#and then. and then there was another bit where aled was working on an essay late at night bc he put it off until the night before

[sburbling]

thank you alice oseman for calling me out specifically and violently. radio silence changed my life and i will never be the same again

[bluewinnerangel]

Can we talk about the reference to cinema in Lucky Again? I was watching a reaction to FITF (I can't stop) from someone who didn't seem to know much about L/H/1D and she said "who is this man selling tickets at the cinema?" I had to laugh. Also after the leak I thought it was "they're selling tickets at the cinema" but the lyric book says THERE which really changes how I interpret that line. What do you think?

I think yes. When we did not have the official lyrics yet I thought it was

If you believe that guy is superman

They're selling tickets to the cinema

followed by "whatever gets you through the darkest night" which I thought was a bit shady, saying yeah if you think highly of that guy and all his behavior then you go over there and buy what he's selling you, you go watch that movie, you go entertain yourself with those thoughts if that helps you I guess whatever, but then it flips and but just find the light out of that madness like find your way back to earth (you're not superman) because that ain't real life.

I think both Louis and Harry use "Cinema" in the same derogatory way, in part, because I think both songs have a lot of layers to them and yes Harry's song Cinema has a ya nasty layer which is great and gay I think it also has another layer of looking at that recently luckily called off stunt where, not only did they work on a movie and it was mostly for the movie, also the whole PR fuckery around is was another movie in itself, a fake story, baby that's Cinema, that's some performative shitstorm dumpsterart, that's some narrative for you there, and well go on be entertained by it sheeple. It's passive aggressive and I love it.

Now back to Lucky Again and the actual lyrics:

If you believe that guy is superman

There selling tickets at the cinema

HA so the believed superman is the one selling the tickets. So.. thinking someone's all that because they're trying to sell you things? Trying to get you to buy the movie, the story. It's not just that dude over there is doing these great things you go watch it no he's also the dude that's the face you meet at the front desk there to sell something to you. Whether that something is a fabricated story/world (the CINEMAtic universe of the entertainment industry idk bro we're going places) or just mindless entertainment or even a specific reference to the song Cinema (which in turn takes you to the other points in my opinion so the only added layer is larry here which great good lovely). And then the contrast to that guy being superman vs him being a hard man, and that superman is standing right there vs him being a hard man to lose/find. And how that guy can be himself, either the public version or the version he thought he was or thought he had to be, but also the "you", but also another party that's selling a life to him/"you"/them both (like wow guys look fame isn't it shiny for instance), or a general figure selling a story to the general public.

But I also wanna talk about the other references of that line: hello DC universe I know way too little about. He's going from "Superman" to Batman with "the darkest night" -> The Dark Knight. With that I'm seeing the whole batman-joker-twoface-DC-cinematic-universe come to life in this verse or perhaps whole song, with the themes of madness ("madness is like gravity, all it takes is al little push") and luck (the lucky coin / leaving things up to chance and living for the chaos deciding mad actions based on a coin flip / "you make your own luck" all that) and find the light (batsignal lol), "before the world it got so serious" ("why so serious"). Like they're not directly related or not that I've cared to figure out because I don't think that would make much sense either but they're the famous quotes and this song's hitting all them keywords and I love the idea of him playing around with this stuff. There's probably a lot more to say about this, maybe for someone to whom this is the crossover of their dreams could write an essay about this lol it's not me.

And also of course the use of superman; implying that guy can do everything, achieve everything, do everything at once, be more than any mere human, be beyond mortal lol, nah he's just another guy. He's just that guy, and the "I" is a hard man (to lose/find) even, and the "you" has been working hard to be themselves, and then he's bringing it further back down to earth with lines like "I'd meet you at the favourite subway stop / we'd grab some food and meet the lads for one". Like a wise man once said "I can't be no superman, but for you I'll be super human".

Also wanna highlight the wordplay with "I'm a hard man to lose/to find" + "I was lucky once / I could be lucky again" -> hard-luck, aka unlucky, in a bad situation out of your control. This throughout the whole song, basically saying you're down on your luck without directly saying it "you give until it's gone away", "I see how hard you've worked [to be yourself]", "i made my way back", "[the time] it got away from us", "find the light out in the madness hold tight" I think all imply bad luck, but he's choosing (let's bring in "made my way back to a life I would choose") to focus on the positive, on how the luck can turn in his favor instead.

And then the other reference: "whatever gets you through the darkest night" -> John Lennon's Whatever Gets You Thru The Night, he mentioned this song together with Mind Games (again the song that holds the phrase "Faith In The Future") in a tweet at some point, and some more times throughout recent years, so I think at the very least it's something he was aware of writing it lol.

Also darkness vs light keeps coming back in his lyrics, on FITF alone but we could be bringing in other songs, also 1D and other's lyrics too, it's too much to go in to on top of all these points now but I just at least wanna mention that's a thing too and it's overwhelming :D

I don't know how to end this because I feel like we can ramble on about these things forever lemme end on The Dark Knight Rises -> I'm A Hard Man. :D :D Get IT :D :D

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

reading update

hello lovers, it's once again time to blather at you about my bookish pursuits. last month was a weird and paltry hodgepodge; this month I feel I can safely say I've gotten my proverbial groove back. I suspect next month will be very largely shaped by book recommendations I picked up from various workshops this weekend at a MBLGTACC, but I suppose we'll have to wait until the end of November to see.

in the meantime, what have I been reading?

Belly of the Beast: The Politics of Anti-Fatness as Anti-Blackness (Da'Shaun L. Harrison, 2021) - a small book that hits like lightning. Harrison draws heavily on Sabrina Strings' excellent Fearing the Black Body and expands in even more radical directions, examining the ways in which anti-fatness and anti-Blackness collude to demonize Black masculine folks in particular. the way Harrison talks about the concept of health is particularly shattering, as they underline the ways in which modern American concepts of health have been shaped by ideas that exclude Black bodies inherently. I actually thought of Harrison a lot this weekend while I was listening to Imani Barbarin speaking, because she made a similar point in connection to queerness, talking about how enslaved people running away from plantations was considered a manifestation of mental unwellness in much the same way that queer expressions of gender and sexuality have been. I love digging up these seemingly ubiquitous ideas and finding new angles at which to poke at and complicate them, and Harrison is phenomenal at facilitating that.

Jade War (Fonda Lee, 2019) - and now for something completely different: the second installment of Fonda Lee's door-stopping Green Bone Saga. holy FUCK these books rule; I'm never NOT having a blast reading them. Jade War builds on the conflicts established in Jade City and expand them to a more international level, jetting the surviving members of the Kaul family off to new countries to grapple with the cultural impact of their magical, ability-enhancing jade across the world. there were a couple of moments in this book that had me genuinely gasping out loud, mainly because Lee's ability to balance the tension of day to day politics and business with sudden eruptions of brutality and danger is absolutely unmatched. I'm really excited to see the Kaul family starting to raise the next generation, and I can't wait to see how the family's fate keeps unfolding in Jade Legacy.

One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter (Scaachi Koul, 2017) - I've been a fan of Koul's journalism for years - she's mean and she's funny and she's always right - but I have Tajja Isen to thank for getting me to finally read her essay collection. you may recall Isen's own collection, Some of My Best Friends, from last month's roundup; in the chapter critiquing the demands placed on essay writers of color, she highlights Koul as one of the best writers working. and I have to agree; when she gets personal Koul writes with a kind of hysterical melancholy about nearly everything - about her immigrant parents, particularly her prickly father; about her older white boyfriend; about the ways in which her body marked her as different growing up in a white Canadian neighborhood. Koul's chapter reflecting on her cousin's exhausting traditional Indian wedding was painful and sweet and will, I think, do something to anyone who regards their family's traditions with an equal mix of huge love and a deep desire to depart. I hope Koul's got another essay collection in her, because I would love to crawl in her brain and live in her thoughts on the pandemic for a bit.

The Sandman: Dream Country (Neil Gaiman et al, 1991) - okay, so, we've gotten to the bit where (in my extremely humble opinion) the Sandman actually starts getting really good. the stories collected in Dream Country particularly rule because they're not really about Morpheus at all; he (or, sometimes, his sister Death) are just Around, a small part in other people's stories unfolding around them. I often say that I think a lot of the best Batman stories barely have any Batman, and that also applies here; it's an especially pleasant breather before Season of Mists starts really getting the Plot rolling. the Sandman is, of course, a story about stories, capable of holding almost any kind of story you can imagine, so it's fun to watch Gaiman kick back and get weird for a bit.

A Prayer for the Crown-Shy (Becky Chambers, 2022) - having been feeling a bit depressed of late I decided to make a conscious effort to lighten up my reading a bit, and our queer sci-fi solarpunk queen Becky Chambers had my back as always. A Prayer for the Crown-Shy is the second installation in the Monk and Robot series of novellas, and follows our titular monk and robot as they descend from the wilderness where they met and begin introducing the robot, Mosscap, into a human society that has gone generations without seeing any robots. what ensues is a gentle story about travel, belonging, and what it means to be a person who's part of the world, what we contribute and what we owe to one another. I read this book in a day and cradled it like a mug of hot chocolate the whole time, feeling warm and cozy long after the last page.

The Sandman: Season of Mists (Neil Gaiman et al, 1992) - friends, this is one of my favorite plots in the entire series: our boy Morpheus gets clowned into going to Hell to free his ex girlfriend, only to find that Lucifer is calling it a day and shutting Hell down - and leaving Morpheus with the key. what ensues is the world's worst dinner party as figures from all across creation and mythology descend on Morpheus' house to try to threaten or tempt him into giving them the key, all while he's already in the middle of a depressive episode and really doesn't want to be doing any of this. absolutely delicious, 10/10 from me. I'm happy every time Morpheus is having a terrible horrible no good very bad day.

How to Read Now (Elaine Castillo, 2022) - the thing about this book is that it rules and makes me want to read everything Elaine Castillo has ever written, because she's insightful and mean and funny and furiously, deeply principled in how she writes. her book feels like an excellent companion to Some of My Best Friends (I really owe Tajja Isen this month) in how it really probes into the expectations placed on marginalized writers to be Marginalized above all else in their writing, the way publishers and readers alike focus on marginalized writers as tools of education and social betterment rather than just, you know, artists creating art. she has some CHOICE words about the severe limitations of analyzing writing purely through the lens of Good Representation (spoilers: it sucks) that made me cheer out loud. in a very weird and unpleasant cultural moment of anti-intellectualism and a buckwild aversion to literacy you need to read How to Read Now literally right now.

Harley Quinn: The Animated Series: The Eat. Bang! Kill. Tour (Tee Franklin and Max Sarin, 2022) - the thing about this six issue series is that it's, like, impossible to read it without the vile online harassment Tee Franklin faced for writing the series weighing heavily in my mind. she caught the usual bullshit you'd expect from exactly the kind of people you'd expect who were angry that a queer disabled Black woman was writing queer characters with a diverse supporting cast, which is annoying but typical, but then there was the brigade of picrew pride flag icons flinging wild accusations of lesbophobia at Franklin for everything from pointing out that the Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy she's writing aren't lesbians (that's pretty obvious if you've ever even casually watched the show this series spins off from) to making Ivy "emotionally abusive" (see: writing conflict that's more than addressed and resolved by the series' end). that harassment campaign is also, I suspect, strongly motivated by Franklin's status as a disabled queer Black woman, wrapped up in social justice terminology to make it palatable to the picrew icons, and it casts a long shadow across this series. which is like... fine, by the way. it's just fine. it makes some nice callbacks to the show (which I really like, despite my usual no tv policies) without ever quite managing to hit quite the same tone; it's a little too saccharine in ham-fisted in some places for me, and later issues are reliant on thought bubbles in a way that I find grating for no particular reason. but on the flipside it establishes that Harley and Ivy are immediately starting their relationship by fucking on, like, every available surface, which I love for them! I actually think it's great and cool when queer artists get to make stuff that's kind of mid for huge corporations; god knows straight white men have been getting away with it for decades. so what if the plot could have used some tighter editing? that's true of literally every comic series I've ever read. I'll be reading Franklin's Harley Quinn follow-up, Legion of Bats, just as soon as I can get my hands on it, partially out of spite, and I personally hope DC keeps her on the payroll for a million years.

Our Wives Under the Sea (Julia Armfield, 2022) - oh, what a novel! short and sharp and aching, romantic in the most painful way imaginable. alternating chapters are narrated by Miri, whose wife has just returned from a submarine voyage gone wrong acting nothing like herself, and Leah, the aforementioned wife. Miri narrates the present, in which she is exhausted and exasperated by the unknowable woman who's come back seemingly in Leah's place, while Leah's chapters explain what went wrong on the submarine with the chill of steadily increasing dread. it's about love and devotion and also the fucked up things that happen in the darkest part of the ocean; what's not to love?

[fingfamily-blog-blog]

The Beginning of the End

My trip to Surabaya was fine, but limited. Ramadan closed things down for socializing bule (foreigners), so I met with two of my American colleagues, and we stayed in one neighborhod, eating at the same restuarant, drinking at another one. It was fine, but not a wondrous exploration or anything. As I sit on my bed writing this, here is a list of my professional responsibilities over the next 10 weeks: conduct two online writing class sessions, conduct two in-class writing class sessions, grade final papers (10-paragraph essays), submit grades, oversee an essay writing contest, and lead one reading club session. Dear friends, 10 weeks is 70 days! It is a stunning development for me, indicating that things have gone badly wrong between myself and my school, and challenging me in a way I haven't been challenged for 35 years. Indeed, my relationship with my school is at a nadir. Not even my closest colleague, my minder, Ibu Yusnita, is bothering with me much anymore. I accept that this is partially my fault, both in a cultural mismatch, and a personal proclivity sense. But the stretch of time that is open to me is the result of the end of the school year. After three more weeks (two of which will be spent on vacation - celebrating Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan) there's nothing else for me to do.  So let me tell you what I am going to do. I'm going to read a novel called, This Earth of Mankind, by Pramoedya Ananta Toer, and take notes on it. I'm going to play guitar and work out regularly. I'm going to do that school work when it comes time. And I'm going to travel. Next week, I'll be taking a trip which stands as perhaps the most unexpected in my life. I've been drawn to the island of Sulawesi just based on its tentacular shape on the map. Any of the Indonesian islands can be considered remote and exotic. But Sulawesi stands in my mind as one of the most. I figured I'd first go to Makassar, in the south - it's close to Java and it has a romantic ring to it, harkening one to the great Spice Trade. But I gather that Makassar as a city is ugly and grungy, and of course the Spice Trade was essentially hundreds of years of resource extraction which enriched Holland and pauperized Indonesia. So I decided to go to Manado, in the far north of the island. Manado has more going on in and around it, islands, volcanic craters, swimming, surfing, etc. This is wonderfully attractive, but what makes the journey so unique in my life is that I'll be staying at a place called Thalassa Dive and Wellbeing Resort, where I'll spend 4 or 5 days learning to scuba dive, and ultimately receiving a certification to dive anywhere in the world, up to 18 meters. Now, that's not "advanced" diving. But considering I'm 58 years old and have never really even wanted to scuba dive, this is a remarkable development. As a result of the snorkeling I've done on Flores island, I want to do and see more. So I'll become a diver!  And it means that I hope to be able to dive on the other trips I take before I leave Indonesia. After Manado, I have a plan to spend 9 days in Lombok, the small island next to Bali. I gather it's a bit quieter there than Bali, fewer tourists. That's fine with me. I'll be staying in 4 different locations in those 9 days, so that will keep me busy, two of them are on even smaller islands where I hope to dive again. And I also expect that I'll be hanging out quite a bit, relaxing, practicing my beach bum routine, which doesn't really come to me naturally. Besides those journeys, which are already planned, I expect I'll be taking one last trip in Java, to the eastern-most points of Jember province, the Ijen Plateau, and Banyuwangi. If I can arrange it, I will also try to get to Bandung, in western Java, as I'm told is a nice place. If I finally leave the country from Jakarta, which I expect, then that would seem likely. And I will try to get to Bali once more. And, another big IF, I sure would like to get to the Maluku islands, even more remote and exoitc than Sulawesi. The main town is called Ambon, and if I can find my way there, I'll also try to take the 18-hour boat ride to the very small and historically important Banda islands, EVEN MORE remote and exotic. I also expect that I'll be sitting around my house for much of the time, and that will be a challenge. But, whereas the last time I had such a challenge, in Bangkok in 1988, this time, I'm more mature, and I have plenty of technology to keep me connected to my friends and family, as well as to keep me entertained. I've also recently asked my landlord's staff, who have been feeding me meals three times per week since October, to stop bringing me food. I want to make my own and I want to go out more and try some foods I haven't thus far, in particular Padang food, which comes from Sumatra and is famous all over Indonesia. I've not been professionally happy here in Malang. But I've had numerous positive personal experiences, and with several weeks of travel ahead of me, I look forward to more. Someday this journey will be over, and I expect to have a bevy of wonderful memories to bring home with me! 

[moririki]

⤷ PUSHING THE LIMITS

TSUKISHIMA KEI X READER -> 2.7K
you decide to see how far you can push your boyfriend before he snaps

REQUEST -> ✰
CONTAINS -> SMUT!!!!!, bratty reader i GUESS, uhm my second smut ever so quality won't be amazing, fingering, oral (giving), unprotected sex, , tsukki teasing you <3, but hes also soft at the end brrr
MORI'S THOUGHTS -> WOOOWOOOO 100 FOLLOWERS EVENT IS A GO!!! sry about the quality dipping halfway through i did not write this in one sitting ✌️

YOU KNEW THAT YOU WERE COMING OVER TO YOUR BOYFRIEND'S DORM TO STUDY, but when he greeted you with a searing kiss that was enough to have you trying to catch your breath, you realised that he may or may not be wanting to play dirty. he had a history project, you had an essay to finish, the two of you were fairly busy. luckily working together in a comfortable silence worked surprisingly well for the both of you. most of the time, anyway.

but you were still reeling from his kiss and your thoughts were straying far from the subject material needed to finish your paper. only ten minutes in to your study session, you were ready to call it a night and spend some quality time with tsukishima. currently, the two of you were lying side by side on his bed, trying not to slip off the edge due to how narrow it was. while your pen had stilled on its page, tsukishima was rapidly typing away on his laptop with slightly furrowed brows.

even with his facial features scrunched up, you still found yourself admiring your boyfriend's face as he concentrated on his project. the reflection of the laptop on his glasses only added to the look, and you almost found yourself sighing dreamily at how handsome he looked.

"quit staring, idiot," tsukishima mumbled without glancing up from his work. when you didn't make a single movement to follow his suggestion, his eyes flicked towards you with an unimpressed expression adorning his face. he raised a hand from the jeyboard to flick your forehead lightly, just enough to make you huff and return to your notebook. though yiu already had gotten the structure and general points already planned out, the actual construction of your essay was yet to happen. instead, you twirled your pen before raising it to your lips. you bit your lip in mock thought on just how to start writing your essay, though a more satisfying result occured when you heard a sharp intake of breath from beside you.

you tried not to look too smug as you turned to look at your boyfriend in amusement.

"look who's staring now, kei," you smiled up at him and he glowered at you.

"bite your lip once more, i dare you." you only giggled at his threat, seeing as he was playing directly into your hand.

but now you had to play a waiting game, so you went back to your essay. you even managed to complete an opening paragraph before deciding to ramp things up a notch.

you faked a yawn, arching your back as you stretched before rolling over, closer to tsukishima. you ended up on your back, practically underneath him, with his golden eyes watching you carefully. they remained trained on your face as you batted your eyelashes at him, before trailing down to your mouth again as you oh-so-carefully tugged your bottom lip between your teeth.

you barely had time to blink before you found yourself really lying underneath him, one of his hands resting against your face, his thumb coaxing your bottom lip back out from your teeth. the other had collected your hands, pinning them above your head by the wrist with ease.

"i thought i told you not to do that again, hm?" despite his tone, kei's eyes had some glint of mischief in them, enough to make you squirm under his grasp.

"oops." the way the smile never dropped from your face did little to convince kei that you were sincere, but he knew you were looking for some sort of reaction when you held his gaze as you parted your lips, softly biting the tip of his thumb.

you watched the way his eyes darkened from above and his grip on your wrists tightened. kei surged forwards, pressing his lips to yours roughly and you grinned as you kissed him back with as much vigour. the hand that had been on your jaw now travelled downwards before reaching your bare thigh.

kei gripped it harshly, hiking it up roughly to latch around his waist. you hummed into the kiss at the sensation, digging your heel into his back to feel some friction from his crotch rubbing against your thigh. kei groaned at the sensation, breaking the kiss to glare at you.

"you're such a brat."

"yeah, but you love me." you grinned up at him, face flushed and body practically buzzing from his touch.

kei muttered a "whatever" before kissing you again, harder than before. his hips rolled against yours, making your breath hitch in your throat. you tried to free your wrists to wrap your arms around his shoulders, anything to get him closer to you, but it was futile. kei snickered at your attempt to overpower him, though he had some mercy when he pulled away again to slip off your shorts with his free hand. you clamped your thighs together when you were left in just your underwear and under the scrutiny of your boyfriend.

"don't go shy on me now, pretty," kei teased you, rubbing soft circles into the plush of your thighs with his thumb. you flustered at the pet name, but let him part your legs and hook a finger along the waistband of your panties and drag them down your legs ever so slowly.

the cold air of the room made you clench slightly, but kei blowing on your pussy made you gasp and squirm in his hold. kei smirked at your reaction, trailing a single pretty finger of his around your entrance, humming at how wet you already were.

"you're really making my job a lot easier, pretty," he muttered, pressing a quick kiss to your lips as he slowly slipped a single finger inside you. you sucked in a shaky breath as he curled it inside you, feeling him reach the spongy spot which had you tensing and moaning softly.

his palm rested against your clit, the slight roughness of it proving to be enough stimulation. you found your hips raising, desperate for more friction, but kei's hand stilled as you whined from underneath him.

"come on, what happened to being patient?" he teased. you managed to glare back at him, before kei dipped his head again and decorated the column of your neck with deliberate kisses that had your head tilted back with pleasure. kei's finger started moving again, leaving your body blistering with sensations that were quickly building up to your release.

kei soon added another finger, with you moaning at the additional stretch. he scissored them inside you, stretching your walls out and leaving your toes curling. with his lips never stopping from administering hickeys all across your collarbones, you felt the heady buzz of an orgasm start to wash over you. you felt your lower stomach tighten in anticipation, only for it all to be ripped away from you at the last minute as kei removed his fingers from your hole, now sopping wet with your slick.

"what do you say that we put your mouth to good use, huh?" you could only nod at tsukishima's suggestion as your chest rose and fell rapidly, head still spinning from being taken so close to the edge. you just about registered tsukishima raising his hand and bringing his souled fingers to your mouth.

without a single word from him, your lips parted and you welcomed his two fingers into your mouth, sucking on them softly to clean them and tasting yourself on him. kei groaned at how compliant you were, pulling his fingers free before connecting your lips with his once again. he could taste the faintest trace of you on your tongue, and this dragged a soft moan from him that went through you like a shock if electricity.

with that, tsukishima finally released your wrists, leaning back before getting off of the bed. he grabbed hold of your ankles, dragging you until you were seated at the edge of the bed right in front of him, staring up at him expectantly with your heartbeat running wild. kei almost cooed at the lovestruck expression in your eyes, but he chose to lean back, eyes appraising your figure in a leisurely manner.

"strip for me." you almost took a double take at his words, though the tone showed just hiw serious he was being. his eyes were hungry as they zeroed in on your fingers curling around the hem of your shirt, pulling it over your head fluidly so that your top half matched your bottom. "aww, aren't you eager," kei crooned, his hand cradling your face. if you weren't blushing profusely from his remark you might have asked him about his own flushed cheeks.

instead, you diverted your attention to his own shirt, tugging at it softly to prompt him to do the same as you had seconds ago. kei caught on quickly, tugging the material over his head along with your help, your hands smoothing over his toned skin as soon as it was revealed. with your wrists finally freed, you could touch him just as much as you wanted, and you did. your fingers trailed down his sides and back up again, tracing patterns into his skin. you decoded to be brave, hooking your fingers into his waistband and pulling his body closer to you, to which kei gladly complied.

then your mouth was on him, leaving open mouthed kisses that trailed dangerously lower down his v-line. you came back up, making sure to suck a hickey into the skin just above his hip where a rare mole rested. you heard another shaky intake of breath from your lover, and felt a small jab of satisfaction at the sound. you felt fingers thread theough your hair, before pulling on it and forcing your head back until you were locking eyes with tsukishima.

"i think your mouth can do something else now, hm?" you nodded as best as you could, pulling your lip between your teeth as you focused on the rather visible bulge under your boyfriend's sweatpants. you curled fingers underneath his waistband once more, pulling both his sweats and boxers down in one go.

kei's dick, now freed, slapped against his stomach, already leaking precum that had inevitably soaked the material of his boxers. you pumped his length with your hand a few times, able to slide it up and down easily due to his precum, before taking him into your mouth.

no matter how many times you've done this, you still struggled to fully swallow his length. you still managed a great amount, and the rest was handled with your hand. you bobbed your head, setting your own pace and resisting the urge to gag when you felt his tip hit the back of your throat.

you settled into a rhythm, relaxing your jaw and placing a hand on his thigh to brace yourself. you coukd hear his groans from above you and it spurred you on, even thiugh your lungs were starting to burn from a lack of breathing.

before the sensation got unbearable, kei laced his fingers in your hair and pulled you away from his dick. when you looked up at his face you couldn't help but admire how pretty your boyfriend was all over again. while last time he had been focusing on a history project, his cheeks were flushed and he was out of breath, even going ahead and biting his own lip now. you thought the urge to be sarcastic about it.

"fuck, pretty, i can't wait," kei groaned, his fingers finding purchase on your hips and helping you lift them. in one swift motions, you hd been turned so that now you were on your hands and knees, feet hanging off the edge of the bed. you felt a hand smooth over the small of your back before kei leaned over you, his body radiating warmth as he pressed a quick kiss to your shoulder- a nonverbal question as to whether you were ok. when you looked back at his face and nodded, your boyfriend grinned before turning his attention to his dick.

he used a hand to position it, just barely parting your folds. you whined at the contact and how kei was teasing you, running the tip between your folds as you squirmed.

"kei, please," you pleaded breathily, and the hand that he rested on your back stilled.

"that's all you had to say, pretty," he mumbled, before pushing into you.

you moaned at the sensation, enjoying the stretch of him filling you up as he bottomed out. after a few moments of him staying still, you reached behind you to squeeze his hand and remind him that yes, he could in fact move.

at your confirmation kei placed his hands on your hips, keeping them still as he pulled out then thrusted back in, eliciting a soft moan from you. kei groaned in unison, the timbre of his voice making you clench around him. his hips never stilled, picking up a pace that had you moaning unashamedly and fisting kei's bedsheets as his dick hit the spot inside you which had you seeing stars.

a particularly hard thrust had you falling to your elbows as your arms gave out. the new angle only helped kei hit deeper and you practically screamed into the sheets at the stimulation.

"kei, fuck!" you barely sounded coherent, and the sound of your fucked-out voice just spurred kei on with his brutal pace. his thrusts were starting to lose their rhythm, though, and kei could tell that you were close too from the erratic spasms of your walls.

you couldn't even warn him that you were going to cum when kei brought a hand down to your clit, providing just that extra amount of friction to send you over the edge with a cry. that didn't stop kei from thrusting into you, helping you ride out your high as he let out a groan from the feeling of you clamping down around him.

he indulged in a few more thrusts before pulling out, pumping his length to finish before cumming on the shallow dip of your lower back. he then rather unceremoniously flopped down onto the bed next to you, joining you in the breathless afterglow of both of your orgasms.

after a few minutes, he rolled over to pepper kisses along your shoulderblade and run a hand down your back, careful to avoid the mess that he made.

"you feel like finishing that essay now, brat?" you giggled at his question, curling your hand around his as your spent body regained still regained strength.

"mm, maybe tomorrow," you hummed. kei kissed your shoulder one last time before getting up, padding off to the bathroom to clean himself up. you heard the distant sound of a tap running for a few seconds before kei came back to you, wet towel in hand. you felt the warmth of it against your back as kei cleaned you up, before handing it to you to clean the rest of yourself as he pulled on his sweatpants.

after you finished, he then handed you his sweatshirt, helping your tired arms to pull it over your head so that you were swaddled in the cloth.

the two of you lay down in tsukishima's bed, your back to his chest as you shared the same pillow. with the average hours of sleep that you both got as university students, this rest was needed. one of kei's hands came up

to tilt your face to look at his before he captured your lips in a kiss, albeit softer than the others he had given you earlier.

"goodnight, brat," he whispered to you.

"love you too, tsukki," you mumbled, already feeling the embrace of sleep tugging you towards unconsciousness. your boyfriend tugged you closer as well, pressing his face into your shoulder and making you grin in the dark.

that smile only widened when you heard the quietest love you too escape his lips minutes later, when he thought you had fallen asleep.

"i heard that, you know." kei only grumbled, squeezing you tighter.

"no you didn't, go to sleep."

take a look at the menu - ,, 📕 ·˚ ༘ ꒱

[xmalfoyweasleyx]

Infuriating- D.M (smut)

Summary: Draco is mean to you, he always is. But it turned you on, it made you go crazy. What you didn’t know is that it was obvious. What you didn’t know is that Draco knew. And it made him want to destroy your innocence.

Warnings: 18+ SMUT!, cursing, innocence kink, dom!draco, choking, praising, daddy kink and slapping

A/n: I absolutely LOVE this! I love the story line behind all the filthy stuff lol.

Words: 2k

He was a git. He was mean to you the whole time, for years already. You never knew otherwise, you were used to it. He pushes you, he yells mean things like "silly Y/H" or "stupid little girl" or he humiliates you in front of everyone.

But it did something to you. Those mean words and actions, it made your stomach tingle. Something about it made you crave him, it made you want him.

It turned you on.

You didn't know what it was but every mean word, it did hurt your feelings, but it made you wet.

Yup, there was definitely something seriously wrong with you.

Even after what just had happened. You sat in potions, thinking about the event that took place only 10 minutes ago. He literally pushed you on the floor when you tried to walk in the classroom. "Get out of my way" he said while pushing you.

You fell, your head smacked on the cold floor. You were mad this time, so so so mad.

"Fucking Malfoy! You're... your'e.." you tried to come up with a word to describe it, but failed. The anger overtook your body but the familiar butterflies in your belly were there too. It confused you.

Okay, it's not rocket science, you're just in love with the stupid little douche. But why? That was the big question. He was horrible to you.

"Infuriating? Is that the word you're looking for darling?" he answered, adding a little wink in synchrony with the typical smirk. It made you gasp. Did he just wink? Did he just say darling?

It took you a while to obtain. And now you sat here, in potions. Still so confused. Did he want you to get bent out of shape?

You sighed looking at the Slytherin boy, his light hair perfectly styled, his eyes focusing on professor Snape, while writing with his oh so perfect hands. Oh what those hands could do to me, those long fingers...

Fucking hell, why couldn't you just feel those things for some nice boy, someone who didn't push you on the freaking floor!

"Miss y/n, is mister Malfoy here more important than my class?" you heard Snape who was standing right in front of you. Where did he come from?

The whole class looked at you. This was the most embarrassing thing ever. Your face got red immediately.

"I-I-I'm sorry, sir" you mumbled.

"You can write an essay for me as punishment y/n" Snape ordered.

"WHAT? Just because of not paying attention for a second?" you snapped. Snape furrowed his eyebrows.

"You'd like detention instead?" he warned.

"I just mean, this isn't fair sir!" you trembled.

Smart. He's so angry now. "Detention at 5" he sighed.

"Of course she couldn't take her eyes off me, what a pathetic slut" Draco suddenly screamed for the whole class.

God you once dreamt he said that to you while he was pounding into you, but you didn't want it here, not in front of the whole class. They all laughed. It was horrible and you wanted to cry.

"Detention for you too Malfoy" Snape added.

Malfoy gave him a glare, squeezing the parchment in front of him harshly, trying to control himself, to not punch the professor in the face.

He looked at you, your eyes met and he saw the tear falling down. You dried the tear as quickly as you could.

You swore you saw a glimpse of guilt in his eyes.

*

5 pm

You were scribbling faster than ever, deeply concentrating on your work, trying to end this detention as fast as you can.

And then you heard the door close. Fast footsteps, walking to the desk next to you. Before you could look, you already smelled him. A big wave of the expensive cologne filled up your nose.

He didn't look at you. He was obviously not happy to be here and glared at the parchment in front of him.

"You're still staring y/l/n, didn't learn your lesson?" he hissed.

You glanced away as fast as possible, not answering him.

It made you nervous. You fidgeted with your skirt while tapping the table with your other hand.

"Stop it!!" he snapped. It scared you to hell, it almost made you fell of your chair. You flinched while shutting your eyes.

"I'm sorry" he whispered.

Dit he just...

Apologize?

“Why do you always act like this? What did I do to you? Did I do something wrong in the past?” you asked, not knowing where the courage came from.

He stood up from his chair, walking towards yours. To your surprise, he sat down on your table, facing you with a dark look.

“God, you look terrified princess. What’s wrong? Normally you always watch me with that lust in your eyes, when I humiliate you” he whispered coming closer.

You gulped, horny and embarrassed at the sime time. So much was going on in your head right now. First of all, he called you princess, where did that suddenly come from? The nickname went straight to your pussy. Already wet, but that was nothing new with that boy in front of you.

And second, he saw that you were feeling those things? Was it that obvious?

“You.... y-you see it?” you asked not wanting to look in his eyes. You stared at the big clock on the wall. Out of the blue, he grabbed your face.

His fingers pressed on your cheeks when he turned your face to look at him.

“I even see it now” he chuckled while looking you in the eyes. He probably thought you were weird, that something was wrong with you.

What you didn’t know was that Draco knew it all this time. He noticed it the first time a year ago, when he yelled something (not very nice) at you.

He noticed how it made you angry but most of all he noticed how you always gasped for air and how you looked at him with thos doe eyes. Those innocent eyes that were practically begging him to fuck you, to destroy you.

That’s why he kept doing it. He almost got addicted to the way you kept looking at him like that. So he kept torturing you, humiliating you. But you didn’t know he knew, until now. He knew you must’ve thought he was just a git, an asshole. But the truth was he never wanted to hurt you, he was just addicted to the look in your eyes when he did.

The look you were giving him now.

“I know you want me” Draco admitted.

“I, I don’t know what you mean” you stuttered trying to sound convincing.

Draco stood up and stood behind your chair now. You breath hitched when you felt him breathing in your neck.

“Oh no?” he whispered in your ear from behind. His hands slowly made his way down your body, ending on your skirt, while he kissed your neck. He lifted you skirt up gently and pressed his fingers on your clothed pussy, making you gasp.

“Then why am I feeling al this wetness here?” he asked daringly, still rubbing you.

“I still don’t know what you mean” you added, playing the game with him.

“Oh, and what about me taking your panties off? Still don’t know now?” he asked while slowly pulling your panties down.

“N-no..” you breathed loudly.

Before you even realised he placed you on the table, his legs pressed in between yours. His lips smashed on yours and you pulled him closer, your legs wrapped around his pelvis.

The kiss was passionate, it was heaven. It made your stomach twist and spin.

You grabbed his hair and deepened the kiss, moaning in his mouth when he grabbed your ass.

“You have to be a good girl now” Draco whispered when sinking down on his knees. Was this really happening?

He placed kisses on your thighs, going closer and closer to the place you wanted him.

“Please Draco, please” you begged breathing heavily. “Patience princess, patience” he answered, pushing you down on the desk, making you lay down on it now.

He did a silencing spell and locked the door.

You moaned when you felt him kissing your clit gently. He opened his mouth and sucked. His soft lips felt beter than you imagined. “Draco” you moaned. He inserted a finger while still sucking and licking gently. Your legs where trembling and you took off your shirt while he added another finger, making you moan louder.

“Please Draco, fuck me” you hissed. Draco’s pants grew tighter, his erection now painful, he was finally going to do what he wanted to do for so long. Fuck you into oblivion.

But not just yet.

“You want me to fuck you baby? You want me to destroy you the way I like to do? Just like all those times I destroyed you but now for real, now while I fuck you?” he asked huskily, still pumping into you, while holding your legs down.

“Yes please, hurt me, hate me, do what you want but please fuck me” you begged, not even feeling ashamed of it any more.

You heard his belt clicking, giving you the sign it was happening. His dick finally faced you.

God he was big. You couldn’t wait any more and whined.

“Is my little slut a little desperate?” he grunted with a raspy voice.

You nodded eagerly. “Yes daddy” you said.

The name made him crazy, almost made him come there and then. Without a warning he slammed into you, making you scream.

He didn’t move, letting you adjust a little but not for long.

Draco grabbed you, pulling you close to him. He was still standing in front of you while you were sitting on the desk.

You bit your lip while moaning. “Daddy’s going to make you feel good, because you deserve it, because you’ve been a good girl, okay?” he whispered in your ear, while you placed wet kisses on his neck.

He started moving, making you gasp. You grabbed his back and he grabbed your ass, allowing him to move deeper and faster.

Your forehead was on his, looking straight into his dark lustful eyes. You scratched his back, while he squeezed your ass harshly.

“Oh yes Dray, feels so good” you moaned. “That’s not my name” he grunted. “Sorry daddy” you answered looking at him with doe eyes.

He grabbed your neck, his fingers fitted perfectly around it and he squeezed gently. It made you clench around him, making him move faster. A delicate moan left his mouth.

Draco felt euphoric, waves of pleasure and excitement going through his body. He slapped your cheek. Making you gasp but also a filthy moan escaped your lips.

God it made you so horny. The pain turned into pleasure and the only thing you could hear were the fast, slapping sounds and his grunts and moans, even the table under you moved with you. For a second you were scared the table might break.

Without thinking you slapped him back. He was shocked first but a little grunt escaped his mouth. “You like that don’t you? Little slut? Does that make you feel good princess?” he grunted in your ear, making shivers go down your spine. His pace quickened, faster and faster.

“Please daddy, can i come, please” you begged while grabbing his hair and tugging on it. The action made Draco almost come too. This was the hottest moment of his goddamn life.

But he didn’t want it, not yet.

“A little patience, love” he said while turning you around and now pounding into you from behind. You gasped in shock.

He pulled on your hear when you arched your back. Your back was pressed up against his chest now and he pounded into you in an unbelievable pace.

Your head rested on his shoulder while he kissed you neck again.

You tried to not fall by grabbing the desk in front of you. His fingers were digging in your hips, pushing you up and down, clearly leaving bruises.

“Fuck” he sighed in your ear. He saw your ass wiggling while he fucked you. He was close.

“Come for me you pathetic slut, show me how good you are, come for me baby” he grunted now louder. He grabbed your boobs and trusted deep and sloppy now, still trying to hold the fast pace.

That was it for you, and you let go, seeing stars. You screamed and moaned his name. “Fuck dray” you moaned, not even caring about the name anymore. You wanted to say his name, to show him he was making you feel this good.

Hearing you moan his name like that, feeling your pussy clench and your boobs resting in his hands, made him come immediately after you. A loud grunt left his mouth: “Fuck y/n” . You both breathed heavily.

“Good girl” he sighed while placing a gentle kiss on your shoulder

You both stayed like that for a moment, still trying to process what just happened. After a while he pulled out and cleaned you up. You both put your clothes back on.

“Y/n?” he asked with a sudden shyness.

“Yes?” you answered with a little smile on your face.

“Would you... like to go to Hogsmeade with me? This weekend” he stammered, making you smirk.

“Well, if you won’t push me on the floor anymore, or scream at me or humiliate me” you smiled jokingly.

“Oh I’m going to keep that for in the bedroom from now on, darling” he smiled back, adding a wink.

***

[vagrantblvrd]

Building on this AU   where non-Batkid!Jason and Batkid!Tim end up at the same school because plot reasons, but make it a ~boarding school or something.

Jason gets in on, idk, a scholarship or some kind of program because he’s smart, and there’s some essay contest or component to get in and he’s like pfft, yeah right, like he’d ever get in - but to his surprise he does, right?

And his mom is like, Jason Peter Todd, so help me, you are going to better yourself or else!!1! >:(((((((((((((((

(OR like, some less dramatic but heartfelt plea to get the education he deserves so he can have a better life and so on, either or.)

Anyway.

This fancy schmancy boarding school with the weirdo headmaster Ra’s al Ghul who has an uncomfortable level of interest in this Drake kid - who Jason ends up befriending because Tim’s the least annoying person Jason’s met there?

Maybe Tim’s dad sends Tim there because there was some recent crisis in Gotham - Arkham breakout and a school was attacked (Tim’s school, actually) so his dad is like cool, cool, cool, maybe we should think about switching districts, or like, moving somewhere less horrifically crime-ridden, no reason.

And then he hears about this boarding school -somewhere outside Gotham - upstate NY or whatever, best he can find on short notice, idk.

Tim is like !!! because this will make Robin-ing significantly more difficult, what with the commute and all, but Bruce is just.

*gritted teeth* because the whole recent crisis with the Arkham breakout and Tim basically pulling a John McClane the whole time with whoever went for the school while he and the others corralled the rest of the escapees in the city and Tim is like “Tis but a flesh wound!” which is a filthy, filthy lie because he’s a fucking mess and came this close to dying several times and he thought Tim was supposed to be the “easy kid” of the bunch, you know?

...comparatively, anyway.

He’s like.

“Haha, wait, no, hold on there Tiger,” because maybe Tim being away from Gotham for a bit will give him time to heal up.

He fully intends to find a way to get Tim back, because his Robin and trouble magnet son and anyway, he will find a way to get Tim back, but maybe wait for all those injuries and the whatnot to heal first, yeah? Little bit of patience, Tim.

Tim’s like *side-eyes*, but he’s got a cast on one arm and cracked ribs and all these stitches so maybe Bruce has a point?

And anyway, yes.

But then Ra’s shows up and he’s like fuck, because of course Ra’s would show up to make things weird?

So here Tim is playing mind games with Ra’s and dealing with some group project where he’s doing half the work until the teacher notices and reassigns his partners and he gets tossed together with Jason and it’s like.

They’re hardly BFFs at first sight but oh how they snark at one another.

A few months later the Disappearances start to happen.

Tim is like ...fuck.

He got the stitches out a while ago and his ribs are still tender, but no longer cracked. But he still has the cast - another week or so until that comes off and then he’s good to go!!1!

But also that group project with Jason and so on, and just.

Yeah.

Still, he’s been idle, restless this whole time and a mystery is a mystery and he’s a Bat at heart, and no one else is going to solve this one, so.

Off Tim goes investigating the disappearances while dodging Ra’s - well. He goes to Ra’s first, sure the bastard’s behind it all, the real reason he’s at the boarding school but Ra’s tells him him amusing/entertaining as it would be, he’s not behind the disappearances.

(Whatever would his motivation for such a thing be, Detective?)

Tim is like “Uh-huh,” because really, but for whatever reason he actually believes Ra’s is telling the truth. (This time.)

So back to Hardy Boys-ing his way through the mystery of the disappearing boarding school students.

Jason is like what are you doing, you little idiot, but Tim still looks like a sad little kitten left out in the rain - he’s not all bruised and battered and whatnot the way he was when they met?

(And imagine Jason’s “...what the fuck, Tim” when Tim is just matter of fact like “Oh, yeah. Did you hear about that Arkham breakout a little while ago? One of the inmates and their hired goons targeted my school and then *bullshit excuse here as to how he got all the terrifying injuries* and then Batman and Nightwing swooped in and saved the day! It was great, but my dad flipped out and sent me here, so. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

Jason thinks Tim’s just a bit crazy, but sad to say he’s Jason’s kind of crazy, so, yeah. Someone has to make sure the little idiot doesn’t get in over his head.

And there are all these Adventures of investigating leads and the whatnot and getting into trouble like breaking curfew or being in unauthorized areas while investigating such leads.

Ra’s is actually amused by Tim and Jason’s little team-up, and while he doesn’t actually care about the Disappearances he is (creepily, this can never be said enough) fond of Tim so he cuts the two of them slack.

Arranges it so they get detentions or other minor punishments instead of expelled altogether, which.

There are other teachers/instructors/staff at the boarding school who definitely don’t like Tim or Jason and want them gone? But they have Ra’s protecting them so they’re safe-ish from getting booted from the place until they can solve the mystery.

And then!

Some night where Tim’s in his dorm room in his nerdy civilian jammies or whatever. Wearing glasses - hey, it works for Clark and Kon, and maybe Dick thought it was hilarious. (Part joke, part get better soon gift and just being a jackass big brother worried about Tim and the whatnot, and anyway, yes.)

Just munching away on junk food while working on homework/taking a break because!

He and Jason are fresh off another close call/dead end that almost got them booted from the school and they might have had a teeny fight about getting in so much trouble.

Like.

Much as Jason’s annoyed by all the snobby, arrogant richie-rich kids who snub him for getting into the place on scholarship or whatever, he really does want to get a better education to make his mom proud and so on. And there Tim is - maybe he’s not like the rest of the kids there, isn’t an asshole, but his family has money and he does’t have to worry about getting booted from the school because his parents can afford to send him to some other hoity-toity place if he does, and just.

Yeah.

Tim figures he should let Jason cool off and apologize to him in the morning. (And also continue his investigation without him to avoid dragging him into more trouble because Jason’s got a point.)

But then!

Tim has a epiphany or hears/sees something out his window/down the hall that he goes to check out?

And of course he gets nabbed by the baddies behind the Disappearances and is like well, shit, before he gets knocked out and dragged off somewhere by said baddies.

Not too long afterwards Jason - who’s been in his own dorm room pacing and muttering about that little idiot Tim who clearly has no self-preservation instincts to speak of and likely some kind of death wish - and fretting and worrying and feeling guilty for snapping at him earlier is like, goddammit.

Because somewhere along the lines he went and caught ~feelings for Tim, this little idiot who was all banged up from this - frankly horrifying - incident at his old school. One where he’s pretty sure Tim almost died at least once, even if Tim was frustratingly vague about how he got so banged up, with all the terrible jokes and sense of humor.

(And stupid pretty eyes and stupid pretty face and painfully smart in the worst way, and anyway, yeah. ~Feelings.)

That, Tim, is probably going to get himself killed trying to figure out what’s going on with all the Disappearances, so he sneaks over to Tim’s dorm - curfew! - and is like fuck.

Because Tim’s not in his dorm and the bag of chips or whatever he was munching on is spilled on the floor and there are signs of a struggle and Jason has no idea what to do?

But then he hears this chirping or beeping or whatever and follows the sound to some Bat-communicator that Tim kicked under his bed when he got nabbed.

Was trying to contact Dick or Bruce or whoever about the epiphany he had regarding the disappearances but then the baddies nabbed him so he his the communicator. Sure one of the Bats would get suspicious and rush out to check on him or Jason would come by and find it, something like that.

Anyway, anyway.

Jason finds it and talks to whoever’s on the other end and is like “Tim’s in trouble” and there’s the whole back and forth of who are you and so on, and what do you mean Tim’s in trouble and can’t take your eyes off that kid for a minute.

Also, Jason finds Tim’s hidden stash of Robin!gear he managed to smuggle into the school under his bed - little hidey hole under the floorboards or whatever under his bed Tim made - because Tim was about to go check out the whatever before he got nabbed.

And even though Dick or whoever is like whatever you do, do not go looking for Tim on your own, we’re on our way as we speak, but Jason being Jason, of course he doesn’t listen.

Just grabs whatever Tim brought with him and goes looking for Tim.

Like, when Jason answered the Bat-communicator whoever was on the other end was like “Tim, you were right, *insert pertinent information here*” and Jason figures out the same thing from that Tim did with his sudden epiphany, and anyway!

It’s Daring Adventure/Rescue time!

With Jason being fuckfuckfuck, how the fuck do you work this shit as he fumbles with Tim’s gear to get to him.

There’s some kind of, idk, demonic sacrifice under the school in massive cave or whatever, all very 80s movies nonsense with the missing kids locked up in cells/cages and Jason being like “Not Tim, not Tim, oh, I really hate you, but also not Tim” as he releases the missing students and tells them how to get out of the cave back up to the school or whatever.

It takes a bit until he reaches a chamber where Tim’s being held and of course, Tim is just riiight to be the next sacrifice to help raise some eldritch horror/elder demon/whatever from its slumbering death or whatever.

“I should have known!” Jason yells, after rescuing Tim from immediate death as the two of them run like hell from the baddies chasing him and Tim’s kind of out of it and laughing - it’s not funny but also kind of is, and oh, Jason, this is nothing, really, Tim has so many stories he can tell him.

And they get herded to a dead-end, Jason pushing Tim behind him because Tim’s been dosed with something and he’s not about to let the little idiot die on him now - they still have that group project due in a couple of weeks, and anyway ~Feelings - and just when he thinks they’re about to die anyway, the cavalry in the form of both Ra’s al Ghul and a group of his ninja and also Bruce and Dick and so on burst onto the scene and save the day?

Jason is like oh, thank fuck, as he makes sure Tim doesn’t get into the middle of the fight - Tim is like hey, no, he’s fine, Jason, really. he can do this - but seeing as Tim can barely walk in a straight like Jason’s like yeah, okay, how about no, jackass?

And then!

It’s Ra’s and Bruce and assorted Batfam facing off while Tim hangs off Jason and blinks owlishly all, “Hey, guys!” while Jason is like why do I like you so much you damn goof?

And tehn it’s the cops being called in with maybe some feds for extra funtimes and the Bats lurking in the shadows fretting over Tim while Jason sits with Tim and gives the cops his statement about what happened.

Tim’s parents will be out there in the morning and it’s just like, what a day, you know?

Them being carted off to the local hospital - Tim for overnight observation for whatever he was dosed with, Jason because like hell he’s going to let Tim out of his sight, and so on.

Bruce and Batfam sneaking into Tim’s hospital room to fret and fuss with Jason giving them the side-eye like whoa, and Tim completely oblivious and just snoring away and.

“So, this happen to him a lot?”

Bruce being Very Tired while Dick laughs and “Well, not exactly like this, but close enough,” and all of them like *SIGH* because fucking of course.

The boarding school gets shut down and Tim and Jason go back to Gotham.

Tim’s poor dad is like, idk how the hell a school in Gotham is safer than one outside of Gotham, but okay, yeah, sure. At least there shouldn’t be any ritual sacrifices at the next school I send Tim to.

And Tim convinces Bruce or maybe ~conspires with Barbara to get Jason into Tim’s new school because hey, friends! (Also, mutual ~Feelings.)

Jason’s oh, no, not this asshole, when he walks into homeroom that first day and Tim’s sitting there - looking a bit battered and bruised because he didn’t go down easy when the baddies grabbed him, but definitely less beat up than when Jason first met the idiot - grinning at him like hey, Jason, hey, I missed you, you asshole! :DDDDDDDDDDD

Who knows if Jason becomes an official Batkid after that, but he does date one, and of course Bruce keeps an eye on him.

(Because Reasons.)

And of course Dick gives the Jason and Tim shit, because big brother privilege and all, and of course there are these little moments where Tim stops off at Jason’s place when Tim’s out on patrol and it’s a slow night to say hey, how’s it going and maybe steal a little smooch or just flirt awkwardly before going back out to catch baddies and thwart evildoers and so on, and just.

Yes.

[outofsstyles]

WILDEST DREAMS

a/n: soo I’ve been working on this for a little while now and I’m very excited to share it with you al!! This piece is inspired by Taylor Swift’s music video for her song Wildest Dreams. If you’ve never seen the video, or don’t remember it really well, I recommend you watch it *after* reading the story so you don’t get it spoiled! If you’re interested then you can watch it by clicking *right here!!*

Word count:  17.2k                     Rated: M, mature           

You agree to help your friend on her film project and Harry is playing your love interest.

“You’ve been frowning a lot and haven’t said a single word in the past five minutes, what’s wrong?” You looked up to your quiet roommate sitting opposite to where you stood near the kitchen counter. 

A playlist you both had made months ago, meant only for cooking days, as Nia had instructed, played faintly in the background. You hummed along to the melody of a song you didn’t really know the name of, but had listened to it enough to mumble the lyrics, as you focused on cutting banana slices.

Nia was the one who brought up trying out a new fruit smoothie recipe she had found while scrolling around on Pinterest. She was pretty excited after coming home with the groceries, ready to start the process. Which is why seeing her sitting quietly as she glared at her phone was a big sign that something was wrong.

“I think Jordan is about to pull out on us,” she groaned loudly, locking her phone and throwing it on the counter, running her hands on her face, “I can’t believe this is happening a week before filming starts.”

“Oh, that’s not good news” you said, looking back at your friend’s defeated state in front of you as you threw the banana slices into the blender. “What happened?”

“He said he decided to go with his cousin to Ibiza.” Her arms muffled her voice as she lied on top of them, sighing once again, “this is the third one that leaves, I might as well just cancel the entire thing and fail this class.”

You rolled your eyes lightly at her, shaking your head as you listened to her dramatic reactions. Being her friend for as long as you have, you knew how stressed Nia got with a project, specially something she was passionate about. She was always too hard on herself, trying to push everything to be as perfect as possible, which is a good thing when you focused on the ultimate results. But she often tended to over-stress herself, and that’s what makes you worry.

With this one in particular, you could tell how excited she was from the day her teacher assigned it. She came back home and rambled for hours on end about making her first film. Which is why when she begged you to be part of it, and you couldn’t find it in your heart to say no. 

It was a small production after all, it just being Nia and her partner Evan, whom you have known had gotten close to her in the past months. She assured it would a rather simple concept, with only two characters. The trickiest part being the fact that they would film it out of town, in a camp house that belonged to Nia’s aunt. You had agreed to it to make her happy, and with her promise of buying you chocolate muffins. Most uni students, however, didn’t seem as keen to sacrifice a week of their spring break as you were.

“You’re being dramatic Nia,” you reassured, turning on the blender and cringing at the loud noise that took over the place. “Maybe they just read on the script that they would have to kiss me a couple of times and got too nervous about it,” you tried to humor, raising your voice a bit before turning the processor off. Nia looked back at you with a serious expression, making you scoff, “calm down, grumpy pants, I’m sure Evan knows someone who can do the role, stop worrying.”

“All I do is worry, you know that,” she sighed, standing up to walk towards the cabinets behind you. She selected two matching cups that she had gotten for your birthday, one had Elsa printed on it, and the other Anna. You smiled as she placed them on the counter, knowing you always thought matching friendship objects were silly, but Nia loved it, so you loved it too. She looked vaguely at the blender, letting her shoulder weight down.   “At least we have a banana smoothie.”

“And something else!” You said, jumping on your feet to get to the fridge and retrieved a tupperware. You held it in her direction and smiled, “leftover spaghetti from Joe’s!” you exclaimed, attempting to brighten her mood. She looked back at you, grabbing the container from your hands, as she tried to fight back a smile.

“Yes,  how could I forget the leftover spaghetti?”

**

As the days passed by, the both of you had gotten more stressed out. Nia was still worried about everything related to her film project. With the days passing by and no one to fill the other role on the script, she found herself on a daily cycle of stress breakdowns. 

Just two days after your former cast partner dropped out on the project to spend his week on the busy beaches of Ibiza, she had bought three different boxes of hair dyes. And as you helped her turn her hair into a light shade of pink, she cried about how everything seemed to go wrong in her life.

Meanwhile, you had been struggling to fight your procrastination tendencies and try to finish as much work as possible before spring break. A task that was showing itself to be extremely difficult, considering your mind seemed more focused on binge watching true crime shows on YouTube. 

The blank document stared back at you from your computer screen, as you wished that if you looked at it for long enough, the essay would somehow write itself. Writing a couple of words but soon deleting them and going back to an empty page, you signed. Why was it so difficult to introduce a topic? You took a sip of the hot drink on the sparkly Cinderella mug you had chosen for the day, another one of Nia’s Disney-related possessions. 

You frowned at the blank document, your failure to write a single paragraph still open in front of you. You heard a light knock on your bedroom door, but before you could even say anything, you spotted the already fading pink hair coming into the room. 

Nia walked in jumping excitedly, saying your name in little squeals and almost tripping down as she made her way to sit on your bed in front of you. Breathing out, she looked at you with a big smile and messy hair before blurting out.

“We’ve got you a husband!” you stared back at her, arching your eyebrows. You knew she was referring to the role on the film, but you still laughed off at her choice of phrasing. “Evan got someone, it’s like his old friend or something, said he trusts him not to drop out.”

“Well, fourth time’s a charm, I guess?” you smiled at her. 

“We’re planning a pizza night this Friday, so we can, you know, set the details and all that.” She properly lied down next to you, playing with the strings on the hem of your pajama shorts. “Also so you two can meet each other, of course, you’re going to be married for a week after all.”

“The way you say it seems like we’re actually doing it,”  You laughed, finally closing your computer, and moving down to face her. “We’re just playing characters, Nia.”

“I know, I know… You’re really no fun, aren’t you?” She moved her arm up to support her head and poked you with her free hand as you rolled your eyes at her. “Also, he seems pretty cute, Evan showed me his picture, maybe you two can hit off.”

“I’m sure he is,” you tried not to fall for her attempt on teasing you over someone you don’t even know. Sure, you’ll be playing love interests, but you’ve done this plenty of times before, back on your theatre days. Kissing someone on stage doesn’t mean you have feelings for them in real life, and you knew that pretty well. You sighed, looking down at her, not wanting to engage into this kind of topic.

“Anyway, should we celebrate your new cast member and my inability to write a single sentence about art history?” you changed the subject, trying to distract yourself from your own thoughts. “We could watch Devil Wears Prada and make caramel popcorn.”

Nia gasped dramatically, “these are the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard coming from those pretty lips of yours,”  jumping to her feet as she pulled you to stand with her. She then ran out of the room, screaming back, “I’ll get the blankets and you start with the popcorn!”

It’s been years since you’ve known Nia, but yet the dynamic between the two of you has never really changed. You’ve always considered yourself very lucky for having a friend like her in your life. From the day you met her in your English class, it was like seeing someone you had already known your entire life; it was always that easy to be with her. 

You two became inseparable from day one.

Looking back, it’s crazy for you to realize how well your high school plans with each other had turned out. Most people you know had those friends in school they only really talked to because they saw them five times a week. But as soon as graduation came by they parted their ways and became only good nostalgic memories for one another. With the two of you, everything just worked out. 

You both got into the university you wanted, ready to get matching art degrees. On your second year of college, you moved in together. And halfway through the course, Nia just dropped out to enroll on an eighteen months film school. And that’s when she met Nate. 

You always knew she was destined to be that kind of person who just has one great love in her life. Which was funny considering that anyone who spent over five minutes with her and Nate in the same room could swear they would never work together. They just were those kinds of couples who are the polar opposite of each other. 

Nia was a little social butterfly, who could start a conversation with anyone about anything. She could talk for hours with the old ladies at the grocery store about how the new brands of beans are just not as good as the ones not as well known. Or chat with the yoga moms about a new reality show that had premiered on Netflix. She loved experimenting on new things, trying out new recipes or mix distinct colors together on her clothes.

Nate, on the other hand, just wasn’t much of a talker at all. Since the start of their relationship, he often stops by at your apartment -wearing a different shade of grey every time - but it would be a lot to say that you two have had a conversation for longer than five minutes. He just mostly kept it to himself. 

They balanced each other, which is why they worked so well.

It would be a lie for you to say you didn’t think about having something like that for you. You thought maybe you just weren’t the kind of person to have one meaningful relationship in your life. And that was okay. You’d like to think you’re better off on your own, anyway. But now and then you wondered how it would be to fall asleep in someone’s arms every day.

But you tried your best to keep those thoughts locked away in the back of your head. You knew that for the most part love is not really meant to last, Nia was just part of the lucky few.

**

The atmosphere in your shared apartment was cozy, as you waited for Evan and his friend to arrive before you started the pizza hangout, as Nia called it. 

You both had spent the day tidying up the place, trying to decorate it a bit with some fairy lights and nice pillows you found in your room. It had been a long time since you had done any kind of social gathering in your home, and Nia wanted everything to be perfect. She even insisted on making the pizzas herself, which took most part of the afternoon, and a lot of bossing around on her part. 

By the time the food was in the oven and the only thing left to do was wait, her boyfriend joined the two of you. 

She was very talkative and bubbly, as she usually is, getting the wine bottles she selected for the evening and placing them on the counter as she chatted with him. It was nice seeing her back do being her usual self after such a stressful week. 

You got the right amount of glasses, placing them next to the bottles, as you hummed along to the Declan Mckenna’s voice playing in the background. You weren’t really paying attention to Nia’s babbles, catching a word or two as she rambled about some dolphin documentary she had to watch for one of her classes. Pouring out a glass for yourself, you looked over to Nate who had a puzzled look on his face, as he tried to make sense of whatever rant his girlfriend had going on. You took a sip of your wine, and laughed lightly at yourself at the contrast between the two of them, something you had always found very amusing to observe. But before you could go further into your thoughts, the sound of the buzzer took over the small apartment.

“They’re here!” Nia gushed, as she quickly made her way out of the kitchen to get the front door, yelling back at you to get the pizzas out of the oven.

“Yes, ma’am,” you teased after she left, earning a light chuckle from Nate. 

Making your way around the kitchen, you took out kitchen gloves that had figures of little chicks printed on them, giving one last check inside the oven to make sure everything was ready, before opening it and taking out the food. You could hear Nia greeting Evan excitedly in the background, as she rushed him and his friend to come inside. As their voices got closer, you turned your back to the entrance, concentrating on not burning yourself while you placed both pizzas on top of the counter.

“There’s our star!” You heard Evan’s loud voice taking over the kitchen space, making you look over your shoulder and laugh at him. 

You turned around while taking off the gloves, as he pulled you into a tight hug, the strong scent of his cologne invading your nostrils. He wasn’t much taller than you, making him being considered short for a man. But his presence in a room was always so loud and bright that he seem much bigger than he actually is. You pulled back and looked at him, suddenly feeling underdressed in your own home. His entire outfit was bright red, being consisted of a jean jacket and silk pants, his eyes matching with vibrant eyeshadow taking over his whole eyelids.

“It’s very nice to see you again Evan,”  you smiled at him, his hands still holding onto your shoulders as he looked warmly at you. “It’s been too long! You look fabulous!”

“Oh honey, you flatter me too much! It’s why I love coming here,” he scoffed playfully, coming to your side and wrapping one arm over your shoulder as he guided you. “But tonight is not about me, unfortunately. It’s about the two of you.”

As you finally moved your attention to the kitchen entrance, you realized another presence standing there. A man, who you assumed was Evan’s friend, already smirking down at you as both of you approached him. 

You suddenly felt nervous under his stare while you could hear Evan commenting on something you didn’t really pay attention to. You had been taken completely by surprise by the man standing in front of you. Sure, Nia had mentioned to you once or twice that he was good looking, but you were not expecting this. 

It was a weird feeling, being this affected by someone you had just met, but you would have to be blind not to notice. His face was beautiful, a sharp jawline contrasting his soft skin, his fingers poked at his bottom lip as he smirked, you could notice the hint of a dimple forming on his cheek. His hair was short, but still long enough to see the shape of slight curls forming in it, some locks falling charmingly against his forehead. But what hit you the most were his eyes, thanks to the dim lighting you couldn’t really tell if they were a shade of forest green or more of a hazel tone, but you could feel your cheeks warming up from the way he watched you as you got closer.

His shoulders were broad, as he was leaning against the entrance, the hand that wasn’t poking at his lip resting inside the pocket of his brown pair of trousers. He wore a blank white shirt, partly tucked in, underneath a beige cardigan. The sleeves had been rolled up to his elbows, making you notice the tattoos hugging the skin of his arms. You felt a curious wish to know how many more you could find under all the layers of clothing..

As you and Evan got closer, he moved from his leaning position to stand tall in front of you. The smile never leaving his lips, and his eyes still watching you closely.

“So, darling, meet Harry,” Evan spoke up, gesturing you towards his friend. “He’s a pest, but I’m sure you’ll get along just fine”

“Way to give a first impression, E,” Harry rolled his eyes at his friend’s teasing, before turning his attention back to you. He moved closer, embracing you into a side hug “S lovely to meet you-”

You quickly cleared your throat, afraid that your voice would give you away, before saying your name. The attempt didn’t really seem to work, as your words came out higher than you had intended. You could feel Nia’s gaze turning to you on the corner of your eye, but tried your best to ignore it. He repeated it, before shooting a smile in your direction, the sound of his deep voice and the way his lips circled around the words making the hairs behind your neck rise.

“Okay! So how about we move this party to the living room?” Nia’s voice broke into the atmosphere. “Everyone can get their wine glasses and make themselves comfortable while y/n and I finish arranging the pizzas.”

She shot you a knowing look, before moving to get the wine bottles and handing them to Nate. Everyone shifted to get their glasses and settle in the other room, leaving you and Nia alone. 

You moved to get the knives and looked at the pizzas standing on the counter in front of you, calculating how you could cut out even slices on each. You could see your friend from the corner of your eye leaning on the counter staring directly at you.

“You know you can’t fool me even for a second, miss,” she teased, you could hear the smirk on her voice.

“I’m not doing anything,” you murmured, still not looking in her direction. She scoffed, elbowing you lightly as she mimicked you, saying your name in a high-pitched voice. You shot her a dirty look before shushing her, afraid the guest in the other room could hear her teasing. “I didn’t sound like that!”

“Oh please! You should have seen how you looked at him!” She rolled her eyes at you, “thought you were gonna drop down on your knees right then and there!”

“Nia!” you screamed in a whisper, your cheeks warming up at her words as you pinched her, making her squeal. You quickly shot a look at the entrance to see if anyone might’ve heard her, but they seemed to be enrolled in their own conversation. “Let’s just get this done quickly before they suspect we’re in here for too long.”

“Okay, cheeky girl,” she bit her lip and moved to get a knife to cut one pizza, but still eyeing you with a slight smile, leaning in one last time, “but I told you he was cute.”

Eventually, the two of you finished sorting out the pizza slices and joined everyone in the living room. Nia then rushed to join her boyfriend on the loveseat, leaving the only spot available for you being between Harry and Evan on the couch. She shot you a teasing smile, but you tried your best to ignore it and focus on finishing the wine glass you had poured for yourself earlier.

“Okay, so I’m going to need everyone to eat the food and tell me how good it is,” Nia pointed out to the center table where the  pieces of pizza laid upon, “I’ve spent the entire afternoon on these babies, so eat up!”

“You know that I’ve helped you with them, right?” you added, squinting your eyes at her, “some credit wouldn’t hurt.”

“You only laid the toppings on the dough so they would look even,” she snapped back pointing a finger at you, “I did all the hard work, so shush it.”

But before anyone could move to get a slice, Evan was already stretching out his arms to stop you from moving. “Wait a second,” he spoke, “I feel like I’ve watched enough seasons of MasterChef to be the first one to judge.”

“I mean, you are the best critic I know,” Nia pointed, leaning in to get a slice and offering to Evan, “but again, I don’t really know any other critics.” She humored as he took the food, making a show of analyzing it.

Everyone waited expectantly as Evan bit into the pizza slice, keeping a straight face that didn’t reveal much of his opinions. Nia leaned in his direction, nervously biting her bottom lip as she waited for his final verdict.

“You have to be honest,” she warned, observing him, “but know that I can get my feelings hurt pretty easily.”

“I don’t mind that,” Evan finally said, straightening his posture as he looked back to Nia’s waiting eyes, “I’ll say that it’s not the best pizza I’ve ever had,” he announced, “but it works.”

“You know what, I take it,” everyone laughed lightly as Nia visibly released a breath she had been holding in, “It’s not a bad review for a first time.”

The hours went by quickly as you eased into a conversation with everyone. It was nights like this you missed the most when the stress of all the accumulative work weighted on your shoulders. Having a more of a cool night to hangout with a few friends, drinking some wine and chatting about whatever topic came to mind.

As time passed, you could tell Nia and Evan got more agitated, probably due to the amount of wine they had consumed without even realizing. They chatted excitingly about Midsommar, their voices raising a bit too loud. But every time you tried to shush them, jokingly reminding of the neighbors next door, they would soon forget about it again.  You watched them babble, giggling when they would get excited on a certain topic and start to trip over a few words. 

You also felt lighter because of the alcohol, not as much as them, but still enough so you could feel your chest warmer and your mind a bit dizzy. You still felt an annoying tingle at the pit of your stomach when you felt Harry’s eyes fixating on you when you spoke, or when your hands brushed as you reached for the bottle at the center table. It was silly, and it made you feel like a teenager being in the presence of an attractive boy for the first time.

When it all quiet down eventually, Nia had dragged Evan to her room so he could give an insight on how she could decorate it. It was something she would do now and then, give her room a big renovation so the change in the space could make her more motivated, or something like that. Sometimes, if she felt inspired enough, she would change around the living area or  even your own room - when you allowed her, of course. 

Nate was still sitting on the loveseat looking like he was about to fall asleep at any moment as he scrolled through his phone. He hadn’t spoken a lot during the night, which wasn’t unusual for him, but he still managed to chat for a bit. 

That left you and Harry alone sitting on the main couch, with one person less it left you enough space to cross your legs, making yourself more comfortable. He was sitting on his side, his back resting on the big pillows by the arm of the couch, his chest turned towards you.

You reached for the wine bottle at the center table, realizing there was just a bit left, enough for a last glass for the two of you. “Wanna help me finish it?”  You turned to him with the bottle in your hand. He had a smile resting on his lips, as he raised his glass toward you so you could pour the liquid into it. You could tell his eyes were a bit cloudy, but you knew none of you had had enough to be drunk.

“Thank you, love,” he said, the raspiness on his voice as he spoke the pet name making the hairs in the back of your neck rise. You poured yourself the rest of the wine left, emptying the bottle as you settled it back where you got it. “Should we make a toast?” 

“Sure,” you replied easily, smiling at him, “what should we toast for?”

He looked away, puckering his lips slightly as he made a puzzled expression, a hand scratching at his chin as if in deep thought. You giggled at his dramatics before he pointed his finger up, his face turning into a big smile. He raised his glass in your direction, as you did the same. “A toast for being husband and wife?”

You chuckled, clinking your glasses together, “that’s fair,” you said, “ ‘s why we’re here after all, isn’t it?” you joked, taking a sip of your drink before settling it down on your lap.

“Sure is,” he mimicked, rising his glass to his lips, a smirk still adorning them as he managed to not break eye contact. He took a small sip before settling his glass back on the table.  He scratched the tip of his nose slightly with the side of his finger, before he relaxed back on the couch. “So” he spoke up, bringing your attention to him, “E told me you’re an actual actress,” he raised his eyebrows at you, “made me a bit nervous, love.”

“That right there is a lie,” you chuckled, biting your lip and shaking your head. “I used to do theatre back in the day, haven’t done any acting for years though.”

“A theatre kid, huh?” He laughed as you rolled your eyes jokingly.

“I’m aware we have a poor reputation, yes,” you said,  “I reckon we deserve it, but we weren’t that bad, I promise.”

He giggled, making your heart skip a beat at the sound. His smile was something you could easily get used to, the way it formed crinkles in his eyes and the dimples deep on his cheeks. You had to stop yourself for staring too much, moving your gaze to the glass on your lap.

“People are too harsh on theatre kids,” he reassured, “I think it seems pretty fun — only time I did it was when I played Elvis when I was about five, I think.” He added, resting his arm against the couch, his hand just a few inches away from your shoulders. “Had the time o’my life though.”

“You got main character though, that’s impressive,” you expressed, raising a hand to poke at his side playfully. “Have you done anything since your big debut as the king?”

“Can’t say I have, no,” he chuckled, “guess this is my big comeback, maybe I’ll get a call from broadway soon.”

“I’m sure you will!” You giggled, taking another sip from the glass in your hand.

You found it easy to dive into a conversation with him. You were both giggly from the wine, but it still seemed like you could stay like this for hours on end,  just talking to each other. 

He told you he wasn’t planning on doing the film, considering he never really thought about acting. But when Evan asked him if he could be part of it, he saw how desperate he was to fill the role, so he agreed. It warmed your heart to hear how fondly he spoke about his friend, telling you how willing he was to help, even if it involved doing something out of his comfort zone.

You two bounded over your mutual wish to become teachers. You found out he was studying Literature, a choice that for him as an easy one, considering throughout his life he had always been an avid reader. He said no matter how harsh thing got, he always found an escape between books, you could tell how passionate he was about it as he spoke about his favorite reads.

Eventually, you could hear voices coming closer from Nia’s room, as they seemed to be gushing about the filming that was starting soon. 

As Evan came into the room, he made his way to the couch, placing his hand on Harry’s shoulders. “Honey, as much as I wish we could stay here ‘til dawn, I’m afraid we must get going.”

With his declaration, everyone moved around to gather the dishes splattered across the center table to put it all at the kitchen counter. After some insisting -mostly on Harry’s part- on helping with cleaning, you convinced them you two could handle the task just fine. And they were the guests, after all.

Finally, you said your goodbyes, pulling Evan on a small hug, assuring him you’d do your best to do his script justice.

And as you came to face Harry, he leaned into a hug, giving you a last kiss on the cheek, before telling you how lovely it had been to meet you.

**

You had woken up with your door opening abruptly, making you jump a bit from the sudden change in the peaceful atmosphere from your deep slumber. Before you could process the situation in hand, Nia was already pulling out the covers and spitting out words at a faster pace than you could comprehend in your mind state.

“Get up already! We are very late,” She urged as you lazily scratched at your eyes before sitting up to look at her. “Evan is going to kill us!” She cried out.

Your head pounded slightly, making you search for your water bottle previously prompted by yourself the night before, knowing you would need it in the morning. You reached for it in your nightstand, taking big gulps as you watched amusingly Nia run around your room picking random clothes and throwing it in a duffel bag you had just noticed.

Resting the bottle down on your lap, you yawned lightly, still in the process of waking up. “Calm down Ni,” you mumbled, “We still have time, we’re only leaving at like, two.”

She looked back at you as if you had just slapped her across the face, your shirt falling partly from her hand. “It’s already one,” she informed, making your eyes bulge as you reached to check on your phone, confirming as it read 1:16pm. “We don’t even have our bags packed AND we got a sink full of dishes to wash.”

The minutes after that were rushed, as you two did your best to get ready as fast as possible. Mentally slapping yourself for leaving everything for the last minute, but still managing to pack your bag in record speed.

But as time passed and the list of things to do was still far from over, Nia phoned Evan and let him know you would need a few more hours to be ready to leave. To say he wasn’t the happiest about the news was an understanding, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.

A couple hours later you were finally packed, and after a quick stop to shop for road trip snacks you were off on the road. 

You left much later than planned, and even if it wasn’t that much of a long drive, it was still 3 hours until you got there. The ride itself was mostly quiet, except from Lorde’s Melodrama playing softly in the background. You hummed along to the words, but apart from that there wasn’t a lot of talking between the two of you, all due to the limited amount of sleep you got from the previous night.

As you got closer, the scenery of open grass camps and blooming flowers at the peak of spring was a peaceful change of scene from the busy city streets you were used to. And when you finally got to the house, the sun was almost setting on the horizon. The sky being a satisfying mixture of blue and orange. There was a car already parked in, and as you got closer, you could see two figures sitting on the front stairs. 

Getting out of the car, you quickly made your way to where they stood. “Have you been waiting long?” Nia asked as you got closer to them. 

“Longer than I was planning to, I’ll say that,” Evan replied, taking off his sunglasses to greet you.

Harry came up from behind him, looking incredibly cozy wearing a knitted cream sweater. It took everything in you not to nuzzle on him as he met you with a quick embrace. You had to focus on keeping your breathing steady as you looked up at him when you parted. The sun coming from behind you doing wonders as it hit his face perfectly. His eyes were the prettiest shade of green as he smiled down at you before moving to greet  Nia.

“We’ve been here fo’ ten minutes, don’t listen to him,” he assured with a small laugh.

The house itself was much bigger than you expected, it wasn’t huge, by any means, but you had pictured a small cottage with barely any space for the four of you. The place, however, was big enough for you to have your privacy but still small enough to feel cozy and welcoming. 

You quickly found there were three rooms, and despite you arguing you didn’t mind sharing one with Nia, considering you two lived together, she still insisted that you and Harry had your own bedrooms. It was her way of thanking you for agreeing to help them.

After you got established in your respective room, you met everyone down at the kitchen. The place was loud with chatter as they played around while making dinner. Nia seemed to boss the boys around to cut the vegetables properly, as she concentrated on figuring out how to work the old stove. They laughed lightly as she cussed under her breath in frustration after another failed attempt. You watched quietly for a moment, before joining in to help her.

You finally turned the stove on with the help of a few matches you found laying on the counter, being able to cook with no more trouble. It was already getting late when you finished eating and gathered the dishes to lay them on the sink. Still, Nia insisted on watching one of the movies she had carefully selected on her extended collections of DvDs to bring with her. 

You decided to make yourself some tea while the rest of them moved around to arrange themselves for the movie night. After offering if anyone else wanted a cup as well, you were met with Harry’s warm smile as he accepted shyly.

Soon enough everyone settled down on the big couch to watch the movie. Evan took his place on one of the armchairs, while Harry opted to sit by the end of the couch, setting his legs on the footrest in front of him. As you walked in with your mugs, he gazed up at you, shooting a soft smile and muttering a quick ‘thank you’ as you handed him his drink.

He patted the spot next to him, indicating for you to sit, to which you happily obliged. 

“Wanna share?” he asked, holding up a blanket that lied at the arm of the couch. “There’s jus’ three of ‘em.”

“Sure,” you replied, moving to pull the blanket, so it was covering the two of you. You knew very well you could always get an extra one from one of the bedrooms, but you would never bring yourself to suggest it.

Finally, Nia entered the room with a small pack of m&m’s on one of her hands and the DvD case for ‘Love Actually’ on the other. She was quick to insert it on the player before settling down next to you. Pulling out the leftover blanket for herself, she lied down to rest her head comfortably on top of your legs.

It didn’t take long until she fell in deep slumber, cuddling up on your lap as soft snores left her lips. You pouted slightly down at her. The poor thing was exhausted from driving all the way, and the bad night of sleep the day before.

As the movie progressed, you could feel your eyelids getting heavier as well, the words coming from Keira Knightley’s mouth becoming more of a background noise as you fought to keep yourself awake. But before you could doze off, you felt Harry shifting slightly next to you. Suddenly feeling his arm hugging your shoulders, as he gently pulled you closer.

You moved your head to look at him but before you could say anything he shushed you softly and pulled you back in. “ ‘S fine, love,” he whispered, “can see that you’re tired.”

And with a half-woken mind and heavy eyelids you laid back on his shoulder and allowed yourself to snooze.

You woke up with him shifting again from under you, opening your eyes slowly to find the end credits rolling up the screen in front of you. You yawned lightly before sitting up, being careful not to wake a still-very-much-asleep Nia on your lap.

“Sorry,” you heard Harry say as you scratched at your eyes, “didn’t mean to wake you.”

“It’s fine,” you assured, your voice a bit raspy from your nap, “would have to happen, eventually.” You looked down at the unconscious girl lying on you, knowing you had to get her to bed so she could sleep properly. “We should wake her.”

“Want me to carry her to her room?” he asked.

“I think she’ll be okay,” you replied, gently calling her name so she could slowly wake up.

Surely, it didn’t take a lot of coaxing to get her eyelid to flutter open, as she lazily rose from her sleep.

You helped her to her room, afraid she’d trip down the stair in her hazy state of mind, still half asleep as she dragged her feet across the floor. 

As soon as she laid down in her bed, you made your way back to the kitchen to fix yourself a glass of water so you could go to sleep. 

It surprised you to find Harry still awake as you entered the space; he looked up at you from his position leaning on the counter with his phone in his hand. Quickly placing it in his back pocket as he saw you coming in, giving you a slight smile. “Thought you’d gone to bed.”

You reached for the cabinet Nia had pointed you to earlier where the cups were placed, picking one with little thought and closing it. “Just came here for a glass of water,” you spoke, moving the cup under the tap, “always have one next to my bed, y’know, in case I get thirsty and stuff.” You shook your head slightly, not wanting to ramble about the benefits of staying hydrated during the night just to make a conversation.

“Smart girl,” he joked, causing you to chuckle as you felt blush creeping out on your cheeks. You could see him coming closer to stand next to you from the corner of your eye, which didn’t help the tingly feeling forming at the pit of your stomach. “Excited fo’ tomorrow?” he asked, crossing his arms on top of the counter as he leaned next to you.

“Guess I am,” you answered, looking up at him and finding he was closer than you had realized. You smiled nervously as you met his eyes gazing down at you, before clearing your throat lightly. “What about you?”

“To be honest ‘m a bit nervous, love,” he confessed.

“Why’s that?” 

“I mean,” he started, his eyes still fixed on you, “ ‘s not every day I get to pretend ‘m married to a pretty girl like you.”

You could feel your heart skip a beat as he reached one of his hands to move a strand of your hair behind your ear. He kept his hand on your cheek just as his eyes seemed to gaze down at your lips, so subtly that it felt like you might’ve imagined it. 

The silence in the room was loud as you could almost hear your heartbeat pounding in your ears, as he leaned down just barely, getting closer to you. He looked down one more time at your lips, this time making sure you realized the unspoken question behind that action. You suddenly felt water pouring through your fingers, as the forgotten cup in your hand overflowed. This caused you to jump back a bit, quickly turning the tap off and resting the glass on the counter. 

“Oh my god,” you squeak, reaching out for a towel right next to the sink to dry your hand. “I’m sorry, that was-” you chuckled, glancing at Harry who seemed to watch you with an amused expression. “That was awkward, sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” He assured, picking the full glass and moving it in the counter so it was out of your reach. “ ‘t was actually quite cute,” he moved closer to you again, reaching his hand to hold at your jawline. 

You held back your breath as you felt his own hitting the top of your upper lip, your noses brushing slightly. 

“Been wanting to do this fo’ a bit now, love,” he spoke a bit above a whisper, his deep voice sending chills down your spine and making you grab at his sweater, ”would you let me?” his thumb caressed your cheek lovingly, “would you let me kiss you?”

You could feel your heart beating strongly against your rib cages, swallowing hard as you looked up at him. He was watching you closely, his dark emerald irises gazing down at you as your lips barely brushed. You nodded at him, trying to pull him closer.

“Use your words, darling,” he insisted, not budging from his position. “Wanna hear you say it.”

“Please, Harry I-” you moved your hand to grasp on his waist, “just —kiss me.”

Giving a satisfied hum, he finally leaned down, closing the space between the two of you. His hand remained stroking your cheek softly, as the other sneaked under your neck.

He moved his lips ever so slightly, his cupid bow founding its way above your inner lip, sucking on it gently. The kiss was teasingly slow, making you hyper aware of all of your senses. Your hands feeling the soft fabric of his sweater, grabbing at it as if asking for more. 

He moved the hand on your neck, pulling gently at your hair, making you angle your head up a bit. As his tongue poked to lick at your bottom lip, you opened your mouth, deepening the kiss.

You stayed like this for a while, pressed against the kitchen wall as you enjoyed the taste of each other. 

When you pulled back, he splattered a few kisses along your cheek, giving one last peck on your mouth before pulling back.

“As much as I don’t want to end this now,” he muttered, moving his hand, so they were both holding your cheeks, “We should get some sleep fo’ tomorrow.” 

“We should,” you agreed.

“We’ll get the chance to do this again,” he said, making you bite down a smile at the innuendo behind his words.

He gave you one last kiss before pulling away completely, reaching for the glass of water you had already forgotten about on the counter and handing it to you. 

You walked back to your rooms without saying a word, but still sharing glances and smiles along the way. And as you got to your respective rooms, you whispered quiet good nights before parting ways and closing the door behind you.

**

The days that followed were rushed, considering the filming had officially started. You two barely had the chance to be alone again, which was disappointing. But still you couldn’t find yourself time to miss the feel of having his soft lips against yours, considering the scenes you had with each other. What you did miss was being able to kiss him without it being written in a piece of paper, or having someone from outside tell you to. You missed the intimacy of feeling his tongue meet your own and having his hands pulling you close as you both craved for more. You missed the shared secret between just the two of you, that was knowing how it felt to have him all to yourself.

It was discomforting, earning for someone you barely even know. Jumping into a feeling you know there’s no way can end well. You both were playing characters. Lovers, yes, but it was all pretend. It didn’t help that he was so good at it. In front of the cameras he would be so loving that you often wondered how much of it was just part of the act. 

It was subtle things that made you think of it, like a glance across the room between takes. Him leaning close to you every time they called you to watch back something you had just recorded. Or when he sucked in your lip during a scene, so softly you could barely notice but still made your heart skip a beat.

But as much as it was nice to pretend that you two had some shared secret, you knew that the most likely scenario was that he was just doing his work and being friendly. So you tried your best to convince yourself that all of it was just your mind playing tricks, this way you could prevent yourself from inevitably getting hurt. That encounter in the kitchen was most likely his way of making things less awkward to when you inevitably would have to do it in front of a camera. That was it, nothing more. 

It seemed to have worked pretty well, you two had the chemistry Evan hoped for when he wrote his script. Nia kept teasing you with every given opportunity. You didn’t tell her about the late night kitchen situation, but you knew she could sense the ‘chemistry’ was not simply because you two were just that good at acting. No one was complaining though, considering everything was going so smoothly they suspected it could be wrapped up even earlier than expected.

Every time they would mention the possibility, you found yourself wishing deep down something would set you back on the schedule. You felt bad for it, and you never voice your inner thoughts, but you knew wrapping up early meant going home early, and you were getting a bit too comfortable getting to act all loved up on camera.

As if some kind of outer force had listened to your wishes, just as you were halfway throughout the week, mother nature seemed to be your biggest ally.

You had just woken up with the annoying tune of your alarm clock, one you had chosen for finding it soothing at first. But you soon found that those sounds are not meant to feel soothing at all, as it woke you from your deep slumber. You were quick to turn it off before rubbing your eyes softly and enjoying the warmth of your bed for a few more minutes. You could hear the gentle sounds of raindrops hitting your window, but barely paid any attention to it as you rose lazily, stretching your arms above your head.

Making your way down the stairs you first noticed Evan standing by the big window in the living room, looking out with a hand resting on his hip and the other one holding a mug. Behind him, in one of the armchairs, sat Harry, also drinking out of a mug as he read a book quietly. But as if he felt your presence as you got to the bottom of the staircase, he looked up, smiling at you as you made your way into the room.

“G’morning,” he spoke, alerting the man by the window of your presence as he turned around to look at you.

“Good morning,” you said back, before realizing the worried expression on Evan’s face, “is everything okay?”

“A disaster just happened, honey, look out the windows!”  he snapped, gesturing behind him where you could see the rain hitting the glass. The sky was dark with clouds, suggesting it was just the beginning of the storm that was to come. You looked back with a puzzled expression, knowing the weather was not the best, but as far as you remembered you had already shot all the scenes you needed outside. Evan rolled his eyes, “our natural light is gone, honey, it’s too dark to shoot!” he barked.

“Hey, no need to yell at her like tha’,” Harry looked back at his friend, attempting to calm him down, “ ‘s fine, we were early on schedule anyway, one day is not gonna delay it.”

He shot a look at Harry, his hand finding its way back on his waist as he let out a deep breath. “I’m sorry, this is just incredibly frustrating.”

You smiled at him to assure it was fine, knowing how much stress he was putting on because of this project. “Doesn’t Nia have one of those light things you were using the other day to make the scene brighter?” You suggested.

Evan sighed, “that’s a reflector, it just— well, reflects the light, we would need the sun for it to work, and seems like she’s not showing her face anytime soon,” he weightened his shoulders down, clearly feeling defeated. “I guess today is our off day — we should use it to pray for sunlight tomorrow, otherwise I’m pulling my hair off.”

When Nia woke up, you could tell she was not happy at all with the news that filming had to be cancelled for the time being. She spent the whole breakfast whining and crying about the poor weather. You tried your best to console her, but knowing your friend you knew her dramatics showed off when she worried about something. She tended to overthink every scenario that could go wrong, which did nothing to help the pressure she put on herself.

The day went on as eventless as it possibly could, the rain outside just seeming to get angrier as time passed by. You did your best to distract Nia from her own head, asking her about the recent documentaries she had watched, knowing she could go on tangents for hours. You talked about crime shows you have started before filming and shared different theories you had on them. You even listened to her deep analysis of trashy reality shows she loved to watch and always tried to drag you to get into it.

You talked and talked with no end, considering there wasn’t much else to do. Nia’s aunt hated computers and refused to install any kind of wifi, leaving you with a shitty connection that barely loaded a five-minute video.

As the evening came by, and the raindrops still hit angrily at the windows, you decided to watch another movie — this time it was Evan’s choice of Freaky Friday. 

You volunteered to grab the blankets from the cabinets on the second floor, while Nia excitedly announced she would make popcorn for everyone.

Quickly moving along the hallway, you made your way in front of the doors and opened them. You could hear footsteps coming up the stairs as you tiptoed to  reach the top shelf where the soft blanket you had used the first night lied on top of. 

“Need help?” You heard a voice approach, looking over your shoulder to find Harry walking towards you with an amused expression on his face. You nodded, chuckling as you quickly stepped out of the way to allow him to take your place. He reached up, easily retrieving the blanket and giving it to you.

“Thank you,” you muttered, looking up at him for a moment.

“No problem, darlin’,” he said, fetching two other blankets  before closing one door with a swing of his hip. You closed the other one with a small giggle. You started to quietly move along towards the staircase when he cleared his throat, causing you to look up at him. He kept his gaze down before speaking softly, “After the movie, think I’ll go back to my room a bit early,”  he looked at you for a moment, “ ‘f you want to join me.”

You stopped walking to look at him arching your eyebrows surprised, not expecting this kind of proposal at this moment. He stopped a step ahead of you, staring back with nervous eyes and shooting you a shy smile. “I’m not saying we have to do anything, I just-” he spluttered, “just wanted to be with you, without the camera and stuff.”

You smiled at him, “of course,” you voiced, “sounds nice.”

Shortly, you found yourself in the same position as the first day. Sharing a blanket with Harry, but this time Nia was wide awake next to you with a bucket of popcorn plopped on her lap. Some people would consider her to be the worst kind of person to watch movies with, considering she would always get too excited and comment on every scene she could. You had gotten so used to it with time, that it felt weird watching a movie without her voice interrupting a scene every five minutes.

It got hard to concentrate on this one in particular, and not because of Nia’s speaking over the lines, but the sudden feeling of Harry’s hand resting on your knee halfway through it. Your legs were crossed on top of the couch, making part of it rest slightly on top of his as he eased his thumb over your skin.

As time passed, he moved his hand up a bit, finding its final place on your inner thigh, causing goosebumps to arise on the back of your neck as he caressed it softly. You caught yourself holding your breath multiple times, something he was also probably aware of, considering the position of his arm on the side of your chest. 

The tension between you two was almost palpable as the end credits rolled up. At that point you had prompted yourself to lean your head on his shoulders. He grasped your skin slightly before removing his hand and motioning his position to get up, making you pull back from him.

“‘m going back to my room now,” he announced as he got up, shooting you a knowing look, “g’night.”

You stayed back for a few minutes so as not to look too suspicious, folding up the blanket you had used and scrolling through your phone for a bit. Not long after you excused yourself, climbing the stairs two steps at a time.

You found him in the hallway, leaning in on the wall right next to his door as he looked down on his phone. As he felt your presence he gazed up, grinning softly before bringing his finger above his lips as to warn you to stay quiet.

The two rushed inside his room, trying to be as quiet as possible, considering your friends downstairs could come up at any second. He closed the door behind him, looking right at you as he leaned back. His room was similar to yours, the difference being a few more clothes lying on top of the small couch standing at the corner. The curtains hanging on the big windows were pushed open, allowing the moonlight from the now-clear sky to illuminate the place. 

Your breath got caught in your throat as you stared back at him, meeting his dark irises. He started stepping closer to you until he could lean his forehead against yours. His hands found their way caressing your jawline, one of them going as far as to pulling lightly on the hair above your neck. You held your breath, gazing up at him as you waited for his next move.

He smiled lazily, brushing his nose against your softly before placing a peck to the corner of your lips. He was teasing you, his hand leaving your hair to find its way down your body, paying special attention to the side of your breast before placing itself holding your waist.

You swallowed dryly, feeling your heart speed up as you pulled him closer, wanting desperately to close the space between the two of you. Too scared that your voice would give out your desperation, you moved one of your hands to the back of his neck and pulled him in. He didn’t think twice before finally closing the space and allowing you to feel his lips against yours.

The kiss started slow, both of you still trying to figure it out how it was to taste each other like this. His lips were soft, moving teasingly as he sucked on your bottom lip. Your hand pulled his hair gently, causing him to whine into mouth, licking at your tongue as he deepened the kiss. The hand on your waist moved up, caressing the side of your breast softly as he tried to pull you in as close as possible.

He started easing you backwards, considering neither of you were willing to break the kiss to watch where you were going. You felt the mattress of his bed hitting the back of your knees. You allowed him to lay you into the bed, parting for a moment so you could move upwards, laying your head on the pillows. Shortly enough he joined you, placing his elbows on both sides of your head, not wasting any time before closing the space between your mouths again.

The two of you stayed like this for a while. Slowly kissing each other, as your arm found its way back behind his neck and one of his hand caressed your cheek. You could get used to this, with him being the only thing you could sense. His taste. His touch. His scent. 

He was all you could think about.

When you finally pulled back, you could see his red, puffy lips even with the limited amount of lighting going into the room. 

He looked into your eyes for a moment, “you look so pretty like this, darling,” he murmured, his voice just above a whisper, sending chills down your spine. “Could eat you up.” 

A small whimper left your mouth, as he dove back in to spread kissed along your cheek and down your throat. You bit hard into your lip and swallowed back a moan as he sucked in a spot right below your jawline. You could feel him grinding his hips down on your tights, making you aware of the growing bulge inside his sweats.

You placed your hand on his shoulders, pushing him gently and disconnecting him from your neck. He pulled back, looking back at you with a puzzled look. You kept pushing him until his shoulders hit the mattress, reverting the previous position you both were in, as you stranded his waist.

Looking down at him, you wanted so badly to discover his body, to make him feel good. So you took the same position he had on you. Placing your lips against his neck and running your tongue against it, sucking in his skin. You kept doing it as your hand smoothed down his body, finding the hem of his shirt and lifting it enough so you could scratch at his love handles. He gave you a small moan, a sound so delicious to hear you that made you want to swallow him whole. 

Both his hands found their place on your waist, pressing you down so you could feel his need between your tights. You quickly pulled your head from his neck, giving him a soft peck on the lips.

“Please, love, just-” he grunted, looking up at you with pleading eyes. “Just do something, please, I-“

His hands gripped tightly on your waist as you rolled your hips against him. Neither of you could contain your moans as you repeated the movement, even fully clothed his bulge rubbed deliciously against the place you needed it the most. 

You leaned down again, this time pushing his shirt up as you made your way down his body, splattering open-mouthed kisses along his warm chest. You paid a special mind to the tattoos you met along the way, sucking spots over the wings of a butterfly inked on his stomach. As you licked along the leaves of the ferns that adorned his love handles, you felt one of his hands tangling in your hair, his hips rising slightly as he whimpered.

“A bit impatient, you are,” you spoke, feeling his belly tighten as you placed a playful bite under his belly button, causing another moan to leave his lips.

“Darlin’, please,” he whined, “Just- fuck, just need you right now.”

You decided not to tease him for too long, considering you needed it just as much as he did. Finally, you moved down once more to place a kiss above the hard on over his pants. He lifted his head, watching your every move as his hand that was placed on your hair pushed some strands away from your forehead. You wrapped your hand around the hem of his sweats, rising your eyebrows at him as you felt he wasn’t wearing any underpants. The thought of having such easy access to him making you press your thighs together, feeling your wetness already damping your underwear 

Slowly, you bit your bottom lip, keeping your gaze focused on him as you moved his sweats down, he raised his hips as to help you out. Once his cock was fully out, you stared back down at it lying proudly against his stomach. You ran your fingers gently along his length, causing him to hold his breath, his abdomen tightening once more. He was definitely bigger than anyone you had ever been with, causing your mouth to water a bit and your thighs to press together once again at the thought of fully having him.

You could feel him peering down at you as you wrapped your hands around the base and applied the smallest amount of pressure. The precum was already escaping from the tip and sliding down the tiniest bit. 

Moving your head forward you looked back at his waiting eyes, spitting on top of the head as you moved your hand up caressing it. This time he gave you an actual moan, throwing his head back at the pillows behind him. 

Looking down at him, you didn’t know where to place your lips first, wanting to bite and lick every part of his body. Finally deciding on sucking a spot on his thigh, right next to where rested an ink of a tiger head.

You kept the movement of your hand, twisting it and applying more pressure eventually as you watched him shift around under you. He raised his hips slightly as he pleaded under his breath for more, his hand firmly on top of your head as the other was thrown above his own.

You moved your thumb to run across his slit, caressing the head with a flick of your wrist as you moved your mouth to place kisses at the base. At this point he became a moaning mess, throwing his arm over his mouth as to muffle the sounds while you licked up his shaft.

“God- fuck- such a good girl,” he moaned on his arm, moving it out of the way so he could look down at you. “Doing so good, you feel so good- shit.”

Smiling at him, you jerked him off a couple of times before resting your hand at the base so you could replace it with your mouth.

You licked around his head, giving it a small kiss before you moved down as far as you could go. He cried out, tightening his grip on your hair and moving his hips up to meet your movements as you sucked on him.

He was desperate to reach his climax, and you were desperate to see him cum undone under your touch. So you started speeding up, your mouth licking at his veins, your hand helping you as you moved it along his dick. He was cursing and moaning over you, pleading for you not to stop. You kept moving your hand as you licked at his head once more before detaching so you could look up at him with pleading eyes.

“Almost there?” you asked, having him nod frantically at you, “will you let me have a taste?”

That seemed to do it for him, as he pushed your head back down, making you attach your lips to his head as you felt him shoot his load inside your mouth. You milked him as he came down from his high, feeling his softness on your lips as you swallowed down.

You sat up and looked down at his hazy eyes while he calmed down with heavy breaths. He adjusted his sweats quickly before moving himself up to pull you in for a frantic kiss. “God, darling, you’re a dream,” he spoke between kisses, his hands gripping at your waist as he positioned you to lie on top of him, moving one of them under your shirt, pulling it up slowly.

You quickly placed your hand on top of his stopping him from going further as you detached from him. He furrowed his brows at you. “I should go back to my room,” you said, “got an early day tomorrow.”

He gave you a puzzled look, “but you still haven’t- “

“it’s okay,” you interrupted, moving to get up from his bed, suddenly feeling nervous under his gaze, “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay? Good night!”

You left his room before he could protest, wanting to slap yourself from running away like this. 

**

The next morning was thankfully much brighter than the one before, with sunlight shining through the windows at the earliest hours. You didn’t get a lot of sleep, tossing and turning around, replaying the previous night in your head. The thought of what could’ve happened if you had stayed imprinted itself in your mind. You started to overthink it. What did he even think of you? After running away like that? 

Your thoughts consumed you as you sat in of the stools in the kitchen by yourself, for the first time being the first to be awake. Your coffee running cold by the minute, as you frowned to yourself, taking a sip every so often.

It didn’t take long until you didn’t find yourself alone anymore, having Evan join you as he happily cheered about the nice weather. You nodded along to him, not really in the mood for talking as you anxiously poked at your nails.

It was when you walked towards the sink to wash your used mug that you saw Harry walking into the kitchen. His hair messy and his eyes sleepy, making you annoyed at how charming he managed to look even after just getting out of bed. 

He greeted you with a raspiness to his voice, his eyes lingering on you a moment too long as he smirked before moving to the cabinets. He stood next to you while you washed the dishes, grabbing himself a bowl while he worked on his breakfast.

Yours arms would brush every so often as you moved while doing your tasks, making you gaze at him. He kept a grin sitting on his face as he casually made a conversation with Evan, his dimple poking out the smallest bit, but still not looking back at you.

As soon as you were finished you left for your bedroom so you could get ready for the day, but not before sparing one last glance at Harry. This time his eyes were already trained on you as he chewed slowly his fruit salad. You felt your cheeks getting a bit warm from the eye contact, making you look down and leave the room with a speeding heart.

The work started early, as you ran around to keep up with the schedule after losing one day of productivity. 

Harry seemed to be in it for teasing you. His touches lingered longer than needed. His kisses were harsher, the need behind them being almost palpable. His gaze on you told you something you couldn’t really tell exactly what it was. Lust? Desire? You weren’t entirely sure, but every time you caught him watching you felt a warmth take over your face.

In one occasion, between takes, as Nia and Evan discussed the best position for the camera considering her broken tripod. You stood awkwardly waiting for their instructions as you played with the hem of your dress. You could feel him staring closely, looking up to find him with the same smirk he gave you in the morning. He looked quickly over your friends who were still trying to figure out the problem before leaning up close to you “Still haven’t let me have a taste, love,” he said quiet enough to that just you could hear, the words sending a chill down your spine and making your core twitch as you glanced back at him.

That same night, after you announced you’d tuck yourself in, just as you changed into your pajama shorts, you heard a soft knock on your door.  You opened up to see his darkened irises staring back at you as he quietly let himself in. And within a few minutes he found his place between your legs, your hand gripping tightly at his curls as you moaned into your pillow.

The  following day wasn’t much different, starting with a tight filming schedule that was coming to a close end. An exchanging of glances across the room and yearning touches with underlying motives behind them. Ending with you lurking into his room at the dark hours of the night, craving-filled touched and muffled moans.

**

The wrap up of the film was welcomed with a bittersweet feeling settling itself in the pit of your stomach. Knowing as much as you were glad everything had gone as smoothly as possible during this week, it was time to leave it all behind. 

You were nervous about how it would be with Harry after you got home. Was this the start of something that could potentially become a warm and beautiful feeling? Or was it just a lust-filled affair that would end as quickly as it had started? It made you anxious to think about it, not wanting to let go of it just yet.

Nia walked into the living room with two champagne bottles that had been brought up for this exact moment. The atmosphere was filled with chatter as everyone celebrated the end of the hard work. 

You were dressed in the fanciest clothes you had brought on your rushed-packed bag, which consisted itself in a black blouse and a loose pair of pants you stole from Nia’s wardrobe a couple weeks prior. But you once again could not compete with Evan’s sense of style, as he seemed right out of a cover with a hot pink turtleneck under a sparkly black dress that hung all the way to his feet.

But you still couldn’t keep your eyes off of him.

You watched as he laughed along at something that had been said, his eyes meeting yours for a moment before fixing on Nia as she offered to serve him the champagne she had just opened. 

He looked so good. 

Like you, he didn’t opt for a very glam look, wearing a simple graphic white tee with a rainbow printed on it, and a simple pair of checked trousers. But as plain as someone could argue it was, he still managed to look incredibly inviting, which made it harder for you not to latch yourself onto him.

You were coming into your sixth or seventh glass when it all died down. Your head was fuzzy, and you felt giggly as you cheered along with everyone about the successful week you had. Nia had already gone back to her room. She didn’t  drink as much considering she would have to drive early in the morning, wanting to leave most of the celebration for the premiere day. 

The glances stolen between you and Harry were getting more frequent, the longing in each other's eyes visible with the effect of the alcohol.

**

He had you pressed up against your bedroom door as he sucked in your bottom lip harshly. His hands gripped at your waist tightly, putting his weight against you.

You wrapped your hand around his neck as the other pulled at his shirt desperately with the need of having him close. You felt overwhelmed by him in the nicest way. Having his hips pressing against your own, making you open your tights slightly as you felt his arousal straining on his trousers.

You whimpered into his mouth at the feeling, suddenly needing him as close as possible. You could tell his desperation matched your own by the way his hand pressed on the side of your body and his mouth moved against you. His groans getting lost in your throat every time you tangled your fingers on his roots, pulling at it.

“You’re gonna kill me like this, baby,” he breathed out, his lips moving against your wanting ones, “so fuckin’beautiful.”

You tried to keep your shaky hands steady as they travelled down his chest, scratching as his tummy lightly under his shirt before you began pulling it up. He detached from you to quickly reach over his shoulders and pull it off completely.  He didn’t waste any time bringing his hand to unbutton your blouse, peppering kisses along your lips as he moved it down your shoulders, only to be met with your bare breasts underneath.

“Fuck me,” he groaned staring down at you, attaching your lips once again as he pulled you from the door as he fiddled with the zipper of your pants. You stumbled on each other's arms across the floor until you were met with the plush feeling of the bedcovers on the back of your thighs. 

You stepped out of your pants as they got loose around your waist and fell damply to the floor, allowing Harry to push you gently into the mattress. He quickly got rid of his own trousers, wasting no time before towering above you, connecting your mouths once again.

It was like no matter how close you were, it still wasn’t good enough to satisfy the craving you had. You still wanted more. Needed more. 

He was fully licking into you, his hands gripping your tights as he rolled his hips to meet yours. You moaned in unison at the feeling of your arousals meeting deliciously as he repeated the movement once more before parting your mouths so he could spread kisses along your neck.

“Harry,” you breathed out his name, dragging your nails along his back as you moved your hips up eagerly.

He moved his head from your neck o hover above yours, licking his lips teasingly as he looked down at you with dark eyes. He moved one of his hands to caress your cheek lovingly, as the other found your breast, his thumb grazing over your nipple. “Can I have a taste, baby?” he leaned his forehead against your, not breaking eye contact, “just a fo’a bit, then you can have me.”

You nodded frantically, brushing your nose against his. He gave you one last peck on the lips before moving down again to lick down at your skin. He pressed open-mouthed kisses at your chest, sucking harshly between your breasts.  His tongue moved along your belly, craving his finger into it playfully like you had done to him, making you squeal above him.

He finally settled down between your thighs, his hand gripping at them to keep it apart before moving teasingly slow to the hem of your underwear. Your breath got caught in your throat as you moved up to lean on your elbows, gazing at him, hyper-aware of his every move. 

He looked up, grinning like a devil, before moving his face down to nose gently at your mound. Pulling away, he pressed his hands on your sides, sliding your underwear off your legs as you helped him, raising your hips slightly.

You whimpered as you felt him kiss along your inner thigh, meeting your middle as licked you once. Your hips raised impatiently, making him smirk at you again before completely diving in.

You got lost in the pleasure as he licked his tongue into you, letting yourself fall back in the cushions behind your head. Your hand moved to grip at his hair tightly as he sucked in your clit, making you yelp and call out his name. His mouth was warm as his saliva mixed with your own wetness every time he licked into you.

Feeling your arousal pooling on your folds, you desperately needed to feel him as close as possible. Wanting every inch of him against you.

You pushed him from you, grabbing at his shoulder so he could move up to face you again. He didn’t protest, spattering quick kisses along the way before pressing his mouth against yours. The taste of champagne still lingering on your tongue mixed with your own taste on his as he licked into your mouth.

“y’taste so good, baby,” he groaned, parting from you as he moved to remove his briefs. The limited amount of light illuminated his face beautifully, making you able to notice the glistening of your juices down his chin. You felt your core twitch at the scene above you, desperate to have him fill you up.

“Please,” you urged him, grabbing at his hips to pull him down.

“Can I have you, darlin’?” His voice was raspy, as he looks down at you with hooded eyes, “‘d you let me?”

Your arousal blurred your mind, your grip on his waist tightened as you raised your hips impatiently, nodding along to his question.

“Have to hear you say it, love,” he spoke, leaning down to place kisses along your neck, “just say it, and you’ll have me.”

“You can have me, please, I-” you moaned desperately, babbling words without thinking, “I need you, please.”

He raised his head from your shoulders, giving you a quick peck before reaching down to guide his length between your folds. Your belly tensed as he rubbed his head against your clit, holding back your breath as he finally slid in you.

“Fuck, you’re wet,” he choked, pushing his hips all the way, allowing you to feel every inch of him fill you up. You breathed out a moan, reaching your hand on his back. “‘s this all fo’ me?”

You whined out a ‘yes’, rolling your hips as a way of urging him to move. 

His movements began slow, his cock rubbing heavenly against your walls, making you clench around him. You both moaned and whimpered as your lips brushed.

“Can feel me deep?” He asked, resting his forehead against yours as he pushed his dick all the way in. You nodded, yearning for him to start moving again. “Can feel me in y’belly?”

“H, please,” you begged, gripping your nails on his shoulder blades.”Want you.”

“y’have me,” he kissed you hard before moving again, rolling his hips as he picked up the pace.

 The air around you was hot as you threw your head back with the delicious feeling of him hitting the spot inside of you. He was addicting. The salty taste of his skin. The touch of his hands gripping on your sides. The smell of his cologne faintly mixed with sweat. The sound of his skin meeting yours. It made you earn for him in every possible way. 

You felt your wetness dripping out of you as he pulled your leg up to your chest, allowing him to effectively hit deeper spots. The new position made a cramp start to creep up on your thight, but you ignored it to focus on the way his hips met yours.

Time seemed to pass like a blur as you pleasured each other, but soon enough you felt your orgasm building up. His thrusts became more frequent and smooth as he felt you clench more around him.

“that’s it, baby - fuck,” he grunted, moving his hand down to flicker your clit, causing to arch your back, moaning loudly. “Wanna feel you come for me.”

His cross necklace dangled over you as he watched you closely. You kept your gaze locked on his as you felt the feeling deep in your tummy take over your entire body. A moan got stuck in your throat as you opened your mouth to an ‘O’ shape, digging your nails further on his shoulders as you reached your high.

**

Getting home, you soon realized that throughout the week you had been so lost in your feelings with Harry that you didn’t even think of asking him for his phone number. 

The month that followed passed by surprisingly quickly. During the first week you were swiftly thrown back again into your old reality of course essays and textbooks. You hadn’t heard a word from Harry, and the most frustrating part is that he seemed to have settled his place inside your thoughts. You tried asking about him to Nia once or twice again, but every time she seemed to come up with vague answers and change the subject, so you figured she had other things to worry about. 

It was a disappointing end, to say the least. Even knowing from the start that being let down was the most possible outcome, it didn’t hurt any less. You often wondered if it had been something you’d done that made him pull away, or if he just wasn’t in it from the start.

By the second week you had gotten a job at a tiny local cafe you used to go after class to study and eat cinnamon rolls. That’s when time starting to rush by, as you found yourself busy through most of your day. Nia was working more than you’ve ever seen her. You two barely talked as she spent most of her time with Evan or inside her room editing. And as the week at the camp house got further away, it started to almost seem like you had imagined all of it. 

Having a lot of distractions helped, but you never seemed to push the thought of a certain curly-haired boy completely away. Sometimes during a tedious lesson you would daydream about the feeling of his lips against yours. Or right before you fell asleep you would think about the taste of his skin, how strong his hand were gripping on your thighs. Maybe even at work. When there wasn’t a lot of movement, you could almost hear the sound of his voice.

It was aggravating, the effect he left on you. It got to a point where you got angry; sometimes at him but sometimes at yourself. He was the one who had gone after you, and yet he was the one who disappeared. But again, he didn’t really owe you anything, and that’s what’s frustrating. You were the one who allowed him; you knew from the start that you would get hurt but you still went for it, anyway.

As you got closer to the premiere night that was planned, you started to get anxious. You would catch yourself daydreaming more often, not being as focused as you were. You even started picking your nails again, which is a habit you thought you’d kick it a long time ago. But truth to be told, you were nervous.

The thought about seeing him again made your heart race. You wished that you could somehow find a way not to go. Maybe ask Nia if the two of you could have a private viewing. You had even thought about bribing her with making your mom’s brownie recipe. But you already knew the answer before you even suggested it. This was an important night for her, and you would be there to support it.

You were overthinking this. Was it going to be awkward when you met him? How would you even greet him? Would he kiss you? Would he ignore you? Should you ignore him? All the scenarios in your head made you want to throw up and run away.

**

When the two of you finally arrived, you were greeted by a cheerful Evan, who jokingly teased you for being late. As you got into his house, you found a bigger group than you expected. It seemed like you and Nia were the last ones to arrive, as there was around ten other people in there. Some of them you recognized from being Nia’s friends, others you had never seen, but none was the one you earned to see the most.

Evan guided you across the living room area, “I’ll show you the kitchen so you two can get some drinks,”  He held up his glass as he spoke. Gesturing to the entrance of the room, “We’ll start everything in around ten minutes, so get ready.”

As you entered the kitchen behind Nia, you could feel her stiffen her posture a bit, before looking back at you. You frowned lightly at her, confused by her behaviour, gazing inside the room and finding immediately a pair of green eyes already watching you. It made you think back to the first time you were in this exact position, except in your own kitchen. This time, however, he was the one to approach you.

He looked really good, which did nothing to help the butterflies flying relentlessly in your stomach. He was in all black, a buttoned up shirt with a few buttons open, exposing a bit of the skin on his chest where a silver necklace laid upon. You swallowed dryly at the sight of his hand running swiftly through his hair, with a ring hugging each one of his fingers. 

As he got close, he greeted Nia first, giving her a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek, before turning his attention back to you. He shot you a shy smile, before embracing you into a hug. You didn’t really know if it was your mind playing tricks but you felt him a bit hesitant as he greeted you and placed a kiss on your cheek. Pulling away, he cleared his throat, running his hand again through his hair, he almost seemed… nervous?

“‘S nice seeing you again,” he mumbled, “this uhm… ‘s my girlfriend, Jess.”

You could felt your heart drop with his words as you finally noticed a smiley girl coming to his side. 

She wasn’t much taller than you, her red hair pulled back in a perfect ponytail. She matched him with a small black dress that annoyingly hugged her body in all the right ways. You could barely register her greeting you, as you tried your best to keep a straight face to hide the shock that took over your body. You felt a heaviness at the pit of your stomach, a feeling so distressful that made you want to scream as an attempt to make it go away.

You didn’t pay a lot of attention as Nia made a conversation with the girl, knowing that’s what she did best. You kept your gaze directed to Harry, your eyes asking a million questions - you didn’t even think you wanted to know the answers to. But he kept his eyes locked on the floor, eventually looking up at the girl in his arms as she seemed to mention him. But never meeting your own.  Her hand was caressing his chest lovingly while his found their way on her waist, keeping her close.

“I think I’ll get something to drink,” you announced, realizing you might’ve interrupted the conversation as they stopped talking. You turned to Nia, “do you want something?”

She looked back at you with sorry eyes, “I should go with you,” she quickly turned back to the girl, “It was lovely meeting you, Jess.”

“Oh! Sure,” she smiled brightly at you two, her hand moving to rest on Harry’s chest, “we should go get our seats as well, right, babe?” 

You left the scene as quickly as you could, not wanting to hear any more of it. Looking at all the drink options on top of the counter, you tried to think which one could get you drunk enough to stop feeling hurt over someone you spent just a week with, but still sober enough so that you could pretend everything was fine. Before you realized, Nia was standing next to you, getting two plastic pink cups before she stared at you with guilty-filled eyes.

“I should’ve just told you about it,” she sighed, “I didn’t want to make you sad, but looking back it was probably best if you already knew.”

You turned your head to look at her, “so you knew it all along?” You swallowed the lump in your throat as you felt it close once again.

“Evan told me like a few days after we got back!” She rushed, “I don’t know if they were together while we were filming.”

You took a deep breath, knowing Nia was probably blaming herself for putting you into this situation. But you knew it wasn’t her fault, she would never purposely put you in this position if she knew about it before.

“You know what, it’s fine,” you tried your best to cover up the hurt and gave her a weak smile, “it’s not your fault Ni. It’s okay. I’m fine.”

She pulled you into a tight hug, “I’m sorry, bubba,” she said, “let’s get you something to drink so you can enjoy this party like the star you are!”

The two of you decided on the vodka mixed with watermelon juice, something you had never even thought of trying before but seemed to be ideal to handle the situation you found yourself in. You walked back to the living area, where people were already beginning to settle on the chairs. 

Following Nia, you prompted yourself on a seat at the edge closest to the door, opposite to where Harry sat with the girl. His girl. You thought bitterly, taking a big sip from your cup and cringing at the strong taste.

There was a speech you didn’t pay much attention to before they started the film, only giving a slight smile when you realized the mention of your name. 

Before you knew it, the lights were out and your face took over the screen. 

It was harder than you thought it would be.  Looking up at the scenes you had with Harry, knowing everything that happened behind the cameras. Knowing every touch and every kiss felt more than just playing a character. You knew the actual feeling of having him to yourself. But now staring at it right in front of you, it just left a sour taste in your mouth. 

You finished your drink barely ten minutes into the film, the feeling of your chest aching starting to become overwhelming as you watched your shared kiss on the big screen. You could feel your throat close once more, your eyes watering a bit.

“I’m gonna get some air,” you whispered to Nia sitting next to you, who gave you a sympathetic smile as you got up. You glimpsed quickly to Harry who had his eyes trained on you, the girl next to him leaning to whisper something in his ear.

You could feel the tears falling down stubbornly as you left the room. Standing in the hallway, you made the decision to turn to the front door instead of the back, not wanting to face anyone with reddish eyes.

You left the house, picking your phone with shaky hands as you managed to call a ride home, sighing in relief as your screen told you it was just about three minutes away.

You heard the door open behind you as stood on the sidewalk hugging yourself to get some warmth on the chilly night. You tried your best to swallow back your tears as you turned around, expecting to find Nia looking at you with pitiful eyes. 

To your surprise, the person standing there was Harry, looking like a deer caught in the headlights as he took in your tearful eyes. He spoke your name in a soft voice, causing you to look away.

“Don’t-” you interrupted, raising your hand at him, “I don’t wanna hear it.”

He frowned at you, not wanting to upset you more. “I’m sorry,” he hesitated, taking a step forward.

Your phone buzzed in your hand, as you watched your ride pulling in front of you. You looked back at him, “I’m sorry too,” you said before moving to enter the car. 

You spared him one last glance through the window as the driver pulled away.

[thiswaycomessomethingwicked]

That ‘Gríma lives at the end of ROTK’ fic would be absolutely everything - I’ve always wanted something with that premise to exist, but of course, there’s hardly any Gríma content out there! If you ever end up writing one, I can’t wait to read it!

💜💜 One day! It might happen! I do have ideas for it.

Like, I have a very specific few scenes in my head and a vague plot where Grima ends up in Lake Town or maybe out near Rhun for a bit involved in Middle Earth's First Printing Press, about which he has many Hot Takes and Spicy Opinions.

But here he is anyway.

Travels back to the Shire regularly for Reasons. Namely, Frodo Gets It and other people don't, necessarily, understand what the ring/dark lord/evil wizard can do to a person's head and sense of self. Frodo understands Grima in a way I don't think anyone else would be able to, and to a certain degree, vice versa. Other than Sam, of course. He gets it, too. But from a different lens. Less broken. etc.

They're manifestly different people, Frodo and Grima. Frodo is stronger to a certain degree, originally came from a happier and more hopeful place, but is absolutely broken at the end. Grima, I think, started broken and just kept going in that direction yet, beneath it, evidently had a will to live and keep striving. Which is shown with the Saruman Murder Scene.

But I think they'd weirdly work as a sort of mutual healing thing. I wrote this in another post about Grima, but it applies regardless - people are wounded through relations to other people, and yet it is also through relationships that healing occurs. I feel like between them all - Frodo, Sam, Merry, Pippin and this fucking weirdo they picked up from Rohan, some balance could be found.

Nothing heals completely - Frodo would still go to the Undying Lands. He still wouldn't be able to make shift in the Shire. But I think some things would be different. Like, he wants so badly to see the good in people, to help people, and he has little opportunity to engage in that in a way that's successful. Fucking Gollum went and yeeted himself, the ring, and Frodo's finger into Mount Doom.

Yet, this presents an opportunity for some successful helping to occur. Which I think is something Frodo needs. Here is Grima, this broken shell of a man, and he is here because of Sauron, because of the despair and fear wrought by men who want to use it as a means to control and contort the world to their liking. And this is an opportunity to show that his journey to Mount Doom wasn't in vain, that those most directly, and irrevocably, impacted by the dark lord and his servants, can be helped and can change for the better. That some good can be found in them.

-

Grima's this back/forth sort of person. Scared of Sauron/End of the World, doesn't want to die, doesn't want to fight - also, greedy, lustful, selfish, cowardly - little that is nice. And he wants. He is someone who so very clearly wants. He wants love, he wants to belong, he wants safety, recognition, some sense of control - and while he does all this wanting (and it's so much wanting) I can't help but wonder if, beneath it, he doesn't strictly believe he deserves to have everything it is that he wants. Or, if he isn't also a little scared of it. Of himself, even.

I think the journey back home, There and Back Again: Grima's Edition (he sends Frodo letters to include; it's a whole appendix and a half. 90% of it is gossip Grima's picked up while poking around in Lake Town and Bree and other places he goes to while Finding Himself for a few years), I think that journey would be meaningful and - provided Grima is able to be open to it, which he could learn to be - could lead to him being like "maybe I'm not a worm? Maybe I deserve to sleep in the bed and not on the floor and I'm not a half-breed cur and I'm allowed to eat from the table."

Sam does that Growth.Gif bit.

Eventually he does make it back to Rohan and goes through the whole pay-your-weregild journey there. But it's been quite a few years at this point, since the war, and so things are different. And he's different. And Eomer et al are different.

It'd be so weird! And there'd be so, so, so many emotions flying all over the place.

Gods, can't fucking wait.

-

Ugh I'm so sorry, this became a mini-essay.

Guys, friends, my fellow witches, demons, intergalatic space people, dragons, wanderers - all of you - I just .. i just have a lot of thoughts and feelings about Grima. So many of them. 1100+ of them.

So I'll end it here and just say that this fic might happen. Have to finish my current LOTR rewrite - which does have a Grima Redemption Bit but you know, it's different than this. Very different.

I will say, Grima 100% goes into "must squirrel away food" mode whenever Gandalf is around because he associates White Wizards with Starvation & Murder (& possible cannibalism? because of the aforementioned starvation).

and someone had the fucking gall to say Grima would be the bad roommate between him and Saruman. i'm not still angry about that post that's really old.

Thank you so much for the ask and for the encouragement! It's true, we have precious little good Grima content out there. It's a damn shame. 💜💜

[thejilyship]

Jily + arguing + 'You're not understanding this, James.'

I made it fem!jily, because that’s what I wanted to do. 

This did get away from me. 

2.4k words

ff.net | ao3

They argue all the time now.

When Lily complains to Mary about this, while Jamie is out with her friends so there’s no chance of her overhearing, Mary reminds her that they have always argued. That there has never been a time where they knew one another and didn’t argue. 

Lily doesn’t know how to explain to Mary that it’s different now. 

That if she sits next to Jamie at breakfast and accidentally bumps her arm against Jamie’s arm, then the incident will spiral into a heated argument about the importance of personal space and Lily listing out the top ten reasons she’s never sitting next to Jamie again. 

Only Lily doesn’t have a list of any reasons to never sit next to Jamie again, and she leaves the table feeling frustrated and a little sad that she can’t even enjoy breakfast with her friend anymore. 

If they are partnered together in class, if they have to do patrols together, if they run into one another in the owlery, it doesn’t seem to matter what they’re doing or where they are, they will find a way to be at each other’s throats and it’s not fun like it used to be. It’s not playful, it’s not entertaining, Lily no longer seeks out these interactions. She avoids them, and so she’s taken to avoiding Jamie as well, since she can’t seem to have one without the other. 

And fighting with Jamie like this, it just hurts.

Mary just laughs at her when she tells her that she’s no longer speaking to Jamie. Wishes her luck and flicks her on the tip of her nose. 

They are roommates, so avoiding her entirely is quite the task.

Lily still resents getting flicked.

She’s head girl, so it should be easy to avoid doing rounds with Jamie. But one night when she’s meant to patrol with Remus, Jamie showed up instead. 

“No,” Lily said, narrowing her eyes and crossing her arms over her chest. “No, I’m not patrolling with you.” 

“Then you’re patrolling by yourself.” Jamie was glaring at her, like Lily was the reason that Jamie had been such a pain in the ass lately. “Remus isn’t feeling well, and he asked me to cover for him. I didn’t know that he was set to patrol with you or I would have told him to ask someone else.” 

Lily frowned. 

She didn’t want to patrol with Jamie. But she couldn’t patrol by herself, not after what Wilkes and Mulcieber did to that Ravenclaw boy last week. 

And Jamie knew that. Lily wanted to believe that even if they had been sleeping facing opposite directions simply to spite one another, Jamie wouldn’t leave her to patrol the corridors alone. (At least, Lily was facing the opposite direction. They both slept with their canopy pulled entirely shut, so there was no way for Lily to be certain that Jamie was facing away from her, but she had a feeling.)

They stood across from one another outside of the Gryffindor common room, silently glowering until the portrait opened and a fourth year walked out, saw the two of them and quickly muttered something about having left their book in the library. 

Lily waved them off and then sighed. 

“Alright, fine. Let’s just get this over with.”

“I love and appreciate the enthusiasm, Evans.”

“Spending time with people who openly can’t stand me is one of my favorite things to do. Especially people who were my friend up until a couple of weeks ago.”

Jamie tilted her head back and forth with a mocking look on her face and Lily clicked her tongue.

“What did I even do? Why have you been so angry with me?”

Jamie crossed her arms over her chest and huffed.

Lily ground her teeth together and clenched her fists. Fine. They didn’t have to talk.

They remained silent until they reached the next corridor.

“You’re the one who’s angry.” Jamie muttered.

“Me?” Lily answered immediately, as though they hadn’t walked in silence for two and a half minutes. “It seems like everything I do bothers you! You threw a pair of my shoes out the window yesterday because they were on ‘your side of the room!’”

Jamie shrugged. “Mary accio-ed them back.”

“You still threw them out the window!”

“Okay, well you charmed all of my robes lime green! Slughorn gave me detention for that!”

“Because you spilled ink all over my history essay!”

“Well you wouldn’t look at me while I was talking to you!”

“Why can’t we get along anymore?” Lily shouted, startling a pair of Hufflepuffs as they rounded the corner.

“Get back to your dorm,” Jamie snapped at them, and they exchanged looks before hurrying off. “I don’t know.” She said this to Lily.

“Well I hate it!” Lily carded her hand through her hair. “Why aren’t we friends anymore?”

Jamie’s tense shoulders relaxed a bit, and her voice was quieter, “I don’t know.”

“That’s not good enough.” She looked over at Jamie, trying to catch her eye, trying to find something about the other girl that gave her some kind of hint as to what was really going on. “I hate being upset with you.”

“Well then stop.” Jamie said, purposefully unhelpful. She was trying to start another row. Lily was not going to have it.

“Fine.” She took a deep breath, closed her eyes for a moment and then dropped her shoulders. “Fine.”

Jamie glanced over at her, cautious and disbelieving.

“Glad that was so easy for you.”

Lily knew how Jamie was when she was needling, when she was looking for a big reaction, and normally she fell for it. But this was the first time in a week that she’d allowed herself to be around Jamie without pretending that the other girl didn’t exist, and she wanted answers. So she wouldn’t be falling for any of Jamie’s taunts.

It had always been hard to be Jamie’s friend.

It had always meant keeping secrets and treading carefully, and while sometimes it had felt like it was all too much, like she was going to explode with the pressure her secret built up inside her heart and her head, most of the time, she just liked being around Jamie. She liked making her smile and talking about classes and doing their homework together. She liked helping Jamie with her hair and teasing her about how her socks never matched. She liked finding excuses to hug her, to sit closer to her in the Great Hall. She liked pretending to need help in Transfigurations so that Jamie would spend extra time explaining things to her. Coming up with reasons why she needed to borrow her jumpers.

Once she pretended to be out of shampoo just so she could ask Jamie if she could borrow hers. She’d spent the entire day distracted.

It had taken Lily an embarrassing amount of time to work out what all of that meant.

It hadn’t been until the end of sixth year when Lily realized that she most certainly fancied Jamie Potter.

And now, two months into their seventh year, Lily was sort of terrified that she was losing her friend before she mustered up the nerve to tell her the truth.

She didn’t want to lose Jamie.

“It’s not easy. Nothing is ever easy when it comes to you.” Lily said. “But you’re my friend and there is clearly something going on. So, until you tell me what it is, I’m not going to shout at you or retaliate anymore. I’m tired of this.”

“Sure. I’ll give that five minutes and you’ll be back to telling me how much you can’t stand me.”

“You’re not understanding this, Jamie.” Lily huffed. “I can’t stand how things are between us right now. I can’t stand that I can’t talk to you like I used to. I can’t stand that you never look at me anymore. I can’t stand a lot of things about this situation that we’ve created, but you? No.” She shook her head, looking back at Jamie.

Her face was al scrunched up and her knuckles were white. She dropped her arms from over her chest and shoved them into the pockets of her cloak.

Lily waited. They made it down two more corridors and Jamie still hadn’t said anything.

“Jamie,” Lily said almost afraid now. Was it too late? Had she accidentally did something that had made Jamie upset with her without realizing it? Had she somehow started all of this.

Jamie swiped at her cheek and turned her head away.

Lily reached out and stopped them both in the middle of the corridor. “Why are you crying?” She asked, not sure if she’d ever seen Jamie cry before. Her worry bubbled up her throat.

“I’m not,” Jamie said quickly, but she was.

“Tell me what’s wrong. Please.”

Jamie reached up and grabbed a fistful of her own hair. Then she threw her hands in the air and huffed, “I’m gay, Lily.”

Lily stared at her blankly, but when she didn’t continue, Lily nodded. “Yes. I know that. You told me when we were fourteen. You told everyone when we were fourteen. You asked McGonagall if she could make an exception to the dress code so that you could where rainbow socks over your tights. You told Mary and I that you wanted to marry that chaser from the Harpies-”

“I know that you know!” Jamie interrupted. “And I know that we’re friends, and I know that I’ve been a bit of a dick recently, and I know that you’re overly affectionate with all your friends-“

“What are you going on about?” Lily was so confused by the sudden turn in their conversation that she was no longer worried that Jamie didn’t want to be her friend anymore.

“You’re always hugging people! Me, Mary, Remus, Marlene, Alice, Frank- your friends! You hug your friends. And you compliment them all the time, especially Mary, which is fine!” Jamie put her hands up, palms facing Lily who still didn’t have a damn clue what she was going on about. “You’re exceedingly kind and wonderful and all that.”

“Then why have you been fighting with me for the last month! Why have you been acting like you want nothing to do with me?”

“Because it got too hard! I was just trying to put up some boundaries, for my own sake, and then it got a little out of hand.” Jamie’s hands were back in her hair now. “I didn’t mean for things to go this far. I don’t want to be fighting with you all the time, I just… I don’t know what to do.”

Lily chewed on her lip. Lily had, in all likelihood, been quite obvious about how she felt about Jamie, perhaps Jamie had noticed. “Was I making you uncomfortable?”

“No.” Jamie answered quickly, looking up and down the hall. “Of course, you weren’t.”

“Then what boundaries were you trying to set?”

Jamie opened and shut her mouth a few times before she looked Lily in the eye and just huffed in frustration. She smiled at her, though even that looked frustrated. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“You didn’t mean for what to happen?” Lily was going to shake her if she didn’t spit it out. Jamie covered her face with her hands and Lily reached out and grabbed her wrists, pulling her hands down. “Come on, Jamie. We’re so close. Just tell me what happened.”

Jamie took a deep breath, looking down at their hands and then brought her gaze up to meet Lily’s.

“If I did something or said something that made you uncomfortable, just tell me so that I can never do it again. I want to go back to being able to smile at you when you walk in a room instead of feeling like I need to leave immediately.”

The corner of Jamie’s mouth quirked, but then fell back down. “Please don’t smile at me anymore.”

Lily narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me?”

“Lily, I fancy you. I tried to stop, I didn’t mean to start, but I fancy you and sometimes being your friend is hard.” Lily tightened her grip on Jamie’s wrists and felt as though she’d been frozen. “I don’t mean for it to be hard, and I know that that’s something I have to figure out, clearly in a different way because I’ve mucked everything up recently.”

“Jamie,”

“I know. And like I said, this is for me to work through, I’m not expecting-“

“Jamie shut up.” Lily let go of her wrists and took a small step back.

“Rude.” But she stopped rattling on.

“Do you mean that? Do you really fancy me?”

Jamie ran her hand through her hair and nodded. “Yes. I do.”

Lily felt laughter pushing through her and she spun around as it erupted, her face splitting into a giant grin. She steadied herself and put her hands on Jamie’s shoulders.  

“Did I break you?” Jamie asked, narrowing her brow.

“Maybe,” Lily stepped closer to her, this time so the tips of their shoes were touching. “I have felt like you’ve broken me so many times in the last couple of years.” Jamie seemed to be the frozen one now as Lily leaned forward until their foreheads were resting against one another. “The next time you tell me that you fancy me, can you do it so that it doesn’t sound like an apology?”

Jamie’s eyes were searching her face and Lily slowly brought her hands up from Jamie’s shoulder to cup her face, to brush her thumbs over her cheeks. Jamie’s eyes fluttered closed and then she strained against Lily’s hold until their lips connected.

It was a short kiss, but sweet and full of hopeful disbelief. 

“I fancy you, too,” Lily said, her hand pushing through Jamie’s curls.

“Yeah,” Jamie said against her lips, Lily could feel the start of her smile, “I haven’t seen you kiss any of your friends like this before.” Overly affectionate with all your friends. Lily laughed quietly.

“Not like this,” Lily agreed.

The tension that had built up between them over the last month melted away further with every kiss, until Lily felt completely pliable in Jamie’s arms.

When they pulled back, when they had finished smiling dumbly at one another, when they had remembered that they were supposed to be doing rounds and restarted, holding hands this time, Jamie let out a low hum. “I guess I owe Sirius five galleons.”

Lily started laughing. 

And Jamie made sure she kept laughing for the rest of rounds.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Drop: Chris (BTHB: Wrapped in Blankets)

Prompt fill for @badthingshappenbingo : Bundled Up in Blankets, requested by @scorpiowhump for Chris. 

CW: Trauma recovery, referenced pet whump and institutionalized/legal slavery. Referenced negative/self-injury stimming including head banging.

Direct sequel to This Isn’t Hypothetical for Chris.

“I, I’ll just drop the class. That’s, that’s, that-that’s what I’ll do, just drop the, um, the the class, Jake, is all-”

“Bullshit. Making you drop a class because you were right is fucking bullshit.” Laken sits back, frowning, and Chris’s eyes skip to the side, away from the sparking, crackling fury there. Their fingertips brush over the bandage they’ve applied to the side of Chris’s forehead, and he winces at the sting. “Sorry. You were hitting your head again, weren’t you?”

Chris lets his eyes roll up towards the ceiling, chin tipping with the motion, and he doesn’t answer the question. He only pulls the pale blue weighted blanket that Laken gave him for his birthday around himself tightly. With its heavy soft warmth, he feels less like he’ll float away, or crack apart into a thousand puzzle pieces. 

“Chris,” Laken says, soft but insistent, taking his hands in theirs, holding his long, cold fingers in their warmer, smaller hands. “You can’t keep doing that. You’ve been banging your head all week since it happened. You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Chris’s fingers twitch in their grip, but he doesn’t answer them. He can’t, can’t think of how to explain the noise inside his head, the jangling off-key sound of his thoughts, the way every bit of light overwhelms him, all the sounds of people shouting and laughing and talking and not being like him makes it build and build until there’s nowhere else for it to go.

There are dark places, quiet places, but he can’t be in them all the time, and the cold light inside of Chris needs somewhere to go. 

“Al, already did,” He finally says, with a slight smile. “That’s why the, the the-the bandage, right?” They don’t return the expression, only shake their head, a bit of thick wavy black hair falling over one of their eyes, and rub at his shoulders and arms through the blanket. 

He reaches up, lets his fingers run over the short undercut they wear along the side of their head, the way it feels soft like fur under his fingertips, rougher when he runs back the wrong way. He hums, and Laken only watches him, worry in their eyes. It’s familiar, reminds him of someone, but he can’t think of who.

Baby, you’ll get a concussion that way, we have to redirect, okay?

Who told him that? Who taught him to redirect? Do they know he keeps forgetting and has to learn it all over again? Would they be disappointed in them, if they knew?

Something tells him it doesn’t work that way, not with the shadowy memory-voice he hears sometimes, whoever it was had the brush of hair over his cheek, whoever held him when he couldn’t stop screaming. 

“You’re past the drop date for this class,” Jake says heavily. He’s sitting on the couch, leaning over the paperwork Chris brought back from his meeting with the grad student and the professor officially overseeing the class. The grad student’s written summary doesn’t match what Chris said, but even more than that, it doesn’t match Chris. Chris doesn’t have violent outbursts, and he certainly doesn’t have violent outbursts without provocation. Chris isn’t someone who starts yelling over nothing, he’s just… not the person they’re saying he is, at all. It’s a piece of creative writing masquerading as an incident report. “If you drop now, you fail, full stop. Do not pass go, do not collect $200, your GPA will take a hit-”

“I don’t, don’t, don’t-don’t-don’t care.” Chris shakes his head, just to feel his hair move against his skin. “I… I have to, to drop, anyway. He… he said, he, um-”

“What?” Laken leans forward, until their forehead just touches Chris’s, careful to avoid the injured spot, the sensitive bruised skin under the adhesive pull of the bandage. “What did he say, Chris?”

“I said us,” Chris whispers. “When I talked about, about… pets. Instead of them. He knows.”

There’s a silence that draws out, in the living room. The sound of Jake shuffling papers around, and of Laken’s calm, steady breathing. “There’s nothing in here about that,” Jake says in a low voice. “I didn’t see-... I’ve read this stupid fucking essay that asshole wrote like three times-”

“He didn’t write it, it down.” Chris tightens his grip around Laken’s fingers, but his own aren’t warming up to match theirs. “He told me after the, the professor left that he heard it. Which means-”

“He could report you.” Jake sighs, rubbing his hand over his face. Chris feels suddenly very, very small. “Per-fucking-fect. Did he say what he intends to do with this information?”

Chris swallows. “Nothing.” 

Laken and Jake exchange a look that Chris can’t read, he’s not good at reading the looks where people have whole conversations without actually saying anything. He looks up between them, one to the other, wondering what they are saying about him without speaking.

“So… if he’s not going to do anything-”

“He won’t say anything to, to, to anyone,” Chris says, softly, “as long as… as I drop the class.”

There’s a beat of quiet again, and another conversation held in silence that Chris can’t follow, only feel its weight, and then Jake clears his throat. “Chris, did he really-”

“Yeah. He really.” Chris shakes his head, pulling away from Laken’s grip, sitting back in the armchair. His right hand traces over the sleeve of his compression shirt on his left, and he taps against the back of his hand. He has no tears left. “He doesn’t want to… to get charged with, with corrupting influence if, if, if-if I get picked up. He said he, he doesn’t… doesn’t want to, to, to-to teach… pets.”

“This is bullshit,” Laken says again. “You’re not a fucking pet anymore. They can’t-”

“Take the fail,” Jake interrupts, and Laken spins in their chair to look at him, but Jake is staring down at the papers. “It’s fine. You can take an extra class later to fix a little of what it’s going to do to your grades. Just take the fail.”

“Jake, you’re not fucking serious-”

“Yeah, Laken, I am.” Jake’s anger is usually worn openly, but now it’s tightly coiled inside of him. Chris can feel it underneath the air in the room. Once upon a time, every hint of safety he could hope for was based on how well he could read the anger in the handlers or his Sir before it came down on his head. Most of it is gone, but… but in these moments, his skin prickles, the hair on the back of his neck wants to stand up.

Danger. Run. Danger. Hide. Danger. Be still. Danger. Be good.

“This asshole can’t force Chris to-”

“That asshole can call Chris in, report him, report us. They charge people like me, and they charge people who know and don’t report, like him. I get it. I get it, but I fucking hate it.” Jake sits very still, and then he’s up and off the couch and Chris flinches instinctively back as Jake balls up the paper with the grad student’s report on it and throws it violently at the wall. “Fuck!”

The little ball of paper bounces harmlessly off and hits the floor.

“That is singularly un-fucking-satisfying,” Jake says, staring at it. Laken and Chris only stare at him, Laken with the same anger in their eyes that Jake feels, and Chris with an old, barely-concealed fear. 

There’s a beat of silence before Jake speaks again. His voice is back to calm, but there’s an edge to it that gives him away, no matter how even-keeled he is trying to keep himself. 

“If those are his terms, we take it. We can’t risk safety to prove a point, to be right. Understand? It… it sucks, and I’d give my right fucking arm for ten minutes alone with that dick with no consequences, but… but this is still an out. He’s still giving us a way he won’t report. If he’s giving me a way to keep Chris and my rescues safe, I have to take it.”

“But… that’s-”

“Bullshit?” Jake twists a wry smile. “You bet your ass it is. But that’s-... that’s lib life, isn’t it? Just wading through waist-deep bullshit trying to give people the life they deserved after their real lives were fucking stolen, and the whole time I’m building up the fucking fort, these assholes - from dickbrain grad students right up to the goddamn Senate - are taking bricks out from the bottom hoping it’ll collapse and I can’t-... I can’t risk it, just to fight this, Laken. I have to think about everyone, not just Chris, but also… I have to think about Chris. Winning this battle could cost him. I want to - I want to fight this - but if we do…”

“That dumbass gets Chris in trouble,” Laken says, and groans. “Which means cops, and jail, and worse. Christ, Jake, do you think he just doesn’t want Chris in his class and this is a way to make it happen so nobody will fight it?”

Jake takes in a breath, lets it out. “Maybe. His worry could be legitimate, though.”

“Or he could just not want to face how fucked up this is,” Laken points out. “But he’s got us fucked both ways from Sunday for sure. We’re boxed in, no matter what we do.”

“Don’t say, say box,” Chris whispers, a shudder racing through him.

“Yeah, pretty much.” Jake paces, walking from one end of the living room to the other and back again. On TV, a cartoon about a spy is playing, but none of them is paying any attention to it. It’s just background noise to the conversation none of them wants to be having. “He could report Chris anyway, honestly. He doesn’t have to keep this promise. And if he does-”

“WRU will, will, will take me back,” Chris says, pulling his blanket as close as he can as though he could hide within it, and the tremble in his voice catches Laken and Jake’s attention again. The two turn to look at him, and Laken leans back forward, hands on either side of his face. Their hands, pale palms with warm brown skin, nails painted thick matte black, are warm and dry, and Chris lifts his own to cover them, closing his eyes. 

“They won’t,” Laken says, with fierce and total conviction. “They won’t. Never, ever. Now that I know, I’d-... Chris, I’d never let them. I have… my family knows people, we could get you somewhere else.” They lean forward, and he feels the warmth of them just before their lips touch his, and he answers the kiss. The throb of fear and anger inside him fades, a little, under the strength of their need to be here for him, even when he is difficult, even when he can’t stop hurting himself, even when he says us instead of them.

“I can’t believe he would rather turn Chris in than teach him,” Laken says, after a second’s pause. “I thought-... you know, the grad students aren’t that much older than we are, and people don’t think about it the way they used to. I just… I just thought-”

“I know. I used to think that, too. But.” Jake sighs, and moves to pick up the little crumpled ball of paper. “Maybe lighting this on fire would make me feel better?”

“Doubt it.” Laken pulls Chris’s head against their shoulder, the denim of their black jean jacket scratchy but still soft with wear and age, and he hums, rocking into them lightly, as their arms slide up and around behind his neck to hold him. “You’re okay, Chris. One failed class is nothing. We’ll figure it out. We’ll figure this out.”

“Maybe I should, should, should drop out. Give up on, um, on college.”

“Absolutely not,” Laken says, at the same time Jake says, “No fucking way.” 

“You’ve worked too hard for this,” Jake says after a pause. “You spent years working to relearn how to read so you could start studying for your GED and get a good score, you were so excited for this. This is just one bump in the road, this isn’t a dead end, I swear. We’re not giving up, Chris.”

“But-”

“We’ll tell him you’ll drop the class. He’ll keep it quiet, and you can go right back to normal. Nobody has to know but us.” Laken’s voice is low, and Chris wants to trust them, wants to believe. 

“We’ll figure it out. One failed class won’t wreck you, Chris.” 

Jake sits on the arm of the chair Chris is in, and slides an arm around his shoulders behind him, over the blanket. Laken is warm in front of him and Jake is warm beside him, and Chris hums again, but lower-pitched this time. The two of them are the soft, soothing darkness that holds back the white light.

“I just-” Chris lets the words die in his throat, and taps on his own stomach while Laken and Jake hold him, tears hot behind his eyelids that he refuses to let escape. He’s so tired of crying, he’s so tired of it being hard, he’s so tired of something unsettling his world every time he thinks there won’t be any more earthquakes.

Brick by brick, Chris is building a life - and the time he spent on his knees and on his back comes back to haunt him, whenever he lets himself relax. Whenever he feels safe. Whenever he thinks it won’t haunt him any longer.

“We’re not giving up on you,” Laken murmurs. “Don’t you give up now, either.”

--

Tagging: @burtlederp​, @finder-of-rings, @endless-whump​, @whumpfigure​, @slaintetowhump​, @astrobly​, @newandfiguringitout​, @doveotions​, @pretty-face-breaker​, @boxboysandotherwhump​, @oops-its-whump​ @moose-teeth, @cubeswhump​

[harryandtheweasleys]

Ron and his big surprise

Ron walked on a beautiful spring day along the lake. He had promised to search Flubberwurms for Hagrid, but still hadn't found one. When he walked on his eyes catched something shiny. There was sommething at the bottem.

He walked closer and ran his hand through the mud, to take a closer look.

When he saw it he couldn't believe it. "But ... that ... couldn't be ..." he mumbled. He had found gold! GOLD!!

He ran back too the common room. He had to tell Harry and Hermione. But when he came back, they were nowhere to see. He asked Ginny, but she didn't know either were they were.

Back in his dorm Ron tried to finish his transfiguration essay, but he couldn't stop thinking about the gold.

And at that precise moment he came up with his brilliant idea. He was going to dig up all the gold on his own, so he could surprise his family and friends.

He could buy his family a big house and new clothes, give Harry finally something back of the same value and Hermione, he could buy her every book she wished for. He was sure she would love that and blushed slightly at the idea.

But how did you dig up gold? He hadn't a clue. The gold was mixed with mud. No one could find out either, they would steal it. No he had to do it unnoted and hide the gold.

The days after it he spent all his spare time in the library searching information about gold and how to dig it, which made Harry and Hermione quite concerned.

"Ron, you're almost living int the library. You are spending even more time in there than Hermione." Harry said

"I'm only doing research." "Research wherefore?" He felt he it was getting hotter and hotter. Why had he put on this stupid warm blouse. "Nothing special, okay!"

Hermione was a bit more tactful than Harry. "But Ron, if you tell us we are abto help you. You always help us too."

"You don't have to, really." "But we want to!" Hermione said frustrated. "Just leave it okay. I'm fine don't worry." "But Ron!" He walked quickly to his dorm and heard Hermione still screaming his name.

After another week of research he finally knew exactly what he had to do. He sneaked out on a Saturday morning and went to the lake. He had digged for almost 5 hours when he started to get hungry. He hid his stuff and went back.

Back in the great hall Hermione was waiting for him. "Where have you been!? I have searched everywhere for you." "I ehhh ... was just ... walking outside. It's-ehm really nice outside." "You were walking?" Hermione said sceptical. "Yes I was! And if you are okay with it, I am going to eat!!"

But hermione didn't give up that easily. During lunch she couldn't stop watching him, observing him. It made him nervous. "So what are you planning for the afternoon?" "I-ehh was intending to go outside again." "Can I come?" "No." "Why not?" He started to get it hot all over. "Hermione please, drop it." "No Ronald first your almost living in the library doing 'research' and now you have been the hole day outside 'walking'. You never walk and never alone!"

"Okay fine! I was planning a surprise. Are you happy now??" Hermione her mood had changed completely from anxious to curious. "A surprise? What kind of surprise?" "I'm not telling you. And if you will excuse me I'm I still have lots to do."

He was satisfied when he walked away. This was indeed going to be the biggest surprise. And he couldn't wait to give it.

Every Saturday he went digging. He had already collected quite a lot. And hid it in the woods. He was daydreaming more and more and even at nights he dreamed about it.

Even the previous night he had dreamed about the things he could give his family and friends. And if he closed his eyes he saw everything again. He saw his mother crying with pride. He had just lead them in a new big house. His mother had a hole new kitchen with everything it needed and for his father a lot of really cool muggle stuff that even he liked. For all of his siblings there were new clothes. Everyone had here there own room. And there would be spare rooms. His mother could also get her own sewing room, his father a room where he could investigate all the muggle stuf he had already collected. And when Harry and Hermione arrived he could tell them they had also a room in the house. And then he would lead Hermione to her own library. All the books Hogwarts had, there wouls be in here. Hermione would be so happy and kissed him on the cheek, but unfortunately he had woken up after that.

His work progressed faster and faster. Hermione and Harry didn't bring it up either, so he could work undisturbed. After a couple of weeks he had almost collected 15 bags with gold and there was still gold for another bag.

When he finally had digged up al the gold he hid the bags separately on different places. It was too late to go to Gringotts now. He would go tomorrow.

But because of adrenaline he couldn't sleep at all. And the day after it he got up so early that no one was yet in the great hall for breakfast. He ate fast some bread and went outside. When Ron reached the spot where he had the gold hidden, the sun was about to rise. He waited a couple of minutes to see the sun rise on this beautiful day. He collected the gold and went to Gringotts.

When he came in Diagon Alley it was very crowded already but he had luck, in Gringotts there was still a goblin free to help. "I wanted to hand in some gold I found. Can you tell me how much gold is worth?" "One kilo is worth 40.000 Galleons, but I'm afraid I have to disappoint you. This isn't gold but pyriet. It looks like gold, but it isn't." When the goblin saw Ron's bewildered face he added. "Well Goblins see those differences you can't do anything about it that you're just a wizard. They just dont have our sharp eyes."

Maybe the goblin meant it nice, but it didn't make Ron feel better at all. "Well I have 16 bags with this pywiet stuff, it has to afford something?" "No, it doesn’t. So i can't help you."

Disappointed and frustrated he went back to Hogwarts. How could he be so stupid? He had already told Hermione he had a surprise for them. Oh why had he said that so easily. He should have kept his mouth shut, now he hadn't a surprise at all.

When all the fake gold was back in the lake he sat down. He was hungry and wanted to eat something, but he didn't dare to face Hermione and Harry. They would know immediately that there was something wrong. And then he had to explain hoe stupid he was to think he had found gold.

It was already getting dark when suddenly Hermione stood in front of him. He was so lost in his thoughts that he hadn't see her coming. 'Ron where have you been? I was so worried when you still weren't back during dinner. I-' she stopped talking when she saw the bags and the mountain of fake gold in lake. "Is it-?" "No it's fake. I thought I had found gold. I thought I could buy so many things for you and-ehh all te rest ofcourse."

"I would have a big house built. And everyone would have their own room. There would be even some spare rooms for hobbies and guests."

"You would even have your own library! With all the books you wished for." Ron said sad. "And now I can't give you or anyone else something. I'm still that poor Weasley who has nothing to offer." "Oh but Ronald you give me everyday everything I could wish for. You give me and the rest love, respect and joy. There isn't enough gold to buy such things. And you know what is even the most adorable thing about this?" Ron turned slightly pink when she called him adorable. "Nnno-no." He stuttered. "This hole time when you thought you had found gold, you were thinking about the things you could give us, but not a moment about the things what you could have bought for yourself."

"That's who you are, you always put other needs before your own. That's what i love about you Ronald!!" Hermione said. "You do?" "yes, ofcourse I do. Well you are ... my-ehhh ... best friend." And then Ron did something he would never thought about himself. He kissed her and he wanted to pull back as soon as he realised what he was doing. But hermione did too something he would never had thought about her. She kissed him back. After they pulled back they looked a little bit uncomfortable at each other, until Ron broke the silence. 'Well do you think there is still some food over?' 'Yes.' Hermione giggled. And together they walked carefully hand in hand back to Hogwarts.

[draco-kasai]

Hero Collaboration Program

Summery: High School Hero Collaboration Program! Helping Sophomore hero students connect with others around the world! Come join us for a two-week-long trip to one of our schools for an amazing once in a lifetime experience with students of Yuuei! Only a lucky 40 students will be selected for this program. They will be split into two groups of 20 and sent to different schools to have completely unique experiences!

A/N: AKA, A very ambitious fanfic I started because even though I have another fanfic in progress my brain decided to give me an idea and I just had to do it. These are all characters I adore and I even did lots of reasurch on them to hopefuly get them down right. I also too many backstories and threw them into a meat grinder to remold them in a way that would make them fit into this universe.

I love Class 1-A, but like they need to be taken down a peg or two, and I want to see them get their asses handed to them.  

Ch. 1 part 2 of 3 Program Sign-Ups -->

Chapter 1 Part 3

           Chapter 1 Part 1

The sound of wheels rolling against concrete and mild chatter flowed around the skate park. A small group of friends all joked about as they took turns going down the vert ramp. A tanned girl with dark brown hair, dark purple horns and pointed ears. Laughed as her brown haired friend almost slipped off his board when he landed beside them. His dark blue eyes glared back over at her, making her snort at his attempt to be intimidating. 

“Stop laughing, Paloma, it’s not funny.” The boy huffed, straightening out his T-shirt.  

With another giggle, she kicked off the top of the ramp with her scooter. Getting some air over at the other side, she gripped the handle bars once she landed and moved to the other side. Performing a tail grab, she smirked, “yes it was.” she spoke quickly, her own tail poking the boys' forehead, before landing back on the ramp and rolling to the other side. Noah blinked a few times in surprise before frowning. The sound of a giggle had him turning to a girl with long red hair that was tied up in a ponytail.

“Bettyyyy!” He whined, making her giggles turn into laughter.

“I - I’m sorry, Noah! It - it’s just… your face!” She covered her lips in an attempt to stifle her laughter. The boy besides her pouts. 

“Ouch, my own girlfriend.” Noah dramatically slapped a hand over his chest, “Well, it was a good two months while it lasted.” 

Betty snorts as she pokes his cheek, “Stop it, I’m just messing with you.” 

“I’m gone for three minutes!'' The two turn to see Paloma smirking at them. The couple glance over at one another before laughing. Rolling her brown eyes, Paloma gestured towards the ramp, “Your turn, Betty. We’ll meet you on the ground.”

With a smile, the girl tightened her ponytail, “Gotcha.” giving her boyfriend a quick peck on the cheek, she adjusted her board and rushed down the ramp. After performing a few tricks, she slowed her descent down and made her way off the ramp to her friends. “Hey Regeena, hey Chaz.” She greeted the other two that joined her group.

“Sup Betty.” they both responded in unison. Opting to get out of the way of the other skaters, the group of friends made their way to sit at a bench. 

“I still can’t believe she’s still in the hero course after that.” Regeena along with everyone else chuckled.

“I keep telling her she should just stick to photography, but she’s so obsessed with proving herself better than Betty.” Chaz sighs, “You’d think she’d stop doing that already.” 

“I mean, she’s gotten better.” Noah pats his friend's shoulder reassuringly, “at least she’s not flaunting her money and wealth around anymore.” 

“Or getting me into trouble.” Betty adds 

“True that.” Regeena nods, “You know, if she wasn’t so obsessed with being better than you, I think she’d make a great rescue hero.’

“Gasp, praise? For Penelope? Regeena I’m shocked.” Paloma jokes, making the girl slap her shoulder. 

“Yeah, oh, hey, Betty, are you signing up for the uh, hero thing program?” Chaz asked, “Penelope came home complaining about the program, I read through the packet though, it seems like fun.”

The redhead smirked, leaning back in her seat she crossed her arms over her chest, “Of course I am. I’d never miss an opportunity to better myself and meet new people.”

“Ahhh I’m going to miss you.” Noah pouts as he lays his head on her shoulder. Green eyes roll skyward as she gently pats her boyfriend's cheek.

“I haven't even gotten accepted yet, Noah. I still have to fill out the packet and get through the interviews.” 

“He’s not wrong, though,” Chaz pouts, “when you do get accepted, cause there’s no way you won’t be, you’ll be gone for two weeks.”

“Wha - two weeks!?” Paloma and Regeena gasped.

“Oooo girl, I’m already missing you so much!” Regeena rose to her feet to walk around the bench and hug her friend. 

“Make sure to text us if you can!” Paloma knocks Betty back into Noah’s chest with a hug. 

“Agh guys! You’re suffocating meeee!” Betty laughs. Noah and Chaz exchange a look before developing them all in a hug, making the girls squeal. “You guuuuys~! Common! Let go! Let’s go skate already!”

“No way! Let me carve this moment into my memory where I will forever look back on it fondly!” Paloma laughed 

“Awe, guuyys” Betty giggles as she does her best to hug who she can.

Betty Barrett. Age 16. Seat 7. Student Rank 6. Hero Name: Atomic Betty. Quirk: Self Gravity 

Can control the gravity of her own body, making it lighter or heavier. She is able to single out any part of her body with her quirk for a stronger attack. With enough concentration, she could manipulate her body’s center of gravity, allowing her to walk on walls.

Hand to hand, Karate, Jujitsu

____

A tall boy walked into the large house in silence. Setting down his backpack on the counter, he began taking out any homework he had been assigned. He paused when his eyes landed on the packet his school had handed out to anyone in the hero courses. If he remembers correctly, his older cousin had taken part in the program years ago, too.

Setting the packet down, he let out a heavy sigh. Walking into the kitchen, he prepared himself something he could snack on while he worked on homework. Wondering back over to the table, he set down the plate and began homework. Once he was finished, he eyed the packet once again. 

Maybe if he got in, his parents would come home and congratulate him. 

He shook the thought off immediately. His parents want him to be a performer, not a hero like he wants to be. They never supported his dream, and yet they're proud of his cousin Zatana. Maybe it’s because she’s a daylight hero, and not an underground hero like he wants to be.

Would Zatana be happy for him if she knew he had applied?

Silently, he wondered if she’d tell her old mentor, his hero; Constantine, and what he would think. 

He bit his lower lip at the thought. His family is never home, they're always busy with putting on shows. Would they even notice him gone for two weeks? No... Probably not. With a heavy sigh, he turned the packet to the page that had to be filled in. Even if nobody is proud of him or supports his dreams, he will be a hero and this program sounds like it would be beneficial for him.

Zachary Zatara. Age 16. Seat 1. Student Rank 7. Hero Name: Mage. Quirk: Magic.

With magic, he can do various unexplainable things. 

Staff fighting, hand to hand, martial arts.

____

A tanned girl with glasses hummed as she took a sip of her drink, “So, what do you guys think of that program, Mlle. Bustier told us about?” She asked as she brought a hand up to play with the bright strands of her hair.

“Oh, the exchange program, right?” the boy next to her wearing a hat and glasses smiled, “I heard Kim and Alix might sign up.”

“Of course they would. But knowing them, they're going to struggle with those essays.” A blond with cat ears, that turned black at the tips, chuckled softly.

“What about you two? You and Marinette are in the hero courses, right?” The ombre haired girl asked as she leaned forward in curiosity.

The blond smiled sheepishly, “Yeah, I’m applying. It sounds like fun and all, but I, um, I was hoping to get in just to get away for a while.” Everyone at the table exchanged looks before turning to the blond with a reassuring smile.

“That’s fine, Adrien, you definitely deserve some time away from Paris.”

“Yeah, you can’t keep blaming yourself for that, Adrien. You didn’t know, he kept pushing you away and making you work. You couldn’t have known.”

“Yeah dude, after everything that happened this semester, with your dad being arrested as a super villain and all- ow!” He turned to the girl next to him, who was shooting him a glare. Realizing what he said, he was quick to correct himself, “N- not that any of us blame you! I mean, like, how were you supposed to know!? He kept you locked up and- I mean, You deserve a vacation from Paris! Yeah! That! You deserve to have fun and do things you were never allowed to do!” He smiled sheepishly.

Adrien’s smile widened at his best friend’s antics, “Thanks Alya, Nino, Mari. That means a lot. What are you planning on doing, Mari?” He turned to face the blue haired girl that sat next to him.

“Oh, I’ve been planning on applying ever since Luka told me about it.” Marinette smiled as she played with the straw of her drink.

“Luka told you about it?” Nino asked.

“Mhm, He took part in it last year. We would video chat and he’d send pictures. It looks like a perfect opportunity to make connections with possible partners. Maybe It’ll give me new ideas for designs, too.”

“Wha~ I’d definitely apply if I were in the hero course, that’s for sure!” Alya smiled brightly.

“It's never too late, Als.” Marinette rose a brow. “You’re already taking some hero course classes. You could always just…”

Her friend waved her hand about as if to dispel the thought, “No way, I’d rather get footage and interviews of hero fights than be a part of it! You know I’m taking those classes in case I need to protect myself.” She smirked, “Besides, I could say the same for you. An aspiring fashion designer and hero, yet you refuse to make hero costumes.”

“I’d rather make clothes for fashion and not something that would probably need repairs a few days later.” Alya and Marinette giggled.

“Wha- don’t look at me like that, Adrien. I’m in the same boat as Alya, just because I want to be a DJ doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be able to jump in to protect people. Gotta make use of Shelter after all”

Adrien sighs, “Carapace and Rena Rouge will never happen now.”

Alya snickers as Nino gives his friend an amused smile, “Carapace and Rena Rouge?” Marinette giggles

“Yeah! It came to me in a dream where we battled magic evil butterflies and used magic jewelry to fight crime! I even had their hero costumes all drawn out and everything! We could have been a quartet!”

Alya covers her lips as she laughs, “That's one heck of a dream. I appreciate it, Adrien, but we’re fine. Besides, Ladybug and Chat Noir are going to be the best duo when they debut!” The two friends looked at one another and smiled.

“Oh, You two are signing up as a duo, right?” Nino asks in curiosity, raising an eyebrow. Marinette and Adrien give one another a knowing look.

“No, actually, we’re not.” Adrien smiles

“W - what?! Why?! I thought you two were planning to debut as a duo!” Alya asked, sitting up, she looked between her two friends in confusion.

“We are, but we agreed that we can’t always rely on each other, so we’re going to sign up and, hopefully if we get in, end up in different groups.

Adrien grins, showing off his fangs, as he gives his best friend a half hug, “Being apart for a while is going to be great for us. Divide and conquer! When we meet up again, we’re going to compare notes and talk about our experiences!” 

“Oh… I… I guess that’s not too bad of an Idea.” Alya thought out loud. 

“If you learn any new fighting moves, you can just show each other too, pretty smart.” Nino nods.

“Of course it’s Pur-fect! Our ladybug came up with it!” Adrien laughs at the groans he received. 

Marinette Dupain-Cheng. Age 15. Seat 12. Student Rank 8. Hero Name: Ladybug. Quirk: Lucky Charm.

Can create items to help her with any situation. The items that are created are random, leading to weird and elaborate plans that somehow always work. When she has finished making use of the item, it disappears in a swarm of ladybugs that fix any damage made after she has summoned the item.

Acrobatics, Hand to Hand, Made up fighting style with Yo-yo

____

“But Ah-Mah pleeeease~!” a girl with long black hair and a pink streak whined

“Juniper, I said no.” an older woman shook her head as she worked her way around her office. 

“But why? Dennis got to apply in his sophomore year!” The young teenager pouted.

“Juniper, you know I need you here to help take care of everything around the house. Dennis has just graduated from the academy and has been busy making a name for himself as a hero, and Ray Ray is still too young to be left alone.”

“But Ray Ray is 12 -” 

“Juniper.” The young teenager fell silent at her grandmother's tone. The older woman let out a soft sigh, “I know it’s not fair.” She walked over to her granddaughter and gently cupped her cheeks, “but it’s always been just us four, ever since you were 8. I’ve worked harder than before to not lose you kids. I can’t retire until Dennis’s work is more secure, and he’s able to help support us better... I need you here, baobei. I’m sorry. Maybe next time…?” 

It’s a once a year thing only for sophomores…” Juniper let out a soft defeated sigh, placing her hands over her grandmothers she gently pried them away, “It’s okay Ah-Mah…” The young teenager walked out of the office, her head hung low. The older woman watched her go with sadness in her eyes. 

“You should let her at least apply…” Her eyes flickered to the open balcony, where a young man with spiked up black hair stood leaning against the door. 

“Dennis!” The older woman smiled tiredly as walked over to the young adult, “Hello, my little bèndàn.” She greeted warmly as they hugged. 

“Ah-Mah you really need to stop calling me that…” Dennis spoke in an annoyed tone, the smile on his lips betraying his true feelings. 

“I thought you wouldn’t be home until tomorrow.” The older woman chuckles softly as she goes back to her desk.

“The mission ended early.” The older boy shrugged, “So, about June -”

“Hey, Ah-Mah, why does June look so sad?” A younger boy asked as he poked his head into the office. He paused upon seeing his older brother. “Dennis!” He cheered, running over to his brother, “You’re back early!”

The young adult lets out a hearty laugh as he picks up his brother in a hug, spinning them about. Delighted giggles escaped his younger sibling's lips. “Hey there kiddo. Yeah, our mission ended early.” He sets the younger boy down and ruffles his hair, “Everything went smoothly.”

“So cool!” Their grandmother smiled fondly as she watched her two grandchildren interact. Her smile soon fell upon remembering the middle child and what had upset her. 

As the young boy spoke with his brother, he was suddenly reminded about his sister. She looked upset as she walked back to her room. “Ah-Mah, do you know why June is so upset?”

“Hm? Oh…” The older woman snapped out of her thoughts, “She wants to attend a sort of exchange student program for hero students. I want to let her apply, I really do, but if she gets in, Dennis and I work and we can’t leave you home alone.” The younger boy's face fell. It sounds like he’s unintentionally holding his sister back.

“I’m a big boy! I can be left home alone for a few hours!” Ray Ray puffed up his chest.

“I know baobei, but grandma has had this business trip scheduled for a while now. It took us months to get this meeting scheduled… I looked over the packet… My trip lines up with the first week that the program starts.” 

“I can always stay home that week till you get back.” Dennis offered.

“Would your work allow that? You had just recently started, I don’t want to place you in such a spot-”

“Ah-Mah, it’s fine. I’m sure my boss would be fine with it if I explain the situation. Not to mention, I’ve saved up my vacation days.” the boy gives a cocky smirk. 

The older woman's lips grew into a large grin, "Juniper will be very happy to hear this, and to see you back home. Come, let us break the good news to her." 

Juniper Lee. Age 16. Seat 3. Student Rank 9. Hero Name: Fāxiàn. Quirk: Detect.

She receives coordinates to a location to find anyone she needs to find. To do so, she must have made eye contact with the person she plans to keep track of at least once. She can keep track a single individual for three hours, has a limit of 5 people at a time for an hour. Her eyes turn purple as she focuses on tracking anyone. 

Parkour, hand to hand, karate. 

_____

“What do you think, sis?”

“I think it’s a really good opportunity. It sounds like it’s a fun little vacation too. You should definitely take advantage of it, Virgil.” An older woman with her dark hair in pigtails nods as she hands her younger brother the packet back.

“Yeah? You think dad would be cool with it?” Virgil asked, black eyes roaming over the packet once again, flipping to the other pages. 

“I know dad can be… strict, but I’m sure he’d understand. You just gotta ask.” His sister placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder before flicking his ear, “Now go get the table set up. Dinner's almost ready.” She grinned, walking back for the kitchen

“Ow, okay, jeez.” He lifted his hand.

“And NO using your QUIRK.” Virgil dropped his hand with a frown. By the time dinner was ready, the sibling's father arrived home. 

“So, Virgil, Sharon, how was school?” the older man asked as he served himself more of his drink.

“College is college, dad. Nothin’ special really happened.” Sharon responded

“Oh? And how are things with Adam going? Well I hope.” 

Sharon blushed slightly at this, a soft smile gracing her lips, “Yeah, things are going really well, actually.” 

Her father smiled fondly at his daughter, “That’s good to hear. Invite him over for dinner soon, it’s been a while since he’s been over.” His daughter’s smile widened as she nodded. Turning to his son, he raised a brow in silent question.

“Oh, uh, heh, school was pretty alright, I doubt the school system has really changed.” Virgil smiled sheepishly, avoiding eye contact. Glancing at his sister, he spotted her pointed look. Clearing his throat, he turned to his father, “Uh hey dad, I have a question…” 

“Oh?”

“Um, well… There's this program, erm, the High School Hero Collaboration Program to be exact, and basically it's a two-week-long exchange program for hero students. I, uh, I want to know if it’s cool with you if I apply.”

The older man let out a soft sigh, lowering his fork. The young teen felt his shoulders tense at the sound. "You really are dead set on becoming a hero, aren't you?" 

Virgil blinked at the sudden question, "Uh, um, yes. Yes I am." 

"I really wish you would just do something safer like your sister…"

"Dad, the reason I want to be a hero is to protect you guys. I want to protect people who are struggling and need help."

"Then become a police officer or a firefighter."

"... Dad…" Virgil slumps back in his seat, "we always have this same argument…"

The older man gave out a tired sigh as he lifted his glasses to pinch the bridge of his nose. "I know son, I'm sorry… It's just… it's hard to support such a dangerous profession. Hero's around here… things are just…"

"I know dad… but I honestly thought I had proven myself enough during the field studies.” Virgil spoke up softly. Looking over to his sister, she nods and gives him a reassuring smile, “I want to make the city a safer place. Hero’s around here are already small in numbers and if I can help, even if just a little, I want to do that. Maybe even try to inspire more kids to take the hero course electives.” 

Robert was silent for a moment. Looking at his son, he could see the determination and resolve in his eyes. Letting his posture slacken a bit, his eyes softened, a soft smile on his lips, “You’re just like your mother with that passion to help others.” Virgil blinked in surprise, “Very well. You can sign up for the program.” 

“Yes!!” Virgil jumped up as he threw his fist in the air, “Oh man, Richie is going to be so excited! He’s been coming up with support gear and a new costume design and wouldn't leave me alone about it all day!” 

Robert let out a full belly laugh, “Alright, alright, sit down, son. Let’s enjoy the rest of your sister's delicious cooking first.”

“Yeah, you can call Richie later.” His sister smiled.

“Right, sorry.” Virgil gave a sheepish grin as he sat back down. 

Virgil Ovid Hawkins. Age 17. Seat 20. Student Rank 10. Hero Name: Static. Quirk: Electromagnetism.

Can generate, manipulate and absorb electrokinetic energy.

Hand to hand. 

____

"So, how was school, everyone?" An older woman asked as she and her large family all started eating dinner. All the kids at the table softly answered in unison, making the two adults chuckle in amusement.

"Come on guys, one by one." The older man said firmly. 

A boy with his dark brown hair waving in soft curls spoke up first, "Everyone in the hero course got a packet for an exchange program!" The boy next to him with black hair groaned softly. 

"Really? What's it about?" An older girl asked in curiosity. 

"Dude, that's awesome!" A younger girl bounced in her seat excitedly

"When is it?" One of the boys asked in a soft tone. 

"Will you be working with pro hero's?" A younger boy asked, tilting his head in curiosity. 

"Tell us Billy! Tell us!" The younger girl chirped happily. 

"Dude, Freddy, it was supposed to be a secret." Billy glared at the glasses wearing boy next to him. 

"A secret? Why?" The older man asked curiously. 

Letting out a sigh, Billy explained the program, "- it was supposed to be a secret because I wanted to tell you guys after I got accepted." He glares at a sheepish Freddy, "but I guess it's not anymore." 

"Don't worry! We're still surprised!" Darla says with a nod. Placing her palms on her cheeks, she makes a surprised face. Eugene nods in agreement and drops his jaw, eyebrows shooting up as he also made a surprised face. Everyone at the table laughed at the youngest's antics.

"She's not wrong. We are pleasantly surprised. I'm sure you'll get accepted." The older woman smiled 

"I hope so. It's basically a worldwide thing. From what the teachers said, it's really competitive. Only 40 students get accepted. That's why they have such an extensive application process." he smiled sheepishly, a hand rubbing the nape of his neck. His cheeks flushed red as everyone in his mismatched family shot him words of encouragement. It's been a whole year since he’s landed himself with his family, they’ve already been through so much together. He wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. 

Billy Batson. Age 16. Seat 15, Class Rank 11. Hero Name: Captain Marvel. Quirk: Shazam

When saying the word ‘Shazam’ he is transformed into a version of himself that is at their prime. 

Hand to hand, Stealth, street fighting. 

____

“What is this?” A pale hand grabbed the packet that was handed to her. Black eyes quickly scanned through the front page, an older woman with white hair sat across from her on the table. 

“It’s a program I think you’d enjoy, Jenny.” the older woman smiled softly, “I know that you feel trapped here, being homeschooled and all, so I thought you might want to join the program.” 

Jenny looked up at her mother in surprise, “Y - you mean it? You'll let me apply for this? If I get accepted, you’ll allow me to go!?”

Nora let out a soft chuckle, “Yes, I'm allowing you to go. Actually, I’ve been planning on enrolling you into school next Semester.”

“Really!?”

“That’s right. Once the paperwork is complete you’ll be in school starting January and if you do get into this program, you can think of it as a small break from school, to give yourself a breather, I think it would help you adjust to school better.”

“Oh my gosh, mom! You’re the best!” Jenny grinned widely, her eyes sparkling in excitement as she stood to her feet. 

“Yes, yes, this will be a wonderful opportunity for you to make friends too.”

“Mom, I have friends -”

“Online friends don’t count.” 

“... Social anxiety is hard to deal with.”

“Jenny, you came home late yesterday because you stopped by Miranda’s place and spoke with her for three hours.”

“She’s a sweet old lady. She just needs some company sometimes~” 

“And yet when the neighbor boy said hello to you this morning, you activated your skates and rushed inside.”

“... So it may be a selective type of anxiety…” 

“Jenny.”

The blue haired girl let out a sigh, crossing her arms, “Yeah, okay, fair.” She paused before speaking again, “Are you positive online friends don’t count?” Nora sent her daughter a raised eyebrow, amusement radiating off her in waves.

Jenny sagged her shoulders, “Right. I’ll get started on this now.” 

“Good. Make sure to email any of your teachers for those recommendation letters.” Nora rose out of her chair, “I’ll get started on dinner for us.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Jenny Walkman. Age 17. Seat 6. Class Rank 12. Hero Name: XJ9. Quirk: Cyborg 

Although born like any other, her body is very obviously modified. 50% of her body is organic, containing the most important organs for essential survival. Her skin is smooth to the touch, has the ability to remove appendages to modify or replace. Has the ability to connect herself to electronics and is able to download information directly to her brain. 

Extensive knowledge in mechanics, Hand to hand, martial arts

Chapter 1 Part 3

[cuculine-nelipot]

Wish We Could

Chapter Two: London

{ Pairing: Hermione Granger x Fred Weasley

Summary: After the Battle of Howgarts, Hermione and Ron start dating; their slow-burn friends to lovers arc complete. He’s nice, and she’s comfortable, and everyone is happy for them. Everyone but Fred, who can’t stop thinking that he loved her first, and Hermione, who begins to wonder if they really are as over as she thought they were. }

22nd August 1998, Night

“Well that was a colossally stupid thing to do,” George says from his old bed in The Burrow, spending the night at their mother’s insistence. Half laying down, he doesn’t look up from his magazine. Fred stands uncomfortably still, staring out the window, as though shell-shocked, even though Errol has long been out of sight.

“Yup.”

23rd August 1998, Morning

It was true that it didn’t take an awful lot to keep her up all night: a new book, a good essay, or better, a long one. Hermione had pulled her fair share of all-nighters, but none like this.

“Were you up all night reading again darling?” Her mother asks, taking stock of her daughter’s messier than usual hair, the shadows around her puffy eyes.

“Yes.” This wasn’t a lie exactly — she’d read that letter countless times.

“You look awful.” It sounds harsh, but her mother’s furrowed brow shows real concern.

“It was a sad story.”

1st July 1996

Summer had come to engender mixed emotions in Hermione. On the one hand she was of course excited to see her parents again, but on the other, she missed her friends terribly. She never had friends like Ron and Harry before; friends she saw day and night, friends she shared every meal with, friends she knew from experience would risk their lives for her as quickly as she would for them. She had no siblings, and had hardly kept in touch with the few friends from primary school. It was too difficult to keep fabricating stories about her Very Normal Boarding School Where Nothing Life-Threatening Ever Happened. So home for Hermione had become synonymous with the sort of deep-seated loneliness one only feels when one knows precisely what they are missing.

And now, to make matters worse, there was Fred. Fred who had kissed her in the hospital, and again by the lake, and again in several empty hallways while they waited for term to officially end. Fred who had, over the past year become more important to her than she ever would have expected. Fred, who didn’t look at her like he was lost and she was supposed to have the map, or make it. Fred, who so often grabbed her by the hand with a whiny come on Hermione, mischief dancing across his face, and dragged her along for some pure and honest thrill-seeking, who showed her the world as she had never seen it before.

The shrill ring of the telephone abruptly cut through her melancholia. Assuming it was only her parents phoning from work, she took her time making her way downstairs.

“Hello?”

“Hermione?”

“Fred?” She asked, her voice pitched with incredulity. “How are you calling? Why are you calling?”

“I believe it’s called a payphone and I am using one because I wanted to talk to you.” Even through the crackle and static, the teasing grin in his voice was obvious.

“Wanted?”

“Want.” He could hear the smile in her voice too.

24th August 1998, 10:17 a.m.

Perhaps George was right, and that her silence over the weekend means she isn’t coming. She is wiser than Fred after all. And George is usually right. Still, Fred waits, at an al fresco table at Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour, his right leg bouncing manically up and down, his eyes flitting to his watch every few seconds. He has been sitting there for forty-eight minutes.

Of course, Hermione knew at once that it was an undoubtedly bad idea, going to see Fred. Though really, it would only be a bad idea if she still has feelings for him, which she doesn’t, or if he still has feeling fore her, which she is sure isn’t true either. Then there is the fact that she had hardly made it to Florean’s all summer, and he has a lovely blackcurrant and gin ice-cream that he’s meant to stop making once Autumn rolls round. But then there is the question of why precisely Fred wants to meet her. And then there is Ron. Such thoughts chased each other in circles around her head, nipping at each other’s heals all Saturday night and most of Sunday, until another owl arrived. This one with a note from Flourish and Blotts asking her to please collect her order at her earliest convenience. Was Monday morning around 10 a.m. not her earliest convenience?

And so at eight-thirty on this almost chilly August morning, Hermione left her house for Belsize Park station, hopped on the Northern line, and alighted five stops later at Leister Square. She walked two minutes in the direction of The Leaky Cauldron, changed her mind, and instead went to Foyles, which reminded her that she did indeed need to go to Flourish and Blotts. After buying just three books and a new book bag, she again made her way to The Leaky Cauldron, then onward to Diagon Alley. This whole harrowing ordeal took over an a hour, and so apart from picking up Merlin’s Annotated Dante’s Inferno, she decided to splurge a little on some new quills, a well of peacock blue ink, and a couple of fancy leather bound notebooks.

It is perhaps this added weight that, on observing Fred Weasley’s anxious form outside Florean’s, impedes her attempted escape. Instead, before she can take two steps back the way she just came, she feels a hand pulling at her wrist.

“Hermione, wait.” She turns to see him looking imploringly at her with his bright green eyes, so wide and so close she can see flecks of gold in them, reflecting the morning sun. “It’s just ice-cream.”

Just ice-cream — who could argue with that? They order two scoops each and return to the table he had already occupied, Hermione dumping her bag on an empty chair emphatically in a show of annoyance. For a while they sit in silence; her refusing to speak first, and him not wanting to risk ruining their fragile peace. She scoops ice-cream into her mouth without looking up from her bowl, and he eats slowly, without looking away from her.

“I want the record to show that I think this is a colossally stupid thing to do,” she says suddenly, her eyes still fixed on her food.

“Well I suppose ice-cream’s never the healthiest thing in the world but Florean’s is pretty —“

“You know what I mean,” she cuts him off bitingly.

“The record will reflect that both you and George think that this is a colossally stupid thing to do. However, I would like to remind all relevant parties that it was my idea, and between the two of us I am the only Ravenclaw so therefore—“

“What do you want Fred.” She phrased it like a question, but her tone makes it abundantly clear that she would like nothing more than for him to just shut up.

“I just want to talk.” He looks abashed, or as abashed as he can look for Fred Weasley.

“I’m not sure we have anything to talk about.”

“Oh,” he says in a tone both needled and needling, “I think we have plenty to talk about.”

“Like what Frederick? You broke us up remember? Not me. You’re the one who walked away —”

“I walked away? You were the one who was leaving. You left —”

“I had to go. You’re the one who said you couldn’t —“

“And you’re the one who hung up the phone. And you’re the one who kissed —”

“I knew this was a mistake.” She grabs her bag, her chair scraping harshly on the flagstones in her haste to leave, desperate to not hear the end of that sentence.

“Hermione —“ He whines, but she doesn’t look at him. Can’t.

“Good bye Fred.”

17th July 1997

“Good bye Fred.”

“Hermione —“

A click as the phone disconnected. He stood alone in the red phone booth, in the flat above the store.

“You alright there mate?” George asked from the couch, turning from the Daily Prophet, his brows furrowed with concern.

The receiver still held to his ear. The singular, monotonous hang-up tone filled his head, his body, pervading the very fibre of his being.

2nd July 1996, Morning

“Buoyant” was the only word that came to mind as Hermione walked down Charing Cross.  She felt buoyant. She had resigned herself to spending the week or so before she and her parents went on vacation wandering around Hampstead with nothing but her books for entertainment, until Fred called and asked if they could meet the following day — today — at The Leaky Cauldron. So she made her way there, buoyantly, glad for some company and more so that it was his.

“Granger!” He hailed from the curb. Of course, her heart didn’t actually skip a beat, but it felt like it did.

“Why are you waiting out here?”

“Well the Cauldron’s a bit of a dive yeah? And Diagon Alley is just the one alley and we’ve been loads so I thought maybe you could show me your London?” He says, all in one breath. She wasn’t sure but she thought his face pinked a little.

“My London?”

“You know… Muggle London.”

“Why?”

“I dunno — if I’m going to live here I should know the area. And,” he added, looking down and rubbing the back of his neck. His speech became stilted. “I want to know what your world’s like.”

“Okay,” she smiled. Buoyantly.

The first place she thought to take him was of course Foyles bookstore, because it was close, and because, well, books. A whole monumental treasury of books.

“Bloody hell,” his eyes widened in child-like wonderment the second they walked through the door. The patchwork rainbow of spines and covers, the smell of new books, the sheer notion of being surrounded by so many stories, and so much knowledge. Even if it only lasted a moment, Hermione had never seen him so still or so quiet before, and she briefly wondered if she had broken him. “This place is massive,” he spun around as he spoke, taking it all in, “is everything in London this big?”

“Not everything. Just a lot of things.” She couldn’t look away from him, the spark in his eyes eliciting an adoring smile. “Did you bring any quid?”

“What’s that?” He asked, not really listening.

“Pounds, muggle money, did you bring any?”

His face blanched as he turned to look at her sheepishly. “Might have forgotten. But I have regular money.”

“‘Regular’ is a state of mind Frederick. And wizard currency far from regular. It’s ridiculous.”                                

“It’s not!”

“29 knuts to a sickle and 17 sickles to a galleon? It’s completely impractical.”

“Okay fine. Maybe you have a point.”

“Oh I definitely have a point.” Hermione retorted, grinning from ear to ear. She insisted that she had been meaning to change some money anyway, so they switched 10 galleonss for £50.

He moved further inside slowly, overwhelmed and unsure of where to start. At first he simply trailed behind her, but eventually wandered off on his own, winding through the stacks and pulling books off the shelves to peruse at length. She found him in a corner near the children’s section over an hour later, surrounded by piles of books ranging from classic literature to astrophysics. The only things he seemed sure of were a home improvement manual for Mr. Weasley, and the first two volumes of Asterix and Obelix.

“You alright there, Frederick?” She asked, crouching down beside him.

“There’s so many Hermione. How am I supposed to pick? I’ve never even heard of half these subjects before. Do I need a book about aerospace technology? Do I need seven? How should I know?”

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say you don’t need any.”

“Help me,” he whined, looking up at her with his big, doleful green eyes. He had never in his life felt quite so distressed. She sorted through the volumes surrounding him, eventually selecting The English Patient — one of her personal favourites — A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and a history of 20th century archaeological discoveries.

When they at last emerged, it was onto a London bustling with the lunch-time rush. Rather hungry themselves they went in search of sustenance and managed, with a little magical persuasion, to find a table in a small French bakery. At their window seat they split a quiche Lorraine and a croque monsieur, drank iced-chocolate, and tried to stave off the crash that inevitably follows a bookstore-high.

“You’re being awfully quiet today.”

“Hm?” He perked up. “Oh, sorry. It’s just a lot to take in, this.” He gestured vaguely to the sprawling city outside.

“But do you like it?”

He shrugged. “I love it.”

“Good.” She smiled, satisfied, settling further back in her seat.

“Do you like it?” He asked after a moment’s silence, studying her face carefully.

She picked at her food, considering. “I do but… I’m usually alone. I think I like it better with you.” She paused, then nodded as if affirming the truth of it to herself. “This quiche is pretty good.” She raised her fork but before she could take another bite, he was leaning across the table, one hand lightly holding her face, pressing his mouth to hers.

24th August 1998, Evening/Night

This time, Hermione is certain of it. She will not leave her room until the first of September. Her parents however are not on the same page.

“Hermione dear?” Her mother calls, hearing the jingle of keys in the front door. “Is that you? Come into the kitchen.” Hermione obliges, and finds her parents reading different newspapers at the kitchen table, with a steaming pot of earl grey and a plate of shortbread between them like they did everyday after work. The sight is enough to warm Hermione’s heart. She had missed this almost more than she could bear.

“How was your day darling?” Her father asks without looking up.

“Fine.”

“Did you buy any books?” Mrs. Granger does not look up either.

“I bought a few, yes.”

“That’s nice.” Her father offers, taking a sip of his tea.

Hermione lingers by the doorway, not saying anything. Eventually her mother looks at her, and observes a certain heaviness in her countenance. “Why do you look upset? Come sit down and have some tea.”

“Is this about Ron?” Mr Granger inquires, a particularly paternal brand of protectiveness evident in both his tone and in his eyes.

“Is it about the brother?” Her mother asks with hawklike instinct.

“Are you thinking about your… adventures?”

“You promised no more secrets darling.”

“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” Hermione interjects before they can pursue their line of questioning any further. They blink at her, equally taken aback. “If that’s okay with you,” she adds imploringly, unwaveringly meeting their eyes. They in turn consider their daughter carefully.

“Well alright then,” her mother says, turning back to her paper. “Dinner is in an hour. Go wash up.”

So she does, and she eats dinner with her parents, and after that she re-reads her new herbology textbook in the living room while her mother reads a le Carré and her father listens to a radio comedy. And she’s happy, honestly. She’s happy to be nestled in the warm glow of her childhood home, with her unchanging parents. She’s happy they are safe, and that for the first time in years there was nothing foreboding hovering on the horizon. She is happy, or at least, she is content.

Fred Weasley on the other hand is far from happy or content. After his rather disastrous morning he went straight back to the flat above the store, determined to spend the rest of his day off in bed. He didn’t move for hours. Rather impressively, he was still in bed when George came up after closing. His hair stuck out at odd angles as though he had been trying to pull it out, his sheets were fitfully dishevelled.

“Oh mate,” said George with an emphatically slow shake of his head, “you really need to get a grip.”

Fred looked up from Asterix and Cleopatra, shooting his brother a reproachful look.

“I’m going into London to get dinner. Do try to regain some level of composure before I get back yeah?”

That seemed like too much effort, so Fred fell asleep instead. He wakes up much later, at 1:38 a.m with London rolling round his head like a marble dipped in luminous dye, tracing webs of light. Quietly, he grabs his Nimbus 2001, climbs out the window onto the roof, and shoots off into the night. A certain frost sparks in the air, pinching at his skin. The wind whips through his hair, at his cheeks, stirs something inside his chest.

All the lights are off in the Grangers’ Hampstead home when he arrives, about 20 minutes later. All but the warm glow of a reading lamp emanating from what he knows is Hermione’s window. He hovers across the street, obscured by trees and shadow. He can see her silhouette on the sheer white curtains, sitting in bed, perfectly still, her head bowed slightly. Reading, most likely. His mind wanders to all the times he’d seen her in that exact posture, in a zen-state of complete focus; her small placid mouth, her smooth brow, the inward curve of her nose, mahogany brown ringlets framing her face. He remembers how he used to try and touch her cheek, her nose, her mouth, and how she would swat him away like she was shooing a fly.

She moves; her arms stretch above her head, her hands intertwined. She switches off the light, and Fred goes home.

2nd July 1996, Evening

“Had a good day darling?” Her mother called from the kitchen as Hermione closed the front door.

“It was alright, yes,” she said, leaning against the kitchen doorway. But the smile spread across her face suggested that it was a lot more than simply alright.

“What did you do?” Her father asked, his nose still in his paper.

“Oh you know, just went central. I met up with Fred. Went to Foyles. Had lunch. Walked around.”

“Who’s Fred?” Her father asked sharply, head snapping to face her.

“Ron’s brother,” she replied. Suddenly embarrassed, she shifted her weight nervously.  “One of the twins. You’ve met him before dad.”

“Why were you with Fred?” Her mother’s stare was as piercing as her father’s tone.

“Well he and George just moved to Diagon Alley and he asked me to show him around a bit,” she replied in one breath.

“Just Fred?”

“Yes.” Her face burned under her parents’ scrutiny, and she struggled to hold their gaze, not wanting to seem guilty, like she was hiding something.

“Why?”

Hermione only shrugged in response, pursed her lips, desperate for this to be over. “I’m going to shower now.” She turned abruptly and left the room.

“Dinner’s in an hour,” Mrs. Granger called after her daughter. A door slammed shut upstairs. She turned to her husband, and they shared a look of utter disbelief.

chapter one | chapter two

taglist: @thelasttime​ @bchnan​ @lovedyouthreesummers​ @keoghans​

[fifielady]

Soulmates and Stairs? Disaster

Day 2 of @usukweek​ || Pining | Soulmate AU

Note/s: I always get lazy by the end of the story I’m writing  (シ_ _)シ

"Good job, arsehole."

"Arthur, I... I'm really sorry." Alfred kept his eyes on the bland gray-blue (he'd asked a nurse which colors were which while waiting for Arthur) tiled hospital floor, he couldn't seem to at least muster up the courage to look at the other person in the eye and apologize for what seemed like the eleventh time after he accompanied Arthur to the hospital. It was both embarrassing and disheartening that he left such a terrible impression on his soulmate. A terrible and utterly painful physical impression as well.

An hour and a half ago, before they could finally see the blindingly beautiful colors and were sitting in the hospital with Arthur Kirkland's left arm in a cast and Alfred F. Jones regretting and savoring the good and the bad of the consequences of his actions, they were both in the student park in front of the male dormitories spending time on their weekends. Separately, that is. Arthur was sitting on the narrow cobble stairs that lead to the old but sturdy dorms while Alfred was sitting under the canopy of a tree admiring the view.

Alfred was finishing up his essay outside his dorm room because he left his key on his desk when he rushed to his one and only 9 a.m. Saturday class. He was lucky his laptop was fully charged before he headed out, bringing his charger would've been useless since most of the outlets in the common room were always occupied. Besides, the weather was nice enough, for a cloudy day, to spend outside while he worked on his homework. But while he waited for his roommate to come back from buying comics and manga (or was Kiku visiting his Greek soulmate's apartment?), he glimpsed the one and only Arthur Kirkland sitting on the steps furiously working his pencil on a sketchbook.

He thought while unknowingly pressing on the letter 's' on the keyboard, Ah, wow, he looks lovely as always. Though Alfred could only see the light gray shade of Arthur's hair and the dark gray shine in his eyes and even an almost white complexion, there's no way colors would even matter to the sheer handsomeness of Arthur Kirkland. He was very much lucky he could see him almost every day.

Arthur's room was directly across his and Kiku's and though he'd never even talked to him before, except for that acknowledging nod he got when he picked up the guy's Calc textbook, Alfred had developed a crush on him that seemed to grow into something more whenever Alfred was able to catch sight of Arthur. He punched his pillow to exhaustion that night for missing the opportunity to at least brush the skin of their fingers together when Arthur took the book from him. Alfred was guilty, even right now actually, that he'd liked someone who might not turn out to be his intended. It was kinda silly that he'd felt he was cheating on his soulmate when he knew that Arthur probably didn't even know his name.

Alfred forced himself to stop staring because he'd look creepy like that one girl who was always stalking his Russian classmate and that he really should carry on with his essay and other homework, so he graced himself one last look of longing to Arthur for the day and face his open word document only to look down and see that there were two pages filled with "s"s. Nothing a ctrl+z can't handle. Bless technology and Arthur Kirkland's adorably grumpy face of concentration while drawing. Well, not just his looks, he'd seen the guy helping other people without them noticing and it was so 'noble' of him and it made Alfred want to hug him and happy-cry.

Hm. He really should start on finishing his work. But all his pining made him hungry. His stomach grumbled as if to agree. Alfred pursed his lips and thought for a moment. If he were to pass by his crush on the narrow staircase, maybe he could say hi and stuff and invite him out for a snack, and voila!, their first conversation and, maybe, a date. It's a good start, at least.

Like a man on the most super important mission of his life, he'd quickly gathered his things and was basically skipping over to Arthur who was ever so focused on his illustration. Alfred put on his Gonna-Get-Me-Some Smile™ and waved when he was a few feet near the base of the stairs where Arthur was, "Hey Art--WaaAH!"

Something caught his right foot and it was moments before his social death on the ground when he felt a warm body barreling against him and breaking his fall, two bodies tumbling down beside the foot of the stairs. Someone groaned, or maybe they both did, Alfred something felt warm and soft and a bit bony under him. Funny, when was the ground ever bony? Or soft? A whimper caught his attention, oh that definitely wasn't him. Alfred opened his eyes as he stood up to see Arthur on his back wincing.

"AAH- I'm so sorry, are you okay?!"

Arthur only whimpered in response, his eyes were closed tight and there were droplets on his lashes beginning to form. His left arm was positioned weirdly, too. Uh-oh. Arms weren't supposed to bend like that. "Arthur? Arthur, you gotta stay with me," Alfred frantically and lightly tapped on Arthur's cheek. The man's thick brows furrowed into a grimace so Alfred changed tactics. He carded his fingers to brush Arthur's bangs away to clear his face and continued the hair-stroking to soothe him a little bit.

"It-it hurtss... Aaarghh..."

Alfred felt his heart clench. "It's alright, buddy. I'm gonna shout for someone to call for a nurse and we'll go to the hospital, 'kay?"

Arthur only moaned back, tears slowly falling down his face. "Art, hey, can you open your eyes for me? You gotta stay awake. Please stay awake."

He was squinting, and blinking to adjust to the light behind Alfred. The other realized this and shifted slightly to shade Arthur's face. Slowly, and very slowly, just like the slow-motion in the movies, Arthur fluttered his eyelids and all Alfred could see was a color so deep he could in forever hidden behind the long, long the dark and bright lashes of his. And immeasurable pain! Right!

"I'm really sorry about this but you've gotta hold on, soulmate, I'm gonna take you to the hospital and get you patched up."

And that was how he'd given his soulmate a temporary painful physical impression. Talk about his strange luck. Alfred scratched the back of his neck, this was just so nerve-wracking! "Right, um, at least it wasn't your right hand...?"

Arthur also kept his eyes glued on his lap, refusing to even look at him. "I'm left-handed, you fool."

"But... you were drawing with your right hand earlier?" He asked albeit hesitantly and a lot quieter than he usually was.

"I was scribbling out my anger. I'm useless with my right hand. And thanks to you unexpectedly trampling down, I won't be able to use my dominant hand to do anything competently." Arthur shifted his head to the opposite of Alfred, his cheeks and the tips of his ears were tinting 'red'. Crap, Alfred really messed this up. Of course Arthur would be angry. "Even your maddeningly daunting presence makes it difficult to breathe."

That made Alfred wince but he took it. It hurt but Arthur's broken arm was a lot worse. He took a deep breath, "Look, man, if you really hate me being around you that much then I'll leave you alone, okay? You don't have to insult someone who's supposedly your soulmate."

Arthur snapped his head back to face his faster than a cheetah with his eyes comically wide, "Wha-- That's not what I-- "

"It's nice meeting ya, soulmate. I'll get out of your way now." Alfred rose up from his seat, eyes misting. He really messed it all up. Just when he finally attempted to start something, he'd trip and had his soulmate break his arm while breaking his fall. Alfred suck-- "Ack--! Are you trying to choke me?! Seriously, getting even by strangling me to death?"

His shirt collar loosened up a bit. Damn, Arthur was strong! Enough to asphyxiate someone like his only soulmate. Alfred pulled back on the front of his collar to even out Arthur's intense pulling on the back of his collar. 'Useless with his right hand', his ass! Arthur could still probably lift a coin jar with that hand. "Are you as thick as a jar of peanut butter?" Arthur's English accent got thicker and thicker as he slowly let go of his grip on Alfred's collar to just playing with the hem of Al's wrinkled shirt. "Just... just let me continue and actually listen to what I say."

Alfred immediately resisted from running away in tears and stood silent in the hall with Arthur behind him. He could feel the other pinching and rubbing the cloth of his shirt. Softly, as if fearing Alfred would take off if he made himself louder, Arthur muttered, "I'm left-handed and we are soulmates. I, erm, I need another hand to help me around."

"Eh?" Alfred turned around to face Arthur. The guy's eyes were still focused on the ground but the increasing 'red' tint of his cheeks was, in two words, adorably delectable.

"Just until the cast comes off! It's your duty you know..."

Eeehh? What the--? Really?! How was this guy so--!

"As my soulmate, that is."

Alfred couldn't help himself and put his arms around the smaller frame of his soulmate. "Oh my God!" Alfred exclaimed, glee and relief quickly taking over his mind and heart, "You're so freakin' adorable! I can't--!"

He swayed their bodies to and fro, never faltering the strength he'd put in their embrace. Yes! Yesyesyesyesyeees! Alfred was so lucky!

"This arrangement is only until the cast comes off! Oomph, mind my arm, my arm!"

Suffice to say, the arrangement lasted for the rest of their lives. With Arthur also reciprocating more than the help he needed, of course

[hedwigstalons]

High Expectations

This is a fic that I originally told myself I wouldn’t post any of until it was complete.   Evidently I lied.  It’s not complete but I do have 21k words and eight chapters built up already.  It was meant to be Gordon’s story of how he ended up in WASP but the other brothers have decided to put in an appearance too (I blame the boys and also @willow-salix​ for encouraging them)

I’ve also set myself a secondary challenge with this to produce a piece of art for each chapter.  I’m hoping to try out different styles and hopefully make some progress over time.  This first bit was very much about getting a feel for the tools (a challenge seeing as I first have to wrestle the drawing pad away from the small person who just likes being able to make rainbow glitter pictures)

Anyway....

xoxoxox

Summary: Jeff Tracy has very strong beliefs about what he expects from his sons.  Sometimes his expectations are at odds with what his sons themselves want from life, especially Gordon.  

Chapter One

The office was tiny, barely large enough for the single desk it contained.  It didn’t really matter.  This room no longer had a permanent resident. State wide cuts to the careers service and an investment in online guidance meant that careers advisors were stretched across districts; a few lonely individuals doing the rounds of the high schools to dispense reassurance and wisdom in statutory ten minute blocks.  As a consequence this area of the school hadn’t been refurbished in many years and had a general air of neglect.  The carpet tiles had been worn bald in a clear path to the two chairs in the room, one in front of the desk and one behind.  The painted cinderblock walls were covered in posters, bleached and faded by the California sun, bearing inspirational quotes.  

 You can do anything!

 Be the change you want to see

 Aim for the skies

 The posters mirrored the sentiments he had heard at home too many times.  Although at home they tended to come tinged with disappointment as he handed over yet another report card that didn’t meet the standard set by the siblings who had gone before.  Yale, Harvard and the Denver School of Advanced Technology had already accepted a Tracy.  Gordon just couldn’t match up to their lofty heights of academic success.  He was bright but that just got overshadowed by the glittering trio above him.  Anything he did had always been done better by at least one, but more often all, of his older brothers.  

 The pressure to achieve academic excellence had lessened slightly as his swimming training had ramped up in intensity.  As competitions progressed from local, to state, to national, to international the family had grown to accept that this was no passing hobby.  But Gordon still lived with the constant threat that he would be pulled out the pool if his grades dropped too low.  It was taking all his energy to keep on top of his school work to the required B- average insisted on by his father so that he could keep doing the one thing he felt truly good at.  The one thing that set him apart from his over-achieving brothers.

 At least the teachers didn’t judge him or at least couldn’t judge him against his more intellectual siblings.  As soon as John had graduated high school and started at Harvard, an accomplishment for which he was several years younger than the average after skipping a couple of grades, Jeff had moved himself and the youngest boys away from rural Kansas to Los Angeles.  The old farmhouse was retained but was no longer a permanent base for the family.

 The move to the city was a strategic decision by Jeff and one that was only delayed in order to allow John to complete his high school education without the disruption of an inter-state move.  For Jeff it meant the ability to site himself in the commercial heartlands expected of the business that was flourishing under his direction.  It also meant he was able to get back each night to care for his youngest children, even if he sometimes didn’t make it back to the apartment before midnight.

 It may have been expected that Jeff Tracy, an individual rapidly climbing the lists of America’s richest and most influential individuals, would have used the move as an opportunity to enrol his youngest sons in the finest educational establishment Los Angeles had to offer. But Jeff Tracy was a man raised in Kansas wheat fields.  A man for whom his own success and the successes of his eldest three sons had been built on the foundations of learning delivered in small town rural schools. What was good enough for him was good enough for all his children.  There were no private tutors or exclusive schools.  Gordon and Alan found themselves enrolled in the regular district school with its air of neglect and underfunding.

 A large part of Gordon really wanted to be back in his math class.  Not because he had any great fondness for the subject but because he found it hard in a way the others didn’t.  He was not above digging out Virgil’s old annotated English texts or Scott’s history files if he wanted a bit of extra insight for his essays but math was different. Any notes left by his siblings were generally an incomprehensible scrawl.  Not that any of them had made many math notes; they all seemed to just get it.  

 Gordon still remembered the first time after John had headed off to Harvard that he had called for help with his homework.  John had tried to be patient but there had been an unmistakeable tone of annoyance accompanied by a condescending eye roll clearly visible on the call screen.  Gordon had been left in no doubt that John found the idea of a Tracy struggling with algebra to be frankly insulting.  Virgil had displayed rather more patience and understanding but the pity that came with the help was too much for Gordon to take.  He didn’t want to find out what Scott’s reaction would be.  The golden haloed first-born was becoming increasingly distant and superior as his career in the Air Force progressed.  

 And so Gordon ploughed on alone.  Taking study guides to swim competitions to read between the heats.  Trying to juggle the conflicting demands of Team USA and Team Tracy.  The former striving for physical excellence and peak performance, the latter demanding excellence across the board.

 The careers advisor on the far side of the desk looked up at the young man sat opposite her.  The school records showed he was academically above average.  He had prospects.  

 The students that entered her office tended to fall into three broad categories.  There were the ones that didn’t really need their regulation advice session having already got their chosen career path mapped out, whether that involved furthering their education or just jumping straight into the local jobs market. There were those that were bewildered and clueless about where to turn next.  Then there were those that just didn’t seem to care and who drifted through her office much like they drifted through the rest of their school career. She wondered which she would encounter in this interview.

 “So Gordon” she smiled at the teenager, “have you considered what you want to do after you graduate high school?”

 The teen looked at her with a slightly surprised expression.

 “Swim, ma’am”  

 It was said bluntly and without preamble, accompanied by a mid-western politeness that the move to the city hadn’t shaken off. Stated as fact rather than as some hypothetical idea.  She had encountered plenty of teenagers with dreams of making it big on the sporting circuit but very few made it professional.  Usually the dreams were of football or basketball; swimming was a new one to add to her list.  

 “Swim?”

 “Yes ma’am, swim.  I’ve already got my qualifying time sorted.  Come the summer I’ll be at the Olympics.”

 Cogs clicked into place.  This was her nineteenth interview of the day and the students were beginning to blur together, even with the supplementary notes put together by the tutors that actually got to see these kids each day.  The low attendance scores suddenly made sense. Gordon Tracy, the rising star of the swimming circuit.

 “Of course.”  She flustered slightly over her notes.  It was a new experience to have a member of the Olympic squad sat before her. But she was obliged to be a sounding board for his career choice for the next ten minutes.  She couldn’t just send him back to class off the back of a one word answer.  She decided to stick to familiar territory; if they know the plan, find out the backup plan.

 “Have you considered what you will do after swimming? You have good grades here.  I’d recommend making a college application.”

 The youngster gave a hollow sort of chuckle. “Not good enough for anywhere that matters.  I think I’ll stick to what I’m good at, ma’am.”

 The interview was brought to a close by the final bell of the day and Gordon was glad to be able to scoop up his rucksack and escape the claustrophobic confines of the office.  He was sure the careers advisor meant well but he felt that the session was a pretty pointless experience.  Actually being in class would have been a better use of his time.

 As he reached the front of the school he spied Alan waiting for him in their usual spot.  The younger boy was scuffing his shoes in the dirt while waiting, the bored expression of his face breaking into smile when he saw his older brother.  They set off on the short walk back the apartment.

 “Good day, Al?”

 “Yeah, ok”

 “Much homework?”

 Alan grimaced.  He was about as fond of homework as Gordon was.

 “I’ll take that as a yes.  Well make sure you get on with it as soon as we get in.  No video games until it’s finished.”

 “Yes Sir!”  The response was accompanied by a mocking salute which earned Alan a gentle whack on the back of the head.

 “Hey, less of that.  I’m not Scott.  But seriously Al, just make sure you get it done.  I’ve got an extra training session tonight but only a short one; you’ll have the place to yourself until about 6.  I’ll sort us some dinner once I’m home.”

 “Will you be able to play video games with me once you’re back.”

 “Sorry, I’ll have my own work to get on with.”

 Alan’s shoulders slumped dejectedly and his feet dragged along the sidewalk.

 “Another quiet night then.”

 Gordon hated seeing Alan so flat.  The pair spent a significant amount of time together and, like all his brothers, he had a desire to protect the youngest.  He wrapped an arm around the shoulders of the shorter boy and was rewarded with a shove in the ribs.  Evidently anything even slightly resembling a hug in public was out this close to the school grounds.

 “I’ll see what I can do.”

 They had reached the apartment by this point. Gordon dashed inside to grab his swimming kit and left Alan with strict instructions to make sure he got all his homework done.  He didn’t like leaving Alan home alone but it was a regular occurrence now.  Their father wouldn’t be home for hours and with all the others moved away the youngest two had got used to fending for themselves.  He left Alan with a promise that they would spend some time together later.

 The training session passed in a blur of drills.  There were now more days with both morning and evening training in preparation for the Olympics and the extra workouts were taking their toll.  By the time Gordon reached the apartment his shoulders ached and all he wanted to do was stand under a scalding hot shower before collapsing in to bed.  Unfortunately he knew he had other responsibilities to attend to first.

 Gordon rolled his shoulders, plastered on a smile and scanned the entry system for the apartment.

 xoxoxox

 Normally weekday meals were Gordon’s domain or he was at least there to help out if Alan ventured into the kitchen.  But he had completed his homework quicker than expected and in the boredom of the empty apartment it had seemed like a good idea to start dinner.

 He took the pack of greens from the fridge, prodded the pan of pasta and gave the chicken a quick stir.  As he sliced the greens an acrid smell assaulted his nostrils.  The chicken, which had been cooking nicely until now seemed to have chosen the moment he took his eye off the ball to catch and stick to the bottom of the pan.  Carefully prepared strips of prime breast disintegrated and crumbled as he tried to scrape the dried out offerings from the base of the pan.  He cursed, turned out the stove, and went back to preparing the greens.  

 The clock ticked closer to 6pm.  Steam rose in billows from the pan of greens which had reached a rapid boil.  Perhaps he should have waited until Gordon was actually home before cooking the vegetables, the shredded leaves were starting to disintegrate.  

 At least the pasta should be ok.  

 The pasta which wasn’t boiling.

 More cursing filled the air as Alan realised his error. In his attempt to salvage the chicken he had turned off the heat under the pasta as well.  Perhaps he should have just let Gordon cook the whole thing. This was a mistake.  All he wanted to do was free up some time in the hope of getting a game in with Gordon and instead he had ruined everything.  He wondered if it was too late to dig out the emergency credit card and call for take out.  He would just have to make sure Dad took it out of his allowance rather than Gordon’s.

 The sound of the front door broke through his thoughts.

 “Hi Alan.”  The voice echoed up the hallway.  Footsteps approached, only pausing briefly as a kit bag was launched into a room, landing in a corner with a heavy thud.  Too late to salvage anything now, within moments Gordon was in the doorway.  “Hey, you cooked.  Thanks”

 “No need to sound so surprised.  Don’t thank me til you’ve tried it though.  It’s, um, not really gone to plan.”

 “I’m sure it’s fine.  Want me to drain these pans while you get the plates out?”

 Alan signalled his agreement by delving into the crockery cupboard leaving Gordon to drain and stir together the contents of the various pans.  He wasn’t exactly looking forward to the meal but Gordon seemed grateful to be spared the chore.

 Dinner was everything Alan expected it to be.  They sat opposite sides of the kitchen counter, Gordon shovelling down vast quantities of noodles while he picked at his own much smaller portion.  The meat was as dry as cardboard and stuck in his throat alongside the shards of undercooked pasta. Perhaps he ought to pay more attention in the kitchen, especially as Gordon was likely to be training more and more over the coming months.

 Gordon’s fork clattered onto the empty plate before Alan was even half way through.  He looked up to see eyes the colour of mahogany under the harsh kitchen lights looking at him with concern.

 “You ok?  You’ve hardly eaten.”

 “I’m fine.  Just wishing I’d ordered us a pizza instead.”  He waved a forkful of charred chicken to emphasise his point.

 This earned him a small chuckle and at least dispelled the worry.

 “Hey, no complaints from me over it.  I think my coach would have something so say about that too, we’ll save the pizza for the summer.  I’ll start clearing up while you finish off.  You still want that game?”

 Alan grinned.  Suddenly the pasta was a lot easier to stomach if there was a chance to thrash his brother in the goblin realms at the end of it.  

 xoxoxox

 As the clock ticked past midnight and into the small hours of the morning Gordon lay in the darkness, sleep refusing to come.  His normally comfortable bed felt too lumpy and he turned this way and that.  First facing the blank wall next to the bed, then the ceiling and finally the open room. A shelf of trophies glinted faintly in the light that managed to spill around the edges of the heavy blackout curtains.  Back in Kansas Gordon had rarely bothered closing his curtains; he had always been an early riser and was usually up long before the dawn in order to get to early morning training or fit in a gym session before school.  But the pervading yellow glow of the city from the ever present light pollution wasn’t like the peaceful moon.  On nights like this the city felt oppressive and he yearned for the open fields of home, as he still though of Kansas.  Gordon might now be able to access better training facilities and coaches which had enhanced his Olympic prospects but he had never embraced city life.

 He was exhausted.  The training session after school had been intense and he had thrown himself into the drills with maximum effort.  The gaming session had probably been a mistake but he hadn’t wanted to let Alan down.  The kid had gone to the trouble of trying to make dinner and save him a job.  Ok, the noodles had been still firm to the point of being slightly crunchy and the greens had been on the verge of turning to soup but it’s the thought that counts.  It was calories.  It was from his prescribed meal plan.  It was mostly edible.  He appreciated the level of consideration shown by a teenager who shouldn’t have any more pressing concerns than getting his chemistry paper completed and working out whether Ellen from World Studies class had a crush on him.

 His own homework had been its usual slog.  He wrote until his eyes became sticky and the notes he was reading became a jumbled blur.  Sleep should have enveloped him within minutes of climbing into bed but instead the words from his earlier interview kept churning around his head.  The thoughts drowning out even the gnawing ache in his overworked muscles.  

 What about after?

 He had always managed to stave these thoughts off before.  Whenever his father had made comments about future plans he has always managed to deflect the conversations.  He didn’t have room in his head for anything other than visualising the dream.  Why on earth should the words of a complete stranger, parroted from some state approved script, make life any different.

 He was a Tracy.  A name synonymous success and achievement.  He had found his calling in a way that set him apart from the others.  

 He was going to swim.

 He was going to represent his country.

 He was going to win.

 He ran through the visualisation that had been a constant companion in his head for years.  He could feel the flow of the water over his body as his muscles flexed in perfect synchronicity.  He could hear the roar of the crowd as the results flashed up on the scoreboard.  He rode the wave of emotion as the medal was presented.  This was the moment that would mark him out as more than just the fourth son of an astronaut.  Gordon Cooper Tracy.  A name in his own right.

 With the sound of the national anthem still ringing in his ears Gordon tried to visualise the next steps.  He tried to force the dream beyond its current conclusion but instead found only darkness.