#and the theme song is so good that I’ve had it on repeat for three days now

[maxgicalgirl]

It’s been ages since an anime has sunk its teeth into me and shook me like dog with a chew toy but Dan Da Dan is pretty much all I can think about lately………..

[belovedmusings]

Take me down slow, control, and abuse me.

Choso Kamo x You x Suguru Geto

Explicit Themes 18+ (🚫Minors DNI🚫)

Part eight of the 'Two + One' story. Click for story masterlist.

Guitarist! Choso Kamo is your boyfriend, and he just woke you up in the middle of the night after he heard you having a certain dream about his bandmate, Suguru. This is the subsequent conversation.

Relevant tags: sexual tension, thoughts of infidelity, characters with questionable morals, Choso is sweet and loyal, slow burn, no "y/n" for immersion, 2nd POV, reader has no defining characteristics, explicit smut, cowgirl, riding, nipple play (fem receiving), oral sex (male receiving), soft and tender sex, love bites, creampie

Recommended songs to listen to while reading: Use Me (PLAZA), I Wanna Be Yours (Arctic Monkeys), fue mejor (Kali Uchis, SZA)

A/N: Enjoy ;)

Read on Ao3 if you prefer!

Or read below cut:

His eyes are locked on yours. There’s no vindication—just confusion. You can’t lie to him. It hurts too much to even think about telling this precious man you love an untruth. 

“Choso,” You begin, slicing through the tension-thick air. There’s a lump already forming in your throat, and you brace yourself to lose the man you love. “I…I need to be honest with you.”

Worry instantly etches into his features. “…all right.”

“When I said I just thought he was good-looking, that…that wasn’t the entire truth. I…ever since we met him, I-I’ve been attracted to him but I-I…I love you so much, the guilt is eating me alive.”

It all comes out in a rush, the truth of your feelings, and it takes him a moment to catch up with you to process your words.

He digests the initial part first. “Ever…since we met him? You mean, at my audition?”

You nod shamefully. It’s begun–and you decide now is the best time to just get it all out. There’s no way he’s going to accept everything you’ve done, because you know you wouldn’t, but you just can’t keep hiding things from him. This is the man you love, and what is love without honesty?

After you start, it just pours out of you.

Everything that has happened. Initiating sex in the car after you left his house because he’d turned you on, listening to his voice on repeat through the band’s songs, the fantasizing, the stolen moments that happened in Suguru’s kitchen, then backstage at their concert, then three times again that same night, once at the bar, then in the car, then in your living room after Choso had been carried to bed, then two months later when you brought him back to talk after running into him at the grocery store. All of the forbidden touches, the heated words, the almost-kisses–you spill it all. He deserves to know. He’s too good of a person to be with someone as horrible as you.

By the time you finish, the two of you had sat up in bed, a bedside lamp on to illuminate the room. Sleep is lost on you both now. 

For a while, he just sits there in silence, eyes trained on the foot of the bed. It feels stuffy yet cold, and you wonder if you’ve stopped breathing at some point, waiting for his response. You’re not even sure what you expect. How can anyone possibly react to something like what you just told him?

Your heart drops through you at the first sight of a tear sliding down his cheek. He hasn’t said anything, but it’s clear that he’s hurting. 

What have you done? You were given the most precious boyfriend in the world and you’ve screwed it up by being selfish and undisciplined? 

He parts his lips, searching for the words. They only come after another beat of silence. 

“...all of that…” He begins in a gravelly voice, one you know he uses when he’s holding back his emotions, “and…all I can think about is…I’m in the way of you and him, aren’t I?”

You had no idea what you expected, but that reaction is ten-thousand times worse than anything you could’ve conjured up in your head. 

“No,” Your own voice shakes, you’re hurt because you hurt Choso, “You’re not…you’re not in the way, you’re my boyfriend. I love you.”

“But you want him,” He replies, voice strained. His eyes are still averted from you. “And he wants you. Not just a little, either.”

What argument can you make? You just have to speak from the heart. “Choso, I swear to god, I love you and Suguru hasn’t affected the way I feel about you in the slightest.”

“But I’m not your only option,” He says, monotony terribly forced as more tears stream down his cheeks. “And your other option is Suguru. The guy who is everything I am and more.”

You wonder if the crack you just felt in your heart was audible. “What?”

“He can give you the things I can…and the things I can’t.”

You need to fix this now.

“You’re the man I love,” You say, “Choso, what we have is so special, and–”

“I want what’s best for you,” Choso interrupts you, finally meeting your eyes. They’re glassy and weighted. “I just want you to be happy. He can make you happy.”

“No,” You instantly say, “No, loving you is what makes me happy. Being with you makes me happy. I don’t want to leave you, Choso. I don’t.”

“If you’re happy with me, then why…why do you want Suguru that badly?”

The full truth. What has exactly cemented itself within your soul–you need to bear it to him now. 

“Choso,” You begin, taking his hands and locked eyes with him. “I need you to believe me when I say that I have never ever second-guessed my feelings for you. I know that I am in love with you, and every single moment with you is a blessing that I will forever be grateful for. It’s just that…since I met Suguru, I’ve begun imagining what it would be like with him. Also, not instead. I want you in my life, I want you loving me, I want you to be my boyfriend now and forever, and more if that’s what comes with our future. But I…honestly, I want Suguru there too.”

Choso looks perplexed for a moment, eyes flitting between yours as he once again absorbs all of your words. “...you want him…too?”

Your next nod is earnest yet careful. “Yes. I know it’s ridiculous, selfish, and impossible, but I love and cherish you so much…and I want Suguru. I could never be without you, Chos’, and I sure as hell could never ever replace you with him. I don’t even know if Suguru and I are actually compatible and would go anywhere. Please, believe me.”

He draws in a slow breath, eyes never leaving yours. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry that you have to deal with this, and with me,” You add, “And I understand if you want me gone, I know even thinking that is horrible, and I am the worst person on Earth for hurting you.”

“I don’t want you gone,” He immediately says, surprising you thoroughly. 

“What? But I’m…I’m pretty sure all of this qualifies me as some sort of heartless…whore.”

He furrows his eyebrows, shaking his head vehemently. “You are not a whore. Do you go out every time I’m gone and sleep with random men you meet? Do you message more online? Do you send them pictures?”

“N-no, of course not.”

“You’re not a whore,” He says again, sighing heavily. “It’s…this is Suguru we’re talking about. Just Suguru. And this has gone on since we met him, for what…the better half of a year now? More than that? You haven’t even kissed him, let alone slept with him. You just…you just have a lot of affection to give.”

You look down at your lap. “It’s probably just physical, anyway…”

“You said you told him you wanted more, though, after he said that’s what he wants,” Choso points out. “Don’t sugarcoat it for me.”

“No, I-I mean, I’ve barely been around him. Who’s to say it isn’t just lust?” You feel like you’re backtracking, but also like maybe you’re telling the truth. You don’t know anymore. “Maybe I was just caught up in it all when he said it. We could end up not liking each other at all if we really got to know each other…”

After you trail off, no words fill the space between you two for another few moments. 

“So,” he exhales, “You want him…too. In what sense?”

“Well,” You begin unsurely. “I…don’t know.”

“Do you think if you slept with him, your curiosity would go away?”

There’s a seriousness that hangs in the air, one that you can’t help but feel is unwelcome.

“What?”

“I just…don’t see another solution to this. Because I love the band, and Suguru made it clear he wants me to stay. That means that at some point, you two are going to have to be around each other. If you…end up alone, it could mean you two just give in, and none of us want that. Suguru doesn’t want to go behind my back, you don’t want to cheat on me, and I don’t want either of you to betray me.”

“But I still don’t see how the correct solution is for me to sleep with him,” You reply rather bluntly, bewildered.

“Because then I’d know about it,” Choso explains. “I mean, listen…I don’t like the idea of the woman I love sleeping with another man, but this isn’t just some guy, it’s Suguru. I know he’s a good man. I know he respects me. So if I…allowed you to…see what he’s all about, then no one would be lying to anyone. There would be no problem.”

Your eyes narrow. Is your boyfriend seriously suggesting you sleep with Suguru?

“But…what about your feelings? I’d still be…getting intimate with another man. Wouldn’t that bother you?” You question him, running a hand through your hair. 

“It’s not bothering me as much as it should,” He admits, “Because…all this time, all those moments, and neither of you said ‘forget about him’ and did it behind my back. Yes, you two have gotten close, but you’ve stopped yourselves. So…I know you both care about me. It sounds so strange coming from me, but…I’d let you do it, love.”

All you can do is draw in a deep breath. What is he even saying? 

He’s seriously giving you the go-ahead? To sleep with Suguru?

“All I ask is…for you to agree to a few things,” Choso adds, “You’d use protection…and…don’t kiss him.”

Don’t kiss him.

A flash of Suguru’s lip rings comes to mind like the shutter of a camera, and you steel yourself. No kissing him. Something you’d fantasized about for the longest time…barred. 

But he’s letting you sleep with Suguru. 

So what if you can’t kiss him?

“Okay,” You nod, then you hear yourself, and you shake your head, “W-wait, no, Choso, I can’t do this to you. You can’t be okay with this!”

“But I am,” He insists, reaching up and touching your face. There is only a gentleness in his eyes, no hint of anger or animosity towards you in them. “I love you, and I want to give you the world. If I can give you this by simply allowing you, I will.”

“But it’s sex,” You argue, “For crying out loud, Choso, how can you be okay with this? I’d never be okay if you wanted to sleep with another woman!”

“That’s okay,” He assures you, “It is sex, and to the two of us it means something different. For me, it’s exclusive. For you, it's an expression. I don’t like sleeping with anyone I’m not in love with, but for you, it’s more about who you find attractive. I trust you. I know you’ll never leave me, you’ve made that clear. If, throughout this entire thing, you’ve fantasized about Suguru yet never resented me or started finding faults in me, wishing I was him…I know you love me.”

“I do,” is what you reply with immediately. “I love you so much, Chos’.”

“See? I trust you,” He repeats. “If you wanted to cheat you’d have done so by now.”

For a while, you just remain silent.

Is he really giving you a pass? To have sex with Suguru? Just like that?

“Will you look at me differently? And him?” You ask, searching his eyes with yours.

“You’re always going to be the woman I love,” Choso shakes his head. “And he’s always going to be Suguru.”

“What about when we’re all together? When you’re in the same room as me and him? Will you be able to take it?”

Choso consider your words for a moment before nodding. “Yes. I will. Things will probably be less tense now that it’s out in the open, don’t you think?”

“…well, possibly, yes.”

There is about a full minute of absolutely no sound in the room. You don’t know what to say. You weren’t expecting a full fight, because you know that’s not what Choso is about, but you sure as hell weren’t expecting this either. How are you supposed to react?

Choso has given you his permission to sleep with Suguru. You can actually do what you’ve been wanting to do–well, mostly–and more than anything, right now you’re just feeling…weird. 

“Chos’, I…I don’t know what to say…”

He shakes his head. “You don’t have to. We’ve talked it over and said everything we need to say.”

Well, he’s right. You’ve asked about his feelings, about his reaction, he knows the dirty details of your thoughts…and this is the end result. The boyfriend you have been in love with since before this entire mess has started still loves you even after everything you’ve considered doing, and everything you’ve done, and what’s more is that he is green-lighting even more that you never thought he’d be okay with.

Your eyes happen upon him, and you really take him in. The way his layered hair falls in messy strands around his face, the soft droop of his chocolate eyes, smeared with his trademark purple eyeliner. You follow the shape of his jaw, the curve of his Adam’s apple down to his neck, further to the collar of his shirt, where you remember he has that tattoo of your name on his heart. More than ever now, you understand that he’d gotten that done with utmost sincerity. So much emotion sweeps over you in a tidal wave–you love your boyfriend so much, and you’re sorry he’s even in this position, whether he’s okay with it or not. 

There isn’t much time between after you’ve had that thought and when you climb into his lap, kissing him in a way that you hope conveys everything you’re feeling for him at the moment. 

Choso responds eagerly, and soon layers come off, the black ink of your name etched into his breast on full display. It’s a lot of touching and grinding–you try to knead your affection into him with your hands and the way you move your hips on his, feeling him getting hard beneath you, your lips reaching any expanse of skin of his that they can reach. 

You kiss down his frame, paying special attention to the delicate part of his neck where it meets his shoulder and leaving a mark there. It’s easy to elicit noises from him, soft and breathy in nature, and you keep going, leaving a path of claims as you devour his body slowly.

Soon, you wind up between his legs, face beside his stiff length, but before you pay it any mind, you give attention to his thighs, a place you know is particularly sensitive. That’s when the sounds leaving his lips become more pronounced, abdomen rising and falling with each new mark you bite into the flesh there.

By the time you take him into your mouth, his cock is maroon-hard and weeping, the bitterness mixing with the flavor of his musk. The both of you moan at the same time, and his hands thread into your hair, gently holding it back as you suck, rising and sinking down on him over and over in the way you know drives him mad. His noises string together, strained groans and soft whimpers mixing to create a beautiful enough symphony that even that itself is music he creates. His thumbs caress your cheeks and you feel his eyes admiring you as you suck him off, a rosy blush spreading over your face.

When he’s good and soaked, and when he’s near his peak, twitching on your tongue with the threat of release, you pull off, looking up at him.

His eyebrows are drawn up, hair messily splayed across his pillow from his writhing, a crimson over the bridge of his nose. He’s panting, chest rising and falling rigidly, deep exhales painting the air.

“You’re so beautiful,” You tell him breathlessly, climbing back up his now mark-ridden body, straddling his hips with your legs. You take him into your hand and guide him towards your heat, allowing it inside as you seat yourself down.

“Oh, fuck,” He grunts, hands finding your waist instinctively. You can feel him throbbing inside of you, having been edged already, and you know it won’t take him long to reach his peak. 

He knows this, and so when you start rolling your hips, keeping him fully inside, he begins roaming his palms over your skin, doing his best to bring you to the edge as well. The two of you move in a way that can only be disguised as a sensual, intimate dance. His hands find your breasts, teasing your nipples with the pads of his thumbs, then running a palm down your front until he finds your clit. He starts rubbing it to the tempo of your movements, and little gasps leave your mouth, spurring on more impassioned grinds from you.

You look down at him, staring up at you with reverent, lidded eyes, and you know that no matter what you do with Suguru, it can never replace what you have with Choso. 

“I love you,” You murmur, leaning down and initiating a hungry kiss. 

He returns it with fervor, speaking into your wet cavern with a reciprocal, “I love you,” before chasing it down with his tongue. He starts meeting your movements with his own, intensity increasing until soon he’s moaning down your throat and cumming deep inside, your own orgasm rippling through you at the same time.

He holds you close and you don’t stop showering him with your love, intent on making sure he knows how much he means to you.

What comes next can wait until tomorrow.

__

a/n: you get to have your cake and eat it too in this universe, mmm hmm, mm hmm. now...what will happen next?

Please don't copy or repost, but feel free to reblog and share!

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[1moreff-creator]

Who do you think will survive the killing game??? ( also if you were already asked this my B )

:D

Hi! Don’t worry, I don’t think I’ve ever talked about it, so I had to give it some thought :p It’s an interesting question, so let’s see!

As a TL;DR, my “most likely,” in order and assuming a standard killing game formula (obviously the amount of survivors could be way different), are Teruko - J - Whit - Rose - Levi

Spoilers up to CH2 EP15

Of course, there’s one character that’s already kinda locked in as a survivor (assuming a more or less standard fangan ending and not an “everyone dies” sorta situation), and that’s Teruko. While there were theories about a possible protag switch post-LGI release, I’ve never found them particularly believable, and I don’t really think they’re very popular anymore.

The next character that’s basically a survivor already is Min, because if I never accept her death, she will always be alive in my books. /j

Yeah honestly after Teruko my confidence on survivor guesses drops dramatically, since there’s obviously no good way to tell.

Still, one character that particularly stands out to me is J. I have my reasons to believe she might become the primary support character a la Kirigiri, and while that doesn’t guarantee survival, I’d say it ups the chances a bit.

As to why I believe that… well here’s the thing. I’m kinda planning to make a mastermind probability ranking post after CH2 ends, and I’ll talk about my predictions for J in more detail there. As a result, I’d just be repeating myself if I talk about it here. So, I'll give you the quick rundown and leave the more detailed explanation for that post.

Basically, I believe the core theme of DRDT is the concept of “fate” and the possibility of change, where the big climax for Teruko’s character arc in particular (the single most important arc for the narrative, protag privilege) will be rejecting the notion that she’s fated to have bad luck forever. She already talked about it with Xander before he stabbed her, and her primary character foil, David, “covered” Literature Girl Insane. You don’t exactly give that song to a character who is very hopeful for a better future. Even Teruko’s trust issues are born from the belief her bad luck makes betrayal inevitable. And with Ace talking about how he’s “a coward who couldn’t fight his fate” (paraphrased), the connection seems more solid than ever.

J is important in that context because her entire character is sorta designed around the concept of rejecting fate, the thing Teruko needs to “learn to do” as it were. J was born into stardom and fame, born “lucky” (LGI numeral number seven symbolism go brr), but hides it and rejects her birthright down to her secret quote, “Please don’t call me your daughter ever again.” If Charles and Eden are the ones who are trying to get Teruko to trust again, I see J as the one who has the best shot at convincing her that she’s not doomed by the universe itself, giving her the best shot at survival out of any non-protag imo.

Also, silly yet existent argument: the CH1 title screen had Teruko (and Xander), the CH2 had J. Is it possible the survivors will each be featured in one screen? Probably not, but still.

The next one’s Whit. DRDT seems committed to explore its characters as much as possible before they die (which I think we all agree is awesome), and that means those that haven’t been fully explored or developed yet have a higher chance of a late run, thus a higher chance of survival. This applies to J and Rose somewhat, but it applies to Whit especially. I sometimes feel that we know more about Mai Akasaki than we do about Whit, which should tell you something.

Contrast that to Charles, who is absolutely dying sometime soon (imo). Even ignoring the “Charles dead at three” Whit comment from the prologue, Charles’ character arc is a little too complete for me to think it’s likely he stays ‘till the end. After we close out the Elliot subplot (which could easily be in CH3 given Elliot’s MV is already out), killing Charles off would be a good way to really kickstart Whit’s inevitable Breakdown Arc.

Final points to consider about Whit are the fact that luck is mentioned in his character bio, which along with J’s LGI numeral VII and Teruko being Teruko gives him an extra connection to the two survivors I’ve pointed out; and the possibility of him being the mastermind. Again something for the MM post, but put briefly; he’s not a bad mastermind guess, but I think it’s very likely that if he is, he won’t survive, so there’s that.

The next one might be Rose? Recap foil with J, so if the dev wants to explore that to its fullest, Rose will probably make a late run at least. There’s a lot to explore with her character too, but frankly that’s a bit of a moot point; every character in DRDT has a lot to explore.

Even if she’s one of, if not the best pick for mastermind imo, it’s very possible she can be the type of MM to be redeemed and survive alongside the cast. Again, details will probably have to wait for the mastermind post :v Hate to be saying that so much, but understandably given some of the reasoning is similar, a lot of good MM guesses are good survivor guesses.

As for the fifth most likely… well, this is the reason this post took me a week (this and I was busy :v). See, if you’d asked me during the hiatus, I would have said Ace. Obviously, that wouldn’t have aged very well now would it?

The ask was sent a bit after Ep14, and by the time I got some free time to write this, it was already Wednesday and anything I said about Ace or Eden could have very realistically been proven wrong in just a few days, so I decided to hold off until culprit reveal. And now that Ace is looking like the blackened, I’m pretty glad I did.

This does bring up a curious issue of gender balance. In theory, there’s nothing stopping DRDT’s survivor cast from leaning one way or the other, but generally survivor casts do try to keep it as equal as possible. And with three women already listed, even putting Nico here would cause an imbalance. But the thing is… I don’t see almost any of the men surviving?

Hence, Levi. I frankly have no clue where his character is going with the recent reveals and the fact Ace is dying soon; I could just as easily see him as the second CH3 victim (if there are two) or fulfilling “buff character curse” by dying in 4. But… not knowing where someone’s arc is going is kinda the reason Whit is up there, so I’m using the same reasoning. It’s my least confident guess, so yeah. He’d certainly be an interesting survivor at least, I wonder how he’d play off the mastermind in trial 6.

To quickly cover the other characters, I’ll go in order of least likely to survive to most likely. Excusing the dead, of course.

-Ace: He’s technically still alive, but, uh��� uh…

-David: If he were to survive, he’d need to go on a near identical arc to Teruko, which is… hard to imagine properly working. He’ll make a late run, probably, but I can’t see him reaching the sixth.

-Charles: Already explained.

-Arturo might be a little too insane to work. It’s hard to imagine a sixth trial with Arturo of all damn people around. Especially if J’s there.

And… those are kinda all the guesses I have for who is (in my belief) 100% dying. I could actually see every other character being a survivor :v

-Veronika runs into the same issue as Arturo; it’d be hard to let the mastermind do MM stuff when this girl’s there simping for them. However, I could see a world where dev keeps her for the psychoanalysis of the MM… kinda. Frankly, she should be in the “no chance” list, but… she’s my favorite alongside Min so let me have hope!-

-Nico has the advantage that they’re the only way to make a cast of 5 survivors perfectly balanced in terms of boys and girls; two of each and Nico. But that’s not very strong. The main issue is that I don’t really know what could happen with them in the remaining chapters that would advance their character to a point they’re a survivor, if that makes sense. Maybe if Rose makes it?

-Hu is weird. From what we’ve seen in the series, she would make a pretty compelling survivor. But… her secret quote…

Hu: I want to pay for what I’ve done. But even then, I still want to live.

Like, that’s the most “blackened” line in history; do you wanna state your victim’s name while you’re at it? Part of me wants to say that’s too obvious and the line will have a different context, but… it’s a secret quote in the source code of her character page. It’s not that obvious to anyone who follows the series more casually.

-Eden: I could see the argument of Eden>Rose (and therefore Eden>Levi as he’s only there due to gender balancing), since our favorite Clockmaker is quite easy to imagine in a final trial setting. The main issue is that… assuming a more or less standard formula, it’d be sorta weird to have someone in the sixth trial who can out-hope speech the protag, and Eden definitely fits that bill. It’s possible she makes it, especially given her involvement in the pre-prologue scene with Xander’s eye, but idk.

Here are a few extra survivor configurations I could see happening! Obviously there’s plenty more, so watch absolutely none of them be right.

Teruko-J-Whit-Eden-Levi/Nico (Teruko MM or dead MM with no “two victims” case)

Teruko-J-Rose/Eden-Levi/Nico (Whit MM)

Teruko-Whit-Rose-Nico (J MM)

Teruko-J-Whit-Hu (Veronika MM)

Teruko-Whit-J-Rose/Eden-Levi-Min?!?! (Min MM)

Teruko-Rose-Eden-Whit-Levi/Nico-Min (Baking Squad Cope!!!)

Teruko-J-Whit-Veronika-Levi/Nico (Why not?)

Everyone (The only right answer)

Thanks a lot for the ask! Fun to ramble about this series lol.

[luvrodite]

Ro!!!!!!! Still kicking and giggling over your asks (love the new theme by the way!) I wanted to know more about your self-ships too 💕

Ro x Gaz, is there a ship name? Do you prefer kisses goodbye or kisses hello from him? Does he dance with you easily or do you to have to convince him to get on the dance floor with you?

Roap: how long does it take for you to introduce him to your family? Did you two ever have a date that started out badly but ended up fine anyway?

xoxo sunnie (@fic-over-cannon)

oh sunnie i can’t tell you how wistful this has made me. the spirit of longing has taken over my body and i’m in love :((( thank you for asking me about this beloved!! (also thank you!! i love YOUR theme)

with ro + gaz i think i’m very hesitantly going for ky-ro as a ship name? i’ve taken to calling him ky in my mind (sometimes almost always followed by baby) which is so grossly affectionate i can barely recognise myself !!

i think i prefer kisses hello because there’s something soo beautiful about reunions and our reunions always vary depending on the circumstances. sometimes it’s quiet, relieved and soft, like folding yourself into blankets after a long day, whispered ‘lo darling’s and brushes of lips. and then other times it’s excited and overjoyed, you know what i mean? but either way i’m glad to have him back.

i think he’s the type (in my mind) to stand back and laugh and shake his head but he never makes me ask three times before begrudgingly giving in. i saw someone saw the 141 is awful at dancing cos they’re british and it made me giggle so i accept that but i think he’s capable of a little sway moment and we’re both just there to have fun with each other so it’s nice. i’ve had the same slow song on repeat and i feel so in love :( i’m so wistful i want him so much. beautiful boy

with roap i don’t think that man is meeting my family at all. kidding but like, i think it takes a good while for me to trust him and trust that he’s actually being dead serious about wanting me so it takes an even longer time after that for me to bring him around to my family. they’re very involved in my life and sometimes overbearing so the moment i mention him they’d want to meet him but i think this would be when i put my foot down because i’m so wary about bringing people around my family as a partner if i’m not sure or all in with them. i’ll bring him up when i’m seeing him casually but they don’t get to meet him until he’s proven himself to me (see: bypassed my avoidance induced protective measures)

i think there’s definitely a few instances where we have a date go awry — i imagine he gets called in on an emergency, probably just as i’m beginning to warm up to the idea of something more with him and the time apart is like a slap in the face. with me i feel like it’s always two steps forward one step back because with him i’m so unwilling to let go and trust in him. we get there eventually but it takes a lot of work.

i think though i can imagine like. for some reason it’s something silly like a restaurant we go to getting evacuated because of a gas leak or something and we kind of just have to giggle about it and amble around and it ends up being a nicer night than i would’ve thought. or maybe he’s a little late and i’m already in a weird mood (i’m such a difficult person i’m so sorry) and it really feels like we should just call it off but i think he (and the rest of the 141) are the type to not let go once they’ve got their teeth in you and he’s just like. come on. we’re already here. don’t make me go another few months without seeing you. sweet talks me into sticking around and seeing the night through and by the end of it he has me laughing despite it all

anyway i cant think about this any longer otherwise i’ll implode in the library and or start crying

[there-must-be-a-lock]

If It’s A Highway - the annotated playlist!

I posted an earlier version of this playlist a while back, but I’ve added to it quite a bit in the process of writing this last chapter. Also, the musical influences probably show in this chapter more than any of the previous ones; there are a couple places where I use almost direct quotes tbh. So I threw some lyric references in, too.

Playlist under the cut, fic right over here!

“Slow Death Hymn,” Mischief Brew - the title track! I adore this song. It’s about, like, pouring one out on New Year’s Eve for all the people you’ve lost over the course of the last year, and accepting that you’re another year closer to death, and deciding to just keep on driving and looking forward.

“You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid,” The Offspring - Jason vibes like whoa.

“Right On, Frankenstein,” Death From Above 1979 - Bucky vibes like whoa.

“Bulletproof Heart,” My Chemical Romance - look, there are a lot of My Chem songs on this playlist, and so many more that I could include just as easily, because wow, themes!!!! But if I had to sum up the Jason/Bucky dynamic in one line, it’d be this:

“Autoclave,” the Mountain Goats - How Bucky sees himself, basically. Not who he actually is… but how he sees himself.

“In A Body Like A Grave,” Japandroids - one of my favorite repeating analogies in chapter 5 was directly inspired by this. It’s just such a good image.

“Kill All Your Friends,” My Chemical Romance - total Jason song; he basically quotes it in ch. 5. He’d love this band, pretty sure Revenge would be his favorite album in the whole world… I mean, it’s called Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. Runners up for Jason-est songs include Fashion Statement and Never Told You What I Do For A Living, but this one was too good in the context of this story:

“Drive,” the Gaslight Anthem - his voice is one of my absolute favorites, it’s so rough and emotional, and this song has a blend of exhaustion and vulnerability and hope that fits the story to a T.

“Demolition Lovers,” My Chemical Romance - I mean. Yeah.

“True Love and a Free Life of Free Will,” Japandroids - love love love their lyrics. I originally came upon this one while I was working on another Bucky-centric story and it gave me goosebumps.

[dolenz]

i got tagged by @funeralshawls to share 4 albums i’ve been fixated on recently! thank u for the tag !! <33

this was incredibly difficult bc i’ve been mainly listening thru afi’s discography lately but i didn’t want to put albums from all the same band lmfao. (put a read more bc i got wordy for no reason)

1) bodies - afi : honestly decemberunderground was the last album i think i heard until they dropped twisted tongues and escape from los angeles in like 2021 when i got nostalgic abt them and heard they had a new album coming. i ended up getting tickets in 2022 to see them and before the show i took some time to listen through their newer stuff. no surprise here, it’s all fucking amazing. they really know how to explore their sound without sounding like an entirely different band. also i made prolonged eye contact with davey during no eyes and i think abt it every time i listen to this album so

2) infinity on high - fall out boy : obviously the theme for 2022 and into this year is “emo phase 2: electric boogaloo” and i’ve been listening through fall out boy’s discography, too, in preparation for their new album dropping. while not my #1 fob album, this one is just……so good. hum hallelujah / golden have me weeping

3) i brought you my bullets, you brought me your love - my chemical romance : embarrassingly, i never truly listened to this album top to bottom and holy shit that was a bad move for me! this album is very very very good and i’ve been playing it a lot. fun fact: for a while i didn’t realize vampires will never hurt you was on this album and not three cheers?? foolish

4) american idiot - green day : jesus of suburbia is punk bohemian rhapsody and it took me like three weeks to stop listening to that specific song on repeat. this album is…so fucking good and i’m probably going to put it on again in a few minutes bc it’s been two days since i’ve listened to it and that’s too many days without this album

i tag: @barbieomoviegeek, @pauls-mccharmly, @justpatches, and anyone else who wants to do it bc i always feel annoying tagging ppl T_T

[felixantares]

Get to know me game

tagged by @allalrightagain 💚

rules: tag 9 people you want to get to know better

last song: I’ve had Blood for Blood by Sarah Sparks on repeat for like 5 hours. It's a theme song for Edmund Pevensie but it also feels very Snape-coded and if you haven't heard it I'm begging you to go listen to it. I get re-obsessed with it like every few weeks when I remember how good it is.

last show: I haven't watched a lot recently but I think the last thing I finished was season 2 of The Legend of Vox Machina and i'm still not over it

currently watching: nothing at the moment, I've been getting back into my gamer era recently

currently reading: I'm re-reading the Harry Potter books and annotating the series because I realised it had been a few years since I'd actually read the source material and I couldn't separate fanon from canon anymore (or was mixing up book and movie canon). My kindle app ate my notes on the first three books and I'm starting again but on paper this time where the stupid app can't destroy weeks worth of work again. So I'm back to the Philosopher's Stone.

current obsession: Deathloop, without a doubt. I got it and told myself I'd play it and then Outer Worlds, which has also been on my list for a while and... yeah. I've played Deathloop twice and nothing else this month. I could write several essays on truly astounding game design that Arkane studios has managed to pull of once again, but in an effort to keep this short(ish) I'll refrain. Dishonored is still my favourite game series because I still don't think anything will top the care that went into every aspect of that franchise, from the music to the concept art to the level design, but Deathloop has come the closest out of anything I've played in the last several years. The fact that both games come from Arkane Studios just speaks to the crazy talented designers they've got working for them.

(though my fandom answer is that my Severitus obsession has been coming back full force the last few weeks)

Tagging: uhhh,, oh no I hate this part, sorry in advance if you've already been tagged!!! @bluestringpudding @luxuriousmalfoy @girl-with-goats @gloivy @momo-t-daye @the-francakes @lunapwrites @nanneramma @vitaminpops

[aztrareia]

[Queen of Swords | finale]

I call these art pieces those SSR gacha drops that seem to show up out of nowhere. I’ve had a really fun week starting from hanging out with family, eating, seeing lots of places, having 38-degree fevers—and this beauty right here showed up with no relevance to any of those, except maybe for a few songs I’ve heard? But at this point in time there have been more songs than just one that have helped me during the concept, sketching and lineart. Hopefully this is enough text to clutter the bird app preview so now I can go to the body of this wall of text, aka, the breakdown

[Optional reading below: I’ll give you enough time to run for the hills if disinterested]

There were several themes that I’ve taken from for the concept of this thing.

[The Swords Suit of the Tarot]

I don’t read cards. I simply do not have the patience for it. But once before I heard someone say that the Queen of Swords is the so-called “survivor” of the 4 queens from the different suits. The Swords are meant to symbolize thoughts, and the element of Air. The Queen of Swords is seen as [go do your search for yourself or this post will be too long for everyone’s good] yeah, that, what you read. She is wise, but often cold. She’s intellectual but critical, yadda yadda. It’s a great read. But in her hand [going back to this art] is another particularly “popular” (?) card of the swords suit. The three of swords signify heartaches, sorrowful experiences, things that bring deep sadness.

[The Rose Colors]

When your innocence betrays you; When your friendships betray you; When even love betrays you. I’ve deliberately altered the colors of the roses to match their flower language meanings. I struggle to filter between sharing my own experiences this year and objectively explaining this part of the piece but it’s that. When everything you’ve believed in falls apart, and you know you have to rebuild that foundation that’s been shattered. When your friendships keep repeating a vicious cycle of loneliness under the guise of understanding. Like you’re constantly being emptied without being filled. Like you’re the only one who feels as though they are in that relationship. The last sword is when you think you’ve found love, but is it truly love? Or is it delusion? It’s a thing that I think is more dangerous than quicksand, when you don’t really understand why you feel a certain thing and why. That kinda shit. Don’t think it too much.

[The Queen of Hearts Color and Theme]

For days following before and after Christmas I was seeing the “Tart Adagio” ballet from Alice’s Adventures. Sadly I don’t think the Swords and Hearts have the same equivalent in Cartomancy but yes, this was the only reason why she’s red. The design of the outfit itself is maybe my projection of frustration from not being able to get a book I really liked—either from not enough budget to I can’t time the delivery for shet.

I think that’s it for now. I’ve tried to make it short, and without divulging too much.

[Wip dump]

From traditional draft to various steps I took screenshots of

𝘮𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘐 𝘨𝘰𝘵 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴 ♥️

[screampied]

VEGASS

happy one year on tumblr!!, we’re all very proud, and we all appreciate all of the love and time you put into your works, I can’t pinpoint a time as to when I found this account but the second I found it I noticed how incredible all of your worlds had been and how they were everything I was looking for in a fanfiction, we all appreciate you and we hope you keep delivering us these yummy works of art you post 🫂

also HAPPY LATE HALLOWEENNN (if you celebrate of course) my Halloween went well and I recently started the walking dead (I think I said I wouldn’t start it but ..) and it’s so good, I love it a lot and i love my wives Maggie and Michonne

ALSO IM LOVING THE NEW THEME.

i LOOOVEEE tv girl, I think I started listening in 2020 and although there’s still some songs I haven’t heard I still appreciate them for what they are I always find it difficult for me to listen to new songs due to me repeating the same 20 for about three weeks

I’ve been deep into my angst no comfort as well and… well some days it ruins me but I LVOE angst no comfort that’s the way to go .. dare I say I don’t like when comfort is involved in angst ..

-cowboy liker anon

HI COWBOY 🩷🩷 thank u sm :(((( ohhhmigosh ur so sweet stop stop. but of course !!! i do this all for you guys <3 i appreciate you all just as much, and here’s to many more filthy slutty works with the occasional heart wrenching angst pieces (🌚)

HAPPY HALLOWEEEEN. thats good !!!!! oomf, i lowkey wanna start but im scared ill get turned off bc of the length …. but then again i binged watched all 20+ seasons of greys anatomy in quarantine ahaha. did you dress up for halloween? i was raven 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️

and THANK YOUUUU 🕺🕺🕺 !!!!!! i loooove tv girl, i remember bein so happy when they started to finally blow up a few years ago w not allowed, cigarettes out the window and lovers rock i think. their older songs tho >>>>>> yum. but that’s valid! i stay repeating the same songs heh.

[shadowriel]

Okay, the cogs are turning, the cogs are turning.

So it seems safe to say that you like a good mix of angst and fluff and smut? FMK angst, fluff, and smut, GO!

Things You Can't Have permanently changed my brain chemistry. Anything that @damedechance puts out into the universe is pure magic. And now I've added A Mind of Winter and I've Been Loving You For Quite Awhile to my TBR!

Your taste in fanart is *chefs kiss* - artcraawl's Gwynriel is TOP TIER.

A couple more questions!

What is something that if you see it in a fic, you're most likely going to click away? Anything that gives you the ick?

What are some of your favorite artists? Any songs that particularly remind you of Gwynriel?

How is your day going? What's something good that happened to you today?

Unfortunately, I'm not dressing up for Halloween this year, either! Huge bummer. I think I'll be wearing a Halloween themed sweater as well! 🎄❤️

Yes yes yes for angst, fluff, and smut! I love a good combination of all three, especially with the depth they each bring to a fic. But if I had to choose.. I’d fuck angst, marry smut, and kill only the most one-dimensional fluffy fluff if I really had to (what a hard decision!)

I’m pretty open to reading most things, so it’s kind of hard to think what would make me click away. I really do not vibe with high school/underage AUs. I don’t like reading about the ship wars in fics, or seeing Gwyn and Elain being pit against each other.

For artists, I definitely have to say Hozier (that man has me in a chokehold). I’m very much the type of person that will listen to a song or album on repeat til I’m sick of it, so it’s really hard to say other favourites. They’re always rotating! I was obsessed with Constellations by Jade LeMac a couple years back, and it’s very gwynriel coded to me. I love love love Tonight You Are Mine by The Technicolors and think it gives gwynriel vibes as well. Also First Time by Hozier!!

My day has been restful (maybe less productive than I would have hoped). I’ve been listening to the audiobook for “A Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches,” so that was probably the highlight of my day!

How’s your day been?

[confrontthefamiliar]

New moon in cancer

I dreamt I was being unproductive with time but in the dream, the man I work for in reality, soon revealed to me that it was apart of the timing, nodding his head.

In the past, I’ve found myself doing things I didn’t want to do or spending time with people I didn’t want to spend time with.

This has led me to good friendships but my friendship with myself is more important than with others. Doing the things I want is more important than doing things for others. And sure it’s a balance. But I think I’ll be leaning into the first one these days. Especially with the nodes moving into Aries and Libra. Especially since this yearlong detour where I decided to serve others and help them build their dreams. I want everyone else to do what they want.

We say we need each other but that wouldn’t be right. Like any healthy relationship it’s a nice to have not a need to have.

The paradox of love and friendships.

I spent the winter and spring snowboarding though I’d have rather been surfing.

But I had to make a ton of tips and I had to be in one place.

And I was supposed to go sailing.

That was the whole point of being here.

And he had the nerve to say I didn’t follow through on my word. I listened to projection after projection. I’ve heard projection after projection. It’s time to be a detective of other peoples’ logic as a matter of beforehand.

My wrath these days amuses me. I suppose it’s looping around from the last full moon in Cancer back in January.

I’m going to channel it towards movement towards my drive. My drive is coming back but it’s still pixelated.

The other thing is I quit smoking tobacco. Cigarettes keep so many emotions at bay.

At first I got a rush from the emotions flooding at me that I had smoked through all this time.

They’re telling me to cry. They’re telling me to be enraged.

I’m going through a portal of emotion.

I’ve tried quitting multiple times for the last two years. The last three men I dated were smokers. I think quitting the cigs is also quitting these kinds of men.

I want to be less anonymous and try to reveal myself more and see what happens. Maybe I’ll stop seeking intimacy in doomed situations. My shyness is peeling off. I sang on the stage at a friend’s birthday party.

I’m listening to this YouTube playlist at a Mediterranean cafe on the northwest coast of Tahoe - my favorite part of the lake. Back in Spain when I was 24, they played the same playlist at a surf hostel I worked at.

It’s that theme repeating of absolute delight, of absolute pleasure, of absolute joy. There was a song that haunted me on that playlist because I couldn’t find it for years after.

“And then she’d say, ‘It’s okay, I got lost on the way, but I’m a supergirl, and supergirls don’t cry’… she’s sowin’ seeds, she’s burnin’ trees.”

It has always been my song. I pay more attention now to songs that pop into my head. They’re messages for me.

Back in Ecuador when I was 26, I made my friend a bracelet that said viento when I didn’t know what to make it say as I was at a particularly existential point in my life and didn’t believe in anything.

But I’m back on the viento.

Who could have known the lack of meaning would become viento and in doing so become meaningful?

I never want to allow a man to lead me astray. That’s why I’ll be a captain.

If it’s not a fuck yes… I said to Cristian.

And in the meantime, while things pixelate, I realize it’s okay to do literally nothing to make money.

It’s sort of dangerous. But it’s different. A different lifestyle than I was taught.

The money remains the same but the writing flows. I collect herbs. I dry them and make teas and tinctures.

I didn’t know this would be the lesson. I didn’t know it’d suddenly be about timing and slowing down.

I didn’t know it’d be so welcoming to get back into my energy again. That I’d want to be alone so bad in the middle of summer.

At the man’s birthday whom I’m working for, his wife said, “He’s really good at closing chapters.”

That’s what I’m going to be good at.

I’m entertaining a lot of notions. There are things I want to do.

You’re waiting for the signs? Someone asked at the party last night.

I’m looking at new homes.

[danagoestorehab]

5 stages of grief

w momentarily i’m definitely in the anger stage of three whole grieving this. like fuck this fuck them FUCK the universe i deserve everything i deserve nothing this is all somebody else’s fault but mostly my own and life isn’t fair and it should be and why the fuck should poor me have to deal w this shit again and i’m really sick of listening to the same taylor swift song on repeat but im also too antsy to focus on anything else and i want vengeance or something BIG and definitely should download a voice changer app on my phone or post their number on a weird thread on craigslist but also maybe i should be more angry at myself because i fuck things up but then being melodramatic and doing all of the shit i usually do would definitely prove them right but maybe also make them feel guilty so i reckon im probably in the right frame of mind and not at all being a covert-narcissist-disguised-as-altruist to actually commit to my PHD out OF spite and do all those big plans i always talk about doing but never get around to and then i can hand in the genius ramblings of a doctorate probably and publically blame them in my acknowledgments because that sounds like the only sane and semi reasonable solution rn

but then i’m also in the sad girlie part of grief where it feels like i’ve lost something really big and i could spend all day replaying out how things SHOULD have gone but the nice nurses from the one flew over the cuckoos nest placey reminded me that should is a no no word and i should use COULD instead to not feel guilty so maybe i could cry about the fact that this is shitty and it’s probably okay to feel shitty and i’m probably gonna be sad about being sad for a while and that’s okay too. but it’s also sad to think about being sad and being okay with it when girlies very aware her track history of being okay with things isn’t very great. and my sadness doesn’t always look the same like sometimes it’s very clear sadness and i’m all snotty in bed listening to the sane lorde ‘liability’ track as if i’m actually the antagonist in some some shitty novel and that’s my theme track. as if romanticising the ways in which everything’s gone wrong might make it hurt less and then i don’t have to think about my sadness as always being there or how things will be more sad before they’re less sad. or sometimes my sadness looks like a normal girl wearing clothes having a conversation with people downstairs or outside and feeling okay before they say something and i realise they have their own lives are their own lives aren’t broken in the same way as mine is and my okayness is a short term pretence and that’s even sadder so i quietly excuse myself and go back to my room and sit with these feelings of being an egomaniac w no one to talk to as i hear laughter from different places around my flat whilst i look at the same for corners of my room

the guilt bits really hard too because i already feel so guilty about everything all the time. And if people ever think i don’t hold myself accountable for my actions because they see someone so clearly not giving a fuck about everything as she pours it all down the drain, then i want to remind them or maybe myself that my guilt bothers me. famously, so often to the point where i can’t really function and find refuge in the solace of my local psychiatric ward. how i feel guilty towards my sisters or friends or the things which could have been or you for having to listen to yet another one of my long winded rants. or that how really i know my guilt is just self serving and i find myself feeling guilty for lives i never lived which i probably could have. where i had gone off and done good things and been nicer to others and lived properly instead of spending another night sitting in my room. i feel guilty to all of the people i assured that i would get better and i feel guilty that this final time never got to happen itself into existence. i feel guilty that a lot of people expected this situation and probably aren’t entirely surprised. i feel guilty for lorna after spending four hours of not sleeping and deciding to contact the local ombudsman at 4 in the morning. i feel guilty for all of the things i’ve ever felt guilt for and all of the things i know i’m going to have to feel guilty about in the short term future. i feel guiltier than most of the criminals i see on the defence stand of the shows i watch to try and distract myself from how guilty i feel about everything. i feel guilty for taking up your phone space and i feel guilty for even putting other people in a situation in which they have to witness my guilt as it also invites them to be culpable

denial? can’t really relate to that one cal they’re probably going to feel really really guilty very shortly for the way they’ve treated me and send me an email offering me the penthouse suite and bestest person award at the rehab in all honesty. jesus christ. i’m sure the ombudsman will arrange me some nice travel there. that’s probably the only reason i haven’t written bad reviews about them on google yet cal. because when they do let me in very shortly and we willl have a laugh about this then i won’t have to answer for that haha

waiting to be able to talk about that one

[thora-jane]

Take My Hand (Shang Chi x female!Reader)

THIS WAS AN ASK FROM @aliiiyyaaah so here you go lovely I hope you enjoy!

Taglist: @aliiiyyaaah @superblyspeedydragon @bamboozledflamplant

If I left you out of the taglist lmk!

Ask:i dk what i want exactly but obviously it’s shang chi x reader😹😹 ummm just super fluffy i guess like obviously they not friends since forever but what like maybe 2-4 years ? and it could be a movie plot or just a general fluff But CAN YOU INCLUDR A PART WHERE HE HUGS HER FROM BEHIND??😹if that’s okay?

Summary: Karaoke Night takes a turn when you and Shang Chi find each other connecting on a more physical level

Word count: 1,578

Warning: Ain't nothin but some fluffy ending, you lovely little simps.

There are some rituals society doesn’t question, like school bells or religious services or even simply society itself. Among your group, Friday Night Karaoke was at the top of this list. It wasn’t just a ritual, it was a sacred ritual. Sure, it was never said aloud, but no matter what was going on around 8 o’clock on any given Friday evening, you all seemed to have one thing on your mind.

“You think you got it! Oh! You think you got it!” Katy was singing at the top of her lungs, jumping up and down to ‘Hey Ya’ before downing another shot with Shang-Chi.

Shang-Chi you repeated in your head. After being informed of what happened the month before, you were making an effort to call him by his actual name. Honestly, it was getting impossible to not think about him constantly. Yeah, he was your friend. But friendship didn’t stop you from hopelessly falling for him for the past...three years? God, you were hopelessly in love with this man. Whether or not he could save the world made no difference to you, it made no difference that you had watched him summon a dragon or take on assassins or defeat a massive soul-sucking monster, he had always been the same man you had fallen in love with. You swear, you would do anything for this man.

Apparently, in this moment, it meant getting up on the tiny stage next to Katy.

“C’moooon! It’ll be great!” He said with a lopsided smile as he elbowed you.

“Already? Shang Chi I think it’s your turn-”

“I’ll go next just go!” he assured, ruffling your hair.

“And like, I’ll take the rap parts so you barely have to do anything,” Katy added, grabbing your hand and pulling you out from under his touch. Before the music started you thought you heard her whisper “besides, you probably have someone in mind for this song anyway.”

You weren’t sure whether to smile or groan when the song started, but you held the mic up to your mouth and started singing anyway.

“Whatta man whatta man whatta man whatta mighty good man.” It didn’t take you long to start half-dancing with Katy as she started rapping, adding your ‘ooh’s in a little off-beat. It was when you looked up and saw Shang Chi that your heart melted again. There he was, standing over to the side, swaying and waving his arms shamelessly to hype you two up. The music was loud, but you could tell he was singing along with you at maximum volume.

After a few minutes, the song came to a close, and you and Katy stepped off stage, but not before you handed your mic over to Shang Chi, “Knock’em dead, bus boy,” you said with a smile as he took the mic in his hand. You weren’t, however, expecting him to wrap his arms around your waist, gently pulling your back to his chest as he chuckled.

“With pleasure.”

You sat back down on the couch, heart pounding and head not fully understanding what went down. You felt his breath on your neck and could feel the warmth through his shirt.

That just happened.

He took his place on the stage, you and Katy sitting on the beaten old couch that probably had at least a dozen drinks spilled on it at some point, and waited for him to start singing.

You were expecting some corny 90’s song, as that was the apparent theme of the night. Something you and Katy could scream along with from the couch, something light and funny. But from the speakers came a soft piano instrumental and your breath hitched as he began to sing.

“Wise men say, only fools rush in.” You couldn’t recall if you’d ever heard him sing seriously before. Up until that moment, it had always been casual singing filled with giggles and funny faces. But his face seemed to soften and his voice felt rich and deep, “But I can’t help falling in love with you.”

“Like a river flows, surely to the sea, darling so it goes, some things are meant to be,” Heat crept up on your face, leaning forward slightly on the couch and straightening your posture. You were positively captivated by his voice, ignoring Katy’s chuckle and jabbing from her elbow.

“Take my hand. Take my whole life too,” he began to step forward slowly, past the speaker, off the stage, over to the couch.

Right in front of you, he got down on his knee and took your hand in his, his voice shaking with vibrato, or maybe even nerves “For I can’t help falling in love with you.” As the song ended, your heart froze and you watched as he gently raised your hand to his lips.

A moment passed between you, Shang Chi turned red and chuckled as he got up again, bringing the mic back up to the stage. Katy stood up, all wild applause and wolf whistles, but you remained seated, hand frozen where he left it in your lap. While Katy clapped him on the back and he shrugged off her compliments on his singing, it occurred to you that it may have been nothing more than a performance. You felt something in your heart tense up, and your stomach churned as you realized Shang Chi wasn’t looking back at you at all. It probably was just a little gag at the moment, but that didn’t mean it didn’t mean the world to you.

You looked down at where he had kissed your hand, not finding it within yourself to get up from the couch. It was then that you felt the cushion dip beside you and the brush of an arm draping against the back of the couch.

“Hey uh...We were gonna head out. Katy said I might have gotten her too strong a drink- I mean she was drinking on an empty stomach or-”

“We all got pizza right before this though?” you interrupted, still looking down at your hands with purpose.

“Oh well my metabolism,” Katy began, plopping down at your other side, “Lightening fast. It’s unbelievable. Food just goes zooming and then alcohol just sits there. It’s crazy.” She reasoned with confidence that you thought felt a little over-preformed.

“Right, we were gonna head out, and like...I could walk you home?” Shang Chi asked, standing up and holding out his hand.

You took his hand, but only briefly, not wanting to get your hopes up again.

Katy had made it home, and you and Shang Chi walked the quieter late-night streets of San Fransisco. A gentle breeze began to blow, and you felt a shiver creep in your shoulders through your tshirt, “Oh here let me-” Shang Chi began, shrugging off his jacket and wrapping it around your shoulders, hesitantly keeping his arms wrapped around you.

You spoke softly, not shying from his touch but still unable to look him in the face, “Shang Chi, you’re the truest gentleman I’ve ever met,” You smiled, and he wrapped his arms around your shoulders, briefly tucking his chin in the crook of your neck.

“I just don’t want you to catch a chill,” he reassured, rubbing your arms.

“What’s got you acting like this?” You asked voice laced with genuine curiosity as you finally looked at him, suddenly aware of the proximity your faces had.

“Well…” he began, eyes locked with yours purposefully, “I just figure that...well at karaoke…(y/n) I’ve been meaning to say for a while that…” He continued to interrupt himself and trail on for nearly a minute before saying a complete phrase, “You didn’t take your hand from me.”

“No,” you blinked, “No, I didn’t,”

“Why not?” he asked, his eyes soft and searching.

“Because I liked it where it was,” you whispered.

“You did?” his eyes lit up with something, but you couldn’t quite tell what. Gently, he took your face in his hands, “Do you...do you like your face where it is?”

Your gulped, fairly certain that he could hear your heart pounding, “Yes.”

His eyes flickered to your lips, and oh-so-gently, he leaned down and closed the gap between the two of you.

You felt the prickle of his stubble under your nose. His breath smelled lightly of alcohol and his hands were intoxicating as he gently ran his fingertip under your ear back and forth. Your hands carefully found the hairline of his neck, entwining your fingertips in his hair and melting at the gentle sigh he breathed to your lips.

He pressed his forehead to yours, eyes still closed, “Did you..like where your face was at?”

You brought his face to yours again, softly planting your lips on his. This time his hands carefully moved down to your waist and rested on the small of your back, pulling you closer and hugging you tight when your lips broke off again.

“(y/n)?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you...feel the way I feel? Like am I crazy or is this actually happening?” He asked, and you could practically hear the nervous smile on his face.

“I mean personally I was hoping this was real,” you smiled, letting out a chuckle for the first time in a while that evening.

“It is real,” he assured the two of you, “I know it is.”

“If you say so, handsome,” You smiled.

“Oh, I say so.”

[songbirdstyles]

when i kissed the teacher.

summary: the one man you want more than anything is the one man you can’t have - your english professor.

warnings: teacher/student relationship, age gap (implied), f receiving oral, whole lotta smut, whole lotta feelings, whole lotta angst

word count: 14.7k (strap in)

song inspo.: when i kissed the teacher - abba

There was something special about Professor Styles.

You knew it, and so did every other girl who took his class. Your less-than-appropriate feelings about him were shared and that should’ve made you feel better about having them - at least you weren’t as obvious as some of the other girls who obviously took a fancy to your English professor. You applauded their efforts, showing up to classes in short skirts and low cut tops in the hopes that they’d catch his eyes drifting down to their chests while he passed out your essays -

But they hadn’t had any luck yet. He was a very respectable man, and more than his looks, that was what you appreciated about him. He was passionate about English, with a curriculum that appealed to you from the very first day and essay topics that forced you to look deeper into every book that the class read. He was one of the youngest professors on campus and you could tell something about that seemed to motivate him - to not be seen as a joke by the older professors, to be taken seriously by the students, some of which weren't much younger than him.

You decided, after your very first class with him, that, in any other universe, you’d have fallen in love with him. Or perhaps tried to jump his bones immediately.

Something of that sort.

As classes progressed you found yourself only liking him more. His classes were as difficult as you’d anticipated and you should have hated it, hated how much work and effort you had to put into every assignment but you absolutely adored it. You loved doing his essays, loved the novels he picked, loved the look on his face when he handed back your assignments with a 100% scribbled on top.

Most of your assignments, at least.

It didn’t really make sense to you, why your 1984 analysis should have gotten a 71%. Truthfully, you’d felt confident while writing it - it was such an easy analysis that you’d decided to go a little deeper, spending more time on it than was necessary, because you were sure he’d be tired of reading the same essay from everybody over and over again. So you gave him something different and maybe you should have stuck to analyzing the same themes that everyone else did.

“If any of you are confused about your grade,” Professor Styles announces to the class when everyone has gotten their essays back, time left in class slowly ticking down, “please feel free to see me after class. M’happy to discuss any concerns with you.”

Perhaps you’re being paranoid, but you could’ve sworn you felt his eyes land on you.

Class ends within a few minutes and you take your time packing your things back into your bag, waiting until the last kid has trickled from the lecture hall before swinging your bag over your shoulder and making your way down to his office. The door is cracked open and he’s barely sat down at his desk when you knock, flashing him a smile before pushing the door open a bit more.

You clear your throat before saying, “Hey, um, sorry to bother you - ” he interrupts you, telling you that it’s no bother at all “ - I’m just kind of confused on why I did badly on this essay.”

He nods, motioning for you to come in, and you step inside before shutting the door behind you. His office is small and cramped, with bookshelves lining the walls and a couch pressed into the corner. It’s a good vibe, you have to admit, although slightly messy. Perhaps you’d describe it as cozy, and it seems to fit him well. 

There’s an empty seat in front of his desk and you sit down in it awkwardly, placing your essay in front of him. His eyes skim the first page before he tells you, “You usually do really well on essays, and this was … a really easy one.”

“I know,” you tell him, leaning forward to try and read what he’s reading. “I just thought you might be looking for something more complex. It seemed too simple.” When you look up, he’s staring at you, and you feel heat flood to your cheeks. “I don’t - I don’t know.”

“It really is that simple, I promise,” Professor Styles informs you, and he pushes your essay back to you. “But you’re one of my best students, and I don’t want to let this bring down your grade. So, I have an idea for how you can make it up.”

Your mind runs through all the ways you’d want to make it up to him - most of them involve you being on your knees, and you cough into your elbow. He doesn’t know what you’re thinking, but it doesn’t stop you from feeling embarrassed about it. Fantasizing about your professor from across the lecture hall is one thing, but you’re barely a foot apart from him now and you’re almost nervous he can hear your thoughts.

“I’ll do anything.” And you don’t care about the ways he could interpret it. He drums his fingers on his desk, and when you look down at his hand, you notice with a start that his nails are painted - you’d never seen that before, but you’d also never been this close to him, you suppose. You wonder if he gets them done or if he does them himself - you can’t picture him going to a salon, and the thought of him painting his own nails could make you cum on its own.

You don’t realize he’s been speaking until you zone back in, and when you look back up at him, he furrows his brows at you. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sorry.” You shake your head. “Just - um - could you repeat that?” His eyes linger on you for just a beat too long, and your face flushes again. “So distracted,” he murmurs in a faux chastising tone, and your stomach flips. “What I said was that I’m willing to put this essay in as a 97 - your average for the class - if you would help me with grading some things. Not too heavy, maybe an hour or two after class. I’ve been falling behind with a lot of my classes and I’ve been looking for help, anyway, so it works out for both of us.”

Jesus Christ. Spending an extra hour every day with Professor Styles sounds like a recipe for disaster, and yet it also sounds completely perfect at the same time, and you’re nodding before you can fully process the pros and cons of the situation. “That sounds great. I mean, really - thank you so much.”

“S’my pleasure,” he informs you, giving you a large, dimpled smile. “So, after class, tomorrow - when I’m caught up and don’t need your help anymore, you’re off the hook.” 

“Got it.” you stand, grabbing your essay and your bag and making your way towards the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“Tomorrow,” he echoes, and the last thing you see before you shut the door is him, bringing his hand up to wave you off.

 ---

 When class concludes the next day you maintain the same habit as you did the day prior - watching every student trickle out the door before swinging your bag over your shoulders, grabbing the two cups of tea that you’d made before class and making your way down to the front of the lecture hall.

Professor Styles stands in the doorway of his office, holding the door open for you - you make your way inside with a tight, only slightly awkward smile. His eyes roll over the two cups that you’re holding and he asks, with a mildly amused inflection in his voice, “I guess you like tea quite a bit, then?”

You smile, looking down at your cups, and when he shuts the door you hold one out to him. “I do like it a lot, but this one’s for you. You know, to say thank you for giving me a freebie, and also because you look like the kind of guy who loves tea.”

He laughs and your grin widens at the noise - god, it’s like music to your ears, and you would do anything to keep hearing it from him. He reaches out to take the cup from you and brings it up to his mouth, taking a small sip - when he’s done his tongue pokes out to lap up a bit of tea from his lip, and you try to ignore how much the minuscule motion affects you. “This is perfect, Y/N. Just the way I like it. You’re an angel.” Your cheeks heat up, and then he says, “But you don’t need to thank me. I’m probably gaining more from this arrangement than you are, truthfully. People are starting to get annoyed with how I’ve been falling behind grading, which is where you come in.”

Yes, you’d heard the girls next to you whispering about how bothersome it was that they’d submitted three essays in the past month and had only gotten one back. Why does he give out so much work if he’s never gonna hand it back? 

It didn’t bother you too much.

“Well - alright, then. You’re welcome for helping you grade,” you tell him, pulling out the chair in front of his desk and settling in, dropping your bag beside you. You take another brief moment to glance around his office, as though expecting something to change, but it’s the same distinctly messy, cramped office that it had been yesterday. At some point, you should tell him that he ought to clean out his space, but that’s not what you’re here for - yet.

Professor Styles nods, making his way to the other side of his desk and plopping down in his spinning chair - it was quite nice, and made you wonder why the one you sat in seemed to be falling apart at the seams. But, then, you supposed teacher salary didn’t leave room for spectacular seating. “See, that’s the spirit.” All at once, the casual discussion between the pair of you died as he dug in the drawers of his desk for something - and then he plopped a large stack of papers on the table between you both. “This isn’t all of them - not even close. You’re very smart, so this should be pretty easy for you. Just read through them, add any notes, things they need to work on, and look at the rubric for a final grade.”

You nod, picking the first essay off the top of the pile and reaching for a pen from the cup on his desk - it’s a coffee mug with the Rumours by Fleetwood Mac album cover on it, and you take a moment to marvel at it briefly. “You like Fleetwood?” you question, voice seeming unnaturally loud in the sudden quiet of his office. “Didn’t strike me as that kind of guy.”

He looks up, then, from where he’d already begun scribbling bright red notes into the margin of someone’s essay. His eyes trail down to the mug full of pens, and then back up to meet yours. “You seem to make a lot of assumptions about the kind of guy I am. What’s that all about?”

“Nothing,” you assure him, your voice faux sweet and innocent, and he smiles slightly. “But I’m glad you have an appreciation for really good music. I was worried your music taste would be terrible, and then I’d have to live with the knowledge that Professor Styles exclusively listens to Justin Bieber.”

Your professor rolls his eyes, smile tugging at his lips. “You know,” he begins, “you don’t have to call me Professor Styles. Not outside of class, at least. It sounds weird when it’s just the pair of us here.”

“Oh.” You pause. “What should I call you, then?”

“Harry’s fine.”

Harry Styles. The name flows easily off the tongue as you test it out in a teasing tone, your eyes meeting his as you do, and your cheeks flush. You don’t know if it's commonplace for professors to allow random students to drop formalities and call them by their first names but you’ll accept it anyway - all you know is that, when you go home tonight, the thought of calling him Harry will fill your mind until you can’t stand it anymore. 

Harry as he buries his face between your thighs.

Harry as he pounds you into the mattress.

Harry as he bends you over his desk - this desk - the one you’re sitting at right now.

You cough into your arm and pick up your pen, pressing your thighs together to try and alleviate the throbbing that’s now affecting your body. You should’ve known not to let your mind wander because you’ve barely been here for 15 minutes and you already feel like you need to go rub one out in the bathroom. But you pause - take a sip of your tea, though it’s nearly gone from drinking it so much in class - and get to work grading Brianna Valeria’s essay on Death Comes to the Archbishop. The rubric sits on the desk next to you and you bury yourself in your work - if Harry notices the sudden silence that’s overtaken you, he doesn’t mention it.

For the rest of the hour, the pair of you work in silence. It’s comforting and surprisingly not awkward, and occasionally you ask his opinion on something one of his students wrote in their essays, but the playful banter you’d had before has dissipated. You’ve finished your tea and you suspect he has, as well, with the way he’s been feverishly drinking it.

“Oh,” he says, suddenly, and you glance up from where you’re in the middle of scribbling red notes into the margins of Alexander Simmons’ essay. “You should probably get going.”

One quick glance down at your phone proves that he’s right, and you rise from the extremely uncomfortable seat you’ve been perched in for the hour - you can practically hear your butt crying in relief. “Thank you so much for the tea,” Harry tells you, handing back his cup, and it’s empty, like you expected. “And - um. You don’t have to call me Harry if it makes you uncomfortable. Just thought it would be less formal, but if you don’t want to, it’s fine.”

Ah. He took your silence as you being uncomfortable calling him Harry. Well, it’s better than him knowing just how wet the sentiment made you, but you shake your head immediately. “No. No, I prefer calling you Harry. You’re right - it’s weird when it’s just us.”

He grins at you, then, standing up from his seat and stretching his arms over his head. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, then, Ms. Y/L/N.”

“You know, if I’m calling you Harry now, I think you should drop formalities too. Make it equal.”

“Okay … Y/N. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye, Harry,” you tell him, turning and walking out of his office with your phone in your pocket and two cups in your hands, blissfully unaware of your abandoned bag still sitting next to the terribly uncomfortable chair you’d been all too quick to leave.

 --

 It’s only when you’ve finished the trek back to your dorm, the sun beginning to lower down into the horizon, that the absence of your bag on your shoulder becomes prominent.

You can’t get into your building without your key and your key is in your bag and your bag is … back in Harry’s office, where you nearly made yourself cum just thinking about him. And the thought of having to go back across campus, back to his office, when he might not even be there, is not favorable, but you need your key and you need to bang out homework tonight, so with a soft groan you spin on your heel, walking away from the warm comfort of your building and making your way back to his.

As summer bled into fall and fall begins to bleed into winter, the weather has changed so drastically in just the past week or so that you tug your cardigan closer to your body, but the air that seeps through the holes in the crocheted sweater send goosebumps trailing up and down your body. The wind whips your face and brings tears to your eyes that run down your cheeks, and when you’re finally at the door of Harry’s building it’s a welcome surprise to walk inside, allowing the warmth to embrace you - even if the shock of the changing temperatures causes your eyes to water again.

His office is on the 2nd floor, so you pull open the door to the staircase and make your way up the two flights. Most professors have gone home for the day, classrooms dark as you speed past them to where you know his office is. 

His office is dark and your heart sinks at the sight - there are a few posters pinned to the small window, but you can see the lack of light clear as day. Your hand grasps the doorknob anyway, turning it without any hope that it would open - but then it was, giving you access to his dark office, and by the seat you’d occupied later you can make out your bag.

A breath of relief escapes your throat as you take a step inside, reaching down to swing it over your shoulder before turning to leave. And then you hear it - a small breath, an indicator of someone else in the room, and you whip around to look back around at the office.

Oh.

Harry sits in his chair, face buried in his arms, fast asleep. His hair is messy and in front of him sits the stack of essays you’d been working at early, hardly any smaller than when you’d left. It would nearly be an adorable sight - your professor, passed out at his desk - but it just seems concerning, and without thinking you’ve leaned over the desk, placing your hand on his shoulder and shaking him slightly.

“Professor?” your voice is soft, barely audible, and you speak louder when you say, “Harry?”

He doesn’t respond, so you say, louder still, “Harry?”

Then he stirs slightly under your touch, and you drop your hand from his shoulder as he lifts his head from where it had been resting on his arms, looking up at you with messy eyebrows and a thoroughly confused expression on his face. “What - what are you doing here?” Jesus. His voice is deep and raspy, sounding as though he’d been sleeping for ages instead of merely less than an hour, and if his present state wasn’t slightly concerning to you, you know that you’d feel the effects of his words between your thighs. But you pause, staring down at him, before asking, “What are you still doing here?”

“Just working on some grading.” He runs a hand through his hair, looking around the darkened office with an air of distinct confusion.

“With all due respect, Harry,” you tell him, adjusting your bag on your shoulder. “I think you’re burning yourself out. You should go home.”

He hesitates, and then questions, “Why are you here? I thought you left -”

“I forgot my bag,” and you hold it up to demonstrate it to him. “Are you going to go home? I’m serious - you need a break. And to sleep on a bed.”

“I’m fine,” Harry says, and he stands up from his chair. It moves back and hits the wall with a soft thud that goes unnoticed by both of you. “You should go home, too. I need to finish some stuff up. I’ll see you tomorrow, Y/N.”

To neither of your surprise, you don’t move from your spot standing before his desk. You cross your arms over your chest, digging your sneakered toe into the plush rug on the floor of his office - you hadn’t noticed it before, but it’s pale blue and bright against the mahogany floors. The brief silence between you two, daring either of you to speak, fills the confined space and all you can hear is the ticking of the clock behind you, and finally you say, “You’re not going to get anything done when you’re exhausted. I mean, you fell asleep on the essays. How are you going to explain why there’s drool on their assignments?”

He gives you a tight lipped smile in response, looking down at the essay he’d been working on as if to check that no saliva had landed on the words. “You caught me at a bad time. I don’t usually fall asleep on top of student essays, I promise - but you should be heading out now. It’s getting dark.”

It is getting dark, he’s right - the window behind his desk shows the darkness that newly falls over the campus. And the thought of walking home in the dark scares you just a bit, but you’ll suck it up if it gets him to go home too. “Harry.”

“Y/N.”

“I’ll help you grade tomorrow. But you’re fucking yourself here -”

(Harry laughs at your choice of words internally, but it comes out as a small release of air and a soft grin.)

“ - so come on. Walk out with me so I can make sure you’re actually going home.”

Perhaps he’s realized he’s fighting a losing battle here, because finally he looks back down at the stack of ungraded essays with a small sigh and then says, “Fine.”

“Great.” Your grin widens across your face, and for a moment you make to hold out your hand to him, to drag him along like you would to any of your friends - but the second your hand raises you drop it down to your side, and heat burns your cheeks. He’s not one of your other friends, you tell yourself, stepping out of his office, hearing him walk behind you. And you can’t hold his hand, even as a joke.

“Where’s your dorm?” Harry asks you as he locks the door to his office and jiggles the handle to check it, and you jump at the chance to forget about what happened - you don’t want to dwell on it. “Is it far?”

“Across campus.” You raise your arm and point in the distinct direction of where your building is. “Closer to the cafeteria, I guess.”

“Christ, you have a trek, then, don’t you?”

“Yeah.” The pair of you make your way to the staircase, and from the corner of the eye you can see his head turning left and right down the hallway, as if scanning to see if there’s anyone coming - you can imagine it wouldn’t be great for him to be seen with a student long after classes ended. “I had to haul ass there and back to get my bag.”

He doesn’t respond for a moment, not until you’ve left the warm building and made your way into the cold air, the sun now having retreated for the night, and immediately you wrap your sweater tighter around yourself to try and provide some semblance of warmth. Harry glances down at you with a bemused smile, and you hoist your bag further up your shoulder.

“Well,” you sigh, breath coming out in white puffs. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then. Don’t burn yourself out, professor. And get a good night’s rest.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “Shouldn’t I be telling you that?”

“Maybe.” You grin, feeling goosebumps sprout on your skin, and you shiver before turning in the direction of your dorm - the thought of walking home in the dark and cold doesn’t sound too great, but you’ve become good at dealing with it. “Goodnight, Harry.”

He doesn’t respond, and you’ve taken a few steps away when he calls out, “D’you want a ride?”

What?

“Y’know, like a ride back to your dorm. I can drop you off in the back - it’s just really cold and I’m sure you don’t want to walk so far in the dark.”

You turn back around to look at him, his cheeks a light shade of pink - whether from the cold or his offer, you can’t tell. And you’d love to jump in his car, accept his offer without a shadow of hesitation, but - “Is that allowed?”

Harry shrugs, and you know that’s code for absolutely not. “No one has to find out.”

(Your stomach drops, then.)

“Sure.” You take a few steps back towards him, and he spins on his heel, leading you to his car, and you walk in silence until you reach it. By the time you’re both safely in his car - his head turning every so often to check if there was anyone watching the pair of you - you’re shivering desperately, and you know you would have been positively miserable walking back to your dorm in these temperatures. “Thank you so much, Harry.”

“S’no problem, really.” His hand goes behind your seat as he turns to look behind him, and you hate the way the simple action makes you feel. “I’d rather know you get home safe than have you walk so far in the dark. Pretty girl like you, can never be too careful.”

You pause, cheek pressed against the cold window, and turn to look at him with a small smile. “Ooh, I’m a pretty girl now?”

“Wasn’t the point, Y/N,” Harry mutters, dropping his hand onto the center console, and if it were anyone else driving you like this, you’d rest your hand on top of his, intertwining your fingers and pressing your palms together. But he’s your professor, as much as you’re beginning to wish he weren’t, so you slide your hands beneath your thighs. “Which building, again?”

“McKinley,” you respond, voice barely louder than the sound of the heat blasting into his car. 

His car smells like eucalyptus and mint, and it’s surprisingly clean compared to his office - you wonder if his house is messy or clean, or a balanced mix, because you can’t quite catch a vibe for whether he’s organized or not. But, no - you’ll never see his house, surely. You can’t. 

“I used to date a girl who lived at McKinley,” he tells you, and you exhale slowly. You can tell he’s merely trying to make conversation but the sentiment isn’t making your internal conflicts any easier to manage. “Real nice dorms.”

“They’re alright.” In fact, you’ve been at university for 3 years and resided in 3 different dormitories and they’re your least favourite, with furniture that’s too big for rooms that are too small and bathrooms that can hardly fit more than 5 people, but you don’t tell him that. “Not the greatest.”

“S’what she told me, too,” Harry says, and you smile down at your lap, but you can’t find anything else to respond to that, so you take to gazing out the window.

Within a few seconds he’s slowing down, and you can recognize the back entrance to your building. You reach down and pick your bag off the ground, digging through it to find your key.

When you have it clutched in your hand, you unbuckle your seatbelt and turn to look at him - to your surprise his eyes are already on you, and you swallow thickly. “Um - thanks for driving me.”

“Don’t worry about it.” 

You hesitate a moment before turning and swinging open the car door. You hop out and, just before you can shut it, he says, “Y/N.” And when you duck your head back into his car, raising your eyebrows, he adds, “Please don’t tell anyone I drove you home. You’re right - s’not allowed.”

“Alright.” Then, before you can help yourself, you flash him a wide grin and say, “Thanks for letting me be the exception, then.”

With that, you shut the door of his car, bounding up to the door of your building, and you swear you can feel his gaze remaining on you before his car drives off, and when you turn back around, it’s gone.

(In the back of your mind, you’re entirely too aware of the fact that merely sitting in his car crossed some sort of line that you didn’t know existed until now, but you don’t really know how far past it you are - not yet.)

 --

 “I have a question.”

You look up from the rubric you’d been working at - the student whose essay you’re grading hadn’t done too well on it, but you were trying to give them the most points you could, anyway. Harry’s looking down at his essay like he hadn’t spoken, but when he feels your gaze on him, he continues. “Why did you care so much? Yesterday. Me grading more s’less work for you to do. I feel like you should be loving that shit.”

It’s a reasonable question but, for a moment, you struggle thinking of how to answer it without exposing yourself to him. Finally, you give him a grin and say, “Well, if you were sleep deprived, it would make you mean.” He chuckles softly, and you can tell that’s not the answer he wanted, and it couldn’t have been further from the truth. So you add, “I guess I’m used to being the mom friend. Making sure all of my friends get a good night’s sleep and whatever.”

Harry pauses. “So we’re friends, then.”

You shrug, trying to stop the smile from peeking through onto your face. Being friends with Harry sounds positively dreamy and if it could segue into something else - whichitcan’t - you’d be the happiest girl alive.

You nod. “Yeah, aren’t we.” But it isn’t a question, and you can see the way his eyes twinkle at your response.

After a moment, you shift in your entirely entirely entirely too bloody uncomfortable chair, the wood making your butt ache. “I have a question, now.”

“Yeah?”

“Why’d you pick the most uncomfortable chair you possibly could for your guests to sit in?”

“Gets ‘em out of my office quicker.” Harry glances up and meets your glare with a laugh. “But I don’t want you to leave, so you can move to the couch, if you’d like.”

You hop out of the chair without a second’s hesitation, clutching your essay and your pen, flopping down on the couch and feeling your body weight sink into it. God, it’s so soft and your body relaxes into it, the relief of not being confined to the small, wooden chair so magnificent you could scream. Harry watches you with an amused grin, and says, “I feel like you’re being just a bit dramatic here.”

“Me? Dramatic? Never.” You sprawl yourself across the couch, head atop of the armrest, staring up at the white ceiling tiles above you. “I’m telling you, Harry, that chair is terrible. You should burn it.”

“So dramatic.”

You roll your eyes, sitting up slightly so you can rest your paper on your lap and still manage to scrawl semi-legible notes on this person’s piss poor essay. You wonder, briefly, if this is how Harry felt when he’d graded your 1984 essay, but - well - doesn’t matter now. And you’d fail that essay a thousand times over to get to this point, a point of companionship with your professor that you’re not sure any other student has felt with him before. At least, none that he’s told you about. It makes you feel special, and spectacular, and also the tiniest bit confused.

Why are you so special?

Maybe he’s lonely, or he’s merely entertaining your presence because you’re helping him grade, but you swear you can feel something more hidden within the lines of your relationship.

It doesn’t really matter, though, even if it is just a tad confusing.

“You should get going,” Harry tells you after another 15 minutes of you working at grading the essay. “You’ve been here for nearly two hours, bloody hell, wasn’t watching the time at all.”

“I don’t mind,” you say, though, in truth, you do have quite a bit of homework to work on later. “Don’t really have anything else to do.”

You sit up anyway, swinging your legs over the edge of the couch and stretching your arms above your head. Tiredness is beginning to affect you but you try not to let it.

“Well, in any case, you should be heading out now.” Harry nods his head towards the window behind him, the blinds pulled up so you can see the sun, nearly completely sunk below the horizon, the sky fading from reds and oranges to a dark shade of blue.

“What about you, professor?”

“What about me?” “You’re going home now too - right?”

He looks at you with a faux annoyed glare, but he can’t help the amusement from seeping through his features, and finally he breaks your stare with an exhale of breath. “I don’t think I’ll ever win this against you, will I?”

And you shake your head in response. “Never. So let’s go. Get your things.”

You take the next five minutes to gather all your stuff - resting the essay on top of his desk, sliding your phone and water bottle into your backpack, and zipping your bag shut - as Harry grabs his computer bag and his key. The two of you move surprisingly in sync with each other, sorting all of your stuff from around his small office, before making your way outside with him locking the door behind him.

It’s nearly completely dark, even colder than it had been the day prior. You reach behind you and pull the hood of your sweatshirt over your hair, protecting your ears, at least, from the chill.

You turn and face him, giving him a wide smile. The air is silent around you, surprisingly empty though the bitterness of the cold must be a contributing factor to that. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Professor. Make sure you get a good night’s rest -”

“Don’t want a ride?”

Your grin widens, and his eyes sparkle, even in the darkness, at your expression. “Well, of course I do, but it’s rude to invite myself into your car.”

“You’re not inviting yourself - I’m inviting you. Or, rather, demanding you. C’mon.”

Harry walks fast and you have to speed up your pace to keep up with him, though you suspect that has something to do with wanting to be free of any wandering eyes as quickly as possible. You recognize his car in the parking lot and bound ahead of him, standing by the passenger side door and wrapping your arms around yourself to try and warm yourself up, and for a moment his pace slows as he stares and looks at you. Standing by his car, holding an incredibly oversized hoodie tight to your body, a wide smile gracing your face.

“Staring is rude, professor,” you inform him as he shakes his head, unlocking his car and climbing into the driver’s seat. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that?”

Your lilt is teasing but you can tell it makes him slightly defensive either way.

“S’hard not to sometimes,” Harry tells you, and you giggle softly.

“So first, I’m a pretty girl, and now I’m hard not to stare at?” You drop your head back against the headrest, blowing air softly out of your mouth as you reach to buckle your seatbelt. “Keep this up, Harry, and my ego’s gonna be too big to even fit in your car.”

Harry laughs at that, resting his hand on your seat to back out of his parking spot. The radio softly plays some pop song that had been overtaking the charts recently, and you hum softly to it before turning your head to look at him. You examine his side profile - perfect, like every other angle of him - as he pulls out of the parking lot, making a left out of it.

He turns to see you watching him, and you watch redness bloom over his cheeks. “Staring is rude, Y/N.”

You smile, about to parrot his previous words back at him - it’s hard not to - but you bite your tongue, gazing at the road in front of you. A light drizzle is beginning to fall, a barely audible pitterpatter on the windshield, and that’s the only noise, for a moment - that and the radio playing, like a thought in the back of your mind.

The drive to your dorm seems to be taking longer than it had been yesterday and you can’t imagine why, but you appreciate just sitting in the car with him. Even if you’re not saying much, listening to his even breathing calms you.

You want to break the silence, though it’s comfortable rather than awkward. You like talking to him, like hearing everything he has to say, but you have no idea what you can possibly tell him that wouldn’t seem forced and awkward. So you sit, curling your legs up to your chest as you stare at the streets, and entirely too soon, the back of the McKinley building becomes apparent.

You want to stay in his car forever. Want to stay with him forever.

“Thanks for the ride,” you tell him, your voice sounding uncomfortably loud in the soft car. He nods in response, but for a moment neither of you move. You can’t bring yourself to leave yet, even if you know you have to, that he might have someone waiting for him at home.

“Y/N.” You turn and look at him, your eyes meeting his with your brows furrowed. “Uh - if you ever want a ride home, or to class, you can just let me know. Text me.”

“I don’t have your number.”

Harry’s cheeks are bright pink and there’s too much tension in the car, so thick you feel like you could cut it with a knife, and you lean down, unzipping your bag and pulling your phone out.

He takes it from you once you unlock it, going into your contacts and you watch as he types his phone number in, adding the contact name as Harry S. and you think you’ll be changing that later. He leaves the contact photo blank, which you expected - if anyone saw the name Harry S. in your phone, the contact photo would give it away.

He hands your phone back to you when he’s done, and your fingers graze his when you take it. “Just text me, then. If you need a ride.”

“Alright.” you give him a smile, unbuckling your seatbelt and pushing open the car door. “Thank you, Harry. Really.”

“My pleasure,” he says, and you grab your bag, hooking your arm underneath the strap and racing up to the back entrance of your building. It’s only when you get inside, the door firmly shut behind you, that you turn around again, and his car is gone.

 --

 10:52 PM

Y/N: hey professor...it’s y/n. just wanna make sure u have my number saved in case of emergencies

Harry S.: How is it you can have the highest grade of any student in my class and use improper grammar while texting?

Y/N: it’s a talent i guess

Y/N: texting like you’re writing an essay makes ppl v uncomfortable, and i speak from personal experience

Harry S.: So you’re uncomfortable right now, then?

Y/N: nooo, ur different

Harry S.: To quote this girl I know, ‘thanks for letting me be the exception, then.’

Y/N: how did u remember that? that makes me uncomfortable

Harry S.: Haha.

Harry S.: You should be sleeping right now. Students need their full 8 hours, don’t they?

Y/N: so do professors, as i keep telling u, but…

Y/N: i had hw to do, also had to make mac n cheese for dinner

Harry S.: You can do your homework in my office, you know. And then you can probably make it to the refectory for dinner.

Y/N: the food at the refectory sucks

Harry S.: Yeah, you’re right.

Harry S.: But I do feel bad that staying to help me grade made you have to stay up until 11 doing homework.

Y/N: well honestly i’d rather be sitting in ur office talking to u than in my dorm doing american lit work

Harry S.: Why’s that?

Y/N: ig i like hanging out with u

Y/N: u should feel honored btw

Harry S.: Believe me, I do. And now you should get to bed so you’re not grumpy tomorrow morning.

Y/N: ig i deserved that… and i’ll only go to bed if u do too

Harry S.: I will.

Y/N: promise??

Harry S.: I promise.

Harry S.: Goodnight.

Y/N: goodnight, professor

 --

 After a week, your arrangement has changed slightly.

Every day, you spend just a bit more time in his office. Then he drives you home, in comfortable silence, and from the minute you step into your dorm, you’re fishing your phone out of your bag to text him. Every night that you lie awake, texting him until you physically can’t keep your eyes open, the line that you’ve been dipping your toe across falls back even more.

The stack of assignments that need to be graded are beginning to dwindle, and you hate it. Hate to see the pile of ungraded work getting smaller and smaller, because when it’s gone, you probably won’t step foot in his office again.

Truthfully, and as embarrassing as it may be, Harry has become one of your closest friends at school. He’s funny and nice, and he brought you hot chocolate with powder left unmixed at the bottom after you mentioned that’s how you used to like it when you were younger, and he plays music on his phone at a low volume while you work on grading. 

Of course, as your friendship with Harry grows, so does the burning feelings for him that reside in the pit of your stomach day after day. And you know he doesn’t feel the same - he can’t - and maybe that’s painful for you, only slightly, but you’ve become rather talented at hiding those emotions. He can’t know that, everytime he laughs at one of your jokes, your heart swells - and everytime he reads a sentence from one of the essays out loud, using a mocking, deep voice, it makes your stomach flip.

You don’t know if you’ve ever felt so passionately about anyone, and that’s scary. Scary to think that the one man you want more than anyone else is the only person you can’t have.

“Y/N,” he says, and when you look up at him from your spot sprawled on the couch, he’s nibbling at the tip of his pen. “D’you think this makes sense?”

And he reads you a few lines written by one of his students - a name you recognize from being in your class, you think, but you’ve been paying attention less and less to other students during lectures. All you focus on is Harry, his booming voice projecting through the hall as he talks about the stories you’re reading, and every so often his eyes meet yours and the smile that spreads across his face could bring tears to your eyes, if you let it.

“Um - I guess. It’s worded kind of strangely, don’t you think? But I’d cut them some slack on it.” Harry nods and scribbles something in the margins of Nathalie Carron’s essay before flipping the page. “Can I put in a song request?”

He nods, then, picking up his phone from where it sits on his desk. The Chain plays softly, not too loud to interrupt your train of thought, but not too soft that you can’t hear it. “‘Course.”

“Heroes by David Bowie.” You glance back up at him, dropping Hannah Joseph’s essay on your stomach. “You like Bowie, right?”

“Who doesn’t, is the real question.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” You grin, glancing up at the white tiled ceiling as the song fills the hair, replacing Fleetwood. “You know, we should make a playlist for grading.”

Harry laughs. “A playlist of just Fleetwood and a dash of Bowie?”

“No, no. It can have other stuff, too. I mean, we know what we like.”

“Alright, alright.” He picks up his phone again, and you see his thumbs moving feverishly on the screen. “Y’know what, I’ll make it right now and show it to you for approval.”

“Make it good.” You pause, picking your essay up again. “No Justin Bieber.”

He snorts, and you relish in the noise.

The next ten minutes passes in mainly silence - when Heroes ends, Fleetwood continues, playing Secondhand News, and you hum to the tune. Harry’s ringer is on and you can hear it, the sound of the keyboard on his phone as he searches up song titles, and you rest the essay back on your stomach, writing messy notes with the pen you snatched from the mug on his desk again.

You sit up, suddenly, leaning over to rest Hannah’s fully graded essay on his desk, and instead of reaching for a new one to work on, you push yourself to your knees, resting your palms on his desk and attempting to lean over and peek at the playlist. But he anticipates that - he knows you’re nosy - and tilts his phone towards him, intercepting your attempts to eavesdrop.

“Don’t be impatient,” he murmurs, a smile tugging across his lips as he scrolls through something. “I’m almost done.”

You hum in response, dropping back down onto the couch, stretching your entire body across it, head resting on the armrest. The two of you settle back into a comfortable silence - he’s paused the music, by now - lasting only a moment or two before he stands up from his insanely comfortable chair, maneuvering his way around to the couch where you’re lying. He crouches down next to you, handing you his phone, opened to a Spotify playlist, and you greedily snatch the device from him, flicking through the songs.

Your eyes scan every song, absorbing every song title.

I Walk The Line by Johnny Cash - My Eyes Adored You by the Four Seasons - Your Song by Elton John?

Love songs. Every single one of them.

You push yourself up, sitting leaning against the armrest, as your eyes fall on the last song of the playlist - When I Kissed The Teacher by Abba. You lower his phone to your lap, looking at him with a slightly confused smile adorning your face.

He watches you intently, your heads a mere few inches apart, then reaches down to grab his phone off your lap, and you laugh lightly before saying, “it’s a lot of love songs.”

“They reminded me of you,” he tells you, voice quiet, testing the waters.

“They - they did?” It doesn’t make sense to you - doesn’t make sense that 45 love songs should bring you to the forefront of his mind, that every single time he hears Fooled Around And Fell In Love he should think of you. 

They make you think of him, though. 

And without thinking - of what you’re doing or of the consequences - you lean in, closing the short distance between your faces, pressing your lips against his so softly that it feels like it’s a mere breath on your mouth.

Harry pulls back, lips barely a centimeter from yours, exhaling softly. “We shouldn’t.”

You hum in agreement, already leaning back in. “No, we really shouldn’t.”

Your lips meet again and his hand goes to your face, cupping your jaw, and when he deepens the kiss you whimper into his mouth, bringing both of your hands to the back of his head. Your fingers bury themselves in his curls, tugging on the chocolate brown strands, and he groans softly into your mouth.

It’s everything you’d imagined and more, as the hand not on your cheek drops down to your waist, pulling your body closer to his. The angle is awkward - you sitting on the couch and him kneeling before it - so you unattach your lips, much to your dismay, and swing your legs around the edge of the couch so he’s situated between them. Harry’s eyes are wide, his hair mussed up, and you lean back in without a moment’s hesitation to resume the kiss. His tongue brushes against yours, and he tastes like mint tea and fucking heaven.

Both of his hands go down to your waist, tugging you to the very edge of the couch so your bodies are as close as they can be, and yours go to the back of his neck, dipping underneath the collar of his button down shirt to scratch at his back. It feels muscular, more toned than you were expecting, and feeling the skin underneath your nails makes you moan into his mouth.

“Fuck -” you groan softly as he moves his lips down your chin and to your jaw, nibbling softly at your skin, as if experimenting to see what you like - your reaction prompts him to move further down, licking a stripe down your neck and to the base of your collarbone. One of his hands - very large hands - slide up to cup one of your breasts, squeezing the mound of flesh through your tight shirt. “Fuck, that feels good.”

Harry hums against your collarbone, pressing open mouthed kisses across your skin. Your nails dragging down his back causes him to bite down gently to stifle the moan rising from his throat, but you hear it and Goditspursyouonsofuckingmuch. “God, Y/N -”

His praise is cut short by the sound of three swift knocks on the door - he pulls back from you, nearly falling back on his ass with the speed at which he stands, and your eyes flash to the door. Your heart is pounding desperately in your chest - are the doors soundproof? Did someone outside hear you? The thought makes you sick to your stomach, and your eyes meet Harry’s to find the same worry in his orbs.

Within moments he’s back behind his desk, running a hand through his hair to try and smooth it out, and you’ve reached to grab Hannah Joseph’s essay off his desk just as he calls, “come in!” in a voice that’s far too cheery for the panic that had just overtaken the both of you.

The door opens and from the corner of your eye you can recognize the girl who walks in - she lives across the hall from you, and her name is … Anna or Emma or something similar. She’s nice, and you should remember her name, but your brain is so scrambled that you can’t think of it.

Harry kissing you. Harry making you a playlist. Harry’s hands on your waist, pulling your body into his.

It’s everything you’ve dreamt of since the beginning of the semester, feeling his touch on you. And when you close your eyes, you try to imagine what would have happened if nobody knocked on the door, and it sends a shiver down your spine that doesn’t go unnoticed by Harry, sitting at his desk as he looks over Anna-or-Emma’s essay.

You can’t be here. You shouldn’t be here. The girl (who, now that you think of it, may be named Alana) is asking Harry a million bogus questions about the essay requirements he’d just given out and her shirt is so low cut that you’re surprised her boobs haven’t fallen out. Whether that was intentional or not isn’t something you dwell on, but something about sitting on the couch, trying to steady your breathing while your clit throbs violently feels wrong.

“I’m gonna go, professor,” you say, interrupting her question, and she looks at you like you just told her you’re going to give her a million dollars. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Bye, Y/N,” Harry calls as you grab your bag and shut the door behind you. His voice sounds pained, almost, as though he doesn’t want you to leave him alone with a girl whose only goal is clearly to fuck his brains out. You practically run down the hall, which isn’t close to being as empty as it usually is when you and Harry leave at the end of the day. 

Your shirt is tight and short sleeved and you can picture your jacket, up in his office, thrown over the back of the couch. You’d been in such a rush to leave that you’d left it, and you’re beginning to truly feel the consequences of it as the cold corners you, attacking your skin, and you could go back up to his office and get it but you just want to go home. The sun is setting, and it’s earlier than when you usually leave.

The walk home is decidedly miserable, the wind sending tears streaking down your cheeks, and your mind is practically going into overdrive. Jesus Christ. You kissed your professor, and he kissed you back. And then you left, like a fucking idiot. He probably feels terrible - feels like he violated you, or ruined his career. But he hadn’t done anything wrong, not really. If you were more respectable you’d go back to his building and apologize for running out, wrap your arms around him and kiss him like you fucking mean it, but all you do is scan your card to get into McKinley and walk down the hall to your dorm.

Your roommate is out - at her boyfriend’s, as per usual, but you appreciate it. Truth be told, you haven’t seen her much since the first few weeks of the semester, but she seemed nice enough. You drop your bag onto your bed and collapse on top of the covers, gazing up at the ceiling.

You bring your hand up to your mouth, brushing your fingertips over your lips with the same feather light touch that the first press of Harry’s lips to yours had felt like. You can still feel it - feel him - if you close your eyes, his hands grasping your hips and his lips trailing down your collarbone.

Slowly, you press your palm to your stomach, trailing it down your torso until you reach the button of your jeans. You undo it with shaky fingers and push them lower down, beneath the hem of your cotton thong, and the first brush of your fingertips against your clit sends a shiver down your spine and a whine falling off your lips.

Harry’s hand on your chest, squeezing your breast through your shirt as he kisses down your neck - oh my god, licking down your neck, biting your skin, his eyes are so wide, his hair is messy from where you grabbed it, and you hadn’t been interrupted he would’ve climbed on top of you, pressing you into the couch, tugging your jeans down your thighs and -

Maybe he would’ve done what you’re doing now, sliding his digits into your heat, fingers longer than yours, hitting every spot that you need him to. Or maybe he would’ve slid down your body, lifting your shirt to suck a deep purple mark into your chest, before burying his face in your cunt -

A very loud moan falls from your lips as you push a finger inside of yourself, curling them immediately to hit the spot inside of you that makes your tummy flip.

But maybe - just maybe - Harry wouldn’t have bothered with that. Would’ve watched, breathing so heavy as you unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his nice dress pants to wrap your hand around his cock, throwing his head back and moaning as you swiped your thumb over the tip of him.

You’re so close so fast you can practically taste the orgasm creeping up on you, your hips bucking up to meet where your fingers are feverishly rubbing circles on your clit.

And he would’ve slid into you, and he’s so big that he’s stretching you out more than any of your fingers or the guy you’ve been with, and he’d grab your chin and force your head up and kiss you so fucking hard, his hips flush against yours -

With a strangled cry, you curl your fingers once more and then you’re cumming, release coating your fingers as your hips roll into your hand. All you can think about is him and what could have happened, and the fact that you may have ruined the start of something magnificent, but God if the orgasm wasn’t good.

You pull your hand out of your panties, wiping your dripping fingers on the denim of your jeans. For a moment, you merely stare back up at the ceiling, focusing on steadying your breathing, and then you stand up, kicking your jeans off your legs and tossing them onto your dresser. You have a pair of plaid pajama pants crumbled in a pile at the bottom of your bed from the morning, and you pull them over your legs with a sigh. Perhaps it’s not the height of cleanliness, but they’re soft and comfortable, and you lie back down on your bed once they’re on.

After nearly an hour, you still haven’t done anything but sit and do nothing, occasionally flicking through your phone. You wish you could fall asleep but your brain is working far too fast to even think about resting, and -

The sound of your phone getting a notification startles you, and you groan, grabbing your phone to look at whoever disturbed your panic.

Harry S.: I’m behind your building. I have your jacket.

He’s here? Jesus Christ, you just came over him and damn near cried over him and now you have to see him.

Perfect.

Your heart skips a beat, and you jump up without a second thought. You look an absolute fool, stuffing your feet into the first pair of shoes you can find - a pair of slip on Vans that are so dirty they can barely constitute as white - before you’re running out the door, your phone tucked in the waistband of your pants, heading down the hall and out the back entrance where Harry’s black car sits, waiting.

You walk up to his car, pathetically out of breath, and lower your head so you can see him through the window as he rolls it down.

“Hi.” Your tone is quiet, and you clear your throat. “Um, I’m sorry about running off like that. I just got overwhelmed and that girl showing up made me - um - nervous.”

“It’s fine,” Harry says, though he’s very pointedly not making eye contact. “M’sorry if I crossed a line. I shouldn’t have kissed you like that, or -”

“No, I kissed you first -”

“But I’m your professor.” He says the word with an odd inflection, nearly pained. “I shouldn’t have let it escalate. I’m sorry.”

You dig the toe of your shoe into the road, looking down at the passenger seat where your jacket sits, waiting. The tension is palpable and you swallow thickly, then grab the car handle, forcing the door open so you can grab your jacket. You wrap the fabric around your shoulders - the seat heaters made it warm and you could nearly cry at the way it embraces you.

Harry watches you - you can see him from the corner of your eye - and then he looks down at your body, your shirt and your pajama pants with no pockets, and asks, “D’you have your key to go back in your dorm? S’just, you don’t have any pockets … I can’t see it.”

Shit. No, you don’t. You hadn’t thought about that when you were running out to see him. Perhaps he can decide the answer from the way your face drops, because he exhales with a small smile, barely perceptible, and nods his head. “Get in.”

You grab the door handle again, pulling the door open and climbing inside. The seat is toasty and warm and the car is toasty and warm and altogether you feel like both of those adjectives combined. The radio plays softly - or maybe it’s his phone, hooked up to the aux cord, because Maybe I’m Amazed by Paul McCartney is a song you recognize reading on the playlist he’d made.  You slam the door shut and wrap your arms around yourself, holding your jacket closer to your body, before turning your head to glance at him. He still hasn’t started driving, merely gazing at you, and you feel your skin heat under his eyes. “Where are we going, professor?” It’s a stupid question, because you aren’t going anywhere yet, and he doesn’t look like he plans to start driving anytime soon.

“I’ll take you back to my apartment.” HIs eyes haven’t left yours, and your stomach turns. “How does that sound?”

You exhale softly. “Sounds perfect,” and then you’re leaning in, pressing your cold palms to the side of his cheeks and bringing his face into yours.

Your lips meet and it’s more desperate than it was in his office - teeth clashing and your tongues brushing against each other, as if he’s trying to devour you. His hand rests atop of yours, dwarfing you pathetically, before dragging his fingertips down your arm and up to your shoulder, fingers dipping beneath the sleeve of your shirt.

Where you’re cold from the air outside, Harry is so warm and toasty, his breath hot against your face when you pull away briefly. He presses his forehead to yours and then leans up, pressing a kiss to the tip of your nose and smirking at the whimper you let out.

“Wait,” he tells you, voice low and quiet, and you nod slowly. “When we get to my apartment - but not now.”

You nod feverishly and sit back in your seat obediently, desperate for him to finally start driving. His hand rests on top of the center console and you stare at it for a moment - you can do it, do what you’ve wanted to do every single time he’s driven you home - and you place your palm overtop of his. He turns it over so your palms are pressed together, fingers intertwining, and you’re sure he can hear your heartbeat with how loudly it’s beating in your chest.

The line that you’ve crossed is so far behind you that it’s a mere dot in the distance. 

The car ride to his apartment is short - only 2 full songs play during it, and you recognize My Girl and I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight from the playlist. Truth be told, it feels as though you’d been in the car for hours and hours, his thumb rubbing circles into the back of your hand. You want nothing more than to crawl across the center console and straddle him, kiss him until you’re both breathless and go as far as you’d fantasized about but you have to wait.

 --

 Harry’s unlocking the door of his apartment entirely too slow for your liking. It’s as though he’s trying to tease you, make you antsy, when all you want is for him to press you against the wall and kiss you silly. 

He lives in a large brick apartment building - one of the newer ones, you know - in an apartment on the third floor. You’ve passed his building so many times driving through town and you never even knew it - didn’t know the man who lived there was someone you’d be so desperate for.

“Come on,” he whispers, though there’s no real reason for the two of you to be quiet - perhaps it just fits the mood. Harry’s hand wraps around your wrist as he tugs you into the now-open door of his apartment, flicking on the light switch residing beside the door. 

As light floods the apartment you’re somehow both surprised and also not at all. It’s surprisingly tidy, resembling more of his car than his office, and - to your relief - it’s quite obvious he’s the only one who lives here. You slip out of your Vans and take a moment to look around. A cat sits on top of the couch (her name is Marie, named after Aristocats, you learned from class) and you can’t stop yourself from gravitating towards her, using two fingers to stroke down her back as you peek around the apartment.

Yes, it is quite clean, and surprisingly colorful - there’s a striped rug and red couches and your eyes fly a bookshelf filled with picture frames against the wall. One is him with four other guys, arms wrapped around each other - one of him and Marie - one of him, significantly younger, hugging a girl who looks extremely similar to him.

“Is this your sister?” you ask, unaware of where he is in the apartment but trusting he hasn’t strayed too far from you.

“Yeah,” he responds, and you jump slightly. Harry stands just behind you, and when you turn to face him he’s fighting back a grin. “So nosy, aren’t you?”

You raise your arms to wrap around his neck, pulling his head down to yours as his hands gravitate down towards your lower back where your shirt rises just a couple inches from your pants, exposing a strip of skin, and his touch sends a shiver down your spine. “I guess I am nosy. Can’t help it.”

Harry leans down, then, pressing a kiss to your forehead and down the bridge of your nose before landing on your lips - you whine into his mouth, pushing yourself onto your toes to try and deepen it, swiping your tongue into his mouth. It’s so different than before - heavier, deeper, and you can’t get enough of it.

“Please,” you whimper against his lips as his hands creep farther down your back, landing on the globes of your ass through your soft pajama pants. “I need you.”

“Oh, yeah?” You can hear a sense of cockiness working its way into his voice and you groan softly as he pulls away from you, pressing a kiss to your cheek. “What do you need, baby? Tell me.”

You need everything. You need everything he can possibly give you and more - you need wish fulfillment of everything you’ve dreamt of since the start of the semester and that includes every single goddamn appendage on his body put to use somehow.

But you can’t possibly begin to tell him that, not yet. His fingers are already trailing down to the waistband of your pants, tugging at the tie that holds them up when you breathe, “Your mouth. Please, I need - I need your mouth.”

It’s not enough for him, you can tell, as he leans down to press a kiss to the side of your throat, sucking softly. “M’using my mouth.”

“H - Harry …”

“Where d’you want my mouth?”

You curse beneath your breath, and he pulls his head back to raise his eyebrows at the sound. You bury your hand in his hair, tugging lightly on his curls, before squeezing your eyes shut and muttering, “Want your mouth … down there.”

As much as you want it - and Godyouwantitsofuckingmuch - it makes it no less awkward to say it out loud.

“Down where, baby?” Harry asks, voice teasing and so fucking smug. “Down here?” His hand sprawls across your stomach, pressing down on your abdomen and you moan softly. “No … down here, s’that right?”

His hand slides down to your cunt, pressing his palm overtop of you through your pajama pants and you’re so wet you’re sure he can feel it even through two layers of fabric. Your throaty cry in response and the feverish nod of your head confirms what he’d been teasing you about, and Harry delivers one last soft kiss to your lips before dropping to his knees before you.

Fuck. You never thought you’d see Professor Harry Styles, the man of your dreams and the one person you considered to be entirely unattainable, kneeling in front of you with his nice dress pants on and a crisp button up shirt. He looks entirely normal, save for his messy hair and lust blown pupils, and you’re sure you look a bloody mess but his eyes still devour you like you’re the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

You drop your shaky hands down to the tie of your pants, undoing it at record speed, and he hooks his fingers in your waistband. Slowly - so slowly - Harry tugs them down and his eyes remain on you as though expecting you to stop him, but you can’t. Finally they pool by your feet and you lift your legs to kick them off, sending them flying near the couch where Marie resides.

Had you known this would be happening perhaps you would have opted for racier panties - your cotton thong isn’t terrible but it certainly isn’t doing you any favours, and you have so many lace ones at home that would have been perfect for the opportunity - but Harry still looks at you like you created the world. He leans in, pressing a soft kiss to your inner thigh and then the other, leaning in to suck a dark purple hickey into your skin.

You suppose he has a thing for hickeys.

Your fingers twist in his curls, trying to direct his head up to where you truly need him, and he chuckles softly - the soft exhalation of air makes you whine as it hits your cunt, even through your panties. A soft kiss is what he lands on your clothed clit, and your hips buck up into his mouth. You’d forgotten, perhaps, that you’d had an orgasm less than an hour prior but you’re very swiftly reminded, and he looks up at you with a smirk.

“So reactive,” he murmurs, wrapping his lips around your clit through your underwear and sucking softly. “Just the way I like.”

A shaky breath escapes your mouth as you toss your head back, legs shaking and you can’t expect them to hold you up much longer. One of his hands moves to the back of your thigh, kneading your skin softly, and the other dips into the hem of your panties and slowly tugs them down. You’re so wet that the fabric is desperate to stick to your dripping cunt but he manages to roll them down your legs, face to face with your pussy and -

Heat floods through your body and up to your face as you look down and make eye contact with Harry. Now that he’s down there, gazing at your bare pussy, you feel oddly compelled to protect whatever modesty you have left and shut your legs but then he grabs one of your legs and throws it over his shoulder, pushing you back just a bit until your back smacks into the wall, and leans in.

The first stripe he licks up your core sends a choked cry from the back of your throat and then a long whine as Harry focuses his attention on your clit. His tongue flicks the swollen bud, still rubbing circles into the back of your thigh. Your heel digs into his back as he moves one hand up to your cunt, running his finger through your soaked folds before pushing it inside of you.

He curls his finger, mimicking a come hither motion until he brushes against the spot that makes your hips jerk against his face. Harry’s lips wrap around your clit and when your eyes roll back into your head, he takes his hand off your thigh and snaps his fingers.

“Look at me,” he demands, voice muffled against your cunt, and the vibrations roll through your body like an earthquake. “I wanna watch you fall apart. Look at me.”

Slowly you lower your eyes back down to him, meeting his gaze as he pulls his mouth away briefly - smacks his lips - and pushes a second finger into your dripping heat. As he thrusts them in and out, hitting that sweet spot in your velvet walls, you can feel your orgasm building in the pit of your tummy embarrassingly fast, but you want to hold out for him. Want to prolong this as long as you can.

Harry’s teeth brush against your clit and you cry out, barely hearing the way he groans, “So fucking reactive for me, yeah?” but you can hear it and it only makes you moan louder. His tongue draws patterns over your clit and he’s so determined to maintain eye contact but you can tell it’s a struggle for both of you.

He pulls his fingers out of you, licking a thin stripe up one of them as if he can’t get enough of your taste before reaching his arm up so his fingers rest on your bottom lip. Obediently you open your mouth, accepting his digits and swirling your tongue around them, tasting yourself on his skin, as he leans back, glancing up at you with heat blazing in his eyes.

“You’re close,” he tells you, his voice deep and throaty. “Can feel it - feel how you’re clenching around my fingers, baby. D’you wanna cum? Tell me how fucking bad you want it.”

Harry pulls his fingers from your mouth and presses them to your clit, rubbing a slow circle as you struggle to find your voice before gasping, “Fuck - need to cum so fucking bad Harry - Harry, oh my god -”

“Yeah? Gonna cum for me?”

“Yes! Oh my god, H - Harry -”

“Cum for me, baby.”

He leans in, wrapping his lips around your clit and sucking and that’s all you need to topple over the edge, the orgasm that had been building in the pit of your tummy finally exploding. Your head falls back against the wall with a thud that’s hardly audible over your loud shrieks and moans, your leg finally giving out and you damn near slide to the ground before Harry hooks an arm around your thigh to keep you upright.

His tongue flicks at your clit gently, riding you through your orgasm, and when you’re coming down from your high it’s all you can focus on. There’s a high pitched ringing in your ears and you don’t think you’ve ever - ever - cum that hard in your life. You’d only been with one guy before who didn’t even know women could orgasm and your fingers never gave you anything so earth shattering.

Your breathing comes out in desperate pants as Harry rises from his knees, moving both hands to your hips as your legs nearly collapse again. Your clit is throbbing and when you press your body to his, leaning up to kiss him so desperately, you can feel his boner, hard against your thigh.

“Holy shit, professor.” It’s all you can manage, pulling away to drop your head against his chest, using the moment to try and steady your breaths. “W - who knew you were so good at that.”

His fingers brush through the ends of your hair, a gesture so sweet and innocent that it could make you forget what just occurred. “A hidden talent, I guess,” he mutters, gripping your chin to kiss you again.

You drop your hands to his waist, gripping his nice button down shirt in your tight grasp, surely wrinkling the fabric as you roll your hips against his. Even through his pants his hard on feels fucking huge and you’ve only been with one guy before and suddenly you’re wondering if he’ll even fit inside of you.

But you’ll try. By god, you’ll try. And you press your head to the wall, looking up at him with lust dilated pupils. “Harry.”

“Tell me what you need, baby.” But he already knows, and you can tell he needs the same thing.

You swallow, bucking your hips forward against his boner, and he groans. “I want you to fuck me. Please. I - I need you to fuck me, professor.”

The word makes him moan aloud, and within barely a second he’s grabbing your wrist, tugging you away from the wall and across the apartment until he’s swinging open a door and pulling you inside.

Something about being in his bedroom is entirely different than being in his living room, the carpet beneath your bare feet plush and soft. There’s a large television in front of his bed and the bed is made beautifully, a flannel blanket tossed over the end, and you can’t fucking wait to mess it up.

Harry spins you around to face him, attaching your lips once more as he shuts the door. You whimper into his mouth as his hand drops down to your bare bum, squeezing the flesh in his large palm. “Sorry,” you murmur, voice high pitched and breathy, “was nosing again -”

He groans as you drop your hand to the front of his fancy dress pants, trying desperately to undo the button with one shaking hand. It’s a struggle and finally he chuckles breathlessly, dropping both hands down to help you with the task, and finally you reach your hand into his trousers and press your palm against his cock, hot and heavy even through his boxers.

“Bed,” he grunts, backing you up until the back of your knees hit a hard edge and you fall backwards onto his plush duvet. He stands above you, breathing heavily, and for a moment you stare at each other, as though processing that this is happening - and the moment picks up again. Harry reaches down and tugs at the bottom hem of your shirt, pulling it up and off your body and sending it into the corner of the room. Your bra is lace, at least, and decidedly prettier than your panties, and for a moment he stares down at your chest with a look of pure lust adorning his face.

“You look a bit flushed, professor,” you tell him, voice faux innocent and sounding entirely more confident than you feel. “Are you feeling okay?”

Harry chuckles through gritted teeth, and you push yourself onto your elbows so you can work at the buttons of his shirt as he tugs his pants down his legs. “I’ve never been better, in fact.” His boxers are flannel and you can see the bulge in his boxers, and it’s even bigger than what you’d expected.

Your work at undoing his buttons slows down as your mind suddenly flips into overdrive - you must wear the worry that suddenly overtakes you because Harry leans down, pressing a kiss to your lips.

“When’s the last time you’ve done this?” he questions, voice soft and spun sugar sweet.

“Um -” you try and think. The last time you’d done this you’d lost your virginity and that was - “A year ago. Maybe longer.”

Harry nods, nudging your nose with his and giving you one final kiss before rising back up. His hands replace yours as he works on unbuttoning his shirt. “I’m going to go slow, baby. I promise.”

In every fantasy you’ve had about him, he’s not slow - he’s fast, pounding you so hard the bed is nearly louder than the noises you make - but now that you’re here with him? Maybe you need slow.

You nod, and he smiles down at you. He presses his hands onto the mattress and then snakes them beneath you, fingers working at the clasp of your bra, and you lift yourself up slightly so he can undo it and slide your last piece of clothing off of you. He sends it into another part of the room and you can’t be bothered to focus on it because - Christ! - all of a sudden Harry lowers his mouth to your breast, wrapping his lips around one of your nipples and sucking.

“Fuck!” you gasp, fingers working themselves into his curls. Your fingernails scratch at his scalp and he moans lowly against your skin. Harry lifts his head off of you, pinching one of your nipples so you cry out.

He lifts one leg to rest on the bed and then grips your hips, pulling you closer to the edge. Your legs instinctively spread and he watches you, breathing heavily. “Baby,” he mutters, hands slipping his boxers down his thighs. “You’re so fucking perfect.”

Heat burns your cheeks and you shut your eyes.

“Look at me,” Harry tells you, and it’s all you can do to obey. “Want you looking at me while I fuck you. Can you do that?”

You nod, swallowing as he grips one of your calves and hikes it onto the bed, exposing your sensitive, dripping cunt to him. You look down your body, where he’s grasping his achingly fucking hard cock in his hand, and then he drags the tip down your slit with a low hiss.

“Are you ready, baby?” he asks, voice soft and strained, as if he’s holding back and you know he is. But he needs this to be a good experience for you so it can be good for him and that’s what you appreciate.

“Y - yeah.” you push yourself onto your elbows and your eyes meet, maintaining perfect eye contact as he pushes himself inside of you. He’s going achingly slow and -

The stretch aches and you drop your head onto the mattress with a groan, Harry’s hand immediately finding your hand where you’re grasping the duvet feverishly. He bottoms out, fully sheathed in your warm cunt, a low groan piercing the air at the feeling of your walls, tight around him. It hurts - not as much as you’d expected, and the pain that quite literally fills you overtakes the burn.

You squeeze his hand, feeling his other run up and down the inside of your thigh as you adjust to him. “Oh - my god - wait - just - just one second wait one second -”

“Of course,” he breathes, and his voice is shaky with an emotion you can’t quite decipher. “T - take your time, babygirl.”

After a few seconds you push your head up to look at him, nodding slightly. “Okay. I need more, p - professor.”

You can tell he likes when you call him that and in some weird way you love it too - love knowing that the professor everyone lusts for is fucking you, slowly pulling out before thrusting back in, squeezing your hand when you cry out at the feeling. Maybe you’re not the first student to experience him like this but based on his demeanor you think you are - there’s something about him in this moment that feels like a secret you’ve discovered.

“Oh - fuck -” Harry grunts as he moves his hand from your thigh to your hip, pressing your body down with just enough force to limit your movements. It’s paining him, going so slow, you can tell - and you’re already starting to need more from him. You need him to go faster, and with a breathy moan you tell him.

Slowly his pace picks up, his grip on your hip tightening until you’re sure there’ll be fingerprint shaped bruises on your skin by tomorrow morning. With every thrust he fills you up so completely that every perfect spot inside of you is hit just right, and you never knew it could feel this good.

Every noise of his that tears through the bedroom spurs you on, pushing your hips into his to deepen every thrust. And every time you whine or whimper or cry or anything Harry delivers a harder thrust, fucking you so deep that you can feel it in the pit of your tummy.

“God, p - professor,” you moan, the word falling entirely too naturally off your lips even in your heightened state. Harry throws his head back with a high pitched whine, speeding up his pace until the loudest noise in the room is skin hitting skin. “Holy shit - fuck - I’m gonna - gonna -”

“Gonna cum around my cock, baby?” He hisses, pressing the hand that had once resided on your hip into the mattress, gripping the covers tighter so he can rail his hips into yours desperately. “So fucking tight around me, can’t even fucking stand it -”

Your hand, shaking beyond belief, slides down to rub hard circles into your clit. The sensations on your clit and his cock, rutting against your G spot with every thrust, sends you over the edge again - already so overstimulated from the rather intense orgasm you’d had before - and with a loud cry-bordering-on-scream you’re cumming again.

“Fuck!” you moan, hips bucking up against his as you ride out the waves of your orgasm. “Fuck, Harry, oh my god -”

He’s not far behind you, hips stuttering ever so slightly but he wants to bring you to one more orgasm, securing this day as the best fuck of your (admittedly limited) sex life and he can’t cum yet. Your hand falls back onto the mattress and Harry pulls his clammy hand from yours, bringing it down to replace your fingers on your clit, and immediately you clench around his cock, begging incoherently for something - you’re not sure what - as he presses down on your clit hard.

Your eyes roll back into your head as his cock twitches inside of you, and grunts and moans are flying from Harry’s mouth faster than he can control it. Your walls flutter around his dick, his thrusts slowing to lazy pumps in and out. He’s so fucking close, he just needs one more push and then -

Your fingers wrap around his wrist and he looks down at you, your eyes nearly black with desire, tears streaking down your cheeks. “C - cum in me, professor.”

It’s the final straw for Harry, and with a nearly animalistic cry he sheathes himself fully inside of you and cums so hard so fast, it’s nearly violent, and the feeling of warmth that explodes in your cunt sends you into your fourth orgasm of the night -

It’s less intense than the others but still entirely too prominent and when you’ve finally rode out the last wave you collapse against the bed, your head spinning and your legs aching as Harry presses it back down from where it had been perched up.

Harry collapses on top of you, his body suffocating and hot and sweaty and you wrap your arms around him, your desperate attempts at steadying your breathing filling the room. You’ve never cum so hard and so much and you’re fucking exhausted, truthfully.

He lifts his head, gazing down at you as you run your fingers through his tangled, sweat soaked curls. “How was that?”

You exhale with a smile upturning your lips, beginning to feel his cum dripping out of your pussy and down your thighs. “Jesus Christ,” you murmur, and a grin breaks onto his face as he drops his forehead against your shoulder.

The two of you lie in silence for a moment - no words need to be spoken. Harry shifts the pair of you further up the bed, your head crashing onto one of his pillows as he remains, firmly on top of you, like he never wants to leave.

But you can’t stop yourself from asking the question burning through your mind, and you swallow thickly before mumbling, “Harry -”

He hums softly.

“Is this like - a one time thing?”

His head lifts again, chin pressed to your shoulder blade, eyebrows furrowed. Harry takes a moment to respond, though, lifting his hand to trace a line across your jawline to your lips, and you press a soft kiss to the tips of his fingers when he arrives at his destination. “I don’t think so,” he tells you, and his voice is quiet and vulnerable, as if waiting for you to deny him. “I’ve never felt this way about anyone.”

You smile softly, leaning in to press a kiss against his soft lips. “Can I tell you a secret?”

“‘Course, baby.”

The name makes your tummy flutter, and you think you could listen to him call you baby for the rest of your life. “I’ve dreamt of this,” you tell him, lips merely a centimeter from his. “Since the beginning of the semester, every night.”

Harry raises his eyebrows at you, and you giggle at his expression. “Glad to know I’m not the only one.”

You shut your eyes, then. Rest your head on his pillow, feeling warm with the man you adore pressed on top of you, his arms firmly and protectively wrapped around you. Nothing has ever felt more right to you, and you drift off to sleep with a soft smile still gracing your lips.

[meat-wentz]

Not to be creepy but I’ve been lurking through all your playlists on Spotify because of the pool boy one and duuuuuude their so good! I know you mentioned having a process about playlists so can you spill your secrets because apparently I need to up my playlist game.

omgggg not creepy at all, ty for listening to my brain worms!!!! ALSO THANK YOU FOR THIS QUESTION I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS ON HOW TO CREATE PERFECT PLAYLISTS. buckle up for a long post. (links at the end lol)

this is a habit primarily formed out of two things:

1) making personalized mix cds for my friends through high school and into college because i never had money to buy them gifts for birthdays or holidays. (literally a core tenant of this practice was starting every mix with money by the drums so they knew “i want to buy you something but i don’t have any money”). this helps you cater your music taste to a specific person, encapsulate who they are to you, and also what you want to give them as a sign of your affection, whether it be a song that aligns with their music taste, or a song that sends a message (i want to buy you something), or just something that describes the relationship you two have. this skill helps a lot when you move from friends to characters and shaping those characters in your brain!

2) watching a lot of movies, promptly downloading the soundtracks onto my ipod and studying them throughout high school and college. in fact, much of my music taste has been formed by my favorite movies so i always recommend putting on your favorite soundtracks and studying the way they capture the feeling, atmosphere, visuals, and narrative of the movie they’re attached to.

^ this has also helped me INFINITELY with writing, fiction or non-fiction, i always need to be completely immersed when i write and what i listen to is soooo important in keeping me in the headspace. for instance i wrote an huge portion of an essay on haunted houses as physical/traumatized bodies solely listening to get out of my house by kate bush on repeat for like months.

i typically start with a few things if i’m going for a more themed, narrative playlist: a title, three core songs, and a sort of visual guide (typically a playlist cover, could be a bit of a mood board if you prefer), a little bit of a one or two sentence narrative in the back of my head.

title says what it’s going to be and keeps you in the headspace, similarly with the cover art. these things keep me from straying too far from the sound or narrative im attempting to set up. getting distracted during playlists is easy to do!! you might want to put every cheeky vampire song on the damn thing but that’s not what we’re here to do! we keep it concise, it’s a curation, specifically selected songs in a specifically set order. this is why it’s always good to have that one or two sentence plot in the back of your head along with the three core songs. they’re like your beginning, middle and end. use those three songs to build from sound-wise and narrative-wise/transition from the beginning to the middle to the end.

you’ll notice that pool boy at the vampire mansion has three separate sections: a short opening of three songs about swimming/wetness/being sexy (focus on the fact that he’s a damn pool boy), a middle which is mostly funky little covers of disco/groove songs all surrounding the center piece stayin alive, all very sexy (pool shed sex chapter), and then the maneating blood fiend portion at the end, songs that focus on blood, murder, maneating, etc (pool boy now fully aware his employers are blood-sucking fiends). transitioning from one chapter to the next with a little side step into the 80’s and back out.

REMEMBER: COVERS ARE YOUR FRIEND. it would not have made sense for my personal ear to hear the original versions of the little disco chapter, instead opting for more industrial grit, dirty guitar noises, heavy bass, growling or screamy or sultry vocals, AND COVERS HELP ME ACHIEVE THAT. you’ll also notice the sexy boy motif, beginning with the og and ending with a dramatic sweeping strings cover, it shows we start somewhere and we end up somewhere else, the same but changed in a notable way (i do this a lot with specifically character based playlists). beginnings and ends are very important, sometimes i mirror them sonically, sometimes literally through good use of a cover, sometimes i’ll even opt for, like, pure atmosphere like wood larks chirping in a forest ssoundscape, no music at all.

puns and subverting songs to fit your needs creates a rich a layered text!! for instance “i’m your boogie man” means hello i boogie down on the dance floor, but in the context of a vampire playlist: that’s a literal boogieman in your closet.

also references are everything for people listening who will get it even if others don’t. this is why i pay so much attention to soundtracks! like you may not see operate by peaches as a halloween song but guess the fuck what it’s the song that plays during the halloween party in mean girls. you may not see backstreet’s back as a halloween song but if you watch the music video, that’s a fucking halloween song. make the reference!! it’s rewarding!! fit songs to your needs!!

i’ve mentioned this before but i got a lot of experience just being on 8tracks and listening to themed playlists there for years on end, as well as finding a BUNCH of music i wouldn’t have found otherwise.

some general rules i like to abide by:

personal playlists can be whatever, but themed playlists should adhere to a specific order and flow, as well as limiting play time to an hour and a half at most (feature film length or, generally i go for hour playlists that are the length of a good hour long episode of television)

generally try to limit the same artist to two or three songs at most, and never next to each other unless it’s like a FEATURE that those songs are next to each other.

spotify recommends proves to be a useful tool if you’re stuck.

i try to be subtle. if im making a playlist about a certain film, i won’t use a song from the actual movie, or i’ll opt for a cover of a song from the film instead. if i’m making a playlist about gerard or frank or whoever, i won’t put any of their music on the playlist (i will however use music they’ve mentioned liking). if im making a vampire playlist or a fairy playlist or whatever, i’ll try to avoid vampire or fairy songs and opt for songs about like blood or fangs or the forest instead.

also rules were made to be broken! i break my rules all the time! my style will not be everyone’s but ive found it to be successful for my playlist needs and also just generally in aiding my creativity. i will now plug some of my favorite themed playlists ive made:

Pool Boy at the Vampire Mansion

I’ll See You in My Dreams: A Twin Peaks Love Story

Misty Mud-Laiden Moors

Fever Dreams of the Erl King and His Thorny Touch

A Sleepy Western Motel Crawling with Vampire Cowboys

Songs for Sleuthing

Teenaged Outlaws

Ivy Leagues & Old Money

Anthems for Slutty Mechanics

The Flaxen-Haired Maiden and the Knight of the Seelie Court

NEW!! Sit. Stay. Beg.

i should also mention that i have a few reserve playlists of JUST music to add to playlists at some point, organized into: songs i just want to weasel in somewhere or will be helpful later, just covers, atmospheric or instrumental, and just generally spooky or sexy songs waiting to be somewhere. sometimes i’ll scroll through each of those and be like aha! a theme!! and go for it!!

[linklethehistorian]

Cherish Development Notes — Part 2: Overviews & Outlines

Alright, since I’ve already explained Cherish’s humble origins, I can finally get around to talking about the very unique (comparably to any of my other fics, at least) general writing process for this fic and its chapters.

Now, to give you an idea of the difference, my typical fic-writing process for my previous works (all of which are one-shots) goes a little something like this:

Get inspired by something and come up with a general idea for the fic

(If not already inspired by any particular piece of music) Find a song that either fits the scenario perfectly, or just suits the general mood, to play on repeat while writing, and (usually) use that song for the fic’s title.

Start writing the fic from beginning to end in linear progression — no outlines.

Proofread for typos.

Tag and post.

However, for Cherish, this entire process was never present to begin with; after all, not only is it my first multi-chapter fic, but also, thanks to its unique history, it already came long pre-conceived and partially pre-written from my former rambles with a friend.

As such, before I even began writing the story as a fic, I already had an (albeit limited, incomplete and fairly messy) outline to work off of, for at least all of the major plot points. It wasn’t anything grand, as, like I said, it only covered the most important parts of the story and left a lot of blank spots or super vague bridges between major events, but it was certainly more than anything I’ve ever had to work with before (which is literally nothing lol), and turned out to be a huge help in the creative process, especially early on in the fic’s creation. (I may or may not release some of these old outlines and notes as I move on to talking about individual, already-released chapters in the future, for the curious.)

After gathering together all of those former rambles as a very basic outline, I then began to properly rewrite the first part (which you would all later come to know as Chapter 1 and 2) of that outline into a proper, detailed story, and, after I’d already begun that process of re-writing, eventually sought out a song that properly captured the emotion and thought-processes within (and later an additional one, when I decided to split the chapter in two) and made them not only the ones I listened to on loop, but also the chapter titles.

Once the first chapter was finished and the second nearly done (and they were fairly quick), I created the fic, set the tags, and released it under the name Cherish — a name I had also decided on a short while prior after choosing a song I felt best suited the overall themes and plot (a little more about that here.)

And after all of that was said and done, I took the three songs I had used and decided to create a special playlist for the fic, that I would slowly add to more and more over time — an action which, I had no way of realizing at the time, would actually come to be a huge help with writing future chapters.

You see, although it’s true I had my basic outline to rely on for bigger, more important events, there were still all of those parts in between that were just barely talked about, or even not talked about at all, and also some chapters that inevitably end up split from one into two due to the length, or some other creative decision.

For all of this — and I highly recommend it to other authors, too, if they’re so inclined — I was able to lean partially on my Cherish playlist, as I would gather together a whole bunch of songs of all varieties that evoked feelings and emotions and/or perfectly matched the story I’d already planned to happen, and add them into a secondary, privated experimental playlist to rearrange into my desired order and test for proper aesthetics. By doing this, I was able to determine precisely where different minor events and feelings belonged to make for a good, well-written, well-flowing story; furthermore, by being able to look at and recognize when there felt like there were too many songs revolving around the same emotion or plot point, I could also properly decide upon how many chapters a certain part of the story should take up and how best to tackle the subject without making it feel like the pacing had dipped considerably.

Even now, I continue to use this tool very happily to determine positioning and aid me in the writing process whenever I reach a point only vaguely covered by the original outline — although, it’s also much more than a tool to me; it’s a love language to the story I’m writing, a creative outlet of its own, and an extension of the fic itself for those interested to explore the further depths of it. Not just any song will do for each chapter; the aesthetic, the lyrics, and the title all have to be relevant to the chapter itself, and not only that, but they have to transition decently from one to the next sound-wise, as well. It is, at times, a time-consuming endeavor, but one I take great pride in, as with all things regarding this fic.

Then, as of late, I’ve also found another crucial, very helpful way to fill in those missing blanks in far greater detail after the initial arrangement and secondary outline I’m able to put together with the help of the playlist: sharing a TL;DR of the story I intend to write, chapter by chapter, with my friend @mysaldate (if you’re reading this, hi uwu 💖 Thank you for being amazing). By sharing this information with her, I will end up sitting down and writing out what ends up becoming a detailed plan for any chapters with a lackluster outline, thereby making the writing process itself much, much easier. It is a truly wonderful thing I’m so glad I get to do in the process of sharing something I enjoy with someone I care about.

Writing the chapters, themselves, too, due to having an outline, is not the same experience I am used to with my one-shots; in many ways, it speeds up the work considerably and is an invaluable tool for something I need to try to update at least semi-regularly, though it also has its own unique struggles, too, as all things do (namely, that bridging dialogue or actions anywhere where there is missing information in between can be equal parts fun and maddening, depending upon the situation lol).

So, if we put all of this together, we get a process that looks something like this per chapter:

Refer to the first, original outline for information on a given chapter.

Find a song with lyrics and an overall aesthetic that suits the current situation/emotion of the chapter, has a fitting title, and sounds good within its proper spot in the playlist. Name the chapter after it and listen to it on repeat.

If the chapter does not have enough (or any) information in the first outline to decide this, use the general plan within my head for that time and defer to gathering songs and/or checking and arranging the playlist until I have a basic enough outline to get by. 

Write out TL;DRs of future chapters based off of these outlines for mysaldate and then use those more detailed plans as the actual outline with which to start writing the chapter.

Change font to Comic Sans while writing (it genuinely works).

Begin converting the secondary outline (and any potential un-covered information from the first) into a basic version of the story.

Go over it again, and add more detail/tweak aspects that don’t flow upon re-reading.

Do a final proofread/fix typos/make any final changes.

Add chapter title’s song to the public playlist, if not done already.

Check to make sure no more tags need to be added to the main fic due to the content.

Check to make sure no notes need to be added to the chapter and the placeholder joke summary on the AO3 draft is removed.

Post the chapter on AO3.  

And thus, this is the usual creative process involved in working on a chapter for Cherish; it is an extensive list, but, I find, a satisfying one.

In regards to tools, I merely use Google Docs and search up synonyms and such if ever needed on the internet; no fancy tools, no Grammarly, no Betas, though on rare occasion I do ask the opinion of a friend on certain lines I’m truly unsure of and concerned with in some way.

I hope you enjoyed the read. If there’s anything you were wondering that I didn’t cover here, or another subject you’d really like me to cover next about the fic, feel free to drop me an ask!  [Read the fic here!]

[Check out the public Cherish playlist!]