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ink-and-blood-goddess · 1 year

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All My Love For You (Arthur Harrow x Reader)

Requested by Anonymous-Hiii there! I really enjoy all your stuff and I literally am in love with your writing!

If it’s not too much to ask, may I request for Arthur Harrow x reader fic where the reader is in love with Arthur but she doesn’t think he feels the same? Like unrequited love but in secret Arthur likes her too? Angst/fluff or hurt/comfort would be amazing!

A/N-Finally, another request finished and ready. Again, I felt I’ve gone overboard with this, but hey at least it’s finished. Anon, I hope you enjoy this after waiting over a year for this to be done.

Requests have been opened back up for two weeks. If anybody still wants to make a request, please send it through my inbox or DM (Direct Message) so that I can get started on it :). Lists are down below for better navigation.

Also, on my last fanfic request post, I’ve noticed people commenting down below to be tagged in the next part of it. If anybody wants to be tagged in the next fanfic request or one of my own, please do so, it’ll help me out more when I post…

List of Characters IV

Underworld Requests

Good Omens

Warnings: Major angst, some language, fear of loneliness, not being loved back, mentions of heartbreak, mentions of past abuse, and tons and tons of fluff at the end

Citrus Scale: 🍎

W.C+: 4.4K

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Love. That’s the only thing you feel for your master and mentor Arthur Harrow. It felt like a stupid high school type crush, but for you it feels more serious than that.

In the past, you’ve had many abused relationships with other men and how they abused your love for them. After your last relationship ended very badly, you’ve had enough and left without turning back. The only thing you took with you was your backpack with only clothes and some money you’ve saved up.

As you walked alone down the streets at the dead of night, you cried your eyes out with your heart aching with complete heartbreak. Your soft sobs echoed through the abandoned alleyways of the buildings you’ve passed by.

Your cries were heard, as a mysterious man came out of the shadows of one of the buildings. He was quite shocked to see you at this time of night. That’s when he noticed your tear ridden face, glistening beneath the street lights. Whatever you’ve been through, he invited you to come inside with him.

With everything you’ve been through and nothing else left in your life, you took up his offer and went inside with him.

Taking you in by your hand, he guided you into the building and took you into a private area for you to rest.

After a few hours of rest and some warm food inside of your stomach, he asked you why you were walking all alone on the streets in the dead of night. Soon after you broke down and told him everything that happened.

He listened carefully to you as you told him about your past relationships and how they abused the love you’d given them. After your last relationship ended on a sour note, you’ve had enough and left that sorry asshole behind. You sobbed and sobbed with your hands covering your tear ridden face, feeling like total shit as you told all of this to a complete stranger you just met.

But he sat there, listening to you talk about what you’ve gone through and how horrible you were treated. Rubbing his hand up and down your back, comforting you in a way.

He felt so bad for you, watching you cry. Sorrow filled his blue eyes and felt his heart grow heavy with it too. With no other place to go to turn to, he offered you a place within his community to stay and heal from your past.

You were forever grateful for his offer and for himself. You had a place to stay and to call it home. You felt safe now.

That was a few years ago. You’ve been living happily inside of the community ever since and never looked back. Feeling more safe in this new environment and connecting with the other members of the community as well.

Over the past few years you lived here, you’ve became more closer towards Arthur. Teaching and mentoring you through his guidance. How his soft voice puts you into a trance of sorts whenever he speaks to you.

The time you spent with Arthur, the more he understood of what you’ve went through. How each time his heart grew heavier and heavier of sorrow, when you talked about your past partners and how they never loved you in return.

He’s always there for you. Checking up during the day and night to see if you're comfortable, seeing each other during meal time, and spending quality time with just the two of you.

With all this quality time spent with Arthur, you’ve grown much closer to him in the past three years. From holding hands to embracing one another under the moonlight, you never realized what was happening right before your eyes. You were falling in love again.

But how? After your last relationship, you swore to yourself not to fall in love ever again. You didn’t want to start all over again. Didn’t want your heart broken. It felt like a never ending cycle for you and it haunted you deeply.

The very thought of it scared you each minute you spent with him. It felt like you were sick, but you were fine.

Any time you were with Arthur, the pit of your stomach grew more and more wider as your love for him took over your mind. You didn’t mean to fall in love again, but you couldn’t let go of the feeling.

It felt like Cupid shot you with one of his arrows and can’t take it out. That arrow will be forever stuck inside of your chest. Your heart fluttered like a little caged bird every time you saw Arthur or spent time with him.

The more it grew, the more you loved him. But you never told him. You became afraid of what’ll Arthur would say or think if you say ‘I love you’ to him. That he’ll never love you back and leave you. That’s the thing you feared the most in any relationship. Having somebody leave you.

That’s the very thing you didn’t want happening to you at all. So you kept it to yourself and never said anything about your feelings towards Arthur. Keeping it a secret meant that you’ll never tell him and he’ll never find out about the whole thing either.

You kept your feelings a secret for a few weeks, until one night they were uncovered.

It was a quiet night in the community. A gentle, cool wind blew through the leaves and branches of the trees outside of the walls. Sweeping through the dining hall and into the other areas of the community.

You zipped up your jacket to your neck as the cool breeze passed through where you were sitting in the dining hall. After shivering a bit, you went back to eating the hot, lentil soup that sat in front of you on the table.

Half of the community members were gathered around one another for tonight’s meal. All of them were talking and laughing over what they were up to or what they did from today. They were all happy, not caring about anything at all. You wish it was the same for yourself.

Your (E/C) eyes scanned through the dining hall to see if Arthur was anywhere. It was really hard to tell through the large crowd of community members.

After looking around for a few moments, you went back to eating. Taking in another spoonful of the lentil soup, you felt the semi hot liquid swirl around your tongue and trickle down your throat slowly.

It felt really nice to have a warm meal each day and a cozy bed to sleep in, but that wouldn’t have happened without Arthur. He gave you a place to stay and food to eat. He also didn’t give up on you either.

Standing by your side almost every day, as you slowly got over your heartbreak. He never left you alone, until you got better.

Arthur treated you much differently than the other members of the community. In a way, it made you feel special in his eyes.

After a couple of weeks of staying here, you started to warm up to your new surroundings. The members of the community were very nice to you and accepted you as one of their own. You became a part of their family in a way.

For the past few years of calling this place home, you felt something pull yourself towards Arthur. At first you thought you were sick, but you were completely fine. This also happened on other occasions whenever you were around him too.

There were instances when Arthur spoke to you with his soft voice, your whole face felt hot and glowed red. You didn’t even know that was happening at all and it felt like your heart was ready to explode from it too.

Other times you felt your heart beating faster than it should. The blood rushing up to your face so quickly you almost fainted several times. Your heart felt like a caged bird ready to burst out of your chest.

There were a number of other things like Arthur’s hand slightly brushing up against yours, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear, letting you sit next to him at meal times, and spending time alone with just you.

At first you thought it was Arthur treating you differently after what you’ve been through before coming to the community.

You missed the signs so many times, not even realizing until it was too late. Never realizing that you’ve fallen in love with Arthur.

Ever since, you’ve been trying to avoid the topic and avoid Arthur at all costs.

You felt defeated in a way. Mostly defenseless against your own feelings overcoming you and your whole mind. Lately, you’ve been overthinking about this whole situation. What would Arthur say and how would he react to you saying you love him?

The awful dread filled both your mind and heart like a large black hole swallowing you whole. Arthur hating and leaving you for loving him haunted you all over the place in your mind. The very last thing you ever wanted to happen was to be alone and heartbroken forever. Still, you don’t really know how to deal with the whole situation that’s causing you pain and torment mentally.

As you continued to eat another spoonful of lentil soup, a hand suddenly came out of nowhere and gently gripped your shoulder. “Aw there you are my dear. I’ve been looking all over the place for you,” a familiar voice followed. Taking the spoon out of your mouth and swallowing the soupy liquid down your throat, you looked over your shoulder to see it was just Arthur.

Arthur looked peaceful tonight. He always is. Standing over your shoulder like a calm shadow. Both of his hands gripped the two handles of his cane, as he slightly leaned over. Several silver strands of his grayish brown hair blew across his pale skin when another gust of wind came through.

His blue eyes looked upon your surprised face after startling you. He could tell you were quite surprised and somewhat uncomfortable when he touched you. That was soon replaced with a smile on his lips.

“Oh, I’m sorry my dear have I startled you?” He asked as he pulled a chair up to sit next to you. You shook your head a bit. “Not a bit Arthur.” You said with a smile and took another spoonful.

He chuckled a bit, “That’s very good to hear. How’s your lentil soup?”

“Good as always Arthur,” you said after removing the spoon from your lips and placing it back into the halfway done soup bowl. You then grabbed the cloth napkin from your lap and used one of the edges to wipe your mouth off.

“Another good thing to hear,” he chuckled more at your response, “good thing to have on a night like this.” You nodded in response. Another small gust of wind came through, making you both shiver at the same time.

Arthur had on his beige jacket like he always does at night. Even though you had your jacket zipped up to your neck, you still felt cold from the breeze coming through.

You picked the spoon back up and dipped it into the bowl again. “(Y/N) I like to ask you something,” he said as he watched you put another spoonful in. It was usual for Arthur to ask you questions about certain things, as long you know what he’s talking about. You nodded your head in response as a yes, what is it.

“Have you been feeling ill of late? You’re not your usual self when you’re around me.” You felt your heart skip a beat or two when he asked THAT question. The one you’ve been dreading he’ll ask you about what’s been going on with you lately.

You shook your head. “No, I’m perfectly fine Arthur. Why do you ask?” You asked after taking the spoon out and placed it onto the table next to the wooden bowl.

Arthur shifted a bit in his seat and darted his eyes away from you, as he looked around the community dining room for a bit and then came back to look at you.

“You’ve been acting quite strangely the past couple months, I’ve grown very worried for you. It’s like you’ve been distancing yourself from me. Did I do something wrong or has something been bothering you lately,” his voice sounded a bit hurt.

Shit. He’s starting to notice. I need to put a stop to this now or else. I don’t want to start this fucking cycle all over again, your thoughts took over your mind. This can’t go on forever. You have to tell him. Tonight, but not here. There’s too many eyes and ears all over the place. You have to make your move now or it’ll be too late.

“Yes Arthur,” you finally say, “something has been bothering me. The reason I haven’t been around you much, is because I didn’t want to worry you about it. I didn’t know how to talk about it either.” You turned your head away a bit and closed your eyes.

“I see,” he said as he let out a heavy sigh. You opened your eyes back up and turned your head towards him again.

He was turned away from you, but his head snapped back towards you. It was like he was waiting for you to look back at him.

“Not that I’m mad about it at all my dear (Y/N). I understand that you’ve kept this issue from me. You wanted to spare my feelings from what you’re dealing with.” He sounded so calm, but sounded wounded in his voice.

“Whatever it is (Y/N). I want to know what you’re going through. You can’t keep me in the dark if you continue doing this to me. I’m still your friend here. I don’t want you to deal with this on your own. This issue you’re dealing with won’t let up if you just talk to me about it.”

Arthur has a point there. You can’t keep this up anymore. Arthur deserves the truth. The truth that you love him.

You turned away for a bit and looked through the dining hall, making sure nobody near you was listening. Then you turned back to Arthur.

“Alright Arthur, I’ll talk about what’s been on my mind,” you then leaned in closer towards him, “but not here. I want to talk about it privately. There’s too many eyes and ears around us.”

Arthur nodded in agreement with you, “alright. Perhaps after dinner then. It’ll be much quieter for us to talk. How does that sound?” You smiled a bit at him as you nodded in agreement.

“After dinner sounds good to me Arthur. It’ll help me more with my thoughts,” you said as you felt your face heat up a bit.

“Let’s talk about in my living area. It’ll be much quieter when everybody has gone to bed for the night,” he said as he got up and lightly patted you on the shoulder.

“Alright. I’ll see you later Arthur,” you gave him a warm smile and he smiled back at you. As he walked away with his cane in hand, you felt your heart grow heavier by the second. You have to tell him. Now or never.

After finishing the last of the lentil soup, you helped clean up and put everything away for the night. With everybody gone to bed now, you headed to Arthur’s living area on the ground floor.

Your thoughts began to eat at your mind again, as you walked up to the door with the crocodile door knocker looking down at you. Before you could knock upon the door, it opened up with Arthur on the other side. There was a friendly smile on his lips. The mere sight of you always makes him happy.

“(Y/N). Come on in. I’ve made some tea for us,” Arthur stepped back a bit and you came inside. Arthur’s living area was quite different from the other living spaces, including yours. It was more spacious and had more room to it. The kitchen area was almost the same size of your bedroom alone.

“Go on and sit down at the table. I’ll bring out the tea,” he said as he closed the door behind you and then walked off towards the kitchen. You walked over to the table that was near the wall towards where the kitchen was.

You pulled out the chair nearest to the end of the table and sat down. Your thoughts raced through your mind rapidly. Trying to think of what to say to him and how he’ll react to it. Your hands started to shake a bit and your fingers twitched. It felt like you were about to have a nervous breakdown. The clinking of glass brought you back to the real world.

Turning and looking over your shoulder, you watched as Arthur walked out with two terracotta red mugs in each hand. Steam swirled around in the air, when Arthur walked closer to the table.

Once he got to the side where you were sitting, he placed down the mug in front of you with one hand and then the other mug at his seat. Finally, he sat down at the end of the table and pushed the seat forward at an angle to face towards you.

“Go on ahead my dear. It’s ginger, lemon and honey. Helps with a sore throat,” he said as he took some small sips from his mug.

You picked up the mug placed in front of you, blew into it a few times, and took a few quick sips of it. The hot and sweet tea went down your throat quickly as it burned a bit. You tasted both the lemon and ginger right away, with the honey following.

It took a moment or two for the tea to cool down a bit to be more drinkable. With your tea half gone, you let the other half cool off some more and set the mug back down onto the table. Arthur puts down his as well, licking some of the left over tea off of his lips.

“So (Y/N). What’s been bothering you,” he asked in a calm voice. When he asked you the question, you felt your fingers twitch again. It’s like your entire body was going haywire.

You thought it out for a moment or two, until you found the right words. “It’s difficult to explain Arthur. There’s so many words and I don’t know how to use them. Like swallowing them all at once, but can’t seem to find the right ones.”

As you started to talk, Arthur rested his chin in the palm of his left hand as he placed his arm upon the table for support.

“Arthur,” you said as your heart began to slowly beat faster, “a few years ago. You invited me inside and let me live here after what I’ve been through that night. I’m forever grateful for what you did for me.”

“Over the past few years, you’ve shown nothing but kindness and compassion towards me. Helping and guiding me through your teachings as I became a member of the community here. Treating me like a totally different person entirely and making me feel safe within these walls all of us call home.

“And through that, something inside me changed. I didn’t know at first. I thought it was just a one time thing, but it never went away. Whenever you spent time with me, that thing stayed with me the entire time. To me, it felt like pulling myself towards you as it swelled up more and more. Still, I didn’t know what it was, until it was too late when I found out.”

Arthur shifted in his seat a bit. Growing very worried about you by the second now. “Found what (Y/N),” he asked in a calm, worried manner. “What did you find out too late about?”

Your heart began to beat much faster now. Like a bird stuck within a rose bush full of prickly thorns. Your mind racing all over the place, as you try to keep calm.

“I thought of forgetting about the whole thing and just move on. It only worked for a few weeks, until now. I stopped thinking of the whole thing, but they crept towards me and my mind. By now, it was already too late.” You grew silent now. Your heartbeat increased in seconds, waiting for a question from Arthur.

“Too late? Too late for what (Y/N),” Arthur was becoming more worried now. In his voice, he sounded hurt.

IT’S TIME. JUST SAY IT, your thoughts started screaming at you. Every fiber inside of your body felt like they’re going to explode now.

“Arthur Harrow. I’m in love with you.” Once you said that, complete silence filled the air. You felt your breath hitch in your throat after saying that.

Shock quickly went across Arthur’s face. His hand left his chin and went to the table in a quick flash. “You’re what?”

Suddenly you felt the flood gates open very rapidly, “oh God Arthur, I’m so sorry,” you cried out. Tears began to stream down your face very rapidly. “I didn’t know how you’ll react to this. Ever since I came here and after the shit I’ve been through, I thought it would never happen to me again, but it did. I started having feelings for you when we started to get closer with one another. At first I thought I was sick, but instead I was love sick. Love sick for you. That’s all it is. Feelings for you. I grew afraid that you’ll never love me in return after I declared mine for you. Wasting all my feelings away and I regret that now. I’m sorry for doing this to you Arthur. I didn’t know this was going to happen to anybody, especially you of all people. I just didn’t want my feelings crushed again. I just want to-”

You were suddenly cut off, as Arthur kissed you on the lips. You never saw him get up, since your tears blinded you in your rant. They felt warm and soft against yours. The smell of the tea he made intoxicated your senses as he slowly kissed you. It tasted sweet. Slowly, Arthur lifted his head up and removed his lips.

He smiled a bit, as tears began to run down his face. You felt shock go through your whole body. Both your heart and mind were fucking screaming like crazy. You opened your mouth, but no words came out yet.

“Arthur-” you finally said, but was cut off when Arthur raised his hand. “No need to explain any more my dear (Y/N). You were afraid of telling how you felt about me and I understand that. Believe me, you’re not alone on this.” Arthur choked up a bit, as more tears streamed down over his cheeks.

You felt your heart skip a beat or two, “Arthur, what are you talking about?” You leaned in a bit closer, awaiting an answer.

Arthur sighed heavily, turned his face away from you, and slowly closed his eyes. You could tell he felt uncomfortable. There was something else that you didn’t know about.

He then turned his head back over to you and slowly opened his eyes back up, with tears still streaming down.

“(Y/N),” he said softly, “the very first time I met you, you needed help. You were all by yourself that one night. Walking along the dark alleyway and I took you in. You were so fragile, I didn’t want anything else happening to you. I made sure you were safe when I invited you into my home. From that night on, I felt something blossom inside. At first I thought it was something else, but it wasn’t. That’s when I felt it. Love. I fell in love with you (Y/N).”

You felt your heart stop for a second or two, with your breath caught inside of your throat. Arthur. He’s in love with me. But why did he hide this from me, your thoughts were running rapidly as your heart started fluttering inside of your ribcage.

“Oh Arthur,” you breathed out with a sigh, holding one hand close to your chest while the other covered your mouth. “How long have you been hiding this?”

“Three years,” he said in a calm, low voice, “three whole years I’ve kept it secret from you. At first I didn’t know how you’ll react to it. So I kept quiet about the whole thing and went on. Though, I only showed little signs of my love for you. Hiding it was the only possible way to keep it secret. Until tonight of course.”

Three years. Three years he kept it secret from you. You felt relieved and happy at the same time. Arthur felt the same way as you did. Keeping his feelings and love for you hidden, because he didn’t know how you’d react to him.

Both of you have feelings for one another, but didn’t know how either of you would react when you proclaimed your love for Arthur and his love for you.

“Oh Arthur,” you said as you removed your hands from your mouth and chest and knelt down in front of him. You then placed your hands on top of his on his lap. Arthur looked down upon you, with his tears stopped flowing down his face.

“It’s alright Arthur. I understand what you did and I don’t hate you for it. Both of us didn’t know how to handle our feelings for one another. But that’s okay. We love one another and that’s all. Just the two of us, Arthur. Just the two of us.”

Your thoughtful words brought a big smile to him and to yourself.

“You’re absolutely right my dear (Y/N). We have each other’s love.” He said. You then picked yourself up off the floor slowly and then you placed your lips upon his. With your hands still on his, you felt your fingers intertwine with one another as you kissed and kissed.

At last, you felt your heart sync up with Arthur’s. There’s no other way, but just to keep kissing and kissing as long as you could.

Finally, you have somebody to love you in return and love you for all eternity.

#Arthur Harrow #arthur harrow x reader #arthur harrow fanfiction #arthur harrow fanfic #Moon Knight #moon knight fanfiction #moon knight fanfic #fanfiction blog #fanfic blog #fanfiction #fanfic #x character #fanfiction request #fanfic request #arthur harrow x you #arthur harrow x y/n

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only-shadows-dwell-where-we-are · 2 years

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My Top Posts in 2022:

Capture - Operation Valkyrie (Part 1)

MASTERLIST

I'm back! I finally feel ready to post this, so here you go. Enjoy, and I hope I've put enough work into it so that I can really be proud of myself. Let me know what you think, feedback is greatly appreciated!

And I know that there's no lab whump in this, but this series will be full of it, I promise - I just gotta set the scene first 👀

CWs: female whumpee, kidnapping, violence, knives, guns, mild descriptions of torture, IV drip and needles, medical environment, noncon drugging/sedation

~~~

Valkyrie Lewis laughed as she strode down the sidewalk, her long, blond, partially braided hair flying out behind her. She clutched her phone closer to her ear, letting her friend’s joke echo in her mind.

“My Gods, Cass, you’re hilarious!” she sputtered.

“Says you!” chuckled Cass through the phone. “Val, I can hardly listen to you talk for two minutes before bursting into laughter, honestly. I can talk to you for hours. Actually, I have, tonight!”

“Oh shoot, speaking of, I better go. It’s getting late and I’ve still got a bit to go before I reach my place. Sorry.” Valkyrie told her friend.

“No worries! I’ll talk to you later. Say hi to Lacey and Jasmine for me. Buh-bye. Love you!” Cass exclaimed.

“I will. Bye, love you too!” Valkyrie smiled as she hung up the phone.

:readmore

Her friend Cass was one of the sweetest people she knew, and she and the other young woman had a tendency to get too carried away with a conversation, to the point where they whiled away hours while talking. Valkyrie thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Cass, however, it was now dark and late on the streets of the small American town that the British woman lived in.

Valkyrie had been so absorbed in the phone conversation with her friend that she hadn’t heard the sound of a second pair of footsteps that had joined her own. As she noticed the sounds, she was suddenly hit with the overwhelming feeling that something was wrong. She swallowed hard, but continued on her way, showing no change in her behaviour. She abruptly stopped on the path. The footsteps stopped a split-second later. She started walking again, only to find that the sounds of the footsteps had started up again. Her blood curdled. Valkyrie turned a corner without warning. The other person was still behind her. Now, her fears were confirmed. She was being followed.

Valkyrie picked up the pace, speeding ahead. She had to shake this person, and she had no idea how. Eventually, she came across an alleyway. She darted down the dark street, hoping that her pursuer would lose her in the darkness. She raced down the alley, only to stop short as she was faced with a brick wall. It was a dead end. She spun around, panic rising in her throat, only to come face to face with a stranger clad in a black hoodie. She couldn’t see the person's face.

“Uh- e-e-e-xcuse me, I-” she stammered.

Her pursuer interrupted her with a deep growl. They pulled a large bat from behind them and brought it swinging down on Valkyrie’s head. The last thing she saw was the ferocious, hungry glint in the stranger’s eyes before the world went black.

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

When Valkyrie blinked back into consciousness, she was sitting on an uncomfortable wooden chair, her arms tied behind her back with rope. Fear filled her veins as she tried to remember how she had ended up in this situation. Just as her memories began flooding back to her, a figure stepped into her vision. It was the same figure that had faced her in the alleyway.

“Who are you? Let me go!” She cried out.

“Shut up!” The kidnapper growled. “You’re not going anywhere.” The figure slowly circled the chair Valkyrie was tied to, reminding her of a predator inspecting its prey. “You, my friend, are going to stay right here and entertain me.”’

Valkyrie gasped. “No, you can’t! I- I can’t stay, please, you have to let me g-”

A heavy force slammed into Val’s face, interrupting her. As the figure pulled their hand back, she realised she had been punched. The impact left her stunned, and her left cheek stinging. Before she could react, she was punched again, this time in the stomach. She gasped, and doubled over as best as she could, being tied to a chair.

Valkyrie groaned. “Let.. me.. Go!!”

The attacks continued, blows raining down all over her body as she sat, useless, unable to defend herself. Just when she thought she could deal with this no longer, as her vision began to blur, her tormenter drew a dagger from their pocket. The figure loomed in her face with the blade. As they twirled it closer and closer, the light glinted off the dagger in a threatening fashion. Valkyrie whimpered, despite herself. Her heart was beating out of her chest. Then, the attacker struck. The knife carved a long, deep slash down her chin, followed by a series of smaller cuts and slashes across her face. Just as they brought the knife close to her right eye, a voice could be heard.

"Stop right there!”

Before her kidnapper could spin around, a loud bang reverberated through the room. Valkyrie closed her eyes instinctively. When she tentatively opened them a moment later, the person who had been torturing her just a minute ago was lying on the floor in a bloody heap. She glanced up to see a team of people clad in heavy black tactical gear. She was saved. They swarmed around her like flies, surrounding her. They quickly freed her from her bonds, then she was lifted onto a gurney. Medics enveloped her, strapping her down and wheeling her out the door of the dingy room. They emerged in a loading dock where a large, unmarked black van was waiting. The tactical officers swung open the back doors and slid Valkyrie, gurney and all, up into the van. The medics followed her into the van, where a plethora of medical equipment was waiting. One medic, a kind-looking woman with a long black plait and a warm smile, was busying herself setting up an IV kit. Just then, the doors slammed shut behind them.

“What are you doing? Where are you taking me?” Valkyrie murmured, dazed.

“Don’t you worry about that, love. Now, you’re just going to feel a little pinch.” The medic assured in a sing-song voice.

See the full post

47 notes - Posted April 14, 2022

Operation Valkyrie Masterlist

We at Human Pet Providers (HPP) provide our customers with the highest quality pets for entertainment, romantic or platonic companionship, and domestic services. In order to continue to provide the highest quality, best-trained and easily punishable pets for your enjoyment, we have established the National Pet Research Organisation (NPRO). The NPRO labratory investigates the best training methods and devices for both the use of our trainers at HPP, and use in your home for the more rebellious pets.

Valkyrie Lewis' life is turned upside-down when she is kidnapped and brought to a laboratory to be experimented on.

Note: this is a BBU-adjacent style whump fic featuring lab whump as part of the main storyline.

~~~

Part 1 - Capture

Part 2 - Welcome to the Lab

Part 3 - Losing Control

Part 4 - Touch Starved

Part 5 - Vivisection

~~~

Taglist (just asked to be added/removed):

@whumppsychology @inky-whump @whumpnoire

50 notes - Posted May 7, 2022

Aflame - Subject 17 (Part 6)

Masterlist here

At long last, it's here! I'm so happy to be back to posting in the new year and I'm looking forward to putting more work into my confidence in my writing skills. Enjoy!

CWs: Lab whump, human experimentation, noncon drugging, restraints, needles, medical setting, hospital equipment

~~~

After several days of recovering from the experiment alongside Bree, Flynn found himself hearing footsteps headed towards his cell door once more. Flynn tensed, his eyes darting to the hallway. Hugo walked into Flynn’s field of view, dressed in his usual white orderly-type scrubs. The young man cleared his throat before stepping up to the door, which he unlocked using the key from his pocket. Hugo then entered the cell, and gestured for Flynn to follow him. Now is my chance. I could run.. Flynn thought. But within a split second he had reminded himself how useless that would be. While Hugo was probably not nearly as strong as his superior, nor was he likely to tell Doctor Barrick of Flynn’s disobedience for Flynn to be punished, it was likely that the Doctor would find out anyway. Not to mention, maybe Hugo did not look incredibly strong, but Flynn had been imprisoned and experimented on for what had to have been at least severely weeks, if not months already, with no exercise and little food or water. There was no way he would be able to fight off anyone who tried to stop him, nor run far enough and fast enough to escape. It would be completely and utterly futile. Flynn sighed internally, and followed Hugo out of the cell.

The walk was a silent one, and Flynn's mind was left to spiral out of control as he speculated about what Doctor Barrick had in store for him this time. By the time they reached the laboratory door, panic was quickly setting into Flynn's bones. He couldn't keep doing this any longer, he was getting too weak, and he was being pushed to a breaking point. It was only a matter of time before he came out of those very same doors in a body bag.

He swallowed down his fear as Hugo led him inside. Inside, the lab was organised and clearly ready to be used. Hugo steered Flynn over to the metal table in the centre. Flynn swallowed thickly and lay down on the table, wincing as the bare skin on his arms and legs touched the cold surface. A moment later, the door of the lab swung open once again, and in walked Doctor Barrick, wearing his white lab coat.

“Hello Subject 17.” He turned to Hugo. “Strap him down.”

Flynn felt his blood run cold as Hugo snapped on a pair of nitrile gloves, then grabbed the padded restraints from beside the table. He swiftly wound them around Flynn’s body, strapping him down at his calves, thighs, chest, across his shoulders and his forehead. The insides of his elbows faced the ceiling.

“Excellent.” Doctor Barrick thanked his assistant.

While Doctor Barrick prepared the camera and the live-streaming equipment, Hugo prepared the medical equipment, pulling out a rubber tourniquet, prep pads, a syringe and a vial filled with liquid. Flynn was certain that the colour was draining from his face upon seeing these items. He was distracted momentarily as Doctor Barrick took a step back, and announced his presence to his audience.

“Welcome back. Today I will be testing a new serum I have concocted. I’m not sure what the effect will be, as I discovered it rather by accident... But we shall find out, together.”

The menacing smile that crept across Doctor Barrick’s face, reflected to Flynn via the computer screen, was enough to make a chill creep through Flynn’s bones. Doctor Barrick returned to the side of metal table, snapping on his own pair of gloves, and proceeded to tie the rubber tourniquet around Flynn’s upper arm, just above the inner elbow. He prodded the skin, making sure he had easy access to the vein, then took out a prep pad and wiped the cold alcohol swab over the area. Then, he unpackaged the syringe, and inserted the needle straight into the vial of liquid, drawing the plunger until he had the right amount, before he placed the vial back down.

“I’m going to inject the serum into Subject 17’s vein now, and we will be able to observe the results.” Doctor Barrick announced.

The scientist lined the syringe up with Flynn’s vein, then slowly and carefully pushed the needle in. Flynn held back a small whimper upon feeling the sharp pinch as it pierced his skin. He watched in growing apprehension as Doctor Barrick continued pushing the needle in further, until it reached the vein, and then his gloved fingers pushed down the plunger, releasing the serum into Flynn’s vein. Once the entire contents of the syringe had been emptied into Flynn, Doctor Barrick drew the syringe back out, removed the tourniquet, and covered the area with a small band-aid. Flynn could already feel the cold seeping into his veins and spreading through his limbs.

Doctor Barrick turned his attention back to the camera. “Now, we wait, and observe.”

Flynn felt that previous cold feeling slowly change, warmth now sweeping across his body. At first, it was pleasant, and a small smile of relief crept across his face. That was until he was too warm, so warm that he began to feel fire creeping through his veins. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead, and he could feel droplets forming under his arms. Doctor Barrick leaned into his face, examining Flynn closely from behind his glasses. Suddenly, Flynn was seeing two of Doctor Barrick.

“Hngh..” Flynn murmured, trying to reach for the double Barricks to swat at them, before realising that he was still strapped securely to the metal exam table.

Suddenly, a blinding white light pierced his vision. He groaned, blinking to shield his eyes, but a gloved hand pried them back open one at a time, the light growing brighter each time. He could hear voices muttering around him, but he wasn’t sure what they were saying. God, couldn’t they be quiet for one second? His head was pounding, and the heat was still growing. It was now unbearable. It was burning hot, and he thought he might need to throw up, but his vision was too blurry and murky for him to see his restraints to try to undo them. Despite the heat, he shivered, twitching involuntarily against the straps which held him down. Let me go, let me go! He tried to scream, but he couldn’t hear to know if he had even spoken the words aloud. Too loud, too loud, let me go, it’s too loud let me- Another sharp prick in his arm interrupted his thoughts. Distantly, he thought it was incredibly rude of the pain to just interrupt his thought like that. But then he drowned in the darkness, and all was silent.

Taglist:

@ziptiewhump @lazy8whump @blackrosesandwhump @paleassprincess @bumpthumpwhump @jancameforthewhump @jaxonjekkels @inky-whump @verydeaninside @whatiswhump @aseasonwithclara @crystalquartzwhump @onthishamsterwheel @myst-in-the-mirror @simplygrimly @wolfeyedwitch

51 notes - Posted February 2, 2022

Needle Whump prompts

The quickening of Whumpee's breaths through their nose as Whumper brings out a syringe

Whumpee frantically stretches their arm towards the phone, but before they can call for help, Whumper steps down HARD on their arm. Bonus points if Whumper breaks or fractures Whumpee's hand in the process.

Oxygen masks. IVs. Tubes. Whumpee waking up to being in them and ripping out the tubes and IV, and yanking off the oxygen mask. Bonus points if the heart monitor beeps louder and faster - until Whumpee rips the electrodes off their chest, and the machine goes silent

Hero is kidnapped by Villain. Hero expects to be viciously tortured, but instead, Villain becomes Caretaker, gently treating Hero's wounds from all of their missions that had been left un-cared for.

Caretaker screaming and reaching for Whumpee. who is also screaming, too frightened to be seperated from Caretaker, but doctors are swarming Caretaker and forcing them away. Bonus points if Caretaker is so agitated by the thought of leaving Whumpee even for a minute, that they have to be sedated.

67 notes - Posted December 5, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Sedation Whump Drabble

CWs: sedation, 'for your own good' trope, medical whump, needle tw

“Whumpee, stop. I’m here to help you.” Medic held Whumpee to their chest, holding them in place.

“I’me fine, okay? Just let me go!” Whumpee yelled, yanking their fists free to thump them against Medic in a desperate attempt to free themself. “You have.. to.. please.. I have to protect them!” The last sentence came in a frightened whimper.

Whumpee was too upset to notice Medic’s frantic silent communication with Team Mate over Whumpee’s shoulder. ‘The bedside. Top drawer. Hurry.’ Medic mouthed.

Team Mate rushed to the bedside table and pulled the syringe from the top drawer. They stood behind Whumpee, waiting for Medic’s signal. Medic nodded, and Team Mate removed the cap and thrust the needle into Whumpee’s shoulder muscle.

“NOOO!” Whumpee screamed, digging their nails into Medic’s arms as their back arched in pain.

Team mate dropped the syringe and helped Medic lower Whumpee to the ground, whose muscles twitched as they struggled to stay conscious.

“Sh, sh, Whumpee. It’s okay. Just rest now, okay?” Medic murmured, smoothing down Whumpee’s hair. “You’re alright.”

“Please.. I-” Whumpee’s movements were too sluggish, too uncoordinated, but they tried to pull themself off the ground. “Mmph…” Their hand fell to their side, and their eyes rolled back in their head as they slipped into unconsciousness.

Team mate stared at Whumpee. “Now what?”

“Help me, let’s put them to bed.”

Medic grunted as the two lifted Whumpee’s limp, weak body and placed it on the bed in the middle of the room. They looked so small and frail in the large plush bed, swamped in pillows. Team Mate lingered there, staring at their friend.

“Go on. You have to go do your job. They’ll be here when you get back. I’ll take care of them for you, I promise.” Medic ushered Team Mate to the door.

“Yeah, you’re.. You’re right.” Team Mate took once last glance over their shoulder at Whumpee, and then turned on their heel, leaving their injured friend behind.

Tags:

@aseasonwithclara @bumpthumpwhump @inky-whump @ziptiesnfries @jancameforthewhump @blackrosesandwhump @whumpwillow @whatiswhump @whump-a-la-mode @hurting-fictional-people @equestrianwritingsstuff @clockworkwhump @wolfeyedwitch

246 notes - Posted July 5, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review

4 notes · View notes

creativeashproductions · 3 years

Text

A Distant Dream IV // Luke Patterson

Summary: In 1994 seventeen year old Luke Patterson had once again tried to ask out the girl that held his heart. With the belief he would see the younger Mercer girl the next morning he decides to wait to confess his feelings. Only to have soft music bewitched the reader into an antique wardrobe with lots of history

Warnings: Swearing, grief, mourning a relationship, sadness, angst, war/death, mention of strict parents, and fluff

Words: 3.1

A/N: This is a disclaimer: just because the reader and Luke start to get along better and have a date does NOT mean she isn’t grieving her relationship. Whether the love faded or not with Peter that is still a large part of who she was/is or don’t expect her and Luke to fall into a relationship immediately.

TO BE TAGGED SEND AN INBOX/ASK PLEASE!

Masterlist

The phantoms had disbanded for the night, leaving Julie alone in her room surrounded by books and Flynn. You’d snuck down to the basement as you had since you arrived in 2020 from a different world. The wardrobe that quite literally changed your life was in the back corner, unassuming for the young girl.

Your e/c eyes pinned to the antique wooden furniture that had traveled from England to America as if fate had guided it. No matter how long time went by you’d never been able to touch the wardrobe, let alone touch remotely close. A part of you feared finding if you could return to Narnia or not.

It was something you kept private from the new people helping you to assimilate back into a life on Earth. The boys often refused to leave you for very long after the traumatic disappearance, even when you urged for space. It had almost been as tricky as negotiating peace with a land boiling with civil unrest.

Alex had taken to holding your hand as you slept for peace in both him and you; he’d noticed the state of sleep you endured. It was fitful and often filled with memories in the form of nightmares. The one from last night reared its head once more.

An intake of breath as you pulled your fingers closed to your cheek. Eyes on the movement before you released the bow. The arrow sailed true into the unsuspecting enemy with a faint whistle as it travelled.

The body dropped, one of many of the battles you had attended since defeating the White Witch. A life was still a life, and taking one was incredibly difficult. You saw it in the eyes of Peter, heard it in Susan’s strained voice, saw it in the way Edmund carried himself, but the most heartbreaking was the feeling of Lucy’s tense shoulders in certain moments.

Edmund and Lucy had been children when the White Witch had reigned and fought. Lucy had been only nine years old when her foot first touched Narnian snow. At that tender age, she’d watched the evil of the world up close. Edmund not that incredibly older. The youngest Pevensie had watched her brother take his last breath. Felt the trauma of Edmund’s gasping as the cordial bled one life-giving drop of liquid.

“I’d like to say it gets better, but it truly doesn’t, Your Majesty.” General Oreius’ announced from his station beside you. It was a lull in the tension building as people got ready for the enemies on the horizon.

Oreius’ addressed you but kept his gaze on the approaching army from an enemy land; the General was gifted in multitasking. He’d stopped to give you a little peace in only the way he knew how to.

“Thank you, Oreius.” You informed the General as he took off into the land ahead, leaving you to hold off the enemy with arrows. The short lapse is a game-changer for you as you run into battle.

Last night’s dream had been a reprieve from the dreams of Peter staring sadly at you curled around Luke. It hadn’t happened, of course, but that didn’t dim the bonfire of emotions you felt for the hazel-eyed guitarist.

You couldn’t quite figure out if you loved Peter the way a wife should love their husband. It wasn’t solely Peter that made you come to the wardrobe frequently. It had to do with the family that became yours when your parents had been shitty.

“Hey.” Julie spoke, stepping up to your side. The first person to have found you in the basement where you had an entirely different life.

“Hi.” You murmured, breaking your stare to meet the lovely teenager who had taken your brother and friends into her home. Even if it hadn’t been a smooth start, the band had grown infinitely closer.

“Do you think you’ll ever go back?” Julie softly questioned with soft brown eyes taking in the action you’d known for years. Your fingers brushed a strand of her gorgeous coil hair behind her ear with a gentleness you’d done so with Susan and Lucy.

Julie watched as your eyes saddened, “I don’t know. Mere seconds before I stumbled out of the wardrobe into your home, I was an adult. I had been in my early ’30s reigning beside my husband, and then I was the same sixteen-year-old girl breaking the chains of the Mercer name.”

“You feel guilty you left Alex, Luke and Reggie without answers, but you feel like you’re betraying your new family?” Julie questioned, shifting on her sneakers to stare at the emotional mask you’d developed in Narnia.

“Something like that.” You simply replied, casting one more look at the wardrobe in your haste to leave the basement.

Julie waited until you had left before she opened the wardrobe with a loud creak. Her hands brushed material hanging before her hand met a solid surface. Her face dropped at the physical evidence that Narnia couldn’t be reached from this wardrobe again.

Julie adored you, but she wanted to know how true happiness looked on your pretty features. Even if she had to give up you just so you could be happy, it was worth it, so when you left the basement each visit, she’d check the wardrobe.

It always failed. Not a speck of snow or a call of your royal title. Had Julie not seen you tumble out of the wardrobe, she’d have never believed the story.

“One day.” Julie murmured to the silent wardrobe.

Your foot barely passed the threshold of your attic space when your ’90s friends dropped unceremoniously on the floor. Each wearing a big grin that matched the fake one you plastered on.

“Where’d you go this time?”

“Top of the Hollywood sign.” Reggie piped up, skipping over to distribute a cheesy tourist keychain of the sign. Had it been someone else than Reggie, you would have joked about it, but you never could with the sweet puppy like teenager.

“Thank you.” You told the boy who had taken to grabbing little souvenirs for you. You couldn’t remember when he’d sat beside you, but he’d softly informed you how much he’d missed you.

In the year following your disappearance, Reggie had built up a collection of trinkets he thought you’d love; he was the one with the most optimism. Even if he believed you’d met an end, that little spark of hope never died. He wouldn’t be Reggie Peters if the hope wasn’t there.

“I wish I knew if my parents kept that box.” Reggie sighed, referring to the trinkets he had collected the year you’d gone missing. You merely squeezed his shoulder in response before catching gazes with Luke.

“Flynn still here?” Alex questioned, pushing himself to sit on the box bench underneath the window. He’d proudly chosen the wear one of the t-shirts Flynn had personalized for the band.

You shrugged, “Dunno. Julie found me.”

Reggie and Luke were oblivious, but Alex knew to the core of his soul where you tended to spend alone time. Alex would see how you’d return with that ache in your eyes more prominent, and your lips quirked down just enough for him to tell. He saw the guilt when you looked at Luke, the way you thumbed your ring.

“Do you want to hang out? Maybe to use Julie’s computer to search for our childhood friends? See if Sarah got valedictorian?” Alex asked, swinging his feet, trying to pull you from your thought which he was successful with.

“Sure.”

Reggie and Luke watched as you and Alex left the attic for some one on one time together, leaving the two.

“I wonder where they’re going?” Reggie questioned, staring after the closed door. His hands pushed into the back pockets of his jeans.

Luke shrugged, “You wanna write a song?”

“Sure! We could-”

“Not country,” Luke told the bassist, who pouted but followed as his best friend poofed to the garage.

The two Mercer siblings wandered the streets of Los Angeles, each in their own thoughts but comforted by the odd brush of their arms. For Alex, it felt like the old days when you both snuck out of the house just for some air. To just to leave the tense expectations shoved on their shoulders by their perfectionist parents.

“If I’d never disappeared and you didn’t die, where do you think we’d be?” You mused, thinking of all the what-ifs. Would you have gotten together with Luke? Would Sunset Curve had gone on to do sold-out shows.

“I don’t really know, to be honest. I think if we’d gone on to be successful that Reggie would have a ranch somewhere. He might have even released an EP of country songs. I think you and Luke would be together.” Alex thought with a bittersweet smile.

“And?”

“And what?”

“Where do you think you would be?” You questioned the older Mercer, who simply shrugged, “I like to think you would have been happy. Whether that was with someone, who was worthy of you or just by being yourself. Maybe you would have started a charity or been an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community.”

Your e/c eyes caught the smile growing on your older brother’s mouth, bringing a lightness to your body.

“I don’t think it matters. We’re exactly where we’re supposed to be. If we had survived, I would have never seen you again.” Alex confessed, “I think we were always meant to meet Julie.”

You went to open your mouth when your eyes found one of the last places you wanted to be. Somehow you and Alex had walked into the area where the country club was sitting just as it was back in the ’90s. From a distance, you could see the unmistakable form of Sarah, the girl in your grade who had always unwillingly competed academically with you. Sarah was just another girl with heavy expectations from her own wealthy parents.

“Is that Sarah?” Alex softly chuckled as the girl, now a woman, holding the hand of her husband with genuine happiness, “She looks happy.”

“She deserves it. The rivalry all our parents had was insane, so I’m happy one of us got the least complicated life.” You informed Alex bumping your hip against his leg as you talked with the pink-loving male.

England, 1940s

Four youth occupied one of the many rooms in the manor that didn’t hold a candle to Cair Paravel grand size and beauty. Not that the four confused siblings spent time taking a gander in the room. Each focused on how they’d lived well into their thirties before regressing back to the ages they were when they stepped into the wardrobe. There were minor changes.

Edmund wasn’t acting like a knob, Susan inserting herself as dominant, and Lucy was quieter than usual. Peter, however, had a boiling rage he could barely contain within himself.

“Do you think Aslan did this?” Susan questioned her siblings. A single tear rolling down her face at the grief she felt.

Each Pevensie was in the beginning stages of grief. They had to grieve the life they had lost in a magical place. A place where the war didn’t ravage like it did to their home country. For the suitors, she’d only just started to seriously look into.

Not a single shred of evidence tied themselves to Narnia.

“Who else?” Peter scoffed, bringing a gasp from Lucy’s mouth. They had all proudly reigned with Aslan in mind. Not a word is spoken against the great lion who’d died for Edmund and came back to life.

“Pet-”

“This is your fault.” Peter told his younger brother with a grimace on his face, “We had everything we ever needed in Narnia. Why did you need to catch that stupid stag?”

Edmund’s eyebrows furrowed, “You make it sound like our lives were perfect. Newsflash, King Peter, but it was far from that. You barely focused on your marriage, let alone Y/N.”

“Edmund.” Susan admonished, glancing between her brothers as if watching a tennis match. The only sister paying attention as Lucy stared out the window at the overcast day.

“It’s true! His marriage was a sham, and he lied to the entire kingdom!” Edmund shouted with a heated glare, “You acted like you were the most important person in Narnia, like the only reason the place worked was because of your hand solely.”

“Shut up,” Peter growled, stepping right up to his little; Edmund had lost a lot of inches, brother with a sneer. Their hair mussed from rubbing against the furs.

“Just because you’re older and you had High in front of your title doesn’t lessen our power too.”

“STOP IT.” Lucy screamed, stomping her foot, “Who cares about that. How about we focus on where Y/N went? She was right with us in there, and then out of nowhere, she’s gone.”

“I know.” Peter’s shoulder dropped in defeat as it settled further into his mind. Not only had he lost the years he’d lived, but he’d also lost you somewhere along the line.

While you’d fallen out of love, or maybe you’d never even been in love with Peter; he’d faithfully kept feelings for you. Part of him had always known your heart was taken by another, but he cherished the times you had together.

“And she’s not in another place right now. She’s somewhere in the far future.” Edmund added with his arms crossed over each other, “She never elaborated on when, where or what the future looks like. How can we find someone that doesn’t exist yet?”

“We hope our future selves can find her.” Susan finished sending a look at each of her siblings, “In the meantime, let’s live our lives for her, so we have tons of stories for her to listen to.”

Molina Household, America 2020

Luke Patterson shook in his black vans, his best pair he owned, holding simple flowers Julie had gotten. Money from busking down at the pier for some cash the boys could have for anything they wanted. They always left money with a note when they got items.

The flowers’ stems were definitely in a battle to survive the grip from the scared teenage ghost. He’d started the day with a tickle in the back of his mind to ask you out. Just a simple date with no strings attached to see where it could go. He couldn’t chicken out when he’d already knocked, and the door was opening.

“Oh! Luke.” You gasped, blinking at the sudden appearance of the phantom. Luke’s eyes melted at the oversized flannel layered over a cropped dark blue sweater.

Your style pre-Narnia and during Narnia had coalesced over the few months you’d found yourself on Earth. Your love of cropped tops returned with a modest twist, the modesty unshakable.

“I know it’s been hard adjusting from Narnia, but I was wondering if you would go on a date with him?” He blurted, dancing on the balls of his vans with an expression of pure nerves.

Your mind flew twenty miles an hour thinking through the implications of accepting a date with this teenager. A dead teenager at that. Sure he was only a year older, but fate had a sick sense of humour.

“I don-”

“I know in your other world you have a husband. I get that, but there’s something undeniable between us. It’s been there since the ’90s, and we always just pushed it away. I learned over the twenty-six years that life is too short.” Luke pleaded, slowly pushing the pretty bouquet into your arms, “Just one date to see if this is worth pursuing.”

You should have said no, but you couldn’t, “One date.”

Luke mentally pumped his fist in the air in celebration as if he was starring in a John Hughes movie. As if reading his mind, you teasingly thrust your hand in the air, the very same hand coming into Luke’s grip.

“There isn’t a lot that we can do, but Willie knows a guy unaffiliated with Caleb. Well, he knows him through a few guys, but he hooked me up. In this lovely basket, we have a menagerie of food that I can eat.” Luke spoke proudly with that same twinkle he always had with you by his side.

Your lips parted in pure elation. Luke Patterson was taking you out on one of the things that had been on your bucket list. A picnic date, something you and Alex each desired to enjoy.

Luke led you down a few streets to a park notorious for cute dates. Julie stood over a cliche checkered blanket. In her hand was an old iPhone or iPod hooked up to a Bluetooth speaker, a playlist curated of your favourite songs ready to go.

“You remember how to use this?” Julie questioned the teen ghost with one raised eyebrow. Luke nodded in his mission to unpack the food in a form that was as romantic as possible.

Julie nodded before casting a quiet goodbye to the two ’90s teens.

“How’d you know?” You questioned Luke as he poured a glass of the beverage he’d chosen. His ever-changing eyes flicked up to yours with an endearing expression.

Your eyes scanned his messy hair. He had taken the time to meticulously styled for his date with you. He’d chosen that gorgeous purple corduroy long sleeve shirt that turned his hair to melted milk chocolate. He hadn’t done a 180 on his style; he’d never tell you he’d styled his hair off his forehead into what Alex had dubbed the Prince Charming hair.

“1994 in the studio for Alex’s fifteenth birthday. Bobby snuck some alcohol he’d collected from his uncle’s BBQ and his father’s stash. We got drunk for the first time and played truth or dare.” Luke recalled with a smile.

He remembered how much of lightweights they were and the way his heart fluttered when Alex answered Reggie’s question. He explained how his ideal date was a picnic in a park with either a guy he was seeing or his celebrity crush. He’d mentioned it was something he shared with you, and then all Luke could think about was taking you on a picnic.

“Dealing with Alex’s hungover ass was a nightmare.” You grunted, swiping one of the pieces of watermelon from a container.

“I can only imagine.” Luke chuckled, slowly shifting closer to you with a sandwich in his left hand. His right arm slowly slinked over your shoulders to rest, the movement halting as your shoulders tensed momentarily.

“Were you really gonna confess that night I disappeared?” You asked the guitarist currently focused on the delicious sandwich. It reminded him of his mother packing his lunch every day, even in his high school years despite telling his mom he could do it himself.

“I was. I chickened out.” Luke admitted and had he been alive, his ears could have flushed along with his cheeks. The bashful ghost struggled to meet your gaze, “I had-have this massive crush on you. I’ve had it since you called me your knight in shining armour-”

“When I sliced my knee open, and you carried me home.”

“I’ve never told anyone, but you’re kinda the reason why I started wearing no sleeves. The guys and us were watching a film, and you mentioned something about the actor’s arms.” Luke snickered with a smile that faded at your sheepish grin, “Oh my god, you knew.”

“Bobby let it slip, ‘I watched him cut the sleeves of his shirts, stitch the raw edges of the fabric, prick his fingers a ton, and he nearly broke my foot’”

“Yeah I almost dropped a weight on him.” Luke snorted, shuffling to lay his head to rest on top of yours. He’d quickly learnt in his mission to gain muscle for your attention that he liked the exercise. He continued to get in shape and grow some muscle, but he still wore sleeveless shirts for you.

“You’re lucky you’re cute.”

Luke beamed at your words, “Nah, you’re the beautiful one.”

The rest of the date was everything you had ever wished for. Luke went above and beyond your expectations, even as a ghost. He’d packed a sweater to help you into when the night appeared, and the cold came. He held your hand on the way home and walked you straight to your attic door.

Luke didn’t push for a kiss either. He simply raised your clasped hand to press a lingering kiss on the back of your hand.

“Sweet dreams.” Luke murmured before he walked down the stairs. The euphoria ensuring he forget his ability to poof.

He wore the same lovesick expression into the studio where two ghosts waited for all the details. Alex and Reggie each buzzing in anticipation for their guitarist best friend.

In your room, you analyzed your feelings closely.

The guilt wasn’t as suffocating as you’d anticipated after going on a date that wasn’t with Peter. Just the guy that had been a reason your marriage with Peter wasn’t how it should have been. You also knew in your heart that Peter would want you to be happy and move on. In fact, in the last two years of your marriage, things had changed to just being two best friends married.

Your eyes met the window of your attic bedroom with a small smile. Your right hand slowly sliding the symbol of love from your finger. For the first time in a very long time, your wedding and engagement band left your hand.

“I’ll always love you, Peter Pevensie.” You murmured from your place in front of your dresser. The two rings slid into the old jewellery box where they would stay.

The only signs of your previous relationship status are just memories and a pale line on your ring finger.

Time to move on. Time to accept that Narnia was in the past and not in your future. Time to accept that Luke Patterson always had and always would hold your heart in his hands.

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kpurereactions · 4 years

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I love your works, they’re beautifully written. 💯 maybe you could do a MX reaction to drunkenly confessing to their best friend and just being all cute.

Shownu:

When he walked into the restaurant he would be frantic. The voice mails you had left him while he was working late at the studio were nonsense and scared him enough to try to come find you. Hed take a deep breath of relief when he saw you with two of your friends, who were just as drunk as you were, giggling over something you said. Hed walk up to your table and sit next to you, taking your chin in his hand as he evaluated just how drunk you were. “Is is my buhfrng.” You slurred. His eyebrows would furrow at your words. He wasn't your boyfriend. “well,” You continued holding one finder up to your giggling friends. “Im wmbt him to be. But he doesn't love me back.” You said, swaying forward before clasping your hand over your mouth and giggling. “Why dont you want to be my boyfriend.” You'd ask sternly, sitting up suddenly and putting your hands on your hips. Hed chuckle, completely shocked at what it was he was hearing. Hed put his arm around you and ask your friends if they had paid before making sure they had a safe way home. Hed help you stand up the best he could and lead you out of the restaurant with as little casualties to the plates on the surrounding tables.

Once outside hed get you on his back. There would be no reason to even attempt to make you walk back to your apartment, no matter how short of a distance it was. Hed think about your words and it would bring a smile to his lips. “So, you want me to be your boyfriend?” Hed say softly, walking slow through the now quiet street. When you grumbled what sounded like a yes, probably already half asleep hed blush and look at his feet. Hed know this conversation would have to wait until the next day, but the idea of how mortified you'll be was enough to keep him giggling as he walked you home.

Wonho:

You usually called him drunk, so at this point in your friendship he knew if you were calling him, you were probably already in a cab on your way home, if not home already. Hed see your name flash across his screen at 2:30 am, and hed smiled. You were kind of cute when you were drunk. “Youmb told me to call. When i got in cab. So i did well.” You slurred. Hed smile to himself. He did always tell you that when you get into cabs this late at night to call him so nothing would happen. “Did you have a good time tonight?” Hed ask, throwing his pen on his desk and folding one arm over his chest. “No.” You pouted. “Everything okay?” Hed ask, now getting ready to get to you if you needed him. “You hatme.” “I do not hate you, why would you say that.” “Because,” you said in a very matter of fact voice. “you wont lob me bak.” “I do love you!” Hed say, trying to keep you smiling. “Not like I love you.”

The phone would be silent and hed listen as you sniffled, trying to keep your tears back. Without truly thinking hed grab his coat and leave the building, hed run the few blocks to your apartment, still holding you on the phone and thankfully he got there right as your cab was pulling up. As the door swung open he heard you mumble “He hung up on me.” as your head hung. When you finally noticed him standing there hed welcome you with a big hug and would lift your chin so you had to look at him, a smile plastered across his face.

Minhyuk:

Drinking together was a usual thing with you two. Usually all of the members would be present, but this time everyone seemed to leave early. You and Minhyuk would sit there, drunk and on the floor looking at one another. It was his idea to play a game of truth or truth, seeing as the two of you were both a little too drunk to add the dare part. You would catch him off guard when you asked him why he wouldnt date you. “What do you mean?” “Oh come on, everyone knows I like you.” Youd say, and hed watch you intently as you took a deep sip of your drink. “I honestly had no idea.” Hed say, smiling to himself as he thought back to all the things you did for him that he thought were cute. “Okay, Y/n.” Hed say getting your attention. “Dare or dare.” “Thats not the game. And you didnt even answer my question.” “Come on, dare or dare.” Hed say again, his cheeks slightly turning pink. “dare.” “I dare you to kiss me.”

Kihyun:

He was supposed to come over to hang out, but like most nights the two of you actually had plans to see one another something came up and he had to leave early. You didn't realize how late it had gotten or how many beers you had to drink until you stood for the last time to hit the bathroom and you stumbled into the chair next to you. You laughed. How cliche of you.

Peeing seemed to only make you more drunk, so when you returned to your balcony and sat down you stared at your phone. Your head screamed to not call him, but your head also wasn't listening. You let your finger trace the patterns of the wooden chair you sat on while the ringing seemed to fill the night sky.

When he answered the phone in a sleepy voice you exclaimed. You didn't realize he would already be asleep, so you brought your voice down to a whisper.

‘Did I wake you?’ You'd hear him chuckle as he realized you were slightly drunk. He’d talk to you like you hadn't just woken him up, telling you about his night and answering all the questions you asked him with a soft voice. When you finally in a small voice told him that you were disappointed he had left because this was the night you were going to tell him you had a crush on him he would pause. He wouldn't say anything as he made sure what he had heard you say was what he really heard and when he realized there was nothing else it could have been that you said he would take a breath of a relief and tell you that he liked you too.

Hyungwon:

You didn't mean to get drunk at dinner. It was an honest mistake. You were too drunk, just drunk enough to say things you usually wouldn't. The boys all laughed at your goofiness. Hyungwon was nice enough to take you back to your apartment once you all were done and tired from dinner. He didn't think much about the situation as you took his hand and let your head fall his shoulder. He’d listen to you mumble as you talked about the most random things there when put together. But when you softly said ‘And thats why Im in love with you. I really love you.” He’d stiffen. He wouldn't say anything since you continued to talk against his neck now that you've cuddled up with him.

The next day when you woke up and everything came back to you he’d figured you would be too mortified to reach out. So by the time you woke up he made sure you would wake up to a text that asked you to dinner so he could tell you his feelings were mutual.

Jooheon:

You and Jooheon usually had parties of two on the regular since no one liked to have as much fun on random week days as the two of you. This time it was a Wednesday and the only reason your hang out turned into a party of two was becuase a new commercial Jooheon did was airing. As the night went on you definently drank more and more and soon the two of you began to dance along to the songs that now played through the TV. You spun with a smile on your face, giggling as Jooheon clapped at your moves. Your arms went around his neck as he came closer to dance with you, but was slightly shocked at the sudden contact. You smiled at his arms that eventually wrapped tightly around your waist. “I really like you, Jooheon.” You said softly, quickly dipping your head into your arm that rested on his shoulder. Your stomach dropped when he slightly pulled away, forcing you to look at him. “I really like you too.” He said, even softer than you, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips as he very slowly dips his head to kiss you softly.

Changkyun:

The loud thumping music made it hard to communicate with the boys sitting around you, so as the night went on and the drinks continued to pour you kept scooting closer and closer to Changkyun and the rest of the boys to hear what they were saying better. Your group kept taking turns getting up going to the dance floor until it was just the two of you sitting at the large round table. The two of you sat close, Changkyuns arm draped over the back of the chair you sat in as he lent in to speak with you. For what ever reason your heart was exploading as he smiled and slightly licked his bottom lip, almost teasing you. Not caring who saw, he lent in and kissed your suddenly. Just a soft, three second kiss that made your eyes go wide and your hands move to cover your lips. You watched him stare at you with a smug smile, and softly asked him what that was for. “Well since youve told everyone but me how youve been feeling I figured I’d help you out.” He said, all the teasing in his voice now gone. “Ive liked you for a long time.” You said, shyly, still in shock from the kiss. “Me too.”

Kitty

#monsta x #monsta x reaction #shownu #minhyuk #wonho #kihyun #hyungwon #jooheon #Changkyun

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raleighcarrera · 4 years

Text

falling

platinum | raleigh carrera x mc (cadence dorian)

a little while ago i posted about the idea of a soulmate au where the first words raleigh & cadence say to each other are tattooed on them their whole lives, and this... is that. (for @platinumweekend ❤️)

tags: @choicesarehard ; @empressazura; @emomoustache ; @natesewell ; @zigtheeortega ; @pixeljazzy ; @brycemaloliver ; @grigori-girl ; @dulceghernandez ; @bitchloveskcbaseball ; @withbeautyandrage

~10.5k words | T

the words appear in looping script on his thirteenth birthday, right on time. they curve along the inside of his bicep, innocently punctuated. what’s your name?

“you got lucky,” one of his older cousins tells him, later, when everyone in his family comes by for cake and to ooh and aah over his new tattoo, “you’ll be able to hide that with a shirt or a jacket easily.”

but raleigh sleeps shirtless every night for the next two years, even when it’s cold, so that the words are the last thing he sees with his head pillowed on his arm before he falls asleep, dreaming of the nameless, faceless person who will one day say them, wondering what their voice might sound like when they do.

ii.

she has a more difficult go of it.

being a thirteen year old girl would be miserable enough without the added pressure of the words that practically feel broadcast across her forehead, most of the time. everyone at school teases her constantly and ruthlessly: say something funny, cadence. go on. tell us a joke!

so it’s difficult not to resent the two words scrawled lazily across her collarbone and the person attached to them, especially in the mornings before school when she’s angrily rearranging her neckline and jewelry in the mirror while the bus idles outside.

very funny. she isn’t, really. she’s plenty of things -- determined and passionate and sensitive, definitely, but... no one’s ever found her particularly funny, before.

and no one seems to understand just how much the expectation of having to be funny, one day, is weighing on her, not even her parents, when she finally works up the courage to squeak out, “but how am i supposed to know what i should say?”

her mom laughs indulgently, like she’s already said something funny. her stomach sinks further.

“oh, sweetheart,” she tells her, “don’t worry, it won’t matter. you just will.”

iii.

people ask him about it. a lot.

it gets difficult to keep it a secret as things change around him, but raleigh’s careful to avoid slip-ups and paparazzi photos and he doesn’t say a word about it in interviews, even when he’s asked directly. he’s never seen without short sleeves on, at the very least, and he doesn’t even tell blair and cameron about it.

he sort of wishes he had, though, because as his life turns upside down and he adapts to a new country with a new set of rules and an industry that makes his head spin most of the time it starts to feel more and more confusing, those three words -- what’s your name?

everywhere he goes, thousands of girls blocking the street scream it at him. so how is it possible that whoever’s waiting to meet him doesn’t already know it?

and what does that mean for how the rest of his life is going to turn out?

what if all of this -- the fame and the money and the notoriety -- is fleeting, and he’s only a few short years from being completely washed up and irrelevant? what if the day he’s meant to meet his person is so far away that he’ll be completely out of the spotlight, by then, with sunset skatepark playing reunion tours and him having spent most of his life alone?

it’s a lot of pressure, for someone who’s already working their way through such a serious adjustment, and most of the time it’s dizzying, thinking about the fact that there’s someone out there who’s supposed to be perfect for him, when everyone he meets seems determined to forget every word they know other than yes, so they can suck up to him as much as possible.

his teenage years fly by in a whirlwind of mistakes and regrets. there’s things he would’ve never dreamed would come his way, like world tours and more money than he can count and so many girls who know everything about him before they even sit down to dinner, but there’s more than that, too.

there’s all the ways the industry weakens his trust until it’s gone, all the people who try to use him for what he can do for them, all the times he stumbles until he finally learns to distance himself by cultivating a persona, by leaning into all the expectations of raleigh carrera and creating something so outlandish it doesn’t hurt as much when disaster follows him around because it’s supposed to.

he watches everything that surrounds him turn fake and plastic and puts his energy only into his music, coasting on the rest. the days are less exciting than when he first joined the band at fifteen; he’s a solo artist, now, and most of the time, he’s just trying to get through.

but chaos continues to follow him and eventually his notoriety is inescapable. his first solo album is self-titled and he somehow manages to get a trademark on the word raleigh, as if the name is now more his than anything that ever belonged to the state of north carolina, and part of him sort of expects the words stamped on his arm to change, once he hits one-hundred million followers on his social channels.

they never do, though, and when he’s alone, and the veneer he’s built up for everyone else fades away, he can’t help but to be fascinated by this person who just wants an answer to the question no one else would ever dare ask him.

iv.

college isn’t exactly the fresh start she was hoping it’d be.

she was a loser in high school and things don’t get much better for her even now that she’s with ‘her people’ at a performing arts university she can barely afford, even with two part-time jobs.

shane is across the country at a proper state school with parties and a social life and lots of friends who aren’t her, and she’s failing her improv class, proving that she isn’t actually very funny at all.

boys continue to not notice her and patrons in bars continue to turn away from her one-woman performance, her old acoustic guitar the only constant in a life that feels utterly, unbelievably pointless, most of the time.

it’s like she’s drifting through the days, putting her time in at college in the hopes that it’ll fortify her for what’s next -- her big break, the discovery that’ll get her out of that shitty small town she’s been trying to escape her entire life. she writes hundreds of songs about how lost she feels and hates every single one, dreaming of a time when things might be different and she doesn’t have to second-guess every single one of her decisions.

she doesn’t have much of a love life and tries not to think about that, either.

the person on the other side of those two words stuck on her collarbone is probably looking for someone self-confident, who knows who they are and is comfortable with that. they’re probably expecting to meet someone who has their life together, who, at the very least, has a plan.

they’re probably not expecting a talentless nobody screwup like her, someone who tries as hard as she can yet never seems to make anything work.

things don’t turn around after graduation, either. sure, she manages to find an apartment in a building that’s nice enough and uses the last of her savings on the deposit and trying to furnish it, but it’s only a few weeks of trying and failing to secure a regular paying gig performing before she’s back at smoothie star again, begging for her old job back.

and there’s nothing that makes her feel more like a failure than working the same shifts she had in high school.

as she hums along to the radio on a random tuesday afternoon when the store is dead and there’s nothing to blend, she wonders what mr.-or-mrs. very funny would think if they walked in and saw her here -- twenty-three years old and flat broke, with a dead-end job and a one-bedroom apartment all she has to show for her very expensive and very useless bachelor’s degree.

that, and a notebook full of half-finished songs about relationships she could only ever dream about and an escape from the miserable small town she lives in that feels farther away with every day that passes.

she can’t imagine they’d be very impressed.

raleigh’s life gets monotonous very quickly. the music takes a backseat to the scandals and for a while there’s a predictable pattern of cause trouble, clean up image, rinse and repeat.

there are girls in between the cycles to help him pass the time. some he likes well enough and some he despises, but for the most part his management gives their recommendations and he agrees and makes awkward conversation for an hour or two over brunch until it’s time to go trash something again.

things get particularly bad after one minor cruise ship hijacking incident.

but in his defense, no one ever told him that breaking into the harbor and joy riding was a first-degree felony, worsened by the fact that he’d just so happened to crash the boat into the pier while he was trying to dock it.

at least he’d been sober.

though a monumental fuck up like this felt sort of inevitable; everyone who knew him probably figured it was only a matter of time before he went too far. how could he not when he was always chasing the next high?

still, the image rehab tour that follows is far from what he’d call enjoyable. he has to cut off all his hair and play nice at industry parties and waste time standing around being seen at charity events he winds up just cutting checks for instead of helping out at.

on top of the miserable community service comes the pr bullshit his team so loves -- dozens of tv appearances back-to-back where he’s herded around all day like cattle, in and out of green rooms with crappy coffee and bad catering.

he has no idea that showing up to be a judge on one in a million is going to change his life. hungover and running late, he barely even makes it to the taping of the semi-finals, slinking inside the concert hall in middle-of-nowhere, usa with a headache and some choice words for whoever thought this was the best way to clean up his image.

fortunately, raleigh manages to make his way inside virtually unnoticed. his phone is buzzing angrily in his pocket -- undoubtedly his manager trying to encourage him to hair and makeup or some other absurdity -- but he ignores it in favor of ducking back behind the line near the auditorium doors, only barely catching the last few words of some catty confrontation between two contestants as he goes.

as one of the girls stomps away, he sees the other’s shoulders slump from behind. “guess i’m not making any friends,” she mutters.

it’s clearly said to no one -- not even to herself, really -- yet for some reason, he can’t stop himself from responding. “where i come from, that’s a good thing.”

the girl’s shoulders straighten, but she still doesn’t turn around. “i’m not trying to succeed at the cost of others.”

raleigh smirks, leaning back against the wall beside his guitar case. “you do realize you’re at a competition show, right?”

“of course, but...” her hair ruffles with what sounds like a huff. she’s still not facing him, staring off at where the other girl she’d been talking to had run away. “that doesn’t mean i’m not rooting for everyone here to share their music with the world.”

“what a sweet sentiment,” raleigh drawls sarcastically, almost feeling a little bad for her and her naivety. this poor girl is going to be eaten alive. “it won’t last.”

her body tenses, her shoulders tightening again. he can almost see smoke start to pour from her ears before she spins suddenly on her heel to face him.

whatever sharp retort had been on the tip of her tongue gets swallowed with a blink as soon as their eyes meet. something like electricity crackles in the space between them, strengthening the invisible pull he’d felt when he first stopped behind her. instead, she only asks, “what’s your name?”

vi.

the man in front of her snorts. “very funny.”

a smile tugs at her lips. “very funny, that’s a weird name.” this is unlike her -- the quick comeback, the flirting. usually being face-to-face with a guy as good looking as the one talking to her now made her want to wither away and die, but something about the stranger standing before her sets her instantly at ease. “so, are you gonna tell me, or not?”

now it’s his turn to blink at her. a hand lifts to rub at his jaw. “huh. you really don’t know who i am, do you?”

cadence’s eyes narrow as she assess him. there is something vaguely familiar about that crooked grin, she’s sure of it.

at the very least, it’s an excuse to stare at him, and she does, moving her eyes slowly over the tattoos poking out over his jacket collar, the line of stubble on his sharp jaw, the glint of mischief in his eyes.

her helpless gaping is interrupted by a sudden shrill scream. “oh. my. god! is that raleigh carrera?!”

everything clicks at once. as a wild group of girls corner him, she realizes where she’s seen that smile before -- on just about every tabloid cover known to man, plastered all over convenience stores and the internet with headlines about his latest bender. in fact, she’s pretty sure he was just in the news for something similar -- crashing a yacht or something else ridiculous like that, something that only someone as rich as raleigh carrera could have accomplished.

then she realizes what he’d said to her, as soon as she’d turned to look him in the eyes. very funny.

her heart stops. all she can do is stare wide-eyed at him as he dispels the girls clamoring for a selfie, snapping back to the present when he waves one large hand in front of her face.

“sorry -- what?”

“i said, what’s your name? it only seems fair, now that you know mine, and all.”

“cadence,” she answers numbly, “i’m -- um, i’m used to your hair being longer.”

“cadence,” raleigh repeats, smiling at her, “so you do know who i am.”

“what do the magazines call you again? r&b’s time bomb? puerto rico’s hottest export? you’re kind of notorious.” she blinks at him, then admits, “i’ve heard your songs.”

“seen the tabloid covers too, eh?” the expression on his face suggests he’s almost proud of them.

this is surreal.

“didn’t you crash a yacht or something?” she asks, brain whirring into overdrive as she tries to process what’s happening. he doesn’t seem to have realized it yet, which gives her a moment to gather her thoughts, something that feels impossible when she can’t push the way he’d scoffed very funny out of her mind.

“or something. insurance paid out a couple million in property damage, but...” raleigh trails off, brow suddenly furrowing. he stares at her silently for a beat too long, then slowly turns a dull red. “hey, what’d you say earlier, again?”

cadence wets her dry lips, trying not to panic. stay calm, she silently coaches herself. raleigh carrera is not your long-awaited soulmate and you are not doing this in line to audition for one in a million. “i said -- what’s your name? and then you said...”

oh god, this is happening. her teeth dig into her bottom lip as she fidgets with the neckline of her top, tugging it to the side so raleigh can see the two words on her collarbone.

“very funny,” he mutters, “oh, jesus fucking christ. you can’t be serious.”

“me?” she demands, “you’re the one who --”

“next up,” calls a voice suddenly, cutting sharply through their argument, “contestant #9,276.”

her blood runs cold as she realizes that’s the number she’s wearing pinned to her shirt. she can feel herself start to sweat; how the fuck is she supposed to perform like this? she wants to throw up. why did this have to happen to her now? this was her shot -- her one fucking chance --

“hey, easy.” there’s suddenly two strong hands on either side of her shoulders, and she startles as raleigh stares at her from up close, closer than he was just a moment ago. “relax, okay? you’re gonna be fine. you’ve got this.”

“but --” she starts, then realizes her mind is racing too quickly to even articulate what she wants to say. she settles for shaking her head, eyes wide and panicked. “i can’t just -- oh my god, i’m going to throw up.”

“here,” raleigh directs, “take my guitar. prince gave it to me as a birthday present.”

prince?! she mouths hysterically to herself, as he flips the latch on his case open and pulls out the instrument. “how is this supposed to help me?”

“just trust me,” he says, giving her a gentle nudge towards the auditorium, “now go.”

she does, stumbling forward with the most expensive piece of equipment she’s ever held in her hands in her life alongside her, drawing in a deep breath as she makes her way onto the stage.

she can do this.

everything else will have to come after.

vii.

the thing is -- she’s talented. exceptionally so.

he can tell she’s a little nervous, but maybe that’s just because he’s used to looking out for that sort of thing; he could probably recognize it more easily than the average person would. it probably has nothing to do with who they are, how he notices the nuances in her body language...

her belt is impressive. her voice is stunning, clear and uniquely melodic. his guitar looks spectacular in her hands, and cadence plays it like she’s been practicing on it her entire life.

he tries his best to look nonchalant, feet kicked up onto the seat in front of him, but when she locks eyes with him from the stage he knows he hasn’t succeeded. raleigh’s breath catches, and he stares back at her, transfixed by the way her dainty hands cradle the neck of the guitar and strum the strings, how her lips purse around the long, emotional high note at the end of the song’s chorus.

she’s really very pretty.

he’d probably be lying to himself if he said it doesn’t make him a little bit jealous and uncomfortable, watching how she and avery fawn over each other when she’s finished. he’s probably a much better suited match for her, clean cut and pristine as he is.

he wonders if she’s disappointed that it’s him -- that it’s now, when she’s clearly on the cusp of something great all on her own.

it’s a lot to think about, and so he dips out of the auditorium before she finishes up, rushing outside with his heart pounding. it’s not until he’s halfway through the crumpled pack of cigarettes in his jacket pocket that raleigh starts to relax even an iota, and of course that’s when the stage door he’d left propped swings open wide and cadence’s sneakers hit the asphalt beside his boots.

“uh, you can’t just leave me with this thing,” she says, apropos of nothing, and as he stares at her he realizes she’s talking about his guitar, which she’s holding in one hand like it’s a dead fish. “this costs more than everything in my apartment combined, i’m sure.”

he shakes his head at her, laughing as his fingers flick ash from the cigarette he’s holding. “no way -- you should keep it. you two looked perfect together.”

she hesitates, looking down at the instrument again. he can see in her eyes that she’s torn; it’s obvious she knows the right thing to do is to refuse a generous gift from a stranger, but she wants to keep it, and already his mind is racing as he considers what else he could give her that would excite her like that -- a private flight, a tour of his penthouse, a million dollars.

“are you sure?” cadence asks, without looking at him, and the hesitancy in her voice makes him realize how unsure she really is. she’s the one who’s wondering if he’s disappointed in her.

he licks his suddenly dry lips and drops what’s left of his cigarette to the ground, finding he doesn’t actually need the rest of it, anymore. “positive.”

viii.

they don’t actually get to spend a lot of time together, while she’s filming. she has to focus and it seems like she’s always busy, somehow -- not that she sees raleigh very often in the first place.

the days are spent rehearsing with avery and cramming in as much mentoring as possible, and when she can pull herself away from fiona’s lessons on image to get home at a reasonable hour she collapses into bed pretty much immediately, out like a light from the whirlwind of the day and hardly even aware enough to dream.

but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t think about him. she does, especially on the rare occasions she manages to catch a glimpse of raleigh walking around in the studio, or on one memorable evening she stays late in the auditorium to bang on the piano keys of the beautiful, enviable baby grand on set and startles to find him leaning in the doorway, watching her play.

it’s all a blur and wildly difficult to process; just when she thinks she has a grip on things she remembers the private moments she’s had with raleigh and her emotions tumble to pieces again as she lets the weight of the implications of what’s going on between them crush her completely.

one moment sticks out on her as being particularly worrisome, insofar as how it bodes for the rest of her life.

it feels like something significant from the moment raleigh offers to help her warm up; they’ve hardly had a moment alone together in days and she still has absolutely no idea how she’s supposed to talk to him or what she should say, but for some reason the conversation flows easily and she hardly has to think about the (no doubt incredibly stupid-sounding) words coming out of her mouth.

“you’re going to kill it,” raleigh says finally, once they’ve worked through all the exercises in his arsenal, “you really don’t need my help.”

never in her wildest dreams did she ever imagine someone like him would say something like that to her. “you think?”

“i know it,” he answers confidently, shrugging his shoulders like it’s that simple. “and you should, too.”

there’s a moment of silence where they just stand there staring at each other, ignoring the restless murmuring of the crowd outside that’s waiting for him to slip into his seat at the judge’s table. she’s effortlessly lost in raleigh’s eyes, so fixated on the intensity of his gaze that she doesn’t realize he’s leaning in closer until it’s too late.

“insurance policy,” he mutters, before he kisses her, hands cupping her face gently.

for a split second, she stands frozen, shocked totally still. then, her brain reboots enough to propel her into motion, and cadence gets with the program enough to wind her arms around raleigh’s waist and pull him closer and kiss him back, until her heart’s lurched up into the throat she’d just been warming up, pounding relentlessly.

they make out until the roar of the crowd is deafening -- until it’s impossible not to acknowledge it any longer.

of course raleigh’s a life-ruiningly good kisser. why wouldn’t he be? why should any of this be easy?

it’s only a few simple touches, but raleigh’s mouth leaves her dizzy and lightheaded when she’s supposed to be concentrating on performing, and, independently of the way she’s blinking at him in stupid shock, cadence already knows she’ll never be able to kiss anyone else ever again without thinking about him.

“i have to get out there,” she gasps between desperate presses of their lips against each other, grasping ineffectively at his clothes while his fingers tug her hair out of shape.

“be late,” he suggests, “it always works for me.”

but she’s not him. she’s not like him -- they have nothing in common. they come from different worlds; they’re two completely opposite people.

and yet every minute with raleigh is like coming up for air after being underwater for years, like the knots of guilt and shame and awkward embarrassment she’s carried around for her entire life without understanding why she has them are slowly starting to undo themselves, unlaced by his careful fingers.

they make it out there. eventually.

before she knows it, confetti’s raining down from the ceiling and falling all over her, and she locks eyes with raleigh from across the room to find his lips pulled into a genuinely affectionate grin -- lips that she’d just kissed for the first time a fucking hour ago and, seriously, what is her life now -- his eyes bright and excited.

things just keep getting weirder and weirder, but the way they’re beaming at each other like idiots in a room full of thousands, broadcast on national television, too, makes her think things might be pretty great, too.

ix.

it sort of takes them a long time to getting around to talking about it -- the soulmate thing.

it’s not that he doesn’t try. he does, but she’s got a lot going on, these days: a big move and a new record deal and days filled with songwriting and nights out being seen. he’s still on his image cleanup tour, while she’s at it, so his fake smile stays fixed on his face throughout another boring week of restaurant openings and charity events and talkshow appearances before he finally gets the chance to spend some time with her again.

they text here and there, but nothing pans out until the stars align and they manage to slip out of the back door of a nightclub unnoticed together after a night of dancing too close for the comfort of her publicist while avery and the others cause a commotion at the front entrance to distract the press.

she goes back to his penthouse with him. he can’t remember the last time he brought a girl back to his apartment just to talk, and especially not one who spent the better part of the evening in a sparkly minidress grinding against him.

but here they are.

“so -- how’s the city treating you?” raleigh asks, pouring them both a drink he doesn’t want from the bar cart in the corner of the room for something to do with his hands.

cadence shrugs from where she’s perched on the edge of his sofa, tugging at the hem of her dress. “good, i guess. it’s honestly all kind of overwhelming.”

“yeah,” he nods, passing her one of the glasses in his hands and taking a seat on the ottoman in front of her, close enough to see her face in perfect clarity but still maintaining a distance that he hopes is respectful. “i know what you mean. when i first came here after joining sunset skatepark everything felt so... huge.”

“totally,” cadence answers quickly, nodding in a way that’s almost aggressive. “i mean, there’s so much pressure to deliver an album right away, but i want it to be perfect, and the studio is so different from, like, writing songs in my room at home, and i... i guess i feel kind of homesick, but -- not for my hometown. i hated that place.” there’s hesitancy in her gaze when she asks, “do you know what i mean?”

“yeah,” raleigh says again stupidly, because the truth is -- he knows exactly what she means. cadence has just articulated something he could never quite put into words better than he’d even thought the sentiments to himself. “it’s like... nostalgia for something you don’t even want.”

“exactly,” she breathes emphatically, and then they’re kissing again, and she’s in his lap on the ottoman and he definitely brought her here to talk, for sure, but is it really so terrible if they get a little sidetracked on the way to their destination?

well -- they wind up making out for hours. so, there’s that.

it’s not part of the plan but it’s a hell of a side quest, memorizing the shape and feel of her with his hands while her lips pull every last bit of breath from his lungs, until he’s lightheaded and dizzy in a way no other girl has ever made him, before. it’s to the point where when he finally finds it within himself to push her away, he’s uncharacteristically nervous -- something that’s never happened to him before, not even on the night he lost his virginity.

“i really did ask you over to talk,” he says, voice hoarse.

cadence licks her lips and then beams at him, eyes sparkling. “i know.” she shuffles delicately back onto the couch, lingering in his lap for only a moment before pulling away entirely. he stuffs his hands under his thighs to stop himself from reaching out for her again. “sorry i haven’t been around more.”

“you don’t have to apologize.” raleigh shakes his head. “i should be apologizing to you, i feel like... i should be the one who’s around, to help you with all of this. or at least -- i want to be. i don’t know if i’ll be any good at it.”

he blinks, surprised by his own honesty. he hadn’t meant to say all of that, but the words came up before he was cognizant of them and now they’re out there, and there’s no taking them back -- especially with the way she’s looking at him, all soft and sweet and happy.

“well, you don’t have to be good at it,” cadence murmurs, reaching out for his wrists and tugging his hands free so she can interlock their fingers effortlessly. they fit together like puzzle pieces. “you just have to be you.”

her budding relationship with one of the biggest names in r&b doesn’t have much time to bud at all before it’s rudely plucked from the plant and stepped on.

she finds herself blinking at fiona in confusion as the words take some time to process. “you want me to do what?”

xi.

raleigh balks at his manager, shaking his head emphatically. “no,” he spits out, “absolutely not.”

xii.

“cadence, it’s not a big deal,” fiona tells her, very nearly rolling her eyes. “everyone does it. you go on a few dates, play up the relationship for some photos, social media eats it up -- boom, you’re a star.”

“i don’t know,” she answers hesitantly, mind drifting back to the photographers that have already been following her around, screaming about avery when she ducks into the car with him. things with raleigh are... new, and complicated, and do they really need to add public scrutiny into the mix as well? “i just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“it’s a great idea,” fiona sighs, shaking her head. “all our focus groups agree. the label thinks it’s best, what with your single taking so long to put out.” she opens her mouth to protest -- it’s not like she’s dragging her feet on purpose -- but barely has a second to get a word out before fiona continues, “besides, raleigh does this all the time.”

her teeth bite at her bottom lip uncertainly. “he does?”

“of course. chantal clearwater? she was a pictagram model when they met, and now she’s opening shows at paris fashion week. it’s just business.”

it’s not, though. it could never be just anything, for reasons no one else knows about except the two of them, for reasons she’ll never tell. “well... what did raleigh say about it?”

xiii.

“i said no, frank.” he’s annoyed, now, and his manager knows it, raleigh’s arms folded across his chest and his eyes set into a glare. “n. o. no.”

“and i hear you, but is it really the end of the world? she’s exactly what we’re going for, and i know you already get along --”

“which is exactly why i don’t want to do this. so pick someone else. anyone else.” he’s not going to let his label turn her into one of the girls he has to be seen with for fake photos and mutually beneficial positive press.

for so many years, he’s watched people fake feelings and use each other -- willingly participated in the using himself, too, more times than he can count. he never cared about any of it before.

but being with cadence doesn’t feel fake, and he doesn’t ever want it to. and he knows that if he agrees to this, everything he enjoys about spending time with her will disappear in favor of the ugly, plastic decay that’s eaten away at so many of his personal and professional relationships before. organic, genuine time with her will become strolls near celebrity hotspots, angling just right to help the cameras get the perfect shot. he’ll show up to support her at shows because her publicist called him, and their time together will become some manufactured narrative meant to push their labels’ agenda, until six months down the line they don’t even recognize themselves or what might’ve been if they’d done things a different way.

“look, there isn’t anyone else. her team’s already agreed to it, and i’ve got brunch set up for sunday. all you have to do is play nice for two fucking months, raleigh. is that so impossible for you?”

yes. already he feels a deep-seated desire to go somewhere and break something, to tear through the flower beds in central park with his motorcycle and wink at the cameras when they catch up to him.

instead, he storms out of the office he’s in, and into the sunlight, tugging the hood on his jacket up and melting into the crowd on the corner so he can be as anonymous as possible when he picks up his phone and calls cadence.

“hey raleigh,” she chirps as soon as she picks up, sounding far too cheerful for someone who’s likely had an equally as miserable early morning meeting on a friday. “guessing you heard the news?”

“can’t i just call you to say hi?” he grumbles, ducking his head as he strolls through the intersection with the mob of people crowded along fifth ave, turning down the next side street so he’s alone again, with no one following, just like that.

“well, you can,” she teases, and some of the anger he’s carrying around with him fades, dissipating into nothing and evaporating like smoke. “but you’re not.”

“no, i’m not,” he agrees with a sigh, shaking his head. “you sound surprisingly cool with it, though.”

“should i not be?” cadence laughs, but he can detect a thread of nervousness in her tone. “i already want to hang out with you. we have the same friends and work in the same industry. we’re... probably going to go on dates anyway, so... how hard can this be?”

god. she has absolutely no idea. part of him thinks it’d be cruel to burst her bubble, but he should warn her, shouldn’t he?

she sounds so optimistic about it, though. it’s hard to feel anything but hopeful when her voice turns up like that at the end. in the back of his mind, there’s a voice that’s not his suggesting maybe this time, things will be different.

surely he knows better than to think something as ridiculous as that, though, right?

“well, i guess it’ll be interesting, at least,” he muses, slowing his steps by the entrance to the subway.

he’s going to lose his signal just as soon as he heads underground, and he’s not quite ready for that, yet.

xiv.

time with raleigh flies by.

it doesn’t feel like they’re fake-dating -- they do everything she hopes he’d want to do with her anyway, like go out to eat at fancy restaurants and take walks through the park and bounce melodies for songs off of each other, facetiming late at night from their apartments or on the days he visits her and micah in the studio.

he’s by her side for the release of her first single, and her first music video, and through it all, raleigh plays the role of the doting partner perfectly, holding her purse on the red carpet and feeding her paella at a strategically-placed outdoor table and fetching her coffee order when she’s too busy to stop writing for even just five minutes.

in the blink of an eye, it’s time to put out her album -- just like that.

raleigh’s perfectly charming through that process, too. he shows up on time, says all the right things, and keeps a drink in her hand all evening long, so that when she’s finally done making the rounds and can enjoy herself after the entertainment and the networking and the schmoozing she’s giggly and touchy, doing her best to steal him away from the crowd.

“what were your other relationships like?” she asks, half expecting him to brush her off, though he’s always indulged her before. they’ve never really gotten this personal. “fake or... otherwise.”

“they’ve all been fake,” he shrugs, “and i can say with confidence that you’re the best one i’ve ever had.”

“really?” cadence smiles, chin propped up on her hand as she leans over the bar. “be honest. what did you really think, when you realized it was me?”

“what?” he asks, pushing the empty rocks glass in his hands around on the bar top, “you mean this thing?” he gestures at his arm, covered in expensive, custom tom ford, and the tattoo laying innocently beneath it.

“uh huh,” she confirms, “‘cause i was totally like oh shit.”

raleigh laughs, loud and wild, the sound swallowed up by the noise of the party around them. no one nearby is paying them even an ounce of attention, and it’s fun, to be anonymous at her own party, invisible to everyone in the room except for him. “i can imagine. i wouldn’t want to be stuck with me either.”

cadence shakes her head -- that’s not what she’d meant. but before she can protest, he rolls his glass between his palms and thoughtfully continues, “i guess i was a little surprised. it felt like i’d been waiting forever to meet you, so part of me was like, fuck, we’re doing this now? and i never thought it’d be someone so...”

“boring?” she suggests, eyebrows arching when raleigh’s expression immediately twists into one of disagreement, his nose scrunching up with distaste.

“no,” he huffs, “so... good, i guess.” she stares at him as he reaches for one of the waiting tequila shots on the bar, pulling it away from the line he’d set up for the crowd he’d been with before she’d tugged him to the side to talk, leaving the drinks untouched. raleigh knocks the shot back -- no salt, no lime. he’s had twice as many drinks as she has, and she’s definitely feeling them -- she has no idea how he’s even still upright, no worse for wear other than a few slurred words here and there. “but you just are. it’s like every song i’ve ever written was about you, and i just didn’t know it yet.”

the noise of the party fades in favor of the pounding of her heart, loud like a kick drum in her ears. she bites her lip and stares at him, watching as raleigh shakes his head at himself, dazed. “you okay?” she asks quietly, leaning in a little across the bar.

raleigh’s quiet for so long she has to wonder whether or not he actually heard her. just as she clears her throat and opens her mouth to repeat herself even louder, he nods, reaching across the bar and squeezing her hand before dragging her back over to the line of tequila shots waiting for them to enjoy.

the night is a blur after that, and there’s patches of the evening that are fuzzy in her memory the next morning, but she knows she’ll never forget the gentle kiss goodnight raleigh gives her when he helps her stumble into the car back to her apartment at dawn.

xv.

things go really well, until they don’t.

they have a blissful six months together with more fun than he’s ever had with anyone. slowly, he learns every single thing about cadence and returns her openness with honesty of his own -- honesty that feels strange and unfamiliar but weirdly thrilling, in a way, made easier every time one of his stories pulls a laugh or smile from her.

it seems unnatural, having a honeymoon period that goes on for so long. in the entire time they’re dating, he doesn’t destroy a single thing -- doesn’t even want to, which is the weirdest part of it all.

there are some moments that catch him completely off guard. more than a few times, he hardly even recognizes himself, she turns him into such a different person.

he doesn’t hate it, though -- just the opposite, in fact. raleigh realizes he’s really starting to like the carefree, far from jaded person he is when he’s with her, though it only hits him for real when he’s watching her storm away from him on liberty island, eyes fixed on the angry sway of her hips.

he stews on it on the long ride back to his penthouse; the game had, admittedly, been starting to wear on him. but he’d gone along with it because it was supposed to benefit her -- he’d agreed to the stupid public breakup and following the rules and not seeing cadence in public for the foreseeable future because it was what she wanted, and -- frankly, it felt like a stupid fucking decision.

not that it lasts long. he starts texting her just as soon as he’s done washing electralite out of his hair and doesn’t make it more than twenty minutes when they first see each other again at the moda gala before he’s sneaking off with her, ducking under the velvet rope that demarcates the planetarium as ‘off limits’ with her hand tucked neatly in his.

“maybe this is better,” cadence muses between sips of her drink, her eyes on one of the stupid glass exhibits he couldn’t possibly care less about. “now we can just be together -- no pressure. our relationship is ours again.”

their relationship. is that what this is? they’ve spent a lot of time talking about who they are and what they like and don’t like, kissing and touching and holding hands. throughout it all, he’s done his best not to buy into the ‘soulmate’ bullshit too heavily, but over the last few months it’s been hard to deny that there’s a reason he was meant to meet her, that she’s been changing him from the inside out.

“what’s on your mind?” she asks, turning towards him with an open look of genuine curiosity on her face, like she really wants to know.

“it’s nothing,” raleigh answers at first, reflexively, like he has so many times before. no one has ever really wanted to know. but cadence’s eyebrows arch, and she waits, patiently silent, and then the words tumble out of him. “it’s just that -- my whole life, i’ve watched other people use each other. so many people are just interested in the concept of celebrity status. so i played the game. never trusting anyone.”

he shrugs. a hand lifts to rub his jaw, and he looks back to meet her gaze just in time to see the little smile playing at her lips, like she already knows what he’s about to say. “but it’s different, with you. you make me not want to be that person anymore. when i’m with you, it’s the only time i feel anything real.”

“raleigh,” she murmurs, her expression flickering before her face does something that cracks his chest wide open. her eyes go all shiny and sparkly and her cheeks crease with a grin, and the way she laughs is so ridiculously joyful the hand he has stuffed in his pocket curls into a fist to stop him from doing something stupid. “i feel the same way. i just... this whole thing, i know it doesn’t always -- work out, but... with you i really want it to. i’ve never felt this way before about anyone, and i think...”

there’s a pause as her lips purse thoughtfully, and then she says the words that make it impossible for him to do anything but close the distance between them and kiss her over and over again: “i think even without this tattoo it’d be you, anytime, anywhere.”

xvi.

being raleigh carrera’s (real, confirmed, 100%-authentic) girlfriend feels almost too good to be true.

raleigh is... everything she never knew she wanted in a boyfriend, wrapped up into one tall, dark and handsome package, with a loud, goofy laugh and a deep, sexy voice that sends a shiver down her spine whenever his mouth so much as lingers near her ear for too long.

it turns out that, despite their differing status in the industry and her initial assumptions that they came from two completely different worlds, they’re actually on the same page about pretty much everything. she finds that the pressure of the word she’d held in such high regard for so long -- soulmate -- disappears entirely where he’s concerned because being with raleigh is just fun.

there’s motorcycle rides and boat trips and hours up late talking about everything and nothing; facetime calls with his mom and shopping trips where the stores are kept open late for them so they can shop alone, in an empty boutique, like every teen movie she’d ever watched growing up.

there’s late nights in the studio and either of their apartments where they both noodle around on their guitars and improvise half-hearted duets, content to just work in the same orbit as each other for as long as possible.

raleigh’s texting one night on the couch in her living room when she plucks out the melody to who i’ll be on her old acoustic, sitting on the floor in front of the tv.

he looks up before the first verse is over. “what’s that one? it sounds good.”

“oh -- just a song i wrote in college,” cadence hums, already downplaying it as she lifts her shoulder in a shrug. “i got stuck, never finished it. ellis made me sell the progress for some other writer to finish.”

he frowns, pushing up onto his elbow. his phone is tossed carelessly somewhere among the couch cushions. “why?”

“because i was taking too long with the odyssey,” she sighs. “it was kind of my only option. it’s weird, though -- thinking about someone singing something that was so personal to me.”

“play me what you had so far,” he says, and so she does, hesitating for only a second before strumming the chords, singing the lines she had slowly.

when she’s done, she looks up to find that raleigh’s slid to the edge of the couch, elbows on his knees as he leans in as close as he can get with the coffee table in his way. “okay -- that was beautiful. you should finish it.”

she shakes her head, setting her guitar down. “i can’t. they already sold it. and even if i wanted to... i don’t know how it ends.”

raleigh’s legs spread in invitation and she stands to walk around to the couch, slipping into his lap and leaning back against his chest. his hands are tender as he rubs them across her shoulders, sliding up her back before one lifts to brush a lock of hair back behind her ear, his pointer finger pushing her glasses up her nose affectionately. “maybe one day you can write something else with the same theme,” he suggests, and she tries her best to smile even though it feels like a dream lost, somehow -- a ridiculous thought, given that she pretty much has everything she ever wanted, but the way she feels all the same.

“maybe,” she sighs, the kiss he drops to her forehead a bandaid on a wound that’s been doing its best to heal for what feels like her entire life.

xvii.

he’s never brought a date to the vinyls before.

there’s been plenty of after parties he’s stumbled out of with a girl on his arm, sure, but cadence is the first person to sit by his side during the ceremony, and he’s surprised by how much he likes having her next to him.

then again, he’s self aware enough to realize he’d like being pretty much anywhere, with her.

still -- the awards are a lot less boring with her around to kiss and stroke his hair and make snide commentary about the rest of the attendees with, and when she squeezes his hand goodbye to rush backstage and get ready for her performance he misses her instantly.

what happens next makes him endlessly regretful of the fact that he’s not backstage with her.

he rushes around just as soon as he can, pushing his way through security and frantically scrambling technical assistants to find her exactly where he thought he might, between ellis knight and fiona, looking lost with her head in her hands.

she seems equal parts broken and pissed in a way that tugs at his heartstrings and makes him a little bit proud. raleigh shoves through the crowd to get to her and slips an arm around her waist. he’s only caught the tail end of the conversation they’re all having, but he knows enough to know that “you can’t bench her. that’s bull.”

ultimately, though, it doesn’t matter how much they stomp their feet. she’s under contract, their hands are tied, and he walks away seething at the unfairness of it all, this shitty industry that’s turned on her when all she ever wanted to do was make music.

she cries in the car back to her apartment to pack her things. there’s no way he’s letting her go home to iowa or idaho or indiana without him, and he barks at his team over the phone until they agree to move his appearances around so he can make that happen, his free hand clasped tightly in hers until he physically has to let her go so she can unlock her front door with trembling fingers.

cadence tosses clothes haphazardly onto the bed and he silently and precisely moves to folds each piece for her, until she gives up and sinks down onto the edge of the mattress, defeated.

wide eyes filled with tears lock onto his, and he watches her bottom lip wobble before she says, “you really don’t have to do this. come with me, i mean. i know i messed up, and -- you have so much else going on. i don’t expect you to --”

“i’m coming,” he states firmly, setting the sweatpants in his hand down and stepping closer to her, sitting beside cadence on her bed. “what happened tonight was fucked up, cadence -- it shouldn’t have happened at all. i’m not going to let you go through this alone.”

“but --”

“but nothing,” he says, and before the words have even left his mouth she’s falling into his arms with a soft sound of gratitude, mashing her face into his chest as she sniffles.

“thank you,” cadence mumbles, sounding so unsure of herself it makes him wonder if she’s ever had anyone show up for her when it mattered most before, or if that’s yet another thing they unfortunately have in common.

xviii.

raleigh tries his best to cheer her up, but it’s still hard, feeling like she’s let the entire world down. her fans. herself.

there’s something embarrassing about showing raleigh her apartment back home and the person she was before she met him -- all the places she felt most uncertain and where she experienced some her worst self-doubt, the room that still has the smoothie star apron hung up in the closet.

but there’s also something exciting, about being totally off the grid with him. no one knows they’re here and there’s no paparazzi waiting to snap photos of them -- especially given the fact that they don’t leave her building for the first three days she spends moping around while raleigh orders all the takeout he can get his hands on.

it sort of reminds her of when they first met, and there was nothing to do but learn about each other, though now there’s a familiarity to him she relies on, a unique raleigh-ness that feels more like home than this shitty apartment ever did.

still, she struggles, and the weight of the world doesn’t let up until zadie shows up with her fanmail and avery does his best to make her smile with a beach trip and some fancy new toys and a day in the sun with a drink in her hand.

eventually it’s just her and raleigh again, out by the fire after everyone else has gone to bed. her stomach is full of s’mores and her cheeks hurt from smiling for the first time in weeks, and it’s a shock when she realizes she feels content, even after everything that’s happened -- almost as though things will all work out for the better no matter what happens next.

“oh my god,” she gasps suddenly, cutting off what raleigh had been saying as her eyes light up and she hastens to stand. “i’ve gotta -- i need to -- oh my god.”

just like that, she knows how her song ends.

recording it is a process, but raleigh calls in some favors and gets them studio time and agrees to be featured on the song even though she knows he’s still working through a sound change that he feels unsure about.

but it means a lot to her, having him crammed in the booth at her side, singing into the same mic. they sound almost unbelievably good together, too, raleigh’s harmonies on the words that finally resolve that lost feeling she’s been harboring her entire life making something deep within her wriggle up happily, wagging its proverbial tail.

the fact that raleigh remains by her side throughout the entire fight with her label, the long nights of despair agonizing over what her next move is going to be and even the moment where they decide to break into indio, of all places, means more to her than she can ever say. she feels markedly less nervous about the entire thing every time she turns her head to the side and sees him, right there next to her -- right where he’s been this entire time -- smiling encouragingly and squeezing her hand hard in his.

though it’s not until they’re up at the top of the ferris wheel that she realizes how precious what she has really is. it’s not until he looks her dead in the eye and says, with that same soft earnestness he’s awarded her since they first met at the one in a million auditions that feel quite literally like a hundred years ago, “cadence, everything you want is on the other side of fear. and i want you to have everything you want,” that she truly understands that’s what between them is special and rare.

not because of any tattoos, or any preconceived destiny. not because of who they are and their status and the fact that people take pictures of them when they’re out in public together.

but because of this -- all these real moments of genuine connection they’ve been fortunate enough to share since fate threw them into each other’s paths.

“raleigh, i love you.” the words are said easily, not a moment’s hesitation behind them.

just before she crosses over in the cart to kiss him until they’re both breathless, raleigh gifts her the brightest smile he has and says, “i love you, too.”

xix.

the night is a blur from the moment he first takes the stage with his old bandmates to when he finally finds himself alone with cadence in a rundown old motel a few miles out from the festival in the desert.

he can’t recall ever being so happy, so of course he doesn’t remember every agonizing detail of the evening, though he does know he doesn’t feel the need to have a single beer with cadence around, twirling barefoot in the grass and giggling when she leads him up to the room they’ve borrowed.

afterwards, when they’re sitting on the roof together in the blanket they dragged off the bed, he reflects on the wild year they’ve had with her in his arms, fingertips tracing the delicate very funny scrawled across cadence’s collarbone.

he feels... free. completely liberated. like there’s absolutely nothing and no one that can get to him, now, like he’s untouchable, like he doesn’t care about a single thing that happens after today and how perfect things have been.

“i think i’m actually freer than i’ve ever been,” he muses, where his lips are pressed into her hair, “i can take my sound in any direction i want.”

“i’m so happy for you, raleigh,” cadence returns genuinely, tilting her head back so he can see her upside-down smile.

his arms tighten around her. “i’m so excited for what you’re gonna be doing, too. i’m excited for us.”

“yeah,” she sighs, “who knows what’s next, right? now that ellis let me out of my deal...”

he can hear the thread of worry undercutting the words. he shakes his head, hands rubbing up and down her arms. “you can worry about that tomorrow. for tonight, just enjoy the comeback. what you did out there was amazing.”

“what we did,” she corrects, and he blinks up the stars as he realizes she’s right -- they’re a we now. he’s part of a we again, after being on his own for so long.

the phrases bounce around in his head, unfamiliar and foreign. me and my girlfriend, he thinks to himself, cadence and i. we’re going to be late. we’ll be away that weekend. we just started watching that show. we, we, we.

“what we did was amazing,” raleigh amends, the words slow to come out but feeling right all the same. “whatever we do next will be amazing.”

“absolutely,” cadence confirms, with conviction, like it’s something she believes wholeheartedly.

and though he has no idea what to expect or what it might be, a large part of him is inclined to agree with her -- she’s been right about everything else so far.

xx.

one year later, she’s finishing a set in berlin, the last stop on a sprawling european tour that had taken she, avery, micah and raleigh across the continent for dozens of performances to sold-out crowds of thousands screaming her lyrics back to her.

if her contract with overknight had been a dream come true, signing to wilshere records is heaven incarnate. cadence’s trip through the u.k. with her new label is proof enough, and the chance to meet new fans with new stories to share that she could connect with is one she’s taken to with enthusiasm, the experience made all the sweeter by the fact that her favorite people get to be by her side throughout it all.

berlin’s crowd is one of the best, and she fully expects to end the tour on a high note, head banging to the last few notes of ‘knockout’ before raleigh’s planned entrance for the last song of the night, so they can sing the duet that’s closed out every show they’ve had on the tour together.

when he struts out with his guitar, waving and grinning at the crowd, she can’t stop herself from smiling stupidly at him, just like she does every time she sees him join her on stage, every time she realizes that this is their life, that this is something they do every night, now.

though her grin falters when raleigh pauses in front of his microphone and asks, “berlin, do you mind if i talk a little bit before i start the song? no? cool, because i’ve got an important question to ask.”

her eyes widen. cadence’s mouth drops open and doesn’t close throughout the entire speech raleigh gives her, even though thousands of people in the crowd are filming every moment of her gaping like an idiot, snapping close-ups of her shocked face.

the arena practically vibrates with screams when he drops to his knee, popping the box in his hand open so she can see the giant diamond ring nestled inside of it.

“so?” raleigh asks, and cadence can just barely hear him in her in-ears with the way her heart is beating frantically up into her throat, as wild as the crowd’s raging around them and then some. “whaddya say, babe? will you marry me?”

as if the answer could ever be anything but yes. she nods, laughing as she launches herself into his arm for a kiss that’s too grand to be given on stage, though that’s hardly going to stop her -- not tonight, at least. tonight, she’s okay with the whole world watching their every move, just one more time.

“oh, i don’t know if it’s going to fit,” raleigh jokes as the ring slides easily onto her left hand, amping up the theatrics for the fans still watching them avidly, even up in the cheap seats.

cadence rolls her eyes playfully at him. “very funny,” she praises, and the grin he offers her in return is so loving -- so knowing, with the secret that only the two of them share and every weird piece of their history included in it -- that it takes everything she has to shove him away so they can perform instead of dragging him down to the floor to kiss him over and over again.

clumsily, she flubs a few notes of love who i’ll be on her guitar. from across the stage, between the bridge and the chorus, raleigh jeers, “someone hasn’t learned to play with the extra weight on their left hand, yet, i see,” and when she flips him off while belting out the last lines of the verse, his raucous laughter is all the harmony the final few bars of the song needs.

#platinumweekend #platinum #raleigh carrera #raleigh carrera x mc #cadence dorian #raleigh x mc #raleigh x cadence #myfic #long post #well. this sure took me a long time DFJGHDFJHGDFJKGH so i hope you guys like it !! it was kind of a new style for me 😳

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floralkittygambler · 4 years

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HuskerDust - More Toxic Than You Think [LONG]

This is the rough version of a deeper and more complex subject I want to ‘decorate’ with more ‘screencaps’. DISCLAIMER: This is allegedly controversial and led to me getting literal death threats and an ED triggered. Ive about heard a lot of people’s shit on this so dont try it. I’m speaking from personal experiences too - experiences I really fuckin dont wanna be sharin yet they kinda validate my points. I want people to be aware of the damaging image from someone who can speak from experience without attracting dickheads or people twisting things. Again, I aint particularly comfortable sharing this so yeah- Be courteous- TW AHEAD - ALSO LONG ASS READ. DNI STANS OR ANTIS. May tag a few folks, may not. HuskerDust is an extremely popular ship in the community however there’s glaringly obvious flaws in this one-sided relationship that both the fans and even the team fail to see. Neglecting the dangerous real world implications this ship [as well as many others] present to it’s audience - especially the more influenced of the audience, most who are children.

Angel flirts with all the male cast however one who catches his eye the most is Husk. Now I want to point out a few things [of many... obviously]; Angel is instantly starry eyed upon seeing Husk, likewise he actually started off with a ‘Hey~’ instead of something sexual. However he quickly ruins this after Husk tells him to go fuck himself [defined by: “ go fuck yourselfphrase of fuckVULGAR SLANGan exclamation expressing anger or contempt for, or rejection of, someone.” ie, he rejected instantly] by responding with an offer to allow Husk to essentially watch him masterbate. Alongside this, he cradles his face. Husk pulls away and seems to pull a face to express rage/disgust or growling imagery alongside COMPLETELY withdrawing his body away from Angel as Angel stares with goo-goo eyes. Firstly, Angel loves animals - perhaps it’s Husk appearing cute that adds to this, however Im not going to address animal imagery just yet. Secondly, Angel isn’t really portrayed to respect other’s boundaries BUT he does respect... Alastor’s. Al declines the blowjob to which Angel shrugs and doesn’t push this matter any further. With Husk, he’s pretty harshly told to piss off yet he makes quite and explicitly sexual remark, alongside invading his personal space and touching a man clearly disinterested and pulling away. From the initial rejection, it then becomes sexual harassment. I also want to add that Husk comes with [some] perks in his feline form. And if my name didnt make it obvious, I work with and live with cats on a daily. Briefly, I have been educated in how to understand cat’s language in various individual cat as well as how to handle and work with them. Cats are often drawn towards me and Ive been successful with various types of cats. My most recent being a cat I’ve dubbed as Big - Big was abandoned quite young and has lived most his life on the streets [where I live is high in crime and drug rings, so you can imagine how strays are treated] leading to him being extremely fearful and hating people, hissing and fleeing just seeing people. I took time out last summer to finally give befriending him a shot. It’s taken just under a year of hard work and now he visits every day for his mush [wet food] and kisses, responds to his name and runs up to me in delight. Ive even taught him a phrase to signal that I dont want him or the other cat’s to fight [keeps them all safe and aids them becoming acquainted under supervision - something that’s been working surprisingly well]. I apologise in advance as this is not going to be the first instance of this sort of thing but they are relevant. Trying my best to keep it as brief. For Husk, I will be using a mix of cat and human characteristics to break down his reactions. In this first interaction, he turns his body away in a way to suggest caution, wariness and disinterest. In fact, much of his general body language is that of a man deeply closed off from connections - for starters, he folds his arms quick a bit which suggests lack of openness, shutting off and defensiveness *usually*. Likewise, when touched, he slightly jumps and tenses before pulling back in aggression with flattered ears - a sign cats give to display extreme hostility in a situation. It’s NEVER a good thing but then again, neither is crossing someone’s boundaries. It’s even stated that Husk hates Angel’s advances and wishes for nothing to do with him - the same dislike of sexual advances that Al dislikes in Angel. The ending as they all walk inside, Angel turns to Husk, winking and blowing a kiss his way despite the clear rejection earlier. In fact, Husk once again grows tense and is even irked by such a gesture. This won’t be the last mention of Angel totally disregarding how Husk feels - something that rubs off onto the fans AND the team themselves. And it’s... *concerning*, to phrase it lightly. Angel so far is the most persistent towards the most resistant, and in my post on RadioDust I have already established [briefly] on how Angel seems to chase unavailable men. The more unavailable, the more tempting. The one that got away, mentality. It’s not healthy. And I’m surprised so few have acknowledged this. Taking a break from what we’ve seen in the Pilot, let’s establish some facts about the pair. Angel died in 1947 in his 30s [some posts specify 34-35], putting his birth year around 1911-12ish. Husk died in the 70s IN his 70s [again, nothing is truly specified, so for both we’ll go with 75 - the same number in his IG username] that puts birth year roughly 1900′s. Now an age gap between two adults of 11 - 12 years difference is actually reasonable and can work, depending on circumstance and whether theres a balance in power or not. But when we account for their life experiences and death ages, it’s something else entirely. Angel died young. Not only that but his mind seems more stuck in his raunchy teens than of an adult. And even THEN, he wouldnt be one to necessarily settle down [by which I mean in life, not romance]. He’s extremely emotionally stunted and his selfishness and wanting his own way come off very spoilt [when Husk is pissed off about the cat costume, Angel gets moody because he’s used to compliments AND is dressing to impress Husk. When Husk wanted the money he was rightfully owed, Angel threw a fit for ages until starting to earn it back - even though he owed Husk a drink, which I’ll be coming back to, Husk still wanted the money in the end perhaps hinting to only accepting a freebie as it’s on offer as well as Angel being overly persistent. He even dumps his pig onto Husk to look after, while theres no issue in pet sitting, Angel said Husk ‘owed’ him due to missing the show yet when HE owed Husk, he threw a fit.]. Angel’s life style is wildly chaotic in life AND death, and even though we all know he’s most likely going to be redeemed, he still lacks a lot of experiences in life. He lacks maturity. On the other hand, Husk’s been through his own share of chaos and heartbreak. Difference is, he’s had a life time of experience. He doesn’t act immature in a childish sense. He truly behaves like a downtrodden old man. He’s had his days and would feel more secure settling down in a more peaceful environment with fun yet much needed calm. A better way to handle his need for risk. Age gaps in adults that are large [75 - 35 = 40 years!] are far less likely to work for a multitude of reasons. The main reason is the difference in life stages - that difference in mentality and experiences plays such an impacting role on compatibility. Often their goals and energies are polar opposites and their common grounds minimal. There’s also the looming concern of power dynamics. Whilst it’s usually the older figure that’s holds the power advantage, in this case it’s a little bit more complicated. I’d argue that it’s possibly Angel with the higher power. This rarely works irl but it’s POSSIBLE. Look at Hugh Heffner and his last partner before his death. I believe she was around 22. However there’s many common grounds, immediate attraction, and similar goals. Though incorrect, Heffner does give off a pimp-like vibe (he’s not but you get what I’m implying with mothlike imagery). Husk does not strike me as that type. It would definitely cheapen his character. In terms of interests, the main thing they have in common is that they like to drink. A bad habit, especially when one is an alcoholic. Both are also rather lazy except for certain circumstances [Husk will go out of his way to help HOWEVER he’s obliged to under Al, the only one he’s seen to willingly help and bond with/be seen with is Niffty. Angel is when there’s a fight, chaos, drama or any sex work]. Both are also rather snarky and vulgar. In terms of love, both suffer intimacy issues. On Husk, it’s ‘losing the ability to love a long time ago’ meaning he was likely cheated on or at least had a failed relationship. If he was ever ready for a new start, he’d definitely want something stable yet rewarding. For now, he needs a LOT of work - work he is not yet willing to put in, nor does he have a reason to. Angel doesnt want to commit because he’s extremely selfish as well as in an already abusive ‘relationship’ already. Sex work is sometimes VERY taxing on the mental health due to some of the folk you service. He’s seen the worst in many and just enjoys the pay and fuck. IF Husk was cheated on, then it’d make a lot of sense if a sex worker wouldn’t be his flavour, it would just serve as a reminder. Not only this, but Angel HIMSELF actively participates in cheating. Not with Val... but with *Travis*. BOTH know Travis is married (I’d be feckin worried if Trav didnt-) yet they still choose to cheat anyways, regardless of the pain it could cause. Angel even mocks this by sending greetings to Trav’s wife. Honestly this... Reminds me a LOT of Stolas - a main character who sexually harasses another character clearly not interested/comfortable, participates in cheating and we’re supposed to root for them (and before anyone gets offended, I do have more to say on Angel’s behalf so please be patient). Either way, it’s very toxic and concerning. Even if Husk wasn’t cheated on, I dont think many would feel exactly secure after having such a rough past with love, diving into a relationship with someone who’s openly participated in multiple affairs. And that’s no shitting on sex workers either, it’s just a point that some would feel uncomfortable with the idea of being with ANYONE (regardless of their work) having actively and KNOWINGLY took part in having an affair previously - especially multiple. Husk’s in an emotionally fragile place and needs more security. We’ve already established Husk heavily dislikes Angel’s advances. In fact, his responses to Angel are similar to his responses to... Al! His body language is VERY test and closed off to even Al, who’s most likely knew him for a very long time. If even Al gets this treatment (whilst also disrespecting his boundaries) then it’ll be the same with Angel (both force Husk into their lives and schemes, both disregard his boundaries). And he’s shown to STILL go out his way to help both however this is most likely tied to an unspoken ‘debt’ he owes Alastor. Plus he’s been mentioned behind the scenes to be a secret softie and protective grandpa type. But this animosity is very reflective of how Loona behaves and responds to Blitzo as well as how both Loona AND Husk (One being a ‘lowly servant’, the other being a literal old MAN) as pets - even the fans - just because of their forms. But this isnt the first of the disrespect they receive. Now we delve deeper Both are addicts of some kind (Husk - drinking, gambling. Angel - Drugs, possibly sex). Not a good mix at all romantically. Addicts often and unintentionally feed their addictions to each other as well as can increase likelihood of relapsing which even a recovered addict can slip back into. When times get tough (a natural occurrence) both are likely to suffer with their addictions. Interestingly, they can become addicted and dependent on one another, which is genuinely unhealthy for a mindset anyways, regardless whether addiction existed prior or not. Addiction only increases these chances. Angel likes confidence in a man (confirmed on Patreon). Yet, Husk is even confirmed in streams to be deeply troubled and insecure. One thing he hates is his demon form, something that we’ll touch on shortly. Angel loves quality food ESPECIALLY of Italian origin whilst Husk is willing to eat the shit they give you in bars (admittedly that was painful to type as someone who grew up around pubs - either way it’s not exactly high quality or gourmet is what I’m saying). Interestingly, in some character references of Angel, it’s stated that he hates rejection. Hates. That’s a VERY strong word. This could explain but not justify why he’s persistent with Husk (similar to NiceGuys believing you’re playing ‘hard to get’ - further illuding to an immature and toxic mindset) though it interestingly doesn’t apply with Alastor. Odd. There’s a counterpoint to symbolism in art. A very VALID counterarguement... If it suited Viv’s style. During Media Studies, Business, Design and Art, hell fucking Silent Hill! - I’ve been educated on effective symbolism as well as artistic trademarks (the most famous that most should know is Alfred Hitchcock!). Hitchcock often appeared in all his films, usually as a sidefacing silhouette, trading marking his films with his very PRESENCE. Viv’s seems to revolve around hearts. I mention this because an IG account made the point that hearts were to symbolise anyone connected with Angel’s story and love life (Valentino’s business and shades/collar, heart behind Angel’s head, Heart tattoo on Cherri’s right shoulder, hearts for Husk’s paws, eyebrow marks above natural brows, wings, and nose as well as most of the playing cards). Thing is, there’s hearts EVERYWHERE in all of Viv’s works and such symbology of Angel and hearts is weakened if it connects to the villains/abusers as well - taking away the positivity in a love symbol. Viv’s used hearts in her font, backgrounds, in characters ears, in all her series just generalised, Blitzo’s forehead, background characters, again the cards, Travis’s eyes, Millie’s right shoulder in the SAME place as Cherris. Even Vaggie had a heart tattoo on the shoulder in some christmas themed artwork (on her left). Heart’s is just something Viv seems to brand herself with. And that’s fine though I feel she could do with cutting it down slightly. One thing to early note on the cards (again, this’ll creep up later and my name should tell you why), most are heart suits and usually either a face card (J, Q, K), Joker, ace or 2s. Face cards/Jokers for more details close up (look at the signing artwork) and the rest are just easier to animate, though a little bit of a peeve to someone into their cards as well as the massive overuse of red in Hazbin overall. It’s extremely unlikely to be symbolic. If they change it to be so, then it’s... Weakened. As I’ve mentioned earlier, Silent Hill is an example of extremely clever symbolism in more darker media (more so, SH is considered a ‘hell’ of sorts and does feature religious iconography WITHOUT causing offence. A great example of how to portray this type of thing - they even mix humour in if you consider some of the sneaky references, dialogues and odd UFO/dog endings). Discussing Viv’s art further, she drew a gift for her sister (original creator of Husk when he possessed white fur) of Angel playfully dragging a disinterested and annoyed Husk (I believe this was still around the time SpiderMoth was canon). The newish art tends to have Angel putting a holly crown on him or sitting on his knees, Husk seeming too lazy to really do anything about it. Very nonchalant. I also want to include some interesting stream arts here and later to further highlight their bond. A fan asked Viv in a stream to draw them “actually getting along” - this wording implying that the fan is aware of Husk not enjoying Angel’s company. So Viv did, with an extra doodle of Husk being one of the ‘canadian people’ from South Park who sing “Im not your friend”. The art alone shows Husk’s absolute discomfort, even the extra thing Viv added w/o request. As they’re her characters and the fan asked for what they’d look like getting along, to show this discomfort goes to show the dynamic once planned. Husk just isnt a fan of Angel, especially when he’s being sexual and touchy. It can be great for small comedic parts, however both the team AND fans have now crossed this over to really creepy and triggering realms in their ships. It’s creepy and doesnt look good on Angel (who they actively root for) nor the gay community (more on that).

[Yes Ive already pointed out the comedic side of this ^ but it doesnt bode well considering the other points and issues that arise] There’s also a request for drag angel flirting with drunk husk. Personally thats a lil creepy to specify one of the two being intoxicated and thus not able to truly consent. If Angel is willing to flirt with someone in that state, it doesnt mean he would fuck them, but it does feel the fan was thinking that’s the case. In all truth, I think Angel WOULD flirt with those incapable of consent purely to swindle or pickpocket. I’d like to think [and HOPE considering his own abuse by Val] that he’d never take it further. And I hope Viv, the team and the fans see how incredibly creepy that thought is. I’ll give benefit of the doubt though it is still a concern. Either way, Angel appears... Annoyed? Husk is completely turned away and seems incredibly grouchy and confused. This shows yet more rejection on his behalf as well as Angel’s response to being rejected, which highlights his immaturity towards it. Remember, he’s USED TO and EXPECTS everyone to want him (even saying this in the Pilot). Hell, there’s even a Rich Vaggie request where Viv again randomly includes Husk. This time, he’s faced towards her and relaxed, though seems unimpressed and overall disinterested in this type of behaviour. Behaviour and interests of Angel [Celeb status and rich appearance due to Val, despite getting very little of the cut and the vanity, as well as Husk just not giving a shit about this sort of peacock display]. (Also wanted to note in Viv’s #3 stream 1:50:50, Faust makes out that Husk is a ‘dirty, creepy old man’ as well as him constantly threatening violence towards Angel. I dont see him as *creepy* in this context - as it implies perversion that he blatantly lacks fortunately - though it’s very telling of how Husk feels and again shows this toxic relationship).

/Angel’s Type: First off, daddy issues. He has them. Now let’s look at ‘daddy’. Henroin is shorter than Angel, dark fur, grumpy, old, wears only a hat and tie, big brows... Sounds familiar? Ok, look at his brother Arackniss. Similar to Henroin, dark, short, grouchy, bullied by and bullies Angel, is adverse to Angel and overall possess a bad relationship. Ok.... His main client, Travis! Short, dark fur, moody, Only wears hat and tie, drinker (shown in stream as request so take drinking with a pinch), similar face to- Is no one else seeing this trait? Angel seems to go for these shorter than him grouchier men who either want him for sex or hate his presence. Men who are like his dad and brother. All of these guys are far too similar, and we’ve got enough men in suits, bowties and sharp teeth in this show to boot as it is- The psychology of this type of attachment is rooted in a bad familial relationship alongside the subconscious desire to repair or compensate for it. Unknowningly the person will keep seeking out this sort of guy who isnt good for them to fix this internal issue. The resolution is to NOT go for these types. It’s also connected to intimacy fears, by going for those you know arent good for you/right for you/interested in you is often the manifestation of these issues. Pair them with daddy issues and it’s a disaster! There is science to back this up. Valentino is interestingly the opposite yet still toxic issues arise. Why? Because he’s going from one extreme to the other but with the same mindset. Neither of these men or types for MANY reasons are right for him. And visa versa. Seeing a pattern? ~~~~

Angel w Husk? I mentioned before that Husk hates his demon form. If you’re an old man, a gambler, some Vegas bloke and have this grouchier disposition, why the fuck would you want to look like an oversized pet? Exactly. Angel however adores his own aside from the feet. Now I find it strange how the guy we’re rooting for just so happens to like his own form which was intended for punishment. But that’s not todays post. I said earlier that Angel is heavily fixated on Husk’s appearance. Especially the feline aspects (calling him Husky and Kitty - petnames he hates that also treat him again more like a pet than a man -, dressing as a ‘sexy cat’ to appeal to him which can come off as more mockery. This is even backed up by fans who seem to think an old guy’s gonna act like some school girl anime trope?). All of this completely disregards and disrespects Husk’s feelings and perspectives. Something the fans and team take part in actively. Angel - whether you want to hear this or not - is SELFISH. When Husk ‘owed’ him for missing the show (babysitting Fat Nuggets), Husk begrudgingly fulfils this. The second Angel owed Husk for stealing drinks, Angel threw a hissy fit. The silent treatment, going to other bars and posting about it whilst complaining (again focusing on Husk being ‘cute’). Trying to cop out of it by buying Husk a smoothie (though it looked like a date, lets be real, do you REALLY have to bribe someone to date and be around you? No) and even then he still had to owe the money which was more of Husk’s concern. Yes he did in the end and more money than needed, hence the returning of the extra cash, but that is no excuse for the childish behaviour prior. He’s much too accustomed to being adored and pampered and getting his own way that he cant grasp when people arent a fan or willing to pamper him. If they make them a ship, all it does it make Angel completely into a shitty Gary-Stu that everyone loves and pities for his suffering, rather than teach him to grow, earn his redemption and confronting his own toxicity. Let me make this extremely clear: ANGEL DOES NOT DESERVE ABUSE OR RAPE. But when he starts behaving as shitty, he’s hard to root for. Remember, he’s sexually harassing all these guys, with Husk getting the brunt of it. But it’s treated as a joke for them and only taken seriously for Angel. Val abuses all of his employees. He abuses VOX and even THAT was mocked by fans and staff. It’s... It’s frankly gross. In every interaction Husk has with Angel, his body language is closed off, tense, uncomfortable, turned away and hostile - look at the IG. He wont even allow Angel to touch him. Compare this to Niffty, who he’s fine with taking pictures with and letting her hang around and touch him. Body language is relaxed (relaxed shoulders, open body language) and he doesnt look hostile at all. What does Angel do? Always tries to get close to Husk (such as sitting as close as possible during Poker) and forces both his OWN hobbies onto Husk (ones that Husk shows a strong disinterest in) and Husk’s hobbies (Poker). It’s very FORCED and not natural. Going back to immaturity, he blames Husk and his cards for being shit at the game. They’re always bickering, insulting, fighting in the comments but fans only see this as a ‘cute couple fight’ or Husk being ‘tsundere’.Tsundere. An anime trope often used in young characters. Irl tsundere is NOT this dramatised. The tsundere you see in anime, apply that irl and you get the recipe for the most toxic, petty and immature relationship going. You get constant fights, unease, not feeling loved/appreciated, little trust - the list goes on. Plus an old bloke really isnt going to indulge in tsundere traits. It’s childish. After his history with love, I doubt he’d be up for games and messing about. For something meaningful, he’d just want open honesty. Their ‘relationship’ feels like it’s written by horny kids attempting a fanfic after being inspired by 50 shades and twilight (both show toxic relationshiiiiiips~). The worst is that these are adult writers trying to portray some realistic yet sensitive topics. This is just ill fuckin taste. Even the warnings in Helluva’s ‘Horny Demons’ leaves a bad taste when the fans are thinking Stolas is the best dad despite both parents ruining Octavia’s mental health. Despite the next day after that episode aired Stolas starts flirting with Blitzo again on IG. Despite Blitzo being clearly uncomfortable and sexually harassed and even co-herced into sex (VERY UNHEALTHY MESSAGES HERE). Viv herself has been in bad relationships so how the fuck she’s blind to this and even borderline fetishizing this sort of behaviour that everyone seems to play off as ‘Awwww cute tsundere <3 BOYFRIENDS BOYFRIENDS BOYFRIENDS’ is abhorrent. I’ll go into this more later on how this really just... It treats male sexual harassment and assault as a fucking joke- Angel’s constant unwarranted flirting is no different from the freaks on IG that send dick pics to underage kids and random women in their dms and fathom that they’re ‘nice’ and have a ‘chance’. Wanna know the creepiest? The candid photo of Husk on Angel’s wall. Something Husk seems horrified about. It’s fangirlish and teenager like at BEST, and obsessive stalker at worst. He’s NOT respecting Husk’s boundaries or feelings. That’s still up despite Husk’s reaction. He still wore the costume despite Husk’s feelings. Angel’s thinking with his dick and it’s such a fucked up message that everyone seems to support just because ‘its FICTION. Theyre in HELL.Theyre BAD people.’ Yeah? Well look at how that’s effecting and warping reality and perspective. It’s glamourising it. Fetishsizing stalking and making it cute. Yer have celebrity or boyband or whatever youre a fan of pics on your wall. NOT your crush. NOT someone who clearly isnt interested or happy with this. If someone who kept commenting on your pictures “sexy” suddenly had a picture of you on their wall, what would YOU think? How would YOU FEEL? Because myself and my own sisters have been in VERY fucking similar situations and it’s traumatic. His paw is even attempting the lens - Angel is crossing his boundaries and not getting the message that Husk doesnt want this. He’s forcing himself onto Husk. Yknow... VAL forced himself on Angel and it ended up in numerous rapes. Angel hasnt raped Husk, but if he wont take no. If he wont respect boundaries. If he only wants Husk to do what he wants but throws a fit when he owes husk - he’s picking up on Val’s bad habits more and more. How are so few - even the very team creating this - not seeing how disgusting this is? Are we only supposed to give a shit if Angels hurt? If so, the message isnt so much of how despicable Val is but how awful it is to upset Angel. Fans constantly blame Husk for being grumpy, annoyed at or rejecting Angel. Look at this real world implication. Not only that but Angel being gay just reinforces one of the worlds most disgusting and inaccurate stereotype of gay men being sexual predators and forcing men to have sex whether theyre comfortable or not. MOST gay men arent like this, and those who are its just because THEYRE shitty people (Jeffree fucking Starr, but look how people ‘stan’ his fuckin behaviour). Val is rubbing off on Angel as much as fiction has a MASSIVE impact on reality - whether we’re willing to admit it or not. Like Val, hes pushing past boundaries, he’s selfish, hes more into visuals than anything else. It’s one sided, superficial and theres no click. No connection. Be in this situation yourself and seeing this sorta shit becomes second nature to stay alive. Angel even says that most of hells residents are ‘ugly freaks’ yet finds Husk cute. It’s all LOOKS. Who else likes appearances alone? Val. I know this will trigger and upset fans, Ive been told to fucking die and have my ED triggered when I mentioned it before. But accept that all of them have flaws. Everyone irl have flaws. But there’s flaws and then theres a fuckin crime. If Husk was a woman, more people would see the flaw, but even then... Look at many romance movies - not all but many go for opposites attract (science proves this inaccurate irl), stalking, or even sexual harassments and assualts but she falls for him and they end up together. That aint love thats Stockholm with extra steps. Think you’re triggered and upset? Go through this shit - have a history with it happening - and then see some show you love and a comfort character get treated the exact same and everyone JUSTIFIES it, including the team themselves. It’s NOT cute. Part 2 to the previous point: Both do share common interests, but it’s very unhealthy such as excessive drinking, both being addicts and being rather lazy, etc. Otherwise the common ground just isnt good. They’re opposites that really dont compliment each other. (Not a valid point here but I find it interesting how Angel loves aquariums and Husk can fly too). Viv’s writing is mediocre at best (but with glowing potential - a diamond in the rough - hence why it’s so frustrating) but Husk’s writing is the laziest. According to Viv he’s (paraphrased) “easiest to write... doesnt care about anything, almost always grumpy leading to similar reactions to everything”. His voice and alcoholism even has a lot of inspiration from Rick Sanchez. As I said with Angel in the RadioDust post, it’s almost like the addictions are seen as a joke. A running gag is fine if you can play it off well and it’s not about something so serious EVEN MORE SO when the series is about how damaging the addictions are and redemption. Why is this end goal being ignored unless it’s about Angel himself? That’s not just favouritism or bias, that’s also heavily self indulgent and a backwards ass message. Right now, Hazbin and Helluva have this ugly fixation on sex and ships. VIV has a fixation on ‘horny demons’. Her main characters are incredibly sexual bar Al (dont even say Husk, Niffty, Charlie or Vaggie or even loona and Moxxie are even on par with the focus and treatment Val, Angel, Blitz and Stolas are given). It’s very fixated and concerning. Its starting to feel like it’s about to divulge into hentai than a legit series with even a hint of the plot or a message. It reminds me of Family Guy trying to be BoJack. It’s starting to remind me of fucking Sausage Party and the final orgy. Sex and swears makes it inappropriate for kids but that doesnt make it adult or mature, and this is coming from someone who swears more than a fucking sailor whos stubbed his bare pinky toe on a fucking crate corner. Constant swears arent funny or artful in the slightest when it’s over done. It’s just... childish adult humour. We cant be expected to want to root for any of them at this rate- All A24 and other companies are seeing is big cash and easily manipulated child audiences (for easy money). They KNOW it can be better but theyd rather be lazy as they’ll profit big either way. This is going to end up like YanSim and YanDev. Amazing potential, shit writing with a leader too stubborn to accept and act on criticism, seeing it as hate. At this point, Husk isnt a deeply troubled man with vices and interests. He’s just fuck candy and romantic end goal for Angel. To compliment and complete him. Just another accessory to the Angel Show. Vivs sister who made Husk even loves Angel so it’ll only serve to further this already toxic narrative. The ship doesnt look or feel right. There’s too much established now to see the dynamics and favouritism in the creators. Self indulgence. You cant play favourites when you do this sort of thing professionally. The audience can see it and it turns people away. Ask any nonHaz/Helluva fan what they think and it’s... Well, average. Another thing is everyone went full hype on Frozen focusing on something other than romance as a form of love. But then go back to “Ok now everyone reenact the final scenes of Sausage Party” afterwards. Not everything is sex and romance, and it really is starting to feel Viv and the fans are focused on that like Incels focusing on ‘chad’. It’s creepy. Helping with food, telling someone self conscious on their weight that they’re not fat, not taking more money than someone owes, even helping out with a pet - that’s something that a good friend would do. In fact, Husk even laughs at the goofy Angel cutout and it being destroyed. It doesnt instantly equate to wanting to fuck. The fact that the fans and even some of the team seem borderline horny is... Completely destroying this show, it’s message and everything about it. Viv said ships were hardly the focus in her stream but look at it now. Look at what Viv focuses on now. It’s just fanservice shit. Nothing more. Self indulgence shit, look at the team making rape into a fetish or shipping themselves publicly with the characters on the public IGs. It’s like watching children run a business and it’s painful because the entire series is suffering when it could be amazing. Friendship should be more normalised as a valuable type of relationship just as much as love or family are. I’ll also add that Husk adding after the show “Oh fuck... Is this what I missed? Shit.” is ooc like the ‘date’ (that was compensation for stolen drinks, like a tamer version of Blitzo fucking Stolas for the grimoire). It contradicts that he slept it off rather than an attempt at staying awake, as well as calling it a “god damn peepshow” implying a repulsion to the peverse tendencies. The constantly commenting, following and posting Angel related pics makes little sense either from someone who’s blatantly been sexually harassed as well as the clear repulsion of the candid pic on the wall. He outright rejected Angel. What would be realistic are the IGs focusing on learning about the characters, their lives and interests - ALL updating at realistic paces. Old men arent tech savvy usually nor care for social media that much. He’d post drinks, gambling, casinos, life with Niffty and Alastor. Heck maybe a picture of Angel captioned “When will this guy leave me the FUCK alone?”. He even only seems to tag angel, even in the pic that had Charlie and Vaggie [their shared account] or Niffty. Theres a CLEAR bias in the staff room and it’s messy. Look how most the female cast is ignored (Vaggie/Charlie, Velvet who posted a birthday gift to one of the new artists on the merch WHY? Gasu btw, Niffty, Millie only posting twice - heck even Vox and Loona sometimes get neglected. CLEAR. BIAS.) The ships focused on are 1) NOT established canon yet publicly favoured by Viv and the team (Stoliz, HuskerDust, VoxVal - that last pair havent actually got a VA either-), 2) Are TOXIC and theme around abuse or sexual harassment but it’s ‘cute because gae’ - NO. This makes gay people look really bad when they’re not. 3) HD and SL focus on one sided, stalkerish, cop out ‘tsundere’ excused ships to sugar coat the creepiness which only further fuels bigotry, 4) SL has MERCH on it now, so thats also profiting on sexual harassment imagery (again, dont give a shit they arent real - the EFFECTS are. The people who can relate ARE. The people being horridly stereotyped ARE). Thing is, the IGs originally were there to promote ADDICT which started as a fan song anyways despite everyone saying how Viv is stubborn in her ways an uninfluenced by her fans (proof says otherwise) yet shes allowed a fan song to be canon. Theres a focus on forced love for fanservice. The IGs have long outstayed their welcome. The Val account allows glamourisation of the sick shit Val does AND entinses fans to bully as they forget a REAL PERSON runs the fucking account, Val isnt even a scary villain either - hes just a big teen like everyone else - stuck in a teen drama with all this. Pimps are smart. Theyre scary. Theyre masters of manipulati- HOW DO THEY NOT DO THE RESEARCH?! Viv wanted this sense of realism and dealing with sensitive topics in one of the worst executed ways Ive ever seen- It’s toxic. It’s dangerous. These are shit messages and your fans display that when they think all criticism is ‘hAtE’ and actively bully real people w REAL EXPERIENCES. Telling them to ‘stop pls’ does fuck all because you still promote shit messages straight after. Like with Stolas to Blitz in a IG story a day after Ep 2. Classy. Fanservice seems desperate to keep these fans (rather than market correctly... Just like YanDev) and it leads to fans feeling like they have the audacity to steer the series. Poor business with WEAK boundaries. Viv, you lost your series a long time ago. Want it back? LISTEN TO LEGIT CRITICISM. Stop surrounding yourself with yes men. Even my best fucking friend calls me out when Im out of line because a real friend will fucking take the chance of hurting your feelings if it means helping you in the long run and grow. Mick joked about the inside of Husk’s ears matching Angels coat, that the ears are cat’s most sensitive and vulnerable parts. 1) Cats vulnerable part is their tummy - hence why you need their trust first (alternatively yer get the odd cat that has full confidence they cat hurt you a lot faster than you can tickle them - I own one), 2) Its weird that Viv doesnt know this considering how many cats she has - its important to learn the language of those you love to give them your full understanding and a great bond 3) This romanticises sexual harassment more than it already is in the media (remember, theres women out there still murdered for saying no!) as well as reinforces the stereotypes of gay men forcing non-interested men into sex (again, a very toxic and unrealistic trope - a dangerous one thats led to gays being murdered!). And the ears design is unnecessarily overly complex considering those fuckin wings he supports. If the design adds nothing to the character but aesthetic, then it can go on the chopping block. Rules for simple animation. Besides from Angel sharing the same tooth as Val (who knows if that was added after he started working for Val as branding?) you could use this argument to say Pent or Al are soulmates for Angel because of having striped suits, or sharp teeth - no, it was intended as a joke that Viv fueled to irresponsibly because it’s not the first time she’s dodged publicly addressing something (something youll NEED to get used to in a big company), and she’s publicly dodged shit after this too so Im not putting faith in her until she can act professionally as the job requires. Likewise, professionals should consider what and how they joke as they’re presenting an image of a company/business. And people WILL eat that shit up face value regardless. In her stream #2, a fan requests for art of flustered angel and smug husk to fuel their ship. at 2:10:21, she does so. She’s also done this for Baxter x Niffty and Cherri x Tom. As a professional, you really should be avoiding this sort of thing in the name of fanservice. I get it, fanservice = financial gain. But it also results in empty meaning. It’s a shell of what the passion project once was, hence why you make the ENTIRE skeleton before involving others. The team help construct the muscles, tendons and organs. The public - moreso critics and the more experienced in those fields help sew the skin. Then you bring it to life, the fans become like blood. They aid to keep it alive. Even Ash and Mick mention Husk being ‘tsundere’. Im had most my piece about it earlier, however I’ll repeat and add some extras. Tsundere is an exaggerated personality, often used in younger characters. In terms of a relationship, it’s very immature, leads to poor communication and results in a toxic love. Science can back this up as well as the lack of realism. It’s more immature minds/hearts that go to what they interpret as tsundere in hopes of the love life the media portrays. A farce. Y’know what Angel needs? Someone open, honest, open to love and comforting. He doesnt need someone rebuffing and him chasing. It’s nothing more than an immature thrill. Once the love begins, it’s burns out QUICK. It’s far from sustainable or healthy. It’s not what either really need and further show Angel’s fixation on men who subconsciously remind him of his father. It’s not healthy. Another thing is a tsundere actually IS interested but shows it in the most immature and childish means possible. Would a really old bloke actually give a shit to play those sorts of games? No. Not one coming from a place like husk has. It’s painful how lacking in research and experience these people are. Science backs up that opposites solemnly attract also. In fact, they often either repel or only get as far as friendship. Fan and Team Mentality in Brief: Im coming out with my ultimate pet peeve: if you’re going to have one of the MAIN characters be a gambler, do your research. The only background shit is a casino, LOADS of sex references (in Pride? Really?) and drugs. It’s like someone listing what they think is adult and tabboo and naughty. It’s yikes. Cards are almost always aces, 2s or blank. MOST are heart suits (like we need MORE red - we get it, it’s hell. But it’s an immature larvae stage hell). I get 2s and aces being easier to animate, however you have Husks wings, the entire of alastor, angels arms - if youre busting the budget for the menial then bust it to the cards. Theres like ONE spade. The full house isnt a full house (here’s a display of the fans lack of education on the matter as well which serves as a sure sign that they know just as little on any of this as SpindleHorse, they think it’s a sign on him being a card cheat. A card cheat. I aint saying hes not but what I AM saying is poker professionals are some of the most observant people in the world. Especially when money’s involved they’ll ensure youve got your facts right. That wouldnt fly at ALL. But theres more~ fans think Husk spent loaaaads of time staring at angel’s face in the IG poker out of <3 Newsflash. When you play poker you read EVERYONE like a book. Every little twist and twitch of the features. Its not about love. It’s about winning. Its about money. Play enough poker and it’s instinct if you want to actually play decently. Call bluffs. Life aint a fuckin romance.) And playing Poker at a BlackJack table? In a casino? These are all common knowledge and basics if you just research. And this is coming from someone with a history of this. The fans even believed Tipsy Bartender’s ‘Peach Princess Cocktail’ was something Spindlehorse made as a beverage form of Niffty, Angel and even Charlie because of the name. Now, Im not expecting everyone to be a fuckin boozy either, but to not even consider it’s a very real drink does show that many fans are far too young for that 18+ label. Fanart of HD often has Husk being OOC OR being held hostage (often via webs - one even being reblogged by Viv, aint that cute!). Some even have Husk completely intoxicated, which would be rape. Im not sugarcoating it. Because too many are getting the sweet treatment and copying Viv’s ‘dont address and it disappears!’ tactic - A LOT of internet celebs do it. The ship is drawn a lot by the team in the public eye, Viv reblogs it publicly (SL, HD, alongside canon only ships, how curious-). Husk is pan yet doesnt behave as the stereotype. And Id FULLY support this with my fucking SOUL (fun fact: you cant sell a soul. Thats myth to scare people-) if it was done correctly. But the way bisexuals, lesbians, gays and aces are portrayed so stereotypically (even Pan in terms of Val’s sexomania), it’s really REALLY uncomfortly coming across as Husk being pansexual JUST to make him an ‘option’ for Angel. Hell even the hets are given a shite representation. Some art btw has husk tricked into a kiss. Cute, we’re really starting to like blurring consent aint we? Remember, Angel has celeb power in his world. In the real world, he has a following. HE has the power in the ship massively. Hell, fans JUSTIFY Angels behaviour and absolutely rip Husk a new shithole if he fuckin even so as to DARE OPPOSE ANGELS MUCH DESERVED LOVE! - sarcasm because I have to make that shit clear now. Fans dont care about Husks feelings, he wasnt even popular until this ship started to explode. Y’know what would be cool and break stereotypes? An old straight white guy actually accepting his friends sexualities. The pan thing feels really fucking gimicky and exploitive and gross based on the history of all this shit. It feels disingenuine. Representation doesnt come from it just being there. What next? Katie whips on blackface to further show shes a bigoted knobhead whos white and straight? Dont get me wrong, Katie’s an arsehole but theres other means to show this rather than ALL HETS HATE THE BIG GAE. They dont. They really dont. But hey, we’ll show a gay man sexually harass every guy and root for him! NO. Thats fucked up. It makes gays look like the predators theyre not. It’s like the fucking 50s with modern tech - is that the real identity of Vox? Fuckin maybe. WHAT THEY NEED - FUCKING FINALLY, ITS THE END IVE BEEN ON THIS SHIT FOR DAYS WHILST SICK LUCKY ME EH? CAN YER FEEEEEEEL MY TIREDNESS OF FANDOMS AND CREATORS EXCUSING SHITTY THINGS FOR CLOUT, MONEY, FAME AND OTHER DUMB SHIT? IF YOU CANT, THEN WHAT THE FUCK, AND OTHER NEWS: Right. Lets get our main shit. Compatibility between the pair is really low - lower than even the team seems to see. And yer old fart of a Hag here’s gotta use my personal suffering as an example because thats what the cool kids do, right? Their friendship compatibility is high. VERY high. But low for love. HEALTHY love. In terms of convo flow, it only has a river when insults are flying, otherwise Husk actively cuts Angel short or outright annoys him. In reality, someone like Husk would gross out Angel, but the cute cat look can turn that the fuck around - JUST the look. Fans and the team oddly think it’s cute though. Yes, I remember being negged at the bar and thinking “BOY arent my pants flooded like the fuckin planet when the ice caps are melting”. There’s no click. Theres infatuation and lust one sided based on looks. Husk isnt even remotely interested and no means delayed yes apparently. Angel as a rape VICTIM should know better than to blur consent like this. Angel isnt a rapist [for the skim reading raging stans ANGELS NOT A RAPIST, YAAAAAY!] but he sure has a shit grip on when he’s looking like Val when Val forced Angel into a kiss by not accepting rejection. It’s. CREEPY. Its fuckin weird. Husk is literally named after being a shell of his former self, I doubt random sex and forced interest is gonna make him spring to life like bastard Zeberdy from the Magic Pissin Roundabout. Honestly, sexual harassment and addictions are treated the same in this - a joke. A punchline. A gag. Sure makes me fuckin gag. Nah, the more healthier Chaggie relationship (needs work on Charlies damn part - dont let freaky taxidermy men sexually assault your life partner like that) is booooring, lets focus on sexual harassment leading to true love like all the other shitty romcoms shall we? Or sugar coat it with ‘getting to know them better <3′ like Beauty and the Beast. A story, by yours truly: My mom’s mates with this woman. Lets call her M because her name starts with an M. M is just like Angel except slightly older, overweight and disabled - so not everyones cup of tea visually (shes neither here nor there to me imo, not like I hold interest in shaggin her). Like Angel, she fuckin flirts with any ANY man around her. She’ll even touch without consent, rub allllll up and down their backs and bodies, and not leave them alone. She even did this with a few gay men. Shes not a horrible person BUT mom and I are constantly trying to stop her and get through her head how DISGUSTING this treatment is. But nothing gets the message across. Shes ALWAYS talking men and sex and has an on/off fling with this one bloke (dont worry, hes the male M, cheats and does the same as her). Everyone, even women, are uncomfortable with this. Irl it’s desperate and a HUGE repellent. Men are visibly SO uncomfortable. She does it to my father too who is - in case youd forgotten - MARRIED TO HER BEST. FUCKING. FRIEND. My father is not a man of fear (and interestingly, hes one of the real life Huskers I know!) but this woman? *insert Heavy bc why tf not* She scares him. My dad does everything in his damn power to pull away, reject, resist, avoid and cut her off. The only reason hes even nice to her at all is because mom likes her (when M isnt a gross hornbag, shes genuinely a good friend to my mother - much like angel and Cherri). My dad’s strictly banned from insulting her or telling her to fuck off from my mother BECAUSE of her nature with him. Even at her non horny times, he’s even said shes not his flavour. I’ve had numerous accounts like this myself (ask any woman-) but the worst was the guy thinking - THINKING - that Id eventually be his whilst he played up a lot of our similarities up, seemed nice and I actually thought I had a good guy friend (put it this way, Im genuinely scared of men because of guys like this). At this time, there was a character I discovered who looks and behaves SO much like me, and shes married. My simping arse for this fictional BEAUT [Im sorry but Iris is fucking awesome] compared her romantic traits towards Olgerd as something Id do - and this was a STATUS. It wasnt even too him, tagging him, nothing. I was just spamming Iris like the Iris whore I am, and... Yep. Ill be honest and say that God only knows what else I did that made him think I was ready to rip off my clothes and shag him. My post history back then showed Im like this when I find a character I relate to. I also send hearts a lot publicly and to friends to express joy - I get NERVOUS how that’ll be taken now. He tried to pit my ex friend and I against each other for him and even cyberstalked us pretending to be a girl named Raven. My GUT told me this aint no bastard ‘Raven’. The vibes he gave me, and the fact when I kept saying no he took it as a delayed yes (He even said “Ill wait for when youre ready” not “I understand and am happy to still be friends”) gave me literal nightmares of this guy tracking me down and raping me. He’s currently dating that ex friend (I was still willing to be their friend and support them but they said it was hard to keep us separate in her lifes and she didnt want conflict, so I cut it off amicably with her and I fuckin hope he treats her right. I even sensed in my gut she’d like him and he’d like her - even that theyd be good together! But then I found she was 17 and he was 10 years older, that he was cyberstalking and pitting us against each other, that he was secretly an arrogant fuck and that he gives off red flags like her ex’s - but shes passed 18 now and I want to trust her as an adult that she can deal with this. Shes got a good family.) As a kid, Ive been fuckin groped at school in my shitty neighbourhood. One kid even harassed me wanting to know if Id started my periods yet. Hed constantly fondle girls and ‘keg’ them aka yank down their skirts or trousers in public, and 2 years later held a fucking KNIFE to my throat in a classroom with the shittiest substitute teacher, all because I stood up to him (I was not known for my bravery at school so). He was harassing my female friend who suffers from it since as well as her upbringing, bullying her and stealing her stuff. Shes TINY. She was bullied just as bad as I - who was somehow both the school ghost AND pariah somehow- - and I stepped in and told him to cut that shit out before snatching her things back. I told her to ignore the desperate prick. Thats when he took a boxcutter and held it to my throat, threatening me to keep my head down. Now my neighbourhood fucking qualifies as the British ‘hood’ but Id been lucky to avoid this. Ironically, I wondered what this situation would be like a year prior. Im convinced I can fucking foresee bad shit now and with anxiety that aint good. I froze mentally and I just said “Wooow, Im fucking scared- *friends name*, ignore him” and continued my work. I fucking mentally kicked myself for speaking but I genuinely didnt know what to do. Obviously not fucking that. He sat the full TWO HOURS at our table with this knife, jolting forward mockingly and switching who he pointed it at. The knife btw was from that very room as it was graphics and art. Teacher didnt even notice though honestly Ive had an entire class throw shit at me and call me a whore and the teacher in that class looked at me and TURNED AWAY. End of the day, I reported it to my actual graphics teacher when he returned and he told me he’d take this higher up and to get my parents. My home was only 5 minutes away but I had to walk alone when most the students were gone AND through a fucking alleyway. I always walked with my head low but that day I kept it high and tried to look brave because I genuinely thought he was waiting for me. That he was going to rape and kill me because he’s a pervert and Id just discovered a fucking violent one at that. I broke down at my door. Do you know how fuckin hard it is to look your parents who are dealing with two cancer patients and other issues in the eyes and tell them their ‘little girl’ had a knife to her through for standing up for herself? We went back, I described everything and even remember the yellow-orange handle just to get this kid punished? I even wrote an official police statement (well, the written witness account they add to their statement and evidence) and had to speak on mine and my friend’s behalf because she was that shook up. I never even used to speak for myself! He got expelled, but yknow what us jolly folk dealt with? Hearing kids and his mates mumbling about the ‘rat’ and how much of a cunt they were. Teachers and kids praise him for his art skills and even pin them on display EVERYWHERE (one - ONE - was a fucking self portrait and none of the staff seemed to find issue in that) and even an occassion where he came back into the school when he legally wasnt (trespassing). Do you know how hard it is to fucking avoid someone without raising suspicions from everyone around you in a narrow corridor? Im TALL too. I got NO support from this and felt on edge because he could easily sneak into school. I couldnt say shit because his stupid ‘spies’ were about. Just typing this is upsetting enough- I also know a rl Angel who’s like him minus the sexual harassment. She’s... I never used to like her and visa versa but we actually get along really well now, even though she can be creepy and perverse- But she wouldnt be my type either nor I with her. Often we really fuck each other off but we can also bond great. Another incident reminds me of Husk’s candid photo. Ive had people keep my photo despite me saying not to however I had someone SOMEHOW at that school one the fuck up that. There was a cut out from a magazine of a lady who looked like my DOUBLE except she was asian. Now I thought this was cool and it made me feel sorta pretty. This one girl showed everyone and the teacher, pretty much everyone was like “Oh shit that really is you, C!” and it was harmless fun at first. Until I wanted the picture. Again, this woman looked EXACTLY like me. Yet this girl refused and said she wanted to keep it and even carried it around in her pencil case. Yes it wasnt me but due to the similarities, this photo was called me (tbf the fuckin pic got more respect than I did-). This isnt the only creepy instant between me and this girl but the photo reminds me of it. And this tops people keeping photos OF me which happened in primary school. This was me but legal at that time. And asain. It was super fucking neckbeardy the way she treated this photo and stared, often stroking it and looking at me. I just hope she was only trying to scare me. Theres one final instance of a sexual assault but Im just not yet ready to be public about it. 2 here already know. Those are some of my rl experiences and more to come (unfortunately) that show these behaviours in real life. It seems - it comes across - that sexual harassment, MORE SO TOWARDS MEN, is seen as some punchline and not something legitimately horrifying or dangerous. It’s not cute. It’s fucking FAR from it. Ive already mentioned how putting two addicts together can lead to relapsing, dependence on each other in an unhealthy way. And Ive even mentioned what Angel needs in a relationship in the RD post. Luckily for you, I’ll copy and paste it here: “ We need to think about where both are mentally. What benefits would a relationship give both? How would they be good and bad for each other? For Al, aside from his outdated views and being a fucking murderer and narcissist, he actually seems in a good mindspace for a relationship IF he opted to be in one. Angel however has a very immature mindset, likewise is in a phase of life where hes bed hopping. IF he were to be in a relationship, I’d say he needs a male equivalent of Cherri - someone with a similar mindset yet some differences, willing to have fun and in touch with their younger side, down to cuddle, open to share and receive love as well as not afraid to publicly be affectionate with him, someone who sees him as more than just for sex, someone fun, someone who’ll let him embrace his cutesy side publicly without shame - Cherri is younger so maybe someone who’s his age or slightly younger perhaps? I think Angel’s not retirement home ready to settle and needs someone on his level that can cuddle and chill as well as feels free and youthful enough to go wild with him. In one sense, he’s got a teen girl sorta mindset (dont put him with a teen though, it’s fuckin weird-). He needs someone positive and raw, someone to let him be himself as well as someone comfortable to be themselves around him. He has a habit of latching onto unobtainable men (in psychology, this is self sabotaging subconsciously): Travis the client, Val a pimp, Husk (emotionally unavailable and needs HEAVY self work - interestingly far more than Angel - plus he’s still onto his last relationship and an addict to gambling and alcohol), Pent who’s the enemy he was currently fighting (inappropriate timing), Alastor who’s not interested in another but his own needs [selfish, VERY bad for a relationship]. Subconsciously he’s self sabotaging on purpose. There’s many psychology books as well as sources online for this, if you’re interested. Either way, Angel is drawn to men either like his father [who dislike him, shun him, or are otherwise cold, abusive or just blatantly dislike or otherwise dont care about him] or anyone with money to fuel his drug addiction/’debt’ to Val. Going with any of these men isn’t a good idea. Preferably, Angel needs someone who he doesnt immediately crush and obsess over. Someone who he doesnt sexually harass or assault. Someone he can build a connection with quickly that can bud into romance (think how Chaggie started as a friendship which clicked immediately). Maybe even someone he doesn’t expect to fall for but does so anyways. It would be more realistic as Viv wants as well as more healthy. That for once he isnt sex or money craved instantly, thus doesnt sexually harass/assault and is given a proper chance to develop and grow a friendship and love. Someone who isnt an addict. Someone with an on-par mindset where they click. Someone open to love. For any chance of a good relationship, Angel needs to be with anyone BUT who we’ve already seen. There’s too much toxicity that’ll be swept under the rug and justified otherwise. Too much shit to fuel homophobes in terms of gay stereotypes. Even though Ive focused a fair bit on Angel, it’s NOT just about Angel. That’s something fans forget. Some he depends on or someone who depends on him in the long term wont last and will be very dangerous to both. Just because you suffer, you dont then deserve to be rewarded with ‘something nice’. You dont get to have everything youve ever wanted. Giving him any of these blokes [minus Val] gives him a pass. Gives him what he wants. I get Viv loves him but life doesnt work that way. True lasting growth comes from learning that. Acceptance and growth. You dont get everything you want and sometimes thats a GOOD thing. He’s not a spoilt kid who gets everything he asks for, he’s YOUR creation. If you really wanted what your creations deserve then you need to research and be realistic with it. Because hes starting to feel like a shitty Gary-Stu at this rate.” Sorry for that copypaste clusterfuck. Copy paste is not my forte lol Now Husk. Remember Big? Probably not after the info overload, but if you do GREAT. Big needed love, patience, understanding, someone who could help him, someone who understood and respected his boundaries. I spent so much damn time and now he cuddles up and exposes his tummy because I make him feel understood, loved and safe. He NEVER purred or meowed (why would he need to meow when he didnt speak to humans?) but now he does. He lives on the streets of a neighbourhood with rough folk. He used to draw blood and go rabid on my arms. But I was patient and showed him that I understood his reasons but that he was safe with me and had no need to strike out. I never pushed his boundaries let alone doing it multiple times (the rl angel I know is fucking skilled at pushing cat’s boundaries and wonders why they all huddle up to me and avoid her lol). Husk is an unavailable man. Romantic/Sexual love does NOT heal his wounds. But thats the only thought fans and the team have given on his side. He needs love to ‘fix’ him. The WORST reason to get with someone. Theyre not a project and you arent a fucking miracle worker. Treat them as an equal. He needs a good friend. JUST a friend. Like Big, he needs patience, trust, understanding, and extensive help (arguably more intense than Angel’s). He needs to love himself a bit more FIRST. Someone who respects his boundaries INSTANTLY. Someone relatable and similar, open to love not just sex and not as troubled (if they are, they need to handle it way better, healthily and overall be in a good mindspace). Viv can ship whatever the fuck tickles her fancy, but once your passion project becomes public and funded, you have set responsibilities on how to address and handle sensitive issues as well as having to accept criticism. If Husk goes sober in the name of love (ESPECIALLY with the guy not respecting his boundaries and sexually harassing him), then it’s a fucking INSULT to alcoholics. I know a few rl Husks but there’s one that anyone who knows me enough knows the man I hold closest to my heart was an alcoholic and spitting of Husk. That’s why Husk’s character means so much to me. But there’s only 2 here who know a bit more of this man. This is something Id hoped to not share so soon, nor as messy. And Im already getting waterworks because this is FAR from easy. I guess Husk became the very thing *I* needed in order to face this. This man was my grandfather. WAS. I cant even fucking accept that. I was a fucking child. I feel stupid being so open about this over some stupid cartoon but it just shows the real life effects this has on REAL fucking people. This man was old and lonely. Always at the pubs. He taught me card games, card tricks and card magic as well as one of his own sons dealing with a gambling addiction. I feel so fucking stupid crying about this- I dont want to open up but its the only way I feel I can get people to understand my side in all of this. This man was a fucking MESS. A closed off, lonely, grumpy old bastard. He lost his love because of his alcohol addiction and never found love again. Never got over that woman. (Shes still kicking and we’re close - im keeping some things under wraps between them as its not my place). Gave up on life and love. Worked hard at his fixation on cards and puzzles, as well as crass jokes and knowledge. But he was very lazy otherwise. Bitter and angry. And you know what? He was my world. I love this man with every fiber of my being because he was the first person to love and accept me for me. He treated me as an equal and helped me grow as a person. In fact... He was only ever happy around us kids. He had hope again. Protected me. He used to hate gays and blacks and you know what? He taught HIMSELF as to why that was shitty thinking. He taught ME about differences in people and to accept it. He taught me that you dont always have to understand to accept. He taught me poker and... swears admittedly. He was a beautiful soul that was broken inside. He needed to love himself. But you know what actually fucking happened? You know what I watched as a kid? I watched as he smoked until every morning he woke throwing up phlegm just to BREATHE. I watched as sometimes the light in his eyes died and through smoke breaks and early drinking how he’d sometimes slip and show me his pain. And we’d have deep talks about it and the world and everything. How alcohol ruined his life yet he craved it. His scent. I remember arguments I wasnt supposed to overhear and growing up seeing him fucking DIE slowly in a hospital bed. The man he was ended up as a fucking husk. His skin was bloated and purple, he was half machine on how much shit he was hooked up to. How he was barely a man at all. He was dying of cancer and he fucking knew and never told us. His cancer meds gave him horrid hallucinations. And I practically spent most of my time in that hospital because TWO people had cancer. Two stunning people had fucking stupid bastard cancer. He was a fuck up. He was flawed to shit. But seeing glimpses of the real him was a fucking ethereal experience. He made me feel like a PERSON. And all we could do in the end was watch him just die. He WANTED to die and you could see it but hed only eat around us to fake fight out of his own hubris and not wanting to let us down. That year, I watched 2 of the only people who ever gave a shit about me die the most dishonourable deaths God could have gave them. Years prior I watched his son gamble EVERYTHING away - his lover, his house, his everything. Hes a moderate gambler now with a partner who never had a history of any addiction. She helps keep him in line as he helps her. But most nights I fucking dream of this shit. I cant even think about my hero because I fucking weep. I still have nightmares. Im still up thinking how I could have saved him from himself when it’s him who was the only one able to. I have to live my life with those memories and I was just a kid. Im a full woman and Im still haunted by it. Even that year is blasphemy and I fucking hate it. I want to take him in my arms, hold him and tell him he’s enough. That its ok and he can get through this. Anything that reminds me of him, I love because I know the other side. The real side. The side not tethered to vices. When I see people like that, I pray they see themselves like that too and I want to help them see it. Tell them that they can live again. It’s better than fucking decaying in a hospital bed. That when people make this sorta shit into a cute quirk it’s not. And it’s dickheads like me who have actually seen it play in the real world to REAL people they love. They arent a fucking accessory to fix for your own narrative. They arent a fuckin performing monkey. At least with Rick and Morty it’s kinda humorous and never played for some shitty toxic ship to appeal to everyone who’s never had to face that shit themselves. And Im like my old man but with more hope and no addiction. I drink and I gamble but I’ll never let myself get that low. Because I honour him but Im not as fucking saft. I wont allow it even though it’s a fucking battle. Those addictions are in the blood. My family history. Its always been so fucking normal. I’ll never knock someone for an addiction or try to preach them out of it because theres often pain fueling it, but I’d never encourage it or toxic faux cures and stupid romance promises as some bullshit MLM remedy either. I KNOW it’s fiction but I want people to see the real side. I want VIV to see the real side. Id willingly for FREE fucking sing that shit if it meant spreading a good message. Because this is fucking hell. FIXING IT: The ship’s basis is too set in stone now - too familiar to change. Best is to never let it be canon. Because you know what else it teaches? That rOmAnCe cures all. Not therapy. Not rehab. Not any REAL work. Just fuck and date it all away as if it’s that easy. It’s a mockery! I tried to be professional about this but when the media bombards this shit constantly, the has the AUDACITY to play like it’s giving a good message is salt to the wounds. A kiss with a fist. An old man dont care for the petty teen drama that Angel and Cherri (even fuckin Al) thrive on. Want this to send a good message still? Angel hates rejection and thinks everyone wants him. Have Husk reject him. Especially because no one should go out with someone whos sexually harassed them there. Been there, done that got the fuckin tshirt. Have Husk reject Angel the way Gravity Falls has Wendy reject Dipper. It helped Dipper move on and mature, and this is what Angel needs for growth and to be more humble. Husk would be a fucking excellent mentor to Angel, a friend and protector, someone who shows him the ropes like Grunkle Stan like a grandfather figure. To not fall for his mistakes. Husk would be a better expert than any of them plus it balances the power dynamtic. It’s healthy and realistic. Touches the topic with the sensitivity it needs. Not everything needs a ship or romance. Wounds healed that way dont stay healed long. Angel seems more fitting as a son like figure, and he can play that dad like role for him. And if any of the team EVER saw this, fucking take this idea. Its YOURS. FREE. FOREVER. If we wanna play this NDA but still reblog some of the story telling arts and have some of our team indulge in it. I wont sue. Fucking TAKE IT if it means doing this shit right because Spindlehorse have beautifully triggered so many different people and their different traumas to please teenagers sexual fantasies, their own kinks and for a jolly good joke. This is a bastard long read and Ive had to face the traumas again but if good can come from it then I’ll GLADLY dance this duet again. Stans, Antis, dont even TEMPT interaction. You arent brave sending suicide threats behind a screen, youre a coward and a waste of oxygen. I WANT Hazbin and Helluva to succeed. I want Viv and her crew to do well. Trust me, I wouldnt waste my time if I didnt give a shit. Viv is fucking gifted and its being wasted if it’s not at her full potential for the approval of a rabid army of kids and immature adults who dont know any better (stans and antis). I know she would like a good and decent fanbase. Stans and antis arent it. Tagging you folks because it’s long but yall actually helped me have the courage to open my trap to this. Screenshots are coming later though all of what Ive said is easily sourced. But this has been days, Im sick, im tired, ive been upset facing my own traumas. If any tags wanna help then by all means but otherwise. @honesthazbinarchives, @siaesnow (also added age still bc despite the lack of physical aging, theres also the mental aspect and experiences as well as power dynamics side to it, in case youre wondering), @noirellearts, @enchantedchocolatebars, @galemalio (thank you for letting me weep like a bitch), @angel-blitz, @critical-hazbin, @what-the-hazbin, @hazboobhotel, @pineapple-critiques-stuff, @devils-advocutie, SORRY AGAIN FOR BEING A LIL BITCH FOLKS, I feel awkward like my teen years but yeah- fuck it Im old and imma rot soon anyways. If this experience can help then Ill be glad.

#hazbin hotel #hazbin critical #anti huskerdust sorry folks #vivienne medrano #criticism #toxic relationships in fiction #how fiction impacts the real world #yeah im a wimp who cares?#hazbin needs to change for the better #concerned fan #dont be another yandev #dont be another yansim #stans and antis dni #stans and antis will be blocked and reported #hope this gives justice to my hero about the rl effects of addiction #rest easy Kiddas got this #still shitting myself #read more wont work sorry

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fremedon · 3 years

Text

Brickclub 3.1.13, “Young Gavroche”

About eight or nine years after the events told in the second part of this story, on the Boulevard du Temple and in the neighborhood of the Château d’Eau, there could be seen a little boy of eleven or twelve who would have quite accurately realized the ideal of the gamin previously sketched if, with the laughter of youth on his lips, his heart had not been absolutely dark and empty.

So that’s our introduction to Gavroche; and, like so many of Hugo’s introductions, it’s not exactly untrue but it’s certainly misleading--as is our reintroduction to the Gorbeau House, which “happened to be inhabited, extraordinarily enough, by several individuals who in fact, typically of Paris, had no connection or relationship with each other.” That part is an outright lie--Hugo is generally lying when he avers that anything is unconnected or irrelevant.

Before I dig into that, I want to point out that “eight or nine years.” The ‘now’ of Tome III is when Gavroche is 11 or 12--and Cosette, who is eight, or possible seven going on eight, when she arrives at the convent, would be sixteen or seventeen. This fits with the introduction we get to Gillenormand in the next chapter, where it says he was as alive as anyone could be in 1831. The first half of Tome III is going to backtrack to fill us in up to that point, but it’s setting up its “present day” as late 1831 and early 1832. (Tl;dr, the ages and descriptions of the Amis de l’ABC should be read as of 1828, when they meet Marius, since they enter the story in the middle of the explanation of how Marius came to be living in the Gorbeau House.)

Back to Gavroche. Bleak and empty of heart is...about as close to the opposite of how I would describe Gavroche as it is possible to get. It’s really making me look again at every other character introduction and wonder just how much I should be trusting it. And yet, it’s not just Gavroche’s introduction--IIRC, this chapter is the only time we’re going to see him for the whole of Tome III. He’ll come back in the very last chapter to find his family in prison, but I think he’s offstage for the entirety of the volume otherwise. So this is the impression Hugo wants us to sit with for a very long time.

When these poor creatures are men, almost invariably they are caught and crushed under the millstone of the social order, but as long as they are children, being small, they escape. The tiniest bolt-hole saves them.

We’ve had the millstone metaphor before--of Jean Valjean, in the bagne. We also get, possibly, our first introduction to the great literal metaphor of the sewer, in the description of the classes who live in the Gorbeau House: “...right down to those two beings with whom all the material things of civilization end up: the sewer-man who sweeps up the sludge, and the rag-and-bone man who salvages the rubbish”

So Gavroche is poised to grow up to be the seed of millet beneath the millstone--but for now, he’s small, and he escapes.

I will point out that the seed that escapes the millstone and rolls into a hole--germinates. The child may seem doomed, but he still has the potential to be anything.

Most of what else we learn about him here is his separation from his family, who don’t love him and have pushed him out onto the streets:

He was one of those children, most deserving of all of pity, who have both father and mother and yet are orphans.

[...]

This child lived in this absence of affection like those etiolated plants that grow in cellars. It was not something he minded, and he did not hold it against anybody. He did not actually know how a father and mother should be.

What is more, his mother loved his sisters.

That last line is the only hint we’re going to get for a long time of the identity of the Jondrette family. It’s chilling enough to be noticeable; I can hardly remember now what it’s like to read this book unspoiled, but if one was reading closely I think it would be the sort of hint that you remember, just too late to brace yourself for the reveal.

Why was he called Gavroche? Probably because his father’s name was Jondrette. Breaking ties seems to be the instinct of some destitute families.

And yet, forging ties is Gavroche’s instinct--with the mômes, with Montparnasse, with Enjolras, with everyone he comes across. He’s everyone’s friend and benefactor--but we don’t learn that here, and we won’t until Book IV. Why is Gavroche, who is so central to the story on both a metaphorical and logistical level, given an introduction that’s so wildly out of character from what we actually see of him?

I really don’t know. Partly, I think it’s to throw his resilience and capacity for community-building and affection into sharper relief--to make sure we’re seeing them in light of all the ways the deck is stacked against him. It would be easy, in his position, to actually have a bleak and empty heart; that he doesn’t is nothing short of miraculous (and more fodder for the headcanon of Cosette being his usual caretaker in Montfermeil).

But also...this is our introduction to the consummate gamin, the type specimen of the type we’ve just spent twelve chapters getting to know. That emptiness of heart is the thing that, we are told, keeps him from perfectly embodying the gamin--which is to say, Paris. Gavroche is Paris--but a Paris with an emptiness at the core.

And I’m thinking now of those bleak and empty house-fronts in the Rue de la Chanvrerie, and the city that doesn’t wake.

#brickclub #lm 3.1.13

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theheartsmistakes · 4 years

Text

The Last Night Part XXIII

Parts I-XXII:

Here is Part I

Here is Part II

Here is Part III

Here is Part IV

Here is Part V

Here is Part VI

Here is Part VII

Here is Part VIII

Here is Part IX

Here is Part X

Here is Part XI

Here is Part XII

Part XIII

Part XIV

Part XV

Part XVI

Part XVII

Part XVIII

Part XIX

Part XX

Part XXI

Part XXII

XXIII.

Alastair watched his sister play with her dolls on the rug in the sitting room from the second to last step on the landing. A safe distance away from the fire, her small voice filled the room with color that it sorely lacked. Since their father’s return from wherever it was he had been for the past year, their furniture (what furniture they had) started to disappear.

Cordelia, being only eight hardly noticed. Not when her father’s attention became more of a pressing matter, but Alastair being ten years old and having been the one to mind the estate after their staff stopped showing up and Sona fell into another one her deep depressions, he began to notice.

And he could only suspect one person responsible.

After being satisfied that Cordelia was out of ear range, Alastair turned and jogged up the stairs two at a time. He noted the sconces on the walls were missing along with the bulbs except for one left unprotected and obnoxiously bright without a cover. The rug that ran along the hallway was gone as well leaving the floor bare so that every footstep and noise could be heard. Alastair took a deep breath through his nose and steadied himself.

He’d secretly hoped that his mother would be the one to address the issue, but she hardly seemed to notice the missing things, or if she did, she didn’t feel the need to mention it. The house grew colder and colder by the minute despite his father's enormous presence to fill it.

A part of him chastised himself for not being more elated about his father’s return. The rest of his family members seemed to be, but because of his illusive absence for the past year with no explanation about where he’d gone and the stink of alcohol lingering on his vest, something deep in Alastair’s chest froze towards his father.

Others may be warmed by his false promises and elaborate stories, but he knew the truth. Call it a gift of his, he could see past the pretense his father shoveled in front of everyone to hide his sins.

When he reached the oak door at the end of the hall, with a shaking fist, he knocked.

At first no sound came, so he knocked again; louder this time.

A shuffle could be heard inside. Glass shattering against the floor followed by a string of cursing.

“Who is it?”

“It’s me, father,” said Alastair. “I need to speak with you.”

“What’s this about?”

Alastair placed a hand on the handle. “May I come in?”

“Is this important?”

“It is,” said Alastair lifting his jaw.

“Very well,” said his father.

Alastair turned the knob and pushed his way inside. The bitter, sweet smell of freshly spilt whiskey hit him and burned his eyes. He resisted the urge to cover his nose with a handkerchief.

His father wobbled on his hands and knees attempting to clean up a spill with his pocket cloth, but moving as if he were on a very unsteady ship. Red rimmed eyes looked up at Alastair and a grin curved around his father’s face.

“What is it?” He slurred as he fell backwards against the wingback chair that happened to be the only piece of furniture in the room beside the beverage cart sitting beside the window. “Am I late for supper?”

“It’s nearly noon, father,” said Alastair. “I’m here because it appears that our household items have gone missing.”

“Missing?” Elias squinted up at his son.

“Yes.” Alastair rolled his eyes. “As in gone.”

“Like what?”

“My writing desk, Cordelia’s doll house,” said Alastair. “Mum’s good China, the Tehran crafted weapons, the silver, and where’s the furniture that used to be in this room?”

“Alastair—“

“If you’re pawning our household items to support your drinking then—“ It wasn’t a question of if, nor was it an accusation. Alastair knew the truth, he knew even if he didn’t want to believe it.

“Then what?” asked Elias. “Go on, boy, finish your sentence.”

“You’ll not take one more thing from this house,” said Alastair.

Elias scoffed and attempted to push himself up from the floor when his hand landed on a piece of glass. Elias hissed and fell backwards again onto the floor. “Bloody hell!” He held his hand up, dripping now with fresh blood. “Don’t just stand there. Get me something to stench this with.”

Alastair sighed and walked across the room to the beverage cart. A towel hung from the silver handle, stained with spilt alcohol, Alastair grabbed it and brought it over to his father.

“Where is your steele?” asked Elias as he ripped the towel from Alastair’s hand.

“I don’t have one with me,” said the boy.

“What kind of Shadowhunter doesn’t carry around his steele?”

“I’m nearly ten, father,” reminded Alastair. “I’m hardly a Shadowhunter yet. I can go find yours if you’d like.”

Elias took the towel away from his hand and examined the wound in his palm. “No, don’t trouble yourself. You’ve clearly more pressing matters to attend to. Have you spoken to your mother about these missing items?”

“I haven’t wanted to trouble her—“

“Only me?” asked Elias. “I suppose I deserve that.” He got slowly and unsteadily to his feet. When he stepped backwards a few steps, Alastair had to stop himself from reaching out towards him. He looked like a toddler learning to walk for the first time.

The question dangled on Alastair’s tongue as he watched his father pitch forward and back like an aged ship on angry seas: why did he insist on drinking? When did he become a drunk? Alastair, honestly, couldn’t remember. There’d been a time when sobriety found him for a few months and then he’d be back on the streets again. Alastair was seven years old the first time he picked him up from the porch steps when he passed out before he’d made it inside. The first time, he’d thought it kind of comical, by the third time that week, he found it frightening. And now, he wanted to ask his father why. Why weren’t they enough for him? What was his father chasing that could be found or forgotten at the bottom of a bottle?

Alastair feared he might never know.

_ _ _

The pocket watch ticked inside Alastair’s palm where he sat on the sofa in the drawing room waiting for Cordelia and Lucie to enter through the door. It was five past three; the time they were supposed to return. Questionably, James hadn’t returned either. Alastair knew he should have trusted his instincts over his sister’s word, but he’d allowed himself to feel marginally guilty about upsetting Cordelia.

How could she not understand he was simply trying to do what was best for her? She clearly wasn’t thinking straight— and to be honest she never had when it came to the Herondale boy. It would be over his dead body that he’d ever see James hand-in-hand with his sister.

No, not even then.

Alastair shoved his watch back into his pocket, stood from the chair retrieving his jacket from the arm, and marched towards the door.

“Oh,” said a voice behind him. “Are you leaving too?”

Alastair turned to find Thomas descending the stairs in his full fighting gear. His soft brown hair was combed back away from his face and curling slightly behind his ears. His scarred hands were adjusting the straps across his broad chest that just barely fit across him. Alastair swallowed and quickly averted his eyes to his shoes and then the front door.

With a strange pitch in his voice, Alastair said, “I hadn’t realized you were here.”

“I came with my parents to meet the Herondales,” said Thomas tucking in the extra bit of leather left at the end of his strap. “I thought Christopher, Matthew, and James would be here, but it appears I am at a loss. Miss communication.”

“James is with Matthew on patrol,” said Alastair. “At least that’s what I was told.”

Thomas looked off to the side. “Then I’m sure that’s the truth of it. Where are you headed?”

“I’m supposed to meet my sister at the other Lightwood’s estate,” said Alastair. “She’s running a bit behind so I figured I’d spare her the trouble and catch her there.”

“I’m on my way there as well,” said Thomas. “Would you mind if I joined you?”

Surprised, all words evaporated from Alastair’s mind. When he managed to find them again, a bright color had emerged in his cheeks. “Are you quite sure. I don’t mind finding my own way there.”

“That’s ridiculous,” said Thomas reaching for the door knob. “We’re going in the same direction, not on an outing together, there’s no reason for us to take two separate carriages to the same destination.” Thomas opened the door and without waiting for Alastair to respond, he walked out onto the front steps.

Still slightly shocked, Alastair combed a hand through his hair, picked up his cane, and followed.

“What plans do you and Cordelia have today?” Thomas asked from atop the bench seat of his parent’s carriage.

Alastair, who’d chosen to remain quiet despite the kindness being extended to him, focused on the main road as he answered. “I’m not sure. She mentioned something about going to a park.” He was quite certain that was all that was going on between them. Perhaps his parents conjured him into being kind to the injured, isolated, and troubled Carstairs boy. Perhaps this was some sort of revenge and Thomas had alternative plans of dropping him into the Thames.

“It’s a lovely day for the park—��

“What are you doing?”

Thomas’s eyebrow jumped. “Excuse me?”

“This?” Alastair motioned between them. “This show of uncharacteristic kindness. I can tell it’s not genuine. Who put you up to this?”

Thomas sighed and straightened his shoulders. “I felt badly for the way I spoke to you the other day.”

Alastair had to fight to keep the shock from his face. “You felt bad? Thomas, you have nothing to feel badly about.”

“Perhaps,” said Thomas, “but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how unfair I was being towards you. Do not misunderstand me, this is not me granting you pardon for what you did, but rather an understanding.”

“Why?”

“Because when you created those lies about my father,” said Thomas, “I created lies for him, or what I thought were lies to help repair some of his reputation. My father, who is an upstanding citizen by most regards, and truly a wonderful father, and I was making up all kinds of lies to protect him even though I knew the rumors about him were lies— even though I believed him. I can’t imagine if the rumors were actually true.”

He didn’t have to say it. Alastair had long since learned to read between the lines of what someone was saying to him.

“I don’t need you to feel sorry for me,” said Alastair shortly.

“I don’t feel sorry for you,” said Thomas, never removing his eyes from the road, “and I don’t pity you. I’m merely saying that I understand. In a way, I understand.”

With the wind brushing against his face, Alastair felt a weight of sorts brush off of him.

“I am sorry for what I’ve done to your family and Matthew’s,” said Alastair. “I’ve been minding my father’s reputation since I was a boy.”

“Why did you do it?” asked Thomas. “I know why I fought for my father’s reputation, but yours was an actual alcoholic.”

Alastair bristled. “Alcoholic or not, he is still my father.”

“I’m sorry if I offended—“

“You didn’t offend,” said Alastair. “I suppose I fought so hard to protect him for so long that I simply forgot how to not to. I’d been able to keep up a pretense about my father that at the first sign of trouble, my instinct was to defend him, and the only way I knew how to do that was to put the spotlight onto someone else. If I’m being honest, it wasn’t him I was trying to protect.”

“Yourself?” asked Thomas, as he steered the horse down an empty brick paved street.

“Cordelia,” said Alastair. “I was trying to protect Cordelia. She grew up believing that our father was someone to be admired. She held him on the same pedestal that the Herondale children held their father. I made sure that she never knew about his… illness.”

“Does she know now?”

“She does,” said Alastair. “I couldn’t protect her forever.”

“No,” said Thomas, drawing the horse to a stop at the brick pathway leading to a white gated entrance to a garden. “I suppose you can’t.”

Alastair looked up at the beautiful ivy crested veranda and tried to remember what had caused him to go fetch Cordelia in such a hast. Surely, she was all right with Lucie and if she was in fact with James, perhaps it was high time that she started worrying about her own mistakes. And if she needed him, he would surely be there for her.

“Perhaps I’ll wait here,” said Alastair. “While you go fetch Christopher.”

From the ground now, Thomas looked up at Alastair as he tied the horse to a post. “Would you like me to get Cordelia for you?”

“No,” said Alastair, adjusting his coat. “I shouldn’t trouble her. She’ll return when—“

Before he could finish his sentence, a high pitched scream came from inside the house. Thomas and Alastair both looked in the direction of which it had come and then back at each other.

“Cordelia,” said Alastair as he swung himself down from the driver’s bench as Thomas drew a steele from the strap on his shoulder and whispered its name to it. It burst to light in his hand, accenting his face in a halo of light.

The two men stalked up to the open front door: Alastair at the front, with Thomas trailing closely behind him, both of them scanning their surroundings.

Upon entering the house, it didn’t appear that anything was out of place through the kitchen. There was no sign of a scuffle or demon activity. Even though he didn’t know him all that well, Alastair wouldn’t put it past the odd glasses wearing one to release a demon during one of his poorly executed experiments.

They inched through the kitchen into the short hallway that went through to the sitting room. Attached to the room was a staircase and from the second floor, they could hear an exchanging of voices.

Alastair broke for the stairs at a run with Thomas close behind him. He followed the direction the voices were coming from and turned to the left, stopping at a door that was partially opened. He was seconds from storming it, when Thomas grabbed him by the coat tail and wretched him back.

“Wait,” said Thomas and stepped in front of him, “listen.”

“I wouldn’t try it if I were you,” said a second voice laced with ill intention and centuries of old lies. “Not unless you want me to start breaking bones in their bodies starting with the smallest.”

Thomas grabbed Alastair’s arm and mouthed a name. “Belial.”

Suddenly, the door slammed in front of Alastair and he heard the faint sound of the lock.

“We don’t have much time. I have a very short window back into my realm and we’ll need to be going now. That is if you want your friends to live.”

“Lucie,” said a male voice that Alastair could not recognize. “Don’t go with him. I’m not meant to be here. I’m not meant to be alive.”

“How rude,” said Belial. “Do you have any idea how hard your mother and sister worked to bring you back to life. The least you could do is be more grateful.”

“If I go with you.” The voice was clearly Lucie’s and if Lucie was in there then so would Cordelia. “If I agree to do what you ask, you’ll promise to leave them alone?”

“You have my word,” said a second voice laced with ill intention and century old lies.

Thomas glanced at Alastair and pointed at the medieval spear hanging on the wall in the hallway. Alastair reached up and pulled it carefully from it’s hooks as Thomas took several steps back, picked his foot up, and kicked their way through the lock with his heel in a single, impressive stomp. As Thomas reached for Lucie, pulling her away from the mysterious figure in the center of the room, Alastair threw the spear with every ounce of his might.

He watched it spiral through the air, quick as an arrow, and then stop mere inches from Belial’s chest. A wicked grin curled around the handsome face, as the spear evaporated and then reappeared faster then Alastair could blink.

It was warm, that was the first thing he thought about. Warmth spreading across his back and his chest. His eyes searched the room for Cordelia, but he couldn’t find her face amongst the ones he could not recognize. Everyone stared at him, the pale haired girl Grace and a dark haired boy sitting beside her looked on at him terrified. His eyes drifted to his left where Thomas held Lucie tightly in his arms both gaped at him horrified. He tried to say something, but his lungs had stopped expanding. When he looked down at his chest, he could see where the warmth had come from. The end of the spear protruded from his chest.

“Alastair!” Thomas yelled.

“Go,” he said, as rust flavored saliva dripped from between his lips. “Go now.”

“Release the girl,” said Belial, with his arms crossed and a rather bored expression on his face, “and the boy lives.”

Thomas’s grip on Lucie faltered just slightly.

“Don’t,” said Alastair. “He’s lying.”

“Let me go, Thomas,” said Lucie. “Let me go. He won’t let him die, he won’t if it means he can have me.”

“Listen to the girl, Thomas,” said Belial. “Save your friend and sacrifice the other or lose both.”

Alastair could see the turmoil in Thomas’s gritted teeth and reddened face, still his hands were white knuckled around Lucie. He wouldn’t let her go. Not unless—

Lucie brought her head forward and swung it back against Thomas’s sternum. With a quick maneuver of her feet, she twisted under his grip and shoved him off balance into the wall.

“Let them go,” said Lucie, her hair loose from it’s braid now and falling around her face giving her the appearance of a mad woman. “Let him live and I’ll go with you.”

Belial grinned and with a slight nod of his head, he and Lucie blinked from the room like a flash of lightning. Alastair was released from the spear in the wall and fell crumpled to the ground on his knees. His hands went to his chest to feel for the wound, but while the blood and hole in his shirt were still there, the wound and weapon were not.

A/N: Hope I redeemed myself just a little bit. Next update comes out 12/20

#jordelia fanfiction #The Last Night #the last hours #chain of gold #james x cordelia #thomas x alastair #thomastair #j

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movienotesbyzawmer · 3 years

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April 12: Rocky III

(previous notes: Rocky II)

Because now that Rocky has done the unthinkable and become The Champ, we want to see him tackle the next challenge… win AGAIN.

I remember seeing this in the theater with my buddy. I don't know if I liked it. I'm pretty sure I found Mr. T to be as charismatic and as terrifying as they wanted. I'm pretty sure when I bought the ticket I hesitated and asked the cashier, "hey, wait, we get to see him do some variation on the triumphant steps jogging moment, right? Otherwise never mind I'll go see Poltergeist again". If I'm paying good money for boxing sequels, I want to be assured that the formula has not been altered.

Okay let's go.

Once again, this is Un Film De Sylvester Stallone.

Slight variation on the fanfare with the title, now there's a close-up of the Important Belt Buckle Of Punchsport.

Then we see the climax of the previous movie, maybe edited slightly for time. But not very noticeably different.

That segues immediately to a montage of Rocky doing many successful beatup games, scored by the enormous pop hit "Eye of the Tiger". I suspect this isn't the last we'll hear of this number.

The montage morphs into a different story, one starring Mr. T! He's watching Rocky win stuff and he is not pleased. He can also fist-game, it seems. But the montage makes it clear that it is our hero Rocky who is the star of commercial endorsements and marriage love.

I mock but this visionary filmmaker has indeed opened this movie with energetically cinematic choices.

0:8:40 - Arcade games! Paulie goes to an arcade and it is like the arcades I went to when this movie was out and I see games that I played! But Paulie doesn't like the Rocky pinball machine. It seems he is a sore brother-in-law.

Rocky is now very dashing. Paulie is drunk and whiny about how Rocky is such a big shot now, but he has a point about how prettied up he has become.

Later that night Rocky and Adrian are in their bed and it has a rich person headboard. The director, also visibly present in front of the camera, clearly instructed the production designer to create a bed that would reflect the elite level of financial flexibility that the protagonist has reached.

So apparently Rocky has gotten himself into the strange situation where he has to do a charity boxing match against a wrestler played by the increasingly famous Hulk Hogan. I had forgotten that Hulk Hogan is in this movie. Mr. T is watching this match and he looks intensely the same way he only ever does.

Whoa Hulk Hogan is way taller than Sylvester Stallone. Is that allowed? The rules have changed! And this whole thing is not boxing it is wrestling and it is that silliness instead of boxing. This is a long scene that is the same as a typical Wrestlemania thing, all manufactured drama made to seem like fighting and true menace, but at the end we see that they are just professional coworkers and we have all learned a valuable lesson haven't we.

At a statue-unveiling, Rocky announces that he is maybe retiring. MAYBE. But then Mr. T shows up talking smack, and ladies and gentlemen we have ourselves an end-of-Act-One.

As Act Two begins, we have a scene that was an A+ homework assignment for the screenwriting teacher of Rocky III's screenwriter, who you will recall is the craftsman Sylvester Stallone. Burgess Meredith is like "I quit! I won't help you with this fight! Mr. T is too hard to beat!" But then they talk it out to advance past that scripted complication. And now Rocky and Mr. T are training for their fight in their separate worlds.

Speaking of worlds, in the World Of Rocky, the famous theme that was introduced in the score of the first movie is actually known to the characters in this movie as Rocky music. They play it for him publicly to celebrate their pride in his violence accomplishments.

Apollo Creed appears to be retired, but he is a commentator at this Rocky/T fight.

0:40:00 - They're about to do the fight, but Mr. T is so The Way He Is that the wants to fight on the way TO the fight. That results in some tumult that makes BM have health problems. It was vague what happened, it seemed like BM was shoved aside by all the mad/scared/fighting people, so then he has a conversation with Rocky in a back room where he's like, don't stop the fight even though I am suddenly vaguely frail. He sort of clutches his chest like maybe there's a heart attack but just one of those everyday ones. I have those every time I click send on a work email. My friends should not be discouraged from championship fisticuffs when that happens.

This is the first Rocky movie to be made after Raging Bull came out, and I detect some influence in the boxing footage, like with close-ups of Mr. T.

Rocky loses that fight pretty quickly, and maybe the problem is that he didn't do a pre-victory steps jog. But the movie is telling us that BM is dying on a table in the back room and that's the real problem.

BM dies and SS has done some pretty ambitious cry-acting. Then the funeral is in one of those indoor above-ground file-cabinet-style cemeteries, which is not the normal cinematic choice so nice job there.

I can already tell that we're going to have another thirty minutes of a bummed-out Rocky to fill out Act Two before it starts to look like the setup for a fulfilling climax can begin. It's what I would have told him to write if he were my student at the third-rate community college where I'm a part-time screenwriting teacher in this scenario.

Apollo Creed has shown up to try to pep-talk Rocky, and he keeps saying "eye of the tiger" because of marketing departments. But also, he is a more mature person than in the first two movies. Even though it's a character shift, I do kind of buy it. It seems like another side of the character we knew slightly.

0:59:00 - Another scene beginning with dialogue that sounds like it was improvised by people who don't know what real life is like. "Come on you're going to be late to the airport!" "Maybe you should have packed another sweater" "no in California it's not too cold". AHA THEY ARE GOING ON A TRIP TO CALIFORNIA I AM ON TO YOU ROCKY III

When they go to Los Angeles and show us people on the street and the people have been told to look and act super different so that the audience will be like, wow California is different, then, well, we are at this part of Rocky III did you know.

Although there was my earlier expectation that we were going to have a prolonged funereal story arc, but what's happened is that Apollo is invested in training Rocky so they're showing us that side of Apollo, and that's interesting. But also it's the template of "Rocky is training and he doesn't look like he's going to get there, but then inspiration will hit and he will look like he is going to get there". S. Stallone, noted filmmaker, is using montages and flashbacks to show how recent bad news moments for Rocky are haunting him. It is working.

Adrian performs a pep talk monologue for Rocky. I don't understand her point. It's like a box of those refrigerator poetry magnets jumbled up together and spoken as movie script lines. I guess the gist is "don't give up" and he starts to think maybe he shouldn't give up. Then it's a new training montage, and it's got the classic "running far now" Rocky theme so we know it's going well. The twist on the classic cheering-atop-stairs cadence is it's Rocky and Apollo on the beach, and Rocky is a little faster than Apollo and that is great news for them both.

Now we're right before the final fight, and we heard Mr. T tell a reporter that he "pity the fool". I didn't hear the rest of what he said, I was just so happy to hear him say "pity the fool".

Oh but shortly after that he is asked what his prediction is, and he looks at the camera, OUR camera, at US, and says "PAIN". Submitted without comment.

That face-to-face moment right before the fight starts, Mr. T says "imma bust you UP" and Rocky says "go for it". Advanced Scripted Dialogue with Professor Stallone.

The final fight happens, and it's mostly the same as how the other ones went except without a montage summarizing a whole bunch of rounds. I think this whole fight ended in three rounds. But it ends with the exact same music that I'm getting sick of….

BUT! There is a follow-up scene this time! It's some other day later on and Apollo and Rocky are just palling around at the gym. And THEN the movie ends. I feel that the producers must have implored Stallone, artisan that he is, to just end the movie on that climactic moment right after the fight ends, just like the other movies, but he said NO. That is not ENOUGH for a SYLVESTER STALLONE FILM. We will have an additional scene with INCONSEQUENTIAL BANTER. It will last OVER ONE MINUTE. And here we are. Rocky III: it's like Raging Bull, but better!!

I think Talia Shire is the only female actor with any lines in this movie.

One thing that's very much worth saying about this movie is that there is WAY more actual boxing in this movie. The other ones had almost no scenes where there were live boxing matches, but this one had lots. Plus that wrestling one! And as I observed, the directing style with this one also had a newfound sense of visual pop. But the story seems like it changed not at all from how it was described in the first studio board room meeting where jackass producers blurted out what Rocky III might be like.

(next: Rocky IV)

#rocky 3

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love-killed-the-superstar · 3 years

Text

i havent been drawing or writing pokemon stuff for ages and im currently too busy to make something new in time for drew appreciation day so i thought id post some wip respectshipping stuff under the cut that i dont THINK ive posted before?? if i have im sorry, im a bit dry on drew content rn!!

for context the scenes are taken from a sequel to my respect oneshot, sparks, set during a pride festival!

Ash slipped his hand into Drew's, and Drew glanced at him rigidly.

“What are you doing?” he asked. He didn't need to look to know that May and Brock had noticed, and were giving each other knowing smiles.

“Holding your hand?” Ash said, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“I know that. Why?”

Ash furrowed his brow. “Why am I holding your hand? We're... well, together, Drew.” It felt weird to say it out loud, and his frown melted into an elated smile. “We're boyfriends. And this is a festival celebrating the kind of relationship we have. Isn't this the best time to do it?”

Drew's cheeks began to burn under the unspoken pressure. Of course, he liked to touch Ash in private, hold his hands and cup his cheeks and kiss him, but public displays of affection had never been his thing. Giving out roses was different, of course – it was part of the charming persona he put on. He wasn't ashamed of his sexuality, and he certainly wasn't ashamed of Ash; but there was a time and a place for physical affection, and in the middle of a crowded street wasn't what he considered an opportune moment.

“We... we don't do this out in the open, Ash,” he reasoned. Ash shrugged.

“If you're sure.”

Ash dropped his hand, and at first Drew felt relief. But just moments later, he realised how cold his hand suddenly felt without the familiar warmth of Ash's.

With a huff, he grabbed it back.

“Jerk.”

...

“I'll only enter this contest if you enter the battle tournament.”

“Like hell. I don't get my kicks from raw power battles, sorry.”

“And I don't get my kicks from showing off how pretty my pokemon can be, but I'm willing to compromise. This is like, a couple activity. You know, so we can bond.”

“You know contests are about so much more than beauty, Ash. For the record, they say it's healthy for couples to not do everything together.”

“And we don't! We hardly see each other when we're travelling, so this'll be a special occasion!”

Ash and Drew were bickering again, as usual, though Brock had to admit it was far more entertaining seeing them argue over trivial matters such as 'couple activities' than having to watch them stew in their own feelings for the past few years. Getting to see them comfortable around each other was refreshing.

“Look, battles aren't romantic – contests aren't romantic! It's about you and your pokemon, not about you and your pokemon and your annoying boyfriend and his pokemon.”

“But I already told my mom we'd be battling together! She's recording it!”

“Your mother needs a new hobby that doesn't involve snooping on our relationship at any given moment,” Drew quipped, but he seemed a little less defensive at that. “She's really gonna be watching us?”

Ash patted his shoulder. “I told you she's trying to be supportive. She was excited when I mentioned the festival to her, actually. She asked me to pick her up a souvenir, like a badge or a wristband or something? And she was all, 'tell Drew I said hi!' so... yeah, she said hi.”

“And you're only mentioning this now.” Drew threw up his hands in exasperation. “Didn't it cross your mind to tell me earlier?”

“That she said hi?” Ash quirked an eyebrow. “My bad? Look, she asked me to call her tonight. If you want, I'll let you listen in.”

Drew clasped his hands together. “Maybe I'll... say hi back,” he said, licking his lower lip nervously. Ash grinned.

“You know, I think she'd like that.”

“This is heart-warming and all,” Brock smirked, finishing the last of his coffee, “but if you guys don't hurry up and compromise, you'll run out of time to sign up.”

And with that, their bickering was back to square one.

...

Delia's face appeared on the screen and she smiled warmly.

“Well hello there, Ash! Are you enjoying the festival so far?”

“Oh yeah! It's amazing. I never knew how big Sinnoh's gay community was until now.”

“Well, I'm glad you're having a good time. You're participating in the tag team battle tournament tomorrow, right?”

Ash's face fell slightly.

“I don't know. I was meant to be taking part with Drew, but he isn't so big on battling, so we haven't signed up yet.”

“Well, I'm sure you'll work it out,” Delia said with a sympathetic smile. “And how is Drew doing? Did you tell him I said hello?”

Ash's eyes lit up.

“Yeah, he's doing great! Actually... he talked about saying hi back. If you wanted to speak to him.”

Delia blinked in surprise.

“Oh, he wanted to talk to me?”

Ash smiled consiprationally.

“He'll never admit it to me but he really wants to make a good impression on you, Mom.”

Her cheeks were pink with pride and she chuckled lightly.

“Very well, hand him over.”

Unsurprisingly, Drew stepped out from just beyond view of the camera – Delia realised he was listening in the entire time, but decided to keep this revelation to herself for the time being.

“Why hello there, Drew. I suppose this is the first time we've talked since you two made the announcement.”

He nodded sheepishly.

“Yeah. Um, Ash and I don't travel together often. We parted ways after the visit, so... yeah. You're looking well, ma'am.”

“Oh please, call me Delia,” she said with a dismissive wave, then smiled. “I'm so excited to see the two of you compete in the tag battle tournament tomorrow!”

If Drew had been on the fence about it prior, he certainly wasn't anymore.

“Yes! Uh, we're looking forward to it, aren't we, Ash?”

Ash, looking both flabbergasted at the turn of events and also ecstatic at the news, nodded hastily.

“Yep! That's right, and the day after we're entering the pride contest! Since we're trainer and coordinator, we thought we'd do both!”

Ash grinned at his mother (mouthing how did you do that?? towards her) and she gave him a knowing wink in return.

“How wonderful! I've heard your coordinator skills are marvellous, Drew! I'm looking forward to it. It's a shame I couldn't be there in person.”

“Not sure this is your kind of scene, Mom,” Ash said with a laugh. “But it's been great! I got you a wristband, it's rainbow like a pride flag!”

“How sweet! Did you pick one up for Mimey too?”

Ash beamed and fished a pair of wristbands from his pocket.

“You know I did! Nothing but the best for you guys!”

“Mimey's been so excited for you too, dear. We'll wear them with pride!” She giggled at her own joke, and then clasped her hands together.

“By the way, you two, I was wondering how you would feel about the three of us sitting down for a meal in Pallet Town after the festival.” Her gaze flickered between the two of them. “You know, so that Drew and I can get to know each other better.”

Ash found the scar on the end of his ring finger suddenly very interesting to stare at.

“I don't know, Mom. I mean... maybe the timing isn't-”

“Sure, Mrs – uh, Delia.”

Ash glanced up in surprise at Drew, whose facial expression didn't give away his nerves like his shaking hands did, carefully out of Delia's view.

“Drew, you mean it?”

“Of course.” He offered Ash a quick smile. “Delia, I look forward to visiting again.”

“Wonderful!” Delia clapped her hands together and beamed. “Well, boys, I have to be going, but I'll be taping the matches! Good luck, both of you!”

The moment the call ended, Drew trudged back up to the rooms and headed over to his bed, flopping down rather ungracefully face first. Ash perched on the end of his own bed.

“Your mom is nice,” Drew said after a while, face emerging from his pillow. Ash chewed his lower lip.

“She means well, she really does want you to know each other now we're dating, but... we don't have to do this dinner if you're not ready for it.”

Drew opened his eyes to peer at Ash incredulously.

“What? No. I didn't just agree to it because your mom was giving me the same look you give me when you want something. I'm ready for this, you know? I want your mother to like me. I want to know the person who helped make you who you are.”

He took a deep breath.

“May finding out about us... it opened my eyes. For years I worried about what people would think of me if they knew. Then I realised, the world isn't one big contest. When it comes to who you are, the only one whose judgement matters is you.”

“Drew...”

“You mean a lot to me, Ash. I want to be a part of your world, and I want to introduce you to mine.”

“You sap.” Ash moved over to Drew's bed and rested his head against Drew's shoulder. “I'd really like that, though. I know our journey has been pretty rocky, but I just love being around you. And now we can be open about it, I've gotten so excited.”

Drew pressed a kiss to his forehead, and grinned.

“Now who's the sap?”

#drew appreciation day #respectshipping

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atlaese · 3 years

Note

... you're not obligated to do this... Please this is pure want which is arguably worst. Matt is a character in study indeed. Lmao do you remember when tumblr had the option for fanmail?? And you chose fonts and everything?

He is definitely good at taking notes some self help books might help: how to commit in a relationship, why being in a lifelong relationship is goos for your mental health, etc. Matt read, come on.

Yeah but she is loke he is first serious girlfriend and they are in college when it happens, she has a small part in the comics Im glad they changed that, I hate the fridging trope. She is also in punisher if you don't know, I like her alright. I like them as a trio not as a couple. Im a huge matt/elektra fan if you haven't noticed yet. But you know mostly matt x me is better. I deserve aome love too! Yeah hNat showed up randomly to help him, help her with some cases and things happened, haha. Two gingers together think about it.

Procrastinate all you want we have an open ending anyway! Yeah they are all in it together, again expect for punisher who had different comic runs he just debuted in dadredevil i think.

I don't know exactlt I think it's a neighborhood between Brooklyn and Manhattan, I'll need to pull a map. All i know is that she says its no more than ten streets all togther, and back in the sixties seventies it was a huge ppace with a bad fame but ir changed just like Brooklyn became a rich neighborhood when it was poor Irish immigrants only at first. Meeeen. Where do they hide I wondee? I always went for the shy nerd tupe who didn't have many social skills and im still hwre single so......

Ive never played pool haha, I am not interested on games ngl but their date so hot a s how he used his ears to listen tp the balls? I was screaming.

Oooh a petting zoo and a picnic, sound so romantic! I want a beach date aswell. And a boat ride because I deserve it!

Yes I will haha! Im determined! I ll start definitely tomorrow ☺️ and very good luck on your final I hope you ace it!

mattmattmattmattmattmattmattmatt brain.exe stopped working

okay. oof!! no i just wanted to check <3. but i'm glad you're enjoying this because i am too! it's like a little study break for me, thinking/simping about a fictional man 🤓. i do remember the fanmail, but i never used it? honestly ive been on tumblr for 8 years and up until this blog i only reblogged aesthetic pics and left 😭 i never sent asks or talked to anyone ahha! but yeah i once sent myself fanmail to try it and i was like?? why. i dont understand why this exists. lmao. it was pretty cute though!

anyway

imagine: one month anniversary. you got him a book in braille. it's a 101 for communication in relationships. matt is not amused. secretly he reads it though. a week later he replies to one of your complaints about him being late with 'i hear you, but...'. i dunno if i wanna kill him or kiss him. at least he used one of the techniques. deserves a brownie point. and a kiss.

ooh yes! i actually watched the punisher first, weirdly enough, and i loved karen in that! i'm less of a fan of her in daredevil for some reason? she's just like.. idk. in the way? and her behaviour kinda annoys me sometimes. but i loved her with frank and ii feel like they'd be a better match! ahah, no but matt x elektra makes so much more sense? because they both grew up fighting and being unsure of their own identity almost? because matt was an orphan (? <- like i saw last week his mum just... is the nun) and elektra also is an orphan? they're both always in search of their identity and i think that's why they click so good. also. they're both so hot it's unfair lmao. so yes, big fan here too! but indeed, matt x me/you is the otp! there isn't a better ship in the whole universe i'm told!

lmao i love that nat just showed up. she's a badass.i love her and i hope their time together was fun. they both deserve the world tbh!

yeah i made the weird decision to watch the punisher first so i was SO confused about his backstory, because it mostly takes place in DD season 2. big mistake on my part. don't ask why bc i literally don't know haha. it might have been for ben barnes. also simp material for me whoops!

lmao they make hell's kitchen out to be enormous!!!! i pulled out a map and wow...

i mightve just walked through it without knowing!! damn </3. grounds to revisit ny when the borders open again!

oh do we love gentrification. i feel like most neighbourhoods of ny have been gentrified by now, so hell's kitchen too. it's really sad to see the historical centre and original inhabitants disappear. *puts up fist to the giant corporations*

pls these kinda men hide for their lives i feel like. im sad. *shouts into void*

ooh i actually love pool ahah, but sadly i cant play it a lot :(. but yeah. like he uses. his abilities to his advantage and you know what? good for him! i love him. he can win any time. although i am very competitive so hmm.

ooh a boat ride!!! fancy fancyyyy!! no i love that! especially just boating around the hudson must be nice. i hope it doesn't smell too bad for matt though.

yay, thank you so much!! i hope you have fun on your rewatches!

#arianswers #matt murdock dissertation

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harry-styles-sunflower · 4 years

Text

Wandering Hands Part 4

Hellooo everyone! I hope you are all having a lovely day! SO this is Part 4 of Wandering Hands.

What it is: You and Harry become friends but you come with certain baggage that might make any other man run.

Word count: 7.5k (longest part i’ve ever written ahh)

Warning: Cursing and smut (lmk if I forgot one!)

This part is ~juicy~ ALSO! New character alert, if you want to picture somebody, i picture zach roerig

Pls reblog if you like it :) Thanks in advance for the support! Feedback is always helpful, I love hearing from you all!

♡♡♡

“Yes and no, I mean I still have to get to know you more Harry. Trust doesn't come overnight, it takes time.” You sigh

“You act like we haven't spoken all day and night for the past two months.” His tone has changed to agitated.

“Okay, we have but still. I don't want you meeting Sam for a while.” You tried to get him to understand now with remaining calm.

“Why not though?” He pushed.

“Harry stop questioning me it's my decision,” you raise your voice a little. You were growing agitated now.

“You act like I'm a horrible person or like I'm not worthy of meeting him. You sit there and scoff at me while I try to have some fucking interest in your life” he remarked at you. Him cursing towards you pushed all buttons for you.

“Damn it harry how the fuck am I supposed to know you'll stick around? How do I know that if I introduce you two now that you wont just leave and he'll have to overcome a second heartbreak of getting over another man in his life?” you said a bit louder. He looks at you and slowly realizing the whole situation. He stays quiet for a bit and looks down.

“I'm sorry you're right. I understand. I shouldn’t have pushed it,” You sigh and he walks over to you and hugs you.

“Ive never done this before Harry, I wanna do it right,” you lay your head against his chest and wrap your arms around his waist.

“I know love, I know. I just got excited. I like you a lot so meeting someone else like you got me excited,” he squeezed you.

“Thank you. I appreciate that. And don’t curse at me in anger, I don't do relationships like that,” you stated. You didn’t, not even with Michael, you never cursed towards each other. Maybe about other people but never about each other.

“Sorry wasn’t very gentleman of me,” he kissed your head.

“I forgive you. If we want to do this we have to communicate well, and calm. Im sorry for scoffing at you. It was rude, and you didn’t deserve it. I could’ve came out differently,” you looked up at him.

“Thank you and you're right. Communication is key. But uh, does this mean you've been thinking of breaking up, like since you said the whole thing about what if I don’t stay..”

“No Harry, but I have to take precaution. It’s not that I’m coming into this relationship expecting it to end but my guard is up a bit. Trust and time will help bring it down.”

“Okay,” he lifted a finger underneath your chin and gave you a soft kiss, “I don’t intend on leaving you know.” He said against your lips.

“I know,” you pressed your lips against his. He pushed your lips more against his by holding your head in place.

“Our breakfast has gotten all cold, want to go out and grab something from the bakery down the road?” He kisses your forehead. He somehow always gave you instant relief with his kisses.

“That sounds amazing,” you get your shoes on and were out the door. Harry lent you a hoodie, your cardigan from last night wasn't going to cut it in this weather. You weren’t going to give him this back. You two walked out his house together, hand in hand.

“What’s Sam’s favorite snack?” He asks as you walk.

“Week before last it was cosmo brownies, last week it was Rice Krispie treats, I don’t know what this week will be,” you laughed, “he has my taste buds.”

“I’ll be taking note,” he kissed your hand.

“Are you and Gemma close? I figure since you had makeup wipes in your bathroom she was here recently?”

“Yeah like two months before we met she had visited, she’s one of my best friends. We text everyday,” he looked around the street. It wasn’t very busy. Just a few people walking their dogs.

“That’s nice, I hope Sam can have that one day. If not with a sister a best friend you know?” He nodded. Maybe you shouldn’t have brought up kids so early in the morning. You two walked into the bakery and it smelled like flour and chocolate. It was a cute small mom and pop shop. You were looking at their options on their small paper menu when you heard your name.

"y/n?" you've heard this voice before. Probably haven't heard it in two years.

"Matt?" you turned towards him. Harry turned towards you two. He had blonde hair and was tall, around Harry's height. Blue eyes and crooked smile. He was Michael's best friend. He took care of you for a bit after Michael died. 'A bit' being three years, then they sent him overseas again. You two instantly hugged. He still smelled the same. He was still tan so he must've just gotten back.

"It's been so long," you wiped a few tears that had escaped. You were so happy he made it back home.

"I know, we have to catch up, how's Sam? He must be huge!" he said with a wide smile.

"He is! You left him when he was at my hip and now he's almost at my ribs. He's going to be tall. We have to catch up though, maybe tomorrow. After school?" you asked.

"Yeah! I can do that," he smiled at you.

"When'd you get back?" Harry was the jealous type that was in extreme denial of being the jealous type. So he stood there uncomfortably as you spoke to your friend. Too close of a friend for him. He watched the way Matt looked at you and he didn't like it. He also didn't like the way he hugged you. So he coughed. You turned around and grabbed his hand. "Wait, Matt. This is Harry, Harry this is Matt. He was Michael's best friend." you explained.

"Nice to meet you man," he shook Harry's hand before answering your question, "I just got back two days ago, was going to text you today or tomorrow actually."

"I'm happy you're home," you said knowing he knew what you meant. He knew you meant you were happy he didn't have the same fate as Michael.

"Me too," he looked over at Harry and gave you a questioning look.

"So Matt, Harry is my boyfriend," you smiled up at him, and Harry looked down at you smiling. It was still a little weird for you to say. You weren't used to it yet. Matt nodded as you spoke.

"That's great y/n, I'm really happy for you. You deserve it," he said genuinely. You smiled at him.

"She's a keeper man, she was great wife, even better mother." Harry squeezed you closer to him.

"Yeah mate, I don't intend on letting her go,"

"Oh shit, you're British, that's pretty fucking cool." he laughed. Harry nodded and you rubbed his back.

"The accent is just about the only cool thing," they both laughed.

"Alright well I have to go, I'll text you later y/n, nice meeting you Harry," he hugged you and kissed your head and shook hands with Harry. Harry who was trying very hard to contain himself. After this morning he didn't want to push you away even more. Matt left and you decided on what you were going to get.

"I think I'm going to get a cream cheese bagel and a croissant on the side, oh and tea. We didn't finish ours" you told Harry.

"Me too," he ordered for you two and you sat at a small table waiting.

"He was nice," Harry spoke up first.

"Yeah he is, him and Michael were practically brothers. They both never had siblings. I consider him like my brother in law, he took care of Sam and I for like three years after Michael passed. They needed him though and I was a lot better than I was in the beginning so I told him to go and he left," he listened to you as you spoke.

"How long have you known him, like since you were 15 too?" he looked outside the window.

"Nah, I met him after Michael got back from training, so like for 11 years now?" he nodded.

"Does he have a wife too?" he asked right before they brought our food out.

"No, I set him up with someone I met while I was in school, college, and they were together for a bit, but um she saw what happened to Michael and said she wouldn't be able to handle if that happened to Matt so they broke up." you took a bite of your bagel.

"That kind of stinks, finding someone, loving them, and then them leaving you because they think you'll have a similar fate as your friend," he sipped his tea.

"Yeah, I understand both sides. She's missing out on a great man now because its been five years and he's still alive," you sipped your tea.

"So you plan on hanging out with him tomorrow?" he wipes his mouth of cream cheese with a napkin.

"Yeah probably, Sam's going to be so happy. He calls him Uncle Matt," you smiled, "does that bother you? That I'm going to hang out with him?" you asked.

"Oh no love it's okay, I understand." he really wished you wouldn't. He wished he could hang out with you and Sam instead.

"Thank you for understanding," you reached over and grabbed his hand and squeezed it.

"What time do you have to be home by?" he asked.

"Ugh, sounds like I have a curfew," you laughed, "But usually they drop him off around noon so I have to go soon," you pouted.

"Wish you didn't have to," he said honestly. You agreed. You two had finished your breakfast and you walked back to his house. You had about an hour left to be with him before you had to go. You walked in hand in hand and when he closed his door you pulled him close to you and leaned up to kiss him. He kissed you back with need and leaned you up against his wall.

"Want you," you breathed into the kiss.

"Need you," he responded. He leaned his head down and kissed your neck. He was becoming addicting. You pressed your hips against his and he groaned.

"Harry," you moaned.

"Yes love?" he bit under your earlobe.

"Let me do what I wanted to do last night," you reached down in between you two and grabbed his length.

"Don't tell me twice," he grinned before placing his mouth on yours again. He led you back to his room without taking his mouth off yours. He fell back against his bed and you climbed on top of him. You grabbed his hands and intertwined your fingers. You brought them above his head and kissed at his neck. He was loving this. You kissed down his neck to his chest. You put your hands under his shirt and rubbed near his butterfly. He hissed because your hands were a bit cold from outside. You lift his shirt up slightly and kissed around his butterfly and down to his ferns. You tugged his gray sweats down and kissed at the waistband of his boxers. You rubbed him through the thin material before pulling it down. He propped himself up on his elbows to watch you. You loved pleasuring others, it wasn't something you fell short in. You released him from his boxers and he sighed. You began pumping him slowly and licked his tip placing him flat against your tongue. You licked up and down his shaft a few times before taking him slowly into your mouth. Your gag reflux was minimal he'd soon find out. Your left hand rubbed his balls while your right pumped him slowly. You spit lightly on the tip causing him to moan at the view in front of him. You slowly deepthroated him earning a louder groan and he put his hands in your hair gathering it in a fist.

"Fuck, y/n. Do that again," You lifted your mouth off of him, a line of spit forming as you pulled away and took all of him again," his hips jerked and you moaned. You sucked his balls and pumped his length fast as you did.

"Y/n, I'm close," you put your mouth back on him immediately, wanting him to release in your mouth. You looked up at him fluttering your lashes as you took him full again. You felt his cum hit the back of your throat and you swallowed. You didn’t stop sucking until you were sure there was no more cum left. He ended up pulling your head off mumbling 'too much' before pulling you into a heated kiss. He flipped you so you were under him.

"Harry, we can't," you whined.

"Ugh," he groaned, "I want to make you feel just as good," he reached down and rubbed in between your legs. You moaned and grabbed his wrist.

"I want that too but I have to go," you kissed him. He kissed you back and put his hand on your cheek.

"When will I see you again?" you hadn't thought of it. Sam only went to his grandparents every other weekend. Two weekends was too long without him. You bit your lip and looked away.

"I'm not sure," you felt bad not being able to give him an answer. His hand on your cheek gently turned your head to face him again.

"I wasn't lying when I said I'd wait for you," he kissed your nose. You closed your eyes savoring the moment and trying to keep your emotions in check. How had you found such an angel?

"I'll try and plan something for this week," you whispered before kissing him lightly.

"Okay," he whispered back.

You two got up, Harry getting dressed again as you fixed your hair. You watched him, photographing every movement into your memory. He walked you to your car and closed the door as you got in. You opened your window and he leaned inside. He put a finger under your chin giving you a lingering kiss making you want more. But you had to go. You said bye and drove home. You did some laundry before your doorbell rang signifying your son was home. You sped walk to the door excited to see your boy. You open the door and he attacks your waist.

“Hi baby,” you squat down and kiss his head. He was such a sweet and affectionate boy. You savored every moment.

“Hi ma,” he kissed your cheek before hugging you. He whispered in your ear, “grandma wants to talk, I’m sorry,” before kissing your cheek again and running inside. You had a confused look on your face as you watched him run off.

“Y/n,” Lydia spoke.

“Lydia?” You questioned.

“I know about Harry,” you were shocked, “Sam told us at dinner, he was excited.” You swallowed. You never wanted to tell Sam to keep secrets so you couldn’t be mad about this.

“He um, okay. Um we just, Sam’s not meeting him for a bit. Not until I think it’s time.” You spoke.

“Are you two a couple?” You couldn’t tell what her tone was. Condescending? Approving? Genuinely curious?

“Uh yeah, officially so. This past weekend.” You were so uncomfortable.

“I’d like to meet him, he knows about Sam right?” She looked at you with a raised brow.

“Yes of course he knows about Sam. I wouldn't keep Sam a secret. And you’ll meet him when I feel it’s time too.” You hated how you felt like you were co-parenting with her. You were his only parent.

“Okay well,” she looked around, “I’m happy for you y/n, it’s about time. Maybe not move on and forget, but move on and still remember you know?” She purposely didn’t look at you.

“I uh yeah, I obviously won’t forget him. How could I? He was my husband. But I do think I deserve to not die alone, have another love.” You swallowed. Why was this so weird? And why was Lydia being so nice?

“I agree. Well have a good night,” she said before walking away.

“You too,” you said lowly.

You closed the door and leaned against it. Sam.

“Sam?” You called.

“I’m sorry Mami,” he looked down with a guilty look on your face.

“Don’t be sorry baby,” you walked towards him, you lifted his chin up and smiled at him, “I’ve never taught you to keep secrets, so I’m proud you didn’t.” You kissed his head.

“Grandma and grandpa didn’t look mad when I told them, and I also said he was just your friend!” He explained. You loved his enthusiasm and the way he spoke with his hands.

“They couldn’t be mad, it’s my life. I think grandma is actually happy I’ve got a friend,” you told him. You weren’t going to spur the term boyfriend on him just yet. You were sure Harry would be okay with it too.

“She’s getting a lot nicer ma,” he said with a confused look on his face. You both shrugged and laughed. You two cuddled on the couch for the majority of the rest of the day. You watched Inside Out and taught Sam a few ways to express himself. He said he felt like joy that day with a little bit of fear because he didn't know how you would react about him spilling the beans about Harry. You cleared his worries before sending him to shower before dinner. You checked your phone to see Harry had texted you.

H: Hey beautiful, how are you?

Y/n: Hi handsome, I'm good. Just cooking some dinner.

H: I'm jealous, I had Chinese. I'm reading a manuscript now.

y/n: Perhaps you should focus on that and not use me to procrastinate?

H: You already know me so well.

y/n: 😘😘😘

You cooked spaghetti, one of Sam's favorites. Pasta always made him extra sleepy so it was the perfect meal for a Sunday night before school. Your mind kept wandering off as you cooked to Harry's dimpled smile making you smile yourself. Once Sam was out the shower you two talked about what the week ahead would look like.

"Sam, you remember Uncle Matt?" you asked as you served him. He twirled the spaghetti with his fork before nodding vigorously.

"Yes of course!" he said before stuffing his face. You laughed and handed him a napkin.

"Um he might hang out with us tomorrow, after school. I have to text him," you sat next to him with a plate for yourself.

"He's back?!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," you smiled. You know he loved him a lot.

"I can't wait to see him," he said before taking another bite. You two soon finished your plates and you let him watch some Disney before bed while you cleaned up the kitchen. You sent him off to bed once you finished and got his lunch ready for the next day. Your phone rang and you saw it was Harry.

"Hello?" you said.

"Hey love, Sam asleep yet?" he asked.

"Um, yeah why?" you put his backpack on one of the chairs and looked around you. It was like he was watching you. You heard a knock on the door.

"Harry, hold on someone's knocking. Has to be Lydia or something. Only she knows the code to open the door," you open the door surprised to see Harry.

"Hi," he blushed, "Uh someone let me in. I just thought I'd bring you something. Partly because I missed you and just wanted to see you again," he passed you a black plastic bag. Inside was a Rice Krispie Treat and 'Sam' written on it with black marker and Pringles with your name on it. You once told him you liked Pringles on one of your long facetime calls.

"Harry," you were speechless, it was so sweet what he had done.

"I probably shouldn't have come, this is an invasion of your privacy I'm sorry," he backed away.

"No no, its fine I'm just shocked. I never expected something like this. Come here," you put your hand on the back of his neck and pulled him in for a kiss. He kissed you back hard and wrapped his arm around your waist. "I'm so happy, and thankful, and lucky," you spoke in between kisses. He smiled down at you and kissed your forehead. You stepped back and put the bag on the side table near your entrance.

"I'd invite you in bu-" you observed his face go pale and eyes widen. He was looking behind you. You turned around and saw Sam standing there with wide eyes.

"Sam, what's wrong?" you ran to him and bent down to his level. He looked funny,

"I got sick ma," he said still staring at Harry in the hallway. You looked behind you at Harry and then back to Sam. He whispered in your ear, "I threw up in the toilet," you nodded.

"Okay, sit on the couch okay? I'll be there in a sec okay?" he nodded but didn't move.

"Hi Harry," he spoke. This isn't what you wanted or expected.

"Erm Hi Sam," he waved. Sam waved back before leaving to sit on the couch. You walked to your door, speechless.

"Love, I'm so sorry I know this isn't what you wanted. I didn't mean for this to happen," he rambled.

"It's okay, um come in? Might as well rip the bandaid off," you walked in and got a thermometer to take Sam's temperature. Harry walked behind you but stayed a comfortable distance away. Sam couldn’t take his eyes off him. You took Sam's temperature and he had a slight fever.

"I'm Sam,"

"I'm Harry,"

"We knew that about each other already," Sam giggled.

"We did," Harry giggled too. You were holding back a cringe as you watched them.

"He got you a rice krispie treat, say thank you," you whispered to him.

"Ooh thank you," his eyes lit up.

"Yeah no problem," he leaned against your wall.

"You're so far, sit next to me." Sam patted the seat next to him. Harry looked at you and you gave him a slight nod. He sat next to him and they stared at each other for a bit.

“You have drawings on your arms, marker?” Sam pointed out.

“Honey, wouldn’t you feel better in your own room?” You tried to steer away from the tattoo topic considering Harry had a half naked mermaid on his arm. Sam laughed at what you said like it was ridiculous.

“Ma, I won’t sleep now knowing Harry is here and I want to sleep in your bed tonight,” he pouted. You couldn’t help but smile.

“Okay fine. Only because you’re not feeling well. I’m gonna go get you medicine.” You got up.

“Harry stay with me,” you son put his tiny hand over his, “cool rings!” Was the last thing you heard before entering your kitchen. You called out of work and set an appointment with his doctor for the following day. When you came back to the living room him and Harry were playing rock, scissors, and shoot.

“Ma, look at this new game Harry taught me!” Harry gave you a dimpled smile before showing you.

“Very nice,” you observed, “here c’mon. Take your medicine, it’ll bring your fever down,” you served him on a teaspoon and he took it. He made a funny face before swallowing it.

“Medicine is so gross. Makes you want to throw up again,” you and Harry both laughed.

You sat on the other side of Sam and he quickly curled up to your side. You put the blanket over him and you and put your tv on. Harry observed you two and watched tv with you. Sam soon fell asleep again as you felt him drool onto your shirt.

“I’m going to go put him in my room,” you slowly stood up to not wake him.

“Let me help?” Harry asked. You nodded and he picked Sam up gently before following you into your room. You turned a lamp on so you two could see where you were walking. Harry gently put him on the middle of your bed and tucked him in. You climbed in on your side and pushed Sam’s hair back off his forehead. You gestured for Harry sit on the other side.

“If you want, you don’t have to,” you told him. He shook his head and climbed in on the other side.

“Thank you,” he said looking at you.

“For?” You questioned.

“Letting me get to know him. I know it wasn’t your plan for us to meet this way but thanks for not closing the door in my face.” He reached over Sam to put a loose strand of hair behind your ear. You look down back at Sam.

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans,” you smiled. You hadn’t planned for them to meet like this but life happens.

“Beautiful boy,” he states.

“You know it?” You smirked.

“Course I know it, what kind of Brit would I be if I didn’t know a Lennon song?” He laughed lowly.

“Michael would sing it to him to put him to sleep. After he passed I just changed 'daddy' lyric to Mami,” you explained.

“My mum used to do the same thing,” he smiled at the memory.

“Her and I can relate on being boy moms then,” you smiled.

“I don’t think I want her to talk about me to you,” he grinned.

“Oh no, I want to hear it all,” you leaned against your hand. You two were facing each other with your son between you two.

“He’s a good kid, very social. He started asking me about my rings and where I got them,” he smiled.

“He’s nosey,” you lightly tapped Sam’s nose earning a smile from him in his sleep. Harry laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

“I didn’t mind it,” he plays with a loose thread on your blanket.

You three eventually all fell asleep in a big cuddle. When you wake up you feel Sam's small head on your stomach, Harry's forehead against yours, and all of your legs tangled together. You opened your eyes slowly and smiled. You felt like a family, finally complete.

"Mornin'," you heard Harry's deep voice say.

"Hey," you looked at him pulling your forehead away. He leaned over and gave you a quick peck.

"Sorry I fell asleep here," he says before placing his head back against the pillow.

"It's okay, I enjoy seeing your face first thing in the morning," you smiled.

"I like this a lot to be honest with you," he looked between you and Sam.

"I do too," you bit your lip. So much had happened between you two in just a few days. Sam stirred between you two.

"Could I cook you two breakfast?" he offered. You nodded and ran your hands through Sam's hair. He was warm again.

"What's his favorite?"

"Waffles," you smiled.

"Could I use your bathroom?"

"Of course, spare toothbrush in the hallway closet." you told him. He nodded and walked to your bathroom.

You escaped to your thoughts of how you could get used to this.

♡♡♡

Breakfast was a success. Harry and Sam got along well and you were happy. Harry left to go to work before you went to Sam's doctor. Doctor's appointment was unsuccessful. "Probably just a bug," they said. Matt had texted you and you explained what was going on with Sam. He assured you he didn’t mind and he'd bring you some food and some light food for Sam. When he showed up at your door, he had soup for Sam and chowder for you. You all shared a meal together and watched a movie. This was something similar to what you guys did years ago. It was close to night and Sam had went off to bed before Matt left. You took out two beers for you to share and sat next to him.

"Cheers," he clinked your bottle.

"Cheers," you took a sip.

"It's good to be home," he sighed relaxing back onto your couch.

"It's good to have you home," you leaned against your cushions.

"I don't think I'm going back," you looked over at him.

"What? What do you mean?" you were a little shocked.

"My active duty commitment is up, I could take another mission if I wanted to but I think its time for me to settle down," he took a swig of his beer. You nodded in understanding.

"I think that'd be great, if it were for me I wouldn't want anyone out there," you faced him on the couch.

"Yeah," he brought his arm that was behind his head and slapped it down to your knee, "So! Tell me more about this Harry guy," he grinned looking at you.

"Ow," you hit him back, "And what do you wanna know?" you blushed.

"Everything?" he said in a girly voice making you laugh.

"Well, we met at the bar across the street and we basically spoke every night then every day and night and yeah we just got to know each other well. And yeah you know it's been nice. To have someone again," you took another sup of your beer. Matt nodded in understanding.

"I'm happy you're happy, I know he would've wanted that." he reached for your hand and squeezed it.

"Yeah I know, we spoke about it once..." you wandered off.

"Us too," Matt looked up towards the ceiling.

"I figured you made some kind of promise, the way you treated me after he passed. It was very promise like."

"I would've done it, promise or no promise." he looks back at you.

"I know, thank you. Could never say that enough."

"You don’t have to," he squeezed your hand again. You laid your head on his shoulder. You were so happy to have Matt in your life. It was like another piece of having Michael around. You didn't have a brother either. So he fit perfectly into your life.

"I miss him," matt spoke up.

"Me too," a tear escaped.

"I can hear him laughing at us, saying 'you two are pathetic'," he laughed, "But then you'd probably give him a look and he'd say, 'oh not you, just matt," you laughed along and finished off your beer.

"You're right," you bit your lip, "Harry's somehow helped me say his name more comfortably,"

"I've noticed, that's great." he smiled.

You spent the rest of the night catching up and setting up a profile for Matt on Bumble. He was embarrassed at first but then became excited. He liked that girls had to match first, he didn't want to make any girls uncomfortable. He left and you caught some sleep before your day of work, it was going to be long.

♡♡♡

ONE MONTH LATER

It was Saturday morning and you awoke with Harry leaving your bed. He was staying over more often per Sam's request. He enjoyed waking up and jumping into your bed and telling you his crazy dreams or hearing the dreams you two had. You enjoyed not falling asleep alone anymore. This morning though you awoke to Harry leaving because he liked to take a run and then make breakfast or pick some up on his way back. You opened your eyes slightly and you saw him moving around in front of your dresser. He put a headband on to push his curls back and put his sweatshirt on. He was wearing tights underneath some basketball shorts as well.

"Cute," you giggled. He turned around quickly and smiled.

"Morning love," he walked over to your side of the bed and kissed your lips.

"Mmm, don't go," you pouted.

"Okay," he kissed you again.

"No I'm joking, I'd feel guilty if I held you back," you giggled as you twirled a curl of his around your finger.

"I'll be quick, promise," he pecked your lips and stood up.

"Please keep your music low, be safe please." he walked back over and slotted a kiss on your lips.

"Of course baby," he said before he walked out your bedroom door. You stayed in bed until he got back. You usually never fall back asleep as you worried for him. He'd only go on a run every other day. When he got back you were on your phone scrolling through social media. Harry had posted a picture of you two last night. He already had a highlight called "Sam doing cool stuff" and it was adorable. He came over and gave you a quick peck before hopping in the shower quickly. He dropped off his phone on your night table as he kissed you and left it there. You noticed he was getting a lot of notifications back to back. You didn’t want to be nosey but you two also established you had nothing to hide from each other. You checked his phone and noticed they were all notifications from the Zillow app. They were all price drops on houses. Harry came back into your room as you looked at his phone. You tried to toss it away from you before he noticed but it was too late.

"Everything okay love?" he said with a wide grin on his face. He was only wearing a towel around his waist.

"Uh um are you moving?" you mumbled.

"No? why?" he looked confused.

"You got a lot of notifications so I just checked and it was price drops on Zillow,"

"Oh, uh yeah. Um," he sat next to you on your bed, "I was just looking at the market because uh like for us."

"For us?"

"Yeah, I would like us to move in together eventually. I've just been looking at houses for like 4 rooms and backyard and stuff," he was blushing and fiddling with his fingers.

"That's so sweet," you smashed your lips onto his. He fell on top of you on your bed.

"I want to wake up to you," he brushed his lips against yours. You felt heat spread in between your legs as he worked his way down your neck. You felt him grow hard through his towel.

"Harry," you moaned in his ear.

"You up for it?" he looked at you and you nodded quickly. He lifted your shirt and sucked your nipples giving both equal attention. He reached a hand down in between your legs into your shorts. He groaned into your mouth,

"So wet, so good for me," he said before biting your bottom lip. Your eyes fluttered closed as he inserted a finger into you. Then you remembered.

"Fuck, Harry," you whined. He didn’t pay you mind thinking it was a satisfied moan. You pushed at his chest.

"What happened?" he looked at you with concerned eyes.

"I ran out of condoms and haven't gone to get any, do you have?"

"Ugh no," he put his head in the crook of your neck.

"Ugh, damn it," you bit your lip.

"Don't do that," he took his thumb and separated your teeth from your lip, "It's only going to turn me on more," you laughed lightly.

"Harry, how um are you good at you know? Like um-"

"Pulling out?" he cut you off.

"Yeah,"

"Yeah, pretty good" he smirked.

"You want to?"

"You do?" he said a little more shocked.

"I want you so bad," you said before planting your lips on his. He climbed back on top of you and pulled your shorts and underwear down. He rubbed a finger between your slit and you bucked your hips against his finger. He took this as a sign of your impatience growing. He removed his hand and instead lined himself up at your entrance. He pushed inside of you slowly both of you moaning in each others mouths.

"Fuck, ugh you're so warm and tight," he kissed you. His eyebrows furrowed as he tried to concentrate on not cumming so soon.

"I love feeling you against me," you pushed his hips closer against you. When he bottomed out you both moaned lowly. He thrusted in and out of you slowly but eventually he picked up his pace. He groaned as his thrusts became sloppier.

"Love, you almost there?" he put his hand behind your neck before kissing you roughly. Barely letting you answer.

"Yes," you breathed out. He reached down in between you two and rubbed your clit. You felt the tightness grow in your stomach and you tightened around him as you came. Your legs were wrapped around his hips so he roughly pulled your legs apart before spilling himself all over your slit.

"Fucking hell," he moaned, "that was too good." he kissed your lips and then your neck.

"I'm on a high excuse me," you grinned. He smirked and got off you. He picked up his towel he had previously wrapped around himself and wiped in between your legs. This wouldn't be the last time he would do this over the next few weeks.

"Thank you," you blushed.

"Yeah of course," when he finished he got you dressed and himself. Sam was bound to wake up soon. "I'm going to go make some breakfast, any requests?"

"Hm, I'm craving a tuna sandwich," he scrunched his nose but nodded and went to make you your food. ♡♡♡

It was a few weeks later and you were sick. Sam was in school and Harry had taken his work to your place to take care of you. You were laying in bed while he was reading a manuscript. You had a terrible bug that wouldn’t let you hold any food down. You had never felt this way before. Harry continued making you soups and stews even though your appetite was low. You were surviving on ginger ale and saltines for most of your days. You watched as Harry worked and the way he concentrated on what he was reading.

"Any good?" he jumped slightly.

"Hey you're up," he pushed your hair away from your face.

"Hi," you smiled, "I have to get Sam,"

"I was going to pick him up,"

"It's okay, I need fresh air."

"We can both go?"

"Okay," he reached over your bedside table and got you your Gatorade bottle.

"Drink, you look dehydrated."

"Okay, dad." you narrowed your eyes at him and sipped.

"I'm just taking care of my baby,"

"I know,"

You two eventually got up to go pick up Sam. You told Harry to drop you off at the drug store at the corner of your street afterwards to pick up some pads. But you lied. You were late and scared. You never had morning sickness before but now you couldn’t help but think it. You bought a small test, one where you had to pee in a cup and use a dropper. It was the only thing that would fit in your back pocket. You got back in the car and Harry gave you a look.

"Um, they didn’t have the ones I like,"

"I'll go to Walgreens later and pick some up," you nodded as he drove you all home. Sam told you about his day at school. You told Harry you were going to use the bathroom once you got inside to your apartment. You assured him you were okay and he told you he'd make a snack for Sam while helping him with his homework. You headed inside your bathroom and realized you forgot a cup. You reached into the cabinet below your sink and got a disposable dixie cup you usually use for mouthwash. You peed in the cup and got the dropper. You placed a drop on the test and waited three minutes before looking. You were sitting on the toilet lid when Harry knocked on your door.

"Love, you okay?"

"Yeah! Coming out now!" you washed your hands and wrapped the test in toilet paper before looking at it, shoved into your back pocket, and stepped out.

You enjoyed your night with them. Forcing yourself to eat and try and feel better. You tried to keep a mind over matter mindset. You read Sam a book before bed and squeeze him tight before finding out if everything is going to change. You walk back to your room and Harry's already getting ready for a shower. He walks over to you and wraps his arms around your waist.

"Feeling better baby?" he kissed your nose.

"A little, um stomach is funny," he nodded as he listened. He moved his hands down to your ass but you pulled away suddenly before he could feel the test in your pocket.

"Love?" he looked at you confused,

"Uh sorry, just not in that mood," you ran your fingers through your hair.

"I wasn't expecting you to be, just wanted to give it a little squeeze. But I'm sorry love, I know you're not feeling well," he kissed your head.

"Yeah it's okay uh sorry I pulled away like that," he nodded.

"I think I'm gonna go shower alright?" you nodded. He left and you pulled the test out and unwrapped the toilet paper. Your door opened back up and you jumped.

"Forgot my towe- what's that?" he looked at you confused.

"Crap," you put your head in your hand. "I thought this bug could be morning sickness or something. I've never had it but I'm also late."

"W-what? What's it say?"

"I-I don't know yet. I haven't looked."

"Why not?" he was pale and his forehead was already glistening with sweat.

"I'm scared," you choked out.

"Love," he rushed to you and kneeled in between your legs, "I'm not going anywhere no matter what that test says. I love you, you know that. You and Sam are my family now. I don't care that we haven't been together that long. I already know I want this for a long time." he picked your head up in between your hands. You mumbled an okay. You began unwrapping the paper and you both looked at it at the same time.

"Look for two lines?"

"Yeah, that'd be positive" you revealed the test and took a deep breath. One line was dark and the other was not. You couldn’t tell if you were relieved or disappointed. You tossed it on to your bedside table and sighed.

"I still meant everything I said," Harry spoke.

"I feel the same way Har, I just have a lot of feelings and thoughts going through my mind. Could I have a second?" he nodded and left to the bathroom to take his shower. You felt weird. Like you wanted a positive test but also like you couldn't accept one. Everything felt so fast. Being pregnant felt so far from now, yet it also felt crazy to start all over again. Harry came back to find you with your arm across your eyes while you leaned against your pillows. He walked over to your bedside table to turn your lamp off but when he saw the test again he froze.

"L-love, love!" you jumped at his raised voice.

"What Harry?" you asked worried.

"The test! It changed! There's two lines now!" he grabbed it and looked at it.

"That's impossible," you stood up to look at it with him. Sure enough there were two lines. The other faint yet there.

"I'm so confused," you breathed.

"I'm going to Walgreens to get a digital one I can't not be certain for tonight." he kissed you before he left and yelled an I love you before walking out the door. He seemed excited with hints of anxiety. You didn’t know what to feel. You two had been together for only a few months, still learning about each other. You paced the floor back and forth until he got back.

"Love?" he called from the hallway before entering your room, "I got this Clearblue one, I see a lot of celebrities use them,"

"Oh okay," you took the box in your hand.

"Hey, what'd you feel after we saw the negative test?" he reached for your hand and squeezed it.

"I don't know honestly, it's scary to start all over again. We're just starting ourselves," you looked down.

"I understand, I'm going to be here though, no matter what," he pulled you in for a hug, "I'd like to be happy about it if its positive."

"Me too," you whispered.

"Feel like peeing?" he laughed lightly.

"Sure," you laughed too.

You walked to your bathroom and Harry followed. You sat down and waited a bit until you were able to take the test. Harry helped you with putting the cap on and you finished taking care of yourself.

"I can only imagine what everyone's going to say," you run a hand through your hair.

"Love, it shouldn't matter. We are the only one's who thoughts should matter." he cupped your cheeks, "Oh and Sam of course," he quickly added. You giggled and nodded.

"You're cute," you kissed his lips.

"Thank you, let's check it?"

"Yeah," you smiled.

♡♡♡

What do you guys think it is??

#Harry Styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fic #harry styles one shot #harry styles writing #one direction #harry x y/n #wanderinghands #WH #pls reblog #lmk what yall think

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lilwenney · 4 years

Text

looking for affection in all the wrong places (iv)

pairing: will x female!reader warning(s): *to the beat of lil jon’s ‘shots’* angst angst angst angst, alcohol, mentions of smut, people are shit at communicating, adrian word count: 4k a/n: part i, part ii, part iii / playlist can be found here / woah boy. sad times are upon us. i realized while writing this that i need a friend like cleo.

One night stands were awkward only if you allowed them to be. They were sloppy, rushes of lust filled with twinges of passion in the moment while the following morning were mostly always filled with regret. (Y/N) could count on two hands the times she had shuffled around a dark, foreign bedroom after a one night stand to find her clothes and leave as soon as possible, because well, she was now sober and sticking around until the sun came up in a stranger's room didn’t seem like an ideal way to spend her Saturday morning.

But the morning after James’ last party with Will next to her in bed was anything but awkward, for reasons completely unknown. She never thought that laying in bed naked with one of her close friends would somehow be... comfortable? Relaxing? She didn’t know what it was. She thought she was still drunk and her shame hadn’t kicked in yet.

Her and Will laid in bed at 11 a.m. Saturday morning, laughing as they looked at the photos that everyone had sent to the groupchat either the previous night or that morning. There was a photo of George hanging half-way off the back of the sofa, Ciarán had a birthday hat on, Simon had found (and fixed) the inflatable penis and was cuddling it on the bathroom floor, and there were numerous other photos of them dancing, group shots, or general nonsense like cup-stacking and beer pong.

There was never a time that she felt uncomfortable around Will, even right when they first met. They had met and became instant friends all in the same night. Throughout the years he had seen her naked, held her hair back while she threw up in a bush, they had made out now numerous times before, and now they were a notch in each other’s bedposts, but they laughed that morning like friends.

Now she felt like she was teetering on the borderline of comfort and attraction. Was she just comfortable being around him, even while naked? Or was there an unspoken feeling deep down that she never acted on? Before, the thought of any of this happening wasn’t even a possibility, and now, they were here. And it happened.

“I need to shower.” She yawned, locking her phone back and placing it on the nightstand.

Will looked at the time on his phone and nodded, then yawning after her, “me too. You mind if I shower here?”

“Ah, don’t care. You have clean clothes here from the last time you were over.”

“When was that?”

“When Gee beat you at Monopoly and you left to stay here for the night.” There was a running theme here - Will was just really bad at board games and he was also a sore loser.

“She cheated, y’know!”

She shook her head with a smile, “whatever you say, love.”

Will kicked his legs out from under the duvet and over the edge of bed, and when he stood up, she saw his butt in full view for the first time. “Oh my god you have a boy butt!” She shouted as he grabbed his briefs from the floor and slid them on.

He turned around and looked at her with an amused expression, but a scrunched brow. “What are you waffling about?”

Her bedroom was dark when they stumbled inside, neither of them willing to break away for just a second to flip on a light. Now she caught a glimpse of his behind for the first time and let out a small squeak in laughter.

“Boy butts are weird Will. You have a long torso and such a little butt.”

“Little butt?” He asked, shocked. “I have a perfectly plump bottom thank you.”

She laughed, throwing the covers over her head, “just go take a shower.”

Will shuffled around, grabbing his clothes so he could leave the room (without scarring Cleo), and he laughed before playfully throwing his jacket on top of (Y/N) as she remained under the covers. She giggled and uncovered her face as he walked out of the room, the door clicking shut behind him.

A few minutes after Will left, she got out of bed and got into the showering in her adjoining bathroom. Steam filled the tiled room as hot water poured down her back and washed away sweat and body glitter, the scent of berries filling the bathroom and her nose, allowing her to finally relax her tensed muscles and her shoulders.

Stepping out of the shower door and wrapping herself in a towel, she opened the door to see the bedroom door ajar, so she knew that Will had come back in. She gave it a second, brushing her teeth before calling out; “Hey,” to see if he was actually in the room with her. When he made a noise back, she asked, “do doughnuts sound good to you right now?”

“Immensely,”

“Alright, then we’re getting doughnuts.”

Within just a few minutes of drying her hair, (Y/N) was in a pair of joggers and a jumper, and her and Will were heading down in the lift to her car. Looking at themselves in the mirror of the lift and taking photos, she had a good laugh at Will’s outfit - black joggers and a baby blue jumper, but a pair of her neon yellow socks were shining underneath the cuff of his joggers. He didn’t leave any socks the last time he was over, so he settled for hers instead. When the lift doors opened to the car park and they stepped out, he told her to piss off and they both slipped into her car.

For the middle of December that year, London’s weather wasn’t all too bad, except for the cold nights and rain that came around far too often. That afternoon she drove them through the rain, her wipers raking against the windshield almost on the beat to the music Will was playing. What would be a ten minute drive to Shoreditch any other time took them an unsurprising thirty minutes instead due to normal weekend London traffic.

Sure the nearest place to get doughnuts was literally next door to her flat, but where she was taking Will was a hidden gem of a doughnut shop, and while (Y/N) loved it, taking thirty minutes to get there did test her patience. And Will’s. He had a low tolerance for traffic on a normal day, so this one was particularly worse, and she ignored his complaints by turning the music volume up and smiling at him in response and he rolled his eyes.

Right in the middle of Shoreditch was a corner shop painted bright green, standing out among the other buildings in the bleak Winter. She pulled her car along the side of the street and her and Will piled out, stepping onto the pavement and walking across the street to the window.

“Get whatever you want,” she said, crossing her arms to fight off the cool wind, “I’ll buy since you complained about it the entire time.”

Will stared at the building, glanced at the menu, and then looked at her. “Didn’t mean to complain, I just don’t trust your taste in gourmet doughnuts.”

She shot him a look and he tried to hold back a smile before she playfully slapped his arm. “Just go order something,”

When Will stepped up to the register, eyes scanning over the array of doughnuts behind the glass and began picking and choosing, (Y/N) felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She switched her keys into her other hand and quickly fished out her phone, turning it over to look at the screen, expecting it to be Cleo, to be the groupchat.

Adrian Russell Are you free today?

When she first read over the text, she thought that she had misread the name, so she read it back in her head, spelling it out letter by letter until she realized she had not been mistaken. All it took for him to text her was a week and three days since the last time they spoke, nine hours since they were in the same room together.

Her heart dropped at the realization of what was going on, a sudden heavy weight pushing on her shoulders. He was trying to come back to her. For the most part, she had completely gotten over him since unblocking his number a mere three weeks ago. There were no late nights crying herself to sleep or days spent sulking on the sofa with a mouth full of popcorn because he had yet to text her, instead she found solace in being single and going out with friends and surrounding herself with good people.

And that was the slow understanding that she was no longer making out with Will at parties to make Adrian jealous. She was making out with Will because she wanted to.

However, there was a twinge of mixed emotions that clouded in her head. She had spent the last year with Adrian, gave him everything she had to offer and more, and a piece of her longed for the familiarity of being with him, but the other half remembered most of the bad in the relationship. She was more in shock, her brain frazzled, trying to figure out what exactly broke the camel’s back for him.

“Hey,” her head snapped up, watching Will take a step back from the window.

“Oh,” she breathed out before looking at the cashier, “sorry.”

(Y/N) quickly pocketed her phone and stepped forward, rambling out her usual order plus an additional few. Cleo would be pissed if she didn’t bring back one for her specifically, so she made sure to add in a few extra.

Will took notice of her bouncing on her toes, one of her nervous habits. “You okay?” He asked when she finished her order and she nodded, but didn’t meet his eyes.

“Yeah, I’m alright.”

Picking up the folded boxes of sweets, Will watched on while she tapped her card and paid for their food. He decided it wasn’t worth it, running the good mood they were having that morning, so he let go of her nervous mannerisms and they walked back to her car.

Unlocking the doors from a distance, trying to combat the rain, they jogged quickly across the street and slid back inside to their seats. Will held the doughnut boxes in his lap, adjusting his seat-belt while (Y/N) turned on the engine and turned on the heat.

“So how about a coffee?” He finally asked when she slid on her own seat-belt.

She hummed, sitting back in her seat. “There is a Costa nearby, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah, think so,” he nodded, “oh, and I got it this time, don’t worry.” When she didn’t say anything for a second, he turned his head to look at her, and she was smiling. “What’s that grin for?”

“Do you even know my Costa order?”

Will licked his lips and read off the order from memory, “regular iced latte with almond milk.” He said it with such certainty. It had been well over a year, but he still remembered her order from the time they had Costa delivered to his flat. She was persistent with the almond milk after all.

Her smile grew even wider. She cared about the little things, that’s what made her happy. And Will remembering her coffee order was definitely one of those little things. “Damned you, what’s your order? I feel like a right shit friend.”

“That’s for you to figure out and memorize yourself. Not playin’ easy here.”

“Oh piss off,” she laughed again before pulling her car onto the street.

***

It was rare for the friend group to hang out more than twice a week, and it was even more rare for the friend group to see each other more than three times in five days unless they were on holiday. But (Y/N) and Will became the exception; a Friday night party, a Saturday morning doughnut and coffee run, a Monday movie night at hers, and a Wednesday game night at his.

He called her earlier in the day and she came around a few hours later, they had take-out and a few beers and then ultimately settled on playing video games that Will knew he would 100% beat her at.

“This is all just muscle memory, love,”

“Oh fuck off with that,” she cursed loudly, stretching her foot to the side to nudge his controller in attempt to throw him off. But Will was too quick, dodging her at the last second and crossing the finish line just inches ahead of her. A groan of agony followed a cheerful shout, then belly laughter at their drastically different reactions.

She looked at Will as he tossed his controller down, hands thrown in the air in rejoice. In a bout of 2-out-of-3, Will had come out victorious with a last second pull away, securing his second win of the three races, and he celebrated by teasing, poking her cheek as he called out, “I told you I was gonna win!”

While he was quite literally the only person on this planet who could annoy her, she was now realizing just how much she took these moments for granted. No weekends spent together or holidays with friends abroad was like this - it was just them in the most natural environment possible.

Luckily for her, Will was starting to feel the same way. He found himself waking up in the mornings with his mind immediately on her, wondering what she was doing, wondering if there was a way he could see her. The days he was used to spending alone in his room editing until the early hours were no longer. His fingers always found her number in his phone.

He didn’t understand it, really. How a friend for years was always just a friend until one night.

Moving her legs from his lap, she allowed him to stand and stretch his long limbs. They had been playing games for a while - at first it was FIFA, that he absolutely destroyed her at until it was no longer fun, and then they switched to Mario Kart, which he was also having a blast beating her at. Video games were the only way he could beat her at a game, and she did well at reminding him of all the times he went bankrupt in Monopoly.

“Want a beer?” He asked rounding the edge of the sofa, heading towards the kitchen.

She nodded while still focused on the screen, changing the color of Yoshi for the next race, “yes please.”

After changing the color of Yoshi back to green, she was picky, she placed the controller down on her lap and waited for Will to walk back in. Her attention was elsewhere when she felt a phone vibrate on the sofa, and she immediately started to look for her own phone, but saw that it was Will’s phone instead - the screen lit up on the cushion next to her leg.

It was a harmless glance, one she didn’t even really mean until she realized it far too late that it wasn’t her phone, but her stomach had already dropped.

Hanna Day Missing you x

And just like that, they were coming back around.

In all fairness, it took Hanna a few more days after the last party in comparison to Adrian’s handful of hours after. And (Y/N) rolled her eyes, trying to push out the idea of the girl that floated in her head.

It was to no one’s surprise that Hanna and (Y/N) hadn’t got along well while Hanna and Will were dating. Hanna was the type to be your best friend one second, and then be behind your back the next, and everyone close to Will knew that, specifically the girl friends he had for years. Hanna was never fond of her boyfriend’s best friend, because there were always questions that revolved around their status as “just friends.” Just like how Adrian questioned it, too.

But (Y/N) and Will’s friendship wasn’t even particularly new, they had been friends for years after meeting at Fabric, a London nightclub, just months after they both moved to the city. They met through Gee, Will’s flatmate, and by the end of the night (Y/N) was helping Will find his keys on the sticky nightclub dance floor and then wound up asleep on his sofa. And they were close ever since.

It was the summer following their meeting that they crossed the line of “friends” while in Barcelona, but it was a line they never crossed again once returning to London. And it wasn’t much longer after than that, she and Adrian met through James and began dating, and then a handful of months later, Hanna and Will started dating too. So there was never any true reason for Hanna to dislike her - she just didn’t like the fact that Will had other female friends with a history of being close. For her own insecure reasons, (Y/N) assumed.

“Was that mine?” Will asked, coming back from the kitchen, handing (Y/N) one of the uncapped beers he brought from the refrigerator.

She nodded, immediately taking a sip before replying, “yeah, think so.”

Out the corner of her eye, she watched Will sit back onto the sofa and reach for his phone, but his expression didn’t change after seeing the name across his screen. Deciding she didn’t want to know if he was replying or not, she focused back on the telly screen, flipping through the colors of her character again to occupy herself.

“It’s Hanna,” was all he said before locking his phone back, placing it on the coffee table, now upside down.

She played it off like she hadn’t seen it, raising a brow, “yeah?”

Will hummed as he sat back against the cushion, immediately choosing his character and allowing the screen to move on. He didn’t say anything else, leaving it at that, but she felt obligated to say something.

“Adrian texted me too,”

Will glanced at her hastily, “when?”

She let out a deep breath, not meeting his eyes but watching the screen count down to one again before their race started, finding herself in an awkward limbo of telling him the truth or lying for the sake of whatever was going on between them. She knew that she should have told him before now, that she should have on Saturday, but she felt like it would have ruined everything. If she had told him right then, she doubted if he would have even come over Monday, if she would be on his sofa right now.

After all, they got what they wanted, right? They won. But it was feeling much more complicated than that.

“Saturday,” she blurted out.

Will didn’t say anything for a moment, playing it off as focusing on the race instead of the thoughts racking his brain. He remembered Saturday afternoon in Shoreditch - sitting in her car eating doughnuts and drinking coffee on the side of the street while rain pattered down onto the roof, them laughing and listening to music while talking about anything that came to mind. And he remembered thinking at the time that her mind seemed elsewhere, but he decided not to push it for the sake of ruining their time together.

It then clicked in his head that that was when Adrian texted her, when she looked like she saw a ghost at the doughnut shop.

“Yeah?” He asked casually. “Did you text him back?”

She shook her head, “no,”

There was a second of pause between them.

“Are you going to text her back?”

But there wasn’t any hesitation for Will’s answer, “no,”

Later that night, after a few more games of Mario Kart, (Y/N) slumped back into her flat in Poplar. The door clicked shut and she tossed her keys down onto the foyer table, her ears picking up the sound of music coming from down the hallway. She followed the sounds to Cleo’s bedroom. Cleo didn’t even look up from her laptop, where she was writing an already extremely late paper for her history of cinematic fashion course, to see her flatmate fall face first into the duvet next to her.

A few minutes passed and Cleo finished up her paragraph before asking, “and how are you?”

“Don’t know, honestly,” she replied, voice muffled by the material of the duvet.

“And that is because?”

“I don’t know what I’m feeling on the inside.”

Cleo leaned forward and sat her laptop on the bed, her attention now away from the linen skirts of a 17th century period piece and onto her flatmate, who at this time, hasn’t caught a break in two weeks.

“You were at Will’s flat, yeah?” Cleo received just a nod in response before (Y/N) rolled over, head resting on her friend’s thigh. “So what happened?”

“Everything was going really well, and then Hanna texted him.”

“Hanna? Hanna Day?”

She huffed. “Yeah, she was telling him that she missed him. I accidentally read it and now I wish I hadn’t read it because I feel sad.”

Cleo reached down, running fingers across her cheek and then moving to play with her hair. “And why do you feel sad?”

(Y/N) stared at the ceiling, opening herself up and releasing the feelings she had kept inside for the last few hours. It was hard for her to keep things in, but this was something she couldn’t particularly explain easily. Especially to Will.

“I don’t know, really,” her voice was like a whisper, “I think - I think it’s because I’m scared he’ll go back to her. What we are doing is just something dumb to make them jealous, at first it was anyways..”

Cleo frowned, feeling where the conversation was going. She hated seeing her best friend fall into a mess of feelings, but sometimes, it just happened, whether you wanted it or not.

“And now I don’t want it to stop. But I don’t want to do it just to make them jealous.”

“Because you like him,” Cleo said softly.

Her eyes drifted closed and she focused on the feeling of Cleo’s fingers then smoothing at her hair, and then running through the strands again, and she nodded. “Yeah,” she admitted, “because I like him.”

Cleo was always the logical one of the two when it came to feelings. She liked to listen and then talk things through, so a lot of their friends relied on her for her wisdom in times of need. This was one of those moments.

“You wanted a sweet moment of revenge, but what you wound up with was an ex-boyfriend who texts you while you gained feelings for quite literally the only person you’re not supposed to have feelings for.”

“I didn’t bloody mean to gain feelings for him.” She said harshly. “But it’s just nice - I don’t know, it’s nice that what I feel around Will is new, and it’s refreshing.”

“You were looking for that feeling in the wrong place, because you got yourself into quite a mess.” There was the brutal honesty, but it was what needed to be said. “But don’t beat yourself up over it, your feelings are just messed up and it’s understandable.”

“What should I do?”

Cleo let out a small breath, twirling the stands between her fingers. “First, I think you need to talk to him.”

“I can’t talk to him about this. It’s embarrassin’.”

The blonde sighed again, shaking her head at her friend’s stubbornness. “And then you need to figure out what you want.”

“It just sucks,” she said again and Cleo nodded, leaning down and placing her head on her arm, kissing the skin of her shoulder.

“I know it does, I know it does,” she whispered, and their conversation died down, the music continuing on for them.

#will #fic: affection #fanfic

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peaceisadirtyword · 5 years

Text

Took You Years IV (Alex Høgh/Reader)

A/N: Hello! Sorry for the delay, I was going to post this last night but as I was editing it I started changing things and... Here you have a completely different part😂 I don’t know if I like it, I just hope you do like it. Sorry about my ranting about Copenhagen. I wrote this listening to Give Me Love by Ed Sheeran and staring nostalgically at the photos I took of Copenhagen so please forgive me if I sound too cheesy. I’m just in love with that city♥️

Warnings: my writing, Alex is cute, I want to marry him. I’m a bit nostalgic today. Also mentions of alcohol👀

Words: 4263

gif belongs to @therealcalicali

"Y/N"

Emily's voice startled you. You had been staring at the small package you were opening for ten minutes, unable of even thinking straight.

"Sorry" you muttered, clearing your throat and wincing when doing so.

"You should have stayed home" your friend sighed, taking the package and opening it "You're not okay"

The awful danish weather had finally won the battle. The day after you and Emily went out, you had woken up with a sore throat, sneezing and feeling like your head was about to explode. That and the fact that you saw Alex only worsened things. You had spent a whole day in bed, sleeping with fever.

"I couldn't skip another day of work" you sighed "And I couldn't leave you alone"

"I'm not alone, I have a lot of girls here of whom I cannot pronounce the name" Emily joked, making you smile a bit "Why don't you stay on the desk and I stay with the girls? This way you won't have to talk so much to people"

"Okay" you shrugged. You only wanted to go back home and go to sleep, or better, go back to Ireland and sleep knowing you were far away from Copenhagen.

It did help staying in the checkout desk, the work cleared your mind and it helped you to stop thinking about him. You still felt awful for leaving him calling your name on the street, not even looking at his face. Did he deserve it for breaking your heart? Maybe. Did you want to hurt him? No. In fact, a part of you wished you could see him again.

That didn't stop you from panicking when you heard his voice, though.

You had been busy helping a woman to choose the best tone for the foundation that you hadn't seen him enter the store.

"Y/N" he called your name softly, almost shyly. It reminded you of when you met him, when he was a nervous but nice guy excited to meet everyone in the set. He had praised your work for hours, asking with curiosity some questions regarding your job. It helped you to relax.

"Alex" you nearly let the eyeshadow palettes you were showing the woman fall from your hands while looking at him with widened eyes.

"Hey" he smiled widely at you. At least this time you didn't ignore him and left on the first taxi you could find.

You cleared your throat, looking away from him to keep taking care of your client, who was distracted with the eyeshadow palettes and didn't even look at Alex.

When she finally paid and left, thanking you for your help, you looked at him again. He had been patiently waiting for you to finish, casually leant on the desk and looking around. He wore his black trousers, a white jumper and his black coat. He looked amazingly handsome, even more than you remembered. His hair was shorter than when he left Ireland, and he looked more relaxed, more himself.

You had to stop yourself from hugging him tightly.

"What are you doing here?" You asked, it sounded more rude than you intended.

Alex sighed, blinking a few times and then rubbing his eyes before answering.

"I'm... I just wanted to say hello, talk to you... Maybe give you a proper welcome to Denmark?" He smiled a bit "I'm sorry for the other day, I... Was really surprised to see you here"

You honestly wanted to throw a bitchy answer at him and then ignore him. But you couldn't. You just couldn't be mean to him, not when he looked at you with those eyes.

"I'm sorry, too" you muttered, sighing "It was a bit wrong of me to leave without a word, I should have talked to you, or something..." You shook your head.

"I understand, though" he shrugged "I would have done the same, in your position"

You nodded, looking away from him. You had to talk to him. Seeing Alex still hurt, but it would hurt the next day, and the next week. It was better to talk things and then just forget about him.

"I have my break now" you said, pressing your lips together "We can talk, if you can stay now"

Alex's face lightened up, and he smiled widely, nodding.

"Yeah, I have time, I can wait" he nodded. His smile nearly made you smile back.

When you put on your coat and your scarf and stepped out of the store, Alex was waiting for you, holding two coffees and with a big smile. It was nearly impossible to smile softly at him as you took the cup he offered you, thanking him.

"Do you have time to go for a walk?" He pointed at the busy Strøget, biting his lip softly.

"Yeah, I have half an hour" you shrugged, nodding.

You walked in silence, sipping on your coffee and looking at the floor. Alex only opened his mouth to speak when you sneezed, coughing a bit afterwards.

"Are you okay?" He frowned a bit, holding back a smile.

"I just... Don't really get along with the Danish weather" you muttered, clearing your throat "What did you want to talk about?"

Alex sighed, taking a sip from his coffee.

"Us"

"Is there an us, though?"

"There was always an us, Y/N" he smirked "But neither of us knew"

"But not now" you raised your eyebrow "You broke up with me, you gave up on us because you were scared"

Alex's smile faded a bit. You almost felt bad, but it was the truth. You would have worked ten hours per day, every day of the week, you would have stopped going out, saving all the money so you could fly to Copenhagen and see him for two days. One day. A few hours.

He wasn't even able to wait for you.

"When I came back here" he started, his accent was stronger than when he left Ireland. You noticed how his accent changed when he spent a long period of time in Denmark, and it was more beautiful than ever "I was really happy, Y/N, I had my family here, I had my friends, my home. I had everything" his now clouded blue eyes fixed on yours "And I waited anxiously until you came back from work so I could see you, even if it was on a screen. And then the call finished, and I wasn't happy anymore, I realized this was harder than I thought, and that I would have to wait months to see you again"

"I understand that, I felt the same" you bit the inside of your cheek "And I was willing to endure all of that just to be with you, but you don't have to explain anything to me, I don't need that" you shrugged "Was I angry with you? Yes, maybe I still am, but it was your decision, and I have to respect that, and if you met someone else, I prefer you break up with me before cheating on me"

It was a lie. Alex wasn't even able to look at someone else after being with you. He remembered thinking it was a good idea to tell you that. Then he realized it wasn't.

"I didn't meet anyone" he confessed, looking away from you and blushing. You looked at him, confused. He was biting his lip and probably cursing himself silently "I don't know why I told you that"

"Well, it's nice to know that I've been crying thinking you left me for Miss Denmark when it was a lie"

"I'm sorry, truly sorry, Y/N, it wasn't my intention to hurt you"

"You're lucky I don't have the energy to be angry at you right now" you sighed, rubbing your eyes tiredly and coughing a bit. Alex smiled softly and put his warm hand -how could he have warm hands when it was literally freezing?- on your forehead.

"You have fever" he tilted his head adorably and his eyes scanned your face "You should go home"

"I can't, I'm working" you sighed, trying to ignore the shiver that travelled down your spine when his hand touched your face.

"I don't care about your work, Y/N, you're sick" he rolled his eyes "And probably I'm not making you feel any better... Go home, eat something, get in bed and sleep"

You didn't answer, just stopped walking and turned to look at him.

"Thank you, for the coffee"

"Thank you, for listening to me" he smiled again, and you had to look away from his face so you wouldn't start crying "It was really nice seeing you, Y/N, even if you hate me, I missed you"

Why was it sounding like a goodbye?

For some reason, a part of you believed you could keep seeing him. At least as friends. You had missed him too much, and now that you had seen him again, you weren't sure if you could just cut all communication with him.

"I don't hate you, Alex" you managed to smile at him "I missed you too"

He looked quite happy of hearing that, and his smile widened.

"How long are you staying in Copenhagen?" He frowned a bit. You looked much less hostile than the first time he saw you in Denmark, but he still didn't know if you would be willing to see him.

"Just a couple of months" you shrugged, snuggling into your warm coat to hide yourself from the cold "I'll leave for Christmas, maybe"

Alex nodded, biting his lip. You could swear he wanted to say something else, but he stayed silent, looking at his feet and with his hands in his pockets.

"I should go back to work" you sighed, looking at him "This was nice, thanks"

His blue eyes fixed on yours, and this time his lips parted, and he asked the question you had been hoping for.

"Can we meet up? Someday" he looked hopeless, as if he truly thought you would tell him no, or maybe even laugh at him or just turn around to leave, which, honestly, he kind of deserved "When you feel better"

You hesitated. It wouldn't be good for you to keep seeing him, even if it was only as friends.

"Alex... I'm going back to Ireland, in two months" you rubbed your eyes "I don't... Think I can deal with all of that again"

He nodded. There was a glimpse of disappointment in his eyes when he looked away again. His lips were pressed together and he took his hands out of his pockets to rub his face.

"I understand..." His tone made you feel the worst person in the world "It's fine, you're right, just forget it" he smiled again, but this time it didn't reach his eyes.

Instinctively, you reached for his arm to make him look at you. It was the first time you touched him, and you had to fight the urge of hugging him again.

"But" you sighed again "We can try. Just once. Just friends"

Alex raised his eyebrow, but nodded and winked at you playfully.

"Just friends" he raised his hands "I just want to catch up with you, see how you're doing... Maybe give you a tour around Copenhagen?" He looked excited, and that made your stomach turn.

"Okay" you agreed. It didn't sound bad, did it? And you trusted yourself much more around Alex when you were in public.

And you didn't really know Copenhagen.

"Then is settled" he smiled "You have my number, don't you? Just call me when you feel better, or before, if you need anything"

"Okay, thank you" you smiled again, awkwardly. Alex hesitated, but just when you were going to turn around and leave, he moved to hug you tightly, making you tense up and widen your eyes. What the hell were you supposed to do? Hug him back? Just stay there, blinking in confusion? Push him away and leave?

Your arms moved around his waist before you even made a decision. His arms around you, and his hair pressed against your hair made you feel better than all the medicines in the world. You closed your eyes and relaxed against him as he softly kissed your forehead.

"Take care" he muttered "And please, Y/N, call me"

You nodded, holding back a whine when he stepped away from you, winking while he whispered a weak 'bye'.

______________________________________

Maybe it was the hug, or the fact that you were now more willing to get better as it meant you'd seen Alex again, but a couple of days later you were back to your healthy and happy self. It reminded Emily of how you were when you were in Ireland, and entered the make up store with a big smile reading Alex's texts and showed her the photo he had sent you from bed, with his cute black dog nibbling at his hand. She hadn't seen you smile that much since he broke up with you, and that worried her.

You arrived to Denmark claiming you didn't want anything to do with him, but somehow Alex managed to make you forgive him (at least a bit) with nice words and warm smiles. Emily could understand you, -anyone would forgive that man if he looked at you like that- but she was still wary. You said you were only friends, but she knew you could never be just friends with him again.

And the last thing she wanted was to have you crying and moping around again.

"Try that red jumper, you look beautiful in that one" Emily looked around your wardrobe, while you discarded the black skirt that was now too short "And just wear jeans, Y/N, you'll freeze if you wear a skirt and I don't want you sick again"

"Okay mom" you rolled your eyes, taking the red jumper she offered you "I don't even know why I'm putting so much effort in dressing up, this isn't a date and I'll look horrible anyway, have you seen my face? I have eye bags bigger than my head"

"Shut up, you look beautiful" Emily giggled "And... Are you sure this isn't a date?"

"Yes, I'm sure, we're just meeting as friends, to catch up, and to visit the city, which I hadn't visited yet because I was afraid of seeing him and because I was working and sick" you shrugged "It's not a date"

"Whatever you say" she bit her lip, holding back a smile and raising her hands "Well, get dressed, I'll do your make up"

You already knew Copenhagen was beautiful. Alex had shown you lots of photos he had taken of his loved Denmark, and the reality didn't disappoint. It wasn't a big city with impressive skyscrapers, but its beauty was in the lovely colored houses, barely illuminated, and in the small cobbled streets. It gave you a warm sensation that contrasted with the cold that made you shiver.

It was obvious that Alex was in his own environment. The way his eyes lightened up while telling you some details about that blue building which you looked with widened eyes and an enamored smile... His big smile when you muttered how beautiful it was. He was proud of the effect Copenhagen had in you.

And he was more than happy, showing you a bit of his home.

Alex had brought his camera, as always. You couldn't even picture him without his camera hanging around his neck, his big eyes scanning every single corner looking for the right picture. He always found it. He had that gift, of just looking through the viewfinder and there it was. The perfect picture. It was nearly hypnotizing how easy he made it look.

Though you thought he had already taken the perfect picture, to an older couple that sat together on a bench next to Nyhavn, with their hands entwined, that had smiled brightly when Alex showed them the photo and thanked to him in Danish, he disagreed with you. The perfect picture for him was the one he had taken of you, looking at the illuminated, beautiful Nyhavn, with a cup of hot chocolate warming your hands and snuggling into your coat. He had taken it when you weren't looking, too busy admiring the cheerful buildings. You had widened your eyes and turned your head to look at him as you heard the click of the camera. You had frowned, glaring at him.

"Did you just take a photo of me?"

"I didn't take a photo of you, I took the photo of you"

"God, Alex" you sighed, closing your eyes in desperation "I look horrible in photos"

"No you don't" he nearly sounded offended "Excuse me, but you never looked horrible in any of the photos I took of you"

"Delete it" you tried to reach his camera, but he raised an eyebrow and held it out of your reach.

"Hey, it's a fucking masterpiece, that photo, you don't really want to delete it, you haven't even seen it!" He laughed.

"No, but I looked at my face at the mirror, and I can imagine today it's not my best day" you chuckled "Come on, Alex!"

"You always look beautiful, Y/N" he smiled, and you froze, remembering those were exactly the words he said the first night you spent together.

The entire mood changed. He was looking down at you, still holding his camera away from you. You let your hands rest on his shoulders, and his forehead pressed against yours. You both closed your eyes at the same time. And it was like the time hadn't even passed. His hand cupped your cheek, and you were already feeling his breath hitting your lips.

"Alex?"

You opened your eyes, immediately moving to get away from him as your cheeks turned red. Alex blinked in confusion and turned around to see two girls walking in your direction. They giggled in excitement as Alex looked at them and cleared his throat, smiling and nodding his head at them.

"Hi, can we take a photo with you?" One of them asked with a big smile on her face "We love your work"

Alex's smile widened and he nodded.

"Thank you so much, and of course, yeah, let's take a photo" he moved to stand between them as one of them took out her phone.

"I can take it" you offered, still a bit uncomfortable.

"Yes, please" the girl smiled at you, handing you her phone.

Alex winked at you as you got ready and shoot a few pictures. The girls thanked you a few times and Alex stood with them for a couple of minutes, talking to them. They looked even happier when they left, giggling.

"Your fans are nice" you smiled at him as he came back to your side.

"Yeah, it's really nice to talk to them" he nodded, the dreamy smile still on his face "Though I will never get used to it..." He sighed, rubbing his eyes "Okay, now, let's go, I have a surprise for you" he winked at you again, and his hand reached out, waiting for you to take it.

You did take it, missing the warmth of his touch, but frowned as he guided you away from the Nyhavn and into the streets.

"What kind of surprise?" You asked, narrowing your eyes suspiciously as he shrugged.

"If I tell you, it won't be a surprise anymore, Y/N"

"Come on, Alex" you whined "I don't like surprises"

"Actually, you do, you love surprises but you're too impatient" he rolled his eyes "Come on, we're almost there"

You entered a small pub. It was full of Danish people, no tourists around. Alex greeted one of the workers in Danish and guided you to a table in a corner, a bit more quiet.

"Your surprise is a bit late" he raised his eyebrow "But it will be here soon, do you want a drink?"

"Yeah, I need a beer" you sighed dramatically, making Alex laugh.

"Okay, a beer it is, wait here"

You bit your lip as he walked to the bar, greeting the waiter loudly in Danish. Taking off your coat and your scarf, you sat down on one of the benches, unlocking your phone to reply to Emily's texts.

You had just locked your phone when Alex returned. He had two beers on his hands and that permanent smile on his beautiful face.

"Tak" you said proudly. It was one of the few things you could actually say in Danish, and it made Alex chuckle.

"You're welcome" he looked very excited, and his eyes didn't leave your face as you took a sip of your beer.

"It's nice" you shrugged, and then smirked "But I prefer the Irish beer"

He raised an eyebrow, pretending to be offended at your words, and shook his head, but before he could say anything, someone stopped just next to your table, clearing their throat.

You turned your head and nearly spilled the beer when you saw Marco standing there, smiling at you and with his head tilted.

"Oh my god" you stood up excitedly, hugging him tightly and nearly making him loose his balance "I can't believe it!"

Marco laughed, hugging you back, and Alex had a small smile on his lips.

"Hey, Y/N, I missed you"

"I missed you too" you had to hold back the tears as you moved to look at him "How are you?"

"Fine, I'm fine" he smiled again. Marco was truly happy to see you, and also relieved that you weren't angry at him.

"This was the surprise" Alex explained "I supposed you'd like to see him too"

"I wasn't so sure" Marco moved to sit down next to Alex as you returned to your seat "As you didn't tell me you were coming, I supposed you didn't want to see me" he shrugged "Sorry"

You smile faded. You nearly forgot Marco also stopped talking to you at all. Biting your lip, you looked away.

"I didn't tell you because I figured neither of you wanted to talk to me" you sighed "I supposed you didn't care if I came here or not"

"Sorry about that" Marco frowned a bit "I just... I don't really know why I stopped talking to you, and it was a mistake, I wasn't a very good friend"

"It's okay" you tried to smile again. You really didn't want to think about that in that moment "I was trying to cancel my contract here in Copenhagen the last time I spoke with you, so I didn't think about telling you because I really didn't want to come here" you confessed "But my boss didn't let me so... Here I am" you chuckled, as Alex sipped on his beer silently.

"I'm glad you're here" Marco winked at you "We missed you, a lot, no one has treated my hair as nicely as you since I came back"

You laughed. Back in set, you were in love with Marco's hair. It was soft, easy to comb, and the hairstyle for filming was much easier than Alex's.

It felt like you were still in Ireland. You nearly forgot how much you loved spending time with those two, laughing and remembering good moments from set. You had tears rolling down your cheeks and your stomach hurt from laughing too hard by the time Marco finished telling you the war prank he had with Alex that lasted months and was the best thing you ever saw. Alex couldn't even drink and burst out laughing every two minutes.

"Oh god" you whined, drying your tears with your sleeve "I miss that so much"

"Me too, it sucks not to be able to empty a fire extinguisher on Marco's trailer when I'm feeling down"

You laughed again, and Marco rolled his eyes, pretending to be annoyed.

"I'm going outside to smoke" Marco stood up from his seat "Are you coming?" He asked looking at Alex, who shook his head "Okay, I'll be right back"

You watched him leave the pub with a cigarette on one hand and Alex's lighter on the other.

"Hey, do you want to see the photos?" Alex kicked you softly under the table, catching your attention while he reached for his camera, which he left by his side on the table.

"Yeah, okay" you smiled as he stood up only to sit down next to you. His closeness relaxed you, and you nearly leaned your head on his shoulder. He turned the camera on, showing you the pictures he had taken while he muttered the 'mistakes' he had while taking the photos. Though for you all of them were perfect.

"God I look so bad" you covered your face with your hands "Please, Alex, delete that"

"I like it" he smiled "I really like it. Copenhagen suits you" he looked at you, and you were lost again.

This time he didn't take his time to cup your cheek or press his forehead against yours, he just leaned in and kissed your lips. A small peck. And then he grabbed your neck and kissed you again. And you put your hands on his shoulders and kissed him back.

Alex smiled into the kiss. His lips were softer than you remembered, and they tasted even better. Just when you were going to deepen the kiss, not being able to hold it back anymore, your phone rang, startling you both and making you break the kiss.

_____________________________________________

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