#Like why bother at this point just say happy mothers day with no pictures

[mlarayoukai]

I DON'T NOT FUCKING CARE ABOUT ROYALS I HOPE THE ALL DIE IN A HAMMER EXPLOSION but it's very funny they released a very badly edit picture. "we're not going to give any health updates. Anyway here's a picture of my family we're all happy and healthy hahaha :)" and the picture has a floating zipper that connects to nothing and her blurry ass hand. I don't think it's a photo bash of pictures but they used the ai air brush tool

[jadeylovesmarvelxo]

Broken Hearts and Valentines Cards.

Steve sends you a card for Valentine's day, it's just as a friend... Eddie isn't so happy and his mouth runs away with him, which you overhear.

Eddie Munson x Reader, Jealous Eddie, Kinda mean Eddie at the end, sorry 😌 bit of an angsty fic instead of a fluffy Valentines.

❤️

Steve had overheard you speaking to Nancy and Robin about Valentines Day. It was a few days before the big day, and you were mentioning that you hadn't been sent a card before.

"It would be nice wouldn't it? Even to receive just one card, normally it never used to bother me but-'' You trail off, your chatty demeanour soon becoming shyer, hesistant to speak.

"But you wouldn't mind a card from a certain metalhead'' Nancy teases and you nod, then sigh.

"Never going to happen though" you reply, and Steve stays in the background so you don't realise he's heard. Robin catches his eye and must realise he's scheming after hearing your confession.

If you wanted a card then Steve was going to send you one. After all what could go wrong?

...

Valentine ''cupids'' were wandering the cafeteria handing out Valentines cards. The cupids in question were some reluctant and some eager students, they were holding indivual boxes labelled Valentines mail.

Eddie was ranting at the Hellfire table, he dreaded this day and all the bullshit consumerism that came with it.

"I can't stand this shit. It's just another day that corporates use to trick the gullible into buying manufactured shit" he snaps.

"Tell us how you really feel dude" Gareth jokes, then quietens at Eddie's sharp look, Eddie doesn't notice how quiet you've grown, the sad look on your face at his words.

Then something unexpected happens, one of the cupids comes up to the Hellfire table and drops a card right in front of you.

There's a stunned silence, you pick up the card and hold it gently. You've never had a card before... Who sent it?

You open it and smile at the cute picture of a kitten and puppy snuggled up together. Hearts surround them, it's really adorable.

The card is signed from an Admirer, heat floods through your body and you beam. Even if it's from a friend, it's still very sweet and you hold it reverently.

"Who sent it?" Jeff asks curious, he peers over your shoulder. ''Ooh an admirer" he teases.

Eddie frowns "Why not just sign who it's from then?" his big brown eyes narrow at the card. You tuck the card into your bag and shake your head.

"It's romantic, or just being sweet. People can be sweet and not have a motive Eddie" you point out to him.

Robin passes you and grins in delight.

"I'm glad you got it! Steve will be pleased, he was like an anxious mother hen this morning" you blink surprised, oh.

"Harrington sent it" Eddie yelps and Robin nods to you, beaming.

"Mmm, overhead you saying about Valentines Day, got it in his head to send you a card" she explains.

"That is so sweet" you beam, remembering to thank Steve next time you see him. Meanwhile, Eddie was still quiet, which with him was never a good thing...

❤️

Family Video was one of Eddie's favourite places, he loved finding new horror movies that he hadn't seen yet, along with D&d and playing the guitar, it was one of his favourite things to do to pass time.

Steve was working today with Robin and Eddie discreetly watched him. Dustin sung Steve's praises and Eddie had gotten to know Steve, knew he was a good guy-better than Eddie ever thought. Rich, goodlooking and the chick's loved him but he was a genuine nice guy.

So Eddie couldn't explain why he was so angsty at the thought of Steve sending you that card. Did he like you as more than a friend and wanted to ask you out or something?

"Hey Steve, what's the deal with you sending that card?" he blurts out. Steve raises an eyebrow, folds his arms across his chest and frowns.

"I don't see the problem? I was being a good friend" Steve shrugs and Eddie follows him around as he puts away the videos.

"Do you like her? Is this what it's about?" he demands. Robin, who's listening to the whole conversation is quiet. Until Eddie keeps going on about it and she finally snaps.

Robin rolls her eyes. "Eddie, I'm going to be completely blunt, because you're annoying me right now with how much of a dingus you're being. You're jealous. Sooner you admit it to yourself, the better you'll feel"

Jealous, there was no way he was jealous Eddie scoffs. Robin didn't know what she was talking about.

"Jealous of what? I don't see yn like that at all, she's not my type. She's too into romance, fairytale shit. Nope, no fucking way" he doesn't notice Steve's wide eyes or Robin's furious look.

Confused he turns around, you're standing shock still, looking at Eddie with heartbreak in your eyes.

"Nice to know what you think of me Eddie" you murmur quietly and leave. Robin curses him out as she follows you, leaves Eddie with a horrid sinking feeling in his chest.

Fuck.

[starysky1289]

Alpha! Toxic!Sorority!Vanessa X Omega!Reader. I'll keep you here PT 2

A/N: Stacie and YN have a PLATONIC relationship! So every time they say ‘ I love you ‘ ( it’s like twice ) they aren’t having a affair or something

" shhh, I know Elizabeth...cmon, let's fall asleep "

You held your daughter close to your chest, as she wailed into the night. You were desperately trying to get her asleep, you knew she was a bother to the other Soroity girls in the house. It had only been a month since she was born, and god could she cry.

" I-I know Elizabeth, it's a lot, it's a lot for mama too....i just need you to sleep, please... maam needs to go with her friends to get her pretty dress...and I'll be getting yours too. You'll be so pretty, just please go to sleep. "

You felt your eyes swell with tears, her wails continuing. God this was too much, you let this happen, you could have done so many things to stop this, but now you were stuck with Vanessa. You had school assignments piling up, and you were getting married in August, only months away.

" y/n...give me her.."

You glanced up, seeing Vanessa figure in the doorway, the little light in Elizabeth's room lit Vanessa green eyes up. She gently walked towards you, taking Elizabeth in her arms, who settled down almost instantly.

"d-does she not like me.?"

" no y/n. She's just had you all day, she wants her mother for a bit. Go lay down, please. I need my girl rested for her huge day tomorrow

Vanessa kissed your forehead gently, and you left the room, laying down in Vanessa bed and falling asleep instantly. Vanessa scent of vanilla and citrus flooded your nostrils, and comforted you as you drifted to sleep.

*~*

" why are you having me take a picture of you y/n, no one can see! "

« Vanessa wants to see the options I like. Then she'll tell me what one matches the theme best. "

It was just you and Stacie, your best friend, in the boutique. You had plenty of elegant gowns lined up on racks for you to try on. Your current one was a ball gown, with lace ruffles and beautiful sequins down the dress.

" what do you mean she's going go see it?? The whole point is she doesn't! "

" I know Stacie...but she just wants it perfect, and these are the only ones with matching baby dresses. Vanessa only wants me, her, and Elizabeth wearing white. It's gotta be perfect. "

Stacie sighed, helping you fluff your dress before standing back to take the photo, and sent it off to Vanessa as you went into the back to change.

" she says no. She wants some sorta sleeve."

" alright! One minute! "

You went for the next dress, with lace lining the edges of the dress, that lead up the chest part in beautiful flowered swirls. It had puffy lace sleeves that only had the cuffs touching your skin. You stepped out of your changing room and onto the small stage in front of Stacie.

" oh, this has to be it. Its gorgeous!! "

" we'll take a picture! Oh I hope she says yes.."

Stacie quickly took a few nice photos of you in the dress, and sent the to Vanessa. Your heart raced with anticipation, you loved this dress, she had to love it, please let her love it.

" she says yes!! She loves it! She says you're absolutely stunning in it and she can't...you can read the rest "

You squealed in joy as you snatched the phone, blushing almost immediately as you read the rest of Vanessa's message.

" Oh it's gorgeous. Yes, 100% yes. God I can't wait to rip it off you after the wedding~ "

You laughed, sending her back a heart as you hugged Stacie tightly, squeezing her into you.

Stacie chuckled, pressing her forehead against yours.

" you seem so happy about all this...are you really? "

You smiled softly, glancing off into mirrors around the boutique.

" I am. S-she's great..really.... an amazing mother to Elizabeth..."

" really? Even though she wasn't there...? "

You looked up at Stacie, nodding silently, still holding your smile.

" she is. She's stayed up late and changed and bottle fed her...she watches her when I have exams...she's such a good mother to her...unlike me…”

" don't say that y/n. You're a wonderful mom..."

You sat down on the small stage,you were exhausted, you could hardly sleep after last night, kept up by the thought you were an awful mother. You couldn't get your a daughter to sleep without help.

" i-i just feel like Elizabeth hates me...she just cries and cries when I hold her, and the other sorority girls complain that she keeps them up, a-and-"

" well if A bunch of girls are annoyed by a baby that's there problem. Vanessa said they could move out for a bit, but they insisted on staying.And Elizabeth is just a baby, she's going to cry. It doesn't make you a bad mom that you need some help with her. It's normal..."

" I just...I feel bad she has to grow up around these people..."

Stacie sat besides you, pulling you into a tight hug, wiping away your tears and pressing her forehead against yours.

" it won't be forever. Vanessa graduated, your almost about to graduate as valedictorian. Do you know how incredible that is. You haven't let this pregnancy stop you. Your passing with flying colors, you get to go on that stage and say ' hey losers, guess who's valedictorian and a mother. ‘ “

You chuckled, hugging her tightly. Stacie was always there for you in your ups and downs.

And she would always be there, she was your child's Godmother, and she swore she'd do anything for her. She'd do anything for you.

" yeah. Yeah. Thank you Stacie....cmon. Let's pay for this dress and go get something to eat. “

You stood up, smiling once more, going back into the changing room to change back. You were valedictorian, and you were about to marry a successful lawyer, with your beautiful daughter. You were loved.

*~*

“ Vanessa Dean Shelly. Are you kidding me??? A huge ass party the day before my finals?? A huge party with our baby in the house?? “

“ relax baby, it’s the last party I’m throwing as president before Bailey takes over. The upstairs is off limits, and- “

“ It dosent matter!! You promised me months ago that you would watch Ellie while I studied!! This is ridicules. “

You turned around and stormed upstairs, grabbing your empty backpack and heading into Elizabeth’s room, packing up her necessities, diapers, bottles, clothes, wipes. Elizabeth was still sleeping when you were done packing, as you quickly dialed Stacie’s number.

“ Hello?? “

“ sorry Stacie, can me and Ellie crash at the dorm? Vanessa’s throwing the big song the year party, and I don’t wan Ellie to be in the house for it. “

“ Seriously?? Your kidding. Alright, I’m coming. Love ya. “

“ love ya to “

You hung up, finishing packing your stuff as you gently picked up Elizabeth, kissing her forehead gently. You placed her in the carrier, slinging the backpack on as you made your way back downstairs, people already beginning to pile in.

“ Yn?? Hell are you doing with Ellie. “

“ we are spending the night at Stacie’s. And we won’t be back till you’re sober. She’ll be here any moment. “

You made your way outside, waiting on the sidewalk. Vanesssa chased after you grabbing your shoulder.

“ C-cmon yn!! Have a drink, relax! You haven’t been in a party for months! “

“ cause I’m taking care of our daughter! Do you remember last time, you were drunk, banging on the door to see her. Your not ok when your drunk. “

Just then, Stacie’s car pulled up. You opened the back door, sliding Ellie in and sitting besides her. Vanessa tried to hold the door open, you could tell she was angry, desperate for you not to go.

“ I’ll cancel the party if it’ll make you happy, ok?? No one’s gonna hurt our baby!! “

“…it’s not the others I’m worried about…”

You finally closed the door, Stacie quickly drove off and you watched Vanessa storm up the steps, kicking a flowerpot off the steps before going inside. You looked down at Ellie, holding her small hand with your finger.

“ I’m sorry Stacie…”

“ don’t be. Your bed is still nice and made, it’ll be like you never left. “

“ yeah…I don’t wanna be a bother again but. Could you maybe…watch Elizabeth while I’m at my final tomorrow…? “

“ yeah! Of course! You have all the stuff, so no problem. “

You looked back down at Ellie, watching her yawn, as she slowly blinked her eyes open to look at you.

“ thank you…”

*~*

You had stayed with Stacie for two days before Vanessa finally called back. Ellie had just ran out of diapers, and you had neglected to pack your own clothes, so you stank in your outfit. Stacie had given you one of her hoodies to borrow, to try and help. You stepped out of her car, Elizabeth in the carrier and the practically empty backpack slung over your shoulder.

Vanessa stood on the front step, watching you as you made your way up to her.

“ give me my daughter. She needs her mother. “

“ My English final went great, thank you for asking. “

You gently handed over the carrier, shoving past and into your bedroom to change. You could hear Vanessa following after you, her presence heavy over you.

“ and burn that hoodie why don’t you. You don’t need to be wearing her clothes. “

“ wow i missed you to Vanessa. Why are we even getting married if your like this. “

“ don’t talk to me like that. Look. “

She turned you around with her open hand, pulling her collar down enough to show off to show off the set of bite marks around the base of her neck.

“ look. You have me this mark, the night after I proposed to you. You did this to show me you loved me. Why are you treating me like this. “

You froze, glancing up at her, then down to Ellie, before at the ground.

“ I’m…I-I’m sorry Vanessa…I was just….stressed about my final. I should sleep on the couch tonight, just so I can cool down…I-i love you. “

You clung onto Vanessa, leaning your head against her. You were a bit…rude lately…you just needed some time to unwind.

“ aww…I love you too sweetheart. I’ll Watch Elizabeth tonight, mkay~? “

“ alright…t-thank you…”

*~*

Finally. Today was the day. You sat in your dressing room as your stylists did your hair and makeup. The pretty wedding dress fit you perfectly, and Ellie was already in hers, waiting for the ceremony to start.

Stacie was nearby as her stylist fixed her up. She was your maid of honor, and one of the few bridesmaids you had.

“ you ready yn? I just got the text there ready when we are. “

“ mhm…a-as ready as I can be…”

You could see Stacie from the corner of your eye. The stylist finished up and left. You gently picked up Elizabeth, holding her at your side as you looked into the mirror. You’ve never looks so pretty, you where gorgeous in the dress.

“ cmon…lemme see Ellie. Your bouquets right there. Remember the plan? “

“ M-mhm…first is Vanessa, then her girls, then my mom will bring down Ellie, then you girls…then I walk down with dad…”

Stacie held your hand, giving you a gentle smile. You returned the smile, squeezing her hand.

“ I love…”

“ no. Don’t say that right now yn. Today’s the day you put all your love onto one girl. Ok? “

You nodded, wiping away your tear before it messed up your makeup. Stacie smiled once more, leaving the room before you and leaving you alone. This was it, the moment you waited for. You were excited, it just felt so. Off.

You were getting married in the most beautiful chapel you’d ever seen. Everyone was coming, even though your family was much larger than Vanessa’s. All your friends and almost every sorority girl was there.

You made your way out into the hall, holding your bouquet of hydrangeas and lilys. The walk down to the entrance felt like it took forever. When you finally walked through, the photographers immediately began to take photos, you pulled your smile onto your face, staying back as everyone else lined up. You could see your mother settling Ellie into the small wagon to bring her down the aisle.

Then the music began. Your smile only grew brighter, you were getting married to the women your loved. You had a beautiful baby girl with her, and an amazing life. You could see Vanessa coming in the other way, blocked by her bridesmaid to not see you. Then she was followed by her girls, then your mother carried Ellie down, then you watched Stacie and the few others, then it was you.

Your father took your arm, giving you a gentle smile. The music began to change, as you made your way down. The eyes of every person in there were on you. It would have scared you if you weren’t so fixed in Vanessa.

She was wearing a gorgeous long Lacey dress, covered in laced flowers and small jewels. Her shoulders and neck were bare and open, with a beautiful rose gold chain around her neck, with a beautiful diamond on it. You could see the mark you left on her, small but deep. She was holding Ellie in one arm, smiling at you as your father let you go, as you stood across from her. Elizabeth turned and reached for you, and you took her with your open hand, as the preacher began to speak.

“ Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today for the holy union of these two lovely souls. Today they are to be united permanently, love bound for eternity. Vanessa, if you’d like to start with your speech. “

Vanessa nodded, clearing her throat before talking. Her green eyes beautifully starring into yours.

“ Y/N L/N, or, shall I say soon to be Y/N Shelly. Sense the moment I saw you in our college class, I knew I had to have you. I knew you would be the one to spend the rest of my life with. I know, we have had our ups and down in our relationship, but, what couple hasent. I’m the luckiest women in the world to be married to a college valedictorian, a wonderful mother of our wonderful daughter. I wouldn’t want anyone else to be my mate, my wife Y/n. I love you. “

You watched Vanessa get teary eyed, before wipping them quickly. Elizabeth made a small coo, and turned to Vanessa. Everyone let out a small chuckle as Vanessa took Elizabeth back.

“ Y/N, now you may give your speech. “

You cleared your throat, holding Vanessa open hand.

“ V-Vanessa….i know we have had our rough moments. But I’ve seen you grow, and I have grown besides you. I knew that when I first saw you, there was something. Something special about you, and now here we are, with our perfect daughter at this perfect ceremony. I love you. I love you more than I can ever possibly show you. I’m the luckiest to have you as my mate Vanessa. “

The pastor cleared his throat, signaling for a girl to bring up two small cases. He took them both, and opened the first one. Inside sat a gorgeous silver wedding band with the date etched on it. He handed it to you, and you took Vanessa had.

“ Repeat after me,’ I, Yn, promise to stay by your side, through sickness and death, through sadness and joy, as your lawfully wedded wife “

“ I, Yn, promise to stay by your side, through sickness and death, through sadness and joy, as your lawfully wedded wife “

You gently slide the ring onto her finger, you could see her smile growing. The pastor took out the next ring, a thinner silver band with the date etched on it.

“ Repeat after me. ‘ I, Vanessa, promise to stay by your side, through sickness and death, through sadness and joy, as your lawfully wedded wife ‘ “

“ I, Vanessa, promise to stay by your side, through sickness and death, through sadness and joy, as your lawfully wedded wife “

Vanessa gently slid the ring onto your finger. You felt your eyes swell with tears, you could latch onto right now if you wanted.

“ And now, with the power vested in me, by the state of Minnesota, I now pronounce you Wife and Wife, you may now kiss the brides. “

Vanessa turned and handed off Ellie to one of her bridesmaids, and immediately scooped you up, kissing you deeply. The roar of applause and cheers filled the room. She carried you in her arms as you both walked down the aisle. You pulled her face you yours, kissing her deeply.

“ Well, Mrs Shelly, how does it feel to be married to the best women on earth. “

“ I don’t know Nessa, how does it feel~ “

Vanessa laughed, kissing you once again and putting you down. The bridesmaids followed after you, returning Elizabeth to your hands. You both bent down and kissed her small cheeks. You haven’t felt this happy in months, this was the best feeling you’ve had. And now you were married to the best Women ever.

*~*

You sat besides Vanessa at the brides table, she was loudly talking to her friends, laughing about stories from college. Elizabeth sat besides you, gently feeding her the baby food you had brought, not to focused about the atmosphere.

The After-Party was in a beautiful hotel convention room. It was adorn with gorgeous crystal chandeliers, with gorgeous and colorful rose bouquets across every table.

“ Well, Mrs. Shelly, why aren’t you enjoying yourself? “

You glanced up, seeing William standing infront of you, he was dressed ins a deep violet suit, his greying hairs combed back.

“ oh, I’m just feeding Ellie, the party just started, I’ll have time later “

“ you and Vanessa haven’t even had your first dance. Everyone’s waiting. I’ll finish feeding little Elizabeth, and you two have your dance. This is just as much your night as it is hers. “

You smiled, giving and gentle nod as you handed him the rest of the small jar of baby food, letting him pick up Ellie and go back to his seat.

“ nessy….i think it’s time…”

“ Hm? Oh yes! Bailey go tell the band we’re ready. “

Vanessa stood up, taking your hand and leading you to the middle of the dance floor. Everyone went silent, as the slow rhythm of the music filled the room. You held onto both of her hands, as you both gently began to waltz, your eyes locked onto eachothers.

“ Oh..yn you look gorgeous..”

“ your just as stunning Vanessa….i love you..”

Vanessa spun you, before pulling you into her, and kissing you gently. Her Ivy Green eyes glowed in the slight.

“…I love you too..Mi Amor~ “

You chuckled pulling back a Little to sway better.

“ Spanish Vanessa? Rather romantic…it’s still early dear~ “

“ I’ll be very romantic with you later then dear~ “

You felt like you were floating, like no one else was here with you, just you and Vanessa, dancing under the beautiful stars. She was the best thing to happen to you in years, like she has changed everything in one night.

The music stopped, and the clapping started. Vanessa walked you back to the brides table, looking around and beginning to panic slightly.

“ Where’s Ellie!! Where did she go-! “

“ it’s ok!! No worries, William has her, see? “

Vanessa looked over, her eyes like daggers as she saw William feeding Elizabeth.

“ I see. Whatever, just get her back soon. “

“ please, just don’t hate your father for the night. He’s just being helpful, he wants us to have fun. “

“ alright…I still want Ellie back soon..”

You pulled vanessa closer, hugging her arm close to you. Vanessa rolled her eyes, kissing your forehead.

“ I love you YN…I hope your having a good time “

“ I’m having a wonder night Vanessa…thank you so much…I love you. “

Vanessa smiled softly, looking over at the table of her friends who were waving her over.

“ go, we’ll have all night together, go hang out with your friends. “

“ you sure? “

“ positive Vanessa. “

Vanessa smiled, getting up and walking over to her friends. You got up and went over to Stacie, who sat nearby.

“ you having fun? “

“ I am! It’s great. “

“ I’m so happy for you YN. I really am. “

You sat besides Stacie, and began talking about your highschool and college years. You were married to Vanessa, but you both still knew you could be separated at times like this. You glanced over at her, and saw her starring back at you. What a lucky girl you where

*~*

The whole night had been filled with dancing and talking, and amazing food. Vanessa really haven’t wasted a cent on it. You were sitting in front of the vanity in yours and Vanessa’s room, brushing your hair out and prepping yourself for bed. Elizabeth had just gone down, and she was fast asleep. Suddenly, Vanessa rushed through the door, chuckling softly.

“ YN! “

“ Vanessa shh! I just got Ellie down…what’s the matter? “

“ the hostess told me they just finished cleaning up. Cmon, head down with me. “

You tilted your head, standing up and walking over to her. You were wearing simple grey sweatpants and a black shirt.

“ Why? And what about Ellie? “

“ Elizabeth is a heavy sleeper, and it won’t be that long, just cmon! “

Vanessa took your hand, quickly pulling you into the hall and gently shutting the door. You chuckled as she rushed you to the elevator. She must be drunk, she’s never been this excited about something so small.

You both entered the elevator, Vanessa his the lobby button and held your hand tightly. You leaned your head against hers, and with her open hand she turned your head and kissed you gently. You didn’t taste a drop of alcohol on her tongue.

“ your sober Vanessa? “

“ of course I am. Ok I had one drink at the beginning of the after party, but nothing else. “

The elevator dung, and Vanessa quickly rushed you out, heading towards the center your wedding was held in. The hostess smiled and nodded, and Vanessa walked you into the middle of the floor. All the tables had been packed away, it was empty. Just the two of you.

Vanessa pulled her phone out and scrolled through, pulling up the two of yours favorite song. She smiled softly, holding your hips and beginning to sway gently, you followed suit after.

“ I wanted to give you one last dance. Just for you baby. “

“ Vanessa….i-I…”

“ I love you YN Shelly. “

“ I love you more Vanessa Shelly…”

You kissed her gently, and pressed your forehead against hers. The two of you stayed like this the whole song, swaying and humming softly, embracing each other’s love. At the end, Vanessa gave you a twirl, before pulling you into a gentle kiss. You giggled, hugging her tightly.

“ I love you…”

“ I love you more “

Afterwards, Vanessa lead you back through the lobby, up the elevator, and finally back to your room. Elizabeth was still asleep, like nothing had happened. You both snuggled onto the bed, hugging eachother tightly.

“ sleep well yn. I hope you have the best dreams…”

“ you too Vanessa….thank you…”

Vanessa kissed your head as your drifted away to slumber. The last things you heard her say was a simple.

“…thank you….”

*~*

“ Baby…get up…”

“ Vanessa…? “

“ fuck…I’m so hard baby…”

You groggily rubbed your eyes, sitting up and seeing Vanessa sat up in bed, panting slightly with a visible tent in her boxers.

“ I-I couldn’t sleep and I let myself daydream about…about how sexy you looked in that wedding dress…a-and I���m..I’m so hard yn…please…”

Vanessa whined softly, you blushed lightly as the sight. You gently pulled down her boxers, taking her girth in your hand, stroking it gently.

“ shh…I’ll take care of you nessa~ “

“ Please…I-i need my pretty omega…”

You smiled, tossing off your sweats and panties, stabbing her hips.

“ wet already? “

“ well when you get all hot and bothered like this I can’t help myself Vanessa…”

You grinded slightly against her length, before placing your arms over her shoulders and letting yourself slip onto it.

“ o-oh fuck vannessa~ “

“ Y-Yn~ “

Vanessa gripped your thighs, holding onto you as you bounced on her cock. Her ivy eye where the only thing glowing in the room, just you two in darkness, loving eachother with such force, such dedication.

“ S-so big nessy…p-please give me more…”

“ you want m-more princess~? “

“ P-pretty please…”

Vanessa smirked, flipping you backwards. She threw your legs over your shoulders, and thrusted hard into you. You let out a shrill moan, before quickly covering you mouth.

“ yeah, that’s it…keep quiet for me baby…I-I’ll fuck this pussy nice and good…”

Vanessa continued her pace, kissing up and down your neck, leaving small marks every now and then. Your moans were muffled but audible, fuck she was big. And you got to keep her all to yourself now, what a lucky little omega you were.

“ v-Vanessa…p-please…”

“ F-Fuck! Take it…take my pretty load and keep it in your pretty cunt all night long…like a good slut~ “

Vanessa’s thrusts grew faster, as she gripped your sides to hold you better. You cried out louder, as Vanessa’s muffled you with a kiss.

“ cum with me…show me how much you love me YN Shelly. “

“ F-fuck…I-I….i love you n-nessa- F-FUCKKKK “

You cried out as your came, feeling Vanessa thrust in again, her hot load following after.

“ that’s it….you like being filled with my pups don’t you slut~ “

You were too exhausted to answer, panting heavily as you expected her to continue.

“ I won’t push you…rest…but next time we aren’t stopping. I love you YN. “

Vanessa kissed your forehead, pulling out slowly and laying besides you, pulling you into her arms as you drifted asleep once again in her strong, loving arms.

*~*

“ Yn Get up. We have to get ready for brunch. Make sure Ellie’s changed and dressed. “

You yawned, sitting up in the comfy hotel bed, your legs still hurt from last night. Vanessa was up and in her new dress already. You were groggy, exhausted from the day prior.

“ where are you going nessa….”

“ I’m going to the restaurant early to make sure the buffet is set up perfectly. Dont worry, I’ll be back to get you two. Your dress is hanging in the bathroom, Elizabeth’s is there too. I’ll be back “

Vanessa made her way to the door, looking back at you before leaving. You sighed, sitting up and heading into the next room, Ellie was still asleep.

“ heavy sleeper huh? Even after last night. Pft…cmon baby girl, let’s get you all pretty “

You lifted her up and carried her into the next room, and as soon as you did she stared crying.

“ no no shh…shh its ok Elizabeth…mamas gonna get you all pretty for yummy breakfast. “

You bounced her in your arms, looking out the window. You could see the whole city from the top floor. Thats when it hit you. Vanessa was elsewhere, you were with your crying baby, it was just like months ago.

You sighed, turning to head into the bathroom. You loved Vanessa with all your heart, but she was a busy woman. She could clearly make time for you, like last night. But maybe she just needed to be busy.

But she had kept her promise. She kept you here. And you weren’t all to upset about it. She loved you, even if she couldn’t alway show it. And you definitely loved her.

[biribaa]

WAWAAWAWAAWW ROMANCE THIS PLATONIC THIS WHATEVER I WANT TO SEE SCRYBES AS PARENTAL FIGURES

Leshy would be a well balanced father, he knows when to treat you sweetly and he knows when you need to be scolded. For me Leshy is one of the most leisurely patrons, so you can have plenty of free time to do any kind of parent and child activity.

I really believe that Leshy would teach you how to make wooden figures. Just you, his dear child, and him, making some wooden figures together. Did you cut yourself with the knife? Of course, don't worry, Leshy will have his full attention for you and take care of your cut. Leshy isn't desperate with certain injuries of yours, of course he's worried, but he knows you're going to be fine.

Leshy will have a hard time making food for you... Seeing how he's not very fond of cooking. Having some cookbooks would be nice right now...

Leshy tends to sleep hugging you, he wants to make sure you're warm, the woods usually tend to be cold, and he would hate to see his dear child have to suffer from a cold nose and sneezing.

Leshy will teach you how to hunt, write, read, how to skin animals without getting blood on you, etc. Basics for you to survive in the forest if at some point you want to live alone.

Also, Leshy tells you bedtime stories! He was hesitant at first, but seeing how insistent you were, he couldn't say 'no' to your lovely smile.

.

I bet Grimora has dreamed/wanted at some point in her life to have a child, so trust me, you are a blessing in her life!

Grimora showers you with verbal support. You did a drawing of her? "Why, isn't this splendid my child! I'm truly proud of you Y/N. Keep drawing and I bet you'll be even better than uncle Magnificus!". You finish the duties Grimora sent you to do? "Good job Y/N! I know that I could always trust you." Or anything else that you made a effort? "Magnificent Y/N! I'm so happy to hear this news!"

She doesn't spoil you, but Grimora clearly gives the attention every child needs to you and you alone. Grimora doesn't just want to be your mother, she wants to be your friend.

Grimora loves to teach you things, even the simplest things, like sewing or how to make tea. And after that the two of you try to sew something together while she listens to you talk about your day.

.

Magnificus being a father figure is similar to Leshy, but more protective. Leshy trusts you and knows you can get by with his learnings, while Magnificus is extremely protective of you.

He always asks where you're going and who your new friends are. Don't get him wrong, Magnificus its just worried and care about you, both your physical and mental health. He wants to make it more than clear that you are not just anyone, but the child of Magnificus. Perhaps this sudden fame and a lot of people treating you like royalty might irritate you slightly, so it would be best to talk to Magnificus about the situation if that's what bothers you, so he can make an attempt to sort things out.

I don't think Magnificus is one of the best fathers, so he puts a lot of expectations on you as his child, but over time he realizes that you are not a saint and sometimes you just don't have the physical/mental strength to do certain things , he tries to lighten the weight of expectations and responsibilities on you while you're still just a kid, you deserve to be free :]

And like Grimora, Magnificus likes to shower you with verbal support, always telling you he's proud of you for doing your chores. Sometimes, he even gives you gifts that he knows you like!

Magnificus is also a great listener. The moment between the two of you while Magnificus paints a picture and you talk endlessly about your interests is pleasant for him. Speaking of painting, you're the first person he shows the paintings he's done!

.

Oof, P03 is a tough one.

P03 never planned or was interested in having a child, and yet, here you are.

P03 is horrible at showing the affection they have for someone. The easiest type of affection for P03 to express affection is simply helping you with whatever difficulties you are having.

They help you pick up things you can't reach for your size, helps you with tasks you're having and listens to you talk about the horrible day you had (with a bonus of them calling whoever bothered you an asshole. And having something against that person after that day).

And of course P03 will teach you strategies and how to play cards, saying that "I don't want to suffer the shame of having a horrible player as a child", but in fact he meant "Omfg I don't want anyone calling my kid a loser I want them to be the best so they can be proud of themselfand not have their mental health destroyed by idiots"

And when P03 praises a drawing you made for it or completed a task or won a card battle, it just says "Good job Y/N", with a lil' pat pat in your head. But he SWEARS he's been so positively affected by the things you've done, he just has a big problem expressing it. So please, do tell him if you don't feel appreciated enough, and P03 will make an attempt to show his true feeling more.

[legacyshenanigans]

I'm genuinely curious how y'all would handle this situation? Tbh this is total gossip about people you don't even know lmao but I'm curious about people's thoughts. I'll undercut it.

Names are changed too.

So my friend Jane has an 8yo child with a guy called John. Her and John split when the child was 3.

John and her both moved on and are in relationships with other people. Everything was chill for a while, until 2 years ago when John's girlfriend Lisa got pregnant, and John and Jane's child was very excited to have new sibling. However, Lisa is super weird, and John stands by everything she does and says, the baby was born, and Lisa would go out of her way to keep Jane and John's child away from the new baby, which REALLY upset the child, just because Lisa wanted to play happy families without John's child from another relationship.

And whenever John has the child in his care (which is 2 days a week) Lisa actively does NOT stay at the house, she takes the baby and stays at her mother's house while John has his and Jane's child at their house.

It caused (and still does now, nearly 2 years later) a lot of shit and arguing. The last 2 years has been a constant back and forth argument about the fact that Lisa doesn't seem to accept the fact that John HAS ANOTHER CHILD with someone else, and this poor child doesn't get to bond with their sibling, which as young as he may be has caused him ALOT of mental stress and upset over these last 2 years.

Anyway..

Jane called me before, and told me that she found out yesterday that Lisa is pregnant again from a picture someone had sent her saying "Is Lisa pregnant?" In the photo, Lisa looked pregnant and it was a recent photo. So Jane was like "I have no idea"

So she messaged John and asked, and he said "Yeah she's 30 weeks"

So Jane naturally spoke up and said to John "30 weeks?! Why have you not told *our child*"

To which HE responded "Well its all been such a massive drama with *other baby* That I just thought it was best not to tell him"

Jane kicked off because she knows the same thing is going to happen again with this new baby. She tried to tell John that as much as all this bullshit over the last 2 years has been a nightmare for their child, that it wasn't fair to not tell him atall that he's going to have another sibling, he has a right to know his blood. John was like "It doesn't matter regardless because he has nothing to do with *other baby* anyway, and Lisa probably won't let him have anything to do with this one either so whats the point in upsetting him again? What he doesnt know, won't hurt him"

And Jane was just like "Listen to yourself! At the end of the day, these children are going to GROW UP, and have a right to know their siblings, this is really fucked up, you AND Lisa are fuckin ridiculous and this whole situation isn't right" So then John said "I'll tell him this weekend if youre that bothered, but he's obviously going to get upset, and the fact you're happy for *our child* to be upset, AGAIN, is more fucked up"

And Jane asked me on the phone if I felt he was right in saying that, and asked me if SHE was the bad one for wanting her child to know about this pregnancy, to which I told her No, because I don't think she's in the wrong. I think John and Lisa are in the wrong for this weird fuckin set up that they have, where they don't allow the child to bond with his sibling(s). To me, THAT, is fucked up.

So yeah, I'm just curious about other people's thoughts on that situation.

~

[natrogersfics]

The One... With The Honeymoon

Artwork by @faith2nyc Happy 5th (eek!) Anniversary to the day A Little Favor was posted! Paris is overrated. Natasha’s aware of how blasphemous her opinion might sound to many, but it’s one she can’t help but hold. It’s not uncommon to hear people talk about the enchantment they feel simply by walking down the cobblestone streets or by sitting down at a café to watch others go about their day, and while she could concede that Paris is indeed as picturesque as cities come, with a culture and history rich and profound, its allure has always proven elusive to her. If there’s indeed a certain magic in its streets, it’s as though it was interested in encompassing everyone but her.

From where she stands on the main deck of the yacht, though, reminiscing about the last week she and Steve have spent in the city as she takes in the waters of the Seine shimmering under the moonlight, she thinks that maybe, just maybe, she was wrong. 

Despite the four years that have passed since she and Steve said I do, agreeing to take time off for just the two of them was not an easy sell. Their daughter notwithstanding, it seemed preposterous to embark on their honeymoon with The Daily’s anniversary issue imminent and Steve’s exhibit opening up at the gallery in a few months, but their friends and family were having none of it. They had put off their honeymoon long enough, they all had argued, and between the promises from both their mothers to send pictures of Isabel every day and the not-so-veiled threats from Pepper to have IT lock both of them out of the system, she and Steve had reluctantly agreed. 

And so began their week of pure, unadulterated bliss. Void of distractions, time felt as if it had slowed to a crawl, spanning endlessly and giving her and Steve the opportunity to leisurely explore every nook and cranny of Paris. It’s then that the city finally exploded in vibrant color for her, too. She’d been to all the sights before, but somehow, taking all of it in has never felt the way it has when she and Steve were strolling through them together, hand in hand. It’s as though the glass houses in the Jardin des Plantes gleamed brighter in the morning sun and the history of the pieces in the Louvre – the backgrounds of which she was already privy to – elicited something more visceral with Steve’s additional perspective. But it wasn’t only the sights. The wine at every dinner tasted richer, the strawberries on the Fraisier sweeter, and at the end of each day, when they inevitably ended up lost in one another, it’s as though their touches lingered, electric.  

A shiver runs down her spine, breaking her reverie, but whether that’s from the delicious memories of the previous days or the kiss Steve dusts to her shoulder as he wraps his arms around her from behind, she’s unsure.

“Something’s brewing in that mind of yours.” 

“Funny,” she says, turning in his arms and placing her palms flat on his chest. She looks up at him from underneath her lashes as she points out, “That didn’t seem to bother you all week long.” 

“I never said it was a bad thing.” His chest rumbles with a chuckle as he clasps his hands at the small of her back, pulling her in closer. “What’s going on, baby?”  

“I just…” she bites her lip, reluctant. But then his forehead creases ever so slightly with worry, prompting her to shake her head. “I’ll admit that when you suggested we go to Paris, I was apprehensive-” 

“Nat,” he interrupts, his expression falling. “Why didn’t you say anything?” 

“I don’t regret coming here,” she clarifies quickly, sighing when confusion paints his features. “Everyone always talks about Paris like it’s some magical place, and I just never understood it.” She shrugs. “Every time I come here, I’ve always felt as though there’s something missing.”  

Steve smirks. “A dinner on the Seine courtesy of Tony Stark?” 

“I mean, I’m definitely not complaining,” she says, tilting her head back as they both share a laugh. “But-”

“Monsieur, madame.” They both turn to see Julien, their host, standing by the doorway leading back to the main cabin, a sheepish smile on his face. “Pardon the interruption, but we have arrived.” 

Vaguely, she hears the thanks Steve sends Julien’s way, but if there’s more to the exchange, she doesn’t hear it. The second she looks back out into the water, she’s immediately greeted by the sight of the Eiffel Tower, its lights scintillating against the dark night sky, and for the first time, the image causes her to gasp. 

“Isn’t it beautiful?” she asks, turning to look back at Steve to see if he, too, is captivated by the view. 

“It is,” Steve says, a boyish smile on his lips and his eyes alight with unbridled adoration – only his eyes aren’t trained on the glittering marvel behind her, only at her. 

Clarity strikes her then, crystallizing before her. Her change of heart when it comes to this city has nothing to do with the fact that she’s never actually taken the time to slow down and explore it. “It’s you,” she whispers, grinning. “You’re what’s been missing. You’re-” 

“Natasha.” He says her name breathlessly, and before she can even blink, he tips chin up and leans down to slant his lips over hers. Her hands come up, snaking around his neck as she rises to the tips of her toes and pulls him even closer, pouring all the words she wants to say into their kiss. For she realizes that it’s not just Paris that he’s helped her see the magic in. It’s life, too – their life – and if everything seems as though it’s brighter and more hopeful and more joyous, it’s because they get to go through it together. 

“Thank you for choosing me,” he says later when they pull away and he leans his forehead against hers. 

She sighs contentedly, smiling. “Thank you for being worth it.” 

Drabbles Masterlist

[pinkmoondoll9shihtzu]

i am working through something and i wanted to express it somewhere but it feels too personal to say publicly.. and your blog feels like a safe place to confess things.. I want to go on hrt but am terrified of my mother's reaction. she knows im trans and is a lot more ok with it than she used to be but she still doesn't understand and is really bothered by her own lack of understanding. and my sense is that when my appearance changes from T shes going to hate it and be extremely upset. I'm an adult and I dont want to be controlled by my mother's feelings but due to my family dynamics growing up I have rotated around her feelings my whole life, its not as bad as it used to be but i still feel her feelings are dangerous and painful to me. I have a great support system, im blessed with so many friends and even my older siblings who I wasn't close with have been very supportive of me being trans. I dont need to be scared, materially I will be safe and loved even if my mother hurts me. but still its so terrifying to me. I want to get over this and not feel so dependent on her approval, but at the same time i dont even know if its possible. who can help wanting their mother to love them? or even more than love, because i know she does love me and thats really why its so hard, i want her to approve of me and be happy for me. I dont want the happiness i know i will feel from going on hrt to be ruined by her hating my life choices. my spiritual life is pushing me to take control of my life and bring my internal self and reality into the material, I know i cant keep ignoring my own physical desires and living with dissonance between the internal and external...so im moving towards that and i know i'll get there regardless its just terrifying and i wanted to talk about it.. uhh ya sorry this is so personal and emotional i hope it isnt uncomfortable for you or anyone else to read because i know these are really painful issues for many people. and i don't expect you to have any advice necessarily i know htese are huge issues to work through... i just wanted to express it and put it into the world that i'm working on this. thank you for letting me use your askbox to talk! hope your day is great

thankyou for trusting me with your confession anon <3 its not at all uncomfortable to me for you to confide your feelings.. Does anyone who's transitioned have supportive advice they cld leave for anon in the replies? i dont want to speak on something i havent personally experienced.

One thing i do relate to immensely is having a mother who doesn't try to see you as a unique individual, and becomes very displeased when u act in ways that don't align with her worldview. my mom will straight up tell me i look ugly with pink hair. my mom knows i make music but she's never asked to hear one of my songs. she doesn;t want to know about anything that interests me or my motivations in life. etc etc. and it's that same feeling of like, well, she does Love me i think, but i'll never feel that she truly approves of me. idk what the answer is..in my own life it has lead to me being quite a distant person, and rebellious in nature, i coped with it by purposefully leaning into the parts of me she disapproved of most. but idk if that's been healthy for me.

ultimately, we will disappoint everyone in our lives at one point or another.. Sometimes even when u try ur best to please someone it still doesn't work out. so please dont be too hard on urself <3 One thing im learning to cope with my ocd spirals (usually body dysmorphia or guilt related) is to "zoom out", try and redirect my thoughts to the bigger picture of life, it makes my own problems feel smaller in a way that doesn;t silence or dismiss them, just re-contextualizes them in that moment and makes it feel less imminent & overwhelming. mayb i can talk more about methods and analogies for this sometime.

Hope u can find some peace anon and i'm sure your hopes and dreams will materialize for u if u just keep going & focusing your energy on ur dreams. Stay safe <333 PMD9

[faithintheunknownsblog]

Chapter Summary: As an important day in your past nears the more you start to spiral, and your mind weakens. This causes you to reveal more information within a week than you have in the months you’ve already been with the Hellsing Organization.

TW: Kidnapping, multiple examples of how to kill someone, blood, gore, torture, guns, knives- y’know the typical Hellsing things

Master List

To Kill A Monster

Chapter Four: The School

You let out a loud relaxed sigh after stepping out of the shower, relishing in the feeling of being clean. Running water is something you’ll never take for granted like you did before you were homeless.

You grew up in a boarding school, and all you remember of your childhood is that horrid school. You weren’t sure when you got there, but at sixteen you ran away with your best friend, Alexis.

At first you didn’t care that you were homeless, you were happy to finally be free. But as you got older and matured over the years the more you regretted it. All you knew was the school, and though you hated it there, at least you had a bit over the basic necessities to live. You were guaranteed a roof over your head, schooling, food, clothes, ac, heat, running water, and a few other things.

The whole time you were there they told you that you’d go home sooner if you stopped acting out. But you were the picture of perfection, never stepping out of line and following all the outrageous rules they set.

That was until Alexis arrived at the school, around the time you were thirteen. She helped you realize that you were never leaving. She pointed out that you were there since before you could remember and never acted out, yet there was no hope of you leaving until you graduated from the program. So she convinced you to run away with her.

You’ve thought about what would have happened if you hadn't run away all those years ago. What if you had just waited until you were eighteen and set free? Where would you have gone? Would you have lived with your mom?

Your mom… You vaguely remember her. She’d visit weekly and called daily for quite some time. But over time those visits slowly stopped happening, then the calls stopped too. The last time you ever heard from her was a call on your tenth birthday.

You had no idea why she was no longer in your life. The staff convinced you into blaming yourself, saying it was because you were a bad child. When in reality nobody told you that your mom had passed away, which you found out after you and Alexis ransacked the dean’s office before you escaped.

They had all your paperwork, legal documents, and even your original birth certificate. You took yours, Alexis took hers, and you both set fire to them once you two were a city away from the school. There was no trace left of either of you.

But there was one paper you kept, it was a letter from your mother that was in your files. It explained everything.

She confesses how she was a woman who could barely afford the clothes on her back, but your father who she kept unnamed is a man of riches. You’re the result of a one night stand and when your mother went to him she found out that he had a family. She couldn’t take care of you on her own, and didn’t want to give you up for adoption. But it would have been a huge cheating scandal for your father if he took both you and your mother in. So to avoid this your parents made the agreement that the only thing your father had to do is pay for you to go to boarding school. There was no explanation of why they chose such a miserable place, though your mom wouldn’t be able to complain if she knew.

You didn’t bother trying to find your father, there was no point. But you did find your mother’s grave, and visit it occasionally. “Maybe tomorrow,” you nod to the mirror while wrapping your hair up in the towel you just used to dry your body. “I’ll go to the cemetery.”

Grabbing your dirty laundry you open the bathroom door. You were moved to a room that has its own bathroom so there is no need for you to get dressed. Or so you thought.

Because you’re met with the sight of Alucard at your table. This is an issue on its own, but what makes it worse is that your door has a deadbolt on it that was still locked. Meaning he went through the door to get into your room, and when he heard you showering he didn’t bother leaving either.

“Why are you going to the cemetery?” Alucard casually asks. He doesn’t care to look up at you as he continues to flip through the book.

Which you are thankful for because you quickly slam the bathroom door shut. You basically screech when you tell him, “GET OUT!” You don’t get a response, assuming he ignored you- which he did- you yell again, “I’m naked you stupid bastard!”

Alucard let out an annoyed sigh, “if you’re not decent in the next five minutes I’m coming back in, regardless.” Alucard says plainly and exits your room. You open your bathroom door a tiny bit to peek through it, seeing that he’s gone you rush to get dressed because you know what he said wasn’t an empty threat.

Even though you’re dressed you don’t let him know you are. Instead you stand by your door with your sword ready, and wait for him to come back in. Once the five minutes are up he goes through the door with his head first. You bring your blade down swiftly, cutting his head off.

Alucard let his body disintegrate, then came back as usual. “You take ridiculously long showers.”

“Why the Hell were you in my room while I was taking a shower?!” You swing your sword at him again.

“I didn't feel like waiting outside your door,” Alucard says plainly while effortlessly dodging your swings. He was looking for any notes about the guy you kidnapped. When he couldn’t find any separate journals he looked through the ones you already showed them, analyzing each page carefully for anything cryptic. He has yet to find anything.

“You could have waited anywhere else!” You yell and keep attempting to land an attack. “You have a whole mansion! Why are you in my room?!”

“You hide your journals in here,” Alucard takes a step back with each step you take forward. “I was curious if you made any progress with your research.”

“I’m not hiding anything!” You lie and keep your mind clear so Alucard doesn’t get the chance to find out any information if he reads your thoughts. Managing to corner Alucard- which wasn’t hard to do in your small room- and take the opportunity to stab him in the chest.

“Oh?” Alucard pulls your sword out of his chest by the blade and tilts it upward. You still have a hold of the sword, fighting against him in an attempt to have the blade go forward and cut off his thumb. But Alucard’s strength pushes the sword up to your face, and it nearly touches your nose. The sword is covered in his blood, including the part that is almost making contact with your skin. He’s trying to get your senses overwhelmed by the blood so you’ll try it. “What about the cemetery then?”

You know exactly what Alucard is trying to do, and you know there is no way of you slicing forward. So you pull down and back on the sword to withdraw it, taking a good amount of steps back as well. “What about it?” The thought of the cemetery came to your mind for a split second when Alucard asked about it, you quickly pushed it out.

But Alucard managed to get a sliver of an emotion locked in with the memory, and he used it to his advantage. Time to see how far he can push you. “It seems that someone important to you is there.”

“Stop,” you deadpan and try to keep your mind from flooding. You run at him and try to stab him in the chest again, thinking that you landed the attack.

But Alucard moved right before you could cut him. He stands at your side and brings his elbow down hard on the small of your back, causing your body to smack against the floor. He gains a smirk because you may not be thinking about it but your reactions are giving it away. “A sibling, or perhaps a parent?”

You jump up and quickly stab him from behind, which makes him rumble out a laugh. You try to distract your mind by thinking about the winter weather outside. The cold that you absolutely hated when you were homeless, you didn’t have layers to wrap around yourself. “Shut up!”

That was a mistake as well, because now Alucard will take random guesses to see which one is right, or until your mind reveals the truth. “It must have been a parent if you were homeless.”

The other way you know how to distract your mind is thinking about violence, so you invest all your thoughts into every way you could kill him. Even though some of them would only work on a human but you'd kill him that way too if it was possible.

Cutting his head off, shooting him, blowing him up, stabbing, stake through the heart, poison, car crash, hanging, fire, crossbow, drowning, peeling his skin off, scalping. The list goes on and on, any way that someone could die you’re picturing that it’s happening to him.

“And in which of those ways did your parents die?” Alucard asks, but to his disappointment you only picture his death. He can no longer get anything from you, with a sigh of annoyance he leaves by going through your still locked door.

You throw your sword at the back of his head so hard that it goes all the way through the door and stops at the hilt. You stare at the sword for a moment, then scream at him through the wall “FUCK YOU!”

Alucard looks at his hat that you skewered and sighs in annoyance because of your childish screaming. To think that the vampire that thinks she will be the one to kill him screams like a toddler when they don’t get their way. He snatches his hat off of the sword and heads back to his room to think about what little information he’s slowly gathering.

=======

A week has passed since the fight, and your mind has yet to become completely stable again. It wasn’t only because of your fight with Alucard, but memories of your past keep trying to make their way to the surface. You’re having more trouble suppressing them lately, and it doesn’t help that today marks the six year anniversary of running away from the school.

Your instability is making you more and more aggressive, and the hostage is getting the brunt of the anger tonight.

“If you don’t give me any information I’m cutting off a finger,” you threaten the guy you’re holding hostage in the abandoned building. You already took all his fingernails off, though they will regrow after you give him only the tiniest amount of blood from a vial that you brought with you. You do it to keep him from going dormant.

You have only visited this guy five times since you kidnapped him, which was a little over a month ago. The interactions last for a few hours at a time, because if you were to interrogate him for a whole night, you’d kill him.

Not only out of anger, but if you stay for too long you’ll end up killing him to drink his blood since your interrogation tactics are so brutal. The smell of his blood and the blood become nearly too much after a few hours, so to stop yourself from giving into temptation you leave before you lose control.

But you’ve only been here for thirty minutes and already want to keep him out on the roof until sunrise.

After these few interactions you've had with him, he’s given you nothing to go off of. Making you envy Alucard’s mind reading and manipulation, it’d make all of this go so smoothly. You have debated asking Alucard to help before, since you know he’ll have no problem drinking this guy’s blood to get all his memories.

But you also know Alucard will keep things from you, and he’ll use whatever information he gets to pursue his own research on you. It’d give him an upper hand on you.

And you refuse to ever let him have that.

So you force yourself to suffer through nearly uncontrollable blood lust and deal with the unrelenting urge to kill your hostage.

Though the hostage actually doesn’t know much. But he knows that he will survive longer if he acts like he does. He knows you won’t kill him as long as you think he knows something of importance. So he continues to withhold what little knowledge he does have, since he believes he’ll be rescued by one of Granger’s people eventually. With a growl he says, “I’m not telling you shit.”

It was effortless when you cut off one of his fingers, even though you’re only using a regular blade, he isn’t worth dulling your blessed ones. You watch his agonized facial expression as he holds back a howl of pain, and you pocket his finger so you can throw it on the roof before the sun comes out. “What do you know? Next is your dick if I have to ask again.”

He spits in your face, “fuck you bitch.”

You growl and punch him across the face so hard that a tooth flies out of his mouth. You wipe the spit off of your face and look at your hand, it’s now smeared in his blood and saliva. The blood makes your hunger grow, then you remember that it’s also his spit. But your appetite didn’t decrease, making you realize that it’s time for you to go.

You fight him to get the shirt you use as a gag tied around his mouth, and after succeeding you pack up your things. When you see the tiny vial of blood you brought for him at the top of your bag you have to clench your jaw so hard that it feels like your teeth are going to shatter. You know that if you open it to give him a few drops you possibly wouldn’t be able to contain your hunger. That was a risk you weren’t willing to take just to keep this asshole you have tied up from going dormant.

You don’t look at him, but you can feel his eyes following you as you climb out of the broken window and cover it up with plywood- like always- before making your way up to the roof to place his severed finger down, so it can burn once the daylight hits it in a few hours. When standing up there, you pull out the vial you carried with you tonight and look at it. The glass feels so warm as the breeze from the cool night air gives you goosebumps.

Alucard hasn’t bothered with reading your mind while you were interrogating your hostage over the past few visits because he knows you would end up with nothing. But when you come up to the roof he notices how something is off about you, prompting him to peek inside of your mind.

It’s so tempting, the ruby color makes the vial’s liquid look delectable in your trembling fingers. Yourself control is slipping away, starting with opening up the glass to bring it to your nose. You take a deep breath, having the intoxicating smell taking over your senses.

Alucard watches you, filled with anticipation and hope that you’re going to drink the blood, it’ll be a step closer to get you to drink straight from the source.

Bringing the vial to your face and feeling cold glass touch your lips the words “just a small taste” run through your head. Immediately your vision becomes cloudy as segments of a memory rush to your mind.

”Just a small taste,” you hear again, but it’s not your own voice. It���s a female’s voice, but when you look at the face all you see is a blur. She’s trying to convince you to drink with her and a few friends she made.

”Okay, fine!” You chuckle and take a sip of the bottle that is handed to you. But after a while everything became a haze.

”Get off!” You shout at a girl who is over top of you. You’re fighting her off because she’s trying to kill you.

Your vision fades out again. When it comes back to you seeing a guy with a black beanie running away from the fight.

Then another gap in your memory happens until a broken piece of the scene comes to your mind as you stand over top of this girl, blood everywhere and she's dead.

When you come back to reality you quickly close up the vial and without a second thought chuck it as far as you can across the city, in London Bridge’s direction. You listen hard to hear where it drops, luckily it splashes into the water that's miles away. Licking your lips there is no taste of blood in your mouth, so you know you didn’t drink any, thankfully. The picture of that black beanie is in the forefront of your mind, that beanie belonged to Granger. And the girl… You shake the thought of it from your mind, because you don't want to think about it right now.

Which Alucard doesn’t appreciate because he now has even more theories of who this Granger person is and now is left wondering who this girl is. He watches you scale down the fire escape and make your way back to the mansion so you can get some sleep. You are certainly a puzzle that he is dying to solve.

[astras-midnight-thoughts]

It’s been months now, exactly how long I cannot remember

Since I called things quit, and put an end to the first real relationship I’d ever had. I remember being sad for a day, then no longer. Perhaps I had already mourned the loss of what we had 

I wonder if you ever did?

A romance blooming in the summer, meeting is cold end in the winter. It’s fitting how that describes how things went. At first it was lovely, a warm hug, a gentle flame, passionate words that touched the heart

It became a cold feeling, disappointment when I wouldn’t hear back, shiny words that lost their luster, just unread messages on a phoneI visited you whenever I could, I brought gifts - tiny pieces of me for you to hold when I wasn’t there

I was eager to read your messages, to hear your voice; to hug you, to hold your hand, to kiss you

Two hour drive, there and back

You always said once you turned 18 you would be able to do whatever you wanted. You just couldn’t before, due to your mother. I understood.

Another two hour drive, there and back

November, then December. Things turned colder. I felt you growing distant. We were both busy, I had work and school, you had school. I always managed to reach out to you though

The words you sent back felt a bit more empty. Sent hours later, if at all.

Did we call? I can’t remember

It was nearing the end of December when I asked you to come down. My birthday was coming up, and I wanted to celebrate it with you. Your birthday was a week later.

You told me “I’d have to ask my mom”

You told me “She won’t let me, I don’t have a ride”

I told you about the bus route that could connect us, the guest bedroom all prepped, the fee I would happily pay.

You were almost 18, you could do what you wanted.

You never showed up 

You were having a hard time that month

Your mom wouldn’t drive you

Your mom wouldn’t let you on that bus

And still, you were just about to turn 18.

My mom and I talked - she wasn’t happy with you at all. But I still gave you the benefit of the doubt, because 

It was your 18th birthday when I realized it was time. 

I waited a day or so to say anything though

I called you, explained everything, my feelings, what I’d experienced, I communicated and hoped you would understand. I was angry and disappointed and over it

“I’m sorry you felt that way”

“I’ve been having a really hard time”

“My mom wouldn’t-“

We need to take a break

“Okay”

“If that’s what you want”

You always respected my boundaries 

But I’d be lying if I didn’t want you to fight me on that

To prove me wrong, to change, to promise to be better, to talk to me like you had before

But instead, it was just “okay”

You tried to continue the conversation after that, talk about something normal - like my whole world didn’t just stop. 

I told you I needed to go.

As soon as I hung up I was sobbing.

I did the right thing, yet it hurt more than I ever thought it would 

I ran into the arms of my mom, as I felt a pain I never had before. 

Heartbreak 

My very first relationship was over 

I was the one who ended it

So why was I more upset that you were 

My tears would dry, my anger would grow, so did my suspicions 

Did you only have a girlfriend so she could love you? So that you could have comfort when you wanted it?

You talked to me when you were lonely, and shoved me to the back of your mind when you couldn’t be bothered to put in effort

A two hour drive, there and back. A trip you never even made, not once

Did you really think I was going to hang around forever- going with whatever you wanted at the time. A doting girlfriend, a missed text

At what point did you get bored? 

At what point did you think that messaging me after - like you hadn’t just ripped my heart in two was a good idea.

You texted me more the week after we broke up then you had in at least a month.

Short replies is what I gave

Valentine’s Day came, I was alone yet again. What made you think I wanted a text from you with a picture of flowers in a store, saying “happy Valentine’s Day” would make me want to speak with you.

Was that you trying to get me back? What did you possibly think I was going to say back to that? 

Probably not “umm thanks?”

I changed your name. It was your nickname, then it was your name. 

Now it’s just your name (ex)

That was the last time I’d heard from you. I don’t know why, not for sure. I can’t say I was disappointed though

I thought it was over, yet months later, I join a social media app - and not five seconds after setting everything up did I get a notification.

You friend requested me

Ignored it for days

Until, I accepted. And waited.

After a day, and nothing, I deleted you. After all, we all make mistakes - didn’t take too long to fix them though

Yesterday I deleted our convos from my phone. I had to scroll down quite a ways, forgot they were there.

I didn’t change your name this time. But if for some reason I were to get a text from you 

It would show up as (xxx) xxx xxxx 

I would just say

“Sorry who is this?”

“I think you have the wrong number”

[thedonkeyofyourdreams]

rewatching the bastard son/half bad

Ep. 2

I wanted to add pictures this time, but my screenshots turn out black and I cannot be bothered to find a way around it right now. Oh well, I’ll add the gifs I can find. 

Poor Nathan, he was just stabbed and only the next day a group of people beat him up while his sister watches. And to think that the violence in the show is toned down compared to the books. 

I did read the books like a decade ago, and if you had asked me before I watched the show, what I could remember from the books I would have said:

* Boy being locked in a dog cage outdoors

* Boy falling in love with another boy

* My heart hurting, I might have cried

Honestly, I didn’t even remember that there was magic. 

Back to the episode. 

So we see Jessica training, and she is not the best, but she’ll be fine because she’s the most evil. She doesn’t need to hit all of the targets because she’ll get into peoples heads instead.  And I mean, Hazel is a bitch, and in some ways I can appreciate Jessica’s way of getting back on her in the locker room - but when Hazel is being killed and Jessica decides to take the opportunity to fuck with her one last time, I’m pretty much reminded that this girl is disturbed. 

Meanwhile, Celia is training Nathan, with just as much success. I’m still a bit confused about her showing up in the dark while he’s running, to tell him that he looks like his father. I get that they want her to say it so that we’ll hear her back story about seeing the killings, and that her back story explains why she is being a hardass towards Nathan, but the whole showing up in the forest is a bit weird to me. It is strange how we can see her being so rough on him and still kinda like her. She’s no mother figure, that’s for sure. I mean, give the kid a new outfit at least, he almost bled out in this one a month ago. 

I think it is great to see Annalise’s giving ceremony. It is such a stark contrast to Jessica’s. She gets fancy gifts, she has lots of high status guests and even a cake. Her father pricks his finger to give her blood, instead of cutting into his wrist like Nathan’s gran did. There is no doubt that there is an elite of witches and that when Jessica tells Kieran that she had to work a lot harder than him to become a recruit, she probably wasn’t exaggerating. 

Annalise and David. I’m kinda happy for her that she tried to move on from Nathan. I don’t think he looks weird. I still like her and her jokes. I hate him for grabbing her thigh and think it is an interesting way of introducing her powers. Trauma from the start. Oh how much easier it would be to be able to make animals talk. Personally I would have loved to have that skill. So would Annalise, she has no one else to talk to apparently, especially not about Nathan. Rats are smart though, you could probably teach them to use tiny buttons, whataboutbunny style. 

Soul... Showing his true colours. He doesn’t care that Hazel is dead at all, no reaction. He is scared that he’s about to be killed, I get that, but he kept the dark magic book for a reason. He wants to use it. He is ready to kill for the opportunity to use it. My first time viewing this, I didn’t understand what he was up to, so I didn’t quite understand yet how unhinged he already was at this point, but oh boy. More like he waited for the last of the ten to die so that he would get his chance. 

Or did you move your son to Nathan’s school to see what would happen? 

I’m still confused about the timeline though - it seems they just skipped winter?? Or was the halloween party not a halloween party?

Alright, another episode I enjoyed a lot. I could write loads more, but I’d rather keep watching.

[blahandwhatever]

Easter. My mother and I continue to do holidays on our own. I went a day early because she works tomorrow. Hadn't been since mid-February - not on purpose, just how it worked out, though I did like it that way, and didn't really even feel like going today.

My father's birthday was last week, and I wasn't sure what to do about that. Usually he'd have a party. Now, not only are he and my mother not talking, but apparently he had some kind of fight with his family a while back, and now they're not talking to him either. Feeling a little sorry for him, I thought about offering to take him out to eat or something - if I had money. I did not, however, have any money at the time. I also still felt bad about the mess he'd made last year and the ongoing unresolved situation between him and my mother. I just texted him birthday wishes and that was that.

Then it was his mother's birthday. I tried calling a couple of times, to no answer; never heard back.

Again, I never heard anything from his family about Easter.

I was mostly happy with how all this worked out. In the worst of times, I'd get saddled with a sickening amount of family gatherings this time of year. This time, I hardly had to have so much as a conversation about any of it.

With my mother, things can go all kinds of ways, of course. But one day with her is a much smaller minefield.

As always, I ran a little late, though within a tolerable zone. I didn't get as much sleep as I needed, a bit depleted by a busy week I'd partly but not entirely recovered from yesterday. I was about as efficient as I could be, but, broke again (I'd worked so hard to get a long project done in hopes I'd get paid for it Friday! but guess it'll be Monday), I tried to squeeze in a couple of online surveys to give me enough points to redeem in case I needed to stop for air or gas (didn't need to, waste of time).

My father was there, which felt a bit awkward and wrong but not entirely unexpected. My mother had mentioned she wasn't sure if he'd be there or not. I wondered why she would even consider it - there's no reason she should need to include him in her holidays at all. I reminded her of how upsetting his presence was to her on Christmas. She said she was over it. He wasn't really bothering her anymore, and she didn't feel as stressed.

They acted oddly everything's-back-to normal, both in relatively good spirits, talking to each other even. I asked my mother if they were talking again...? She said no, it was just a truce for the holiday. I wondered, given the way that he was, if this could be a slippery slope.

He left pretty quickly after dinner, which was ideal. I don't know if he's still playing poker, but he is back to work and busy with that.

My mother and I had dessert, went for a walk with the dog, and looked through some old pictures, mostly from Italy. I collected some of them to take home and scan to my computer - I hardly had anything from Italy. Felt a bit defensive when she wanted to see what I'd selected, not wanting her to judge my choices, and waved away the attempt with assurance I'd bring them back. I should've not worried and let it be - a little something to work on still.

As she went through the box, picking and choosing what was and wasn't worth showing, she passed over a picture of a sunset I'd taken when I was ten years old. It was outside a store, and we'd both marveled at it, and I'd grabbed her camera to take a picture. She snapped at me about why I was wasting film on a picture like that. I didn't understand. It was beautiful, as she clearly agreed. But for my parents, pictures were supposed to be of people, or at worst concrete places (and then, restricted by certain standards of significance or conventional beauty). The same thing came up when I asked for and got a camera in high school - and then never used it to take pictures of the family. They made so many completely normal things about me feel like something weird and wrong. Needless to say, I don't share my pictures with them.

[fueledbyapplepi]

Hii I was wondering if I could rq Mikey, Baji and Mitsuya with a gn! s/o who is the sole provider in their household? and the guys only find out because they saw their s/o while they were at work? but they didn't know they even had a job bc they kept it a secret? it's perfectly okay if you aren't up for this rq! I hope you have a good day/night!!

Given it All | Mikey, Baji, and Mitsuya

- The boys with an s/o who's a breadwinner of the family.

warnings: mentions of family problems

genre: fluff, angst

A/N: Writing this made me kind of emotional because I have friends who are the main providers for their family and I see them work very hard. This one's for all the independent and hardworking people out there <3

Mikey (Sano Manjiro)

Another day. Another one.

Mikey loves feeling your hands. They're soft and smooth against his calloused fingers. He'll feel the palms in your hands every moment he gets. He always felt like a baby being caressed by your soft hands.

But there seems to be a detail in your hands that he can't miss. Every time you two see each other, Mikey would notice the burns and red marks on your hands.

"Y/N, what happened to this?" he asked.

"Oh, it just got itchy again. You know, the usual," you replied, trying to brush off the topic.

It has always been like that. Each time that Mikey points it out, you always try to avoid the topic or reason out that it's just a scratch. And it's not like he's saying that you're a liar, he just knows that there's more to that than just a mere scratch.

Which is true.

You didn't really want to lie to your boyfriend. It's just that, it's something that it's hard for you to open up and talk about.

At a young age, you were forced to live by yourself. Your mother died at a young age, while your father was a drunkard - eventually getting out of the picture.

In order to provide for yourself, pay for rent and other fees necessary to make a living, you worked hard. Currently, you're working full-time at a family restaurant where you're assigned at cooking. Although this was a daily task for you, you never fail to get yourself burned from the boiling oil.

It wasn't an easy life especially living alone. But at least, you have your boyfriend by your side to get by.

Now that you're shift has finished, you were tasked to throw out the trash at the back before you leave.

As you were about to walk away from that alleyway, you heard a familiar voice.

"Y/N?"

Looking at the source, it was your beloved boyfriend with a questioning look on his face.

"Mikey? What are you doing here?" you asked, anxious about how you'll explain this to your boyfriend.

"I just finished beating up some guy," Mikey said as he pointed out to a dude who passed out on the further part of the alley. "How about you?", he continued as he looked at your uniform and an obvious face that's waiting for an answer.

You knew this day would come. You just didn't expect that it would be today.

Sighing, and taking deep breaths, you explained to Mikey your story and why you work here.

"Y/N, why didn't you tell me?" Mikey asked as he caressed your cheek.

"It's hard for me to talk about it. I'm sorry for not telling you," you said as you looked down.

"Hey, it's okay," Mikey said. "I have a better idea,"

"What?" you asked

"Why don't you just sell Dorayaki and I'll buy all of them every day. Then you'll be rich," Mikey said jokingly.

You looked at him with a deadpan expression.

"But seriously, live with us!" Mikey said with such a happy look on his face.

"Eh?" you asked confused.

"Live with me, Emma, and gramps! I'm sure they'll be happy to take you in, you're my s/o after all," Mikey said, "Plus, you wouldn't have to work this hard if you don't have to pay for rent," he continued.

Your heart felt like it's floating in the air. How can you have such an adorable and loving boyfriend?

"I love you, you know that?" you said.

"Thank you so much, Mikey,"

"It's nothing," your boyfriend said as he kissed your hands. "You're like family to them after all,"

Maybe, the true family you've been looking for was always been by your side.

Keisuke Baji

You sleep early but the bags under your eyes were noticeable for your boyfriend.

Baji always thought that it was weird that the eyebags under your eyes were evident. Not like it's a bad thing though. You're still beautiful as ever in his eyes.

It's just that you always tell him that you sleep at 8 in the evening. Yet here you are, looking like you pull an all-nighter every day.

Maybe it takes you hours before you actually go to sleep? That's possible. But what if you just don't want to spend the rest of the night with him? Is it possible that you're getting tired of him?

It's only been months since you've started dating, but Baji couldn't blame you if you get tired of him.

But it's not like you don't want to hang out with your boyfriend. Hell, who doesn't want to hang out with theirs and experience late-night dates and night rides right? Especially if it's with Baji.

It's just that, you don't have the luxury of spending the night with your boyfriend. Being the eldest of a family of four, you have to work and provide for the needs of your mother and your two younger siblings.

To help your family, you work two part-time jobs every night. One is being an employee at your local convenience store and the other is being a kitchen staff at a local pub. Two jobs might be heavy, and tiring for you, but it's what helps you and your family to get by.

Your boyfriend knew nothing of this. You know that Baji's a great guy, but you're afraid of embarrassing the 1st Division Captain of Toman, so you just try to hide it and make lame excuses.

Tonight's the usual night. Same excuse. Same job.

Currently, you're responsible for the counter at the store. It's past midnight, and you wish you can catch up to some sleep. But you know you can't since you'll be unable to get your minimum wage.

As you're looking at the countertop, someone suddenly handed Peyoung yakisoba.

"Baji's favorite" you smiled as you thought to yourself. Oh, how you miss your boyfriend.

"And that'll be 145 yen," you said as you look up at the customer.

Well, that was unexpected.

"Baji?" you said, seeing your boyfriend's face.

"Y/N? You work here," Baji said, with a confused look on his face.

"Sadly, yes," you said.

"Well, care to share this with me?" Baji said as he pointed out the Yakisoba.

"I have a 15-minute break. Sure," you agreed. Thinking now's the time to explain.

As you and Baji met at the small parking lot, you immediately explained.

"Look, Baji. I'm sorry for hiding this. I want you to know that I'm the breadwinner of the family that's why I can't hang out at night with you. I didn't tell you because I don't want to embarrass you," you rambled as you look anywhere but Baji.

"Embarrass me?" Baji said, walking closer to you.

"Y/N, I'll never be embarrassed at you. I'm proud of you, okay?" your boyfriend said, reassuring you. "I just wished you trusted me more,"

"I'm sorry, Baji," you whispered as you hug him. "I love you."

"Text me okay? I'll pick you up so that you won't have to walk," Baji said as he smiled at you.

"Thank you," you said, with tears threatening to fall.

"You're welcome," Baji said as he kissed your forehead, "Now, let's eat okay?" your boyfriend said, excitement laced in his voice as he opened the Peyoung yakisoba.

Mitsuya Takashi

You're a busy bee. That's for sure.

Whenever Mitsuya invites you on dates on the weekends, you weren't available because you're busy.

When he invites you to have dates after school, you always have to decline because again, you're busy.

He understands it though. Mitsuya knows that you have to study hard for your siblings and that you have to take care of them as well. As someone who always looks out for his younger sisters, Mitsuya knew that it can be hectic sometimes.

What he doesn't understand though is the fact that it's evident that you're trying to hide something from him. He's not that oblivious when it comes to you. Especially after dating you for months.

You're bothered with it too. As much as you love your boyfriend, you're embarrassed about the job you have. But it's not like you have any choice. The job pays well and is enough to make a living for you and your two younger brothers.

After school and on the weekends, it is true that you're busy. Busy with the maid and butler café that you work on.

It's embarrassing enough to be dressed like this. But being seen by the love of your life? That's a different level of shame.

Now that you finished with your shift, you felt the exhaustion on your body. Standing and serving customers isn't a joke anyway. You didn't even bother to change out of your uniform. You just wore a hoodie over it, not caring about the frills of the clothes peaking underneath.

As you were walking home, you heard the familiar sound of an engine. Turning around, you saw a familiar face.

"Ehhh? Y/N?" Mitsuya said, stopping his motor beside you.

"What are you doing?" he continued, eyeing your clothes and looking at you as if he's waiting for an explanation.

"Mitsuya, I can explain," you said as your face reddened from embarrassment.

"Hmmm, I'm listening," your boyfriend said with an unreadable expression.

"Well, uhm, you see, I work at this café that requires us to dress like this," you said as you pointed out to your clothes, "But I don't do anything bad though! It's just we dress like this," you further explained, waving your hands.

"You look cute," Mitsuya smiled "I kind of hoped you just told me sooner. I would've made you some clothes,"

"Huh? You're not mad?" you said, surprised.

"How could I be? My s/o's working hard. Plus, I get to see you in cute clothes. What's there to be mad of?" Mitsuya said as he smiled at you.

"Baby, I love you," you said as you looked at your boyfriend with adoration.

"I love you too. But take me there someday okay?" Mitsuya replied grinning.

You just nodded and blushed at the idea.

[itisannak]

Car Sex (Luke Hemmings Smut)

Summary: Luke and (Y/N), both college students, living with their parents, have to get creative to find some alone time. (Smut / Unprotected Sex /  Penetrative Sex / Public Sex / Creampie) (Words: 5.4k) (Request)

"Be back by 11:30." My dad shouts as I run down the stairs, heading to the door. "The movie ends at 12." I remind him, sighing over how strict he becomes when he knows I am going out with Luke. "12 it is then." He replies, peeking at me from his armchair. "I don't have classes tomorrow... And teleportation had yet to be invented last time I checked." I point out, crossing my arms before my chest. "Smarty-pants. If he brings you home a minute after 12:30, you are grounded." My dad tries to sound tough, but he is a big softie. I rush to him, leaving a peck on his cheek before strutting out of the door.

Luke has been waiting long enough in the car, longer than I would have the patience to wait for someone without pressing my hand on the horn. I did not expect to see him inside the parked pick-up park, but here I am, opening the passenger door to join him inside. "Wow, that is a first..." I comment, pressing my lips together to stop my laughter as soon as I am in. I just picture him as a hillibilly, chewing on a hay straw, and the mental image is enough to make me double over in laughter. "Shut up. My brother lent me it for the night." He explains, pulling out of the driveway. "Why does your brother have a truck?" I ask, pulling the seatbelt to fasten myself. "He works in constructions." He replies, turning his head for a quick peck on my forehead. "Right." I mumble. "What time does your curfew start?" He asks me, shifting the gears. "I have to be home at 12.30, not a minute later. It still fucks me up that I still have a curfew at 19 and you don't." I groan, crossing my arms. Luke shrugs, having a charming little smirk decorating his lips. "My parents had enough of setting rules for disobeying teenagers with my brothers, so I guess I had it easy, they never bothered placing one." He comments as I prop my elbow against the window's frame, supporting my head as I look at him. "There is no way your mother is that elastic with you. I had chills every time I walked into her class in high school." I really do exasperate, earning a laugh from Luke. I love it when he laughs; his face brightens up, and his dimples make him really irresistible, along with the crinkles around his eyes. I reach over, stroking a messy curl with my fingers, before pushing it off his forehead. "She is much chiller when you get to know her." He replies, resting his hand on my thigh. "I guess you are right." I sigh, feeling jittery at the way he touches me. "Pity I will have to take you home straight after the movie. I was hoping for some more time with you." He says in a low voice, almost like he fears getting heard. "It has been too long since the last time we had more time together." I reply. It would be a lie if I said I am not actively craving him. I still dream of his touch, the way he kissed me last time, the way he moved against me. "To be clear, I am talking about having sex." He explains and I chuckle, throwing my head back. "I am talking about having sex too, Luke." I reply, making him hum, pleased by my response. "We gotta do something about the housing situation." He sounds determined, which is just hilarious at this point. "Well, we are broke, college students who can only afford to live with their parents. I don't know if there is much we can do about it at this point." I reply, while his hand squeezes my inner thigh. "I am just... I just need more of you." He groans and I hum, feeling my stomach tighten at his words. "Can we talk about the movie? This is becoming... A little too intense for me." I bite my bottom lip, running my fingers through my hair. "Of course. They are showing the Texas Chainsaw Massacre." He states, letting his touch linger for a little longer before he removes his hand. I press my thighs together, trying to relieve some of the tension between them. It is hard for me to take my mind off Luke being inside me, kissing me, touching me, even with the prospect of watching a movie about cannibalistic psychopaths. "Why do you always pick horror movies for date night?" I groan, nudging his shoulder. "Because you always leave me in charge. And because the gore is the only thing stopping me from fantasizing about you." He replies, taking my hand in his and bringing it to his lips. "You fantasize about me?" I ask, feeling the tingly sensation making its way back. "All the time. My thoughts are just a never-ending movie of things I want to do with you... of things I want to do to you. And I am just trying to find ways to just pause that movie for a while." He admits. "Is the movie playing right now?" I ask, flushing as I wait for him to tell me. "You wanna know?" He asks and I nod at him, knowing my eyes are glistening with excitement. "Right now it shows the scene where it is Sunday morning, and we have just woken up, naked in bed. And I am just taking you in, in all your glory." He replies. "You are definitely giving me the PG-13 version right now." I point out and he shrugs. "I am keeping some of the good stuff for a little later." He winks at me, causing me to bite the inside of my cheek.

We purchase some popcorn and sodas from the drive-through kiosk before Luke finds the spot we are supposed to park. The back of the pick-up truck is facing the screen, which means we will have to get out of the car and climb onto the back. "I really want to see you try to get in the back, wearing that dress." Luke comments, picking up the snacks and getting out of the car. "I know you want to peek under my skirt, but gosh, don't be so obvious about it." I chuckle, hopping off the car. Luke waits for me in the back of the truck, holding his connected palms low, so I can step on them and go up the cargo bed. "You are a true gentleman..." I comment, leaving a peck on his cheek, before I step on his hands and he boosts me up. "Need help?" I ask him once I land just right. "I got it. Lay the blanket I have in there. And move the snacks, I don't want to knock them." He instructs, stepping onto the rim under the taillights. I hold the snacks tight as he steps in, dusting himself off. "This is actually nice." I admit, laying one of the blankets for us. "See? That will teach you not to laugh at me before you see my intentions." He comments, sitting down on the blanket, with his back against the divider. "You should be happy I am laughing. It means you make me happy." I reply and he hums. I take a seat between his thighs, leaning my head back on his shoulder, bringing my lips to his neck for a soft peck. "I promise to hold you tight at the scary parts." I whisper, knowing that I will spend the entirety of this movie with my face buried in his chest. "I will hold you up to that." He chuckles, leaving a peck on my forehead.

The night chill proves I am a fool for wearing a frilly little dress for the night screening. But luckily, Luke has predicted that and has brought a second blanket along, which now is covering our laps. "You look mighty cute in the cinema lights." Luke whispers, stroking my hair softly. "You are supposed to be focusing on the movie, not me." I laugh, trying to keep my voice low so I don't bother the rest of the viewers. "You are far more interesting than any movie." He replies, turning my head to plant a kiss on my lips. I smile against his lips, parting my mouth so he can slip his tongue past my lips. His hand softly grazes my face, and I then decide to turn around and straddle his lap. "You can't do that to me." He groans, throwing his head back. That gives me access to his neck, which I take advantage of and trail with kisses. "Why not?" I ask, pouting at him. "(Y/N), please... This is torturing. It has been too long since we had sex. I am craving you, and this is not helping me." He replies, while my hands move to his hair. "I am craving you too. I need you." I whine, earning a sigh. "I need you too. But we don't have the time nor the place to do that." He replies, and I shake my head. "What about right here, right now?" I ask, making him tilt his head and look at me, with eyes glazed in excitement. "You mean...?" "Who's going to see us? And don't say the movie is more interesting than me..." "Fuck the movie." He groans, bringing his hand to trace my thigh, stopping on the hem of my dress. "I'd rather you fuck me." I reply, earning a smirk from him. "This is risky." He comments and I shrug. "You love it, don't you?" I ask and he hums. He throws the lap blanket aside, laying me with my back on the blanket laid on the floor of the cargo bed. "You will have to be very quiet..." He states, stroking my cheek softly. "You are the one to talk..." I mumble before he leans down to kiss me.

He clumsily fumbles with the lap blanket, covering us for a mock discreteness, even though we both know a blanket will do nothing. He roams his hands from my face to my sides and then retires them on my thigh. I prop my leg up, wrapping it around his waist. "You are so soft." He moans against my mouth, squeezing my thigh softly. My lips curl into a smile, feeling goosebumps crawl onto my skin. "Oh shit." He groans, making me look at him with a furrow on my brow. "What? What happened?" I ask, watching as his face twists in frustration. "Condoms are in the glove compartment. I have to go back in the car." He groans, throwing his head back. "It is ok... We don't need one." I state, feeling my core becoming warm at the thought of him sliding inside me bare. "Are you sure about this?" He asks me and I nod. "It is not a risky day. I need you." I almost beg, causing him to chuckle at me, as his hands work his pants to free his cock. "I will just... Push your panties aside... No one will know what we are doing." He mutters, spreading my legs more, propping them around his waist. Blindly and clumsily, he tries to line up his tip to my entrance. The only lights come from the light poles around the parking space, and of course, the projector playing the movie, so there is almost only darkness surrounding us. Luke finally manages to slip inside me, moving slowly so the car doesn't rattle and bring any suspicion on us. "Shit, you feel good." He whispers by my ear, planting a peck on my earlobe. He buries his face in my neck, nibbling on my skin as he begins rocking his hips on mine. It takes me a moment to get my mind off the catastrophic thought that we are going to get caught, but the moment the first moan slips from his lips, I feel chills crawl down my spine. "Oh, God." I mumble, finally feeling his cock stretching me, with each thrust making me wetter and wetter. "Shh, we have to be quiet, remember?" He playfully reminds me, passing his tongue over the spot he was sucking on a second ago. "Buzzkiller." I whisper, but it soon turns into a gasp as he thrusts his whole cock inside me, making me pulse around him. I have to bring my hand to my mouth as Luke backs out and thrusts in again, this time with more force than before. I bite onto my palm, preventing myself from making a sound as Luke tries to find a rhythm for us. We both know this cannot last as long as the last time did; in contrast to the time we stayed up all night fucking, we will now have to be done in less than 10 minutes. "The way you take my cock is going to be the death of me." He mumbles as I buck my hips up to meet his thrusts, trying to find an angle for his cock to hit my spot. Luke groans softly, placing a hand under the small of my back to support me. "We are fucking under the stars." I giggle softly, squeezing myself around him. "I am going to find us a house, I promise you that." He slams his hips on mine, making the car move a little. "Careful." I groan, but the way he is rocking his hips on mine makes my mind fuzzy around the edges. We have to pray the people around us are too focused on the movie, or else we are putting on a show for them. Luke brings on hand from under my back to my cheek, touching it softly. "You feel so good around me, baby." He says raspily as I move my hips in a soft circle. The top of his cock brushes against my clit and I feel myself tighten around him. I muffle a whimper, closing my eyes tightly to focus on anything else but the way he feels inside me. "I can feel you here." I grab his hand and let it press on my lower stomach, right at the nook where I feel the impact of his thrusts. Luke strokes his thumb over that spot, giving me a slow, deep thrust, looking mesmerized by the way my stomach inflates and falls as he fucks me. His hand travels under my dress, heading straight to my breasts, cupping them and stroking his thumbs over my nipples. I whimper and shudder, bucking my hips against his and taking his cock more inside me. "You are going to fuck yourself on my cock, princess?" He asks cockily, pinching my nipple between his fingers, pulling at it sadistically slow. "Will you fill me up, daddy?" I ask him back; two can play this game. I can see his eyes sparkle at my question, even in the dark night. "Shit, (Y/N)... I am going to cum..." Luke groans by my ear, making me tighten around him in surprise. "Cum, please. I want to feel all of you inside me..." I groan, my mind becoming clouded by my need for him. "But you are not there yet..." Luke protests. "You have a mouth, don't you?" I ask him, heaving for breath. Luke chuckles and looks at me amused, before slamming his hips on mine, pinning me down to ravage me. Luke brings his face to my neck, muffling himself by biting onto my skin. I gasp in shock, the slight sting of pain sending waves of electricity down my body. "I am going to fucking wreck you... I am going to fucking ruin you for everyone else. You are mine... Just mine. " He groans, gluing his hips on mine as he cums, hissing as he reaches his high. It takes him a moment of grunting and breathing funny before he cups my face and kisses me harshly. "I am going to make you feel good, princess. I promise." His voice is still heavy and groggy from his orgasm, and he sounds so chillingly sexy, contrasting the loud chainsaw buzzing that goes off every couple of minutes in the movie.

He parts from my lips and slides down my body, spreading my legs more and fixing himself between my thighs. He traces my slit softly, watching me as I still pulse from the loss of contact. He uses his fingers to part my lips, revealing my entrance and my clit to him. He wastes no time lapping up his tongue on my sex, moaning as he tastes us mixing together. I smile to myself and look up at the night sky, taking in the pretty little stars as Luke curls his tongue on my entrance, gathering the pooling wetness and his cum on the tip of his tongue. He brings the tip to my clit, teasing it in slow, agonizing circles, making me jolt at every single one of them. Once he sees I am teased to a sufficient level for his liking, he wraps his lips around my clit, suckling on it hungrily. My breath gets caught in my lungs and I am baffling between bringing my hand to my mouth to stop any sounds from escaping or tangling my fingers in his hair, pulling at his locks, and guiding his mouth where I need him. "Luke..." I whine, messing my fingers in his hair, contrasting the intensity that courses through my body with the softness of his curls. Luke hums in approval, flicking his tongue against the head of my clit. I press my lips together and roll my hips in the air as my orgasm explodes inside me, spreading on my body. I try my hardest not to make a sound, nor move too much that the car squeaks. Luke moves up from between my thighs after he fixes my panties over my core. He leans in, kissing my lips softly. I realize that I have been smiling since I hit my orgasm, but only after Luke mimics my smirk. "I am going to find us a house." He announces again, tracing his hand softly over my cheek. "Yeah, we need one." I agree, moving my tongue across my bottom lip, tasting us together. "Do you think anyone saw us?" Luke asks, rolling next to me. I fix my head upon his chest, letting myself hear his heartbeat. "As long as we do not end up on a pornsite, I am not that mad if they did." I reply and he chuckles. "Kinky... I like that about you." "You like what about me?" I ask, cocking an eyebrow. "You are always up for testing your limits." He replies and I hum. "I wish we could sleep together tonight." He sighs, pecking at the top of my head. "I think my dad will neuter you if you show up at my house for a sleepover. And your mom will probably bound me in your basement and torture me for seducing her benjamin." I giggle and he scoffs. "My mom is not a monster." Luke protests playfully. "I don't know. Her nickname was Charybdis in high school." I mumble and he punches my arm playfully.

"Will you call me before bed?" Luke asks me as he parks in front of my house. "Do you want me to?" I ask him, undoing my seatbelt. "Since I can't sleep with you tonight, at least I would like us to do it over facetime." He shrugs, tapping the tip of my nose softly. "I will certainly facetime you then. I will see you on Tuesday, won't I?" I ask and he nods. "Ok then. Talk to you in a bit." I bite my lip before I lean in to plant a soft peck on his lips. He waits until I am inside the house to take off, which brings a smile to my face. He cares a lot and he is really protective, without crossing any boundaries. "Did you have fun at the movies?" My dad asks, making me jump at the sound of his voice. He has stayed exactly where I left him, which is a little creepy. "You scared the shit out of me, dad." I gasp, touching my chest and feeling my heart pounding. "We saw the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Not really my style, but it was ok." I reply and he hums. "If you wake up screaming in the middle of the night because you had a nightmare, I will know who to blame." He goes back to watching TV. It is not a secret that my dad does not really like Luke; he thinks of him as a devil in the disguise of an angel. "Goodnight dad." I run up the stairs to take off my makeup and get ready for my night call with Luke.

I tap my fingers nervously as I wait for Luke to pick me up. We are supposed to head for a dinner date, but I am not sure we will go through with it. Luke's car pulls up in front of me, and I rush inside, earning a look of surprise from him. "I was ready to wait for you at least 15 more minutes." Luke chuckles, helping me with my seatbelt. "Can you find a space somewhere a bit private?" I ask him, earning a hum from him. "I will be happy to..." He starts the car, aloof to my jitters.

Luke parks behind an elementary school, which seems abandoned for the day, before he undoes his seatbelt and turns to look at me. "It will do for now, don't you think?" Luke asks, cocking an eyebrow at me. "We need to talk." I state, making his face drop. "Oh. That sounds a little ominous." He replies and I nod my head. "I am late." I just let it out, dropping the bomb on his lap now. "Late for what? Do you have to be somewhere before our date?" He asks. I roll my eyes and rest my head back on my seat. "Luke..." I sigh. "What?" He asks, frustrated over my reaction. "My period is late. I might be pregnant." I explain and he looks at me dumbfounded. "Are you sure?" He manages to utter after a second of just staring. "My tracker says I am a week late. And I am never late, not this long. I am freaking out." I sniffle, my hands bunching up my cardigan. Luke stays silent, starting the car again. I feel awful in this silence but I understand he needs time to process it. It took me two days to swallow this, he deserves at least a couple of minutes to even begin thinking about it. It itches me on the inside to just ask him to say anything, but I decide to control myself. Without a word, he parks the car in front of a pharmacy and exits the car. It would make more sense for him to slam the door on the way out, but he didn't. I cannot find a way to translate his coldness and it pains me to sit here without a clue. He is gone for a little over 10 minutes but it felt a century to me. I don't dare ask him what he bought, so the car sinks in silence again.

The next stop is at a totally strange house to me. Luke helps me undo the seatbelt, still silent, and motions me to follow him. He unlocks the door to an apartment, letting me go in first. "What is this place?" I finally have the courage to ask once we enter the poorly furnished place. "I told you I would find us an apartment. I wanted to tell you at dinner, but I guess..." He replies, handing me the paper bag from the pharmacy. "Is it what I think it is?" I ask and he nods. "Luke, I am scared." I admit and he sighs. He wraps his arms around me, pressing his lips softly on my forehead. "I am too. But we need to face our fear. Or it will catch upon us." He replies, stroking a piece of hair behind my ear. "Come on. I will be right outside." He guides me to the small bathroom, giving me a small smile before I shut the door. It is such a lonely process doing this. I know Luke is waiting for me, I know that he is here for me, right outside the door that divides us, but I feel so alone. It is nerve-wracking, having to wait even a moment for the test that will define the rest of my relationship with Luke. There is a soft knock on the door, Luke's knuckles must barely even touch the wooden furniture. "Did you do it?" He asks nervously, but not demandingly. "I am waiting for the result." I sniffle. "Would you like me to come in and wait with you?" He asks. "No. I will be out in a minute..." I am too upset myself to have Luke's nervousness right now. "Ok, love." He sighs, giving up. I know he is trying to comfort me and this is the best way he can think of doing so, but it is just... I don't know if it is too much or too little.

The timer goes off and I know that I have to face the little plastic stick at last. It is so stupid that I am terrified by a piece of plastic, but I feel a tug at my heartstrings just at the thought of what the result might be. I peek at it, finding the word 'PREGNANT' on the little digital screen. Fuck. "Can I come in?" Luke asks. He must have heard the timer too so he knows the test has shown a result. I am too emotional to answer him, all I want to do is cry. How did that happen? Fuck, why did it happen now? We were always careful and we barely ever had a place to be just the two of us. God, that night at the drive-in... I was stupid enough to tell him it didn't matter going bare. Luke barges into the bathroom after my lack of response, his eyes instantly falling on me. He sighs understandingly, moving closer to me and wrapping his arms around me. "It's ok... It's all ok, love. Please, stop crying." He tries to soothe me, but it will take more than a hug and his soft voice to calm me down. "I've ruined both our futures..." I moan, my voice barely coming off. "No, no, you didn't. It is my fault too. Hey, we are going to be alright. She's gonna be apples, you'll see." He cheers, rubbing the small of my back soothingly.

My obstetrician could only see me 2 days after I took the test. Despite me wanting to rush to the first person with an available appointment, Luke told me that 2 days wouldn't hurt and we should go to the one I trust. And now as I am feeling in the form of family history and reason of the visit, Luke is sitting next to me, almost completely unfazed, as if his life is not about to tumble down. "How can you be so calm?" I ask him, annoyed by how cool he seems. "I am not." He replies, not even turning to look at me. "You are. You are awfully calm and cool for someone who is going to be a father before he finishes college." I whisper the last part, even though it is just us in the waiting room. I have been tiptoeing around admitting my pregnancy, not even daring to say it to myself out loud. "You think I am not panicking? You think I am not about to have a nervous breakdown? But I have to keep calm and be here for you. You are a mess, (Y/N)." He says through gritted teeth. "Well, I am sorry this is too much for me. I will try my hardest not to let my mess affect you." I snap, moving to a chair away from him. "I didn't mean it that way..." He protests and I hum, scribbling on the form fast.

The doctor calls me in her office, finally ready to exam me. Luke follows suit, asking her if it is ok to join us too. "Is it ok with you, (Y/N)?" She turns to me. "I really couldn't care less." I mumble, climbing onto the exam bed. Luke walks in, standing in the corner of the room awkwardly. "I will need you to take your jeans and underwear off for this." She instructs me and I nod. "Your urine sample gave us a positive pregnancy test, so I will have to go transvaginally to see the fetus. We have done this in the past, but you will feel slight discomfort when I enter the prob." She states, prepping the little wand. I feel as if I want to throw up, this ordeal has been stressing me out a lot. "Ok. Are you ready?" She asks as I lay on my back. I nod my head and take a deep breath, boosting myself for the exam. Pushing past the initial discomfort, I turn to look at my doctor as she looks at the screen with a frown. "Do you have any symptoms?" She asks me, looking at the ultrasound carefully. "No, other than my period being late, no." I reply and she hums. "You took a home test?" "Yes, it came back positive. Is everything ok?" I ask her. "Well, you are not pregnant. But you have a positive home test and a urine stip test. So my guess is there is proteinuria and that is why we had 2 false positives. I will order you a lab work for that, just to rule things out, but I think it might be stress-related." She replies. "I am not pregnant?" I ask, my heart skipping in relief. "You are not." She replies. "Are you sure?" Luke asks for the first time since the exam started. "I am very certain you are not expecting. Based on your reactions I will say congratulations, you are not pregnant." She chuckles, handing me a couple of tissues to clean up. "I will leave you to get dressed and go order the lab test. You can pick it up from my receptionist." She smiles at us before she leaves the room.

After the doctor's visit, I was craving ice cream, so Luke drove me to my favorite place for a strawberry soft serve. Since our date night was canceled from my pregnancy scare, we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and take a stroll at the park. He holds my hand in his as we both lick our ice cream as if the last couple of days didn't happen. "We are not having sex again without a condom." I lean my head on his shoulder as he hums in agreement. "That is certain." He adds. "I am sorry I was so... messy the last couple of days." I apologize and he shrugs. "It is one of the things I love about you." He brings my hand to his lips, pecking it lightly. "For what is worth, you were an excellent partner and you handled this scare probably the best way possible." I comment and he sighs. "I was scared beyond words. We are too young to become parents." "I agree. We barely have a place to be alone..." I point out. "Well, we do have it, though." He says, making me bite the inside of my cheek. "I really liked the space, from what I remember seeing..." "I am glad you did. Cause I plan on spending a lot of time in it with you." He plants a kiss on my forehead, making me feel my face get hot. "We never learn, do we?" I chuckle and he shrugs. "I think we learned our lesson." He takes a long lick of his dessert.

My Masterlist  /  Chronological Masterlist  /  The "Less than 100 Notes Fics" Masterlist  /  My Ko-Fi

[littlemisslipbalm]

“you make me so angry sometimes”

idk if this gif makes sense, but i feel like it will if you read the story, it just gives me that vibe. 

A one shot I cooked up idk, it’s about Harry and a makeup artist on DWD, it’s quite angsty, idk how that happened, it’s also very long, idk how that happened either, maybe i do a part 2, maybe i don’t idk lmk. Feedback is appreciated, not proofread. REBLOGS help writers tremendously and i love reading whatever you write in the tags its my favorite thing!! Love yall and Merry Christmas!

Word Count: 17.7k | Warnings: ENEMIES to LOVERS! swearing, angst!, some anxiety -like self-doubt, yn being mean to harry kind of a lot, i dont remember, nothing too crazy, Nick Kroll?, lots of conversation

-

When she pictured herself as a makeup artist in Los Angeles, she hadn’t pictured exactly what she was doing right now.

She had expected doing gorgeous makeup for gorgeous actresses or doing wildly fun stuff like in Euphoria. And because of that she had worked her ass off to get where she was today. She had practiced for hours, worked countless hours for free, and networked to the cows came fucking home.

So why the fuck was she using tattoo-strength concealer to cover up the maybe 60 tattoos some asshole musician turned actor had all over?

Don’t Worry Darling was her first major film to work on so she couldn’t complain. She was happy to simply be there. Well she had been. The first day she had showed up 15 minutes early and had worn her favorite power suit she had. It was dark navy with a white lace long sleeve turtleneck underneath. She hoped to look fun but professional.

Hollywood was all about impressions, especially first ones, even when you’re the makeup artist. She had quickly learned that she was one of six makeup artists. One of them being the friend who had helped her get the job, Angie. Angie was like her surrogate mother in Los Angeles that she had met on her first film job for something much less high profile than Olivia Wilde’s second directing project. Her braided grey hair and fabulous jeans had drawn Y/N right in and they had connected instantly.

Since Y/N was deemed the most inexperienced by the head of the makeup department, she was relegated to easier jobs: assisting the other artists on main characters sometimes, mostly dealing with minor characters touch ups (and full make-up if she was lucky), and the job nobody wanted: tattoo coverage.

Harry Styles was one of the leads for the film and besides his minimal acting, everyone knew he was a worldwide rockstar. With the rock and roll life starting off as a popstar life at the ripe age of 16, he had amassed around 60 tattoos in the past decade. Impressive by her standard normally. She usually counted herself as an appreciator of tattoos and their art, finding them similar to makeup and the self expression that came with both forms. Especially since she had a few of her own, but when she walked into Trailer #6 and saw a good amount of Harry’s tattoos, she wanted to murder every artist he’d ever been to.

She had to make an inventory the first day of all of his visible tattoos when he was just wearing boxers. He had been friendly, trying to make conversation, but as the time wore on, they both grew tired and silent. She had to write down the location and a description of every tattoo and as he took off everything but boxers she grew more and more annoyed with his random and dumb tattoos. Some of them were amazing, the eagle, the anchor, the butterfly, and the ferns were probably her favorites. But some of them, she couldn't hold back her rolling eyes and annoyed expressions. The “Big” on his right big toe, a miniscule lock, almost everything on his inner left arm (the packers logo, Pingu, etc.)

She traces at the rose and the ship and then flips his arm out to reveal his inner arm to her gaze. “That is a big fucking bee.”

He snickers, “Y’like it?”

She ignores his question. “For god’s sake, someone is needle happy,” she said as she examined his left arm, taking note of every permanent drawing.

He shrugs his right shoulder, uninhibited by her prodding. “Dunno, beginning to regret some of them.”

“I would hope,” she mutters, scribbling on her paper the various ones she had just seen on his arm. Next was his ribcage ones.

He scoffs, “Oi, it’s not like you haven’t got any.”

“How would you-” She looks at him wide eyed.

“Right…” he takes his right hand and pushes her hair past her ear to reveal three little red line butterflies following the curve of her ear, “There. At least.”

She huffs and knocks his hand away from her. Her hair falling back into its place.

“Maybe some located in a few more intimate places I’m guessing from the red rushing to your cheeks right now.”

“Can you just let me do my job,” she says, not giving in to his teasing or sparing him a glance as she feels his intense gaze on her face. She was studying his left rib cage where a few cool tattoos happened to be.

“You at least have some taste or persuasive artists because not all of these are shit,” she speaks again after just the sound of her pen on the paper filled the trailer.

“Gee, thanks,” he laughs unamused and rolls his large green eyes.

She thought he had some of the biggest eyes she’d ever seen. But she also knew to keep that to herself because he’d either take it as a compliment and think she was noticing him too much or he’d take it as a massive insult and get her fired.

His right hand taps at his thigh, tapping a rhythm she didn’t care to pay any attention too. She just wanted to finish the stupid inventory of the stupid tattoos on this stupid man.

“Take those off,” she says to Harry, looking back at her clipboard again, filling up quickly with her notes.

He stands there, staring at her stubbornly. He was entirely bored with this exercise, especially since his company was some of the worst he’s ever had. She spares him a glance when she doesn’t notice any slipping off of the colorful sweatpants he’s wearing.

She arches a brow at him, her pen tapping impatiently against the paper. “Go on. Can’t imagine you want this to go on longer than it already has.”

He rolls his eyes again, slipping his thumbs into the waistline of the pants and tugging down. Simultaneously, he toes off the dirty vans he seemed to wear everywhere. The fabric pools easily and he steps out of them and discards them on the couch behind him. He’s actually wearing black briefs. She chooses not to notice anything further than that.

“Socks...can stay on,” She tries to say as he begins to peel one off. He stops midway and nods.

She flings his shirt to him, not needing to see his naked torso for another moment, “I know you’ve got some feet and ankle tats, but I also know that you won’t be wearing anything that will expose them. Thank your lucky stars that I don’t have to makeup your feet.”

He catches the shirt easily and slips his arms inside before tugging it quickly over his head and over his expansive shoulders. The ferns disappear out of sight.

“Well then we’re almost done then. Just got the knee ones -”

“And the tiger. That’s gonna be one son of a bitch,” she sighs and examines his legs, not bothering to crouch.

“What the actual fuck dude?” Her tone is exasperate and like she would rather be anywhere else than here.

“I’m sorry?” He sputters, hands on his hips and eyes bewildered.

“Yes. No. Oui. Non. Who are you?” She rubs at her eyes and shakers her head.

“S’a little rude.”

“You’re right,” she semi-rushes out at his serious tone, ready to apologize. When a grin spreads over his face and he chuckles under his breath she really wants to smack him upside the head. He was exhausting. “You’re unbelievable.”

“Thought it was funny at the time. Kind of think it’s even funnier now since it’s got you all mad.” He leans over her shoulder to look at her notes and when she glances at him unhappily he just looks smug.

“Alright,” she finishes the scribble of a description and clicks the end of her pen, “All done. You can get dressed. I’ll see you bright and early for tattoo makeup. It’s gonna take about an hour to do all this, just so you can mentally prepare for that.”

“It was nice to meet you,” he attempts at a friendly and professional farewell. “See you tomorrow…” he trails off as he watches her turn on her heel and walk out of the trailer door swiftly. The door swung shut and bounced a little bit in her wake.

Harry sighed and adjusted his clothes and hair in the mirror. After a moment he shakes his head, an even louder sigh escaping him.

-

“Good morning!” She greets happily, walking into the trailer without a knock. Well-rested and happy at least that she doesn’t have to just inspect a body, she looks around the trailer.

She realizes no one is there and she’s taken aback. First of all, if Harry wasn’t there then he shouldn’t have left his trailer unlocked. And second, he was fucking late, the fucking twat.

She grumbles, setting her coffee on the countertop. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “In through the nose, out through the mouth” she mutters. She knew this was a big opportunity and having a big star like Harry in her corner could make her career. She needed them to get off on a better foot today.

“Good form, I’d say relax the shoulders a little more,” the door swings open carrying the California twang-British accent that she would soon become all too accustomed to.

Harry points at her shoulders and narrows his eyes regarding her in the trailer. She offers a strained smile through the mirror and Harry sets down his personal things on the couch.  

“Alright, well let’s get started shall we,” she smiles and turns to him, gesturing to the swivel chair next to her.

He nods, a twinkle in his eye as he regards her. He’s unsure of the tone and attitude she’s giving him today. She had been feisty yesterday, cordial at times, but mostly biting and witty. He had liked it. It had made the whole ordeal bearable whereas now she seemed to be laying it on a little thick.

“Just your hands and neck today,” she says, pulling out the makeup materials needed and a checklist of the tattoos she needed to make sure were invisible.

“Should only take..a little under an hour today. Just gonna remind you now though, other days we won’t be so lucky.”

Harry chuckles under his breath and rolls his head around his shoulders before sitting in the chair. “Were you tired yesterday?” He inquires.

“Why do you ask?” She throws a glance over her shoulder at Harry. He’s begun slipping off his sweatshirt and yawns as he does it.

“You seem different from yesterday and I’m just wondering which one is the real you.”

She continues working about the room and rolls her eyes to herself, “I’m always the real me. I come no other way, but this morning I woke up and thought ‘this is the job you’ve fucking wanted for ages, so stop being such a bitch so you don’t get fired, you prick’.” She pauses and turns to face Harry. “The ‘you prick’ was directed at me, that was still part of my thought,” she adds.

He throws his head back and laughs. Then he nods, still laughing lightly, “I get that. Sometimes I’m just so in my head and yesterday I was just so fuckin’ bored. Sorry if I got on your nerves.”

“Don’t mention it.” She waves her hand at him nonchalantly.  

Then she moves to inspect his hands and notices the lack of rings, unlike yesterday when she had to make him take them off.

“You have amazing cuticles,” she notices and mentions without any pretences. Harry mutters his thanks, pursing his lips as he watches her work.

She stops her inspection and places the clipboard on the countertop in front of them.

“Could you take your necklaces off? I need to cover up half of the swallows and the years, for when you unbutton your shirt a bit.”

He wets his lips and nods, hands going to fiddle with the clasps behind his neck. He slips off one of the necklaces with ease, a yellow eye beaded necklace that he lays gently on the countertop next to the clipboard. Then he takes his cross and pulls it over his head, no clasp needed.

“Could I put some music on?” Harry asks after five minutes of Y/N working in silence and Harry only being able to stare either at himself, her work, or nowhere.

“I can,” she stops her work for a moment, “Can’t have you messing up the makeup before it sets. Otherwise I’d have to kill you.” Harry can’t be sure if she’s joking or not. Therefore, he was intent on not messing it up.

“Any requests?” She stands at the counter now, instead of seated on a stool working on Harry's left hand.

He shrugs, like he hasn’t got the faintest idea about good music. She refrains from rolling her eyes once again because she feels herself in a test. She wets her lips, sifting through different things in her Spotify and then lands on her playlist titled “it’s your song” named after Elton John’s song. It had some other musicians, a mix of Queen, Bowie, and more and she was sure she would pass the test.

She presses shuffle and She’s Always A Woman by Billy Joel begins to play over her laptop. Harry nods pleased and she wants to shake her head at him.

She can’t hold back the scoff though after a moment of going back to finishing his hand.

“What?” His British accent thickens with his annoyance growing.

“Nothing,” she chirps, intently putting the final touches on his wrist.

“Seriously. What?”

She stands and sets down the makeup. “Can you unbutton your shirt?” She made a note to herself that from now on she’d have to have him take his shirt off before setting to work because if his hands got messed up she’d have to start over. Thankfully he was already wearing a button up this morning.

He stares at her, offering no movement, just inquisitively waiting for her to respond to his original question.

She shuts her eyes, taking another deep breath and then bites at her lower lip. “It’s just...you’re so easy to read.” She fears adding anything else and moves towards him with the makeup hoping to encourage him to unbutton his shirt.  

His right hand deftly pulls at the buttons as he regards her. His eyes are intent on her, she can see him clearly calculating her. Her green paisley button up tucked up into the back of her bra leaving a splay of her stomach. The semi-balloon sleeves cinched at the wrists leading to her slightly ringed hands. The oversized blue jeans that have no holes, just a tiny patch right next to the left pocket. The frayed ends of the pants laying over her rather pristine white old skool vans.

The Boxer fades in as she waits for him to finish the unbuttoning of the shirt. He’s still staring at her.

“Am I?” He finally inquires, voice pitched higher like he doesn’t believe her.

She gives him a serious stare and leans over him and adjusts the collar of his shirt. She adds paper towels to avoid makeup on his clothes.  

“Yes!” She laughs, “And you don’t even think so, which is like...of course.”

He hums, tilting his head back as she sets to work on covering up the swallows. He wiggles his hands that now both rest on the arm chairs.

“I don’t see it.”

“Of course you don’t,” she glances at his face, their eyes meeting for a moment. “You’re Harry Styles. Everyone is in love with this image you created for yourself and it has just enough of your true self that people feel like they really know you, but you also maintain the illusion. So you think you’re this mysteriously amazing, not like the rest guy, but you are just like the rest of them. Obsessed with yourself and rich so you’re deemed eccentric rather than crazy for all the extravagant shit you do. So when you want me to play music and don’t offer any suggestions I know exactly what music I need to play for you to like me.”

“I feel like that last part says more about you than it does me,” he quirks a brow at her, straining his neck to look at her face as she continues to work.

She flushes, his response both better and worse than she expected. She had gotten a little carried away in her response and she had no idea why. She truly wasn’t one to go off on people so easily and especially not with someone she hardly knew, but something about Harry had her on edge. She was just thankful he hadn’t gotten mad at her response, instead he took it in stride. Further proving her point that he was extremely smart and did things purposefully and she saw right through it all.

She grumbles, “It says that all anyone has to do to get close to you is understand the smallest bit about you and you’ll let them in.”

“That is just so completely wrong, Y/N, I hate to break it to you.” It’s Harry rolling his eyes now, unable to move much more of his body as she continues painting on the concealer to remove his tattoos for the movie.

“Fine. Enlighten me on what I got wrong.”

Their argument had all but drowned out their music. They both did love this music and ironically if they would just shut their mouths, they’d probably like each other a lot more.

“Might as well,” he sighs. “First of all, my image is authentic and of course I don’t want to give myself all away. I enjoy my privacy and for everyone to truly know me I’d have to give that up. Which I’m not keen on. So, I regret to inform you but I am the same guy everyone is “in love with”. Second, I know I am a little self-involved, how else would I get here if I wasn’t constantly taking inventory of myself and reevaluating who I am. As a musician, I want to give as much of myself as possible or else it just feels inauthentic. And the extravagant thing, I can’t help that I like nice things and my job has allowed me to afford those things.”

He stops to take a deep breath and she’s working in stunned silence, in disbelief that Harry is even telling her any of this or that he’s spoken that much and so quickly. Wasn’t he notorious for speaking slowly with barely even a sentence worth of actual information. He sounds tired and frustrated, but also, surprisingly, sincere.

He continues, “The music thing. Maybe it was a test, but still it doesn’t mean I give everyone a mile when they say their favorite musicians match up with mine or something. I note that they either did their homework or might be an interesting person to get to know.”

“So which am I?” She widens her eyes.

“Obviously the second even if you’re also making it painfully clear that you don’t like me.”

“You’re smarter than I thought, Harry. I’ll give you that,” she smirks slyly, finishing up the bird coverage now.

He laughs. “Thanks,” he drawls out.

“And I admit that maybe you aren’t as easy to read as I made out, but I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree about the whole being your authentic self. I just don’t buy it. I can see your mind working constantly, you’re not one to just let yourself be free in public. And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, I’m just saying, you shouldn’t pretend like that’s not what you’re doing.”

Her final thought leaves Harry silent. She pays no attention to his silence or at least she’s actively ignoring it. Instead she tunes back into the music that had gotten them back onto the wrong foot. This was going to be a long few months.

When she’s satisfied with her work, she has them sit there for thirty minutes to give it all time to set before Harry is off to hair and other makeup. They sit there listening to music. Neither of them have spoken again, except instructions from her and Harry’s hums of approval of songs.  

Harry stands up after thirty minutes as she stays behind to pack up some items. Just as he’s about to step out of the door, he turns and calls her name.

“For the record, I don’t think you’re giving me a fair shot. You said yourself that you’re different every day. That every version of you, is you. So I hope you’ll give me the same allowance, every version of me is me. In this trailer, in my music videos, on tv, in interviews, in my free time. It’s all truly me.”

She bites her inner cheek as he ducks his head and exits the trailer, not allowing her any response.

-

“You’re late!”

“Meeting ran over with Nick and Olivia. Sorry,” Harry says as he begins to undress.

It’s the first day she has to cover all of his tattoos. It was going to take forever by all accounts. It had been two weeks since shooting had begun and she had gotten the simple hands and neck down to 45 minutes so she could only dread what his entire body would take.

“It’s fine,” she grumbles, knowing there wasn’t really anything else she could say about him coming late from a meeting with the director and producer.

Over the last two weeks, they hadn’t grown any fonder of one another. Not at all. They at least had gotten into a system though and she was grateful for that at least.

They showed up, Harry got in his chair, she set up the music, and they got to work. Harry would practice lines on some days and he’d tell her that before she turned on the music so there were no interruptions. Sometimes they talked about stuff on set or music or she’d give Harry his line when he was trying to be off script and forgot one. She wouldn’t classify it as pleasant, but they weren’t at each other throats like they were originally.

Trailer 6 had gotten a little homier as the weeks went by, too. Harry began leaving some of his stuff there and he started putting up silly drawings he would make while on set or polaroids people had taken with him while he was there. He tacked up napkins of restaurants that catered the set and wrote funny jokes and quotes on post it notes. His personal assistants sometimes brought in snacks while Y/N was still working and Harry always offered her some. They were usually healthy, but sometimes she’d eat some. Jeff, his manager, had also stopped by on occasion during his tattoo touch-ups that had become a thing after shooting days had grown longer.

On first meeting, Jeff had said, “Y/N? Harry mentioned you.”

She had turned to Harry with an arched brow and he had shrugged. When she looked back at Jeff she didn’t see Harry give Jeff one of the deadliest looks he could muster. She had grimaced and said “Well we spend enough time together for him to know my name. So thank god for that at least.”

They had all laughed and she had gotten back to work on Harry’s wrist.

Today, she needed Harry in his shorts. It was the first day of shooting where his character would be only in his boxers so she had to cover up all his visible tattoos. Olivia had told the makeup department they actually had to cover up his feet tattoos as well. She wanted him sockless in the scene and Y/N had groaned immediately when she made it to the trailer and Harry wasn’t already there.

“But please, for the sake of my job, strip, dude.” She says, arms crossed over her chest and leaning against the counter as she watched Harry set his things down. Her soft green striped cardigan is open, exposing the white tank top sitting underneath. Her bright green shorts hang loose on her, cinched at the waist and folded over once. Her white high top nike’s tap impatiently on the floor, waiting for Harry to get moving.

He nodded, truly feeling sorry for his tardiness, knowing today was a long day. He was anxious and tired. Acting was a different experience to music and he just was really trying his best.

As he began to take off his shirt, he laughed. His arms pulled the shirt over his head and when it popped out from beneath it, he repeated, “Strip, dude,” attempting to mimic her American accent.

He had practiced his American accent in front of her while running lines, but it had a 50’s drawl to it. His acting coach had been drilling him for weeks before shooting and he still liked to practice. The accent he had just down was far off from that and far off from hers too.

“Do not,” she warned.

“What?” He asks innocently and flutters his eyelashes.

She knows his game by now and she knows she should just ignore him. She knows this after fourteen days. She knows this after hours with him. She knows this, but then she’s opening her mouth and playing into his teases.

“Sorry, what’s a word you would know? Mate?” She tries for a British accent with the last word, knowing she can’t win this.

Harry snickers and scratches at his nose with his index finger before starting on taking off his pants. “You’re so Californian.”

“Thank you,” she chirps, moving to sit beside him now that he had settled.

“I like your shorts,” he muses, crossing his legs, likely a little cold.

She glances down at her cotton shorts that showed more of her thighs when she sat for a moment before returning her gaze to his left arm. The longest task of the day was this damn arm.

“Thanks,” she mumbles, “Wanted to be comfortable today. Knew it was gonna be long.”

A smile bubbles onto his face, his pink lips parting to reveal his shiny white teeth behind them. “So true.”

The music is low today. She had chosen Joni Mitchel’s Blue album for the first pick of the day. She had quickly learned Harry preferred listening to albums in order. It tended to make him less jumpy when the same artist came on multiple times like an album. So when she tried to play just an album one day, she found him more cooperative and less irritable.

After thirty minutes of work, she can’t stop noticing how shivery Harry is. It was late October in LA, so it was still warm, but admittedly the mornings could be a little chilly. His shivering was concerning for many reasons. Mainly he was messing up her work and concentration, but she also didn’t want him to get sick or something.

“Do you want me to see if they have a blanket and slippers or something? You look like you’re turning blue.”

Harry turns his attention to her. He had been reading over the script for today again. “That’d be great. I can call…” He trails off trying to think of the name of one of his assistants, but apparently he’s too scatterbrained for it. She assumed it was the hypothermia traveling to his brain already.

“Don’t worry about it, I’ll walkie someone.” She says as she grabs the walkie talkie, flicking to the personal assistants channel.

“Hey,” she chirps happily. Harry noted how she talked to other people. So sweet, yet sincere. With him, it was serious and sincere but more biting, callous at times. Less so lately, but she definitely was sharper with him. He didn’t know if it even bothered him anymore. She was engaging if nothing else.

“Is someone free to bring two blankets and men’s slippers over to Trailer 6? I’ve got a naked Jack and I don’t want him freezing before I’m done covering up his tattoos.” She takes her finger off the talking button and glances sideways at him, “Who knows, maybe that would improve his acting. Y’know on second-thought-”

“Alright, alright,” Harry tries to grab for the walkie talkie, but she turns from him holding a finger up signalling him to wait as she listens for a response.

Someone says a simple “On it” and she turns off the walkie talkie and gets back to work.

“I took my finger off the speaker before I said the thing about your acting. Relax, Harry.” She says when he’s still glaring at her. “Just love to see you squirm.”

He shakes out his short chestnut hair, some of it falling over his forehead. Instinctively, she reaches up without even looking and smooths it back. Like she was tucking her own hair out of her eyes, but instead it was Harry’s. She decided to say nothing and was relieved when Harry didn’t say anything either.

She finishes his forearm and moves to his outer upper arm. The rose holds her attention when the PA knocks on the door and she has to race to get it. Nothing could stop her from moving on this work. It was already an hour in and she wanted to scream.

She swings open the door and she wants to die. It was Autumn. Her least favorite PA, of course. She was insufferable and obsessed with Harry. Which was not why Y/N found Autumn insufferable. There were so many more reasons. So many. But that particular character flaw didn’t help her case either. Y/N tried to just take the blankets and slippers from Autumn, but the woman insisted that she come in.

“I’ve got it,” Y/N says.

“No, don’t want you to get makeup on anything,” Autumn’s saccharine voice grinds at her ears and she contemplates cutting them off.

Harry sat in his chair, legs crossed, nodding along to the music, his script discarded on the counter in front of him.

“Hi Harry!” Autumn practically yells, walking right up to him.

Y/N takes a deep breath at the door, letting it swing shut. She bites her lower lip as an attempt to bite her tongue as she walks back to her set-up. The set-up Autumn was conveniently blocking.

“Hello, Autumn,” Harry says kindly, making eye contact with her. “How’re you today?”

“So great! So great! Thanks for asking. How are you?” She points a finger at him like she might poke him and Harry squirms away from her a bit. She, of course, doesn’t notice this.

“Well, thanks.” His eyes flicker to Y/N, who is standing behind Autumn, hands on her hips and attempting not to tap her foot. His tone is clearly dismissive, but Autumn must ignore it. Y/N knows Autumn isn’t as helpless as she tries to come off.

Autumn asks, “Where do you want these?”, gesturing to the two blankets and slippers stacked on top.

“Just on the counter is fine, thanks,” Harry says.

Autumn does as he says and then stands there with baited breath. Y/N’s not sure what she’s expecting. For Harry to ask for her hand in marriage or something? But he just glances between the two women. His own foot begins wiggling in impatience.

“Busy day,” He attempts at dismissing her once again - with kindness.

“Oh my gosh, totally!” Autumn gushes, starting to go off on all of the tasks she has to do. She stands so close to Harry, Y/N genuinely thinks she’s going to sit in his lap. Y/N stares up to the ceiling, begging god or whoever to end her misery right there and then.

Harry sees Y/N’s expression and tries to maintain the neutral expression he’s had for the entirely too long interaction. A smile threatens at his rosey lips that had chapped from the morning air.

“Right, well,” he cuts off Autumn, “Y/N needs to get back to tattoo coverage, I think. So...have a nice day.”

Autumn’s eyes widen like she forgot that there was anyone else in the room and steps back from Harry. Y/N nods, a grimace clear on her face. Autumn gives her the same small she used to get from the popular girls in high school when she happened to be talking to their cool guy friend that they wanted to be more than friends with. Sickeningly sweet and completely fake. She could see the contempt in Autumn’s eyes that swirled just beneath the surface of her perfectly outlined green-ish eyes.

“Okay! You too, Harry!” She begins walking to the door and Y/N takes her seat again, closing her eyes and counting to ten. “And Y/N,” Autumn adds as an afterthought.

“Oh my fucking god,” Y/N sighs, her hands going to rub over her face and through her hair. “That was exhausting. Jesus Christ.”

“What? She’s nice. Maybe a little clueless,” Harry counters. “But she was so nice,” he confirms again, seemingly trying to convince himself of it as well.  

She grabs the slippers and slips them on the ground so Harry can put them on easily. Then one of the blankets that she drapes over Harry’s bottom half. He smiles at the gesture, a ‘thank you’ said in a whisper.

“Please, she knows what she’s doing,” Y/N scoffs, “And she’s obsessed with you!” She grabs the concealer to get back to work, “She was all over you and never took her eyes off of your body. It was like she wanted to touch you or something. It was icky.”

“You touch me,” Harry adds cheekily, adjusting beneath the warm blanket.

She laughs, a smile gracing her lips as she gives Harry a look. He was clever.

“It’s my job to touch you, Harry.”

Harry had really tried to not laugh, but it was just so funny. They both snicker, their eyes meeting for a moment longer than usual.

“Speaking of my job,” she adds after controlling her laughter, “Does she not realize just how long it takes to cover all of your bloody tattoos with this shit to make it look like you’re a pristine skinned 50’s psycho killer?”

She finishes the rose coverup and moves to the ship. Harry nods solemnly.

“It’s true...And it doesn’t help that you’re terrible at it, so it takes a thousand years longer than it should.” He adds, laughter overtaking his serious tone at the end.

“Oh my god!” She shrieks in delight, trying not to mess up her work, “That is so rude! I messed up one time - mostly because of you, by the way. And give me a break, this is so not what I thought I’d be doing as a makeup artist for movies.”

He nods again, muttering “Fair, fair.”

They grow silent, enjoying Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, the album that she had queued after Joni’s.

“The body thing, I just learned to ignore it, I think.” Harry mutters, eventually, but it’s thoughtless, like he’s not revealing anything about himself with the statement. But it kind of shocks her. Her eyes widen and she stops her work to stare at his face.

“Harry,” she waits till his eyes meet hers, “That’s, like, not normal. Are you serious?”

“I mean, I’m very comfortable with my body, like I haven’t minded the last 45 minutes of sitting practically nude in front of you. And I have plenty of revealing photos out in the world. I just don’t notice staring anymore, it’s not, I don’t think it’s what you’re thinking,” he tries to reassure her. His eyes are intent on hers, full of seriousness that hadn’t been there a few moments ago.

“It’s one thing to be comfortable in your skin and another to be desensitized to objectification,” she insists.

He nods. “I know. Thank you. I would let you know if what she had done had bothered me, so don’t worry. I felt completely safe the whole time.”

“Good,” she nods back and concentrates again. “Good,” she repeats once more under her breath. There had been way too many distractions already today and she wasn’t even done with his arm yet.

As she continues to work up his arm, Harry sings along to some of the songs on Elton’s album. He happily taps his feet to the different beats, now safely tucked in soft fluffy slippers. She would never admit just how amazing it is to be in the same room as Harry’s singing. It was truly special to be less than a foot from him and hear him sing just under the unique voice of Elton - who was someone he actually knew, which was equally as cool.

He hit every note and knew every word. She was impressed. How could she not be when a literal rockstar sat before her? This was the first time she was truly starstruck by her charge, Mr. Harry Styles.

By two hours, they had moved onto an album by Dolly Parton and they were both singing. They strangely had no fights today, maybe some snarky comments from both of them, but no outright mean-spirited words were exchanged.

She stood in front of Harry, finishing up the swallows. She had finished both arms and the birds, all she had left was moving down his body. Up next, the butterfly.

“I love this tattoo,” she mumbles, twisting Harry’s standing body to face her and taking her seat again. This left her eye to eye with the butterfly on his stomach.

He makes a surprised face and raises his recently plucked eyebrow at his counterpart. “Oh really?”

“Don’t act so surprised. I told you day one that not all of them are rubbish and honestly they’re all pretty cool. I just was so annoyed that I had gotten tattoo coverage as my job and then I had to go and index them all.” She flicks her eyes up to his sculpted face and sees he’s watching her work. “Plus, I have some butterflies of my own, remember?” She grins.

“Yeah,” he ponders her words, “I don’t think that’d put me in a good mood either.”

He pauses again and she continues to work silently.

“So what’s your excuse for the second day then?”

“You provoked me,” she doesn’t spare him a glance, shrugging like it was the simplest answer in the world.

“Pardon?”

“Let’s not go down this road again, Harry.” She sighs, smoothing over the freshly covered butterfly tattoo. His sternum looked so naked, it was unnerving. Now the ferns.

Harry involuntarily shivered when her fingers traced over the ferns lightly, taking note of the expanse of skin she’d have to cover.

“You’re right,” he agrees, “But agree to disagree on the provocation.”

“Sure,” she says curtly, focusing on his skin and her job.

The expanse of skin that the ferns inhabited was slightly fleshy and especially soft. It bordered where his boxers began and she ignored that part of his body completely. It was of no importance to her and she really had no issue blocking it from her vision, even when it was right in front of her. She finishes one fern with Harry jumping only twice from her cold hands. He couldn’t put his robe on until the makeup had all set for half an hour so he’d have to be cold for possibly another hour still.

She traces the fern that is still visible and Harry shivers. She instinctively shushes him softly and his body quiets. As she works, her hair splays around her shoulders and Harry looks down at her working and doesn’t realize what his hand is doing until it’s too late. His right hand runs over her hair, smoothing it out of her face. It was rarely ever down, so it must have been the novelty of it.

“Sorry, I-” he chokes out when he jerks his hand back.

She sits back, slightly taken aback. Her body flushes just from their positioning and what a hair caress would mean normally in this position, but she’s a professional and she shakes it off.

“It’s fine. We’re even.” She assures him, breaking eye contact with his own wide eyes. “Seems like we’re both hair touchers.”

“It’s just so soothing,” Harry muses. “I think it’s human instinct to touch other people’s hair since it’s so enjoyable for yourself.”

“Possibly,” her voice raises, his thought was definitely plausible. Or maybe they were just two touch starved people who were very much in each other’s personal space 24/7.

At the two and a half hour marker, she gets a walkie message from Olivia’s assistant asking when they’d be done. She had just finished the tiger tattoo, which had been surprisingly easy. It took a while, but Harry didn’t shiver once and neither of them pet each other’s hair.

“Probably 40 minutes, sorry. He has a lot of tattoos and the makeup needs to set.” She says seriously and gets back to work, barely regarding the response of “Yeah it’s fine, just wanted an estimate”.

“Jesus,” Harry moans as she covers up his knee tattoos.

She groans in veiled disgust, “Did I just hit a secret erogenous zone? Is that why you have ‘oui’ there, you creep?” There’s a teasing tone behind the nickname she uses.

Harry laughs and runs his hand over his face, pulling at his jaw and lower lip. His jaw is so sharp, she watches him adjust it. “No, no. I’m just so goddamn tired of this.”

“And it’s not your fault,” he adds, feeling bad immediately after he said it. “It’s actually been nice today, but I’m feeling antsy, like I need to move. I don’t like to sit still.”

“I know,” she says under her breath. She simply nods in agreement.

Finally, the tattoos are all covered up and set. They had talked about George Michael when she got to his ankle tattoos that she hadn’t seen before and they laugh about the tattoos and chat a bit more. She helps him slip on his robe that he keeps in his closet in the trailer and then follows him out of it. They had decided they were hungry and he had been pushed back an hour since he had taken so long, so he had a free half-hour.

As they walked to craft services, they talked about actual things besides work. She was pleasantly surprised by what Harry talked about. It was more than music or the movie. It was the tv show he was currently obsessed with and how he hated LA’s traffic the most out of all of his dislikes for the city. She couldn’t help but grin at his Los Angeles slander. She loved this side of him.

-

Breakfast together after finishing his tattoo coverage became their regular thing. He would come into the trailer, racing from his morning meeting accompanied with tea for two, they’d get his tattoos covered as quickly as possible, and then they’d eat together.

They’d save their “in-depth” chats for breakfast. In early November, he joked about No Nut November and insisted he really wouldn’t have a problem with it - which had made her laugh. They worried together over the U.S. presidential election and meditated together in his trailer to Fleetwood Mac.

Around late November, Harry had requested that Y/N just do his face makeup as well, just to simplify his life a little more and the department had agreed easily. She had to spend extra time on set getting lectured on how to properly do Harry’s makeup, but after two days she stopped getting notes about it. She was so extremely proud and thankful to Harry for doing that.

All he said was: “I mean, you’re extremely talented so I’m not scared of you fucking up my face. Plus, it does make my life easier. Two birds with one stone.”

In late November, he told her about his favorite holiday drinks at Starbucks and what he was getting his mother for Christmas.

When the Vogue cover came out, he laughed over that woman who responded to his cover saying the world needed to bring back manly men. He joked that he was going to really push that from now on, that he was a manly man, and he would sputter with laughter every time he tried to say it with a straight face.

He hand delivered her a special ‘Treat People With Kindness’ sweatshirt that he only had for the cast and crew of the film. Most everyone got them from a PA, but Harry decided since you saw him first in the morning, why not.

He told her about him winning Hitmaker of the Year from Variety when he had left the award sitting in Trailer 6 and about how weird it was to film acceptance speeches in an empty room. His smile had lit up the entire set that day and the day he did his interview on set. He was so smiley she had to bump him with her elbow because he wouldn’t stop smiling at her and it was unnerving.

“Stop that,” She muttered.

“Stop what?” He smiles wider.

“That!” She squeaked, her head shaking as she ducked it to regard his anchor tattoo. “You’re smiling too much.”

“Oh no,” he says sarcastically, “God forbid I be happy.”

“It’s not that,” she bumps his thigh with her elbow, trying to keep her own smile off her face, “Your face is just so intense when you smile. Feels like you’re gonna burn a hole through me.”

He laughs, completely unconvinced, “You just don’t want me to be happy is what I’m hearing.”

She rolls her eyes, “Whatever, dude.”

She saw he was serious about the ‘manly men’ references when the Variety photos came out and everyone and their mom posted the pictures with some variation of that comment as their caption.

She still found that she rolled her eyes at some of the things Harry did, but she genuinely counted him as a friend by the time December had rolled around.

Over three hours, almost always completely alone, doing work for a job you both care deeply about can really make or break a relationship. And that first full-body coverage day had made them stronger together. After that, Harry and her would banter with one another, but there was never anything intentionally cruel. Just friends giving each other shit sometimes. Harry had been right, he had changed her mind about him. And she had realized that that was who Harry was. He was a deliverer. If you didn’t like him at first, he would try and try again until you did, but he did it in a way that wasn’t weasley or anything. It was terribly genuine and she saw it in every relationship he had on set.

On several occasions she had witnessed his friendship with Nick Kroll. A man she had regarded with dislike before the film. She had quickly realized that dislike was misplaced, but she maintained that it was just because she hated adult cartoons - citing that she literally refused to be friends with any person who willingly watched the Simpsons, Family Guy, and/or American Dad and all of those similar shows.

Nick was far nicer and less weird than she had realized. So she quickly shot her friend from high school an apology text for all the Nick Kroll slander she had spouted back in the day. Her friend had rejoiced but also said how jealous she was that Y/N got to see him regularly on set.

Nick and Harry got along great. Harry generally got along better with older people, she noticed when she was introduced to his friends on the somewhat frequent occasion. Trailer 6 was where Y/N saw most of these reactions take place. She would be introduced in the first minute and then she would smile politely and get back to the work of covering up Harry’s numerous tattoos.

Harry would say something simple and Nick, the literal famous comedian, would laugh. In the beginning she’d raise a brow, confused because it truly wasn’t that funny, but as Harry’s friend now, she kept her mouth shut.

Nick would come and sit on the couch while she’d work and eventually all three of them would chat. Sometimes she would get up to go to the bathroom during those morning chats and she would look in the mirror and think to herself “How are you casually talking to these two men right now” and then she’d think “Because you are a boss ass bitch, you got this” and go back out there with a smile on her face.

“Y/N, what are you doing tonight?” Nick asked on the first Friday morning of December.

She looks up from Harry’s cross tattoo that was half covered. Harry was reading, a book casually propped in his right hand and glasses resting on the bridge of his nose. He glanced at the other two in the room. Nick had been getting some work done before he had spoken.

“No plans,” she states simply before getting back to work. It wasn’t full body today, but it was arms and torso, so kind of a lot still.

“You should come over for dinner at my place with Harry,” Nick smiles kindly. His scruff was really coming in today. “To celebrate us almost wrapping the first half of the movie.”

Harry had thankfully freshly shaved before he sat down. It was her least favorite part of her new job. Whenever he came in for touch ups and she had to shave his afternoon shadow. She was terrified she’d cut him and never live it down from her department or Harry. She had no idea which would be worse.

“My wife will be there too, of course,” he adds, hoping to entice her to say yes.

Harry glances between Y/N and Nick again before focusing on his book again.

She purses her lips, finishing Harry’s hand and moving onto the anchor tattoo. “Yeah, I mean, I don’t know why I’d say no. As long as I’m not intruding on the throuple,” she grins up at Harry.

He stares at her with his big green eyes, slightly obscured behind his prescription glasses. He raises his brows and wiggles them a little bit, teasingly.

Nick laughs and slyly winks at Harry through the mirror. Y/N none the wiser as she removes all traces of Harry’s tattoos.

“Great!” He claps his hands and stands up. “We’ll talk or I’ll make sure Harry gets you the info or something. I don’t know, but we’ll figure it out. My wife’s been wanting to meet you,” he smiles again and walks out of the trailer.

She tilts her head at the last part. He talked about her to his wife. Did he really count her as that close of a friend? She was just a makeup artist and he was a producer… She glances at Harry and he gives away nothing. His jaw looks extra prominent and she knows it’s because he’s clenching it. He did that when he was focused or angry, remembering it bulging on the first day they met and how clenched it had been then.

“Unclench your jaw,” she mutters, “It’s not good for you.”

Harry hums and unclenches it.

He stretches his neck by rolling his head around his shoulders and she glances at the movement. His skin is still beautifully sun-kissed and his pores look so soft, only his moles change the texture of his skin. She loves his moles though, they make him especially unique in her eyes. Not that he needed anything else to set him apart from the crowd. Still, she loved them. His collarbone is prominent as he sits there shirtless and she wishes she could reach out and brush at it. But she gets back to work, knowing the only time she’s gonna be brushing near that part of him is when she’s covering dates in those dips behind his collarbones.

“Y’know, I could just drive you to Nick’s tonight,” Harry says, putting his book down and taking off his glasses. He rubs at his eye with his free hand.

“You’re blind and British, how do I know you can even drive yourself?” She asks sillily, pointing to his glasses.

He shakes his head, “I’m serious, Y/N. Aren’t you staying in the same area as me?”

He asks because they had relocated to Palm Springs a little while ago and everyone had gotten rentals and it was hard to remember where everyone was holed up when they weren’t on set.

“Yeah, think so. But you don’t need to pick me up. I have a car.”

“Nonsense. I’ve been to his place before, don’t want you to have to deal with directions, that’s just silly.”

“I guess...” she resigns relatively easily. She had never hung out with Harry off the set or Nick for that matter. It felt surreal, but she knew the right answer was usually just say yes in these situations. So that’s what she says. “Yes, that’d be great, thank you,” she confirms and watches as Harry’s eyes glimmer softly before turning back to his book. A triumphant soft smirk rests on his face.

The words die out between the two of them as she works on. He hums along to the music and continues reading his book. When she’s done with his tattoo coverage and his face makeup, she sends him off to hair and the rest of his day. He gives a flirty wink as he walks out the door and she rolls her eyes in response. She tidies up her kit and then goes to do some other makeup work.

When she wasn’t working with Harry, she was assigned to some of the minor characters and doing their makeup. They were always her second concern, especially now that she did Harry’s makeup as well as his tattoos. As she works on them, she can feel her mind drifting to Harry. Harry and how they were friends now. She was pretty sure, right? They were friends. He had never really said a mean thing to her if she really thought about it. It was her… She had been rude and mean-spirited and he had just taken it. He rarely had even thrown it back at her. He was so good to her and patient and she realized that he had proven to her that he was good. He was better than good, he was kind and loving. Considerate. Wonderful. All of those positive superlatives, Harry filled them. And she had the audacity to be mean to him.

She paused the brush that was adding blush to an actresses cheek.

Lisa, the actress, looks at Y/N confusedly, “What’s wrong?”

Y/N twitches her head, refocusing on her task at hand. The realization of her pausing her work becomes clear as she looks between her hand and the cheek that has not enough blush on it. “Oh,” she breathes. “...I just realized that I was terrible to someone who doesn’t have a mean bone in their body.”

Lisa nods, “Apologize.”

“Yeah, I mean...We’ve kind of moved past the phase where we don’t get along. Like now we’re friends, but the realization just really hit me.” She sighs, picking up where she left off on Lisa’s makeup. “I’ll make sure to apologize next time I see them.”

Lisa smiles.

-

At the end of the day, Y/N realizes she left her tattoo coverage kit in Harry’s room after their touch-up session halfway through the day. She had run off to help with a makeup emergency for a tiny cut on a minor character’s face and forgotten to go back and grab her things. Another roll of her eyes and a huff of breath and then she’s walking back to Trailer 6, a place that seemed like a home away from home now. She knocks, patiently waiting at the bottom of the steps.

Harry swings open the door and props it with his hip. He’s got a toothbrush held in his mouth, slowly scrubbing back and forth with his left hand. His costume is somewhat taken off, he’s still got the pants on with suspenders hanging down, his chest was completely bare and he looked funny with some of his tattoos only being half covered based on what parts of his skin had been showing today. Her work. His skin looked half silky smooth and half tattooed like usual.

His naked skin seemingly left her breathless because as her eyes returned to Harry’s face, she breathed a soft, “Hi.”

“Hey,” a smirk twists onto his face. “Forget something?”

“Yes,” she nods, coming back to her senses and entering the trailer at Harry’s gesture.

She begins to pack up the kit that had been left haphazardly strewn around on his counter. “I’m sorry I left a mess like this, I got called over to something else and forgot.”

“Don’t worry darling,” Harry grins at his joke.

She looks up from her work and sees Harry in the reflection of the mirror. He’s wiping off the makeup from his chest and his beautiful tattoos reemerge as entire images.

She laughs humorlessly, “It gets less funny each time you use that.”

“That’s not true,” he looks at her through the mirror now, his green eyes trained on her face, “Everyone else still thinks it’s hilarious.”

“They’re humoring you and your fragile ego,” she winks and watches as Harry’s smirk twitches from his perfect face.

“You’ve got a very mean disposition, you know that?” He asks.

He finishes his chest and moves to remove the makeup from his left arm, glancing at the mirror every so often to check himself and to flicker his eyes over Y/N’s face.

She genuinely laughs at that, but scolds herself internally for being mean when she had planned to apologize the next time she saw Harry. This was the next time so why was she doing this instead?

“Rewrite sweet disposition for me?” Her voice honeyed. Clearly stubborn and terrible at saying sorry...maybe her and Harry were a better match than she realized.

Harry twists his lips as he slips on his t-shirt he was wearing today.

“Pick you up at 6:30?” He says as his head pops out from beneath the rainbow striped sweatshirt he slipped on top of the shirt. His chestnut hair had been toweled out and was flopping over his forehead slightly.

She sighs and zips close the kit, standing from the seat she had taken at his counter and turning to face him now.

“6:30 is perfect. Thanks again for doing this. I just can’t believe Nick Kroll is inviting me over for dinner!” She smiles, shifting to lean against the counter as she waits for Harry to finish up. She didn’t have to but for some reason she felt like she was in no rush.

“Are you serious?” He’s moved on to changing his pants now and he’s slipping on black sweatpants.

“Yeah…” She blinks and her eyes widen as Harry appraises her expression.

He straightens up after fixing a cuff on the pants and he can’t tell if she’s being genuine or sarcastic. It was always so hard to tell with her.

“I mean, Nick Kroll is like a huge celebrity and I know in the entertainment business you’re not supposed to get starstruck but when I was in college my sister thought he was weirdly hot and my friends and I would shit talk him. I don’t know, it’s just kind of surreal to be having dinner at his place. Like I’ve watched him on tv and now I’ll be eating with him...so weird.”

He shakes his head, beginning on his dirty vans now. A small laugh escapes his mouth and he glances between her and his shoe, scratching his head quickly. “I still can’t tell… It feels like you’re fucking with me right now.”

“I’m not!” She insists, her hands coming out in front of her in a confused fashion. “I used to watch that guy’s tv show then he’s my boss now he’s inviting me over for food? It’s a lot to process.”

“How come it’s not surreal to be having dinner with me then?” He asks semi-joking, a hint of offense tinged within it. It’s visible only in his knitted brow and twisted lip.

“Careful there, sailor. Venturing into some dangerously self-absorbed waters.” Her eyes light up, a quick raise of her brows accompany the shine, and she decides now is her time to head out. Especially as she thinks about getting ready for this soiree tonight. She needed to shower and pick out an outfit with less than two hours to prepare.

Harry sputters at her response and fumbles with his pink shoelace. “That’s not...that is - You’re being unfair. My question is valid.”

She shrugs her shoulders and skirts Harry’s attempt at grabbing at her arm to stop her from leaving. “Okay, Mr. Big Man On Campus. I promise you you’re the most popular boy in school.”

She blows him a kiss and walks out the door as he attempts to get her to come back by calling her name a few times and slightly shouting “C’mon! I wasn’t being insecure. That was a reasonable ask…”

He sighs and shakes his head again. Every interaction would end with one of them either rolling their eyes or shaking their head and usually a sigh on both of their lips. It was exhausting, but exhilarating too.

20 minutes later, Harry receives a text from Y/N: “You’re still picking me up right :))) ?”

He’s in his car, getting ready to finally leave after getting held up with last minute schedule changes that he had to be informed about by some PA that he had forgotten the name of. His lip quirks to the right and he closes his eyes for a second enjoying seeing her name on his phone screen for a moment.

He types back: “Of courseeee”.

“Fab.” She sends back, immediately followed by: “Fanks BMOC ;)”

A full smile rolls onto Harry’s face after he swipes his tongue over his lower lip. “Yeah, yeah, save it for the next guy” he types out quickly before throwing his phone gently beside him and driving back to his apartment. She made him feel young, not that he wasn’t young, but generally his friends didn’t text like she did.

-

At 6:28, she receives a text from Harry Styles - his name in her phone. A name she had never expected to see in her phone unless her Spotify was on shuffle. Yet, instead, his name popped up under messages and it read “Here!” followed by a quick “I think” and then a phone call coming through from the apparently anxious man himself.

“Hello Harry.” Her tone even. She throws little items into her purse, making sure everything she needs is there.

“Could you peek out your window? I’m not quite sure I’m at the right place and people are staring…” nerves laced in his rushed tone.

She ambles to the window and opens up the shade she had closed to change. Below her, she sees a sleek black Range Rover with a slightly disarrayed hairdo and big dark glasses peeking below the windshield. She ignored the instinct to retch at the sight of the Range Rover and peered at the lamp lit sight below her. It was definitely Harry, but she searched for the prying eyes he was worried about and saw none. Well, maybe a few, but it wasn’t a lot.

“I see you, I’ll be right out, dude. Just deep breaths, it’s mostly crew staying here right now so they’re just seeing that it’s you, another guy they work with. They won’t come up for pictures...I would hope.”

She hangs up with no farewell, snatches her purse from its place on the bed and races out the door. Harry smiles anxiously at her when she stands next to the passenger’s door and he unlocks it. She bites her lip and raises her brows, waiting to hear if anything terrible happened in the minute and a half it took her to come downstairs and out to the car.

“Hi,” he exhales.

A smirk crawls onto her features and her eyes sparkle with a bit of a childish glee that normally she didn’t exhibit as she glances at him. “Hi.” She says quietly. “Alright big boy?”

“‘M fine.” He huffs but balks at her smile that she maintains while she stares at him. “What?”

“Just happy to see you, I guess,” her smile returns after speaking and Harry glances between her face and the windshield in front of him.

He can’t tell if she’s being serious or not once again. But he fears that conversation of her either ridiculing him for thinking she is serious or being offended that he still can’t tell. Instead, he will keep his mouth shut. For the most part.

“Happy to see you, too,” his lips create a closed mouth smile quickly before turning out of the parking lot.

She watches him. Their first time together outside of work. And they were friends. She needed to get used to simply thinking that. He picked her up to take her to dinner with her other friend and his wife. This was normal life, just with big names behind those terms of relation. Jesus, she always said it didn’t bother her to be around celebrities so why did she think about it so damn much?

She twitches her head and refocuses on Harry and his driving. His jaw is clenched again and she wants to reach out and sooth it herself. Instead she starts to open her mouth to correct him, but stops herself from that as well. They weren’t at work and it didn’t feel like something just a friend would say right now. She refocuses on the view of his eyes that are barely visible while he regards the road. His large eyes that she had grown acquainted to are surveying what he’s doing, every so often drifting to the right side of the road to check out the lane beside him. But then, always back to right in front of him, leaving a crescent of green visible to her.

“Can feel you staring at me…” His voice sounds like it’s rolled around in gravel after the long work day. It makes her wonder if he’s supposed to have a vocal rest when he’s not at work, but then again it’s the weekend now so maybe it was fine. Maybe she should ask him. Or maybe she should stop worrying so much about him.

“Have I got something on my face?” His low register bumps her from her racing thoughts. He doesn’t take his eyes off the road, but she can see he’s widened his eyes in wonder.

“No! Of course not, I just was...making sure you weren’t going to crash us or something.” She grasps at straws, desperate to not be caught by Harry.

A low chuckle bubbles from his chest and he spares a small glance over at her bundled up in his passenger seat. She matches his gaze with something of distrust hidden behind her eyes. She hopes to convey that she’s being silly and when Harry turns back to look at the road unassumingly, she feels like she has won. The harmonies of the beginning of a Queen song take over the silence, Harry’s spindly fingers thrumming against the wheel.

They arrive at the Kroll’s Palm Springs residence at 6:50. 10 minutes early and the two twiddle their thumbs for a few minutes, trying to pass the time and not intrude earlier than they were supposed to. She appreciated that Harry liked to be timely but not early, similar to how she was.

“So what is the fascination with Range Rovers?” She queries, leaning against the door’s armrest. The back of her head touches against the semi-tinted window.

Harry shifts in his seat, seat belt no longer constricting him and no road requiring his attention as they sit in the driveway. He rushes a hand through his hair and lets a single strand of hair fall over his prominent forehead.

“Dunno,” he shrugs his shoulders and allows a hand to fall onto the steering wheel absentmindedly. “I don’t really prefer them anymore, but when I’m in LA and doing work, it makes things easier. My other cars are a little flashier...have more privacy in this.”

“Yet the effect is similar,” she muses.

Her head tilts to take in Harry’s appearance, sharp black silky button-up and dark green plaid slacks, and she rubs a hand over her jaw. His eyes flicker to the movement and attempt to really take it in, even in the dim glow of the lamp light outside barely peeking into the dark interior of the car.

“Effect?”

“Y’know…” She arches her brow at him. He feigns innocence or possibly the expression is genuine. She’s begun to realize Harry was as genuine as they came, but she just didn’t think he was that unaware. An assumption that was likely correct, but even Harry liked to pretend he was a completely unassuming individual.

“Forget it,” she finishes when he gives no indication that he knows what she is hinting at. She doesn’t want to get into it with him again. Especially when he plays at this game where he has no idea what she’s talking about. It made her feel like she was crazy for thinking he made these calculated decisions to get his desired outcomes.

They move on, neither of them quite sure what the other was getting at in that conversation. The two of them walk into the house a minute before their expected arrival time side by side and are greeted happily with Nick and his wife. They’re ushered in and Y/N is happily received by the happy couple.  

“So, Y/N, how’s it been for you working with these two? I know they can be more than a handful - especially together,” Nick’s wife, Lily, asks after a sip of wine.

The group of four had been eating for a while with Nick and Harry bantering for quite a bit at the beginning about whether or not Harry would be willing to hand feed Nick. The answer was settled at “another time”.  

Harry seems to have a very specific habit of watching whoever is speaking - no matter what. So after Lily has finished speaking, his gaze flickers to Y/N, the person his brain expects to speak next. He watches her attentively as she wipes her mouth on her napkin before speaking.

Her hair was styled differently tonight than it usually was on set, she had it down rather than up in a ponytail or braids. He hadn’t had time to really look at her when they had been in the car, his mind occupied with stress and exhaustion that he refocused into driving and deep breathing. Now, in the comfort of a trusted friend’s home, he was far more relaxed and able to truly take in her appearance, which he couldn’t help but think was beautiful. He’d have to tell her that at some point. That he thought she was beautiful. Not that he didn’t see her on set and think she was beautiful...he just hadn’t really thought about it before. She was his wily makeup artist who was critical of him most times, but occasionally sweet, who had an amazing taste in music and good aesthetic style. The beauty part of it all, he guessed wasn’t something integral to their relationship before.

But now he was sitting beside her at the Kroll’s nice dining table and she had her hair splayed in front and behind her shoulders with one side tucked behind her ear and her outfit fit her impeccably. The top she had on had capped sleeves that cinched with buttons at her delicate wrists and a severe drop to create a small sweetheart neckline just above the curve of her breasts. It was silky and shiny, a blush pink that complemented the high waisted dark grey slacks that flared over shiny black boots that he wasn’t sure where they ended beneath the pants.

“Well,” she starts, chuckling under her breath when she meets Harry’s stare, “Harry and I spend a lot of time together, covering up all his tattoos, and he yaps a lot. So, it’s actually pretty refreshing when Nick comes in, because Harry’s then talking half the normal amount.”

He huffs a scoff, while Lily and Nick laugh happily. Nick interjects an “ouch” for the bite she just took out of Harry, but she thought it was fine, he can take it.

Harry thought to himself that if she can serve it, then she can definitely take it. His eyes remain on her as he opens his mouth to speak, but then look at Lily when words actually come out. “Well, Y/N, she thinks she can read people really well, but it’s actually quite the opposite. She had me completely wrong when we first met, so I talk now in hopes that she’ll really understand me.”

His head tilts to her when he mentions her name, but otherwise doesn’t glance her way away again. He scrunches his nose at the end of his comment, implying he converses with her out of pity.

It’s her turn to scoff and stare at him unamused. Nick and Lily share a look, unsure of what was going on, they had concocted this dinner date idea in hopes to set the two up but the way this conversation was going, they seemed to be pushing each other further and further away from one another.

“That’s simply not true,” she says curtly and takes a sip of her quickly emptying wine glass.

“Which part?”

“Almost all of it, I’d say,” her eyes glaring back at him, fiery with a disdain he hadn’t seen in awhile. “You’re proving my original perception of you with every passing second,” she adds.

“Care to elaborate exactly what the original perception of me was for the class,” his eyes are wide and wild, any extra adoration he had started to feel towards her slipping away just as quickly as it had come, like a wave along the beach.

“You know, so why don’t you?”

“I want to hear you say it,” he grits out the command.

She shifts in her seat, glancing at Nick and Lily who are watching on and she has a feeling she won’t be getting an invitation again anytime soon. Lily gives her a semi-reassuring smile like she was sorry to have asked the question at all, but Y/N knows this is kind of her fault, not that she would ever admit that. Her comment could have been taken innocuously, but Harry’s pride wouldn’t let it slide. Like she said, she should have known better, the weeks of friendship were flying out the window and she was helping them along.

“And what if I don’t?”

“Have fun calling an uber at this time of night,” he shrugs, malice dripping in his tone.

She truly was taken aback at this. A slight sound of shock leaving her mouth. Harry was many things, impatient and anxious usually, but downright cruel with her, she had yet to see it. Arrogant and pompous, definitely, but this wickedness that was starting to creep from the shadows worried her. But the little fiery demon within her wasn’t going anywhere either - yet she might back down to save herself some money and hassle.

“Fine,” she raises her brows in a challenge to him and restates her original take on him - possibly adding a bit extra malice in her phrasing, “You are a shell of a man, held up by the people around you, creating the illusion of a completely genuine and down to earth rocker who dabbles in acting, philanthropy and all around goodness. No one’s ever had a bad experience because no one’s ever truly met you. Not the real you.” She takes a deep breath as she shakes her head in disbelief now, a sarcastic laugh leaving her mouth, “And I thought, I really thought, that I had been wrong. Because these past months you really fooled me with your sweet smile and deep eyes. But when it comes down to it, you tricked me just like everyone else.”

Harry stares at her blankly and she shakes her head once more, feeling foolish. For thinking Harry was someone he wasn’t. For thinking the past few months had been real. For thinking that tonight would go off without a hitch. And the shit part of it was that she had really hoped that all of it was true. She wanted this to be her life, but her instincts had been right. Beware of the picture perfect because it always is just a mirage of deceit and lies.

“All I’ve got to say is you’re a damn good actor Harry, so at least you’ve got that going for you.” Then she pushes back from the table and stands, turning to Nick and Lily. “I really am so sorry, I understand that you probably want me to leave, so I’ll just be going,” her voice faltering at the end, she wasn’t as strong as she liked to pretend and she was pretty sure she just ruined her chances of working again in Hollywood. You’d have to be an idiot to be an enemy of Harry Styles and she feels like she just became his first.

“No!” Nick says quickly, standing too, “I think things just escalated really quickly and some things were said that both of you didn’t mean. Um...just, let’s take a few minutes to cool off. Harry could you and Lily deal with the dishes and I’m going to talk with Y/N alone.”

Everyone nods and Y/N follows Nick down a hallway, a little confused but following after he beckons her with his hand. They go out a side door and end up on a porch in the backyard. He stoops down and opens a little sitting mailbox she didn’t see and pulls out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He places one between his teeth and then offers one to her. She accepts, not usually a regular smoker, but right now seemed like a fair time to indulge in the bad habit. She needed to calm her rapidly beating heart.

He lights the cigarette for her when he sees her shaking hands and then in turn lights his own. They stand on the porch beside each other and stare out into the dark night sky.

“Well, this wasn’t how tonight was supposed to go,” Nick starts, after a few exhales of smoke.

“No,” she laughs nervously, her foot toeing at the wooden slate on the porch. “I shouldn’t have tried to make a joke.”

“No one’s to blame,” Nick says quickly, glancing at her, “You and Harry...you both have really strong personalities and I don’t think either of you are used to being challenged.”

She nods along, she definitely had to agree after the argument they had both willingly gotten into in front of other people.

“I think that can be a really good thing, challenging each other, because then you two can both grow. But what happened in there was more of a battle to the death rather than a friendly spar.”

“Yeah,” she exhales, flicking at the burning cigarette between her fingers, “I don’t know why he gets under my skin sometimes in a way I’ve never dealt with and it’s kind of uncomfortable so I lash out, I guess.”

Nick stays quiet, taking a drag of his cigarette.

“Ugh,” she groans, “I wish I hadn’t done that. We were doing so well, it’s like I don’t even really know what I’m saying, it’s like I can’t handle a friendly spar, I always end up going in for the kill - as you put it.”

She rubs at her face with her free hand and then takes a drag herself. Nick bites at his lower lip, trying to think of a solution.

“Y’know? Lily and I had concocted this plan to try and set you and Harry up tonight,” he says slowly, revealing the plan that had clearly been taken off the table as they just needed to attempt to salvage cordiality.

“Really?!” She’s in complete disbelief and slight dismay that the plan was seemingly ruined.

“Well,” he sputters, “When the two of you aren’t throwing verbal fireballs at each other, you’re actually quite sweet to one another. Those fond little glances you hope no one sees, well he does that too, and you both fail miserably because I see it all the time. I’m sure plenty of people do too.”

“Oh,” she states, visibly deflating. She looks to the ashtray conveniently on a table behind her and presses out the rest of the cigarette. “Should probably talk to him, huh?”

Nick nods, stamping out his nub of a cigarette as well. They go back inside and into the kitchen where Lily and Harry have plated dessert. Harry looks a little sheepish, likely having a similar conversation with Lily and she wouldn’t be surprised if her expression looks similar, if not a bit more flushed from the outdoor chill.

Lily murmurs that she and Nick are going to eat their dessert in the living room, a fair bit away from the kitchen and the two now deflated counterparts nod and then stare at each other, knowing what they need to do.

“Can we talk?” Harry rasps out, his voice even lower as he speaks softly, a mere foot away from her in the kitchen.

She nods, but moves further from him to lean against the counter and tuck her hands behind her. She’s lost her appetite and doesn’t want Harry to see her shaking digits.

He’s ducked his head and a stray curl falls over his forehead, laying there softly. He doesn’t move to fix it, just stares at his feet until she begins to talk. He can’t not look at her face when she speaks.

“So…” She slowly starts, not enjoying the tension in the room. Her eyes can’t meet his though, his stare dark and unnerving like usual, but almost painfully so now. “I can start.” She kicks at the tiling on the floor like she had done outside as well, trying to not think about the eyes trained on her right now. “I’m sorry I lashed out on you, Harry. I didn’t mean what I said, it was just a heat of the moment response.”

“I’m sorry, too,” Harry says immediately once she finishes speaking, “I shouldn’t have gotten upset over a silly joke and brought up a sensitive subject. Then it escalated…”

“Yeah, I really liked the friendship we’ve garnered these past few months and I just can’t believe I almost ruined everything - including my career…” she squeaks at the end and tears start to roll from her eyes. “Oh god,” she is hit with the gravity of all that she almost ruined as Harry stares at her again. “I’m so sorry, Harry, I really am. Do you forgive me? I don’t think I could stand it if you didn’t.”

She stands there and feels sobs wrack through her and her hands go to cover her face out of embarrassment. She had caused a scene and now she was making another one. In front of Harry.

In an instant his arms are wrapped around her frame and he’s hushing her cries. They had never hugged before, but now seemed like as good a time as ever. His arms were strong around her and she pressed her face into his chest, not caring at all about how she looked or whether this was worse than getting in a fight and running off.

“Of course I forgive you,” he says and then begins repeating her name over and over, trying to soothe her. He definitely had been hurt by her words, but it seemed like she was more upset about the whole situation than he was and he didn’t think bringing up what specifically had hurt him would help her frame of mind.

She settles after some time, her whimpers and tears subsiding after being rocked into a more peaceful mindset with the help of Harry’s calming voice and reassuring embrace.

“I really am sorry,” she whispers again.

Harry pulls his neck back and his head off the top of her head to look at her face. It was tear stained and her eyes were glassy, lips slightly puffy. He gave her a soft tight-lipped smile. “No more apologies,” he states sternly and then softens again at the slight quiver in her lip. He pulls from her a little more, leaving her at arm's length, with his hands still attached to her hips, fingers slipping over the plaid fabric. “I meant to tell you this earlier, before things…” he stares at her face again and she holds it this time, “You look beautiful tonight.”

She scoffs and her eyes immediately drop to her feet, “Definitely not anymore.” She doesn’t believe Harry.

“‘M serious,” he insists. His right index finger goes to rest beneath her chin and brings her face up to look back at him.

“Sure,” she says, still not convinced but not sure how else to respond. She feels herself warming at all the positive attention he’s pouring into her.

His gaze won’t falter from her face, he’s intent upon making her understand him. He whispers her name, “Accept the compliment.”

“You’re stubborn,” she notes.

“So are you,” he counters quickly.  

“Fine, thank you,” she sighs when he won’t stop giving her that look of his. That look that makes her want to melt into the ground because it feels like she’s the only person in the world. “Though you looked especially good tonight, too,” she adds, her hands rubbing over his shoulders softly.

“Thank you,” Harry states lowly, the words only traveling to her ears. His hands fiddle with the sides of her top, thinking about the night and where they were now. Her eyes were red from crying and overall she looked tired beyond her years. “Do you want me to take you home?”

“That’d be nice.”

They make a quiet farewell to Nick and Lily, as well as apologies from both her and Harry. They don’t speak in the car and the music plays loud enough for it to not seem unreasonable for them to be silent. Harry’s hands don’t tap against the steering wheel, they sit in their spots stoically doing their job and nothing more. She watches the window, legs crossed and hands clasped in her lap. She’s thankful for the music because she knows that even though they had talked, it wasn’t enough. What she had said was hurtful and one apology wasn’t enough for how she had behaved. She didn’t think her and Harry would be the same after tonight, but the silence made it possible for her to pretend none of it had happened.

Just as Harry’s car is pulling up the apartment complex that is far darker now, the harsh splatter of rain begins to fall on the pavement and the sleek black car the two are still sat in.

“Oh,” she comments offhandedly, just responding to what she had noticed.

The rain grows louder when Harry parks and then turns off the car. He glances at her for the first time since they got into the car. She registers the look out of the corner of her eye, her face still looking out at the rain. She loved the rain, but there wasn’t always a lot in Southern California, especially not in Palm Springs. It seemed that tonight was different.

“Well,” Harry breaks his silence, she thinks that’s her cue to leave and unbuckles her seatbelt, but he continues. “This certainly wasn’t how I expected this night to go.”

She stops moving, her hand hovering over the handle of the door. She sits back and settles into the seat, feeling her teeth bite into the plush of her bottom lip.

“That’s what people keep saying,” her eyes remain on the rain hitting the front of the car, the splatters of seemingly black liquid that form when the clear rain touches the onyx hood of the car.

“Huh?” Harry grows perplexed at the rather wistful tone of her and how she won’t look at him again. He was still hurt, but he had hoped them talking in the kitchen had straightened some things out. During the car ride he hadn’t wanted to talk, but it didn’t mean he was still angry with her. Just confused, and growing further confused by the second.

“Oh,” she repeats, “Didn’t Lily say? Her and Nick concocted that dinner in hopes to set us up.”

Harry hums, knowing that because Nick had left out a little part of that plan. That he had been a part of it. He had been talking with Nick about getting to know her better outside of work and how Nick had thought it’d be a good idea to have dinner so he had told Lily and they set it up like a casual dinner party. Harry didn’t know how to respond because her knowing that he was in on the plan might just make matters worse. He really didn’t think things could get much worse, but it seemed that they always managed to make it happen so in the end he decided to keep his mouth shut.

“I don’t know if we’d ever be able to work out differences out for that,” she decides to continue, when Harry stays quiet. She scans the interior of the car and watches Harry for the briefest moment before going back to looking out the window. “Nick said that we challenge each other to grow, but all I see us do is hurt each other.”

Her voice is just above the rain pattering outside the car and Harry thinks it sounds almost melodic if it weren’t for the sadness laced in every word.

“I disagree,” he states before wetting his lips.

“Of course you do,” she laughs in spite of herself.

“Even after all these months together and you still don’t get it. I like you.”

“You don’t like me, I don’t know how you could ever like me,” she shakes her head. “We just...we get under each other’s skin. You can make me so angry sometimes and I know I make you angry too. And when we’re not angry, we’re focussed on something that doesn’t have to do with ourselves.”

“I don’t think what you feel for me is anger,” Harry insists, “Just because something feels burning and fiery, frustrating even, doesn’t mean it’s anger.”

His body shifts closer to the center divide and she turns to face him finally. His eyes are extra dark in this lighting, which is barely there from a streetlamp a ways off. She longs for the comfort of his light green eyes, the soft pale glow of the moss that seems to have been trapped within his iris. Maybe for that reason she unknowingly leans closer to him.

“Then what is it?” She whispers, eyes blinking slowly as her breathing grows strained.

“Passion.”

Immediately, her head is tilting to meet his lips. Her mind knows one thing, she needs to be kissing Harry right now. And then she is. His left hand goes to cup her cheek as his lips attach themselves to hers. His soft lips press to hers in a long searing kiss. They stay there for a moment, pressing all of that passion and frustration into the kiss.

She presses impatiently forward, her lips starting to move more, wanting to kiss him deeper. Harry obliges, parting his lips and kissing her more vigorously. He licks into her open mouth and smiles at the sound she makes in appreciation for his actions.

She’s shifted to have herself kneeling on the leather seat and she’s leaning over the console. One of her hands finds purchase on Harry’s thigh and grasps tightly, her other at the back of his neck, pressing him closer if it were possible.

His chest is pressing against hers as he pulls her closer. He kisses her and his fingertips rub softly at the apple of her cheek. Eventually they run behind the shell of her ear and trail down her neck.

Eventually, she pulls away and stares at Harry. She watches as his eyes flutter open gently. His soft eyelashes dust his cheeks before moving away, allowing his eyes to peer at her in the dark.

Her breathing feels a little irregular after the kissing and she’s sure she is heaving her chest slightly, likely mirroring Harry’s chest as well.

“So, where to now?” She inquires, lips quirked up at her suggestion.

Harry giggles and scratches his nose against his index finger.

-

Harry doesn’t stay the night, he walks her up to her apartment door though. He kisses her chastley in front of her door and wraps an arm around her waist as he does so. He bids her a goodnight and a promise of seeing her soon.

They don’t see each other for a month. Both of them had been so blissful after the endorphins of kissing their person that they had forgotten that filming had wrapped. They weren’t set to work for a month. Harry texted her the next morning informing her that he’d be in England until filming resumed. She was still going to be in California, filming was moving back to Los Angeles, so she’d be back in her place there. Her family knew she was working, so they had sent her presents ahead to her place instead. Angie, her only true friend in the area, was spending her time with her actual family and Y/N didn’t want to intrude.

So the holidays were going to be spent alone. Those four weeks alone passed surprisingly quickly. She practiced techniques on herself, bought a tiny Christmas tree like the one in A Charlie Brown Christmas, watched A Charlie Brown Christmas and just about every other holiday movie possible. She fell in love with young Hugh Grant and Colin Firth for the thousandth time. She sang carols to herself and decorated her place with decorations from Target. She jammed out to the new Miley Cyrus album and held dance parties for herself in the house. She baked cookies and even attempted a trifle after watching a Great British Bake Off episode. She did and she did all in hopes that her mind wouldn’t wander to the guy who hadn’t called.

Harry texted occasionally, but it was infrequent at best. He was a busy person, she knew that. She knew who he was. And she didn’t want her mind to have enough time to feel sorry for herself. For her to think that she was just somebody to pass the time with while at work, because if she stopped doing things that’s where her mind would wander. Why did her mind spiral like it did? She had no idea, she’d always been like that.

His absence, their separation, made her question if her own feelings were even true. She wondered if when she saw him he would act as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn’t said their relationship was passionate and she had kissed him until she couldn’t breath.

Too much time alone, she needed some fresh air. On January 2nd, after an uneventful night at home and a lackluster countdown washed down with cheap champagne, she decided to go and walk around near her place. There was a coffee shop that wasn’t extremely expensive that she also liked that she figured she would get coffee from. After a brisk walk, she walked through the store's doors and ordered an iced green tea. As she waited, she watched the other customers around her, wishing to see a friendly face, someone she knew. And seconds later, she was met with half of that wish. Someone she knew, not necessarily a friendly face.

“Autumn.” She states with a grimace when someone taps her on the shoulder and she spins around.

“Y/N? It is you!” Autumn, one of the PA’s from Don’t Worry Darling who was especially in Harry’s business, exclaims overly happy as per usual.

Y/N bites the inside of her cheek and gives a tight lipped smile, trying her best to be cordial.

“How’s your holiday been!” Autumn asks.

“Great. You?”

“So great!” She’s quick to lean closer and say in a hushed tone, “But I miss working on set, especially getting to see that Harry everyday. He’s just so gorgeous.”

A breath gets stuck in Y/N’s chest at the mention of Harry’s name. Her brows can’t help but raise a bit at Autumn’s comment. Even lowering her voice didn’t make it feel alright to talk about Harry like this. He was her friend after all.

“Sure.” Y/N nods abruptly, realizing Autumn wants some recognition of what she’s just said. Y/N’s eyes glance around the room, hoping for an out like her drink is ready or something - no such luck.

“I mean,” Autumn keeps talking, of course, “You’re so lucky. You get to see him shirtless, like what? Everyday practically? Don’t tell me you don’t miss that just a little bit!”

“I miss working,” Y/N says, avoiding what Autumn is trying to get her to say. “And Harry’s my friend, could you maybe not talk about him like that with me?”

Autumn’s eyes widened in shock, her lips parted dumbfounded by her co-worker's response. Y/N’s name is called for her drink and she’s thankful for the serendipitous nature of that sound getting her out of the awkward situation she had just been in.

When she gets back to her apartment, she surprisingly has a text from Harry himself. She’s always telling everyone; speak of the devil and he will appear, in one way or another. It’s a Happy New Year well wish followed by a separate text asking how she was.

It was sent a minute ago so she decides to try and give him a call. She preferred talking on the phone over texting.

It rings a few times and then, again surprisingly, he picks up.  

“‘Lo?” His voice is nice and deep and sounding extra British after his weeks surrounded by family and such.

“Harry,” she sighs contentedly.

“Happy to hear your voice,” he says her name and she can tell he’s smiling just like she is, from ear to ear.

She bites at her lip, hearing him say her name.

“I’m well, thanks,” she says after a moment of happy silence.

“What?” Harry laughs, confused.

“You texted asking me how I was and I called to respond.”

“Got it,” Harry chuckles, and she hears him shuffling around, likely sitting down on something.

“How are you?” She continues.

“Good, starting to wind down for the day,” he lists off the things he’s been doing over the past few days. Some of it work related, some of it family activities. All of it fun, he insists. “What did you do today?” He finishes, knowing she was an avid activity doer based off of the snaps she had sent him over the past few weeks.

“Tidied my place, went to the coffee shop and got iced tea…” she tries to think and then she gasps, “Oh! And I saw Autumn, one of the Don’t Worry Darling PA’s -”

“The one who’s obsessed with me?”

“Exactly!” She laughs, “And I may have kind of told her off… accidentally.”

“Accidentally told her off?” Harry repeats, incredulous. “How’d you do that?”

“Well,” she doesn’t want to tell him the rest, but there’s also a tiny part of her that really does, “She was gushing about you, which, ew. And then she asked if I missed seeing you shirtless everyday.”

“Well do you miss seeing me shirtless?” Harry smirks.

“Oh shut up!” She’s quick to reply.

“So you do?”

“If I really wanted to see you shirtless, all I’d have to do is type in “Harry Styles sh” and it would come up,” she rolls her eyes even though she knows he can’t see them. “Wouldn’t even need the whole word. Guaranteed.”

“Uh-huh?” Harry questions still, “If you want me to send you shirtless pictures that the rest of the world hasn’t seen, Y/N, all you have to do is ask.”

“I do not want you to send me shirtless pictures of yourself!” She exclaims. She feels like jumping out of a window right now. This conversation had escalated so quickly and she felt herself flushing, maybe even perspiring a little bit. And she also knew that she also would probably like it if he sent her shirtless pictures, which made this whole thing worse.

“Offer stands,” he says, smug as he normally was, happy he got to banter with her again. It had been dull without her, if he was honest with himself. “If you ever find yourself in need, just send a cheeky text and I’ll whip one out for you, no matter where I am or what I’m doing.”

“See this sounds like you’re saying something sincere, but really you’re just telling me you’ll send me nudes at any time.”

“No one said anything about nudes!”

“Shirtless, nude, sounds like you’re getting too caught up in the details, hon.”

“No!” He protests, “You’re the one who’s supposed to be flustered right now, not me!”

“Aww, you’re flustered,” She coos.

Harry groans. “Whatever. I’ll be back on the 8th, be ready to go out on the 9th. I’m taking you on a proper date.”

“How do you know I’m going to say yes?” She bite her lip again, she’s really sweating now. She couldn’t believe he had just asked her out on a date out of nowhere. Out of them just joking about nudes. Maybe she didn’t know Harry as well as she thought.

“Because you called me,” he says confidently.

“I call everyone.”

“But I don’t offer shirtless pictures to everyone.”

“That has nothing to do with me saying yes to this date.”

“Or does it?”

She laughs at his words, at how his voice still manages to convey every facial expression and quirk of his lips. She knows there’s a smile on his lips as he stares in the distance, imagining her face just as she is his.

“Yes.” She smiles.

“Yes!” He repeats happily.

She hears him stand up and spin around possibly and she chuckles slightly, amused at the silly man across the world who had seemed to have stolen her heart.

“See you soon, Harry.”

“Not soon enough.”

-

On the Saturday of their date, Harry insists on picking her up. He meets her at her door and winks at her after pulling away from their short hug. He laces his hand in hers and she follows behind him as he all but drags her to his car that is downstairs. He seems giddy. His hair has grown out in the month he’s been gone and she knows they’ll cut it when filming resumes. He’s wearing Gucci flared blue jeans - she knows from the big logo on the bottom left pant leg - a ‘Waiting for Sunset’ graphic tee beneath a black cardigan with little animals and items knitted in it. And of course, his dirty ass vans. She had hoped that maybe Christmas would bring him a fresh pair from someone, but it seemed there was no such luck.

Either way, he looked good and upon scanning his outfit, she was pleased that she had dressed correctly for the occasion, knowing one of the sins of Los Angeles was being improperly dressed wherever you might go. Harry had said casual, but casual can always mean so many different things. She got it right with light wash high-waisted levi’s, a brown cream rib-knit long sleeve that buttoned like it could be a cardigan, and some fun chunky boots that added some height to her normal stature. She had contemplated between this and possibly twenty other tops and a few other bottoms. Landing on this felt right, plus it didn’t clash with Harry, the color of her shoes actually matched the color of the snake on the cardigan.

They both compliment each other on the way out to his car and she giggles when he stops and twirls her around. He says he didn’t get a “proper look” before for him to compliment her adequately. After the twirl, he nods and starts them off again, complimenting the specific pieces of her clothes and says she looks beautiful again. His giddiness was contagious.

“No Range tonight,” she muses when Harry stops them in front of a Mercedes-Benz cream convertible, top up.

“Not working,” he replies, unlocking the car with the key into the passenger’s side door handle.

She smiles and slides into the car and watches him jog around to his side and unlock it as well.

“Tonight is going to be fantastic,” he says, leaning over the console and kissing her cheek, just beside her lips.

And when he pulls away with that smug smile of his, she knows he kissed her there on purpose. But the little tease only makes her smile more. He was good at this. And he was right.

The night was fantastic. As was every night after. And she learned that Harry was so much more than anything she ever thought. She counted herself lucky to be loved by a man like him.

[hansensgirl]

salvatore. | vii.

summary. | Bucky Barnes doesn’t believe in love anymore. Especially after the tragic, unknown death of his wife, Natasha. He thinks it’s stupid and a waste of time and- oh my. Hello there, you. There you were, with your notebooks and your novels, writing your heart away. He’s hellbent on saving you from this nasty world, his elusive neighbor that has him under the stupid spell of love. You soon find yourself trapped in a tragic love story with Bluebeard, not Prince Charming.

warnings. | NONCON/DUBCON, dark themes, manipulation, gaslighting, arguments, toxic relationships (reader and steve), cheating, nightmares, violence, mentions of death/murder, spying, voyeurism, stalking, use of cameras, angst, fluff, dark!bucky, protectiveness, obsessiveness, creepy bucky, perversion, kidnapping, choking (not the kinky kind), passing out, suffocation, and more. 18+, MINORS DNI.

word count. | 3.4k

pairings. | Dark!Bucky Barnes x Reader, Steve Rogers x Reader, Natasha Romanoff x Steve Rogers.

a/n. | we’re nearing the end!! please read all the warnings before you click the ‘keep reading’ button! don’t forget to enjoy and don’t forget to reblog! salvatore masterlist.

“I’ll be back before you know it, doll, don’t worry. I’ll call you and text you nonstop, okay?” Bucky reassured, pecking your lips between each word of his. You pulled further away from him and laughed. “Yeah, yeah. Where are you going, again?” you asked, hating yourself for forgetting so easily. It was almost like he never even told you. “That bachelor party, remember? For my friend Sam?” he repeated, almost as if he had told you billions of times before.

Truth be told, you didn’t remember.

“Oh, that’s right! Okay, baby, have a good trip and stay safe. Tell your friend Sam I said congratulations––wait, you have a friend named Sam?” you questioned, not knowing of this friend. You may have been quite forgetful but you didn’t recall him speaking of any friend by the name of Sam. “Yep, but I don’t talk about him too much,” Bucky informed, and you tilted your head. You opened your mouth to ask him another question, but he checked the time on his wrist before sharply inhaling.

“Gotta go now, doll, don’t want to be too late,” he told you, kissing you once more. “Love you, bye!” he shouted as he closed the door behind him. “Bye!” you called back, and you were left all by yourself in his home. He already gave you a tour a week ago, the day after he spoke to you about your nightmare. You never slept after that, but it wasn’t shocking. That kiss was everything you could’ve ever dreamt of.

You felt like Sleeping Beauty, finally getting that kiss from Prince Charming that you needed so badly. You sighed with a half-smile on your face, and you could already feel boredom settling into your bones. With Bucky, every second of the day was filled with fun. Whether it be through stupid conversations or through needless movie commentary. You hadn’t written in all that time, and it was just a tad bit upsetting for you.

Your notebook was untouched, and so was your nice fountain pen along with your computer. It wasn’t like you had writer’s block, and it wasn’t like you had no motivation to finish your first chapter… No, wait, it was exactly like that. Every time you thought of your story, you’d have to stifle a loud, loud groan that would be savoured for when you stub your toe or when you’d accidentally burn your hand on the stove.

You didn’t resent your story. It just felt like a burden at that point in your life. But with nothing else to do other than writing, you felt oh so pained. Not physical pain, no, just the kind that would be a burden. You were sure that the floorboards were tired of feeling your feet stomp on them throughout most days. Sometimes, you’d sit on the stairs and hum to yourself—some sort of random rhythm that you would then mess up and forget about.

“What to do, what to do, what to do…” you whispered to yourself, hooking your thumbs through the loops of your jeans. If it weren’t for Bucky and his easily distracted behaviour, you could’ve had a belt there. But mistakes were made, and even though you offered to help, you officially knew then that Bucky never wanted you in his basement. Not in the past, not in the present, and definitely not in the future.

You joked around, saying that he just has dead bodies buried behind the shelves that were covered in cobwebs. But his forced chuckle had you apologizing quickly, and he told you to go drink some water and throw out your energy drink. You did exactly that, and he was back to his happy self. Spewing stupid puns like hilarity was his college major, with a big silly grin on his face.

Steve was always stoic, so maybe that was why you weren’t used to the almost overwhelming (yet lovely) company of Bucky.

Though Bucky spoke most hours of the day, you never heard of this man named ‘Sam.’ You had hung onto every single word of Bucky’s whenever he spoke to you. Even if he was repeating himself most of the time, you still made sure to listen to everything. He had never spoken about his friend to you, ever. As a matter of fact, you didn’t know much about him personally. You knew bits and pieces about his life as a soldier, but you didn’t know anything else.

He had no family pictures, no childhood stories, no generation-old recipes, nothing. Absolutely nothing. It weirded you out because he knew every bit about you. Even things that you’d never tell your mother, even if you had to. You didn’t even know about any past girlfriends of his… Except for one. He’d call her by the name of ‘Natalia’ but only when cursing or spewing out on the grave swears that could have someone rolling even if they didn’t decay yet.

Only a man with something to hide wouldn’t tell you anything about him, right? Because that was what Steve did, and he had one too many things hidden from you.

You spun around, making a full beeline for the stairs that didn’t creak under your feet (unlike your staircase). You envied Bucky for that, but you also envied him for more practical, more reasonable things. Such as the way he just couldn’t fall for pranks easily or the way he’d get something right almost all the time. You gripped the railing tightly, careful not to fall as you were climbing up the steps as quickly as you could.

Cardio wasn’t really your thing, not then, at least. You preferred simple stretches and long walks. Maybe the occasional weight lifting, but your little coloured dumbbells never did much. You were faced with the first bedroom at the top of the stairs. It was a guest bedroom, and he told you that it was pointless to go inside and clean it. At the time, it made sense. But maybe he was just trying to avoid having you go in there and see something you shouldn’t have seen.

You exhaled shakily and pushed the door open. You were met with a gust of cool air only because the window was left open. Bucky did that a lot, only because his home would become predominantly more humid than usual. You didn’t search the drawers or anything else in that room as well as the other guest bedrooms because you knew you’d find nothing in there.

There was only one bedroom left to check, the one that you and Bucky shared. It was a work in progress. Not in the sense that you were renovating or something along those lines. It was a bit… bland, to say the least. Not one piece of that room felt like home. You asked Bucky if he had any mementos or paintings to keep, but he shook his head and walked out. He wasn’t a very personal man, and it had more flaws than perfections.

You turned the doorknob and walked inside, taking in the notes of that vanilla body spray that Bucky loved so much and the lingering scent of his aftershave. You went to his bed and lifted the fluffy mattress up. Nothing. You gently placed it back down, hoping that your muscles wouldn’t give out. You opened up some of the bedside drawers, and you even peaked underneath them. Nothing. You let out a groan that was also a sigh of relief.

You weren’t sure if you wanted to find something bad or if you wanted to find nothing at all.

You slowly brought yourself up to your feet. You strode a few steps over to the closet and slid the mirror door to the other side. Half of the closet was filled with your clothes, and the other half was filled with his clothes. He had more leather jackets and sweaters than anything. Steve had the opposite of that problem. The blond hero loved his white tank tops and his white t-shirts. The dryer would constantly shrink them, and you could never complain about that.

Neither could Natasha.

You ran your hands between all the pockets and fabric in your closet, but you didn’t find anything. You snapped your hands back, bringing some hangers down to the ground. “Fuck,” you gritted out, looking down at the mess. You wordlessly kept staring at it, all while flailing your arm around to find the door. You grabbed it and slid it close. You had more pressing matters to deal with.

You didn’t check the dresser because you’d know if Bucky ever touched it. Your next best bet was to check the bathroom, even if it might’ve been fruitless. You searched the cupboards underneath and above the sink. Still, you only found freshly purchased products that you would find yourself stocking up on at least once a month—pads, tampons, shampoo, conditioner, razors, and everything else you needed, not him. Nothing there belonged to Bucky.

You once again didn’t know whether you should be elated or frustrated.

You dragged yourself out of the bathroom and out of the bedroom. You wore a pout on your face, resembling a little spoiled kid in a candy shop. In the hallway, you were at a crossroads. “Goddammit,” you groaned, squeezing your hands into fists. You walked down the stairs, not even bothering to hold onto the railing or the wall. You always loved to run your hand against the wall, especially when you were descending down the stairs.

You knew that he was too smart to hide anything in the living room and the kitchen. You felt like you were losing your mind. Even though you couldn’t find anything, you knew Bucky was hiding something from you. It was the same gut feeling that you had when you were with Steve. You listened to it, and you were right. Therefore, you believed that you were right about Bucky being secretive.

You stood at the bottom of the stairs, with your hands on your hips and your bottom lip between your teeth. You didn’t know where else to check. The garden seemed idiotic, and none of Bucky’s floorboards creaked in a peculiar manner. No can or jar in his cabinets looked off, and his shelves didn’t seem like they could move. His stack of books about the human mind didn’t seem fake either.

You spun in a circle, and so did your mind. Everything merged into a colourful blur, and you nearly missed the large splash of white that suddenly intruded into your vision. You stopped moving and looked over just to see the door to the basement. The door was never opened, even when Bucky was downstairs doing the laundry. You smiled to yourself. It was perfect, and it made so much sense for him to hide something in there.

The airport was loud. Families and couples yelling at each other and the sound of suitcase wheels against the floor. A lovely voice came on the intercom, announcing a flight that was departing. From New York to some city in Arizona. In Bucky's hands were his passport, his ticket, and his backpack. Bucky wasn’t sitting in one of those enormously uncomfortable chairs that everyone else was.

He was meters away from the waiting area, contemplating whether the trip was a good idea or not. He didn’t need to be plagued with guilt by what happened to Natalia. He was doing much better now that she was gone. The gothic house probably needed to be cleared of cobwebs and creepy crawlers, but he could’ve just hired someone for that. The only reason why he was contemplating his trip was because of you.

You seemed to eat up every lie he spewed since he met you, but you didn’t appear to buy his cover-up for the flight. Bucky never felt bad about lying to you because you needed to be protected. You were bawling in your bedroom about your job, taking insults from your mother and getting carelessly drunk with a stranger just before he thoroughly swept in on his white horse. You needed him; you always did.

Bucky knew that you’d let your paranoia and suspicions get the best of you. He was glad you allowed that to happen with Steve, but he wasn’t going to let it fly when it came down to himself. “Fuck,” he grumbled before turning on his heels and making his way out of the area and out of the airport. He had to protect you from the harsh truth, only because he’s your knight in shining armour.

You didn’t grab ahold of the railing because it was made of wood. Splinters were the worst; you simply just loathed them like anybody else. You placed your hand against the wall for support and tried your hardest to not make too much noise. Basements always gave you the creeps. The air in the room was thick and heavy, week-old vapour stuck in there, and you wondered how the wood hadn’t begun to rot yet.

Your fingers clashed with what seemed to feel like a light switch. You were at the bottom of the stairs, an old carpet resting beneath your feet to protect you from the cold floor. Your nose was filled with the scent of different detergents and softeners that Bucky would use. Against the wall were the washing machine and the dryer. Next to the dryer was a small, worn-down sink. It was clearly stained and dirty, and you wondered how old the house was.

In the corner was a little wire deck shelf. On it were boxes and many other random objects. You managed to push yourself into the small space that was between the washing machine and the rack. You grabbed the first and the only box on the highest level, surprised that it was lighter than it seemed. You looked inside, only to find old leather gloves and a first aid kit. The white of the kit had a bit of dried blood on it, and the gloves were creased.

You grimaced, but you figured that they were from before he retired. You put the box back and reached for the other one that was two levels down from the top. It was much heavier than the previous one, and you were scared that you would drop it. You peered into the box and found a sleek black gun. Your eyes widened, and you nearly let go of the six faces of cardboard.

But it also made sense for him to own a gun. You didn’t want to think of the possible reasons to scare yourself, so you pretended as if you didn’t see it and put it back. The rest of the shelf just had little old objects that seemed like they came from a thrift store or a pawn shop. One was a small porcelain deer in a pink skirt with glitter on its spots. It made you smile; of course, Bucky would have something like that. The deer’s bright doe eyes looked up at you, but they seemed more sad than anything else.

Though you marvelled at the statue at first, it eventually made you feel uneasy. You tore your eyes away from it and slowly made your way out of the cramped space. You didn’t know where else to look, and your gut feeling didn’t seem to go away. Though the lightbulb was turned on, the room was still dark. The area next to the staircase was particularly shadowed, and your stomach dropped just a bit as you stared at it.

You swallowed thickly and nervously, but you were also elated at the fact that you finally found somewhere worthy of checking. You stepped into the darkness, and you pulled your phone out of the pocket of your jeans. You turned the flashlight feature on and shined the light throughout the space. The ground was barren, and so were the walls. Dust covered them, though.

You rested your off-hand against the side of the staircase, sighing to yourself before realizing that there was a space underneath the stairs. You bent down and shone the light there, moving it around to try and find something. When that was of no help, you stretched the hand that was on the stairs to try and feel for something, anything. Your digits brushed up against what felt like a shoebox. Your heart jumped, and you fumbled around trying to grab it.

You dragged the box out from the staircase while you bit your bottom lip. You sat down on the dirty floor, and you hesitated in opening up the box. You wondered if it was best to let sleeping dogs lie, to just ignore your intuition and to trust Bucky. But you knew better than that. You really did. Your shaky hand lifted the top of the box, and you set it down on the ground.

You pointed your flashlight inside the box, and you gasped loudly. It was filled to the top with different things that were oh so familiar. Maybe it was because they belonged to you. A pair of pink panties that you thought your washing machine ate was at the top. You took them out of the box just to find a few old notebooks of yours. You believed they were under your bed, but it seemed to be otherwise.

A few lipsticks and a hairbrush were there, too. You didn’t recall them being missing, and you certainly didn’t remember giving them to Bucky because you never did. You dug everything of yours out of the box. Polaroids, more panties, jewelry, polaroids of yourself and your body, as well as much more. At the bottom was a bunch of folded papers in a Ziploc bag.

You pushed the square slider at the top to open the bag, and you pulled out the papers. You opened them up just to be faced with a file detailing almost everything about you. There were pictures of you around your house, at work and doing other things. One was of you showering, and you felt sick to your stomach. You didn’t know whether you should cry, call someone, or be angry.

But what you did know was that you needed to get as far away from Bucky as possible. You quickly shoved everything back into the box, and you put the lid back on. You grabbed it and placed it under your arm before trying to stand up. You unlocked your phone and searched through the screen for the Phone app. You needed to call your mom, maybe ask her if you could stay with her for a bit. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you panicked, not being able to find her contact.

You turned around and managed to click on her name, and you began to make your way up the stairs. You clicked the call button and put the phone on speaker. You listened closely as it rang, and you waited for the ‘ringing’ to turn into a timer. But you didn’t look where you were going, which is why you let out a scream as you bumped into something. No, someone.

You looked up slowly, just to see Bucky staring at you. His face was filled with hurt, and you heard his metal arm whir as he clenched his fist. “Where do you think you’re going, doll?” he asked innocently, smiling at you. “Uhm, I- I was just going to go eat lunch!” you lied to him. Your voice was shaky, and so was your entire body. You felt nauseous, and your legs felt as if they were going to give out.

“Good, I’m glad you’re going to eat lunch. It’s important to have all your meals, y’know. But do you really need to go through my things and steal, too?” Bucky questioned, taking a step towards you. “Please let me go, Bucky. I won’t tell anyone!” you promised, ready to sob and beg to him. He clicked his tongue and shook his head. “No can do, doll. Can’t let my best girl go,” he exasperatedly explained to you, almost as if you didn’t learn about his stalking ways.

His hand came up to your face, and he stroked your cheek. The metal felt weird against your sweating skin. He moved his hand down to your neck, and he suddenly wrapped his fingers around your throat. You dropped your phone and the box, and you wrapped your hands around his wrist. “Shh, it’s okay, you just need to take a quick break from reality. That’s all,” Bucky cooed, and you found yourself struggling to breathe. Your vision began to darken, and you eventually passed out in his arms.

[verymuchimmortalcat]

To Have Several first Meetings

Bio Dad Bruce Wayne Month Day 1: Meeting for the first time

ao3

@maribat-bdbwm

Marinette had known she was adopted since she had been twelve and had a project about genetics in school. Her parents had explained to her that her mother had given her up for adoption since she wasn’t in a situation to take care of her and didn’t think her father would be able to. Marinette’s mother had passed away soon after and while Tom and Sabine had her father’s information neither of them had ever contacted him. They left the option up to Marinette, and at the time she hadn’t cared, she had two loving parents and she was happy.

.oOo.

Marinette meets Batman for the first time when she’s 14. Wonder Woman had been in contact with them from the beginning of the hawkmoth situation, but after Heroes Day Batman insists on speaking to the them. As they enter the Watch Tower she can feel Cat Noir buzzing with excitement next to her. She’d laugh but she’s too nervous to do so.

Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman are waiting for them. Marinette’s glad there aren’t more heroes around, Cat Noir looks like he might explode in excitement. They sit down at the table and Batman speaks first, “You need training.”

She’s well aware of that, but the way Batman says it irritates her, but she ignores it. She’s here because Diana asked, and because Batman is right about their lack of training.

Superman speaks up then, “We can help you with that. You can use Titans Tower for your training-”

“-And due to the nature of the threat you face, the two of you and the rest of your team is welcome there anytime.”

Marinette doesn’t point out that the rest of them are temporary heroes, it will probably alarm them more. She knows Cat Noir is probably jumping at the offer but she wants to know “why?”

Batman’s the one to speak, “if you’re going to protect Paris, then you’re going to need to be trained well.”

Marinette doesn’t know why Batman has a sudden vested interest in Paris’s safety but she’s going to go along with it. They do need the training and it will be nice to talk to more heroes their age.

“And the Justice League won’t interfere in Paris?”

“No.”

“None of them? You have a very large team and not all of them are here at the moment.”

“I will ensure everyone is informed.”

Marinette drops it, Batman sounds sincere.

.oOo.

Cat Noir and Ladybug make their first appearance in Titans tower that weekend. Cyborg and Nightwing are the ones waiting for them. They meet a lot of heroes. There’s Robin, Red Robin, Superboy, Wonder Girl, Kid flash, Solstice, Ravager, Beast Boy, Raven and apparently there are more of them usually but those are the ones she meets.

Civilian names are a whole another thing. Ladybug, Cat Noir and the Bats don’t share theirs but then there are the others. Cassie of course doesn’t have a secret identity. And Kon, Bart, Kiran, Rose and Gar don’t really mind telling another super hero. It’s a bit weird how forthcoming they are with their identities, Marinette’s had the no sharing identities rule hammered into her head for over a year now, and meeting the Teen Titans is making her question that rule.

As time passes and the miraculous team grows larger and the heroes become permanent, Titans Tower becomes steadily more occupied during weekends and training relaxes into hanging out.

They still train of course, the bats help with figuring out hawkmoth and Mayura’s identities, pretty much everyone helps with the actual fighting, and Raven helps with the more magical aspects. She meets pretty much all of the teenage superhero community over the course of a year. It’s pretty cool.

.oOo.

About a year after they start their training, they figure out Hawkmoth is Gabriel Agreste and Mayura’s Nathalie Sancouer. It’s not surprising but she knows they’re all worried how it’s going to affect Adrien, who as they learn is Cat Noir.

Marinette is fifteen when Hawkmoth’s reign over Paris ends.

Paris celebrates for days. But Marinette can’t bring herself to feel anything anymore. It’s not that she hasn’t been dealing with her emotions with the constant trips to the tower it’s just not letting herself feel anything in Paris becomes normal.

Her parents start to get worried and as much as she would love to calm down their fears she can’t. Luka, Juleka and Alya are the ones who join forces to convince her to reach out to her biological father.

When she gives in and asks her parents, they give her his contact information happily, assuming that’s what had been bothering her all this time. Marinette doesn’t correct them.

It takes Marinette a few weeks to call him but she does call him.

.oOo.

It turns out he already knew about her; he had just figured waiting until she was older was the better approach. Marinette wasn’t really sure what to make of that but he had invited her to his house in Gotham to spend a week getting to know him and the rest of his children.

Marinette accepts his offer happily. It would be nice to learn more about her father and his family (beyond what her research turned up with, Gotham reporters didn’t seem very sensible), and get out of Paris for a while.

.oOo.

Marinette is met by M. Pennyworth, who’s their butler, at the airport. Her parents had let her come on her own after M. Wayne had assured them that she would be safe. There had still been an unnecessarily large number of people to send her off at the airport, though.

Their ride to Wayne Manor is filled with a good amount of nervous rambling, from Marinette’s part. Alfred (he had insisted upon being called so) asks her about school and friends and Marinette goes on a lot of tangents as she talks about everyone in Paris.

There several people waiting at the entrance when they reach the Manor. If she wasn’t anxious about meeting her family, she would probably be more amazed at the beauty of the Manor and the surrounding grounds.

She waves awkwardly at them and says, “hi, I’m Marinette.”

The shortest boy among them, Damian she believes, turns away and walks back into the Manor. Her father turns as if to follow him but he’s stopped by the second tallest of her siblings, Marinette doesn’t think she’ll ever get used to the idea of siblings but she finds she quite likes it, “I’ll go check on Damian. Bye Marinette, see you around.”

She waves at him silently and all of them fall into silence, Alfred having left them. Would it be too late to turn away now?

There aren’t enough pictures of Bruce Wayne’s children on the internet, with the exception of Tim Wayne, for her to recognise all of them but she's pretty sure the one who finally breaks the silence is Jason Todd, returning from the dead created more than enough reading material for her research.

“I'm leaving. Nice to meet ya,” and then heads off. None of the others seem to think it’s strange, so she doesn’t dwell on it.

Mr. Wayne clears his throat and says, “we should probably head inside.”

“Truly one of your brighter ideas B,” Tim says and the other two laugh. They introduce themselves as Cass and Duke once they’re inside and Mr. Wayne tells her she can call him B or Bruce like the others do or whatever she’s comfortable with, Marinette nods in reply. And then she’s being dragged along to somewhere deep in the Manor by her new siblings and they’re talking about some kind of prank war that they’re apparently in the middle of.

Marinette grins. This is bound to be interesting.