#and i also think once they clear the air mitch can fold back into the groups as much as he wants to pretty easily

[normalted]

Mitch,

Hey, mate. Are we even mates?

Hey, I hope you're doing well. I saw your team won last weekend, congrats on that.

Could you meet up with me for a drink or coffee sometime this week? Or I could swing by your place if that's easier. I have no idea where you live anymore though. I know you're really busy, but it's important. It's about Dirk. I hope that still matters to you.

Ted

[adashofniallandasprinkleoflunacy]

you’re someone i just want around: V

“I must admit, I thought I’d like to make you mine

As I went about my business through the warning signs

End up meeting in the hallway every single time

And there’s nothing we can do about it.”

— Only Angel, Harry Styles

A/N: this chapter...it was probably my fav to write, so far!!! i just adore these two clueless morons so much like i just can’t shut up about them. quite a bit happens in this part and it’s all to build that slow burn, friends to lovers shit we all know and love baYBEEEEE!!! and also The Crew make an appearance because hello we love to see it, we truly do 😌😌😌 especially the man, the myth, the legend, Mitch Rowland and honestly?? this is HIS chapter fuck vampirerry!!! but yeah i hope y’all like what’s in store for the Dynamic Duo this time around and remember that feedback is truly, madly, deeply™ appreciated! and if you enjoy it, please reblog it! spreading content keep creators motivated! without further delay, let’s dive in  😼  

harry’s condo : ysijwa masterlist : andrea’s masterlist : leyla’s masterlist : ysijwa playlist

word count: 34k 

content/warnings: witty banter, some nice fluff, jacuzzi sex, more fluff, a very testing phone call, some face f*cking, a soft shower, rough degradation, the return of The Handcuffs, an unexpected visit from The Three Stooges, more cheeky banter because that’s their brand, and the reveal of jealous asshole Harry 

///   

Y/N giddly accepts Harry’s offer to stay the weekend and the vampire can confidently say it’s one of the best he’s had in the last decade. 

He’d startled even himself when the suggestion had risen abruptly from his mouth, leaving him blinking blankly as a result. He rarely allows anyone to spend more than a day in his condo— his friends being the only exception— because he’s grown to like the quiet solitude that comes with living on his own. He very solemnly has people over whom he hasn’t known for at least a few years, and that rule is reinforced on stricter grounds when it comes to humans. Especially when the only true connection they could possibly carry to him is through the area between their legs. 

But Harry has become strangely fond of Y/N in the last four weeks— fond enough to freely refer to her as a friend and endeared enough to bypass the fact that she’s mortal. She just looks so unbelievably cute padding around his apartment barefoot, wearing nothing but a pair of crumpled, sunflower-doodled panties and his Nike olive green jumper, her hair a mangled mess with traces of his cologne smeared across the bruised skin of her neck. Admittedly, it’s a sight he wants to see more often, which is a stab at his ego because he’s never been one to dwell on sentimentality— not for a while. It’s a bit cliche and gross, in his opinion, but when it comes to this one particular girl...well, maybe it’s not too bad. Indulging some soft pastimes can't do much damage, especially when it aids his plan to keep her interested until he himself grows bored. 

It can only do good, which is probably what had spurred him into asking her to extend her stay. For once, he found himself not craving his usual silent seclusion. Not when that self-imposed isolation could be filled with her loud laughter, warm lips, and sweet moans instead. 

And much to his satisfaction, Harry gets just that. 

For the next two days, the creature gets all of his needs and wants attended to, both recreational and intimate. Y/N seems to enjoy it thoroughly, as well, walking— or rather waddling, really, thanks to some of their raunchier activities— around his flat happily, constantly clad in a pair of his boxers and one of his graphic tees. He gets off on it— it’s hard not to, especially with the way she fits his clothes so effortlessly, almost as if she was made to fill them. Or the way the scent of his shampoo is combed through every strand of her hair, his smell slathered all over her as if she’s unconsciously trying to mark herself as his. Or the way new love bites cover the ones his blood had nearly faded, which she dotes shamelessly by pushing all her hair behind her shoulders so Harry can get a perfect view of every welt he’s left behind on her throat. Or the way she unapologetically giggles at all his jokes and crude humor, and how she paddles his witty banter right back at him with that clever gleam in her irises. 

He gets off on the way Y/N cuddles into him on the couch while they’re watching some mindless Food Network series, her body heat expelling the stiff coldness from his limbs. The way she kisses tenderly along the underside of his jaw, forefinger tracing over his Adam’s Apple teasingly, a smile spreading against his skin when she feels it bob heavily. The way she’ll sneak her hand between his thighs and palm him over his briefs, taking the shell of his ear between her teeth and hissing lowly when his cock twitches against her fingers, her voice soft as silk but heavy with dirty intentions. “Want to make you feel good again, H. Can I?” 

The human girl is a blessing, while simultaneously being a walking, talking sin, and the monster’s never been more willing to damn himself to Hell. And he would gladly do it, if he wasn’t already living it in the form of blood-driven eternity.

It’s an eventful weekend, that’s for sure, and despite the fact that they share an abundance of memorable moments, there are a few that Harry deems especially unforgettable. 

The jacuzzi sex sits at the top of that list. 

Y/N had practically squealed when she’d laid eyes on the glorified tub in his bathroom, pacing over to it excitedly and leaning down to run her fingers over the control panel along the rim. Her voice had come out whispered, full of child-like wonder. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

Harry had walked over to stand beside her, his icy digits pressing on top of her warm own, finagling the buttons into his preferred settings. Hot water begins to shoot out of all the polished jets one by one, slowly filling the pool and covering the dark marble wrap-around ledge used as seating. The vampire quickly fetches the bag of lavender Epsom salts he keeps close by, scooping a couple handfuls into the frothing hot tub, along with pouring in a decent amount of jasmine bubble bath. 

His lips jolt when he catches Y/N eyeing the jacuzzi in awe, her hands clasped to her chest in delight as she teeters back and forth ever so slightly on her heels. The water shuts off once it reaches the appropriate level, leaving behind a thick, luxurious sheet of suds that smells of sugary florals and clean linen. The second the jets retract, Harry doesn’t even have time to make a comment before Y/N begins stripping down hurriedly, obviously restless to take on this new experience. 

Harry spontaneously jerks to the side out of habit, averting his sight to allow her some privacy. His tone is soft and amused. “Clean towels are in the hamper along the other side of the tub.” He signals blindly towards where he knows the basket is situated. “Call me back in when you need help with the shower knobs. And don’t—”

The immortal spots something streak across his peripheral vision, cocking his head a bit just in time to see her flower-print panties toss onto the tiled floor. He rolls his eyes playfully, scoffing to himself at the innocence of the article. It matches her persona perfectly. 

He hears a splash crack through the air behind him, meaning that Y/N has submerged herself in the water and that it is now safe for him to turn around without threatening her decency. However, he doesn’t think she’d mind if he did and he finds himself wondering why he’d looked away in the first place. The answer comes to him simply: it was a residual mannerism from the era he was raised in. His default Victorian etiquette can be so fucking annoying sometimes. 

He spins around on his socked heels, lean arms folding casually across his broad chest, naked tattoos glinting under the fluorescent lighting of the bathroom. He slinks his head to the side, entertained at the view he finds. Y/N is sitting amidst the blanket of pink bubbles, covered up to her shoulders as she cups soap into her palms, blowing at it and watching the suds float across the air before popping. The adorable smile that breaks across her face makes Harry’s stomach flutter. 

The vampire steps forward to catch her attention, leaning a hip against the edge of the tub and pursing his lips to hide an adoring grin. The corners of his mouth betray him as soon as Y/N looks up at him, hair slicked back with water and bubbles, matted to the sides of her neck and across her jaw as she beams up at him. 

“Your place is literally an adult playground.” The human states wistfully, her arms floating across the surface of the bath as she drifts closer to him, creating more suds. “You’re gonna have to get me kicked out tomorrow ‘cause I’m not leaving on my own.” 

Harry snorts, ducking down and wiping some soap off the tips of her eyelashes. “I don’t think security detail was part of the lease, so I might have to do it myself.”

“I can easily take you.” Y/N remarks jokingly, waving a hand dismissively. “Better make some space, I’m moving in next week.” 

“I’d say I would start clearing out my storage room for you,” Harry leans forward, ghosting his lips over hers and thumbing over the curve of her chin, batting his lashes sultrily, “but I think we both know you’d end up in my bed either way. Best leave it as is.” 

“Yeah,” Y/N momentarily glimpses down at his mouth, eyes glitzing with the slightest bit of hunger, “I think it's best if we just split the bed.” 

“Oh, we’ll definitely split the bed— split it right down the middle.” Harry grips her jaw firmly and locks her into a wet, sloppy kiss for a few elongated heartbeats, tugging at her bottom lip and biting it jestingly before pulling back. 

Y/N chases after him, craving more of his taste, but the boy draws back fully and pats at her cheek with smug finality. Her begrudging pout makes him release a boyish giggle. “Anyways, as I was saying before, my last rule: Don’t pee in the tub. Cleaning it is a bitch and that’s the last thing I want to deal with.” 

The mortal laughs airily, nodding her head in confirmation that she understands. “Don’t worry, I won’t.”

“Thank you.” Her friend huffs, shoulders slumping dramatically in relief. Harry takes on a theatrical ominous edge, quirking his brows warningly. “Didn’t end well for the last person who did.” 

“Is that so?” Y/N inquires daringly, lowering herself deeper into the water until it covers her chin. “What happened? Did you have to take on the role of executioner again?”

Harry thinks back to that instance, shaking his head in amusement at the memory. It had been Niall— anything that has to do with testing his patience almost always leads to Niall— and to make a long story short, the Irish bloke had ended up having to regrow an ear. But he can’t necessarily confess that supernatural event to Y/N, no matter how funny it is, so he just shrugs offhandedly and gives her a dark look full of faux mystery, voice adopting the same affect. “I’ve already said too much.” 

The young woman casts her eyes up to the ceiling humorously. “Moron.” 

“Watch it, love.” Harry tuts, narrowing his eyes at her pointedly in an attempt to suppress the smirk that is about to stem from his next comment. “I’m not the one with the degradation kink here.” 

Y/N scrunches her face at him mockingly, trying to hide the way his quip had made her heart hiccup. She mimics his accent, sticking up her middle finger from beneath a mountain of rosy bubbles. “Piss off.” 

“Gladly.” Harry bites back cheekily in an American accent. He leans down, retrieving his Nike sweater and her underwear from the rumpled pile on the ground, his intentions set on taking them across the hall to the laundry room with the rest of her clothes. That way, her stuff will be nice and clean for when she needs it again Sunday night. “Just call if you need me, yeah?” 

Harry gets about three feet towards the door before Y/N’s soft voice halts him, piping up as gentle and timid as usual. “Wait…”

The vampire glances over his shoulder, eyebrows poised in question as he absentmindedly flips his jumper inside-out in anticipation for the wash. 

Y/N swims across the extent of the jacuzzi until she’s right in front of where he’d stopped, resting her forearms along the rim and plopping her chin atop her folded hands. She gazes up at Harry through her lashes and he can see the manner in which she shifts her footing beneath the small waves, almost as preparing to stand up from the water. “Don’t go.” 

Harry’s eyes go half-lidded in a flat expression as he hangs his sweatshirt over the inside of his elbow. “Didn’t you literally just tell me to piss off five seconds ago?”

“I changed my mind.” 

“Well, that’s just too bad. You already hurt my feelings. No take-backs.” 

“Idiot.”

“Try again.” 

“What’s that one insult British people say? Oh, yeah! Knobhead.” 

“You’re really not helping your case here.” 

Y/N sighs in exasperation, using her palms to boost herself up until she’s standing fully inside the hot tub. Water cascades down her shoulders and out of her sopping hair, following the curves of her bare torso and trickling across her jaw. She teeters forward until her face is only a few inches away from Harry’s, lulling her head to the side expectantly with a certain slyness swirling around her pupils. She chews on her lower lip as she gives him a suggestive once-over. “How about now? Does this help my case?”

Harry keeps his eyes pinned to her own, refusing to submit to temptation. He knows exactly what she’s trying to do, and he doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction of allowing it to work. Not yet, at least. He wants her to beg for it. 

The creature twists towards her entirely, irises bright with the excitement of a new challenge. Even with the slight elevation the jacuzzi provides, Harry still towers over Y/N at least a good four inches. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough that she has to tilt her chin up to maintain direct eye contact. The tip of his cold nose brushes over hers, eyebrows shrugging tauntingly. “You’re gonna have to try harder than that, darling.”

Y/N reaches forward without breaking their stares, taking the clothes from Harry’s grasp and haphazardly chucking them onto the towel hamper. Now with his arms free, the immortal props his hands onto his hips, his biceps and shoulders flexing with the motions. He’s peacocking to try and intimate her, and in any other circumstance, it would probably work, but Y/N knows she has the upper-hand at the moment; she’s naked and wet and docile, and with the way Harry’s handsome features are hardening in determination, she can tell she’s whittling him down. All it would take is one well-coordinated touch here, a lingering stroke there, and maybe a gentle caress of her lips down the valley of his pectorals…

Y/N goes for something better. She reaches upwards to intertwine her fingers around the nape of Harry’s neck, tugging him closer until their chests meld together, the heat from the water radiating off her waxy skin and sinking into his freezing own. His breathing catches as soon as he feels her pert nipples press into his chest and even though he’s keeping his sight trained on her face, he can just barely see the curves of her breasts less than a foot below. Their close proximity is making them swell upwards, urging him to give in and have his way with her however he wants. And fuck, does he want to. But he’s not going to let her bait him that easily— who would he be if he allowed this human girl to toy with him in such a fashion? Harry never lets anyone puppet him— not anymore, not ever again— and especially not when it comes to sex, which is one of his most skilled domains. He certainly isn’t going to let her win. 

Harry grabs Y/N’s wrists from where they are perched around his neck, giving her a hard look that lets her know who’s in charge of the situation. He brings her hands up before her face, flipping them over so she gets a proper view of the faint bruising that lines her flesh, leftover from the previous evening’s restraints. When he speaks, it’s low and throaty with a condescending undercurrent. “Remember what happened last time you acted like a brat?”

Images flash by the forefront of Y/N’s mind like a film on fast-forward, recalling the night to which Harry is referring. The young man had tied her to her headboard and fingered her until she was left a teary mess, refusing to let her orgasm each time she got close. Then, he had tossed the girl onto her tummy and rammed into her from behind until her aged bedframe had nearly splintered. If she focuses intently enough, she can still feel the satisfying ache he had left behind, which had haunted her for days afterwards. 

The mortal swallows heavily, nodding her head a tad. 

Harry raises an eyebrow with an awaiting air. “Remember what I said about using your words?”

Y/N bobs her head again quickly. After a moment, she realizes her repeated mistake, clearing her throat softly in order to fix it. “Yes.”

“Good.” The vampire drops her hands, coasting his palms up her neck to cup either sides of her jaw, thumbs brushing over her cheekbones almost tenderly. “Now let me ask you again. Do you remember what happened last time you acted like a little brat?”

“Y-Yes.”

“Do you want a repeat of that?”

“No, I—” Y/N pauses in hindsight, retracting her previous statement. “Well, actually…”

Harry’s ruby lips string into a coy smirk at her response, well acquainted with where her thoughts are leading. He presses their foreheads together, the damp stickiness of her warm flesh sending a shiver toppling down his spine. “Let me guess. You want a repeat of the part where I shoved your face into a pillow and fucked you until you squirted all over me?” 

He can feel blood surge into her cheeks beneath his fingertips as a result of his vulgar words. “Yes, please.”

Harry gnaws along the inside of his cheek as he recalls that event. He can practically feel her gushing around his cock all over again, her walls tightening around him as her whole body trembled in his grasp, her shattered whimpers stinging his ears as he continued to slam into her until she’d completely drenched both of their thighs. His eyelids fall shut in dreamy recollection and an image skims by of his initial rings marked across her ass; it nearly sends his knees out from under him. “Fuck, that was so hot, wasn’t it?”

“So fucking hot.” Y/N sighs shakily, lashes fluttering as his warm breath washes across her tingling mouth. “Harry, I just...I just want to ride you so fucking bad right now.”

“Yeah? Is that what you want?” Harry touches over her quivering bottom lip, somehow managing to feel her pulse. It’s battering so hard, he could probably sense it through any spot on her body, at this point. “You want me to sit in there with you just so you can bounce on my cock, baby?” 

“Please…” Y/N sounds as if she’s on the verge of crying, all of her desperate need translating into her wrecked voice. Her next phrase is something she doesn’t think she’s ever spoken before, but the intensity of the moment just feels so right to test it out, and Harry feels like the right person to test it with. After another heavy gulp and a lick at her dry lips, she chimes up once again, bashful and pliant. “Please, Daddy?”

The sound of a sharp inhale echoes off the marble and porcelain walls of the bathroom, stemming from Harry’s garbled throat. It feels like the temperature in the atmosphere has gone up twenty degrees, invisible flames lapping across the muscles of his taut back and across the tendons of his tight shoulders. His entire body seems to go into shock, lungs stuttering and stomach hollowing out. His lashes snap shut without a heartbeat to spare, webs of black veins materializing over the whites of his eyes as a reaction to Y/N’s brazen comment. 

He has been indulging fantasies of her calling him that specific name for weeks now, but had never asked out of respect for her boundaries. He figured that if she had an affinity for it, it would eventually make its way out of her mouth during one of their sessions, and he had been willing to be patient enough to wait. It had paid off, it seems. 

Harry releases his grip on the girl’s face, reaching down to messily shove his black briefs down his clammy thighs, eyes flickering open now that he has forced some control into his demeanor. He sets his intent on her expression, the jade of his irises bleeding lust as he catches her gawking at him. Y/N gazes down at where he’s occupied, her lips parting slightly with starved awe as his underwear falls away to pool at his feet, revealing the part of him she has grown so addicted to in the last month. It looks so pretty, with a neatly trimmed pubic area, thick girth, and pleasurable length. She never knew cocks could be appealing, considering she always found their appearance so odd and irrelevant. That is, until Harry. It appears she thought a lot of sexual things irrelevant until Harry. 

He kicks away his clothes, nudging at her boiling cheeks with his nose to garner attention, his tone low and inexplicably strained. “Say it again.”

Y/N’s fingers curl into loose fists against his heaving chest as she gathers her bearings, shuddering with a difficult exhale. She says it a bit louder this time, but still inherently weak, almost as if she’s scared their shadows might overhear. “Please, Daddy?”

Harry’s brows furrow with puncurting desire, a broken groan stirring deep in his lungs. “God, that sounds so good coming from your mouth. Been wanting to hear you say it for ages now.” 

“Really?”

He nods fervently, nose bumping hers with every movement and he takes this chance to peek down at her naked figure, swallowing thickly at how incredible her breasts look flushed to his pecs. “Think about it constantly. Always wondered what it would take to get it out of you.” 

“I wish you’d just told me.” The human mumbles, tracing his cupid’s bow with the crest of her own. “I’ve been wanting to say it for a while now.” 

Harry chuckles lightly, humming in amusement as he snakes a strong arm around the dip of her spine, drawing her closer as much as possible. He just wants to feel every inch of her wet, velvety skin. “Well, now you can say it all you want. Over and over and over, while I make your knees shake and your back arch.” 

Y/N sputters out a bundle of feathery giggles, looping her arms around his neck and carding her fingers into his shiny curls, pulling his lips down to meet hers in a restless kiss full of quiet whines and snippets of laughter. She talks into his mouth, starting to pant as the pace becomes more passionate, full of eager tongues and nipping teeth. “Now will you please get in and let me fuck you?” 

Harry mounts one knee onto the edge of the hot tub, his free hand jutting down against the marble for reinforcement as the other keeps her trapped against his body. “Yeah...Yeah, I think I will.” 

He crawls into the heated water, submerging up to his waist due to his height. Once he’s balanced himself within the pool, the palm pressed to the brim slips away, replacing the cold stone with the simmering skin of Y/N’s jaw once again. He tangles his fingers into her hair as he nurses her face to the side, deepening their prolonged kiss, and the whimper she pours into his mouth makes every cell in his body throb with longing. Y/N’s hands ride down his lean stomach and over his pelvic bones, fingers twitching the closer she gets to his cock. She stops right before she reaches his base, wracked with the slightest bit of shy hesitation. 

“Go ahead, doll.” Harry murmurs softly, hips bucking forward once against the pads of her digits. “I want you to touch me.”

Y/N’s palm disappears below the mounds of bubbles, cupping over his cock and giving it a rough grope. Harry gasps brokenly against her lips at the sensation, the corners of his mouth ticking upwards into a blissful simper when her breathing throttles just a smidge. Y/N gradually begins to work him below the gentle waves of the water, eyes rolling back when she feels him harden in her hold. She’ll never get used to how erotic it is having Harry shatter under her influence.

“I think it's funny,” she begins, voice delicate and humorous, contradicting the insistent actions she’s partaking below, “how you were threatening me with orgasm denial two minutes ago and now you’re being all nice.” 

The vampire thrusts slightly against her strokes, tiny noises escaping his taut throat as a familiar boiling begins to simmer in his veins. His tone is detached and pinched with the effort of maintaining composure. “S’hardly a fair point, considering you caught me off guard with that pet name.”

“Is that so?” The girl inquires playfully, giving the tip of his cock a hard squeeze and scoffing against his mouth when he releases a tight grunt. 

“Mm. You always…” Harry draws back from her intoxicating mouth, looking down at her over the crests of his tinted cheekbones to admire the faint imprint of his teeth along her swollen lips. His mind feels like it’s been pumped with syrup, thoughts swishing around lazily, his emotions still somewhat exposed from the mishap that had occurred during their breakfast serenade. It had been over two hours ago, but the wound was still fresh in his subconscious, causing small pinpricks of anxiety to stain his otherwise carefree personality. He feels as if his chest had been cut open with a scalpel, his insides had been rearranged out of order, and the gash had been resewn brutishly; he feels disarrayed and defiled. And because of some simple human girl who’s as fragile and insipidly transparent as glass. 

The immortal’s voice comes out as a whisper, carrying the weight of his confused, raw state. “You always catch me off guard.” 

Y/N blinks up at him innocently, gnawing on her bottom lip at his sweet compliment, her heart somersaulting within her ribcage. “You catch me off guard, too. Always keep me on my toes, which is something I was never really used to.” 

“Do you...” Harry forces down the lump in his throat, allowing himself to be vulnerable for the sake of seeking an answer. Though their problems are vastly different— she’s referring to her small-town, conservative mentality, whereas he’s shouldering two hundred years worth of emotional trauma— he’s more than happy to absorb any advice she could possibly offer. He needs to know how to shut this off; he hates feeling so unsure of himself. It’s like he’s wading through a forest blindfolded, disoriented and uncalibrated with no sense of direction or purpose. He hasn’t felt this helpless since… “Do you hate it?”

The mortal’s eyes fall shut, lashes dusting the apples of her cheeks in a way that Harry deems almost ethereal. She shakes her head lightly in his grasp, a hazy smile adorning her face. “Do I hate that you take me out of my comfort zone? I don’t think I do, actually. I like it. I like that every moment we spend together is something new. I was so used to following the status quo and retracing other’s steps, I never noticed how boring it all was. But you’re never boring. You make everything fun and adventurous, and it’s just so...” 

Y/N laughs a tad, trying to come up with a word she can’t quite place, too distracted in how her friend’s thumbs are caressing her jaw. The hand she has below the water has stopped its motions all together, her focus placed solely on the young man’s beautiful features. The copper specks in his eyes glitter in the white light of the bathroom, looking like polished amber gems. “Uhm...It’s...It’s so—”

“Scary...but exhilarating.” Harry finishes her sentence, a quivering sigh coaxing out of his tight chest. He feels like he’s going to vomit. 

Y/N bobs her head in agreement, hands drifting to wrap around his dainty wrists, giving them a soft squeeze as if to reassure herself that he’s real. “Yeah, that’s it. It’s...exciting, kind of.” 

The creature swallows heavily and releases her face, peeling his eyes away from Y/N’s for fear of letting her see him so defenseless, brows creasing in burning unsettlement. Instead, he lends his attention to outlining the speckling of white strewn into the dark marble of the bathroom wall, using that distraction to calm the raging in his belly. Out of the edge of his vision, he can see Y/N’s face fall, the grip she has on his wrists loosening. A spike of pain shoots through his unbeating heart— similar to what he had endured earlier— at the sadness behind her gesture, but he stifles it with stubborn spite. This isn’t him. It hasn’t been for decades now, and he’d grown to like it as so. In his experience, attachment leads to suffering, and suffering leads to misery. And with all of the centuries he has ahead of him, misery is the last companion he needs. 

Harry clears his throat emptily, slashing through the tension that had suspended in the air between them. He glimpses down at her, undoing the knot between his eyebrows and putting as much playful ease into his irises as he can muster, urging the corners of his lips into his signature smirk. “I guess we just excite each other, then. Though that’s become pretty obvious by now, I think.” 

Y/N purses her mouth to hide the immature grin his innuendo is attempting to weed out, all awkwardness dissipating from her aura. “I guess we do.” 

The monster ducks down to flirt his lips over the human’s, arms tying around her lower back and hiking her upwards. Y/N yelps in surprise, instinctively clamping her legs around his waist and giggling as he lugs her from side to side jokingly, pretending he’s about to drop her into the pool. “Why don’t we go back to exciting one another, hm?” 

Y/N’s nose rubs across the bridge of Harry’s and she gasps lightly when she feels the head of his cock prod at her entrance, dipping in a bit to tease her, spreading her open just enough to wheedle a soft hiss. She shivers in his arms despite the heat wafting up from the warm water, a very different type of warmth pouring into the area between her legs. The girl clings to the sides of the English boy’s neck, spinning a damp curl around her forefinger— he’d gotten his hair wet when he’d splashed into the jacuzzi, and the manner in which his ringlets are gluing across his flexing neck and sharp jaw is doing her in. 

She gives a small nod, eyes flickering down to his tempting lips and back up at his devious gaze. “Yeah, alright.” 

In Harry’s expert opinion, it’s safe to say they definitely excite each other. It’s pretty evident in the way their bodies mold perfectly, satisfying their own desires while simultaneously fulfilling the other’s. The vampire ends up sitting on top of the ledge that circles the inside wall of the pool, his head hanging over the edge with his mouth parted in an open grin, filthy moans and needy whines pouring from his tongue freely as Y/N rocks onto his slick cock. The girl balances herself on her knees, backside crashing down against his thighs in harsh slams full of reckless urgency— she needs this more than she’d ever care to admit. Her nails dig into Harry’s strong shoulders for stability, head thrown back in sheer bliss as her chest bounces with every thrust, the trench of her tummy rippling with contented heat. He just makes her feel so fucking full.

“God, y-you’re so big.” Y/N mewls, swinging her hips in small circles that draw an array of fractured sounds of pleasure from Harry’s taut throat. “You stretch me out so fucking good, Har.” 

Harry’s hands tighten into fists against the glossy plastic of the jacuzzi, arms slung casually over the sides of the tub in a relaxed posture. He doesn’t want to bother with taking control at this particular moment; he’s too busy reveling in the ecstasy Y/N is pounding into his system. He jolts with every rough dip of her hips, the corners of his raw lips winking his dimples awake as he looks up at her through barely-cracked eyes, the weight of his mounting orgasm heavy on his lashes. “Love that cock, don’t you? Can tell by the way you always kiss it right before you take it down your throat.” 

Y/N grapples onto her friend's neck blindly, one palm grasping the center of his jugular as the other cradles his defined jaw, her thumb smearing across his lips as a result of her choppy movements. Harry cranes his head forward a bit to get a better view, pressing a gentle kiss to the pad of her finger as an appreciative thrum rumbles against the hand she has covering his Adam’s Apple. “You look so beautiful when you fuck me all desperate like that.”

Y/N whimpers as she swivels against his lap eagerly, driving herself towards a climax that she knows will leave her utterly ruined. Harry glances down to where their centers meet below the water, worrying his lower lip between his teeth as he peers through the violently sloshing waves and frothy suds, watching Y/N glide over him easily now that she’d gotten used to his size. He leans forward, slowly planting a trail of suckling kisses up the center of his friend’s tummy and over the valley of her chest, looking upwards through his long lashes and smiling lewdly into her flesh every time her walls squeeze at the action. She’s so snug around him, he’s convinced no one could ever fit him this well. 

His words come out as a raspy growl. “You’re such a tight little thing. Never get tired of that perfect cunt. S’like you were made to take me this deep.” 

Y/N collapses forward, her grip shooting up to trade his face with his drenched curls. She sponges her mouth messily over his, gasping onto his tongue as the motions of the water batter against her sensitive clit. Her brows cinch with hunger, tone pleading. “Touch me. Please? Want— Want your hands on me while I ride you.” 

Harry shakes his head tauntingly, licking across her top lip and teething at the crescent above it. “I don’t think so, angel. I like seeing you do all the work, for once. You look so good using me to get yourself off.” 

The girl fists at his hair almost cruelly, her sanity gradually slipping. “But I...I like it when you use me, too.” 

“Trust me, I’m well aware.” The vampire muses arrogantly, spreading his meaty thighs wider so that her strokes have a more profound impact. His position works as intended, seen in how Y/N slows for a second when she sinks down to the hilt, a breathy, “Fuck, that’s so deep.” scraping past the cracks of her gritted teeth. 

Harry bucks upward symbolically, signaling for her to regain her rhythm; one look at his dominantly smug expression has her abiding instantly. He lays his head against his bare shoulder, studying every clench of her belly and every heave of her breasts, etching this picture into his extensive list of memories. His voice flows out as thick and silky as molasses. “I just can’t get enough of watching you make yourself cum around my cock.” 

“I j-just want you to fuck me.” Y/N is nearly sobbing, her fingertips carving into his scalp as she kisses over his colored cheeks and tinged nose, trying to swindle him into giving her what she wants. “I’ll do anything you want. Promise.” 

“Always so willing, aren’t you?” Harry chuckles darkly, groaning lightly when she suddenly tenses around his length. He can feel his nails breaking the skin of his palms as his fists contract. “You want me to make you scream, is that it? Want Daddy to pound you until you can’t stand anymore?”  

Hearing him refer to himself that way sends electricity coursing down her spine. “Want it so bad.” 

The creature reaches up with his index finger and brushes a sopping strand of hair out of Y/N’s face, tucking it behind her ear and tracing down her cheekbone admiringly. After a few seconds of thought, he appraises her with a decision, licking across his top teeth and pressing his tongue along the inside of his cheek teasingly. “Let’s make a deal, then. How about you get yourself right on the edge for me, and then I’ll flip you around and finish you off. Sound fair?” 

Y/N doesn’t need to be told twice. She regains her previous stride with more fervor and speed, hellbent on pushing herself to the seam of climax so she can let Harry take the reins. The young man watches her with sinful intent tainting the emerald of his irises, the golden smudges around his pupils glinting blood red for a single heartbeat. He decides he’ll lend his expertise just once, extending his arm and fiddling with the settings on the control panel of the hot tub, preparing a surprise he knows his guest will thoroughly enjoy. 

When the jets suddenly rumble to life, Y/N’s jumps in shock, the loud sound startling her clouded brain. But then two concentrated streams of water hit her right between her legs and she nearly faints as newfound bliss erupts through every fiber of her being. The insistent spray toys with her clit in a fashion that is indescribable, revving her closer to release as the overwhelming sensation pairs with the rapture Harry’s cock is hammering into her. She won’t last long, and he knows it. 

The monster eyes her reaction attentively, his forefinger lulling upwards across the water-proof screen of the controls, raising the intensity of the jets. The fragmented moan that betrays the human goes right to his core. He then slides his finger back down, reducing the powerful force to softer bursts. Y/N whines in protest against his mouth, begging him to set it higher like before. And Harry does, giving her exactly what she craves with one easy swoop. Y/N’s forehead falls against his jaw, her shallow breaths puffing down his collarbones and heating his icy skin. 

“Shit, that’s so—so— fuck!” 

Harry continues to play with the settings, teasing her with waves of strong geysers and gentle trickles. Soon enough, he’s perched behind her, her back sticky against his wet chest as she holds herself up on her knees against the marble seat, hands clamped around the metal railing that runs the circumference of the pool. The pole helps her brace his unforgiving pace, her entire body jerking forward with every ram of his hips as small hiccups of pleasure float across the fogged air of the bathroom. Harry takes the shell of her ear between his teeth, biting down with no remorse as Y/N pushes back to meet his adamant thrusts, his coral-lacquered digits sifting between her own around the polished metal. She gets a bleary glimpse of the cross tattoo inked onto his hand as she can’t help but snort softly at the irony. 

“Is something funny, love?” Harry’s deep baritone causes chills to wring down her arms. 

“Your cross tattoo,” Y/N chokes out, a soft grunt interrupting her sentence as the head of the boy’s prick nudges the pit of her abdomen, “it’s just so ironic.” 

It is ironic. Harry had gotten it for that sole purpose— to mock the fact that he was deceased. He didn’t get to have a tombstone, so this is the next best thing: a symbolic one, of sorts, sketched into his skin for the rest of his undead life. A bit morbid, but he quite fancies dark humor, given what he is. 

However, he knows Y/N finds it ironic for much different, much unholier reasons. 

“You wanna know what’s really ironic?” Harry quips, bottoming out harshly and cooing into the back of her neck when the mortal’s shoulders give a spasm in response. His tone is a mocking whisper. “That such an innocent-looking thing like you loves the idea of being my shameless little whore.” 

Y/N’s cheeks boil at his explicit comment, a delicate whimper striking her vocal chords. One of Harry’s hands leaves its post on top of hers, tangling into her wet locks and giving her hair a ruthless yank. He guides her head into the nook between his shoulder and neck, spitting his next words out against the thundering pulse in her temple.

“You’re nothing but Daddy’s little filthy fucking slut. Isn’t that right, baby?” 

Y/N nods frantically in his authoritative grasp, struggling to swallow due to the combination of his unyielding tempo and erotic statements.  

Harry twists her hair around his knuckles, drawing a broken mewl from her raw lips as his teeth skim along the top of her cheekbone. “Words. Now.”

“Yes, Daddy.” 

“Say it.”

“I’m...I’m your filthy little slut.” 

Harry scoffs in entertained disbelief at how willing she is to submit to him, pecking a kiss to the corner of her eye and tasting a salty tear across his tongue. He redirects her head forward, grinning into the side of her scalp. “You should see the way you smile when you say it.” 

Y/N can’t help it. It just feels so right with him— she feels oddly safe, knowing that what they share is something neither of them will ever give to anyone else. Their arrangement is one of a kind; they fit each other so flawlessly, nobody could ever possibly come close. And she doesn’t want anyone to try— doesn’t want anyone attempting to replace him. Harry just fills the gap perfectly, and she wouldn’t dream of letting another man do what he does to her. Not when she has Harry near, willing to mumble as many graphic promises into her ear as she wants, all while he fucks a sweltering throb into the area between her thighs.

The human girl finds herself wishing this could last an eternity. Little does she know that if it wasn’t for her mortal ignorance and Harry’s better judgement, it very well could. 

///

Later in the day, Harry vaguely recalls how the week prior he had made a passing joke to Y/N about how her sexual drive matches that of a rabbit. What happens in the evening makes him stand by that comment. 

They order in Chinese for dinner, and Y/N insists on eating out on the balcony, wanting to get a perfect view of the sun setting over the city skyline. She has never experienced the phenomenon from such a pristine view. 

Harry allows it, but only after parenting her into putting on a jacket to avoid catching a cold, sending her back into the condo in search of one as he sets out their meal atop the multicolored glass table outside. Humans are so sensitive, and the last thing he needs is his booty call nearly dying from a case of the sniffles.

She comes back out clad in his patchwork cardigan, wrapping it around her body snugly as she sits with her legs crossed on the patio chair, fitting her box of takeout into the hole created by her thighs. The fluffy knitwork had been the first coat she had found hanging in his humongous closet, and she’d thrown it on without a second thought, too caught up in the excitement of getting to see such a picturesque sight in real life. It’s warm and smells of Harry’s vanilla tobacco cologne, along with hints of other scents, like his chamomile and mandarin shampoo and spiced deodorant. She’d been more than happy to inhabit it.

Harry isn’t sure why, but seeing her sitting across from him on his balcony in a pair of his maroon plaid Calvin Klein boxers, his Keith Harrington Safe Sex t-shirt, and blanketed within his oversized rainbow cardigan, all while her hair falls across her face and tickles her jaw… It makes a fond smile buckle his cheeks, though he manages to tame it quickly. 

They chat casually as they eat, sharing silly stories and experiences as they pick at their stir-fry, taking periodic sips of the cranberry juice Harry keeps stocked in his fridge. He doesn’t know the science behind it— though he highly doubts there’s any valid scientific explanation behind the magic that runs through his supernatural veins— but he’s come to find that cranberries help curb his cravings. It’s why he always has a liter on hand. 

Y/N informs Harry on how her work week had gone, and about how one of her friends back home had gotten engaged recently. She says it all seems so surreal and that she doubts the girl will actually go through with it, which makes the monster burst into laughter, much to her confusion. Harry thinks that this is probably the first time he’s ever seen Y/N be so blatantly pessimistic; it’s strangely comical. Just hearing her opinion on the situation is enough to send anyone into a cackle fit, especially when she says it with such a straight face. “Yeah, I just don’t think she’ll do it. She says she loves him, but she always used to complain about his foot fetish, and I’m pretty sure she’d go insane if she had to put up with that for the rest of her life.” 

Harry wards off another bundle of giggles, pursing his twitching lips and bobbing his head once in understanding, using his chopsticks to pop a piece of fried duck into his mouth. “That’s a valid reason to abandon anyone at the altar, if I’ve ever seen one.” 

“I know, right? She told me he likes sucking whipped cream off her toes and, like, not to kinkshame, because I obviously have my own weird shit going on—”

“Yeah, I can attest to that.” Harry shrugs his eyebrows suggestively, picking a small chunk of broccoli off his utensil and smirking as he chews slowly. “Decently weird, actually.”

Y/N gifts him a deadpan expression, shoving a piece of veggie dumpling into her mouth and choosing to ignore his dig. “Anyways, I feel like that one is just on a whole other level. Like...what the fuck?”

Harry shares an anecdote about his own friends, as well, feeling that if he doesn’t open up at least a smidge, she'll start becoming suspicious. He recounts the time when he and Mitch had snuck into a Fleetwood Mac concert and met Stevie Nicks, though he’s careful enough not to tell her the date the event had occurred. He just lets her deduce it was one of their more recent tours, when in reality, it had been back in the eighties. The other detail Harry leaves off is the fact that he had tried to seduce Stevie, emphasis being on “tried.” It hadn’t stuck, unfortunately, and what had made the experience even more mortifying is that his idol had taken an interest in Mitch instead. Harry’s ego has yet to recover from that blow; first, because Mitch had the sheer gall to reject the celebrity on the grounds that he wasn’t looking to get involved in any public scandals, and secondly because his best friend refuses to ever let him live it down. “Hey, remember when we met Stevie Nicks and she wanted to fuck me instead of you? Good times, man.”

When the sun finally begins to dip over the horizon, their conversation dies off, replaced by the serene sounds of distant traffic and a light wind picking up as the temperature begins to drop for the night. Y/N stares at the sky in childish wonder as the bright blue starts to darken, streaking with mellow oranges, pastel purples, and buttery yellows, the colors painting across the clouds and giving the bustling city a timeless quality that can only be truly appreciated firsthand. A small, dreamy smile spreads across Y/N’s lips as the gorgeous canvas reflects off the glossy surface of her irises, her legs drawn up to her chest with her arms hugging her knees. She gazes wistfully over the place she has now grown to call home, taking in all it has to offer for the first time in two months, feeling oddly at ease despite the fact that she usually feels lonely wandering its streets. 

The mixture of drunken hues casts a hazy glow across her skin and hair, dim stars beginning to twinkle in space as the moon makes its debut. Y/N delights herself with watching the scene unfold, surveying the endless stretch of sky and soaking in its natural beauty. And as Y/N stares across Los Angeles during one of its most breath-taking moments, Harry finds himself staring at her instead. 

Once darkness has soaked across the skyscrapers and roads of California for the night, Y/N and Harry turn in, as well. They end up splayed across Harry’s leather couch, entertaining a new episode of Sugar Rush on the ninety-inch flat screen mounted on his glass wall; it’s simply in order to take up the last couple of hours left before bed. By some inexplicable miracle, the vampire had managed to actually fall asleep last night after he and his visitor had finished their regularly scheduled activities. He doubts he’ll be that lucky tonight, but he has no choice but to play the part for the sake of keeping up appearances. 

Maybe if the universe is feeling exceptionally generous, the human will fall asleep while they’re watching TV and Harry can just carry her up to his room without having to put on an act. It’s a favorable alternative to having to fake sleep until she gives into fatigue; lying awake with his eyes closed for an hour would make him feel as stupid as Niall’s golfing addiction. 

However, it appears that for the time being, Y/N has other plans to bring forward some tried and true exhaustion.

There’s nothing particularly sexual about the fashion in which their bodies are pressed together at the moment, given that it’s a pretty innocent snuggling position. Harry is slumped against the backrest of the sofa with his feet propped on his coffee table, comfy in a pair of black jogging shorts and a vintage Rolling Stones tee. Y/N is nestled into his torso beside him, her head burrowed into his chest with his arm slung nonchalantly across her shoulders and down her back, legs intertwined with his. She had done it out of instinct and Harry doesn’t really have an issue with the gesture; she’s warm and soft and the soothing action of her socked foot running up and down his calf helps him unwind from the day’s events. He likes this, he decides. She smells like him— with her usual scent of honey and lavender permeating through— and she’s decked out in his clothes, aimlessly doodling figures onto his tummy as they enjoy the baking show in comfortable silence. It’s strangely mellow. 

Y/N is the one who instigates, as usual. Humans are so horny, it’s ridiculous. But he benefits from this specific mortal’s libido, so he’s not complaining. 

It starts with her drifting upwards from where she’d been tracing over his butterfly tattoo, her warm fingers stroking over the prominent structure of his clavicle, her eyes flickering up to gauge his reaction. Harry doesn’t move an inch, face maintaining a curtain of calm indifference. He figures she’s just extra touchy, as she normally is. Then the pads of her digits skim across the side of his throat and an impulsive flare of panic pricks the back of his skull, but it quickly dissolves, as it tends to do now around her. She’s the only person in the last two centuries who has managed to touch him there without inciting a rampage. 

Y/N coasts across the nape of his neck, twirling a baby curl around her forefinger distractedly, giving it a small tug in the manner she knows he likes. Harry’s body tightens for a split second and she bites into her lower lip to muffle a mischievous grin. She stretches up, dusting a lingering peck to the curve right behind his ear, running her nose across the shell tenderly. The vampire shifts slightly in his seat, the feathery sensation beginning to weigh at the pit of his stomach. She’s teasing him, and it’s working. 

The mortal flushes her puckered mouth fully to the side of his jugular, rubbing the ridges of her skin over one of the veins chiseling into existence, right over the area where a heartbeat used to lie. Harry’s hand balls into a fist against the dip of her spine, itching to grip onto something to keep his cool. Preferably, her throat. 

When Y/N finally speaks, the hot breath of her words makes his cock twitch against his thigh. “Wanna kiss a bit?” 

Harry cranes his head to look at her, eyebrows jumping up in amusement. “You wanna make-out? What are we, fourteen?”

The girl gives him an impassive pout and glances indicatively towards the armrest of the couch, where they had sat the evening prior while admiring his art wall. “You didn’t have a problem with it last night.” 

Harry presses his lips together into a playful simper. She makes a valid point. “Well, I was horny last night. Wasn’t in my right mind.” 

Y/N rolls her eyes at his juvenile answer.

“And you’re not now?” She prods softly, her gaze slinking down to his spread thighs, almost as if to check if he’s hard. Harry snorts as her action and she bats her lashes up at him with fake innocence, muscling down the sly smirk threatening to emerge across her face. 

“Not really, but maybe I could be…” The creature glimpses at her colored mouth for a heartbeat, reaching a hand up and pushing his air-dried ringlets back from his forehead, lips twitching coyly. “Persuaded.”

Y/N leans forward, buttoning their mouths for a fleeting moment. She pulls back a tad, ghosting the crescent of her top lip over his to try and compel him. “Please?” 

“Mm,” Harry licks at the corner of his mouth, eyes half-lidded tauntingly, “I don’t think that was enough. Show some team spirit, will you?”

The girl gifts him another kiss, this one longer and more intense, a palm making its way to cup his jaw. “Please, H?” 

He’s begun to pant lightly, hand flattening across the small of her back as if to guide her somewhere. He blinks down at her smugly, gnawing into his cheek. “You’re not quite there. Maybe a little more.” 

It turns out one more kiss is enough to convince his metaphorical meter. Y/N ends up perched in his lap, both of his large hands groping at her ass as she clutches the back of his neck, their lips sewn together in a filthy kiss full of gentle whines and impatient tongues. It’s going pretty great, and Harry thinks that Y/N is probably one of the most fun people he’s ever had the pleasure of kissing. Her mouth is as sweet as the sugary scent she always dotes, she ebbs and flows to his movements seamlessly, and the enthusiasm she carries makes every nerve in his body fizzle. The noises she makes are incredibly satisfying, as well. All her needy mewls and delicate whimpers string right down to his groin. 

After a few minutes of dry humping and jesting bites placed on overzealous lips, Harry boosts himself up from his relaxed position, feet knocking off the coffee table as an arm snakes around her hips. He sits forward, extending his free hand and waving it around blindly, too occupied to willingly break their embrace. He refuses to pull away, especially when she’s gluing such dirty moans to the roof of his mouth. His palm swings across the air stubbornly until it finally slaps down against the marble surface he’d been searching for, his grip tightening around its rim for confirmation. He proceeds to scoot the counter forward, intent on laying Y/N out on top so he can get on his knees against his furry carpet, get his boxers down her velvety legs, and get his head bobbing between her quivering thighs. 

Harry’s plan is about to pan out ideally until a high-pitched shriek cuts through the tense ambiance of the room. 

Y/N cracks their kiss, gasping and heaving as her head whizzes from side to side, looking for the origin of the annoying trill that had interrupted their playtime. “What—What is that?”

The vampire glances over his back towards where the ruckus is stemming, the insistent chime grating his heightened ears. He spots the culprit immediately, releasing an irritated groan as a result: his phone. 

From his spot on the edge of the couch, Mitch’s contact picture blazes across the screen. Harry loves that photo of his best friend— the way his emotionless expression and skinny middle finger are directed towards the camera makes it a wonderful shot— but he really wishes he didn’t have to see it right now. He has other more pressing matters. Literal pressing matters, if the tent in his mesh shorts is any indication. 

“Just ignore it.” Harry murmurs, turning back to slam their lips together once again. Y/N obliges without a second thought, happily re-engaging her previous activity of smudging her cupid’s bow across her friend’s as he stretches her out across the table 

Ignoring it works the first time. And the second. But by the third call, Harry has no choice but to break away with an exasperated grunt, his brittle patience forcing him to handle the blaring ringtone. 

He slides his thumb across the screen roughly, bringing it to his ear as he slumps back into the couch cushions, holding up a finger towards Y/N apologetically and mouthing a quick, “It’ll be just a second.”

His guest nods in understanding, letting her head fall back against the cold marble and distracting herself by counting all of the lightbulbs situated at the peaks of the chandeliers above. 

Harry turns his focus to the person on the other end of the phone line, voice snipped with aggravated anger. “What?!”

“Whoa, okay… That’s no way to talk to the elderly. Take it down a notch, Grumpy. Didn’t Snow White teach you any manners?”

The monster takes a deep breath to keep his rage in check, gritting out his words through bared teeth. “I’m fucking busy right now. What do you want?”

“Oh, well, I’m so sorry to be a bother, My Lord. I just wanted to check up on you and make sure you have all your stuff packed for tomorrow. Y’know, like the good friend I am.”

Harry blinks blankly, all indignation flooding out of his system, replaced by utter confusion. “You wanted to check if I’m...? For what? Why would I need to pack?”

There’s a pause on Mitch’s end, as if the man is waiting for Harry to come to the conclusion himself, static filling the speaker. When it’s obvious the younger vampire is clueless, his best friend elaborates slowly. “For the trip. The Vegas trip. The one we take every year around the same time. The one that we all agreed we’d roadtrip in your car tomorrow.”

Harry’s eyes widen in realization, his entire face paling. Fuck.

“The trip.” He mumbles, the fingers of his free hand coming up to rub at his temples worriedly as his mistake dawns on him. “God, I completely forgot about it.” 

“You can’t be serious.” Mitch deadpans, a long sigh following his comment. “Harry, you’re the one that booked the hotel this time. How could you possibly forget?”

“I…” Harry glances over at Y/N as guilt weighs into his demeanor. The girl meets his gaze, smiling sweetly and waving, completely unaware of the horrific ordeal he’s gotten himself into by inviting her over. “I got caught up with something.” 

A humorless snort crackles through the stereo of his phone, Mitch’s voice tinged with irked disbelief. “Yeah, that’s what you’ve been saying for the last four weeks now every time you bail on us. I just figured you’d get your head out of your ass for this one, but I suppose I spoke too soon.”

Harry drags his palm down his face, gripping his chin in thought. “I’m sorry. Genuinely. I didn’t mean to let it slip, I’ve just been so occupied during the last couple of weekends that—”

“That you forgot about our yearly trip. How nice. Just perfect.”

“Mitch, I know I fucked up, alright? But what if—”

The immortal’s solution gets cut short when out of his peripheral vision, he sees Y/N climb off the coffee table and onto the carpet below. Harry’s words lodge in his throat as he watches the girl crawl on all fours across the ground towards him, a cheeky smile ticking the corners of her lips as her irises glimmer schemingly. Shit.

“‘What if’ what?”

“What if...Uhm…” Harry finds himself struggling to keep his end of the conversation going, the reason being that Y/N has now reached the edge of the sofa where he resides. She sits back onto her heels, walking her fingers teasingly across his knees and grasping them with her palms, parting them open widely. “I…”

“For fuck’s sake, H, what are you trying to say?” Mitch snaps; even through the distance, he can feel its bite. 

Y/N nuzzles herself between Harry’s opened legs, a hand riding up one of his thick thigh as she sponges wet kisses to his kneecap, grinning into his skin when her fingers duck under the material of his shorts. His cadence comes out strained with the effort of keeping up an unfazed front. “What if I— what if we switch the reservations?” 

“How do you mean?”

The human’s fingers travel up the length of his inner thigh, sneaking below his cotton briefs and giving the tip of his semi-hard cock a gentle caress. Harry writhes in his seat, watching with bated breath as Y/N draws her forearm back out from beneath his clothes, her middle finger covered in a bead of precum— a result of all the grinding they’d done while kissing. She locks eyes with him and pushes the digit past her swollen lips, sucking off the small droplet while her lashes flutter in pleasure. She moans softly, his familiar saltiness always so welcomed. Her next whisper is sultry and needy. “You taste so fucking good.” 

Harry swallows down a groan and his voice suffers the consequences, coming out shaky and high. “Like...Like what if we switch out the n-names. I could call the hotel and put the rooms under your info instead.”

Mitch is quiet for a second, mulling over his friend’s offer. The instance is long enough for Harry to reach forward and snatch Y/N’s wrist, giving it a dominant squeeze as a scolding grimace dips the ends of his lips and furrows his brows. He mouths his words slowly with an ominous hue, making sure she interprets the message. “That’s enough.”

Y/N twists herself free of his hold, eyes gleaming in challenge. She talks softly as to not be heard through the phone, but she might as well be screaming thanks to Harry’s supernatural hearing abilities. “I don’t think so.” 

“Are you really not going, then?”

The gentle tone of Mitch’s question snaps Harry back into reality. He feels bad for flaking on his crew, but he doesn’t really have a choice at this point. Y/N is already here per his request, and kicking her out would be extremely dickish, even by his standards. “I’m booked the rest of the weekend, mate. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

Y/N proceeds to grab onto the elastic band of Harry’s shorts, pulling the front down to expose the clothed bulge that lies beneath. A soiled patch has formed over the material of his underwear, and he can see her irises twinkle in satisfaction, which causes the faint burning in his veins to intensify. The girl palms him through the fabric, preening at the low, tight grunt that escapes Harry’s flexing throat. A shiver pin-balls down his spine and he tries to grab at her forearm to wrench it away from between his legs, but Y/N is determined to work him into a mess, simply groping him more intently and giggling lightly when his hips thrash in response. 

“Alright, I guess that settles it. I’ll just tell the group we’re taking Niall’s car instead, and that Adam and I will take turns driving. Just get the lodging handled, will you?”

“‘Course, I got it, don’t worry.” Harry chokes out, reaching a hand towards Y/N’s hair in a desperate attempt to get a hold of her, but she ducks to evade him. She tugs down his final layer of protection, her mouth immediately finding its way to his large cock and giving it one long lap from base to tip, staring up at him mockingly from beneath heavy lashes. She grasps it in both of her palms, gifting it a few quick pumps and spitting over the head sloppily, rubbing the slit across her bottom lip as she quirks her brows at him in a dare. 

The vampire fails to ward off the fracture in his composure this time. “Christ, you’re such a fucking sl—” 

He stops himself before he finishes the graphic statement, remembering that everything he says is being directly broadcast to someone else on the other end of his phone. Someone who’s oblivious to the filth currently taking place on Harry’s side of the call. “I’m on it, yeah? I’ll talk to you later.” 

“Wait.”

Harry is at the verge of tearing his hair out, his tone teetering at the cusp of sanity. “Yeah?”

“Would you mind telling me why you’re not going? I feel like everyone at least deserves an explanation, especially since you’re dipping on the plans literally the day before.”

The young man quickly clears his throat, forcing himself to keep control as he watches the mortal stick her entire tongue out to run his cock up and down its expanse. “I’ll—I’ll explain when you come back.” 

The textured surface sends zaps of lightning surging through every crevice of Harry’s body, but he somehow enables restraint, as weak as it may be. He silently warns Y/N once again about her actions, carding his fingers into her hair and digging the pads into her scalp. “Stop.”

“Also, why are you breathing so hard? What are you even up to right now?”

The human ignores his command, blowing over the leaking hole of his prick and giving it a playful kiss.

“I’m— fuck— I’m...I’m on the treadmill.”

Mitch goes quiet for a heartbeat. “You don’t have a treadmill.” 

Y/N tosses her hair over her shoulder, leaning down to rest her cheek along Harry’s inner thigh, giving him the perfect angle to view what she’s about to do. She presses her head forward, slipping his entire cock down her throat and gagging when it hits a sensitive spot in the back, her nails raking down his twitching tummy. She keeps him there for an elongated moment, allowing her walls to tighten around his length just how he likes it, toying with his swollen balls and moaning quietly around his prick. He can feel the vibrations burrow into the marrow of his bones.

“I told you to stop.” He doesn’t even bother mouthing his words this time, mood dark and cautious. He can hear Mitch exclaim in confusion through his speaker, but it’s the last thing on his mind right now. 

Y/N’s watery eyes dance with a devious gleam as she grins around his girth, removing him just enough so she can breath properly, rubbing his bubbling tip along the inside of her silky cheek. Her phrase is muffled, but it’s clear enough to completely shatter him. “Make me, Daddy.”

Harry’s features harden. He’s done playing games. 

He directs his attention to the microphone, voice calm and collected to the point where it’s frightening, all the tension and instability crumbling to ash. His brows crease dangerously, accent thicker than she’s ever heard it. “I have to go.”

“Harry—”

“I’ll text you after I fix the booking.” 

The device beeps and the call ends, the phone falling face-down onto the couch.

The vampire roughly jerks Y/N back by her hair, sitting forward until their noses brush, his cold touch sending a prickling across her cheeks and ears. He addresses her with the same type of undisturbed patience he’d shown his friend, aura teeming with quiet power.

“Get up. Now.” 

Y/N ends up with her back pressed into the couch cushions, Harry suspended above her with his knees on either sides of her hips, his cock ramming down her throat harshly as he guides her head with his knuckles twisted into her roots. He’s thrusting forward to meet her mouth, the emerald around his pupils electric with a type of carnal dominance that makes heat pour into her belly. She’s gazing up at him with water streaming freely out of her eyes and spit dripping down her chin, her hands fisting at the leather of the sofa as he fucks her face unrelentingly. 

“You think that little stunt was cute? You think teasing me like that was fun?” He growls as he peers down at her, ramming past her raw lips with no remorse, swimming in the damp choking sounds that bounce back from the furniture in the room. “Open wider. Wider.”

She obeys. 

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it? To have me down your throat while you gag around it until you can barely breath? To choke on it while you take that heavy load and swallow every drop?”

Y/N bobs her head feverishly, unable to form any coherent sentences due to his violent pace. 

The grip Harry has on the crown of her head tightens, his other hand cupping the back of her skull to push her deeper down his shaft, her nose smearing over his happy trail as his heavy balls bump against her slobbery chin. “Take that fucking cock, then. Take every inch like the filthy fucking brat you are.”

Y/N’s blurry eyes lull shut, the edges of her stinging mouth curving upwards as he hits every single one of her desires with a skill only he possesses. She doesn’t know why— or if it’s even healthy, at this point— but she’s never felt more pleasure than when she’s at Harry’s disposal. She just loves seeing him come undone for her. 

“God, you like that, don’t you? Like being my little plaything?” The grin dimpling Harry’s cheeks is so utterly erotic and sinful, Y/N feels like she’s damning her soul just by glimpsing at it. He delicately thumbs tears off her cheekbones, contradicting his other much less tame motions. “Baby just wants to feel Daddy cum down her throat, doesn’t she?”

Stars begin spotting the girl’s vision, her mind vignetting as a fulfilling ache settles into her jugular. She nods her head drunkenly, coughing dryly as her lungs rattle with shallow inhales. 

Harry gives an exceptionally hard stroke, holding her in place and feeling her constrict around him, her nails digging into the aged leather of his sofa. He takes a pause, broad chest heaving as his head falls back to hang between his shoulder blades, the golden light of his chandeliers reflecting off the red shade inking his irises. His climax begins to tip into his blood. “Say it. Be a good girl and say, ‘please cum for me, Daddy.’”

Y/N’s voice floats out raspy and trembling as she ogles up at the monster wishfully, her ability to speak absolutely frayed from the exertion she’s been put through. Her sentence is barely comprehensible given her full mouth, but watching her try is what gets Harry off. “P-Please cum for me, Daddy.”

Thick ribbons of warmth suddenly erupt down her throat, coaxing a series of garbled moans to pour from Harry’s chest. His whole body tightens as an orgasm floods his system, the muscles of his back drawing taut, his defined biceps jolting, and his lean abdomen clenching in ecstasy. His fern tattoos ripple over his tanned skin as he gives a few more deep strokes for good measure, milking himself to completion and drinking up the tiny noises of sensitivity Y/N makes. He finishes dishing the punishment she’d earned, delivering burst after burst of cum just as he’d promised, feeling her flex around his slick cock as she eagerly swallows every spurt. 

“Every last bit, baby. All of it. Christ, that’s my fucking girl. ”

The boy cranes his neck forward again, taking in her disheveled appearance and humming in needy appreciation. Her hair is a disaster from all of his tugging, her eyes are puffy and red, and her lips are flushed and plump. There’s trails of dried tears tracing her cheeks and across her jaw, the collar of her borrowed shirt is soggy with spit, and he can just barely make out the damp patch she’s stained into his boxers along the insides of her thighs. She’s fiddling with her fingers across her lap, continuously shifting around in her seat and clamping her legs together, and Harry comes to the realization that she’s trying to ride the seam of his briefs in order to get a spoonful of relief. 

In his sexually demented opinion, she’s looks like a proper angel.

Harry gradually withdraws himself from her mouth, watching with empty content as she sputters into a coughing fit and gulps down air as if she hasn’t had it for weeks. She wipes at the lower half of her face messily with the back of her hand, staring up at him all moony and soft, feeling her cheeks boil at his conceited simper. The vampire carefully tucks his drenched prick back into his clothes, crouching down to her level and lilting his head to the side, tucking a strand of tangled hair behind her heated ear. The pads of his digits streak down the front of her neck and perch at the hollow between her collarbones, her pulse thundering beneath her sweaty flesh. He taps at the center of her throat for significance, tone fond and almost caring. “Is it sore?”

Y/N struggles to get saliva down, rattling her head in agreement since her vocal chords are refusing to work. 

Harry folds the hem of his tee over his fingers, reaching forward to help clean up anything leftover across her chin and jaw. Y/N eyes him with a form of detached admiration, enamored with the way he tends to her so gently now that the session has come to a close. 

“You like it, though, right?” 

The young woman doesn’t even try to mask the fact that she indeed does, nodding her head once again. 

“That’s good to hear, pet.” Harry drops his shirt back over his belly, giving her a chaste peck to the nose. Despite the ever-present coldness of his touch, the action sparks a warm glow that surges from the tips of her ears to the heels of her feet. “Want to make sure I wasn’t being too rough.” 

He stands up onto his knees, dismounting the sofa and combing a few rouge curls out of his eyes, nudging at her socked foot jestingly with his. Y/N kicks him in return as she busies herself with combing out the knots from her mussed locks, attempting to distract herself from the gnawing running along the inside of her stomach. She needs to get it sedated, but she’s too timid to ask the vampire outright, which she knows is ironic given what they’d just done. 

Harry sits down along the marble counter of the coffee table with his forearms propped along his knees, toying with his lionhead daylight ring (it’s the only one he wears at home, out of necessity) as he watches her tend to the mess he’d created. He smiles to himself in satisfied amusement— she always looks so pretty freshly face-fucked. 

The monster then notices how the human is still rubbing her thighs together, reminding him that she had been left unattended. He decides that he should do what any gentleman would and provide assistance to the issue; it’s only fair, according to the unspoken laws of their little mutual arrangement. He hooks his fingers along the rim of the table beneath him, dragging it forward until his knees meet the edge of the couch, knocking hers open slightly. He leans back onto his palms as she gives him a curious glance, the olive tone around his pupils glittering with hunger while his fingers tap knowingly along the surface below. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Harry’s eyebrows kink upward. “Can’t a man look in his own home?”

“Of course he can, but just not at me. Staring’s rude. Especially when I’m covered in spit and bodily fluids.”

The boy gives an exaggerated pout, pairing it with a set of puppy dog eyes and a honeyed drawl. “But you look so cute covered in my bodily fluids.”

Y/N stares at him flatly. “Wow. I’m so flattered. I’ll file that compliment right under the one where you said I look adorable with jizz all over my eyelashes.” 

“Well, you do! And that was a great compliment, if you think about it. It’s unique and creative— very avant-garde of me.”

“You need brain cells in order to be avant-garde.”

“Just shut up and get on your hands and knees.” 

///

Harry drinks from Y/N that night. 

He knows Mitch would scold him for it, considering the quota for draft beverages from mortal taps is strictly once a week, per his orders. But the creature just can’t help himself. She smells so sweet, and her neck looks so tempting when her head is turned to the side in sleep; even in the dark, he can see her veins pumping beneath the taut skin. He justifies it by telling himself that any vampire would give into weakness if they were in his place, and it’s not like he’s some uncultured, unhinged newborn who lacks basic control. He’s spent decades refining his impulses and taming his animalistic instincts to the point where he can walk through a butcher shop and not even bat an eye. He’s more than capable of double-dipping without threatening her life. 

However, Harry will admit that he does make some embarrassing sounds while he’s fang-deep in her carotid artery. He can’t be expected to withhold them, especially not with how good she tastes. Y/N’s blood reminds him of so many things that he can’t ever quite place its flavor. Sometimes it reminds him of green grapes and champagne, and others it dawns on him in the form of peaches and cream. There’s instances where she doesn’t even fall into the usual spectrum of taste, but rather reminds him of sensations instead of tangible objects. Sometimes she tastes the way the first breath of spring feels— light and soothing, with hints of fresh florals and dewy mornings. Other times, she tastes like strawberries on a summer evening— warm, tangy, and nostalgic. At the risk of sounding like a brain-dead junky, drinking from Y/N is a magical experience that he wishes could last forever; Harry has never found it more difficult to pull back from someone’s throat than when he has to recede from hers. 

After the immortal has had his fill, he pricks his finger along one of his fangs and smears a drop of his blood onto Y/N’s tongue, watching the two gaping holes on her neck heal instantaneously and leave behind a faint bruise that will likely be gone by morning. He spends the rest of the night twirling stands of her hair around his fingers and counting her heartbeats, vaguely wondering what it feels like to have one. It’s been so long since he’s carried a pulse, he’s forgotten what it’s like to have it thumping in his chest. All he has left is a phantom organ and not a day goes by where he doesn’t miss its steady rhythm. 

The second the first beam of sunlight filters in through the crack in Harry’s window shades, he’s up on his feet pacing around the kitchen, going through his daily morning routine of preparing breakfast with a lively soundtrack to keep him company. That is, until his actual companion awakens; then he happily replaces his playlist with her groggy voice and tired eyes. 

Harry has chosen to prepare parfaits as their first meal of the day, scooping vanilla yogurt into two marbled bowls and setting out an abundant array of toppings, smiling to himself at the way Y/N’s eyes light up the room. She fills her platter to the brim with blueberries, chunks of banana, diced peaches, and crushed walnuts, while Harry loads his with tons of raspberries, slices of mango, scoops of granola, and plenty of honey. He runs into some trouble halfway through squeezing out the last ingredient, proceeding to shake it vigorously to try and get rid of the clump blocking the spout. The bottle refuses to cooperate and Harry turns it towards his face to get a better look at the problem, winking one eye shut to focus better on the cap. He gives it another testing squeeze and much to his luck, the jammed portion squirts loose and he ends up with syrup dripping down his face. 

Y/N doesn’t even attempt to stifle her amusement, nearly choking on a spoonful of yogurt as laughter takes over her entire body. The vampire stands rigidly beside her, glaring at the teddy bear-shaped container with so much hatred, she thinks it might melt. When the human finally manages to tame her giggles, she reaches up and uses her index finger to collect honey right off Harry’s cheek, sticking the digit into her mouth and sucking it off with a loud pop. 

Her friend gives her a deadpan scowl, to which she simply shrugs her brows playfully while gifting him a bright grin. “Now you know what it feels to have a sticky liquid shot into your eye. Doesn’t feel too good, does it?”

“Fuck off.” 

“You look pretty, though. Does that make it better?”

“I will literally pour my yogurt onto your hair.”

“Karma’s a bitch, Winnie the Pooh.”

Harry ends up having to shower in order to successfully get rid of the gooey substance, though it’s hardly a hassle given that Y/N gladly joins him. It doesn’t turn too sexual, surprisingly enough. 

The duo stand under the shower panel covered in suds, steam floating around their naked bodies as water pelts down on top of them, matting hair to their necks and jaws. Harry doesn’t know why, but he likes the fact that they’re now comfortable enough to be nude around each other outside of their usual dynamic. It’s fulfilling, for some odd reason. 

The girl helps the creature scrub off the honey with some facial cleanser, rubbing at his flushed cheeks with her thumbs and fighting off an endeared giggle when he scrunches his nose in annoyance. His voice comes out as a childish whine. “That hurts.”

“Stop being such a baby.” She huffs, going in along his cheekbones and rolling her eyes when he grumbles. “Lean down.” 

Harry abides, ducking down so she can get a better angle, casually coasting his hands onto her hips to keep her from losing her footing to the slippery floor. Y/N leans forward onto the tips of her toes, squinting at him through the foggy air as she continues to wash off the syrup, wanting to make sure she isn’t missing a single spot. Harry watches her quietly with his sopping curls sticking to his forehead and along the nape of his neck, lips twitching fondly at how hellbent she is on getting the mess off. Her brows are creased in concentration and her tongue is peeking out of her mouth; he has to restrain the impulse to surge forward and kiss her. 

Once Y/N is satisfied with her work, she falls back onto her heels, washing any remnants away under the stream and pushing her drenched strands out of her face. “All done. Try not to do it again.” 

“I make no promises.” Harry tuts as he joins her beneath the water, bare chest a mere inch from hers as he quirks his brows coyly. “It got you naked, so I’ll probably do it again.”

“I won’t help next time.” 

“Then I’ll just rub my face against yours and get it all over you. Won’t have much of a choice, then.” 

“You’re a literal child.”

Y/N grabs the bottle of chamomile shampoo from the shelf carved into the polished stone wall of the shower, uncapping it and pouring a glob into the palm of her hand. She sets the container back down and beckons Harry forward with the forefinger of her free hand. The vampire drifts towards her once again and wraps his arms across the dip of her back, lightly swaying her from side to side as she begins working the shampoo into his roots, the pads of her fingers massaging his scalp in slow circles. The groan that betrays him is pitiful. 

Y/N pretends not to hear it, continuing to work a lather into his curls as the boy trails his fingers up and down the center of her spine, the feathery sensation causing her to shiver despite the hot temperature of the water. Harry leans down to nestle his face into the crook of his friend’s neck, laying his head along her shoulder and cradling her to his body as she combs her fingers through his locks. He can’t remember the last time he took a shower with someone just for the sake of it, with no ulterior motive other than to bask in each other’s presence. It’s nice. 

Harry begins sponging his lips across the curve of Y/N’s throat, feeling her tense momentarily before relaxing back into his grasp, the pads of her digits scratching at his scalp. 

“God, that feels so good.” Harry mumbles, tone so garbled in bliss, it’s barely understandable. 

The mortal slowly coaxes him back under the direct line of the shower, thoroughly rinsing the bubbles out of his hair and making sure to carefully wash any leftover shampoo out of his lashes. She then ties her arms around his broad shoulders, gently running her nails up and down the expanse of his muscular back, feeling the tendons unknot under her guidance. Y/N cranes her head to the side and flushes her lips to Harry’s temple, the pattering of the water camouflaging the fact that the area lacks a pulse. She sighs softly in innocent pleasure, the warm air sending a delightful bristling down the young man’s neck and drawing another drunken whimper from his lungs. This all feels therapeutic, almost. Neither had realized how much they missed domesticity until now. 

The human suddenly snorts humorously, talking against Harry’s waxy skin. “I’m surprised you haven’t tried to make a move yet.” 

Harry rattles his head sleepily, the ridges of his mouth tickling her jugular as he does so. His voice is distant and tender, but his words send a pang of electricity to her core. “I’ll fuck you afterwards. Just wanna enjoy this right now.” 

Y/N lets her eyes lull shut, allowing the sheets of hot water to numb her mind the same way it had his, a certain type of mellowness soaking into her bones. Her tone comes out as soothed and detached as her lover’s, all her attention funneled into how incredible his hard body feels pressed to hers in such an intimate fashion, his strong arms clinging to her like a lifeline. “I’m not complaining.”

Even in his distracted state, Harry still somehow manages to wriggle in a smug quip. “Of course you’re not. I give you nothing to complain about.”

“Dickhead.”

Y/N gives his ringlets a spiteful tug, which he responds to with an airy chuckle and a cheeky smack across her ass. The girl jumps slightly with a small gasp and a handful of select curses, which only causes him to cackle even further. “You love that shit, don’t you?”

“Go back to keeping your mouth shut.” 

“Mm. S’what I thought.” 

Harry keeps his sensual promise, as he always does. 

As soon as they exit the shower, he immediately wanders into the bedroom, the only towel in his possession being the one he’s using to shake out his damp curls. Y/N dries off her body patiently as she stands in front of the clouded mirror, rubbing the linen over her softened skin. She handles her hair second, patting and scrunching the water out as she thinks on what Harry could possibly be doing that is taking him so long. She doubts he’s getting dressed, if his earlier intentions are any indication, and he seemed like he had a plan in motion when he’d walked out, so there must be a method to his prolonged absence. 

When the monster pads back into the bathroom, he is just as bare as when he’d left, the towel he’d used on his locks crumpled in his large hands. He chucks it into the linen hamper beside the jacuzzi, sauntering up behind Y/N and she has to force herself not to use the mirror to ogle below his waist. She folds her towel neatly onto the counter, reaching forward and wiping the last bit of condensation off the glass so she can get a proper view of Harry’s face. Maybe it’ll help her deduce what he’s plotting. 

The boy presses up against her backside, pushing her forward until her hips are wedged between his torso and the edge of the bathroom counter, moving all her stringy hair onto one shoulder with the back of his hand. Harry locks eyes with her through the mirror, speckling a few sloppy kisses along the back of her neck and grinning into her flesh when a shiver coils down her spine. He looks so fucking good with his damp ringlets glued along his sharp jaw, his jade eyes glossy with lascivious intentions, and his cheeks and chest still colored from the hot water, tattoos looking as alluring as ever. He nuzzles the tip of his nose across the shell of her ear, taking the lobe between his teeth and tugging teasingly, the warm air of his low, dominant tone causing her flinch in anticipation. 

“Arms behind your back.” 

Y/N obeys without a hitch, bringing her hands together atop the alcove at the bottom of her spine. She feels the unmistakable sensation of cold metal looping around her wrists, tightening with soft clicks and pinching at her skin. The cuffs sift into the designated setting and Harry gives them a quick yank to check for security, tying the excess chain link around his knuckles and pulling down harshly. Y/N’s body contorts to his influence, her arms straightening out as her back arches, chest swelling forward while her hips remain perched to the tabletop, held in place by his own. She can feel the head of his cock dab against the back of her thighs, his irises darkening as he surveys her bust with a type of barely-contained desire that sends heat flooding into her abdomen. 

Harry ducks his head further down to glue more kisses along the slope of her shoulder, nipping periodically and leaving behind a neat row of love bites that he’ll admire in detail later. The words he murmurs against her skin deliver a sweltering simmer in their wake. “Do you want it rough?” 

Y/N swallows thickly, nodding her head several times and whispering a bashful, “Yes.” 

“‘Yes’ what?”

The human licks at her lips tentatively, squeaking a tad when gives the metal hoops an expectant tug, urging a reply. “Yes, sir.” 

Harry’s lashes flutter shut for a second, the corners of his lips twitching in arrogant satisfaction. “You’ve got the filthiest tongue, but you know how to make it say the sweetest things, don’t you, baby?”

“Only for you.”  

“No one else?”

“No one else.”

The vampire’s eyes open slowly, head tilting to the side to assess her with sly amusement. “You wanna know how I can tell that’s the truth?” 

Y/N’s joints are starting to ache due to the position he’s fixed her in, but she doesn’t mind the burn. It feeds into the appeal. “H-How?”

Harry leans forward, brushing his wet lips up her jaw, the tip of his cock spreading her open just a smidge. “Because every time I fuck you, you’re always so bloody tight. Means I’m the only one stretching out that snug little cunt.”

A broken whine escapes Y/N’s sore throat— courtesy of what had occurred the night prior— and she squirms in the brunette’s grip, trying to shimmy her way further down his length. She’s anxious to feel him fill her. “Deeper.” 

“Pardon?”

“Go deeper. Want it all.” 

Harry raises an eyebrow in impressed curiosity. “You want it all in one go? Don’t want me to prep you first?” 

She shakes her head stubbornly, pushing back against him and succeeding in sinking an inch or so. Harry’s entire face hardens as she clenches around the head of his prick, attempting to ride down further to sedate her desperate need. He twists his fist tighter around the chain, his other hand coming up to grip her throat, forearm pressed between her breasts as he gets a decent hold to prepare for what’s to come.  

“If it gets to be too much,” Harry dabs a gentle kiss onto her cheek; it’s to communicate the importance of the message amidst the tense atmosphere, “you know to tell me, right?” 

“Mmhm.”

“Alright. Ready?”

“Always.”

Y/N nearly passes out. Even though she’s grown accustomed to Harry’s size and girth, it somehow never fails to shock her into a state of unexpected rapture. He just fits so well inside her— hits every nook and crevice like he was meant to touch every single one. That, combined with his unrelinquishing thrusts and sinful dirty talk...It’s enough to render anyone helpless. It’s certainly enough to have her shaking and screaming against his chest, and it’s definitely more than enough to drive her towards an orgasm that she knows will blow out her legs for at least the rest of the day. 

Harry fucks into her just how she’d requested— rough and vehement. He presses her bare back to his chest by using the hold he has around her throat, her head falling backwards onto his shoulder as he pounds into her belly from behind. His other hand is braided into the chain between the cuffs, controlling how her body seizes up and gives way. She’s standing on the tips of her toes, legs spread open as much as her weak knees will support, scraggly breaths stuttering from her nose and mouth as shattered noises of ecstasy decorate the space the fading steam has left behind. Her hips are ramming forward against the rim of the counter, the marble knocking against her pubic bone to the point where she knows bruises will develop later on. She doesn’t mind it; she loves seeing the memories Harry brands onto her, whether that be in the form of hickies across her thighs, fingerprints over her waist, or his rings fanned out across the swell of her ass. She’ll take anything he’s willing to give. 

The vampire is dismantling just as quickly as she is, obvious in the fractured growls and soft grunts he’s puffing against the side of her face. His pink-polished nails dig into her jugular, fingers twitching as her heartbeat hammers against his palm, sending vibration down his whole nervous system. His cock is slicking into her easily and it’s obvious the anticipation of what he had said during their bath had gotten to her; he can feel how wet she is with every stroke. It’s dripping down her quivering thighs and smearing all over his tiger head tattoo, damp slaps resonating from where her backside hits against his tinted pelvis. 

Harry stares down hazily at where he’s spreading her open, taking his bottom lip between his teeth as tiny mewls itch along the back of his raw throat, her own sounds playing across his ears with each buck of his thighs. They float through the heavy air like a lullaby and he can confidently say he’d listen to her moans forever, if time allowed. 

“I think it’s funny,” Harry starts with a comedic edge to his strained voice, mimicking the introduction Y/N had used the day before when they’d been in the jacuzzi, “that you’re always so willing to let me use you however I want. That you literally beg me to take you this hard. It’s almost pitiful, really, that you never had anyone fuck you right before I came along.”

The girl squirms in his arms, her hands flat against his abdomen, nails carving into his flesh. Her sentences come out cracked and almost pained. “I-I wish I’d met you sooner.” 

“Yeah, I bet you do.” Harry grits against the shell of her ear, smirking when she worries her lower lip beneath her top teeth, trying to keep a tab on what he knows is probably an embarrassingly loud keen. “I bet you wish you’d had me back home, huh? Spent all your time fucking around with those vanilla small-town boys, never had a real man treat you the way you wanted. Bet you didn’t even like those pricks, did you, darling?”

Y/N shakes her head vigorously in response. “They were so boring. You’re so much better.” 

She’s working his praise kink like a charm.

“Poor thing.” Harry scoffs sympathetically, running his grasp upwards until his thumb and forefinger rope around her jaw. He maneuvers her head into place, forcing her to look at herself in the mirror, hissing his words lowly. “Eyes up. See how pretty you look taking every last bit of that cock? And the way your tummy’s bulging? That’s how you know the sex is good— that’s how it’s supposed to look.”

Y/N gazes upon the image her friend is referring, her exhales hiccuping in her chest at the way an obvious bump rises in her belly every time he thrusts inside. Not only that, but Harry just looks incredible, as well, with his heavily inked arm flushed between her breasts, the art flexing to life as he yanks her down against his lap by her neck. She can see the sweat beading his hairline, his freshly-washed ringlets jumping to his movements as he groans into her scalp. 

Y/N’s lips part in a silent moan and the immortal takes this chance to shove his first two fingers into her mouth, weighing them against her tongue and instructing her with a clear, deep accent. “Suck.”

She does so obediently, her cheeks hollowing as she gasps around the digits, swiveling to match his tempo. Between her glistening body, the needy expression painted across her appearance as she conforms to his every demand, and the way her walls are clinging to him like a vice as she eagerly licks and suckles at him…

Harry loses it. 

“Fucking hell.” The monster unclamps the hand he has around her jugular and Y/N drops back down onto her heels, ankles quaking now that she has to carry her own weight. His palm finds refuge along the back of her skull instead, proceeding to shove her head down towards the counter, pulling at the cuffs to finagle her into a folded position. “Bend over.”

Y/N does as told, a small, “mm!” plucking at her vocal chords as Harry pushes her cheek down against the cold marble situated between his two sinks. He pins her head to the surface and she casts her attention upwards to try and get a peek of him through the glass. His eyes look unnaturally dark, though she can’t quite place the shade given her limited view. 

The vampire makes sure the chain link is secured around his knuckles, proceeding to use the toy to bounce Y/N against his cock. He yanks her towards his torso until she thunks wetly against his base, using his hips to push her forward harshly and pulling out until his tip is barely grazing her entrance. He repeats this action over and over, weak whimpers spilling shamelessly from his plump ruby lips as he keeps her face fastened down, maintaining some form of consistent stability. Every fiber of his being sparks with bliss as he watches her jerk against the counter, back caving forward and causing her naked chest to bulge against the stone panel. One of these days, she’s going to drive him mental. He swears it. 

“There’s a good girl, minx.” Harry’s head tips backwards, bobbing back and forth as his sticky chest heaves with the exertion of keeping him tethered to reality. “Take it just like that, yeah? God, you should see the way you’re so snug around me. Love that cock, don’t you? Say it. Tell me you love it.”

Y/N’s fingers curl into loose fists against the dip of her spine, nails digging into her palms. “I love your cock, Harry. I love it so much. Don’t stop, please don’t fucking— oh!” He prods over her g-spot and she shudders below him. “Shit, keep going! Right there, right there, right there— oh my God!”

“Right here? Is that what’s gonna make my dirty little whore cum?” Harry grinds his teeth, ignoring the rouge curls falling into his furrowed brows, jabbing the spongy area with continuous plunges. “More? Look at how you’re shaking, baby. And you’re just so fucking wet. Absolutely soaked and... and fuck, that’s my sweet girl.” 

The boy keeps delivering every plea she chokes out, his climax beginning to froth at the trench of his stomach and along the underside of his balls. A familiar glow starts to pour into his dormant veins. “I’m almost there, dove. Gonna fill you up until it runs down your thighs.”

“Y-You’re so good, I can’t fucking— I’m gonna—”

“Beg for it. Beg for Daddy, princess.” 

Y/N does so with no remorse, confessing to him how much she wants his load, telling him that she needs to feel him spill inside her all warm and thick and heavy. A dark, open-mouthed smirk adorns Harry’s features as he fucks a throbbing ache between her thighs, feeling his mind completely slip. He may be damned with eternal life, but in this instant, the immortal feels like he touches heaven. 

Then, that moment of pure euphoria is stripped away by the sound of his front door clicking open. 

Harry’s eyes snap awake, all his motions coming to an abrupt halt. He shushes a protesting Y/N quietly, tuning his heightened hearing to make sure he hadn’t imagined the sound. 

But no, it’s very much real. It’s followed by the noise of the lock clanking back into its hole, and then three pairs of footsteps begin echoing down the hallway that leads to his living room. He recognizes every single one and unhinged rage suddenly flares around his pupils, potent and bright red. If Y/N wasn’t in such a compromisable position, he wouldn’t have gotten away with that slip-up. 

“Christ, you’ve got to be fucking shitting me.”

Harry carefully withdraws himself from between the mortal’s legs, wincing a bit at the loss of suction and feeling a spoonful of guilt stem from the disappointed whine Y/N sobs. His swollen, leaking cock sways lightly as he takes a cautious step back, testing to see if he’s capable of moving without face-planting the ground. His mind is misty and he’s obviously drenched in the pungent scent of sex, but other than that, he reckons he can manage just fine. Especially with the newfound anger coursing through his nerves— a direct result of the unexpected trio of intruders chatting nonchalantly on the floor below. 

Harry stumbles towards the exit of the bathroom, knees wobbly and head spinning, an unsatisfied gnawing toiling in his groin. He needs to get that taken care of as soon as possible, but he can’t until he gets rid of the three morons milling around his foyer. He snatches his cherry blossom silk robe from the hook on the wall, wrapping it around himself tightly and making sure to cover all his assets to prevent any mishaps. 

He glances up at a pouting Y/N as he ties off the ribbon around his waist, walking back and helping her onto her unstable feet, cooing apologetically. “Just give me a minute, sweetheart. I heard some visitors come in downstairs ‘cause, apparently, they don’t understand the concept of privacy. This is the last time I’m trusting anyone with an extra key.”  

The girl leans back against one of the sinks, blinking up at him emptily as he thumbs over her chin in comfort. Her voice is hardly audible, raw with exhaustion. “How...How did you know they were here? I didn’t hear them come in...” 

Harry pauses for a moment, clearing his throat awkwardly and pecking her on the nose to insert a distraction. He throws some humor into the mix as well, wanting to steer the conversation to safe grounds, opting for using a bit of compulsion to get the job done. His pupils dilate as his sentences swim around her head in a soothing voice, heavy with persuasion. “I heard the door slam shut. I guess you were a little too busy screaming my name to notice.” 

Y/N’s pupils expand to match his, her face going slack as the supernatural magic sews into her thoughts and molds her perspective to his story. Her lashes flutter in mild confusion, brows cinching as her brain recalibrates itself. The creases in her forehead dissolve as all of her doubt melts away, the corners of her plump lips quirking at his snarky remark. “I guess so.” 

“Can’t blame you, though.” Harry taps at her bottom lip cheekily, shrugging his brows. “I was giving it to you pretty good.” 

“Stop being such an arrogant little shit.” Y/N rolls her foggy eyes, but she can’t hide the way her heartbeat spikes— not from him. Then, her face suddenly wracks with embarrassment, eyes shattering with humiliated realization. “Oh my God, that means they probably heard everything…”

Oh, they definitely heard everything, Harry thinks. They’ve got nothing better to do other than pry. 

He nurses her downcast face with his cold palm, one shoulder rising and falling casually to show it’s no big deal. “Don’t worry about it, hm? I’m gonna go kick them out, anyways, so you won’t have to deal with it.”

The pet name and his kind gesture eases her woes a bit, but not much. “Still. I’m never showing my face in public ever again.”

Now it’s the vampire’s turn to roll his eyes at her theatrics. “Just stay here, yeah? It’ll only take a second, and then…” Her friend gives her naked body a suggestive once-over, licking at the corner of his mouth. “Then we can finish what we started.” 

Y/N kicks at his ankle, jokingly chastising him for his wandering gaze as she fiddles with her fingers within the handcuffs. “Just go.”  

The moment Harry’s bare feet step off the last rung of his staircase, he begins spewing venom at the three imbeciles standing around at the mouth of his entrance corridor. 

“Are you fucking dense?” He stomps up towards the group of young men with balled fists and bristling irises, all his spite trained on Mitch. “I told you I was busy! That suggests that you should’ve stayed away for the weekend! It meant, ‘leave me alone,’ not ‘come to my flat unannounced.’”

“Yeah, we know you’re busy.” Niall boasts with a loud scoff, shaking his head as an afterthought. “I think the whole building knows, at this point.”

The Irish bloke grabs Xander, who catches onto what the man is doing and happily takes a part in the action. He bends over while Niall grasps onto his shoulders and begins to mimic thrusting, arching his back forward and shaking his ass. He sucks one of his fingers into his mouth, moaning profusely to add authenticity to their vulgar reenactment. “Oh, Harry! Right there, don’t stop!”

Niall drops his voice a few octaves for symbolism, putting on a shitty British accent as he bucks against Xander’s backside. “Yeah, baby, you like that? Like it right there? Tell me how much you love that cock.” 

Harry’s jaw clenches as he tries to ignore them, refusing to give rise to their taunting. The two boys break into a puddle of giggles at his expense, nudging each other triumphantly and eventually dying down. Harry isn’t normally the type of person to daydream about violence— why would anyone partake in something so barbaric when dismantling an enemy psychologically is so much better?— but he finds himself fantasizing about tearing Niall and Xander’s hands off and using them as ping-pong paddles. 

Mitch shifts his body towards his best friend, arms crossed loosely with an expression of sheer amusement painted across his bearded face, seeming undisturbed by Harry’s rampage and deadly grimace. “It’s nice to see you, too, H.” 

The younger vampire takes a measured inhale, swallowing down the urge to rip the older man’s mustache clean off. He directs his next sentence at all of them, glaring intently as his voice comes out flat and harsh. “Get out.”

Niall raises his palms in peaceful surrender, proceeding to use an index finger to signal hastily between his impromptu porno co-star and himself. “Don’t look at us, this was Mitch's idea. We just came along.” 

“None of you should have come at all.” Harry spits, tightening his lean arms over his chest, biceps rippling under the thin silk of his elegant robe. “What do you want?” 

A soft giggle suddenly bursts from Xander and he momentarily slaps his hand over his mouth to muddle it, but his eyes continue to dance with mirth. “Sorry, I just can’t take you seriously in that.” He juts his chin towards Harry’s pajamas. “I think my grandmother had one just like it.” 

“Yeah, I stole this from her place right after I pissed on her grave.” The brunette snaps with an exaggerated smile, feeling a flare of evil satisfaction at the way Xander’s grin immediately plops. Niall snorts loudly and tries to cover it up, but it fails and he is left having to brace the brunt of the other boy’s contempt. 

Harry turns back to face Mitch while the other two immortals bicker, now aware that he is the mastermind behind this entire coup. “What are you even doing here? Shouldn’t you have left for Vegas already?”

“Yeah, we should have.” He answers pointedly with a soft, dejected sigh. Harry has to keep himself from casting his gaze away in guilt. 

The annual trip had been a tradition he and Mitch had started in the nineties, just them two. As their group had expanded, so had the attendant list, and now it was something special their whole clique did together to put some extra excitement— something stable to look forward to— into the endless years they had ahead. No one had missed out on the trip in the last thirty years, especially not willingly, and no one ever thought Harry— the co-founder of the event— would be the one to break that streak. He can tell Mitch is upset. 

“I’m sorry.” Harry mumbles, squeezing at the inside of his elbows and putting as much genuine emotion into his demeanor as possible. “It just slipped my mind and I made another commitment that I can’t bail on. But it won’t happen again, I promise. Betsy swear.” 

Mitch’s downturned lips jolt slightly at the mention of his old bayonet. He had kept the weapon after the American Revolution had ended, as a tribute to the old life he was leaving behind after he transitioned, naming it fondly after his mother. With all of that history taken into appeal, it’s no wonder the item means a lot to him. That is exactly why the two best friends had developed a dynamic around it. 

They would tie an oath to the object in order to ensure it would be kept, and if the promise was broken, the other would get to stab the traitor with it. The game had been something Mitch and Harry had conjured up decades ago while under the influence of some very strong psychedelics, but it had stuck, for some reason. It’s simply a playful inside joke, and though it’s a tad gruesome, it’s hardly an issue considering they both self-heal quickly. Any damage inflicted is equivalent to that of a rubber band snapping against their skin, so in the end, no harm, no foul. At its core, it’s just a vampire’s version of a pinky swear, hence the term, “Betsy swear.” Harry had thought about getting it patented, at one point. 

The jade-eyed boy feels a weight lift off his shoulders as Mitch indulges one of his signature quiet chuckles. “Alright, fine. Betsy swear, then. The reason we’re here is ‘cause I wanted to check up on you before we left, and ‘cause I wanted to make sure you switched the reservation. You never got back to me about it.” 

“Oh, my bad. I got it done, though. Everything should check out.” Harry reassures, waving away his visitor’s doubt. He’d tended to the job last night after Y/N fell asleep and he meant to send a confirmation text, but forgot when the mortal had begun to stir randomly. He’d had to put away his phone and pretend to be unconscious for a few minutes until her agitation melted away, resulting in the deed going undone, courtesy of the mild panic that had dulled his memory. “Why didn’t you just text me about it?” 

Mitch gives him a deadpan look, pursing his lips to fight off an entertained grin. “Oh, I did. Multiple times, actually. But I reckon you were too busy with the treadmill to notice.” 

The older creature’s reference works as intended, an irritating flush crawling up Harry’s neck and pouring into his ears, garnering a fit of cackles on his companion’s behalf.

“Fuck off.” Harry grumbles as he shoves Mitch’s shoulder, but the insult is hard to take seriously when he’s wrestling a smirk of his own. 

“Is it the girl from the club?” The lanky man inquires curiously, tilting his head to the side with an impressed air. “It’s been, what, four weeks now? That’s a record, I think. You’ve never kept one around that long.” 

“What can I say, the sex is good.” Harry shrugs easily, tucking a couple of rebellious curls away from his eyes, which gleam crimson red as a supporting factor to his next comment. “And the blood is even better.”

Mitch rolls his irises playfully. “Alright, Casanova, pipe down.” He glances over his friend’s rumpled appearance, taking in the slightly damp skin, wild hair, and the plethora of faded hickies peeking through the boy’s robe, littering his chest and collarbones. “She’s got you on a tight leash, I see.” 

“It’s only fair, considering she spends most of that time in my handcuffs. Quid pro quo and all that.” Harry quips back, bursting into laughter when Mitch gags dramatically. 

“You know you could’ve just brought her along, right?” Mitch suggests, tucking his hands into his pockets. “We each have our own rooms, remember? No one would get in the way of your little late night jogs. Though I can’t say the same for the other hotel guests. She’s not necessarily subtle.” 

Harry presses his tongue along the inside of his cheek coyly. “It’s not my fault I’m good in bed. It’s a curse, really. Could never get away with dressing room sex.”

He contemplates Mitch's offer for a second. He thinks it could be a fun time, but then he recalls that the trip to Vegas is a week-long party, which Y/N can’t indulge because she works a regular nine-to-five. Plus, a human in a car full of vampires sounds like the introduction to an ominous joke. Something is bound to slip, especially because no one in the crew is used to having humans around outside of meal hours. He doesn’t want the responsibility of constantly having to wipe her brain. 

Aside from that, most of the vampires that mill around Vegas aren’t as cultured as Harry’s friends. They lack restraint, a conscience, and fear of consequences, given that the city’s crazy reputation provides the perfect cover for all those dangerous behaviors. That makes them deadly predators to someone as trusting and unsuspecting as Y/N, and having to continuously protect her would be too much of a hassle. It’s supposed to be a vacation; the last thing he needs is for it to turn into an episode of Shark Week. It’s best to stay put.

Harry shakes his head after a minute, clearing his throat. “But I think I’m good. Bringing along a human isn’t worth all the trouble she might cause. Thank you, though.” 

Mitch bobs his head in understanding, well aware of the problems Harry is alluding to. “You have a point.” He pauses for a second in thought, shaking his head at the idea of having to deal with the insanity that surrounds their Vegas siblings. “I guess I’ll just see you next week, then, yeah? Better get going.”

The younger vampire mirrors his nod, opening his arms for a hug, which Mitch gladly takes. He’s not one for affection, that much is clear, but he makes certain exceptions here and there, and of course his friends file under that category. And every now and then, Y/N does too. 

“See you next week.” He pulls away from the embrace with a hard pat to Mitch’s shoulder, smiling softly. “Send tons of pictures, okay? And videos of Niall getting shitfaced. I need new blackmail content.” 

“Will do.” Mitch squeezes his best friend’s shoulders tightly, beaming at him in return. He then cranes towards his two fellow guests, whistling to gain their attention from the passionate conversation they seem to be having about Harry’s robe. “Time to head out, Bonnie and Clyde.”

“Who’s who?” Niall questions childishly, raising an eyebrow. “Because I think I should be Clyde. Xander has Bonnie vibes.” 

“No I don’t!” 

“Yes, you do.” The Irish boy reasons, cocking his head knowingly. “You seem like the type who would cheat on a murderer with another criminal from the same jail. You’ve got a knack for drama, like most women.” 

Xander crosses his arms stubbornly. “No, I don’t.”

“You do, actually.” Harry butts in, eyes twinkling slyly as the group starts to wander towards the exit. He decides to get revenge for the teasing from earlier. “You moan just like one, too.”

Xander blushes bright red, diving into the shadow of the corridor to avoid any more ridicule. “I’m leaving.” 

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” 

The other vampires laugh as they follow behind Harry’s ex-fling, waving their final goodbyes. As soon as the front door echoes shut, the immortal turns on his heel and heads back towards the glass stairs, beginning to undo the silk ribbon knotted around his hips. 

He’s got his own partner in crime to attend to. 

///

That night, Y/N and Harry end up bidding each other farewell in the corridor of his condo. 

That seems to be a common theme in their relationship, he’s come to find. It’s usually the entrance to her own apartment instead of his, but the motif is there, nonetheless: They always end up meeting in a hallway, every single time. 

“Thanks for having me over.” Y/N murmurs in her signature gentle dialect, smiling delicately as she skids the toe of her sneaker against the ground of the carpet outside his door, trying to keep the butterflies in her tummy tame. It was an incredible two days— maybe the best weekend she’s ever had, if she’s being honest. “I had a lot of fun.” 

Harry leans his bare shoulder against his threshold, clad in nothing but a pair of royal blue boxers and black ankle socks, freely showing off the collection of love bites and scratches Y/N had so kindly finished gifting him a few hours ago. She’d gone wild the second he’d unlocked the metal cuffs and he’s more than happy with the results.

The stains speckle his broad chest and the expanse of his taut neck, dark and obvious beneath the complex’s buttery lighting. Bruises trace down his stomach and across his ribs, a neat row of four hickies centered vertically between his two fern inkings. They disappear suggestively under the elastic band of his underwear and she can feel flashes of heat layer across her cheeks, her mind recalling all the filthy sounds he’d made when she had created them.

The human peels away from the artwork that is Harry’s marked torso, glancing around nervously at the fact that some stranger might see the fruit of their actions. The vampire’s lips twitch at her concern; it baffles him how she can be such a devil in between the sheets, but such a shy, reserved angel in every other aspect. It’s cute. 

Harry reaches forward and takes her warm fingers into his larger hand, thumbing over her knuckles appreciatively as his irises glitter smugly amidst his lashes, a smirk stringing his pillowy mouth. “We always have a lot of fun.” 

Y/N squeezes his palm playfully, gnawing into her cheek and humming in agreement. “That, we do.”

A moment of comfortable silence suspends the air between them, the only sound being the faint footsteps of people on the levels above and below, alongside the light skidding of the elevator as it delivers patrons to their destinations. Harry is the first to speak up again. 

“What was your favorite part?” 

Y/N blinks up at him blankly, slightly startled at the random question, but moreso at being put on the spot. 

“Oh, uh…” She laughs shakily, struggling to recall everything that had happened in the last forty-eight hours. There had been so much bare skin and desperate tongues involved, she can hardly pick through her memories without her ears prickling. “I think...I think the shower was my favorite. It was nice and relaxing. Helped me unwind.” 

Harry nods in recognition, turning through the pages in his mind and skimming through the instance she’s referring. “It was pretty nice, yeah. You look good in a soap beard.” 

Y/N scoffs at his joking compliment. “Thanks. I’ll grow it out more often. Just for you.” 

The young man reaches up and grips over his chest in fake passion, face contorted into a wistful expression. “That’s all I ask.” 

The pair break into childish giggles and the sensation of Harry rubbing across the top of her hand is starting to make her head fuzzy. “What about yours? What was your favorite?”

Harry mulls over his own topic for a few seconds, lips puckering in thought as his eyes narrow pensively. The comically adorable picture makes Y/N’s heart skip. 

“I think…” Harry lists his gaze downwards back onto his patiently-awaiting friend, lips spreading into his patented dazzling smile. “I think it was probably the Hamilton reenactment.” 

Y/N brows jump, mood slightly unconvinced. “Really?” 

The vampire nods confidently, his own eyebrows inching upwards, voice amused. “Why is that so hard to believe?”   

Y/N shrugs offhandedly, glimpsing down at where the ridges of his thumb are delivering soothing shots of bliss into her veins. “You’re just so...y’know...you… so I guess I just expected you’d have a preference for the more…” She chooses her next words carefully, not wanting to be so brazen with the risk of someone overhearing, “...intimate parts of the weekend.”

“Wow, okay. Just call me a whore to my face, then. That’s fine.” 

Y/N throws her free hand upwards in a fist, slugging Harry on the shoulder with appalled shock overtaking her features. His boyish chuckles echo off the walls of the building as she whips her head around to make sure no one had witnessed his dirty bluntness. “You know what I mean!” 

“Yeah.” He purposefully raises his voice, nearly shouting the following sentence just to get on her nerves. “You’re slut-shaming me!” 

Y/N surges forward, trying to clamp her hand over his mouth and save herself the embarrassment. “Harry, shut up!”

He easily fights her off, his supernatural strength beating hers tenfold. She ends up wrapped in his embrace, flushed against his hard chest as he sticks his tongue out at her mockingly. He drops his tone back down to normal, his two front teeth digging into his lower lip to keep more laughter from bubbling over. “That’s not nice. You should stop conforming to society’s outdated ‘sex is taboo’ narrative.”

“I wasn’t—” Y/N starts insistently, but then she realizes she’s become almost as loud as him so she forces her voice to taper into an alarmed hiss instead. “I wasn’t slut-shaming you! I was simply expressing—”

“You just see me as a toy, don’t you?” The creature cuts her off, lips dipping downwards into a glorified frown. He proceeds to bat his lashes and sniffle, packing as many theatrics as possible into his mopey act. “I have feelings, y’know? My big dick and cunnilingus skills aren’t my only redeeming qualities! You should be ashamed of yourself for objectifying me like that.”

Y/N presses her lips together to ward off an immature grin, rattling her head to get herself under control. She gives him a stern look, warning him to cut it out. “Stop being a child.” 

“Stop using me for sex and making derogatory assumptions about my promiscuity.”  

“Oh, hop of it! You use me right back. It’s mutual.”

“Which is why the slut-shaming is such a paradox.” 

“For fuck’s sake, I wasn’t fucking— You know what? You can’t even pin me on the objectification part because you do it to me all the time!” 

“Oh, is that so?” Harry prods with a humorous tilt of his head, squeezing at her love handles and swimming in the way she wriggles around. “Elaborate.” 

“When you slapped my ass in the shower. Or when you put your hand under my shirt to play with my chest while we watch TV.” Y/N debates, poking at the thorax of his butterfly tattoo. “Very objectifying, if you ask me.”

“Mm, not quite, darling.” The vampire shakes his head and draws her closer, ducking down to flirt the tip of his nose along the slope of hers. “There’s a difference.”

“Oh, yeah?” She digs her nails into his pectorals, discreetly savoring the strong muscles. “What is it?”

Harry glimpses down at where she’s carving indents into his flesh, enjoying the minute pain more than he should. He drifts his mouth closer towards her ear, inhaling the scent of his shampoo wafting from her silky strands of hair. “The difference is that you’re usually begging me to do all those things.”

Y/N’s teeth grind in begrudging defeat, her spine giving a surrendered shiver at his crude point. “Whatever.” 

Harry releases her body, haughty victory written all over his posture. “I rest my case.” 

Y/N’s pride blazes, a threat falling from her tongue sharply, but it holds no true intentions. “Maybe I should just stop asking you to, then.”

“You won’t.” The boy sighs airily, tapping his bare foot against the ground without a care in the world. “You like me too much.” 

“Even if I like you, I’d have enough dignity to stop seeing you if I wanted.” Y/N huffs, making a face at him to emphasize her stance. “It’s this little thing called ‘willpower.’”

“Yeah, well, we both know you and your willpower are gonna end up texting my number Friday night, asking me to come over for some more interior design advice.” Harry snarkily dismisses, presenting a scenario where he’s holding an invisible phone in his hands, pretending to tap out a message. His voice comes out high-pitched, mimicking her own. “Hey, one of the rungs on my headboard came loose. Can you come help me fix it?”

Y/N stares at him with eyes half-lidded in pettiness. “I don’t sound like that.”

“You’re right. You’re a tad more nasally.” 

“Asshole.” 

“I’m just calling it like I see it, love.”

Y/N socks him on the shoulder again as retribution, though it barely has an impact. 

After a couple heartbeats full of vengeful silence, Y/N chimes up with a jesting tone, though the manner in which she’s picking at her nails tells Harry she’s slightly anxious. “Hypothetically speaking, if I were to send out a text inviting you to come over Friday...would you?”

A lopsided simper pops the immortal’s dimples awake. He shifts on his feet, crossing his ankles nonchalantly. “Hypothetically speaking, I think I could very well make it.” 

Y/N chews on her lower lip as the apples of her cheeks jolt. “Ok, well...Let’s say— once again, hypothetically— that I should be home by eight that day. Would that work for you?” 

Harry cocks his head from side to side as if churning the offer around his mind. “I think that, hypothetically, that fits right into my schedule.”

The human’s belly flops in giddy excitement. “Great. It’s booked, then. Hypothetically speaking, of course.” 

“Of course.” Harry agrees, the reply accompanied by a teasing furrow of his sculpted brows and a curt nod. 

Y/N clasps her hands in front of her thighs with finality, giving him a bright smile. “Alright, then. I’ll see you next week.”

“Next week.” Harry confirms with a cheeky wink, running his tongue along his top teeth to keep from bursting into giggles. “Hypothetically.” 

“Hypothetically.” Y/N states with a slight bow of her head, tucking one hand into the back pocket of her dark jeans as she takes a step back from the front door with a small wave. She turns on her heel to face the elevator at the other end of the hall, her foot lifting to take the first step towards the exit. 

“Wait.” 

The mortal looks back towards her friend, eyebrows poised in question. 

Harry scratches at the nape of his neck, smiling softly. “I could really go for a goodbye kiss. Not-so-hypothetically.” 

Y/N blinks at him in wonder. He’s never asked for one before. 

The awkward aura that quickly fills the space between them becomes suffocating. He considers the option of telling her he was just joking to spare himself the humiliation, but he doesn’t get the chance. Y/N lurches forward, teetering onto the tips of her toes and buttoning her lips to his. The spontaneous action makes him swallow his words. 

He fumbles to cup her jaw, kissing her back with just as much fervor and feeling the coldness of his skin fizzle away under her inherent warmth. The gesture isn’t sexual or desperate, but simply sweet and fulfilling. He enjoys it, though it’s not surprising given that he enjoys her lips touching him in any and every way imaginable. He’s not exactly sure why he’d made this particular request— it’s very out of character for him, in every sense of the phrase— but he deduces it’s likely because he wants one more thing to cling onto until he gets to feel her mouth again. It’s not uncommon to want a little something extra to get through the tougher nights, so it’s truly not that big of an occurrence. It’s only reasonable.  

Y/N breaks their exchange, eyes glassy and so beautifully clear as she pecks his chin one last time in a polite farewell. “Text me if you need me...And especially if you need me.”

Harry gulps thickly at the suggestive statement, nodding numbly as her body heat slips away. “Will do. Thanks. And thanks for the kiss. Needed it to tide me over until Friday.” 

“My pleasure. See you later, Holmes.” 

Harry waits patiently until Y/N’s figure disappears behind the gilded doors of the fancy elevator, watching the closed slates of metal glint coldly under the blurry lighting of the condominium’s corridor. He walks back into his apartment, shutting the door gently and slouching into the plush cushions of his leather sofa with a detached sigh. He gazes up at his extravagant chandeliers, once again left in the empty solitude he’d grown so fond of in his extensive lifetime. There’s not a single sound or motion invading his seclusion, not a hair out of place or a wrinkle in his rug, and everything is so still and quiet, it’s almost deafening. But despite every aspect being as it should, he can’t shake the sensation that something is off. Something is wrong. Something’s missing.

And for the first time in years, he finds himself feeling more lonely than alone. 

///

It only takes Harry about an hour of uneventful isolation to realize he’s made a grave mistake. 

He should have gone on the trip. 

Despite the fact that the vampire lives alone, he very rarely spends any time without seeing his friends. Since they all reside in the same building, it’s fairly easy for him to find some entertainment whenever boredom strikes. He’ll either go up a floor to Mitch’s place to watch a movie or mess around with his collection of vintage guitars, or he’ll go a level below to visit Adam and talk about any new art exhibits opening up around the area. He could visit Niall three floors above to play some FIFA on his gaming console and share porn recommendations, or even take the elevator to the twelfth floor to bother Xander and talk some shit while they do each other’s nails. And if Harry’s feeling extra needy for attention, he could always just invite them all over to his place so the group could go out for some Thai food at the restaurant down the street, or go see a movie at the cinema, or take a ride to their favorite local bar. 

No matter the circumstances, his friends are always readily available for him when he needs them, so he very solemnly spends his days alone. That is, until now. 

The entire crew had left for the Vegas trip and— as a result of his own irresponsibility and immature hormones— had left him all by himself for the next seven days. He would never admit it aloud to spare himself the ridicule of being overly sappy, but he misses the group. He misses Mitch’s soft voice and quiet wittiness, and he misses Adam’s cheeky banter and random fun facts, and he misses Niall’s inappropriate jokes and boisterous laughter, and he even misses Xander’s annoying digs and childish pettiness. He didn’t know how much he took it all for granted until it was gone.

For the rest of the week, Harry is practically miserable. The guys don’t text him much, which can be expected since the whole point of the holiday is to enjoy every second of it; there would be no point in traveling four hours just to sit in their hotel and message him. He talks to Y/N a bit, but she is also occupied most of the time with work, given that she had to take on a few extra shifts on behalf of her co-workers. The earliest she goes in is six A.M., the latest she comes out is nine P.M., and by then, Harry reckons she’s probably falling asleep in the entrance corridor of her home. He understands her exhaustion and therefore doesn’t expect her to humor him; it wouldn’t be fair. 

With everyone in his life busy and with his flat feeling colder and emptier than ever, it’s a miracle he doesn’t go mad within its walls. He goes out a handful of times to do some grocery shopping, for a run around a nearby park, and to take a walk along his favorite mall, but that’s it, really. He doesn’t go out to eat simply because he thinks it would be embarrassing having to sit alone at a restaurant; it’s pitiful and sad and he’s not going to subject himself to that. The most stimulating social interaction he has that week is a tie between a bit of flirting with a Target cashier, some suggestive gazing exchanged with a Starbucks barista, and a couple of cheeky caresses from a Gucci store employee taken while measuring his waist for a custom order. None of it satisfies him the way it normally does, though, and he can’t place why. 

By the time Friday evening rolls around, Harry is a hair short from letting his regular case of stir-crazy slip into a full-on psychotic break. That’s why he ends up at Y/N’s complex earlier than the agreed-upon hour, stepping out of his Cadillac with twenty minutes left to spare and with a certain desperation eating away at the back of his skull.

The creature casually jogs up the worn steps to her floor, the only sound being the heels of his maroon velvet boots clicking against the cement ground. He whistles softly to the vague tune of a new pop song that had been playing on the radio— Wet Ass something?— as he tucks his phone into his pocket and brushes a few traces of lint off his freshly-ironed button-up. 

His outfit for tonight is nothing too spectacular, but it isn’t too lazy, either. It’s a long-sleeve black silk shirt with glass buttons and a pair of large swallows embroidered along either sides of his chest, the threads dyed royal and pastel blue, cherry red, and creamy yellow. The top is cuffed up his elbows and unbuttoned down to his butterfly tattoo, showing off his naturally tanned skin and matching swallow inkings, the cross on his delicate chain centered between his pecs and twinkling under the flickering lights. He’d coupled the loose blouse with some black skinny jeans, a dark leather belt, a small golden hoop earring, and his trusty collection of rings and necklaces. In his opinion, it’s a proper look for a planned-out booty call. Formal, but easy to rip off. Especially in a blind hurry. 

Harry figures that he’ll check to see if Y/N is home, just to cover the bases. If she isn’t, he’ll tred back down the stairs and wait for her in his car. If she is, then that’s all the better; there’s no damage in starting a bit earlier than scheduled. It makes for a better recoup period between rounds. 

The immortal turns the corner into the familiar hallway where Y/N’s flat is located, one of his hands already forming into a loose fist with the intention of knocking on her door. He makes it about five paces before he’s slapped with an image that causes him to stop cold in his tracks, his whistling coming to an abrupt halt. 

Harry blinks repeatedly and lowers the frame of his pink Gucci sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, wanting to make sure the scene before him isn’t a figment of his imagination. Much to his displeasure, it isn’t. 

About three meters ahead, situated right in front of her door with her back facing towards him, is Y/N. That isn’t the odd aspect of the picture, though. What’s odd is that her usual grimy work attire is missing, which he had expected to see given that he knows she always goes to the cafe on Fridays. Instead, she is clad in the pastel blue floral sundress she had worn for him all those weeks back, when they had slept together for the second time. And instead of wearing her scuffed up Vans, she is wearing a pair of pretty tan sandals. And instead of having her hair up in a frizzy ponytail, it’s down and fanned around her shoulders in a glossy sheen of tousled curls. And she’s wearing perfume— the same one she had worn the night they met. He can smell it from here and it makes his brows furrow in confusion. She never wears perfume to work; she says it’s forbidden since it can make customers nauseous. 

But aside from all of those unorthodox details, there is one specific factor above all that throws Harry for the biggest loop he’s encountered in the last five weeks of knowing her. 

Y/N isn’t alone. She’s accompanied by another man. 

Harry gives the stranger a calculating once-over, taking in every aspect of the boy’s appearance. He has to keep himself from sputtering into laughter. This has to be some type of fucking joke. 

The bloke is fit, he’ll give him that, at least. He’s handsome and somewhat muscular, but in a manner that is painfully cliche and utterly boring. He has sandy blonde hair that falls across his forehead in a shaggy sideways bang, eyes the color of a Malibu beach, and generally soft features with the exception of decent cheekbones. He’s wearing a dull orange polo, khaki pants, Levi sneakers, and an annoyingly giant watch on his wrist that gives the impression he’s trying to show off. Harry nearly vomits in his mouth. 

Who the fuck would wear a polo willingly? And how brain dead does he have to be to think khakis are still in style? His fashion sense is obviously stunted. It appears his brain is stuck in his middle school phase, when the Justin Bieber haircut and douchey brands were all the rave amongst snotty pre-teens. Also, his watch is an embarrassment. Harry doesn’t know what the guy is attempting— and failing— to show off, considering the accessory is chunky and ugly and not even Versace or Rolex. It’s a disgrace. 

As if the forced posh demeanor isn’t enough, the imbecile actually has the guts to have a fake tan. The vampire isn’t surprised, unfortunately, given that eighty percent of all Los Angeles residents think it’s acceptable to dip-dye themselves into a carrot. He faintly wonders if the man’s balls are colored, as well, or if his ass and sack are as pale as his personality probably is. That would be quite the comedic sight either way. Creamsicles for the win, he supposes. 

Harry may not be alarmed by the blonde boy’s get-up, but he is disgusted. Thoroughly disgusted. Horrifically disgusted. What is Y/N doing with this moron? 

According to what he’s gathered from her personality and the pillow talks they often share, she hates the California stereotype almost as much as he does, if not more. She hates the fake tans and bleached hair and lack of conscience. She hates the outdated teenage brands, cringey jewelry, and fraternity member aesthetic. She especially hates the fact that some of these people don’t understand the basic principles of boundaries. And the thing is, this dude-bro of a man definitely ticks all of those boxes— especially with how close he’s standing next to her, looming above her frame with one arm extended against the surface of her door, trying to look nonchalant and cool as he drawls on about whatever topic they’re discussing. 

He’s practically the poster child for everything the girl despises, from the straightened hair to the alter boy church pants to the stupid forest tattoo on his forearm. So what in the flying fuck is she doing entertaining him? What is she doing standing outside her apartment with this trashy, bacon strip-looking, youth leader knock-off, 2012 Bieber impersonator of a human? 

It has to be a joke. It just has to. There’s no other valid explanation, except maybe a plea of insanity. 

Harry doesn’t realize he’s scowling until the stranger makes eye contact with him. The boy’s face breaks into an expression of unsettled discomfort at the way the vampire is peering at him over his sunglasses, allowing his end of the conversation to falter to dust. Y/N’s brows cinch at the occurrence, her attention peeling away to follow where her date’s had wandered. 

The second her gaze locks with Harry’s intense own, she feels her heart drop to her stomach. Fuck.

Let it be known Y/N didn’t want this. She didn’t want to go on a date with Jacob. In fact, she didn’t know who Jacob was until halfway through this week and she honestly wishes it had stayed that way. She wishes she hadn’t picked up Melissa’s shift with Isabel, she wishes she hadn’t offered to wait that extra table in the back out of the kindness in her heart, and she wishes she hadn’t caught the attention of the customer inhabiting it. 

As it turns out, the young man was Isabel’s cousin. He had come to pick her up since the girl’s car had been stuck at the shop for the last few days, and he had arrived a bit earlier than intended, deciding to sit at the back table to wait out the final ten minutes of his relative’s shift. Y/N had simply assumed that he was a regular customer, so she had gone to give him the usual trained introduction in order to follow the golden rule of customer service: Don’t keep a guest waiting. 

Jacob had explained the situation to Y/N, to which she responded with a light laugh and an instinctive apology. She had told him she’d go fetch Isabel for him and bid the boy goodbye. In her rational opinion, she had thought that would be it— a simple crossing of two paths that would likely never cross again— but evidently, the visitor had a very different idea. 

The human’s shift had continued as planned and everything had been going great until Isabel ducked into the kitchen right before leaving, dancing her way across the room and poking her coworker playfully in the tummy.  Apparently, from what Isabel had giddily told her, Jacob had taken an interest in Y/N. It was a bit ridiculous, if you asked her, considering they’d only talked for a total of about thirty seconds before parting routes. But Y/N hadn’t voiced that opinion; she didn’t want to come off as rude. 

Jacob had asked his cousin to set them up on a date and that is why Isabel had gone into the back before leaving. Y/N’s immediate impulse had been to decline. She wasn’t interested in seeing anyone at the moment. Other than Harry, of course. He handled all her needs just fine and they got on so well, she’d be crazy to replace him with some random guy she barely knew. She had gone to express this to Isabel in a gentler manner with an apologetic tone, but the words had ended up lodging in her throat. The girl had stared at Y/N with so much excitement, she’d immediately felt a wave of guilt erupt into her chest. 

She found it difficult to refuse, given that turning down the offer might come off as bitchy and insensitive. Here Isabel was, trying to innocently play match-maker on behalf of someone she cared about, buzzing with glee and smiling at her so big, her cheeks probably hurt. The last thing Y/N wanted was to upset her by basically telling her that Jacob wasn’t up to par with her standards. Rejecting him could be something her acquaintance took personally and Y/N didn’t want to have to deal with drama in the workplace, especially not with someone whose shifts often mirror her own. 

Y/N had reluctantly agreed to the invitation, her only request being that she had to be home by seven thirty. That would give her enough time to prepare for Harry’s visit. 

Her compliance had landed her where she is now, standing in front of her apartment door with a boy she has no interest in. 

It had been a terrible date, though Jacob took no notice of that. He spent the entire dinner talking about himself, going on and on about his college years, and about how he works at a popular surf shop and could probably get her discounted lessons, and about how he doesn’t think he could survive without his Jeep. How he plays guitar and wants to be a famous actor, how he doesn’t understand why people dislike fake tanning, and how his dad owns a country club in South Carolina. How he loves sports, how he thinks museums are dumb, and how he likes girls who are willing to cook for him after they hookup. How he loves going clubbing and that he misses his ex. 

Y/N had nearly groaned out loud at the last two.

It was cruel and unusual torture, in all honestly, and Y/N is just glad it’s over. She’d fulfilled her role— she’d even been nice enough to dress up, to at least finge interest— and could now go free, never having to hear another word about surfboard wax or college football ever again. If only he’d fucking leave.

Jacob had insisted on walking her to the door, which would be sweet if she hadn’t developed a burning hatred for him in the last hour. It came off as annoying and pushy instead, but she allowed it on the grounds of maintaining a polite front. 

She shouldn’t have allowed it. As soon as they’d gotten to her door, he’d started talking all over again and Y/N had no choice but to stand there and listen. She couldn’t go anywhere, given that this is her place and she’s expecting someone. She figured she’d give him until seven fifty and then make up an excuse about having to go to the bathroom in order to get him to piss off. That plan had crumbled when Harry had shown up twenty minutes early. 

The look of inflamed shock that poses Harry’s handsome features makes her stomach curdle. 

She hadn’t meant for him to see this. She’d only gone on the date to spare herself some petty trouble with a coworker. Nothing was bound to come of it, other than a free meal and a guilt-free conscience. It didn’t mean anything and she had no intention of letting it get in between what she and Harry have going. But from an outside perspective, she knows it looks much different. 

The agreement they have isn’t exclusive by any means, but over the last five weeks, the pair have grown pretty comfortable with one another and had given connotations that they weren’t kindling other possible relationships. There’s a type of silent agreement between them that if they were to seek out other people, they would share that information with each other on the grounds of courtesy, friendship, and respect. But Y/N hadn’t said a word to spare him the baseless stress and now he’d run into her smack in the middle of what appears to be a very compromising situation; things aren’t looking good at all. It looks like she’s losing interest in Harry and couldn’t be bothered to tell him. It looks like she’s out for a replacement. It looks like she doesn’t care about their connection at all. 

This is bad. This is really bad.

Y/N’s voice comes out as a shrill shriek of surprise, her body turning abruptly to fully face his rigid own. “Harry! Uh— hi!” 

Harry blinks at her emptily for a moment and she can practically see the gears turning in his head. She can’t read his mind or his expression, but she reckons he’s probably trying to decide if he should follow through on their rendezvous or if he should just leave and never talk to her again. The idea of him choosing the latter makes her mouth go sour. 

The vampire’s emerald irises flit back and forth between his friend and the unknown man behind her, trying to interpret the tone and texture of the circumstance. She’s obviously on a date, if her appearance is any indication, and it’s obviously coming to a close right now, exactly when he’s scheduled to arrive. 

That’s the determining factor that helps him decide his next move. 

Y/N had invited Harry over last Sunday, meaning that she had made their commitment first. This date had to have come into play later in the week, and she had purposefully planned it around their agreed hour in order to give him her undivided attention when the time came. If she had gone out with this guy and then rushed back home to get to him, that must mean she doesn’t plan on indulging another meeting with the stranger. She hadn’t cancelled his visit, either, so that also suggests she isn’t truly interested in this bloke. That makes sense...right?

But that still begs the question: Why had she gone out with him in the first place?

He knows he isn’t owed an explanation, but he also knows that Y/N isn’t the type of person who would just blindside him like this. She isn’t soulless— she’s sweet and caring and generous, so she would never drop him without any warning or consideration for his feelings. She’d never abandon him without telling him why. She’d never do anything that might run a chance of hurting him. 

The immortal is more than aware he doesn’t have the right to be upset about it, either. Their arrangement is loose and open on both ends and he likes it that way. He likes that their relationship isn’t weighed down by commitment and monogamy; it gives him a sense of freedom and independence he’s known to thrive off of. It lets him be himself without playing her emotions, and without causing a ruckus in the plans she has for her new life. And he gets the same in return— he gets to have his needs attended without sacrificing his core beliefs. Their friends with benefits trope rides along the wings of an official bond, only giving them what they want and nothing they don’t, which is how it was meant to be. How it should be.

So why does seeing her with someone else make him feel sick to his stomach?

Harry shakes off the ball of contempt writhing in his chest, clearing the tightness from his throat and molding his expression into a facade of calm indifference. Jealousy is for idiots. 

The vampire fully wraps his perched fingers around the rim of his sunglasses, removing them from the arch of his nose and tucking the shades along the collar of his shirt. He forces his feet to do their job, his lanky legs lurching forward and falling into a casual stride as he walks towards the two humans awaiting a response. 

Harry comes to a stop beside the mortals, clasping his bejeweled hands behind his back and plastering a dazzling grin across his cheeks. He regards his friend with a slight bow of his head, voice airy and carefree as ever. “Hey, Y/N.”

She almost faints in relief. Thank God he’s not mad. 

Y/N returns his smile, shoulders visibly relaxing. “It’s nice to see you.”

“S’nice to see you, too. Always such a…” He pauses, licking at the corner of his lips suggestively, giving her a knowing once-over that only she can interpret, “pleasure.”

The girl ignores the heat that immediately floods her cheeks. Of course he’s doing this in front of Jacob. Of course he’s peacocking. “Likewise.” 

Harry trains his attention onto the young man before him, pursing his lips into a polite smile. As polite as he can muster, anyways. “And who’s this?” 

Y/N blinks herself back into the present, quickly glancing away from Harry’s sharp jaw, though it doesn’t go unnoticed. He feels his ego swell a smidge.  

“This is Jacob.” The human comments easily, signaling to him with an upturned palm. “He’s Isabel’s cousin. You remember Isabel, right? You met her at the club.” 

“I don’t think I do, actually.” Harry murmurs, glimpsing up towards the ceiling to suggest he’s wracking his thoughts. He has a very vague recollection of the two girls he’d momentarily encountered the day he’d first met Y/N, but it’s hazy and unimportant. 

He looks back down at her with sparkling irises, rosy lips twitching with amusement at his next words, knowing they’re going to have a favorable impact. “I guess I was just too distracted by you to pay much attention to anyone else.”  

He can hear more blood rush into her face and the ecstasy it brings him is immeasurable. He cranes his sight back onto Jacob, who has the slightest crease in his brows at Harry’s compliment. Good. That’s exactly what he wanted. 

The monster unclamps his hands and juts one out stiffly towards the mortal. “M’Harry. Good to meet you, mate.” 

Jacob returns the gesture, grasping Harry’s hand firmly in a way the vampire knows is to try and establish dominance. It tickles him when humans try to be tough, especially because Harry could tear his arm right out of its socket as easily as he could lift a sheet of paper. The creature tightens his grip to match the man’s, purposefully putting a tad more strength in to make a silent point. He has to withhold the urge to crunch the boy’s fingers to dust. 

They both release from the exchange and a wave of dark satisfaction trickles into Harry’s bones when he sees Jacob curl and stretch his digits in mild pain. 

Y/N watches the whole scene with a breath trapped in her lungs. This feels surreal.

The blonde clears his throat softly, mouth jilting into an empty smile and it’s obvious he’s only doing it just to keep things civil. “Good to meet you, too. I take it you’re British?” 

“Pure-bred.” Harry remarks proudly, shrugging his shoulders offhandedly as if it’s no big deal. His gaze slinks towards Y/N for a second, tongue pushing along the inside of his cheek smugly. “It works wonders with the ladies.”

A flicker of spite stains the blue in Jacob’s eyes and the vampire feels like his soul is ascending. This is fun. 

“I can only imagine.” His opponent responds, voice somewhat strained as he directs his next question to the two friends. “So how do you know each other?” 

Harry opens his mouth to make an arrogant comment along the lines of, “A club. A few drinks. Some amazing sex. Y’know, the usual.” but Y/N knows him well enough that she anticipates it, speaking over him loudly before he can even get a syllable out.

“We met at a club and hit it off really well. Been friends ever since.” 

The immortal has to keep himself from adding something snarky to the end of her summary. He only does it because he can see a sharp warning flash across Y/N’s eyes. It’s wordless, but stern nonetheless: Don’t.

Harry swallows down his dig and feels it burn a hole in his stomach. Why is she protecting his feelings?

In all honesty, Y/N is only doing it out of kindness and nothing else. As annoying as Jacob may be, he doesn’t deserve to be embarrassed simply because Harry wants to feed his pride. It may be funny, but it’s pretty immature.

“Right.” Harry sighs happily, the corners of his mouth twitching upwards. “Friends. Good friends. Close friends. Intimate friends.” 

Y/N presses her lips into a straight line to keep herself in check. He’s trying to work her over and, unfortunately, he’s succeeding.  

“That’s nice.” Jacob nods casually, the innuendo luckily going right over his head. 

“Yeah, it is.” Harry states, eyes glinting mischievously as he quickly studies the man once again. He can’t help himself, he truly can’t. Not when this terribly-styled buffoon makes it so fucking easy. “I like your tan, by the way.” 

The human looks down at his arms for significance, eyes brightening. “Thank you! I got it done at that new place in—”

“Yeah, it’s pretty neat. Looks almost real.” 

Jacob blinks blankly at the backhanded compliment. “Oh—?” 

“I mean, it’s got a few streaks here and there and your left arm looks a little more orange, but I think—”

“Anyways!” Y/N swiftly cuts in, interrupting her friend’s judgmental spiel and directing her attention towards her date. “Harry and I were actually planning on going to see a movie, which is why I had to be home by seven-thirty— we do it every Friday. And the movie starts at eight and traffic’s a bitch, so that’s why I was in such a hurry to get home.” 

Jacob nods slowly, giving her a sweet, understanding smile that makes Harry’s supernatural blood boil. “I see. Well, I—”

The vampire interrupts him once again, condescension flaring in his chest and dancing across the specks of amber surrounding his pupils. “Yeah, Y/N and I go to the theater every Friday. Recently, we’ve been going to the movies every single day of the weekend. And most times, we see several movies a night.” 

Y/N’s jaw clenches at Harry’s barely-veiled insinuation. She tries to talk over him, but he beats her to the punch. 

“Y’know what I’m talking about, right, Y/N?” He nudges her side playfully with his elbow, ignoring the way her eyes tell him to cut it out. “Remember that time we saw three movies in one night? Or the one that had the jacuzzi in it?”

The girl glimpses over at Jacob, who looks utterly confused and uncomfortable. “Harry—”

“Or what about that crime film, yeah? The one with the handcuffs.” He pinches at her love handle teasingly, reveling in how her entire torso tenses under his touch. “The one where they grabbed the criminal and slammed them up against the mirror? You have to remember that one. It’s hard to forget.” 

“Okay, I think that’s enough talk about—” 

“Oh, c’mon, dove.” Harry slings an arm around her shoulders nonchalantly, squeezing her into his body and feeling Jacob’s glare pierce the side of his face. He stares intently into Y/N’s irises, dimples winking awake at the needy desperation gradually inking its way into their reflection. His tone comes out soft but heavy with authoritative suggestion— the kind he always uses in bed. “Tell me you remember.” 

Y/N gulps quietly, mumbling her words begrudgingly. “Yeah, I...I remember.” 

A coy hum runs along the back of the vampire’s throat as he licks across his top teeth slyly. “I think that was your favorite one, wasn’t it? You seemed to have really enjoyed it. Like, properly enjoyed it. Loved every single second, if I recall correctly.” 

The human forces herself to cast her intent elsewhere, ears simmering and breathing stuttering ever so slightly. Her sight lands back onto a very frazzled Jacob, who is looking at the pair as if they’d sprouted horns, shifting unsurely across his feet. The expression of innocent befuddlement on his face makes guilt twist into her heart.   

The mortal roughly shrugs off Harry’s arm, stepping forward and placing a palm on Jacob’s wrist, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “Thank you so much for the date. It was...nice.” 

Harry’s fists clench at his sides, though the action goes unnoticed. 

The human boy nods giddily at Y/N, glancing down to where she’s touching him so tenderly. “‘Course! I had a great time, too.” 

“Make sure to tell Isabel that. Maybe it’ll get her to do some sweeping on my behalf.” The girl jokes, giggling softly right along with the stranger. 

Harry can feel his nails threatening to break into his skin. 

“We really have to get going, though, so I guess I’ll see you around?” Y/N prods, gifting her date one last beautiful smile to ease the awkwardness that had settled into the atmosphere, courtesy of Harry’s antics. 

“Sure!” Jacob bobs his head in agreement, pulling out his phone and swaying it symbolically. “You have my number, just text me whenever.” 

“Sounds good.”

Once the young man’s footsteps have faded down the complex’s staircase, Y/N swivels around on her heel to face Harry, arms falling across her chest in an irritated fashion. Her face pinches with annoyance as he leans casually against her door, his own arms folding over his strong chest with his fingers tapping along the inside of his elbows, attitude depicting not a single care in the world. 

He crosses his ankles easily, brows quirking at the way she’s blatantly glaring at him. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that people whose names start with a letter ‘J’ are bound to ruin your life?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Harry!” Y/N snaps, rolling her eyes towards the ceiling as her glossed lips dip into an aggravated grimace. “Are you serious right now?”

He tilts his head curiously, stifling a simper. “What’s wrong, love?”

“What’s wrong?” She retorts with a humorless laugh, astonished at his ability to act so purposefully dense. “You’re a fucking dick, that’s what’s wrong.”

The vampire sputters into a round of boyish cackling, his entire body shaking against the surface below him as his eyes crinkle shut in mirth. Y/N would be further infuriated if it wasn’t so damn cute. 

Harry’s laughter slowly dies down and once he has himself composed, his shoulders rise and fall once dismissively. “I was just fucking around. I didn’t think much of it.” 

“You didn’t think—?” Y/N chokes out in indignation, stomping over to him and poking him straight in the chest, right over his butterfly tattoo. Her perfume makes his mind swim in the best way imaginable. “You didn’t think for a second, in that big head of yours, that talking about our sex life in front of my date was overstepping?” 

Hearing Y/N officially refer to Jacob as her date makes Harry’s mood drop somberly. He tries to push it down and keep up a comical edge, but it’s harder than he’d care to admit. His accent comes out small and almost fragile, much to her surprise. “Well, I didn’t know you were on a date. Maybe if you had told me, I wouldn’t have come.” 

His words sting for some unknown reason. 

The mortal draws closer to him until he’s hovering above her, arms dropping down to her sides to fiddle with the hem of her dress as she tilts her chin upwards to get a better look at his stoney face. All anger melts right out of her voice, replaced by her usual delicate cadence. “Well, I...I didn’t think you’d care, really.” 

“I don’t.” He replies a little too quickly, a small pang of regret pricking his chest when her face immediately falls. “I mean...I mean it as in, like...I’m not keeping tabs on you or anything. I don’t want you to think I’m trying to limit you.” 

Y/N looks back up at him from under her lashes, tone unreadable. “I didn’t think you were. Limiting me, that is. You don’t...limit me.”

Harry nods his head sharply in relieved confirmation, coughing a bit. His throat feels drier than usual and he knows it’s not for a blood-driven reason. “Okay, good. I just wanted to make sure you knew.”

“I do.”

“Alright.” 

A charged silence befalls the ambiance between them and the vampire comes to the conclusion that getting his neck snapped was less painful than having this conversation. At least that was quick, whereas this is grueling and horribly uncomfortable, ridden with anxiety and too many elongated pauses. They are walking on extremely thin eggshells around one another, which is something they’ve never had to do before. They have always been on the same wavelength about their relationship and not once has such a nerve-inducing instance come to pass. Now a wrench has been thrown into their metaphorical mechanism and the nuts and bolts are dismantling by the handfuls, leaving them barren and closed-off more than ever. He can feel this situation straining their friendship and he hates it more than he hates those stupid tapestries she fancies.

“If you knew you were gonna be busy,” Harry starts carefully, gluing his attention to a random stain on the cement ground as he scuffs the heel of his boot against her dirty welcome mat, “why didn’t you just text me and cancel?” 

Y/N takes a shaky inhale, focusing on tracing the faded cursive letters on her rug. “I...I still wanted you to come.”

Harry’s foot halts its motions, gaze jumping to her for a thoughtful second, brows knotting with mild confusion at her confession. If she still wants him in her bed, why was she indulging someone else? “You wanted me to come?...Why?”

“Because Fridays are our days.” 

The corners of his mouth twitch. Our days. Their days. Theirs.

The brunette clears his throat to try and saw away at the tension, shifting against the door as the subject delves into heavier territory. He’s never been one to stutter— he’s much too confident in himself to ever have that issue— but it seems to have become a new development whenever Y/N is around. “If...If you want— uhm...If you want to see other people, you obviously don’t need my permission or anything. But I’d like a little heads-up, just so I know where we stand.” 

Y/N releases a curt sigh of exasperation and somehow, Harry can tell it’s not aimed towards him. It’s aimed towards herself. 

She fidgets with the tips of her fingers, talking to the floor but directing her message towards her friend. “It’s not what you think, H.” 

Harry pins his intent back onto her face, intrigue fully peaked. “What do you mean?” 

Y/N takes another trembling breath, releasing it through her nose as a tired exhale. She can feel him looming over her, waiting for an appropriate response with his lips set into a detached line, his ever-present aroma of vanilla and tobacco muddling her thoughts. “I...I mean the date. It wasn’t truly a real date, per se.”

The vampire’s eyes bore into her relentlessly as he clings onto every syllable she speaks. He’s clutching to a form of hope that he deems absolutely humiliating. “How so?”

Y/N picks at the chipping lavender polish on her nails and he finds it adorable how the color of the lacquer matches one of the main notes in her scent. 

She speaks up softly and honestly, and he thinks he detects a shred of guilt to her explanation. “Isabel was the one who set it up. Her cousin came into the cafe and when he saw me, he asked her to get me to go on a date with him. I have no actual interest in Jacob, but I said yes just to be nice. I didn’t wanna upset Isabel by making her think her cousin wasn’t good enough for me or something. That’s the only reason I went.” 

Harry slowly twists his lionhead daylight ring around his middle finger, simultaneously thumbing over the opal on his pinky. The stone is cold to the touch, but not nearly as cold as his skin. 

He reiterates her story slowly, wanting to make sure he interpreted correctly. “So...you only went on the date because you felt bad? You don't actually like him?”

Y/N’s hands plop down against her thighs as she tilts her head back up to look at him, her tone and eyes completely deadpan. “Well, when you say it like that, it makes me sound kind of mean.” 

Harry snorts softly, mouth buckling into his signature crooked smirk. “It’s pretty cruel, to be honest— giving that poor bloke hope like that. Very malicious of you.” 

Y/N kicks at his ankle jokingly, her lips toying with a grin. “Shut up.” 

“You should be careful. Something tells me his ego bruises easily.” 

“Oh, is that so? What makes you say that?” 

The vampire sucks at his teeth, tapping his chin in faux thought as he shrugs his brows tauntingly. “Oh, I don’t know. Probably the overly-tight shirt and fraternity ring. Seems to me like he’s trying to make up for something he lacks. Probably in the intimacy department.”

Y/N chews along her cheek to keep from bursting into giggles. “You are cruel.” 

“I prefer the term ‘brutally honest.’ Sounds classier.” 

“Right. Because you’re all about class.” 

“Heyyyy!” Harry whines in exaggerated insult, face contorting with dramatic offense. “I’m a classy guy! I have the English accent and fancy chandeliers to prove it!” 

“Right. Super classy.” 

“I’m a proper gentleman.” The monster huffs with begrudging finality, irises glitzing deviously. “That is, until you beg me to behave otherwise.” 

“Fuck off.” 

He looks down at her over the crests of his sharp cheekbones as she gazes up at him with a humorously flat expression, feeling all the pent-up stress from the previous events dissolve away into nothing. Harry reaches forward, taking a single curled strand of her hair and moving it behind her shoulder to get a better look at her face. The gesture makes Y/N’s heartbeat hiccup. Especially when that same forefinger ends up poised below her chin, his thumb distractedly caressing across her jaw. 

The creature’s next sentence comes out low and almost vulnerable. “So it meant nothing, then? Are you sure? Because I don’t want to get in the way of your dating life if you—”

“It meant nothing.” Y/N confirms, bobbing her head once insistently. She cradles her cheek into his icy palm, keeping their eyes locked as she gives it a gentle kiss, her insides fluttering when Harry’s breathing hitches. “I’m not gonna be seeing him again anytime soon. Or ever, probably. And that’s why I didn’t mention it to you— because I knew it wouldn’t change anything between us. You’re the only person I’m interested in right now.”

“Truly?”

“Truly.”

The young man swallows thickly, leaning down to smudge his nose across the girl’s and the action erupts a certain flood of warmth so powerful, it could very well kickstart the dead organ below his ribs. His voice is tumbling down his numb tongue before he can think to stop it. “I’ve been thinking about you all week.” 

Y/N’s fingers stretch upwards to wrap around his wrist securely, almost as if to tether him and eliminate the chance of his touch slipping away. Her whisper is trembly and raw. “You have?” 

Harry knows he’s allowing this to wade into dangerously grey waters, but he can’t find it in himself to care, at the moment. “Yeah. Couldn’t get you out of my head. Couldn’t stop thinking about how good you felt last time.” 

The mortal teeters onto the tips of her toes, flirting her mouth over her friend’s, a prickling sensation stemming from where their cupid’s bows brush. She glimpses at him amidst her lashes, glassy eyes reflecting his need right back at him. “Tell me more. Please?”

The breath of Harry’s words is hot against her mouth, his eyes lulling closed as he recalls all of the memories from the last few days. “I just couldn’t shake it. You were just so tight and warm and the way you were pushing back against my thrusts...the way you were shaking and whimpering...the way you flipped around and slammed your mouth to mine because you wanted me to moan onto your tongue….It was so fucking filthy, I just— I couldn’t—”

His control begins to shatter and the immortal can feel desperation leak through the cracks webbing across his composure. Y/N isn’t helping any, considering she’s started suckling lightly at his bottom lip, her free hand coming up to toy with the curls at the nape of his neck. 

“Keep going.” 

Harry gulps heavily before continuing. “I touched myself while fantasying about you. Lost count of how many times, honestly. But I came so hard every single one. It was pretty easy to lose myself like that, just sitting there thinking about everything we do. Thinking about how pretty you look with my cock in your mouth, taking it down your throat like such a good fucking girl. How nice your arse feels in my hands, especially when you ask me to spank it. How snug you are when you sink over me, stretching around it like it’s made just for you. How the little noises you make sound so fucking perfect— like a song, really. And...and how good you taste between your thighs. S’like honey. Just so fucking sweet.” 

There’s a pause as Harry’s words sink into the air, his dirty confessions pulling passion taut into existence between the two lovers. They’re all over each other in less than a heartbeat. 

Y/N begins to fumble with the small purse she has strung across her body, frantically fishing for her keys as Harry delights himself with sponging his lips across the slope of her jaw, grinning into her skin at the little curses escaping her throat. He absolutely adores how whipped she gets for him. 

The human manages to retrieve her key, jamming it into the lock blindly as her eyes blur with tears of sheer need, stemming from the tiny shots of bliss Harry is instilling through the sloppy pecks he’s trailing down her jugular. She hastily turns the knob, bumping her full weight into the door and nearly fainting in relief when it swings open. She turns sharply to face him, roping her arms around his strong shoulders and pulling him into her, shuddering at how incredible it feels to have his strong torso flushed to hers so intimately. Harry allows himself to be yanked forward into her apartment, giggling softly when she crashes their mouths together messily, harshly tugging him past the threshold. 

The vampire’s lean arms wrap around her waist as the young woman maneuvers their connected bodies into the narrow hallway of her flat, one of her hands waving around wildly until it succeeds in shoving the door shut. Y/N slams Harry up against the closest wall, feverishly fidgeting with the buttons on his shirt and nearly ripping them out of their designated holes. Her hands quiver as she races down the seams, her eyes tinging darker when Harry leans his head back against the panel and smirks down at her smugly. 

He gnaws on his bottom lip, his half-lidded gaze mocking her hysteria as his voice comes out deep and melodic as always, slathered with self-assured arrogance. “You’re so cute when you’re this eager to fuck me.” 

Y/N pants against his twitching lips, tearing his top down his broad figure and shamelessly groping at his swollen biceps. “Just shut up and kiss me.”  

Harry abides, lulling his tongue along her upper lip and thrumming deeply when her digits trickle down his abdomen. He coos into her mouth as she begins fiddling with his belt buckle. “What, no interior design emergency this time? You’re losing your touch, darling.” 

The girl pulls the leather strap off his pants in a frenzy, scoffing at his stupid quip and breaking their kiss to speckle her mouth down his bare chest, feeling it stutter below her influence. “I got some new chairs for my dining table. Wanna take a look?” 

The boy’s fingers card into her roots as she descends down his stomach with wet pecks, his eyes rolling closed with a strained grunt. She bites along his fern inkings and his hips buck forward in response, his grip on her hair tightening when she palms over the outline of his clothed cock. “You know I’m always a sucker for some good dining chairs.”

As it turns out, Y/N had actually gotten some new chairs, much to Harry’s surprise. 

They’re nice, in his opinion. They seem sturdy enough, with metal backrests and legs that are covered in tarnished gold paint that gives a pleasing rustic look. But in the end, Harry doesn’t really much care for the details of the furniture. All he cares about is if they’ll manage to withstand Y/N’s weight as he shoves her onto her knees atop the chair and bends her over the back. Or if they’ll stay put as he pounds into her from behind with a fist in her hair and his letter rings marking across her backside. That’s all that truly matters. 

Despite having done this countless of times before, this particular instance feels different. Both of them can tell, but Y/N feels it more prevalently. Specifically, in the bottom of her stomach and in the pain sweltering across her ass.

Harry’s just…rougher. He’s still himself, so he makes sure she’s okay with everything he does before doing it, but when he gets the green light, he doesn’t let it go to waste. His grip on her roots is harsh, with his nails digging into her scalp as he jerks her head back to bring her in for a kiss, her spine arching into a semi-circle. The position is difficult given the amount of flexibility required, but Y/N powers through. She quite likes it, actually— it gives him a deeper range of depth, somehow. She can feel him touching the trench of her tummy and she refuses to do anything that might make that stop.

The kiss is upside down, but the vampire doesn’t let that deter him. It’s still dirty and heedless, with lots of biting and overzealous tongues, broken whines and fractured pleas. Y/N freely moans into his mouth, gasping and mewling to his every thrust with a certain type of helplessness that flogs the flames blistering Harry’s dormant veins. He loves that he makes her feel helpless, especially because she makes him feel the exact same way. 

His stride is fast and deep and unapologetic— vengeful, almost, and they both know why. Even though Y/N had told the creature that the date had been nothing but a selfless chore, he can’t seem to let it go as easily as she had. He finds himself wanting to prove to her that he’s better than that insipid stranger. That he can give her everything she wants without a single issue. That he can deliver everything she needs with expert skill and relentless force, just as she prefers. That he can make her entire body tremble in overstimulation and make every fiber of her being tingle with sheer pleasure, just by gifting her a few adamant snaps of his hips and by muttering a couple filthy promises onto her unfeeling tongue. 

“Bet he wouldn’t be able to make you feel like this, huh, pet?” Harry growls against her swollen lips, plunging his thick length into her and nudging at that sweet spot that makes her toes curl. “Bet he wouldn’t know how to handle you— how to handle that tight cunt and that sharp tongue. Could never take care of you the way I do, isn’t that right, baby?” 

Y/N rattles her head in her friend’s grasp, releasing fragmented noises of bliss as he hikes her dress further up her ass and gives it another brutal spank. She can feel his rings imprinting across her sweaty skin and she strives off it more than she should. 

Her voice comes out garbled and weak. “N-No one can make me feel as good as you.” 

“Damn straight.” Harry grits out, breaking their prolonged kiss to rest his chin against her damp forehead, looking down at her from over his sharp, tinted cheekbones. “Nobody can fuck you into a begging mess like I can. Whose pretty cunt is this, angel? Who’s the only one who gets to call you their little slut?” 

The electricity crackling around his pupils is borderlining on unhinged, but she adores it. The fact that she can drive him to the brink like that feeds the affinity she has to win his praise. “It’s yours, Harry. Just yours— it’s always just you. You’re the only one. Nobody e-else— fuck, oh my God!”

“You got all dolled up for him, though. Why’s that’s, hm?” Harry’s hold releases from her hair and fumbles down to her throat, the pads of his fingers leaving bruises across her jugular as he grunts lowly with every hellbent ram. “If you didn’t care, why’d you get all pretty, then? Why’d you wear perfume? And why’d you wear that dress— my dress?”

Y/N’s lashes flutter as he refers to her outfit, which is the same one she’d had on the day they had officially established their loose arrangement. Hearing him call it his— hearing him claim it as his own with so much dominant confidence— makes the pit of her belly froth. It is his. Sure, she’d worn it for the sake of looking presentable, but it was only to satisfy the basic rules of what a date entails. In truth, under the excuse of inherent kindness, she’d worn it because she knew Harry would see it afterwards. Because she knew he liked it. Because she wanted to please him. 

The girl communicates that to him now in the form of a feathery mumble, staring up at his angered eyes with a moony, innocent aura. “I wore it f-for you.”  

The intense jealousy present in Harry’s clenched jaw and furrowed brows dissipates, replaced by soft awe at her wispy affirmation. He pants as he absorbs the real meaning behind her entire appearance, feeling sparks ignite in his heaving chest. “You...You did it for me?” 

Y/N struggles to swallow in his rough grip, nodding a bit as her fingers tighten around the edge of the chair. “I know you like it and, well…I like making you happy.” 

Harry’s lips part in astonished wonder, though he’s not so sure why her admission had caught him off guard. She’s told him plenty of times that she likes giving him what he wants, but this just feels slightly more personal than anything else she’s ever uttered during an orgasmic stupor. It’s tipping along one of the lines they had sworn not to cross. 

The vampire hadn’t even realized his strokes had tapered to a halt, and apparently neither had she. They’re both too busy looking into each other’s eyes with expressions that neither can decipher. The tense pause only lasts maybe three seconds at most, but it feels like they manage to fit an eternity of uncertain silence within that short time frame. 

Harry cuts through the moment by clearing his throat, intent on changing the subject into something much lighter that will allow them to return to their previous activity. However, the words that rasp out of his raw lips are ones he hadn’t consciously consented to. They come from a sincere nature he’d suppressed for so long, he didn’t think it was possible for it to ever resurface again. “I like making you happy, too.”

Y/N blinks up at him with her usual doe-like air, the corners of her lips twitching fondly at his requited compliment. “I guess we just like making each other happy, then, don’t we?” 

The monster has never been more thankful for her witty personality. It gives him the opportunity to stuff his emotions back into the box they belong, allowing him to regain his typical composure and return her banter without a hitch. He bursts into a round of wheezy giggles, tapping at the hollow of her throat playfully. “I guess so. We’ll add that to the list of things we do to each other, right under ‘excite.’”

The rest of the session goes as usual, thankfully. Some more degrading names are exchanged, positions are switched, hickies are stained on fleshy thighs and damp shoulders, and Harry’s array of rings paint an art piece across Y/N’s backside that he thinks is worthy of the Louvre. His initials are signed on it and everything. 

The pair end up splayed across her trusty old couch, catching their breaths from the heavy exertion they’d just put each other through. Y/N is still in her dress, though it’s rumpled, damp, and the thin straps are hanging off her shoulders limply. Harry is bare, as he always is after sex, per his raunchy preference. However, Y/N had made him cover himself with a blanket in order to keep at least a shred of decency between them. Plus, she’d said she didn’t want his “limp dick brushing against my dress while we cuddle.” 

And that’s what they’re doing now— snuggling on her couch with the human pressed up against the vampire’s side, his arm slung around her shoulders casually as she doodles random shapes across the colored skin of his tummy. She has one leg hooked across his covered hips, which he’s more than happy to allow because he thoroughly enjoys rubbing his palm up and down the back of her thigh; it’s soothing and warm. Y/N entertains herself with nuzzling her head against the crook of his neck, sighing contentedly as he props his chin atop her temple and pets at her frizzy hair with gentle strokes. It’s a nice moment, full of slowly steadying breaths and the hum of the air vent at the other end of the room. 

Harry is the first to break the tranquil atmosphere. 

“I give the chairs a ten out of ten. IKEA really outsold.” 

Y/N slaps her hand down against his naked chest, sputtering into a wave of loud laughter that is unbelievably contagious. “I’m happy you like them ‘cause, uh...they were on clearance. Can’t return them.” 

“You lucked out then, didn’t you? Kudos to your ability to pick out decent furniture.” Harry twirls a strand of her tangled locks around his index finger, giving it a playful tug as a grin dimples his flushed cheeks. “Except for when it comes to wall decor.”

“It’s not my fault you're a stuck-up asshole.” 

“And it’s not my fault you have a knack for cringey drapery depicting ClipArt images.” 

“I’m going to strangle you with one of my tapestries, I really am.”

“Be my guest. At least I won’t have to look at them ever again.” The immortal squeezes her thigh jestingly, his smile widening when she squirms and giggles. “I can’t tell you how many times we’ve been fucking and I accidentally glanced at it and almost went soft.” 

“But you didn’t.” She reasons, flicking at one of his nipples in revenge and feeling proud when he hisses softly. 

“But I could have.”

“But you didn’t.” 

“But I could have.” Harry insists stubbornly, reaching up to push a few wet curls out of his tired eyes. “Have you ever had someone go soft inside you? It’s pretty gross. Highly discourage it.”

“Just close your eyes, then.” Y/N states with finality, pinching at his belly button and cackling in satisfaction when he writhes. “You’re real shitty at solving problems, y’know that? You could never be Sherlock.” 

Harry goes quiet for a second and his friend almost looks up to check if he’s alright; he’s too petty to ever back out of anything. But sure enough, his voice comes out a second later, flat and unyielding. “Take down the glorified curtains or I’m never eating you out again.”

“I’ll take down my glorified curtains the day you take down that Stevie Nicks poster on your wall.” 

“I refuse to take down Stevie!”

“And I refuse to take down Amanda!”

“You named it?!”

The lovers chat and bicker childishly for a while longer, talking about anything and everything that will keep them entertained. Harry explains to Y/N how his friends had gone on a trip this week (though he makes sure to omit the fact that he had willingly bailed in order to spend time with her) and he’d been alone most of the time. She responds to his story with an incredulous yelp, telling him that he should’ve come over if he wanted some company. She says she would have been more than happy to hang out with him, but he knows she’d been so busy the entire week with work, she probably would have fallen asleep within ten minutes of him arriving. It’s the thought that counts, though, so he thanks her for the belated support, either way. 

Y/N talks about a weird customer that had come in and ordered a sandwich with nothing but cucumbers and cheddar cheese on French bread, which she had later recreated to taste-test herself out of curiosity. She can confirm it was abhorrent and the way her nose crinkles with disgust makes Harry snort in endearment. She also tells him about how horribly the date with Jacob had gone, simply because she can tell he’s itching to ask. She recounts everything the young man boasted about, from the annoying college stories to his stupid opinion about clubs. She informs him that she’d never had a more terrible experience in her life and that she wishes she could get that hour of her life back. 

Harry can’t help the way his face lights up at how utterly repulsed she sounds. He knew it. He fucking knew she would never insert herself into a romantic situation with such a comedic punchline of a human being. Hearing her confirm his suspicions is almost as pleasurable as what she can do with her mouth. Almost. 

The vampire finds himself lost in his thoughts, thinking about how much better the whole event would have gone if it had been him instead. How he would have picked her up from her flat by actually getting out of the car and knocking on her door, rather than just sending her a text to come down. How he would have helped her into his car like a proper gentleman, and how he would’ve aided her back out when the time came. How he would enter the restaurant with his palm resting at the dip of her back, guiding the girl towards their seats and pulling out a chair for her. How they’d make conversation as easily as they always do, and how he’d have her laughing between mouthfuls of food, and how he’d expertly flirt her into a fidgety puddle. How he’d reach over the table to get a bit of sauce off the corner of her mouth with a cloth napkin, and how she’d thank him with that shy smile he’d grown to admire. How he’d wave off her suggestion to split the bill, paying it all himself and smirking as she scolds him for it because she likes being hard-headed and independent. How much fun she would actually have, and how she would probably be willing to go out on a second date.  

Harry’s comment topples out of his mouth before he can rethink it. 

“I bet I could take you out on a better date.” 

Y/N’s head snaps upwards to meet his gaze, eyebrows jumping in utter shock. She hadn’t been expecting that from him at all. Ever. 

She talks between airy spurts of glee. “That was random.” 

Harry doesn’t return the gesture. In fact, his lips don’t even jolt in the slightest. He simply just stares down at her with seriousness decorating his features, long lashes blinking blankly. He doesn’t know what overcame him to make such a bizarre, uncalled for claim, but he can’t take it back now. And he’s not so sure he wants to, honestly. He knows there’s truth to his belief— he could definitely do a better job of wooing her than that Jesse McCartney wannabe. It’s not like it’s hard.

Aside from that, seeing Y/N out with another man had reminded Harry that their little alliance isn’t anything solid— it’s not bulletproof, and he really shouldn’t be taking it for granted. He’d been so cocky and self-assured about himself and what he has to offer, he’d forgotten that there is always the possibility that Y/N might grow tired of him. It may be a microscopic possibility, but it exists, nonetheless. If he wants to keep her interested, he has to up his game a bit, or she might decide that he isn’t worth keeping around. If he wishes to maintain this favorable arrangement where he gets his intimate tendencies tailored and his supernatural necessities sufficed, he needs to give her a more fulfilling reason to stay. 

Good sex is a very convincing factor, sure, but there might come a time in her life when she wants more than just a no-strings-attached affair. There may come a time when she’ll mature out of this stage and seek something sturdier and safe and anchored. There may come a time when she wants a real relationship, and if he doesn’t keep her occupied, that could be sooner rather than later. And it could be with someone else. He doesn’t want this convenience taken away from him— doesn’t want to lose the thing they have going, which keeps him out of annoying clubs, out of random people’s beds, and gives him the best blood he’s tasted in the last twenty decades. It’s too comfortable and satisfying to let go. He has to keep her hooked somehow, and if taking her on a date can assure that this flawless dream remains intact, then he’ll gladly do it. 

Harry licks his lips slowly, measuring out his next words with immense precision. “I’m being serious. I can definitely do better.” 

A million emotions funnel into Y/N’s eyes at once and he can only pick out a select few: confusion, astonishment, fear, denial, and slight unease. There is the chance that the monster may be interpreting all of the human’s feelings incorrectly because, truth be told, he isn’t the best at gauging or handling sentiments. However, there is one he knows he’s not misjudging— it’s the most evident one of all: Excitement. 

“Think about it for a second, yeah?” Harry starts, shifting in his seat to get a better look at her, raising his eyebrows decisively. “I’ve already gotten in your pants. That means I have no ulterior motive, right?”

Y/N’s own brows kink a smidge. “I...I guess.”

Her friend continues his speech. “Because of that, it means I won’t rush the date, I won’t expect anything from you, and we already get on pretty well, as it is. It’d be a proper good time— a genuine good time.”

The girl’s eyes flicker around different points of his face, trying to make sure he’s not pulling some type of cruel prank. Her tone comes out hesitant and slow. “That makes sense, I suppose.”

Harry squeezes the back of her thigh reassuringly. “It’s all in mathematics, love; everything adds up. It’s truly an ideal situation, if you ask me. Practically utopian.” 

Y/N takes a deep breath, letting it out shakily. This is all so sudden and unexpected, she feels like Harry might burst into laughter any minute and reveal it’s all just a big joke. It’s just not them. It’s out of bound— it scribbles outside the box drawn around their whole dynamic. They were never meant to date, they were just meant to sleep together; they were meant to provide each other with the satisfaction that comes from a real relationship, without all the trials and tribulations. Harry asking her on a date blurs those sacred boundaries in a way she’s not sure she’s ready to face. It could mess everything up. It could not only ruin the fun little arrangement they have going, but it could potentially destroy their entire friendship. Harry is the only person she’s truly connected with since she moved to Los Angeles and risking that bond on an impulsive decision...That’s something she doesn’t think she can afford to do. She can’t survive her new life on her own. This is just too dangerous. Way too dangerous. 

But then again...it’s not like she hasn’t thought about it before. She will admit, there have been instances where she’s pictured her and Harry becoming more than just warm bodies to each other. The two days she spent over at his house the weekend prior had solidified those fantasies and made them more frequent. They just click so well, she knows for a fact they’d make a great team. It’d be like dating a best friend, in a way. They fit one another in a manner she didn’t think was possible, and despite the fact they’ve only been acquainted for just over a month and a half, it feels like they’ve been friends for years. She feels like these types of connections are rare to create and she finds herself wishing it could develop into more. 

But could it really be worth the potential grievance?

Y/N tunes back into reality, gazing up at Harry with reluctant eyes. She’s surprised to find his are full of confident clarity, as if he’s already sold on the idea and had begun planning their outing. He’s simply awaiting her response at this point, thumbing over her knee gently while tucking her hair behind her ear, lips poised into that lopsided simper that makes her heart skip and her nerves glitch. How could she possibly find it in herself to say no to him? 

The mortal clears her throat lightly, gnawing into her cheek as she speaks her next words with airy humor. “So is that your official way of asking me out? ‘Cause if so, that’s not enough. You’re gonna have to do better, love.”

Harry hesitates for a split second, but it’s so fast, his friend doesn’t even take notice. He prays he doesn’t grow to regret this decision. 

The boy nods, pursing his mouth into a small smile. 

“I’m sorry, I don't think I heard you? Must be the AC.” 

Harry rolls his eyes grandly at the stolen joke, which is identical to one he had made two weeks ago when he’d come over for their usual adult pastime and had brought a special toy in tow. 

His mood comes out theatrical, accent heavily exaggerated. “Dear fair maiden, would you be so kind as to do me the impeccable honor of allowing me to bask in your presence by attending a luncheon with me, preferably sometime in the near future? Thank you so much for your consideration. Sincerely signed...” The creature takes a pause, proceeding to sing his next words to the tune of a song they are both familiar with, given their interest in the Hamilton play. “Your Obedient Servant, H dot Styles.” 

Y/N explodes into a series of giggles, shaking her head as she reaches up to peck at his grinning lips. 

“It would be my pleasure.” 

[writingsbychlo]

rapp-ed around your heart (05)

word count; 10,584

summary; mitch finally gives you the last parts of him, deciding that he definitely has nothing left to lose, or hide, when it comes to being honest and true with you.

notes; in this part, we deal with a tiny little issue that comes up, as well as some cute moments with them getting closer and dealing with some stuff. 

warnings; hints as smut, and there’s the tiniest bit of angst.

The Midwest

Surprisingly, it was in a little ice cream shop at Mount Rushmore that Mitch truly opened up to you. The two of you spent the day wandering around the trails and looking at the carvings in the mountains, taking a lot of photos and simply soaking up the warmth of the sun, before settling to try the ‘historic’ ice cream. 

You were sharing a picnic bench, the fingers of one hand being played with by his own as it sat on the table, and you lapped at melting droplets of mint ice cream as he nursed his own cone of rocky-road. The cold and sweet treat was not something new to the two of you, you’d shared ice cream before too, but then he’d opened up about it. Something switched within him, and he spilt to you about how his mother used to give him a bowlful of the frosty treat as a reward every time he completed all of his homework when he was finished, and so it had become like a reward. Before this trip, he hadn't eaten ice cream in years, trying to stick to his healthy diet and workout routine, feeling guilty when he broke away from it, and feeling like he didn’t deserve such luxuries. 

That same confession had led to more, a heartfelt confession following you for the rest of the day as he told you everything he could think of, finally letting you not only past his walls but right into his heart and soul. The ‘Carver’s Marketplace’ had been where you stopped for dinner, the situation lightening up as you moved on to easier topics, chatting and joking around. A nap in the leftover heat of the day had been more than enough to see you through the drive to Minnesota, the dark hours carrying you through until you were arriving with the nighttime stars, hanging overhead in the low lights and twinkling enthusiastically overhead. 

It had been a joint call to splurge on another hotel, giggling kisses and hidden yawns as you waited in the elevator to get upstairs. He’d been ready before you had, and was half-asleep on the bed, spread out like a starfish under the covers as he waited for you on the queen-sized frame, and you’d crawled underneath to join him. In his haze, he had wrapped you up tightly in his arms, pulling you into his chest and tucking his chin atop your head, before letting out a soft sigh. 

That was exactly how you’d found yourself now, warm light filtering into the room to wake you up. Arms were still tightly wrapped around you, a bare chest under your cheek as you nuzzled further into him, a deep and raspy laugh rumbling from his chest as he realised you were awake too, and he squeezed you a little tighter. It was surreal, golden light flecks dancing throughout the room and off of the covers illuminating you both in a cloud of delicate light that left gentle shadows across the sheets when you lifted your hand to block the rays from your eyes when you cracked them open. 

“Good morning.” You huffed, the words contradicting the tone of your voice as you grumbled at the sun in your eyes, twisting your head to face the opposite way, using that hand to rub at your eyes. It was no use, you weren’t going to be able to go back to sleep now, and as you became a little more aware of your surroundings, the urge to move became overwhelming. That comfortable warmth was now stifling, and as much as you loved being wrapped up this mans arm’s you needed your freedom, and so you rolled to the side, stretching your arms up and over your head, letting out a happy sound when your muscles eased of their tension and your joints cracked as they loosened up. “Where are we again?”

“Uh, a hotel. I think.”

You scoffed rolling onto your side to face the man, lips pulling up a little in a smile as he lay there, on his side facing you but with his eyes closed, snoozing lightly as light puffs of air left his lips. “I meant where in the country.” You sat up some more, shaking your head clear as you folded your legs to sit crossed on the mattress, and he shuffled, lifting his pillow to rest in your lap as he moved, body curling so that he could adjust, and you chuckled, dropping a hand down to run through his hair. 

“Near a lake. Big one.”

“It’s Minnesota, right? God, I’m losing track of where we even are at this point.” You let out yet another yawn, before slowing your movements through the man’s hair, and he let out a whine of protest when you did, legs shuffling a little under the covers. “We should go out on the lake. It’s a nice day.”

“Or we could stay in bed all day.” He offered, reaching one hand up to pull your own back down to his hair, and you took the hint, deciding to give in and play with the strands a little longer. 

“We’re on a road trip, we can stay in bed all day any other time, we have to make the most of it.”

He did look up now, a cheeky grin on his face as he moved to sit up, enough to that he was kneeling before you on the mattress, and he was taking both of your cheeks into his hands as he squinted into the morning light. One side of his face was little red, a crumple left in his skin from a fold in the pillowcase, imprinted under his eye, and messy hair from the way that it had fallen, but he still looked absolutely perfect to you. “So, what you’re saying is that there will be more mornings like this in the future?”

You shrugged, feeling him nod his head encouragingly as he leaned in, stealing a quick kiss from your lips, before pulling away, letting out a contented little sigh as he seemed to wake up a bit more. “

“Fine, lake it is, I’m cool with that.” His nose dragged over yours, before he was standing up from the bed, wobbling a little on unprepared and tired legs, before shaking himself down and stretching out. “Let me shower first. I’ll be ready in thirty minutes, tops.”

You simply waved him off with a smile and a roll of your eyes, not missing the cheeky wink that he awarded you as he closed the bathroom door. 

You lay there for a few more minutes, enjoying the leftover warmth of your bodies from under the covers a little longer, before you forced yourself to up and roll from the bed. You straightened out the sheets, because despite knowing that you wouldn't be getting back into them tonight, you still thought it polite to straighten them up for the housekeeping team that would be in to strip and redress the bed for whoever was next. You did some scrolling on your phone and made some bookings for a boat tour in the later afternoon, and picked out your outfit. Simple was your theme today, laziness taking over as more eagerness to simply get out and on with the day took over, and you found yourself staring up at the clock as it ticked over into thirty minutes, a groan falling from your lips. 

It was a second later when it opened up, and you perked up from where you were crumpling the freshly straightened sheets, head peeking up from where it had been dangling over the mattress as he emerged from the steam, brows furrowing but a smirk finding his lips as he looked at you hanging upside down. 

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, you know, just hanging out.” You mumbled, letting out a dramatic sound as you heaved yourself up into a sitting position, and soon made your way into the bathroom to be able to wash your face and clean your teeth. 

He joined you at the sink, nudging you to the side as he found his own toothbrush, a cheeky look in his eyes as they found yours in the reflection of the mirror, a spot you’d cleared from the fog on the glass, and you rolled your eyes despite your smile, letting your eyes scan over him instead. Black skinny jeans that did more for his thighs than you’d care to admit to him and heighten his ego further, and a forest green t-shirt on his arms, stretched a little across his shoulders, and you tore your gaze from him to spit into the sink, ignoring the muffled chuckle that rang out as he clearly caught you staring.

Washing off the brush, you tapped the loose water from it, before tucking it back into your cosmetics bag, and the fingers of one hand found your cheek. Guiding your mouth up to his, he tugged the brush from between his lips just before his mouth met your own, a soft and chaste kiss, but you smiled nonetheless, licking the taste of mint from your lips as his thumb moved underneath them to clear away excess foam, before he was letting you go. 

The previous late-night had led to sleeping in, skipping breakfast entirely and deciding to wander and sightsee until you found somewhere that you liked the look of to stop for your lunch. You walked hand in hand along the Duluth lakefront water walk, watching as boats raced around the water, knowing that it wasn’t long until that would be you. 

It was sweet, chatting about everything that came to mind, and yet when he passed a simple comment about how far around the country the two of you had come, you couldn't help but get stuck back on it. You were so close to making a full-circle loop, but with every destination that you passed, it was another place closer to bringing you home. Mitch on the road - now that you’d managed to muscle past his tall defences - was a completely different person to the one who’d climbed into your car on that first day. The working version of the man you’d come to know was completely different, he was stressed and angry and had a lot going on that made him fearful and locked away, and you weren’t sure if that version of him would still want you around. 

You also couldn't shake the feeling that as you closed in on the beginning of your trip once again, that he was finished, having been on the road for almost a month and a half now, and you would understand if he wanted to go home, and miss the last stops you had planned for yourself, but deep down, you were selfish enough to admit that you didn’t want him to. 

Your spiral of doubts was cut short when he’d presented you with a little restaurant with outside tables, not too far of a walk away from where you needed to be for your lake tour, and it was perfect for grabbing some lunch, so you forced back your thoughts to haunt you at another time, in favour for making space to acknowledge your hunger. 

After filling yourselves at the little street joint, you barely made it back in time for your boat, wobbling in your steps as you tried to board it, but you had made it eventually, and you were curled up in your seat as the two of you were taken around the edges of the lake, seeing everything from the East Channel lighthouse to the Grand Island caves, rock structures and picturesque settings atop clear blue water being perfect to take photos and make memories you’d never forget, your reflection offered back to you with perfect clearness among the ripples when you snook a look over the edge and into the water. The Spray waterfalls were serene and pretty, as were each of the little beaches and shores that you passed by, even stopping at one for long enough to slip off your shoes and dig your toes into soft sand and feel the water lapping at your feet, before you’d been back on your way. 

It was a kind of sightseeing that allowed you to get a beautiful experience without having to drive or walk yourselves, a welcome change, and you took it all in by cuddling up close to Mitch, his arm wrapped tightly around your shoulder and the other with your hands linked and sitting in his lap, the occasional small kiss or drag of his nose over your temple to reassure you that he was still there, and loving it all just as much as you were. 

Once the cool of the evening rocked around, you spent the night driving up to Minneapolis, the real location in which you were passing through Minnesota for. That night, you were curled up in the back of the car again, the place that had so rapidly become your home, and you were beginning to feel that you’d miss the cramped but cosy little space once you got home, your bedroom would feel like that of a palace as you gained all of the space back, and you just hoped not too many spiders had moved in with your absence. 

“‘m fuckin’ sleeping.” He muttered, and you giggled into his skin, pausing from where you’d been trailing kisses up and along his jaw, waking him up once the light of the morning had begun to seep into the car and disturb you from your slumber. You hummed in agreement, muttering out a cheery ‘okay’, before pulling back, and he groaned once again, tipping his face towards you and scowling without even opening his eyes. “I didn’t say stop.”

“I already have now, it’s too late.” He huffed out at that, his entire face becoming even more dismal, and you ignored his whines, busying yourself with sitting up properly, and searching around for your phone, tracing the charging wire to find the device down the back of a chair, and he gave in, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes to clear away any traces of sleep, before he was sitting up a little more himself head and shoulders propped up by freshly fluffed pillows. 

“Fine. I’m awake. What do you want?”

Well, well, someone is moody this morning.” You mumbled, looking down at your phone, and he reached a hand out, squeezing the bare skin of your thigh, fingertips digging into your muscle, before his head was leaning on your shoulder, a loud yawning sounding out. 

“Can’t blame me. You tease me with kisses and then refuse to give me anymore.”

“You didn’t ask for more, did you?” 

He twisted his head, pressing his lips to your cheek before stretching out, the sound of joints popping filling the small space as he awakened a little more. “That’s all it takes, then?”

“Ask, and ye shall receive.” You were a little distracted now, scrolling through your notifications, and two fingers redirected your face towards him, his lips already a little puckered as his own eyes were staring at yours as you nibbled on your lower lip. Leaning in, you dropped down your phone, hands finding his cheeks and you held onto him carefully, and you felt the soft sigh he let out in return as your lips worked together slowly. “See? Just like that.”

“You’re cute.” His lips brushed yours as he spoke the words, before he was pulling away, eyes travelling shamelessly along your body, and he grinned lopsidedly at the sight of you in one of the shirts you’d stolen from him, bringing up a finger to tug at the neckline. “Wearing my clothes already, huh? Awfully domestic of you.”

“I'm surprised you even know the word domestic.” You scoffed, and he flicked at your nose as retaliation, chuckling at the sound you let out in protest, but he then picked up the phone, holding it back out for you, and raising a brow. 

“So, do we have a plan, or are we winging it today?”

“Not so much a plan, just a few ideas.” He prompted you on with a single look, and you pulled up your notes, going over some of the things you’d brainstormed to do, choosing the ones that you were most in the mood for. “We could go to Minnehaha park, and the falls, an-”

“Say that again?”

“Minnehaha?” You questioned, watching as he snickered at the word, and you rolled your eyes as realisation found you. “Oh, you are such a child.” Despite chastising him, you couldn't help but laugh a little yourself, the two of you giggling at the word, finding more entertainment than it actually provided. 

“Sounds fun, you wanna’ find us somewhere to go wash up and get some breakfast?” He tapped at the screen, and you hummed, switching to google maps and finding your next stop as he climbed up and into the driver's seat, the car rumbling to life underneath you. 

Upon finding one, you hooked up the device to the car, directions reading out clearly over the speakers, and seated yourself in the passenger seat. After a quick clean up and more than enough jam and toast for one lifetime, you were on your way, the final chunk of the journey before reaching the capital city, and your day was truly beginning. Warmth washed over you both, the park welcoming you as the day hit noon, and you couldn't decide which direction you wanted to walk in first. 

It was large, you wanted to see the falls, as well as the bridges and the little wooden gazebos, and so you were left with hours to simply walk the pathways and take your time in admiring everything. You had settled on starting out with one of the less crowded routes, not wanting to fight through the crowds to get to attractions and so you were more than happy to take the scenic routes. 

“Have you ever danced under one of those?”

“A gazebo?” He snorted, letting you hook your arm through his as the two of you wandered away across the gardens, following the paths under the shading of trees, the sunlight filtering through between the leaves and catching the golden specs in his eyes as you looked up at him. You only nodded though, and he let his gaze flick over to one of the structures, taking it in carefully, and his smile faded away, becoming more nostalgic than cheerful, and he swallowed thickly. “No, but I know Kat wanted to at her wedding. I was her date to a family party once, it was in a park, and the band was playing on one. She told me she wanted to dance on one at her wedding.”

“I’m sorry, Mitch..”

Your words came out like a whisper, a disapproving sound in the back of his throat sounding, and he pulled his arm from yours, wrapping it tightly around your shoulders, curling you into his body, warm hand running up and down your arm. “What could you possibly have to be sorry for?”

“I don’t know. For making you talk about it? It just seemed like one of those times a person would apologise.”

“It doesn’t hurt to talk about anymore, and it’s okay.” He pressed a kiss to your temple, before clearing his throat a little, and you watched as heat crawled up his cheeks, tinting them a shade of pink that made him look positively adorable, your heart flipping in your chest as the two of you continued to meander along the trails. “She’ll always be special to me, y’know? It’s nice to be able to talk about her now, she was important to me. It’s nice to have a girlfriend who doesn’t mind me talking about my past, and someone I don’t have to hide things from. It’s really nice, actually.”

It was the first time either of you had put a label on anything, and well he had said it so casually you’d think it was the thousandth time he'd spoken the word. The blush on his cheeks and the way he was suddenly fascinated by the pebble he was kicking along and scuffing the toes of his sneakers with was a different story, though, and it made you want to snicker at the different sides of him. He would have the world believe he was locked off and cold, but in reality, he was nothing but a softie at heart, made up entirely of mush and warmth and insecurities, and you loved knowing the real side of him. 

You pulled him to a stop, catching his lips with your own before he’d even had a chance to ask what was wrong, and he let out a high-pitched sound of content surprise into your mouth, before he was pushing back into you with just as much enthusiasm, his hands coming to settle on your waist. Tugging you infinitely closer, there was no space left between your bodies, your arms looping around his neck to hold him close as palms smoothed over your bag, fingers dancing along your spine. 

It was deep and passionate, nothing sexual and nothing more needed, just enough to conform between you both that he’d said the words and you’d accepted them, and agreement on where the two of you stood without stuttering words and heated cheeks needing to flame up, but simply a confession without words. Soft lips teased over your own, dragging in delicate motions before he was diving in, taking it as far as to tease you with drags of teeth over soft skin, before he was returning to barely brushing his mouth over your own at all. 

Your heart was racing and your head was spinning, and you were broken apart only when your body was shoved a little by a dog that was racing past at high speeds, bumping your leg with enough force to send you stumbling a little, and two young children raced past after it, a huffing and puffing father following too. 

You weren’t sure what to expect really, that was exactly what happened when you stopped in the middle of a park pathway to kiss your boyfriend, but you wouldn't change it for the world. His nose was bumping against yours, a soft chuckle leaving him, before you were taking your place by his side once again, slipping your hand into his and weaving your fingers together. 

You were more than happy to just trail around the park with him, letting him guide you, and it seemed he didn’t know where the two of you were going either, but you were soaking up the days with him, making the most of your trip. You were more than halfway through, almost at the end of it all, and yet you still didn’t know whether to or not you were ready for it to end. You’d planned this trip around finding yourself, around discovering who you really were. It wasn’t that you had no idea who that was, but busy lives and societal stress had a way of trying to mould you and force you into being someone else, and along the way, you’d not only remembered who you were, but you’d also managed to wrangle Mitch back into being himself, you’d helped crack him out of the cement that was sealing him down, and you just hoped that at the end, he didn’t retreat back into the stone.

After your walk through the park, you got dinner, sharing a bowl of pasta and a pizza over the table, before heading back to the car. You took the long route, though, wandering for a while through the streets, and watching as the sun set over the skyline of Minnesota, pastel colours painting the skies. Blues and oranges that made the clouds look purple and grey, a surreal kind of painting that silhouette everything before it as not to be outshone. Beauty created by nature that you oh-so-loved to see, never getting tired of watching the sun dip below the horizon, signalling the end of another day, only to promise to return to you hours later, and bring a whole new realm of possibilities when it rises again.

He chose to drive, as long as you sorted through the music, his boldness shining through more and more over the last few weeks, and he was judging your taste in music as the last few songs made him cringe, so if he was driving, you had to properly DJ for the pair of you, and keep his mood up with better songs. 

Night crawled in over the sky as pastels faded into something deeper and darker, and you were left to simply admire the way the night moved on instead. A few snacks and a lot of singing later, your throat was a little sore and your voice slightly raspy, as was his own, sleep threatening to come and claim the both of you, the highway fading away into the distance as you pulled off onto the side roads.

“You know, we’ve done all the long drives now. We only have all the little ones, they’re all five hours or less.” You offered, pulling out the large paper map and spreading it out across your lap as Mitch drove, the fabric rustling as his hands shifted out from your thigh to allow you to smooth it down. 

“I would still consider five hours a long drive.”

“Yeah, well, you only have to do half of them, don’t you? We’ll swap halfway.” You dragged your finger over all the spots you’d passed, overdue on crossing off each of your places, before shuffling around through every place you could think of to find your marker. You checked the glovebox, the dashboard, and the cupholder, before finally finding it buried in the side-compartments of the door. 

“Hey, I’ll happily do the drives, I just think we have different definitions of what is a long drive.” He grinned, and you rolled your eyes, uncapping the marker with your teeth and crossing off all of the locations up to where you were, ‘Wisconsin’ being the next place up on your tour of the country. Folding your map away, you tucked it back into place, waiting patiently for Mitch to give you his attention again, and when he didn’t, you reached across the console to take his hand in your own, pulling it back to smooth over your thigh, and he chuckled, letting you unfurl his fingers until he could squeeze at your thigh reassuringly. 

“Okay, we have quite a few options for things to do in Wisconsin, you ready to hear ‘em?”

“Shoot!” He cheered, and you jumped a little at the exaggerated enthusiasm he gave to you, before you were giggling along at the way he smirked pridefully at having scared you. “Sorry, baby, go ahead.”

“Okay, well, we have a lot. We have general touristy attractions, as well as some better things, and some options on places to eat, too.”

“Start with activities.”

You nodded your head at his command, scrolling down through the notes on your phone, thumb flicking quickly, before finding where you needed to be. He was following the occasional commends from the device you held as it guided you both in towards a truck stop that you could pull over onto for the night, taking a break from the long day you’d had and all the driving you’d done, the bed beginning to call for you both, but you wanted somewhere safe to stop, first. “Okay, so we could go to a waterpark? I don’t know if that’s your thing, but it’s an option.”

“Pass. I like waterparks, but the ones where it’s hot. Wisconsin feels a bit cold for that.”

“Fair point. A ‘no’ on the waterpark, then.” You crossed it off of the list, before finding the next one, and grinning at the suggestions came up. “We also have an amusement park, Olbrich botanical gardens, the cave of mounds, Milwaukee river wal-”

“Wait, wait, wait. Go back by one?”

“The cave of mounds?” A bashful smile broke out on his face, and as he made yet another turn down some of the dimly lit roads, his head twisted towards you to give you a disbelieving look. “What?”

“You don’t find the humour in that?” You thought about it for a second, before letting out a groan with your breath. 

“You’re such a child!” You slapped at his arm, ignoring the sound that he let out in protest, and fighting back with the hand he freed from the steering wheel to fight back, the car jerking roughly with every slide the two of you made, swerving on the empty roads, before you called it a draw, weaving into the parking lot, spotted with other vehicles around the place.

“C’mon, don’t tell me you don’t find it entertaining! The cave of mounds.” His hand on your thigh again slipped a little lower, pushing between your legs and you gasped, before smacking him away and he smirked to himself, before using both hands to find somewhere to park, away from everyone else. “I know a mound with a cave that I’d very definitely like to explore.” 

As the car died, he turned towards you, and you felt the heat wash over your features quickly, gaping at him a little. “You are awful. That was awful.” 

He leaned over the centre, brushing a stubbled cheek against your own, before pulling your lower lip away a little in a loose bite, letting it go when you whimpered for him. “C’mon, you telling me you don’t want me to explore your cave?” You wanted to gag at the way he phrased it, but the pun entertained you both, and you whined as he climbed between the seats and into the back, kicking off the shoes and throwing them forwards, one of them bouncing from the wheel and dropping into the driver’s seat. “Gonna’ come back here and join me?”

“I haven’t even read you the place to eat yet!” You scoffed, but toed off your shoes anyway, unclipping yourself from your seat, and he grinned as you crawled between the seats. He took the phone from your hands, clicking it off and leaving it on the cushion you’d just abandoned, before his body was pressing your own back onto the mattress, hands supporting his weight on either side of you as his lips brushed teasing over your own. 

“I already know what I want to eat.”

His tongue flicked out over your upper lip as you gasped, a hand lacing into his hair as you grinned, giving into his wicked ways, before letting his mouth clash with your own.

Following Wisconsin was Chicago, and you arrived in the early evening, pulling up into a truck-stop not too far outside of the city. It was one of the nicer ones that you’d been too, that was for sure, it was well lit without the lights being dingy and flickering yellow, and it wasn’t as dirty and grubby as the others. The usual diner that you expected was more of a restaurant and bar, it seemed far too elegant to be classed as a ‘diner’, even if it did still have that kind of oldies vibe, with plush leather seats and songs that were older than Stan playing over the speakers. 

You were then happy to use the bathrooms within which to change, you were certain that the patrons and staff here had seen more unusual and concerning things than you wandering around in a set of Bambi themed pyjamas, drinking hot cups of tea in the corner with a man in sweatpants and a hoodie. After all, no matter how classy it was, it was still a truck-stop. 

Your first real day in the Windy City was quickly decided to be spent sightseeing, a decision the two of you had settled on over hot coffees and toast, before preparing yourselves for the day. 

Today, you would be all-out tourists, even if just for twenty-four hours. 

You were all but buzzing in the car as you walked along towards Millennium Park, your hand woven with the one belonging to the man beside you, your side pressed up to Mitch’s, cuddled in close to him, as a scarf sat wrapped around your shoulders to keep you warm and help fight the slight chill being carried on the breeze. 

“I want to see the big, shiny bean.”

“The what?” You could hear the incredulity on his voice, humour laced with it, and you grinned, hiding the expressing in the edge of the wool sitting up near your face. 

“You know, that big thing that’s shiny and shaped like a bean.” 

“Do you mean the ‘Cloud Gate’ sculpture?” You let out a hum, and he scoffed under his breath, squeezing your hand in his a little tighter. “That is one of the most famous pieces of artwork in the world, I can’t believe you just called it ‘that big, shiny, bean thing’.” You turned to face him a little more, narrowed brown eyes with a honey-coloured tint already peering at you, his lips twisted down in a frown, but the little ticks along his muscles told you he was still deeply amused by it all. “You’re the worst. I can’t believe you don’t even know the names of these things.”

“Oh, hush. Stop being such a sourpuss.” 

He grinned at you then, a smile like the Cheshire cat at what he was clearly taking to be a compliment, in his own twisted and unusual ways, but he didn’t have a chance to respond, as the two of you made it into the square, and you were letting out an excited squeal as the sight you were waiting for came into view. It was glimmering, clean and sparkling with the lights of the sun and the office buildings standing tall around it, reflecting from its perfectly untarnished surface, and your pace picked up a little. 

There were many other people crowded around, groups of tourists and other couples, as well as people who were slightly less fazed by the beautiful sighs, clearly locals who were accustomed to seeing it every day. Business workers rushed around in smart suits and blazers, briefcases in hand and glasses sitting on the tips of your nose as they barked orders into their phones, uncaring of who’s shoulders they bumped as they passed by, and even if being in the lesser-known world that your boyfriend and uncle worked in, you’d never trade or for a boring nine to five any day, you secretly liked a little thrill. Basic was never something you could roll with.

Placing your hand flat to the cool metal, Mitch did the same, both of you watching in awe as the slight fog that had built up in place fade away quickly, as though you’d never touched it at all. 

“It’s so clean.”

“I was just thinking that.” He mumbled, licking the tip of his finger and smearing it over the surface, before watching as that seemed to dry and disappear too, leaving no trace of his disgusting act. You were staring at him, jaw dropped a little, and he turned to face you, raising his brows as you did, and you didn’t give up on the stare. “What?”

“You did not just lick the shiny bean thing.”

“I didn’t!” his face screwed up a little at the thought, nose wrinkling as he scowled at the idea, and your brows only shot up further. “I didn’t! I licked my finger, and then wiped it on the metal. I wanted to see how it stayed so clean, it’s weird!”

“It’s gross!”

“I didn’t put the finger back in my mouth afterwards!” He was smiling now, a few people glancing over at your raised voices as you argued playfully, and he made an attempt to tug you in closer, but you resisted, fighting off his attempts at affections as you held your end of the argument. “So, my spit is gross now?”

“Yes!”

“You don’t seem to have that opinion when you’re swapping spit with me late at night.” He teased, nipping a little at your ear as he managed to wrangle you until your back was pressed to his chest, and you gave in, letting him wrap his arms around you full, and press an overly wet kiss to your cheek, that made you groan out at him. “Say it! Admit that you like it!”

“It’s different!” You laughed, letting him walk you away from the crowds some more, and he shook his head, spinning you around to face him once again, a question silent on his tongue but dancing in his eyes as he watched you. “You know it's different.”

He grinned, lips brushing yours in a teasing kiss, before he shrugged giving in. “Fine, it’s different. Whatever.” 

He let out a heavy sigh, and you cheered under your breath as he caved, quietly acknowledging your victory. “So, what do you want to do, Mr Rapp?”

“I like when you say that.” He grinned, bumping the tip of his nose over your own, before taking your hand, guiding you along and away from the busy spots, leading you in slow steps as he considered it all. “Let’s do that tall tower thing, you know? The one with the glass deck you can stand on. We could take some pretty awesome pictures.”

“That ‘tower thing’? With the glass?” You rolled your eyes, and he shot you a dirty look, already seeming to guess where this was going, lips pursed as he watched your face grow in extreme mischief, biting on the inside of his cheek to contain his sounds of distaste. “Do you mean the Willis Tower sky deck?”

“Yes.” The words were spoken through gritted teeth, his body going a little rigid in his steps and he fixed his gaze ahead, ignoring everything you said at this point, but that didn’t stop you from carrying on.

Your voice dropped down to mimic his own as you spoke a variation on his own words back to him; “I can’t believe you don’t even know that names of these things.” 

“I don’t like you.”

“Yes, you do!” You sang the words, giggling when he growled under his breath in warning, but only a second later, he was pulling you in close, cutting off your taunting and teasing as his mouth sealed over yours, a squeak leaving you when his tongue swept over your lower lip. 

You weighed the argument in your mind, knowing that you were in public, and that hew as trying to distract you from mocking him some more, but you couldn't think straight with the way his fingers inched under the edge of your jacket, warm palms barely blocked from your skin by a thin layer of material, before he was pulling you in closer. Your front was pressed up to his, heart beating wildly in your chest, and he let out a disappointed sound on the back of his throat as you resisted him.

Instead, he swapped tactics, sucking the plump piece between his own, grazing over it with his teeth, and letting out a breathy sigh as you gasped at the sensation, before giving in, your mouth parting further until his tongue tangled with your own, your arms looping around his neck to hold yourself closer to him. You could feel his smile now, pressed to your mouth as you gave into his touch, caving into him, and he was more than happy to take from you anything that you’d give him. 

When the burn for oxygen became too much, you broke away, the heat of embarrassment on your cheeks being enough to chase out the cold, and he was painting a little too, the red on his pale flesh showing that he felt the same as you, but it didn’t stop him from stealing a few more pecks form you each time you tried to speak or catch your breath. 

“What was that about?”

“Had to shut you up somehow.” He grinned, wrapping his arm over your shoulder to hold you to his body, without ever letting go of your hand. “Swapping my gross spit with you seemed like a good way to go about it.”

“Are you going to let that go?”

“No. Probably not.” He teased, pulling his phone from his other pocket and beginning to search for directions to the Sky-deck, before a sudden chuckle left him. “We both know I’m really good at holding grudges.”

Your breath hitched in your throat for a second as you weighed out the dark joke, replaying his words in your mind to be sure you’d heard them correctly, and they still felt surreal, before you were letting out a laugh yourself at his statement. “I cannot believe you just made that joke.”

“It’s my trauma and I’ll joke about it if I want to.”

You chuckled with a shake of your head, following the directions being read out from the device in his hand as the voice guided you toward your next attraction a shake of your head carrying you through. It was a short and brisk walk, followed by further bickering, lighthearted and instantly forgotten as you wandered along, and much to your joy, there was only a short queue to get to the little glass platform, but once you reached it, you couldn't deny just how exceptional the view was. 

It was so high up that the view granting you the ability to look all the way out to the horizon, the greys and dull browns of the city fading away into shades of green towards the edges, countryside and trees taking over from cityscapes and concrete, and it was breathtaking. Pressing both of your hands up to the glass, you took it all in, observing the beautiful sights, and memorising it all, before looking down, fear striking through you as you took in the clear glass below you that slipped away into nothing, one hundred and three stories up into the air, and supported by nothing but a sheet of clear glass, the people buzzing around below your sets of feet was terrifying, and yet adrenaline searched through you just at the idea.

“It’s scary, right?”

“I thought you weren’t afraid of anything, big shot assassin and all?” He grinned, shaking his head, hair flopping into his eyes and before he could push it away himself, you raised your hands up, cold fingertips smoothing over his cheeks before pushing the silky hair away from his face, his eyes fixed on your own the entire time. His head twisted to the side, lips brushing over your palm in a sweet gesture, before he was wiggling his phone at you once again.

“Want to take a picture? I need a new lock screen.”

“Sure!” He unlocked the phone, letting you guide him into a position you liked as you took in the landscape, before you were cuddling into his side, offering a sweet smile to the camera as he matched it, and he pressed his thumb down on the button, both of you pulling it back to look at it. As selfies went, it wasn’t horrendous, but it certainly wasn’t the best picture ever, and you frowned at the light that was covering your faces in an odd glow as the light came through the glass. “Huh. Not our best picture.”

“Yeah. I can agree with that. You still look cute, though.”

“I kinda’ look like a frog, if you squint.” He did as you said, before laughing at it, turning to look at you and squinting, and you shoved your hand in his face as he held the phone up in comparison. “Don’t get it stuck in your head.”

“You’re a cute frog, at least!” He grinned at you, letting you snatch the phone from his hand. You wandered away, passing it to a mother who was tiredly staring at here three kids as they blew hot air onto the windows and drew faces and wrote rude words, and she seemed more than happy for the distraction, even if it was just taking pictures for someone else. Making your way back over to him, he already had his arms held out for you, and you turned to face the woman as she gave you both a countdown. You felt lips brush your ear as she reached two, warm breath washing over your skin, making you shover a little as he whispered into your ear; “Ribbit.”

You couldn't help it, the normal smile you had held morphing into a whole-body grin, his arms around your waist being all that held you upright as you tried to curl in with your amusement, and she walked back over, giving the device back to you quickly, before dashing off to wrangle her kids back up. You took it, looking down at the image, and despite his sudden mumblings into your ear, it was still one of the best photos the two of you had ever taken. 

You were silhouetted against the backdrop, his nose brushing your cheek as your eyes closed, a wide grin on your face, holding tightly onto one another as sunlight poured in from behind, and the glass was barely noticeable, almost making the two of you look as though you were floating on the light above the city. 

“Okay, that’s a good one, admittedly.” 

The two of you stepped away from the spot as he hummed, letting the next people have their turn, and instead you watched as he set the new picture onto his phone as the wallpaper, and you leaned in, kissing a stubbly cheek quickly as your chest bubbled over with warmth from the inside out. Sticking your hands into your pockets, you wiggled numbing fingers a little, wishing you’d brought gloves, but you were more than happy to deal with the cold if it meant getting to cuddle into his side like you did every time he wrapped his arm around you, like he was doing right now. 

Fingertips tucked under the edge of your shirt, nails brushing over bare skin as he traced unrecognisable patterns, phone back into his jacket pocket securely. “So, what now?”

“Well, I heard there was a drive-in movie place near here. Wha’d’ya say we get some takeout food, and go and check it out. If we park the car backwards, we don’t even have to get out, we can just cuddle in the bed and watch.” He shrugged a little, letting you go so that you could begin to climb down the stairs on your way back towards the streets, and you thought it all over.

“I think that sounds perfect.”

You had a surprise for Mitch on your second day in Chicago, and you were bursting to tell him about it, but had saved the thought until after you’d had your breakfast. Instead of the usual diner, you’d waited long enough to find a little outdoor café, sipping on mimosas and you giggled about the fancy life you could have had if you’d taken different paths at different stages of your lives, but you still reminisced about everything that led you to being right here, with one another. 

You walked along the rover, burning off the champagne in your drinks before stopping for a quick bite at lunch, and then, you were leading him along towards the next attraction you had in store, under the guise of a simple walk to explore. He began to catch on part of the way around, the posters and signs starting to give it away, and while you didn’t confirm it until you were getting into the museum, he spent a good ten minutes almost bouncing in his steps as you walked. 

It was adorable, the way he let loose and actually allowed himself to feel the excitement he had as you walked along, a tour of a world war two submarine, because you weren’t blind to the way he’d been excited about the other kinds of attractions you’d visited during your time on the road. He was grinning madly when he looked at the sight, being guided down underground to where it lay, and you heard him gasp audibly when it came into sight.

It truly was incredible, so big you had to tilt your head just to see the entirety of it. The length of a city block, massive and supported on stilts, and you had no idea how much it must weigh, but it was an incredible feat, and even you were excited to learn about it. The dock along the side of it was decorated with interactive pieces from within, as well as pedestals with information on them, and scripts to be read, explaining and giving insight on what you were seeing, plenty for the two of you to learn about.

It took all afternoon and into the late evening, only leaving when you were eventually beginning to be ushered out by the workers, and you were pretty sure he’d memorised every piece of information, and he was all but walking on clouds as you made your way back to the car, intending to get a good night’s sleep before your journey tomorrow as you drove up to Michigan would begin. His arms were wrapped around you, and it seemed that you had inadvertently bought yourself some extra affections, because he was peppering kisses to your skin and nuzzling his nose into your temple the entire way home, snuggling you close into his body and holding on tightly.

“I take it that you had fun, then?” You teased, slipping off your shoes to try and wiggle into your pyjamas, and you let out a distant sound of protest when he snatched your clothes from your hands, before his fingers were smoothing over your cheeks, pulling you down to his mouth as he rolled your body on top of his. 

“I had the best time. It was amazing.” He whispered the words into your mouth, syrupy sweet kisses given to you between words, and you were left breathless as he incessantly kissed the air form your lungs, but you didn’t care, because the burning inside only made everything feel more heightened, your head spinning and hazy. “I’m not used to people doing such nice things for me anymore, so thank you.”

“It was just some tickets to see a submarine, I feel like you’re giving me more in return than I gave you.” You teased, and he gassed, nipping on your lower lip, and using the tip of his nose to move your head to the side, dragging his mouth along your jaw and further down. You could barely think straight as he sucked at the tender skin along your collarbones, pushing your shirt up a little so that he could rest his hands on your waist, and you took his face in your hands, bringing his gaze back to yours, and he peered up at you through dark eyes, vulnerability flashing over his features. 

“It was nothing, Mitch, I just wanted to make you happy. Clearly, I got that right.”

He stared up at you, swallowing thickly before nodding his head, and he pulled you down into his arms, your foreheads pressed together as your breaths were shared, intimate and loving and you held one another. “Thank you.”

His voice cracked as he spoke, and you dragged your lips over his in a final kiss, before curling down into his body. “You’re welcome.” You pressed a hand over his heart, feeling it thud steadily and quickly under your palm, before your nails were scratching a little at his skin through the henley on his chest, scrunching it up in your hands as you clung to him. “So, you wanna’ tell me about your favourite part of the submarine?”

“Fuck, yeah, I do.”

Michigan featured a trip out to Mackinac Island, arriving in the late morning after breakfast on the road, Mitch having kept you up late into the night to talk, everything from the submarine, to other random facts he knew about war vehicles - seemingly a passion of his that you’d unlocked, and you made a mental note to make more historical-feature related trips with him in the future - and it had devolved into meaningless chatter. 

Soaking up the sun with pretty sights and beautiful settings, you wandered the whole expanse, pretty white buildings and greenery, with streets of cobblestones, bicycles riding up and down in place of tyre tracks and pollution, and it was a little snap out of reality. There were horses pulling carts along the streets and lampposts with hanging flowers, old-fashioned and beautiful with bulbs that would light up when darkness came around, and you could only imagine how ethereal the beautiful streets would look when glowing with the golden light that would spill from them. 

A break away from reality, something that seemed like you’d stepped into a painting, like another world in a movie or the kind of setting you could only picture in your mind or found described in a good book and a grizzly and grey day, filled with rain on lashing windows. You would’ve loved it in the rain or the snow, but you were fortunate enough to enjoy it with golden hues from the sun cast down over you both, sunglasses perched on your nose and his as you took in everything the little island had to give.

The pair of you were unwilling to leave until the sun was setting and it was getting too cold to remain outside any longer, and yet you still lingered for as long as you possibly could. It was surreal, memories you’d never forget, and you were too tired on the way back to the car to even think about the words Mitch was saying, to properly process them as you leant onto his shoulder and let him prop you up as you walked along, your cheek pressed to the curve of his arm as your eyes fluttered, closed longer than they were open, and you moved through your bedtime routine on autopilot. 

He was whispering quiet words to you about how you’d almost come full-circle, chatting about everything the two of you had done so far around the trip, and while you could only hum along and nod with a sleepy smile now as he curled you into his arms, those same thoughts would come back to haunt you with troubles and worries in the morning.

You were squirming a little in your seat, keeping your eyes locked on the road ahead, fingers picking at the material of your leggings on the leg closest to him, a bid to keep his hand off of you, even though he occasionally managed to sneak his hand onto the spot for a little while when your guard fell. 

You were trying your best, but you weren’t excellent at hiding how you felt. You may have been trained by the best in the business at the physical aspects, but you were never good at the rest that came with that job field. You were an open book, you didn’t possess the same ability to lock everything up tight like Mitch did, or create a façade of anger and arrogance like your uncle did. The atmosphere around you was stagnant and bored, the conversation having fizzled out long ago, the music being all there was to keep you company as the two of you hummed along in quiet, and you knew that Mitch could tell something was up, but he wasn’t pressing on it, and you were thankful for that. 

When you passed the sign welcoming you into Dayton, Ohio, you were met with a soft sigh from him, and he flicked on the indicators, pulling onto the side of the road. You watched in confusion, a strangled noise leaving him as he cut across the lanes, ignoring the honking and swerving of other cars, before the vehicle was shuddering a little bit and rolling to a stop along the mud and gravel, and he turned to face you, making a point of switching off the car, keys jingling. 

With a forearm resting over the steering wheel, his entire body twisted, and you swallowed thickly, avoiding his gaze and choosing to stare out at the road, tracking the other cars with your eyes to keep you busy as his stare burned into the side of your face. 

“Alright, spill. Did I do something? Because, kitten, if I did, I’m sorry. Just tell me what’s up so I can fix it, because I don’t like this dead air between us. Now I get how you felt for that first week or so, and it fucking sucks, alright?” He huffed, and you gave in, guilt eating away at you as you turned to face him, and he leaned in over the console a little bit, but it didn’t give him much access to you. He shook his head instead, growling a little under his breath at not being able to reach you, and you gave him the most reassuring smile that you could muster. 

“You didn’t do anything. I was just thinking about what we should do today. We have two options, but they’re at other ends of the state, and I was just weighing the pros and c-”

“Bullshit. Why are you lying to me?” He fixed you with a pointed look, your jaw snapping shut, a tick in the muscle from the force at which the muscles clenched. “Please.”

His voice cracked a little as the beg came out, wide brown eyes shining as he stared at you, vulnerable and lost and a little bit upset, and you caved in, your hands clenching up as you pulled them closer to your chest to try and cave in on yourself, but he was watching you carefully as you sat there, uncomfortable under the scrutiny. He moved when you looked up, your eyes wider than his own and he knew it wasn’t something he had done, and his hands fumbled to unclip himself from the car. Only a second later, his door was opening, and you were watching with a hanging jaw as he rounded the vehicle in a jog, before opening your side too. 

He reached over your body, undoing your buckle too, and manhandling you in the leather seat until he had you twisted around, parting your legs to be able to stand between them as he rose a hand to tuck stray hair away from your face, palm settling over your jaw and fingers digging into your neck a little, thumb tracing soothing patterns from where it lay. “Just tell me, what’s wrong?”

“You know this could be our last day, right?” His brows furrowed, a wrinkle forming between them, and you raised your finger to smooth it away, feeling him chuckle a little at the action, but continue to wait for your explanation. “We’re close to Virginia now, and we’ve been on the road for, like, two months. If you were sick of it now and wanted to go home, I’d get it.”

“Sick of it?” 

You shrugged, knowing that he’d picked up the hidden meaning in your words, and his hands dropped down, large palms massaging at your thighs on either side of his waist in a comforting act, before he was leaning in, and pressing a lingering kiss to your lips, one that had your stomach swooping with butterflies, like the feeling of dropping on a rollercoaster, before he was pulling away, lips brushing over your forehead. He let out a little sigh, before making sure you were looking at him as he grinned, raising his brows a little as he tried to ease your nerves.

“What’s your plan, kitten? What are you planning to do?”

“Well, I want to go right up around New York and such too, full circle, y’know?” You made a circle motion with your hands, both of you laughing quietly. “It’s another week and a half’s worth of stops, maybe? Not too long, but if you wanted to go home, I would understand.”

“What I want is to get the full road trip experience with you, and I want to go.”

You perked up, looking up at him with wide eyes, finally bringing your own hands up to smoothing along his arms and to his shoulders, shuffling forward to the edge of your seat and pressing your forehead to his own. “Really?”

“This is what you’ve been panicking about this whole time? Why you’ve been giving me the silent treatment for two and a half hours?”

He shook his head, a breathy sound leaving him, the exhale washing over your face, and he grinned cheesily, bringing your mouth back to his. It was a reassuring kiss, comforting and caring, and making your heart slow from the irregular and erratic pumping it had been doing with your nerves racing, leaving you instead to lace your fingers into his hair, pulling him closer as your head tipped to the side. Like velvet and silk, your mouths slid together, harmony in their movements, and you drowned into his touch, just for a little while. 

“Please can we go back to normal now?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sorry. I got all wrapped up in my thoughts, and I-” You choked on your words, letting out a ragged sigh, and he stepped back long enough to let you see his entire face. 

“This road trip changed my life, and I want to finish it.”

You just nodded your head, receiving a final kiss from him, before he was untangling his body from your own and circling back to his own seat, as you slammed shut the door and fastened yourself into your seat once again. Once the car had started up and you were back on the road, he held his hand out to you, which you now had no qualms in accepting, slipping your palm up to his, and letting him lift your hand to his mouth, lips pressing to your knuckles sweetly. 

“How about you choose what we do for the day? For real, this time. Tell me what would cheer you up.”

“Why don’t we go to the airbase, it’s near here. Then we can get some food that looks so damn good, it’s Instagram worthy.” He let out a chuckle, shrugging his shoulders. 

“You want to go to the air force base? Really?”

“Well, I’m pretty evenly split on both the possible activities, but I know that you really want to go to the air force base, and so I am more than happy to do that with you.” He let out a teasing ‘awe’ at your words, and your cheeks heated up with a flush of embarrassment. 

“Okay, air force base it is.” He whispered, settling your joint hands over the gear stick to switch as needed, but never letting you go, holding on tightly as he began to follow the signs flashing up along the side of the road to guide you on your way.

[tangledstarlight]

julie’s ready for a year away from home, studying and trying to refind the magic in music. luke’s about to start on a summer tour around europe opening for a band. they meet one night, sparks fly and emotions run hight. now they’ve just got to try and see if they can maintain a long distance friendship.

DAYS GO BY AND SEASONS CHANGE (LETS TRY AGAIN NEXT WINTER)

trigger warnings!! swearing and mentions of death (julies mum)

also on ao3 –– [ 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | extras 1 & 2 ]

autumn

There was a parcel waiting for her at the school's little post office building. It wasn’t a very big box, about the size of a shoe box, if she had to guess. It was just a little too big to fit in her bag at least. The handwriting on the label was hard to read, the ‘j’ in her name looking more like a ‘t’ and her last name practically blurring together. Julie suddenly understands why the girl working behind the desk had taken so long to find it and looked so unsure when handing it over.

Julie thinks back to her last call with her dad, tries to remember if he’d mentioned sending her anything. But it’s definitely not her dads writing or Victorias, and Carlos’ is messy but never this bad. It’s only when she puts it down on her desk when she’s back in her dorm room that she notices the postmark from France.

Which explains the who of it all, but not the what or the why.

With a frown, Julie tears the brown paper away and unfolds the flaps of the plain cardboard box that’s waiting for her. There’s a folded sheet of paper on top of something wrapped in grey tissue paper and she picks it up, carefully unfolding it.

Julie,

You gotta get back into music when you’re ready to, not before and not for anyone else. But, for whenever you do, I thought you might like these. And if you never do, you can always use them for school notes or something.

See you soon.

Luke x

She holds the note for a moment, staring at the words as if they’ll stop her heart from racing the way it is, because she’s pretty sure she knows what’s hiding under that tissue paper now. Biting her bottom lip Julie puts the note to the side and picks up the gift, gently peeling away the sellotape until she’s faced with two soft notebooks.

The first one is dark purple, soft faux leather with a cluster of stars embossed in the top right corner and the words ‘shine bright’ in silver lettering in the opposite bottom corner. Slowly, as if in a trance, Julie runs her fingers over the cover, opens to a random page to see the clean lined pages made of the thick sort of paper that you know won’t tear easily.

The second notebook is a dark blue, but this one has little music notes stamped in the corner. There’s no words or phrases written on this cover and for that she’s thankful because anymore words of encouragement might push her to the edge. She puts the two notebooks down on her desk, side by side.

Sitting back in her chair, Julie simply looks at them for a moment. Let’s herself think about how she feels about them. Because this is more than just some pretty notebooks and a kind message. She wonders if Luke knows, if he realises what that they might mean. But he must. She’s told him all about her struggles with music, how she’s lost that spark that wanted nothing more than to sing and play and write.

And he’d understood it. He’d got it. He’d also told her she was magical when she played, something she tried not to think too much about, but still remembered.

And he clearly remembered her mentioning once, in passing, how her favourite type of notebook are the ones that are slightly flexible, but feel solid when you hold them. She’s going to try not to think too much about what that means too. 

Her fingers slowly trace over the lettering on the purple notebook as she thinks over his note.

‘When you’re ready’, which is part of the problem really. Because Julie doesn’t know if she’ll ever be ready to play or write properly again without her mom.

But, she’d written with him.

The thought hits her suddenly and out of nowhere, a breath leaving her lips in a rush as she lets it settle within her. She’d been writing with him. She’d been sending him melodies over voice notes. She’d been scribbling lyric ideas in the margins of her work for weeks now.

Over facetime at 3am and on phone calls while she made herself lunch and silly little texts throughout the day. She’d been writing with him. She’d helped him finish songs without that all too familiar sense of missingmissingmissingmissing creeping in.

Tapping her fingers along the arm of her chair for a moment, she bites her lip, before shaking her head once and carefully wraps the notebooks back up in their tissue paper and puts them back in their box and pushes the whole thing to the back of her desk. Out of sight, out of mind. Sort of. 

It’s one thing to suddenly realise she’s been slowly edging her way back into music, it’s another to dive head first when she’s not sure if anyone will be there to save her if she goes too deep, too soon.

(It’s two days later and after a facetime call with her dad that she pulls the purple notebook out of the box, picks up a pen, crawls onto her bed and writes something that feels real for the first time in nearly five years.

She calls Luke at 2am her time and 3am his, tears on her cheeks and rasp in her voice from lack of use and asks if she can play him a song. It’s a little rough and the second verse feels unfinished and she rushes through the last chorus too quickly, but when she’s finished the last note she feels more centred then she has in years.

“That was-” Luke trails off, and she can hear him breathing and suddenly wishes she’d done this as a facetime call instead, so she could see his face right now. See what he was thinking, feeling. Instead she’s left with bated breath and chewing on her bottom lip.

“Fuck Julie, that was amazing,” he lets out a short laugh, light and breathy like he can’t believe something, “You’re amazing. And talented and beautiful and a goddamn star.”

He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, with so much conviction and surety in his words that for a moment, Julie believes him wholeheartedly.

“I think the second verse needs something, can you help me figure it out?” She asks after clearing her throat and brushing tears off her face. The simple ‘yeah’ she gets in answer makes her smile enough to think about the old notebooks carefully hidden in her suitcase and maybe finally looking at the songs she's avoided. )

//

It wasn’t until she’d started living in a different country, alone, that Julie realised how many different types of bread there were. Which was a weird thing to realise, she knew, but there were just so many to choose from. So many options. Too many options. She really hated having too many options. Decision making really wasn’t one of her special skills. And the longer she stood in front of the bread without Luke talking, the faster her thoughts seemed to loose all sense of focus. 

Holding her phone against her ear Julie picked up the closest loaf of whole wheat bread she saw, it was seeded and while she was sure Victoria would have had something to say about it, she didn’t. Seeded bread it was. Maybe next week she’d branch out and try the weird half and half down on the bottom shelf. God, she needed to get out of the bread aisle. 

Putting the bread in her trolley she pauses for a moment, head tilting to the side to try and hear if Luke had returned to his phone or if she was still on ‘hold’. His version of hold at least, which consisted of him saying ‘give me a minute’ and putting his phone down for much longer than a minute while he answered a skype call with his parents.

All she can hear is faint talking in the background, tone of voices but none of the words. Holding the phone with one hand and pushing the trolley with the other, Julie makes her way out of the bread aisle and mentally checks her shopping list in comparison to where she is in the store. She’s half way down the coffee and tea aisle, grabbing for the cheapest jar of coffee she can see, when a huff of air in her ear makes her jump. Clutching the jar close to her chest as she pulls the phone away for a moment and blowing out a breath. Luke’s already started talking when she puts it back, her mind filling in the blanks for what she’s missed.

“– that. Shit timing on their part. What were we talking about again?” There’s something off about his voice. She wouldn’t have noticed it a few months ago, but she can tell now, can hear the forced cheerfulness behind his words. And, if he wasn’t obviously forcing himself to sound happy, Julie would probably take a moment to appreciate she knows him well enough to know his different tones.

But there’s something wrong, and she wants to help him. So far, Luke’s been pretty quiet about his parents, so quite in fact that all Julie really knows about them is their names are Emily and Mitch, that they love him, they don’t get him and that the best way to describe their relationship is ‘strained’. All that she’d picked up from vague mentions and what Reggie had accidentally let slip.

Luke had helped her understand some of her feelings about her mom, listening to her cry at three in the morning, listened to her talk about her dad. She wants to do the same for him. She wants to make sure he knows she'll listen too. So she puts the coffee jar down and slowly starts walking out of the tea and coffee aisle while she talks.

“Do you want to talk about it?” She asks, the call, the ‘strained’ relationship, all the unsaid emotions clearly at war in his head. It’s quite on the other end of the phone, all she can hear is his breathing and Julie starts to worry that maybe she’s wrong. Maybe he doesn’t want to talk about it, or maybe he does, but not with her. Not sure which option is worse, she’s just opening her mouth to take it back when Luke blows out a breath and a flat laugh that sounds loud in her ear.

“They just- they don’t get it. What music means. What I’m trying to do with it. They don’t get me,” there’s a pause where Luke laughs again, flat and hollow and so, so wrong, and Julie thinks that’s all he’s going to say, but then he starts talking again. It’s like he’s been shoving plates into a cupboard without stacking them and now he’s opened the door and they’re all crashing to the ground.

“And it’s like, they don’t even seem to try. Not really. They listen to me talk about all these shows we’re playing and how we’re making all these awesome connections all over the world and how we’ve started recording a fucking album. And they’ve gotta be able to tell I’m excited, because Alex is always saying I’ve got no subtlety, and I’m pretty sure I’ve even said in those exact words. That I’m excited. That this is a huge deal for us. And they just - they listen to all that and then they-” he huffs out a breath, and Julie can almost see him shaking his head, at his next words, “And then they ask about what I’m going to do when I get back home. If I’ve given college anymore thought.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that, because well. It is obvious how excited Luke is about the band, about the album they’re making, about music in general. You’d have to be blind not to see it, blind or just deliberately ignoring the obvious. And that’s even without ever having actually seen him play on a stage. If Julie could tell how good he is over staticy and unreliable voice notes and facetime calls, then anyone who’s seen him play live should know for sure.

“You know they’ve never seen us play?” He sounds small, and Julie wishes she was with him right now to give him a hug. 

That explained that, at least. They'd never seen them play. She’s standing in the fucking cereal aisle of a supermarket on a Wednesday afternoon, one hand gripping tightly to the handle of her trolley, and she can hear Luke sniff, wipe at his face and let out a wet laugh and it hurts. Julie thinks it’s almost worse than the hollow one and she feels tears spring into her eyes.

“Never?” She asks, because what else can she say? Her parents had never once missed an opportunity to see her play, she can’t even imagine standing on a stage again and her dad or Victoria not being in the audience for the first time.

“Nope,” he pops the ‘p’ and blows out a breath. “And I mean, I guess I could understand them not supporting the band and trying to push college on me if they’d ever actually fucking seen us. But they haven’t. It’s like they’ve just - they’ve decided we’re not good and that it’s all a waste of time. Without any evidence for it. Because, I- I don’t wanna sound egotistical here but fuck, we are good. We’re fucking awesome. And they won’t even consider that as a possibility. That this could work.”

“That’s their loss then,” is the first thing that comes out of Julie’s mouth, “Because I’ve only ever seen people's shaky phone videos of you guys playing and that was enough for me to know that you’re good. That you guys are amazing.”

They were more than good really, Luke was right, they were pretty fucking awesome, and if his parents couldn’t see that. Well that was on them.

“Yeah?” he sounds unsure for the first time, and Julie’s reminded that Luke might be a pretty confident guy but even confident people need a little reassurance sometimes. She relaxes her grip on the trolley’s handle and smiles a little.

“Yeah. And if they can’t see that Luke, if they don’t even want to try to see that, that’s on them. And they’ll either realise it soon enough and sort their shit out. Or they’ll try to deny it forever and end up regretting it.” She really hopes they sort their shit out, that his parents wake up and see that their son is gonna be a star, one way or another. And that they’ll want to be there for it, that he wants them there for it, to smile and clap and cheer for him.

“I can’t believe you’ve never seen us play,” his laugh this time is lighter, not quite up to his usual infectious quality, but maybe warmer. Softer. Julie doesn’t know how to describe it, but she wants to be able to hear it every day.

“I know, I’m a fake fan clearly.” Julie smiles, blows out a shallow breath as she blinks back the sudden tears that had found her eyes and lets him change the subject. She didn’t come to do her weekly shop expecting an emotional spiral in the cereal aisle of all places. The freezers with the ice cream might have been more appropriate.

“We’ll have to fix that when we’re back on the same stretch of land. Personal concert, just for you.”

The teasing tone is enough to make her roll her eyes and start moving again.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

//

“So we’re back in the UK on December 10th.”

The statement almost makes Julie choke on her drink. And she’s glad that she’d put her phone down while she’d reached for it so Luke couldn’t see her reaction. Theoretically, she’d known they were approaching the end of November, that the band had finished their tour last week and had been using their free time to do some exploring, that they’d be back in the same country soon.

That, despite all her worst thoughts and assumptions, they were still talking. They were friends.

Wiping her chin with her sleeve, Julie picks up her phone again, trying her best to keep her face neutral. There’s a chance Luke doesn’t even remember the sort of deal they’d made. It had been nearly twelve months ago and it had been late at night and they’d both been pretty drunk.

“Really?”

He just looks at her, an eyebrow slightly raised and she can see the way he’s biting down on his lower lip. He almost looks – Julie blinks, brow furrowing, he looks worried. Which she doesn't understand.

“Are you okay?” She asks, leaning forward to peer closer at her phone like it will be able to give her answers.

“Yeah, yeah I just –” Luke pauses and Julie watches as his eyes seem to circle around his screen (which is technically her face, her mind oh so helpfully supplies) in search of something, and whatever he finds seems to be enough because he blows out a breath and nods once, more to himself she thinks. “We’ll be in the same country again and you’re going home soon and I– I was wondering if you still wanted to try that um night again. Maybe just you and me this time.”

Julie isn’t sure she’s breathing. Her mind has gone blank and all she can hear is her heart beating and Luke is just looking at her. All wide worried eyes and bitten lips and curls escaping from his beanie.

He’d remembered.

And he was asking her – out?

That thought knocks her mind into action again. She opens her mouth to reply, to say something, anything, but all she can get out is a slightly strangled,

“I–” Because Julie had been so sure that if they’d made it to this point and were still friends that Luke wouldn’t want anything more then that from her. She’d cried on the phone to him, at least twice.

“I mean we don’t have to I was – it was just an idea y’know? But I mean it’s fine, we–” Luke starts, taking her silence for her trying to let him down gently and not just an internal freak out.

“No!” She doesn’t mean to shout it, but it comes out as a shout anyway, startling them both. Luke just looks at her, mouth still half open and looking confused. Julie has a flashback to seeing him look exactly the same way when she’d said she couldn’t kiss him and it almost makes her giggle. “I mean yes, yes, I want to – to – to see you. To try that night again.”

“You do?” She watches as his confusion morphs into relief and into a smile, lips tugging up and eyes brightening.

“Yeah,” she smiles back, it would be hard not to smile back at him. “So, December 10th. I’m free the weekend after?”

It takes them a while to make a plan, mostly because Luke keeps having to ask Alex or Bobby where they’re staying or when they’re in the studio or what day they’re flying home. And then they bicker over where to meet because ‘London is so cliche Julie! We’re not cliche.’ which she’s pretty sure their friends would disagree with, but Julie pulls up google on her laptop and they look through different cities and towns until they find one they both like the sound of.

Two hours later after they’ve said goodnight and shared giddy smiles, Julie lies on her bed staring at the ceiling and for the first time since that first night they’d met, she lets herself feel excited for what might happen between them.

[pcwpolwrestling]

PCW Extreme Election Night 2020-Part One

================================

[ON SCREEN GRAPHIC: Blue background. The top of the Capitol Building occupies the left hand side of the television screen.

Centered in the middle of the screen: “P-SPAN. THE POLITICAL CHANNEL.”]

P-SPAN Announcer (off screen): The P-SPAN Network bring you long-form public affairs programming from the nation’s capital and are a public service of…

[ON SCREEN GRAPHIC: Logos of twenty three different cable and satellite television companies replace the Capitol Building and P-SPAN graphic.]

P-SPAN Announcer (v/o): …your television provider.

[ON SCREEN GRAPHIC: Returns to the blue background with the top of the Capitol Building occupying the left hand side of the television screen with “P-SPAN. THE POLITICAL CHANNEL.” centered in the middle of the screen.]

P-SPAN Announcer (v/o): P-SPAN. The Political Channel.

===============================

Political Championship Wrestling Extreme Election Night 2020-Part One Hack’s Rusty Nail Saloon Wauseon, Ohio Taped Tuesday November 3rd, 2020 Thursday December 31st, 2020

Announcers: ‘The Voice of PCW’ Johnny Suave AGE: 50 / HT: 5’ 11” WT: 195 HOME: Philadelphia, PA HAIR: Brown / STYLE: Like Ronnie Dunn / FACE: Goatee DRESS: Brown suit without tie

Colleen Crowder ‘Low Level New York Times Reporter Trying to Make a Name for Herself’ AGE: 38 / HT: 5’ 5” WT: 142 HOME: New York City, NY HAIR: Black / STYLE: Curly / FACE: Narrow face with rounded jaw, turned-up nose, faint freckles, and thin lips. Bulging blue eyes, thin eyebrows. DRESS: Black pants suit

SHOW OPEN The crowd starts out with a “PCW! PCW!” chant to start the show.

‘The Voice of PCW’ Johnny Suave comes out with a lifesize cardboard cut-out of Shania Twain and says, “Welcome to PCW- Loose Cannons LOCK AND LOAD!”

The crowd continues the “PCW” chant- much to the annoyance of Suave’s real life co-host Colleen Crowder.

Johnny Suave: “We are coming to you tonight from Hack’s Rusty Nail Saloon in Wauseon, Ohio at the northeast corner of the intersection of Airport Highway and Shoop Avenue,” Suave continues.  “I am Johnny Suave. This hot piece of cardboard is Shania Twain and tonight we find out who will be the PCW CEO for the next four years- current PCW CEO Donald Trump (American Patriots) or challenger Joe Biden (Progressive Alliance).”

Crowder glares at and then elbows Suave in the side at the omission of her introduction.

Suave responds in the most unenthusiastic way possible.

Johnny Suave: “Oh.  And this is Colleen Crowder- a low level New York Times reporter trying to make a name for herself.”

Colleen Crowder: “Really?  Do you have to say it like that?”

Suave ignores her and quickly moves on.  He introduces a video clip from 2016’s Extreme Election Night when Trump defeated the Progressive Alliance’s Hillary Clinton.

(REPLAY: Extreme Election Night 2016- Donald Trump (American Patriots) vs. Hillary Clinton (Progressive Alliance) -It’s not looking good for Trump.

The mainstream media and the Washington DC establishment have interjected themselves into this match at every opportunity including Don Lemon of CNN, the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson and Dana Milbank, and the New York Times’s David Brooks and Paul Krugman.  Even some members of the American Patriots, John McCain, Lindsey Graham, former Jeb Bush, and Mitt Romney charge the ring on Clinton’s behalf and a huge scrum explodes.  Trump finds himself swallowed up by a mass of humanity as members of each group literally throw each other out of the way to get to him.

Cut to Paul Ryan.  He’s whistling while he ever so subtly tries to inch away from the ring, hoping that no one can see him subtly trying to inch away from the ring.   Mitch McConnell?  He’s gone from ringside and nowhere to be found.  The rest of the establishment?  Sitting in their seats reading the Wall Street Journal or on their phones making plans for their golf getaway.

Then…

-Deplorables ‘Prairie Populist’ William Daniels Bryan, ‘Red Solo Plastic Cup’ Ray McAvay, and Charlie Blackwell stream to the ring followed by forty other people.  Bryan hops up on the ring apron.  He drapes Dana Milbank’s neck over the top rope and drops to the floor causing the Washington Post columnist to whiplash off the ropes and onto his back.  McAvay wields a Big Bertha Driver and takes down Chuck Schumer (Progressive Alliance) and Lindsay Graham (American Patriots).  Mitt Romney sees McAvay using the driver to pole axe his way through the crowd.  He wisely uses discretion and decides to slip out of the ring.  Blackwell jumps into the ring wielding a steel folding chair and starts taking people out left and right: Paul Krugman, Don Lemon, and Jeb Bush.

The American Patriots, Progressive Alliance, and media contingent still in the ring decide to hastily exit stage right leaving just Trump, Hillary, McAvay, Blackwell, Bryan, and the forty-odd Deplorables inside.

Blackwell and McAvay re-station themselves outside the ring and the Les Miserables surrounding the squared circle.  The ring steadily clears and when it does, leaving just Trump and Hillary inside, there’s an unpleasant realization for one side.

Johnny Suave: FIGURE FOUR LEG LOCK!

Clinton eventually has to submit to Trump’s figure four leg lock submission and Trump becomes the new PCW CEO.

Crowder complains… again… that Russian referee Corrina Romanov interceded on Trump’s behalf and cost Hillary Clinton the match.

“Who will leave here tonight as the CEO of PCW?,” Suave continues, again ignoring Crowder.  “Will Donald Trump (American Patriots) book himself another four year stint at the top of the political universe?  Or will Joe Biden (Progressive Alliance) put an end to Trump’s run and take PCW in a different direction?”

Colleen jumps in to point out polls indicate that Joe Biden will win tonight and win very easily.

Johnny Suave: “Because your polls was so correct four years ago.”

Suave then eats another elbow from Crowder.

The entrance music brings out the owner of PCW Dawn McGill as she makes her first appearance of the evening, much to the enthusiastic fanfare of the overwhelming majority inside Hack’s Rusty Nail Saloon.

PCW Owner Dawn McGill

But not Colleen…

Colleen Crowder: “She’s the real problem! She just doesn’t get it.”

The camera pans around the arena.  First…

The Deplorables/Les Miserables section of the bar: ‘Red Solo Cup’ Ray McAvay, ‘Prairie Populist’ William Daniels Bryan, McAvay’s wife and one half of the famed West Texas Adult Entertainment duo Dark and Stormy, Stacee (Dark) Perry.  Paige ‘Stormy’ Reynolds is also there along with Bert the Janitor and General DeBauchery- who looks like a bizarre combination of the AWA’s Colonel DeBeers and Lt. Aldo from Inglorious Basterds, sporting a black captain’s hat right out of World War II, smoking a cigar and grinning obnoxiously, Al Cahall- sporting six pack abs…oh…that’s a six pack in front of his abs- all on their feet cheering wildly.

Colleen Crowder: “And so are they. They’re the problem too!”

Next…

The Conservative Inc. section, the American Patriots/Never Trumpers/country club set (Bill Kristol.  Charlie Sykes.  Jonah Goldberg. David French.  Tom Nichols.  David Reaboi.  Jennifer Rubin.  David Brooks, Ben Sasse, Mitt Romney, Rick Wilson, George Conway, John Kasich. and S.E. Cupp)- are on their feet as well but not cheering all that wildly.

Finally…

Then there’s Progressive Alliance section.  Professor McCarthy waves his ‘good book’ (the good book that tells us things that are correct or incorrect to say, think, or believe) in the air while his Flock- The Green World Order (Peta from PETA, GreenPete, ‘Extreme Vegan’ Brock Cole Lee, and PeaceNick), the Young Jerks (Zenk Cryger, James Idahola, and Anna- the foul-mouthed sidekick), the Deep State (One and Two), Emily S. List, and Code Pink- all sit in their seats not happy to see McGill step out on stage.

McGill smiles and acknowledges the crowd.

Her smile goes away the second Nancy Pelosi (Progressive Alliance) and Mitch McConnell (American Patriots) walk out and join her.

Nancy Pelosi (CA-Progressive Alliance and Mitch McConnell (KY-American Patriots)

COMPROMISE AGREEMENT Dawn has a microphone.

Dawn McGill: “WELCOME EVERYONE TO P-C-W’S EXTREME ELECTION NIGHT 2020!”

RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

McGill proclaims PCW is back and the faithful jammed inside Hack’s Rusty Nail Saloon cheer her on.

Crowd: “Thank you Dawn (clap clap clap-clap-clap)!  Thank you Dawn (clap clap clap-clap-clap)!”

Dawn McGill: “This show belongs to YOU!  The people!  This show is made by the people for you- the people!”

More wild cheers and thunderous applause.

Next, she tells the PCW faithful that she needs to make a quick announcement before Extreme Election Night 2020 gets under way.

McGill surprises many in the crowd when she announces that she’s reached a compromise agreement with Pelosi and McConnell and Joe Biden and Donald Trump will NOT wrestle each other in the main event tonight.  Cue boos.  McGill herself does not look all that pleased at this development either.

“Tonight’s main event will be ‘Stars N. Stripes’ Kevin Scott of the American Patriots with Donald Trump in his corner versus ‘Mr. Hollywood’ Kevin Daniels from the Progressive Alliance with Joe Biden in his corner versus Charlie Blackwell of the American Heartland Coalition for the PCW Title,” McGill explains.

Suave wonders if Mitch McConnell (KY-American Patriots) sold out Donald Trump by agreeing to the compromise agreement?

Dawn McGill: “Per the terms and conditions agreed to with Ms. Pelosi and Mr. McConnell, the PCW CEO will be named after the match in the same way it used to be- by the owner of PCW which in this case. . .”

McGill turns to Pelosi and McConnell and smirks.

Dawn McGill: “. . . is me.”

Pelosi’s smile suddenly goes away.

The crowd again expresses their support of Dawn McGill.

Crowder protests.  Suave points out that former owner Bubba Jackson was the one who chose Barack Obama not once but twice.  “I’m sure Dawn McGill can make a well-reasoned and fair decision here.  I trust her a lot more than would trust your colleagues,” Suave declared.

Yeah, that doesn’t go over well.  But before Crowder can work up enough righteous indignation to respond…

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

VOICES OF ‘REASON’ …CNN’s Jake Tapper and Brian Stelter come out and walk to the ring and gives the PCW fans a chance to express their righteous indignation.

Colleen Crowder: “It’s about time voices of reason come out and set these idiots straight.”

Tapper and Stelter both climb in.

Tapper reassures Crowder that ‘she’s not alone’ in having to put up with people who are unable to accept reality.

Jake Tapper: “There are some people that are so mendacious, I wouldn’t put them on the air, period.  Like Kayleigh McEnany…”

Stelter shakes his head and mutters “she’s the worst.”

Jake Tapper: “These are just people who tell lies the way that most people breathe-”

*WHAM!*

Crowd pop.

Johnny Suave: “HOLY CRAP!  IT’S KAYLEIGH McENANY!”

And her steel folding chair.  The crowd roars as Tapper falls to the floor.   Stelter turns around and…

*WHAM!*

…he’s face down on the mat.

More crowd popping follows and causes Crowder to become even more indignant.

Colleen Crowder: “SHE CAN’T DO THAT!”

A referee suddenly races down to the ring.

Colleen Crowder: “WHAT?”

Johnny Suave: “WE’VE GOT AN IMPROMPTU MATCH!”

Colleen Crowder: “NOOOOOO!”

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

MATCH #1-HANDICAP MATCH

Trump Spokesperson Kayleigh McEnaney vs. CNN’s Jake Tapper and Brian Stelter

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

**DING-DING**

Both Tapper and Stelter remain on the mat.

Jim Acosta runs in…

*WHAM!*

…and joins them.

Don Lemon rushes down…

*WHAM!*

…yep, same result.

Kaitlan Collins…

*WHAM!*

…down and out.

Johnny Suave: “HERE COMES JEFF ZUCKER!”

The President of CNN rolls into the ring.  He’s pissed and starts shouting at McEnaney.

The result?

*WHAM!*

Zucker finds himself careening through the ropes to the outside.

Crowder goes full on apoplectic now.  “SHE CAN’T DO THAT!” she shouts at the top of her lungs.

McEnaney throws the chair down and drags Tapper on top of Stelter.  She sticks her foot on top of the pile.

ONE.

TWO.

THREE!

**DING-DING-DING**

WINNER: Kayleigh McEnaney @ :30

Johnny Suave: “Kayleigh McEnaney just wiped out CNN!”

McEnaney grabs the microphone.  She calls what just happened tonight “a therapy session for a broken network” Then McEnaney drops the chair and leaves.

Colleen Crowder: “Kayleigh McEnaney doesn’t get to determine what the truth is- that’s our job.  We determine the truth.  We determine the narrative.  We determine the news the people need to see.  We determine the way that the people should react.”

Johnny Suave: “Just like pro wrestling.”

Suave winks.  Colleen just glares at her broadcast partner.

Johnny Suave: “That’s the problem.  Most people would rather you just report the news and let us figure out how we feel about it.”

Crowder starts to respond.  Suave cuts her off and runs down the rest of the card for tonight.

ARIZONA SENATE MEDALLION MATCH: Martha McSally (American Patriots) vs. Mark Kelly (Progressive Alliance)

MICHIGAN SENATE MEDALLION MATCH: Gary Peters (Progressive Alliance) vs. John James (American Patriots)

SOUTH CAROLINA SENATE MEDALLION MATCH: Lindsey Graham (American Patriots) vs. Jaime Harrison (Progressive Alliance)

HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE FACTION WAR GAMES HOUSE MATCH: Progressive Alliance vs. American Patriots

PCW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH: Jill Berg Enterprises: P.M.C. Banks and Kirk Walstreit (American Patriots) vs. The Green World Order: GreenPete and ‘Vengeful Vegan’ Brock Cole Lee (Progressive Alliance) vs. The Deplorables: ‘Red Solo Cup’ Ray McAvay and ‘Prairie Populist’ William Daniels Bryan (American Heartland Coalition)

PCW WOMEN’S TITLE MATCH: Kathryn Randall Collins (Progressive Alliance) vs. ‘Alaskan Rogue’ Sierra Whalen (American Patriots) vs.  ‘Extreme Pizza Delivery Girl’ Tessa Martin (American Heartland Coalition)

MAIN EVENT/PCW TITLE MATCH: ‘Starz N. Stripes’ Kevin Scott (American Patriots) vs. ‘Mr. Hollywood’ Kevin Daniels vs. ‘Prairie Populist’ William Daniels Bryan (American Heartland Coalition)

PCW CEO Donald Trump (American Patriots) and challenger Joe Biden (Progressive Alliance)

Finally, either Donald Trump  or Joe Biden will be chosen to become the CEO of PCW for the next four years.

Crowder says all the ingredients are there for a blue wave to sweep through PCW.  Suave responds that we’ll find that out soon enough and sends it back to the ring for the second match of the night.

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

MATCH #2-ARIZONA SENATE MEDALLION MATCH:

Martha McSally (American Patriots) vs. Mark Kelly (Progressive Alliance)

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

McSally returns after losing two years ago to Krysten Sinema at Extreme Election Night 2018.  Can she pick up her first PCW win over former astronaut, and husband to Gabrielle Giffords, Mark Kelly?  Or will Kelly continue the recent trend of Progressive Alliance wins in Arizona?

**DING-DING**

Johnny Suave: “And we are underway!”

Kelly and McSally circle.  Wicked chop hits McSally and then she takes a headbutt from Kelly.  Whip to the ropes – scoop slam to McSally by Kelly.  Another whip to the ropes – McSally ducks – off the opposite ropes – Kelly evades a right hand – belly to back suplex to McSally.  Cover.  McSally kicks out.  Kelly with a headlock – McSally reverses and takes down Kelly.  McSally waits – and spears Kelly to the mat.  Cover One – two – kick out.  Waistlock by McSally – Kelly reverses and takes McSally down with a judo takeover.  Leg drop by Kelly.  Cover.  One – two – NO!  McSally gets the shoulder up.  Kelly drags McSally up and pops her with a steel folding chairshot.   McSally looks done.  Kelly hooks the leg.  One – two – NO!  McSally kicks out before the 3.

Colleen Crowder: “That’s it!  I’m calling the match for Mark Kelly!”

Johnny Suave: “The match is not even remotely close to being finished-“

Colleen Crowder: “Nope!  It’s over!”

Kelly swings the chair again – McSally dodges.  She goes springboard off the ropes and kicks the chair into Kelly’s face.  Right hand by McSally drops her and the fans fire up!  Kelly back up – McSally with a waistlock.  Kelly escapes – but runs into a roll up.  One – two – Kelly slips out in time and then decks McSally with a front kick.  Cover.  One – two – NO!  McSally gets her shoulder up in time.  McSally goes to the ropes and rushes at the champion.  Kelly greets her with a chop that literally takes McSally right off her feet!  McSally scrambles up – Kelly measures and SUPERKICK!  McSally collapses to the mat.  Cover.  One – two – NO!   And then a spinning knee from Kelly and again, McSally is down.  One – two – NO!  McSally miraculously escapes again.   Kelly reels McSally in, but McSally wrenches free, only for Kelly to waistlock, spin and LARIAT!  Hook of the the legs.  One – two – NOOOOOOO!

Johnny Suave: “McSally kicked out at the very last second!  It’s not over yet!”

Colleen Crowder: “Nope.  We’ve already called it.  The match is over.”

Shaking his head, Kelly methodically rolls out of the ring and pulls a table out from under.  He sets the table up in the ring and brings McSally back to her feet – McSally fights out of a grapple and chops Kelly.  Arm drag takedown by McSally and she goes top rope. Then…

Johnny Suave: “WAIT A MINUTE!  THAT’S ARIZONA SECRETARY OF STATE KATIE HOBBS!”

Hobbs (Progressive Alliance) to ringside.  She goes to McSally and shoves her off the top rope.  McSally flies and goes through a table.

Johnny Suave: “HOLY CRAP!”

Now it’s Kelly’s turn.  Kelly sets McSally up on his back. Gory Special sends McSally face first to the mat and shook the ring.  Kelly covers.  One….two….THREE!!

WINNER OF ARIZONA SENATE MEDALLION MATCH: Mark Kelly (Progressive Alliance) @ 7:54

The referee hands Kelly the medallion.

Johnny Suave: “McSally did everything she could.  Katie Hobbs’s interference helped swing the match to Mark Kelly.”

Crowder is blatantly cheering on the result.  She’s going full on gloat.

Colleen Crowder: “What did I tell you Johnny?  We called the match and we were right!  Blue Wave baby, Blue Wave!  First Martha McSally, next Lindsey Graham.”

Suave expresses skepticism about Graham losing tonight.

Colleen Crowder: “The polls and our narrative say Graham’s going down.”

CALIFORNIA DREAMING California Governor Gavin Newsom.  No mask.  Dining out with some ‘friends’ inside a swanky restaurant while normal Californians are subjected to strict guidelines against large gatherings and ‘staying home.’

Newsom makes a plea for Joe Biden to bring PCW to California.

Suave notes that Dawn McGill is on record as stating that as long as she’s the owner, PCW will never set foot in California.

Gavin Newsom: “Joe.  When you win later on tonight and become the new PCW CEO, don’t forget that California is open for business!”

In the background, an endless parade of moving trucks pass by.

Newsom says forget holding PCW shows in rednecky bars out in the middle of Nowheresville USA-California is the place PCW should be.  He hails California as the home of Silicon Valley, Hollywood, the Pacific Coast, Disneyworld-

Johnny Suave: “Closed.  Employees laid off.”

Gavin Newsom: “And-“

Johnny Suave: “Choking regulations that is driving business out of the state.”

Several moving trucks honk as they drive past.

Suave also notes an average California home costs $440,000 (two–and–a–half times the average national home price of $180,000) and that the average monthly rent is about $1,240 (50 percent higher than the rest of the country-$840 per month).

Behind Newsom, Elon Musk looks at him with disgust.  Then he leaves and hops on a moving truck.

Gavin Newsom: “With all that, it’s no wonder that California is the place to be.  So come to California, PCW.  And, oh, make sure you bring your checkbook…”

Suddenly, the electricity goes out and the restaurant is left in total darkness.

Gavin Newsom: “…so you too can live the California dream!”

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

MATCH #3- SOUTH CAROLINA SENATE MEDALLION MATCH:

Lindsey Graham (American Patriots) vs. Jaime Harrison (Progressive Alliance)

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

Colleen Crowder: “Our polls say that Lindsey Graham is in trouble.  I predict he’ll fall before the big Blue Wave that’s coming!”

Johnny Suave: “Well?  We’ll find out in just a moment. Will this be Lindsey Graham’s biggest battle yet?  Will Jaime Harrison bring the South Carolina Medallion to the Progressive Alliance?”

…Harrison goes waistlock – Graham elbows him away!  He drives his shoulder into Harrison’s gut and drives him into the corner turnbuckle.  Graham then with a forearm shot and runs at Harrison again – shoulder into the stomach topples him over.  Cover.  One – TWO!

Johnny Suave: “Harrison kicks out.  But the surprise here is just how tenacious Lindsey Graham has been tonight about defending his South Carolina Medallion.”

Crowder calls Graham’s effort noble but futile. She still maintains that Harrison will win.

Graham doesn’t let up.  Hip toss sends Harrison to the middle of the ring.  Cover – One – TWO!  Again Harrison kicks out. This time he rakes Graham’s eyes and whips him into the corner.

Colleen Crowder: “Here we go!  Jaime Harrison is going to-“

Graham counters with a raised foot to the face.  Graham waits – he launches himself at Harrison –LARIAT!  Cover.  One – two – THREE!

WINNER OF SOUTH CAROLINA SENATE MEDALLION MATCH: Lindsey Graham (American Patriots) @ 3:15

Johnny Suave: “And the answer is no.  Crowder was not correct and Lindsey Graham wins comfortably.”

Suave turns to Colleen for her take on the match.

Colleen Crowder: “The match isn’t over yet, Johnny.  We haven’t called it yet.”

Johnny Suave: “The referee just made the three count.  It’s over.”

Colleen Crowder: “Nope.  It’s not until we call it and say it’s over.”

JOE BIDEN INTERVIEW Shaking his head, Suave moves on.  He recounts Extreme Election Night 2008 and 2012 where the then-owner of PCW came out after the main event and announced who would be the PCW CEO for the next four years.

VIDEO REPLAY: –2008.  PCW Owner Bubba Jackson names Barack Obama (Progressive Alliance) as the winner and new CEO of PCW.  He shakes hands with his opponent John McCain (American Patriots).

-2012.  Jackson again names Obama as the winner.   Obama’s opponent Mitt Romney (American Patriots) walks over and shakes hands with the returning PCW CEO.

Johnny Suave: “Then in 2016 after Dawn McGill took over ownership of PCW, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton inside the ring to succeed Barack Obama.  But tonight, we return to the old way.

Cut to: Outside Dawn McGill’s office.

Inside Dawn’s office.  The Progressive Alliance’s Joe Biden.

Johnny Suave: During Extreme Election Night, the candidate is interviewed by the PCW owner.

The door opens.  Biden and his candidate for Aide de Camp Kamala Harris emerges from McGIll’s office.

There’s a perfunctory handshake between McGill and Biden just outside her office that seems more than a little bit awkward.

Then Biden goes to the podium to talk briefly to his supporters.  There’s eight of them on hand- socially distanced standing in appropriately separated circles.

Biden gives a brief statement and ends with…

Joe Biden: “We’re going to build back…um…to make better…changes so we can…change for the… better.”

He also added.

Joe Biden: “TRUNALIMUNUMAPRZURE!”

Scattered applause.

Cut back to Suave and Crowder.

Colleen Crowder: Ladies and gentlemen.  This is your next PCW CEO!

Johnny Suave: Next in to see PCW Owner Dawn McGill- the current CEO of Political Championship Wrestling, Donald Trump.

Crowder gives a thumbs-down to Trump and ‘boos.’

Cut back to outside Dawn McGill’s office.

TRUMP INTERVIEW Following Trump’s interview with McGill, he and his Aide de Camp Mike Pence exit her office- both smiling.

Trump and McGill share a more effusive handshake, again everyone all smiles.

Trump then goes to the podium and addresses the enthusiastic two hundred and fifty people who’ve crowded into a very tight area to hear him speak.

Colleen Crowder: Really?  Where’s the social distancing?  Where’s the masks?  This is irresponsible.

Trump gives his break remarks and ends with…

Donald Trump: We are one movement, one people, and one family!  Together we will make PCW great again!

Big cheers follow.

Cut back to Suave and Crowder.

Johnny Suave: “So Colleen, how’s that Blue Wave coming along?”

Colleen Crowder: “Shut up!  The night isn’t over yet and we still haven’t called the Lindsey Graham-Jaime Harrison match.”

Johnny Suave: “I’ll make it easy for you. Graham has the medallion.  He won.  Harrison lost.”

Colleen Crowder: “But we didn’t call it-“

THE AMERICAN PATRIOT BOX Quick cut to the American Patriots’ box.  The Coke Brothers-Charles and David, financiers and mover and shaker of the American Patriots, glares towards the ring from his suite.  He plucks his phone from a suit pocket and punches in a number.

PROGRESSIVE ALLIANCE BOX Quick cut to the Progressive Alliance box.  George Moros, big money spender and mover and shaker in the Progressive Alliance, has a sour look on his face as well.

TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH TIME Suave announces it’s time for the big three-way PCW Tag Team Title match.

First team out…

THUMP

THUMP

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP

Pop. Big…big pop.

THUMP

THUMP

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP

The crowd erupts when the video screen shows the door to a dressing room in the back. A police escort is waiting at the door. One of the policemen knocks on the door.

Policeman: “Ms. Berg. It’s time.”

Colleen Crowder (voiceover): What do you mean it’s time? It’s time for what?

The door opens and eight male bodyguards walk out of the dressing room encircling a petite 95 pound woman and her executive assistant Melissa in the middle. The woman, dressed in a smart, dark business suit and heels, is busy talking on her cell phone.   Melissa furiously scribbles down notes as the group makes their way towards the ring followed by P.M.C. Banks and Kirk Walstreit.

THUMP

THUMP

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP

A huge roar greets the procession as it emerges from the back onto the stage and starts their way down the ramp.  Two of the bodyguards use a fire extinguisher to create a fog like effect as the ‘Queen of Greed’ Jill Berg walks through. Two others hold sparklers up in the air as she passes by.

Berg and her Executive Assistant Melissa leads Banks and Walstreit out to the stage.

Jill Berg Enterprises MGR: ‘Queen of Greed’ Jill Berg ASST: Melissa P.M.C. Banks AGE: 30 / HT: 6′ 1″  WT: 230 / HOME: New York City, NY FIN: Bank Statement Overdraft Kirk Walstreit – ‘Wall Street Market Analyst with the Man Crush on ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit.’ AGE: 34 / HT: 6’ 2” WT: 220, HOME: New York City, NY FIN: Stock Market Plunge

Berg leads the group down to the ring. Once inside the ring, Walstreit walks around holding up a velvet painting of ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit. Why? Who knows. That’s just what he does.

Next out…

♫ “Do you hear the people sing? – Singing the song of angry men?”

The camera pans over to the Deplorable’s section of the arena.  Ray McAvay and William Daniels Bryan high five while Charlie Blackwell and ‘No Frills’ Chris Escondido stands up from their seat.

Crowder is not happy to see them.

Colleen Crowder: “BOOOO!  BOOOOO!  These Deplorable idiots are the ones responsible for Donald Trump winning in 2016!  BOOOOO!”

The Deplorables MGR: Bert the Janitor ‘Red Solo Cup’ Ray McAvay HT: 6’ 3” WT: 215 HOME: Fort Stockton, TX FIN: McGill Bomb Valets: West Texas Adult Entertainment Legends Dark and Stormy William Daniels Bryan– ‘The Prairie Populist’ -4 time PCW Champion.  Former PCW Television Champion HT: 5’10″ WT: 180, HOME: Platte, Nebraska / FIN: Cattle Mutilation or the Crane Kick SUBGROUP: General DeBauchery, Al Cahall, Nic Koteen

Also rising from their seats, General DeBauchery- who looks like a bizarre combination of the AWA’s Colonel DeBeers and Lt. Aldo from Inglorious Basterds, sporting a black captain’s hat right out of World War II, smoking a cigar and grinning obnoxiously, Al Cahall- sporting six pack abs…oh…that’s a six pack in front of his abs and the man smoking a cigarette in violation of several anti-smoking ordinances…as usual, Nic Koteen.

McAvay and Bryan stands up and edges towards the aisle. Blackwell, and Escondido follow.  Then General DeBauchery, Cahall, and Koteen.  Before McAvay and Escondido start to descend down the steps towards the rail separating the stands from the floor, McAvay turns around and gestures to the Les Miserables to join him.

The Deplorables rise up from their seats and line up behind him and Escondido as the pair start their way down towards the ring.

The camera spots West Texas Adult Entertainment Legends Dark and Stormy with their protégée Starbrite, all sporting the PCW Ray McAvay “Show Up. Punch In. Shut Up.  Get to Work” baseball jersey, marching along with the other Les Miserables as McAvay and the procession head down to the ring.

McAvay, Bryan, Blackwell, Escondido, and the rest reach the steel barricade around ringside.  One by one, they climb through the railing down to the floor and march towards the ring.

Then finally…

WE’RE CHANGING EVERYTHING!

The song opens with a full minute and a half of abstract acapella tones.  The wrestlers already in the ring wonder what the hell is with the music.

They’d find out soon enough after another minute of somber keyboard strikes and overlaid whale calls.

Male Voice: “My name is Brock Cole Lee.  You can call me the Vengeful Vegan.  And I’m here to let you know one thing.  It’s time for a new force to emerge.  It’s time for someone to come in and take over.  It’s time for us- the GREEN… WORLD…ORDER!”

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Brock Cole Lee: “That’s right.  Boo us all you want.   The bottom line is . . . the Green World Order is here and WE’RE CHANGING EVERYTHING!”

This excites Crowder.

Colleen Crowder: “They’re changing everything Johnny!”

Johnny Suave: “They’ve been saying that since 2005.  I’ll believe it when I see it.”

Lee, his tag team partner GreenPete, and valet Peta from PETA- who spends most of the trip to the ring shouting at people for eating hamburgers and other assorted objectionable food.

Green World Order Valet: Peta from PETA GreenPete HT: 5′ 11″ WT: 195 / HOME: Los Angeles, CA FIN: Harpoon (modified spear or gore) ‘Extreme Vegan’ Brock Cole Lee HT: 6′ 3″ WT: 192 / HOME: New York City, NY FIN: The Juicer WITH: PeaceNick

All three teams in the ring now.

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

MATCH #4-PCW TAG TEAM TITLE MATCH:

Jill Berg Enterprises: P.M.C. Banks and Kirk Walstreit (American Patriots) vs. The Green World Order: GreenPete and ‘Vengeful Vegan’ Brock Cole Lee (Progressive Alliance) vs. The Deplorables: ‘Red Solo Cup’ Ray McAvay and ‘The Prairie Populist’ William Daniels Bryan (American Heartland Coalition)

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

Johnny Suave: “This is NOT an elimination match.  The first team who gets a pinfall will be the new PCW Tag Team champions.”

Colleen Crowder: “GO GREEN WORLD ORDER!”

P.M.C. Banks, McAvay, and GreenPete will start.  Outside the ring, The ‘Queen of Greed’ Jill Berg watches with arms folded.  The Green World Order’s PeaceNick chants peaceful, pacifistic mantras while Peta continues to berate people at ringside for eating meat.  The Deplorables at ringside clap their hands and cheer on McAvay and Bryan.

Brock Cole Lee and Kirk Walstreit taunt each other on the ring apron.  Banks and GreenPete do a lot of talking while McAvay and Bryan confer.   Banks shoves GreenPete.  GreenPete shoves Banks.  Head butt by GreenPete staggers Banks.  He slams him down.  Cover.  One – two – McAvay makes the save.

Banks rolls out of the ring.  GreenPete tags out to Brock Cole Lee who tells Banks to get his ass back into the ring.  Banks and Walstreit talk strategy outside the ring with Jill Berg.   Finally, a ten count begins and Banks returns.

Banks ties up with McAvay.  McAvay gets leveled from behind by Lee.  Banks decides he’s had enough and tags out to Kirk Walstreit.  Walstreit rushes in – Lee gets a takedown.  Waistlock by Lee – he holds on as Walstreit tries to escape.  McAvay back up and he’s got a chair thanks to his tag partner.  *WHAM!*  Walstreit then German Suplexes Lee.  Oklahoma Roll – one – two – GreenPete in for the save.  Bryan tags in and he connects on a mat slam to Walstreit.  He covers.  One – two – BANKS MAKES THE SAVE!  Lee tags GreenPete back in.  Bryan and Walstreit duel – MULE KICK by GreenPete connects.  Walstreit lets go – he dives for the corner – NO!  GreenPete pulls him back at the last second.  Lee clocks Bryan from behind with a steel folding chair and then throws him out of the ring.  Banks tags in for Walstreit.  GreenPete kicks Banks around the ring. Banks down.  He tries to get to his corner but Walstreit stomps away with kick after kick after kick.  The referee starts a five count – GreenPete stomps more.  Then he goes back suplex but Banks lands on his feet.  He ducks two more kicks from GreenPete and hits a DESPERATION BANK STATEMENT OVERDRAFT.

Johnny Suave: “HOLY CRAP!”

Colleen Crowder: “THAT CAN’T BE LEGAL!”

Suave assures her it is and that GreenPete is down and in big trouble.

Crowd on their feet.  But Banks can’t make the pinfall on GreenPete.  Both men crawl to their corners – hot tags to Brock Cole Lee and Walstreit!  Lee and Walstreit exchange right hands.  Lee decks Walstreit with a right hand.

Outside the ring, Jill Berg strolls over and… *SMACK* unleashes a vicious spinning heel kick to an unsuspecting GreenPete and knocks him out cold.

Colleen Crowder: WHAT?  WHAT IS SHE DOING?

PeaceNick looks on in horror and starts to protest.  Berg calmly walks over to him and *SMACK* …you guessed it.

Johnny Suave: Getting in some martial arts training during the match?

We hear Crowder’s overly audible ‘huff’ following Suave’s remark.

Now Bryan back in and he’s looking for anyone in a green shirt.  He ducks a Lee clothesline and runs the ropes.  Bryan ducks a second clothesline – stops, spins around – SLEEPER!  Lee spins around and tries to get Bryan off his back.  Lee slams Bryan into the corner turnbuckle.  And again.  A third time – Bryan is scraped off.  Banks give him a stomp and then clocks Lee.  GreenPete in the ring and runs and SPLASHES Banks in the corner.  Banks down.  Cover by Bryan.  One – two – WALSTREIT MAKES THE SAVE!   Bryan goes after Banks.  Lee scoop slams Bryan.  Cover.  One – two – BRYAN GETS THE SHOULDER UP!

Bryan slips through Lee’s legs and tags McAvay back in.  Both Deplorables hook up Banks, then hit a double suplex.  McAvay’s cover.  One – two – NO!  Banks kicks out.  Lee shoves McAvay out of the way and hits a spinning neckbreaker on Banks.  Cover.  One – two – Banks again kicks out.  Banks reverses a hip toss – steps back – SUPERKICK TO BROCK COLE LEE!  Lee down.  Banks rolls over.  One – two – Lee kicks out.  Banks tags Kirk Walstreit back in.  Flying elbow off the top rope by Walstreit takes Lee down again.  He covers.  One – two – 2.999!

Johnny Suave: “RAY McAVAY MAKES THE LAST SECOND SAVE!”

McAvay goes for the cover.  But two masked men hit the ring and tackle him.

Johnny Suave: “WAIT A MINUTE!  IT’S LOAF!”

League of Anti-Fascists aka…LOAF Ted HT: 5′ 11″ WT: 180 / HOME: Portland, OR FIN: Chaz HT: 6′ 1″ WT: 205 / HOME: Seattle, WA FIN:

McAvay tries to fight LOAF off – but Ted throws McAvay over the top rope to the floor.  Then LOAF hop over the top rope and splashes McAvay and Bryan on the floor.

Colleen Crowder: “This is payback Johnny.  Payback for what McAvay and Bryan did four years ago to help Donald Trump become the CEO of PCW and it’s ABOUT TIME!”

The Deplorables come to McAvay and Bryan’s aid and LOAF has to bail out.

Johnny Suave: “But the damage is done.  Both McAvay and Bryan are down.”

Not for long though, McAvay drags himself up.

*SMACK*

Johnny Suave: “HOLY CRAP!  JILL BERG JUST TOOK OUT RAY McAVAY WITH A SPINNING HEEL KICK!”

*SMACK*

Johnny Suave: “AND WILLIAM DANIELS BRYAN, TOO!”

This makes Crowder happy.

Colleen Crowder: “Again, it couldn’t have happened to better people.”

Walstreit again goes top rope – flying ax-handle drives Lee back down.  Cover.  One – two – NO!  Lee ejects Walstreit to the middle of the ring.  Walstreit with a waistlock – Lee reverses – backdrop to Walstreit.  Cover.  One – two – Walstreit slips out.  P.M.C. Banks runs in.  He slams Lee down.  Walstreit comes over.  Set.  DOUBLE SUPERKICKS!!  Lee is out of his feet.  Walstreit in – STOCK MARKET PLUNGE! COVER!  ONE – TWO- THREE!  NEW CHAMPIONS!

WINNER AND **NEW** PCW TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS: Jill Berg Enterprises @ 14:05

Johnny Suave: “Jill Berg Enterprises win!”

Colleen Crowder: “Again, they have not.  We have not called the-“

The referee hands Walstreit and Banks the PCW Tag Team title match.

Johnny Suave: “Walstreit and Banks hold up their new title belts!”

Colleen Crowder: “They can’t do that!  This match hasn’t been called yet!”

Johnny Suave: “Breaking news!  The new PCW Tag Team champions put on their new title belts signifying that they are, in fact, the NEW PCW Tag Team champions.”

Colleen Crowder: “Don’t you dare mansplain to me!”

Johnny Suave: “Okay.  We are going to go right to our next match.  A special bonus match for the Alabama Senate Medallion between the Progressive Alliance’s Doug Jones and former Auburn Head Football Coach Tommy Tuberville of the American Patriots.”

Colleen Crowder: “That’s another win for the Progressive Alliance.”

Suave rolls his eyes and waves her off.

Cut to a quick video of the match:

VIDEO-Alabama Medallion Match: Doug Jones (Progressive Alliance) vs. Tommy Tuberville (American Patriots) Tuberville is having little trouble with Jones.

Voice Offscreen: “Hold on Johnny.  Stop the video.”

SHOWSTOPPERS Arriving at the broadcast table: Pennsylvania State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, and former Georgia Gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams- all from the Progressive Alliance.The group inform Suave that the show is going to be stopped for the moment.

Johnny Suave: “Stopped?  But why?”

Josh Shapiro: “Look.  This is the first show back.  The production crew is tired.  They’re getting back into the flow of things.  So we will pick up the show on Sunday evening with the conclusion.”

Colleen Crowder: “When Joe Biden will become the new PCW CEO!”

Shapiro nods to Crowder.

Josh Shapiro: “When Joe Biden will become the next CEO of PCW.”

Johnny Suave: “I guess we will be back with Part Two of PCW Extreme Election Night 2020 on Sunday night!  For Colleen Crowder-“Colleen Crowder: I am more than capable of saying goodbye.  I don’t need a man to-Johnny Suave: Good night everyone!

Cut to:

EPILOGUE Darkened room.  Dim light.

Shadows move around.

George Moros- billionaire financier of the Progressive Alliance.

The Coke Brothers- billionaire financiers of the American Patriots.

A door opens.  Then closes.

Charles Coke: Sarah.

The woman is Sarah Lenti, executive director of the Lincoln Project- a group of American Patriots and former American Patriots dedicated to preventing Donald Trump from winning a second term as PCW CEO.

Sarah Lenti: What the hell is going on!  I thought you had things under control.

David Coke: Sarah, I know things haven’t exactly gone to plan-

Sarah Lenti: Not gone to plan?  Dawn McGill is still in control of PCW with all her ‘PCW is for the people’ bull-*BLEEP*.

George Moros tries to reassure her.

George Moros: Look.  We stopped the show for the evening.  That gives us time to figure this out.

Sarah Lenti: Dawn McGill is going to hand the reins of PCW to Donald Trump for another four years!

George Moros: No she won’t.  Clearly, it’s time to take this to the next level.

Moros pulls out a cell phone and hits a button.

George Moros: It’s time.  Operation Dominion is in effect.

[‘Trumpet Concerto No. 2 in D major – 3 Allegro assai’ begins to play in the background and P-SPAN quickly cuts away to another political event.]

[yellowsugarwords]

Walking Dead Game FanFiction - “Like Siblings”

Title: Like Siblings Characters: Louis, Violet, Clementine, AJ, Tenn, Marlon Summary: Louis and Violet go through the average day of annoying the daylights out of one another. But, as the day goes on, prove that they have a bond with one another. That they, together, are family. Author's Note: I love the brotp stuff between these two my HEART Requested By: Anonymous support me with ko-fi ♡ ---------♥️♥️♥️----------

“Fight me.”

“You think I won’t?”

Louis scoffed. “I know you won’t. You’d never lay a precious finger on me.”

Violet snorted. “Do you even know me?”

“Some days it’s debatable if he knows anyone around here,” Clementine claimed, riffling through the book she’d snagged from the library. Finding where she’d last stopped reading and cracking open the spine, she leaned back and sighed through her nose. “The other day he told Mitch to ‘take it outside’ if he wasn’t happy with a decision he made.”

“Ah,” Violet hummed, crossing her arms, turning back to her temporary foe. “So you have a death wish. That’s why you’re messing with me.”

Louis smirked, and the smugness from their argument — the one he thought he was winning — continued to seep through. The two often taunted one another in such ways, even if they both knew that often — ie: every day — they fought each other. “No, I just like teasing the people who I know won’t touch me.” He shrugged. “You care about me too much. You’d never fight me.”

Violet smirked. Louis, eyes closed in the midst of gleaming about his strength, didn’t notice.

In a matter of seconds, Violet had him pinned to the floor — a position Louis wailed in as he tried to wriggle his way out.

The front doors of Ericson creaked, but neither of the two squabbling noticed. They were too preoccupied trying to pin the other onto the ground, forcing them to yell ‘uncle.’ Marlon raised a brow, making his way to Clem’s side and setting himself down beside her. “What’s that all about?”

Violet accidentally busted open Louis’ lip due to their wrestling match on the lawn. The one Tenn and AJ had scurried to come see, and the one Clementine had urgently waved them away from. The last thing she wanted was them mimicking the two most energetic and boundary-less teens on the lot.

At dinner that night, Louis groaned and pushed away his plate.

Spotting a few morsels abandoned in his bowl, relatively untouched, Violet smirked and slithered in from across the table. “Can I steal that?”

“No, I’m giving it to Marlon.” Louis said, brushing his fingers over his busted lip.

Violet’s jaw dropped. The pop sound from the separation of her lips caught Louis’ attention. “Why can’t I get it?”

Louis scrunched his nose. “Because Marlon always sacrifices things for us and I wanna give something back?”

Violet raised a brow.

“He’s helping my out with my chore schedule and I owe him one.”

Violet scoffed, the air escaping from her nose as she leaned further back. She sat there, contemplating what to say, and her lips fell. “I see how it is.” She hesitated, letting the both of them well in the silence. “You’re closer with Marlon.”

“What?”

Violet shoved herself up from the table, shooting an intense, deep-seated glare Louis’ way. She hesitated before speaking, rolling her tongue over her dry lips, trying to find the words to toss his way. “Whatever, Louis. If you wanna be all buddy-buddy with Marlon instead of me, fine.”

Louis blinked, watching as she dragged herself around the table, her gaze not leaving his. The rigidness of her body never changed. “Vi, what are you talking about?”

“Save it, Louis.”

He scoffed. “Are you actually mad?” He hesitated, not hearing a response. “You can’t be serious.”

Violet approached him, setting her hands on her hips. Her stare squinted and her glare deepening. They both knew that this time around, the silence was heavier. “You’re right.”

Louis blinked then squinted, trying to read her like a book. Before he could respond or react, Violet snatched the bowl from the table and bolted for the other end of Ericson’s lot, cackling the entire way. Louis blinked, his mind trying to catch up, before he scoffed and shuffled to his feet. “Wait! Vi!”

“Ha!” She scoffed at his call, hearing his voice stumble as he darted after her. “Better catch me if you want your precious Marlon to get it.”

“Ugh, Vi! Come on!”

Clementine learned when the two eventually stumbled back that Violet had not eaten Marlon’s meal. As per usual, she was teasing Louis for the fun of it. “We’ll laugh about it when we get older.” She’d always say. Louis would always roll his eyes, but they both knew she was right.

A few hours later, Louis was messing around in the music room, fiddling with his piano. It was routine these days. When everything was said and done, Louis would tinker around on the piano, maybe spend some time goofing off with Clem and AJ, and then would head to bed.

So, Violet knew exactly where to find him.

In the midst of him playing, Violet peeked in. As suspected, his eyes were closed, letting the music carry him and guide his fingers opposed to his mind directing them. Under that cover, Violet crept in.

Before he had a chance to open his eyes and spot her, Violet slithered forward, smacked the keys on the left half of the instrument, and made a break for the exit.

Louis jumped, the sound slashing him from his creative zone. His frazzled mind catching up with reality, he turned to spot the blonde in the door frame. “Vi!”

“Pretty song,” she said, a smirk forming the giggle that bubbled through.

Louis didn’t wait a moment before he bolted forward after her. In only a minute, he had body-tackled her to Ericson’s hallway floor.

Louis was never worried about roughing around when it came to Violet. He body tackled her, and she punched him more times in a day than either of them could count. They never cared, despite the fact they were constantly littered in bruises.

With his arms locked around her stomach, feeling it bubble with laughter beneath him, Louis knew that Violet was fine.

And he laughed too.

Later that night, when Violet was getting ready to head up for her watchtower shift, Louis stood behind her and cleared his throat.

She turned, raising an eyebrow while staring him down. He was acting weird. Different. Normally if he had something to say to her he would just say it. Why was he staring at her? Why was he silent? “What?” She finally let escape, letting go of the ladder and dismounting her foot.

Louis shrugged, kicking a foot into the dirt. “It’s my watchtower shift too.”

Violet paused, waiting to spot any trace of sarcasm. There was none. “Marlon doesn’t schedule two people at the same time.”

“This time he did.”

Violet blinked, staring him down. Louis didn’t flinch. Over time, Violet came to learn that that was the thing she hated most about Louis — his keen ability to lie without getting caught. He was way too good at it. Scary good. “Louis, what are you--”

“Vi, just go up the ladder. Trust me, alright?” Violet stared at him, as if asking him to question what he was asking of her. He sighed, his shoulders flopping. “Just go.”

She went. Really, she did trust him — more than anyone at Ericson next to Clementine — she just liked teasing him. It was fun to see it work, and their back-and-forth when it didn’t always made her laugh.

Pausing at the top, arms crossed, Violet waited for Louis to flop himself onto their observation deck. Once he did, her shoulders jostled with a scoff. “So? Why did you want to come up here?”

Louis pulled himself to his feet, brushing the dirt off his shirt and jacket before speaking. “What, I can’t just hang out with you? It is my shift too.”

Violet blinked but didn’t flinch.

Louis shrugged, holding his shoulders in their upright position for a beat longer than normal. The move was subtle, but it showed Violet that he was being genuine. “That's it.” He said, loosening them.

“Why?” Violet said. Her arms flopped to her side as she made her way deeper into the platform. She leaned against the back railing — the squeaky flap of wood — and let her arms return to their folded state. “Are you sure you’re not here to apologize for tackling me earlier?”

Louis snorted. “Positive. You deserved it.”

Violet smirked. She totally did, but she’d never confess it. Definitely never to Louis.

“I just wanted to hang out,” he said, plopping himself on the slab of railing beside her. Not close enough to invade her personal space, but close enough.

Violet exhaled through her nose. “You never wanna do that.”

“That’s why I want to start,” he said, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “We’re always joking around and hanging out with the rest of the group. Never one-on-one.”

Violet’s smirk, the playful exterior Louis always gave her, fell. The mask dissipated, and instead he was left to see her — the serious her. The real her. “Do we need to?” She asked.

“No,” Louis said, his smile also long gone. His stare wasn’t facing her. His gaze was outcast over the forest, doing what the two of them were actually supposed to be doing. “But you mean a lot to me. And I like hanging out one-on-one with people that mean a lot to me.”

“But why?” She asked, pushing herself off the railing, staring at Louis directly and fully.

His gaze snapped and attached to hers. It didn't hold serious for long. Laying his eyes on her, Louis could help but smile. “Because then I can tell you that you mean a lot to me. I can’t do that in front of the others.”

She blinked, the phrase taking her aback. Her lips parted, but gently this time. It was wildly unlike how they snapped open at dinner. It made Louis fall deeper into his smile. He realized just how many ways he could surprise her. He Realized how many emotions he could invoke by saying the simplest things, and how much power he had over something as fragile as her emotions.

It only reminded him of how badly he never wanted anyone else to have that power over her. People were cruel, and in their world more than ever. Violet had been through too much pain to have someone willingly inflict more on her. If he could have power over her emotions, he wanted to treat them kindly. Like glass.

She knew she had the same power over him. They were equals, and they had always seen each other as such. Maybe that was why their chemistry matched so well — because their sibling comradery never felt unbalanced. They were always transparent and level.

Louis chuckled, Violet’s look of awe fading as her brain snapped her back to reality. “Wanna sit?” Louis questioned, gesturing to the dusty, wooden floor.

Violet glanced at the ground and then at Louis, still reeling in what he had said. “So, you’re really staying for my entire shift?”

Louis smirked and shrugged. “Well, yeah. It’s our shift now.”

Violet leaned her back against the railing again. “So, what are we gonna do?” She asked, sliding herself to the floor.

Louis plopped himself down, more aggressive than how Violet had eased herself. “Just talk. Hang out.”

“Without physically assaulting each other?”

“If possible.”

Violet snorted. “We’ll see about that.”

Louis wanted to know her deeper. More than just as a friend with a sibling rivalry — the one where they wrestled on the lawn and smacked each other upside the head when they said something stupid. That rivalry where they spoke silently through eyebrows across the dinner table.

He wanted them to have something more. Something elaborative. Something that was actively acknowledging just how much joy they brought to the other’s life.

“This is why you gave Marlon you food at dinner, right?” Violet asked, the words sent off into the forest.

She could hear Louis chuckle, finishing it off with a whimsical sigh. “Yeah, you got me.”

All she could do was smile. Louis had a habit for making her do that. ---------♥️♥️♥️----------

[ellie-bee242]

Money Make Her $mile - Part 3

ALRIGHT. SO. IT’S CURRENTLY 7 AM. I DON’T REMEMBER ANY OF THE OPENING NOTES. I DON’T REMEMBER THE PEOPLE TO TAG. I CANT REMEMBER THE HASHTAGS EITHER. RIP ME I GUESS. BUT. TUMBLR’S A HELL-SITE THAT DECIDED NAZIS ARE MORE ACCEPTABLE THAN A GIF OF A GIRL GRINDIN’ ON A BOY FULLY CLOTHED. SO THEY TOOK MY FUCKIN CHAPTER DOWN.

I’m literally only tagging my wifey @wittystiles​ because she is the reason anyone ever got to see this story in the first place.

Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4

Chapter 3: Come Closer

Song rec: All We Do by Trey Songz, Skin by Rihanna The songs play in the story so play this in order if that’s your thing :)

Warnings: Listen, it’s been forever since I read over this chapter. Swearing is a safe bet cause it’s p much a fixture in my fics. Obvi a lap dance. Other than that it’s a surprise for both you and me lmfao. Gif not really related but like. It’s safe per tumblrs new fucked up standards and also Aesthetic so.

Two weeks later, Mitch was still coming into the club to watch Alexis dance. He would drop a minimum of three hundred dollars on her with each performance. Sometimes he’d give her even more. He followed her when one of the other girls asked to switch platforms, hoping to get some of Mitch’s generosity.

Now Alexis was coming back in after having changed shifts with the same girl, who’d been hoping to get Mitch’s attention when Alexis wasn’t present at all.

“Alexis!” The girl snapped the second the brunette had stepped into the dressing room.

“Rose, what’s wrong?” Alexis asked, confused on why she’d taken that tone.

“That guy! He came in while you were gone, and he gave me ones.” The bleached blonde huffed. Alexis frowned in confusion.

“I swear he’s never done that to me.” She promised.

“Maybe he just likes Alexis, and wants to get her attention.” Another girl piped up as she teased her hair at her vanity. Alexis snorted, thinking if only they knew the real reason.

After Rose’s complaint she realized that Mitch was probably trying to buy her continued silence. She refused to acknowledge why the information gave her a twinge of melancholy as she sat down at her vanity and began applying her makeup.

———

The second she stepped out into the main space Bryce caught her arm and tugged her across the room to a long hallway lined with doors.

“Bryce, what the hell?” She demanded.

“You’ve got a private lap dance lined up.” He told her.

“Okay, with who?” She huffed, tugging her arm free and massaging it to get her circulation back.

“That new regular of yours, he’s in room eight. Get in there and make sure we both get a good tip.” He pushed her down the hall when she didn’t immediately move.

“Uh-...” She hesitated. “The cameras are on right?” She asked.

“Of course they’re on. Now go. Make him happy because happy people blow more money.” Bryce huffed. Alexis sent him a quick glare before hesitantly opening the door and slipping inside room 8. She turned to face the room once the door was closed and locked, ensuring that no one accidentally stumbled in and disturbed them.

Mitch was standing casually in the middle of the room with his back to her, his form dressed in an all black suit, glancing around as if he was only politely interested in his surroundings. He turned when she cleared her throat, effectively getting his attention.

“Have a seat on the chair.” She directed as she walked over to queue a song up on the digital stereo that was built into the wall. The leather padding on the glorified folding chair made unpleasant noises as Mitch sat down on it, and when she glanced back she found him spread on it as if he was perfectly at home, his posture lax, his knees spread to each side of the chair, but his hands were obediently resting against the back legs of the small chair, since he wasn’t allowed to touch her unless she said so. “Comfortable?” She asked.

“As I can be, yes.” He nodded, leaning his torso back to rest against the back of the chair. She nodded and pressed play on the music before making her way over to him as her song of choice began flooding the room with its enticing beat.

She stood in front of him and softly placed her hands on his shoulders for support as she moved her legs to straddle one of his thighs. She started off with a slow grind, swirling her hips back and forth while her hands moved from his shoulders down to his chest. She settled her hands against his ribs underneath the suit coat, her fingers feeling the heat of his skin through the thin material of his black dress shirt as she all but rode his thigh.

She felt his eyes on her and ignored them as best she could, keeping her gaze down, her eyes half lidded as she stared at her hands on him. She had to move to hold his upper arms when they inched forward after a particularly hard rotation of her hips that brought her leg brushing up against his groin. He huffed out a breath, probably in annoyance over being reminded of his restrictions, and she stood up before flipping around so her back was to him, her legs on either side of his other thigh. She settled back down on him and pulled her hair from her back so he had an unobstructed view as her ass wiggled teasingly close to his hips but didn’t quite touch.

The smallest sound, not quite a groan but close, floated to her ears and she felt a small smirk steal across her lips, feeling powerful with the control she held over him in that moment.

She leaned her back up against his chest, consequently pushing her chest out for his viewing pleasure, and snaked a hand up around the back of his neck and into his hair. The position brought her backside in direct contact with his crotch and she bit her lip against the urge to smile at feeling his hard length pressing up against her.

Normally she’d be annoyed, counting the seconds and waiting for the blissful moment when the dance would be over and she could be paid, but Mitch wasn’t her usual type of customer. He wasn’t fat, balding, and sweaty, eagerly waiting and hoping that she’d allow him to put his hands all over her. He was built with lean muscle, unnervingly attractive, and poised in the way that a lion was as he coiled waiting for his chance to pounce. He had a predatory danger in the air about him and it thrilled Alexis as much as it scared her.

Her head leaned back against his shoulder and her eyes opened, unsure of when she had closed them, but remained hooded as she met his focused stare. His honey eyes were dark, whether from the dim lighting in the room or his arousal she couldn’t puzzle out, and his looked at her as if waiting. She didn’t know if it was that anticipating look or what, but she found herself turning her head and speaking into his ear.

“Feel free to touch me, if you’d like.” She breathed. His hand met the outside of her left leg, his touch almost hesitant as his fingers curled into the soft skin lightly and his palm dragged up higher. When she closed her eyes and hummed at the warm feeling he allowed his other hand to grab at her hip, his pinky finger dipping just under the edge of her metallic black shorts.

“Where am I allowed to touch?” His low voice asked against her ear.

“I’ll tell you if I don’t like where your hands wander.” She promised. With that open ended consent his touch began to roam across her exposed skin, looking for his boundaries.

He didn’t meet them, even when his fingers moved across her leg to her inner thigh, gripping and pulling her legs open wider. She felt his other hand trail up across her stomach to the bottom of her sternum, and had to withhold a shiver when his fingertips just barely teased their way underneath the fabric in the middle of her metallic black bikini top.

The song was drawing to a close and her grinding slowed, drawing out the feeling until the last note played. She stopped but didn’t immediately stand like she normally would, eager to get away from the client that was usually panting across the back of her neck. Mitch’s hands moved away from their provocative spots and settled on her hips.

“Can I pay for another?” He asked, his voice the epitome of calm even as she felt him twitch through his slacks against her backside.

“If you want, I can give you the second dance now and you can pay after.” She offered, standing up and stepping away from him, mourning the loss of touch as his hands slipped away from her body.

“I would like that, then.” He agreed and she nodded before heading back over to the audio control panel. She selected another song and walked back over.

“Any requests on how you want me?” She asked coyly. He took her hand in his and pulled her forward until she was standing over his thigh again.

“I don’t mind, as long as you’re facing me.” He smirked, watching her settle herself along his leg. “Can I still touch you?” He asked as he released her hand.

“If you’d like.” She shrugged, acting aloof. His hands moved to rest against her hips, loosely holding her as the new song started up and she resumed the grinding rotation of her hips against his body. Her rhythm matched perfectly to the music, her hips working over him slowly when the melody dragged out slow and sensual, and then she quickened her pace when the music picked up. She changed position, going from straddling one of his thighs to swinging her leg over his other until her hips were flush against his. She felt him push his hips up the slightest bit and nearly forgot to hold in her groan as she slowly dragged her hips back and forth across him.

Her hands moved along her own body, her fingertips trailing slowly up her ribs before she turned her palms around and began pushing her hands up over her chest to her neck and up into her hair as she leaned her torso back. She came back up with her chest mere inches from his face as her hands landed on his shoulders. Her hair curtained their faces as her fingers snaked up around the back of his neck and wove into his hair. She tugged gently and he tipped his head back in compliance, staring up at her with his now nearly black eyes.

“If you’re here to make sure I’m not talking to anyone about what happened, I promised I wouldn’t tell a single soul and I don’t break promises.” She said just loud enough to be heard over the music. Her mouth opened in an involuntary exhale when his hands slid down over her ass and gripped it tightly, tugging her over him roughly.

“I’m here because I paid for a lap dance, Alexis.” He taunted.

“You know what I meant.” She gave a deliberately firm grind against him and watched his eyelids lower slightly for a second as his jaw clenched before his gaze focused back on her.

“You interest me, Alexis. I want to learn more about you.” He explained earnestly.

“You could have come by and asked me to coffee, Mitch.” She teased. “Then you’d only be blowing four fifty instead of three hundred dollars every night.”

“I couldn’t care less about how much money it would take to entice you, Alexis. And if I’d approached you outside your apartment would you really have agreed to accompany me?” He pointed out.

“I would.” She promised.

“Out of fear.” He clarified. She didn’t deny it and he shook his head. “That’s not what I want from you. I don’t want you to comply with what I want because you’re afraid of telling me ‘no’.” He explained.

“So stalking me at work is a better option?” She snarked before she could stop herself. He simply grinned, happy that she’d revealed a sliver of her true sass to him.

“I’m a paying customer, Alexis.” He smirked.

“Lexi.” She corrected as the song ended. “I prefer Lexi. If you’re going to keep calling me by name.” She added.

“Alright, Lexi.” He agreed, releasing his hold on her body to allow her to get up. She stepped away and fixed the areas of her outfit that had been tugged out of place while Mitch reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. He stood and handed her a few bills folded in half. “Thank you for the dance.” He said politely, buttoning his suit coat closed before he turned and left.

It was only once he was gone and she was left alone in the dark room that Lexi realized just how much his touch had affected her, as she felt a dull wanting ache throb from low in her gut.

--------

< C2 - - C4 >

I’m not gonna re-add tags cause that’s just an annoying waste of time lmfao.

[hrina]

a suggestion for the next part!!!: harry tries to confront y/n about whats up and they end up hate fucking again but harry feels empty after it cos he doesnt want to just fuck y/n anymore !!!!!! aahhh

“aahhh” indeed!!!!!!!!!!! this is gonna hurt me to write so thanks!!! i love the pain !!! this is a continuation of this blurb :-) if u like this piece, please don’t hesitate to give me feedback here!! it really motivates me ♥

Harry feels great, because he hasn’t thought of you once.

He rushes offstage that night, his body thrumming and his veins flooded with adrenaline. The screams and chants of the crowd can still be heard, the noises cramming in his ears and only adding to the immense amounts of energy in his system. He’s grinning widely as he hears Mitch playing the closing chords of the last song.

“Good job!” 

“Great show mate, honestly.”

Some members of the stage crew congratulate him, and Harry accepts the praise with clasped hands, smiling warmly. The nape of his neck (and the rest of his body, really) is tacky with sweat, and though Harry does love a good Gucci suit, all he craves at the moment is a nice, thorough shower.

He’s floating on a cloud as he navigates the halls backstage, a stupid, happy grin still pasted to his face as he waves at various technicians and designers. Finally, he turns right, knowing that his dressing room is secluded and at the end of the hall.

He stops in his tracks.

There’s a member of the crew standing there, facing away from him. He’s wearing all black, and Harry can see a headset draping across the back of his neck. It takes Harry a moment to process the situation before he realizes that this unknown man is not alone. A faint sigh reaches Harry’s ears, and his eyes zero in on where you’re pressed against the wall, head tilted back and eyelids shut in bliss. The man’s face is nuzzled into your neck, where he’s sucking and kissing at your skin. The action causes you to let out a satisfied sound.

And Harry?

Harry feels like he’s going to throw the fuck up.

He’s frozen in his stance, mouth flapping open but no noise coming out. Neither you nor your acquaintance seem to have noticed him, and the passing seconds feel like hours. Harry’s stomach is coiling and turning over with an unpleasant feeling, a sensation that makes him want to scream, or rip his own hair out, or maybe both. 

He clears his throat.

Immediately, your eyes snap open, and your friend pulls his lips from your neck, turning around quickly. Harry recognizes him–he’d met him earlier that day–but can’t, for the life of him, remember his damn name. It’s Brandon, or Brad, or something like that.

“Mr. Styles!” Brandon or Brad (or bastard, Harry thinks) sputters out, his eyes wide. His lips are puffy and bruised, the front of his shirt riding up slightly and exposing a thin strip of skin. He quickly tugs it down, looking sheepish. “I–uh–sorry. God, I’m so sorry, this is so unprofessional–”

“It’s fine,” Harry says tightly, his jaw clenched. He forces himself to smile, though he’s sure his expression resembles more of a grimace. “We’ve all got our needs, yeah?”

The bastard has the nerve to chuckle, running his hands through his sandy hair and tousling it. Harry is vaguely aware of you standing there, still breathless and against the wall, watching the exchange with anxious eyes and a heaving chest. 

“Show’s done,” Harry quips, throwing his thumb over his shoulder, “Yeh should probably get back out there.”

“Of course,” Brandon or Brad nods quickly, shooting you one last glance over his shoulder before he’s shuffling off. He twists his body to the side to make it past Harry, who’s standing squarely in the middle of the corridor and doesn’t seem to want to budge. 

And then–just like that–Harry’s alone with you.

There’s a bitter taste in his mouth, and his fists are clenched at his sides, his blunt nails digging crescents into the skin of his palms. The silence is downright painful, but Harry’s fairly sure that the way you’ve just ripped his heart from his chest takes the fucking cake. 

“Hey,” you breathe.

Harry purses his lips, stalking past you and reaching for the knob on the door of his dressing room. He shoves the door open in a manner that’s a bit rougher than necessary, unbuttoning his shirt, kicking off his shoes, and clenching his teeth.

He turns around and realizes that you’ve followed him inside, pressing the door closed softly and locking it with a faint click. Harry swallows heavily, feeling like the room is closing in on him. 

“Just go,” he tells you quietly, “Fuckin’…go.”

“Harry,” you say softly, but he shakes his head, turning away from you. His voice is tight in his throat, his eyes burning with the telltale sign of tears and fuck, he refuses to cry in front of you. Not now. 

Not because of this.

“I want yeh t’leave,” Harry grits out, shrugging his suit jacket from his shoulders. He works on unbuttoning the rest of his white shirt, pulling that off as well and letting the expensive material fall to the floor. You watch the way his shoulders heave with suppressed anger, his bare skin shining with sweat. 

“I’m not leaving,” you say firmly, balling up your fists and taking a confident step forward. It’s difficult to keep your voice from shaking, and your legs feel like jelly, but you force yourself to stand tall.

“Y/N,” Harry warns, refusing to turn and face you. He’s fumbling with his belt, unbuckling it and sliding the leather from the loops of his pants. He quickly unzips himself, pulling the extravagant fabric down his legs and stepping out of where it pools at his ankles.

You can’t help the way your eyes drift down to his smooth back, his tapered hips, the bit of excess skin above the waistband of his briefs. Harry pulls his underwear down, abandoning the final piece of clothing before turning left and heading into the washroom.

You know that you shouldn’t do it, but you follow.

“Harry, come on,” you start, folding your arms over your chest as Harry steps into the shower, drawing the curtain shut and creating a makeshift barrier between the two of you. When he doesn’t respond to your plea, you scowl in annoyance.

“So you’re just gonna ignore me now?” you ask. Again, you’re met with nothing but silence, and your frown deepens. The water begins to run as the seconds pass sluggishly, and you stand there, unsure of what to do. Finally, you let out a frustrated sigh, slipping your shoes from your feet.

“I don’t understand why you’re suddenly being so weird about this,” you say, crossing your arms over your body and gripping the hem of your sweater. You pull the soft material over your head, dropping it onto the tiled floor of the bathroom. Your jeans, bra, underwear, and socks quickly follow, and you kick the pile of clothes away into the corner, paying them no mind.

“It’s not like you haven’t been with other people,” you try one last time to get an answer out of him, but Harry remains silent.

What you don’t know, is that he hasn’t slept with another person since you’d both started…whatever this was. Not one.

You pull back the shower curtain gently, slipping yourself into the small cubicle before drawing it shut. Harry’s standing under the warm stream of water, his back to you as his head hangs low. Water droplets are beading along his skin, and his hair is soaked through, hanging limply over his forehead. Your fingers flex nervously as you chew on your bottom lip, not knowing what else you could possibly say.

“Harry, please,” you finally give in, and you hate how your voice shakes, “What’s wrong?”

The air is saturated with tension and misery, and you’re about to sigh in defeat and step back out, but then Harry finally–finally–speaks up.

“Yeh kissed him.”

The words carry a finite sort of sadness to them, and you won’t lie, his sorrowful tone makes your chest ache. You nod, but then realize that he can’t see you, so you clear your throat and take a deep breath. “Yes. I–I did.”

“And is he…?” Harry gulps, squeezing his eyes shut, “Did yeh like kissin’ him more than me?”

It clicks in your head, then, and you blow out a long, unhappy breath. “Harry,” you say softly, reaching forward and touching his shoulder. He tenses up before his body relaxes at the familiar feeling of your fingertips against his skin. You squeeze softly, and when you speak, your voice is small. “Please turn around.”

He does.

An overwhelming sense of guilt wracks your body when you peer up at his face. His hair is hanging lifelessly over his eyes, shielding one green iris from your gaze. His lips are pursed tightly, like he’s trying to stop them from quivering, and his nostrils are flaring as he inhales. Harry closes his eyes when you brush his sopping wet hair away from his face, cupping his cheek with your left hand when he bows his head even further.

“I’m sorry,” you murmur, stepping closer to him so that your nipples are brushing against his chest. Remorse fills every crevice of your mind, and you gnaw on your bottom lip anxiously as you tilt his chin up so that you can look him squarely in the eye. His eyelids are still shut tight, and the water is still sluicing down his back, but he can only focus on the way your hands are cradling his face and your breath is wafting over his lips.

“And for the record,” you mumble quietly, leaning up so that your nose skims his, “I like kissing you much better.”

Harry’s breath hitches in his throat at your confession, and his eyes slowly flutter open. The look of vulnerability on his face makes your chest tighten with regret, but also with something else–a sort of subtle fondness that you can’t quite understand. 

“Yeah?” Harry asks, the word faint and insecure. 

You nod. “Yeah.”

You kiss him, then, your soft and comforting lips eager to seek out his own. Harry reciprocates a moment later, his arms coming up so that he can grip your cheeks in his hands. You gently pry his mouth open, snaking your tongue inside as he whimpers weakly against you. The kiss is slow but deep, and he’s kissing you so passionately it seems as though you’ll never be whole again without him. 

And Harry…well, Harry’s trying to kiss away any trace of someone else’s lips on yours. 

Your fingers find purchase in his hair, combing through the wet strands with one hand as the other trails down his torso and curves around his hip. Harry hums into your mouth when you press your body tightly against his and feel his cock begin to chub up at the contact.

“I’m sorry,” you say again, gasping out the sentence against his soft pink lips. He shakes his head, kissing you so hard you’re sure your lips will bruise purple after this. 

“No, really,” you say, detaching your lips once more. You place a hand on his chest, pulling back and looking up at him with apologetic, regretful eyes, “I--I was angry and I was being stupid. Guess I just wanted to make you jealous too, and it was really immature--”

“What d’yeh mean?” Harry pants, his lips parted in surprise, “Yeh got jealous? Of who?”

You clamp your mouth shut, internally cringing at how you’d basically just revealed everything to him. Your eyes flit nervously between his irises and his lips, and you simply shake your head, biting your tongue. “No one.”

“Now yeh gotta tell me,” Harry says, smirking lopsidedly. His mood has changed drastically, and you like the fact that you’ve gotten him to smile, but you’d rather it not be at the expense of your dignity. You shake your head again, rolling your eyes but letting out a playful scoff.

“No. Shut up.”

“Make me,” he smiles, wagging his eyebrows suggestively. The action makes you laugh, and you press your lips back against his.

The shower takes much longer than expected, because soon, your hand finds his hard cock, and you twist your wrist expertly as you keep your mouth fastened frantically to his. Harry’s whimpers fall upon your lips in warm, gooey breaths, his head tilting back at one point and the veins in his neck bulging as you pump him steadily. The water from the shower only helps you to establish a quick, slick pace, and you don’t hesitate to dip your head lower and suck at his collarbones as he grunts.

“Fuck, ‘s so fuckin’ good, pet. Gonna ruin me.”

“Make me cum, angel, please--wanna cum so bad.”

“Fuck, do that again, shit! ‘M gonna--bloody--!”

He’s spurting out onto your hand in hot, white ropes after that, his groans fading to quiet whines as he presses his lips firmly against your forehead. For a long time, the both of you just stand there, eyes closed and breaths intermingling as the water goes cold.

And when you step out afterwards, wrap towels around yourselves, and begin to dry off, you both can’t seem to tear your gazes from one another. Harry’s trying to hide his smile and you’re try to conceal the way your skin has heated up (despite those last few freezing moments in the shower). 

You towel yourself off and slide your bra back on as Harry walks into his dressing room to get changed. Once you’ve dressed yourself and tied your hair into a haphazard, sopping bun, you exit the bathroom. Harry’s slid on a pair of sweatpants and a navy blue t-shirt, and his feet are covered in bright red socks. The mismatched colours make you smile softly.

“That was fun,” you murmur, and Harry chuckles when you wrap your arms around his torso. He thumbs over the skin of your cheek idly, staring at you and seeming lost in thought.

“Y/N,” he says, his voice void of all banter, “Y’know, I really like y--”

“Oi, Harry!” 

There’s suddenly a pounding at the door, and Adam’s loud tone carries through the barrier seamlessly, “You’ve been in there long enough, mate! The car’s here!”

“I’m fuckin’ comin’!” Harry calls back, and Adam mutters something else indistinguishable. You chuckle, your fingers fiddling with the cotton material of Harry’s shirt as he turns back to you and rolls his eyes teasingly.

“Fuckin’ wanker.”

“Tell me about it,” you groan sarcastically, and you both grin. You lift your chin, nudging him gently and prompting him to continue with his previous thought. “You were saying...?”

But Harry shakes his head, unwrapping his arms from around you and stepping back. His hand comes up to ruffle the hair at the back of his head. He swallows, and just like that, the moment’s gone. You both have to go back out there. You both have to go your separate ways. And who knows if anything like this is every going to happen again?

“Nothing,” Harry lies, fighting the urge to sigh, “Later--I’ll tell you later.”

He doesn’t know if “later” will ever come. 

[everettwilkinson]

The STEP BACK: Trump’s FUNHOUSE MIRROR view of Washington — TRUMP, in Phoenix, hints at Arpaio pardon — With TRUMP out of town, TILLERSON and ROSS dine with top WaPo editor — B’DAY: Stephen Miller is 32

THE STEP BACK — TRUMP’S FUNHOUSE MIRROR VIEW OF WASHINGTON — He’s publicly blasting away at critical Senate Republican votes. He’s at war with the powerful Senate majority leader of his own party. And he is taking a staunch — and some would say irreversible — position on keeping the government open, threatening what top Republicans believe would be a politically perilous shutdown one month before funding runs dry.

Welcome to President Donald Trump’s funhouse mirror view of Washington.

Story Continued Below

Trump has certainly changed the contours of the presidency: He doesn’t conform to political norms, he brushes off drama in his ranks, and he rankles players on the world stage.

But in Washington, Trump seems to have a contorted view of a few key fundamental political realities that are out of his control. He is operating with an extraordinarily thin majority in the Senate and seems intent on poking key senators like Jeff Flake and John McCain of Arizona, Dean Heller of Nevada, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Susan Collins of Maine in the eyes. He is in a prolonged battle with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, whom he can’t get rid of and whose support he needs to get anything done. He’s threatening a government shutdown over a border wall he will likely not be able to build. He continues to push changes to the Senate rules — he says he wants to get rid of the filibuster — despite opposition by Senate Republicans and Democrats. He’s been unrelenting in his criticism of Democrats and seems uninterested in doing anything to bring them into the fold.

Anyone who spent more than a minute observing or participating in our legislative politics would describe Trump’s moves as some combination of self-defeating, illogical and misguided. Behind the scenes, the White House is working despite the president’s bluster: Top Trump aides are in touch with Hill leadership aides to ensure the government doesn’t jump off the rails. And there still remains a glimmer of hope for some kind of tax reform effort to get off the ground. But the president’s unconventional view of what it takes to govern is not helping, according to multiple aides and lawmakers involved in legislative strategy.

Good Wednesday morning and happy hump day. ALEX ISENSTADT in Phoenix: “Trump sticks it to GOP in thundering Phoenix speech”: “President Donald Trump put the Republican Party on notice on Tuesday evening — implicitly attacking two Republican senators on their home turf, threatening a government shutdown over his border wall, and demanding that senators kill the filibuster because it’s impeding his agenda.

“In an often-angry speech here that stretched on for well over an hour, the president returned to many of the same targets he went after on the campaign trail. He spent more than a half-hour lambasting the media, which he accused of misrepresenting his comments after the Charlottesville violence. Yet he also turned his weaponry on fellow Republicans, going after Arizona’s two GOP senators who’ve been a thorn in his side.

“Trump did not name Sen. John McCain or Sen. Jeff Flake by name in his remarks — he joked that his aides pleaded with him not to mention the senators explicitly — but it was unmistakable who he was talking about. Over and over, Trump noted that Senate Republicans were ‘one vote away’ from passing a bill to repeal Obamacare. The crowd at the Phoenix Convention Center immediately began jeering McCain, a longtime Trump critic who delivered the tie-breaking vote that sank the overhaul bill. …

“Trump’s anti-Flake offensive was a rebuke of McConnell, who’s promised to protect the incumbent at all costs, and came as tensions between Trump and the congressional wing of the GOP are on the rise. When it comes to Flake or several big-ticket issues on Congress’ to-do list this fall, the president made clear in his speech that he’s in no mood to make nice.

“In a return to his top campaign theme, the president thrilled his conservative supporters with another full-throated promise to build a wall along the southern border. With a budget battle looming in September, Trump hinted that he’d be willing to veto any government funding bill that doesn’t include funding for a wall, triggering a federal shutdown. ‘If we have to close down our government, we’re building that wall,’ he said. ‘We’re going to have our wall. The American people voted for immigration control. We’re going to get that wall.’” http://politi.co/2wmEr4Z

**SUBSCRIBE to Playbook: http://politi.co/2lQswbh

ABOUT THAT WALL … JOSH DAWSEY: “Trump has told senior White House officials and advisers he would be willing to go to whatever means necessary to get money for the wall, a contentious claim even among his advisers. He hasn’t given specific amounts of money that he wants, but ‘enough to really start building it,’ said one person who spoke to him this weekend. ‘He is animated about the wall,’ the person said. ‘He cares about that more than many other things. He knows his base cares and chants about it.’” http://politi.co/2vny2lG

— THE KEY PART OF TRUMP THE QUOTE about the wall: “Now the obstructionist Democrats would like us not to do it, but believe me, if we have to close down our government we’re building that wall. … Let me be very clear to Democrats in Congress who oppose a border wall and stand in the way of border security. You are putting all of America’s safety at risk.” BUT, Democrats are a minor part of this equation. Trump’s party has majorities in both chambers.

— THAT BEING SAID … There are ways for Congress to shuffle some more money to the border to appease Trump.

AND … — “Trump didn’t pardon Joe Arpaio in Phoenix — but hints that he will,” by the Arizona Republic’s Megan Cassidy: “President Donald Trump did not pardon former Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio while Trump was in Phoenix, but he indicated support for the idea in his speech Tuesday night.

“The 85-year-old lawman is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 5 for a federal criminal-contempt conviction stemming from a racial-profiling case. Arpaio could face up to six months in jail. ‘Was Sheriff Joe convicted for doing his job?’ Trump asked the crowd inside the Phoenix Convention Center. He should have had a jury trial instead of having a verdict rendered by a federal judge, Trump said. ‘But I’ll make a prediction: I think he’s going to be just fine.’ Trump’s comments suggested a pardon could be granted later. ‘I won’t do it tonight, because I don’t want to cause any controversy. But Sheriff Joe can feel good,’ he said.” http://bit.ly/2vdT8n6

****** A message from Chevron: Advanced technology is helping us find safer ways to deliver energy. We’re piloting a program that uses drones to monitor tanks and pipelines. Watch the video: http://politi.co/2vLsVyX ******

THIS IS A PROBLEM — NYT A1, “McConnell, in Private, Doubts if Trump Can Save Presidency,” by Alex Burns and Jonathan Martin: “The relationship between President Trump and Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, has disintegrated to the point that they have not spoken to each other in weeks, and Mr. McConnell has privately expressed uncertainty that Mr. Trump will be able to salvage his administration after a series of summer crises.

“What was once an uneasy governing alliance has curdled into a feud of mutual resentment and sometimes outright hostility, complicated by the position of Mr. McConnell’s wife, Elaine L. Chao, in Mr. Trump’s cabinet, according to more than a dozen people briefed on their imperiled partnership. Angry phone calls and private badmouthing have devolved into open conflict, with the president threatening to oppose Republican senators who cross him, and Mr. McConnell mobilizing to their defense.

“The rupture between Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnell comes at a highly perilous moment for Republicans, who face a number of urgent deadlines when they return to Washington next month. Congress must approve new spending measures and raise the statutory limit on government borrowing within weeks of reconvening, and Republicans are hoping to push through an elaborate rewrite of the federal tax code. There is scant room for legislative error on any front.

“A protracted government shutdown or a default on sovereign debt could be disastrous — for the economy and for the party that controls the White House and both chambers of Congress. Yet Mr. Trump and Mr. McConnell are locked in a political cold war. Neither man would comment for this article. Don Stewart, a spokesman for Mr. McConnell, noted that the senator and the president had ‘shared goals,’ and pointed to ‘tax reform, infrastructure, funding the government, not defaulting on the debt, passing the defense authorization bill.’” http://nyti.ms/2xql5J2

— A GREAT DETAIL FROM JMART AND BURNS: “When Mr. Trump addressed a Boy Scouts jamboree last month in West Virginia, White House aides told Senator Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from the state whose support was in doubt, that she could only accompany him on Air Force One if she committed to voting for the health care bill. She declined the invitation, noting that she could not commit to voting for a measure she had not seen, according to a Republican briefed on the conversation.”

— CNN: “Trump, McConnell haven’t spoken since angry phone call, sources say,” by Many Raju and Jeremy Diamond: “President Donald Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have not spoken in nearly two weeks, since a phone call between the two men went awry and left the two men screaming at each other. Sources with knowledge of the August 9 call said the exchange quickly devolved into a shouting match as an irate Trump expressed his frustrations about the congressional investigation into Russian interference with the U.S. election last year and fumed about a Russia sanctions bill Congress passed that would tie Trump’s hands on the matter.” http://cnn.it/2wxiIaR

NEW POLITICO/MORNING CONSULT POLL: “Poll: Trump hits new low after Charlottesville,” by Steve Shepard: “President Donald Trump’s approval rating has hit a new low following a week in which a majority of voters believe he did more to divide the country than unite it, a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll shows. Only 39 percent of voters approve of the job Trump is doing in this week’s poll — conducted entirely following the president’s various scripted and impromptu reactions to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia — down from 44 percent just a week ago. Fifty-six percent of voters disapprove in the new poll, up from 52 percent last week.

“Much of the decline in Trump’s approval rating appears to have come from self-identified Republican voters — 73 percent, down from 81 percent last week. By contrast, the president’s approval rating slid just a single point among Democrats and independents. Trump’s previous overall low — a 40 percent rating — was two weeks ago. The poll was conducted last Thursday through Saturday, all following Trump’s comments on the violence that claimed the life of a woman protesting against white supremacists and neo-Nazis, but before his address Monday night outlining his strategy for the war in Afghanistan.” http://politi.co/2iqnPUc

WHEN WILL TRUMP GO TO AFGHANISTAN? — Barack Obama went to Baghdad on April 7, 2009 — just a touch more than two months into his presidency. When will Trump go visit troops in what’s now America’s longest war?

WORTH THE CLICK – “16 Years of War in Afghanistan, in Pictures,” by NYT’s Rod Nordland — 20 pix on one page http://nyti.ms/2xrJr5l

TRUMP’S INNER CIRCLE — “Military leaders consolidate power in Trump administration,” by WaPo’s Bob Costa and Phil Rucker: “High-ranking military officials have become an increasingly ubiquitous presence in American political life during Donald Trump’s presidency, repeatedly winning arguments inside the West Wing, publicly contradicting the president and even balking at implementing one of his most controversial policies. Connected by their faith in order and global norms, these military leaders are rapidly consolidating power throughout the executive branch as they counsel a volatile president. Some establishment figures in both political parties view them as safeguards for the nation in a time of turbulence.

“Trump’s elevation of a cadre of current and retired generals marks a striking departure for a country that for generations has positioned civilian leaders above and apart from the military. … Inside the White House, meanwhile, generals manage Trump’s hour-by-hour interactions and whisper in his ear — and those whispers, as with the decision this week to expand U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, often become policy. … Critics of the president welcome their ascendancy, seeing them as a calming force amid the daily chaos of the White House.” http://wapo.st/2v4DvT5

JARED UPDATE — “CAIRO (AP) – Egypt: Trump adviser Kushner’s meeting with Egyptian president still on; only meeting with foreign minister cancelled.”

–“McMaster adds muscle to Kushner’s Middle East peace effort,” by Annie Karni: “Jared Kushner has spent eight months as his father-in-law’s point person in the Middle East, relying primarily on one envoy, former Trump Organization lawyer Jason Greenblatt, to do the diplomatic heavy lifting in the region. But just over a month ago, National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster held a meeting in his West Wing office with Greenblatt to discuss some changes to how the administration would conduct its Israel strategy going forward – including more input from the National Security Council.

“In the meeting – also attended by National Security Council officials Ricky Waddell, Michael Anton and Victoria Coates – the group discussed moving Coates, a former policy adviser to Sen. Ted Cruz, to work full-time under Greenblatt. … Coates, an art historian and a longtime Republican foreign policy adviser, was promoted to senior director of international negotiations and moved offices to sit with Greenblatt’s team in the Old Executive Office Building, across the street from the White House.” http://politi.co/2wDyKzj

PENTAGON FALLOUT — “U.S. Navy to Relieve Admiral of Command After Collisions,” by WSJ’s Gordon Lubold: “The U.S. Navy plans to remove the commander of the fleet that has suffered four recent collisions in Asia and the deaths of several sailors, U.S. officials said Tuesday. Navy officials declined to comment. But two U.S. officials familiar with the matter said that Vice Adm. Joseph Aucoin, the three-star commander of the U.S. Seventh Fleet in Yokosuka, Japan, will be relieved of command on Wednesday in connection with four collisions since January, including two fatal ones. Vice Adm. Aucoin was expected to retire in coming weeks, but under the Navy’s tradition of public accountability, commanders or ship captains are dismissed as soon as their superiors lose confidence in their leadership.” http://on.wsj.com/2wDuDTL

FOR YOUR RADAR — “North Korea photos suggest new solid-fuel missile designs,” by AP’s Eric Talmadge in Tokyo: “North Korea’s state media released photos Wednesday that appear to show the designs of one or possibly two new missiles. Concept diagrams of the missiles were seen hanging on a wall behind leader Kim Jong Un while he visited a plant that makes solid-fuel engines for the country’s ballistic-missile program. … The photos [come] … just two days after the United States and South Korea began annual military exercises that the North claims are a rehearsal for war. Tensions on the peninsula generally ratchet up during the maneuvers and a series of larger exercises held each spring.” http://bit.ly/2vdVRgt

TRUMP’S WEDNESDAY — THE PRESIDENT will be at the American Legion convention and then will return to Washington in the evening.

THE JUICE …

— SPOTTED: Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson last night at Mirabelle along with a number of others, including Nina Totenberg, Chris Wallace and Marty Baron. They dined in a private room.

— DENIS MCDONOUGH has been named an executive fellow of the Global Policy Initiative in the new Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame. He will be an instructor for 38 students in the new Master of Global Affairs program. http://ntrda.me/2v4Smgi

WHAT’S MAKING NEWS ON BANNON’S BREITBART – “Exclusive— Rick Santorum Crafting Different Obamacare Repeal Plan with Lawmakers: ‘It Will Pass Through the House and the Senate,’” by Matt Boyle and Sean Moran: http://bit.ly/2wmCZzB … “Dept of Homeland Security: Donald Trump Border Wall Prototypes Now Delayed Until Fall,” by Charlie Spiering: http://bit.ly/2w2B6pj … “Trump’s Merkel Moment? West Wing Dems’ Plan to Keep DACA Will Increase Illegal Immigration Pull Factors,” by Raheem Kassam: http://bit.ly/2vdxq2y … “How Afghanistan Could Put Trump’s Presidency at Risk,” by John Carney http://bit.ly/2wDVW0t

–BREITBART has started selling the “Steve Bannon Fidget Spinner”: “Leftists need comfort at times like these. Gift them this pacifying item that will give them something to do in between pulling down monuments. Or keep one for yourself! … $21.46.” http://bit.ly/2w2Cqbw

CLICKER — PBS NEWSHOUR — “Every moment in Donald Trump’s long and complicated history with race,” by Lisa DesJardins — 97 moments on one page http://to.pbs.org/2vWZLgo

THE FT’S “BIG READ” — “With alumni in the White House, Goldman sees an opening: Investment bank now targeting Volcker rule in DC lobbying after Obama-era battering,” by Barney Jopson. http://on.ft.com/2vnpoDF

PHOTO DU JOUR: A counter-protester shouts slogans amid tear gas fired by police following an August 22 campaign rally for President Donald Trump in Phoenix, Ariz. | M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO

PAGING DON JR. AND ERIC — TRUMP INC. — “17th charity cancels its event at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club, blaming ‘political turbulence,’” by WaPo’s David Fahrenthold and Drew Harwell: “A Florida charity for children announced Tuesday that it was canceling plans to hold a fundraiser luncheon at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club next winter — adding to an exodus of its high-paying charity clients in the days after his comments about violent protests in Charlottesville.

“The Unicorn Children’s Foundation, based in Boca Raton, explained its decision with a statement saying ‘We are not a political organization and do not condone hatred or bullying on any level.’ ‘Due to the political turbulence associated with this choice of venue it would be a disservice to our supporters and our children to hold our event at Mar-a-Lago,’ said Sharon Alexander, the group’s chief executive, in the statement. ‘We prefer the conversations to be centered off the venue and instead focused on how we can help kids with special needs excel in their communities.’ …

“These departures have had a serious impact on a major line of business for the president’s club: hosting the ritzy galas and luncheons that are the highlights of Palm Beach’s winter social ‘season.’ The events can bring in significant amounts of revenue: Charities hosting large galas can pay Trump’s club between $125,000 and $275,000 for a single night’s revelry. Even lunchtime events can cost charities between $25,000 and $85,000.” http://wapo.st/2xbIJd3

SCOOP — “Trump team goes to bat for NRA-backed bill, overruling Park Service,” by McClatchy’s Stuart Leavenworth: “The National Park Service has several big problems with NRA-backed legislation that would restrict the agency from regulating hunting and fishing within park boundaries. But according to a leaked memo obtained by McClatchy, the Trump administration has so far prevented the parks from voicing such concerns. National Park Service Acting Director Michael Reynolds prepared a June 30 memo detailing his agency’s objections to the draft legislation, the ‘Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act.’ … Reynolds objected to … parts of the bill in a memo sent to the U.S. Department of Interior’s Legislative Counsel. The park service later received a response from Interior, with sections of Reynolds’ concerns crossed out, next to the initials ‘C.H.’ Agency officials were told they could not repeat their concerns to Congress.” http://bit.ly/2v50jBW

WHAT ED HILL IS READING — “The feel-good Hallmark Channel is booming in the age of Trump,” by WaPo’s Heather Long: http://wapo.st/2v4pJQq

BUSINESS BURST – “Trains in Vain: Epic CSX Traffic Jam Snarls Deliveries, From Coal to Fries,” by WSJ’s Paul Ziobro: “The freight-train ride from Chicago to Colesburg, Tenn., usually takes a few days. Earlier this month, though, the ride was 18 days, 13 hours and 57 minutes, logs show. Congestion, delays and erratic service are hitting CSX, one of only two railroad operators that handle nearly all the shipments that move by train east of the Mississippi River. The problems began in May and became much worse this summer, according to customers and weekly performance data reported by the Jacksonville, Fla., company. It’s a colossal mess for businesses that have spent years streamlining supply chains to run with just-in-time inventories.” http://on.wsj.com/2v4YO6N

2018 WATCH — “Obama administration alumni hope to build upon his legacy as they run for office,” by L.A. Times’ Seema Mehta: http://lat.ms/2v4W9Kk

PRETTY COOL — GARRETT CAMP on Medium: “The Beginning of Uber: Since we just passed the ninth anniversary of the idea of Uber (originally UberCab, in Aug 2008), I thought it would be interesting to share the very first pitch deck we created in late 2008. Thank you to the entire Uber team for turning a simple idea into a platform that has improved so many people’s lives :)” http://bit.ly/2ipzK4J

****** A message from Chevron: Advanced technology is helping us find better and safer ways to deliver energy to America. We’re piloting a program that uses drones, HD imaging, and thermal mapping capabilities to monitor Chevron wells, tanks, and miles of pipeline. Watch the video: http://politi.co/2vLsVyX ******

MEDIAWATCH – “Emails: Breitbart editor pledges to do ‘dirty work’ for Bannon, smears Ivanka,” by CNN’s Oliver Darcy and Jake Tapper: “A self-described ‘email prankster’ seemingly fooled top editors at Breitbart over the weekend into believing he was Steve Bannon, the fired White House chief strategist who returned to the right-wing website as executive chairman on Friday. In the emails, Breitbart Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow pledged that he and several other top editors would do Bannon’s ‘dirty work’ against White House aides. The emails were shared with CNN by the prankster. …

“The prankster, posing as Bannon, emailed Marlow a link to a Sunday Breitbart post that aggregated a Daily Mail report to suggest Ivanka Trump was instrumental in pushing Bannon from the White House. ‘This was a fun read,’ the fake Bannon account said. Marlow then shared a personal smear about the private life of Ivanka Trump, and her husband, Kushner. CNN has chosen not to repeat the smear because it is unfounded and unsubstantiated. ‘Haha.. lovely stuff,’ replied the fake Bannon account. ‘So do you think you’ll have them packed and shipping out before Christmas?’ ‘Let me see what I can do… hard to know given your description of them as evil,’ Marlow replied.” http://cnnmon.ie/2wmWVT0

–“BuzzFeed hires New York Times editor to head up its business section,” by Business Insider’s Maxwell Tani: “BuzzFeed News announced on Tuesday that it hired veteran New York Times business news editor Jennifer A. Kingson as it continues to build up its newsroom following President Donald Trump’s election last year.” http://read.bi/2vdRLEQ

–CARL CAMERON is retiring from Fox News. His memo to staff http://politi.co/2vXVKsg … Bret Baier’s tribute http://bit.ly/2xrVgsh

SPOTTED: Kenny Loggins, Jason and Yeganeh Rezaian, Erick Sanchez, Mikayla Bouchard, Jason and Jarred Zuccari and Phil Beshara at a private dinner at Sebastian Oveysi’s Amoo’s Restaurant in McLean after Loggins’ show at Wolf Trap Tuesday night

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — THE INSTITUTE OF POLITICS AND PUBLIC SERVICE at Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy announces its fall fellows class: Ron Bonjean, former top spokesman for speaker of the House and Senate majority leader, now a partner at ROKK Solutions Public Affairs; Mike Dubke, former White House communications director and founding partner of the Black Rock Group; Marie Harf, Fox News contributor and former senior adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry; Patrick Murphy, former two-term congressman and U.S. Senate candidate from Florida; and Liz Sidoti, head of U.S. communications for BP, and former AP national political editor and correspondent. The institute is also naming its first visiting fellow, José Díaz-Balart, Telemundo News and NBC News anchor. http://bit.ly/2v384IE

WELCOME TO THE WORLD – Lindsey Dickinson, VP of federal government affairs at Comcast and Ernest Baynard, president of Meridian Hill Strategies, a public affairs firm in D.C., have welcomed Holden Henry Baynard, who was born at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday and is 8lbs 5oz. “Big brothers Owen and Brendan and Daddy, Ernest, are happy to add another Baynard boy to the mix! Mommy and Holden are doing great.” Pic http://politi.co/2vnCu3A

TRANSITIONS — The Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress has named former Rep. Glenn C. Nye to succeed Maxmillian Angerholzer III as president and CEO. … Caitlin Legacki and Amalia Kontesi have been named to the corporate comms team supporting corporate responsibility at JPMorgan Chase. Legacki was previously a director at Precision Strategies and Kontesi was at Brunswick Group.

BIRTHDAY OF THE DAY: BuzzFeed media editor Craig Silverman is 40. A book he’s been reading recently: “I am finally reading ‘Personal History’ by Katharine Graham, the former publisher of The Washington Post. Aside from being a great read, it’s been a reminder that while Trump has taken demonizing the media to a new level, it’s by no means a new tactic. She writes that when former President Eisenhower spoke at the 1964 Republican convention he ‘attacked newspaper columnists’ and as a result ‘convention-goers throughout the entire hall started booing the press.’ Feels familiar, no?” Read his Playbook Plus Q&A: http://politi.co/2iobOP0

BIRTHDAYS: Stephen Miller is 32 … Patti Solis Doyle … NBC News’ Mike Memoli is 35 … Queen Noor of Jordan is 66 … Chase Cushman … Richard Chalkey, associate director of the National Economic Council at the White House (hat tips: Cameron Poursoltan and Hunter Hamrick) … Roll Call’s Niels Lesniewski is 32 … Todd Van Etten, chief digital strategist at The Herald Group (h/t Taylor Gross) … Mark Appleton … Tenn. Gov. Bill Haslam is 59 … Rob Bluey, VP of publishing at The Heritage Foundation and Daily Signal editor in chief, is 38 … Annah Backstrom, news director at The Des Moines Register … Emily David … Politico’s Caitlin Oprysko … Ted Newton … Ameer Patel … Nate Williams … CBS News’ Lindsey Boerma … newly-married John Hall, partner at Targeted Victory (h/t Zac Moffatt) … Kevin Siers, Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist for the Charlotte Observer (h/t Jim Morrill) … Robert Solow is 93 … Norman Braman is 85 (h/ts Jewish Insider) … Charlie Greene, public affairs manager for 21st Century Fox and former speechwriter for NOAA during the Obama administration (h/t Bill McQuillen) … former Hill staffer Sarah Huang, now with GR/PR firm Alliance Group in Richmond (h/t Chris Atkins) …

… Miriam Sapiro, former deputy and acting USTR, and head of Finsbury’s Washington office … David Wickenden, SVP of corporate strategy and strategic impact at AARP (h/t Jon Haber) …. Ian Jefferies, SVP of gov’t affairs at Association of American Railroads (h/t Ted Greener) … Jesse Connolly, COS for Rep. Chellie Pingree (h/t Sol Ross) … Brook Hazelton, president of Christie’s Americas … Terry Bean … former Calif. Gov. Pete Wilson is 84 … Lauren Dart … Bryer Davis, scheduler for Sen. Manchin … Erin Collins … Chaz Wells-Armstrong … Connor Galvin … Christine Padilla … Janet Turner … Billy Feitlinger … Casey Hudek … Dennis Walto … Lori Brown … Brian Majorsky … Derrick Crowe … Jordan Kauflin … James Baehr … Gary Brookins … Mark Steinberg … former Surgeon General Antonia Novello is 72 … Jay Mohr is 47 (h/ts AP)

****** A message from Chevron: Advanced technology is helping us find better and safer ways to deliver energy to America. We’re piloting a program that uses drones, HD imaging, and thermal mapping capabilities to monitor Chevron wells, tanks, and miles of pipeline. Watch the video http://politi.co/2vLsVyX ******

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