#She’s great . Her thread is nice I buy it often

[teamfortresstwo]

Ohhhh fuckkkk Theseus and Asterius as woman would actually go so hard

[headkiss]

single thread (pt. 3)

part 1, part 2, part 3

pairing: spiderman!steve harrington x fem!reader

summary: you know steve’s secret, but he has another; he loves you. of course, you love him, too, and things change.

word count: 9.3k

warnings: spiderman!steve au, fluff, smut (thigh riding and a hj), mentions of a car accident (nobody gets hurt), idiots in love!!!!!!

a/n: she’s here!!!! thank u guys so much for ur support on this mini series, i have loved writing it so so much <3 this will be the last long piece, but if you guys have requests for blurbs from this universe, i’d love to have them!!!

/ᐠ(๏‸๏)ᐟ\

You’d never been that great at puzzles, at figuring things out quickly without hints. But for some reason, this was something you’re pretty sure of.

Steve is Spider-man. He’s the one who saved you, who saves people every day, and he keeps it hidden. You understand why he does, and you’d never want to pressure him into telling you something he doesn’t want to, you only wish he knew you were ready to listen. Whenever.

You’re not that strong, but you’d take some of the weight off of his shoulders if you could.

The news plays on your TV now more than ever, as more than just background noise. Your eyes focused on the screen whenever Spider-man is mentioned, analyzing the way he moves, the familiarity of the hand gestures when he speaks, the gentleness when he makes sure someone’s okay.

It isn’t only on the news that you notice things, either. Seeing Steve as often as you’ve grown to, you seem to find more tells constantly. How he can catch a glass before it spills without even looking, the way he’s on edge sometimes, like he can’t focus on one single thing.

You see Steve often, and the clues are there, and he still hasn’t told you about it.

It’s not that you expect him to tell you, or that you’re angry he hasn’t. It’s just been hard to pretend like you don’t know why he’s limping or like you’re still clueless to it all. He’ll tell you on his own time, or maybe he won’t, but you’ll have to be okay with that.

You’ve convinced yourself it’d be best not to tell him you knew. He’s probably stressed out enough, and you didn’t want to add to that if you could avoid it. You’ll be there for him either way, that’s what’s important.

Besides, on top of you figuring out he’s Spider-man, you’ve finally acknowledged the feelings that have been there for a while. The serious ones, the four letter ones. They’ve been on your mind more than anything.

You’re in love with Steve, that’s something you could tell him, in theory, but you can’t bring yourself to. You’d hate to ruin the only real friendship you’ve managed to build since moving.

So, he’s not the only one with secrets after all. He’s Spider-man, you know that he’s Spider-man, and you’re in love with him.

Lately, you’ve actually been thankful for how quiet things have been at work. Your head’s been loud enough. The thoughts of Steve, of trying not to give anything away every time you look at him, of whether he might be going to patrol whenever he leaves.

It’s all-consuming. Pathetic, even.

And it’s what’s on your mind—once again—as you walk home from your morning shift at work. The sun’s out, your eyes squinted when it hits your face. The breeze around you is still chilly, but the promise of spring and warmth is nice.

You glance over to the newsstand you always pass going to and from work, checking the picture on the front page to look for a certain mask. Today, it’s there, and you pause to look at it.

‘Spider-man catches culprit behind string of armed robberies.’

Skimming the article, your heartbeat picks up. The danger this boy puts himself in for the sake of other people. The injuries you’ve seen him come home with. You shake your head and keep walking.

“Mom, look!” A little boy says, urging his mother towards the newsstand. “It’s Spider-man!”

You turn around, a small smile on your face as you see the mother buying her son a copy of the paper. You guess you’re not the only person who can’t keep away from that hero.

Then, there’s a little glow in your chest, the reminder that you’re lucky enough to know the person behind the mask, too.

-

Steve thinks that telling Robin about you might’ve been a bad idea, because she looks like she might slap him right now.

“You’re telling me you kissed her, then told her it couldn’t happen again, and yet you still have that look on your face when you talk about her?”

Robin makes it sound very simple. To him, it isn’t.

“Well, yeah, but it’s complicated, okay? And I don’t have a look on my face, Robs.”

“You absolutely do, all moony and shit. If I didn’t want you to find someone so badly, I’d say it’s kinda gross.”

Honestly, Steve can’t even tell her she’s wrong. If the way he thinks about you tells him anything, it’s that he probably can’t keep it off his face. At the very least, he hopes that Robin can only tell because she knows him so well, not because it’s insanely obvious.

“Thanks.”

“Steve, I know you like her,” she says, gentler than before, careful not to scare him from the conversation.

I more than like her, he thinks. There’s a better way to describe it and he knows that. He may not admit it, not even to himself, but he knows it all the same.

Robin continues before Steve can reply, “and I know you’re scared, I do, but we both know you’d regret it if you didn’t give this a shot.”

He shakes his head. Somehow, every time he sees Robin, the conversation always leads to this. To you.

“I’d regret it more if I got her hurt.”

“Steve, I’ve known about you since the beginning and look at me. I’m right here, perfectly fine,” she holds her arms out, like it’s some sort of proof that she’s okay. “The worst I’ve done lately is scrape my knee, and that’s just because I’m clumsy, not because I know about you being Spider-man.”

He supposes she’s right, that she has a point here, but it doesn’t stop him from being afraid, from feeling an uncomfortable clench in his chest when he thinks about even the slightest possibility of putting you in danger.

“It’s different with her, though,” he says.

“Come on! Remember in high school when you had like four different girlfriends in a month?”

“That’s an exaggeration.”

“Well, still. Where’s that part of you gone?”

“Um…”

“Shut up, I mean the part that was open to that. To trying to make connections.”

“Maybe the venom from the spider made it disappear.”

She huffs and sinks into the couch cushions. Steve’s always been stubborn, quick to deflect with humor or sarcasm when things get too intense. Too much.

Robin’s a good friend, the best one, and she can see him closing up, so she changes her approach.

“I just want you to be happy, you know?”

“Yeah, Robs, I know.”

“Can you just think about it?”

“About what?”

“Asking her out, telling her how you feel,” Robin lays a hand on Steve’s shoulder, gives it a small squeeze. “Don’t close yourself off to it completely.”

Steve’s hand lands on top of hers, squeezes it back before letting go. He may not have that many people in his life, but having a friend like Robin never makes him feel like he’s missing anything.

At least, he didn’t feel that way until he met you. Now, he thinks about what it’d feel like to fall asleep and wake up with his arms wrapped around you, to be able to kiss you and hold you. To have that intimacy that you can only have when you’re in love with someone.

Fuck. In love.

“Okay. I’ll think about it.”

-

The good thing about being lost in thought while you walk is that it makes time go by quickly. By the time you’re walking up the stairs to your apartment, you’re not even sure how you got there, your feet having been on autopilot.

Just as you’re fishing out your keys, there’s the sound of a door opening, a pair of voices following. One that’s practically engraved in your head. The other is of a girl, who seems to notice you standing by your door very quickly.

“Oh my gosh! Hi!”

You blink at her a couple of times, because she’s talking to you like she knows you, like you should know her. “Hi…?”

Steve’s leaning a shoulder against his door frame behind her, a scrunch in his brows and a shake of his head. It’s all you catch before she grabs your attention again.

“Sorry! I’m Robin, Steve’s totally, completely plantomic best friend-”

“Oh my god,” he mutters.

“You’re the neighbor,” she continues, saying your name to make sure she’s right, even though she seemed plenty sure of that already. “Steve talks about you all the time.”

“Really?” You can’t help but ask. You try to hide the hopefulness in your voice, the happiness at the idea of him talking about you. All the time.

“Oh, yeah. You have made quite the impact on this guy,” she points towards him with a thumb over her shoulder.

“Robs,” Steve gives her a stare, eyes wide and—if the hint of pink spreading over his cheeks says anything—probably telling her to stop embarrassing him.

“What?” She looks back at him, all innocent.

“Don’t you have to get to work?”

“Okay, okay,” Robin turns towards you again, gives you a toothy smile that’s wide enough to have you sending her a small grin in return. “It was so nice to finally meet you.”

“You, too,” you say, and though she surprised you with a whole bunch at once, you mean it.

She pulls you into a hug and says to you quietly, “thank you for taking care of him.”

And with that, she walks away, retreating down the hall. Steve hears her, Robin knows that. Hell, she probably wanted him to.

He scratches at the back of his neck (that habit of his) and huffs, “I’m sorry about her. She can be sort of a lot.”

“Don’t be,” you shake your head. “She seems great.”

“You’d like her, I think. If you got to know her.”

He still seems nervous, like you and Robin meeting was a really big thing for him. And it is. The two most important people in his life meeting. Of course he’d want that to go well.

“Steve, you don’t need to worry, or anything. I already like her, okay?”

Anyone who seems to make Steve happier is bound to win some points with you. He deserves friends like that, especially with everything he has to carry.

“Okay, yeah. That’s good.”

He still seems nervous, so you step over and place your hand on his arm, giving him the lightest squeeze. He probably wouldn’t have felt it if it weren’t for how focused he is on you.

“I was just surprised, that’s all. Promise.”

Steve’s hand finds yours, intertwining your fingers gently, as if he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.

“Thank you,” he speaks quietly. Two words he tries to tell you as often as he can.

-

Steve’s been visiting you at work often, sometimes with food, always with enough to brighten your day. Getting to spend that extra time with him is another perk of working when it’s not busy.

Today, he’s decided to surprise you rather than give you a heads-up over the phone. There’s a takeout bag clutched in his hand, and a little ball of nerves in his stomach. He shouldn’t be nervous, it’s only you. Then again, it’s you.

He opens the bookstore door, the small bell above it jingling. For once, there’s a customer at the register. You glance over at Steve from behind the counter, wiggling your hand in a quick wave before helping your customer again.

And just like that, there’s that feeling in his chest.

Steve waits by one of the displays as you finish up, trying not to make it obvious that he’s looking at you. There’s the soft smile on your face, the tone of your voice, the way the lighting hits your skin. It all has his heart going quicker.

“Hi, Steve,” you greet him once the customer leaves. “I didn’t know you were coming today.”

“Hi, honey. Kinda the point of surprising you with food.”

“Well, thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Hopefully I picked something you like.”

From the packaging he’s seen before in your apartment, he’s pretty sure he did alright, but he waits for your confirmation all the same.

You open the bag he’d set on the counter, a small happy gasp that he likes way too much leaving your mouth, “yay! How’d you know I liked this place?”

He shrugs, “lucky guess.”

There’s a second stool behind the counter, and you pull it up for Steve without a word, patting the seat for him to sit down. He does, consumed by the brush of your arms as you unpack the food, the touch of your knees when you shift in your seat.

“Thanks again, Steve.”

“You already know I owe you for all the meals you’ve made me.”

“And you already know, you don’t owe me anything.”

You’re a kind person, Steve’s known that since he met you. So much so that you don’t even see the value in what you’ve done for him, like it’s the simplest thing for you. It’s the simplest thing to help him.

It makes him want to do things he said he wouldn’t. Things like kiss you.

“Anyway,” he shakes the thought away. “How’s your day been?”

You lift a shoulder as you finish your bite of food before replying, “been okay. I’ve had a couple more people come in than usual, which is good.”

“Yeah?”

“I mean, I love the quiet in here, love getting to just read behind the counter and call it work. But, it’s also nice to feel useful at least some of the time.”

“That’s good. What’ve you been reading?”

This is a question he loves to ask you, because you get excited to respond every time. He loves to watch you grab the book and show it to him, to see your hands flick through the pages as you tell him what it’s about, to watch the way your mouth forms the words you speak.

He loves to ask you, because he loves to listen to your voice when you answer. That word’s been in his head a lot lately. Love.

So much that he’s not sure it ever really leaves. It’s a lingering whisper, growing louder when he’s with you. Even after you eat, after the food’s been cleaned, as he walks out the door, the word stays.

“Bye, Steve, see you later!” You say as he reaches for the door handle.

He lets himself look at you again before leaving, his eyes lingering for a second too long. “Bye, honey.”

The bell above the door rings again as he leaves, but it isn’t loud enough to cover what’s rushing through Steve’s mind. I love her. I shouldn’t, I can't. I love her.

God, maybe he should talk to Robin again, he thinks. Or, maybe he could avoid the lecture he’s bound to get and take his mind off things the best way he can: putting on the suit.

-

Turns out that even when he should be focused on patrolling, his mind still likes to wander. That’s probably why he ends up stationed atop the building across from the bookstore, where your closing shift should be ending soon.

He ends up there most nights he knows you’re closing, really.

Before, when he couldn’t even let himself think about his feelings for you, he’d tell himself he stayed near the bookstore because it was a shadier area, more alleyways and all that. Now, though it sort of scares him, he’s able to acknowledge that it’s purely to make sure you’re safe.

He has a whole city to be protecting, but if his senses aren’t leading him anywhere else, he’ll always end up near you.

It’s sort of ironic. You, subconsciously looking for Spider-man everywhere you go, him being right there, and you don’t even know it. He’s so, so close.

Steve stationed himself across the street from you about twenty minutes before the shop was meant to close. His eyes squinted on his mask to see if there was anyone seemingly dangerous around, just in case.

Sometimes, when he does this, he can’t stop himself from thinking about that night when he found you in that alley. When his ears were filled with pure static until he knew you were safe. When he kneeled in front of you and brought you home. He doesn’t want you to go through something like that ever again.

The click of the bookshop door closing behind you has Steve’s heightened hearing turned on, knowing that you’re about to lock up and head home.

You feel like there are eyes on you as you walk. But, every time you look behind you, there’s nobody there. You’re just being paranoid, you tell yourself. You’re fine. And really, you are fine, because the eyes aren’t dangerous—though you don’t know it—they belong to Steve.

He hops across buildings as discreetly as he can while following your pace. Walking you home in his own, secret way.

The next thing happens in a complete blur.

You’re crossing at an intersection when a car runs a red light, speeding and crashing into another vehicle. You’re in the street, the two cars screeching on the pavement and heading straight for you. Even if you ran, you wouldn’t be quick enough.

But he was.

Steve jumped down before it even happened, his vision tunneling on that car, on you in its path. He just knew he needed to get to you first. He shot the web, swung down, and scooped you up right before the collision reached you. His heart pounding, his grip on you tight enough to knock the air from your lungs.

He lands and sets you down at the back of an alley, hidden from the bystanders that screamed at the sight of the crash, at the sight of him.

It takes you an entire minute of silence, of your chest heaving and your ears ringing to grasp what had just happened. How close of a call it was, how he was there to save you again.

Your vision is blurred by tears when you look up at him, at the red and blue suit, the mask. Your breathing is quick, panicked, but it slows the slightest bit when you look at him. Spider-man. Steve. The best boy ever.

When your eyes lock onto his face, Steve rushes forward, holding your face in a gentle grasp. It’s frantic, the way his hands shake when he reaches for you, the way his head tilts all over to make sure you’re okay. His thumbs brush away the tears that fall from your eyes, back and forth and back and forth.

“Hey, look at me,” he says, dipping his head down to make you focus on him. “Breathe.”

You shake your head, trying to calm down the best you can after coming so close. Fuck, it was so close. If Steve would’ve been a split-second later, you would’ve been hit. The thought doesn’t help you calm down one bit.

Steve can see the fear in your eyes, the quick rise and fall of your chest. It clenches his heart in a tight, uncomfortable fist, and all he wants to do is help you. So he lets it slip.

“Breathe, honey. Come on.”

Honey.

That’s all the confirmation you’d ever need. You were right. This is Steve. It’s Steve holding your face and saving your life.

You surge forward and wrap your arms around his neck, and his go around your waist instantly.

“Steve,” you breathe out so quietly, only he could have heard it.

His heart sinks and flips at the same time, if that’s even possible. It sinks because you know, somehow, and it terrifies him so much, he’s not sure what to say. But then, it flips, too, because there’s a relief that’s clear in your voice.

“How did you-” he starts, but you only squeeze him tighter.

“Steve,” this time, your voice breaks when you say it.

Now isn’t the time to talk about this. Not when you were almost hit, not in public. Not now and not like this, Steve knows that. The break in your voice tells him to push that back for now.

“I’m gonna take you home, okay?”

He can feel you nod against his neck, so he lets go of you with one hand and keeps the other wrapped around you and starts swinging.

Right now, at this second, he’s not worried about how you found out, how you know it’s him. No, he only cares that you’re alive, that he can feel your arms squeezing around his neck, that he can squeeze you back just as tight.

As he swings with you clutching onto him, the realization makes his breathing stutter.

You could’ve died just then. In that fraction of a moment, you could’ve been gone without Steve ever getting the chance to tell you he loves you. He can’t let that happen. He’s gotta tell you.

It scares the absolute shit out of him, but he has to do something. He can’t lose you before working up the courage to tell you how he feels, before having the slightest chance at kissing you again.

He won’t let that happen.

-

Steve’s very gentle with you, even when he’s swinging from building to building with you in his arms. The sure grip he has around your waist and the smell of his cologne buried under the suit help ground you as wind rushes by.

You’re alive, Steve’s got you, and he knows you know.

Your eyes are squeezed shut the entire way, and in only a couple of minutes, he’s hanging onto the side of his building by his window and thanking himself for (once again) not locking it.

“Hey, honey, can you open the window for me?”

You lift your face from his neck and nod, twisting to lift it open. Steve’s supporting you with one arm and holding the both of you up with the other. The strength he has is incredible, especially when you’re seeing it first hand.

He helps you get into his room with a hand on your lower back, and lifts himself in right after you. You watch Steve’s back beneath the suit as he shuts the window, watch his gloved hands remove the web-shooters from his wrists.

Then, slowly, watch those same hands lift up to the edge of his mask and tug it off.

Your breath catches. You knew it was him, but seeing Steve’s familiar face and its prettiest combination of features be revealed is different, it’s real.

“Wow,” you say, though you hadn’t really meant to. It slipped. “Hi.”

Steve’s had a twist in his gut ever since he found out that you knew about him, and it only tangles more now that you’re looking at him with widened eyes. He doesn’t want things to change with you, and he’s so scared that they will.

What if you don’t want to see him anymore because of this? What if you’re angry with him for keeping it from you? What if you end up hurt because someone wanted to get to him?

“Um, hi.”

You step closer to where he stands by his side table, your hands twisting in front of you like you’re nervous, too.

“You saved me.”

“Just, uh, doing my job,” he says, shrugging it off.

“Well, then, you’re really, really great at what you do.”

You’re trying to be light with the subject, to take it at his pace given it’s his secret, his life. Steve’s quiet for a few moments, a flicker of something you can’t distinguish crossing over his face.

“How’d you know?” Is all he says, but you know exactly what he means by it.

“Saw Spider-man with the exact same injuries as you on the news. I guess I just connected the dots from there.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

You reach for his hand and hold it lightly, hoping that maybe, just maybe, your touch can help to ground him as much as his does you.

“Don’t be, okay? I understand why you wouldn’t. I just want to be there for you.”

“I don’t tell anyone, really,” he starts, his grip on your hand tightening as he speaks. “Robin’s the only other person who knows. I don’t want to put anyone in danger so I… I just keep it to myself.”

You squeeze his fingers, trying to show him in any way you can that you aren’t going to run away from this.

“You don’t have to keep it all to yourself, Steve. You can talk to me or knock on my door whenever you’re hurt,” he shakes his head. “You can. I keep my first-aid kit stocked for you.”

“It doesn’t scare you? That you might get hurt because of me?”

“I’m not scared for myself. I’m scared for you. Going out every night and fighting the bad guys. I’m scared that you’ll get hurt, Steve. I’m not worried about me,” he glances down but you step even closer, making him look at you. “If tonight shows anything, it’s that you’ll save me from getting hurt either way.”

Steve’s hand that isn’t holding yours moves up, pushing your hair over your shoulder before landing on your face. The fabric of his glove rests against your jaw, his thumb running over your skin, his eyes searching yours for a single hint of insincerity.

He doesn’t find one.

“You’re really important to me, honey.”

“You’re important to me, too.”

You’re close enough that you can feel his breath on your lips, his forehead a whisper away from yours. Close enough that you catch the way his eyes flick down to your mouth and back up.

“I know I said we shouldn’t-”

“Kiss me, Steve.”

“Okay.”

The hand on your face tilts you upwards, and just like that, he catches your lips with his. You’ve kissed before and still, there’s a rush of butterflies in your stomach, a warmth spreading over your skin the way a blanket of sunlight feels.

It’s slow, it’s delicate, and it means something. There are a thousand words that neither of you can say buried in this kiss, in the gentle press of your lips. Words spoken with the tilt of his head to get closer, the squeeze of his fingers interlocked with yours.

Steve doesn’t ever want to not be able to kiss you again. Not when it feels like this. Acceptance and reassurance, softness and the sort of glowing feeling he’s only ever had around you.

When he pulls away, he doesn’t go far. Your breaths meet between your faces, mingling in the silence that follows. Steve rests his forehead against yours, your noses brushing.

“I don’t want to be alone tonight,” you say. Because you’re still shaken from earlier, because you need the comfort that Steve seems to provide simply by being next to you, because you’re afraid that if you let him out of your sight, he’ll pull away from you again.

“You want me to stay with you?”

You nod. “Please.”

“Okay, honey, I’ll stay.”

As long as you’ll have me, he thinks, I’ll stay.

-

Steve did stay that night. After you both showered and got ready for bed, there was a moment where he stood—almost nervous—in the doorway of your bedroom. You lifted the covers for him and patted the spot next to you, and that was it.

He stayed for breakfast, too. This time, it was him cooking for you, stood over the stove in your apartment. It’s a sight you could definitely get used to. Then, like he could get any sweeter, he even called into work for you, saying you should at least get a day after what happened the night before. What almost happened.

Really, as scary as the crash had been, what you’d been thinking about the most was the way he kissed you. The way you’d woken up in the middle of the night with his arm around your waist. The way you fell back asleep easily with him there.

It’s what you’ve been thinking about in the days since. What you’re thinking about even now.

You know that something shifted that night, with him finding out that you knew he’s Spider-man, with you being able to reassure him that it won’t push you away. You could feel that shift, like a tectonic plate.

Despite that, things have been quiet and relatively the same with Steve. You haven’t seen him all that much, but when you do it’s still friendly. Friendly with something lingering between you, unspoken and palpable.

It’s dark out now, the evening news playing on your TV the way it so often does. It’s static to you until you see footage of Spider-man from earlier, swinging around and fighting crime again.

Naturally, your first thought is Steve, and whether or not he’s okay. Before, when he didn’t know you knew, you’d keep all this worry to yourself, letting it build and build until you saw him again. Now, though, he knows you know and you can do something about that concern.

You push yourself up from your couch and head to your door. Knocking on his comes easy, and he opens it quickly, like he knew it was you.

“Hi,” he says. There’s a smile pulling at his mouth.

“Hi. Sorry for bothering you, I just- um. I saw the news and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

Seeing you on the other side of his door already had Steve’s heart doing this silly flutter in his chest. Knowing you care enough to check on him this way does something else entirely. It floods from head to toe, the feelings he has for you. The ones he’s identified as love.

“I’m okay, promise. Not even a scratch this time.”

You nod, a pressure lifting from your lungs. You breathe a little easier seeing him unharmed. Seeing him in general.

“Okay. Good,” you should probably stop there, turn around and go back to yours, but you don’t. “I was just really worried, y’know, ‘cause I’ve seen you hurt and all, so I just wanted to see you and check-”

“Hey,” he grabs your hand gently, cutting off your rambling and tugging you into his apartment, pushing the door shut behind you. “I swear not every Spider-man thing I do is dangerous.”

“Yeah, okay, because swinging from buildings is super safe.”

“I’m a professional at that. Nothing to worry about.”

The wood of the front door is solid against your back, and Steve’s hand still in yours is the same. Solid, reassuring, sweet. Steve steps just a bit closer to you, so that you’re toe-to-toe and there’s nowhere for you to escape to.

His free hand reaches up to fiddle with the ends of your hair, gentle in a way that almost feels like you dreamt it.

“Did you really only come here to check on me?” He asks.

“Yeah, I did. Is that… okay?”

Steve wants to kiss you for that. He thinks you might want that, too. So, he dips his face closer to yours, lets go of your hand only to hold onto the nape of your neck instead. He hesitates, waits for you to push him away, but you never do.

Instead, you tilt your head and meet him in the middle.

You never knew that kissing someone could be so easy, that you could fit together so well that it just works. But that’s how it is with Steve, and you suppose that’s how it is when you’re in love. The pink haze and heart-shaped touches.

Steve doesn’t think he could ever get sick of kissing you, of feeling so light when things are often so heavy for him. When you pull away, he chases your mouth and steals two, three pecks from you.

Then, to answer your question, he says, “it’s more than okay.”

You only notice now that you aren’t distracted by his mouth on yours that your hands had found their way to his shoulders. It’s impossible not to notice the muscles under his skin, the clear evidence of his strength. Heat spreads through you, and you have to pull your hands away to speak properly.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure,” he tells you. His hand, still on your neck, squeezes so, so lightly. “I know I’ve said that we should only be friends, but that was before. Before you knew, and I was terrified of what could happen to you.”

“What about now?”

“Now…” He takes a deep breath, and focuses his eyes on yours. Whatever he’s about to say, he wants you to know he means it. “Now I can’t stop thinking about you and how it feels to kiss you.”

“I think about you, too.”

“Yeah?”

You nod, and though being honest makes you nervous, the smile that spreads over his face makes it worth it. So does the slight blush of his cheeks.

“I want to take you on a date. If that’s something you’d like.”

“I would really like that, Steve.”

Right then, there’s another shift, a bigger one. You both know there are feelings here. Big, scary feelings that you can’t say out loud yet.

-

Steve took care of planning the date. He wanted to surprise you, to impress you and do something for you this time. You do enough for him already.

Though Robin assured him—after all of her ‘finally’s and ‘I told you so’s—that it would be great, perfect, even, he’s still nervous when he knocks on your door. He’s shuffling on his feet, puffing out a breath as he waits, and then he sees you and the rest sort of melts away.

You open your door to find Steve with a picnic basket in hand and a slightly windswept bouquet of flowers in the other. You smile as he hands them to you and try to hide it by smelling the flowers.

“Thank you, these are beautiful.”

“‘Course.”

“I’ll just put them in water and then we can go.”

Your stomach is a mess of flutters and nerves as you fill up a vase with water and put the flowers in it. Sure, you’ve spent time with Steve alone time and time again, but never like this. It’s exciting and it’s scary, but the welcome kind of scary that comes with new things.

“You’re taking me on a picnic?” You ask, locking your apartment door behind you and then falling into step next to Steve.

“If that’s okay with you?”

“Sounds amazing.”

“My cooking isn’t as great as yours, I have to warn you,” Steve says, holding the door open to the stairwell.

“I’m sure I’ll love it.”

“It’s okay if you don’t, I’m just saying.”

He holds the door at the bottom of the stairs open for you, too. And then the one to exit the building.

As you walk along, Steve leading the way, your nerves fade, replaced with the familiarity and comfort of Steve’s company. Replaced with the feelings that sweep inside you like a huge bubble of pink bubblegum, so close to popping and spilling it all.

You talk aimlessly about anything and everything, and Steve does the same. You both try not to make the little catch in your breaths obvious when your hands brush.

He takes you to a park, one with big trees and a walking trail, with scattered flowers and the fresh smell of nature that makes you feel like you’re not even in the city anymore. He keeps going, and you keep following him, until he finds the spot he’d found before. A small clearing between trees, shaded by their leaves and just enough space for him to spread out the picnic blanket.

“Why have I never found this place myself?” You ask, looking up at the sky through the leaves.

“You like it?”

You nod, sitting down next to him on the blanket he brought. “Thank you for bringing me.”

He shrugs, “thank you for coming.”

You share a smile, a slow spread across your mouths as you look at each other for a moment. A smile saying this is real. Then, like it didn’t even happen, he starts to unpack the food.

Steve can’t even remember the last date he went on, but he knows that it wasn’t anything like this. He’s never felt this light around someone before. Somehow, you turn the bricks that weigh him down into feathers.

You’d thought it before, but you’re sure of it now; Steve is the absolute best boy you’ve ever known. The effort he put into making and packing up the food, the shyness he has about it all, like he should be embarrassed for being sweet to you. You feel unbelievably lucky that you moved into the apartment across from his.

The date goes by in a blink. You and Steve subconsciously moving closer and closer on the blanket, your thighs touching and your arms brushing. The food eaten between conversation and giggles. The picnic basket is now packed up again, the containers empty this time around.

You rest your head on Steve's shoulder and say, “thank you for this.”

Steve’s eyes close for a second, trying to memorize how this feels. He opens them and presses the gentlest kiss onto your head. “You’re welcome, honey.”

You stay that way and breathe each other in, once, then twice. That’s all you allow yourself before you stand and brush yourself off even though you weren’t dirty in the first place. Steve folds up the blanket and places it in the basket, and he stands, too.

This time, as you walk back to your apartment building, when your hands brush, you and Steve feel just a bit more confident, enough to reach your pinkies out to each other and lock them.

Steve’s the one who fully grabs onto your hand, letting your fingers intertwine. It’s how they’re meant to be, he thinks, two pieces of the same puzzle that just happen to fit together. You don’t let go for the entire walk.

Outside your building, neither of you really want to say goodbye, to end the date that feels like the beginning of something really, really good.

But, just as Steve lets go of your hand to reach for the door, he feels it. The tingling over his skin, the goosebumps, the static in his ears. He blinks and turns to you.

“I’m sorry-”

“Stop, it’s okay. Just be safe.”

He’ll never understand how you’re so understanding, how you accept it so quickly. All he knows is he loves you for it and so much more.

“Thank you, honey.”

He presses the quickest kiss to your cheek, sets down the picnic basket, and then runs into the alleyway on the side of the building. When he emerges, he’s in his suit and swinging off.

He’d been wearing it under his clothes. Always prepared.

You pick up the picnic basket and walk up to your apartment half convinced that the last few hours have been some sort of dream. Too good to be true.

-

The issue that had Steve’s senses coming alive didn’t take long to handle. Still, he stayed out to continue patrolling, worried that something else could happen. Worried that it might be too soon to go back and see you again.

Not seeing you didn’t erase you from his thoughts. Not one bit. He spent the hours in the suit waiting for the city to die down, waiting for the moment his senses would quiet down enough to let him know he was done for the night.

All because he wanted to see you, kiss you. God, he’s so fucked.

You were faring pretty much the same. Only, you’d changed into your pajamas rather than a superhero suit, laying around on your bed with a book in hand to hear knocks on your door. Or, at the very least, to hear him get home safe.

When the knock comes, it isn’t on your door. Instead, there’s a tapping on your bedroom window by the fire escape. As soon as you hear it, you shut your book and turn towards your window, and there he is.

Steve hangs upside down, his head level with yours when you open the window to talk to him. If you weren’t so busy being in love with him, the sight would be sort of funny.

“Well hello, Spider-man,” you say, leaning your hands against the windowsill.

“Hey, honey.”

“You aren’t hurt are you?” You ask, moving your hands to hold his face, because you’ve seen him injured enough times to be worried about that, to know it’s a possibility.

“I’m completely fine.”

“You’re really okay?”

“Nothing hurts, I promise,” he says, shaking his head. How could it when you’re holding him like that, looking at him like that. Pain isn’t what he’s feeling in the slightest.

You’re not really thinking when you lean in and peck his cheek over the mask, but it’s enough to scorch his skin, to leave an invisible mark.

And Steve isn’t really thinking when he speaks, “have I ever told you that I think you’re really pretty?”

“You’re upside down,” you tell him, fighting a stupid, lovesick smile. “You must be seeing wrong.”

He ignores that comment and twists himself upright, then climbs through your window into your apartment. You have to back up to make room for him, and when his feet hit the hardwood floors, he’s only inches away.

“I’m right side up now. Still think you’re pretty.”

You’ve never been good at taking compliments, never really thought that people meant them, only that they were trying to be kind. Steve is different. You still don’t believe it yourself, but you can tell that he does. His voice holds enough emotion to do that.

Bashful, you walk around him to shut your window and then lock it. You try to keep your feelings off of your face when you turn back around and find him already facing you, his mask now off and clutched in his hand.

His hair is a mess on his head, his cheeks flushed from being upside down and maybe, just maybe from being so close to you.

“So, what brought you to my window?” You ask.

“I wanted to say sorry,” he says, scratching at his neck. That habit of his. “For leaving the way I did earlier.”

It’s a half truth. He wanted to apologize for that. But, mostly, he wanted to tell you he loves you. He’d been thinking about it his whole patrol. Thinking about when the right time would be then remembering how quickly things can change, how you’d almost been hit not so long ago.

With that, he decided that there wasn’t a right time, that he could lose you just like that and he swore to himself that he wouldn’t let that happen. Especially not without telling you how he feels.

But, he’s always been more courageous with that mask on, and now, he just can’t get the words to leave his mouth. They hover on the top of his tongue, sticky and heavy.

“I told you it’s okay, Steve. I swear,” you step closer to him and reach for his hand, tugging the glove off before lacing your fingers with his. “I know that you had to, that this is a part of you and I’d never expect you to change or ignore it. I-“ love you, you almost say. But the words get stuck for you, too. “I care about you so much. Spider-man included.”

Every time Steve worries, even the slightest bit, that you’ll feel differently about him because of this, you prove him wrong. You say all the right things to make him feel better, to make him want to fall into you completely and never look back.

You’ve proven to him over and over that you’re in this, that you’re this dream of a girl that somehow ended up in his mess of a life. A mess you’re willing to join, helping him clean it without even trying.

You’re a dream, his dream, and he has to say it. He has to say it so he does, those sticky words forced off of his tongue in a breath.

“I love you.”

He squeezes your hand on the second word, like he’s emphasizing it. Love.

“I love you,” he says again, and you realize you’re not dreaming. He really said it, and he’s really looking at you that way with those soft, brown eyes. “You don’t have to say it, I just needed to tell you. I’ve never had someone make me feel the way you do. Never.”

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

Your heart pounds, thumps.

“I love you, too.”

“Serious?” He checks, because he thinks he dreamt it just like you had.

So you repeat it for him, “I love you, Steve.”

He leans in, not so afraid anymore, and places a hand on your neck, his fingers in your hair. The other hand squeezes yours again before letting go to frame your jaw and tilt your mouth to his.

It’s an easy rhythm to fall into now. Kissing him. And you feel yourself melt into him, your muscles relaxing, your body pushing towards his. Your arms are thrown around his neck, and all you feel is him.

It’s a delicate push and pull, a kiss that’s familiar but now has something new behind it. That acknowledged emotion, the reality of it. It has his tongue sweeping against the seam of your lips and dipping in when they part.

His hand is tangled tighter in your hair, and you’re not sure how long it’s been before you both pull away, breathless, chests heaving, matching smiles on your lips. Your noses still brush, and still, it doesn’t feel close enough.

Steve’s hands shift to run down your shoulders, then your arms, and back and forth.

“Does this mean I’m your girlfriend?” You ask, still breathing heavy, still feeling his breath fan across your lips.

“I’d like to think so,” he says, his hands now settled around your forearms. “If that’s what you want.”

You nod, kiss him quick. “Does it also mean you’ll stay the night?”

“As long as I can use your shower first,” he says.

“Good idea.”

“You saying I smell?”

You shrug, shoulder to your cheek. He smiles, and in turn, so do you, and it feels like the closest thing to perfect there could ever be.

-

Steve emerges from your bathroom with damp hair falling over his forehead and your clothes on instead of his suit. You lent him a t-shirt and a baggy pair of sweats that are still a bit too short at his ankles. You grin when you notice that.

And Steve grins when he sees you. My girl, he thinks. And it’s for real this time.

You’re sitting with your back against your headboard, knees bent and your book in your hands yet again. You needed to occupy yourself while he was showering, after all. Otherwise, you’d just think and think and think about him in the next room, his mouth on yours. His voice saying the words ‘I love you.’

He walks over and sits on the bed by your feet, his side facing you, but his head turned to look at you. Seeing him in your clothes, in your space, you think it’s something you’d like to see forever. Seeing you waiting for him in bed, Steve’s thinking the exact same thing.

“Hi,” you say.

Steve wraps a hand around your bare ankle, his thumb smoothing back and forth. “Hi.”

Though everything’s out in the open now, there’s a shyness there. Like two kids with crushes wondering what to do next. You’ve never loved each other out loud before today. It’s brand new territory.

But with that shyness, there’s so much more. There’s the knowledge of how it feels to kiss each other, to hold each other. There’s want to do it all again.

Steve’s other hand reaches for your book and sets it open and face-down on your nightstand. Then, he pushes your knees over so that he can lean in. He’s not fully thinking about what he’s doing, he’s simply listening to this thread that pulls him closer and closer to you until he’s kissing you again.

It starts with a couple of pecks, innocent, soft, quick. It turns into more and somewhere along the way you’re tugged into Steve’s lap, your knees on either side of one of his thighs. And somewhere along the way Steve’s hands have ventured under your shirt, running across your waist and up and down your back. He groans into your mouth when he notices the lack of a bra.

Steve tugs you impossibly closer to him, tugs you down so that you’re straddling his thigh with all of your weight. You inhale sharp and quick through your nose when he does.

It’s not long after that before you’re panting, unable to keep up with his mouth, and though Steve’s chest heaves, too, he doesn’t take the break to breathe properly. Instead, he dips his head to kiss your jaw, then your neck.

Your head tilts for him easily, an arm wrapped around his shoulders and the other tangled in the hair at the bale of his neck. You gasp when his teeth scrape against the skin behind your ear, your hips hurting unconsciously to rut against his thigh.

“Sorry,” you say, worried it was too much. Still, it comes out breathily.

He pulls back from your neck, looks into your eyes, his brown ones just a bit darker than usual. “Did that feel good?”

Your eyes search his face for an ounce of discomfort, of uncertainty. All you see is the kind of warmth that spreads through you, the kind of intensity that only comes with lust.

“Yes.”

“Do it again,” he tells you, his hands slipping down to rest just above the waistband of your shorts. He encourages you to move, his hands pushing and pulling. You move with him, slowly at first, letting out the smallest whimper when the angle is just right. At the sound, Steve says, “keep doing it.”

“Steve.”

“You’re okay,” his hands urge you forward again, his thumbs running back and forth soothingly. “I wanna make you feel good. Okay?”

“Okay,” you agree, because how could you not when it already feels so good, when he’s looking at you with kiss-swollen lips, messy hair, and wide pupils. When he’s looking at you like it feels as good for him as it does for you.

You move quicker, his hands encouraging you still. He kisses you again, kisses you until you have to pull away, your mouth dropping open, a moan slipping out before you can stop it.

Steve wishes he could bottle up the sound and keep it, listen to it over and over. Because he’s the one who’s making you feel that way, he’s the one who has your hand tight in his hair. Because he’s thought about you before, and it’s nothing compared to the real thing.

The sweatpants you lent him grow a bit tighter, and his hands don’t stop guiding you over him. He wants to hear you make that noise again.

You drop your forehead to his shoulder, your thighs tightening around his, your clit catching on the fabric of your shorts and his (your) sweatpants enough to make you moan again.

“That’s it, baby. Doin’ so good.”

It’s the first time he’s ever called you ‘baby’ and you hope it won’t be the last.

“Steve.”

“I’ve got you.”

The hand that isn’t in his hair trails down his torso and rests above the waistband of his pants for a second. Your hand cups him over his pants, squeezing lightly and finding him hard. Watching you was enough to turn him on, and the thought makes you whimper again.

“Fuck. You don’t have to,” he says, taking a hand from your waist to pull your face from his shoulder, to look at you.

“Want you to feel good, too.”

There’s nothing but honesty in your words, want in your eyes.

“Shit, honey.”

“Will you let me?” You ask, your voice slightly strained from the stimulation you feel, your hips still moving.

“Yeah.”

Your hand slips under the waistband with his consent, and you wrap it around him, your thumb running over his tip. He groans and leans his forehead against yours.

You’re breathing the same air, moving at the same pace, and you don’t think it’s ever felt this right with anyone before. With Steve, you’re not thinking about how you might look and whether or not he’ll like it, you’re only thinking about being with him.

“I’ve thought about you before. Like this,” he says, a quiet confession broken up by heavy breaths.

“Me, too,” you reply in a gasp.

His hands are both on your waist again, squeezing your skin tighter because you have a hand wrapped around his cock and it has his head spinning.

“You getting close, baby?”

“Yeah, Steve. So good.”

“I know. Keep going. I wanna see you.”

His voice is tight, and he’s holding himself back though it hasn’t been long. Your hand is soft, running up and down and he hasn’t been with someone in so long. The fact that it’s you, right now, doesn’t help him last. Just kissing you would be enough, he thinks.

Your rhythm stutters, your eyes squeezing shut, and just like that, you’re tipping over the edge and coming on his thigh.

“That’s it, sweet girl,” he hums, low and scratchy. “That’s it. Look so pretty coming on me.”

Your hand pauses where it was jerking him off, too caught up in your orgasm to keep going. You say his name, say it again, and he keeps you moving over him through it all.

“Fuck,” you open your eyes when the last wave draws away, your legs shaking slightly.

It doesn’t take you long to start stroking him again, up and down and back again. Steve grunts and his hips stutter upwards, chasing your touch. It’s your turn to work him through it.

“Gonna come, honey,” he warns you. “I’ll ruin your sweats.”

“Don’t care,” you say, kissing his cheek, the corner of his mouth. “I want you to.”

You run your thumb across the tip again and then his fingers are digging into your skin. He’s groaning and you feel the warmth of his come spill onto your hand. Neither of you had taken any clothes off and still, it’s the best you’ve ever had.

“Shit, honey.” This time it’s his head that rests against your shoulder. “I’m gonna need another shower now.”

You laugh breathily and pull your hand from his pants, wiping it off on the thigh you’re not sitting on, ‘cause they’re already ruined, anyway.

“I’ll get you another pair,” you say.

“In a minute. Can’t move.”

A minute is closer to five, and eventually he lets you go. You hand him a new pair of sweatpants, then clean up in the bathroom and change into different shorts. When you come back, he’s laying down under the covers in your bed. Twin smiles spread on your faces.

“You’re cute,” you tell him.

“So are you.”

You shake your head and flick your light off, the street lights flooding through your window the only thing left illuminating your room. You join him under the covers, and he doesn’t hesitate to wrap an arm around you and pull you into his chest.

Your head rests by his shoulder, one of your legs thrown over his. Having him laying next to you is much more comfortable than being alone.

“I love you,” Steve says, his lips pushing a kiss into your hair.

“I love you,” you say right back.

And then, just like you’d imagined so many times before, you fall asleep cuddling Steve. And just like he’s imagined so many times before, you wake up that way, too.

/ᐠ(๏‸๏)ᐟ\

thank you guys so much for reading spidey!steve i hope u liked it!!!! pls pls consider reblogging and letting me know what you thought, i promise it makes a difference <333

[audio-luddite]

Second lap.

After a workout I spun up Jazz at the Pawnshop. The cover is a bi-fold and has a bunch of words in English and German one on each face of the inside. This is a Proprius issue which is the original label from Sweden, and is marked as made in Sweden. No Swedish to be seen. Export edition I imagine. While it played I perused the internoise for more background.

First I have to confirm it is as reputed a high quality recording. Great clarity and timbre of the instruments. As a live recording in a club venue it has a nice level of reality to the image. The performance is decent. And there lies the controversy.

If you fall down the Google rabbit hole and avoid the many many places to buy your own copy and look for comments or background you will see a full spectrum of opinion. The good side is it is a good disc that everyone should own. The bad side is it is a total waste of money and you are "one of those people" for wanting it.

I dislike the thing where people like to throw shit around. If you do not like something fine. But to be offensive is just not right. More than a few Inter-experts think that as the players are not Miles Davis or Charlie Parker level they should never have left the house.

In one prominent thread this guy said that "only audiophiles will buy this" and that shows how dumb they are. Hey it could have been said nicer, but he didn't. Apparently only Jazz made by Americans preferably in New York or Chicago is legitimate.

This is not just one person. One said they should have saved the money and gone down to a Jazz club and listened to the real thing. So if you happened to be in Stockholm in 1976 and went down to a club in the old town the people on stage were not the real thing. I do not think the Jazz superstars perform very often in small local clubs around the world. If they are in your city good on you.

So much hostility. Or is joining the clamor proof you know about Jazz?

On the plus side there are several narratives of the process of the recording and what people thought at the time. Generally friendly and interesting.

This effort of mine was done by side one. I could therefore enjoy 2,3,4 with a clear head only slightly bothered by what the heavies wrote.

Apparently the original issue in 1977 was two 180 gram discs just like my new ones. (Oh and both marked as 33 1/3 RPM ) I did not think they did that back in the day. Proof they did I guess.

So back to the music. The group could play. They like the music obviously. There is live energy and that is always good. There were some goofs or maybe just small mistakes, but humans do that.

Miles Davis "Kind of Blue" is a pure studio creation. The tape machine was an important player in the group. It is a milestone in the art, but did not happen in a club. No doubt it is a superior Jazz performance. But is that what Jazz is supposed to be? A thing in a can?

Fortunately I am not an expert. I react to music emotionally. This is a fun listen. I would like to have been in that club in 1976. It would have been fun with the beer and strangely prepared herring dishes on black bread. I would have liked to clink my drink glass and cheer the group on.

Even my wife commented it was cheerful and pleasant.

I have a fair bit of Jazz in my collection and one reason is it tends to be better recordings. I am not even close to a scholar and know only a few names basically from the backs of the albums I do have. So yes I am one of those horrible audiophile people.

That lovely young Laufey woman won a Grammy for "Traditional Pop Vocal" but her background is clearly Jazz. Several reviewers hope she will help bridge the art to Gen Z as Jazz has been in commercial decline for the last Decade. I like her stuff but she aint a superstar yet. I don't think she is a waste of money either.

[rakumel]

First of all, I would love some asks, any asks, even the freaky ones. How dare you. Just send them over here and I'll roast, befriend, or ignore as necessary.

Second of all, uh-oh. You asked for it. I don't just have one favorite game, y'see. Having said that, I actually haven't played a wide range of them, for cost reasons, time reasons, and brain reasons - I tend to latch onto a game and play the shit out of it before moving on.

I guess you could say any game that I like enough to actually buy or download is my favorite game. I don't really waste time with games I don't click with. Occasionally it's pretty obvious why I like a game (I bought Xenoverse 1 and 2 because watching DBZ Abridged relit a nostalgia pilot light in me that hadn't been touched in literal decades and boy howdy, did it ever fuckin' BURN after that). But most of the time, why I like a game is just as much a mystery to me as it is to you. Although I have noticed that a lot of my favorites have female leads, or give you the option to make one.

I already did a series of posts on the Pocky and Rocky SNES games, but in short I like them because they were unique (at the time and place where I lived, anyway) - charming graphics, lovely music, and yes - a protagonist who was a girl. A shrine maiden, to be exact. No love interest, just fun adventures with a bunch of monsters. And that meant a lot to a young girl who didn't have a whole lot of video game lady heroines to choose from.

Never in a million years dreamed they'd remake the first one, but they did, and it made me so happy!

Threads of Fate/Dewprism on the PS1 is another favorite. Outstanding soundtrack; I can still listen to Rasdan on a loop without getting sick of it. The game itself has the same low-polygon look as most PS1 games do, but please look up the artwork because it's awesome - or at least, I love the style.

I love the main characters: Rue (dude on the left) is a bit of a sap but not too much, and while I do like his story arc, it does get kind of overshadowed by Mint's. Mint is just badass. She's an absolute brat who - with a straight face - says she's going to take over the world, and at no point does she apologize or feel silly about it, and it's GREAT. Plus she can shoot magic and kick the shit out of people, so she can actually kind of back up her tough talk.

The supporting characters are fun, too. There just isn't enough love in the world for Belle and Duke ("Milady's only 30...if you round down!"), or Rod and his Pinto.

Shadow of the Colossus. I was so, so, so, SO thrilled when I first heard it was getting a remake because it abso-fucking-lutely deserved one. There was nothing like it then, I think there's still nothing like it even now. In a time when almost every game wants to add on, add on, here's more characters to unlock, here's more DLC to pay for, and so on - Shadow of the Colossus is an excellent example of just how much a bare-bones game can still do. There's not much told in the way of story, but in this case they don't really need to. There's a lot of showing and atmosphere over explaining; I like that the game assumes we're smart enough and/or creative enough to fill in the details ourselves.

Much of the game is silent and calm aside from ambient sounds and occasionally calling your horse. But when you enter a battle, then the music and the action ramp up, and suddenly you're trying to find the glowing weak spot on a massive behemoth before it smashes you to death. (And don't think Wander will get up super fast if he narrowly avoids getting smashed to death, either. He'll clumsily stand up, which is a nice realistic touch but kind of rage-inducing if you're trying to keep him from getting hit again.)

The contrast works: the calm makes you appreciate the battles, and the battles can often be so nerve-wracking you appreciate a break.

The world isn't super huge, but it's enough for me. All ruined and abandoned and desolate and slightly melancholy, yet calm and beautiful (especially with the remake).

Skyrim. Ah yes, let's be vanilla as hell, shall we Raku? Let's like that one game that everyone else and their brother and their cousin and their dog likes. This one probably does deserve its own post, though, because there's a lot to unpack. Are there problems surrounding it and Bethesda? Oh hell yes. Was it also a game that provided comfort and humor during a time when I desperately needed it? As well as fertile ground for characters I made and still love? Also yes. Sorrrr-y.

I'll be honest; I have no idea why Dark Cloud 2 is one of my favorites. I don't even remember how I heard of it or why I bought it. There's legit criticism to be had - a few of the voiced lines were clearly mismatched, the weapon upgrading system is fun at first but turns into an utter slog by the endgame, and in general the game tried to do way too much and got in over its head.

But Max and Monica here have good chemistry, the music's pretty good, you get to build your own towns and move people in them, the art style has its charm, and for a time travel plot it's not terrible. Overall the game mostly works, is pretty fun, and the story has its moments.

Okami!! The style, the music, the everything. Just...everything.

Heard there's a sequel in the works, but nothing else about it. But something I want to keep an eye on.

Ys 8. Dana, my beloved. Actually everything here is solid - some time in the future I should scrap the review I did and do another now that tumblr allows better quality pictures. (Plus my tone was...kind of weird in it, honestly. All over the place.)

I love her and the supporting characters - Sahad is best fisherman Dad ever, Ricotta's adorable without being annoying. I thought at first I'd hate Laxia, but she redeems herself pretty quickly, and Hummel's...well, okay, he's basically fine. Even the minor characters are interesting and endearing to me. Lady blacksmith! Gladiator grandma! And of course, as always, best buddy Dogi.

The twists and turns in the story, the graphics are gorgeous, the controls are smooth and feel great, Ys games almost always have excellent music and this one's no exception. Honestly I can't think of anything I dislike about it off the top of my-

Oh right, the fucking wasps in that one dungeon. Those sucked. But everything else? Amazing. 9.99/10.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Picking a favorite Pokemon game is like asking me to pick a favorite child. Nope, I refuse.

-------------------------------------------------------------

I'm going to force myself to stop here. Otherwise I'm pretty sure I'd hit the word limit halfway through talking about Death Road to Canada. (I'm assuming there IS a word limit.)

(Death Road to Canada is also very fun, by the way. As long as you're okay with dying a lot in the process.)

no more freaky asks..........tell me about your favorite video game in detail.............

[asm5129]

Okay then

My first edition of Flash thoughts. Here we go.

Extremely strong premiere I thought. Took us back to basics a bit while setting up the threads to come in the season.

First of all, really well balanced! None of the characters felt like they got the short end of the stick, which has definitely been an issue at times in recent seasons (I don’t agree with the THE FLASH ISN’T EVEN ABOUT THE FLASH ANYMORE whiners though. Maybe I’ll give my thoughts about that in the future.)

Last season finally really got me on board with Barry and Iris quite frankly no other season of the flash did (I was a Snowbarry shipper basically until last season, but I also knew that wasn’t going to happen and made my peace with that.) Great to see that’s still going strong, I’m really happy about the fact that I feel like they aren’t together just because the comics say they are together and because everyone says they have feelings for each other and are perfect together—which is how I often felt in the past. Really nice to be able to just…enjoy these two together. I’m genuinely happy about it.

On that front, I think the time loop concept—as somewhat tired as it is—was used very well to help us settle into what’s going on with all our characters right now. (Well, almost all of them—we’ll get to one unique character in this regard later)

Barry’s core fatal flaws have always been his impulsiveness and his obsessiveness. While his compassion and heart are strengths, coupled with those flaws they can take him in very negative directions—as we saw with the mapbook. Honestly? Really interesting idea. I totally buy that after everything Barry’s been through in the last nine years, he just wants a happily ever after—even if it’s stagnant, even if it’s predetermined. But Iris, Joe and Cecile were right.

That said, you can see how running from crisis to crisis for 9 years has affected several of our main characters, not just Barry—specifically, Joe is exhausted, and looks like he might be looking to retire. He’s clearly concerned about Cecile getting into the thick of it, and from what he said it also looks like maybe he wants everyone else to retire with him? We’ll see.

Barry’s experience as the flash shines through in a big way in this episode, and it’s great to see. He really knows what he’s doing now. I mean, phasing a nuclear explosion through the entirety of central city and its population?!? Hell yeah. That’s such a cool use of his powers.

On the villain front, we didn’t get much time with this new Captain Boomerang, but I liked what we got. I like the performance, and I like the insecurity at his core. We know the Rogues are gonna play a big role this season, so we’re starting strong there.

I’m kinda over the vibrating speedster voice deepening thing tbh, so I’m looking forward to when Red Death is just being performed by Javicia Leslie as that is what will make Red Death great. Really looking forward to seeing her in the Arrowverse one last time (😭). Anyways I’ll make my judgment then. (And no, I don’t think Oliver would have been a “better pick” for Red Death because A. he was never just a bargain bin Batman despite what people say—I’m sure I’ll talk about that at some point to—so slotting him in for Bruce would be just as egregious as the League of Assassins crap on season 3 and B. We don’t know the story they want to tell. They chose Ryan. They have a reason. Let them tell their story before you judge them for not telling a different one.)

And finally, that ending. Not Caitlin, not Frost. Interestingly, this was what was teased at the end of season 3, but was disregarded in favor of the Caitlin/Frost as sisters stuff—which I know is controversial, but I’ve grown to appreciate it. At some point you have to accept the decisions writers make, because you can’t force them to have made a different one.

So I’m really intrigued to see what happens here. I mean, who is this woman? Is she a combination of Frost and Caitlin? Or someone who comes from them but is completely new? Clearly that’s what the next episode will be about. And I’m excited. I’ll miss Caitlin in particular quite a bit, but I’m glad the always wonderful Danielle Panabaker is getting some good new material to work with. I’m a little mixed on the design at this point—the blue and brown hair is a little off-putting—but presumably she is a women in transition so-to-speak, so we’ll see what she ends up looking like. Or if this is just who she is, I’ll get used to it.

Overall, this episode filled me with a lot of faith that the strengths of the previous season aren’t going to go away. I think this is gonna be a great last run. And no, I don’t think this show plans to wrap up all the other shows—I think the Legends, Nia, Ryan and the other guest stars are going to be there just so we can have a chance to say goodbye. And that’s probably the right call, even in a 23 episode season there probably wouldn’t be enough time to wrap up everything from all the shows that were cancelled on top of everything that needs wrapping up on The Flash.

So yeah. Excited for what comes next. Bring it on!

[honey-buddha-kiss]

HC’s on how the RFA & Saeran would react to MC being a fashion designer/someone who loves to sew

Kim Jihyun (V):

his mc wanted to challenge themselves by sketching out styles they usually didn’t use

they were thinking about nice and calm colors, but didn’t know how to get it on paper

they remembered v used to paint and asked him if he could teach them how to use watercolor

he was a little hesitant at first because he thought a professional would be better for them, but they insisted

during his break from selling his work, he’d be one of the many photographers taking pictures at mc’s fashion shows

FRONT ROW SEATS

he offered to be the photographer for some of mc’s photoshoots and the pictures he takes often make it to the cover page

let’s face it, he’s a genius

all of the models in mc’s fashion house that have worked with v have all said it was a great experience

mc is eternally grateful for his help

“Oh my gosh, Jihyun thank you so much. I love you I love you I love you” ;u;

sometimes he recites random poems to help mc think of new designs

he feels inspired by mc’s works and vice versa

they keep each other motivated during /artists/ block lol

Han Jumin:

mc had been quite busy lately and their maid had caught a cold

he had jaehee hire a temporary maid that would come the next day

so that evening, he was putting his and mc’s clothes away, but noticed mc didn’t have any tags on their clothes

he confronted mc when they got home and asked if they’d like the tags cut off for them whenever they got new clothes

for a moment mc was confused, but laughed and shook their head, telling him that they sew their own clothes

“Wait, then what about that dress you wore to the company party last month? I didn’t buy that one for you.”

“I made it myself.”

how had he not seen mc’s name in the list of the best designers he was given?????

makes mc his personal tailor

probably has them make Elizabeth 3rd clothes too

like cute little bows, booties, and dresses

mc even made the three of them matching outfits and they honestly looked like an adorable family omg /clenches heart/

“MC, how do you feel about creating a whole clothing line for cats?”

when he picked up cross-stitching as a hobby, he asked mc for advice

mc personally put the threads through the needles he planned to use

Kang Jaehee:

a bit surprised since around her, mc is always wearing casual, comfy clothes

she imagined designers dressing either formal and professionally or bold and colorful

sorry mc looked like a plain regular person like everybody else

mc does little things like repairing buttons and stitching up tears in her business attire and it just Warms. Her. Heart.

mc actually teaches jaehee the basics and they have fun sewing stuff together during their free-time

eventually when jaehee opens a café, mc surprises her with a bunch of wrapped gifts at the grand opening

flowers are overrated sorry

the boxes had table cloths, cleaning rags, oven mittens, aprons, curtains, and so much more all made by mc themselves

this darling almost cried

when did mc even have the spare time to sew all of these

it must’ve taken up so much time and energy

is forever grateful for the wonderful gift and all of mc’s hard work

Ryu Hyun (Zen):

one time he asked if they could design the costumes for one of the musicals he was starring in

the two of them would bounce off numerous ideas with one another, so the sketching phase wasn’t as stressful

he even tried sketching out a few designs himself

they had a bit of trouble choosing between ten, yes ten, different outfits because he LOOKS GOOD IN EVERYTHING

“Can’t you just wear all of them.”

“It’ll take too much time to change between scenes, plus the character doesn’t wear that many different outfits in this play. I’d love to wear all your designs though.”

zen wears the ones he doesn’t use in the musical, at home lol

not that mc minds tho cuz eye candy

he felt jealous when his mc had to take the other actors’ measurements and when they had costume fittings

he couldn’t help it. those guys were too close to them for his liking

he didn’t say anything about it, although he did get a little more clingy

enjoys being mc’s “mannequin” for sewing projects

“You can use me as your model any time!”

Choi Saeyoung (707):

he found out it was their career when he did the background check

would totally ask mc to sew outfits for cosplaying and his missions

when he notices mc stressing because of deadlines, he gives them silly and ridiculous ideas to make them laugh

is really helpful when mc needs to make important presentations for team meetings

he drew a few sketches in crayon and slipped them into one of mc’s folders lololol

at mc’s workplace, they were having a bad day and ended up bumping into one of their coworkers

mc happened to be holding some folders and a few of saeyoung’s sketches fell out

bending down to pick them back up, mc felt a smile tug at the corner of their lips

“Choi Saeyoung.”

uh oh mc’s holding his drawings and he panics

“MC, I’m so sorry. I was just joking around and-”

“Thank you.”

"What?"

HUGSSSSSSSSSSS and mc snuggles their face into his chest

O///////////O

error error Agent 707 has shut down

Choi Saeran:

one day, mc dragged him along with them to go out shopping for fabrics, threads, and all that

all the big bulks of fabric were making his nose itchy, but he didn’t mind if he was able to see mc happy

the elder ladies often pointed out how cute the two of them looked together and even teased them, asking when he was planning to propose

gaaaaah we’re just here to buy fabric

this precious marshmallow had this loving look in his eyes the entire time as he watched his precious squishy mc ramble on and on about different types of fabric, patterns, and colors

they sounded so cute and that little twinkle in their eyes had his heart racing

mc gave him a handkerchief as a gift before

it was a simple, white handkerchief with his initials and his favorite flower embroidered on one of the corners

it’s very special to him and he always makes sure not a single speck of dirt gets on it

Kim Yoosung:

when he finds out that mc is a famous designer, he starts to feel a little bit self-conscious about what he wears

he even debates on how he should style his hair, but mc reassures him that he looks fine just the way he is

when he doesn’t know if an outfit looks good or if he doesn’t know what to wear, he’d ask mc for advice

he loves it when they give him clothes that they had sewn as gifts

asks if mc could teach him how to sew and they start with hand-sewing

their apartment feels like a home ec class lmao

mc suggests they should start with sewing machines next

but yoosung's like nOPE sewing machines are for Professionals

tbh he’s just scared he might end up sewing his shirt and the fabric together and getting stuck

this little squish tried sewing a puppy stuffed animal for mc, but it turned out a little misshapen

he was too embarrassed to give it to them and hid it somewhere, but of course mc found it by accident and asked him what it was

he had no choice but to tell the truth. curse his luck hdhjshdj

mc thanks him and kisses him on the cheek

they now sleep with it whenever they go to bed, which makes yoosung kind of jealous lol

“MC why don’t you cuddle me instead?”

[metalbuckaroo]

Date to Remember

SUMMARY// After days of thinking it over, you finally call Bucky

WARNINGS// smut, oral (m and f receiving), kinda a handjob, cursing, condoms (wow, on this blog? Surprising ik) mention of toxic friend (if your name is Melanie im sorry), light fingering, fluff, I think that's it.

AU// Stripper!Bucky x Innocent!f!Reader

NOTE// Part two to Birthday to Remember

MASTERLIST

moodboard by @bucksdolll

You didn't tell anyone about what happened between you and Bucky a couple days before on your birthday. Wanting to keep it a secret for yourself.

You left the number that was scribbled on a ripped off corner of paper in your nightstand and would glance at the fading bite mark on your inner thigh.

The only reminders that it actually happened.

You had picked the paper up and stared at it a couple times, wondering if you really should call it- if Bucky would actually answer or even remember you.

You wanted to; you wanted the kind of attention Bucky gave you that night. Like you were the most beautiful and precious thing he'd ever touched, and the patience he had that made you crave more of it.

After two days of thinking it over, you took the paper from the drawer and dialed the number.

"Yeah."

"Um, is this Bucky?" You said cautiously, though the pounding music in the background and familiar husky tone told you it was.

"It is- how are you, bunny?"

Your stomach flipped at the pet name and though you couldn't see him, you could basically hear his charming smile. "Well, kinda surprised you remembered me, actually." You said honestly, tugging a loose thread on the arm of your couch.

"How could I forget those pretty sounds? Listen, I'm about to get off of my break, but- how about you come over to my apartment tonight and I'll buy you dinner? Pick up where we left off?"

Excitement bubbled in your chest, a smile cracking across your face. "Yeah. That'd be nice."

"Great, I'm off at midnight, I'll text you my address. Gotta go, angel."

The line clicked and you moved the phone away from your ear, looking at the clock that read '10:27pm' in bright red numbers.

Standing from the couch, you walked to your closet, dialing your friend Melanie's number for advice.

"Hey, you need something?" She chirped when she picked up.

"Uh- what do you wear to a date that is just dinner?" You sighed, knowing what was coming next.

"A date? With who?"

You debated actually telling her, wetting your lips and letting your hand rest on the doorknob to your closet. "With- with Bucky."

"The guy from the club? You've got to be kidding- he's a stripper and you've probably never seen a man naked in person."

She was wrong, the image of Bucky's sturdy body in your bed was burned into your brain and wasn't going to leave any time soon. "You could say that, I guess." You sighed and shook your head. "Just- forget I asked."

Before she could protest you hung up, your phone buzzing with another notification. A text from Bucky that told you his address.

🍸 🍸 🍸 🍸 🍸 🍸

Talk over dinner at a small diner not far from Bucky's apartment was pleasant. Learning more about each other- from what made both of you choose your jobs, to favorite colors and foods.

You couldn't help but to admire the man sat across from you. The way his face lit up with a smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes when he'd tell you a fond memory, how the tip of his tongue swiped his bottom lip before he'd talk, and the stretch of the t-shirt across his chest as he rested his silvery left arm across the back of the booth seat.

You wanted to believe this was going to turn into something that happened more often, but something about the situation made you think it wouldn't. No matter how patient Bucky was, you felt like it was going to end the same way the stories you'd heard from friends ended.

Getting what he really wanted and then disappearing.

"Could come back with me and... talk some more, maybe watch a movie." Bucky's hopeful eyes flicked up from your lips to meet your eyes, a nod and a smile making his heart swell. "Of course."

Another wide smile cracked across his face as he got his wallet out, stopping you from doing the same as he sat money on top of the receipt.

"I said I was buying you dinner, I meant it." He winked as you both stood, warm hand slipping across the small of your back and to your hip to pull you into his side, where he kept you tucked the entire walk to his apartment.

🍸 🍸 🍸 🍸 🍸 🍸

Bucky waited until the movie was halfway through before he leaned to nudge your jaw with his nose to get your attention.

You hummed in response, turning your head to look at him. "Gonna let me take you out more?" He grinned, cool metal hand caressing the inside of your thigh. "What?" You said softly, not fully realizing his question. "Ya know, at least once a week, let me take you out- or stay in. Whichever." He shrugged, nerves kicking in when you didn't answer right away.

Letting your eyes scan his sharp features, you thought about it for a second. "Will you let me pay sometimes?" He narrowed his eyes at your question, letting his hand travel higher up your thigh and under your skirt. "Hm, I don't know."

Bucky swallowed the short gasp that left you when his fingertips brushed over your clothed heat, molding his lips against yours. Eliciting soft moans from you by tracing a line up and down your folds, slipping his tongue pass your lips when they parted.

You weren't sure how, but his lips seemed softer than you'd remembered as they moved with yours. His thumb rubbing tight circles to your clit through the thin fabric of your underwear.

"Let's go to the room." Your breath caught in your throat at the words mumbled against your lips. Bucky pecking a kiss to the tip of your nose as he stood, taking your hand in his to tug you along with him to the door on the other side of the room.

He didn't shut the door back, his hands holding your waist and a playful smile on his face as he sat on the edge of the bed. Pulling you so you were straddling his thick thighs, your hands landing on solid shoulders.

"Buck..." he shook his head, hands gliding up your outer thighs and under your skirt to grip your backside. "As far as you want, bunny." He assured, tilting his head to place wet kisses to the column of your neck. "Warm up to it, give you time to change your mind."

Your heart started to pound as his fingers found the zipper to your skirt, his teeth grazing the skin of your jaw as he pulled it down. Lifting you slightly to move you on your back and lock his lips back to yours as your fingers tangled in his hair.

Tilting his head to deepen the kiss, Bucky worked at the buttons of your blouse, moaning softly when you pressed your tongue to his.

Bucky stayed cautious in helping to remove the layers of clothes that kept skin from touching, being ready to stop whenever he saw the first sign of you being uncomfortable.

But, this time your hands were a little more eager than the last. Helping to slide your skirt and shirt off and pulling at the hem of his shirt until both bodies were bare to each other.

His erection laying heavy against the inside of your thigh, too lost in the breathtaking kiss to pay any attention to the ache that was between your legs or his as your fingers raked through his soft hair.

Bucky pulled away for a few seconds of air, your eyes trailing down his chest and stomach, stopping at the leaking tip, swollen and red, throbbing for some kind of contact.

He didn't say anything as your hand slipped down his stomach, his breath fanning your lips as you hesitated to wrap your fingers around his thick shaft- not wanting to hold too firm.

The softer skin of your hands compared to his own sent a shiver down Bucky's spine, letting you get a feel for the movement of your hand before moving his between your thighs; holding himself up on his metal forearm.

The quiet moan that left Bucky's parted lips from the steady pace of your hand had you biting your bottom lip gently. His long middle finger spreading your slick before easing into you, a soft whimper pulling from your throat.

Keeping things slow, Bucky stuck to what he knew you were comfortable with at first before pushing his finger deeper and curling it.

Only removing the digit after you'd had your first high to run two fingers along your folds, pressing them into you to elicit another whimper as he rutted his hips into your hand. Hot breaths and moans mixing together as lips brushed.

"Hold on," he panted, making your hand stop and nerves stand on end. "Did I do something?" You asked, Bucky shaking his head with a soft smile. "No, just gotta get something, bunny."

A brisk kiss to your lips and he sat up, reaching to the nightstand drawer for the foiled packaging.

Your heart hadn't stopped thundering away against your chest, the sight of Bucky tearing the wrapper open with his teeth causing butterflies to flutter in your stomach and you clenched around nothing.

He glanced at your face to see if you were going to stop him before rolling the condom on, making sure to pinch the tip as he guided it down.

Shifting around a little, you let your hands rest on the sides of his neck. Mechanical whirring sounding in your ear when Bucky bent his body back over yours and caught your lips in his.

"Ready?" He breathed, your fingers threading in the back of his hair and legs lifting higher on his waist. "Yeah."

Bucky hadn't been with someone that had no one else to mentally compare him to and it excited him even more. He wanted to be the one to turn you into a filthy dream and keep you to himself until you decided you didn't want him anymore.

But, he also wanted to be able to take you on dates like he had that night and show off the beauty he managed to be able to call his.

He paid extra attention to your breathing and body language, tracing a line from your clit to your entrance as your grip on his hair tightened. A soft groan leaving him as he kept himself from giving into the urge to snap his hips forward.

You had been silently telling yourself that you were ready, chewing on your tongue as Bucky's swollen head gently pressed against your heat.

Nerves getting the best of you when you shifted away slightly. "Wait-" you exhaled, kind, blue eyes lifting from looking at the spot between you to meet yours.

He lifted his hand up to craddle your cheek in his palm, eyebrows furrowing. "What's wrong? Wanna stop?" He asked softly, brushing his thumb across your cheekbone.

You nodded and he pressed a light kiss to your lips. "That's fine, baby. I can wait." He gave a small smile and sat up to remove the condom. "Sorry." You mumbled, sitting up also. He shook his head and stood from the bed. "Don't be,"

Your gaze lingered down to the way his cock bobbed with every movement, sucking your bottom lip between your teeth and looking back up to his face.

"Can I..." Your words trailed off, face warming as you shuffled to sit on the edge of the bed. "You wanna-" Bucky's mouth went dry at the thought of your lips around him, tongue jutting out across his bottom lip. "Yeah, of course."

He moved to stand closer, cock twitching in your hand as soon as you touched it and looked up at him through your eyelashes. "Go slow, don't take more than you can handle."

His hair shielded part of his face when his head tipped forward a little, watching your lips wrap around the tip through hooded eyes.

You hadn't done it before, but the sounds he made as you tried going further showed that you were doing something right. The jewelry that pierced through the bottom of his shaft sliding against your tongue.

Bucky moved his hand to hold your jaw, grunting softly at the light gag and tears pooling in your eyes. "Breathe through your nose, bunny. Makes it easier." He rasped, stroking your cheek with his thumb.

It didn't take long before the warmth of your mouth and sight of your lips stretched around him, caused the swirling in his abdomen to start. The vein that ran along the underside throbbing harder against your tongue and lip as he let moans and pants fall freely, guiding your head a little faster along him.

"Tongue out, sweetheart." He panted, letting you pull away and replacing your hand with his to fist over himself. His pulsing tip resting against your tongue as you placed your hands on his hipbones, his chest flush and heaving.

A stream of huffed out curses flew pass Bucky's lips as his thick release shot into the roof of your mouth, making you jump slightly from how sudden it happened.

A long satisfied sigh as he watched you swallow his spend and he leaned down to catch your lips in his, urging you to lay back again. "Wanna hear those sweet sounds again."

Bucky left a trail of warm, wet kisses down your chest and abdomen before staying between your thighs for what felt like hours.

Pulling you apart with his skillful mouth and putting you back together with tender kisses to the irritated skin of your thighs his stubble caused, until you were writhing and crying out his name as your fingers tugged his dark locks. Stopping when you started to wiggle away from him.

"Good, angel?" He hummed, another light kiss to your lips as your eyes stayed close. Body feeling like it was on fire and sensitive to any touch. "C'mon, open them pretty eyes, sweetheart." He mumbled, peppering kisses to your face until you blinked your eyes open. Being met by hooded denim blues and a lazy smile.

Bucky's lips and stubble shiny with your slick. "Hi," You breathed, body starting to calm down, Bucky chuckling softly at your blissed out state. "Let's go to bed." He said, brushing his lips to yours.

Moving under the covers, he pulled you into his side and grabbed his cigarettes and remote from the nightstand before turning the TV on.

After settling further into the bed and lighting his cigarette, Bucky sighed when he heard a phone vibrating. Pecking a kiss to your forehead as he slipped back out of the bed and over to his jeans.

The phone that was ringing was yours that you'd given to him to hold earlier. "It's- Mel." He rolled his eyes at the familiar face in the photo on the screen.

"Just ignore it. What's with the eye roll?" You laughed, holding the blanket to your chest as you sat up. "Well, she's not very nice to put it kindly."

"I know." You sighed, looking at the dark grey blanket. "God, she's calling again. Didn't you tell her?" He grumbled, sitting on the edge of the bed. "Yeah, but she didn't believe me." You shrugged, a mischievous grin spreading across Bucky's face. "See if she believes you, now."

Your eyes went wide as he clicked the green button. "Buck, wait-" You said with a light laugh, reaching for his metal wrist as he lifted the phone to his ear. "Hello?"

You could hear your friend's startled voice through the speaker that was against Bucky's ear. "Oh, yeah, she's here- nope, she's busy- gotta go now, bye." Hanging up the phone, he sat it on the nightstand. Putting his cigarette out in the ashtray before getting back into the bed next to you.

"Should we get dressed?" You asked softly, laying your arm over his tone stomach and tilting your head up to look at him.

"Absolutely not."

🍸 🍸 🍸 🍸 🍸 🍸

Taglist: @likeahorribledream @cxddlyash @iwannabekilledtwice @bookstan0618 @glxwingrxse @yliumy @pineprincess @makbarnes @cupcakehinch @doasyoudesireandlive @magicwithinnightmares @preferredrealty @andy-is-gay @stucky-my-ship @marvel-3407 @maladaptivexxdaydreaming @i-l-y-3000 @avoxzy @impala1967666 @mollygetssherlockcoffee @supernaturalbaesduh @bucky-hues @suchababie @an-adult-midget @pinkoctober99 @ju5tyna20 @hallecarey1 @jxlystan @elizabeth228 @secret21121 @strwbrrybucky @busybeingtrash @harrysthiccthighss @everything-burns-down @ynsdiarys @eireduchess @commonintrest

[creations-by-chaosfay]

During the summer, there's often an event called Row By Row held at quilt shops. Each year there's a theme, and the local quilt shops get together to design the row. Get all the rows and you can make a local themed quilt. The rows that don't sell during the summer are sold the rest of the year. Sometimes a store will have leftover rows from previous years, making for a nice selection. They're also relatively inexpensive if you don't get a kit (a kit has the pattern and fabric), just the pattern. The most I've paid is $12.50.

My aunt collects these because many use applique. My sisters, mom, and I visit out local quilt shops to purchase these patterns for aunt (no kits, just patterns). My aunt is in the southwestern region of the US, sister and mom in the Midwest, and I'm in the Pacific Northwest (PNW).

I want to do this too! She loves doing applique, whereas I have no experience with it. If y'all fancy being little heroes, check out your local quilt shops and see what they have. I'll do a little trade of equal value in exchange for the patterns. The applique ones will be sent to my aunt, the rest will be kept for myself. They'll be a great way to use up some scraps! The finished quilts will be made available later.

Currently I have two or three patterns for rows. All the quilt shops make them the same length and width, nationwide, to make a mega project possible. When we lived in central Oregon, there were around a dozen shops withing a 100 mile radius. During the quilt shop hop, when everything is on mega sale, I bought several kits for her.

What's a quilt shop hop? A bunch of local quilt shops get together and design a quilt, one block for every store. You visit each shop and get the pattern, usually free, with a purchase of fabric. Many shops also offer fabric pre cut specifically for their block. There's also prizes and drawings. You take q punch card with you and every shop you visit stamps it, and then you enter the drawing they're having. Nearly every fabric is on sale too! The one year I participated, I bought fabrics in a specific color theme (brown, cream, tan, teal, and aqua) and spent around $500 for around $1k worth of fabric. I also win a little box of thread! It was so much fun! Due to the small number of shops near me, they don't participate. I did learn the entire Oregon coast does! In I think February, they have their quilt shop hop, every shop up and down the coast. Dozens of shops, all having mega sales, drawings, prizes, and other random fun things. Original shop patterns on massive clearance, including row by row!

If you quilt, consider checking them out. Just...cash only. Otherwise you will overspend. If you don't quilt, you can still enjoy the fun buying things for quilters you know. 😉 I haven't participated since I think 2017/2018, because of money and the pandemic. Being high risk, it's likely something I won't be able to join in on for several more years. I weep!

If you join in on the fun, but won't be using what you buy/win, give the goodies to a quilter you know. 🙋🏼‍♀️ Or even a local quilting guild. I'll happily do a trade with you!

If we ever get back out to the coast for a trip, I'm gonna see about getting some row by row patterns.

[jarofstyles]

Crush

A/N: this one.... biiiitch.... giving you all a little college!harry, he’s so cute 👉🏼👈🏼 enjoy hehe 😈 - n + d

If you like this, check out our Patreon!

send feedback and requests here 

masterlist

pairing: Harry Styles x Reader

warnings: smut. FILTH. 

word count: 9.7k

Harry felt a bit creepy. 

It wasn’t as if it was on purpose! No... but she was at all of the places he went. At first he had thought it was a coincidence, but as he developed a routine for his classes, he found that they were often around each other for similar reasons. And usually? He would try and go up, introduce himself, and make a friend. The problem was... she was pretty. 

Not like normal pretty. Pretty as in, holy fuck you make me so nervous and perhaps I’ll word vomit, pretty. He was shit at making the first move. She was in his Monday and Friday classes and sat not far from him, he noticed. And they always ended up at the Coffee Bean on Tuesday and Thursdays, sitting not too far from one another again. She got tea with a few cookies, and he got a black coffee and an orange scone. They’d work on their coursework and Harry would wait for her to leave and see her make it to her car before he would leave, not wanting to make it seem like he was following her. He’s found out her name through friends stopping in to see her. It was Y/N. Gorgeous, just like her.

Funny enough, Harry wasn’t the only one who had a bit of a crush. Y/N realized in the second week of classes that Harry was in fact one of the most intimidatingly cool and attractive men she’d ever seen. College boys weren’t supposed to look like that, but he was all soft in his sweaters and baggy pants. She wasn’t sure how he pulled it off so well, but she could admit she was jealous. 

Seeing him at the Coffee bean was a relief because well, he walked in after her every time. She assumed it was because he had a class that ended later or something, but it didn’t go unnoticed that  he was there. Usually it wasn’t too busy or loud so she could glance at him from the corner of her eye as they sat at one of the big tables. She felt like it would be too weird to talk to him, he seemed so... quiet. She’d never heard him speak, hell, she’d only ever locked eyes with him for milliseconds. Y/N wished she could be one of those girls that could effortlessly flirt, ask for a pencil or something, but she knew she’d freeze up and forget her rehearsed line. 

Today however, when Y/N arrived, Harry was already there at his usual spot. Okay, Y/N... act natural. She thought to herself, going to order her usual before walking to boldly take a seat across from him. It would have worked out fine if her tote bag didn’t accidentally catch the corner of one of his books, sending things flying. 

“Shit— sorry, I—” Y/N swore, setting her bag on the table before bending down to get the book and a few papers and a pen. Real smooth.

Harry was slightly startled when his shit went flying, but when he saw who had knocked it over, his heart picked up. Oh, shit. 

“Oh— it’s okay, don’t worry about it.” Harry’s voice was a bit gruff from not using it much today, pushing his chair back and bending down to grab the stuff with her. “S’my fault for putting it so close to the edge. I used to do that at home and my cat would knock it all off.” 

Great. Already rambling. 

Y/N didn’t register it at first, but he was british? Fuck. If she wasn’t already on her knees she would dropped down anyway, biting her lip to stop any noises that could have escaped. She giggled when he said his cat used to knock things over, “mine too.” She mumbled and went to stand up, feeling a tug at her arm. 

“Ah, shit.” Harry had caught his ring in her sweater, pulling one of the threads. “Damn, I’m so sorry.” He blushed slightly, knowing how annoying it was to have a pulled thread. His collection of sweaters was immense, thanks to his nan— and he felt terrible. Damn his chunky things. “They always get caught in mine too but I wear them anyways. I can replace the sweater, if you need.” Damn it. He was trying to come off as smooth... not so nervous. But he was. She was so pretty and she was up close, she smelled like peaches and vanilla and a bit of sweet mint and her hands were so soft.

“Oh no, It’s fine! it’s old anyway— I can just cut it off or tuck it in or something.” Honestly, Y/N would figure it out. The last thing she wanted was for him to feel bad, it was an accident after all. She let him untangle it, holding her hand still though it seemed like he needed some help. “Smaller fingers...” She mumbled, using her nails to get the thread gently off of the ring. “‘s a nice ring.” Y/N complimented, finally meeting his eyes and feeling the breath leave her lungs at the close proximity. Her lips parted naturally, scanning his face for any signs of discomfort.

She was beautiful Harry though he may get sick because wow. Wow. He had imagined holding her hand and kissing her but this exact moment he hadn’t a clue on what to do. So he improvised. 

“Are you in the 8 am psych class on Mondays?” He tilted his head. “I know I’ve seen you before.” Oh, he had seen her a lot. Especially in his dreams, day and night. It had been a bit intoxicating, really. At her nod, his grin came on his face. “Sick. S’that what you’re gonna study for?” He didn’t bring up the other class because... it would be embarrassing if she hadn’t noticed him before and he knew all too much. He needed a refill of his coffee though so he grabbed his cup, gently taking her things and placing them on the table next to his. “At least let me buy your stuff though. I feel awful about your sweater.”

“I’m actually just waiting on them to finish making mine, I was on my way to secure a spot but—” Y/N blushed, realizing the mess she had made. “Could you get it for me while you’re up there? It’s for Y/N. I can sit here and watch your stuff.” She felt like that was a subtle way for her to tell him her name. 

This was the most she had ever spoken to him and it had been about a month or so that she’d been eyeing him up. She knew he was in her English literature class as well, but psych was her major. Y/N wondered if maybe he too was a psych major, maybe that’s why they sort of had the same schedule? Regardless, she felt a bit nervous making conversation so she spent the time he was away coming up with what she was going to ask him and how she was going to keep the ball rolling. Hopefully she didn’t interrupt his studying, if anything she’d leave him alone.

“Y/N?” He tested it on his tongue out loud for the first time. It tasted good. “Yeah. M’Harry. I’ll be back.” He nodded, going towards the front. His heart going a mile a minute, he couldn’t believe how quickly his luck had changed. He ordered an extra cake pop today, for her. she had said it didn’t matter but to him, it did. Eventually he hoped he could buy her a replacement. Or... maybe she could wear his around. Wow. That would stroke his ego and his fragile heart to the core. He could already see her on his lavender fishermen’s sweater, in front of his fireplace back at home. She would be so cute. The voice calling her name snapped him out of the fantasy, Harry grabbing it and then his own shortly after before returning to the table. “Here. I got the last cake pop for you. Don’t tell anyone I’m the offender.”

“Ooo you’re a dead man if they find out.” Y/N said, looking around before gently taking it from him. “Thank you... that’s sweet.” She blushed, taking a bite of it before taking a sip of her chai latte. Now that she had stuff to fiddle around with she could take a breather and not have to worry about filling space. “But um.. did interrupt something? Don’t want to distract you...” Y/N nodded over to his laptop, secretly hoping that he wasn’t up to much so that she could chat to him. She just wanted to know the basics, literally anything would satisfy her craving. Harry was quite literally her wet dream, she’d been looking all around campus for someone like him to come around. “I uh... I think I’m also in your English lit class? I feel like I see you around often.” Y/N spoke, pushing a piece of her hair behind her ear. “What’s your major?” She felt like this conversation was light, something that would eventually lead into other things like... if he was single and looking for a girlfriend.

“Oh, you’re not bugging me. I’ve kind of been staring at the screen and zoning out if m’honest.” Harry chuckled, embarrassed a little to admit it. But everyone could relate to that, right? “And yeah... actually I think so.” He smiled lightly before taking a sip of his drink. Victory! She had noticed him too. He wasn’t the lonely creep who stared at the first who had no idea who he was. She knew who he was, kind of. He gently drew his sweater over his hands like little paws before going to her question. “English. I want to write and stuff, edit maybe. My dad has a publishing company so, I’m lucky I like a bit of the family business.” He tried to joke, looking at her. God. It was unnerving how beautiful and also, how fucking comfortable she was to be around. What a contrast. “And you? What major?” He took a nibble of his scone, not wanting to make a mess.

English? He’s a writer? Goodness. She was going to lose it. 

“That’s cool, any specific genre you like to write?” Y/N asked curiously because well, it would actually tell her a lot about him and the kind of person he was. “I picture some mystery or possibly poetry, could go either way.” She said and squinted her eyes as she looked at him, pretending to size him up. “I can’t say I’m all that interesting, a psych major. Just like every other artsy person who doesn’t exactly want to commit to an art degree.” Y/N chuckled, “still deciding between criminal justice or counseling but... either way I’d be happy to get to pick someone’s brain. She did have the habit of analyzing people but only so she could understand them better. Y/N knew that all people wanted at the core was to be understood and loved for who they are, for the most part. Harry seemed reserved, calm and relaxed, secure in himself that’s for sure. It was extremely attractive.

“Oh? That’s really cool though.” Harry was genuinely interested in what she had to say either way. The major didn’t matter in his interest in her but it gave him information and something to talk about. If she was marketing or math he would be just as interested. “Criminal seems particularly interesting. Like that criminal minds show then? You’ll learn how they work and all of that?” He didn’t really know what it meant or why she had chosen it. “But close. I write romance novels.” He blushed fully. “Don’t judge me for it. But s’easy for me and I’m good at it, or so I’ve been told. I’ve been writing for a while.” He felt himself loosen up as they talked. Even if she intimidated him, she was really nice and sweet. “Poetry too, lots of it. But romance is my main thing, I’d like to do novels and that sort of stuff.” He could see she didn’t think it was lame, rather interesting. Which was a major relief. He wanted to impress her, so so badly.

“Sorta, yeah. Like... being able to predict a criminal's next move, psychologically.” Y/N explained and shrugged, “feel like it’s really fun and interesting but terrifying all at once. Dunno if I could actually interview a criminal without feeling like it was going to cry.” She let out a laugh, knowing she was quite soft. Her face lit up when he said he wrote romance novels. Wow. Well, as if he wasn’t a character right out of a romcom himself! She felt like that’s what this was. A romcom. Bumping into him at a coffee shop like a scene straight from one. “Really?! So you’re a proper romantic then? Buy the last cake pop for every girl, hmm?” She gave him a bashful smile. The very last thing she was doing was judge, she was more so thinking about their wedding. Yep. Already. Daydreaming because she swore she’d hit the jackpot. Wasn’t even sure if he liked her yet, but she was hopeful. After all, she’d turned on her charm.

“I guess I am.” Harry smirked to himself slightly at the good reception. Damn. He had been so worried and hesitant- he should have just talked to her. She wasn’t... that scary. Only a little bit. 

He let her talk a bit more about her degree and Harry went on to speak about his favorite authors, and then the conversation shifted towards their classes and how he had been struggling slightly in psych— which led to her offering to help. Harry was shocked because honestly he hadn’t expected it from her, but he was pleased. He was happy to have an excuse to hang out with her more. See more of her and be able to teach himself to relax properly around her. He felt like a damn wind up toy, giddy and excited. 

“That would be so helpful, if you could. And if you don’t mind.” He stressed. “I have a place off campus, if you’d want to go there? I’ll buy you some pizza or something for your help.” He was a giver and if it meant getting a $20 pizza for her because he wanted good quality, then he would!

“Yeah, that sounds good.” Y/N was practically jumping up and down with joy in her mind, this was a turn of events. She went from secretly crushing on him to being invited over his house in only a few hours. “I can never say no to pizza, but it’s really no problem. They say if you can teach it to someone else then you truly understand it so it’ll be a good test for me. Y/N also knew that they wouldn’t just study. Come on. It was a Friday night and study was practically code for hook up, especially considering he had invited her to his place and not the library. She had to prepare, had to make sure she looked cute and everything. She’d shower before hand too, the whole nine. “I can be there around 6?” Y/N suggested, checking her calendar app even though she already knew when she could come. She had to at least look like she wasn’t jumping at the idea.

“That’s cool. Uh— here, if you want I can put my number in your phone and whenever you want I can text you the address?” Oh, fuck. How, how the tables have turned. He had gone from wistfully staring at her every day to having a scheduled study session with her, the girl he’d been practically having wet dreams about. Having a full conversation and then her having his number! He was giddy and playing with the sleeves of his sweater as a result of the excited nerves. “Do you have any allergies? I do have a kitten at home.” He wanted to make sure he wouldn’t have to put Marie away. He loved his baby but he wanted to try something and see if she would be cool with him in a private setting. It would be less hard to talk about deeper things without people around. He took her phone from her and typed in his number, adding his name with a little  📚 after it. That wasn’t too much, right?

“Aw you do! I have one too, well... he thinks he’s a big boy.” Y/N shook her head at the thought of her sweet little Milo. Despite not doing anything she planned to do at the coffee shop, it still felt like a productive day in her eyes. Finally getting to chat with Harry felt like a breath of fresh air and he wasn’t all that scary now that she got to chatting with him. She took her phone back and smiled at the cute little emoji, sending him a text to let him know it was her before hesitantly getting up. “Alright well, I gotta get back to my kitten... but, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Y/N smiled, watching him stand up as well. The two of them walked out of the coffee shop and to their cars, Y/N being bold enough to give him a hug before opening her car door. “Night!” She was surprised with herself. Y/N was proud, completely over the moon and honestly she wasn’t sure how she was going to sleep tonight.

-----

Harry laid out on the bed that night with Marie on his chest. He had told her all about how the pretty Y/N had met him and that she would be coming over. The pretty cat was a long haired white kitty, and she purred along with Harry as he spoke. She liked hearing Harry be happy. It made him want to squeak when he heard his phone buzz and a little text from her popped up— he saved her as ‘Y/N 🌼’ because he felt like it fit. Part of him wanted to put a heart but he would be mortified if she saw and thought it was weird. She wore a yellow flower shirt one day so he figured that’s what he could excuse it as. 

‘Hey, happy to hear from you! :) I hope your kitty is doing well. I meant to ask, you aren’t vegetarian are you?’

Y/N smiled at his text and attached a photo of her gray kitten laying across the top of her head while she laid down. 

‘Yes, he’s quite cozy.’

‘I am actually! But I’m not too fussy.’ 

She couldn’t help it, she loved animals and she couldn’t bring herself to do it anymore. Occasionally, she would indulge in a chicken nugget or seafood, but for the most part she didn’t feel like she had to. 

‘I’m going to get some sleep though, Good night Harry 💓’

That wasn’t too much was it? It was just a heart! She sent them to everyone. Y/N stayed up for a good ten minutes just digesting the day. Tomorrow would be even better, she had a feeling.

——

Harry was... well, he wasn’t sure how to describe the emotion. When Niall inevitably quizzed him on why he was acting strange, the best he had come up with was a mix of nerves and giddiness, also terror and extreme happiness. He was going to hang out with the girl he had been silently crushing on— and they had been texting quite frequently in the short time they had each other’s numbers. Was this going to be a regular thing? Was it going to blossom into more? He knew that he had wasted time before, not talking to her. She wasn’t scary! No... she was so sweet and kind and beautiful and everything she said made him a literal heart eye emoji. She had taken to sending him random photos, even so quickly in and it felt comfortable. He had even sent her a shot of Marie on the counter this morning, on top of his school notes. It was odd. The excitement he felt when he heard the bing from his phone of the vibration in his pocket... it was incredible. He liked this feeling. Damn it. This was such a new thing. He wanted to do more. 

He saw her in class, watching as she crept in a bit after the last call should be with a sheepish smile on her face. He waved to her silently and watched her climb up, his heart beating quicker when she chose a seat closer to his than before. She wanted to sit near him? He clutched the rainbow patchwork sweater by the sleeves and fiddled with the cuffs, nerves and excitement swirling in his tummy.

If class wasn’t already on, Y/N knew she would have tried to spark up some conversation with Harry, but for now all she could manage was passing him a note. 

‘I like your cardigan :)’

It was really cute. Most of Harry’s wardrobe was and in her dream world she already stole a few to wear. English literature wasn’t exactly the most exciting class, but Harry seemed invested. Y/N enjoyed watching him focus and take notes while she mostly doodled some random flowers and bears in her notebook. Her mind was thinking about what she was going to wear to his house and how she definitely needed a shower before and that she had to put on the lotion that matched her perfume. Was she overthinking this? Maybe. Of course it was just a study date, but you could never be too sure where things could go. And if they did— she wanted to be ready.

He knew that he needed to contain himself but his smile made it hard. She liked his cardigan. The random compliment had him feeling mushy and happy and there was definitely a blush on his cheeks as he clicked his pen and wrote back to her. 

‘Thanks :) my nan knitted it for me. I like your little head band.’ 

He passed it back before opening his notebook back up. Her stare could be felt and he wanted to smirk a little at it because, well, who wouldn’t? She was so great, and he wanted to experience more of her but he was trying to not rush shit. He was a romance writer after all. All of it felt so in tune with his own wants and he had a hard time believing it was real. Sweet little Y/N wanted to hang out with him and she complimented his cardigan!

‘Awe!! That’s cute and thank youuuu 🥰’ 

She drew him a little smiley face with hearts around it, felt like it was very on brand for her and her emotive texting. Y/N felt all giddy because she had made a new friend but she was really hoping they wouldn’t just be friends. 

Y/N knew she was hard to read because she was generally nice to everyone and honestly, Harry seemed to be the same way. She could only assume he liked her because he asked her to hang out so quickly. And he’d bought her a cake pop and was planning on buying pizza tonight. Was it a date then? Gosh, she needed to stop reading into it. Her leg kept bouncing up and down, mind trying to refocus and thankfully, their professor was discussing something she too had noticed in her reading. She still managed to steal quick glances at Harry for the rest of the class, giving him shy little smiles. It wasn’t till class ended that she ended up speaking to him, but even that was quick. She needed to get home and get ready.

Harry had gotten a quick hi, and a ‘see you tonight!’ With her hand brushing his arm before she skipped off to.. wherever she went. And that had him nearly sprinting home. Cleaning top to bottom, vacuum, scrub, vacuum again. Changed his sheets— why, he wasn’t sure— put his laundry in the basket, filled up Marie’s food and water, fluffed the pillows, cleaned the windows and coffee table... he did it all. Even cleaned out the fridge! Like she would care? Harry didn’t know. All he did know was that he was finally showered and smelled nice, hair fixed and the pumpkin patch candle was lit! The tv was on low because he was nervous and needed some filler noise to keep himself from overthinking.

Y/N was doing the same, not cleaning her apartment but cleaning herself. She stripped out of her clothes when she got home and immediately got into the shower, taking one of those full maintenance ones for good measure. Once she was positive she was squeaky clean and smelled nice, she jumped out to take the next steps. God, she really wanted to impress him. He’d been her crush for a while and she needed this. She wanted to look like she didn’t put in my effort when she did so she decided to put on some light makeup and chose an outfit that was more laid back. Usually, she was seen wearing sweaters and jeans, nothing too fancy, so that’s exactly what she settled on. Y/N wanted to look warm and inviting. 

Milo mewed beneath her feet as she collected all her study supplies, rubbing against her ankles in need of attention. “I’m sorry bubs, I know I didn’t get to spend lots of time with you today but don’t be too mad.” Y/N pouted, picking him up and giving him a cuddle for a few minutes. She held him up to her chest as she finished up, deciding she needed to leave now.

‘Leaving now, be there in 20 ✨’

She sent, hopping into her car with nerves bubbling up in her stomach. God, she really hoped tonight went well.

——

When Harry heard the knock at the door he shot up, wiping his sweaty hands on his pants before forcing himself to be slow, walking to the door. And when he opened it, it really did feel like being hit in the gut. Seeing someone so beautiful, so up close? It got to him. He had to admit that. Y/N has this natural beauty that he drooled over. That felt like a hit. Every time he saw her he swore she got more beautiful. 

“Hi.” He spoke with a smile, opening the door up for her. “Come inside. Marie is wandering around so I have to close the door. A little escape artist, she is.” He joked, letting her scurry in and close the door behind her.

“Hey! Oop— okay!” Y/N giggled and stepped past him into his apartment. It was very cute and very tidy. Y/N felt a little flutter in her belly, it was freshly cleaned. She stepped out of her shoes before further examining the decor. The style was something she very much expected for Harry, it was cozy and artsy. Lots of earth tones and that sweet autumn smell coming from the candle made her feel that much more excited. “It’s so nice in here! I love the pillows.” Y/N complimented, liking how some were fluffy and some had funky patterns on them. It was then that she heard a meow from below, Marie sniffing at her sock covered toes. “Oh hi there... sorry if you can smell Milo on me, gave me lots of snuggles before I left.” Y/N cooed down to the kitten, dropping down so she was closer to the ground and extended her hand for her to sniff and get used to. 

Y/N realized this was very real now, especially because he had gone out of his way to make his place look nice. Most guys wouldn’t care, but maybe Harry did this for everyone. When she stood back up and turned to face him, she got a whiff of him and noticed his semi damp hair. He showered too. Oh—

Harry smiled at her and Marie, happy his kitten seemed to like her. Usually she would sniff his friends and run off but she began to weave over her legs and beg for pets. He was in awe. Christ. She had him by the balls already. 

“Do you want anything to drink? I’ve got diet soda... apple juice, lots of teas. And water.” He hummed, going into the kitchen with her behind him. It was an open concept though, the kitchen the first thing near the door and it opened into a large living area, the hall down going to the master bedroom. It was simple but perfect for him in college. He gave her a moment to think it over as he looked at her. So cozy and... cuddly. He wanted to slide his hands under her sweater and feel her warm skin and nuzzle into the crook of her neck, let her fingers play through his hair.

“Apple juice sounds good.” Y/N smiled, having picked up Marie at this point to carry her into the kitchen with them. She had a feeling she’d get along just great with Milo if they ever got to meet. “You’re a sweet little thing, aren’t you?” Y/N cooed at the kitten, seeing her comfortably settled against her. “Does your Daddy spoil you with snuggles too?” She asked toying with her little paw before looking up at Harry with a smile. He had fumbled a bit with the lid of the juice at her words which made her giggle, “How are you? How was your day today?” Y/N was genuinely curious, deciding to make some small talk before actually sitting down. In her head she could already imagine the two of them hanging out here constantly, tangled up in one another, kissing and laughing and doing all the cute things that Harry likely wrote about in his stories.

“I’m— im good.” Harry’s mouth was dry. He knew that she hadn’t meant anything by it, but he heard her say ‘daddy’ in reference to him, and his stupid cock had jumped, tummy felt hot. Damn it. He wished he wasn’t so deprived but... she had been at the forefront of his mind. “It was a good day. I was happy to talk to you. You’re fun to talk to.” He meant it too. She was so interesting and funny and he was completely whipped and okay with it. Damn. He wished he had maybe a bit more restraint with his imagination but he didn’t. Not at all. “I have a harder time meeting people... i can be a little shy sometimes. I’m in my own head a lot you know? I have my core group of friends but... it’s hard to get to know people. I want to know them.” Her. That translates to her.

“Yeah?” Y/N felt her heart jump. He was happy to speak with her even just a little bit? He wanted to talk to her and get to know her? It wasn’t just a one sided thing. They were both making an effort in their own way and she was thinking someone had to break the tension. “I’m happy you think so.” Y/N blushed, “I um... I also like talking to you.” She had her little friend group as well but she never thought she’d actually end up being friends with Harry. Listening to him explain how reserved he was definitely made her feel special though. He chose to open up to her, she was special enough for that and that made her cheeks grow warm once again. “I’ll tell you just about anything you want to know.” Y/N smiled, hesitantly placing Marie down before taking a few steps closer to him to get her glass of apple juice.

“Ooooh, a little daunting. Anything? Your social security number?” Harry was joking. Trying to clear the air and make her relax because she was a bit shy too and he wanted her to be comfortable here. This place should be a good spot for her. He motioned for her to come sit on the couch with him, Marie trailing after Y/N. Little traitor had a new favorite already but... he couldn’t say he could blame her. “I dunno... it’s hard sometimes, in this age to make genuine friendships. Feels like everyone’s already got their friend groups and you don’t want to infringe upon them yeah? And... I write a lot. I’m not a partier. Not to sound cliche but again.... I’m a writer.” He chuckled.

“I said just about!” Y/N chuckled, shaking her head to herself at his joke. She felt like she was an open book, she was pretty open with the things she liked and generally she aimed to spread positivity and love where she could. Her hobbies included lots of things, music, knitting, reading, gardening. That kind of stuff. “But yeah, I get that... I’ve been pretty content with my group of friends, though I think most people are open to making new ones. At least I am... I am a bit shy though.” Y/N took a sip of her apple juice before setting it down on the coffee table again. “Yeah, you said. Romance novels.” She smiled and leaned back into the couch, getting comfortable. “What sorts of romance novels?” What? Could you blame her for wanting to know what sort of content was in them? Maybe it could give her some insight on what he wanted.

“Oooooh. Hard hitting stuff.” Harry huffed out playfully. “I’m... it’s a variety, I think. I’ve done supernatural, classic tropes, historical romance was very fun. I am partial to enemies to lovers or forbidden romances though. They’re the most fun to write.” Y/N genuinely looked like she cared so he continued. “I’ve been trying out different stuff but....” he blushed again. “I’m... looking at erotica right now.” It wasn’t something he usually would blurt out but hey, she seemed trustworthy. Plus she didn’t seem like she would judge either. It was a new favorite of his. The rawness of it and writing sex scenes... it was amazing. Reading it, writing it, he thought he could do some on the side and sell it under a pen name. It would be a fun thing to try.

Erotica. This man sat down and wrote detailed sex scenes, likely kinky, for fun? Thankfully she didn’t have any juice in her mouth because it surely would have been spat out. 

“H-how are you finding it?” She asked, reaching for her apple juice because she felt like she couldn’t sit still now. How else was she supposed to go about things when all she could think about was sex. Sex with him specifically. Y/N wasn’t blind, she knew that Harry was very attractive and very much gifted with beautiful hands. She could only assume he would have a wonderful cock as well. She knew there was no way someone so quite couldn’t have the filthiest of minds, she knew hers was. Her fantasies were where she roamed free.  

“I mean... I do like it a lot, actually. I hope that doesn’t come across as creepy or pervy but I like to be able to write something like that. It’s freeing, in a sense.” Harry couldn’t really properly describe why but, he was a kinky dude. You’d never think it. He was soft and wore sweaters a lot and drank tea at home from a kitty mug but he was.... a kinky fucker. And he loved sex. There was just something about it. He wanted to try more and more of it but he had a tendency to get attached to his partners, even hook ups... so he had put that on a hault. 

“I’d like to read some...” Y/N felt like at some point, she’d want to read his writing. If he felt comfortable now she didn’t mind. It was just writing, wasn’t it? 

“You want to?” She looked at him with bright eyes and her a fast nod so Harry decided to say, fuck it. If they were going to work as friends... or lovers, which is what Harry really wanted... she would need to accept this side. He grabbed his laptop and boosted it on, letting himself grab the latest completed scene. “Here. You can read this, i'll order the pizza.” There were obvious nerves in his belly from letting her read filthy smut from his computer but Y/N... she was different. He couldn’t put his finger on why, but she was.

They were meant to be studying. 

That was long forgotten though as Y/N nodded and got comfortable on the couch with his laptop sat in her lap. It felt a bit taboo, but she figured she could separate the writer from the story. 

The scene was from a male character’s perspective, describing him having a long and hard day at work where all he could think about was his partner. Y/N felt her face get progressively warmer as the character spoke about his partner, she couldn’t help but imagine this was how Harry was when he was horny and needy. 

Y/N knew that if she was his, she would certainly brighten up his mood after a tough day at work. Seeing her own name in the document however proved that Harry thought the same. Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head, her eyes lifting from the screen to look up at him as he ordered the pizza completely unaware of her discovery. 

This is what he imagined? This is what he wanted to do.... with her?

Harry ordered two cheese pizzas and some cinnamon dessert thing because there was a a special going on. He had thought about getting more but he didn’t want to go overboard with it, so he finished the order. Thank god for online ordering.

“Okay... it’ll be here in 25 minutes I think.” He hummed, looking up and freezing slightly. She looked blushy and her eyes wide as she read the post and he wondered why she looked a bit startled. “Hey... y’alright love?” He asked quietly. God damn it. Had he freaked her out too much? Was it just too much in general for the first time they properly hung out? He couldn’t remember exactly what scene he had pulled up. Just that it was recent, a billionaire type of thing.

Y/N casually moved the laptop on to the coffee table without answering his question. She didn’t think twice before she climbed on to his lap, hands settling on his shoulders. Sure, it was a risky move, but after what she’d read? She felt like she had to make her move. She wanted to be just as hot and sexy as he had imagined her to be. Harry’s shocked expression made her smile, hand going up to cup his cheek. 

“You left my name in the document...” Y/N’s voice spoke low and slow, thumb brushing over his now parted lips. Never did she think she could be so bold so soon, but fuck did it feel good. She felt so powerful, so sexy, and so so horny. “Thought about me riding your cock so much you wrote about it?” Y/N whispered, leaning in to kiss the skin just below his ear before nibbling at the skin. “Noticed me before we properly met... thought about me... is this what you wanted, baby?”

Harry blanked. 

Oh. fuck.

He hadn’t expected her to climb into his lap. Climbing on and straddling him, cupping his cheek, talking in that hot little voice that had his cock filling a bit. Holy fucking shit. 

“Oh—” He was cut off by her thumb over her lip. She was into it, into him. How had this happened? He had to be dreaming. But... no. Her heat was too real to be a dream. Her eyes too clear and dark, her smell too real. It was real. “Y-yeah...” He whispered, gasping when she kissed his skin, hand grabbing her waist. Oh, hell. Under his pants, his cock was quickly hardening. You couldn’t blame him, his dream woman, his crush, was straddling his lap and kissing his neck. Talking like this. 

“Thought about it ‘lots.” He muttered. She was so bold for this and that was something he found so sexy. When her teeth scraped his skin and bit down a bit harder, a dark groan left his mouth, hand on her waist tightening. “Holy shit... Y/N.”

“Hmm... feels good?” Y/N questioned, licking over the spot that she bit before moving to a new one. “Think I can make you cum in 25 minutes?” Y/N felt like she could take on the challenge, his cock was already hardening beneath her and she was a bit of foreplay away from being completely soaked. “Wanna try all of it, yeah?” Y/N muttered, nipping at the spot just where his jawline met his neck. “Riding your cock.... you bending me over, can choke me too. Please do...” She moaned at the thought, her hormones completely taking over. He still seemed to be frozen, despite his hand now on her waist so she moved her hips forward a little bit and tugged at his hair. “Wanna make you feel good.” 

Y/N had a kink for giving but it seemed Harry did as well. She expected a needy hook up, rough touches, quickness, pure lust. It’s exactly what she needed. It’s been a while since she’d hooked up with anyone and she was desperate for Harry to break her dry spell.

“Ah, shit.” Harry hissed. The tug at his hair sent a shock of hot arousal down his spine. That got him going so quickly. She wanted to fuck? Right now? He would be a fool to say no, and he wasn’t raised a fool. “Yeah? Y’want to ride my cock?” He asked lowly. “Fucks sake... I didn’t know you were so dirty.” He never would have guessed it from her either but... they were here. And he was snapped out of his shock by the tug, and now he was ready to do whatever the fuck she let him. “What did y’want the most, love? Tell me.” He had taken into account that she wanted to be choked, raising a hand to gently cuff her throat, bringing her close to his face. The confidence was soaring now, and all because she was leaking it. She wanted it, desperately. “I said, tell me.” He gave a quick squeeze to her throat. “Want to know what you need.”

“Need your cock, daddy.” Y/N moaned out, eyes blown and glazed over with desire. Y/N could feel the tension in her bones, cunt throbbing and aching to be touched. “Need you so bad, please— wanted you for so long, please make me cum, please!” She pleaded, fully giving into the fantasy. Y/N was never one to hold back and from what she had read, he certainly didn’t want her to. Her body felt like it was on fire, hands grabbing fist fulls of his sweater in hopes that he’d just take it off. Y/N wasn’t sure what type of body would be beneath it, but she didn’t care. She just wanted to feel his warm skin, lick and kiss all that she could while she worked her magic. Y/N waited for his directions, falling into the submissive role easily despite her initial approach. “I’m gonna fuck you so hard you’re gonna have to re-write that scene.”

Harry was going to give this girl any fucking thing she wanted. He let her guide his sweater off, the cool air hitting his skin not even getting a chance because her hands and mouth were all over him. It was like she had fallen into a heat, and Harry.... he loved it. He placed his hands under her sweater, feeling her hands smooth over his chest as she kissed at his neck and over his jaw. Her skin was hot under the sweater, his hands gripping her waist and smoothing over her hips, going up and sip to her ribs where he realized— fuck. 

“Not wearing a fucking bra?” He hissed. “Jesus... you’re a little minx, aren’t you? Off with this.” He spoke lowly, grabbing the ends of it but barely had a shot before Y/N ripped it off of her body. Fucks sake. She was sexier than he had ever imagined. “My god... you’re so sexy, baby.” He whispered, sitting up and burying his face between her breasts. Kissing the hot skin between them, working his way up with the wet, open mouthed kisses to her throat.

“Oh Daddy...” Y/N’s body shuddered at the feeling of his mouth on her, head falling back as she let out a happy sigh. He seemed to like her hand in his hair so she happily gripped at his locks as he scattered kisses over her skin. “Come ‘ere...” She whined, guiding him up to her lips. “Wanna taste your mouth.” Making eye contact with him in this moment felt intimate. All those quick glances in classes and at the coffee shop, all the day dreaming, it all built up to this moment where she fully felt she could let herself let go. The both of them wanted this, it was so reassuring, this was a safe space and they could do whatever they wanted. Y/N’s body rolled forward, pushing him further back onto the couch and angling her hips so she could tease the both of them before she let herself have it. Fuck was he hard... and full. Another moan left her lips, sounding more like a plea and cry for more.

“Fuck me... you’re needy. I love it.” Harry hissed, pulling her mouth to his. It wasn’t soft. No, this kiss... it was hot. Heavy. Her mouth opened and immediately he dragged his tongue inside, meeting hers. She tasted like the apple juice and a bit of mint, and he could groan just from how good it was. Sweet little Y/N wasn’t too innocent at all. “Fuck— keep teasing me like that. S’like you want to end up crying.” He had a feeling now that she did. She wanted his cock inside of her pussy, thrusting in and out and letting herself soak him. Yeah... he wanted it too. “Keep calling me daddy. You’re so dirty. Who would have fucking... known.” He spoke between the kisses, hands going for her jeans. He wanted them off, like hours ago. He was finally going to get her. “M’gonna lay you out in my bed after... first m’gonna fuck you, but M’gonna clean out your cunt with my tongue. And then M’gonna take you again. Yeah?” She has come for studying but was staying for hot sex and he hoped to turn it into a nice marathon. He had all weekend and he was hoping she wouldn’t have to go. He had too many idea for her. “Gonna let daddy lick it up?”

“Fuck— yes, gonna let daddy have his way with me...” She kept her hips rolling against his slowly, keeping the rhythm in check with the passionate kiss they were sharing. Y/N already knew this was going to be the best sex of her life, the kiss alone let her know that. His tongue would work wonders on her cunt and she’d be more than happy to return the favor. Hesitantly, Y/N began to stand to get her jeans off, one of her hands staying put on the back of his neck so the kiss didn’t break. She let him fiddle with the zipper, feeling his fingers hook both her jeans and underwear before yanking them down to which Y/N let out a little squeal. 

Y/N knew she had to pull away from the kiss for air but she didn’t want to, waiting till the very last minute until she couldn’t anymore and went to get his jeans off.

“Come on. Be good.” He murmured against her lips, brushing his hips up so she could get his pants off. She tugged and easily they came down, Harry kicking them off as he pulled her back in his lap. His hands gripped her bare ass and groaned when she pushed into them, not thinking twice before pulling his hand back and smacking it the sound rang in the room and she let out the most sexy noise against his mouth, making him hiss. Fuck. He wanted her so fucking badly. This girl... she was everything. One hand went to feel and fuck. Fuck shit, motherfuck, it was wet. She was so, wet. “Jesus— you’re so wet. Baby— holy shit, you’re soaked.” He whispered. “S’cause of me? You wanted daddy’s cock this bad?” He pulled his fingers off slightly, the arousal still stringing to his fingers. He placed them at her mouth and pushed them in. “That’s it. Clean them up, sweet girl. You’re so filthy, y’know that? Precious little thing. So slick and hot, want cock so fucking bad don’t you?” He cooed, feeling her suck on the digits. “Now.... rub it against your pussy. Don’t put it in yet. get it wet.”

Y/N sucked at his fingers as if it were her job, making sure to treat it like she would his cock which included eye contact. She loved looking at him, seeing his hungry expression and his eyes that seemed to say so much more than he did. Even the feeling of her cunt sliding over his cock sent tingles up her spine. It had never affected her this much with other guys, but she assumed it was different with Harry because she had wanted him for so long. Y/N let out a whimper, feeling a gush of wetness accumulate when he pushed his fingers in farther. Harry was hot in ways she couldn’t explain, there were little things he did that just hit the spot and made her want to fuck him even harder. Y/N was practically bouncing on his cock, aching for him to let her have it inside.

“You’re such a good girl. Listening so fucking well.” Harry took his fingers from her mouth, smirking at the whine and slight chasing of his fingers when he placed it on her breast. She gave it all to him and honestly, he was ready to just... lose it. “Go ahead. Take what you want.” It was not even a moment later that he felt her begin to sink down. She was tight— so damn tight, and he choked slightly at just how good the squeeze was. He let out a hiss, head thrown back in the couch as the slick, hit cunt sucked over him, squeezing hard as she stretched open slowly. “Holy fuck.” He growled, gripping both hips now and looking at her with a darkness in his eyes. “You’re so bloody tight— Christ, you’re squeezin’ me so good.” He whispered.

“Daddy!” She whimpered as she slid farther down on his cock until she couldn’t fit anymore of him in. “I’m so full— feels so good.” Her eyes rolled back a bit as she began to bounce at a slowed rhythm. Small moans and little huffs came from her throat with every stroke of her hips, it wasn’t until she felt warmed up that she actually went for it. Y/N shifted so that she had better balance, keeping her hands on his shoulders before dropping back down on his cock. “Fuck!” She squeaked, making sure to clench one her way back up before repeating the action at a quicker pace. It felt incredible. He was touching every little part of her, feeling small waves of pleasure spread throughout her body. “Daddy! Fuck— feels so good ahhh!” Her moans were pornographic, whiny, desperate and needy. She didn’t even know she could sound like that, but apparently it was possible when she was as thirsty for cock as she was.

Never would he have guessed that this would be the outcome of their hang out. He had hoped, sure. Dreamed? Absolutely. But the reality was so much better. He had the hot, wet and extremely tight pussy gliding up and down his cock. She was moaning, tits bouncing in his face, and she was vocal. More than he could have asked for. The infatuation he had with her was only growing. 

“Fuck, you’re a good girl. Such a perfect little cunt. Like bouncing on my cock, hm? Knew you’d be the perfect girl for me. Keep going.” His hand squeezed her ass, encouraging her to work herself on him. “Feels so full, yeah? Such a big cock filling such a little pussy. A nice stretch for you hm? So eager to be filled up...” her face was of pure bliss and Harry couldn’t help but take a mental photo. He hoped this could happen more than this once. “Knew you’d be good for me. Throwin’ yourself in my lap and begging to be fucked. Never guessed you’d be such a little slut, but I love it.” He took his hand, bringing it down sharply on her ass.

“Fuck!” Y/N gasped, her own hand moving to cuff his neck. It wasn’t as effective as him doing it to her, but it got the point across. The both of them grabbing at each other roughly, him thrusting up into her each time she slammed down. It could only be described as pure ecstasy, surely the hottest sex she had ever had. She needed him, she needed him to cum. Y/N couldn’t stop herself from leaning down to kiss his mouth again, making a mess of the two of them. “You’re so fucking good— love your cock, daddy... fucking love it!” She moaned between kisses, increasing her pace just enough so she could fuck him hard and steady. “I want you to cum for me daddy, wanna feel it nice and deep.” Thank fuck for IUDs. “Want you to fill me up while I cum all over your cock, can you do that for me? Can you cum with me?”

He was panting, lowering himself so he could properly thrust into her sopping cunt. He hadn’t gotten any in so long but this blew any and everyone out of the water. No one could ever understand how good this was. All the pining and imagining had come to an even better conclusion. 

“I’ll do it... but you... gotta promise me.” He growled, giving a particularly sharp thrust inside of her, making her wail. “Promise me I can do it again. Let me have this pussy more.” He didn’t want it to end if it was the only time he could get it. It was too good to let go of. Drooling all over his cock and her soft whimpers and dirty words had him more worked up than anything else. “Promise, baby, and I’ll let you have my cum.”

“Promise— I promise— fuck!” She felt her breath get caught in her throat at the particularly hard thrusts Harry was giving her. “Please Daddy, please give it to me.” Y/N whimpered, moving her hands so they cupped his cheeks, keeping eye contact with him as they continued to relentlessly thrust into each other. There was nothing more satisfying, nothing that managed to hit every part of her both physically and spiritually and made her feel so alive. When you’ve wanted something for so long it makes getting it that much better and she knew that she’d always be chasing this high that only he could give her. “I’m so close, fuck, daddy—“ She mumbled between kisses, squeezing around him and continuing at her pace to bring herself to the perfect high. “Cum with me daddy, please— ah!”

Harry would work on his stamina next round. But after the whole thing, he was close to losing his mind. She was giving him the most tempting offer and he wasn’t going to give it up. 

“Oh— fuck me.” He thrusted in again and again before he let himself go. Feeling her clench up around him and sob against his mouth, he let out a deep growl as he buried himself deep. Hot cum shooting inside of her cunt, rocking his hips in to get it all in there. There was no doubt that this was some of the most intense sex of his life but he was almost ready to go again, as soon as it ended. Holding her shivering form, her orgasm was tapering, he could feel her clenching still. “That’s it. Take all of it inside of you. Good girl.”

Y/N gripped Harry’s shoulders, loud screams of pleasure coming straight from her throat. There were no words to describe the high, she almost felt out of her own body as he showered her with praise. With her body shaking and face contorting with a silent scream, she found it in her to come back down letting out a pathetic whimper.

“Daddy—” She swallowed thickly, mouth finding his messily, pressing kisses to his lips and his face. The two of them were both lightly covered in sweat, breathing heavily and enjoying each other’s company. Y/N was far too blissed out to think about what just happened, but blissed out enough to know there would be many more rounds of this tonight. Y/N smiled as she nuzzled against his neck, still sponging kissing to his dampened skin. “Better?” She mumbled, smirking against his skin a bit.

“Mm.” He hummed, hands holding her hips still. Holy hell. This was the beginning of an amazing weekend- because he didn’t plan on letting her out at all, if he could help it’ he wanted her to stay, to let him indulge in her. “So fucking good.” He muttered lowly, rubbing his hand up her back and smoothing over her skin. Fucks sake. This was paradise. Nothing could pop him out of this. 

At least, that was until the doorbell rang. 

“Ah, fuck. The pizza.”

-------------------------------------------------

let us know what you think!

masterlist

[rodeoxqueen]

Can you do more head cannons of The DMC boys taking care of their baby girl???

Howdy,

I do not think I’ve written headcanons of Dante, Vergil, Nero, and V with a baby daughter? Well, no time like the present. 

Enjoy, 

Rodeo 

Dante 

“Baby. Baby girl. Baaaaaby!” Dante calls as his daughter, white-haired and arms covered in baby fat, gurgles with joy. 

Literally the love of his life. The babe looks just like him, with white hair and blue eyes. 

Lady and Trish adore the baby girl and do not trust him to dress their niece cutely. So they spend all his money buying the cutest little shoes and dresses. The baby fever is so bad for them. 

Dante is so protective of his little demon child. He duct tapes all the sharp corners in his shop. It’s Hello-Kitty and red duct tape. It’s such an eye-sore but he’s so proud of himself. 

He doesn’t use her crib. Every night, his daughter cries when he puts her in the crib. He ends up taking her to his bed, her little body resting on his chest, moving to the rising and falling of his form. 

They eat meals together, both covered in bits of food. Messy eaters, the two of them. Dante always seems to eat incredibly leaned back and his daughter copies him, leaning to the back of the baby seat with her little feet crossed.

 She loves sundaes and slaps the table when she can’t get any. Dante can’t resist giving her the strawberries to gnaw on. 

“Shithead! You’re going to give her cavities!” 

“Nero, she doesn’t even have teeth yet.” 

Sometimes they just nod at each other.

“Hey, boss lady.” 

“Dah.” 

“Very nice.” 

He gets a tactical baby carrier, much to everyone’s disgust. 

His little baby girl is often found latched onto his leg, cooing and refusing to leave from her father’s proximity. 

Vergil tries to hold her and she cries immediately. It’s because Vergil looks like a very serious Dante and that doesn’t sit right with her. 

The twins tried dressing the same and brushing their hair the same style to see what she would do. She keeps pointing to the other and saying “da-da” and grabbing at the other twin. Eventually, she starts fussing. 

Well actually, demon children can detect parental pheromones. She likely figures out who is who very soon and will not unlatch from her demon daddy. 

“She’s got quite a grip,” Vergil comments as blood soaks into Dante’s shirt where her hands clung to him.  

“Her claws came in early.” His brother grunts. His hands aren’t even on her, she is completely supporting herself with her little devil hands. 

Dante will walk out of the house with his hair done like his child’s. The last thing a demon sees is the merciless face of Hello Kitty on a barrette on Dante’s head. It’s quite frankly scarier than anything else. 

See Exhibit C-(credited to @aztarion)

Vergil 

“This is my daughter. If anything happens to her, I will kill Dante and everyone else in this room and then I will kill Dante again.” 

“Vergil what.” 

This man does not use babytalk. He talks to her in complete sentences with words Dante doesn’t even know, his child babbling in return. 

“Child, I grow quite jaded by this tirade. Either participate in nap time or stay put,  I shall not heed your intentions to stay up.” 

“Abababa!” 

“I will not tolerate your churlishness.” 

He does his best to dress her in blue. They match all the time. 

He isn’t great with doing hair that isn’t his. His daughter has all her hair swept back like her old man. She copies him, slapping her forehead and swiping her stray strands of hair back. He smirks at her likeness. 

Vergil had to be taught how to change a diaper by Nero. 

No baby carrier, he will hold her to his waist at all times and she chews on the handle of the Yamato. He just lets her. 

He doesn’t buy her toys, everyone else does.

“Child, you must stop collecting tributary from your relatives.” 

“Bababababa.” 

Vergil does not trust those two women with his child. However, he finds his daughter points to Trish and makes grabbing motions. Trish coos at her in her slender arms and laughs when she chews her hair, his daughter gripping Lady’s finger in her other hand. Vergil stops, and realizes-

This is the closest he will ever see his mother hold his child. He finds he does not mind it. 

Vergil’s daughter is protected by his doppelganger, who moves stuff out of her crawling path and ensures she doesn’t bump her little head. 

He also does not use the crib. But he tried. His baby daughter cried and reached for him, her little face scrunched up with sadness. 

“It is for your own good. You must be independent. The world is a hard place, sleeping alone is the least you can do.” 

The baby continues to cry and Vergil relents, eyes soft as he takes her back. He holds her the entire night. 

“Perhaps just this once, my little lamb.” 

All grown up, his daughter will find her baby photos in a neat scrapbook, all images were taken by Dante of Vergil holding her every night. 

Nero 

Youngest dad here, quite frankly the most competent. 

He grew up taking care of other kids, no matter how punk rock he is, his instincts to take care of kids shine through. 

She has a black pacifier that’s shaped like a skull. 

He is so clingy to this little girl, knowing how he grew up with no parents. 

His little girl is always with him. If not, she’s with Kyrie. She has to be convinced to go play with other children. 

“Hey, can an uncle hold his niece-” 

“Frick off, I’m her dad.” 

“Censoring yourself, are we?” 

He gives up swearing near her. That swear jar paid for a new school building next to the orphanage. 

Nero melts when his little girl scratches her nose the way he always does. Some things are just genetic. 

His little girl has his temper. She kicks and screams and slaps him when he doesn’t give her what she wants, although she is an angel in general. 

His kid is the first one to fully trigger, a very angry and blue one-year-old with horns and astral wings, literally bursting with demonic energy and snarling. Nero sheds a tear in pride after she slashes the side of his face. A bag of frozen peas in hand, he looks at her with joy. 

“She’s going to be so kick-butt. Just like me, huh?” 

His daughter is tolerant of her grandfather. In the arms of Vergil, she glares back at him. 

“She will be a very strong Sparda,” Vergil comments as she rips a button off his jacket. 

Nero is so soft with this baby girl. He’ll scream at Dante and his father seven ways till Sunday but coo in baby talk with her. 

He sings her to bed the classics. 

“But I’m a creep, I am a weirdo. I don’t belong here…..” Nero rocks his daughter side to side as she softly breathes. 

“N-Nero?” Kyrie asks from the doorway. He casts her a glance. 

“It’s Radiohead.” He says before returning to his loving mumbles. Kyrie sighs. 

V 

“Oh my darling. Look at you, little star.” He beams as he taps her little nose. Her hair is white just like his when Nightmare is unbound. 

He adores her, this little crawling bundle of joy. 

Cane in one hand, he holds his child in the other. 

“Wow V, human babies sure are squishy looking gremlins.” 

“Griffon-” 

“In a good way!” 

The two other familiars are also dedicated to his daughter. Shadow likes to clean her with her tongue, causing her hair to stick up in all directions. 

Griffon collects things that are shiny and gifts them to her little fat baby hands. 

Unfortunately, babies are very grabby little people. Griffon caused a power outage one time because the little starling pulled his tail feathers out in curiosity. 

Of course, V reads to his child his poetry. It’s the only way she can be put to sleep.

She fusses and V simply holds her up and asks her what the matter is. She babbles and squirms and V does his best to understand baby talk. 

He lets people hold her, although he is nearly inches away to retrieve her in case she is displeased.

Dante is the favorite uncle and she loves to play peek-a-boo with him.

V nearly keels over one day when she managed to absorb Shadow, soft baby skin decorated by black spider lilies. She returns Shadow in the form of a kitten although the big cat quickly turns back into a grown panther.

She tried it with Griffon. Yes, of course he pops out again a swearing baby chicken.

“My dear, what on earth?”

“Da-da!”

She pulls on V’s hair, threading her fingers through the midnight strands. She also puts her hand on his gently-sloping nose. He doesn’t mind it, although her fingers can be sticky. 

He keeps a little bell on his cane to waggle over her head when she is bored. She loves it and reaches her little hands to the sound. She likes to take his rings and clink them together. 

Sometimes, he gives up and just eats the same baby food she does. 

He’s a very patient father, although she can easily exhaust him with all the demands. 

“The queen reigns over all.” V muses as she throws a tantrum. 

He has a day-to-day journal of her development, full of pressed flowers and inked poetry of his Little Wanderer. 

[kiss-inthekitchen]

of the jealous kind

summary: you and Harry are out at the local farmer’s market when a girl starts flirting with you and Harry gets jealous. only thing is, you don’t exactly realize she’s flirting with you. classic wlw vibes, am i right ladies? (please say yes)

my submission for @bopbopstyles and @harrysclementines bi-ficathon!

a/n: fun times with Harry calling you “his girl” and being just a bit pathetically jealous (his words!) also i might continue this...in a smut type of fashion... if y’all are interested

word count: 2.2k 

--

“Oh, let’s stop over there! I want to get one of those chocolate chip custard things,” you exclaimed, spotting your favorite bakery stand at the farmer’s market and dragging Harry along by your joined hands. 

“A’right, love, m’comin,” he laughed, trying to keep in step with your suddenly quickened pace. 

It was a Sunday morning, cloudy but not too cold, and you and Harry were visiting your favorite farmer’s market in town. You tried to come here at least twice a month if your schedules allowed it. Today, it just so happened, you both had the entire day free to spend with each other. 

Harry knew you had to look at everything the bakery had to offer before you inevitably bought the same items as usual (a good, crusty country loaf and the same danish you never remembered the name of). There was a produce stand across the way that immediately caught Harry’s eye, a “buy 2 get 1 free” sign atop a display of various berries calling out to him. You noticed his distraction, the two of you speaking at the same time.

“M’gonna-” 

“Go on, then.”

“Know me so well, don’t you?” He gave you a soft smile and pressed a kiss to your temple before heading off in pursuit of his beloved fruit. 

You took the last few steps over to the booth’s main table, which held a majority of the baked goods as well as this week’s free sample: a garlic rosemary bread, cut into bite size pieces. You picked one up, on instinct taking a sidelong glance at the basket of your favorite pastries by the register, when the woman behind the counter finished ringing up a customer and turned to you.   

“Can I help you with anything, hon?”

“Oh, um, I’m just looking,” you answered, looking up at her. She must’ve been new, you thought, not recognizing her from your previous visits. She had dark hair, twisted up into a bun at the back of her head, an oversized t-shirt with a phoenix decal on it. Her name tag informed you that her name was Allie. 

“Alright, well, I will say that’s the best flavor we’ve got,” she gestures to the small wedge still held between your fingers. 

“Really? That’s quite a bold statement,” you smile back at her, appreciating her friendliness.  

“You’re gonna want to trust me on this one,” she said, nodding at you to go ahead. 

You took a bite, blushing a bit at the knowledge you were being watched and that she was awaiting your response. “Mhm,” you agreed, around a mouthful of bread. “Okay, you’re right, that’s better.” 

“Thought so. I have been told I’ve got very good taste.” 

“Well, I’m not surprised.” 

She made eye contact with you, the hint of a smile playing on her lips. “So, will you be taking a loaf of the garlic rosemary then?” she asked. 

“Yes, please.” Why not try something new, you thought. And she was right, it was delicious. You’re sure Harry would like it too, and you could just imagine the playful ribbing he was going to give you when he noticed you’d deviated from your usual order. “Oh, could I also get that-” 

“The chocolate chip danish? I saw you eyeing it earlier,” she said, picking one up with a gloved hand and placing it in a small paper bag. “That one’s on the house.” 

“Oh, you’re so sweet! Thank you.” Allie was really on top of it with the customer service. 

“Anytime,” she said, “Anything else I can get you?” 

“No, that’s all for me! Thanks again.”

She rang up your order, handing you the bag before speaking. “You know, we also come out to the beachside farmer’s market on Wednesday’s, if you’re ever in the area. I’ll write it down for you,” she said, picking up a business card from a stack on the table and turning it over to write on the back. 

“Sounds great,” you replied, mostly to be polite. You probably wouldn’t make it out, Wednesdays being a busy day for you with classes. 

Just as she was handing it back to you, Harry appeared behind you, fruit in tow. 

“Thank you so much, have a good one!” you said cheerily, dropping the card into the bag with your goods. You’d look at it when you got home.

She waved back. “See you soon, hopefully.”

You smiled as you turned around to see Harry already standing there, startling a bit at his unexpected presence. He raised his eyebrows a bit, but didn’t say anything as he put his free arm around your shoulders. The two of you headed back to the main walkway, and he waited until your new friend was out of earshot before he spoke. 

“So, yeh just gonna let someone flirt with my girl like that?” 

“What?” That was not what you were expecting. “She wasn’t flirting with me, Harry.” 

“Oh, please, love. Saw the way she was lookin’ at you. Poor girl. I’m sure you led her on.” 

“Excuse me, I did no such thing,” you scoffed. “And she wasn’t even flirting with me, so I couldn’t have.” 

He breezed right past your denial, having already made up his mind. You weren’t going to be able to convince him otherwise, you knew that by now. “Told ya before love, you come off very flirtatious. Almost feel bad for her.” He was smirking down at you, the bastard. “Almost.” 

“Being a pest,” you grumbled, shoving against his shoulder with yours to throw him off balance. 

He stumbled a bit, but recovered quickly. “Oi! ‘S not very nice, is it?” 

You giggled in response, loving when he used that playful tone. He tried to keep a serious face on while looking back at you but failed almost immediately, looking at you with such adoration in his eyes that you forgot what you’d both been talking about. 

“Anyway,” you sang, reaching out for his free hand and threading your fingers through his. “What did you buy?” 

His face lights up at the memory of his purchase. “Got strawberries, raspberries, and blackberries, plus some local clover honey.” 

“Such a sweet tooth, hm?” 

“S’pose I do,” he said with a slight smirk. “Ready to go home and eat, then?” 

“We’ve barely been here half an hour, H. Trying to get me home already?”

“Look too good today, love. Worried if we stick around I’ll have to beat the other vendors off with a stick.” 

“I thought we were done with this conversation,” you rolled your eyes at him playfully, but allowed him to steer you back toward the car park. You were getting kind of hungry anyway. 

--

You’re sat on your kitchen island at home, Harry placing the bags on the counter next to you. 

“Have a nice time, love?” He asks, moving over to you and situating his body between your knees at the edge of the counter. 

You drape your arms around his neck, thumb coming up to his cheek to rub back and forth as he leans into your touch. “Always have a good time when I’m with you,” you breathe. 

“That’s m’girl,” he speaks in a husky tone, before leaning in to press his lips to yours, slow and lazy at first. That is, until he lifts his hands to your thighs, sliding them around to your back and suddenly tugging you closer to the edge of the island, body flush with his. You gasp into his mouth at the action, and you can feel rather than see his resounding smirk. 

“Harry,” you pull back, attempting to admonish him but no one would know from the way your voice shakes. 

“Sorry, love. Know what they say, kitchen’s the most romantic room in the house.” 

“I don’t know anyone who says that.” 

“Y’do now,” he grins lopsidedly at you, and it’s all you can do to remember that the two of you still need to eat. 

You grin back at him. “You’re a dork, you know that?” 

“But you love me,” he responds, and you can’t argue with that. “A’right, I’ll take everything out and we can have a picnic in the backyard, how’s that sound?” 

Your smile nearly knocks him off his feet. “I’ll go get the picnic blanket!” 

He removes himself from between your legs and you slide off the counter and head towards the linen closet in the hallway. When you return, Harry’s taken out the loaf of bread and the danish, and is holding the business card in between two fingers. 

“What’s this, then?” He asks, holding up the bakery’s business card, logo facing you. 

“It’s just their card, the cashier told me they come out to another farmer’s market during the week and she was gonna write it down for me.” 

“Oh, she wrote it down, love.” In a second, he elegantly flips the card over in his fingers to show you the back. “But that’s not all she wrote.” Underneath the name of the other market is her name and, unmistakably, a phone number. 

“No!” you gasp, not believing he was right and you’d fucking missed it. 

“And you bought a new flavor bread?”

“Well, I-  Allie said it was the best one…” you trail off, trying to remember the details of your earlier interaction. Maybe Harry was right, you guess you did seem a bit flirtatious.

“Oh, Allie said, did she? That’s all it takes?” He’s kind of joking, kind of not, when it finally sinks in for you that you’ve, yet again, completely failed to notice when another woman was trying to flirt with you. 

“Oh, god damn it!” you exclaim, completely in your own head and you didn’t even hear what Harry had said to you. “I do this every time!” 

What’s left of Harry’s joking demeanor drops. “Every time? How often does this happen?!” 

“I can’t believe I didn’t notice again.” 

Your friends were gonna have a field day with this one. Three out of the four of you identified as bi or pan, though when you’d all become friends back in high school only one of you had actually been out. Now, you all joked that you had one “token straight” in the friend group. 

“Y/N?!”

“I know, H, can you give me just a moment, I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that I’m apparently a raging stereotype,” you reply, laughing at yourself a bit for being so predictable. 

“Oh, of course, don't mind me. I’ll just be here. Waiting. Very patiently.” It’s a wonder he doesn’t start tapping his foot, clearly the farthest thing from patient right now. 

You snap back to attention, realizing that if you don’t stop Harry he’s just going to keep spiraling. “You do know I’m dating you, right?”

“Do I?” 

“Oh, come on. You’re being such a baby about this!” 

“Oi! I am not!” He huffs, and you can just picture him as an indignant toddler, standing with his arms folded and a deep frown set on his face. 

You hold back a laugh at the image you’ve conjured, closing the distance between the two of you. “Baby, I love you,” you say, pressing a kiss to his cheek.“You know I do.” His jaw. “Why don’t we just throw that out, hm?” You kiss his lips this time, reaching for the card and plucking it from his fingers before tossing it away from you.  

“I guess,” he grumbles as you pull away, but you can tell he’s not quite over it. 

You rest your chin against his chest, looking up at him with your best puppy dog eyes. “You don’t believe me, gorgeous? Need me to prove it to you?” 

“Maybe,” he mumbles, and you know that you’ve brought him back from his little jealousy spiral at the mere suggestion, so you decide to make him wait for it. Just a little while.  

“More than happy to,” you murmur, tracing your fingertips over the back of his hand. “Only thing is, you’re gonna have to have this picnic with me first,” you reach behind him for the blanket, “and you have to stop pouting.” You step around him, laughing as you run toward the glass door that leads to the yard.

“M’not pouting,” he lies to the empty kitchen as he grabs the rest of the food and some utensils before following you outside. 

His mood is definitely lifted, though, when he comes outside to find you seated on the blanket already, grinning widely at him and holding your arms out for him to crawl into. 

Maybe he had been just a tad bit dramatic. 

--

About half the bread is gone now, a bowl of honeyed berries and a plate full of crumbs resting on the cloth-covered grass next to you. Harry’s shifted so he’s laying down with his head resting on your soft thighs, with you carding your fingers through his short curls, just enjoying each other’s company. 

“Wait a minute,” you break the comfortable silence, a thought suddenly popping into your mind. “Other people flirt with you all the time! Sometimes right in front of me!” 

“And?” he muses, reluctantly sitting up in order to face you. 

“And! I never get jealous like that!” 

“I know. Rather insulting, if you ask me. You can get possessive, love. I certainly won’t mind it.”

[datawyrms]

“Did you apologize to Tucker yet?”

“About what? Wait, are we talking again? I thought we weren’t talking.” The ghost circled back, blindly fumbling with the thermos lid, eyes busy squinting at the hunter’s mask as if it would let him see through it better. “You’re not gonna say it’s fine then shoot me, are you?”

“Why do you always remind me why I don’t like talking to you like this.”

“What’d you mean like ‘this’? Like I should pretend that isn’t a totally valid question?” 

Valerie groaned, gesturing at the ghost. “Like that sort of thing is normal!”

Phantom smirked, letting the edges of his boots hit the hoverboard. “Welcome to my life.”

“And how you just keep that stupid confident face up.”

“Uh huh. I thought you were lecturing me about Tucker, not my personality.”

She deeply considered having the board jar the ghost off, but that’d probably just amuse him more. “You seriously don’t remember why you should be apologizing?”

“Well according to you, I should basically apologize for existing. So sometimes I lose track on the particulars.” There was an edge there that the blithe tone couldn’t quite cover up, even as the ghost sat down. “Y’gonna enlighten me or what? I’m bad at twenty questions.”

“You broke your promise to him, remember?”

The blank stare she earned in response was absolutely infuriating. “Uhhh. Which one?” He had the sense to look embarrassed, hand glued to the back of his neck.

That wasn’t going to help him though. Shooting him was actually sounding like a fair idea if it was the only thing that would get him to actually learn and pay attention. “To stop possessing people. The big one? The really easy one that NONE of his other friends need to worry about doing ‘accidentally’?”

“Wow Val, if you just wanted to say you think I’m weird you didn’t need to drag Tuck into it.” The embarrassment slid into a scowl easily enough, arms crossed as if that would defend him. “I haven’t done that for months.”

“He’s been telling you he hates it for years.” Before she even figured out Danny’s dead man walking secret. Tucker was too good a friend to be ignored for literal years because a ghost conveniently forgot how fucked up it was to invade someone’s body and use them as an unwilling meat puppet if it was ‘helpful’.

“I try, okay? I’m not doing it to upset him!”

“Somehow everyone else can manage without doing it.”

The ghost tilted his head. “Well duh, you guys can’t.”

“Even if we could, we wouldn’t.” She snapped, the confusion and completely casual excusing of his actions just a little too much to deal with. “Heroes don’t control people.”

“Well excuse me for needing to protect myself. If what I am gets out to the wrong people, I’m dead. More dead.” He groaned face in hand “You know what I mean. Worse than dead. Dani too.”

“Do you really think Tucker’s dad would have ratted your whispy ass out? That he wouldn’t help you explain? Or was it just an excuse to let yourself do what you want?”

“Well you seem to have decided that it was! Which it wasn’t!” His eyes flared green with the defence, and Valarie had to work to not react to the impulsive want to get away from an angry ghost. “I just- reacted, okay? I told him that!”

“Well Tucker and Sam keep forgetting how much of a ghost you are, so of course they won’t buy that excuse.”

“Excuse? It’s not an excuse!” He was up, the offended squawk reminding her so much of how he was before. When they were all fourteen, and every uncomfortable problem could be chalked up to being ‘a moody teenager’ and ignored for a while longer. “And you could stop saying ghost like that, while you’re at it?” The glow dimmed, but he kept the distance. “Sound like my dad.”

“What, you want me to say it like you do when they keep coming here to threaten people? Deal with it.”

“There are plenty of ghosts who don’t do that.”

“Yeah. They don’t come here, and they aren’t my problem,” she shrugged, considering. “I’ll say it nice to them.”

“Oh, real funny.”

“You deserve it.”

She expected a scoff, at least. Probably a laugh, considering how often he’d joke about being the town’s public enemy for a time. Instead he averted his eyes. “Maybe we can finish this talk on the ground?”

It was easier to be ticked off at him when he was joking, or steamed himself. Phantom didn’t ‘do’ uneasy. Maybe it was a good sign that he was actually listening, if he wanted to continue ‘off the clock’. “Space cadet wants to land? Sure, if you want.”

“I wouldn’t go with ‘want’, but yeah.”

It wasn’t much trouble, in the middle of the day. A quick glance while hidden in at least one direction was enough. People who lived in Amity Park knew they should get out of the area of a ghost sighting at this point. Even if she and Phantom were trusted enough to deal with it, stray shots happened. Things fell. Not too many eyes to avoid, even if her identity felt like an open secret most of the time.

Danny had it even easier. He just had to think. It felt like a sick joke, that he could stop being dead on a whim and blend in fairly well. The gangly man leaning against the tree looked human. Black hair, blue eyes, needed a tan, unremarkable. Average. Unless you knew what to look for, anyway. How a casual slouch didn’t match up with how he was always looking for something, a tense energy that seemed desperate to crack free of that spine. That he could walk in winter with the thinnest of jackets and not shake from the cold even once. “Hey.”

Valerie rolled her eyes, sitting on the bench. “Hey yourself.”

Danny grimaced, looking up and away. “How much of a ghost I am, huh?” It wasn’t an angry question, exactly. He was still slouching, hands in pockets. Guarded and uneasy. How much of that fear and caution the person she thought she knew, and how much of it was just another part of his act?

“You’ve said you’re at least half of one.”

“Yeah. You just make it sound like that’s a bad thing.”

The whole crux of the issue, really. How no one really knew how to deal with Danny, his secret and how he’d changed. “It’s not a bad thing on it’s own.”

“So I’m the part you like to sneer at,” his brow furrowed, the creases and wrinkles more ominous as blue slid closer to green. “I thought we went over this. You know what actually happened. How I never really attacked people.”

She admired Tucker and Sam’s patience, she really did. “We have. It’s not about that stuff. That’s years ago, you know it. It’s the other stuff.”

The anger was gone in an instant. “What other stuff?”

He was a living migraine waiting to happen. “How you keep thinking things from seven years ago are more important than things happening right now?”

“Hey, you’re the one that held the grudge for two.”. 

“Months. Not years.”

He slouched more at the correction, apparently very interested in his own hands. “Oh. Right.”

“You haven’t been using the reminders like Jazz told you to, have you.”

“I can remember fine! I don’t need some box doing it for me. I’ve just been busy.”

Busy. That was his excuse this time? She crossed her arms and leaned back. “Okay, what year is it?”

“Uhm.” he paused to pick at a non existent loose thread “One starting in 2?”

“Danny.”

“What! Lots of people don’t care too much about the time.”

He didn’t even try to guess within ten years. There was living in the present, and there was this. “No, you know your ghost side makes you act in certain ways and keep denying it. So you still get the complete pain version of ghost. Get it?”

“I’m not that different.” He wouldn’t look at her, hand clenching. “I’m human too, you know.”

“Uhuh. The way your eyes flare up when you’re mad is super human.” She ignored his scowl, pushing forward. “I get it. You don’t like being reminded. Tuck and Sam try to ignore it for your sake.”

“Val, I’m not denying it okay? I know. It’s pretty obvious!”

“Then stop pretending you don’t know. They’re trying so hard to help you have a chance of getting a job that isn’t with your parents and you won’t even use the reminders to help you remember where in time you are!”

That got him to bristle, shaking off his slouch in a sudden reminder of how tall he really was. “Why does it matter? We’re all just kidding ourselves about me ever leaving here.”

“So you just won’t try? Just give up on finding anything else? For someone who keeps insisting he’s human, you sure seem eager to ditch that half of your life.”

“That isn’t what I’m doing.”

“Then what are you doing? Because all I’ve seen you do is get tetchy about ghosts and instinctively do ghost things. When you’re human.”

“I’m putting in the work.You know it’s hard to study or hold down a job.”

“So stop making it harder on yourself.They’ve found ways to help keep you grounded, so do it.” Sam should be saying this, of course. She’d heard it frustratedly repeated so many times, but she never dared to actually say it to the one who had to hear it. Because he was already prone to pulling away or vanishing when you pressed too hard, made things too uncomfortable. Ghosts didn’t do coping, and Danny was never great at facing personal issues head on before becoming a menace to her sanity either. “You think making things harder makes you more of a hero?”

“‘Course not.” He wasn’t looking at her anymore. He was looking for an escape, an out. “I shouldn’t need that stuff, alright?”

Now it was her turn to be puzzled. “Why shouldn’t you?”

A lopsided grin answered her question. “Who likes admitting they’re a freak?” The tree no longer had a human standing by it, but his voice was easy enough to hear. “ But I guess some people care about a freak like me anyway.”

(did Valerie use a tracker to smack him and say ‘you’re not a freak’ right after this? yes)

[thedragonnerd]

Fic: Love Languages

Headcanon suggested by a lovely anon, which spawned into a fic. Read on Ao3 or under the cut.

Words of affirmation

Receiving compliments or words of encouragement are not uncommon for Namaari. She has gone through life aiming to be the best at everything she does – the best leader, the best warrior, the best Princess – and along with her success come compliments on her fighting techniques, her decision-making skills, and even her ability to look formidable in her formal attire.

As royalty, people lavish her with praises when they see an opportunity to get into her good graces, despite the obvious lack of sincerity behind their words, and it tires her to deal with fawning citizens. She loves her people, but she’d rather they’d love her back truly; false words mean nothing.

Chief Virana does not give out compliments easily, and is often faster to critique than to encourage. Namaari pretends her mother’s approval is nothing more than something important to receive from her Chief, but in reality, she craves hearing soft words such as ‘well done, Morning Mist’, whenever she is lucky enough to have them bestowed upon her.

As she grows up, she decides that sweet words are nice to have, but ultimately unnecessary – nothing more than a nod of acknowledgement is needed, before one can place it aside and move on to more important things. And then Raya comes back into her life.

Raya, who can flirt endlessly with elaborate innuendos until Namaari rolls her eyes at her ridiculousness. Raya, who is quite happy to press herself closer than absolutely necessary in their sparring sessions, just to set out some unspoken physical challenge.

And yet, when it comes to providing a genuine compliment, Raya practically freezes.

‘I like…like your hair,’ she mumbles one day to Namaari, glancing off to the side in order to avoid making eye contact. Her cheeks are flushed bright red, even though earlier in the day she had made a lewd comment about a sword which didn’t even have her blinking.

For some reason, Raya’s lack of suaveness when it comes to providing true compliments delights Namaari, and she hoards each instance close to her heart, happy in the knowledge that every word spoken was genuine in its meaning.

In return, she starts to gift Raya with compliments of her own.

For Raya is not used to receiving compliments, at least not in a long time. Her Ba used to provide encouragement and compliments often, but that was many years ago, and now he hesitates to put them into words sometimes, unsure of how this new dynamic works when he’s looking at a grown-up daughter rather than a small child.

Namaari has no difficulty in sharing them though.

‘You look very beautiful today,’ she tells Raya softly one evening, when they are having dinner. Raya stammers out some incomprehensible response, and spends the rest of the meal staring down at her bowl, occasionally darting her eyes over to Namaari.

‘I love that hairstyle on you,’ Namaari says to her a few days later, watching as Raya braids her hair back with expert precision.

‘Umm…thanks?’ Raya squeaks.

‘Your techniques were excellent today,’ Namaari informs her after a sparring session. This time, Raya just nods, and clears her throat before trying to awkwardly change the subject. Namaari can still see the smile on her lips though.

Eventually, Raya becomes better at both giving and receiving words of affirmation. Namaari learns how true compliments can be more meaningful than expected.

It isn’t the most important aspect of their relationship, but they like to encourage each other all the same.

Acts of service

Raya sees how much of a burden Namaari perpetually takes onto her shoulders, in her duties for Fang. She is so focused on helping her people rebuild and expand, or going away on diplomatic missions to help form better relations with the other lands, that she forgets to take a moment to breath sometimes.

Raya wants to take some of her stress away, by helping her carry out some of her duties or at least be involved in organizing certain aspects of the expansion projects, but she discovers quickly that Namaari is somewhat of a perfectionist. It is almost more stressful for her to find herself out of the loop or uninformed about decisions, than it would be to allow her undertake the duties in the first place, and so Raya finds it more helpful to just back off from the work unless asked to provide support.

It’s also a way for Namaari to feel as if she is atoning for her past actions. Raya wishes she wouldn’t feel the need to do so, but it is something they’ve argued about before, and they always end up stuck in a perpetual loop.

One of the ways Raya can help however, is with her cooking.

Namaari is an awful cook (something Raya unfortunately discovers herself with one ill-fated meal), but she is fascinated by watching Raya conjure something up in the kitchen.

Gone are the days of living off jackfruit jerky; with so many fresh and interesting ingredients at her disposal, and with the occasional reminders from Ba when she is unsure about something, Raya makes a whole array of different foods over the months.

It’s one of the best ways of getting Namaari to relax, Raya finds. Every mealtime when Raya is behind the pot, Namaari will abandon whatever work she is doing, and will sit and watch Raya finish making the dishes. They’ll always eat it together, and for a short while, Raya can feel the stress lift free from Namaari as she laughs over Raya’s words and enjoys good food.

Gifts

The first gift Namaari ever gave Raya has almost become a symbol for their entire complicated history. It represents new friendship, betrayal, and after so many years…forgiveness and a fresh start.

Namaari gives it back to her not long after the return of Kumandra, before she can second-guess herself.

‘It was a gift,’ she says, half-expecting it to be thrown back in her face. But Raya runs her finger gently over the surface of the dragon pendant, and then sends her a small smile. The next day, Namaari sees it hanging around her neck once more.

Once they start dating properly, Namaari can’t get it out of her mind how much the gift seemed to mean to Raya, both times.

‘She still doesn’t have that many personal belongings,’ Namaari informs Sisu, as an explanation as to why she was forcing the dragon to accompany her around endless market stalls in Talon, looking for the perfect gift for Raya. ‘I figure it’s because she was on the move so much in life, she couldn’t carry a lot.’

Sisu makes an ‘mmm’ sound, clearly not buying her reasoning completely, but allows the topic to drop when she’s distracted by shiny objects at the next stall.

Namaari finds a small knife that can be strapped to a wrist and slipped up the sleeve. She knows how much Raya prefers to be carrying at least one weapon with her at all times, and this would be perfect for diplomatic meetings – subtle, and easy to hide. And indeed, Raya wears it continuously after receiving it as a gift.

On another visit to another market, this time in Spine, Namaari spies a comb with a beautifully carved handle.

‘For your hair,’ she says in an attempt to be casual, thrusting it awkwardly in Raya’s direction that evening. Raya loves it, and it is indeed used every night before bed to comb out her braids.

Every time Namaari has to travel on diplomatic missions, she now ensures that she brings back something small for Raya.

‘I love the gifts,’ Raya tells her one day. ‘But I love even more how it shows you’re thinking of me when you’re away.’

One evening, as they are getting ready for bed, a small golden ring drops out of Namaari’s pocket by mistake.

‘Is…is that my old hair band?’ Raya asks, peering over the side of the bed as Namaari scoops it up in a hurry. ‘I thought I’d lost that years ago.’

‘I found it,’ Namaari says defensively, clutching it tight in her fist. ‘I guess…I never asked you if you wanted it back?’

Raya shakes her head with a smile, but the following evening, she steps up behind Namaari, sliding her hand into her pocket. Namaari watches as she pulls out the hair band and threads it onto a small gold chain.

From then on, they both wear a gift from the other around their necks.

Physical touch

Sometimes, everything can become overwhelming, the past traumas so great that it seems suffocating. And in that darkness, sometimes the gentle touch of another is the only thing keeping the world grounded.

Raya goes six long years without receiving a hug. At the time, she doesn’t see it as a big deal – she’s grown up fast, and learnt that the world isn’t the welcoming place her father once hoped it could be. Even moreso, her Ba was the last one to hug her, and she doesn’t mind keeping it that way.

Now though, she finds comfort in the small touches. It’s in the featherlight way Namaari’s nose brushes against her neck as they curl up together in bed, waiting for the morning sun to rise. It’s in the gentle trail of Namaari’s fingers across her back, as they stand talking to others, and Namaari absentmindedly reaches out for her. It’s in the soft kiss against her temple, when Namaari has to go back to work after lunch.

Occasionally, she will need to be encompassed by that comfort, and in this moment, she will go and find Namaari, stepping closer until her forehead rests on her shoulder. No matter what she was previously doing, Namaari will pause everything, wrapping her arms tightly around Raya, and they stand there until Raya can feel as if she can breathe again.

Namaari has a habit of falling too far into her own mind sometimes. She is an outwardly composed and pragmatic individual, but internally, all sorts of doubts and guilt still plague her, and there are days where she can’t shake off the feeling that she isn’t doing enough in her life to atone for her past, or that she is a fraud who has no right in stepping up and trying to lead her people when her previous actions cost them so much.

It’s difficult for her to ask for help in these moments. Raya learns instead to notice the signs of a bad day, or whenever Namaari gets trapped into a downwards spiral, and she will take Namaari by the hands and sit them somewhere quiet.

There they can actually talk, and sometimes Namaari feels comfortable enough to share her fears. But the most important thing, Raya finds, is to slide an arm around her shoulders, pulling her in tight and peppering her cheek and bare shoulder with small kisses.

Raya refuses to let her go until she sees at least one small smile.

Quality time

In the early days of the relationship, there is still so much separation between the two of them. Raya is in Heart, helping her Ba welcome back everyone to their lands, fixing up the buildings, ensuring the harvest gets started…There are so many jobs to do, and Raya knows Namaari is undergoing the same issues back in Fang, coupled with an expansion of their kingdom.

On top of all of this, there are endless council meetings and diplomatic missions, so if it isn’t Namaari being busy with politics, it is Raya, much to her annoyance.

Whenever they do get to spend time together, they ensure no minute is wasted. They have meals together, and spar together, and find all sorts of random ways to entertain themselves. Namaari loves to go out in the evenings and watch the night sky, attempting to teach the constellations to Raya; but Raya decides that these constellations are ridiculous, and so they create their own. Raya meanwhile loves to go for hikes in the woods, dragging Namaari along to discover new plants and wildlife, and occasionally climbing the trees.

They both love to sit in bed next to each other, quietly reading their books, or discussing their day. Sometimes, Raya will lie sideways on the bed, her stomach across Namaari’s legs and her arms hanging over the edge, so she can carve pieces of wood into intricate shapes, with Namaari reads out loud for the both of them.

Even after several years, and living together permanently, Raya finds herself reflecting on the fact that she never gets bored as long as she’s with Namaari.

They are currently lying in a field somewhere in the depths of Heart land, enjoying the sun shining onto their faces and the grass tickling their skin. She lazily wiggles her hand until it makes contact with Namaari.

‘Dep la?’ Raya whispers, and Namaari grunts in response. ‘You don’t get bored with me, right?’

Namaari merely shuffles closer without even opening an eye, resting her cheek against Raya’s shoulder.

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she mumbles, and she’s curled up so close that Raya can feel the vibrations of her voice on her skin.

‘Didn’t think so,’ Raya says in satisfaction. They continue to enjoy the peace.

[maliciouslycreative]

How I played damage control to an anti in a small anime fandom and may have led to her ultimate downfall

I know I had a really nice write up of this at one point but oh well. I’ll spill more of the tea in this one because honestly the tea was so hot.

There are a few things that I have to give context to first. Gaia online was like THE mega forum of the 2000s, you made a little avatar and through posting and doing other activities on the forum you made money to buy clothes for your avatar. There were forums for everything but the fannish portions were really what drew in most of the people. The anime I was into was Beyblade. It was a shonen anime about fighting with tops that were possessed by the spirits of magical creatures. The story was honestly pretty average but the characters were fantastic and the fandom is to this day still one of my favourites. The series had a primarily male cast and didn’t even have a female lead until the second season. This led to the fanfic for the English fandom being about 70% canon/OC, 10 % canon m/f, and 20% slash. The most popular character in the English fandom was by far Kai Hiwatari, the loner badboy of the team.

Also before we get started I would like to add that one of my best friends was neck deep in this and the two of us were more or less fandom married. This is the same friend that I fake dated, had feelings for, and she nearly got me into kpop in 2011 so like if you haven’t read that story please read it too because it will give you a good idea of how stupid I am and how much of a fanfic I have truly lived. 

To set the stage I was 16, soon to be 17 when I joined the fandom and it was 2004. In September of that year I wrote a humour longfic that became an absolute smash hit and I found myself somehow fandom famous. It was around this time that I joined Gaia online. I made my little avatar and immediately went looking for the beyblade thread so that I could make new friends. I found the main thread, made my little introduction and at the end of it mentioned that I was a slash writer but I supported all ships. This is where I met C. She had declared herself the authority on Beyblade in these parts and I had just committed the crime of mentioning slash which was very obviously not canon and we did not discuss in this thread because we only discussed canon things. I was like well that’s a bit severe but like sure whatever I just want to hang out and have fun. 

Oh boy did I have no idea what I was in for. 

C was a year older than me and unfortunately that made her older than the majority of the fans at the time. Her favourite character was Kai, and she was not shy about talking about this fact. She stanned Kai above all other characters, and often at their expense. She was also a fanfic writer of a popular canon/OC series. Actually, she was so full of herself that she didn’t even call herself a fanfic writer, no her stories were in fact novels and were apparently very good. I never read them. But more on that later. 

Eventually the slash fans got tired of her being rude to us in the general thread so we made a Beyblade slash thread. There was a core of like 8 or so of us and we honestly had sooo much fun. When C would be too unbearable in the main thread the people from there used to come over to our thread and we’d chat with them about non slash stuff because we were honestly all multishippers and just wanted to have fun. We’d get comments like “wow, I’ve had more pleasant canon het ship discussions in the slash thread than the regular thread”. We never worried about C coming over and getting upset about comments like this because she refused to be associated with anything related with slash lmao. 

I tried my best to keep the peace between C, myself, and the rest of the fandom because ultimately I hate being in fandom drama. I just want everyone to have a good time. I’m a people pleaser. Unfortunately my newfound fame put me in the awkward position of being the most fandom popular person in our small community aside from C. Virtually every fan that read fanfics that came into our thread knew one of us or the other by reputation and C HATED this. Especially because people would come in to the thread, recognise me and go “oh my goodness I love your fanfics!” and I’d be super sweet with them and it’d lead into “I can’t believe how nice you are, I love you” which would lead to us crying at each other. This was not the kind of fan interaction that C got, no her fans were more kind that were there to praise her and worship her like a deity that had blessed them with some gift. Rarely did they tell her how kind she was. 

Back in the mid 2000s there were really commonly those commercials (usually by Christian organisations) asking people to sponsor say children in Africa or to help build schools or provide drinking water. You all probably know the ones; know the language that they used in those commercials. My fandom wife, who I suppose I shall call wifey because yes we were THAT couple back then, once said that C described her fics like those people described donating money to save the lives of Children in Africa. So we used to joke that her fics were so good they’d save lives in Africa. Looking back at it all, she almost had a very fundamentalist Christian approach to bringing people into her fanfics. She of course tried to get all the slash people into reading it. None of us read canon/oc fic mostly due to our poor treatment at the hands of their fans and creators. Getting fed up I one day told her that if she would read any one of my fanfics that I would read the entirety of her novels. Yes, I was willing to commit to read a couple 100k of canon/oc fanfic that I’d never touch normally if she would even read one of my 1k 1 shots. Heck, I had a fic even that shipped 2 minor characters so she didn’t even have to sully herself reading about one of the main characters. It was honestly a good deal in her favour. I kept this up until the day we all left the fandom. Sometimes I do wonder if her fics were even ¼ as good as she claimed, but I will never know because she refused to read my fics. 

She wasn’t all bad and a tyrant all the time. As long as people kept the conversations on track and didn’t come in to the thread saying things like “KAI IS SO HOT ND T3H BEST N I AM GUN 2 MARRY HIM” she stayed mostly civil. It was always hilarious watching InuYahsa or Naruto fans try to come in and bad mouth Beyblade because they’d unleash the dragon and C was great at chasing off undesirables in the thread. 

The real apex of goings on though on Gaia was the guild drama. So guilds were like exclusive themed mini forums within Gaia. Anyone could buy one and run it however they want, as long as it still adhered to Gaia’s ToS. C of course was the owner of the only Beyblade guild. The fandom wasn’t really big enough to support 2 guilds so we just kind of let it go. Technically she allowed people to post slash fanfics but like everything had to be explicitly tagged and there was absolutely no slash RP. Wifey and I controlled a handful of minor characters together in the forum RP and definitely used to try to push the boundaries a little bit. Some ambiguous flirting here, a stray comment there. It was such a fragile balance though because C was heavy on the ban button. The active portion of the guild was just people that were in the cult of C and worshipped her writing. 

Understandably the other slash fans and myself were getting disheartened by this. So we pooled our funds together and decided that we’d open a second guild that though it was run by slash fans we would welcome anyone into our ranks. We just wanted to have a fun place for everyone to hang out, and to hopefully run a few events out of. In hindsight, we should have seen what would happen. When we opened the guild, with me as the guild leader, it was like somebody blew up the whole dam protecting the delicate ecosystem we had cultivated. Every single person in the Gaia fandom that was not a zealous follower of C applied to be in our guild and left her guild. We of course figured that we’d attract some of the gen population but we did not expect to accidentally poach all of it. All of the moderators were getting messages from people thanking us for giving them a place where they could say whatever they wanted without fear of getting their faces ripped off or banned. 

C lost her shit. She was so mad that we went behind her back to ruin her guild. We literally had to show her posts in the very public slash thread that we had been planning this in public and that it was not to ruin her life. We just wanted a place where we could freely post slash. The two of us had some spicy comments back and forth and then she dropped an absolute bombshell on me. Since Gaia’s mail system is terrible I unfortunately no longer have exactly what she said but it was something along the lines of “Ok, you win. I’m going to close my guild.”. Us slash fans had never been doing this to win anything. We had never been competing. We just wanted a safe space to be ourselves. 

C never joined our guild. The fandom slowly faded out within the next year anyway. We weren’t getting new content so naturally people just drifted into other fandoms. C kept up with the main Beyblade thread for a lot longer than most of us but eventually that eventually faded into obscurity too. 

I learned a lot about fandom bullies from those days. But honestly the thing that stuck with me the most out of everything was that if you provide a positive safe space for people they will flock to it. It may seem like there are so many hostile people out there, but there really aren't. They're the minority but they just make sure that their voice is the loudest. The best way is to ignore them and just do your own thing. The bullies just want attention and if you don’t give it to them and prove to them that their opinion doesn’t matter to you then they’ll move in and find something else to yell at. 

[moral-turpitudes]

Tea Party:

A/N: So Tumblr has been a bitch and not showing certain things in the tags so I’m reposting this requested fic lol.

Trigger Warnings: Angst, Some fluff, Slight smut, Swearing, Fighting, Blood, Drinking/Alcohol, etc.

Word Count: 3,425

Characters: Tommy x Reader

Summary: Y/n helps Ada Shelby on a whim, saving her life and earning some praise from the Shelby family, but little did she know she’d fall for one of their most respected members.

Summary of Request: “Reader saving one of the Shelbys from their enemies and taking them home safely and the family being thankful. A few days later the enemy goes after the reader thinking she works for them and they destroy her shop, house, or car. The Shelbys find out about this and offer help, and she becomes closer to the family and everybody really likes her and she starts a relationship with Tommy. I’d like angst, fluff, and smut.”

Requested by: Anon

It was a bleak winter evening the night you met Thomas Shelby. The stars were shining and the moon was illuminating the dark roads of Small Heath, giving you an rare view of the town. You had just finished packing up your small jewelry stand that you had set up near where your families vardo was parked. This was one of your more frequent stops as there were always locals wanting to buy jewelry for their loved ones. In return, this made you a nice familiar face amongst the dreary town.

In the distance, you heard screaming, but it wasn’t one of children playing or couples yelling, it was fearful and full of anguish. Before you knew it you were running towards the sound. Yelling for your mother to keep an eye on your stuff as you dashed off into the unknown. Your heart beat frantically as the shrill screams got closer, causing a shiver down your spine as your eyes adjusted to what lay before you in the dark alley. A woman seemingly around your age was lying there in a pool of blood, a cut running across her arm and a stab wound to her abdomen. You cringed at first, but having seen your fair share of blood due to your family throwing punches and hunting, it made you a bit less squeamish. You carefully crouched down beside her, pulling off your scarf as you gently placed it over her abdomen.

Her eyes were closed and her voice was horse when she spoke.

“Please don’t let me die out here. Please take me back.” She said crying as she finally glanced up at you.

“I-I won’t let you die love you’ll be fine...where do you live? What’s your name?” You asked applying pressure to her wound as she screamed out in pain.

“A-Ada...Ada Shelby...I don’t want to go home. Take me to my brothers.” She said frantically trying to get up.

“Hey hey easy, it’s okay I got you. Where are they aye?” You asked as you draped her arm across your shoulder and helped her walk down the dark glass-like roads.

“The betting shop on the corner. You really don’t know do you?” She asked.

“Know what Ada?” You asked, leading her up the street.

“Usually if I say the last name Shelby people run or they look at me like I killed their whole family. The Shelby’s are part of the Peaky Blinders...does that ring a bell?” She asked wincing, signaling for you to stop for a moment. As you both caught your breath, you shook your head no.

“I don’t know how you couldn’t tell but I’m not like most people. I’m not from here. I travel with my family and I come here often to find work and to sell jewelry, but other than that? I’m on the road.” You said looking at your flat shoes, nothing compared to miss Ada’s fancy heels.

“I see...what’s your name?” She asked smiling slightly.

“Y/N Y/L/N.” You said, grabbing her arm and helping her walk towards the brick building up ahead.

You led her through the doors, the scent of whiskey and cigarettes filling the dimly lit lobby.

“Polly! Tommy! All of you bastards help me please!” She said yelling as the scarf grew more saturated with blood in the short time you walked her in. She was paling and you sat her up in a nearby chair as you heard everyone running over.

“My god what happened! Arthur, John, get the first aid kit now!” She yelled as Tommy came over, a worried look on his usually stoic face. You grabbed your coat, applying pressure as Ada winced until they got back with the supplies.

“I was walking here from my apartment. Tommy, I think one of Changretta’s men got me. They had those awful tattoos on their necks. They fucking cut me and stabbed me. I can’t die not like this.” She said putting a hand on her pale forehead.

Tommy looked at her concerned, his eyes going down to you as you sat by her holding her other hand.

“Who are you?” He asked angrily.

“Y/N Y/L/N...I heard her when I was packing my jewelry stand up. I ran over to help her. I didn’t see where the men went though.” You said looking him in the eyes before helping Polly prep some gauze. You took your glove off and urged her to open her mouth.

“You’ll want to bite down on something. This is going to hurt.” You said before pouring some of the whiskey on her abdomen while Polly poured some on her arm. Ada screamed through the cloth, earning concerned glances from some of the unrelated workers in the shop. You poured more, making sure to flush out the wound before quickly threading a needle.

“I can stitch if you’d rather not go to a hospital.” You said. Polly eyed you and Ada nodded as you began. Tommy watched as you worked, neatly stitching the small puncture wound closed.

Polly gently wrapped her arm with gauze and you helped Ada up to wrap some around her waist. After that, she gave you a hug and you went to grab your coat.

“No dear, here I’ll wash these, it’s the least we can do. Thank you for saving our Ada, Y/N.” Polly said smiling.

“Of course...I couldn’t let something happen knowing I was that close.” You said, messing nervously with the gold necklaces draped around your neck.

“So you’re travelling with the other gypsies up the road aye?” Polly asked.

“Yeah. my family likes stopping here, good business since it’s busy usually.” You said.

“Oh I’m very familiar. I grew up traveling. I think I’ve seen you before...you sell the beautiful necklaces.” She said smiling, putting your nerves at ease.

“Yeah...” You said.

“C’mon we have to find them. John you get the guns, Arthur you get the ammo.” Tommy said lowly walking by you.

“Are you going after them?” You asked him. He stopped in his tracks as his eyes pierced yours. He nodded and lit a cigarette staring at you as he waited for his brothers.

“You going to kill them?” you asked.

He smirked and looked over at Ada and Polly and then back at you.

“No I’m just goin’ to see if they want to have a tea party.” He said dryly joking.

You nodded, knowing the real answer. To be honest you’d do the same if someone came after your family.

They soon left, leaving you with Polly and a groaning Ada.

“You’ve not heard of the blinders?” Polly asked gathering your blood soaked clothing. You shook your head, yet preparing yourself for her explanation of the family business.

Later that night, you were taken back to where you family was parked by one of the Shelby’s drivers. Thanking him as you were helped out of the fancy black car. Your family came out of the two vardos and ran towards you enveloping your frame in a hug and asking where you had run off to. You hesitantly told them, knowing they were more likely to know who your new acquaintances are.

Your father tensed up and so did your mother, but you reassured them and could tell they were still happy you stopped to help someone.  

The next few days passed and you spent them selling various necklaces and then deciding to go into town with your parents. You all bought some supplies and various things, and then returned a few hours later. While unpacking your latest haul, you heard an oddly familiar voice outside. Carefully stepping out, you saw Ada and Tommy talking with your parents. They seemed at ease as you heard Tommy speaking with your father. As you walked up you saw Ada smile and go in for a hug. You embraced her gently to avoid ripping her stitches and then stepped back.

“Hello Y/N. We wanted to thank you.” He said smiling slightly, handing you your jacket and scarf from the previous night, no sign of blood on them. They were soft and smelled rather floral.

“Oh thank you. And it was no problem really Mr. Shelby.” You said, catching him looking at you as you glanced up from the coat in your arms.

“Call me Tommy.” He said, another small smile playing at his lips.

Your parents excused themselves knowing this was more your business than theirs, and you hugged Ada once more before waving them off.

A thought crossed your mind though, making you smirk.

“Hey Tommy!” You asked, causing him to stop with Ada, the two of them looking at you.

“How was the tea party?” You asked smirking.

“Great...a little bloody though.” He said smirking back.

You nodded and waved them off, putting on your coat and placing your scarf in one of your pockets. When you tried to pull your hand out, your fingers brushed against a piece of paper. You gently pulled it out, and opened it so you could read what it said.

“Y/N Y/L/N,

I apologize for being so frank last night. Per my aunt Polly’s request...as well as all of my sibling’s, I have written this as a thank you for saving my sister. She has been talking non-stop about the events that transpired and about you. Something about how we should meet more often and that you seem like a good fit for me? I can’t say no to her though, since she practically begged me to write this.

Therefore, since we didn’t meet in normal circumstances and since I can’t help but to agree, I’d love to ask you out. I’ll be at the shop tomorrow evening at 6. If you’re interested, I’d love for you to come by. I look forward to getting to know you and discussing the “tea party.”

~ T. S.”

You smiled at the small letter and laughing at the assumed inside joke between you two. You’d barely met the man, but if his family felt this strongly, you figured it couldn’t hurt. You’d been single for a long while, the constant travel putting a strain on any relationship you attempted to have in the past.

The next day you spent the day rummaging through your various dresses, picking out a lacey white one. You slipped it on and checked your makeup in the small mirror in your vardo before heading out, wrapping your coat around your shoulders. As you made your way through the streets you eventually got to the shop and walked in nervously. It was a drastically different atmosphere compared to the other night, men were roaming about yelling out various numbers and the other women among them were typing and making calls.

You saw Polly in the distance and smiled when she saw you come in. She quickly walked over, giving you a hug.

“What are you doing here dear? Is everything alright?” She asked.

You smirked. “I’m um, here to see Tommy. I got a letter?” You said, holding it in your hand.

“Ah that. I’m glad he got to writing it. I’ll show you to his office.” She said, taking your hand.

She knocked and he answered, letting her in with you following behind.

“I have a visitor Tommy. Be good. She said nodding towards him and leaving.

Tommy smiled and stood up, eyeing you as you walked towards his desk.

“I see you got the letter...would you like a drink? I have whiskey and.....whiskey.” He said, walking over to his stash of the brown liquid and crystal glasses.

“That’s a hard one...I’m going to have to go with the whiskey.” You said smirking.

A minute later you were holding a cold glass, sipping on it as you sat in one of Tommy’s leather chairs.

“So about the tea party...I’m assuming my aunt told you about the peaky business right?” He asked.

“Yeah.” You said, fiddling with your necklace.

“Does that make you scared?” He asked. You thought for a moment, but you decided to take another chance.

“Not really. I’m here aren’t I?” You said.

He laughed lightly and took a drink, sitting down beside you.

“You said you agreed to their request of meeting me...is that true?” You asked. Tommy got up after a moment and put his hand out for you to grab.

“If it weren’t, we wouldn’t be leaving.” He said. You took his hand and laughed as he pulled you through the lobby and out the doors of the shop.

“Where the hell are we going?” You asked seeing the sun was setting over the town.

“The Garrison. I figured that it’d be more of a date if I took ya somewhere.” He said ushering you inside the pub. The smell of smoke and various alcohols filled your nostrils as you took your coat off and placed it with Tommy’s.

As you all talked the night away, you grew more drowsy and he walked you back towards your vardo. But in shock, you stood there looking at the sight before you. The wooden planks holding up the intricate structure were torn off, and the inside was destroyed. You ran over to your parents and saw them picking up pieces of clothing and random trinkets the assumed robbers left behind. When you walked back and checked your living space you saw a black cross-like design had been painted on your door.

You looked at Tommy with hot, anger filled tears in your eyes.

“Who did this? Who fucked with my family aye?” You said walking up to him and shoving him in the shoulder. He barely moved as a an angry look overcame his features as well. You stormed off and rummaged for a handgun you had in your purse, never feeling the need to use it until now.

“You know who did this don’t you. Don’t fucking lie to me Tom.” You said cocking the gun and checking the bullets. He watched you as you angrily paced, and walked over, gently placing his hand over the barrel of the gun.

“I do know. It’s the same gang that attacked Ada. We...unfortunately have a vendetta with them. But going out there and shooting random men isn’t going to stop this.” He said looking at you. You were shaking slightly at the sudden rush of emotions as the alcohol still burned through your system.

“They took almost everything from us. Where will we go? Where the hell will we live? I though you took care of them last time!” You yelled, easing the handgun down and shoving it back into your purse.

“I have a spare property down the road, you all can stay there. Don’t worry Y/N I’ll make sure they won’t live to see tomorrow.” He said before you threw him into a hug. You cried knowing your family was safe, but also at the thought of losing all you’ve worked for. Your life was in that small space and it was all gone or severely broken, and your heart was too.

“C’mon, I’ll send some men to come help them. I’ll take you to the shop, and you’ll stay there until I get back ok?” He said. You nodded and followed him to the shop, this time in a much more sullen tone.

He immediately called everyone into the meeting room and he let you sit by Polly as he spoke. You quietly told her what happened and she sighed. The rest of them you had assumed liked you after saving their sisters life and all, and so they all got ready, cocking their guns and putting on their razor caps. Ada came over to you with tears in her eyes, taking your hands in hers.

“Oh Y/N I’m so sorry to have dragged you into this.” She said. You smiled and reassured her she wasn’t at fault. As the night drug on, you discussed your new living situation and were alerted by some of Tommys men that your parents were safe. You cried with relief, sitting in the meeting room shakily. Polly came in a moment later, with some tea, knowing you needed something to calm your nerves.

“Thanks.” You said, feeling the hot steam against your lips.

“No problem. Don’t worry about him, he’ll be back. He always is.” She said staring out at the night sky through the dusty window.

You nodded, sitting there as you let your mind wander. You looked up after a long while, your eyes growing heavy, and decided to concentrate on the clock. It was almost midnight.

Before your mind could race to where your new love interest could be, he thankfully came through the doors with his brothers, as they hollered and sat their weapons down.

You stood up slowly, as you saw Tommy walk towards you. He had a cut on his forehead and a slightly busted lip.

He said nothing as he came to you, the adrenaline from the night coursing through him as he embraced you, catching you by surprise. He then kissed you, his lip burning slightly as he kissed you, but nevertheless he continued. When he stopped, you stood there gazing into his eyes.

“They’re gone. You don’t have to worry now.” He said. You nodded and hugged him again, feeling him planting a kiss on the top of your head.

“Well are you going to invite her over or are you going to fuck in the lobby?” Arthur shouted as John and the others laughed. Tommy turned around slightly and gave him a look and then turned back to you.

“Would you like to go now?” He asked.

Your cheeks heated up at his brothers remarks, but you decided to take him up on the offer. “Yeah, as a matter of fact I do.” You said, and before you knew it you where being led out to his car and driven to his house, nervously awaiting what was to come. As soon as you got to his estate, he led you through on a tour. Your eyes widened at the grandiosity of the place. You had rarely seen a place like this, only imagining them in fairytales. You looked around as he led you through, stopping lastly at the main bedroom which you assumed was his.

You had just enough time to revel at the room before he kissed you again, making you giggle slightly as he snaked his arms around your waist and nipped at your neck. As he worked his way down, he undid your dress, letting it slip down your frame as he went to lie back on the bed. You hesitantly undid his shirt and pants, slipping them off as he watched you.

“Are you sure you want to?” He asked.

“Never been so sure in my life...” You said before straddling his waist. He smirked, and kissed you as you continued your movements making him fall for you more with each second that passed.

After your night together, you decided a couple of days later on another date, more-so like a re-do since you both were more drawn to each other. As time went on, you became closer with his family, while yours acclimated to their new temporary surroundings. And over the upcoming weeks you managed to land a job with them, helping you to earn some money and helping your parents to get a new vardo to get them back on their feet. After a couple of months you had been able to attend more of the family meetings, after deciding to stay at Tommy’s place instead of travelling. And after some odd weeks later, a new gang problem arose, giving you that same fearful feeling that you had some many months ago. Before heading out, tommy cocked his gun and checked the bullets making sure each one was accounted for, and walked past you with his brothers towards the door.

“Hey you forgot something...” You said smirking as he smiled and walked towards you kissing you.

“No more tea parties alright? You be careful okay?” You said. He chuckled and winked at you before heading out the door, going out to deal with death and destruction once again. As much as you hated him being gone, you loved when he came back, and his family did too of course, especially since you’ve made him a bit nicer. As you walked back to your desk and picked up where you left of with your work, you smiled, knowing you made the right choice and took the right chances.

Tag List:

@msbzowy, @nofckingfighting, @aranoburns, @sighonahurricane, @ugly-crying-over-bucky-barnes, @gaytommyshelby, @wowjeena, @fifty-shadesof-tommyshelby, @inglourious-imagines, @thebloodyshelbys, @tsolomons, @blinder-secrets, @reveparade, @shelby-fanatic, @ta-ka-shi-ma

[x0401x]

Jeweler Richard Fanbook Short Story #12

Feel free to message me about possible corrections, and please consider supporting the creators by purchasing digital copies of the official releases: Novel || Manga || Fanbook. In case anyone is feeling generous: Ko-fi | PayPal. ( ╹◡╹)っ’･*

← Previous || Index || Next →

Suit Story

If you went through Ginza’s Main Street from 7-chome to 1-chome, the change in the city’s atmosphere would shock you. Bulgari, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Chanel. Felt like you could play shiritori with these high-class brand names. It was a fun neighborhood to stroll around during Christmas season, as all the stores would come up with elaborate plans for the decorative lights, but it was currently autumn. The store most closely related to me in these vicinities was the long-established stationery store where I went to buy stationery. It was, however...

“Please raise your arms a little more.”

“All right.”

“Pull your chin back a bit. Yeah, that’s great.”

“Haah. Is this really right?”

“Of course. Might be hard, but please do relax.”

For whatever reason, I was across the street from the stationery store, practically in front of it, on the second floor of a branded men’s fashion store originally from England. On the walls of this mysterious-gentleman-themed space, which housed a bar counter and even a huge aquarium, there were clusters of business suits, pants and waistcoats with basting threads attached to them in conspicuous spots.

It was a place for taking measurements for custom-made stuff.

I couldn’t get over the feeling that this was some kind of mistake. Wasn’t this the stationery store? The place where you could buy vanilla-colored envelopes for 30 yen each? Or illustrated writing paper with seasonal vibes, or pens.

“Seigi, you are too nervous.”

“Nakata-san is such an imp, but so are you.”

Leaning against the bar counter, Richard shrugged his shoulders, indicating possibility.

Today was Thursday. Having been called by Richard, who said he wanted to ask me to do some odd job, I went over to the front of Etranger, and then we came to this store in the green jaguar. Just when I thought he was gonna make me hang with him for shopping, the man on the driver seat hastily took out his phone, showing me a video letter from my dad, Nakata-san.

“Seigi, congrats on your graduation. I wanted to go suit shopping with you, but I’m in Jakarta, so I’ll be borrowing Richard-san’s assistance for that. Seems like people are getting them custom-made lately. Make sure to buy a good one. Well, see ya.”

Richard had watched over me in the passenger seat as my eyes got wet, but the tears drew back in when we stepped into the store.

While talking lightheartedly about the difference between English and Italian suits, the young clerk, who wasn’t all too apart from me in age, smoothly took my body measurements with a measuring tape and showed me countless textures.

“You can also choose the lining. What should we do about the pockets?”

When I started getting dizzy, said man, who was like a page of suits, began giving me suggestions from behind. I had nowhere to run. I was really going to have my suit made here. As I picked a charcoal-gray suit with blue lining, Richard quickly told me that tanzanite cuffs would look very nice in it. Of course, I was thinking the exact same thing.

By the moment that the Onii-san finished the measuring and disappeared into the back of the store to take notes, I heaved a deep sigh. “This kinda stuff’s been happening a lot lately. All I ever do is receive.”

When I said that, Richard laughed, giggles ringing up his throat.

Richard had two types of smiles, and whenever he raised his voice while laughing, if I refused to back down, he’d often give me a word of advice of some sort. When it was a silent smile, I’d feel like he was telling me in some way to “reflect about myself”, which would make me a bit anxious, but I liked both.

Walking up next to me as I stood in front of the mirror, Richard grinned. “It is no longer guaranteed that your body will grow out of your clothes. Isn’t it fun to sometimes purchase slightly larger clothes and try to wait for your body’s growth?”

“Feeling like this talk doesn’t have the ‘sleep well and drink milk’ kinda nuance to it.”

The reply was a smile. How strange. Richard’s face was right at my left side, but the smile in the mirror was looking directly at me. Clad in a double-button slender silhouette suit, his figure was perfect no matter from what angle I looked at it, like an extraordinarily fine jewel, so my own figure as I tensed up beside him appeared even weirder.

“Hey, Richard, I kinda have the feeling that suits are like the base metals of jewelry.”

“Are you referring to the foundation parts of rings, earrings and such?”

I nodded. The base metal was the metal part that formed the foundation for attaching gemstones to jewelry. In stores, people would often memorize the materials and call them by their names, such as gold base metal or platinum base metal.

It was a part that never played the leading role in Etranger, which handled accessories with gemstones on them. But it’d be hard to wear jewelry on the body without it, and it was also a part that allowed people to express their particularities regarding the materials, durability and design. Whether they would be prominent or not depended on the basis. Erm, this was probably what a jeweler from Kyoto that I was acquainted with would say. The contrary was also possible.

“Gotta psyche myself up. If I don’t become someone that won’t lose to this suit, I’d feel bad.”

“This is my personal opinion, but there is nothing more tiring to look at than a jewelry in which the gem and base metal are at rivalry with one another. What you should emphasize is the harmony. Just because you use the finest high-grade eggs and milk as ingredients, it does not mean you will create the best pudding – is that not the same thing?”

“Ah...”

When I replied that, indeed, high-end ingredients were often strongly in demand, the beautiful man nodded with an “exactly as you say”. By the looks of it, those were the sweets that he was into lately. I hadn’t been able to take time some for it at all due to being busy, but I decided to make pudding again one of these days and offer to him. Despite having a wallet that enabled him to eat as many high-grade desserts as he wanted, Richard would always be delighted anew no matter how many of them I made, which made me believe that, as one would expect, he had a talent for pleasing people. I was grateful for his existence.

“Both suits and jewelry are goods that exist for the sake of their owners. The initiative is clear from the start. You must handling it skillful and comfortably, not fight against it. That is why it is custom-made.”

“So you’re also ‘skillfully handling’ the clothes you’re wearing right now?”

“Evidently. Enough that I do not know anymore at what point it ends and I begin.” With that said, Richard sleekly patted his suit. I wanted to try saying that too someday.

We exchanged glances not through the mirror but directly.

When the clerk Onii-san came back, the measuring recommenced. I got kind of embarrassed as he praised me, saying I was well-relaxed.

   “Seigi-kun, good work! Wow, that suit looks really great on you.”

“Thanks, Tanimoto-san. Uh, this print on your furisode, could it be—”

“I was told it’s a modern type of print, but yep, it’s kinda like...”

“It looks like a bismuth crystal!”

With a face that said, “I know, right”, a dandy crease formed under her eyes, which were just a bit more on-the-mark than usual. Her bob-cut hair was the same as always, her cream-colored hakama paired with a yellow-green and dark blue furisode, which bore a mysterious geometric pattern print. On top of being cute, it was unique. She said it was rented, but I got emotional upon finding out there was a furisode that was so much like her.

As for me, I was wearing a double-button English suit that fit my body extremely well. It was a little embarrassing, but the creatures called college boys were more or less the same kind of individuals as myself, so they weren’t too mindful of their male friends’ clothes. Only one of them, who had found employment in the apparel industry, said that “the suit Nakata’s wearing is so nice”.

It was the graduation ceremony of Kasaba University. We gathered in the excessively large auditorium for all but an instant, and once we had our diplomas in hand, it was the beginning of a rapid shooting party, where we took pictures with our preferred friends in spaces near the auditorium. Tanimoto-san came running over to the spot near the central library, where we had decided to meet up.

“Seigi-kun, really, congrats. Things might get hard from now on, but if it’s you, everything will definitely be okay.”

“Thank you. I’ll do my best. I don’t think I’m that big of a deal, though...”

“That’s not true. I know very well how awesome you are.”

I played around a little and bowed my head, also congratulating Tanimoto-san for her graduation, she laughed with a “huhuhu”, looking happy.

She had passed in teaching and she would officially be a middle school science teacher starting this April. She fulfilled the dream that she had told me about when we were in our second year of undergrad. So cool. She had laughed when I said I wanted to take her classes if it were ever possible, but now I knew her video communication address, so it might be that I could actually get to attend her lectures at least once. Even if I were no longer living in Japan.

“Tanimoto-san, the school you’re assigned to is...”

“In Okayama Prefecture. It’s famous for the Katsuta Group of vicarya fossils. Compared to you, it’s next-door.”

In a few days, my address would change from Japan to Sri Lanka. I was going to be a jeweler apprentice. I had been told that I would often have to move around in rough dress, so sure enough, I was going to dedicate myself to wearing formal stuff for the time being. It was a bit of a waste, but Nakata-san and Richard had probably given me a chance to wear this kind of thing because they knew about that.

I could hear a voice in the distance calling, “Shouko~”. It was apparently a friend of Tanimoto-san’s. She waved at them in response.

“Seigi-kun, y’know... I think I was very lucky to meet you in this university. Literally thank you. Thanks to you, university was always fun.”

“Those are all my lines. But Tanimoto-san, I only ever gave you trouble.”

“If you’re gonna say that, same goes for me. I feel like you’ve granted me many opportunities. Seriously, thank you.”

When she smiled, saying she was going to do her best, she looked really cute. Neither of us had any familiarity with Okayama, but surely, she would actively pave the way with her own strength no matter where she was. And on her days off, she would go out to the Katsuta Group to dig up fossils.

“From now on too, if there’s anything I can help you with, I want you to tell me. I’ll do anything. If you run into any weirdo, I’ll get on a plane and come give them a beating.”

“Me too; if anyone ever messes up with you, Seigi-kun, I’ll take my crack hammer and go finish them off. Look forward to it. Ah, Aki told me that a sniper rifle suits me better, apparently?”

“I-I wonder.”

After that, we talked for a while, seated on an inconspicuous bench, and when it was finally time, she told me to at least take care of my body, offering me her hand. I nodded and squeezed it back. Her hand was small but very strong.

“Take care of your body, at the very least. May the blessings of the stones fall upon you.”

“Thank you. You too.”

We bowed deeply, taking pictures with each other while we were at it, and once we were done with the commemorative photoshoot, in which the two of us kept a moderate distance from one another, we parted ways. Students here and there were hugging intensely and wailing, but neither she nor I were that type, and I didn’t think this would be farewell for a lifetime. We would definitely get to see each other from now on too.

However, this was our last time seeing each other while we were students. After the handshake, my angel waved her hand with a “see you”, even more brightly than an actual angel.

Later on, having finished looking around for the friends that I could call friends and going on a tour to tell them “thank you for everything until now”, lastly, I sent a brief text. Not to Richard. To Nakata-san and Hiromi.

“I was able to graduate from university without problems. Thank you very much, truly. I will be in your care from now on too.”

Rather than a greeting, it turned into a notice to announce my renewed determination. The stylish suit indeed gave off an extraordinary feeling of fittingness, but I couldn’t think I was fully used to it. Obviously. It finished being made just a while ago. It would start from here. If it would take on my shape the more I wore it, then I would make sure to wear it steadily to my own liking.

What mattered was the harmony, he had said.

While smoothly stroking the suit, which I still couldn’t deem as anything other than formal wear, as if I were stroking my favorite gemstone, I seared the contrast of cherry blossom petals against the blue sky into my eyes.