through it. Plus, either way it’s gonna get to the point where I don’t have to tell anyone verbally. My belly will do it for me.

I suppose it’s on my mind a lot today. Hopefully none of this comes across like I’m not incredibly grateful and super excited. I am. I’m actually doing better lately mentally than I’ve been. It’s just all so complex.

Gonna enjoy this latte on my own little couch in a private corner of the office for a few minutes. Then it’s back to work.

[bvannn]

Weekly Update November 15, 2024

I’m in a real bad spot again, everything I’ve been trying keeps going wrong, but i did get some art stuff done.

I tried writing some shorter songs on a whim with some 16 bit soundfonts and i think they came out pretty well. Add 3 more to the ‘songs i finished but can’t release yet’ pile. Also made some midis for two more vocal parts, one for a cover (FF), one for an original (LF), both of which have finished instrumentals. Started tuning FF, am going to try some of the new strategies i tested a few weeks ago. Another vocal original, BATB, that I’ve been on and off working on is probably done? I think? I finished mixing the vocal part, another one for the pile. Also fixed a random glitch that would sometimes happen where an instrument would randomly play a phantom note that didn’t exist in the midi part at the very start of a song, which was causing issue with three songs. Also re-edited Blow Off Steam, since the mixing was fucking awful idk what was wrong with me to think that would be passable. I’ll release it on YouTube once I have motivation to open my computer. I really need to just sit down and draw some cover art but every time i try everything in my life keeps going wrong I’m cursed i swear. It’s fine it’ll get done eventually, i started on one of them this week and so far it looks good. I thumbnailed some more that also look fine. I just need life to cut me a break so i can draw. I just want a break. One break.

I tried working on the comic this week too, got about half of page 12 inked. The comic looks great and is fun to read through and i love how it’s coming out but again every time I try to work on it bad things happen to me that get in the way. I want to give a deadline and say ‘oh, it’ll be done on (x date)’ but I can’t. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe today I’ll go look at tapas and see how things are over there, since I can’t really work on anything. I haven’t really thought about how I’d go about releasing the damn thing once it is finished other than ‘probably not webtoon, I’ve never heard anyone say anything positive about webtoon’.

I made storyboards/thumbnails for another animation project, smaller one for one of the smaller unreleased songs I’m sitting on. I looked into after effects again and it should be able to do some of the effects I thought I was going to need to learn blender for, which is great because I don’t want to mess with blender yet. There’s a certain character who I’ve only really drawn a couple times because I wanted her to have a really unique visual style, so once I have myself together I’d like to try drawing her and rendering her with the new tricks I learned in after effects, but again things need to get better first, and that’s unlikely.

Last bit of hope for progress next week would be the epithet erased TTRPG. I finished off the first tileset I had done and actually sat down to turn it into some maps, and it works really well. Ended up watching through the original anime campaign a bit further too, which inspired me to get some statblocks done and some character minis sketched. Also completely rewrote stage 6 for the second time but I think this time it’ll stick. A couple more NPC ideas have been floating around for that and I might post a mini once I have more. Again I’m hesitant to post anything visual for that, since my plan is currently to turn the campaign into a prewritten module for other people to run, release the module for free so everyone can play, and then release the optional maps and minis as a paid package, so I can make a bit from my work but also make the system more accessible to people for free. The fifth anniversary streams are this weekend, including one that is set to cover the updated system book, hopefully that should give me the motivation to get going, and then if that goes well that should give me motivation for my other projects. Everything I’m doing is intertwined with each other and with my mood, so if nothing else bad happens I should be getting better, but again there’s still a couple things that can go wrong and they certainly will because I’m not allowed to have anything.

Sorry again for how gloomy this post has been, everything seems to be going wrong but I’m going to keep trying. I might be slow again for a while but that’s fine, that’s why I loaded up my queue with old art. Thank you everyone for sticking through it, and I’m glad you guys have been enjoying the old art. I shuffled the queue so some of it isn’t as old as others, but even so a good number of you are seeing pieces for the first time. I really hope I’ll have something big to show soon!

[squish36-writes-and-draws]

13 November: Unraveling

Word count: 455 (sad, I know)

TW: Swearing at the usual level

General Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed!): @stellar-lune @faggot-friday @kamikothe1and0nly @nyxpixels @florida-preposterously

@poppinspop @uni-seahorse-572 @solreefs @corruption-exe @rusted-phone-calls

@when-wax-wings-melt @good-old-fashioned-lover-boy7 @dexter-dizzknees @abubble125 @hi-imgrapes

@callum-hunt-is-bisexual @callas-pancake-tree @hi-my-name-is-awesome @katniss-elizabeth-chase @sillyguy-supreme

@void-kill @thefoxysnake

Unraveling Project Specific Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed/upgraded): @cutebisexualmess @crippling-pages @daizythegreat @sophiefostersno1stan @iggydancebreak

@theleopardstalker @you-will-meet-your-downfall @multi-fandom-lunatic

On Ao3 or below the cut!

First (3 November) / Previous / Next

    I, being the nerd you all love me for, spent most of the day reading about the gays™ in the library and uh fun fact: homosexuality has been legal in France since 1791 thanks to it just not being mentioned in the penal code from that year, but apparently that’s pretty early for a human country. I don’t know what year it is but it’s nice to know that I won’t be guillotined for anxiously waiting for the gardener whose name I don’t know to appear once again. 

    Not knowing people’s names is kind of turning into a theme. We should all wear name tags. Although, I would absolutely change it every day just to fuck with people so maybe that’s not the best idea I’ve ever had. I mean, considering that I’m the architect of the great gulon incident, it is pretty hard to be the best idea I’ve ever had. 

    I also wandered around Paris for a bit because reading all day would make me a dork and I’m definitely not one of those, right? Right? Anyway I tried to find where Sophie and Dex went on their little excursion and by excursion I, of course, mean kidnapping. Too bad I cannot figure out how French spelling works to save my life.

    There’s the memory of how Sophie said it, but my little polyglot brain is apparently unable to figure out whether it’s, like, a direct translation into the Enlightened language or a borrowed word and if it’s the latter case, it’s got no clue how to transcribe it, meaning I get to stand here and not know where I’m going. I just went to the Eiffel Tower for a bit of entertainment instead. 

    Also did you know that you can’t take pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night (or, at least, you can as long as you don’t admit to anyone that’s what you’ve done) because the lights are copyrighted? That’s my other fun fact of the day. At this rate, I’m going to be impossible to converse with in three to five business days. 

    Another one, just for the exile of it: a group of otters is called a business. Well, it was a busyness but that’s what you deserve if you’re looking at old spellings of words. 

    If I don’t get actively threatened by gardening shears tomorrow, I’m probably going to be hopping to another city. I probably should anyway, just to be safe.

    There’s no telling how Gethen found me last time—actually, scratch that. He got told to go somewhere, I’m certain. There’s no telling how his commanding officer (most likely mother dearest) found me last time, but I think she underestimates just how annoying I’m willing to be.