#but anyways experimenting with mixtures is something we all do i think. kids these days just have recipes and make actual things

[the-adas]

i think slime is just a cooler version of making like. soap potions or mud cakes

[hoedamn-eron]

baby, please - father's day

Santi celebrates his first Father's Day.

Warnings: Just SICKLY SWEET. Mentions of breastfeeding (but as I've always said, a fed baby is a happy baby, whether bottle or breast!). Small mention of body insecurity. Hints of a parent who has passed. Allusions to unsupportive parents (as mentioned in the original fic). Not even remotely proofread so there will be mistakes 😊😊 Word count: 2,800 F!Reader, no use of Y/N.

I know this is over a week late, I apologise. A part of my Baby, Please universe; this can be read as a stand alone but all the history is in the series.

“So, I’ll come over on Sunday with the girls?” you ask him down the phone.

Santi frowns in confusion at your words. “Did we make plans?”

You go quiet, and Santi momentarily wonders if he’d forgotten something important. Was he supposed to have the girls for the day? Had he just fucked up? It – obviously – wouldn’t be the first time he’d done that with you, and he’d truly tried his hardest to never wrong you again. He could have the girls, it wasn’t a problem, he didn’t have any plans anyways –

“It’s Father’s Day, Santi,” you tell him gently. “Your first one.”

Oh.

He hadn’t celebrated Father’s Day in years, not since before his own father had passed away. And he never thought he’d celebrate it for himself. And the girls were barely five months old, was it…really worth doing anything until they were older?

“We don’t have to do anything, I was just assuming…” you say, taking his silence as a bad thing.

“No, sorry,” Santi says immediately, trying to calm your anxieties. “You just took me by surprise. I didn’t realise that it was Father’s Day.”

You chuckle softly on the other end of the line. “Well…I was thinking we could go to the beach. It’ll be the girls’ first time, and I thought we could spend it together.”

Santi is quiet. Too quiet, and for too long, because your unsure voice comes through. “Santi?”

“Sorry, sorry.” He swallows, running a hand down his face. This was going to be his first Father's Day; a milestone he never imagined he'd ever experience in his life. The reality of it all was almost overwhelming. He couldn’t believe how much his life had changed in just over a year, meeting you and having kids; the joy and responsibility of being a father to these two beautiful girls was immense. Santi couldn't shake the feeling that he was living in a dream, and the weight of it pressed on him, a mixture of awe and gratitude so intense it nearly brought tears to his eyes. “The beach sounds great. Really. I would love that.”

“Okay,” you say, and you sound relieved. “I'll bring a picnic, and…and the girls can play in the sand, and the ocean. I bought them some cute shorts the other day, they could wear them. It'll be fun, I promise.”

Santi feels his heart skip a beat at the way you try and reassure him that it’ll be fun, like he wouldn’t want to spend the day with you and the girls. Of course he would, he would drop everything if it meant he could see you and the kids. He smiles despite himself. He can almost picture it now: the bright sun, the endless stretch of sand, the sound of the waves, and his girls' faces as they experience the ocean for the first time. It's a perfect plan. A perfect day.

“So…should I pick you up, 10am?” you ask, that nervousness still in your voice. Santi can just picture you now, biting your lip as you wait for his answer.

“Yeah, see you Sunday.”

“Okay,” you breathe, and he can hear the smile in your voice. “See you then.”

You both hang up after saying your goodbyes, and Santi stands there for a moment, staring at his phone, still processing everything. His first Father's Day.

A year ago, Santi would have laughed if he was told he would be spending the day at the beach with the woman he knocked up on a first date, and his twin daughters. Yet here he was, planning his first Father’s Day together, marvelling at how life had taken such an unexpected turn for him, after the shit show that was their last mission with Lorea, and losing Tom. Santi couldn't help but feel some anxiety, which left a heavy and sick feeling in his stomach, but also excitement for what Sunday would bring, a figurative step forward in yours and his ‘unconventional’ journey.

“Think this is a good spot?” you ask, but you dump your bags down anyway before he could answer.

Santi gave a small laugh as he watched you arrange your set up for Isabela and Jasmine; some inflatable supports so they could sit up, some toys from home that were beach friendly, and some towels to sit on with extras in your bag (just in case, you never know!), and an umbrella to give the girls shade. You had contemplated bringing some buckets and spades but decided that they were too young for that just yet.

You looked cute when you came to pick him up, in some shorts and a flowy shirt. You’d been having a few insecurities about your body as of late, as there was just a little but extra of you that wasn’t there before, and you were unsure of wearing something a little less exposed. Santi had told you that you grew and birthed two – two! – children, your body was bound to go through some changes. And you continued to nurture those two – two! – children with your body, so your body was amazing. It warmed your heart (and your cheeks) to hear that from him, and you said no more on the matter.

The sky was so blue it looked painted. The beach is perfect – not too crowded, with soft, warm sand and gentle waves. The girls are dressed in loose t-shirts and shorts, matching sun hats on their heads. You had already lathered them in sunscreen before leaving your house, but you were already preparing to add more on them as Santi popped them in their inflatable supports. Santi laughed as the girls kicked their legs in the sand, their eyes wide as they took in the feel of it on their legs and feet.

After placing more sunscreen on the girls, you sat back and relaxed, smiling at Santi. “This is nice.”

Santi nodded, looking around as he takes a seat with the twins, quickly stopping Isabela from eating a handful of sand. “I don’t remember the last time I went to the beach and just relaxed.”

You gave a breathy laugh. “As relaxed as you can be with two five-month-olds.”

Santi gives a shrug with a small laugh before he stops Isabela eating the sand again. He takes his shirt off, tossing it over with the rest of your stuff, and you try hard not to stare at him. He wasn’t as active as he used to be, but still kept in shape and had a nice little chub that suited him well.

After applying sunscreen to yourself (and making Santi put some on too, which he does – with an eye roll), you change the girls into some swim diapers and swim onesies. Santi carries them both to the ocean with you, one girl in each arm, and you take as many photos as you can before sending them to your friends and Santi’s. You beam so much your cheeks start to hurt (it puts the meltdown over your own father you had that morning to the back of your mind).

Santi steps into the ocean, just up to his knees. You take Jasmine from him, and the two of you crouch to give your girls their first experience of the sea. The first touch of the cool ocean on their feet makes them pause for a moment, and after a moment, Isabela starts crying. Jasmine looked over at the noise, almost startled, before she splashed a little in the water, giggling. Santi brought Isabela back out, soothing her a little until her tears subsided, before trying again. He laughed when she started screaming again, her legs lifting before hitting the water.

“Okay, okay, I get it,” said Santi, lifting her back up. “You don’t like it. I won’t do it again.”

“I’ll take her if you want,” you say, straightening up with Jasmine.

You swap babies, Isabela calming in your arms, unshed tears on her waterline as she watches Jasmine and Santi play in the ocean.

“See, it’s not so scary,” you coo to her, but she merely clings to you as she watches. You take some selfies before getting some photos of Santi and Jasmine. She kicks her legs, splashing water everywhere, and you and Santi both laugh, caught up in her pure, unfiltered joy.

For a moment, everything else fades away. It’s just you, Santi, and your daughters, the sun warming your skin and the waves gently lapping at your feet. Santi feels a swell of emotion, a deep, steadfast love for his new family that nearly overwhelms him.

“She loves it,” you say with a laugh, your voice filled with happiness as you lightly bounce Isabela and look at Jasmine. “Look at her!”

“I know,” Santi replies, his voice thick with the sudden emotions. “I know.”

You try again with Isabela, dipping her toes in the water. She seemed happier with that, and she kicked her legs a little before you submerge her feet in the water. Her matching giggles with Jasmine fill the space around you.

The day passes in a blur of laughter and play. You both take turns holding the girls as they splash in the water, then retreat back to your towels where you sit with your daughters. You nurse them for a moment and Santi offers to get some ice cream for you both from the hut down the beach. You nod, and the girls soon nod off in your arms. You lay them on the towels in the shade. They look like little angels, their sunhats crooked on their heads as they sleep.

Santi comes back, handing you an ice cream before he sits back down with you. You eat together silently, and Santi watches Isabela and Jasmine. His heart feels full. He glances at you, catching you watching him with a soft smile.

“You’re a good dad, Santi,” you say quietly.

“Thank you,” he replies, his voice barely a whisper as his cheeks warm. “That means a lot.”

Santi turns back to the girls again with a sense of awe, his heart swelling with pride. “I still can’t believe they’re ours,” he murmurs, his voice melting into a chuckle at the end.

“Me neither,” you admit, quickly licking at the dripping ice cream. “But I’m glad they are.”

The girls sleep for another hour, and you watch over them as Santi goes for a dip in the ocean. He offers to swap ‘shifts’ with you, but you’ve never been fond of the ocean, and you’re happy to keep an eye on the girls as they nap. And you don’t admit it, but you get to ogle Santi as he comes out of the ocean, golden skin glistening from the water and the sun…you noticed you weren’t the only one admiring him, and you couldn’t help but feel slightly smug when the other women – and some men – on the beach send jealous looks over to you when he joins you.

The morning turns into afternoon, and Jasmine wakes from her nap, where Santi offers to change her as you set out the picnic between you both. Jasmine babbles away as Santi places her back in her support, and you hand her a few toys in reach to keep her entertained as you eat. You’d brought Santi’s favourite sandwiches and some fruits, and his favourite cake from that bakery you frequently go to when you go on one of your walks together (“It’s Father’s Day, why wouldn’t I bring your favourite foods?”).

There was that warm feeling again. This was Santi’s first Father's Day. Every giggle, every tiny hand grasping his finger, every sleepy sigh as they drifted off to sleep, it all felt so surreal. Santi couldn't shake the feeling that he was living in a dream, one where he was finally building the family he had longed for, and the weight of it pressed on him, a mixture of awe and gratitude. He doesn’t know how you always know how he feels, but as you reach other to give his hand a squeeze, he doesn’t hesitate to squeeze right back.

Isabela wakes up soon after you both finish eating, and you change her, and reapply sunscreen to everyone (“You too, dada!”) before you and Santi take them in the water again. Isabela, again, has a little fright before she embraces the water, and she lets you take her in deeper. Soon, Santi is holding both girls in his arms, the water up to his chest as he holds them both in the water, cheering that both of them have taken to it so well.

“Wait, wait, let me get a photo!” you call before you get as close as you’re comfortable with, getting a photo of Santi smiling widely, sunglasses on his face. You take as many as you can, even some where he’s just cooing to them both.

The day passes in a blur of baby giggles, diaper changes, and feedings. Santi marvels at how much the girls have grown, their personalities starting to shine through even at such a young age. He can already tell that Isabela is more adventurous, always wriggling and reaching for things, while Jasmine is quieter, content to snuggle in his arms. His finds his mind drifting back to memories of his own father, the way they all used to spend the day fishing or grilling in the backyard, and the way his mother used to try and take over the cooking, but his father always used to tell her it was his day and he will cook the meat however he damn well pleases (but eventually, his mother would always end up by the grill with his father, her arms around his waist as he followed her instructions). He smiles at the thought of making new traditions with his Isabela and Jasmine, even if they were too young to remember them now.

Santi would like to think his parents would be proud of him, and of the girls.

The sun lowers, and there’s a slight chill coming in from the breeze and you both call it a day. You feed the girls one last time before packing up, and hauling everything back to the car, where you strap them into their car seats, giving them toys to play with. You close the trunk of the car, before turning to Santi.

“So,” you say, crossing your arms and leaning against the car. “How was your first Father’s Day?”

Santi gives you that crooked smile that always makes your knees weak. But you’ll never tell him that. “I admit, it scared me a little. But…it was a good day. A perfect day, actually.”

You smile, proud of yourself, and of him. “Good. I’m glad.”

Sanit offers to drive you home, and you take the opportunity. The drive back is quiet, and the girls fast asleep in the backseats, their faces peaceful. The sun and the excitement of the day wearing them out more than usual. You doze in the passenger seat, and Santi sends over a fond smile as he pulls up outside his house. He gently shakes you away.

“Hey…” he mutters. “We’re home.”

You blink up at him and yawn before stretching. You sit up and unbuckle your belt. “Thanks for driving home.”

“No problem.” He smiles at you before you both go quiet, just taking each other in. After a moment, he says, “Thanks for today. It was…perfect.”

“It was,” you agree, smiling at his sincere tone. “We should do it again sometime, not just for Father’s Day.”

“I’d like that,” Santi replies, a warmth spreading through him at the thought. “We could invite Fish and Sarah, and they could bring Sofía.”

You nod. “That would be nice.”

After you swap places in the car, and Santi gives his daughters a kiss goodbye, giving them soft smiles as they stir awake, he comes to the driver’s window. “So I’ll have them Tuesday and Wednesday, right?”

You nod. “Yeah. Oh! Actually, can you have them Saturday evening, too. I uh…I have plans.”

He pauses for a moment and ignores the sudden tightness in his chest before he smirked at the warmth of your cheeks. “What plans?”

“None of your business,” you say with a teasing grin as you roll your eyes.

“You got a date?” Santi teases back.

“Maybe…I’ll let you know,” you say. There’s a small quiet moment between you both before you clear your throat. “So…see you on Tuesday? I’ll text you.”

“See you on Tuesday,” he says, and you give him a goodbye as you pull away. Santi watches as you drive away, a sense of contentment settling over him. His first Father’s Day. It had been more than he ever could have hoped for.

Tagged - @khonsulockley, @superficialfeelings, @othersideoftheparadise, @beezusvreeland, @itsmytimetoodream

[exilley]

i keep thinking about what kim bi says about family in her interview

VC: After meeting her “mother,” Ran comes to realize the importance of “chosen family” and how strong her father has been. What does the word “family” mean to you? KB: Hmm . . . This is probably the most difficult question to answer. For me, family has not been a “shining” thing. Unfortunately, I think my family may have been a mixture of all possible despair, be it ruined people, hurt people, discarded people, or people sacrificed to the violence of the state. My father was injured during the Korean War and was in pain until the day he died. My mother, who bore the brunt of my father’s violence when he drank away his pain, left, leaving behind us three kids. And because of this trauma, my brother became an alcoholic too. My younger sister was probably the greatest casualty: she not only bore all of this despair but also, on top of that, had me, a “transgender” older brother. Of course, I don’t believe that my identity is in any way tied to the ruination of my family life. I believe that we are “born this way,” but it seems that the apriority of being transgender is still the subject of much debate, isn’t it? But is it really important if you are transgender from the moment of birth or not? Isn’t it enough to take responsibility for yourself and your own happiness by changing the way your life might be going for the better? Anyway, “family” always played the role of chaos and more chaos for me. That’s why I don’t know how to write a family that longs for and cares for one another. Since I’m writing works of fiction, I can, of course, write a loving family from my imagination, but if I do, I always feel empty. Since it is something that I was never able to have, I should be able to write what I want, but because my stories are always expressing deeper thoughts, I can’t just write something flippantly. I may already think that that kind of family is unnecessary, which may be why I tend to depict “chosen families” as something far warmer and more comforting. I am also of the belief that humanity needs to broaden its understanding of what family is. We’ve come to an age where we need love for humankind more than familial love, and following this path going forward, rather than limiting “family” to those of the same name or bloodline, I will continue to write stories that center people who are looking out for those closest to them, trying their best for them, and growing.

narratives that reconcile queerness with family resonate with me greatly just by virtue of, my experiences, but i find a lot of it is done as "person finds new people that isn't their blood family and those ties become stronger than the ones with their blood family, who suck ass", which is fine, but it doesn't strike the same chords for me i guess.

in "Tree of Kisses", Ran is an adopted child and her father is a trans woman who took her under their* wing. it reads as the story of living with a queer relative and the hardships tailored to that situation. but central to the story is the fact that Ran is also not someone that society would accept. her mother left the house, her father is trans, and then it turns out she's not related by blood to either of them anyway. at the most she's objectified and dehumanized as something to be pitied: theyre both corrupt existences in a sense. theyre both "queer" in the non-identity sense of the word

and Ran and her dad were also alienated from each other. from Ran's perspective is a certain horror of her expectations of a father figure being an illusion, the foundation of what she loved embodying queerness-- broadly she was afraid of the concept of queerness that she saw in her "dad', and then because her conceptual perception of her "father" is part of herself, the queerness that she recognizes in herself (her adoption, her isolation from her peers, her parents' divorced status, etc)

her arc is about accepting herself as much as it is about accepting her father. she accepts the horror, acknowledges it and chooses to love it. and it is through that choice that enables the gap between her and her father to grow into something that embodies connection. they cease to be a "dad" and start being her family. the person who chose her and who she chooses back.

**The text of the story refers to Ran's parent as her father and uses neutral masculine/neutral pronouns. I use neutral pronouns to respect the writer's intentions in conveying this nuance.

[fluffer5]

Terrans And The Boon and Bane of Research

Terrans are inherently curious creatures. Even our youngs are encouraged to be curious to enhance their growth development. Growing infants can be very energetic tykes the moment they can interact with the world other than seeing blurry blobs from their vision. Also, did you know that infants can only see in shades of black, white, and gray until they enter 3-4 months of age when color starts bleeding out of the world for them? Then you'd have very handsy babies who would want to touch anything and everything with bright colors and want to feel out different textures as a way of associating with the world and their simple meanings.

Anyways, that's just the start of our... curious nature.

Remember back then when teens would eat tide pods since they wanted to know what it tastes like or those who were dared to do this kind of stuff? Or when children who would look at the rotating electric fan blades and think "If I stick my finger in there, what would happen?". Some would ask any nearby adult Terrans... others... let their impulsive thoughts win.

Yes, apparently impulsive and intrusive thoughts are different from each other lol.

Also, do you remember the time when kids would mix stuff in the bathroom as if they were witches or scientists or genius beauty product makers? They would always have the "What would happen if I combine this hair conditioner and this shampoo with this body wash?" even though they'd end up flushing that abomination of a mixture over the drain afterwards in fear of being reprimanded for wasting supplies lol.

Now, let's go back to the original post.

As students, some of us were tasked to do our own research papers, reviews, thesis, or assignments answering the 'what if' stuffs. If you're in a school or place that doesn't require you to submit research proposals as an undergraduate requirement to... graduate of course, then you're one lucky Terran.

Some of these students would submit wacky research titles if you don't create a theme for them (see the titles listed on the original post cuz I'd love to read on those stuff but we all know teachers won't let such titles slide or even reach the board of research panelists lol). I mean, personally, I would've love to ask others on their first hand experience of traumatizing stuff but I have also anticipated that such thing wouldn't get approved and the interviewees would dodge me like crazy lol (was supposed to do in-depth research on how soldiers felt after their first kill on live combat scenario).

It's also hard to interview people when they're wary of you and such is why the listed questions seem to be so intrusive; they just wanted to stop the interview since they're uncomfortable but also don't want to tell the interviewers out of fear of coming out as a rude person since they're taking the time out of their day and the interviewee already agreed to it and stuff... we know that dance and dodge thing.

Y'know this was supposed to be a list of things I wanted to research but went on to a spiral of stuff as to why some research topics wont see the light of day and all that shazam unless funded by a company, university, or research institution. Anyways, lemme try on this.



Things I'd Want To Research

How trauma affects people differently

Are there really intergalactic creatures in another universe and do they look like us?

Parallel worlds and how to predict possible futures

Are dreams gateway to parallel worlds?

If we forget something, where does it go and what do we do to immediately remember it?

Ghosts... how?

Guardian deities... again how??!

Writers and worldbuilding plus the fanfiction side



Things My Friends Want To Research

Why are minor subjects (unrelated to chosen course) needed in college when you can spend the other times doing major subject stuff?

Why does your own fart smell better/satisfying than other people's fart?

Orgasm differences between males and females

Why does the universe look like brain cells?

If mermaids are real and they've drowned a lot of people, why do land people wanna interfere with them?

Wanna study creatures from other dimension or planets

What if every universe exploding just means another brain cell exploding?

How does the brain process stuff we do subconsciously??

What actually happens when we die? (pertains on the soul state)

What do humans taste like?

What is muscle memory and how does it exactly work? Like just how?? Even dead people move post mortem like huh? (that's what they said)

What even are these octopus with three hearts and eight legs and a beak for a mouth? Are they failed creations or something?!

P.S. They started off shy when I asked them and went on a downward spiral of things they wanted to know lol.



Meanwhile, the aliens watching over this genius teen exploring their planet:

Alien 1: Is he... is he petting that dangerous XXX rated danger Cro'lkreo?!

Cro'lkreo : Cat like thing thing with six legs, illuminating poisoned tail, vibrant fanned neck that screams danger just purring and even showing off its kittens that were scrambling at said human for more chin scratches. They also kinda look like Orcas on land and have the fur of your favorite soft blanket so...

Alien 2: Yeah, he did the same thing with our planet's Flushu and befriended the elusive Kaflatu. If I didn't know any better I'd think this Terran kid was gearing up to dominate every planet.

Flushu : Generally a massive looking owl that hunts during the day and sleeps for 2 hours like an insomniac. Can turn invisible making it a feared hunter of said land. Can dive-bomb like Terran Falcons but at a speed of 500-600 km/hour. Also acts like a sky cat and a crow. Flushus love little shiny trinkets offered to them by the humans and loves being preened and petted. One particular Flushu nearly gifted the human a huge Painite gem (it exists btw) but was seen to be sulking when the human took back the gem back to the nearby Kaflatu or Humanoid Elder Dragon Tribe.

Alien 1: And that was done by a Terran kid?!

Alien 2: Well, technically, it would be a baby Terran based on our star year but the Terrans insist that their teenage or young adults are more than capable of planning and living on their own. Still wouldn't dare to touch or kidnap one of them though. The previous Grr'stiag Tribe nearly got annihilated but was spared by the nearby Intergalactic Waffle House Retrieve and Rescue Squad after giving back that one explorer they kidnapped.

Alien 2: The what squad?!!

What avenues of research would you and your friends cause to open up?

That's it, that's the post. I'm very happy to start this chain with what I'd cause alone, my friends would cause alone, and what we'd cause together!

Alone:

How people function with ADHD

PMDD (Pre-Menstrual dysphoric disorder, started when they ask why I take daily meds)

The inability to tell left from right 9 times out of 10

My Friends:

How much information on extremely specific topic someone can have while not knowing the sun is a star

How people interact with animals that are basically liquids (cats, ferrets)

Us Together:

How people finish each others thoughts

How everyone synchronizes their movements

How everyone says/thinks the same thing at the same time

How surprisingly smart people turn inexplicably stupid when together

Sound Level = Dominence

Meme culture

[asparklerwhowrites]

Writing Indian characters, from an Indian person

India is a huge country! while most characters in mainstream media are from the 'big cities' i.e Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, etc, there are many, many more places and areas to look at! since India is such a vast country, there is incredible diversity. 19,500 languages and dialects are present, with people of different skin, eye, and hair colors and types! there are, of course, a lot of inherent prejudices present, which I'll address a little later.

#1. Know their roots

There is no 'one' Indian experience. People from different places celebrate different festivals, worship different gods, and speak different languages!

A checklist of things you should know about your Indian character's background, in essence:

Which state and city/town/village are they from?

How many and which languages do they speak, and with what frequency? (Mostly, people can speak at least two languages!)

Are they religious? (more on religion later)

What are some of their favourite memories/moments linked to their culture? (festivals, family gatherings, etc)

#2. Naming your character

Some common names for boys: Aarav, Advik, Shlok, Farhan, Ritvik, Aarush, Krish, Ojas, Zain.

Some common names for girls: Arushi, Ishita, Trisha, Rhea, Riya, Zoya, Vedika, Khushi, Charvi.

Common last names: Shah, Singh, Agarwal, Banerjee, Dala, Bhat, Joshi, Iyer, Jain, Dhawan, Dixit.

Be careful while picking a last name: last names are very much indicators of the ethnicity/community you're from! most older folks can guess the ethnicity of people just by their last name - it's pretty cool.

Naming systems usually follow the name-surname format, and children usually take the last name of their father - but I believe some regions have a bit of a different system, so look that up!

#3. Stereotypes to avoid

This goes without saying, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Being 'Indian' shouldn't be your character's entire personality. Give them traits, feelings, and a purpose other than being a token diverse character. Some stereotypes that are really a no-no when it comes to Indian characters:

Making them good at math and academics in general (my Cs in math beg to differ that all Indians are good at math. often, the reason Indians are stereotyped to be so smart stems from an incredibly toxic and harmful environment at home which forces children to get good grades. unless you've experienced that, its not your story to write)

Making your Indian character 'hate' being Indian (not everyone?? hates their culture?? like there are many, MANY faults with India as a country, and it's important to recognize and take action against that - which often makes us iffy about how we feel about our country, it's genuinely not your place to write about that UNLESS you are Indian. don't bring in 'hatred' of a place you've never visited, and don't know much about.)

Make them scaredy-cats, 'cowards', who are good at nothing but being the 'brain' (I will literally behead you if you do this/lh)

#4. Why India shouldn't be portrayed as 'perfect' either

It's likely that most of you won't be going in SO deep with your Indian character, but India isn't the perfect 'uNiTy iN diVerSitY' as it's depicted in media. There are incredible tensions between religions (especially Hindus and Muslims), and even remnants of the 'untouchable' way of thinking remain between castes. There's a lot of violence against women, and misogyny is definitely something Indians are not foreign to. People with paler skin are considered to be 'better' than those with darker skin (in the older generations especially)

#5. Some common customs

Removing your shoes before entering the house, since your house is considered to be 'godly' and shoes shouldn't be brought inside

Eating dal (lentils), chawal (rice), sabji (a mixture of vegetables/meat that's cooked in different ways) roti (Indian flatbread) is considered to be a full, well-balanced meal and at least aspects of it are eaten for lunch and dinner (if not all four elements)

The suffixes -bhai (for men) and -ben (for women) are added to first names and are commonly used by adults to refer to someone of importance or who they hold to esteem.

However, 'bhai' (which literally means 'brother) is often used as slang when referring to friends or family. Other slang includes 'arrey' which is used to show irritation or 'yaar' which has the same context.

It's custom to call adults who you refer to in a friendly way 'aunty' or 'uncle', like the parents of your friends.

Talking back to your elders is forbidden, especially your grandparents who you have to refer to with utmost respect.

#6. Religions

India is a very religiously diverse country. The most common religion is Hinduism, then Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, and Buddhism. All religions have their own complexities, and since I'm a Hindu, I can tell you a little bit about that!

It's common to have a mandir which is a small altar dedicated to the deities your family worships. (Fun fact - they're usually placed in the East direction because that's where the sun rises)

Most kids can say a few shloks by-heart, which are a few lines of prayer! (lmao I've forgotten most but I used to be able to rattle off at least ten when I was younger)

Most people know at least the general plot of the Ramayan and Mahabharat - two famous epic stories. (I'm not sure if they're inherently 'Hindu' or not)

Many people wear necklaces with a small pendant of the deity they worship!

Common Hindu deities: Saraswati, Ganesha, Shiva, Krishna, Vishnu.

It's important to note that religious violence is a thing. Muslims especially, are oppressed and discriminated against. It's a very, very complex issue, and one that's been going on for thousands of years.

#7. Myth & Facts

India is a very poor country

Yep! Lakhs of people live in villages with no electricity, clean water, or amenities nearby. There's no point sugar-coating it. There are HUGE gaps between the poor and the rich (have you heard of Ambani and Adani :D) and while our millionaires rejoice in their thirty-story mansions, people die of famine, disease, and hunger every day. I am personally lucky enough to be EXTREMELY privileged and attend an international school and live in one of the most developed cities. Most people aren't as lucky as me, and it's a really true, horrifying reality.

Everyone in India is vegetarian

No lmao - while many people ARE, there's a greater and equal amount of non-vegetarian people.

We burn our dead in parking lots

This circulated back when the second wave was going on in India, and the media blew it out of proportion. First of all, what the actual f!ck. Cremation is a Hindu ritual, and by saying that aLL Indians burn their dead you are erasing the other religions here. Secondly, cremation is a sacred ritual only attended by close family of the deceased member. It does not happed in PARKING LOTS. It's a time of grief and loss, not a way to humiliate a religion for the way they treat their dead.

Drop any other questions about India in the comments/DM me!

[watchyourbluesturngolden]

you are my home

this started out as a little concept, and then i thought it might be fun to write a whole fic out of it!

(side note: I know we have no idea if sarah and mitch are having a boy or girl, so i just went with girl ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)

warnings: angst, relationship struggles, arguments

word count: 11.5k (the longest thing i've ever written :) )

"Just an eighth of a cup?"

"That's what it says," Harry shrugged, looking at the recipe on his phone. "Look, one eighth cup of milk. Right here-" He tilted the screen toward you.

"I believe you, it's just weird, it doesn't seem like a lot," you mused, but followed his instructions anyways. You were making chicken parmesan, and the two of you had a rather long history of butchered recipes. It was usually because you were too wrapped up in each other to read the recipe properly. Or because Harry would start kissing you while the food was cooking, murmuring against your lips that "we have plenty of time". Unfortunately, he usually got carried away, leaving you with a flushed face and burnt food.

Not this time, though. You were determined to make this one right. You stirred the milk into the mixture, watching carefully and turning the heat down when it began to bubble.

"Now... we just have to wait while it simmers for a few minutes," you said, setting the spatula down in the spoon rest. "So far, so good."

"I can think of something for us to do for a few minutes," Harry grinned, wrapping his arms around your waist. He leaned down, beginning to kiss your neck, but you quickly squirmed away.

"Nope, not this time," you grabbed the spatula again, brandishing it like a weapon. "Stay back. We're not taking any chances with this one. I'm tired of throwing out charred food and ordering pizza."

"Pizza is good, though," he argued, stepping closer again as you moved farther away.

"Not as good as our homemade chicken parmesan will be if you can just be patient for three minutes."

"Three minutes?" He practically whined.

You rolled your eyes. "You will be fine for three minutes. Wait until the food is done."

He huffed, leaning back against the counter with his arms crossed. "Can't believe you're depriving me of your love like this."

"Yes, you're so terribly deprived," you said sarcastically. "it's not like I've been by your side constantly for the past 72 hours."

"Well, time flies when you're with the love of your life."

You smiled, stepping forward to give him a quick peck on the cheek. Just one. He grabbed at your forearms, trying to keep you close, but you jumped back.

"No," you said sternly. "The food is almost done and I'm not burning this one too."

"Fine," he groaned. "But speaking of 72 hours... I was wondering about something."

You hummed questioningly, stirring the sauce.

"I was just kind of thinking... I mean, we're together all the time. When we're in the States we're together at your place, and when we're in London we're together at mine. So do you think... maybe we should just... officially move in together?"

You froze, suddenly feeling your heart thudding. It's not like you hadn't thought about it before. You had; a lot, actually. Of course you wanted to live with him. You hated being apart from him, and you knew he felt the same about you.

But still, moving to a whole different continent is a pretty big step. You didn't know how that would work for your job, and you weren't exactly excited to be so far away from all your friends and family.

"You don't have to answer right now," He was quick to interject, seemingly noticing how worried you looked. "Not at all. I just... I think it would be nice to have you with me. I just hate all the back and forth, and I'd kind of like to have a place we can call home together."

A small smile spread over your face as you thought about how nice it really would be. You thought of waking up on a rainy morning, cuddled into his side as you listened to the raindrops patter on the window. You thought of baking cookies in the kitchen with him. Taking bubble baths together. Going on walks in the park every evening. All of that would be so much better if it didn't have an end date lurking around the corner. If you knew you wouldn't have to fly back home in a few days or weeks or months.

"It would be really nice," you agreed. "I just... what about my work and stuff?"

"We can figure that out," he said. "We can do it however you want. I'm sure they could set it up so you can work remotely, or you could get a different job in London, or... you don't actually have to work if you don't want to."

"What, just be your little housewife?" you teased, looking over your shoulder at him.

"No," he grinned. "Well, maybe-"

You turned and snapped a hand towel at him before he could finish that sentence. He jumped away, grinning boyishly and holding his hands up in surrender.

"That's not how I meant it, and you know it. But seriously, if you don't want to work you don't have to."

"I would like to be there with you, and know I don't have to leave anytime soon," you said thoughtfully.

"Like I said, you don't have to decide right now. Why don't you just think about it? As much as I want you to, it is a big decision and I don't want you to rush into anything you're not okay with."

Before you could speak again, the timer on your phone went off.

"That's the sauce," you said, turning around and turning the gas off. "See? It's not so hard to keep your hands off of me for long enough to cook a meal, is it?"

He scoffed. "Speak for yourself. I nearly died. Of lonliness."

-----

In the next few days, you thought about Harry's offer a lot. You couldn't deny that you really liked the idea. What could be better than living with the love of your life? Never having to leave to pick up more clothes, never forgetting something important at home, always being in the same country as him. There were just a few things you worried about. Your job, for one. Yes, Harry had offered for you to quit working, but you weren’t sure if that was the best idea. You liked your job, and being able to earn your own money.

Harry was probably right; it probably could be done remotely. But you would kind of miss seeing your coworkers, at least the few you had been close with.

Then there was the matter of your friends. You would really miss having girls' nights, and gossiping about their boyfriends, and getting mani-pedis every month. Sure, you knew you would be back to visit. But you also knew it would be different.

Then, the thing you were most worried about: your family. You had always been close with them, especially your mom. You went to see her and your dad every week, and you called them almost every day. You weren't sure how well you would cope with being so far away from them.

But at the same time, you were incredibly excited by the idea of moving to London. You had been there before, of course, but never for longer than a few weeks. You wanted to get the full experience. You wanted Harry to show you around, take you to his favorite places. You wanted to go to the town he grew up in, see the bakery he never shut up about. You wanted to be a part of his life, in every way.

So, a week after he first asked you, you made up your mind. You were laying on the couch with him, tracing over his tattoos with your fingers while some cooking show played. He was pretty involved, every so often groaning or shaking his head or tsking at the contestants' "complete lack of skills." You weren't paying any attention, though. You were trying to decide how to bring up the conversation from earlier.

Eventually, you decided to just go for it.

"Harry?" you asked, not looking up from your fingers on his arms.

"Hm?" He replied, peeling his eyes away from the screen to look at you.

"I was thinking... about what you said the other day."

"Yeah?" He sat up more, muting the TV. "What about it?"

"I just think- I mean, there's still some stuff to figure out, but I would really like to move into your place in London."

"Really?" His face lit up.

You nodded. "I'm a little worried about my work, and leaving my family and friends, but... I want to be with you. I hate when one of us has to leave. I just want to go to sleep next to you, and wake up next to you, and not have an end date hanging over my head every time we're together."

"I like the sound of that," he smiled, pressing a kiss to the back of your hand. "And like I said, we'll figure out your work. And we'll come back to visit whenever you want to. It's only like... a nine hour flight."

"Right, basically nothing," you laughed, leaning your head against his shoulder.

"Right," he smiled. "But really. Any time you need to see your people, we'll come see them."

"We?"

He nodded, seeming confused by your questioning tone.

"You wouldn't have to do that," you shook your head. "I don't want to make you-"

"I want to." He cut you off. "I'm not going to just let you fly for 18 hours all alone. Plus, I'd miss you too much while you were gone."

"That's sweet," you said, a light flush heating up your face. "Also, my family might be disappointed if I came back and you weren't with me. I think they like you more than me at this point."

"That was the plan all along," he grinned.

You hit his arm playfully, but didn't move your head. "So what would that look like?"

"Well, really we could do whatever you want to. We could just move all your stuff into my place, or if you wanted, we could maybe find somewhere new? Somewhere that's just ours."

"Harry, we are not buying a whole new house when you basically have a mansion. That would be stupid."

"I'm actually really glad you feel that way. That mansion was bloody expensive."

-----

"How much longer until your lease is up?" Harry's impatient voice came through the phone.

"One less day than when I told you yesterday," you rolled your eyes. He was worse than a kid waiting for Christmas. He asked nearly every day if he could just pay off the lease for you and have you move right then. Your answer was always no; you had decided to finish it out on your own. Kind of like closing one chapter of your life before you start another.

There were just two weeks left now, and the evidence was all around the place. You and Harry had started to box up your smaller items, and the space already felt much less like home. You had taken pictures off the walls; cleared trinkets off the bookshelves. In the next few days, you were going to go through your clothes and decide what would come with you and what would be donated.

Harry had been excited to help with the whole process, but he had to go back to London a week earlier than he planned. Of course, you weren't happy about this, but you kind of liked having some time alone to say goodbye to the place you had called home for the past five years.

So you did just that. You wandered around, smiling at the patched spot in the wall from when Harry had knocked over a lamp stumbling around in the dark. You ran your fingers over the slight scorch mark on the table from when you made dinner, but forgot to set down a potholder. Your toe scuffled over the nail polish stain on the rug, from when Harry had tried to paint your nails.

All these little things made your little apartment feel like your home. You would miss them, but you had realized something as you thought back to all the memories. Most of them had been with Harry. Yes, you were leaving some memories behind, but you weren't leaving HIM behind. You would make new memories together, wherever you lived. As long as it was together.

"It's just two weeks, baby, and then we'll be together."

"Two weeks is so long," he sighed.

"It'll go by fast," you promised. "It is for me. I'm keeping busy over here."

"Me too," he took on an offended tone. "Very busy. I'm doing lots of things."

"What have you been up to?" You asked, settling back onto the couch. It was weird to see how empty your space was, but it was nice to be able to put your feet on the coffee table without knocking over the various decorations that usually adorned it.

"Some work stuff, but mostly clearing out space for you. You have a lot of stuff."

"I do not," you scoffed. "I probably have less hair products than you do."

"Hey," he cried. "Rude. My hair is luxurious. It takes a lot of upkeep."

You smiled, shaking your head.

“I moved a lot of stuff into the guest closet, so you can have half of the one in our room."

"Really?" You asked, a little surprised. You knew how well organized he kept his closet, so it was a little shocking that he was willing to just move everything.

"Of course. You'll be living here too, you need someplace to keep your clothes."

"I don't think I'll be able to fill half of your closet, though," you laughed.

"Guess we'll have to go shopping, then!" He chirped.

"I guess," you agreed with a smile.

You heard muffled voices in the background before Harry spoke again.

"I'm sorry, love, but I have to go." he sounded frustrated. "I'll call you later, okay?"

"Okay. Love you!"

"Love you too."

-----

"Today's the day!" Harry practically yelled through the phone.

"I know!" You said, trying to match his enthusiasm. You were slightly less excited. After all, you still had a nine hour flight ahead of you. But you knew that by this time tomorrow, you would officially be living with Harry, and that made it worth it.

"Do you have everything packed?" He asked.

"Pretty much. I'm just throwing the last of my stuff into my bag."

"Did you make a shopping list for when you get here?"

"I was gonna do that on the plane. It'll be something for me to do," you said, turning on the speakerphone so you could move around more freely.

"Yeah, good plan," he agreed. "I've said this a few times already, but I'm so excited for you to be here with me."

"Have you? Have you really said it a few times? I wasn't aware," you laughed.

"Be nice to me, I'm just happy," he said, and you could practically hear the smile in his voice.

"I know, I'm sorry," you shook your head with a smile. "I'm excited too. But I have to go now, I have to finish packing."

"Ok," he replied sadly. "See you soon!"

-----

You spotted him right after you got off the plane. He was standing near the gate, searching the crowd expectantly. Once he locked eyes with you, his face lit up in a huge smile. He made his way through the crowd, meeting you with open arms. He acted like he hadn't seen you in weeks, even though it had only been four days.

He buried his face in your neck, holding you tightly against him.

"I missed you," he murmured.

"I missed you too," you breathed deeply, inhaling his familiar scent. "But I'm here now. And now we can go home."

"Yeah," he grinned. "Home."

-----

"Harry, the movers can carry some of it, that's their job," you reminded him as he grabbed one of the boxes.

"Yeah, but it'll go faster if I carry some stuff," he argued, motioning to the door with his head. "Open that for me?"

You did as he asked, shaking your head as he brought the box of books inside. He insisted on helping, even though he had hired a team of movers to do this for you.

"Where do you wanna put these?" He asked, looking around the living room. "They can go on the shelf in here, or the one in our room."

"I'm not sure, I think I want some in here and some in the room. Why don't we go through them later?"

"Sounds good," he nodded, setting the box down in front of the bookshelf. "Another box!"

You shook your head again, going into the kitchen as he went back outside. You started going through the cupboards, checking to make sure you didn’t have any duplicates on your shopping list. He already had quite a few of the items you needed, so you could remove several things.

Once the last few boxes had been brought in, and Harry had thanked the movers profusely, he collapsed on the couch.

"I told you you shouldn't have done so much, now you're all tired out," you joked, going to sit next to him.

He nodded. "You were right. I need a nap after all that." He got up, pushing you to lay down and then crawling on top of you. He laid his head on your stomach, sighing contentedly when you ran your fingers through his hair.

"Oh wait," he lifted his head, already sounding half asleep. "We didn't even get groceries yet. We have to-" He began to get up, but you stopped him with a gentle hand on his face.

You shook your head, running your thumb over his cheekbone lightly. "We can do that later, baby. Just go to sleep for a while."

"Yeah," he nodded slightly. "I'm just gonna go to sleep for a while."

"Okay," you smiled. "Sweet dreams."

-----

When Harry woke up, he was alone on the couch. He frowned at the lack of warmth, grabbing the blanket from the back of the couch and pulling it around himself. He wasn't sure how you had managed to get out from under him without waking him, but he wasn't happy about it.

He planned to go back to sleep, but sighed when his phone buzzed. He reached for it, but then paused for a minute. He decided whatever it was could wait. He retracted his arm, pulling the blanket tighter around himself and snuggling into the back of the couch.

Just as he was about to drift off, his phone began buzzing again. This time, it didn't stop. He groaned, but grabbed it this time. He squinted at the bright light, trying to make out who was trying so hard to contact him.

It was Jeff. There were two missed calls and a text. He swiped on the text, his frown deepening as he read the message.

Jeff: I'm sure you're going to see this soon enough, but the moving van was spotted outside your house. There's already a few articles out, and I'm sure there'll be more. Just wanted to let you know so you don't have to hear it from some trashy website, and maybe you should let Y/N know to stay away from socials for a while. Sorry about this.

Harry groaned, throwing his arm over his face. He had known this was likely to happen, but at the same time he had hoped it wouldn't. He was so happy right now, and he didn't need that to be tainted by rude articles and crazy fans and speculations about his relationships. He just wanted to sit back and relax with his love for a few days, but apparently that was too much for him to ask.

Normally, he wouldn't even look at the articles. He knew they would only be upsetting. This time, though, he felt like he should. He wasn't sure how you would react to this, and it might be easier if he knew what you would be seeing all over the internet for the next week.

So, he opened google and searched "harry styles". Instantly, his screen filled with pictures of the moving van outside his house. There were even a few pictures of him carrying boxes, and one of your back as you walked inside. He huffed angrily. This was supposed to be a happy day, and now he was in a bad mood. His privacy had been violated yet again, and it was hard for him to stay positive after that.

Then he began scrolling through the article titles. He rolled his eyes at the baited language that was clearly meant to create negative responses.

"HARRY STYLES seen MOVING BOXES? Is he going out... or is someone coming in?"

"Harry Styles spotted with NEWEST GIRLFRIEND"

"ANOTHER GIRL? HARRY SHARES HIS HOUSE... YET AGAIN!"

"Just a friend? Or Harry's latest lover?"

"Guess which FORMER ONE DIRECTION STAR is shacking up with his SECRET GIRLFRIEND!"

Against his better judgement, he clicked on one of the articles. His heart sunk further with every sentence he read.

"It's no secret that Harry Styles has been with a lot of women (read about each of his past relationships here). But is there someone new for the Watermelon Sugar singer?

A moving van was spotted outside of Harry's house today, and the star was seen moving boxes into his 8.7 million dollar mansion.

As if that’s not enough, there was a woman seen heading into the house with Harry. Could this mean a new romance for the Grammy winning artist? Well, don’t be too sure. There are many possible explanations for these new living arrangements. Maybe she’s a friend going through a hard time, or even just a family member who needs a couch to crash on.

Or maybe she’s Harry’s newest conquest. Yet another notch in the bed stand! Way to go, Styles!

However, we can’t help but notice: she doesn’t seem like Harry’s type. Come on girl, leggings and a hoodie? And that hair? Apparently, she’s not trying too hard to impress him.

We don’t know all the details yet, but stay tuned! We’ve reached out to Harry’s management for more information. Check back for more updates, and subscribe to our email list so you don’t miss anything!”

Harry clicked off his phone with a sigh. He stood up from the couch, keeping the blanket wrapped around him as he made his way into the kitchen.

No matter how upset he was, he was sure the sight in front of him would always bring a smile to his face. You were wearing one of his t-shirts, dancing slightly to your music as you stirred the pot in front of you. Harry leaned against the door frame, giving himself a few minutes to take this in. He couldn’t believe he would get to experience this every day from now on.

With a fond smile still on his face, he walked over to you. He wrapped his arms around your waist, adjusting the blanket so it draped over your shoulders as well.

“Hi,” you smiled, leaning back against him. “Did you have a good nap?”

“Would have been better if you didn’t get up,” he pouted, resting his chin on your shoulder to look into the pot.

“Oh please, you were totally dead to the world. I’ve been in here for half an hour now, and you only just woke up.”

“Still,” he said, turning his head to kiss your cheek. “What are you making?”

“Mac ‘n’ cheese,” you explained. “I wasn’t in the mood to do any real cooking.”

“Sounds delicious,” he smiled. “S’it almost done?”

“Should be like five more minutes,” you glanced over at the timer on your phone. “Want to get the plates?”

“No, just want to hold you,” he said, pressing his face further into your neck. “I’m not awake yet.”

“Fine,” you said, setting the spoon down. “Then you gotta walk with me, because I need to set the table.”

“I can do that,” he said, his voice muffled.

You smiled, moving around the room to get everything you needed while Harry clung to you like a koala. The smell of food seemed to perk him up, because within a few minutes he was lifting his head and leaning less of his weight on you.

“Smells really good, love,” he said, finally pulling himself away from you.

“I know, I’m an amazing chef,” you grinned, lifting the pot off the stove and bringing it to the table. This time, you remembered to set down a potholer. You didn’t really want to ruin this table that probably cost more than your entire apartment.

“You are,” he agreed, pulling out your chair before sitting down next to you. He scooted his chair closer, moving the blanket again so you were both under it.

His mood seemed to change suddenly as he was piling the food onto your plates.

“I have to tell you something,” he said, looking more upset than you had seen in a while.

“What?” You asked, turning slightly to face him.

“I don’t really… there’s no nice way to say it,” he said, avoiding your eyes. “Someone took pictures of the moving van and us bringing stuff in, and there’s some pretty nasty articles.”

“Oh,” you said quietly. You weren’t quite sure how to respond to that. It’s not like you didn’t expect this, but you had hoped to have a few peaceful days with Harry before being attacked by the media. “Is it- how bad is it?”

“It’s... not good,” he sighed. “I wouldn’t recommend looking at it. That stuff is terrible, always has been. They always seem to know exactly how to tear people down; make you feel bad about yourself. You might wanna stay off social media, just for a few days until some of the crazies calm down.”

You nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“What?” he looked up quickly. “Why are you sorry? I’m the one that should be sorry, they’re writing terrible stuff about you, and it’s my fault.”

“It’s not your fault,” you were quick to shut him down. “And I’m sure it bothers you too. I know you don’t like when they get personal information.”

“No, I really don’t,” he agreed. “But I wish they left you out of it.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter now,” you said, leaning your head on his arm. “Because now I’m here, and we’re together, and I don’t have to leave anytime soon.”

-----

After dinner, Harry decided you should get some more of your things put away. He brought your bag to the bathroom, dumping everything out onto the vanity.

“Why do you have so many bottles?” He asked, picking up the closest one.

“Because,” you said, grabbing it out of his hands. “They all do different things. This one is moisturizer, this one makes sure my skin doesn’t get too oily-”

“So why don’t you just not use either of them? Seems like they cancel each other out anyways.”

You shot him a glare. “That’s not how it works. Anyways, this one's for dark spots. These glass ones are mineral oils. This blue one is for wrinkles- you know, gotta get ahead of those- and this one is rose water. It doesn’t really do anything, it basically just smells good. Then that’s my hair stuff- and I was right by the way, you do have way more than I do. And this is a face mask, and that one close to the sink is a hair mask, and this little tub is an exfoliator, and this cloth is a makeup remover, but it’s better for the environment than individual wipes. And then my makeup is here- so liquid foundation, setting powder, blush, concealer, mascara, eye shadow, eyeliner, and the brushes. I actually don’t have that much stuff,” you shrugged, looking at the bottles splayed everywhere.

“Right… not that much stuff,” he said, his eyes wide. “It’s a good thing I asked Gemma how she organizes all her stuff, because she told me to get one of these things.” He opened the cupboard under the sink, pulling out a spinning makeup organizer. “Hopefully all of your million bottles fit on this.”

“You got this for me?” you asked, smiling. “That’s so nice of you.”

“Well, I don’t think your stuff would have fit in the drawers,” he said, running a hand through his hair.

“Oh, shush,” you rolled your eyes. “Help me get all this organized, will you?”

-----

The next week was pretty smooth, minus that little hiccup with the press. You did as Harry suggested, and stayed off Twitter and Instagram. You didn’t think it would be too bad, but you had gotten a few texts from concerned family and friends that made you wonder how bad it really was.

Either way, you didn’t really want to look. You and Harry were essentially honeymooning, and you weren’t about to let a few nasty articles ruin it.

“We haven’t gone for groceries yet,” Harry reminded you, coming up behind you as you did your morning skincare routine.

“Yeah, I kind of forgot about that,” you said, closing the bottle of moisturizer. “We can go whenever, just let me get dressed.”

He nodded. “What all do we need?”

“I don’t think there’s too much, but we need some fruit. Most of yours is bad at this point.”

“Yeah, that happens.” He laughed. “I usually buy a whole bunch and then end up having to leave, so then I come home to a fridge full of rotten fruit.”

“Lovely,” you joked. “I also need some chips, all your snacks are healthy.”

“I have no idea what chips are, but we can buy some crisps, if that’s what you meant,” he smiled at you in the mirror.

“Shut up,” you rolled your eyes, hitting his arm playfully. “I’m not going to call them crisps just because I live here now. I’m still American.”

“Fine, but when we have kids, they will not be using your American words. I’m not letting you corrupt my children like that.”

“You’re so annoying.”

“Well then, it’s too bad you moved in with me, isn’t it?”

-----

“Ooh, we need these!” Harry said, grabbing a bag of brownie bites.

“Why do we need those?”

“Because they’re delicious,” he said, looking at you like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“If you say so,” you shrugged, pushing the cart forward after he threw the bag in. “Where is the pasta?”

“Aisle 17,” he answered immediately.

“Is it really?” You asked, a little surprised he had the aisle numbers memorized.

“I have no idea,” he laughed. “It’s just the first number that popped into my head. I think it’s that way? Or maybe over here…” he trailed off, like he was trying to remember where to go. “I actually have no idea.”

“Wow, you're so helpful.”

“I know,” he grinned. “I don’t know, just start wandering around and we’ll find it eventually.”

“What a plan,” you shook your head, but followed him anyway. It’s not like you were in any rush, and you were both having a good time.

“Oh look!” You said, turning into an aisle. “I found the chips.”

“The what?” Harry called from the next row over. “I thought you said something, but I must have heard you wrong.”

“No, I just said I found the chips,” you repeated. “You know, little cooked potato slices?”

“I’m sorry love, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” He said, joining you in the aisle. “Oh, silly me. You meant crisps!”

“Nope,” you grabbed a bag of Doritos. “I meant exactly what I said.” You placed the bag in the cart, turning back to Harry. You leaned up on your tiptoes, moving closer to his face. “Chips,” you whispered, before pressing a quick kiss to his cheek and then turning around again.

“You can’t seduce me into calling them the wrong name,” he scoffed.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you shrugged, pushing the cart away. “Did you find the pasta yet?”

“No, but I did find the ice cream,” he said, easily catching up to you with his long legs.

“Ooh, I think that’s where we need to go next.”

“I agree,” he grinned, steering the cart in the right direction. “I think we should probably just get all of them, ya know? That way we won’t miss out on anything good.”

“Harry, there’s like thirty different flavors here,” you laughed. “We are not getting that much ice cream, we don’t even have that much space in the freezer.”

“No, that’s just because I have a bunch of frozen food in there. It’s mostly vegetables. Not that important. I can just throw that all away,” he argued, already opening the freezer door to reach for some ice cream.

“We are not buying thirty cartons of ice cream,” you shook your head. “We can get, like, ten, at most. Even that-”

“You already said ten!” he said, pressing a finger against your lips. “You can’t go back on that now. So pick some flavors!”

-----

“Which one do we want to try first?” He asked, looking at the large selection you had bought.

“Um… I think the salted caramel core,” you decided, picking up the carton of ice cream.

“Oh! You know what we need with all of this?”

“Insulin?”

“No,” he rolled his eyes, grabbing one of the bags from earlier and pulling out the brownie bites. “I told you we needed these, they’ll go perfect with the ice cream.”

“Ooh,” you nodded. “That’s a good idea.”

“I know,” he said proudly. “I’m full of good ideas. Actually, I have another one. Let’s go watch The Office while we eat our delicious brownie bites.”

“Ok, but if you put on the UK version I might have to leave.”

“I would never,” he said in an offended tone. “I’m not a monster.”

-----

“I don’t want to go back to work,” he sighed. “I just wanna stay here with you.”

“I know,” you said, tracing patterns on his chest. “But I have to start working again too. I don’t think my boss is too happy about this whole arrangement, so I have to make everything twice as good so she’ll let me keep doing it this way.”

“Yeah,” he said, running his fingers through your hair. “I’m saying again, you could just quit.”

“I’m not quitting,” you shook your head. “I like my job. And I can do it all from the house, so it’s a really good deal.”

“I wish I could do that,” he sighed again.

“That wouldn’t work,” you smiled. “If we were both here all day, neither of us would get anything done.”

“You might be right,” he laughed. “You’re very distracting.”

“Oh, I’m distracting?”

“Very,” he grinned. You recognized the look in his eyes, and you knew if you didn’t get up soon you wouldn’t any time in the next hour

So before he could move too far and start kissing at your neck, you rolled off him.

“I have to get ready for work,” you said, getting out of bed.

“What do you mean get ready? You don’t have to go anywhere, we have all the time in the world,” he pouted, reaching out his arm for you.

“I don’t, but you do. Jeff has been texting you nonstop, and Sarah called the other day and told me she’s getting restless at home. So I’m taking the baby today, so all of you can get some work in.”

“You are? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because, if you knew we were having the baby here, you would come up with some excuse to stay here.”

“Maybe,” he smiled, still making no moves to get up. “She’s just so cute.”

“Well, sometime we can offer to babysit so Sarah and Mitch can go out for the evening or something. But you have to go in today, so you should probably get dressed.”

He groaned, flopping his head back into the pillows.

-----

“Harry! They’re here!” You called, opening the door and inviting Sarah and Mitch in. “Hi guys, Harry’s being a drama queen today so I’m not sure when he’ll be down.”

“When isn’t he?” Sarah smiled, stepping into the room with the baby in her arms. Mitch was carrying the diaper bag, which he set down on the bench next to the door.

Sarah handed the baby over to you as Harry came down the stairs.

“Aw, can I hold her?” He asked, not even greeting his friends.

“No,” all three of you said at once.

“Why?” He whined before smiling at the baby in your arms.

“Because you won’t be able to put her down,” you said, laughing when the other two nodded. “See, they know I’m right.”

“Fine,” he grumbled. “But Mitch, you’re taking Sarah out tomorrow night and we’re babysitting.”

“I’m alright with that,” Sarah smiled. “Y/N, you should have everything you need in the diaper bag. There’s enough formula for a few bottles, but she won’t need to eat for an hour or so. Other than that she’ll probably sleep most of the time, she’s a pretty quiet baby. She takes after her dad.”

You nodded, bouncing her lightly. Harry was already in her face, smiling and cooing and offering his finger for her to grab. She seemed to like the attention, and was smiling right back at him.

“Harry, we have to go,” Sarah said with one hand on the doorknob.

He huffed. “Just when I start to make a connection with the child, I’m ripped away.”

You rolled your eyes. “We’ll have her tomorrow night. You can connect with her then.”

“It won’t be the same,” he said. “You know- why don’t we just take her with us? She can just come with us-” he was already moving toward you again, but Mitch grabbed his shoulder.

“No, Harry, we actually have to get some stuff done today.”

“Fine,” he groaned. “But you better send me pictures if she does anything cute,” he pointed at you.

“Everything she does is cute,” Mitch argued.

“You’re really not helping,” Sarah said, hitting his arm. “I thought I had one child, but turns out I have three.”

-----

The next few days were not very productive for Harry. He was having a hard time getting back in the swing of things, and it felt like everything he did was bad. He couldn’t write or play anything he liked. He just felt stuck.

They went over some old stuff, just so he didn’t feel like they totally wasted their time. Still, he couldn’t help but feel incredibly frustrated. He didn’t usually have issues with writers’ block, and he expected to be even better now that you were with him all the time. He had always been more productive when he got to see you, so he thought living with you would give him an extra boost. Apparently not.

Then, to make everything worse, more pictures and articles came out. Pictures from the day you had gone grocery shopping had been captured by some fan, but for some reason hadn’t come out until today.

But they were suddenly everywhere. There were even more articles than before, and this time it was worse because there were full pictures of your face. Before, there had only been one blurry shot of your back, and that alone got enough criticism. Now it was like the floodgates had opened. Every aspect of your appearance was being ripped apart, along with Harry’s “decision making”.

He saw the first article when they were taking a break for lunch one day. They had ordered some pizzas, and everyone was spread out on the couches across the room.

Harry unlocked his phone, ready to call you and ask about your day, but was instead met with another text from Jeff. Like the one before, he had advised Harry to keep you off social media for the next few days and apologized that it got this out of hand.

Sighing, he decided to see what they were saying this time.

“Harry Styles goes on a shopping spree- But who’s that with him?”

“Harry’s “new girlfriend” shops with him?”

"DID SHE MOVE IN?”“

“MYSTERY GIRL and HARRY STYLES search for the necessities!”

He clicked on one of the articles.

“Harry Styles and his mystery lady were seen shopping last week. We can’t help but think things might be getting more serious!

The former One Direction star was spotted moving boxes into his house a few weeks ago. What we thought may have just been a favor for a friend might be something much more juicy!

Maybe she’s not just another notch in the bed stand- maybe this one will stick around!

But really, if she wants to stick around- maybe she should watch what she eats. The Sign of the Times singer was searching for healthy snacks, while his newest girlfriend filled the cart with ice cream and chips. Seems like a recipe for disaster between the two!

Again, she’s seen wearing a very simple outfit. And no (or at least, very little!) makeup. Come on girl, you couldn’t have at least used a little concealer for those eye bags?

It seems like she’s just not trying very hard! We have to wonder- how long can this last?”

“Fuck’s sake,” Harry groaned, grabbing the pillow next to him and chucking it across the room.

“Harry, what’s going on?” Sarah asked. Everyone had noticed how on edge he had been lately, but no one was quite sure how to address his moodiness.

“Another article just came out,” he sighed. “It’s worse than the last one. I’m so sick of this.”

“Does Y/N know?”

Harry shrugged. He didn’t feel like talking about it anymore, but he knew they wouldn’t just leave it without knowing if you were ok.

“You should probably call her, so she doesn’t hear it from someone else,” Sarah advised. “I would want to find out from someone I loved.”

“I can’t- I really don’t want to talk to her right now.”

“Did something happen with you two?” Mitch asked, confused. The two of you had been inseparable lately, so this was strange.

Harry shook his head.

“I just- can we just not talk about it?”

He could tell they didn’t want to drop it, but one of the assistants came in with the pizza, and Harry was clearly done talking.

His mood only got worse for the rest of the day. He still couldn’t make anything new, and he was even having trouble with things he already knew. He struggled to hit the higher notes, and his throat was getting sore from trying to force it. By the time people were starting to head home, he was ready to throw a lot more than a pillow.

Harry dropped his keys when he was trying to unlock the door, and then his coat fell off the hook when he tried to hang it up. By the time he got to the kitchen, his jaw was clenched and he was fuming.

“Hi,” you said tentatively, noticing how angry he looked.

“Hi,” he said shortly, opening the fridge. “Is there anything to eat?”

“I didn’t make anything,” you said, still typing on your computer.

“You didn’t-” He shut the fridge aggressively, the bottles and containers in the door clinking against each other. “You couldn’t make supper for one night?”

“Excuse me?” You looked up, crossing your arms defensively. “I’ve been working.”

“So have I!”

“And I don’t expect you to make supper after you’ve been working all day!”

“It’s different, you’re home all day!”

“That doesn’t mean I’m not busy, Harry. You know that.”

“Well what am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, you could stop yelling at me for starters! I didn’t do anything wrong and you're acting like you hate me.”

His face softened immediately, and he stepped forward. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. I don’t hate you, I could never. I just-” He scrubbed his face with his hands. “I’m having a terrible time with work. I can’t do anything right, nothing is working, and all these articles-”

“The articles came out weeks ago, Harry. It’s not that big of a deal anymore.”

“No,” he shook his head. “There’s more. A lot more, and they’re worse than before.”

“Oh,” you said quietly. “I didn’t know that.”

“I know,” he replied. “I should have told you earlier, I just- I don’t know. I don’t want you to have to deal with this.”

“Well, keeping it a secret from me and then yelling at me isn’t going to help anything,” you said, arms still crossed. “I know you’ve been having a hard time lately, Sarah told me. You can talk to me, you know. You don’t have to just keep everything in.”

“I didn’t want to put this on you,” he admitted, looking down.

“I want to know,” you told him. “I want to know when things are upsetting you or you’re having a hard time at work. You can tell me those things.”

He nodded. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I shouldn't have raised my voice. Please forgive me?”

“Of course I forgive you,” you said, moving around the table and closer to him. He looked up, opening his arms and smiling as you stepped into them.

“It will get better soon,” he promised. “It won't be this hard for long."

-----

Despite his hopeful words, your situation didn’t get any easier. More articles came out, most of them attacking Harry for his past relationships and wondering how long this one would last. His writers’ block showed no signs of easing up, and he was getting more frustrated with every day that passed.

On top of all this, you had started missing deadlines for work. The difference in time zones made it more difficult than you had anticipated, and your boss was not happy. You’d already had to sit through three Zoom meetings this week, with her lecturing you on “the importance of timeliness and responsibility.”

You were not in the right state of mind to deal with Harry’s moodiness, and the atmosphere between you was painfully tense.

That is, until it all boiled over one day.

Harry came home angry, again. He slammed the door shut and basically stomped to the kitchen. Your day had already been stressful enough, and you weren’t about to let him take out his frustration on you.

“Don’t even start with me today, Harry,” you shook your head.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He asked, immediately getting defensive.

“I know you probably had a terrible day, but so did I. I’m sick of us fighting.”

“You think I want to fight? I’m so sorry for being stressed,” His voice was heavy with sarcasm.

“And I’m not? It’s not like you’re the only one in the world having a hard time, Harry!”

“What do you have to be stressed about? I’m the one who can’t get any work done, and I’m the one getting ripped apart by the media,” he huffed.

“Excuse me? Have you been on ANY social media lately? Are you the one getting called ugly for not wearing enough makeup? Or accused of being “Harry's newest slut”? Because that’s that they’re saying about me!”

“And how do you think that looks for my reputation?”

“Oh, so now it’s my fault that people are attacking you?”

“No,” he sighed, dropping his face into his hands. “I don’t want to fight about this. I’m just really stressed right now, and-”

“Again, Harry, so am I! I changed my entire world to come and be with you, and it’s like you don’t even care, or appreciate all the sacrifices I made!”

“What sacrifices? You don’t-”

“You did not just say that,” you breathed. “Are you kidding me? I gave up everything! I left all my family and friends. I can’t go out in public without people taking pictures of me, and posting them, and saying terrible things about me. I’m trying to figure out my new work situation, and my boss is pissed at me all the time. I’m probably going to get fired if I don’t figure something out. I-”

“You act like you’re the only one with work troubles!” he exclaimed. “My entire career is on the line if I don’t start writing again soon. And all this shit in the press- it’s not exactly motivating.”

“It’s affecting my job too. Do you think my company wants to be involved with all the drama about us? It doesn’t look good for them. All the more reason for them to fire me.”

“But it’s worse for me!” he raised his voice to match yours.

“Why is it worse for you, Harry?”

“Because-” He stopped himself, seemingly knowing he had gone too far.

“No, say it. Say why it matters more to you. Because everything about you is more important, isn’t it?”

“That’s not what I meant-”

“But it’s exactly what you meant! You care more about your career than you do about me.”

“That’s not true,” he said, an intense look in his eyes. “You know that’s not true.”

“Really? That’s not how you’ve been acting lately.”

“It’s not like that-'' he exhaled a frustrated sigh. “I’m just saying, all this bad press is really getting to me. I’m going to lose support, and it’s going to be hard for me to get it back.”

“Oh please, you’re Harry Styles,” you spat. “You’re the golden boy of the music industry. You’ll be fine. Other people, like me, are actually in trouble here. I’m actually at risk of losing something!”

“You can just find another job!” He threw his hands up. “I’m more in the public eye, it affects me more. That’s all there is to it.”

“I can’t believe you!” you were on the verge of tears now, simply from how frustrated and angry you were. “It affects you more? You’ve been dealing with this for years. How do you think it feels for me? I’m new to all of this, and you’re acting like I should know how to handle everything.”

“You knew it was going to be like this when you first started dating me!” he argued. “I told you, and you said you didn’t care.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t think it would be this miserable!” You said, the first tear rolling down your face.

“Well if you’re so miserable, maybe you shouldn’t have agreed to move in with me.”

This stopped you in your tracks. Everything the two of you had said so far was angry, and in the heat of the moment. But this felt different. It felt like he had crafted this sentence specifically to hurt you, not to voice his feelings about the situation.

“Fine,” you stood up, grabbing your laptop and charger. You walked right past him, out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

“Where are you going?” He called.

You didn’t answer. You went into your closet, pulling out the backpack you used to use for traveling back and forth between your house and Harry’s. You began shoving clothes into it, but made sure not to include any of his shirts or hoodies.

“What are you doing?” Harry came into the room, speaking quietly.

“Packing,” you said shortly.

“Don’t do that,” he frowned. “You can’t just leave.”

“Yes I can,” you shot back, still not looking up at him. You zipped up the bag, brushing past him as you went back downstairs.

“Where-” he followed you quickly. “Where are you going?”

At this point, you realized you didn’t have anywhere to go. You didn’t have any close friends; most of your friends were also Harry’s. And you needed to be with people who didn’t remind you of him right now.

“I’m going home,” you said, finally turning to look at him.

“What?” His face fell.

“I’m leaving. I’m going back home. I can’t be here right now.”

“No- you can’t leave!” he said, his face paling. “You can go stay with Sarah and Mitch, or with Jeff and Glenne- or I’ll get you a hotel room or something, but you can’t-”

“Yes I can, Harry,” you cut him off, repeating your sentence from earlier. “I need my family. I need to see my mom. I- I have to go.” You reached for the door handle, but he stopped you, placing his large hand against the door.

“You can call them,” he said, beginning to look desperate. “Or- or we can even fly them out here. But please don’t do this.”

“You’re the one who told me to leave if I was so miserable here,” you said, trying to stop your chin from wobbling. “So that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“I didn’t mean that! I’m so sorry, I should have never said- I don’t want you to leave. That got way out of hand, I went too far, I’m so sorry.”

“It did. And I can’t be here right now. So let me-” you tried the door again, but he kept it firmly shut.

“Please don't do this,” he whispered. “Please just… stay here tonight. I’ll sleep in the guest room, I won’t bother you if that’s what you need. Or if you really can’t be here, go stay with-”

“No,” you said decisively. “I need to go home. You’re making me feel worse by forcing me to stay here, can’t you see that?”

He dropped his hand away from the door, pressing his lips together. He gave a short nod. “If you have to-” his voice broke, and he quickly cleared his throat before speaking again. “If you really have to leave, then I’ll drive you to the airport. It’s not safe to be out alone this late.”

You shook your head. “I can get a cab, I’m not going to make you-”

“Either I drive you, or you’re not going,” he said firmly. “I need you to be safe.”

You sighed, but nodded, knowing he wouldn’t give in. He was just as stubborn as you were.

-----

You were both silent for the entire drive. Harry didn’t even try to argue with you, which you were grateful for. He seemed to understand that this was what you needed, and he couldn't change your mind.

-----

“Please don’t do this,” he said one final time, watching you walk toward the gate. His heart broke a little more with each step you took.

Even though you wanted to, you didn’t look back. You knew that one look at his sad face would be enough to break you, and you couldn’t let that happen. You needed to go home. You needed your family.

Harry stood at the large window, watching with crossed arms as the plane took off. Once you were officially gone, the first tear slipped down his face.

He made his way out of the busy airport in a daze. He barely registered that he had made it back to his car until he was sitting in the driver’s seat. He reached for the keys, but his hands were shaking so much he couldn’t manage to start the vehicle. Instead, he dropped his head to rest against the steering wheel, and he cried. He couldn’t remember the last time he cried this hard. He felt like he couldn’t breathe; there was a huge weight on his chest.

Had he just lost the love of his life?

-----

He didn’t know how long he sat there, but eventually he realized he needed to get home. He needed to figure out what to do.

As soon as he pulled in the driveway, he pulled out his phone and called Mitch.

“Hello?” Came his friend’s tired voice. It was the middle of the night, after all.

“I need you to come over right now,” Harry rushed. “I fucked up, I fucked up so bad and I don’t know- what am i supposed to do? I can’t do this- I need her!”

“Wait, slow down,” Mitch instructed. “What happened?”

“I- just come over right now,” Harry said, hanging up the phone.

-----

When Mitch arrived, he immediately knew something was very wrong. He had never seen Harry look so torn up. His eyes were red, and he was pacing back and forth while running his hands through his hair.

“What happened?” He asked again. “Where’s Y/N?”

“She’s gone,” Harry said. “She fucking left. She went back home.”

“Is she ok? Did something happen with her family?”

“No, Mitch,” Harry said, scrubbing his hands over his face. “She left because of me. We had a fight- a really bad one. I said some really shitty things, and it got way out of hand, and now she’s gone. I don’t- what am I supposed to do?”

“What did you say? Was it about the articles that came out?”

“Somewhat,” Harry nodded. “She said it was starting to affect her job, and I said it was affecting mine too, and she said she was miserable, and I… told her if she was so miserable she shouldn’t have agreed to move in with me in the first place,” he looked down in shame. He felt terrible as soon as the words left his mouth the first time, but going over the fight with someone else felt ten times worse.

Mitch took a deep breath. “Yeah, that’s... pretty bad.”

“Yeah, no shit it’s pretty bad!” Harry snapped. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” he groaned, falling back on the couch. “I just- what do I do?” He leaned his elbows on his knees, cradling his head in his hands.

“I don’t know,” Mitch admitted. “Did she say when she’s coming back?”

“No,” Harry said miserably. “She just said she needed to go home. I tried to get her to stay, I really did. I said I could get her a hotel room, or ask if she could stay with Jeff or something, but she said she needed her family. The worst thing is… she said she needs to go home. I thought she saw this as her home now. I thought she wanted to be here. I thought she was happy here,” his voice broke, and he dropped his head again. “I don’t… I don't think she loves me anymore.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mitch shook his head. “Of course she loves you. Do you know how many fights Sarah and I have had? You just have to give her time.”

“Yeah, but did Sarah ever leave the country after you fought?”

“...No,” Mitch sighed. “No, it never got that bad.”

“Exactly,” Harry said, another tear falling down his face.

“She will come back, Harry. She loves you way too much to stay away for good.”

“Not this time,” Harry shook his head. “I think it’s different this time. I honestly don’t know if she’s coming back. I don’t know how to fix this.”

“Well, you have to apologize,” Mitch said. “As soon as her plane lands, call her. Tell her what you told me. Tell her how sorry you are and that it got out of hand and you didn’t mean anything you said.” He paused before speaking again. “You didn’t mean it, did you?”

“Of course I didn’t,” Harry snapped again. “I was just… I’ve been in such a terrible mood, and I took it out on her.” He shook his head, whispering, “I’m so stupid.”

“I’m sure it will work out if you just-” Mitch was interrupted by his phone ringing. “Yeah, he’s alright,” he said into the phone. “I’ll explain when I get home." He paused before sighing. "Again? Ok, I’ll be there in a few,” he said before hanging up. “I’m really sorry, I have to go. The baby’s sick and apparently threw up all over her crib. I have to go help Sarah clean up. Just… tell Y/N the truth, okay? Make sure she knows how much you love her.”

Harry nodded, still looking awful as he raised his head. “Thank you.”

“Of course. Let me know if you need anything else, okay?”

-----

Harry started calling you as soon as Mitch left. He knew you were still on the plane, but he wanted you to hear his apologies as soon as you landed.

“Hi love… I’m so sorry. I don’t even know how to explain how terrible I feel. I didn’t mean anything I said. I was completely out of line, and I shouldn’t have let it go that far. I love you so much and I never wanted to hurt you. Please call me when you get this.”

Then he sent a quick text.

Harry: Let me know when you get to your parents’ house so I know you’re safe. Love you.

After that, he knew there wasn’t much else he could do. He wandered back up to his bedroom, looking at all the pictures the two of you had hung on the walls together. He thought back to the day you had moved in, and how happy you had both been. He remembered when he tried to put a nail in the wall, but swung the hammer at the wrong angle and put a hole in the wall instead. He remembered how shocked you had looked, covering your mouth for a second before you both burst out into laughter.

He remembered sitting on the living room floor and eating Chinese food while you played scrabble. Sure, you had ended up dropping lo mein all over the board, but it was worth it.

There were still traces of you all over the house. Your coffee cup still sat in the sink from this morning. Two of the cabinets were still open, because you always forgot to close them. There was a purple scrunchie on your bedside table, and a blue one on the bathroom vanity, and a white one hooked over one of the kitchen cabinet knobs, because “I never know when I’ll need to put my hair up!”

He couldn’t look anywhere in the house without thinking of you. He didn’t want to be in this big empty space all alone. The only way he could think of to make all the painful memories stop was to go to sleep. So, he did just that. He pulled your pillow against his chest, cuddling it like it was you in his arms. There was the faint smell of your conditioner stuck to the fabric, and he buried his face in it to just breathe you in.

The next two days were the worst Harry had ever been through. He didn’t know what to do with himself. You weren’t answering any of his calls, and your voicemail inbox was full. He kept texting, but you weren’t even reading any of them. He paced all day, trying to occupy himself. If he didn’t think of something to keep him busy, he would just keep texting, and he was sure you were pretty annoyed at this point.

But he couldn’t help himself, so he quickly unlocked his phone and started typing.

Harry: I’m so sorry, I can’t even put it into words. Please just let me know when you’re coming home?

He scrolled up through his previous messages, sighing when he realized how pathetic they sounded.

Harry: Please stop ignoring me, I need to talk to you.

Harry: I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I love you so much, please come home.

Harry: I sound like a broken record, I know, but I just need you to know I feel awful for everything I said.

Harry: I don’t even care how pathetic I sound with all of this, I can’t lose you.

He decided he couldn’t wait anymore. He didn’t even care if you weren’t ready to come back to London yet, but he needed to see you. He stood up from the couch and marched to the front door. He was going to get the next flight out to you.

He whipped the door open, ready to run to his car- and stopped abruptly in his tracks when he was met with your apprehensive face, one hand raised as if you were about to knock.

His eyes went wide, and he froze. He didn’t say anything, and you could hear him breathing heavily. His gaze flickered all around your face, almost as if he couldn’t believe you were really here in front of him.

“Hi,” you said hesitantly, lowering your hand. You opened your mouth to speak again, but he pulled you inside and against him before you could say anything. He held you tightly, arms wrapped against you as if you were going to disappear right before his eyes.

You reached up, putting your arms around his neck as he rocked you gently. His face was buried in your neck, and you could feel his chest shaking.

You just stood there with him, letting him hold you until you could feel his breathing evening out again. After what seemed like hours, he pulled away to look at you. He put his hands on the sides of your face, his eyes flicking between yours desperately as if he still didn’t believe this was real.

“Are you- are you home? Are you staying?” He whispered. His eyes were bloodshot and he looked like he hadn’t slept since you left. The sight was enough to make guilt stab through your chest.

“I’m staying,” you nodded. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He exhaled shakily, pulling you against his chest again. Your head was turned so you could hear his heartbeat, and it still seemed dangerously fast.

“I’m so sorry,” you murmured. “I should never have left.”

“It's ok,” he shook his head. “You’re here now.”

“It’s not ok,” you lifted your head to look at him. “I was angry. But I never should have let you think I was leaving you. That was unfair of me. I said awful things to you too, and I didn’t even say I love you before I left.” Your eyes were watering again, but you blinked back the tears.

“I didn’t… I didn't know if you were going to come back,” he admitted, voice thick with emotion. “I thought I lost you for good.”

You shook your head. “Of course not. I’m here, I promise, and I'm never going to do that again.”

“Good,” he laughed shakily, bringing up a hand to run through his hair. “I was terrified.”

“I know,” you said sadly. “And I feel like such an ass, coming back and just letting you welcome me with open arms. You should probably be really angry with me-”

“I’m not angry,” he quickly shut you down. “I was scared. I was so, so scared. I was about to get on a plane and fly out to you. And of course I’m welcoming you with open arms, I love you. You can always come back to me.”

You nodded, this time letting a tear slip down your face. “I love you too.”

He smiled, wiping the tear with his thumb. “What made you decide to come home?”

“I got there and I expected to feel better. I drove all around town, going past all the spots I used to love. It made me… nostalgic, I guess, but it didn’t comfort me like I expected it to. I went to my parent’s house, and they were great, but all I could think about was the times you’ve visited there with me. I went up to my room, and all I could think about was the time we stayed in there and my bed was way too small so I was basically sleeping on top of you. And how we couldn’t get to sleep because we kept laughing, because your hair was tickling me or I would hit you with my knee. Everything I did made me think of you. And I realized- that town isn’t my home, and neither is that house. This is my home. You are my home.”

His eyes were shining just like yours, and you both reached up to wipe the other’s tears away.

“You’re my home too. And if you want to move closer to your family, we can do that. I don’t care where we live. We can go anywhere in the world, as long as I’m with you.”

[carlatsukinamistolemyhamsandwich]

So I know I haven’t really elaborated on my thoughts on Shin’s Daylight CD (partly as I wasn’t sure if anyone was interested but also because I don’t want to sound negative) and I’m not intending to go particularly in detail in this post, but, in short, I think it’s honestly one of my least favourite CDs featuring Shin. I’ve been trying to work out why that is and I think the two main things are the complete lack of fanservice (I know the Daylight CDs are meant to be pretty serious but I really think the CD would have benefitted from a slightly lighter track at the beginning) and that the plot felt like a recycled mixture of Shin’s DF route with some elements of Bloody Bouquet thrown in.

However, as I’ve been thinking about it and after going through some of my old analysis posts, one other thing occurred to me. 

I discussed in this post about how even if Shin had been a lot more responsible around the time the founders went to war with Karlheinz, I highly doubt he would have been treated differently by anyone around him. Reading through this again, it got me thinking that when it comes to Shin’s backstory (and his present), there is this theme of him not getting told things, and I think it gets glossed over a bit in favour of the whole “why won’t Niisan acknowledge me” bit.

Granted we don’t get to see that much of Shin’s past but from the flashbacks in his DF route but with what we do get do get shown, it certainly doesn’t seem like Carla ever really confided in him when it came to anything important (I mean in the flashbacks they barely even speak), and while there is that one flashback in Shin’s LE route where Krone entrusts Carla to him, given that Shin was never included in the whole kill Giesbach plot, I suspect she didn’t really confide in him either. 

Now admin, you might say, that’s all well and good but Shin was close to Giesbach so surely Krone and Carla had a good reason for not telling him and yes, that’s a fair point, but this is far from the only time something like this happens. 

Case in point, in Shin’s DF route, Shin only finds out that Carla has Endzeit from Richter when Carla’s close to death’s door. Now I’m not sure whether Carla ever intended to tell Shin that he’d contracted Endzeit or whether he’d planned on Shin only finding out when he dropped dead from it, but it’s a pretty big secret to keep from your only family member, especially when the two of you are the last remaining members of your species. 

There’s also the whole eye incident. We find out from Carla in Shin’s DF route that Carla had hoped Shin would learn that true strength comes from fighting to continue living (but clearly by this point he hadn’t). I appreciate that Carla was at least trying to teach him this lesson, but as someone who has some experience teaching, when someone isn’t getting something, while it’s generally best to let them reach the conclusion themselves, you’ve got to give them a helping hand to get there rather than going “oh well I tried” and proceeding to watch them continue to not get it.

Additionally, when Yui learns of this, Carla asks her to keep it quiet for Shin’s sake and I just... How is this for Shin’s sake at this point? How has he ever benefitted from the people around him keeping things quiet? If anything, hasn’t it just made everything worse by contributing to this idea that he’s not strong enough for Carla to acknowledge him and his own feelings of inferiority?

I’m not trying to throw shade at Carla but he just really isn’t good at communication when we meet him in Dark Fate, or at least not with Shin anyway. I could go on all day about the number of issues that could have been avoided if they’d ever just sat down and talked but this post is already starting to get long.

When it comes Gies, when Shin asks to participate in the war in one of his DF flashbacks, Giesbach just tells him not to worry about it, and I mean fair enough, telling your kid not take part in a war isn’t exactly a bad thing, but it’s very dismissive, and he clearly misses the point of why Shin wants to go to war in the first place.

So yes, from what see, it doesn’t seem like Shin was ever confided in, or ever trusted with anything of real importance by any of his family members.

And this actually ties into something I’ve been wanting to talk about for a while but it’s never really fit before. A phrase I’ve noticed Shin use often is something along the lines of “Are you trying to make a fool out of me?” and I remember back when I very first picked up the games that I thought it was interesting he said it so much. I’ve always thought it tied into this idea of him not wanting to be looked down on but coming back to it now, I do wonder if it also ties into whole thing of him not getting told stuff. I know that if I was always excluded from important family business then I’d almost certainly start to get a bit of a complex about it too.

Now that I’ve hopefully made that point, how does this tie into me not liking Shin’s Daylight CD? Well, because it continues this theme of him not getting told quite important information. We get a repeat of the plot point of Shin learning about Carla’s Endzeit, but this time it’s AFTER the heroine in the CD already knows about it. It also seems to me, although I don't think it’s entirely clear, that the heroine seems to have an idea what’s wrong with her before Shin finds out. Shin also works out that both the heroine and Carla don’t try to stop him from picking a fight with the wolf clan because they want him to be happy, and while I get this to a point (my word do I want him to be happy) letting someone do whatever they want is not always the best thing for them.

Tbh this also plays into why Shin’s MMB CD ranks below his Bloody Bouquet, Para-Selene, Zero and Born To Die CDs for me, because again, rather than actually tell Shin she’s feeling lonely, the heroine uses the magic hourglass to reverse time (just communicate with each other for the love of—).

I know that of all of the DL characters Shin isn’t exactly the most responsible  (although I’d argue he’s far from the least responsible either) but at the same time, you’ve got to at least give him a fighting chance. You can’t expect someone to be the model of responsibility if you never actually give them any in the first place. And yes, he can react quite badly to certain bits of information, but if I found out that my sibling had conspired with one of my parents to murder the other through one of their memories in a dream, I don’t think I’d take it very well.

TD;LR I just want the people in Shin’s life to be honest with him.

[jaalismyhusband]

Took you long enough

Title: Took you long enough

Pairings: Sebastian Stan x f!reader

Warnings: angst with a happy ending, explicit language, age gap, corruption kink if you squint

Wordcount: 2.9k

Masterlist

To say that these past few months have been stressful is an understatement. You were an aspiring actress and somehow landed a pretty big role in a movie. It already had some famous names attached to it and you were quite intimidated to star along the other actors. But nonetheless, you put on your big girl pants and took the opportunity. Caught in a loop of constant stress, memorizing the lines, filming the scenes, promoting the movie, you had only so much time to really appreciate what was going on. It was only after the first month of filming you realized what the hell was actually happening.

Your co-star Sebastian Stan has helped you a lot with handling everything. You remember, when you found out he was starring in the movie as well, you almost passed out. Getting to know him was such a surreal experience. Although you had a big crush on him, you stayed respectful towards him and you two became rather close friends.

To be honest, the more you got to know him, the more you liked him. And this time it wasn’t just a platonic crush. You tried to fight it, but your struggles were fruitless. You had it bad for your best friend. Acting on your feelings was not an option however. It was no secret that no woman occupied his bedroom for more than one night. You knew it was bad news to fall for him, yet you couldn’t help yourself. You liked how he didn’t pretend, but actually listened to you. How he seemed to remember even the little details you mentioned to him. How protective he was of you from the day you met, especially while defending you when people called you “the new kid” - the nickname stuck with you during the whole period of filming, much to your dislike. You knew they meant well when they called you that nickname, trying to make you feel like a part of the group. You were much younger than most of the cast, but you didn’t think of yourself as a child anymore. It seemed impossible to convince others of that, though.

Only a few people respected you enough not to use that nickname - one of them being Sebastian. At times you thought he didn’t see you as a kid with the way he treated you and you were naïve enough to get your hopes up. That was a mistake, you thought, as you watched the interview Sebastian had done earlier that day. He was asked about the cast members. You anxiously waited for your name to be mentioned, palms sweating as you guessed what he would say about you.

“What about Y/N? You seem close, not to mention how often you are spotted together.” The interviewer raised his brow, as he waited for an answer.

Sebastian smiled widely as he answered: “Yeah, we are really close. She’s like a little sister I never had, you know?”

Your heart clenched painfully, as you stopped the video. You just had to accept that it would never work. How could you be so stupid to think he’d actually like you, when he had so many women at his feet, begging to be noticed by him. You were thankful you were his friend - that had to be enough. It wasn’t, though. No matter what you told yourself, you always ended up thinking about him in inappropriate ways.

The door on your trailer opened and revealed happy Sebastian with take out.

“Hey, I thought to bring you some food, since it’s going to be a long day today.” He smiled at you as he sat down next to you on the couch, handing you your food.

“Thanks.” You smiled back. You didn’t waste time and dug in, only now realizing how hungry you were. He seemed to know you better than you knew yourself.

Sebastian broke the comfortable silence: “Hey, so, I want to ask you for advice.” Did he seem nervous? No, you thought as you hinted him to ask away.

“There’s this woman, that I like. I shouldn’t, but something about her is so intriguing, I can’t help it. And I don’t know what to do,” he confessed.

“I can’t believe you are asking me for an advice on how to pick up women. You getting rusty, old man?” You joked, as his face fell in disappointment.

“I’m serious, Y/N. I think I’m ready to go all the way with her. But she’s not really – uhm, how to put it – available. That’s why I’m so nervous about it,” he sighed, as he ran a hand through his hair.

“Right, sorry. But still, I think you’re perfectly fine. Just ask her out. She’d be stupid to reject you,” you spoke sincerely.

“Thanks, I’ll go for it then.”

The rest of the lunch was enjoyed in silence.

Few days have passed and your mood seem to only decrease as the time went on. You secretly hoped Sebastian was talking about you and that he would ask you out later. But this was your life, not a romcom. Your hopes were crushed, when you asked Sebastian about it and he confirmed what seemed like your worst nightmare.

“She said yes!” he exclaimed excitedly and you gave him a hug to hide the mixture of unpleasant emotions plastered on your face.

“I’m so happy for you,” and you were, truly. As long as he was happy, you would be too. But why did it hurt so much anyway?

Ever since then, you just weren’t your ever smiling self. What you were was a millennial and you did what millennials knew best – repressed your emotions. Stuffed them deep inside your soul where nobody could acknowledge them, not even you.

The days seemed repetitive. You were exhausted from putting up a show not only when you were filming, but now also when you were in a company of your friends. Luckily, there was only one scene to film and then a much needed vacation awaited.

“CUT!” screamed the director. “What the hell Y/N?! This is the seventh take and you still can’t get it right.”

“I’m sorry, sir. I’ll get it this time, I swear,” you apologized and immediately took your spot, wanting nothing more, than to finish this scene, go home and curl up in bed while watching your favourite show.

Today was just one of those days, when it seemed like the whole universe conspired against you. First, your alarm didn’t go off, which resulted in being late on your last day. Your hands were shaking by the time you got to the set and you managed to knock over the cup of coffee, just barely missing your costume. Not to mention how anxious you were, since you were purposely avoiding Sebastian. You only missed him more and yet, you couldn’t stand being in his presence. It hurt not being able to look into his eyes. This all held you back from giving a flawless performance in front of the camera, which only frustrated you even more.

“We believe in you, kid. Breathe, focus. Action!” You were truly thankful for the support, as you finally got the scene right.

“And cut! We got it! Ok, that’s it, guys. It’s been pleasure to work with you all. As you may have heard, there will be an afterparty, if you will, tonight. Please, do come! Till then have a great day everyone!” Finished the director and people started to clap. There has been a heavy boulder of a rock lifted from your shoulders as you realized this was it. You quickly said your goodbyes to everyone, eager to go home and hide.

“Y/N! Wait!” you were on your way out when you heard your name being called. You sighed and put on a smile, before you faced Sebastian.

“Hi, I’ve tried to call you, but you weren’t picking up. You’ve been distant lately. Have you been avoiding me?” He accused.

“No! No, I uh… My phone has been malfunctioning these days, I’m getting it repaired soon,” you weren’t proud of yourself for lying to him, but you weren’t ready to tell him the truth just yet.

“Are you coming to the afterparty?” It was obvious he didn’t buy your white lie, but decided not to ponder on it.

“Oh, I don’t think I am. I’ve had an extraordinarily shitty day and I don’t wanna be a party pooper.” You immediately gave him a list of excuses.

“Yeah, yeah, quit it, queen. I’ll pick you up at 7.” He left you no space to argue and just walked away. You shook your head in disbelief and made your way home.

“Finally,” you exhaled a big breath once you collapsed on your bed. Sleep was an alluring way how to avoid your problems. So, you did the reasonable thing and took a nap.

You woke up right as the sun was setting. You still hadn’t decided if you were going to go to that stupid get together or not. You knew it would be a nice change of pace, to let go for one night. Afterall, it was a celebration of the hard work the cast had done. On the other hand, Sebastian would be there. And now that you thought about it, he would probably bring that woman, he asked out earlier. You weren’t ready to see Sebastian all lovey dovey with someone else, god no.

But this was also the chance to see him for the last time. You weren’t sure if he would keep hanging out with you after the movie was done. Tears stung in your eyes as you realized that he would probably cut ties with you. Sure, you would call each other once a week, then once a month, then only on holidays and then he would eventually stop calling you whatsoever. You were going to lose him. You were so sure of it. The tears were now streaming freely down your cheeks as you hyperventilated. All of those emotions that were supposed to stay stored away came at you at once, demanding to be experienced, to be felt.

You couldn’t calm down and there was only one person who was able to soothe you. Your best friend from high school. Due to your career you two weren’t hanging out as often as you’d like, but your bond hadn’t suffered because of that. You dialled her number after you blew your nose, so you were able to somewhat form words.

“Hi, Y/N! Oh my god, it’s been so long since we’ve actually talked!” You sobbed even harder when you heard her enthusiastic voice.

“Baby, what’s wrong? Talk to me,” she pleaded, as you tried to calm yourself enough to talk.

“Today has just been such a shitshow,” you cried out. You told her all about your day, but the topic soon enough changed to the real reason why you were crying – Sebastian.

“You know what’s the worst thing? I love him. So fucking much. And I know he doesn’t feel the same. He sees me as his little sister. SISTER. No way he would be attracted to someone he considers a sibling. Oh, and have I mentioned that now he’s suddenly had a change of heart and stopped sleeping with random women because he mEt SoMEoNe sPeCiaL?” you mocked him, “I just can’t. I know that I did this to myself and it’s not his fault, but fuck! I can’t even tell him how I feel, because there is only one scenario to this – him ending our friendship because of it. I don’t know if I’m ready to lose him completely.” You kept on rambling as your supportive friend listened, offering you her kind words here and there.

Soon after she apologized profusely, as she explained her break was over and she had to get back to work. You assured her it was okay and that you were thankful she found some time to listen to you pour you broken heart out through the phone. She ended the call by reminding you that she loved you and hung up.

You sighed and blew your nose again. You stood up from your bed, taking the used tissues with you.

“Fuck.” You stopped dead in your tracks, feeling like a deer in front of a headlights. There stood a very shocked Sebastian.

“How did you get here?”

“I came to pick you up, remember? Front door was unlocked, so I let myself in. You didn’t respond when I called your name. I looked for you and found you here, crying,” his voice cracked at his last words: “I have never seen you cry before.” He seemed truly sad, but you were too frightened to notice.

“How much of it did you hear?”

“Everything.” He exhaled and you struggled to meet his gaze. You huffed, storming out of your bedroom, leaving him behind. You just wanted to disappear right on the spot and avoid this confrontation.

You almost ran to the kitchen, throwing the tissues to the bin. You hoped this was all just a bad dream and that in fact Sebastian wasn’t here, but all that convincing was futile once you turned around and saw him sitting in your kitchen. There was a tense silence, as none of you knew what to say next. The air grew heavy, suffocating you.

“So,” Sebastian cleared his throat, “you like me?” To which you only nodded, as you leaned on the counter.

“Why?” he asked. You laughed at that, the sound so alien to you because of all the crying.

“You were nice to me from the first day. You gave me a chance to get to know you. Once we started hanging out I just, I don’t know. I like how you talked to me, like I wasn’t just the new kid. You actually listened to what I had to say. You made me feel special, Seb. Not to mention, you look like a fucking Greek god,” he chuckled at that.

“Weren’t you discouraged by my age? Or the fact that ‘I slept with random women’?” he asked, using your words against you.

“Well, I can’t blame you for that. And I can’t blame those women either. And your age never bothered me. In fact, it’s just another thing about you that turns me on.” You realized too late what you were about to say and just said it. Your eyes widened and your face heated up, as you tried to shrink your existence and hide from Sebastian’s piercing gaze.

“I turn you on?” Sebastian asked, amused by how embarrassed you were. He stood up and walked up to you. You shied away, but he trapped you in between his arms against the counter, so you wouldn’t run.

“I’d like your advice on something,” he started as he looked you straight in the eyes, “There’s this girl I’ve befriended. She’s really young and innocent, like an angel. I think I liked her right from the start, but I knew I wasn’t good for her. And yet, I can’t help but be attracted to her. I’ve tried to forget, but all those meaningless nights and faceless women couldn’t fill the void. Couldn’t erase the feelings she brought up in me every time I thought of her, saw her, touched her. I think about her almost every night. About how I’d hold her, kiss her, make her moan my name.” You squirmed under his gaze, but he paid no mind as he continued his monologue: “I fantasize about deflowering her, turning her into a mess, while I transform her into my greedy whore. The image makes me painfully hard. And now, I have a chance to make her mine. What do you say, doll? Should I go for it?” You gasped at his confession and only weakly nodded.

His lips met yours in a desperate kiss. It was all tongue and teeth. He wasn’t gentle with you by any means, not that you wanted him to be. His hands pulled you impossibly close, as they squeezed your ass, making you moan into the kiss. You both had to stop and take a breath, your foreheads connecting as you panted.

“I made her up, you know,” spoke Sebastian softly.

“What?”

“The woman. She doesn’t exist. It was you who I’ve been talking about, but then I chickened out.”

“Why?” you were curious and anxious at the same time to hear his answer.

“You called me an old man! I thought you would be creeped out!” he got defensive.

“That was a joke, Seb,” you laughed, “Why did you tell me that she accepted?”

He awkwardly scratched his neck, as he mumbled: “I didn’t want to disappoint you, that your advice hadn’t worked.” You just burst out laughing at that. Sebastian didn’t like that, as he faked getting offended and hurt, which only caused to make you cry-laugh. You finally calmed down, after a while, only now seeing how Sebastian was watching you the whole time. He gently wiped the tears away with the pad of his thumb, as he held your face.

“I love you, Seb,” it felt good to finally say it out loud. You were absolutely lovestruck and at this point you didn’t care.

“Took you long enough,” you rolled your eyes at him, as he smirked.

“I love you too, doll.”

[sarahjkl82-blog]

Artistic Instinct Chapter Nine

Header thanks to the lovely @yespolkadotkitty

Summary: Marcus Pike and OC Anushka Pierce have been selected to work on a 5 eyes (Australia, Canada, NZ, the UK and US) intelligence team to track down art forgeries as a part of taking down an international white terrorism cell. Marcus is trying to escape his broken heart, Anushka is just trying to escape what the world expects of her.

Word count: 6500

Warnings: Language as always, warning of racist language (Nush talking about her mother's experiences), yearning, fluff to second base (yes, my darlings- IT IS ON!), alcohol is mentioned, food, anxiety attacks.

Pairing: Marcus Pike x reader (OC)

This comes with a MASSIVE THANK YOU to the lovely @yespolkadotkitty , who read, re-read, pointed out the constant flipping between tenses and gave me the confidence to try to write something. This is the first thing I have written since angsty poetry as a teenager. Apologies if it is shit!

People often think artists

Create with their hands

But really they create

with their hearts

So please be gentle

For we wear our vulnerability

On our sleeves

And freely give all we have

Hoping someone will fall

In love with the parts we offer

R. Evelyn

Chapter Nine

The sharp buzz of the door startles you out of your daydream. Laden with roughly the entire contents of your spice cupboard, vegetables, meat and prawns, your hands are crisscrossed with creases from where the weight of the totes has gouged at your skin. A smart-looking kindly gentleman greets you, “You must be Ms Pierce. Mr Pike has asked for you to wait here for him.”

Wow! Marcus’ place has a concierge - who did he have to blow to get a place like this?!

Throwing the bags onto one of the hotel lounge-like chairs, you slump into another as you rub soreness from your hands. A small ping tells you that the lift has arrived - you look over in the direction of the noise, a tremor of excitement rippling through you. An adorably scruffy Marcus, wearing old jeans and a t-shirt, steps out - his face utterly beaming on seeing you. “Hey! How are you doing?” he leans in to kiss your cheek twice - hang on, when did this start being a thing?

“Why didn’t you let me pick you up? You’ve carried so much over- lemme see your hands,” his brow knits on seeing the rapidly reddening welts as he takes your hands in his, brushing his thumbs gently across your palms.

“You live four roads away from me - they’re not that bad! And anyway, you can help me now- which floor do you live on?” You outwardly roll your eyes at the sweetness Marcus shows you, secretly enjoying the stroke of his fingers and the ghostly press of his lips still burning a hole in your cheek.

Marcus takes all of the bags from the chair, refusing point blank to entertain you helping him to take them upstairs - you watch as his arms twitch under the weight, enjoying the mixture of confusion and shock at your strength across his face, “you carried all of this?”

Nodding at him, you try to take a bag again, but he dangles it just out of reach, “Watch it - you do realise that I have two other brothers apart from Ads? I will think nothing of rugby tackling you to the floor and pinning you down,” you warn, enjoying the flush brought to his cheeks.

“You’ll be the death of me,” Marcus flusters as he calls the lift, handing you the smallest, lightest bag.

✪✪✪✪✪

Exiting at the top floor, you’re taken aback by the amount of light and quiet that washes throughout the building. Feeling so removed from the shadows cast from the tower blocks and the hustle and bustle of the streets below, the broad daylight offers a sense of serenity, a peace that invites itself into the soul and makes itself at home. As Marcus unlocks the door to his flat, you kick off your shoes at the entrance, “You don’t have to do that,” he offers through the keys in his mouth, holding the door open with his elbow, still refusing any help from you.

“Oh believe me, if I didn’t, my mum’s radar would go off and I would be cruising for a bruising,” you giggle, taking in the glorious spaciousness of his apartment, “I promise my feet aren’t too stinky and that I put on clean socks.”

“Whatever makes you comfortable,” Marcus’ eyes crinkle at you, “Can I get you something to drink or eat?”

“A coffee would be ace - strong and black please,” you reply, your gaze drinking in the details of his home. Books line the shelves along one wall - such a mixture of titles ranging from airport bestsellers to obscure art catalogues - the relief to see actual paper and hardbacks adorning the shelves rather than trinkets and plants when so many keep their books electronically in their pockets.

A couple of large canvases lie propped against another - long hours preventing them from being hung - their bright colours sure to bring joyful hues to quite a stark room. There are a few photo frames dotted around - mostly pictures of a moment in time rather than poses - of people you assume are friends and family from back in the States. Handing you a steaming mug, Marcus looks over your shoulder as you look at a photo of an older couple dancing and laughing at a wedding, “That’s my mamá and papá at my oldest sister’s wedding. It was such a magical day - just so much love in the air.”

“You can feel the joy radiating from them,” you offer, lowering your gaze from him to grab the frame next to the picture of his parents, “Are these your sisters or cousins? You all look very alike.”

“Yeah, my little sisters,” he grins proudly. “This one is Beth - she’s two years younger and is a paediatrician in Texas. Has two kids with her wife, Sophie. And this one is Cat - she’s doing her own thing out on the West Coast as a musician. They definitely inherited all the clever and cool genes.”

“Hah! You’re kinder to your sisters than I am to my brothers,” you grin, “They’re all total idiots but due to some weird genetic and biological insistence, I still love them.”

Taking a gulp of your coffee, you turn back towards him, “Come on you, we’d better get to work if you want a curry this evening.”

He pouts, looking more like a sulky little boy than a middle aged man. You can’t help but laugh at the sad puppy dog eyes he is conjuring at the thought of work, “Oh poppet, what’s wrong?” you teasingly mock.

“I kinda hoped you were a magician who could just magic a curry outta nowhere so we could watch films til the others arrive,” Marcus grumps shoving his hands in his pockets.

“Well, there is UberEats for that but you horrible lot put me up to this so you’re going to help,” you wag your finger at him, “But as you’re the only one here, you get the honour of being the chief taster,” you add, tapping him playfully on the nose.

With a soft huff and a furrow of the brow, Marcus guides you into the kitchen where, whilst he was making your coffee, he has helpfully already put all the fresh produce in his fridge as the sides are delightfully blank apart from the bags of spices.

“What are we making today, Chef?”

“Ok, meat dishes are a spiced yoghurt leg of lamb, a keema - don’t you give me that look, a cardamom butter chicken, and, a prawn and courgette curry,” you turn to Marcus’ fridge to find the lamb, “Needs to come to room temperature before we cook it.”

“My tummy is rumbling already,” Marcus adds, his eyes glinting excitedly as he licks along his lower lip, the skin glistening damply. You have never quite figured out whether your love of his lips is due to their fullness or the association with the kindness of his words.

“Hah- you’re not getting away without having some veggies, too, mister,” you cluck as you hand him a bag of onions and several bulbs of garlic to skin, chop and crush for the various dishes.

“Ok, Moooom,” Marcus dramatically rolls his eyes at your dictate, “I admit, I’d rather eat sugary or salty things over green stuff but I can make an exception for curried veg.”

The arch of your eyebrow virtually reaches your hairline at him teasingly calling you mom, so you reach for the towel, twist it and flick him hard on what you’d hoped would be his hip but catch him square on his arse instead.

A yelp of pain and wide eyes greet your action, “Did you just…? Oh, it is on.! You might think you’re tough from your brothers but my sisters taught me sneaky tactics.”

“Come at me, bro!” you taunt from the other side of the kitchen, putting up a boxing stance.

Brandishing the hand without the paring knife in your general direction, he answers, “Nope, gonna use the element of surprise and attack when you least expect it!”

Tutting your tongue at Marcus’ weak ass response, you grab the spices you need to prepare under the power of your pestle and mortar. With the waft of roasting cumin soaring through the air and your battle with your boss at a supposedly declared ceasefire, everything starts to feel comfortable and easy again. You could be six years old and standing on the chair next to your mum, watching like a hawk as she lovingly prepared meals for your family with an ever burgeoning belly. It was then, during those hours shared in the galley kitchen that became your time with her when normally it felt pretty split between her work as a GP and your brothers.

What the fuck… You jump out of your skin when a warm, solid wall presses you out of your nostalgic reverie, “Hah! Pinned ya! Sneaky tactics- told ya they worked,” a deep, soft voice whispers in your ear.

Your heart flutters like a bird trying to escape its rib cage with the closeness of Marcus, the heat rising through your body from your proximity to him - a visceral response to the glorious cocktail of masculine smell from his aftershave and body wash.

What do I do next?

Why can’t I bloody think straight?

Wiggling yourself around so that you face him, his face now so close that you can feel his warm breath upon your cheeks. Your eyes playfully catch the steady gaze of Marcus’ deep soulful pools. It would only take the smallest of movements to reach forwards and kiss him right on that stupidly gorgeous, plush Cupid’s bow and crease. But… what if he doesn’t want that? He’s my fucking boss - that would be a stellar move to make…

Instead of the tiny incline forwards to press your lips against his as every inch of you screams to do so, you drop to the floor and crawl out from between his legs, “Not pinned well enough it seems,” you tease haltingly as your tongue sticks in your dry throat.

As you check the browning of the cumin seeds, out of the corner of your eye you see Marcus’ head drop sadly, hearing a small sigh - his hands still upon the work surface and feet not having moved from the position he had pinned you in moments earlier.

Did he want to...? No, surely not.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, Nush,” Marcus humbly apologises, pushing himself off the side, “I hope that I haven’t made things awkward.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” you softly say, pouring the roasted cumin into the mortar, ready to be ground, “I was the one who flicked you on your arse - I am the one who should be apologising.”

You beckon gently to Marcus, who has now taken refuge in the furthest corner of the kitchen from you - wringing his hands instead of chopping the onions, “Come over here - I want you to experience one of my most favourite smells of childhood. These are roasted cumin seeds and when you grind them, they release the most heavenly scent.”

After a few grinds, you offer the bowl towards Marcus’ face as he closes the gap between you, “I… Wow! I wouldn’t have thought it would make such a difference but it’s almost like you’ve entirely transformed it. See,” the dimple deepens in that right cheek of his, “you are a magician.”

“I love how spices - a bit like paint - can take on completely different characters depending on how you treat them. Leave the spice whole and you have this mild and fragrant taste. If you crush them, then their attitude comes back tenfold with a vengeance. Toast them, and they may as well be Clark Kent in a phone booth.”

Looking up you see Marcus gazing at you with a sweet half smile on his face - could he like me… like that?

“Sorry, you don’t need to hear me blathering on,” you fluster, waving your hand in a dismissive gesture as the heat rises through your face.

Shaking his head gently without dropping your regard, “No. No, please don’t ever stop. Your passion for things is beautiful.”

“Growing up, I didn’t realise that other people didn’t have whole cupboards filled to the brim with herbs, spices and seasonings. I mean, for all the damage the British Empire reeked, you’d have hoped that the spices would have entered more of their culture, but no! Apparently, my family was the weird one for having food with a flavour,” you shrug your shoulders at some of the ridiculous things you’d heard as a child - accusations of differences you’d never thought to be of note.

Marcus chuckles at your indignance, “It’s funny you should say that. I didn’t realise that my mamá had an accent until it was pointed out to me when I was a kid.”

Noting your slightly confused expression, Marcus explains, “She’s Argentinian- came to the States as a political refugee as she was a journalist following the disappearances during the Dirty War. Met my dad, and I came along very soon after, and the rest is history..”

You can’t help but laugh at the flush on Marcus’ cheeks as he recounts his personal history to you, “Love can’t be held back when it hits and it’s obvious that they’re still crazy about each other now from that photo.”

“Exactly, no point in wasting time when you know what you want,” Marcus grins, looking at his feet.

“My parents have a similar story. My dad is as English as they come - I mean we’re on a freaking island so there’s no true thing as being completely English. My mum is from Pakistan - Karachi - it’s in the South.”

“She came over due to the fighting between East and West Pakistan - the two countries that are now Pakistan and Bangladesh. It kept interrupting her studies to become a doctor so she came to England and restarted her degree here.”

Marcus’ brow creases in thought, “Why did she restart her degree? Could the credits not just be transferred to the college she moved to in the UK?”

“Hah- yeah. It was the seventies, during a time where all Southern Asians were P*kis - no matter where they were from on the Indian subcontinent- and thought of as dirty, lesser beings. There were constant race riots for anyone who wasn’t ethnically white or English. She would never have been taken seriously with her mediocre medical training from some Adobe hut in the middle of a jungle,” you fume, pounding the seeds into fragments. The mortar being threatened with the same fate too.

Marcus’ fingers wrap around your wrist to try and prevent your rage at the ignorance of others from causing you an injury, “I am so sorry,” he pulls you into a warm, tender hug, tucking your head under his chin, “How long before food can take care of itself so we can put a film on? I think we both need a rest.”

“Hmmm, ten minutes and then most things can simmer or be switched off ready for a reheat or proper cook this evening,” you say, leaning reluctantly out of his comforting arms to go check on the bubbling saucepans of food.

“‘K. I’ll go get things set up so you can flop for a bit,” Marcus touches you gently on your shoulder as he goes to set up the front room. You go to squeeze his hand but it’s removed from your shoulder too quickly for your response.

✪✪✪✪✪

“You ready?” Marcus calls through the wall as you turn off the heat from the final pans.

“Mhm,” you mumble in response to his question - double, triple checking that everything is off. Too many fire alarms ruining perfectly lovely meals or moments.

“What did you pick?” You ask, curling up on the other end of the sofa to Marcus, “Do you have no cushions?”

“Shit, no -I’m a guy, what can I say? - lemme grab the pillows from the bed,” Marcus jumps up, calling through from his bedroom, “Bet you have loads on your couch.”

“A fuckload, but, mainly to hide the fact the springs have gone. It’s like a precarious balancing act of comfort on there,” you surreptitiously sniff the pillow, inhaling the smell of Marcus’ shampoo, “Did you give me your pillow?”

A confused look is shot at you from the other end of the sofa, “Whaddya mean?”

“Smells of your hair,” you say as you squish it into the perfect comfy shape, “Like a mixture of lemon and eucalyptus.”

“That’s a sharp nose you’ve got. I gave you the other side though,” Marcus huffs through a chuckles he shakes his head at your somewhat strange comment, “Guess I’ve been sleeping across both sides then.”

“Best thing about sleeping alone- getting to starfish across the bed. Unless of course…”

Marcus can’t help but laugh at your awkward dig to find out whether he’d brought home the goddess from Friday’s antics, “So you wanna know if I brought home Kemi?”

“She was very beautiful. You’d have been mad not to,” you try to school your expression as best you can, keeping your eyes glued to Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly singing about true love, desperate to hide the jealousy coursing through your veins.

“Must be mad then. Didn’t even kiss her,” Marcus honestly answers whilst copying your tactic of staring at the tv, “She could see that there was someone else I liked so it would have been cruel to have done anything.”

You mull this over in silence, trying not to speak, to ask a million questions.

“Nush.”

“Mhm?”

“Can I talk to y…”

You both jump as an alarm goes off on your phone to remind you to turn the lamb down in the oven.

“Oh shit. Hold that thought,” you jump up from the sofa, heading in the direction of the kitchen with zero thought of what the man at the end of the sofa is desperately trying to tell you. Fiddling with Marcus’ ridiculously swanky oven until it looks like it is doing what you want it to do, you walk back in with two ice cold beers from his fridge.

“Raided your fridge,” you cheekily grin, holding one out to Marcus, the condensation running, down your fingers, “Hope you don’t mind!”

“Good thinking, Batman,” Marcus nods in appreciation, “Any more alarms set to scare us both?”

“Only due to go off when the film is done, so…” you yawn widely, “We’ve got a while yet.”

Marcus’ hand that was slung over the back of the sofa, lifts to stroke your shoulder, “You sleepy? C'mere, you.” With a soft tug of your t-shirt sleeve, he pulls you into his side - your willingness to sink into his broad chest very apparent. Your ear is pressed against him, his heartbeat singing a lullaby to you as his fingers stroke and caress the silken waves of your hair. You wonder at how this man - a total stranger a week ago - has seemingly knitted himself into becoming a cocoon of safety for you, his gentleness and calm offering a haven of tranquility in your otherwise cacophonous world, as the light in the room slowly fades to black.

✪✪✪✪✪

“Uh oh.”

“Hey, welcome back, sunshine!” a gentle pair of fingers stroke back the hair that had drifted into your face as you dozed.

“Sorry for falling asleep. Again,” trying to finesse your way through the heat flaming your cheeks, you offer an awkward grin towards your chuckling pillow, “Guess we’d better start getting things finished as we’ve only got a couple of hours until everyone arrives.

“Oh, don’t give me that look, Marcus! I don’t want to move either but this curry won’t finish cooking itself.”

“Spit spot, there’s work to be done,” Marcus trills as he adopts his best attempt at a British accent.

“What the fuck was that? Did you just turn into Dick Van Dyke or something?” You tease mercilessly at the appalling sound coming from those lips, choking back laughter at his mock offended face.

“C’mon, you’re right. We’d better get moving,” Marcus stands with a stretch and a creak before reaching back to tug you to your feet.

Back under the glowing lights of Marcus’ kitchen, his presence is now constantly close to yours as you glide together around the space - stirring, chopping and checking. Every time he passes, above the general aroma of cumin and coriander, the onions and garlic, you can smell the cedar and amber upon his skin- a deliciously masculine scent that only seeks to entangle your senses further.

“Here, try this,” you hold out a heaped teaspoon of mince curry to Marcus, “This is the keema - I promise that I only put in the two chillies you chopped for me, this time.”

“Mmm, that’s so good,” he says thickly between chews, stealing the spoon from you as he dives in for a second, third, fourth spoonful.

“Hahaha! Leave some for the others- and you need to try it with some raita and fried onions too,” you check through your dog-eared, yellowed and slightly sticky recipe book that your mum had handed you the day you’d left home at eighteen - a memo of all the times you had cooked them together.

“Shit, I’d better start the chicken,” going through the spices in front of you, you search for the cardamoms that would make the butter chicken sing, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

Marcus’ head snaps up from the green beans he was preparing towards you, “What’s up, sweetheart?”

“I can’t find the cardamoms for the butter chicken - gah I knew I’d fuck this up!” you cry, scraping your trembling hands through your hair, eyes flashing around the room wildly as your cortisol rises, making you want to run and scream at your failure to feed your friends.

“Whoa - where’s this coming from? C’mon, look at me. Look at me, Nush,” Marcus has his hands on either side of your shoulders, squeezing them gently, “There’s enough here to feed our whole office for the week with the daals you prepared yesterday, the vegetables we’re about to make and the meats that we’ve cooked up already here. Andy is bringing all the rice and naan, Kiri is bringing beers and Dian is on gin and tonic duty. You have done more than enough and I will not allow you to get this upset over one missing ingredient especially when there is a small store downstairs that I’m sure will have it, if we cannot find it after we look for it together.”

After seeing your numb nod as an agreement, Marcus moves his hands to the side of your head to focus your gaze on him rather than the panic seeping through you. As he strokes his thumbs across your cheeks, you allow your eyes to close and your breathing to regain a normal pattern.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why are you apologising?” Marcus searches your now open eyes.

“My reactions are ridiculous. Most people tell me to stop being so stupid and that just whips the storm inside my head even more,” you whisper, “But you. You know how to slow everything down and stop the spinning.”

The corner of Marcus’ mouth twitches, “D’ya wanna know a secret?” You nod at him, “As you know, I was married before. When it ended, I totally spiralled. The world kept spinning too fast and I experienced constant anxiety, very nearly burning out of my role.

“I was lucky. My boss was understanding but made me promise to get some support. He knew of someone mental health trained within the FBI who was there for mainly hostage negotiations - not part of the true psych team but someone who could help without it turning up on your record.

“Kwame worked with me for almost a year - pretty much to the point my decree absolute came through. Our sessions were done on a track - by running with me, he was teaching me the skills I needed to control my fears. By my feet hitting the tarmac, he was grounding me. By going over running techniques, he was teaching me how to control my breathing- taking longer and deeper breaths. And running is just repetition. A mindful repetition that allows your brain to have a bit of a break.

“So when I see you start to spiral, I try to give you the same steps he taught me. Get you grounded, opposite me so you copy my breathing and hope that gets you on the right track.”

“Thank you,” you drop your head forwards, relaxing onto his chest. He feels so - safe.

“You don’t need to thank me. Well, okay maybe you do as look what I’ve just spotted,” Marcus holds the offending spice aloft.

“Oh my god, I could fucking kiss you. You have just saved the curry,” you dramatically declare, clutching the cardamom jar to your heart before placing it next to the other ingredients on the counter.

“Go on then.”

What?

His comment makes you snap your head over to catch Marcus’ tremulous gaze, his eyes darting between the floor and your lips. He takes a small step, closing the small distance between the two of you, threading his fingers between yours. Each slow movement offers an unspoken opportunity for you to step away. To tease him and move on with the day.

But why on Earth would you?

With your heart racing faster and faster, you lure him ever closer with your eyes, soft but absolute in their conviction of what was about to pass between you. A small part of you understands that when you kiss him, something will change forever. That within his lips you may find the place to call home - the aching in your stomach may cease and life could start to make sense again. The anxieties of the week washing away, the pain of your collective pasts and the hint of a brighter, happier future before you.

When he doesn’t move again, you seize the moment. Pushing up onto your socked tiptoes, you tilt your chin, inclining your face until your lips come to rest upon his in the sweetest, chastest kiss. Drawing back slightly to check that Marcus is okay with a raise of your eyebrows and widened eyes, he holds your gaze steadily, similarly stunned - a mirror of each other with racing hearts and slightly parted lips. It’s like in that moment everything around you ceases to exist as anything other than extraneous nonsense - all the noise inside your head silenced by that one touch.

A small dumbstruck smile creeps across Marcus’ lips before he lowers his head to press another gentle kiss upon you. Then another. Then another. Each press of your lips a little longer. A little deeper. Your lips part to allow his tongue entry as every single thought is quietened by the taste of him. Dropping hands for his to cradle your face and yours to thread through his hair as your bodies press together tightly.

Oh the taste of him is utterly exquisite! From where you’ve been using him as chief curry taster, there’s an element of spices with the tiniest hint of mint. And how you have missed having that beautifully solid warmth of his body next to yours. Inhaling his breaths that fall upon you, your hearts match each other’s rhythms as your lips explore each other, every sensation drawing together to create a humming ball of energy, like you are standing at the point where lightning strikes the Earth.

✪✪✪✪✪

Hands fisted tightly in each other’s clothing - both stuck in the quandary of wanting to tear the fabric from your bodies but also frightened of pushing the other too far. Finally pulling apart, you gaze upon Marcus - all lust blown pupils and dopey smiles. Your foreheads come back to rest against each other, unable to quite let go just yet, not wanting to break the spell and return to reality.

“I have wanted to kiss you since perhaps the first time I met you,” Marcus murmurs as his lips gently ghost over your cheeks, “Maybe even from seeing the photo in your file when Andy drove me here from the airport.”

“Was the person, me?” You quietly ask, finally with the confidence to finish that conversation, “The reason you didn’t kiss or sleep with the goddess?”

He drops his eyes as he gives you a small nod, “Normally, I’d have just asked you out but I was scared of fucking up. It’s been a long time since I felt a spark with anyone.

“You’ve entered my life in this whirlwind of intelligence, beauty and tenderness - I didn’t want to frighten you or make you feel uncomfortable if you didn’t reciprocate.”

A thousand thoughts flood your mind as Marcus says those words. All at once, you want to tell him how safe he makes you feel. How much now that you’ve started kissing him, you never want to stop. How the cruel critics of slumber, silence themselves when you feel his heartbeat against your cheek.

Instead you stand there, silent.

Trying to stroke out the creases you’ve created in his t-shirt as you attempt to find words to put into a logical order, you notice his face twitching when the material under your fingers makes contact with his sides, “Oh Marcus, are you ticklish?”

“Um, no,” Marcus tries to deny breezily as he takes a small, hesitant step back from you, pretending to steady himself.

Making a small movement towards him, your hands at the same level as the point of the bunched fabric - you ask, “Are you sure about that?”

“Yeah,” Marcus is now eyeing you suspiciously - desperate to kiss you again but also a little worried as to what havoc your fingers might reek.

“Then, why are you moving away from me?”

“No reason…” his usually deep voice now a little tighter and higher, “Nush… What are you about to ARGH!”

His knees crumble beneath him as you attack his sensitive sides, “Gah! Quit it, woman,” he weakly commands between wheezes and hoots of laughter.

Taking full advantage of Marcus’ prone and vulnerable position, you take the opportunity to straddle him - effectively pinning him to the floor, “This is how you pin someone.”

“I let you pin me,” Marcus corrects you with a wink.

“Oh really?” you contest, entirely unconvinced by his bravado.

“Yeah,” he says with a small wiggle, bringing his hands to the back of your head, “Cos y’see, I can flip our positions quite easily.”

Suddenly, you find yourself flat on your back in Marcus’ kitchen with zero air in your lungs to form any sensible thought other than to kiss him hard. His large hands cradle your head as he props himself gently above you on his elbows. You feel his entire body covering yours. Deliciously pressing against every single inch of you and oh how it takes every bit of the minutismal amount of self control you have to not beg him to fuck you senseless into that floor.

✪✪✪✪✪

“Shit, is that your door?”

“Fuck,” Marcus pushes himself up to kneeling between your legs, “Can we pretend we’re not in?”

The harsh realisation of an evening with your colleagues, albeit lovely people, sinks in to you both.

“Nope,” you groan, popping the p with a deflated gusto, “Hang on, don’t buzz them up until I’ve tucked my boobs back into my bra.”

“I dunno, makes for easier access,” Marcus lopsidedly grins with a wink as he heads for the door.

“You certainly didn’t seem to make hard work of it earlier,” you mumble at him, before you affix a smile to your face, “Hey! How are you all doing?”

A sea of never ending hugs envelopes and separates you from Marcus as everyone piles into his apartment. The stupid grin still firmly in place on your face since you’d first kissed, you find that every time you look over at him, he’s gazing right back, mirroring that lovestruck smile.

“Oh my god, it all smells so amazing,” Dian waxes lyrical, squeezing you tightly as she inhales a lungful of exotically scented air, “What’ve we got?”

You take her by the hand into the kitchen to show all the different things you had bubbling away. Andy ducks into the kitchen behind you, laden with bags filled with pilau rice, naan and chapatis, and a beautiful small bunch of spring flowers in his other hand - tiny tête-à-tête daffodils with multiple heads along each stalk, brilliant yellow and red tulips standing like soldiers and the otherworldly looking stems of hyacinth, wickedly scenting the air under your nose as he thrusts them under there.

“Hey pretty girl, here’s all the bits you asked for. You deserve a much bigger bunch for what I’ve roped you into but I know you love the early blooms,” he offers by way of apology, sticking a kiss to the side of your forehead, “Smells fucking good though as ever. Hope you don’t mind but I’ve brought a box to take some home for Greg - he was a jealous arse this evening so I suppose I should share.”

“You know the way I cook, enough for several small armies,” you wonkily grin at him, truly thankful for the part he’d had to play, “‘Fraid there’s no easy way to say this and you will have to be the one to break it to Greg, but there’s no butter chicken tonight.”

“You’d better have a damn good excuse for this slatternly behaviour, madam,” Andy gives you a serious side eye for this infraction.

“Well…”

“Initially Nush couldn’t find the cardamoms but then we ran out of time. Plenty of food here, though,” Marcus answers for you, his hand gently holding your hip as he reaches around you to grab a couple of beers from the fridge.

You see Andy catch Marcus’ hand lightly stroking your side as he walks back to Kiritopa, but are entirely grateful when his expression and mouth say nothing. The light chatter in the kitchen, whilst Dian dips a teaspoon into all the pots, is interrupted by a small knock at the door. Sticking your head around the kitchen door, you spot Marcus opening the door to a nervous-looking Harper. Andy sidles past you, to pull her into the main room, rather than her previous position of standing on the doorstep, utterly awkward and obviously feeling quite out of place.

“Hi, I hope you don’t mind me coming. I know I wasn’t there Friday but I don’t really do large crowds and drinking.”

You walk over to her amidst the chorus of “not to worry”s and “lovely to see you”s, “Fancy something to drink now? Got plenty of soft options and I think I’ll stick alongside you as I’ve got to make sure I don’t burn stuff.”

“Including yourself, this time,” Harper retorts quickly with a small smile and a raise of her eyebrows.

“Hah, chance’d be a fine thing,” Andy laughs, slapping your shoulder before turning back to clink bottles and talk with Kiri and Marcus.

✪✪✪✪✪

Through the full length doors of Marcus’ balcony, evening spring sunshine streams through, bathing the group of your co-workers in a gentle, diffused light that flows around the room coating you in a golden glow. You all eat your fill and then some, with full tummies and tired eyes - the kitchen still full of half eaten dishes.

“Can we make this a weekly thing?” Kiritopa asks through a mouthful of food, hopefully.

“Not unless we take it in turns or get a take away - I don’t have the physical or emotional energy to make this level of curry every weekend,” you pointedly remark, looking up from your coke to meet Marcus’ eyes.

You’ve spent the evening barely speaking to each other for fear of alerting the others but surreptitiously brushing past so that you can sneak touches. Tender hidden strokes that feel like the kindest stitches on hidden, gaping wounds.

Marcus stands up to help usher the evening to an end and get you to himself again, “I have some boxes for y’all to take food home as otherwise, I’ll be eating this for weeks - delicious as it is.”

Everyone thankfully takes their boss’ hint and head into the kitchen to grab platefuls to reheat after long days. Slowly saying their goodbyes, your friends drift off in the direction of their homes as you throw yourself in an exhausted heap of bones on his sofa. Two strong hands grip you under your arms, to drape your torso across his lap.

“Hey tired girl,” you slightly open your eyes to spy a smiling Marcus gazing down at you. His fingers draw lazy patterns over the sensitive skin of your neck.

“I’d like to take you on a proper date this week. Wanna do this properly. Make a bit of a fuss.”

“Yeah? Not just pin me down and ravish me on the kitchen floor?” you grin widely at him.

“Well, I’d hardly call that a ravishing…” your eyes widen, eyebrows raising at Marcus’ comment, excitement pooling in your tummy, “Yeah, I saw there’s an Argentinian restaurant in Blackheath so how about steak, Malbec and homemade ice cream before I bring you back to either yours, or mine, for another, even better ravishing?”

“That sounds amazing, although with the amount of food in my belly, I may never have to eat again,” you give your stomach a rub, “But the ravishing…”

Hauling you up to sitting across his lap, you protest loudly, “I am going to crush your legs.”

“Stop making ridiculous comments and c’mere,” Marcus demands as he gently turns your head towards him, stealing a delicate kiss from you.

“I...should… - argh! Stop kissing me for a second,” you beg halfheartedly, “I should go home.”

“Stay.”

“Please stay,” Marcus desperately entreats you, “I’m not expecting anything but I’d love it if you stayed. I know you’ve got nothing here but give me two minutes and I can have a spare toothbrush for you. I’ll drop you home early tomorrow morning so you can grab some clothes and then we can go into work together?”

It feels as though the wind is knocked out of your lungs with the depth of Marcus’ need to be around you.

How does he do it?

“There’s no games with you, are there?” you twist in Marcus’ lap so that you now straddle his thighs, placing your hands on either side of his ridiculously handsome face.

“No,” he shakes head slowly, all the while holding eye contact with you, “I’m too old and I know what I want.”

“What’s that?”

Stroking his hands up and down your sides as he nuzzles your neck, he clearly and confidently declares,

“You.”

Tag list of glory (as ever, please ask to be put on or dropped from the list): @astroboots @silverwolf319@sirowsky @leonieb @disgruntledspacedad @bison-writes @the-ginger-hedge-witch @danniburgh @sugarontherims @green-socks @tardisfangurl @absurdthirst @pedropascalito-deactivated20210 @mouthymandalorian @mrsparknuts @zukoyonce @agirllovespancakes @yespolkadotkitty @lunaserenade @theravenreads @lv7867 @songsformonkeys

[lettheladylead]

Not Your Aunt

Chapter 2: Della [ao3 link]

She didn’t trust the lady. Not for one second. Not for one teeny tiny eenie meenie little extra small second!

Not when Uncle Scrooge would always come home looking like he wanted to cry or scream and he’d mutter Goldie’s name under his breath and then lock himself in his room for the rest of the day. Visiting him was supposed to be exciting and cool and fun and if they had the terrible timing of coming by right after Goldie, then the trip was basically pointless.

Not that she wasn’t also sad to see her uncle sad! That also sucked a lot.

Last time they’d seen Goldie, she’d stolen their map and left them behind in some woods in the middle of Iraq. Sure, she’d oddly left them a clue to help get into the ziggurat safely, but that didn’t make up for the betrayal of stealing their stuff! And Donald was so sour about it for days and days. He really thought it was his fault, as if Miss O’Gilt wasn’t always stealing and leaving. It was pretty much her whole thing.

She tried to convince him that but he just grumbled and sighed about it. He was really hung up on how he called her “Aunt Goldie” when she’d told him not to. So what? They always did things adults told them not to do. It didn’t usually make them run away like little babies. And Della was confident that that wasn’t the reason why Goldie left them behind - not like the lady needed a reason, she clearly just did it for fun - so she knew she’d have to convince Donald of that so he’d stop being so mopey.

Conveniently, Goldie visited the manor again only a few months later. They were at the dinner table with Duckworth when they heard a suspicious sound coming from upstairs. Uncle Scrooge and Duckworth made eye contact and then started walking towards the stairs, so Della and Donald followed out of curiosity.

As they reached the source of the sound, which started as some kind of stomping but had turned into maybe a sliding? And Della could’ve sworn she heard a groan? Anyway, Duckworth opened the door and Uncle Scrooge peeked into the room for a half-second before suddenly shouting “GOLDIE?!” and running in.

Duckworth followed him, but Donald and Della stayed at the door and just looked inside. They could see Goldie was on the floor and Scrooge was some mixture of tending to her and yelling at her because, and Della wasn’t yet an expert on this but she’d had some experiences, there was definitely a pool of blood underneath her. Goldie muttered something and Scrooge muttered something back but neither she nor Donald could understand what they were talking about.

The twins made eye contact, silently agreeing to head inside, when Duckworth suddenly exited the room and closed the door behind him, leaving them out.

“You two should go finish your dinner.”

“What? But what about…” Della motioned towards the door.

“Ah, he’s right, Della,” Donald muttered softly, accepting defeat too easily for Della’s liking. “It’s not like we can help.” He started to walk away, looking just as bummed as he had been for the past few weeks.

Della pouted and thought about how she was hoping to improve Donald’s mood when Goldie returned, but of course the old lady had to make it more complicated than it needed to be. As Duckworth gently pushed them towards the stairs, she turned her head and looked up at him. “Is Aunt Goldie okay?”

Duckworth raised an eyebrow at her and decided not to comment on the name. “Goldie O’Gilt is harder to kill than a cockroach. She’ll be just fine.”

The kids chuckled at his comparison and rushed back down to eat. As soon as the kids were gone, Duckworth sighed and walked towards the bathroom, knowing he could find one of their First Aid kits in there.

-

The rest of their meal was quick, both kids just wanted to finish so they could go back upstairs and find out what happened to Goldie.

“I’ll bet she was fighting a sea serpent over a single gold doubloon and it just completely tore her arm off!”

“No way! She probably got into a back alley knife fight when she tried to rob a guy that was too tough to rob.”

“Oooh, or maybe she was making her way through an ancient tomb when all the traps went off and she’s just got a ton of arrows poking out of her, leaking her blood all over the floor and the side of the mansion while she climbed up the wall!”

“Ew, Dumbella! That’s so gross!”

“How is that grosser than her arm getting torn off?!”

“I dunno, it just is!”

They argued over Goldie’s potential source of injury for a few minutes as they finished their food. As they agreed to head upstairs, Uncle Scrooge came down and plopped himself and his cane right in the entranceway so they couldn’t leave.

“Kids. I’m sure you saw that Goldie’s here.”

“Yeah, kinda hard to miss,” Della said with an eyeroll. “Did she steal anything from you yet?”

Scrooge blew out some air and tapped his fingers at the top of his cane. “Not yet. And yes, she probably will. But...it might be a few days.”

Donald and Della looked at each other incredulously. “Days? Like...more than one?”

“Probably at least a week.”

“Wait, what?” Donald stepped towards his uncle, looking concerned. “Is she, like...actually really badly hurt? What happened?”

Scrooge looked up towards the second floor when he thought he heard a noise before sighing and looking back down at the kids. “She hasn’t given me all the details, but she’s...she’s not in the best shape. She’ll need a few days to recover.”

Della was already thinking back to her guesses for Goldie’s injuries. She’d been kidding before, but maybe she wasn’t too far off?

“You two don’t need to do anything, Duckworth and I can take care of her just fine,” Scrooge said softly. “But we might need to postpone our trip to Svalbard until she’s better.”

“Boo!” Della whined. “Aunt Goldie ruins yet another adventure! Can’t we just leave her here with Duckworth?”

Scrooge’s eyes widened and he sputtered a bit at her words. “I-I, um...no, she’s...what?”

“C’mon, Della, it’s just another week,” Donald commented, not noticing his uncle’s discomfort. “Uncle Scrooge probably wants to make sure she doesn’t steal anything while we’re gone.”

“Um...right,” Scrooge muttered, still not over what he just heard. He remembered Donald referring to her as ‘aunt’ the last time they’d seen her, but he kind of thought that was just an odd little one-time thing. Now if Della started doing it, too, then he didn’t know how to handle that. Goldie would absolutely lose her mind if she found out. “You two shouldn’t bother her so just stay away from the guest room two doors down from mine.”

The kids shared a look before looking back up at their uncle simultaneously. “Okay, Uncle Scrooge!”

As Scrooge nodded and walked away, seemingly headed towards his office, Della and Donald quickly rushed towards the stairs so they could go bother their new houseguest.

They peeked into the room together and saw the mess of blonde hair strewn across the pillows. Goldie definitely looked like she was asleep, which was very disappointing, but they decided to walk into the room anyway and see if she was just faking.

She didn’t react to them coming closer. Della leaned towards her brother and whispered, “She’s sneaky and sharp, right? So she probably knows we’re here even if she’s asleep!”

“That doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Donald whispered back. “Look at her arm! She’s probably just really tired and hurt.”

Della followed his pointer finger and saw that there were bandages all over Goldie’s right arm - from her wrist up past her elbow. Clearly she’d been pretty badly hurt from something and Della desperately wanted to know what it was. She took a deep breath and walked the rest of the way towards her bed, ignoring Donald’s shocked protest behind her.

“...are you awake?” Della asked quietly, not sure how she should approach this.

Goldie didn’t respond, which just made Della pout.

“Aunt Goldie!” she said suddenly, at slightly-higher-than-normal volume. “What happened to your arm?!”

That time, Goldie’s eyes were wide open, but she was simply staring up at the ceiling and taking deep breaths. Donald noticed and joined his sister at the older woman’s bedside.

Another few seconds passed and Goldie closed her eyes again. Della wondered if she thought they were just a nightmare she was having. Well, that wouldn’t do.

“Aunt Gooooldie!” Della smacked her little hands against the top of the bed. “Did you get bitten by a shark? Or stabbed by a guy on the street? Or shot by a laser?”

“Or did you fall from a tower in the sky and land on your arm and it got all gross and beat up?” Donald added, feeling his sister’s contagious enthusiasm.

Goldie groaned and opened her eyes again, clearly wishing the kids weren’t really there. “Is there any way for me to get you two to go away?”

They just smiled at her innocently.

“...if I tell you what happened, will you let me sleep in peace?”

This time they nodded, completely in-sync. Goldie would’ve felt a little creeped out if she wasn’t used to them mirroring one another.

She turned back towards the ceiling and sighed. “I got burned. Badly.”

“Burned?” Della and Donald said together. Neither of them expected that. “Then what was with all the blood?”

“I wasn’t careful enough on my way here,” she said casually. “Burns got scratched up, started to bleed. Hurt like hell.”

Della climbed onto the bed, plopping herself down far enough from Goldie that the bed didn’t shake but close enough to get a better look at the bandages. They were definitely a little red and her arm looked inflamed. “So how’d you get burned? A dragon?”

Donald leaned onto the bed. “A flamethrower?”

“It was some kind of magic.”

“Oohh,” Della crooned. “Did you meet Magica De Spell? Uncle Scrooge complains about her sometimes.”

“She sounds scary.”

Goldie closed her eyes for a second before looking over at the kids. “It wasn’t my first time crossing paths with her, but yes. She had some stupid fancy magical artifact with her and caught me off guard and now I’m stuck here ‘til I can remember if that healing spring was in Caladrion or some other dimension that starts with C!” She started to move her arm and then hissed in pain before setting it back down. “I’ve got enough vicodin in my system to keep me from remembering the name but not enough to stop my arm from hurting. Great.”

Della and Donald looked at each other again. “...Aunt Goldie?”

“Please for the love of God, stop calling me that,” Goldie groaned, closing her eyes once again. “What do you want now?”

Donald took his sister’s hand and tugged her off the bed. “Do you want any tea or anything?”

Goldie froze momentarily before turning to look at the kids again, seeing surprisingly innocent looks on their faces. She almost felt bad for snapping, but god was she tired. “...no. I just want to go to sleep.”

“Okay,” Donald said quietly. “We’ll leave you alone now. Right, Della?”

Della nodded. “Yeah, okay. Sleep tight, Aunt Goldie!”

They headed out the door as Goldie groaned one last time and tried to get back to sleep. Donald shut the door behind them and glared at his sister. “She said to stop calling her that!”

“Yeah, but I wanted to get a reaction outta her!” Della responded, putting her hands on her hips. “You said it made her run away last time, but this time she’s still here!”

“She doesn’t exactly have a choice,” Donald muttered, crossed his arms over his chest. “I bet she’d be running if she could!”

“Nah-uh!”

“Yeah-huh!”

“Nah-”

“Della, Donald.”

The twins turned to see Duckworth standing at the end of the hallway, giving them a suspicious stare.

“Miss O’Gilt is trying to get some sleep so she can recover faster. Perhaps the two of you could continue this argument somewhere else?”

The kids nodded sheepishly and rushed past Duckworth on their way to another room to argue and play in. Duckworth watched them over his shoulder for a few moments before turning back towards the room that housed their current uninvited guest. He thought back to the last time Goldie O’Gilt had stayed in the mansion and how Mr. McDuck’s mood was lifted and then subsequently crushed when she inevitably left in the middle of the night.

Though he thought this time would probably be no different, having the kids around would make her stay a bit more interesting, he was sure of that.

[binniesthighs]

eehee here it is the long awaited results of my chaotic ass survey about our hornies it’s so long holy heck, but I have seperated it into a couple sections to make sense of it all (omg if you read all of it lemme give you a kith teehee) ahhhh lol its SO nerdy haha but i hope that ya enjoy nonetheless! ✨

In this essay, I will....(hahah jk jk this is just all for fun) 

1. Demographics Analysis 

2. Polls on Fic Content 

3. Member Specific Analysis 

4. Deep Dive into the Juicy Questions (Confessions) 

5. General Thoughts and Conclusion  

6.  Cute shit that ya’ll said that made me giggle

*Unpopular opinions will be made into their own post to give them ample space and analysis!

Other Notes: 

Out of 100 individuals surveyed, 44 were readers, 2 were only writers, and 54 were both readers and writers. 

Statistical significance can be effected by sampling, selection, and response bias (yeah i took a stats class teehee) and personal biases 

All the the opinions and other analysis presented by me (Ro/binniesthighs) are purely my own oponion and are not factual. you are entitled to interpret all of this information however you like! Anything that i analyze is not definitive! 

while this survey is mostly about stay smutblr, i hope that it can also maybe serve as a template for other fandoms as well with the more general questions! this is a survey for everyone! 

i’d love to hear about what you think about anything presented in this analysis! feel free to send me an ask or comment! reposting is permitted within tumblr or on other platforms if proper credit is given! ❤️ (uwu hehe if you could please help me spread this i would appreciate it so much! i worked really hard on her 🥺) 

1. Demographics Analysis:

Gender Identities of those Surveyed 

~My thoughts: this really came as no surprise to me considering how the majority of kpop fans (especially boy group fans) identify as female! Seeing as I am a Stray Kids/Seventeen blog (both of them boy groups) it makes sense to me that my readers would mostly identify as female! 

Another important thing to note (from a writer standpoint at least) is the wide array of identities that we still have present within the general audience of stay smut blur (SSB)! I’ll get into this later when i discuss favorite pairings to read, however i think that this gives us one more reason to write for a diverse audience of readers who can identify with different types of self-insert fics! 

Top Five: 

Female (81%) 

Non-binary/gender non-conforming (13%) 

Changes by the day (6%) 

Male (4%) 

Demiboy/Demigirl (3%) 

Sexual Orientation of those Surveyed 

Other identities mentioned: 

????, unlabeled, aromatic bisexual, bicurious, demisexual, “just liking who i like”, experimenting, heteroflexible, sapiosexual, depends day by day, “i just like anyone” 

~My thoughts: okkkkk i see us gays of SSB 😏 these demographics were really exciting for me to see! i think that it’s super cool that we have such representation across the board when it comes to sexual orientations present in our community! As someone who personally identifies as pan, this was super comforting to see that there are so many others like me in this little space of the internet! I think it’s safe to say at least from my lil survey that all the bi cuties out here own SSB 💗💜💙

From a literal standpoint, it also makes sense to me that heterosexuality is strongly present as well considering that often the pairs that we read are male idol x female reader so this is the perfect niche! 

Top Five: 

Bisexual (40.8%) 

Heterosexual (26.5) 

Pansexual (17.3%) 

Queer (7.1%) 

Asexual (4.1%) 

Stay Creators!! 

~My thoughts: this one i was THRILLED at seeing oml hahaha and i was so interested to see that this was nearly an even split! 

I think that there’s something to be said about how sometimes we can take our hobbies: (movies, videogames, books, kpop, anime etc)--all things which we really like in totally normal and healthy ways but also kinda like....get hornies about them too? if that makes sense? for example, i have a friend who really likes certain video games/characters from these games as a fan and he’s shared with me that he also doesn’t mind watching porn containing those same characters! (ahahah ya all know what i mean don’t even lie haha) 

what this question proved to me as that there are stays out there who practice “being a stay/being a stay creator” who also are interested in the more...horny side of this hobby/interest 😂

what is even more interesting to me is who i wonder if i’ve  have consumed any of ya’ll’s content while you have consumed mine??? this i am DYING to know aha but it think its best for all of us to stay anonymous teehee ;) 

either way, good on ya for doing what ya do!! you are so so treasured in this community too!! <3 

2. Polls on Fic Content (a long section lol) 

Favorite Pairing to Read 

*other options selected were rankings of favorite pairings so i just added each of them as an entry to the respective category mentioned. 

Top Five: 

Idol x female reader (69%) 

Idol x gender neutral reader (19%) 

Idol x reader x Idol (poly r/ship) (14%) 

Idol x reader, Idol x reader (threesome, not much interaction between the two idols) (8%) 

~My thoughts: once again, this category was pretty self explanatory to me considering that the majority of readers are female identifying, so it would make sense that they would prefer to read smut that aligns with their identity! This is also super present anyway of SSB as i do feel like the majority of writing pieces that I do come along are idol x female reader, and most authors too often disclaim that they are the most comfortable writing this type of pairing as well. 

What’s signficant as well is the interest in reading fics with gender neutral reader self inserts as well! this is my personal philosophy when it comes to writing (specifically with requests) but i think that writing gn!reader is always the safest bet to go as to not make assumptions about readers! for writers i think that seeing this 19% is something important to take into consideration! 

An outlier to me with this demographic was the “poly r-ship” poll garnering a notable 14% in comparison to the idol x idol option which got 10 less votes (4%). what is a little confusing to me about this is how poly r/ships often (but not always) contain idol x idol content, however there is discrepancy with the amount of readers outright saying that they enjoy reading it alone. I’ll get into poly fics later with the unpopular opinions section--however i wanted to plant the seed here hehe. One other caveat to this is the fact that on SSB i feel like idol x idol content is really in the minority and is much more present on a platform like AO3 so this could be another explaination! 

What is kinda cute to me is the fact that readers do really like poly r-ship dynamics more than a threesome (as i defined it, “with less interaction”) so this makes me feel like we are all saps for the fluff that comes with poly r-ship fics ;) 

Favorite Kind of Smut to Read 

male idol smut (67%) 

i read both! (female and male idol smut) (25%) 

depends on my mood (7%) 

female idol smut (1%) 

~My thoughts: Again, this is super expected to me as well considering the above statistics. Since i am a skz blog (a boy group) --as are my moots-- it really makes sense that those who filled out this survey would be into male idol smut! 

what was cool for me to see as well was the number of readers who also read female idol smut as well as male idol smut! personally, i more predominately a fan of boy groups compared to the amount of girl group content that I consume (note: i do also consume gg content). because of this, i think that its really up to personal preferences and the content that you consume that can be reflective of the smut content that you consume as well and ya know, whoever gets your hornies going ;) 

Favorite Genres...Ranked! 

*so this was my fault lol i totally formatted this question poorly in google forms so i’ll try to summarize the most popular rankings with my words haha 

*bc of the way that i miffed it (lol) i wasn’t able to get exact measurements, but rough ones! 

Top Five: 

Smut, fluff, angst 

smut n’ fluff (with specific emphasis angst is not desired)  

smut, angst, fluff, 

fluff, smut, angst, 

angst, fluff, smut 

~My thoughts: by far, the most popular ranking that i saw was as follows: smut, fluff, angst. i saw this sososos many times haha also...ya’ll got really creative with your rankings and it made me giggle hehe. So! seeing as this is stay smutblr haha makes total sense that the three most popular rankings that we have were lead by smut! since we’re here for the hornies, i totally get this. 

as for the “smut n’ fluff” or “fluffy smut” category, there was a decent amount of readers that expressed that this mixture is their fave! i’m kinda looping this with the “mixture” option that i also provided for this question since this was the most popular mixture that i was able to observe along with angst + smut. interestingly, i saw a couple mentions of “hurt/comfort” fics with this question too so this went well with this preference. as for number three on this list, we dip into that smut + angst category that I just mentioned as well. there were several individuals who said that they really really enjoy reading smut with angst! 

lastly we get to the four and five on the list: four being fluff, smut and angst. i think this category can also properly represent the folx who tend to like more fluffy fics over the smutty ones, but that can also have suggestive themes too! in five, we have angst, fluff and smut which also is representative of another theme that i saw: as far as plot goes, several people mentioned that they liked fics that start with angst, get fluffier, and then end up in smut, so i think that this could be easily compared! 

*there were also several readers who simply said “all of them” or opted not to rank, (lol me) so this really shows the variability in results! 

Cute stuff ya’ll said (kind of out of context too LOL) 

“... hehE I HOPE THIS MAKES SENSE.” 

“...I KNOW IT [my ranking] LOOKS TERRIBLY SPECIFIC AND IM SO SORRY and I guess the better way to describe that was one that has all 3 with a happy ending lol my b my b.” 

“ ...it just depends on the mood my dude.” 

“... (the smut doesn’t have to be soft i just want the relationship to be soft and i want aftercare and general affection).” 

“(but almost no angst oops)” 

“angst honestly makes me so sad.” 

“... but long fics with angst and slow burn smut/fluff is just WOW.” 

“ my favourite thing is when it's fluffy smut tbh with a little bit of angsty backstory. that is *chefs kiss*” 

“(I'm a sucker for good angsty fics but I cant seem to find them???)” 

“Smut, Fluff, Angst (I tend to be a bit of a purist so no mixture here).” 

“(i can't read pure angst lol) “ 

“(I love how much plot there is in angsty fics but I personally can't read anything without a happy ending, i just can't take it)” 

“ i literally couldn't rank them bc my mood is always changing lmaooo.” 

“ smut, fluff, angst. i know what i’m about.” 

Favorite Length of Fics 

Top Five: 

5k-8k words (27%) 

2k-4k words (25%) 

1k-2k words (20%) 

10k-20k words (15%) 

20k words (12%) 

~My thoughts: this one was super helpful for me to see!! and writers i hope that this is helpful for you too! as someone who tends to rambles (lol) it was very comforting for me to see that long-ish fics are actually preferred! what is really cool about this data too is that it is all super well balanced for the most part and nearly edqual in some parts! how i see this, i think that when it comes to preferences of length, its really reader specific so anyone could like anything! this goes into a little bit the slow burn question that i asked as well too, but it’s really cool to see that when readers do read, they kinda like something to sink their teeth into! 

i wanted to look into how long it takes you to read these words, and it appears that on average, a 5-8k fic can take someone 30 mins to read whereas a 2-4k fic takes about 15mins! idk if this says something about attention spans, but as a writer it warms my heart to know that you’re willing to spend 30 minutes of your time reading something that i wrote! 🥺

another thing i wanted to bring up is the “hard and fast” smut readers--those who like to get straight to the point, get right to business and to the juice! they are also a decently large group too! as for readers who like a nice long fic or a chaptered fic, they are super close in numbers! from this, it’s safe for me to assume that maybe those who like reading longer fics are more inclined to strap in for the long haul with chaptered fics too! 

Favorite AUs to Read 

*the top category that got cut off (thank you google forms lol) is friends to lovers! the one that says “...love” at 48% is enemies to lovers, and the one that has a blanked out title at 35% is strangers to lovers! 

Top Five: 

friends to lovers (65%) 

enemies to lovers (48%) 

high school/college au (40%) 

roommates/neighbors to lovers (38%) 

strangers to lovers (35%) 

Other AUs mentioned by you! 

office au, royal au, vampire au, fake date, idol au, slice of life, boarding school au, childhood friends, soulmate au 

~My thoughts: ok ok so this was RAD to see! i often wonder myself the kinds of aus that my readers would like to see so this was really helpful! circling back on how readers tend to favor fluff n’ smut (friends to lovers) and angst n’ smut (enemies to lovers) i think that we’re seeing some more themes here teehee. 

i like to think that since most of us are of the college age, the college au is super relatable therefore we really like to read it! not to mention that college and high school au’s are super duper cute as well! this is also relatable to the roommates/neighbors to lovers category which is also relatable to us who may or may not have experienced having a roommate or crush on the cutie next door ;) as a couple readers mentioned, they liked more “slice of life” au’s--which both of these categories fall into! i think we as readers like scenarios that feel the most real to us, bc they are the easiest to insert ourselves into :) 

fantasy and thriller, action, more “fiction” tropes are in the minority, however i think that this can be for the exact same reason as i mentioned above where readers like more relatable scenarios. 

Opinions on Slow Burn Fics 

~My thoughts: during polling of this category, this pie cart stayed basically the same the whole time!! that was pretty cute to see! the important take aways from this survey for me is the fact that slow burn fics are generally really loved! again, lol as someone who writes big ol’ long slow burn fics this made me feel a lot better hahaha basically, the general consensus is that slow burn fics are welcome most of the time, however some readers might need to invest a little more time into them! this is also very easily comparable to the above statistics on the length of fics preferred (longer ones being the ones more popular) so here’s a lil more supporting evidence! 

3. Member Specific Analysis 

Bias Survey 

Top Five: 

Chan (19%) 

Changbin (18%) 

Hyunjin (16%) 

Jisung (15%) 

Minho (14%) 

~My thoughts: ok ok ok so this is where it starts getting JUICY hehe (also i apologize once more for making you pick LOL) 

the reason why i asked this question was because i wanted to see if there was a correlation with biases and if there was a probability that members who had more people biasing them (or popularity I guess) were more likely to be read more in smut fics! AND I WAS RIGHT haha isn’t this so fkn cool??? (see more in the next section!) 

for comparison, i went to kprofiles to see their little survey on bias popularity and their top five. 

Kprofiles Top Five: 

Hyunjin (15%) 

Felix (14%) 

Chan (12%) 

Minho (11%) 

Jisung (11%) 

SO oh my god my nerd brain is loosing it over this REE so, what i should note that is those who took this survey on my blog are likely generally different based off of the fact that they are here to read smut specifically, rather than the general holistic popularity survey. It is for this reason that we see Felix much higher on this list and Changbin much lower too (as we know Felix is really well known generally and globally and there are *generally* fewer Bin biased fans). What was really interesting to see what that with Hyunjin, Chan, Jisung and Minho, they still all stayed within the top five! Soooo what i’m saying is.... all of you Hyunjin, Chan, Jisung and Minho fans really must like your smut 😏 and I think that it’s safe to assume that the majority of hard stans come from these four members too ooP (and of course our Binnie too! ;) i see all of ya’ll 👀) 

Members That Get Our Hornies Going 

~My thoughts: AHH DOESN’T THIS LOOK SO SATISFYING? I’M SO PROUD OF HER!!! 

First off, i would like to acknowledge the all mighty power of Bang Christopher Chan for pooling this most hornies god DAMN while i kind of expected this, it is also evidenced in the fics that i write! recently i’ve been tracking the number of notes that my Chan hard thoughts get in comparison to other members and the differences are usually ASTRONOMICAL. He is most def the most popular member for smut for several different reasons, lowkey bc i think that it’s kind of part of his brand?? hahaha if ya know what i mean? 

As for preference from Minho on, we can see a super obvious trend that as age order decreases, we get less and less interest for reading for the member. I’m fairly inclined to believe that this has to do with the fact that most often fans (especially fans older than skz) have a harder time seeing the younger members in a sexual way, so the lack of interest totally makes sense here! As referenced above too, we found that the oldest five members (Chan --> Jisung) are the favorites for smut reading which we can see here as well when the numbers really drop after Felix (Felix coming in at 6th place on my “popularity” survey). 

Bc of these statistics, i do really feel like as a reader, i tend to see much, much more fics involving our top five! As for Seungmin and Jeongin, I’ve also seen people state that they do not read or write content for these two members bc they do not feel as comfortable, so this can also explain the lack of content. Also as we have heard many times, Jeongin is a bit of a hot topic lol within the SSB community, so this makes sense that his readership would be low as well. 

4. Deep Dive into the Juicy Questions (aka confessions) 

Is the fact that you read smut a seggsy secret? 

~My thoughts: JUICE TIME JUICE TIME 

Before I say anything, i wanted to tell you all how all of the juicy questions were totally optional, but i got 100% participation for every single one of them which if find HILARIOUS i guess you all are just as curious as i am?? ;) 

So! for this question, we have an overwhelming amount of readers who said that only their closest friends know which is so cute to me! i love how we can trust our friends with this hehe. i also fall into this category bc like, it’s lowkey kinda fun to talk about? maybe also the fact that i run a smut acct makes me care a little less about it all hahah 

secondly, we have the rather large group of people who said that they wouldn’t dare to tell anyone which is also sooo cute haha idk how to explain it but this was the category that i started out in too until i found the right people! But i totally get ya, reading smut--especially-- kpop smut-- can be embarrassing or cringey to share (not to mention that it is somewhat morally grey LOL) so this is really understandable! 

also my fkn hats off to all of you who said that you didn’t care about who knows that you read smut. here, you dropped this: 👑 you’re much braver than i could ever be. 

When you read smut, do you really feel the hornies? 

~My thoughts: ok, so this one to me was also very interesting for me to see as well! (also if you get uncomfy reading about personal masturbation habits you can skip this one lol) 

the reason why i asked this question was because i wanted to see if people “get off” by reading smut (whether reading it turns you on, or if you choose to use it for “material” to get off on however this might look, might be more of a mental simulation without any real like, physical getting off) candidly, I use smut to get myself off every once and a while, so i wanted to see who else might be in the same group! since becoming a writer however, i read much less and reading it doesn’t hit the same when i was just a reader bc i have a different perspective of being the one writing the smut so i look at it more analytically--i digress. 

it was exciting (teehee get the pun?) for me to see that others also “get off” on smut too--and that they are the majority! teehee it is an honor for me to provide you with the hornies LOL. at the same time, we still have a large group in the “don’t take to seriously” category which was interesting to me too! i can’t speak for these readers, but i interpreted these kind of readers to be the kind who read smut to imagine the scenes and are like “hm, that’s hot, i like thinking about this.” but it doesn’t extend much outside of these thoughts. 

What is the most popular position pairing we like to read? 

*smaller slices of the pie represent multiple favorites which i also seperated back into the categories corresponding to get the best count into what was the most preferred. 

Actual Breakdown: 

dom!idol // sub!reader (51 votes) 

switch!idol // switch!reader (32 votes) 

subidol! // dom!reader (11 votes) 

all of the above (5 votes) 

depends on my mood (2 votes) 

~My thoughts: i feel as if there is a bit of a conflict between which position really is “the best” and while we really can’t know the answer to this question since everyone has different preferences, we can at least find out which one is the most popular to be consumed! 

again, going off of the content that I also see as a reader, i see TONS of dom!idol fics, like, left and right. also, if i may come for all of our necks, 👀 but...there’s really something to be said about the fact that the majority of readers are female and historically and socially, women are typically socialized to be submissive, so i can see why this would be why we would favor this among fics--this is even further evidenced by the fact that male idol smut is also preferred, thus further perpetuating the fact that women have been socialized to be submissive to men specifically. i’m not saying that this is the end all be all reason that this trend is present, but i merely offer it as a possible explaination. this is a much larger sociological conversation, but i think that this trend also showed itself in the types of smut that readers seek out as well--according to demographics. 

sub!idol fics are few and far in-between, and i think that this can also be for the exact same reason as i talked about above! 

When you read smut, do you pick faves to read for? 

~My thoughts: what’s cool about this question is the fact that the “half and half” nature of it also resembles what we saw in the section for favorite members to read! As we see in that chart, 41 out of 100 people said that they read everyone, similar to this question where 48 out of 100 people said that they read for everyone. What this proves to me once more is that when it comes for reading fics, there's a 50/50 chance that the reader will look at, and read it based off of who it is about alone. This is a really powerful statistic, meaning that the members who that a writer might write for really dictates their readership! At the same time, it’s super comforting to know that regardless of what you as a writer might write, there’s always someone out there who is willing to read it! (as evidenced by the 52% of people who read for anyone! this is still a large number) 

Readers: Do you only use Tumblr for smut? 

~My thoughts: when i first started out reading smut, i was in the “i just look up skz smut” group LOL so i wanted to see again if there was anyone like me--which there is! This was more of my interest in seeing if some people view tumblr as “their smut dealer” AHA so that my initial motivation. I was surprised to see that this is not the case! out of 100 readers, 39 of them have their own non-smut blogs and the second largest group of 26 people use tumblr for smut exclusively. 

idk why, but when thinking of this question, it really got me thinking back to the question where i asked if reading smut is a seggsy secret, and there was the group of people who said that it is for them--i’m assuming that these people might be part of the group have non-smut blogs and read on the side teehee. 

at the same time, there is a combined 40 people who said that they use tumblr for smut purposes only which makes sense to me, as those who filled out my survey are readers of my smut blog if you catch my drift haha  

Writers: Do you read smut, or just write it? 

*56 responses correlate with those polled who identified as writers/both as mentioned above 

~My thoughts: this survey is really really cute for me to see bc it means that there is a whole support network or writers out there reading, supporting and here to hype other writers work!! if anything, as a writer because it takes so much time to write, it can become hard to find time to read, hence the “when i have time option lollll (*cough cough* me LOL) thank you all for your honesty with this question! 

5. General Thoughts and Conclusion 

Survey on Exposure 

~My thoughts: i kinda wanna close off this survey by getting on my soapbox for a sec lol. At least for me, the most common ways that readers found my blog were: looking up a tag, and from a repost. i think that this really goes to show the power of exposure and certain tactics that you can use to increate readership of your account! new readers, if you’re reading this and you’re just starting out, tagging your stuff is so so important! 

also, as i have said and so so, many other content creators have said countless times before, reposting is so crucial and it takes little to no effort to repost a creators work so that it might reach others! as a writers, we spend hours, and i mean hours creating content, editing, drafting, creating headers all out own time to publish something that we are proud of and for you to enjoy! it means the world to authors when you reblog their work and even more when you give feedback too because this is our passion! we write for free in the middle of our busy lives so the validation makes it all worth it!! 

Conclusion 

~phew! so that’s it! once again, i wanted to thank you all from the bottom of my heart from participating in this lil study! i really hope that it is helpful to writers and readers alike! i wanna give ya all the biiiiiigest Ro huggies!! 💕💕

as i mentioned above, the answers for the unpopular opinions will be made into their own post bc there is a ton of them and i didn’t want to clutter up this doc lol 

don’t ya ever forget that you are important, loved, and special! happy hornies my cuties ;) 

~R 🌹

6. Cute shit that ya’ll said that made me giggle (and hopefully makes you giggle too)

~you all are the light of my life!! each of these comments brought me so much happiness and i love you all so fkn much for that!! also, to those of you who said, “Ro date me” PLZ haha i will date you too!!! too all of the super sweet comments about my writing, thank you so so very much and thank you for reading! it means so much to me!! to all of the i love yous, ahhhh i love you toooooo  💕

“I DUNNO IM BAD AT FUNNY STUFF BUT KNOCK KNOCK I GUESS? -whos there 

RO 

-ro who 

Me, in chan voice: RObber ducky you're the one 

yeah... 

yeah 

bYE” 

“ I didn’t know changbin’s thighs were of such importance until I saw your username but now?? 👀 I am looking respectfully.” 

“ every time chan doesn’t reply to my bubble message i hold my breath and try to die💆‍♀️” 

“ here are my favorite emoji combos: 😐☝️ 😫🖐️ 😂🤏 (i use that one when i get a dick pick and it's rlly small but the person thinks its big-) “ 

“ you are EVIL for making me choose just ONE bias OT8 EXISTS OK!?” 

“ I hope this survey provides you with a lot of useful feedback! -sincerely a big tiddie committee member (you know the one)” [hehe yes i do hai M ;)] 

“ chan’s tiddies... that’s it.” 

“jeogiyo noona hokshi namjachingu isseoyo?“

“ Jeongin is appropriately baby bread because his face is puffy in the morning so it's kinda like yeast rising 👉👉 “ 

“ someone needs to tell hyunjin to put some vaseline or something on his cuticles like I love him a lot but his recent live made me scream sir your cuticles are hanging on for dear life please I'm literally begging you “ 

“ I squeal whenever I get a notification from you and my family think I’m secretly dating someone. It’s nice knowing that they think I can get someone during a pandemic 😁 “ [this one had me SENT] 

“i hope ur dreams are blessed with skz thighs.” 

“ HS Bin supremacy!!” 

“Sta” 

“Ro(ses) are red, violets are blue - DaVinci painted Mona, cause he couldn't find you :') “ 

“✨ dInG dOnG ✨ “ 

“You're doing God's work as a changbin stan xD “ [thank you so much aHA] 

“damn gorl, are you a wifi signal? cause i’m tryna connect 🤔🥴✌🏾 “ 

“Good luck with your survey! I hope you get a big response! You know what else is big..? 

 Chan's feet. (I'm sorry, that was my attempt to make you giggle but I'm clearly not a comedian)” 

“What's the internal temperature of a taun taun? Luke warm! (Haha sorry star wars joke) “ 

“egg“

“just because you’re garbage, doesn’t mean you can’t do great things. It’s called garbage can, not garbage cannot <3 “ 

“Soft-Dom Minho Agenda is the best agenda. I have spoken. Sincerely yours, Javi (@itsapapisongo) “ [this is the way javi] 

“Bang chan daddy supremacy” 

“ro, ro, ro your boat gently down skz’ dick hell yea.” [this also had me SENT] 

“stay smut writers should take “maknae on top” literally“

“idk man i’m just vibing. hope ur day is going well. (changbin voice) da DA da” 

Fin. 

~🌹~ 

Bunch of (Ro)ses! 

@minaamhh @dazzlehoseok @synnocence @jjewibeans @hyunsluvv @unexceptional-h @bobawithchaitea @lechanters @sailorhyunjinz @silencefavarchive @lunarskzzz  @yourdaddychan @bubblelixie @spnobsessedmemes @chaangbin​ @lmhmins @eunaeiekim

[luvlyrv]

Just Vacation Girlfriends (Seulgi x Fem!Reader)

Genre: Fake dating, fluff

Summary: You and Seulgi enter a precarious fake dating situation, hijinks ensue. Except the hijinks aren't light-hearted, but rather deeply personal and intimate experiences. What are you and Seulgi really?

Word Count: 2k

A/N: Hi, it has literally been 5 months since I last wrote lol, I'm sorry. It's not like I hate writing it's just that there were other things I could and had to do. I apologize for taking so long to upload again, especially for the amount of feedback I got for my first post! 68 followers and 90 notes! I know it may seem like rookie numbers to some but I really want to thank you all. I'm having my winter break now so I should be able to post a lot during this short period. If I'm lucky I may be able to semi-consistently post during the school year as well ;). Sorry if there are any grammar mistakes/wtf moments I'm writing at 3AM and have slept for two hours total for the past 40 hrs, cut me some slack please.

Date: 12/24/20

The chops of your knife against the cutting board were interrupted by your phone ringing. You stop making dinner as you look over your shoulder to your phone a couple inches away on the counter. Your eyebrow perked up as you read the caller ID, it was Seulgi. Of course, you immediately set your knife down to talk to her.

"Hey Seul, what's up?"

"Hi..." Seulgi began to yawn. "I just wanted to hear your voice today."

You can't help but to let out a small smile as you felt your face getting warmer. Luckily Seulgi wasn't actually there to tease you about it.

"Ah, well, here's my voice. Is it relaxing enough, your majesty?"

You can hear a faint and muffled sound of laughter from Seulgi before you hear her tired voice through the speaker again.

"Hm, well I guess that'll do. I'm actually calling to make sure you wanna come with us on vacation again."

"Of course I do, I've been going with you guys for years. I'll make sure it works with my schedule."

"Yeah, I know that and I'll send you the dates, it's just that..." Seulgi let out a long sigh, "there's some other things you need to know."

"And that would be?"

"Pretend to be my girlfriend."

"What?"

"Please, Y/N. It'll just be for a week. I know it's a lot to ask but I need it."

You're speechless for a bit and deliberate on what to say next. Not wanting to worry your friend with your silence you ended up just saying, "Yeah, uh okay, I can work with that... why though?"

"You know how dating is like. Not a lot of time, not a lot of privacy. My parents understand this but they're still worried you know? They worry about how my future will be like if I'm spending basically over a decade just working. Something about it takes time to find the right man, settling, babies, blah blah blah. If you pretend to date me that'll ease their worries and I won't even have to worry about a scandal since it isn't real and only my parents would know anyways. Besides... we're close enough where we can pull this off convincingly, right?"

You take a second to think. It was a strange situation to be in, but as far as you knew you would only have to pretend for the week you would spend with her family. Her family wouldn't be seeing either of you after then, and maybe you could also fake breakup if things get sticky. With Seulgi's last statement... it was true that you've been really close with her and her entire family since you were both little. All it would take would be amping up the friendly touches and banter.

"Yeah, we are. Alright. I guess we should iron out the details about our fake relationship later though. You kind of sound like shit. Rest up if you can."

"Talk to you soon, Y/N."

With that, Seulgi ended the call and you were left with dinner still unprepared and a lot on your mind.

* *

The plan was to go to the airport and fly out to the island with Seulgi, where you could rehearse your story until you would meet up with the rest of her family and go about the vacation as normal. Except for the not so minor detail of you having to be Seulgi's girlfriend.

Seulgi sits by the window as you sit next to her. You try to get comfortable, but you really can't. There's a churning mixture of nervousness in your stomach. Even though it was all pretend, it was hard to imagine yourself trying to make it look real. Although you and Seulgi both felt like it would be easy to pull it off convincingly... there was something you couldn't quite place tugging at your heart-strings.

Your thoughts are interrupted as you hear her sweet voice.

"When did we start dating?"

"Uhm, ah, I know this! It was... er-"

"July 7th."

Seulgi begins to look at you. Her eyes are filled with both a pleading look and a disappointed look. She starts quizzing all the little, and very fake, details of your relationship. You answer them correctly for the most part and Seulgi's mood seemed to improve knowing you weren't completely hopeless. You're starting to get into the swing of things when all of a sudden Seulgi asks something completely unexpected.

"And what's our favorite position in bed?"

You felt your face immediately heat up as your eyes opened wide in shock.

"I- I mean, uh, what?"

"K-kidding of course." Seulgi says this with a smile, yet she seems to shake a little. Maybe she was also surprised with her sudden crude sense of humor. She begins to reach down and grab a small book from her bag. "I think we'll be good for now, just relax until we get there."

You just nod your head in response and slip in your earbuds.

* *

Although it wasn't like you have never spent a vacation with Seulgi, things felt weird.

First was the way her family treated you, especially her parents. The both of you walked into the beach house hand in hand. Her parents were completely unbothered. Later that day when eating dinner, Seulgi decided it was time to announce your relationship. As the conversation at the dinner table seemed to finally be dying down, she set down her fork and began to talk.

"Guys, listen up, I've been holding onto this news for some time now, but I really wanted to do it when everyone could see each other. What I've been wanting to say is... " It seemed to you, that maybe just for a little moment, Seulgi was trying to steel her nerves.

"Y/N and I are dating."

Silence. The two of you were met with utter silence. It wasn't the type of condemning and judging silence, but rather one of indifference. Everyone seemed completely unbothered with this news. The silence was thankfully quickly broken by Seulgi's mom.

"Well, I'm glad you guys have finally sorted your feelings. I'm sure you're both very happy now." Her mom said it with a small but warm smile. Everyone else seemed to nod in agreement. You couldn't help but to ask, "No big congratulations? What about the fact that we're both girls? "

Seulgi's brother laughed a little before talking.

"I mean... sorry. We can act a bit more excited if that's what you want. It really is something to be celebratory about... it's just that you don't usually clap for a fish when it swims, right? You know what I mean? It's just all a bit... expected and natural. As for the 'we're both girls' I don't care, and everyone else probably doesn't either."

To say the least, that was not the reaction that you and Seulgi expected. After dinner the two of you were stuck trying to think about what it all meant. You guys were also both stuck with the fact that you'd share one room and one bed for the rest of the week.

Again, it wasn't like you haven't done things like share a bed with Seulgi before. It was just that the relationship business was getting stuck in your head. Everything normal suddenly felt dangerous. Things like even looking in Seulgi's way felt like it took caution. That night, it was decided that there would be a pillow barrier between the two of you.

By the third night the pillows were all on the floor as the you hung onto each other for warmth, finding comfort in the contours of the other's body.

Things like this kept on happening. You would set up arbitrary rules to feel normal again and destroy them all within a blink of an eye. You just kept on acting on things without intending to.

For example, the other day Seulgi woke up early to cook breakfast. You couldn't help but to feel the absence of her body and warmth and followed her out to the kitchen soon after. Even though you were in a half-asleep state your feet found their way behind Seulgi and your arms snaked around her waist.

You burrowed your face into the crook of her neck. Taking in that familiar and oh-so-comforting scent that is Kang Seulgi. Since when did her scent make you feel at home? Since when did you feel so at ease with her? You had a sneaking suspicion that it has been this way for a very, very long time.

These thoughts didn't matter though, as your body began to move with hers to the soft music she had playing from her phone. She didn't try to resist your touch at all. Instead, it seemed that she melted under your touch, with you seeing her shoulders dropping and feeling her backing in further to your embrace. Before you knew it the serene moment ended when Seulgi finally finished cooking breakfast.

You would frequently hold hands whenever the family was around, yet even though you could spend your free time wherever with whoever, you were attached to Seulgi's hip and she to yours. You two would always end up doing something together, or perhaps you would do nothing, and instead just enjoyed the fact that the other was there while quietly still holding hands.

Holding her hand quickly became your best comfort. Her soft and warm hands seemed to fit perfectly with yours, fitting together just the way you'd want them to. Something about her hands electrified you every time.

The once seemingly distinct line between platonic feelings and romantic feelings began to get blurrier and blurrier with each passing second. This doubt and confusion culminated when going on one of the last outings planned for the vacation.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, during the outing a spontaneous couple's event was hosted. Your mouth began to dry up as the host looked at you and Seulgi, urging each other to kiss.

As far as everyone else knew, you've been dating for a decent amount of time now. Enough of an amount of time for them to assume you had kissed already. You looked into Seulgi's eyes in distress. You could feel the host boring his eyes into you. You could feel practically everyone's eyes staring in anticipation.

Seulgi drew her body closer and that was when you knew your fate was sealed.

* *

A couple hours later and you're back at the house now. Laying in the bed you've shared for the past few nights you finally look at her. She looks back at you with waiting eyes. Slowly you reach your hand up from under the blankets and softly laid it on her soft cheek. She responds by placing hers on top of yours.

Staring at the deep brown of her eyes, you take it all in. You feel heat radiating from her body. You watch her body rise and fall with a mix of a calm yet eager breath. The close proximity that the two of you share is something that was typical, yet so different in the moment. With bated breath you finally say the unspoken words. The words that should've been said long ago. The air and sound barely passes through your lips.

"I love you."

The two of you close in, giving the lightest kiss in the world. There was barely any pressure but you could feel her lips touching yours. Even though you've kissed already, this one meant so much more. Even if this was such a small and innocent kiss, it was the shyness of it all, the realization that it means something that made your heartbeat race.

Putting your foreheads together, Seulgi said with a quiet voice.

"It's been like this since forever, hasn't it?"

"Yeah. Let's keep it that way."

In the back of your head you wonder, was this to please her parents or was this to please her?

[acciofanfics]

Rule Breaker (Percy Weasley x Reader) SMUT

Request: Hi, I was wondering if you guys could write smut with Percy where both are Gryffindor perfect ( they are on last year in Hogwarts ) and Percy breaks the rules for the first time and they have a first time in prefect bathroom.

Pairing: Percy Weasley x FemReader

Warnings: SMUT, perhaps a bit of language? Unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it!) and I think that’s it??

Word Count: 1,730

A/N: I hope this isn’t too OOC! I don’t know too much about Percy, but I do hope I did him justice and you like it! Also requests are still open and I am having so much fun writing lately! Also I had a hard time finding a gif...- S

____________________________________________________________

Molly and Arthur rarely left Fred, George, Ron or Ginny alone in the burrow. The first three couldn’t be trusted to not get into some sort of trouble and they were always a little more protective over Ginny (she was the only girl). However, Percy they knew they could trust. He was definitely the responsible one, already a prefect and surely on his way to being Head Boy. No there was no reason they would ever second guess their decision to let him and (Y/N) stay at the burrow while they took Harry and his siblings to do some last minute shopping at Diagon Alley.

(Y/N) and Percy sat comfortably on the older couch. It was nice to have a little alone time, they’d been ‘dating’ since 3rd year and it was a rare occurrence. Between being young and being at Hogwarts there was little time for romance. “It’s so quiet.” Percy commented on the lack of annoyance coming from his siblings.

“It’s a little weird,” (Y/N) giggled, “We could talk or we could....”

Percy leaned across the couch and planted a kiss on her lips. It was innocent at first, as it always was. Something was a bit different this time though; perhaps it was the knowledge of no interruptions or maybe it was the fact that they’re a good deal older than when their crushes first formed. Either way what was once an innocent kiss turned heated, even more so than the kisses they’d shared occasionally in the common room when everyone else was already in bed. Hands wanders and groped and before Percy even thought about what he was doing, he helped (Y/N) lift her jumper off.

“Percy, mum wants to know if- Oh god!” Fred yelped, and tried to hide a laugh when (Y/N) pushed Percy off of her and scrambled to reapply her sweater. He turned around, “Nevermind! I’ll just tell her you’re busy trying to make her a grandchild!”

(Y/N) and Percy were sure Fred didn’t actually give them up, because Molly and Arthur didn’t seem phased at all. Of course, the two love birds were on edge until they arrived at Hogwarts; it was only then that they were sure Mr. and Mrs. Weasley weren’t plotting some elaborate punishment. Unfortunately, even then things didn’t go back to normal... it was only the first week of school and Percy had barely seen (Y/N) despite both being Gryffindor prefects.

Percy had been making an effort to keep their interactions minimal. That day, back on the couch, something had snapped. She was all he could think about, and the thoughts weren’t rarely innocent. Sure, he thought about it before; it was only natural. They’d been together for a long time and they were both practically adults. Hell, they’d even snogged before, but maybe it was the fact that they’d never been THAT close before, because those thoughts had always been somewhat fleeting or at the very least easily pushed back. Not anymore.

(Y/N) wasn’t stupid. She knew very well he was ignoring her and she had enough of it. She’d stalked right up to him while he was patrolling the corridors, “Percy, we need to talk. Meet me at the prefects bathroom tonight, 6 pm?” It came out more as a question but before Percy even had a chance to tell her that would be highly inappropriate, she had spun around and walked away from him.

Needed to talk? Once Fred and George found out they’d told him clearly he wasn’t good enough in the sack and now she was going to get rid of him. Percy didn’t feel it necessary to correct them, it would probably only result in more teasing, but alas he was worried. Maybe she would want to get rid of him.... he hadn’t exactly been a doting boyfriend as of late. His mind reeled the rest of the evening and by the time he reached the prefects’ bathroom he didn’t even think about it before he whispered the password (pine-fresh) and walked right in. “(Y/N)! I didn’t mean to...”

She was seated comfortably in the elaborate bathtub already, he hair twisted into a neat bun and everything but her bare shoulders covered by the bubbles. She chose to ignore him and get straight to the point, “Percy, I’ve been thinking. Lately you’ve been ignoring me, there’s no need to deny it we both know it’s true. Anyways, it always boils down to that afternoon at your house, when Fred interrupted. Do you regret the direction we were headed?”

“No!” Percy was thankful that (Y/N) was a pretty straight forward person (at least with him). She never made him guess what she was feeling, but that didn’t help him right now. He still had to explain what he felt. “Well, that’s not entirely true. Since that interaction... I’ve had a hard time concentrating around you and I worry that maybe we aren’t on the same page? And now we’re at school so it’s not even possible if by some miracle you did feel the same.”

(Y/N) chuckled at him, “You can be a bit thick at times. Percy... there’s no one around now.”

“But...” No there was not.... but that was probably breaking at least 20 rules all at once. Of course being in here with her then was probably grounds for expulsion now. Maybe he could be a little harsher with some younger students and indirectly deduct some house points from himself.... Percy was struggling to come up with a reason to walk away, “You have a point...”

(Y/N) could see Percy’s mind unraveling, and she felt a little guilty, but they had to deal with this. “I’m not trying to push you into anything, Perce.”

“Could you just... turn around for a moment?” It wasn’t that Percy hadn’t wanted to. He just shouldn’t, and his biggest conundrum was that usually he didn’t want to if it meant he shouldn’t. He supposed he wasn’t too conflicted because when she turned around he quickly shed his clothing, putting them in a neat pile, and slipped into the hot bath water. He settled himself close enough that she could see he was in, but not close enough he was touching her.

(Y/N) smiled softly at him. Cautiously she moved closer to him. Percy’s face was only a few shades lighter than his own hair, “You sure you’re okay, Perce?”

Merlin he hated feeling this way. He was normally quite confident in his skills and abilities. He just hadn’t had the opportunity to perfect this aspect of his life, “Yes. I just haven’t-“

She couldn’t help but laugh. Of course she quickly stopped when she saw he wasn’t amused, “I’m sorry! I didn’t mean like that, really! But we’ve been together since we were kids Percy, I would surely hope not since I haven’t either.”

That was a good point. He didn’t know why that hadn’t crossed his mind. By no means was he no longer nervous, but he was definitely put more at ease, he even chuckled along with her, “You’re right! I don’t know why I didn’t-“

She cut him off by kissing him, hopefully if she caught him while he was acting normal he wouldn’t have a chance to revert to acting so odd. It worked, and Percy melted into the familiarity of her lips. Their lips and tongues moved together and for a moment he’d forgotten about their predicament, until he reached out to grab her and instead of the fabric of her school robe his palms caught her wet bare skin. They paused again for a moment, but that was only for a moment. The desire that they had suppressed since the summer was back full-fold.

(Y/N) pressed herself against Percy and he had to bite back a groan as she rubbed against him. Both of their hands roamed freely without any hinderances of clothes and it was greatly appreciated by both parties. (Y/N) slid her right hand down his chest, delving lower until she captured his hardened shaft in her hand. Any concern she may have had about being too forward disappeared when he moaned into her mouth. She began stroking him, varying the speed of palm based on the reactions it elicited from him.

Percy didn’t know if he could pinpoint exactly what it was that was had him feeling like he’d snuck firewhiskey from the cupboard. It was probably a mixture of hormones, the naked girl in front of him and perhaps Fred and George were right about breaking the rules being fun. Whatever it was had him acting instinctively, and he mimicked his girlfriend to some degree. He reached between her legs and began to tease her as well, when she began bucking her hips against his palm he gave in and dipped his finger inside of her... and then another one.

They became a mess of sloppy kisses and moans, both experimenting with different movements and methods that brought another grunt of approval from their mouths. Until Percy grabbed her hand and brought her to an abrupt stop, “I can’t handle much more of this.”

Wordless (Y/N) guided him to the shallower end of the bath, where the could both sit with the water only reaching right below their chests. Percy tried to focus on the newly exposed flesh while she slid onto him. He laid kisses across her breasts and neck as he waiting for her to adjust to the new feeling that he had to imagine would be much more uncomfortable to her.

(Y/N) gave herself a moment, the experience wasn’t nearly as bad as she has prepared for. Perhaps it was that she had more control in their positions or that she had been properly worked up before hand, but she found it more uncomfortable than anything. With Percy’s mouth and hands distracting her, she began to move her hips, and slowly the uncomfortable feeling phased into a pleasurable one.

It was probably only a few minutes before the slow pace quickened. His hips snapped up to meet hers and it wasn’t long at all before they both gave into the new and intense pleasure, coming undone in each other’s arms.

A goofy grin was on both of their lips and Percy placed a chaste kiss on her forehead, “Wow. Might have to break the rules more often if you’re involved.”

[inkandpen22]

Young Hearts Divided (6/?)

Pairing: Sirius Black x Female!Reader / James Potter x Female!Reader 

Warnings: Swearing, Smut, mentions of underage drinking

Word Count: 3.3k

Part Summary: Y/N, James, and Sirius wake up the day after the party with no recollection of what happened. Then, while Y/N is studying with Lily it hits her like a ton of bricks. 

Masterlist

Massive, horrible, no good, very bad, migraine. This day is going to be miserable. All I can do is thank the universe that we don’t have classes today. I did, however, promise Lily that I’d help her on our Potions project. Marlene is our other partner, but based on the fact that she’s wasn’t moving this morning, I don’t think she’s going to make it.

Gathered around our usual spot at the Gryffindor table, I spot my friends as soon as I enter the Dining Hall. Lily and Remus appear normal, along with Peter. James and Sirius, look like real shit. James’s head keeps slipping out of his hand and Sirius is sporting sunglasses, real unsuspicious. I ease down onto the bench beside Lily with a groan. Similar to James, I rest my chin in my hand, barely awake.

“And it’s alive,” Lily teases, already pouring me some much-needed coffee.

“Gremlins are pickaxing my brain,” I whine.

“That’s what you get for dividing up a bottle of Firewhiskey with Marlene,” she ridicules lightly.

“What?” I frown. “I don’t remember doing that?”

“What do you remember?” Remus interjects, his eyes peeking out over his book.

I struggle to recall much of anything. I remember the game, getting back to the tower, changing, people arriving at the Common Room.

“Do you remember dancing on the table?” Lily snickers, picking up my plate to make it.

My jaw drops, “I did what?!”

“Oh yeah!” Peter lights up.

James starts to giggle, “hehe, I remember.”

I reach across the table weakly and bop him on the head.

“Ouch! Headache!” He whines and rubs his hair to ease the assault.

“I don’t remember that,” Sirius finally speaks up, his voice groggy.

“You don’t?!” James gasps, glancing at his best friend beside. “It was the best thing I’ve ever seen! She looked like a goddess, by far the best dancer to ever be in Gryffindor! Oh, and let me remind you of the red leather skirt! I-”

“Thank you, James!” I shut him down before he gets started. “We get it!”

“No, I don’t think we do,” Sirius snickers and nudges his friend to go on.

James shifts in his seat to face Sirius, “well you see, it had two zip-”

With a stone-faced expression, Remus closes his book with a deep sigh and swats James on the back of the head.

“Ouch! Headache!” James shouts at his friend on his other side.

Remus ignores him fussing and opens his book to where he left off.

James mumbles complaints under his breath as he turns back to face the table. He rubs the back of his head with a pout.

“Did anything else happen?” I question, almost afraid to ask.

“I don’t remember what you did after that,” James informs.

“Sirius was the one who got you down,” Remus interjects, not even glancing up from his textbook.

My attention flickers from Remus to Sirius. He removes his sunglasses and peers past James at his studious friend. His brows are scrunch together in evident confusion.

“I did?”

Remus hums while he flips his page. “Like you Santa Clause with his sack.” His eyes quickly meet mine, “not to compare you to a heavy sack of toys, Y/N.”

“You’re fine, Remus,” I dismiss, knowing that boy would never intentionally insult me.

Sirius hum, visibly racking his mind to the memory. “What about after that?” He questions.

“Don’t know,” Remus mumbles. “You disappeared after that.”

Sirius looks at me and I hold up my hands. “No idea,” I tell him.

“Well you guys ended up in your beds, so you probably helped her to bed,” Peter reasons.

Sirius and I nod in unison, trying really hard to remember, but to no avail. Then, we shrug and continue with breakfast. It’ll come to us eventually. Peter is probably right, Sirius and I have gotten drunk together loads of times. We always end up in our beds at the time of night somehow. It was probably just like any other night.

__________________________________________

Lily and I have been in the library for most of the afternoon trying to finish up this stupid project. I swear Slughorn has it out for us. He wants us to fail his class and glorify the kids in his idiotic Slug Club like dear Lily here. My mind starts to wander to breakfast this morning which makes me think of last night. I can’t believe Marlene and I danced on the study table to Bowie. Then again, Marlene would make that happen.

“Are you excited about Hogsmeade this weekend?” Lily asks quietly as she writes.

I sway my head from side to side. “Kinda, I’m sorta nervous to go with James.”

“Take me then,” she jokes.

I laugh for a second, then a sudden sense of deja vu crosses my mind. My face falls and I lean forward. “Could you repeat that?” I whisper so Madame Prince doesn’t hear me.

She peers up from her paper, “I was just kidding-”

“No, yeah I know, just say it again,” I wave along.

“Take me then?” She repeats slowly, staring at me like I have three heads.

I repeat the phrase in my head like a broken record. Where have I heard that before? It sounds so familiar like it’s important or something. Then, it hits me like a smack across the face.

“Holy-” I cover my mouth.

Madame Prince shushes me instantly. “No yelling!”

Lily struggles not to burst out laughing. “What was that about?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” I blurt out and hurry to gather my things. I rise from my seat and start shoving things into my bag. “Excuse me!”

“Where are you going?!” Lily raises her voice.

“I have to...” I hesitate, I don’t have an excuse. “I’ve got to go!”

I briskly turn on my heels to head toward the door. Instead, I slam into someone. I stumble back but catch myself. My eyes are met with Sirius stabilizing his balance.

“You!” We say in unison.

“No, you!” We point at each other.

Madame Prince shushes us dramatically. “If you must talk, take it out in the hall!”

Sirius takes my hand against my will and drags me out into the hallway. He checks up and down the corridor and determines there are too many people. Since it's a Sunday, most students hang out around the castle. I struggle to keep up with his pace as he yanks me along to a nearby classroom. He swings open the door and peeks his head inside.

"Sirius, it's all dusty!" I complain, digging my heels into the stone floor.

He pulls me in first, completely ignoring me.

I grunt, stumbling to catch my footing. When I manage, I brush down my skirt and face Sirius as he latches the door. “Was that really necessary?!”

He spins on his heels and points at me accusingly. "We shagged last night!”

“Almost! Okay? Almost!” I emphasize.

“Okay, fine! We almost shagged!” He complies, holding his hands up in surrender.

I'm slowly starting to recall the experience in the alcove. There was a lot of biting, teasing, swearing, hair pulling...

Sirius raises a brow, "what stopped us anyway?”

“Fitch and Mrs. Norris doing their nightly rounds. We almost got caught!” I hiss under my breath, worried that someone walking by may overhear.

His confused expression doesn't disappear. In fact, it intensifies as he narrows his gaze at the floor trying to pinpoint it all together. “And I didn’t try to continue once we were in the clear?”

“No, you were the one who suggested we head back so I wouldn’t get a third detention," I remind him of that crucial point.

Sirius's face morphs as if he's been told the world is coming to an end, a mixture of devastation and regret. Yet, also wonder, as though he's mentally asking him 'did I honest-to-God do that?'

“I chose then to be a rule-abiding student?!” He shouts.

“For my sake!” I justify in a whisper-yell. "We need to be quiet or-"

“Ugh!" Sirius paces away, hiding his face in his hands. "I really hate myself right now," he groans.

“Sirius!”

He whips around and complains. “What?! Can you blame a guy?! We were this close,” he gestures with his fingers.

I sigh, trying to remain civil. If we keep shouting someone will hear us then we will for sure get detentions.

"Look, it’s probably for the best!” I try to look on the bright side. “We were drunk.”

He whines, stomping his foot with a pout etched on his lips. He grumbles, “it would’ve been drunken...sloppy..." a dazed expression crosses his eyes. "Sweaty...  passionate-”

“Sirius!” I stop him, covering my ears as I grimace.

“I know! I know! Shut up, Sirius!” He mimics my voice.

There’s a prolonged pause as the two of us avoid meeting eyes. Well, this is awkward... Crossing my arms over my chest, I lean against a nearby desk. After a moment, I glance up from my shoes and Sirius’s eyes are narrowed, focused ahead on the wall.

I break the silence monotonously, “you’re still thinking about it aren’t you.”

“Yes!” He whines, failing about dramatically.

“Stop thinking about it!” I demand.

“I can’t! While you were in the library with Evans, James and I snuck into your room so he could show me the red skirt in hopes that I would remember!” He confesses and instant regret crosses his features.

My jaw drops and I storm across the room to him. "You’re kidding me!”

“That’s when it hit me! Everything! Then, I ran to find you!” He waves his hand, gesturing to me.

“Where was Marlene?!”

Forget staying quiet, that was before I knew Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum broke into my dorm!

“Oh, she was there," he nods, not caring in the slightest. "Yeah, she was passed out in bed.”

"You went in there when she was sleeping?!” I laugh breathlessly in disbelief. My fingers comb through my hair as I try to rack my brain around this new information.

“It’s not like we haven’t snuck in there before,” he adds as a side-note casually.

“What?!” I gasp.

Sirius quietly curses himself. “Never mind!” He rushes out.

I march toward the door. “I’m going to kill Potter!" I unlatch the lock and go to open it. "Then, I’m going to come back and kill you!”

Sirius jogs after me. "No, wait!”

He slams the door shut, pressing his palm against the wood beside my head. My fist remains around the handle and I feel Sirius close in on me. The warmth of his breath brushes against my neck and chills run down my spine. His free hand glides across my waist and gives it a squeeze. I turn my head to the side, glancing at me him out of the corner of my eye. He towers over me, leaning against the door. His fingertips glide down my hips to the end of my skit and play with the hem. I spin on my heels to face him, my back now pressed to the door.  

“Sirius, we can’t,” I whisper, meeting his gaze.

“Sure we can," he steps closer if that's even humanely possible. "Filch is busy with detention right now and there aren’t any classes,”

“What is someone who walks in and sees us?” I question, my eyes falling to his lips uncontrollably.

"Let them," he mutters carelessly.

Slowly, Sirius closes the space between us and brushes his lips against mine. At first, the action is steady and gentle as though we're getting reacquainted. Then, growing impatient, Sirius wraps his hand around the back of my neck and deepens the kiss at an exceptional rate. I drape my arms around his shoulder, yearning for me. He drops his arm from the door and picks up my legs. I wrap them around his torso instinctively as he walks me over to a nearby desk.

“I let bet that even turns you on. The idea of someone seeing me pleasure you," he mumbles against my lips. His hands wander from my knees and up my thighs to the hem of my skirt. "The way I can make you wet just by touching you." He breaks away from my lips and impulsively presses his palm to my core.

The sudden contact makes me shutter.

A light snicker escapes Sirius. "Does it turn you on when I brush against you in class? What about all those drunken times we stayed up late?” He rubs his fingers against the fabric of my panties at a painfully slow rate.

“Sirius...” I whisper like a plead.

“Next class, I’m going to sit next to you," he states sounding like a command. "Marlene and James are just going to have to deal with it."

Grazing his fingertips over my hip bone to the hem of my panties, he starts to remove the item from my body. He does it so gracefully like the action is an art form. Sirius disregards the article of clothing by tossing it to the floor without much thought.

He brings his lips to my neck and begins to grant it immense attention. “I’m going to place my hand on your thigh under the desk," he describes as his palms press into my thighs. "As the professor talks, I’ll slowly bring it up to your leg. I’ll slip it under your annoyingly short skirt and your panties," he performs the actions as he recites them. "I’ll feel just how wet you are for me and I bet you’re always dripping when you’re around me."

His fingertips slip between my folds and I gasp. My fingers grip the hair at the nape of his neck in reaction to the surge of pleasure.

“I’ll make you cum right in class," he purrs, evidently pleased with himself right now. "Right around my fingers."

My breathing starts to get heavy as he rubs pressurized circles over my clit. I bite down on my lip to defuse my moans.

"From now on, I’ll constantly be teasing you, making you wet every chance I get," he breathes against my neck. "I’ll get you wet for me in the dining hall and make you beg for me to take you back to the dorm."

He picks up his pace, brushing his fingers against my clit. I feel myself quickly approaching my climax. His antagonizing words don't help my self-control.

"I’ll take you in the back shelves of the library," he snickers wickedly. "Make you want to scream my name for everyone to hear.”

“Stop...” I beg, the pleasure starting to be too much.

Abruptly, Sirius grabs my face and makes me meet his gaze. Starring at me sternly, he slips two fingers into my core unapologetically. My hands grip his waist pleadingly, but he continues his assault.

“You’re such a tease, Y/N and you don’t realize," he snickers wickedly as he brushes against my G-spot relentlessly. "With your short skirts, your perfect lips, the way you look at me." He leans in, peering down at my lips to tease me. "You get me so hard. All I want to do is take you into an empty classroom every second of every day, bend you over a desk, and punish you for it. I want to make you feel how I feel.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. “Oh fuck,” I whimper.

“I see the way all the boys look at you, especially James. They imagine what it would be like to be inside you. But you’re mine, aren’t you? Only I can fuck you. Only I can make you cum so hard that you shake. Only I can fuck after you finish and make you beg for me to stop.”

"Sirius, I-" I gasp, the pleasure building up in my core is close to reaching its peak.

Sirius dismisses my pleading and grows more forceful. He gathers bits of my hair and tugs at them to make me reveal my neck. “I can make you cum with my hard dick inside you. I can make you hit your climax right here," he growls in my ear.

His fingers pump in and out at an increased rate, causing me to release a moan uncontrollably. I bite down on my lip, doing my best to suppress it.

"Would you scream for me, Baby?" He kisses my jawline softly. "Would you let me fuck you hard after?” He moves and plants a kiss on my neck.

I feel my walls tightening around his fingers as I drag my nails down his back.

“You’re close aren’t you, Love? You want to cum for me?” He grins against my shoulder.

“Yes,” I pant pleadingly.

I hate giving in to him, adding to his ego, but I need this. I need him.

"You want me to fuck you?”

“Yes please,” I beg, struggling to catch my breath.

He presses his lips to mine passionately with more intensity than ever before. “That’s right, beg for it, such a good girl,” he mumbles against my lips.

Overwhelmingly, hits my G-spot with perfect pressure and at an ungodly rate. “I want to cum for me. You’re already so fucking wet for me. I could fuck you so hard right here, right now. Imagine me pounding into you," he instructs as I feel myself on the edge of my climax.

I dig my nails into his shoulder blades. I'm nearly there. "Sirius, I'm-"

Suddenly, Sirius slips his fingers out and takes a step back, parting from me entirely. My eyes fly open and I watch as the boy gazes at me mischievously with his fingers in his mouth. Casually, he picks up my panties and tosses them back to me with a proud smirk. Dumbfounded, I hold the item in my hands utterly confused. Sirius stuffs his hands into his pocket, waiting for me to say something.

I shift my head forward, "that’s it?”

“Umm, yeah pretty much,” he shrugs with a light chuckle.

Merlin, he had this planned! He was fucking with me the entire time! I'm not sure how much of it was a game, but he purposefully got me close and pulled out!

I hop down from the desk with a huff and slip my panties back on. "What the fuck Sirius?!”

He eyes me up and down as though he's analyzing a product. “Yeah no, I’m not going to fuck you, yet! You don’t deserve it," he determines.

I raise my brows, "don’t deserve it?!”

“Yeah!" He repeats, shifting his head toward me mockingly. "You. Don’t. Deserve. Me,” he emphasizes each word. “Not until you decide between me and James, no sex!"

He reaches out and wraps his hand around the back of my neck, pulling me closer to him. I swat at his arm, but it only makes him grip harder. Hover inches from my face grins. "And let’s be honest here, Love. You’re going to pick me. It’s just a matter of when you’re going to admit to yourself that you love me.”

Suddenly, he presses his lips to mine forcefully and I try to shove him off of me, but he's too strong. Then, he finally releases me with a jolt. He turns toward the door to head out.

“Sirius, I-”

He spins on heels with a cheeky grin. “And you do love me, don't deny it. You said so yourself last night... multiple times actually," he winks.

I scoff, he's impossible! The most infuriating boy on the entire planet!

He strolls toward the door with a wave. "Bye!”

“You man-whore!” I shout at him, so close to just smacking him.

“Tease!” He tosses back lightheartedly. His self-satisfied state unfazed by my insult. “Gee, I just adore our little pet names! Ta-ta Love!” He waves his fingers mockingly before disappearing down the hall.

What the actual hell just happened?

__________________________________

Masterlist

Tags:  @hannah220506 @agirlwholovescoffee @a-classic-eye @devilstradegy @blackbirddaredevil23 @tay-mariee @blackpinkdolan @findzelda

[xwing-baby]

A Day Off (Mandalorian x Reader)

This was inspired by everyone’s favourite @dindjarindiaries ​ and her lovely fic ‘The Challenge’ go read it because it's way better than this bullshit that my brain came up with. You’re an amazing writer Molly, I am sorry for this. I’m not sure why I really wrote this, but I hope you enjoy!

IMAGINE: Din leaves you for the day to go on a hunt. You entertain yourself and end up very drunk by the time he comes to find you. Hilarity ensues. (Drink responsibly kids!)

Word count: 2.4k... this was meant to be short. 

Warnings: Mention of alcohol, violence, and vomit! Please drink responsibly!! Cheeky bit of pining, little bit of flirting, fluff at the end!

The decision to leave you out of today’s hunt was a mutual one. You were tired and in need of a rest, the quarry was easy and Din was more than capable on his own anyway. So, he left you in a small town a few miles from his destination. In that small town, you found a tired old cantina, filled with enough booze and pleasant conversation to survive the next few hours. 

The hunt was done, the victim handed off successfully to the right person and Din was on his way to find you so you could move on to the next planet. He was tired and bruised from the hunt and wanted to get back to the safety of the Crest sooner rather than later, but knew as soon as he heard your distinctive laugh from outside the cantina that that was not going to be the reality. 

As if you knew he was coming, you stumbled out of the door before he could even open it. Your hair was messed up, strands falling out of the tie and into your face. There was liquid spilled down the front of your shirt and your boots were untied. You looked a mess. For a second he was a little worried, until a goofy smile spread across your face when you recognised him. 

“You came back!” You threw yourself at him, wrapping your arms around the Mandalorian. Shocked, Din stands still. Not really sure what to do with himself. You notice and laugh, stumbling back off him. “You were gone for like a million hours! I missed you” 

“It was ten hours,” Din said with a smile, “But we’re going now,”

“Great, ‘cus I don’t think I can go back in there again,” You ran ahead of Din a few paces and grimaced. “Not a lot of friends were made today! But-but- but! I did a good thing actually!” Din just kept walking, trying not to entertain your rambling. You carried on anyway, you were used to his silence by now. “There was this twi’lek right, looked great but oh my stars! The worst! Turns out he knew you! Everyone knows you, not a surprise there. But he also knew that I was with you and tried to chat shit about you!” You were shouting now, gesturing animatedly and zigzagging across the street. “And he kept going so I just punched him,” You mimicked your actions from early, swinging your arm and using the momentum to turn back around to face the Mandalorian, “Punched him straight in the face! It was awesome!” 

“You didn’t need to do that,” 

“He was an asshole of course I did,” You sighed, “And apparently you know his sister or something? Didn’t realise you were such a Casanova, Tinman!” Again Din didn’t reply. He knew exactly who you were on about and was a little proud that you’d punched the guy. Must have been Xi’an’s brother. “Well, of course you are,” You continued. “You’re so freaking handsome all the time, and nobody can even see your face!” You swung back around to walk forward again, swinging your arms by your sides and giggling as you thought about what the Mandalorian might look like. You hadn’t been in his crew long but had developed feelings for him quite quickly. Not that Din knew this, “You know, I bet you’re really pretty under that helmet,” You tapped the top of his head for emphasis. “I don’t think you understand how pretty you are with it on! Maybe it’s for the best that you keep it on, you’d never be able to get anything done!” 

“Alright, y/n,” 

“You’re going to make some woman very happy one day Mando,” You said with a dreamy look in your eye. 

Din smiled and blushed a little at your words. At the same time you had developed feelings for Din, Din had developed feelings for you. He was very glad to have the helmet to hide how obvious a blush came to his face when you said things like that. He wanted nothing more than to make you happy, if you only knew. 

The pair carried on walking out of the town, and towards the small valley the crest had been hidden in. You carried on rambling away, telling him in immense detail everything that had happened while he was gone. 

“And then I got challenged to a drinking contest with this other dude. I say dude but turns out he was a Wookie. And I won! Everyone says I didn’t but I saw the way he walked out of there, I won so hard! Drunk him under the table,” You spoke quickly and animatedly. Din wasn’t really listening anymore, just enjoying the sound of your voice and watching you as you walked ahead making sure you didn’t fall over. “You should have been there and we could have smashed it!” You laughed, spinning around to face him again now with a puzzled look on your face. “Have you ever been drunk, Mando?” 

“A few times,” He replied, “Watch where you’re going,” 

“I am,” You say, continuing to walk backwards anyway. You thought about something for a second then spoke again, “But what about the Creed? Don’t you have to drink alone? Or,” You stopped again and burst into laughter. Din stopped walking, his patience growing a little thin. “D-do you, Ha!” You could barely get your words out, tears streaming down your face laughing at your own thoughts. “To- to get around the cr-creed… oh my stars!” 

“Y/n I don’t have time for this,” He said sharply.

“You have to use a straw!” You howled with laughter. Din shook his head, he wanted to be annoyed at you but your infectious laugh had caught him. He stifled his own laughter. “I want to see it so bad! Oh my stars!” 

“You’ve had your fun now,” Din tried to sound serious, his voice wavering a bit through the modulator as he tried not to laugh. 

“Yes, yes… oh! I’m sorry,” You tried to take a deep breath to calm yourself down. “Yes, I’m sorry you’re a super serious Mandalorian you wouldn’t use a straw!” You coughed to force yourself to calm down but cackled with laughter again. Din started walking again, leaving you behind a few paces while you calmed yourself down. Eventually, you followed and saw the ship over the crest of the hill. 

“I’ll race you!” You called, already speeding past the Mandalorian down the grassy hill. “Winner gets the refresher first!” 

You ran as fast as you could, and looked back for just a second to see that your companion hadn’t followed you. Before you could even blink you tripped and fell on a rock sticking out of the grass. You fell, flipping over and landing with a thud on your back. You skidded to a halt at the bottom of the hill, conveniently next to your intended destination. This made Din run. 

Once he got to the bottom where you were, his panic quickly vanished as he found you in fits of laughter yet again. 

“Did you see that!” You laughed. “I won!” 

“Are you alright?” 

“My back hurts a little, but I won, loser!” You exclaimed, putting your fingers in a ‘L’ on your forehead. Din rolled his eyes. As if this whole experience couldn’t get more ridiculous. “Not going to help me up?” You pouted and held up your arms like a child. Din uncrossed his arms and held his gloved hand out for you to grab and pulled you up to your feet again. The back of your shirt was ripped and grass stains covered the pale materials along with a few drops of blood. You didn’t seem concerned at all as the alcohol in your system was numbing everything. 

Din opened the Crest and you walked up the ramp to the safety of its interior. 

“Where’s the baby?” You whispered loudly. Ever since you’d joined the crew you’d loved the Child like your own. Another thing Din admired about you. “Baby! We’re back,” 

“Why are you whispering?” 

“Shh!” You shoved your hand over the front of his helmet, “He might be sleeping,” Din pushed your hand off, and you carried on walking into the ship, creeping on your tiptoes. 

“I think you need to go to sleep,” 

“Only if you’ll come with me,” You turned around and looked the Mandalorian up and down, your playful attitude now turning darker. You played with the buttons of your shirt, slowly undoing them. Din was stunned, freezing in his spot. 

“That wouldn’t be appropriate,” Din tried to stay composed, but it was becoming more and more difficult as you took your top off. He knew he couldn’t do anything, you were way too drunk. He wasn’t an idiot. But he was also human. 

“I bet you’re so pretty under there,” You sighed. You moved to be closer to him when a small green creature stood on a box and caught your attention instead. “Hey little guy!” Din took a sigh of relief, the tension you had created dissipated almost instantly as you bent down to pet the little creature. 

While you were distracted he checked over your back, seeing only a few scrapes and deciding it would be fine until the morning when you’d sobered and also weren’t trying to flirt with him anymore. Well, the last part he didn’t mind so much. 

Din went about his usual take-off activities. He could hear you talking to the Child, telling the little thing about your day and listening to it babble back, acting as if you could understand what it was saying. Eventually, you disappeared into the ship. Din hoped that you had gone to sleep. 

You hadn’t. You went to throw up, ultimately finding an empty freight box. The mixture of spinning from alcohol and the bumpy takeoff made for an upsetting mix. The Child grimaced and put its hand up to comfort you. An odd feeling washed over you, like a warm water trickling through you, then you felt better. You could see straight now. The Child seemed happy with whatever it had done and toddled away. 

You pushed yourself off the floor, and went in search of a new shirt. The cold chill of space had begun to seep into the ship's cracks making you shiver. You stumbled into Din’s quarters, you shouldn’t have  been in there but it was the first place you thought to look for a new shirt. And you found one. His cot was messy, clothes thrown around the small room. You couldn’t help but think about him then, getting out of that armour… 

It was too much. You shook your head. Even your drunk brain knew it was wrong to think about him like that. He didn’t like you, like that, there was no need to encourage the idea. Instead, you pulled the closest piece of clothing on. It was a little too big, but it smelt like him which made you smile. 

You decided to go to the cockpit to bother the Mandalorian again. It was lonely being drunk on your own. You climbed up to the cockpit and stood in the door silently. Din was talking quietly to the Child, trying to pull it away from the many shiny switches on the control panel. You grinned, seeing him with the child made your heart soar. He was so sweet to the creature, for a moment you could forget what a formidable character the Mandalorian really was. He acted like the creature’s dad and it was entirely believable. Quietly, you settled into the seat to his right, looking out as the stars streamed past in hyperdrive. Din had noticed, though didn’t say anything. It was silent for a moment or two, bar the Child’s playful squeals as it played with a silver ball. Din figured you had fallen asleep, glad that you weren’t trying to flirt with him anymore. 

“When are you going to let me fly?” You ask suddenly. Din turns to you, but doesn’t say anything. This was almost a daily discussion. It was always no. “I know you said no the last time but I really think you’re underestimating me. I land badly one time and you never trust me to fly your ship!” 

“You crashed,” Mando said plainly.

“One time!” You exclaimed. “I’ll have you know it was very harsh conditions, and desert planets are very deceptive! Give me a nice- a nice planet,” You slurred as your eyes become heavier, “and I promise I will land the crest beautifully,”

“No way,” 

“Spoil sport,” You grumble. The Child hopped up into your lap, and presented the silver ball it had in its mouth, which made you giggle. You settled further into the seat, throwing your legs over the armrest, kicking them against the leather. The Child sat in your lap and showed you its new trick of making the item float. 

Mindlessly you began to sing, quietly, and play with the Child. The melody made Din’s ears prick, you were singing in Mando’a, a song that he hadn’t heard since he was a child. Your voice made him shiver, memories flooding back of the few happy moments of his life when this song was sung last. 

You sang it to the end, with very few mistakes, making Din wonder how long you’d known it. You must have known it for a while, but you’d never understood him when he spoke the language before. 

“Where did you learn that?” He finally caved and asked, wanting nothing more than for you to sing it again.

“I learnt it for you,” You said with a yawn, your eyes closing. You started singing again, the words now fading into mumbles and eventually you fell asleep. He turned in his chair to look at you as you were quiet once more. You’d curled yourself up in the chair, head tilted back resting on the wall. The Child sat in your chest, playing with the ends of your hair. The child looked at Din and smiled, then back at you. It's a little green hand patting your leg and it cooed.

“I know, kid.”

A/N: That ended a lot softer than I planned but hey ho. Remember drink responsibly, don’t challenge a wookie to a drinking challenge, you will lose. They’re massive. Goodnight!

Tagging: @captain-skytrash​ @dindjarindiaries​ @dartheldur​ @inked-poet​ @tortles

[tooruluv]

Tooru Oikawa x F!Reader ( part 2 )

❝ my love for him is much like winter, a skeleton for the world to see. too bad he never liked the cold. ❞

description: being the neighbor and lifelong best friend of tooru oikawa definitely had it’s perks. you were never an outcast, always had a seat at lunch, got into volleyball games for free. the problem was, however, that being in love with him outweighed those perks. you would never tell him that, though, even if it hurt like hell.

genre: best friends to lovers, angst, unrequited love, fluff if you squint hard enough

word count: 2,029

warnings/notes: the “party scene” so mentions of alcohol, underage drinking, weed, getting high, and some mentions of sex, mentions of throwing up, strong language (per usual), lots of angst, i based a lot of the experience on american high school simply because it’s easier for me to write

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Now, the exact day you fell in love with your best friend didn’t exist. There was no specific day, no specific realization, no “I had a dream about him”, no sudden “I see him in a different light”. It was a messy timeline of a million things, a mixture of waiting and wanting compiled together into what you determined to be love.

“How long have you been in love with him, anyway?” Iwaizumi asked you one evening.

It was after volleyball practice, and the two of you were sitting on your bedroom floor. He was leaning his back against your bed, one leg bent at the knee, his practice jersey still on, moonlight dancing off of his skin.

You would be lying if you denied his attractiveness (Like, c’mon, have you seen him? Seriously, there must be something in the volleyball water.. anyway..). You just never viewed him as anything other than a friend, a good one.

You were laying beside him, legs propped up on your bed and your head on the floor.

“I don’t know.” you told him honestly.

It was at that exact moment that you realized something else: you never openly admitted your love for Tooru Oikawa. Not once had the words slipped past your lips, to yourself or to someone else. The longest secret kept, in your opinion.

“I guess it all kind of mixes together, in the end.” you explained, deciding that the ceiling is the most interesting thing to look at. “Do you remember, when we were kids, and we were playing outside? And I brought that tub thing of peanuts?”

“Yeah, I remember that.”

“And ‘Kawa called me stupid for bringing it because it wasn’t…”

“It wasn’t peanut butter and why have peanuts when they weren’t spreadable?” Iwaizumi finished with a small laugh.

“Yeah. I think that was one moment that I was like “oh”. He even threw them at me.”

The two of you sat in silence for what felt like half an hour. It was a comfortable silence, one of processed memories and fondness.

“He does still call you nut.” Iwaizumi spoke into silence. You smiled.

“I should beat your ass! You scared the shit out of me!”

You were walking out of class when hands clasped around your sides. Your immediate reaction was one of both terror and putting your guard up, which ended up with you jumping and going to punch whoever just attacked. Luckily, it happened to be the tall, brown-haired volleyball captain.

“You’re cute.” he walked with you.

“What do you want from me, ‘Kawa?” you asked, pausing in the hallway in front of your next class.

“What could you possibly mean? I can’t just scare the shit out of my best friend?”

This fucker.

“You can scare me until I pee.” You crossed your arms, looking into his eyes. He always seemed to stand too close to you. “But you never call me cute unless you need something from me.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about. You are very cute. The cutest.”

You squinted up at him, trying to see through his lies. He smirked.

“Soooo… there is something I want to ask you. Completely irrelevant from me calling you cute. That would have nothing to do with this request. Have I mentioned that you look good in the uniform? It really…”

“You’re a dork. Ask.”

“Do you still talk to that one guy from across town? The guy you buy alc from?”

“You want me to buy alcohol for the party.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement. He pursed his lips. “Yes, I can get it. Now get to class before you’re late.”

Oikawa smiled, eyes squinting and tongue between his teeth. “You’re the best!” he exclaimed as he picked you up in a hug. 

You watched as he jogged down the hall.

You knew your way around. It was a gift you had: the ability to just talk up anyone and find a way to get what you’re looking for. You knew people all over Japan, to be honest, that could help you in basically any way. It had been that way since you were younger.

The first time you ever bought alcohol is when you were thirteen. And it wasn’t even for drinking. You and your friends (when you had a million friends and not two) wanted to play spin the bottle and figured it would look cooler if you were to use an actual “drink”. You gave it to your mom as a gift after.

Since then, you had bought drinks for various things. Parties, get togethers. It was only when Oikawa’s older brother wasn’t able to get it for you guys, of course.

This was one of those times.

There was this little shop a little ways away (in Torono, to be specific) that never ever ID’d anyone. You would always go there to buy since you found it at thirteen, to the point that you and the owner were on first name bases. Sometimes you would have actual conversations, if he was in the mood. Sometimes you barely spoke, but he would still bag the bottles for you.

His eyes only lifted from what he was reading for a moment to catch yours as you entered the Sakanoshita Store. You were already by the alcohol.

“You’re still not of age, kid.” he spoke through the cigarette.

“You’re still smoking.” you joked. You placed like ten bottles on the counter. “I thought you were going to try and stop. Health and all.”

“I know you’re not talking to me about health, you little alcoholic.” he sat up, running a hand up his hair to fix his headband. “Just give me the money before someone comes in.”

The exchange was fast, per usual, and you were leaving with a black bag of fun. “Thank you, my darling Keishin!”

“Get out of my store. Don’t die.”

And he was back to reading, cigarette still hanging from his lip.

The volleyball tournament ended the exact way Oikawa thought it would: wins. So, that meant that the party was already in full swing before the sun was down. You were moving between crowds, cup in hand.

It was not a secret that you were Oikawa’s, and (by association) the rest of the volleyball team’s, best friend. You sat with them at lunch, you interacted in the hallways, you let some of the boys copy your homework. It was quite obvious. That was the main reason so many people approached you. Their main goal was popularity through the most popular and successful sports team at the school. You didn’t mind.

It was when the girls would come up to you asking you to put in a good word for them to Oikawa that you had to put on a fake smile and say “yeah!” or “of course, I’ll give him your number!”. They never made it past your memory.

“What do you think?” The man of the hour asked from his position beside you. You were watching the party from the kitchen, the already drunk laughs and conversations blurred into a single volume. “How much cleaning do you think we’ll have to endure?”

“Ah, definitely hours.” You took a sip from your cup. You offered him your cup, knowing whatever’s in his cup is nonalcoholic. “You might as well live a little. Take a guzzle, you earned it.”

“You know I don’t drink.”

“But you’ll get high.”

“That I will do.” He took a sip of his cup. Maybe he put his drink in a red solo cup to look like he’s drinking, or maybe he just did it because it was better than drinking out of an actual juice box. You didn’t bother him with it. “Speaking of getting so high I forget everything around me, I gotta find Hanamaki.”

“Have fun!”

“Without you? Unlikely.” he joked. Your stomach turned.

You didn’t know if it was because of the alcohol or the love.

“Technically, you’ve kissed Oikawa.” Iwaizumi told you as you both sat in the corner. You were both definitely tipsy, but not quite drunk yet.

You scoffed. “What are you talking about?”

Tooru Oikawa has kissed you, sure, but never once had it been on the lips. He had left kisses on your forehead, cheeks, temple, top of your head. Even one time on your hand. But never lip to lip. And Iwaizumi bringing it up out of nowhere made your cheeks heat up. You blamed whatever was in your cup.

“We played spin the bottle before. I kissed both Oikawa and you. And by contact, your lips were also on his.”

“You are a shitstain in my underwear, Iwa.”

“Ah yes, that was the most ladylike sentence I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth.”

“Dance with me!” you pulled Oikawa with you to the dance floor. It was freshman year, and both of your families were invited to a wedding. It was some woman your moms were friends with, you don’t remember.

But he agreed, and let you drag him along as you danced. The songs were fun and fast, and a majority of the reception guests were dancing their hearts away on the floor.

“You’re really beautiful, you know that?” he told you that day, in the midst of the summer sun.

That was one of those moments. Those blurred moments you wished you could record to memory as the beginning of your love for him.

“You’re not too bad yourself.” You told him, but your mind screamed you’re beautiful too.

The night was something between a blur and random scenes mashed together. Several drinks later (why did the vodka taste like water?) and hits from multiple joints, you were staring in tunnel vision.

You remember a snippet here, a minute there. You danced with Iwa for a bit, before he went to do something. You hung out with some people on the couches for a bit, and there was definitely a lot of laughing. You remember laughing.

What were you doing again?

Oh yeah, you were trying to find Oikawa. You didn’t know what exactly you wanted so desperately to tell him. You figured your drunken mind would find out what you wanted when you found him.

Scanning the crowds, you couldn’t find the boy. The house wasn’t that huge, he had to be somewhere. Come to think of it, you hadn’t seen him at all since he went to get high with some of the boys.

Finally catching a glimpse of him, you smiled to yourself. You were going to do it. Maybe today, maybe at some trashy party Oikawa threw, would be the day you would tell him you were in love with him. Maybe not. You didn’t really know. You just knew that you missed him and needed, desperately, to talk to him. Hear his voice.

Maybe you were pretty drunk, mind drifting away.

And he just happened to be your anchor.

Everything was moving around you. In slow motion or way too fast, you couldn’t really tell. That was, until everything froze at once.

Oikawa was standing in the far corner of the party, with someone else. He had his tongue down her throat, lips chasing hers in some passionate dance you only wished you knew what felt like.

You only stood there as he groped her, and her hands in his hair. You didn’t recognize her at all. But he was unmistakable. Even with his hair sweaty and in front of his face, he was undeniable.

You were going to throw up. 

You had to find Iwaizumi.

“Takahiro Hanamaki!” You waved to the man. He immediately caught your eye and came to you.

“What’s up? Oh, shit you’re drunk.” He helped as you nearly stumbled. His arm stayed under your armpit as he stood in front of you.

“Have you seen Iwa? Need to talk to him. Best friend emergency.”

“I thought Tooru was your best friend.” Hanamaki looked behind you, eyes scanning over the people for you. You almost threw up on the spot at the sound of his name.

There was a huge difference in hearing about Oikawa’s girls and hearing about who was in his bed, and seeing it with your own eyes. It made you sick to your stomach. You lost all breath, all feeling in your body. You didn’t know to be mad or jealous or upset. You decided that you were going to be all three.

“The last time I talked to Iwa, he went that way. He might be throwing up somewhere or something.”

“Okay, thanks my little wing spiker. My little outside hitter. My stoner boy.” you pinched his cheek.

“Hey, are you sure you’re okay?” he asked before letting you go. “You look like you were crying.”

Were you? Did you cry? You didn’t think you did. But it was definitely a possibility as you have been trying not to do just that for the past ten minutes.

“I don’t know, I think I’m just red from being crossed. I can’t even see straight. Ha ha.”

Hanamaki didn’t press it further, but he did give you a smile and hand you a water bottle. You liked being friends with the team.

The volleyball team were always the nicest towards you. They greeted you with smiles whenever they would come across you in the hallway, always made sure you had a smile on your face.

They all knew, too. It wasn’t hard to see how out of the entire team, Oikawa had you wrapped around his finger. (Unintentionally, of course). They tried to get him to notice. “She looks good today, right, Oikawa?” or “It’s Saturday, don’t you have plans?”. Not that their efforts helped.

Maybe one day Oikawa will know too.

You found Iwaizumi in a closet near the stairs. The party was still in full effect, but it was quiet near there. The only problem was that he was not alone, and was, in fact, preoccupied with someone's tongue down his throat.

“I swear to everything that is holy, I am so sick of finding people like this.” you sighed. “The second time today and I’m going to seriously vomit all over the place. I’m not kidding.”

Iwaizumi gasped, pulling away from whoever he was with. It wasn’t until they were both apart that you realized who it was.

“Matsukawa?”

You got pulled into the closet, the door slamming behind you.