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#but like. how would they know if this was something they wanted?
omgthatdress · 3 days
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Sooooo ummmmmmm this is something that's probably going to piss a lot of people off, but I feel like I really need to say it.
If you get a message from an account claiming to be a Palestinian fundraiser, it is a bot. It is a scam. You need to report & delete the message and encourage others to do the same.
I know because I get messages on this account DAILY. I have a very high follower count and I'm pretty active and I interact with my followers a lot, and apparently that all adds up to one big bot magnet.
Bots following and messaging this account was a MASSIVE problem before Tumblr fixed its new account policies. I used to spend literally hours blocking and reporting the hundreds of bots that I would get following me each day.
I learned a lot about bots and how to identify them. The easiest way is with no avatar, "untitled" in the blog description (BTW if your avatar is still set to default PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD change it because you run a substantial risk of being accidentally blocked & reported as a bot).
One of the dead give aways of a bot was what I call "word salad" names. Three seemingly random words strung together making no sense, always adjective, adjective or noun, noun. If you reported a lot of these bots, you'd notice the same words kept showing up.
Nowadays, I am bombarded with fundraiser requests and sometimes, they don't even bother to hide the fact that they're a bot. The avatar is default, the blog title is "untitled," and the blog name is a classic randomly-generated word salad.
However MOST of the requests I get come from at least semi-legit looking accounts. There are pictures, a name, a story. Never mind that I've gotten that message three times from different accounts.
Sometimes, they claim to be vetted, but the whole vetting system essentially adds up to "trust me bro." There is no way of guaranteeing that this account isn't just lying about being vetted, claiming to be vetted by a false person, or are using the identity of a real Palestinian to scam people.
Previously, I've seen a lot of people getting attacked for raising questions about these fundraisers and getting attacked for being racist or for harming Palestinian families in danger, like Tumblr isn't a website famous for its scams and the words "The Arkh Project" "All or Nothing" or "Miss Officer and Mr. Truffles" mean nothing to you.
I personally have been scammed by people claiming to be charities on Tumblr before, specifically, The Leelah Project which used the name of a trans teenager who died by suicide to swindle people out of their money.
Luckily, there are actual, respected charities out there you can give money to if you want to help the cause:
Palestinian Children's Relief Fund
Palestine Red Crescent Society
United Nations Relief Works Agency
Islamic Relief
World Central Kitchen
Médecins Sans Frontièrs
One of the hardest things to accept about the situation in Palestine is that realistically, there is very little that your average outsider can do to change it. However, these large, well-respected and trustworthy charities are out there doing the hard work to keep people alive, and should be where the donation money is going
These scam bots feed on people's naïvety and need to believe that they are making a difference, and even worse, feed on the fear that by ignoring them, it somehow makes you a racist doing direct harm to a refugee family, when in fact they are using the suffering of Palestinians to take away money from those in need.
As far as fundraisers that don't send out random asks for donations, I honestly don't know. You'll have to do the work yourself and approach with much caution.
Be careful out there.
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irndad · 3 days
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i wish i knew you wanted me - s.r.
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a/n: okay this ended up being so so long forgive me!!! i hope you like<3 summary: based loosely on 'bad habit'. spencer got asked out by reader 5 years ago, when he was recovering from his dilaudid addiction, and turned her down. now, he's in love with her, and pining for her. also, jealous!spencer. she fell first, he fell harder. wc: ~2k
She’s very pretty. It’s distracting. Right now, she’s staring intently at his hands, and he feels hot under her gaze. It’s been a while since he’s done this, the little rocket trick, but she’s visiting the office, and Garcia had mentioned he’s a magician. 
“That’s incredible!” She exclaims, a giggle in her laugh, and he feels the swoop of his stomach, the butterflies of it all, “You got them so high up!”
“It’s just physics,” he laughs, meeting her warm gaze. Her smile is one for the ages. 
She’s here dropping off a file. They’ve known eachother a really long time, actually. She was an expert witness for them, once, years ago. She spoke with ease, both on the stand and in person. Equal measure kind and measured, and Spencer had adored her on first glance. They’d met when he was just getting clean from Dilaudid, and Spencer’s been in love with her since not long after than first meeting. That’s pretty much the only thing about her he wishes he could take back. 
He still has a hard time thinking about it, the fact that he met her when he was barely himself. Still, she’d been kind, listened to him talk and let the others tell her that he was…going through something. It was on his two month sobriety date (which she’d had no way of knowing) that she’d asked him out. 
Sometimes, when he can’t sleep, he replays the memory in his head. How she works just south of their office, and how they’d meet at the café nearest, and chat for an hour before calling a cab home. 
On the other side of the veil, he can picture that night, years ago now. How she’d looked with the snow kissing her nose, dotting the edges of her faux-fur hood. She’d stuck out her tongue to catch a snowflake, and he’d almost combusted and the adorability of it. 
“You look nice,” she’d said, although at the time he’s pretty sure he looked gaunt. He’d only recently started to gain the weight back- but still, her praise felt like stardust. 
“You look nicer,” he’d said back, gently bumping her shoulder as a fond gesture. Her little grin is well-worth how awkward they both look on the street.
“Listen,” she had said, stuffing her hands into her pockets, the size of the coat causing her hands to disapear from sight entirely, “I asked JJ and Morgan, and they said you’re not seeing anyone.”
“Oh, yeah. They love reminding me of that. Not everyone can be like Morgan and have dated half the western hemsiphere.”
He felt embarrassed, her watching him. It’s nice, but sometimes feels like staring into the sun. 
Her chuckle was nervous, not fully reaching her eyes. 
“You okay? 
“Yeah,” she swallowed again, before speaking, “I was wondering, um, if you might want to grab a drink with me?”
“Sure,” he’d replied back, amenably. He couldn’t tell why she looked so nervous, “I can’t really do hard liquor, though. Maybe we can invite the team.”
“No, Spence, I was wondering if you and I could go on a um, a date.”
And he’s frozen. Because this might be the second time he’d ever been asked out, and second, this might be his dream girl. She’s gorgeous and kind and she’s in front of him, asking him out. 
“I um,” his mouth was dry. He’d be a bad boyfriend. He was a recovering drug addict who already was bad at talking to people, and she lit up a room whenever she walked in. She finds him easy to be with, easy to care for and he’s bound to fuck it up. He couldn’t imagine giving that up because he was too greedy to take what he got. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”
He almost took it back with incredible speed, with that flash of disapointment on her lovely face, and the knowledge that it’s because she wanted him, before she quickly regained her speech.
“That’s totally alright! We’ll just be good friends, yeah?”
In the here and now, they are friends. Best of, really. And he made the right choice. He’d lashed out at Emily a month later in a withdrawl, and he knows that he’d have done the same to her, and now, she’s still in his life. 
The drawbacks of course, to being her friend, means she has dates. Boyfriends, as well, and he’s been a…friend, through it all. Good friend. She’s never suspeced him of anything more, of course, after he’d categorically rejected it. 
(Even though this rejection plays in his head all the fucking time, like a torturous groundhog day.)
She’s beautiful today, a blue blouse with a scarf lazily around her neck, and the way she’s leaning over his desk to see the  trick before she drops off her analysis. 
“Alright, Spence,” she says, her rose perfume wafting in the air prior to her hopping off the corner, “Did you need anything else? Today is my half-day, and Harry wanted to take me to Art Insititute.”
Harry, is the boy on rotation at the moment. Spencer has no impulse control and a super-computer expert best friend, so Spencer knows that Harry is 6’0 on his Driver’s License, and is a Financial Analyst. Spencer knows from her own mouth that this will be the third date, and that he’s a little boring but she’s attracted to the fact that he was direct and wanted to go out again. 
Low bar, but one Spencer couldn’t even clear. He doesn’t say any of that, though.
“That sounds fun,” he says, instead of saying that he’d love to walk her through the inscriptions on each art piece, love to kiss her in front of something thats’ beauty does not come close to her’s. “Are you thinking it might run long, or are we still doing the bookstore and TV at mine after?”
He’s been looking forward to this all week. He bought special marshmallows for her cocoa. He also htes to imagine her date running long. 
“Nah,” she smiles, “besides, he’s just some guy. You’re Spencer.”
Morgan doesn’t say anything when he looks down at his. paperwork, and scribbles instead of thinking, the best he can. 
________________________________
Don’t think about the fact she was on a date. Don’t think about how Harry might have got to kiss her. Just don’t bring it up. 
“How was the date?”
She shrugged, pulling at the spine of a hardcover novel. 
“It was fine. Like I said, he was kind of boring.”
“So why’d you go out with him again?”
“I dunno, Spence, I just… I want a boyfriend, you know? I want someone to want to be with me.”
She is so beautiful. She laughs with her whole chest, and she listens to his stories and chimes in with her own expertise. She has a voice that seems like it’s spun gold thread, and he’d give anything to kiss her. 
“I get that,” he says, instead of anything he’s thinking. She’s wearing brown lipstick, transfer proof. He’s in love with her. “There’s got to be guys lining up for a girl like you.”
“That’s a nice thought, Spence. Not the ones I’d like.”
___________________________
This thought haunts his evening, and when he parks and they start the walk-up to his apartment, a confession hammering at his throat, a physical urge. She’s giggling at some long physics joke he’d made, and he’s addicted to the soft bell of her laughter.
His apartment is small and lovely, and he enjoys having her in the small and dark of the night, the sun set over what he wishes were two lovers. 
“You are really pretty, you know,” he says, once she’s settled into his chest, a sick satisfaction of knowing Harry got a quick thank you text before she darted over to Spencer’s arms. 
“Thanks, Spencer. You’re a good friend.”
“Why do you always say that?”
“That you’re a good friend?”
“I’m not saying you’re pretty because I’m a good friend. I’m saying it because it’s true, and I enjoy saying true things.” 
“You don’t…I don’t know why you’re saying that, Spencer. We’re friends and I adore you and I’m here right now, but you don’t need to make it harder on me.”
She looks nervous, and a little disapointed. He wants her to know, that even if he’s missed his shot, she’s not going to be alone. He’s gonna spend the rest of his life hating whoever knew to take the best thing offered to him, but Spencer- he knows he is not going to be the last to love her. He grabs her hand without thinking, her doe eyes peering into his with some emotion he can’t pin down. 
“Hey, I’m not trying…to make anything hard for you. I don’t ever want to do that. I just… some day someone’s gonna see you and want to be with you and I’m going to watch it and know it was inevitable.” 
The words taste like barbed wire. 
Ask me again, he wants to beg, I’m ready now. I’ll do it right. 
Is that even true? Is it just that he wants her bad enough he’s willing to risk not doing it right?
“You’re so sweet,” she sobs, and oh, she’s crying. Just a little, but tears prick at the corners of her eyes. “You make it so hard to be your friend. And I know that’s my problem, that you’ve always been straight up with me. I asked you out and you said no, and I know that-“
“I know that I was too late, and freaked out about being with someone like you when I was still so fucked up.” they’re so close to eachother, he can smell her chapstick. His chest aches. “Sweetheart, that had nothing to do with you. It was all me. It’s a train I missed that I’m gonna spend the rest of my life wishing I’d caught.”
He feels uncomfortably bare, even in the oversized sweater that she’d gotten him last Christmas, and that he’d pretended had been from his lover all of that week. But it’s important that she knows.
“What do you mean, ‘too late’?”
Her voice is small, so quiet he barely hears it. She threads her nimble fingers into his slender ones, and his heart is hammering. 
“I-I was on Dilaudid, or just barely off, you know- you wouldn’t want to be with someone like me. You asked me out when you didn’t even know that.”
“I know you now. Years worth of knowing.”
“And you haven’t asked me since.” 
“Spencer,” her voice is warm, rich like silk and grainy old music, and he wants to drink this image in, her fingers stroking the side of his face like he’s holy. He wonders if he’s dreaming, with how good she feels to be so close to. 
Ask me again, he wants to beg. I’m ready, now. 
“Spencer Walter Reid,” she says, properly holding his hand, bringing her soft lips to his hand, kissing his knuckle. He feels anointed, blessed by a higher power. “Could I take you out on a date?”
“Yes,” he says, finally. Five years of waiting melts away as he kisses her, warmth and light seeping into existence, a dream brought to tangible life, to touch and reality, “Actually, wait,” he says, and finishes before her face can fall, “Would you be my girlfriend?”
It’s maybe playing his cards too much, but her wide, ear to ear splitting grin is everything he needs to see, everything he might need to see for the rest of his life. 
“Took you long enough, boy-genius.”
“All you had to do was ask again!”
If she has a complaint about that, it certainly couldn’t be heard by the many, many kisses that would follow. 
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i-am-a-fish · 2 days
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hello chat, I'm trying to figure out what I'm gonna do with my life
I really do love posting on tumblr (top ten favorite activities for real) but I need to get a job of some kind
I want to do something creative, and I want to help people. I really like making things too. some of my main ideas are to make content on some website where I can earn money (youtube or twitch or something, but please let me know any suggestions you have, it would genuinely help me so much)
my other idea though is to make merch, but not lame merch, I want to make some genuinely good things to wear. like, I want to design a pair of booty shorts that say "I think everything's going to be okay" on the back
I also am making a TTRPG system, and I've designed a few card games and board games, I have no idea how to publish something like that but that's something I would be interested in :)
any advice you have is appreciated so much, thank you so much for reading <3
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“The Ambiguously Brown Character™”- The Attachment to Eurocentric Beauty Standards
“maybe im petty but i wish people knew how to draw like different nose shapes. Sometimes I’ll see a character I like but im like that is not what their nose would look like.” @the-eldritch-it-gay
You’ve seen them before. The one character that has brown skin… And everything else about them is… an enigma. They’re not supposed to be white! You know that much… right? You can see what the designated white characters look like, so at least it’s not that. You could claim them as Black, if you want, and sometimes creators even demand that this character is Black. Depending on the quality, you’re either like “no, what the fuck is this” or you’re like “okay they’re cool, we’ll take them”. Representation is important. But… There’s a pit in your stomach that wonders… Are they really? Are they really supposed to be Black, is this really representation, or did the creators just toss a brown person in so all the Brown™ people could “have something”, so that they would look like they cared about “diversity” on their art resume?
Examples
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Theseus, in my opinion, looks like a white man with a tan. Dionysus looks a little better with the similar skin tone, due to his purple hair coloration. Apparently people do think that at least Dionysus is a man of color. What’s interesting about both of these characters, is that they’re only about two desaturated browns lighter than Patroclus, a character in the game that we’re supposed to believe is Black (whom, in my opinion, also looks like a brown bucket tool character. I’m still claiming him, he’s my guy. But his design should have been more explicitly Black). Theseus and Patroclus are the two darkest-skinned dead humans in the first game. So… what was I supposed to think about these two? Was I supposed to think they are really dark white people, due to the thin textures of their hair? Are they men of color? Are Theseus and Patroclus supposed to be ashy because they’re dead, is Dionysus ashy because he’s dehydrated from wine? Why don’t the white dead people look off color? Hades was entirely too striking a game in use of color for the browns to look like… this.
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Noe and Hibana are interesting. It was complete coincidence, the purple hair and eyes thing btw. Hibana is interesting because Ogun is an unambiguously Black character in Fire Force, and there are at least three other unambiguously Black characters in Soul Eater as well. So we know the mangaka knows how to draw Black people in their style! So… was this on purpose? Is this another of those ‘tanned anime girls with titties’ meant for shounen fan service? I’ve claimed Noe (Case Study of Vanitas) because Black French people exist and France has stolen so much from us already, but it is never actually specified what Noe is. He’s just the One Singular Brown Guy in this show, with regular, untextured anime hair. Are there more brown people in the manga? Is this explained? Because we know who is supposed to be white! If anyone else wants to claim Noe, they absolutely can, because we have no idea what he’s supposed to be. Hot Chocolate thinks he’s Indian, and I’m not going to argue that because… who knows! He very well could be!
My very first lesson addressed this, albeit lightly! There’s a reason that I said that if you gained nothing else from me, that’s what I want you to walk away with. Now that I’m on stronger footing with this blog, I can really get into the nitty gritty of what that really means.
Obligatory disclaimer: we are not a monolith!* As of 2015, it has been researched that African populations have the highest genetic variation on Earth*, with a lot of that genetic diversity in sub-Saharan Africa alone. This means that YES, there very well can and will be Black people with naturally thinner textures of hair, blonde, light brown, and red hair, straight, narrow noses, monotone lips, and lighter skin that comes more often with white people. There are enough genetic combinations within African peoples and of the African diaspora that I’m sure there are plenty of people that look the way people seem to want Black people in art to look, if those genes so express within them.
*as a scientist, I will say: while these papers seem fairly legit and I looked at many related articles and their sources, take Nature with a grain of salt. Though their vetting process has become much better, you can and should always do further reading on your own!
Here’s the thing: the possibility is not the issue here!
The first issue: I don’t have to teach anyone how to draw those features on Black people! It is evident, from the professional and fan art I’ve seen, y’all already know how to draw the features deemed highly by Eurocentric beauty standards. Those features are excessively focused on and promoted as part of “good art”.
The second issue here is that the average artist drawing a poorly done Black person is not considering things like genetic diversity when they draw them (and if they are, it’s usually as an excuse post-confrontation. Yes, I have seen it.) These creators are not designing these characters with the intent of them being Black with those features, they are designing “Black” people with features that they deem most aesthetic and are most comfortable with drawing.
And why do they deem those features most aesthetic? We’ve circled back to the point of this lesson!
Eurocentric Beauty Standards
Definition: beauty standards as defined through a white, western cultural lens, including but not limited to: straight, blonde hair, light eyes, pale skin, high cheekbones, narrow noses, thinness. It’s a way that white western people want other white western people to look to be considered classically attractive… and then enforced that on everyone else.
It affects people of color worldwide. Anyone that has ever had to deal with European colonization or imperialism has to deal with the interjection of Eurocentric beauty standards.
Examples
-Black women, standing at the intersection of Blackness and womanhood, especially deal with the constant pressure of Eurocentric beauty standards, being consistently told to hate ourselves due to our own ethnic features. It’s incredibly damaging to your self-esteem growing up; my mom told me that until I went natural at 17, I was determined to look ‘like a white girl’ because I thought it would make me beautiful, and it hurt her. And as for me, it was a stunning realization that at 17 that I had never really seen my own natural curl pattern before. My hair was in ponytails and such as a child, but as a teenager, growing into my identity, I had always wanted straight hair. I was in love with my coily texture, I couldn’t believe that I’d never seen it. An entire part of my own body, gone unknown, because I wanted to fit a beauty standard I would never reach.
-Kenneth and Mamie Clark: The “Doll” Studies: Black children- age 3-7 were shown white and Black doll babies, and were asked a series of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ identification questions. Even by that young an age, most of the Black children associated things like beauty, kindness, and positivity… with the white dolls.
-“The Golden Ratio”: a survey was done in Britain (oh boy, here we go) to determine what people felt was the ‘most beautiful’ face, and apparently it all came down to “symmetry”. “International blueprints of beauty” they claimed, were applied, as humans “naturally seek symmetry”. In 2015, according to ye olde Daily Mail, this was the most beautiful woman. You'll never guess:
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(It’s not even her natural hair color!)
-Another “research study” using E-FIT (Electronic Facial Identification Technique -- a facial recognition software used to create criminal profiles based on eyewitness descriptions; no WAY that THAT could get problematic!!) to determine what 100 people thought was the “most archetypal face of beauty”.
They came up with a figure similar to Kendall Jenner as the female option.
(Guys, we’re never getting out of here at this rate.)
-We’ve spoken about discrimination against Black hair before, and how natural hairstyles will be deemed less professional or appropriate for school, regardless of the brilliant mind that sits underneath it, and even the history of Black women having to cover their hair so as to “not steal the desire of white men” and ruin the status of white women.
Appropriation:
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I try to have nuance on the Kardashians, but I have never liked Kylie, and it’s not because she’s not allowed to do what she wants with her body. I watched the world claim that she was so beautiful, that her kits were why her lips looked “so good”. Everyone wanted to have “full, plump lips” like the ones Kylie BOUGHT. But Black women’s full lips have been treated horrifically since racism was invented. In 2016 I watched racists dogpile and mock Ugandan model Aamito Lagum for her naturally full lips in her MAC campaign, after saying in just 2015 that Kylie’s lips were “top fashion and everyone wants them”. And she lied (not that we didn’t all know that)! She appropriated a look, and she lied about it to move product. And people who had no right to forgive her did so, and everyone moved on to make her a billionaire. Because full lips looked good… as long as they weren’t on a Black woman. I can’t even have my own lips, but she was rewarded with an industry for appropriation. No, I’m not getting over that.
I could go on, but I won’t. So what are some ways to address the existence of Eurocentric beauty standards potentially biasing our creation?
First thing: LET’S TRASH THE IDEA THAT BROWN SKIN AUTOMATICALLY MEANS BLACK.
Black people are not stupid, and we do have expectations. Splashing brown paint on your otherwise white character does not mean I’ll automatically think they’re Black. I’m going to look. When I see brown people in real life, I can usually tell when they don’t look like me. I don’t look at a South Asian similar to or darker than my shade and say “they’re Black”. Blackness is not just skin color, it’s an entire identity and sociological construct. Yes, you can tell us apart.
Acknowledge when you’re holding a bias:
For example: “Tall, dark, and handsome.” What did you picture? You must understand that different people had different ideas of what this meant, versus who it was actually meant to be. Because on its surface, that description includes tall Black men with dark brown eyes and dark hair! We’ve talked about this in lesson 3! Whoever came up with this phrase didn’t mean skin though, they meant hair and eyes- they meant white brunettes. Even in this, it was only meant to include whiteness. And we were all supposed to assume that, be damned anything else.
Part of that is knowing what things do and don’t fall under the category. They were listed off earlier: straight and wavy hair, blonde hair, colorful eyes, thin noses, high cheekbones, double eyelid with round eyes that “show youth and innocence”. People have been going the “aquiline nose” route lately to claim more diversity in nose shape but like… even that isn’t always going to be the case. Every Black person is not going to have an aquiline nose. It is not the “middle ground” of diversity. Draw us with some round noses. We look fine.
Often ignored (in depictions of Black people): afro/coily hair and natural styles, large, round noses, full faces, brown eyes, full figures that aren’t oversexualized, body fat. One of the characters from Craig of the Creek that makes me so happy is Nicole, Craig’s mother. When I look at her design, I see my own mother. I see a Black woman that… actually looks like Black mothers I know. It made me happy and comfortable.
White folk, you even do it to yourselves! I mentioned to a friend once that a good chunk of stories in our fandom with the blonde/brunette white character dynamic read like an Aryan fantasy: the blonde character will be treated like a god on high, the most beautiful of humanity, and then you’ll get to the brunette and it’s “my meek, mousy brown hair, my dull, brown eyes like dirt, and my tanned skin with freckles; no one would ever notice someone plain, nerdy, and unimportant like me until him” lmao like excuse me? Author, you okay there pal? Do you need a hug, lmao? I can’t take it seriously anymore. If y'all are being this mean to each OTHER about not hitting Eurocentric beauty standards, y'all are certainly not being nice or respectful about people of color- who never can- in your content! (and no, exoticizing Blackness is not respectful.) You should look out for how often this happens, and catch yourself when you’re doing it.
Creating with Intent (and the lack thereof!)
(This is so important I made the header larger)
You have to actually consider and reference REAL Black people when you’re drawing Black people. That seems like such an obvious thing, and yet it must not be, because these sorts of arts/the techniques used in them still happen.
For example:
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credit to my friend @devilatelier; I asked for the worst Black art ever and he heeded the call!
I abhor art like this, and art that does varying versions of this. To the pit of my soul, hatred. I will not share your work if I catch even a whiff of it. Why? Because people know that this isn’t what we look like! If you get on the computer and type in “Black man with short hair”, option A is not even remotely on the first page. You’ll get nonblack men that show up, thanks to Google’s algorithm (another conversation), but the Black men don’t look like A. If you get on the computer and type “Black man with long hair”, you’ll even get Black men with all textures and styles of hair, including straight! And they still don’t look like B. Go ahead, I’ll pause- go type it in and see what you get. Have you ever seen a Black person that looks like these images? Be honest with yourself. Why do you let them slide, if you haven’t?
Why This Matters
So it’s not about the actual Black people in their lives that they’ve seen, that makes artists draw characters like this, nor a dedication to accuracy. Because if you were looking at us at all, you wouldn’t draw this. And yet, people draw it, and post it proudly. So there must not be any shame behind it, or they at least are comfortable enough with their target audience to think it’s presentable! That begs the question- who is your target audience, and do you include Black people in it?
It’s how people like Jen Zee can have a successful career at Supergiant despite drawing dark skinned people the way she does. It’s because studios recognize when their target audiences are not perturbed by, and therefore will still buy, their product. If poorly drawn Black people does not perturb audiences enough to affect the almighty dollar- or, in fanart situations, the value of popularity- then there’s no motivation to stop doing it! Who cares about the value and the demeaning of Black fans, right?
Think about it like this. You remember how everyone bullied the Sonic studio and they scrapped their entire reel? People do not get that much up in arms in solidarity about the antiblack treatment and depiction of Black characters. It’s how you end up with Wyll Ravengard on the drop of BG3. Because Larian could have stood on business, had some integrity, and said “this is a character we are going to develop, because there will be fans that look like Wyll, and deserve to receive our best efforts at inclusion.”
But instead, Larian said “this is what our majority fanbase wants, and apparently it is not a well-developed Black character” and released that game as it was. To rousing success. That was a choice. The antiblackness of both the fans and the studio, via their lack of concern about Black gamers, was involved in making that decision. We have to let go of the idea that antiblack racism is incidental, and not a part of the process- and that includes in character design.
I cannot tell you how much it shrivels my heart inside when I see a “Black” character with wavy hair. One, because I know the artist’s first thought was not to have a Black character with wavy hair, but because they draw white people with that hair and thought it was transferrable. Two, because if you wanted the aesthetic of hair down to the back… Locs could have worked! The same shape would be there! You can style locs in any way, and it would be fine! Even if you wanted them to have thinner hair, fine, but… I can see where the intent (and the lack thereof) is. We can see when you aren’t even trying for us!
I asked Angel how he felt about creating the “white man with the brown bucket” images, curious about how he felt given that he is more than capable of drawing Black people. His response was noteworthy, and consistent with my hypothesis:
“Thinking about it, these two drawings have been the most difficult thing I’ve had to draw, period. And it’s the first time I’ve actually felt nauseous during the drawing process from start to finish. I constantly felt like I was fighting off the part of myself that knew better, telling me that this is wrong. It felt like a betrayal, knowing what Black people actually look like and still choosing to be disrespectful. Especially because I worked on the first two and immersed myself in references and also Black youtubers, researching Black hairstyles. It felt like a betrayal to all of that to call these two (deliberately poorly drawn) characters Black, because they’re not. None of the Black people I found during my research (both photo references and videos) looked like these. at all. It felt cheap, it felt lazy. Creatively lazy in the way that you just take a white person and paint-bucket them brown and call it a day. In the way it makes you feel no pull to change what you do, or learn something new. Kinda like a thought terminating cliche. Unlike the first two, I used no references for them, but I mostly based them off of actual designs I’ve seen in fandoms, both fanmade and not.”
Conclusion
So what I want us to consider for now is: if we know that’s not what Black people look like, but so many people are willing to do and/or accept it without any mental dissonance… how much do they care? Why is this allowed to ‘pass’, if we recognize that it is not accurate, unless we think what we are being presented with is acceptable? Or at least, not worth fighting over? Why not? Why do you not think that this Black character deserves to be unambiguously Black? And why does that ‘better’ way to exist always come back to whiteness?
We’re going to get into this, as well as more into the other, more overt and equally harmful manifestation of these beliefs in the next lesson on Whitewashing! But I want you to simmer on this part, first.
When you draw a character that you want to be Black, not only should you keep in mind your intent of how you’re going to draw them, but it also means putting in the work to make sure you’re doing so. You do not put pen to paper and “accidentally” draw a white man lol, it came from somewhere- let’s shatter that connection that views white features as superior, as 'ideal for attention grabbing', so we can create better. Because remember, it is the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!
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rin-may-1103 · 3 days
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College Rivalry with the Genius Toddler in the First Row.
My take on this prompt Requested by @purplereaderfans
Danny looked up from his paper, a bright green crayon clutched in his small hand. Jazz patted his head with a quick smile, pushing her chair in so she could start making her way to the teacher, something about the wrong definition if Danny had heard what she'd been muttering correctly.
grumbling, Danny shook his head in an attempt to fix his hair. he hated how everyone was treating him like a child, he was sixteen, almost seventeen for Ancient's sake!
sure, he looked like he was three, but was this really necessary? head pats, baby talk, dumbed-down explanations; it's like they don't notice that he's still mentally a teenager. Like, seriously?
Mom and Dad had been the ones who created the damn device, they should know how to fix this, but did they? no, because; "Aww, Jack, look at him! Isn't our baby boy just the cutest!" and "Why yes, dear, we should get more pictures! It's not like every day a parent gets to witness their kid's toddler years again!"
danny hated it, even Vlad was treating him like a baby! Danny never wanted to hear the man try and speak to him like that again. it might actually be his new nightmare fuel, you know if he wasn't still using what happened with Dan and Pariah to fuel his consistent nightmares, that is.
Danny was ready to start blasting people's knees the next time someone so much as even hinted at dressing him up again. thankfully, for everyone's safety, Jazz noticed he was still mentally normal. She volunteered to take care of him while their parents worked on a way to reverse what their new ghost machine caused. (though he doubted it would be anytime soon, considering the GIW was acting up again.)
which, by the way, apparently wasn't supposed to have de-aged him, but in fact, just you know, 'barrow' his naturally made ectoplasm and knock him out for a few minutes. Ancients, his parents were insane.
he should have known they were going to do something stupid, but no; he had started slacking after revealing his phantom form and getting accepted by them. Because, again, why would he need to keep an eye on them and what they make when they promised to never try and hurt him and his normal rogues again?
they're adults, they should know how to handle themselves. but no.
oh, ho ho, was that such a big oversight on his part. they were Fenton's, of course, he should have kept an eye on them.
no longer making ecto weapons, his parents wanted to learn how to help peacefully capture raging ghosts and how to help heal the injured ones (mostly how to help Danny when he gets hurt). Noble, right?
right?
Wrong. somehow, they managed to create a de-aging device when they were trying to come up with a way to knock out an angry ghost without hurting them. How? Just how?? and what do they do without even testing to see if it would even work? use it on him. because, oh, danny's half ghost, and it's only supposed to make him tired right now, not knock him out. it should be fine.
and now he's a toddler.
a three-year-old toddler.
"psst!" someone hissed, dragging danny's attention away from his crumbled crayon. blinking, Danny dropped the crayon on the table and grumbled. this was the seventh crayon this morning, he really needed to get his strength under control before someone noticed.
"psst, hey kid!" they hissed again, making Danny sigh. turning his head, Danny glared at the weird dude who kept trying to talk to him. The dude usually talked to him like he was an adult, which Danny appreciated, if it wasn't for the fact the dude was hellbent on figuring out danny's secrets.
all because Danny scored more than him on a dumb test.
"What?" Danny grumbled, wiping the crayon crumbs off his hands and onto his pants. the dude, Danny thinks his name is Tam or something, frowned at Danny, watching him wipe the last of the obliterated crayon away.
"aliens," he hisses, leaning forward so he could stare more intently into Danny's eyes. "that has to be it, you and your sister are aliens. probably from some planet that's more advanced than ours."
danny blinked, studied the dude for a second, and blinked again.
"no," turning back, Danny grabbed another crayon and started filling out the worksheet in front of him, making sure to use as little of his super strength as possible.
the dude groaned and slammed his head onto his desk, the sound echoing out and around the silent room like a gunshot. Jazz snorted, pulling out her chair and sitting down. "that one has got to be one of the worst theories yet," she chuckled, turning her body to face the dude.
"you seriously can't believe my brother and I are aliens just because we got higher test scores, Tim." Jazz explained, casually leaning sideways in her seat so she could see him.
the dude, Tim, just groaned, slamming his head back into the desk, his voice muffled, "I wouldn't have a problem with it if it was just you," Tim lifted his head, glaring at him as Danny continued to carefully fill out his worksheet. "I can accept the fact that I'm not the smartest person in the room, I don't like it, but I can do it. I even respect it, having this much knowledge takes a lot of work and dedication, but him?"
"He's three, Jazz. he should be just starting to figure out the names of colors, and noticing differences between things. not astrophysics-level math questions from an April Fools gag test that our Psychology teacher jokingly gave us." Tim's eyes somehow got even narrower as he continued his rant. Danny valiantly tried to keep himself from laughing; Jazz said it was rude to laugh at people, especially if they weren't mentally all there, so he couldn't laugh.
but by the ancients was Tim making it hard.
with a fianl dash, danny smiled triumphantly. Setting the crayon down, he gave the paper a quick once over before deciding he was finally done filling it out.
now, for the moment he was waiting for; turning in his seat, Danny excitedly held up his paper, "Look jazz! I did it!" he had finally managed to complete the paper without ripping the page! and he'd only broken seven crayons! it was progress! there was hope! but Tim didn't need to know that, no, he needed to think Danny was excited about completing the paper.
Jazz, who was just as much of a gremlin as Danny, smiled as she patted his head, "Good job Danny! I'm so proud of you! why don't you go turn it in, I'm sure Mr. Kronmatil would love to see it."
smiling, Danny turned, climbed out of his seat, and started to make his way over to the teacher.
Tim grumbled in annoyance, his crazed theories and curses filling Danny's ears like the sweet sweet sound of music. if there was one good thing that came out of this whole fiasco, it was that Danny was able to work on his studies and cause as much chaos as possible while doing so.
being treated like a baby was all worth it when Danny turned and spotted the same confused and crazed look Tim had been giving him all week. yes, being de-aged wasn't fun, and he didn't appreciate being partially interrogated every time he entered the same room as Tim, but man it was so worth it when he knew he was driving one of the Gotham bat's nuts.
all because he scored higher than him on a test.
He couldn't wait to see Tim's face once the scores were announced tomorrow. He was so going to tell Lady Gotham all about it later.
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in-class-daydreams · 2 days
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Imagine ex-husband Gojo doing things for his new love interests that you begged him for while you were married.
After a joint meeting between the sister schools, you overheard Suguru asking him who he was texting during the meeting.
Satoru replied, "Just letting my date know I'll be a bit late tonight since we ran long here. Todo can yap, huh?"
"Seriously!" Their voices faded as they walked down the hall.
You stood just outside the meeting room watching the corner the disappeared around. If you had to pinpoint the number one reason your marriage failed - more than clan pressure, more than the strain of being young parents, more than back to back to back missions - it would be the fact that Satoru can't communicate for shit.
Part of it wasn't his fault. His brain just didn't work like that. An inconvenient side effect of limitless is that everything makes sense in your head, but it's hard for a person with the gift to explain their thoughts to others.
So the no-call, no-shows to dinners was technically a side effect of limitless, as was his inability to articulate his feelings like an adult or the fact that he would just do things without even telling you there was a problem in the first place.
"Quit doing that with your face, brat." Sukuna emerges from the meeting room. He's out of his Ryomen form at the moment, as he usually is during meetings so that he can actually fit in his chair. "How long are you gonna let what he does affect you?"
"It doesn't!" you insist.
Sukuna rolls his eyes. "If that helps you sleep at night."
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Imagine reminding yourself that you can't be mad at him.
You're seeing other people now, too. Hell, you've been divorced for over a decade, it's insanity that you care at all.
It's just. You never doubted his love for you. Not for a second, not even now that your marriage failed and you largely raised your son on your own.
"Mom?"
Maybe your divorce was his motivation to be better. You're not sure. But if he's capable of change, capable of being attentive and communicative, why couldn't he change for you all those years ago?
"Mom."
Could it be that you were his childhood companion and he loved you, but he was never in love with you? Was his love for you less than your love for him?
You hardly notice your son calling out to you until he springs into action. "Mom!" Sen nudges you away from the stove to turn of the burner. When did smoke fill the kitchen? The roux you were trying to make was burnt to a crisp, stuck to the pan and emanating an unpleasant smell.
Sen gently pries your hands off the handle and drops the ruined pan in the sink to soak. Then he makes sure the burner's off before turning to you with a conflicted expression.
He may have inherited a hybrid of both your and Satoru's personal brands of emotional stuntedness, but he could put two and two together between how distracted you've been and the rumors of Satoru dating again - What with it being huge news among jujutsu society (aka power hungry clans with eligible daughters.) Your son had his own complicated feelings regarding his father and as much as he'd prefer Satoru stay away from you, it hurt him to see you like this.
Though, watching you try to keep a stiff upper lip for his sake during the divorce is the reason he doesn't want his father anywhere near you.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart." You wipe your hands on a dish towel. "I wasn't paying attention. Hang tight while I make you something else."
He could kill Satoru right now. But you wouldn't like that, so he won't.
"Mama, I--" He shuts his mouth. You've been protecting him from the details of the divorce his whole life. What did he know about comforting you? But while he may not have been able to protect you then, he can sure as hell try now.
"Mama, why don't I take you out to dinner? My treat."
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Imagine that Sen decides he needs to stop having ideas.
He brought you to a local okonomiyaki that you've been going to since he was little to the point where the owners knew you well and liked to give you little extras from the kitchen. Today's treat was a side of pickled radish.
It was your happy little hideaway. Away from jujutsu and clans and curses and your broken home.
Sen insisted on cooking the okonomiyaki for you, saying that, "My treats means I'll take care of everything!" The weak smile you gave him made his heart soar.
You giggle while he jokes around and tells you about school like how Hikari fell asleep for 45 minutes out of an hour long test and still got a better score than him. Hearing about your son and his happy school days always made you feel better.
Sen was ready to give himself a pat on the back for cheering you up when he hears the front bell jungle and a woman's laughter carries over.
"Fancy places are like that, though!" the woman laughs. "They give a bite of food per plate."
Then a familiar voice replies, "Yeah, but it was good, wasn't it? And now we get to fill up at a cute place like this."
Even though he's the one facing the door and not you, the look on your face tells Sen all he needs to know. What breaks his heart is that you've sunk lower into your seat to make yourself smaller.
Sen could kill his father right now.
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Hooray, angst!
Click [here] to keep up with ex-husband Gojo and his estranged family | Ask stuff about Sen and the fam [here]
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salemlunaa · 2 days
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"OH WELL, IM NOT GONNA BE HERE FOR LONG, IM GONNA SHIFT ANYWAY" girl...
let's break down why this mindset, although very common, isn't super healthy...
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I saw a post earlier where op talks about how they are un phased about all the bad things happening to them because they "won't be here for much longer”, which is so real and it honestly made me laugh so hard but, i must admit, this way of thinking can also have an unhealthy side.
I, personally, have also been victim to this mindset, and honestly i can tell you nothing good comes from thinking like this. You experience something bad, hurtful, embarrassing, slightly traumatic (which, bear in mind, you wouldn't have experienced if you hadn't procrastinated and tapped in to the void) and you tell yourself "it's okay, i'm not here for long anyway", you abandon responsibilities (that, again, wouldn't be your responsibility if you would ve stayed disciplined and tapped in) and you tell yourself "it's fine, i'm gonna shift anyway" "i'm probably gonna get into the void tonight so it doesn't matter"
NO NO and NO
of course it's good to have the mindset of knowing, knowing that it's your last day here and knowing that the void is the only outcome for you, because that type of thinking is what allows you to shift consciousness and tap in to the void, but a lot of you say that shit without even properly applying your knowledge, a lot of you are gonna remain sounding like broken records, repeating this shit for years, i swear it will be 2028 and yall will still be saying "it's okay i won't be here for long", "im gonna shift anyway"
don't wait for shit to hit the fan for you to get serious about your desires, don't wait for your circumstances to get horrible for you to finally fix up and actually do something. If you really knew you were a god, you wouldn't be here reading this, you would be as pretty as you wanna be, and as rich and happy as you wanna be enjoying your dream life. Don't fall into a comfortable routine with your current reality, (which is really just your old story) because it's not worth it. I even see you guys making and scripting for a "better current reality" (another excuse to remain comfortable with procrastination), when you could have your DREAM life, you guys get swept up in your old story, just because it can be "alright" sometimes. And then when something bad happens, you repeat the same phrase "oh well, i'm gonna shift anyway", and then when things go back to being "alright", you get comfortable again, further procrastinating, when you could have ANYTHING. Who cares about your "alright", "mediocre" reality when you could have the best and more!!
like girl, don't stay comfortable until you're forced to get uncomfortable with a negative change in circumstances. You should be determined to shift consciousness ALL THE TIME, not just when things get tough or responsibilities pile up. Because again, if you had that consistent mindset you wouldn't be here.
get uncomfortable with what you have to achieve what you want, so that all you want becomes all you have
GET UNCOMFORTABLE NOW SO YOU CAN LIVE COMFORTABLY FOR ETERNITY, DONT WAIT FOR SHIT TO HIT THE FAN ᥫ᭡💋
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vivwritesfics · 2 days
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In Trouble
Max and Charles aren't there. Lando knows what they're not allowed to do while Max and Charles are gone, he just doesn't care.
Norlestappen x reader
warning: smut, p in v, cockwarming, talks of punishment i suppose
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Lando's hands gripped her hips as she pushed her fingers through his curls. Just staring into his eyes as Lando stared right back at her. "You're so pretty, Lan," she whispered and tugged on his girls, pulling his head back.
He groaned, grin crossing his face. She leaned forward, rested against his shoulder and kissed at his thick neck. He squeezed her hips just a little tighter, rocking her against his lap.
It was just the two of them home. Charles was in Italy and Max was in England, leaving the two of them by themselves. For the first day, they'd been moping around, ordered in pizza so they could sit against each other on the couch, empty spaces on either side of them.
By day two, they were over it. Max and Charles wouldn't be gone forever, and they could have fun while they were gone.
That was how she ended up on Lando's lap, kissing and sucking bruises into his neck. Low enough that it would be covered up on the upcoming race weekend. But Lando wouldn't cover it up. He'd walk into the paddock wearing something that didn't cover up his neck, walking with his head held high to show off.
"C'mon," Lando whispered, his hands slipping lower. "Can we?"
She stilled against him, pulling her lips away from his neck. "Lando, no," she whispered, lifting her head from his shoulder. "We're not allowed."
That was right, they weren't allowed. On the first day they had been too upset to be needy. But Lando had been sitting with it, letting it stir in him. She was the good one, the one who wouldn't even think about anything like that. Lando was the bad influence, and she knew she couldn't say no to him.
He pouted as he looked down at her. "Please, baby," he whispered, gripping the flesh of her thighs. "They're not gonna know."
Pulling her lip between her teeth, she nodded. She wanted it, wanted him.
Lando held her chin. "You're so good," he whispered and leaned in to kiss her. She knew she was good, it was something she prided herself in. Her cheeks were hot and she grinning as Lando began kissing her neck, pushing her underwear to the side and pushing his fingers inside.
The sex itself was quick. Lando slipped inside of her. He bounced her on top of him, his own hips bucking up. The two of them together, it was quick, needy, desperate. Max and Charles would draw everything out, would have the two of them shaking from overstimulation as they held each other for comfort.
But, now, they had the same goal. They wanted to cum, and that was it. It didn't take long before she clenched around him, finished and becoming sensitive. Lando stilled, spilling inside of her.
On shaking legs, she went to climb off of him, but Lando held her still. "Hang on," he mumbled, still breathing heavily. She was still clenching around him as she laid her head back against his shoulder.
The two fell asleep like that, sitting on the sofa with Lando still inside of her. Maybe if they knew Max and Charles were coming home, they would have cleaned up a bit. They would have hidden what they were doing.
But Charles and Max were early. A whole day early. Max unlocked the door and let himself and Charles in. Their loves were going to be asleep, they knew. They were going to be in the bed, holding each other with space on either side of them for Max and Charles to slip into.
Bodies tired, the two men walked into the living room. Just a simple glass of water from the kitchen, that was all they wanted. But they got a lot more than that.
At first, the scene in front of them was cute. The two of them cuddled together on the sofa, Lando holding her close. He was drooling on the top of her head, but she didn't need to know that.
Charles and Max stopped. They looked at each other, smiling. But they knew they couldn't leave them on the sofa.
Max was gentle as he removed Lando's arms from around her. He went to lift her up, but both she and Lando let out desperate whines. That was when they saw it, Lando's dick slipping out of her.
Charles and Max looked at each other again. Max set her down and Charles worked on waking up Lando. He pushed his fingers through his hair and then tugged.
Lando's eyes flew open. He looked at the two men in front of him, his eyes wide. "Shit," he muttered under his breath as he looked at them, his lap empty.
"Been busy, Lan?" Charles asked as she began waking up.
She looked around in confusion, taking in her other two boyfriends. Panic overtook her slightly and she wrapped her arms around Max. "It was all Lando!" She cried, lips against Max's cheek. Trying to be sweet, he understood. "He made me do it."
Other hands were on her waist, pulling her away from Max. "It takes two to tango, ma chérie," Charles muttered, shaking his head at her. They had no doubt it was mostly Lando's doing, but she had still played her part.
"You two are in so much trouble," Max said with a grin.
Whimpering, she turned to give Charles the attention she tried to give Max, acting sweet on him. It wouldn't work, everybody knew, but she still tried.
But Lando, he was grinning. His grin matched Max's, and he couldn't wait. He was in so much trouble, and he loved it.
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gurugirl · 2 days
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Truth or Dare | slumber party!h
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Summary: Y/n's coworker, Harry, has never been to a slumber party so she decides to remedy that and give him a sleepover he'll never forget.
A/N: Based off this request. Thanks anon! I hope you enjoy!
Word Count: 6,752
Warning: smut
. . .
By her third glass of chardonnay, her stomach was feeling the acid from the wine but she was having such a good time talking to Harry from the operations department that she didn’t care. She’d have another before calling it a night. Just one more glass so she could sit with him a little longer and listen to him talk and watch as he ran his finger along the edge of his pint glass.
He was probably looking at her like he was because he was also three pints of lager in and he was kind so he was holding eye contact to be polite. Certainly, it wasn’t because he found her attractive (though she’d have welcomed that).
The company’s management meeting was long over and everyone else had gone home but Harry and Y/n stayed for another round. They rarely ever got to talk at the office. She’d always wanted to pick his brain about why he decided to move to the US and how, of all companies, he chose to work at Dunn Services.
Y/n laughed on cue as he mentioned something from his childhood with his sister having her friends over to stay the night. He grinned, a healthy row of teeth aimed at her before he looked down and laughed at himself, “In truth? I never did have a sleepover or anything like that.”
“Really? Surely you had friends…”
Harry nodded, “Oh yeah I had a lot of friends. But I never stayed over at anyone’s and they never came over to mine either. Just… I don’t know. Never happened.”
Placing her nearly empty glass down she turned and waved with a smile as the waitress walked by, “Can we get another round, please?”
“How are you getting home?” Harry asked when she faced him, crossing her leg over her knee toward him.
“Taxi. You?”
“Might walk. I’m not far from here.”
Nodding she placed her elbows on the table, “So, I think that you’ve missed out on an integral right of passage, having never had a slumber party. You should definitely remedy that at some point. I highly recommend a fun sleepover. In fact, if you need pointers on what to do during a sleepover, I’m your gal.”
“Oh yeah? What’s your go-to during a slumber party?” Harry teased before taking another sip of his beer.
“Well, I think there are like two main components. The first is entertainment and I’m always keen on a good movie, or a dumb one, either way… a movie for sure if I’m picking. Some people like to play board games or whatever, but I like to stuff myself into a pile of blankets and pillows and just lie, or drape,” she spoke using her arms to demonstrate herself draping into pillows. “Occasionally, if the mood is right, I’ll enjoy a little truth or dare.”
“Got it. A movie and maybe if the mood is right, truth or dare. And what’s the second component.”
Y/n crossed her fingers together and raised her brows as if she were about to say something very important, “Snacks. Beverages. Good ones. Usually just small bites but here’s my list…” She cleared her throat, “Buttered popcorn, and possibly potato chips. Definitely something chocolatey, and maybe something like a cookie or a snack cake. If not potato chips then tortilla chips and if it’s tortilla chips, salsa should also definitely be on the menu.”
Harry held back the laugh in his throat as he nodded, “Wow. Okay. What about like a burger or Chinese food? Would that be allowed?”
Y/n shrugged, “It’s your party. You can do what you want. I’m just telling you what I’d do and what would be a hit with your sleepover buddy.”
Harry breathed out a laugh. Y/n could tell he was getting bashful. She wondered if he was thinking the same thing she was. She watched him for a few seconds before the waitress returned with their drinks.
A quick gulp of wine and she nudged at his shin with her shoe, “You wanna have a slumber party with me?”
Harry blinked and tilted his head, “What? You mean… Seriously?”
She shrugged, “Why not? Then next time someone asks if you’ve ever had a proper slumber party you can say that you have.”
He laughed loudly, his husky voice was like music to her ears. Pointing at her with his finger he grinned, “Now how I can argue with that? I mean,” he shook his head, a glint in his eye, “Every time someone asks me if I’ve been to a slumber party and I tell them I haven’t, it’s such a disappointment! The look on their faces when they realize my whole childhood was a sham…”
They both laughed, leaning in toward one another, tittering toward the edges of their stools.
Harry tilted his head, “Actually I think it sounds fun. You just name the day and I’ll be there.”
Y/n smiled at him. She knew it was crazy. Having a grown man at her place for a slumber party. Typically adults didn’t have those kinds of sleepovers – it was usually with the intent of something far more salacious. But she’d show him a good time, she thought, raising her glass toward his, “Deal.”
.                 .                 .
Y/n had her sofa bed pulled out and piled high with extra blankets and pillows. She had all her favorite snacks plus she ordered cheeseburgers and fries for the guest of the night. It was silly. Truly she hadn’t had a real slumber party in ages, but she couldn’t help but feel a little bit of excitement that she’d be hanging out with Harry all night. It was possible that her small crush on him was making her feel all giddy but she’d push down that feeling until he gave her any extenuating signals.
Because the truth was that they were both single, young adults and this was such an unlikely scenario. No one would look at this and say Oh how cute of these two grown adults hanging out in bed together for a sleepover. So innocent! No, she knew better. While maybe nothing would actually happen it certainly wouldn’t look innocent.
And of course, she did pick out the perfect pijama set. Something a little more flattering on her body but not too hey I really need to get laid tonight. It was a happy compromise. Cotton shorts and a button-up, matching short-sleeved top. This was just supposed to be a slumber party after all.
Right?
Besides, the little paper invitation she gave him on Monday morning told him to arrive in his sleepwear so she had to look the part. And not to toot her own horn but she made a very cute invitation just for him tucked into a pink envelope with a separate little response card that had space at the bottom for him to mark yes or no if he could come. It was a yes. Obviously.
When Harry finally arrived he was wearing a pair of grey sweats and a white t-shirt. And for some fucking bizarre reason he looked so much hotter than he did when he wore his well-fitted suits at work.
Because goddamn did his shirt somehow just hug his torso in all the right spots and it allowed her to take a good look at all tattoos on his arms that were normally hidden under brushed wool jackets or long-sleeved button-up shirts. She knew he had tattoos. She’d seen him roll up his sleeves a couple of times but she never wanted to be rude and stare for long.
And then the sweatpants, while loose in the legs, fit his waist and hips and…
“You okay?” Harry was still standing in the doorway with his backpack draped over his arm waiting to be invited in.
“Yeah, sorry. Not used to seeing you dressed down like this. Almost unrecognizable.”
Harry let out a soft laugh, his eyes crinkling as Y/n stepped aside to let him in, “Would you like to see my ID? Swear I’m the Harry Styles, the guy you invited over for chips, popcorn, and truth or dare. I’ve even got your invite somewhere in my bag…”
She breathed a laugh through her nose and watched him enter into her space, “Movies too. Oh, and I also ordered cheeseburgers. Remembered that you mentioned that.”
He seemed quite pleased with the burgers as she handed him the bag. She got those small ones, five to an order, “Thanks. Fries too, huh?” He reached into the bag and pulled out three crinkle-cut french fries then stuffed them into his mouth.
“So should we settle in and pick out a movie?” She gestured toward her couch.
Harry had seen the pull-out couch with heaps of pillows and blankets when he walked in. He knew that that would be where they’d be spending most of the evening. It was the glaring thing about the whole slumber party slash sleepover. That they’d be probably sleeping next to one another. As two young, healthy, attractive adults.
“Sure,” he nodded and waited for her to pick which side she was going to take before climbing in next to her, the thin mattress and metal frame giving way gently under his weight before he leaned back against a mountain of pillows, bag of burgers safe in his hands.
Y/n had a few video streaming services at the ready and they settled on a cheesy comedy from the late 90s before Y/n reached over to her coffee table and then lined up all the snacks between them.
They chatted a little, having both seen the movie already. Topics were anything from what their plans were for the rest of the weekend to what they’d eaten for lunch at work. And it was only a little awkward when they both reached into the bowl of M&M’s at the same time, fingers brushing together.
Harry moved his hand away, “Sorry. You go…”
Y/n grinned at him, scooping a handful of candy into her palm, and then sat up, adjusting her seating as she crossed her legs together, “Wanna do truth or dare? Pretend like we’re 15 again having a sleepover. Really get into the whole slumber party vibe, ya know?”
Harry dug out a few M&M’s and let out a chesty laugh, “If I’m 15 again we’re in big trouble.”
Y/n snorted a laugh, “Why? What do you mean?”
He shook his head, a wide grin on his face with deep set dimples carved into each cheek as he turned his head to look at her, “If this were happening when I was 15 I’d already be in the bathroom hyperventilating and probably trying to will away a boner after our hands touched in the M&M’s bowl.”
Y/n guffawed and threw her head back, nearly choking on her bite of chocolatey candies as Harry laughed with her. Honestly, it was the best icebreaker she could have asked for. Things had been kind of clunky between them up until that moment as they were still trying to navigate how to act around one another. And she knew he was teasing but the good belly laugh that she got from Harry’s story was exactly what they needed.
“Okay fine. We’ll just keep going about it as adults then. No fifteen-year-olds here tonight,” Y/n chuckled as she shoveled a few kernels of popcorn into her mouth.
Y/n kept her eyes on him as she chewed her mouthful, “So truth or dare?”
Harry cocked his head at her, “So the mood is right then? For truth or dare?”
Y/n’s brows furrowed, “The mood?”
“Yeah. You said it over drinks. Remember when you were telling me what the most important components are to a sleepover and you said you liked truth or dare if the mood was right.”
Nodding slowly, she thought back to what she’d said, “Yeah. I guess I did say that. And I mean… I think the mood’s right for a little truth or dare. Movie’s almost over and you just pretty much kicked us off with that truth.” A breathy laugh was pushed from her mouth.
She could tell Harry was mulling on another question as he bit the inside of his cheek, head tilting in agreement, “So that means it’s your turn. Truth or dare?”
Biting her lip as she pondered, she pressed her back into the soft pillows behind her, “Truth.”
Harry shifted to his side, long legs stretching the length of the mattress as he propped his head up in his hand, a pillow under his arm, “Have you ever kissed a co-worker before?”
Scoffing Y/n moved to her side, mimicking Harry’s position on her side, “No,” she grinned. It was true. She’d never once done anything with any of her coworkers. Having Harry over at her house was the closest she’d ever gotten to doing anything like that. “Now you. Truth or dare?”
His green eyes slid over her features, “Truth.”
She laughed to herself, trying to think of something funny, “How many stuffed animals do you own?”
Licking his lips he nodded, “Think maybe two? Gifts from my niece… Truth or dare?”
“Mmm… dare,” she giggled.
Harry lifted a brow, “Ahhh… feeling bold yeah? Okay… hmm…” He pursed his lips to the side as he considered the dare. “Read to me the last text you sent to anyone. And you have to show me to prove it was the last one. And it can’t be any texts you and me, cause that’s not fair.”
Y/n blinked. She wasn’t exactly sure what her last text was besides Harry. But she was slightly worried because if it was what she was thinking… lifting up her message app she scrolled down to the text thread below Harry’s and it was a text with her sister. Which was what she had been worried about. She gulped, hoping that the things she said about her “coworker” who was coming to stay with her weren’t the last things she and her sister texted about.
Puffing out a breath she covered up all the previous texts to show Harry the last text from her sister – God knows you need it. Sending you good vibes, sis ;)
Harry squinted as he looked at the message and pointed, “That’s to you. The dare was to show me the last text you sent to someone. Let’s see it…”
Feeling her neck heat up she angled the phone away from him and read what she’d sent her sister. And there was no mention of Harry but if he were even halfway decent at picking up clues he might be able to figure out what was being discussed prior.
She shook her head and looked up at him. She couldn’t believe she was about to show him what was on her screen. But a dare was a dare. What was the worst that could happen?
lol I doubt anything will happen but I wouldn’t turn him down. Got condoms just in case 😜 send all your good vibes my way
Harry’s brows squished together as he looked at the text and back to Y/n and then down again at the words on her screen. She saw his throat bob and she knew the look on his face. He fucking knew what that was. He had to know.
She had to look away. She pulled the phone down and killed the screen. The awkwardness between them thick and uncomfortable as she peeked back at him. The edge of his mouth was pulled upward in a smirk, “That’s to your sister?”
Nodding she blew out an exasperated breath, “Your turn. Truth or dare?”
Harry grinned as he positioned his knee closer to Y/n, his eyes still on hers, “Dare.”
Swallowing her embarrassment down the best she could she decided to ask him the same, “Now show me the last text you sent anyone besides me.”
Harry’s smartass grin told her all she needed to know. That his last text probably wasn’t nearly as risqué as hers.
And it wasn’t. Not even close.
You can have two pounds for free. I’ve got so many growing I can’t keep up. As long as you come to pick them up on Monday they’re yours.
“I have a bunch of zucchini growing in my garden,” Harry pulled the phone away and laid it down next to his hip. “Got a neighbor who wants some.”
Of course, his last text to anyone was about zucchini. Jesus, she was so far out of her depth.
He was still wearing that shit-eating grin as he said, “Truth or dare, Y/n?”
And the way he said her name, all slow and sexy-like had her insides heating up. Well, maybe she made up the sexy part but he was definitely teasing her. She could just feel it.
“Truth.”
She was sure she’d regret that. Truth or dare. It didn’t matter. She was still reeling from showing him her texts.
“Was that text about me?” Shit-eating grin in place as he asked. Fucker.
Y/n’s eyes grew wide dropping her mouth open in surprise. Of course, he was going to ask that. Of course!
“Oh come on, Harry…” she pleaded.
He lifted his brows and awarded her a larger grin with those cute indents scoring into his cheeks, “Them’s the rules, baby. You chose truth and now you have to be honest.”
Clearing her throat she sat up to her bottom and leaned forward so she didn’t have to look at him as she put her head in her hands and laughed in disbelief, “Jesus. Seriously?”
“Yep. Spill. Let’s hear it.”
“Okay. Fine. Yes. It was about you.”
Keeping her eyes on her lap she waited for a smug remark. Some kind of teasing reply but it was quiet. Slowly she turned to look back at him and he was still lying on his side, head in his palm as he watched her, his eyes fixed to hers.
She shrugged, “Your turn. Truth or dare?”
Harry flattened his lips and squinted at her before cocking his head, “Hold on… Really? That was about me?”
Sighing she rolled her eyes, “Yes. Sorry. I was… it was just funny… it was me joking around with my sister is all.”
He blinked and looked down at the space between them as he nodded, “Okay. I see. So you didn’t actually mean it?”
“Well… I guess… We were joking. Obviously, nothing has to happen. I would never expect that. I…” she breathed out exasperated.
“Obviously nothing has to happen. Did you want it to happen?” His pupils were pinned to hers again.
Opening her mouth she stopped herself for a moment. She knew her answer was yes but she didn’t want to come off like a creep. She hadn’t expected it and assumed it wouldn’t. But the truth remained; she hoped it would happen.
Deflating her posture she laid back to her side to face Harry, tucking a pillow into her chest, “The truth is that I think you’re attractive and I haven’t been with anyone in kind of a long time and… she knows that, my sister. So we were just… it was lighthearted but yeah I mean… without any expectations, cause I would never… I hope you know that. But I did think it would be nice.”
“Nice. Yeah. I agree. It would be nice. And just so you know,” he swung his head to look over his shoulder before looking back at her, “I brought condoms as well. You know… just in case.”
She was a bit stunned at that. Was he…
“Dare me to kiss you,” he grinned, irises dropping to her lips for a second before looking back into her eyes.
She laughed, “That’s not how the game works. The rules are you can’t–”
“Fuck the rules. Dare me to kiss you.”
Shaking her head with a wide smile stretched across her face she felt like her skin was pricking as her heartbeat picked up. She couldn’t believe this was actually happening.
Looking back into his eyes she inhaled deeply, “Fine. I dare you to kiss me.”
Harry’s smirk was unreal. The way he dragged his gaze over her face and down to her mouth was almost lewd, “Didn’t need to play truth or dare to get me to kiss you, Y/n,” he scooted in, grabbing the pillow she had tucked into her chest and tossing it away before he drew a hand up to her face, “You just needed to ask.”
She held her breath as he closed in slowly until it was as if all the tension in the room had popped and fizzled when his lips met hers.
He was so soft and gentle. Lips winding easily, carefully at first. And then she parted her lips more, kissing him back and letting her mouth press into his bottom lip before their tongues were meshed.
She moved her knee out to stabilize herself and knocked over the bowl of popcorn between them. Laughing into his mouth she gasped as she parted from him but he only reached for her again, placing his palm at the back of her head to pull her mouth back against his with a grunt from his chest as he pushed the bowl away and drove his arm underneath her side to keep her from getting too far.
Harry was softly moaning as his tongue worked its way into her mouth gently. It was clear he’d wanted to kiss her. That he liked it. And that notion made her head spin combined with the feel of his thumb traveling over her jaw. There was not going to be any stopping the momentum that had begun.
Well, except for when the bowl of M&M’s poured out against her leg. She had to push at him. As much as she would have loved to have kept making out, she would not have been able to enjoy melted chocolate on her legs or the bedsheets tucked around the mattress (think of the scrubbing she’d need to do!).
“Sorry,” she panted and looked down at the smashed pieces of popcorn and the chocolate candies strewn between them, “I’ve gotta pick this up. Our body heat will melt all these and it’s gonna be a big mess.”
Harry grinned, “Why don’t we just move this party to your bed for a little bit? Clean up later? The M&M’s won’t melt if we’re not laying on them.”
She laughed, already feeling overwhelmed and overheated from the kiss and now he was suggesting taking it to her bed? This was really happening, wasn’t it? She nodded and they both moved off the sofa sleeper to their feet, Harry following behind Y/n as she led him to her bedroom.
She already had her bedside lamp on. Bed made perfectly, everything tucked in and neat.
She turned to look at him and he stepped against her, palm splaying at her low back, “I dare you to get onto your bed and take your clothes off.”
A small laugh burst from her chest, “Oh, so now we’re just doing dares?”
He nodded, “Making up our own rules for this game. S’more fun this way.”
Letting go of her he watched as she stepped backward toward her bed and began to unbutton her nightshirt until it was shed from her body before she pushed her shorts down her legs. She was left in a pretty white bralette (something soft for bedtime) that stretched around her breasts and a pair of thin cotton panties that matched. She kneed up onto her bed and let her feet dangle off the edge and pointed, “Now I dare you to take off your clothes.”
He peeled his white t-shirt off, his hair mussing in the process. She watched with her lips parted at the gorgeous man stripping before her. Not only was he built exactly like what she dreamed of (tattoos, beefy, muscular, a touch soft, very masculine) but the boner tenting his sweats was hard not to home in on.
Harry stuck his fingers into the waistband and looked up at her, “M’not wearing any underwear, so be warned…”
She swallowed as the material lowered, belly button, happy trail, a bit of dark hair and then he pulled the stretchy waistband away from his body so his cock could push free and she was already clenching at just the sight as he removed his sweatpants, cock full and heavy between his strong thighs.
Jesus Christ.
Harry stepped forward, nudging himself between her knees and she leaned back to look up at him, “I dare you to take off the rest of this. Since I’m completely naked feels only fair.”
She bit her lip and looked down at his girthy dick. He was clearly not shy of his body, standing there like that, cock right in front of her. But why should he be shy when he looked like that?
Scooting back further into the bed she got up to her knees and pulled the bralette off first, feeling the heat of his gaze on her tits as she then slid her panties down her thighs. She wasn’t nearly as confident as Harry was as she quickly pulled at her top blanket and covered herself with a small laugh.
Harry stepped forward, one knee on the mattress before climbing in next to her, nosing at her cheek softly before his lips were connected to hers again. And she melted into him just like before. His mouth was magic or something because before she realized it, he’d pulled the blankets off her body and he had a big palm sliding up her thigh and over her hip, “Don’t cover up. So pretty. Knew you would be.”
She pushed her fingers into his thick wavey hair and felt her side hit the mattress as Harry pulled at her again, mouth still smeared against hers. He grabbed at her thigh, hitching it over his hip as he tucked in closer and it was warm and she could feel it. Feel him against her hip.
His giant hand smoothed against her bottom and up her spine until he was wrapping his long fingers around the back of her neck. Y/n nudged in closer, driving her hips forward until she was practically straddling him. So Harry took that as his cue to move to his back, taking her hips in his hands so she’d follow with him.
It had caught her off guard, the sudden change in position but her lips never stopped moving with his. Their kisses were wet and she could smell their saliva, and a touch of onion even from the burgers he’d eaten.
He guided her hips down, his thick cock hot under her thigh until she felt her pussy drag against warm skin at the base of his dick. A small gasp escaped her mouth as he pulled her up, letting her pussy glide up his length, “So wet already, Y/n…”
She was. It was embarrassing. Every inch of his shaft her pussy dragged against, coated him, wetted his skin. He kept pushing and pulling at her hips, using her slippery pussy like a soft wet toy he could run up and down his length.
Then she felt his fingers move around to her backside, digits sliding against her pussy as he licked into her mouth.
Gently she rolled against him and when she moved herself further down he pushed a fingertip inside, “Go on. Fuck yourself on my finger a little bit,” he whispered against her mouth.
He was filthy. She had no idea. He’d always been so sweet at work. So polite and respectful. But here he was reaching around her ass to get a finger inside of her cunt as she rubbed her pussy over his cock.
She panted into his mouth as she slid down around his finger, her clit smushed into his dick, slippery as she rolled up and down. But then he began to assist as he added another finger and began to fuck into her pussy, letting his digits curve into her the best he could from his angle. Slushy wet, she stopped moving her hips and parted from the kiss as she looked down at him. She could tell she was gushing all over his palm and probably his dick as she moaned.
“S’that feel good. You’re gettin’ my fingers all wet like it feels good.”
Nodding she gasped, “Yeah. Feels so good…”
Harry rutted up against her, his cock still pressed into her clit, and she panted, eyes still searing into his. She didn’t want to look away. She almost couldn’t believe he was in her bed fingering her like that.
“Your turn to dare me to do something. What do you want, Y/n?”
She moaned and closed her eyes. She was certain of what she wanted as she listened to the way his fingers gushed with each plunge into her.
“Fuck… dare you to… put on a condom.”
She popped her eyes open to peer down at him as he slid his fingers out of her, wiping her arousal on her ass, “They right here?” He moved his hand toward her bedside table, a knuckle tapping at the wood.
Climbing off of him she opened the drawer, “Yeah, a whole box. Hold on…”
Reaching over to pull out the condoms she felt Harry’s hands on her hips as he moved to sit up, then his lips were on her back, dotting warm kisses to her shoulder blades as she finally plucked a condom from the fresh box.
She watched him put the condom on and as expected, it didn’t cover his entire length. He was kind of a big guy. Well, maybe there was no kind of about it. Before today she had no idea he was packing like that. Though he always did come off as very confident and sure of himself.
She bit her lip as she watched him toss the wrapper away and then he kneed up to her, arm sliding to her back and carefully lowering her to the bed before spreading her legs apart as he fit himself there, sturdy thighs pushing against her soft ones.
“Gonna tell your sister her good vibes worked?” He smirked down at her, hands scouring her hips and tummy and then kneading softly at her tits.
Y/n laughed and reached a hand down to his knee before he pulled at her, making her thighs drape over his as he inched in closer.
“Hmm?” He was awfully teasing, she thought, grinning at her waiting for an answer.
“Probably,” she spit out in a laugh.  
Harry gripped at her thighs, lifting her a bit more to fit her bum over his bent knees and she wanted to scream in embarrassment when she realized he was inspecting her sodden vulva. She’d gotten herself all tidied up for him, should anything like this happen, so at least she had that going for her.
He smoothed his thumb through her pussylips, spreading them apart, and softly blew out a breath, “That is very pretty. Think we get him in there?”
She rolled her eyes as she watched him wrap his palm around his base and lay his fat cock over her mons, the condomed-tip reaching to her belly button, maybe further past, “Well, it’s made for it, so I’m pretty sure–”
“What… your pussy’s made to fit around my cock?” A cocky dimpled smirk gave way to a laugh.
“You know what I meant. It’s meant to… like…” she breathed out a laugh.
“Oh, I know… just fucking with you, Y/n.”
He gazed at her as he reared back, painting his cockhead through her labia, up and down, a soft bump into her clit before he repeated, spreading her soft lips apart as he watched the way his crown smeared her arousal between her creases.
When she moaned and wiggled her hips he pointed himself right at her little muscle, nudging softly forward, opening it up for himself. And she felt that first push, the way his tip fit into her, spreading apart and then stretching to accommodate his circumference.
“Oh god…” she breathed as he slipped in halfway and then pulled back.
“Almost there,” he panted as he kept his eyes on where they were connected, pushing and pulling back until she was swallowing him whole, his cock enveloped in her soft, warm pussy.
When he’d buried in whole, he moaned and watched her face twist up in ecstasy. Her lips were dropped open and her neck stretched long as she grasped onto the forearm of the hand he had gripping her waist.
Slowly he began to thrust, viscous liquid seeping from her pussy and sticking to his shaft. It was filthy. She was so wet that every time he bottomed out there was a splat and a plap sounding between them.
She let out a deep moan and her lips curled up, humid breath escaping her mouth as she felt him driving into her guts. He was taking it easy. Languidly fucking into her with wet claps every time he plunged in.
When her cunt was taking him easier and she was dripping down to her ass he moved in a little harder, faster. Angling himself over her, a palm down on the mattress so he could work into her with more gusto.
“Ah! Harry…” she squeaked at the stronger thrusts and clung onto his lats. He was panting, lips parted and pink, a curl falling over his forehead as he plowed into her splooshing pussy.
“Fuck you’re wet. Pussy is gushing, Y/n…”
Her brows pushed together as she gasped, her body knocked upward every time his hips met hers making her tits bounce. Harry didn’t know where to keep his focus. He loved watching his cock disappear into her hole but he kind of liked being right over her so he could see her face crinkle up every time he bottomed out and then her pretty breasts sway up and down. Or maybe he’d like to fuck her from behind, watch her ass jiggle as he pounded into her.
“Mmm… fuck that’s big!”
Harry groaned, “Yeah? Sure know how to sweet talk a man don’t you, pretty? S’hurt?”
She watched his face, a lusty grin, droopy eyelids as he continued muscling his way in deep.
She hissed when he bucked in, as if he was showing off just how deep he could push in and she coughed out, “Mmm… a little!”
Harry was going to lose his mind with her if she kept squeaking out moans and splatting around his cock like she was but he would be a gentleman and pull back a touch. Slowing down a little he sat up and moved his hand between them, smushing his thumb into her clit, which was so sticky wet even that swished and slid under the pad of his digit.
“Yessss…” she breathed out before murmuring on about how good it felt. “Oh fuck, that’s it. Oh god… please don’t stop… Harry, fuck, yes…”
The clit. The magical little nob that worked wonders as long as the man knew where to find it. Clearly, Harry knew right where it was. Knew how to circle over it, pressing against it just right. Knew how to fuck into her as well. Sliding his length through her vaginal walls, spreading her open, and grazing against her gummy little spot on the inside that had her buzzing and liquifying for him.
He watched her whine and squirm under him, loving how she was so into it. God that was an ego boost, “Like that, Y/n? Gonna come for me? Yeah?”
Her ears were already ringing when she lost herself, gripping around him and crying out as her orgasm washed through her tummy. Harry’s cock made her feel so full, so incredibly stuffed to the brim that it weighed her down and she could hardly move as he bulldozed into her, the pad of his thick thumb smushing fast circles over her throbbing nub.
Fucking her through it he gasped at how she spasmed and milked around him, her pussy trying to siphon his come right through his condom. But Harry wouldn’t come just yet. He had something to prove. Wanted to make a show of his prowess and give her something to tell her sister about.
So when she was finally calmed and her pussy wasn’t clamping around him like a vice grip he slid his hand under her head and kissed her gently, speaking low and soft against her lips, “Gonna have you flip over, okay? Just need a little more yeah?”
When he parted from the kiss she blinked up at him, fluttering lashes and out of breath, “You didn’t come?”
He shook his head, pulling himself out, gently before he placed his hands on her hips, “Not yet. I will soon, though. M’right on the edge. Won’t take me long.”
She rolled to her side as he lifted her hips and helped her get to her tummy. She felt his hands on her ass, squeezing and rubbing each meaty globe in his big palms. Then he was straddling her thighs as he spread her gently and she felt him push his thick tip back into her pussy, sharp and hot. It was tighter, felt a lot fuller like that as he began driving in deep and then pulling out to his tip, before plowing back into the hilt.
His moans grew louder and, even he could admit, sounded quite whiny, pathetic. He was shaking as he watched his dick spread her in half, her soft ass jiggling as he smacked into her, skin patting, his cock leaking precum steadily into his condom.
He hissed when it felt too good. His balls squeezing and his fat dick throbbing inside of her. He thrusted forward, landing a palm down next to her shoulder, his chest pressed into her back as he rutted himself in, tucking his cock through her insides and puffed out a hot groan into her ear, “Fuck you feel good. Gonna make me come, baby…”
She moaned and nodded, “Come for me, Harry…”
He might have held out for another thirty seconds, possibly a minute longer but her breathy words, all sultry and pleading had him pumping into his condom in an instant. He gargled on a moan and squeezed his eyes closed as he buried in and stilled his hips, ass flexing so he could push in further if it were possible.
Y/n felt him crushing her back as he collapsed over her, panted breaths in her ear, cock still throbbing in the aftermath of his orgasm.
She didn’t mind it. Liked his weight on her like that. Enjoyed the way he seemed just as fucked out as she was. She could even feel his heart pounding in his chest against her back.
With a moan, she turned her head and nuzzled her face into her blanket with her eyes closed. She’d fall asleep that way if he couldn’t get up. It was quite warm and comforting. Like a weighted blanket draped over her body. And maybe she did doze off for a bit because when she opened her eyes she felt him moving off of her before he crashed down next to her, the springs in her mattress bouncing under him.
Pushing herself to lie on her side she ran a hand over his chest and he turned to look at her, a dopey smile on his flushed face, “So this is what happens at slumber parties, huh? I’ve really missed out all these years.”
She giggled and nodded into her pillow, “Yep. They’re just like big orgies really. Normally there are more than just two people. It’s how I lost my virginity.”
Harry sputtered a laugh, “Really?”
Y/n couldn’t help but to cackle loudly and roll to her back, the biggest grin on her face, “No, silly. I was teasing.”
He slid a hand over her tummy, “So this isn’t what happens at slumber parties, then?” She could hear the cheeky smile in his voice.
She turned her head to look at him, “Well, not usually. But I think we made our own rules for this one today.”
“Yeah? Well, I have to give it to you. You throw a hell of a party. I’m certain this is gonna go down as the best sleepover in history.”
. . .
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Text
Deathday Party
Part of this post series > link
Tim had no idea he was being courted by Danny and was making his way to an official engagement at this rate. What he did know was that Danny had invited him to an important party at the mansion of none other then Vlad Masters.
Danny had mentioned that his family and Masters had a rocky past but it had gotten better before he left for university. Tim wasn't convinced due to the stories Danny had offhandly mentioned. The guy had tried to out Danny to his parents and rallied the town against him. So excuse Tim for not wanting Danny to go back to a homophobic town like that and a bastard who did something so petty just because a kid's mom wouldn't sleep with you.
But Danny was his friend. The only normal friend he had who treated him like this. Sure he really likes giving gifts and has a fascination for flowers but that's all the more reason to look after him. It was pure luck that Tim befriended him before a cult did.
Tim was still going to supportive and still needed to make it up to Danny for not visiting Amity Park last time. So he packed and boarded the plane a few days before the party.
Danny began introducing Tim to everyone in his family. For the most part, it was a warm welcome. Danny's dad told him that they would have to sleep in separate rooms because "He knows how boys could be and there will be no funny business."
Tim was indignant but reminded himself to be polite. Danny's dad may not be the most accepting of LGBT people but this was his home.
Danny only blushed and brushed his dad off, after all, he and Tim hadn't even kissed yet.
Danny's friends were cool though. Sam was definitely the source of Danny's gothic tendencies. She and Danny discussed herbs, crystals, and graveyards together while Tim got to know Tucker.
The next day they went to the Masters' estate and Tim met Danny's other family. Dani or Elle was Danny's little sister or cousin or something. It was confusing but she immediately took a liking to Tim.
"Ooo, he's cute~ You dont mind sharing right Danny?" She teased linking arms with Tim.
"Knock it off Elle. He's too old for you anyway and if Vlad heard you he'd set Tim on fire." Danny admonished her pulling her off by the hoodie.
Tim didn't catch that Danny was being completely serious about the fire part.
Vlad Masters would be out of the house until the party that night but the mansion was being set up for the event. Apparently, the "Deathday" party was a bigger deal than Tim thought. The guest list was a mile long.
From what Tim gathered a death day was a celebration of life after a near-death experience. Like if someone flatlined during surgery and are brought back. Its actually a pretty smart way to deal with trauma by making the event a reason to celebrate.
Tim had heard from Danny of the day he was electrocuted and that it changed his life. He definitely had the scar to prove it. Danny had gotten a UV tattoo over it or something because it glowed faintly at night. It was pretty cool.
That evening Tim was handed his costume for the event. The party had a royal theme, something that didn't seem like Danny's idea. Still, Danny's silver and ivy green dublette looked...pretty good. Tim dressed in a similar red and gold suit.
"You look good." Danny pulled out an ornate emerald cravat pin and pinned it to Tim label.
"You too," Tim said without thinking but Danny smiled before going back to putting the finishing touches on their outfits.
It was...intimate to say the least as Danny pulled back Tim's hair. He fastened their capes and a (fake) dagger to his belt.
Danny put put on a subtle layer of makeup. Darkening his eyes, cheeks, and lips. It gave him a pale and deathly appearance.
"I have to look my best. I don't want anyone to think I'm just using you as arm candy." Danny laughed.
"That implies that you are using me as that already." Tim jested but stopped when Danny pointed to the makeup trey. "You're joking."
"Im not. It's an important event and this isn't Gotham. There are alot of people i want you to meet. Just play along." Danny begged.
Tim agreed letting Danny put on a bit of black and red makeup.
"Aww, Tim. You look absolutely ghastly. Your funeral ready." Danny gushed as he turned to grab the last things they needed. Two circlets with stars emblems embedded in them.
Tim laughed internally. Danny was always to positive Tim forgot just how goth he was. Tim knew he shouldn't be surpised.
Tim and Danny walked to the mansion's ballroom which was full of guests dressed similarly to them. The room glowed eerily under green-flamed torches. Very gothic. On second thought this suited Danny.
A staff member er...servant announced their arrival.
"His Highness the High Prince of the realm of infinite space and his guest."
None other than Vlad Masters approached. He had thrown this party for his godson and wanted everything perfect. He eyed Tim critically before speaking to Danny.
"Daniel I heard about your...friend from Elle. Its that what he is?" Masters studied.
"He's my-"
"Boyfriend! I'm his boyfriend." Tim interrupted. He was not going to let this homophonic piece of shit undermine Danny's sexuality again and try to embarrass him. Especially on such an I'm day. " Tim Drake, son of Bruce Wayne and head of Wayne Industries. I've heard a LOT about you Mr.Masters."
After a moment Vlad nodded and smiled.
"You've chosen well. He's quite the catch my boy. Happy Death Day." Vlad patted Danny on the back before going to mingle with Danny's parents who where tearing up the cheese platter.
Danny blinked owlishly at Tim. Tim had never used that word yet, Danny thought they were not at that stage yet.
"Sorry Danny, i got caught up." Tim sighed.
"You know he's going to tell everyone right?" Danny laughed "I hope you're ready."
Danny dragged Tim to meet his ghost friends for the rest of the evening between dancing and eating.
Tim had fun meeting Danny's fellow goth friends who complimented him a lot. They were definitely strange but they really loved Danny. The whole party was like a Renaissance festival meets one of those novels that Jason loved. Actually, Jason would be so jealous of him right now. Tim made sure to take pictures. Some of them came out fuzzy but it was enough to make Jason mad.
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mondaymelon · 2 days
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₊⊹ … 99% NOT LOVE ! | kinich x gn!reader
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— in which two people notice what two people don't .
— i've gone absolutely batshit over him your honour. im going to now start writing for kinich like a crazed man dying of thirst in the desert. let it be known that streamer!au kinich, enemies to lovers with poacher mc and other ideas are coming up (no im not cheating on xiao shush)
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mualani notices it.
"hehe."
and you hear it.
"so! there's a little..." she stares at you with the most serious face you've ever seen on the girl, acting suspiciously unlike herself. gesturing at you with exaggerated hand movements, then pointing toward who knows where, she eyes you. mischievously. "something that's 'going on', yea?"
and at first, you have absolutely no clue what she could be referring to. mualani is a sociable person, after all. her definition of "something" could range anywhere between a particularly cute baby saurian to an out-of-control-bonfire turned wildfire.
with the only eventful thing today being a brief morning surf session with sharky, you just sat there, never having felt more lost.
mualani grabs your shoulders in an iron grip, leaning forward to the point she's almost beginning to seem menacing. you can see the moment where she tries to think over something (which she never does quite successfully) before she straight up shouts:
"ah!! i'll just spell it out for you!! you. and kinich. bestie. spill."
.
.
.
ajaw did more than just "notice" it.
"you..! kIINICH, did you seriously have to-"
"noisy."
"selfish assh- ALMIGHTY DRAGONLORD K'UHUL AJAW HAS HAD ENOUGH OF THE DISRESPECT! TIME AND TIME AGAIN, yOU'VE-"
"once again, ajaw. be quiet."
"sure sure, and pretend i didn't see you and that someone do a little smoochy-smooch, huh?! UGH, now you've asked for it- KINICH AND LOVEY DOVEY, SITTIN' IN A TREE, K-I-S-S-I-N-"
ajaw was what you would call a "witness". though, most would use that term in regards to one seeing a crime or heinous event take place — this event was nothing of that nature.
well, as far as kinich was concerned, the matter was simple. you'd ventured all the way to scions of the canopy to give him a gift, (claiming it was for the time he'd helped you after a couple of yumkausarus hadn't enjoyed your fruit offering and instead decided to off you), and he'd refused to accept it. he wasn't one to receive reimbursement for others, and he didn't particularly like talking either — it was a well-known fact, almost law in natlan, that if the malipo ignored your words, all you need do was apologize and continue on.
well, you did exactly the opposite.
"no thanks."
"...sorry?"
"i don't need it."
"haha, so 'malipo' kinich's rumored no-nonsense nature really proved to be true! now come over here so i can give you my fucking gift!"
you were rather adamant about giving it to him. the reason? you'd bought the gift on a whim after seeing it being sold by a passing merchant, advertised as "80% only today if you buy within the next like 4 minutes" and you'd immediately dropped every mora you had. it was the most useless little thing ever, and you didn't want it at this point, but.. the deals. how could you return such an item???
naturally, you handed it off to the man you'd seen for a good two minutes before he flew, or did whatever his thing was, away. the man had remembered furrowing his brows the slightest, listening to ajaw's persistent yellings of "IT'S AN OFFERING TO ME, TAKE IT" and feeling an oncoming headache. "i said i didn't.."
as he turned to walk away, three unfortunate(?) things occured.
a rock under your shoe and a very graceful process of falling to the ground
kinich looking back (his mistake)
a kiss...?
oh, and two extra.
4. ajaw had saw it all. 5. and mualani, who had saw you from a distance and was coming to greet you, was faced with a sight she could not process.
...Now that he thought over it again, was the matter really "simple"? kinich's job was what he considered simple — split 70% to investigation, 10% to final decision, and 10% to execution, well portioned and planned out.
then, this...
.
.
.
"girlie, you've seriously got the wrong idea. i'm telling you, we aren't dating!"
"mmmokay. of course! because not-dating people kiss allll the time!"
you paused for a moment, remembering kinich's even tone, stern gaze, and... ah, a face that deserved a gold medal.
"it's only 99% not love, okay mualani? but if it wasn't..."
.
.
.
"... and it's 99% not love, ajaw."
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(a/n) darling im back from jail part 2. daddys home part 2. not funny? ok. HIHIHIHI ive bene really built like a sun dried raisin lately but kinich is the healing holy water that has saved me i will write more for him in the future because i love him a stupid amount its like the first time in a decade I've written for just ONE character and AND AND
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I THOUGHT HE WOULDNT OCME HOME BECAUSE I ONLY HAD 68 WISHES OUT OF MY ORIGINAL LIKE 100+ AND RUINED MY CHANCES BECAUSE OF REALLY REALLY WANTING MuALANI (i love her sm) BUT. BUT BRO CAME HOME. ON THE FIRST 10 PULL AND WON THE 50/50 JUST LIKE MUALANI DID (or is it 45/55 now idk) LIVE LAUGH LOVE KINICH !!
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[ tags: ] @manager-of-the-pudding-bank, @iamdedinside, @ilyuu-archive, @falors, @swivy123, @scara-is-my-wife, @lupicalbestwolf, @justyoureader,@fiannee, @aether-darling, @aioniela, @avensuersa, @dainsleif-when-playable, @intpessimistic
( dm or comment to be added ! i might miss ur comment so just to be sure, leave a comment on the actual masterlists page on my pinned ^ ^ )
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tsukiflwr · 3 days
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❝ I MIGHT LET YOU MAKE ME JUNO… ❞
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𝓹airing ∿ hyung line! enha x f!reader ᰔ 𝓱eadcanons ; slightly suggestive, fluff?, humor? 𝔀: slightly suggestive, skinship, kissing 𐙚 𝔀c 1485 ᝰ.ᐟ 𝓻oro's note. this idea came to me out of know where ﹒ ꒰ 𝓵ibrary ꒱
𝓢. enhypen hyung line reacting to you singing along to ‘juno���
LEE HEESEUNG
“wanna try out my fuzzy pink handcuffs?” you quietly sang along to the song as you scrolled through your pinterest feed, saving all the cute pictures in the proper section. your feet kicked in the air, matching the tempo of the song. you were laying on your stomach in your boyfriend's bed while he was at his computer, his attention on the game he was playing – or at least you thought it was. you had stolen his attention from his game as soon as he heard you sing something about his dads genetics. 
he quietly slipped off his headphones – not like you could have heard it anyway if he didnt, you had your own headphones on – and he got up from his chair, a small smirk adoring his lips at how cute you looked in his shirt. you didn't flinch at the sudden touch of his hands on your ankles, softly pushing your elevated legs down on the bed so he could straddle your thighs. “seungie?” you hummed in confusion as you felt him press his chest against your back, taking your headphones off for you. 
heeseung chuckled and placed a few kisses on your shoulder, up your neck and to your ear as he whispered huskily “the answer is yes” you giggled at the feeling of his breath on your neck, and you felt chills go down your spine at your boyfriends tone. ”to what question?” you sassily asked as you turned your head to the side, your breath hitching from how close he was to you. he couldn't help but smirk at your reaction, his eyes dropped to your lips before slowly looking back into your eyes, his tone teasing “I'd loveee to try out your fuzzy pink handcuffs” 
PARK JAY 
jay knew what you were doing before you even played the song; you had been dropping subtle hints – if you could even call them that – for days. sending him cute videos of baby’s while he was off at work, he noticed quickly that the parents were all on the younger side. he had noticed the change in you, ever since your new neighbors moved in next door and your eyes fell on that adorable baby – you had been wanting one of your own. 
“one of me is cute, but two though?” you sang along to the song that was playing through the car speakers, the song of your choosing of course. you fiddled with your fingers in your lap as you tilted your head to look out the window, looking at all the buildings that lit up the dark sky. the corner of jay’s lip twitched up into a small smirk as he listened to you sing along. he quickly glanced at you before looking back at the road. he shook his head as he let out a small chuckle, his eyes on the road as he moved his right hand to rest it on your thigh, gripping the plush of your thigh as he said smoothly “you know all you had to do was ask” 
“hmm?” you hummed in confusion as you tilted your head to look at him, your breath hitching as you took in the sight. from his perfectly slicked back hair and that single strand of hair that was draped over his black framed glasses, to his perfect side profile and down to his adam's apple, and the top of his chest that was exposed from the first few buttons of his black button down being unbuttoned – something he did on purpose because he knew it would drive you crazy to look at from across the restaurant table. 
you bit your lip as he squeezed your thigh harder, his touch leaving a chill in his wake. you felt like you were in a daze as you watched him lick his lips quickly, before that mischievous smirk is adoring his face once again as he repeated his words “all you had to do was use your words and ask me to put a baby in you” your mouth drops in slight shock at how calm and smoothly he said that, he chuckles and slips his hand high up your thigh and under your dress “but you have to be a good girl and say please” 
SIM JAKE
jake bit his lip to hold in his groan as he quietly walked into the kitchen. he had just woken up from a nap when he heard you singing from the kitchen. his eyes immediately went to you and his jaw went slack as he took in the sight of you. there you stood at the counter whisking something in a bowl, clad in one of his shirts and from where he stood it looked like that was all you were wearing, his eyes lingering on your swaying hips to the beat of the song. you smiled and paused your whisking when you felt him hug you from behind. you opened your mouth to greet him, but you were cut off by the loud groan leaving his lips “you are driving me fucking crazy” 
“what did I do now?” you couldn't stop the giggle from leaving your lips at the slight hint of grumpiness in his tone. jake moved his hands that were holding your hips to wrap his arms around your waist, pulling you back flush against his chest, a small groan slipping past his lips at the feeling of you pressed against him. he pouted as he mumbled into your neck “you singing those lyrics, god i can't concentrate on anything” you smiled innocently and resumed mixing your cookie dough “oh…oops”
“Oh, that's all you got to say princess hmm?” jake teased with a playful huff, slipping one of his hands under your shirt to softly caress your stomach, resting his chin on your shoulder. he eyes your pretty side profile before dropping down to watch as you start to put perfect sized circles of cookie dough on the cookie pan. there was something so domestic about seeing you wear his shirt, baking in your shared kitchen, singing lyrics about wanting a baby. god he wanted nothing more than to have a family with you. 
jake let out a loud groan as his imagination started to run wild, he moved his chin off your shoulder and gently dropped his forehead to rest on the middle of your back, his hold on your waist tightening. he closed his eyes as he whined out needily “fuckkk now all i can think about is putting a baby in you” you bit your lip to hold in your chuckle at how whiney your boyfriend sounded, you tilted your head to the side so he could hear you clearly as you tease “if you let me finish these maybe you can”
PARK SUNGHOON
sunghoon watched you with a small smirk as he leaned against the doorway of your bathroom, watching as you leaned over the bathroom sink to look into the mirror as you did your eyeshadow. he pushed himself off the doorway and moved to stand behind you, finally alerting you of his presence as he rested his hands on your hips. he softly caressed your sides as he asked “who’s juno?” 
you pulled the eyeshadow brush away from your eyes as you pulled back from the mirror a little, gaping at your boyfriend through the mirror is disbelief “you're kidding – you've never seen juno?” you watched as he shrugged, shaking his head no with a cute smile. you roll your eyes playfully in false disappointment as you stand up straight, giving him a teasing smile “remind me why I'm dating you?” 
sunghoon chuckled and moved one of his arms up, flexing his muscles in the mirror. smirking at you as he answered in a flirty tone “oh my muscles definitely” you giggled as you turned around to face him leaning back against the counter as you looked up at him. your boyfriend caresses your side before resting his hands on the counter, trapping you in his arms; enjoying how you looked up at him with your pretty eyes. he leaned closer to you, whispering huskily with a smirk “so are we?” 
you rest one of your hands on his hip, fidgeting with his sweatpants before leaning forward to place a few soft kisses on his bare shoulder, smiling at the chills that spread across his skin. “hmm?” you raised your eyebrow as you let out a hum of confusion. sunghoon let out a groan at the feeling of your lips on his now warm skin and the feeling of your fingers teasingly slipping under the band of his sweatpants. he moved one of his hands from the counter to cup your jaw, making you look up at him as he whispered with an innocent smile; his dimples out “gonna try out some freaky positions?” 
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𝓻oro's note. hi my lovely people !! I’m so sorry that it’s taken me forever to get another post out, I’ve been superrr busy. I hope you guys enjoyed this , pls let me know what members part you liked the most !! I will not be making a maknae line ver !! ꒰ 𝓷av ꒱
likes, reblogs, comments and feedback are heavily encouraged !
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kbwrites · 2 days
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Breaking up is hard to do!
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synopsis: breaking up with the jjk men.
⚝characters: Gojo, Geto, Nanami
⚝content: heavy angst, gaslighting(Gojo's), depression (Suguru's), mutual breakup(Nanami's)
⚝wc: 3.5k
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Satoru Gojo
“Yeah so then Yuji popped out of the crate and surprised them all! You should’ve seen it baby!” Satoru wheezes holding his stomach as he recalls the event from the day.
No matter how hard you try though, you can only muster a small smile.
It had become really hard to do much else recently. With the weight of the hundreds of tasks at work taking its toll. Satoru looks over at you, waiting for a laugh—but it doesn’t come.
“Hellooo? Everything alright princess?” He questions giving your hand a gentle squeeze.
“Mhmm!” You nod.
He looks at you for another moment, unreadable expression on his face. Satoru shifts, clearly expecting more from you. “You sure? You’ve been quiet tonight. That’s not like you,” he says, his voice still light, but there’s a hint of curiosity now.
You try to hold back the frustration, but it bubbles up anyway. “I’m just tired, Satoru.”
“Tired? Seriously?” he mutters, pulling his hand away. “You work, what, a nine-to-five? You act like you’re running yourself into the ground.”
You blink, taken aback by his dismissive tone. “Satoru, it’s not just about the hours. It’s everything piling up, and—”
“Piling up?” He cuts you off with a scoff, already reaching for his phone. “Why didn’t you just say something sooner? You know I could’ve hired someone to handle that for you. I’ve got the money. You shouldn’t be stressing over... whatever this is.”
The words sting. You knew his mind would go there. It always does—like money could just make the exhaustion disappear, like hiring someone to take care of the smaller details would magically solve everything.
“It’s not about the money, Satoru.” you snap, trying to hold onto your patience. “I don’t need someone else doing my job for me. I just... I need you to listen.”
He raises an eyebrow, clearly unimpressed. “Listen? What do you expect me to say? You’re tired. I get it. But don’t act like you’re drowning when I could have fixed this a long time ago. Hell, I could’ve bought you time off or flown you somewhere. You're sittin' here sulking like I can’t take care of things.”
You clench your fists, the exhaustion now compounded by frustration. “It’s not about you fixing things, Satoru. Sometimes I just need support—not your money.”
He stares at you, eyes narrowing. “Right. So you want to feel miserable instead of letting me help. That’s real smart, princess.”
Your heart pounds in your chest as you shove clothes into your bag, the sound of zippers and drawers slamming echoing through the room. You can feel Satoru’s presence behind you, hovering, but you don’t stop. You can’t. Not after that.
“C'mon, princess.” he says, his voice exasperated, like he’s the one who's supposed to be annoyed. “What are you doing? Where do you think you’re going?”
You don’t answer, your hands moving faster, yanking more clothes off hangers, ignoring the sting behind your eyes. You’re so angry you can barely breathe.
“I’ll book us a trip,” Satoru tries again, a hint of desperation creeping into his usually arrogant tone. “How about Paris? We’ll stay at that five-star hotel you like, the one with the private balcony. You love that place.”
Your jaw clenches. “This isn’t about a vacation, Satoru,” you snap, stuffing the last of your things into the bag. “It’s not about your money or your fancy hotels.”
“Then what is it about?” he shoots back, his voice rising with frustration. “You’re acting like I haven’t given you everything. "What more do you want?"
You freeze, bag halfway zipped, your body trembling as you turn to face him. His icy blue eyes are wide, confused, and maybe even a little hurt, but you’re beyond caring. “I want you to see me!” you shout, the words tearing out of you, louder than you intended. “I don’t need you to throw money at the problem! I need you to actually understand what I’m going through!”
Satoru stares at you, speechless for once. His mouth opens, but no words come out. He looks almost... shocked, like he can’t comprehend that his money, his status, can’t fix this. That he can’t fix this.
“Do you even care?” you ask, your voice quieter now, but no less angry. “Do you care about how I feel? Or is it just easier for you to throw cash at me until I stop complaining?”
He’s silent, his gaze hardening as he crosses his arms. “I’m trying to help. What else do you want me to do?”
“I want you to listen!” You throw your hands up in frustration, feeling more alone than ever. “I don’t want your money. I don’t want trips or fancy dinners. I want you to care about me, Satoru. Not just the idea of me.”
His lips press into a thin line, but he says nothing. The silence is louder than any of his words.
As your hand grips the doorknob, ready to leave, Satoru’s voice cuts through the silence, sharp and bitter.
“Right, run off to Shoko’s.” he scoffs, his arms crossed defensively. “You always do this, don’t you? The moment things get tough, you bolt. Guess it’s easier to complain to her than actually deal with me.”
His words hit you like a punch to the gut, stopping you in your tracks. You turn slowly to face him, disbelief clouding your vision. He’s standing there, arms folded, arrogance in his posture.
“I always do this?” you repeat, your voice trembling with anger. “I’ve stayed through everything, Satoru!"
“You’re just like Suguru.” Satoru spits out, the words dripping with bitterness and desperation.
Your hand freezes on the handle. You weren’t expecting that. Slowly, you turn to look at him, and the mask of arrogance has cracked. His eyes are wild, wide with something close to panic. “Running away the moment things get hard,” he continues, his voice shaking slightly. “Is that it? Just gonna leave like he did?”
Your heart skips a beat, anger fading for a moment as something else stirs inside you. You’ve seen Satoru angry before, frustrated, even cold—but this? This is different.
“That’s not fair.” you say quietly, though the anger still simmers beneath the surface. “I’m not leaving because things are hard. I’m leaving because you’re not listening.”
Satoru’s eyes narrow, his lips pressing into a hard line. Then he snaps, his voice cutting through the tension like a blade, sharp and cold. “Well, fine. Go. I survived him abandoning me, I’ll survive you too.”
His words sting, burning through the air with a finality that makes your breath hitch. It’s a challenge, a defense—his way of masking the fear that’s clawing at him from the inside out. He’s pushing you away before you can leave, just like he’s done with everything else that’s threatened to crack his carefully controlled world.
You stand there, frozen for a moment, staring at him as his walls rise higher, shutting you out. This is what it’s come to. He’s too scared to let you in, too scared to admit that you leaving isn’t something he can just survive—that it’s something that terrifies him.
But he won’t say it. He won’t ask you to stay.
And that’s when you know.
Suguru Geto
You rest under the comfort of your blanket. How many days have you been in this bed? Three days? Four? 
The world was just too much right now, and your room was the only security available. It had been a week since Suguru vanished without a word, leaving behind nothing but unanswered questions and broken trust. Principal Yaga’s words still echoed in your mind—a whole village slaughtered, his parents among the dead. 
And not even a text.
You weren’t sure if he was even alive, maybe it would be better if he wasn’t. At least then you wouldn’t have to come to terms with the fact that the love of your life was now a wanted killer.
You took another tissue from the box, blowing into it and tossing the crumpled mess into the garbage can.
Satoru hadn’t responded either, was he okay? Did he know?
Your mind screamed for silence, for the thoughts to stop, but they kept coming, relentless.
“Angel?”
That voice… no it couldn’t be. You lower the covers from your face.
It was
“Hi baby...” his normally soothing voice does little to alleviate the ache in your chest.
“You…” your voice barely a whisper, threatening to break. “I thought you were dead.”
He moves closer, his footsteps barely making a sound on the floor, and you finally take him in. Despite everything, despite the horrors you’ve been told, he looks… normal.
How could he look so much like the Suguru you knew, the Suguru you loved, when everything inside of you was shattered?
Was this the same man who held you close? Whispered sweet nothings in your ear—promised to protect you with his life? 
“It’s me, (Y/N).”  he says softly, his voice cutting through the silence as if he had read your thoughts.
The tenderness in his tone feels like a knife twisting in your chest. How could he say that—so casually, so easily? Like everything was normal, like your world hadn’t come crashing down around you. You blink, trying to force the tears back, trying to find the right words, but nothing comes.
“Are you?” your voice is small, barely more than a whisper. Doubt lingers in every syllable.
He doesn’t respond to your question. Instead, his gaze softens, and without a word, he pulls the covers off of you. The cold air rushes over your skin, a stark contrast to the warmth you had buried yourself in, and for a moment you flinch, instinctively clutching the blanket before you let it slip from your fingers.
His eyes trace over your fragile form, and there’s something in them—a flicker of sympathy, regret, even—but it doesn’t change the fact that he’s the reason for your downward spiral. He knows it too. The weight of it presses on him, though he doesn’t say a word. Instead, he moves with a gentleness you hadn’t expected, sliding his arms under you and lifting you up as if you weighed nothing.
You want to protest, want to ask what he thinks he’s doing, but you’re too tired, too drained to fight. So you let him carry you. His arms are steady, and despite everything, you can’t help but melt in his embrace.
He takes you into the bathroom, the sound of running water filling the space as he sets you down gently. You can feel the cool tile under your feet as he kneels in front of the tub, turning the faucet on and testing the temperature.
You had so many things you wanted to say. You wanted to yell at him, curse him, ask him why. But you couldn’t.
He dips his hand under the stream, adjusting the temperature until it’s just right. His movements are deliberate, methodical, as if this is the only way he knows how to show you any kind of care right now.
You stand there, numb and silent, watching him. The man who destroyed your world, now kneeling before you, acting as though he can piece it back together with something as simple as a bath. It feels absurd, almost cruel, but at the same time, you don’t have the strength to stop him.
Suguru rises to his feet, his presence towering yet calm as he began to undress you. Gentle hands pulling his t-shirt off of you, the one you had been clinging onto for days.
His hands brush lightly against your skin as he lifts the shirt over your head, sending a shiver down your spine.
He had seen you in this state before, many times. But this….this was different.
Suguru guides you to the shower, washing your body with a gentleness you missed so deeply.
You close your eyes, letting him take care of you, even though you don’t understand why or how he can. The silence between you grows heavier with every passing second, filled with words unspoken and emotions too tangled to sort out.
Finally, you speak, your voice barely audible over the sound of the water. “Why are you here, Suguru?”
His hand pauses for a moment, the washcloth resting against your skin. You can feel the weight of his gaze on you, but when he answers, his voice is low, steady, like he’s speaking more to himself than to you.
“Because I….I love you” His voice almost too quiet, as if he’s afraid to say the words out loud.
“Then why, Suguru?” your voice trembles, almost breaking under the weight of your next words. “Is it true? You killed those people?”
The washcloth falls from his hand, splashing into the water as the silence between you deepens. He doesn’t speak right away, and the hesitation in his silence is an answer in itself.
You swallow hard, the air thick with the weight of the truth you already know but can’t bear to accept.
“They were… in the way,” he finally admits, his voice low, almost hollow.
You step out of the shower, the warm water sliding off your skin in slow rivulets. Without thinking, you reach for the towel, wrapping it tightly around yourself like armor.
This isn’t the man you loved, the one who spoke of protecting the weak, of valuing life. Yet, there’s something so heartbreakingly familiar in the way he says it—like a twisted version of the Suguru you knew, now wrapped in darkness.
“But those were people, Suguru,” you say, your voice fragile, as if you’re trying to reach the man you once knew beneath the monster he’s become. “Innocent people. How could you…?”
He takes a deep breath, stepping closer to you, his hand brushing against your skin, cold and distant. “Because this world is broken.” he murmurs. “And I need to fix it. I had to do it. Can’t you see that? We—sorcerers—we’re meant for something greater. And they… they were holding us back.”
You shake your head, tears brimming in your eyes. “I don’t understand, Suguru. I don’t understand any of this.”
He steps closer, his hand cupping your face gently, as though trying to reassure you with his touch. "Come with me." he whispers, his voice softer now, pleading. “Run away with me. Together, we can build something new. You don’t have to be a part of this broken world anymore. We can leave it all behind.”
Before you can respond, his lips press against yours, a kiss that’s both gentle and urgent, as though he’s trying to pour every unsaid word, every plea, into this one moment. It’s the Suguru you remember—the Suguru who once made you feel safe, loved.
But the reality of who he’s become crashes down on you.
You pull away, your hands pressed firmly against his chest, creating a wall between you. “No.” you whisper, your voice breaking. “I can’t.”
For a moment, Suguru just stands there, staring at you, his dark eyes searching yours for something—some kind of understanding, some sign that you’ll change your mind. His hand lingers on your cheek, his touch softer now, almost hesitant, as though he’s trying to hold on to whatever connection is left.
But then, slowly, he withdraws, his hand falling back to his side. He straightens up, his expression hardening as he steps away from you, giving you the space you so desperately need. The softness in his eyes fades, replaced by the cold determination you’ve seen before.
“You’ll see,” he says, his voice quiet, but there’s a sharp edge to it now. “One day, you’ll understand. When you see what I’ve seen, when you finally understand the truth about this world—you’ll come around. I know you will.”
His words hang heavy in the air, and without another glance, he turns and walks toward the door, leaving you standing alone, trembling in the silence.
Nanami Kento
Kento was an honest man. There was nothing he ever kept from you. Other people might view him as a hard shell, but you could read him like a book.
So when he came to bed that night, holding you just a little tighter than usual—you knew something was up.
You shifted slightly in his embrace, his grip tightening instinctively as if he feared you might slip away.
“Kento?” you asked softly, your voice breaking the stillness of the room. 
“I’ve decided to talk to Gojo tomorrow.” he said quietly, his voice steady but with a hint of resolve. “I want to return to being a sorcerer.”
The words hung in the air, sinking into you like lead. You stiffened, a sharp sting blooming in your chest as you processed his decision.
“Are you seriously considering this?” Your voice trembled with a mix of hurt and disbelief. “You know what that life entails. You’ve seen the consequences. Are you really willing to go back to that danger?”
Kento’s silence was heavier than any response he could have given. His arms, though still holding you close, seemed distant now, as if they were reaching out from across a chasm of uncertainty.
“I’ve thought it through,” he said finally, though his tone lacked the conviction he tried to project. “I need to do this for myself. I can’t keep pretending I’m satisfied with where I am.”
The last words echoed in your ears their weight sinking deep into your heart. “So you’re not satisfied with me?” you whispered, barely able to speak past the knot forming in your throat.
Kento’s eyes widened in shock. “No, that’s not what I meant—”
“Then what is it, Kento?” you demanded, frustration and hurt sharpening your words. “We have something good here. You have a good job. You left Jujustu High for a reason! What about Haibara—”
At the mention of Haibara, Kento’s face hardened. His eyes, which had been searching for the right words, now burned with anger and frustration. “Don’t.”
Your eyes widen at his tone. He sighs, trying to catch himself. “This…isn’t about him, or his fate. It’s about my own path, my own choices. You think I’m risking everything without knowing the cost?”
 “And what do you expect me to do, Kento?” Your voice cracked, raw emotion rising as you slid out of bed, unable to lie still any longer. “Sit at home and worry about you? Not knowing if you’re going to come back in one piece? I can’t live like that! I can’t live every day with the fear that you might not come back, that you might be hurt or worse?”
The silence that followed was suffocating. You paced the room, your emotions boiling over, while Kento sat still, his gaze following you but offering no solace.
“You’re asking me to accept a life where every day is a gamble with your safety!” You stopped, turning to face him, your chest heaving with emotion. “How am I supposed to do that? How am I supposed to pretend everything’s okay when the reality is that you might not come back to me? This isn’t just about you, Kento. It’s about us, our future!”
Kento ran a hand through his blond locks, frustration etched into every line of his face. “I’m not asking you to pretend it’s okay. I’m asking you to understand that this is something I need to do for myself, even if it means risking everything.”
You blinked, tears blurring your vision as his words sank in. “And what if everything we have is the cost?”
The question lingered, echoing in the space between you. Kento rose from the bed, standing tall before you, but the weight of the moment seemed to bow his shoulders.
He stepped closer, his hands trembling slightly as they cupped your face. His eyes, filled with a deep sadness, searched yours, looking for understanding that he knew might never come. “I love you,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “You need to know that.”
You shook your head, your voice breaking. “But that isn’t enough… is it? It never will be…”
There was a heavy silence between you, the weight of your words pressing down on both of you.
“I… can’t watch you throw your life away, Kento.”
He took a deep breath, the sound heavy with resignation. "Then… we’ve both made our decision."
His hands, which had held you with such tenderness, felt distant as you pulled away. You took a step back, a sob catching in your throat.
He opens his mouth, but no words come out with a trembling breath, he stepped forward and gently pulled you into his arms. The embrace was tender, filled with the weight of finality.
He buried his face in the curve of your neck, inhaling your scent one last time as if trying to imprint it into his memory. The warmth of his body, once a comfort, now felt like a dagger in your chest.
“I’m sorry.” he whispered, his voice strained. The words were barely audible, but the sentiment hung heavy in the air.
Kento lingered for a moment, his hand sliding from your back to gently cup your face. His thumb brushed away the tear you hadn’t realized had fallen, and his expression softened with a promise you weren’t sure either of you could believe.
“I’ll come back,” he whispered, his voice strained but resolute. “Somehow… I’ll find my way back to you. One day.”
You clung to him for a moment longer, feeling the ache of goodbye in every fiber of your being, before he slowly pulled away. Leaving you.
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midday-clouds · 2 days
Text
Yandere Batfamily x Neglected & "Immortal" Reader 》
There are many yandere batfam x neglected reader but I can't get enough of them--- So here is a silly story idea I have
I don't go into too much detail about how the reader is immortal but I'll probably share about it another timeee
CW: Neglect, Self-Degrading, Kidnapping, Violence(Being shot at)
Reader is a product of a hookup between Bruce and some random other woman, your mom
You and your mom had a decent relationship. The two of you would help each other out and have fun playing games. You were so content without knowing who your father was.
Your world begins to collapse when your mom doesn’t come home one day. A bunch of strange people suddenly come into your house and drag you out. You never understood what happened that day besides that you were now alone.
After your mother is announced dead, you find out that you are related to the millionaire, Bruce Wayne. You don’t know much about him but still find yourself put on the Wayne Manor's doorstep
Bruce had just gone through the loss of Jason and had just taken Tim in. He would have happily made some space in his schedule but a case always comes up and makes him forget about you.
Due to Bruce being too busy, you never properly mourned for your mother. Alfred would try to help you but you needed your dad.
For the first week, you locked yourself in your room, almost immediately forgotten by the rest of the family. Alfred would bring meals to your room, knowing that you aren't ready for any sort of interaction in this state. 
Alfred tries to convince Bruce to prioritize your health but there is always a case that takes up all of his attention
After that first week, you become comfortable enough to try and get out of your room at least.
With you around the manor more, the family begins to see them more often but not enough to care.
All of them were busy being vigilantes and weren’t interested in connecting with you. Sure, don't mean to neglect you, but some criminals just don't know when to stop
This worsens your mental state, making them regret not trying to bond with their family earlier. If they had tried in the beginning, then maybe they would have made connections with your new family. Now it feels like they've lost their chance
Alfred would do his best to comfort you but he could only help so much.
When you met Dick, it was when he was stopping by to talk to Bruce. You both had a fun conversation together but that was it.
After that first interaction, you tried to talk to Dick more often when he stopped by, but it seems the first time was just lucky. Dick always had something that didn't allow for a quick chat,
Meeting Jason was honestly terrifying. You were in the kitchen when you heard some noise from outside. It's dark outside so you walk up to the window to see what the sound was
Because of the darkness outside and lights inside, you mainly just see your reflection when looking outside
You squint your eyes to try to see past the reflection when a red helmet pops up and frightened you
Falling onto the ground, you stare in shock at seeing the stranger open the window and step inside
Jason tries to relax your nerves by taking off his helmet, showing he isn't a threat. It doesn't help much when you don't even know who he is
He explains himself after seeing your confused look and you both end up having a small conversation. It was nice until Bruce came in and pulled Jason away.
You never seem to meet Jason again
There were very few instances where you interacted with Tim. Even though you lived in the same house, Tim was always busy.
You’d both exchange small greetings when seeing each other in the hall but that was it. You didn't want to disturb him so you never stopped by his room
you hoped that when Tim had free time, the two could hang out. However, Tim always made plans that you couldn't fit into
Sometimes you would hear that Tim has been playing a game with his friends and you would play it but by yourself.
After a couple of years, Damian enters the family and you were so excited
Because Damian was new to the family, you thought it would be the perfect opportunity to bond with him
That didn't go well. He almost stabbed you
Your opinion of Damian was quick to go sour.
Damian's acts to show authority have gotten you scared of walking around the manor and frightened of animals. Specifically Titus.
It is quite unfortunate as you love animals and to have a dog in the family would bring you so much joy. Too bad Titus has attacked and chased you on multiple occasions
You didn't know what to do with the violence Damian had been taking out on you. You don't feel comfortable talking to Bruce and don't want to bother Alfred. This leads to you bottling up your emotions and locking yourself in your room
During your time, you spent reflecting on your life. Being in the manor isn't helping your mental health so it would be good to go outside more. Due to your constant attempts to bond with your family, you don't spend too much time with your friends from school
Seeing this as another perfect opportunity, you make plans with your friends to get out of the house and have a bit of self-care
Once the day comes, you quickly pack a small backpack and leave the house, only leaving a note for Alfred that says where you're at.
Finally getting some “fresh” air and being surrounded by those who feel more like family than your real family
You all have the best day and make plans for more get-togethers. 
It may not be the safest to be out so often but you’ve lived in Gotham your whole life, you know the safety procedures to stay safe. There isn't much news on you so people don't even recognize you as Bruce’s kid
Of course, something had to happen
You and your friends had just finished a fun day and you realize that your bike was stolen, meaning you don't have a way home. Your friends offered to take you home but you declined out of politeness. If something does go wrong, you ask your friends to call you to check up on you
Your walk home is longer than expected and it’s getting darker. As you walk through the streets of Gotham, you’re suddenly pulled into an alley and are threatened with a gun
There a three masked guys and one of them seems to have recognized you as Bruce’s kid, changing their plan to use you for ransom
You’re knocked out and taken to an abandoned building where you’re tied up to a pipe in the back
The kidnappers have a ransom letter and take it to the Wayne manor, including the small backpack you carried around
Unfortunately, Alfred was on his month-long vacation and Bruce was the one to receive the letter
He takes the time to contact "all" his kids and they're all perfectly fine and he doesn't recognize the backpack that was sent with the letter. There was a wallet but no ID card of any kind. The letter also didn't have a name on it.
Bruce brings up the case to the rest of the family but they agree that it may be a scam. 
The letter was likely from some desperate person who was trying to trick Bruce into giving money so it was put on the side while the family worked on a bigger case. 
Because of this, you’re held hostage for an unknown amount of days before the kidnappers get tired of waiting and shoot you in the gut out of frustration 
You’re filled with immense pain from the bullet before darkness consumes you.
More days pass before you wake up, still tied to a pipe and blood stained clothes
It seems your kidnappers had left your body behind rather than getting rid of it. You’ve been struggling with the rope since you have been taken and it was paying off because you can see that you can almost get your hands free.
Once you're out of the building, it is midnight. You immediately run back to the manor the moment you find a family path.
No one is there to notice you make your way back to your room. Because of how long it's been, you don't leave a trail of blood. Maybe some dirt but hopefully it won't be too hard to clean up
You debate on what action to take next. Looking in the mirror, the injury from the bullet is gone and you don't want to go to the hospital
One thing that is clear though is that you are extremely hungry and how dirty you feel. With this on your mind, you do your best to clean yourself up before going down to the kitchen
You don't feel comfortable talking to anyone so thankfully the rest of the family is busy at night,
Once you are sure no one is around, you take a bunch of snacks and hurry back to your room
In your room, you eat everything until you finally feel full. Hopefully, you don't just throw everything up because it feels so nice to finally have something in your stomach
Your nerves begin to relax and you truly take in the events that happened
How are they still alive? They were shot at and haven't had food for half a month. What happened? Did Bruce not get the ransom letter? Why did no one save you? Did your friends call you?
Quickly remembering your friends, you look for your phone but are unable to find it. Not wanting to worry your friends, you open up your laptop to contact your friends through there. You see that you've gotten multiple calls and messages from your friends and it honestly makes you happy, knowing that there were people that worried and cared about you. You quickly text your friends and tell them what happened (Not mentioning how you survived being shot)
During your chat, the topic changes to college stuff. Your senior year has just ended a couple of weeks ago and it would be good for you to move out and be closer to those that make you happy. Also, after the kidnapping, you don’t want to be near your current family. They were the reason you were kidnapped and didn’t even bother to help you
Your friends suggest going to college outside of Gotham, perhaps in Bludhaven.
After many years of being stuck in a family that does nothing but hurt you, you got an acceptance letter for a school in Bludhaven. You were so happy and had a small celebration with your friends. Unfortunately, none of your friends would be joining you but you couldn’t wait to truly be free. 
Alfred returns from his vacation and reviews all the work that he left behind, along with Bruce’s mail. He knows Bruce has likely already reviewed them but it helps Alfred get back on pace with his work
He finds the discarded ransom letter and immediately checks up on you.
When he goes to your room, he finds the room empty besides some items that you weren’t planning to bring to college with you. This worries Alfred more and goes to Bruce’s office to confront him about the letter.
Bruce is filled with immense guilt when he realizes he forgot that you existed and now you could be dead in an abandoned building. Him and the rest of your family completely forgot about you
Bruce has an emergency meeting with everyone where he explains the situation. Once a plan is set, they all go out in the night to find you. However, they only find loose restraints with dried-up blood and a broken phone.
When the family returns to the manor, Tim goes to his room to fix the phone, Bruce and Damian go to the Batcave to review the cameras, Dick and Jason decide to visit your room
With Alfred’s help, Dick and Jason find your room and take a look around. It isn’t the biggest and barely has anything in it. 
Jason finds some old and filled journals and looks through them. There is a checklist for school work, notes to yourself, and personal entries. He understands the emotions you put in your journal and wants to protect you. Especially when he reads your last entry about your kidnapping 
Dick looks at the decorations you have on the wall. There are some glow-in-the-dark stars, some posters from school events, etc. One of the posters is for a theater show and he wonders if you were a part of it. Either an actor or tech person, Dick wonders why he never heard about your shows. He attempts to take a poster off the wall but the tape used peeled some of the paint off the wall.
Bruce loads up the camera and looks at what happened the day the ransom letter was given to Bruce. You had this happy smile as you made sure you had everything you needed before going through the front door. About a week later, Bruce sees you on the camera, in bloodied clothes and completely exhausted. This brings a wave of relief to Bruce while Damian looks closely at the camera footage. The front of your shirt is covered in blood and has a hole in it, but you seem completely uninjured. 
The last thing the two see of you is you slowly taking your stuff out of the manor and officially moving out
Bruce and Damian find your room to update Dick and Jason on their findings.
They’re thankful that you’re alive but still need to see you in the flesh. Looking around your bedroom, there aren't many clues about where you have gone. 
Tim takes a few days to fix the damage on your phone. At the very least, he needs to save the data that was kept on the phone. After messing with a few parts of your phone, he transfers all the data to his computers.
Once everything is saved, Tim lets his curiosity get the best of him and looks through all of your stuff before informing the rest of the family. All your photos, text messages, etc. He sees all the calls and voicemails your friends sent you on the day you were kidnapped.
Tim continues to learn more about your interests and your efforts to spend time with the family. You ranting to your friends about only playing a game or reading a book because someone in the family has read or played it.
Tim ends up having a copy of all your data for personal use before speaking to the rest of the family
Your phone is finally fixed and Tim can use it to find the location of your laptop. All the way in Bludhaven
With new hope, the family begins their search for you
They just need to take you home and keep you safe
Forever
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1d1195 · 1 day
Text
Independent
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~10.6k words
From me: I know it's a long one, but it's a one-shot.
Warnings: angst, fluff. I've got about a thousand tropes in this one. Coworker Harry, Roommate Harry, love at first sight, he falls first and harder, one bed if you squint.
Summary: “Go on a date with me,” he groaned.
“Because of the cookies?”
“No! Well, yes. Right now, yes, because of the cookies. But s’not usually because of cookies.”
She laughed. “I don’t date, Harry.”
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Harry was tall, with soft brown locks that begged to have fingers run through them, and cool green eyes that reminded her of the sage green bridesmaid’s dress she wore to one of her friends’ weddings the year before. He wore a dark purple button down with sleeves rolled up revealing a bunch of tattoos on his left arm but only a few on the right. His voice was melodic. Smooth, like he was going to sing her a lullaby and warm like it could toast a marshmallow.
Her group chat with a couple of her office friends had been buzzing the moment Harry took residence at the desk across the aisle and one row ahead of her.
Holy fuck. Val texted. Office eye candy 😍
Do you hear that thundering sound? That’s my heart 😍 Rachel continued.
She smirked at the desks, shaking her head.
Don’t shake your head. Say something! At least you’re single, you have a chance! Val sent the messages in quick succession, making her desk partner, Hunter, look at her curiously each time it vibrated.
“Do you have an emergency?” He asked her.
She shook her head. “Nope,” she smiled. “Not at all.”
*
Harry met her and asked her out on the very first day he started his new job. They both worked in an office. Their desks only a short distance apart while they worked together. He assumed there were no rules against dating as there were several married couples within the office as he quickly found out from the shared last names and wedding photos of his coworkers lining one another’s desks.
It seemed, as long as it didn’t interfere with their work, there was no issue.
Which was fine by Harry.
He was happy to ogle her all day long and he would spoil her rotten outside of work. “Hi, m’Harry,” Harry took his opportunity to introduce himself when everyone else left for their lunch hour and she was finishing something up. Leaving them alone in the office. Harry analyzed her desk as quickly as he could.
Their office was wide open with desks back-to-back nearly identical on either side with a long aisle leading to the office of their boss at the back of the room. Her desk faced the front of the room while Harry’s faced his boss’ office. He was on the opposite side of the room, and he had a great view all day long to watch her profile as she worked. Her hair was half up, her beautiful eyes hidden behind glasses, and her mouth set in concentration as she focused on her tasks. He couldn’t see her whole body, but he watched her pull her sandy colored cardigan around her white shirt multiple times that morning, like she was chilled by the air conditioner. His eyes were drawn to her. Like she was a lighthouse, and he was out at sea. All he wanted to do was watch her, keep an eye on her, and admire how stunning she was.
She had a little plant near her window—a bunch of red poppies wrapped up in a burlap vase, tied with a red bow. He couldn’t tell if it was fake or not, but he suspected it was. There was a picture of a large group of friends right by her monitor where she was off to the side in it, one of her girlfriends had an arm around her. Her stationery was cool tones of blues, greens, and purples. Her handwriting was scribbled on a calendar in front of her and he thought the way she curved her L’s was loopy and pretty beyond belief and he wished he had one in his name just to see how it looked. But it made him want to know how she would write his name anyway. There was a date at the end of September that was marked with a heart and he wondered why. Was it an anniversary? A birthday? Or the day her favorite movie came out?
A book sat on the windowsill, and he wondered when she had the time to read it during the day or maybe it was a security blanket kind of thing. There were two paper trays stacked on top of one another to organize her work and sticky notes all over her monitor and desk with ideas, reminders, and even a couple that said things like, “we love you” and “you’re so sweet.”
“Hi, Harry,” she smiled up at him to introduce herself. “Welcome to the team, are you having a good first day?”
He nodded, smiled a little brighter and dove right in. “I think m’in love with you,” she released a laugh that was so unbelievably beautiful Harry thought it sealed the deal. “I wouldn’t laugh, kitten. M’serious,” he frowned with faux sadness. He knew he was being a tad bit ridiculous. Maybe it wasn’t right to say it while they were alone, but he didn’t want to say it in front of everyone either. Hopefully he could convince her he was harmless, even if what he said was true.
Her cheeks reddened and she smiled. “That’s... very forward,” she reminded him. “And you don’t know me.”
“I know,” he rubbed the back of his head. “I was going t’hold off on saying it until tomorrow, but m’unable t’contain it. You’re very beautiful and everyone seems t’go t’you when they need help, so I imagine you’re a lovely person,” he pointed at the sticky note that said we love you once more. She snickered again and looked away covering one cheek with her hand. “M’going t’go t’lunch before I embarrass myself further, but I jus’ wanted to tell you,” he shrugged, stuffed his hands in his pockets and turned toward the exit.
“Nice meeting you Harry,” she called after him a smile on her lips.
He grinned and turned briefly to wave before he exited. “Don’t forget t’eat, kitten,” he called.
*
But now that Harry admitted he was in love with her, she couldn’t help but feel like she was being watched while she worked. Her eyes darted to his side of the room often trying to see if he was staring at her. He wasn’t each time which only made her feel guilty and worse. Maybe her standoffish disposition deterred him rapidly. It was probably for the best, anyway. For a lot of reasons.
Was it disappointment she was feeling from his lack of attention? That didn’t seem right.
“Harry!” Val called from behind her. “Are you enjoying your first day?”
“Immensely,” did his eyes drift over to her and her desk? She stared at her screen pretending to work while she listened.
“Did you just move to town?” Rachel was much further towards the front of the room. He turned to give her his full attention. It made her heart skip a beat with how kind it was. His politeness was a massive turn on.
Even if she wasn’t going to let herself admire Harry from across the way just because they worked together.
“I did, m’actually looking for a place t’live if y’know of any places. M’at a hotel until m’on m’feet.”
Her heart started beating about two hundred times a minute because she knew what was going to happen before it did. She could feel the bubbling excitement from her friends on either end of the room. “Mary Poppins has a room!” Rachel shouted.
Her cheeks turned bright red.
“Her roommate just moved in with her boyfriend like last week! How perfect is that, Mary? You were all worried about finding a normal roommate. I even did his background check, so I know he’s good to go!”
Harry chuckled. “Um... who’s Mary Poppins?”
The whole office giggled. “Miss Poppins, did you not introduce yourself?” Someone else called. Hunter snickered across from her and she glared at him.
This was mortifying. Wasn’t this supposed to be a mortifying day for Harry? His first day and all? How come she was being teased? She took a deep breath and turned from her monitor to make direct eye contact with Harry who was already looking at her. Like he knew exactly who Mary Poppins was without his coworkers needing to tell him. “It’s a two-bedroom apartment. One bath. There’s a nice kitchen, all new appliances.”
Harry’s jaw dropped as she spoke. Like he was surprised it really was her. “Val looks like she’s going to bounce out of her seat,” Hunter smirked as he whispered under his breath to her while she tried not to panic at the thought of living with someone so unbelievably attractive and just admitted he was in love with her.
“Tell him about your living room!” Val sounded like she was bouncing.
“Water’s included.”
“She’s the cutest interior designer. It’s so homey it feels like a warm hug when you walk in. Like living with a rom-com character,” Rachel continued.
“Rent would be about twelve hundred,” she ignored her so-called friends.
“She bakes something once a week too, so it always smells like sugar and Christmas. It’s seriously the coziest place I’ve ever been,” Val kept going.
“In-unit washer and dryer.”
“Then she brings whatever she makes for all of us here to devour. It’s incredible,” Rachel’s sentiment was answered with a hum of agreement from the rest of her coworkers. She even heard someone say remember her apple turnover pastries?
“You get your own parking spot,” she tilted her head and looked at the ceiling to see if there was anything else she had forgotten. “I think that’s it,” she met Harry’s eyes once more, holding his gaze briefly before she turned back to her monitor.
“Harry you should totally move in, you will fall in love with the place.”
“M’sure I would,” he chuckled. “Could I see it sometime?” He asked. His attention never strayed from her face. She could sense his gaze on the side of her cheek the whole time her friends embarrassed the crap out of her. “Whenever you’re free. Doesn’t have t’be today.”
“Today’s fine!” Rachel assured him. “She doesn’t do anything on Mondays.”
She rolled her eyes. “Today is fine,” she repeated and smiled sweetly. She scribbled on a sticky note and headed to his desk to drop the address off with him. Then she made her way toward the restroom because she needed to get out of the room. Needed away from everyone teasing her good-naturedly.
But mostly so she could keep herself from telling Harry that she was quite, very possibly, in love with him as well.
*
True to her friends’ words, the place was cozy as hell. There was a basket of throw blankets next to a sofa that looked like it was comfier than his bed currently in his storage unit. Artwork dotted the walls, board games stowed below her TV, and curtains pulled back from the windows letting in the afternoon sunlight. It felt like a home.
There were three boxes in the middle of the living room between the coffee table and the TV, but it was otherwise spotless. “You’re very clean.”
She nodded. “I know, I’m sorry.”
He chuckled. “Y’don’t need t’apologize,” he put his hands in his pockets, so he didn’t do something crazy like hold her hand.
“I don’t want you to think I’m crazy, is all. You can be... messy... I won’t have a freak out or anything. Unless you leave food in the sink then we get bugs. Then I’ll be kind of freaked out.”
He laughed. “I wouldn’t do that. I like t’think m’pretty clean myself,” he assured her. “I also...” he took a deep breath and rubbed the back of his head. “Y’friends kinda put y’on the spot. I know what I admitted at lunch was kinda out of... out of the blue,” he bit his lip. “Y’don’t have t’feel obligated t’house me.”
“I don’t,” she promised. “I need a roommate and like Val said,” she shrugged. “She did your background check so I assume you won’t kill me, probably. At least not because you’re a serial killer. Maybe because I’m too clean.”
He shook his head with a smile on his lips making the most adorable dimple dent his cheek. She wanted to stick her tongue in it. “Thank you, m’really appreciative.”
She smiled. “You’re welcome, Harry. Sorry we’ll be around each other a lot.”
That didn’t seem like a bad thing at all. “I think it’ll be okay. We didn’t really talk much today,” he shrugged. “If y’get sick of me, m’sure I can find another place t’live,” he winked.
She rolled her eyes. “Won’t be necessary. But okay,” she sighed. “You can move in whenever,” she grabbed her keys from the breakfast bar where she ate most of her meals and pulled a key off the ring and handed it to him. “I have a second job some nights, but if you give me a heads up, I can help you move your stuff.”
“S’very kind of you, kitten, but y’don’t need t’do that. M’not going t’have all that much stuff. M’friend Louis lives not too far from here. He’ll come help me.”
“Offer stands,” she assured him.
Harry’s eyes scanned the room again and landed on the three boxes once more. “Are those your old roommate’s boxes?” He asked.
She nodded. “Two of them. I’m supposed to bring them to her, but they’re super heavy so I’m like... working up my mental and physical strength to bring them to my car. It’s going to be two trips and I’m just being a little lazy about it.”
“I can bring them down,” he grabbed one. It was definitely heavy. It was evident Harry had defined biceps and triceps practically outlined by the pretty purple button down, but it was manageable for him while a struggle for her. “Still probably two trips,” he nodded.
“Oh, I can take—”
“No, no,” he shook his head. “Don’t want you t’hurt yourself. Let me,” he offered and snagged her car keys off the counter.
“Oh, thank you that’s... thank you,” she swallowed, feeling grateful.
“Not a problem,” he assured her and left immediately.
When he returned after putting the second box in her car to return her keys, she had opened the third box and begun laying out a bunch of fall items to decorate their place. “Do you mind decorations?”
“Of course not,” he smiled. “Can I help?”
She blinked at him and tilted her head. “Um... I can handle it. If you need to pack or go... get dinner or something.”
“M’fine,” he smiled, setting her keys on the counter and glanced around the room. He noted there were hooks screwed into the wall at various points. “Can I hang something for you? M’good for height.”
Harry wasn’t that much taller than her, she was definitely taller than the average woman, but it still meant she needed to drag out a stepstool when she wanted to put up her art and decorations. “That would be awesome,” she nodded. “Thank you.”
“Not a problem, kitten,” he smiled.
*
Harry had a dreamy smile on his face as they talked and got to know one another. He hadn’t brought up that he was in love with her. Nor did he make her feel the least bit uncomfortable. Like it had never happened.
Why did it feel like she was disappointed about the prospect of that?
Maybe he wasn’t in love with her. Maybe the initial reaction of seeing someone roughly the same age as him at work made his senses a bit wild for a moment.
No. She wasn’t disappointed. Everything about Harry being in love with her would be a recipe for disaster and it was for the best that he didn’t fall in love with her.
It was just something a little bit out of the blue to say to the only person who was single in the office. Everyone had a significant other they had met within the office or elsewhere. She was the last single person. The same was true with her friend group as well. Everyone in her life had been paired off except for her.
He was her coworker. He was going to be her roommate.
But right as he left, he sent her heart into a frenzy. They were by the door. She wanted to make sure he got to his car safely even though it was a safe neighborhood. It was just the way she was. “Will you go on a date with me?” He asked.
She stared at him in shock, her lips parting like she was mid-sentence, and he had interrupted. “Seriously?” She giggled reflexively, but her cheeks felt hot. They had a lovely evening together getting to know each other. Harry helped with all the decorations and yes, in its own way it was a bit intimate. But he couldn’t possibly think that it was a good idea to date his roommate.
“Yes,” he nodded.
“Harry, I can’t date my roommate.”
“Pretty sure s’how most rom-coms start,” he smiled. “S’okay. I’ll ask again later. Have a nice night,” he grinned with a wave and walked toward his car. Leaving her jaw slack, as she watched her roommate head off into the night.
*
Harry moved in later that week. He asked her to come with him to his storage unit to see if there was anything she would want in the apartment, but she had pretty much everything. It seemed silly to bring a double of everything when she owned all of it already.
But Harry would forever be grateful and indebted to his sister for her kindness as he watched her examine some of his belongings. One in particular caught her eye making him think that he had won the lottery with how excited she was.
She couldn’t believe Harry had a stand mixer and she was nearly in awe of all the attachments to help bake and cook easier. “I’ve always wanted one of these. They’re so expensive,” she blinked. “How do you have one?”
“M'sister got one when she got married,” he explained. “But she doesn’t bake and said it was taking up space in her kitchen.”
“Can we bring it to the apartment? Do you mind?”
The way her eyes lit up at the sight of it? Pure joy and happiness? Yeah. It was going to the apartment. If he ever moved out, he would probably leave it with her too just so she could always look that happy. “Course. Anything else?”
She looked around the organized storage room sifting through the items in different bins while Harry searched for some of his own trinkets that he thought he would want after his initial move. His room and bathroom items had already been moved in with the help of Louis. “This is stunning,” her voice full of awe once more, grabbing a print from behind a shelf. Harry wasn’t sure where it was from. He thought his mum purchased it to make his old place feel like home. “This would look amazing in the living room.”
“Bring it,” he smiled. She tucked it under her arm and continued searching. Harry grabbed a few more odds and ends and she plucked out a few more things she thought would work with the apartment’s décor and mainly helpful kitchen tools.
“It’s your place too, Harry,” she reminded him. “Is there anything you want there?”
He smiled, shook his head. “Y’seem t’have everything, kitten. M’not picky.”
“I don’t want you to feel like a guest,” she pouted. “Like you should bring these,” she gestured to pictures of his friends and family in a bin. “I can move some of mine to my room so you can put them up.”
He grinned. “Sure,” he shrugged. “If y’think s’what I should do.”
“Alright, could we come back in a few weeks and see if there’s anything else you want once you’re settled a bit?”
“Course.”
They gathered as much as they could, Harry would have to come back for the stand mixer. Harry closed the trunk and moved to open the passenger door for her before her hand fully pulled it out of the way. He waited until she was tucked into the seat safely and he handed her the car keys. “I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll be here,” she smiled.
“Hey kitten,” he said leaning against the door before he left. “Will y’go on a date with me?”
“Harry,” she laughed the same way she did the last time he asked her. The same way she laughed when he told her he was in love with her. “You can’t be serious!”
“Deadly,” he smiled at the delight on her face. The pretty pink color rising to her cheeks. “Will you?”
“I can’t go on a date with you, Harry,” she looked at him with a bit of sympathetic pity. Like he was ridiculous for asking. Again. Which he was.
“Then I’ll ask again another time,” he shrugged, closed her car door, and headed to get the stand mixer that made her happy.
*
“Hey Poppy, did y’want t’go get lunch with me?” Her eyes didn’t move from her screen. “Poppy,” he repeated. “Poppy,” he sang. She glanced around and realized she was the only one in the room.
“Me?”
He chuckled. “Yes, you.”
Her eyebrows pinched together. “Why did you call me Poppy?”
“Well, m’assuming s’your favorite flower,” it was a safe bet since there was a small bouquet right beside her. “Also, everyone else calls y’Mary, Poppins, or Miss Poppins. Which I still don’t know why, but I wanted t’be different. Want you t’know s’me when y’hear me talking t’you.”
Her heart raced. Harry was utterly adorable. “I see. Sorry,” she smirked.
“Anyway,” he came over to stand by her desk. “Do y’want t’get lunch?”
“Harry, I told you I don’t date.”
“M’not asking as a date. M’asking as your coworker who has never seen y’eat a bite of food while you’re at work. M’asking as your concerned roommate who worries y’don’t eat until y’get home for dinner. And I don’t even want t’think ‘bout how long y’go without eating when you’re at your second job.”
She smiled at his thoughtfulness. “I don’t go out to lunch with everyone,” she explained. “I don’t know if you noticed, but people always seem to need me while I’m here,” she gestured to her desk. “Lunch is the only time I get a minute to myself. And I can get caught up a bit before the afternoon and everyone comes back.”
“Well do you bring lunch?” He asked, his frown deepening still worried she wasn’t eating.
“I do, it’s in the breakroom. I’ll get it in a minute,” she promises. “Go, you’re wasting your lunch hour.”
“Okay,” he sighed. He stopped in the doorway of the entrance to the office. “Hey Poppy,” he smiled.
“Yeah?” She asked without looking up from her screen.
“Now that y’mention it though, will y’go out with me?”
*
At home, Harry took the trash out because he said it was a boy-job and she shouldn’t be out in the dark by a dumpster. It made his skin crawl just to think about it. He made her promise that she wouldn’t take out the trash and he didn’t mind if he had to go out twice in one day. She thought it was ridiculous. But she agreed.
He cleaned up after himself checking with her to see if it was up to her standard. Even though she assured him he didn’t have to meet her standard. His cologne overtook their bathroom, and it was so comforting she took long hot showers at night just to amplify the scent filling her nose. Harry stretched across the sofa and scrolled through various show options but often didn’t find something that piqued his interest. Instead, he would put on some background noise and read on an eReader. His eyebrows pinched together in concentration.
Harry bought groceries and didn’t ask for any money from them. “M’sure you’ll buy stuff too,” he shrugged. Plus, she already had all the cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, dishwasher pods, and the like. Harry hardly had anything useful so buying groceries was the least he could do.
Except the stand mixer. People moaned about her cookies. Harry got to see her make them firsthand and the very scene with an apron around her body, her smile bright as she tested various stages of the dough, it did wonders for Harry. Some kind of nearly pornographic idea that only Harry would think was pornographic. “Will you try one?” She asked, hope in her voice.
Was he supposed to say no to her? Absolutely not. So, he tried one. “Go on a date with me,” he groaned.
“Because of the cookies?”
“No! Well, yes. Right now, yes, because of the cookies. But s’not usually because of cookies.”
She laughed. “I don’t date, Harry.”
He frowned, faking his disappointment (although he was the slightest bit disappointed). “I’ll try again,” he shrugged and took three more cookies from her cooling rack before returning to the sofa to read.
*
“Mary!” Val sang. “Do you have the stain stick?” She called from behind. She opened a drawer, eyes unmoving from her screen and held it out behind her for it to be passed back by her other coworkers. Harry chuckled.
It killed her that she knew his chuckle without looking. “S’impressive,” he murmured quietly. But she could hear it from across the way.
“That’s nothing,” Rachel said from the other end of the room. “Miss Poppins,” she smiled delightedly. “I have a missing button,” she told her.
That was the other drawer, a small little sewing kit to fix a button.
“Hair tie!” Someone called from the other side of the room.
“Lint roller!”
They all called out items and she had every single one.
“Do you have anything stronger to put in this coffee?” Their boss was walking up the aisle and paused at her desk. She smirked, opened the bottom drawer and placed a mini bottle of liquid on the edge of the desk. The whole office laughed as he snatched it and headed to his office. “You’re getting a raise, Poppins,” he called.
Hunter turned to look at Harry. “I gave her the nickname,” he explained.
“I get it,” he chuckled.
“If you need it, chances are she has it.”
“If she doesn’t, she adds it,” Val explained.
Her smile was soft. Harry thought it was sweet how her coworkers adored her. It was clear she was loved by them. Her thoughtfulness was admirable. Harry wondered how he was supposed to top that. No wonder she didn’t want to go out with him. Why would she want to go out with anyone when she was ten times sweeter than anyone she knew?
*
Her best friend Josephine (Joey) was helping her in the bathroom when Harry got home from the gym one Friday evening. “Holy hell you said he was cute, not hot,” she gaped.
“Aw, y’think m’cute, Poppy?” He asked winking at her. Her cheeks flushed red, making it so she didn’t need any of the blush she was putting on her cheeks. He leaned against the doorframe; arms crossed over his chest. He was sweaty and really wanted to get in the shower, but he didn't mind a bit of time to stare at his sweet roommate.
“I should have known. Only a man that uses such high-end cologne would be this hot.”
“Didn’t you buy Matt high-end cologne?”
“Hence why I think he’s so hot,” Joey beamed. Her friend laughed quietly, shaking her head as she finished with her makeup.
“Sorry Harry, we’ll be out of the way in a minute.”
“Take y’time. M’not in a rush.”
“Oh, you should come out!” Joey squealed. “Harry, please! She’s always by herself keeping an eye on us it would be nice to have someone keep her company!”
“Thanks, Mom. I don’t need a babysitter,” she rolled her eyes. “No offense, Harry.”
“S’okay,” he chuckled. “I don’t want t’impose. Plus m’in need of a shower.”
“Don’t let us stop you,” Joey smiled widely gesturing to the shower.
“Can you not?” She rolled her eyes and looked at Harry with apologetic eyes.
He laughed again and shook his head. “Y’can call if y’need something,” he assured her.
“Harry, please come out! You can meet us there!” Joey said again.
She looked at him with a soft smile. A look in her eyes said he wasn’t going to get out of it. Not if he didn’t have a really good reason. But truthfully? He didn’t need a reason to get out of it. Spending time with her outside of work, outside of the apartment, and errands like the grocery store and running to the post office had him excited to see her in another frame of light. Did she let loose? He would love to dance with her. Even if it was only as friends, roommates, fuck as coworkers even. How did she act around her friends versus her coworkers? God, he was obsessed.
“I can wait for you,” she suggested, her voice soft. Harry smiled.
“Thanks, Poppy.”
*
Her eyes scanned for her friends as she sat on a stool at a high top beside Harry. It was like watching a teacher on a field trip counting heads to make sure everyone was still present. The table was littered with drinks all of which she minded just as intently.
Harry just gazed at her as he sipped his drink. He helped as needed pushing drinks toward her friends as they came back from dancing. “Y’don’t dance?”
“Oh...maybe later. I’m not very good,” she admitted. “I like dancing with Joey because she’s worse than me.”
She caught the eye of one of her friends, Hailey, approaching and she reached into her purse strapped around the front of her for something. Harry watched as Hailey made it to her. “Thanks Mary,” she gushed taking the bandage from her and made her way for the bathroom. It was pretty wild she could anticipate whatever her friends needed. It was like at work. Harry was a bit awestruck and looked at her with a surprised expression. She shrugged and continued sipping her drink.
Jaylen was next. Joey’s twin brother; they had the same facial expressions--mainly the smile that Joey had on her face when she suggested Harry shower in front of her and his favorite person.
The same smile appeared on his face and told Harry he was going to say something just as delightful as Joey had said of Harry. Sure enough, Jaylen draped an arm around her and leaned into her ear to whisper something over the sound of the music. She rolled her eyes and shoved him playfully. His face turned serious and he whispered something again.
She frowned. Then reached into her purse again. Out came a tampon which he slid discreetly into his pocket and then she glanced at his outfit twisting her lips to the side in disappointment.
After a brief thought, she pulled her purse over her body and laid it on the table. The long cardigan she wore came off next, leaving her in a black tank top that tucked into her jeans. It hugged her curves like a glove making Harry’s mouth water and he glanced away worried he would look like a creep. He finished his beer before Jaylen grinned and thanked her profusely and walked away. She took a deep breath and put her purse back into position before wrapping one arm in front of he protectively, gripping the front of her shoulder.
“Are y’cold?” He asked.
She shook her head.
But Harry was sitting beside her. He could see the goosebumps on her skin. She selflessly gave her sweater to her friend for whatever reason (Harry wasn’t totally sure, but he suspected it was menstrual related). But she was going to pretend like she wasn’t cold? Harry was definitely in love. In case it wasn’t obvious by the moment he met her. Boldly, Harry reached below her bar stool and tugged it toward him. She jostled a bit but he maintained her balance. Then he draped his arm around her body pulling her toward him further and he couldn’t help but notice she didn’t pull away. She didn’t make a sound and her facial expression didn’t change.
But Harry felt her body relax into his side, her head dipping ever so slightly toward his shoulder. He smiled softly and brought his lips closer to her ear so she could hear. “Y’don’t have t’lie t’me, Poppy. M’your roommate and all. I know y’like the apartment a toasty temperature.”
She smirked and tilted her head up. Their eyes connected, their mouths only two inches apart. “Thank you,” she said kindly.
Harry really enjoyed holding her.
*
At the end of the night, she rounded up her friends ensuring those who said they could drive actually could and if they couldn’t she called for Ubers until everyone was safely on their way home. Jaylen’s girlfriend, Maya, had her green sweater wrapped around her white pants. She thanked her profusely, drunkenly.
Joey and Matt waved goodbye. “Bye Hot Roommate,” Joey called waving to Harry specifically.
“Jesus, Joey,” Matt rolled his eyes. “Nice meeting you Harry,” he called.
Once everyone was gone, she rubbed her hands on her arms to keep the blood flowing and warming her skin. Harry wrapped his arm over her shoulders again and tucked her into his side as they headed for her parked car a couple blocks away. “Go on a date with me," he spoke straight forward. Hoping if he didn't look, it wouldn't seem like as a massive deal--almost like he would trick her into a date.
She elbowed him. “I can’t go out with a coworker, Harry. Or my roommate for that matter.”
He shrugged. “I’ll ask later,” he boldly kissed the top of her head. Fortunately, she didn't seem to mind. Harry was sure to keep that in his head for future reference. He would most definitely be kissing her again. “You’re an extremely sweet girl, Poppy. Selfless, lovely, kind,” he listed. “Whoever y’end up with, m’going t’be very jealous,” he assured her.
She snorted and laughed quietly under her breath. “Thank you, Harry.”
*
For months it continued with similar routines, feelings, and questions. They grew closer as friends. At work he admired her from his desk from across the office. When she didn’t go to lunch, he reminded her to eat and not work too hard. At home, he grumbled that her loophole of taking the trash out in the daytime was not the point of his promise. He still bought groceries each week trying to figure out all the things she enjoyed eating.  
He helped her clean the apartment and when it was getting cooler outside, she asked to join him at the gym. Her outfits were cute and made guys stare at her as she worked out, unbeknownst to her. She asked for help from Harry which made him feel like he won an Olympic medal. His face was smug as the men in the gym finally stopped looking at her. Thinking Harry was lucky enough to be hers.
It made him happy to help her figure out new machines and with her sets of weightlifting (even though she didn’t like it).
Everywhere they went, people ogled her. She was so kind. Little kids would smile at her in grocery store lines and wave like it was a game of peekaboo. Dogs tugged on their leashes hoping to get a pet from her around the loop she ran in the neighborhood. Their elderly next door neighbor tried telling her a hundred times that she had a grandson her age and he would love to date her (that one drove Harry the most crazy).
She had her head leaning in her palm as she watched the stand mixer beat the brownie ingredients like it was the most interesting thing in the world. But Harry was watching her; so he was, in fact, watching the most interesting thing in the world.
He leaned against the wall just beside the kitchen entrance. “Poppy?” He asked. She looked up at him. “Go on a date with me, please," his expression soft.
She was finally getting used to it. She gave herself a lot of credit. It was pretty crazy she hadn’t caved yet. Harry was so lovely. Not to mention attractive. At the gym, his muscles rippled and glistened with sweat. The outline of every abdominal muscle was sinful. It was a miracle she didn’t drop her own weights or fall on the treadmill when she caught sight of him. It drove her crazy that the women there gazed at him longingly; like he was something to eat. But was she really any better?
She smiled, the blush on her cheeks still prominent, but not as deep. She was used to her heart skipping a beat, the butterflies fluttering in her stomach each time he asked. “That's very sweet, Harry. But I don’t date.”
It was six months since he met her when he finally asked. “Why not?”
She shrugged. He thought she wasn’t going to say anything more, so he frowned, sighed, and headed for the living room to get back to his book. “I just don’t date, Harry. I like being friends,” she told him.
He grumbled something about still being friends even if they dated but she either didn’t hear or pretended not to hear. Either way, it was quiet for a few beats. “If I hadn’t told you I was in love with you that first day, would that have changed your answer?”
She giggled and shook her head. “No.”
“Okay,” he shrugged. Ever determined. He smiled widely at her. “I’ll keep asking then.”
*
When she got dressed up for a family wedding and clicked down the hall in heels and a dress that flowed over her like she was the bride (only wearing green of course, not white). Her hair was curled and pinned so prettily Harry thought he was seeing a real angel in the flesh. “Oh, come on, Poppy,” he groaned and covered his eyes with his hand dramatically. “S’not fighting fair,” he frowned.
She grinned, her cheeks warming more than they had in a while. “I look okay?”
“Stunning,” he grumbled. “M’so jealous I won’t get t’dance with you,” he pouted.
She shook her head. “I don’t usually dance at weddings when I go alone,” she explained.
“Well, y’should’ve told me. I would’ve been your date.”
“Harry—”
“Platonic date,” he rolled his eyes. “This is worse than when y’wore that pencil skirt t’work,” he reminded her. She snickered and shook her head while she looked at her phone. She sucked her lip into her mouth and sighed wincing slightly and then turned to her room again. After several minutes she returned in a different dress. She was equally stunning, but she looked a little forlorn. “An outfit change?”
She nodded. “Yeah,” she shrugged. “My sister is wearing green.”
Harry frowned. “So?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I just...” she shrugged. “It’s alright. I like this dress just fine.”
But it wasn’t green. She looked so pretty in green. It complimented her skin tone so perfectly. She looked stunning. Like she was a queen. “But—”
“Seriously, Harry. It’s fine.”
The muted purple dress looked lovely on her as well. But Harry thought the green made her look otherworldly. He wanted the happiness back in her eye. The light that sparked when he complimented her. “Well when can y’wear it?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Season’s almost over for a wintergreen like that,” she shrugged. “Maybe next year.”
Harry frowned. But then he had a wonderful idea to help both her dress and himself. “Go on a date with me, Poppy.”
The smile reappeared on her face, and she shook her head. “I can’t, Harry.”
“Please? Do it for the sake of that dress,” he pleaded. “We don’t even have t’call it a date. An outing. An adventure. Whatever y’want. Y’jus’ need t’wear it before y’can’t.”
She smiled. “Thank you, Harry. But I can’t.”
He sighed. “You’re welcome, Poppy.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow? I’ll steal you a cupcake. I heard they come from this bakery that I love and if it doesn’t make it home to you, then we’re going to have to go there anyway.”
It didn’t replace a date. But he liked the way she smiled. And going to a bakery together was inherently a couple-y thing to do. So he would take what he could get.
“Sure, Poppy. I’d love to.”
*
She didn’t need people. Needing people had only ever broken her heart. She never asked for help ever. Well...only when they were at the gym but that was a safety thing more than anything.
Even when she should have asked.
Harry didn’t notice until he drove her to a house party that her friends didn’t invite her too. She was sleepy, it was obvious. Leggings, oversized sweater. Her hair was braided loosely and falling apart because she had woken in the middle of the night to answer a message. Harry was in the middle of a good book. Unable to put it down when she ventured into the living room. A yawn falling from her lips. Her eyes barely open. It took several questions and repeated convincing to let him drive her since he was awake, and it looked like she was going to pass out while standing.
Harry insisted on coming in even as she told him to stay in the car, but he refused. She found her friends, her voice was soft as she encouraged Jaylen to leave. A little over his limit and Joey and Maya were about just as gone and unable to convince Jaylen to go with them. A guy from across the room made a joke about Mommy coming to save him. As her pugnacious friend made a turn to deal with the offensive person, she stopped him. She was quick, grabbed his arm, and held tight.
When they returned to the apartment she corralled her friends into their sleeping arrangements. Maya and Jaylen in her bed, Joey on the sofa. “Sorry I took your reading spot,” she whispered as she tucked a blanket around Joey. She snagged another blanket and curled into the only other chair in the living room. “Thank you for driving,” she smiled, closing her sleepy eyes.
“You’re gonna sleep there?” He asked. She nodded, barely moving. Like she was already half-way to dreaming. Harry snagged her out of the chair, cradling her and bringing her to his room.
“Harry,” she protested.
“We’re grown adults,” he reminded her. “We can share a bed without it being weird. S’like a hotel room.”
“Harry,” she repeated, her objection evident in her tone. “I can’t—”
“M’not letting y’sleep in a chair or on the floor. So, it’s m’bed or y’aren’t sleeping,” he shrugged.
She sighed. Too tired to oppose any further, thankfully. Harry laid her atop the covers and draped another blanket over her. He went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and slid beneath his sheets and glanced at the sleeping angel beside him. He smiled. He liked the way she looked in his bed. Liked the way she seemed comfortable and sleepy beside him. His bed felt warm with her beside him. Even though she wasn’t touching him. She smelled good in his room too.
“Night, Harry,” she mumbled.
“Good night, Poppy,” he answered, reached out, squeezed her hand before releasing it so she wouldn’t break a piece of his heart by telling him they shouldn’t.
It was easy to fall asleep with her beside him.
It was even easier to dream of her with her intoxicating presence in his room as well.
*
Harry noticed how drained she seemed when the weather continued to get warmer. Her friends all had birthdays around the same time, and she was a mess of scheduling and reserving birthday dinners and planning things for all of them. Did Harry miss her birthday? He would have to ask. He hoped he didn’t. He hoped her friends would take the time to plan for her the way she did for them.
Work was approaching a busy season, and everyone kept coming to her more and more throughout the day. He could see the anxiety on her face as her growing to-do list looked nearly unmanageable. Harry tried to go to others if he had issues. But every time he asked someone else a question, they called out for Mary Poppins, and she would glance up and look at Harry with a sad smile asking how she could help.
Harry was worried she wasn’t eating her lunch. When everyone else left, her eyes were hidden behind those glasses, her face concentrating and relieved for the reprieve from people calling her name for help with work or needing something like a pen or a screwdriver. Sometimes Harry hated his job. Not because it was difficult. But it seemed like everyone in the office was incompetent. Or weaponizing their incompetence and foisting their tasks onto the lovely woman who would never say no to them.
Her friends did it too. With all the planning and such.
The poor thing looked exhausted. She didn’t join Harry at the gym and her second job seemed like the only time she got to herself. “I miss reading,” she grumbled when she got home late from her shift. She kicked her shoes off and flopped onto the opposite end of the sofa. “My eyes are exhausted though,” she rubbed them for good measure. “I think I would fall asleep if I tried to read. I think I need to wake up earlier and read.”
Harry snorted. “Don’t burn yourself out, Poppy,” he rolled his eyes. “What are y’reading?”
“I’ve been trying t’read this book for months,” she pulled it from the shelf below the coffee table. He had seen it tucked there for a while. He grabbed it from her, skimmed the back of the book, and opened to the first chapter.
Then, he started reading.
Out loud.
“Harry,” she whispered her eyes wide.
“Yeah?” He asked, pointing at the sentence where he stopped and looked at her curiously. “M’starting over, because I want t’know what’s happening,��� he smiled. Her face looked so shocked and confused. Sad even. Like she didn’t know what emotion she was supposed to feel.
“You don’t have to—”
He shook his head, and continued reading before she could finish her sentence.
Harry read three chapters before he carried her sleeping self to bed.
*
Something changed in Harry. He almost turned into a stalker. He tracked her movements and routines for a week. He knew most of them. But he really tracked them. The daily ones were easiest. She went for a run in the morning, he followed her lead and didn’t say a word. He went to her favorite coffee shop and paid for her favorite drink for a week’s worth of drinks in advance.
He wished they carpooled, but she was so busy. So he timed his arrival so that he was at the entrance door holding it open for her. When everyone left to get lunch, he heated up her food and brought it to her desk before leaving silently.
One day, there was a note on her dashboard saying she had a full tank of gas. When she arrived home after her second job, she noted her spare car key was on Harry’s key ring. At home, her laundry was in the wash. The shirts she didn’t like to put in the dryer were hung in the bathroom.
Harry could see it. She was cracking. It was the first time someone had done something for her it seemed. The first time someone so selflessly did things for her, anticipated her needs the way she anticipated everyone else’s.
Her throat felt tight as she looked at Harry in the kitchen, making her favorite dinner—a soup that took hours and hours to make.
He didn’t even know it was her birthday that day which made her heart feel sicker than ever.
“Poppy,” he smiled sweetly placing a bowl in front of her exhausted figure.
“Yeah?” She whispered.
If she wasn't so in awe, she would have realized where his tone was. What was coming next. “Go on a date with me, kitten.”
“I can’t.”
“S’not so hard,” he assured her. “You sit across from me and be yourself because m’already in love with you,” he reminded her sweetly. An impish grin on his pretty pink lips. That dimple she wanted to sink her tongue into on display. “I tell y’how stunning y’look, I pay for you t’eat. I feed you a dessert of your choosing that you’re probably too full t’eat and then I can kiss you wherever y’want. Lips, cheek, forehead,” he shrugged. “Then we come home, and I’ll read a chapter of your book. Y’can decide if y’want t’go on a second date.”
She giggled, her cheeks red. “I can’t, Harry,” she looked at him apologetically, but she felt herself melting as much as the soup warmed her insides. It was ridiculous to eat soup in the middle of the summer. But Harry made it for her anyway.
His heart deflated a little. He wasn't kidding. He was definitely in love. He had to be because there was no other way he could explain the feelings he had for her. Someone so thoughtful, so pretty, sweet, and funny.
Harry had asked her out at least a hundred times. Around Christmas, she got her hair cut and he always found her beautiful, but he asked her almost every day following her new hair style for a month straight. Each time she said she couldn't. She didn't date.
For the first time in the near year since he had first asked her, first met her, he realized she said she can’t go on a date with him. She didn’t date. That he was crazy.
Not that she didn’t want to. She didn’t say no.
Hope bloomed inside him.
*
She didn’t need anything. She didn’t need anybody. It was clear someone or maybe many had let her down so many times. He watched her doing everything she could to make this party as nice as humanly possible for Hailey. Not that Hailey didn’t deserve it, but no one had done anything like this for her. Harry only found out it was her birthday after the fact, and he felt like shit for it. Even though she assured him that was one of the best birthdays she ever had.
All he did was make her soup.
She deserved so much more.
It almost seemed too obvious that they hadn’t done anything for her remotely as lovely as she did.
“You’re staring, Styles,” she murmured without looking up from the chair while he lounged on the sofa.
“Go on a date with me,” he smiled.
She blushed, shook her head. “You’re crazy.”
“You haven’t said no.”
"I've said no about a hundred thousand times, Harry," she rolled her eyes.
Why was it now? Why did he want to tell her what he was thinking about the whole situation now? But it was in his chest. He had to say it. Had to tell her.
“No, you’ve never said no,” he shook his head and looked at her head on, while she continued looking at her to do list, her planner. Her poor neglected book waiting to be read by Harry because her tired eyes couldn’t. She looked up at him and smirked. Ready to protest once more, but Harry shook his head again. “I remember everything you've said t'me. I would remember a 'no,' it would probably kill me t’hear y’say, no kitten. Y'call me crazy, y'say y'can’t or that y'don’t date. Never, not once, have y'ever said y'don’t want t'go on a date with me. Nor a flat out no. So m'going t’keep asking until y'say y'don’t want to. Because I think you do want t'go out with me but for some reason y'don't want t'allow yourself t'be happy. T'let someone else in. M'not going t'stop asking. Not until I hear y'say "Harry Styles I would rather die than go on a date with you. I never want to go out with you." Maybe that makes me conceited or creepy. M’sure it does make me crazy. But I don’t care. I want t'go on a date with you. I want t'go on a million dates with you, actually. So m'not giving up until y'call me creepy or y'say y'don’t want to.”
She swallowed like there was something stuck in her throat. Her eyes didn't move from her lap.
"Kitten," he murmured. She didn’t look up. “Poppy,” he whispered. She finally met his green-eyed gaze again. His expression soft, pleading. “Go on a date with me,” his voice was soft. Harry swore his heart stopped beating because if he was wrong, if she really was saying no all those times, he wasn't sure he could ever stop asking her. The idea he would never get to take her out to eat and order her favorite dessert. He wouldn't see a movie and wrap his arm around her shoulders and that was completely unfair. He wanted to offer his jacket to her when it rained and hold her hand while walking through a museum. "Poppy," he repeated.
She bit her lip, her lips opening and closing like she wasn't sure which word was going to pop out. “I can’t,” she whispered. Her eyes looking at him in a way that he could read right through her. They screamed at him, please don’t stop asking me.
As if he could ever. Harry smiled. "Okay," he shrugged, hope and adoration for her flooding him. "I'll ask again tomorrow."
A sad smile graced her face. "You're crazy," she whispered again.
"Only 'bout you, Poppy.”
*
Harry felt like he was getting sick. Probably due to the sweet girl in his apartment who had worn herself so thin and weary that she had inadvertently brought illness home to him. His head was killing him. His pillow was calling for him the way he wished his favorite stubborn woman would call him.
He didn't even know if she was home. But honestly, he was glad. If she knew he was sick, she would dote on him. Even if she was starting to fell unwell. The thoughts of her were never too far from his mind. He would never be too sick, too lost, too far away from her that she could leave his thoughts.
Sleeping was one of his favorite hobbies because he loved to see her in his dreams. Loved to see the unaffected, carefree, beautiful, stubborn woman. The angel that enjoyed affection both giving and receiving.
It was his nightly dream. The one where she snuggled with him, and it was like they had been together twenty years and not zero. The one where he could taste her lips (even if in his dream she tasted like nothing) he knew it was wrong. She probably tasted like chocolate or caramel or something deliriously sweet.
Unfortunately, his phone vibrated below his pillow pulling him from his perfect beautiful dream.
“Harry?”
He squinted at his phone. Head aching, throat sore. Curious as to why he didn’t have the number saved. “Speaking.”
“Oh, thank god,” the voice sighed. “It’s Joey,” she said. “Harry. Something’s wrong. She won’t stop crying and she won’t say anything but your name.”
He leapt out of bed. Illness forgotten even if he was dizzy. His heart thudded like a chorus of drums, and he didn’t even grab shoes as he raced out of his room, snagging his wallet and keys off the counter as he exited the apartment.
He listened to Joey say a few more things. Something about being out at a club. She never left the bar area. There was no way someone had hurt her. But Harry drove through the night with his heart in his throat like someone had hurt her. He wasn’t sure seeing her would even calm him. He knew where Joey lived, fortunately, so he sped as quickly as he could. The ache in his head and his throat was lost behind him along the drive.
He didn’t knock as he hurried barefoot into Joey’s apartment. Matt was coming from the kitchen and making his way down the hall. He looked at Harry sadly as he approached the main room.
“Poppy?” he whispered as he entered the room, her arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to hold herself together. "Kitten," he frowned and knelt in front of her. He picked her face up between his and he scanned her looking for signs of injury. Anxiety was in every inch of his body. But she fell into his arms before he could look any longer. Sobbing harder than when he entered. “M'here. M'here, baby. It’s okay. M'here," he kissed the top of her head, cupping the back of her head with one hand. The other arm winding around her and squeezing her tight to his body. “Oh kitten,” he sighed, sadness coating his voice. His heart ached. Like it was going to snap in half if she cried any longer. “M’sorry, baby. M'here. S’okay. Tell me. Please. I’ll make it better,” he promised.
Her sobs continued, like she was unable to speak. "Harry," she whimpered.
"M'here, Poppy, s'okay," he assured her even if it wasn't. "Baby," he frowned pulling away to look at her her tearful eyes. He tugged her back to his embrace and continued to soothe her. He rubbed his hand up and down her back hoping it was comforting as he hoped it was.
Harry caught Joey's eye, who looked over from the entryway and smiled weakly.
"You good?" She mouthed. Harry nodded and when he glanced back, her friend was gone.
*
Harry kissed the top of her head for the hundredth time. He continued rubbing his hand down her spine. His head was still screaming.
But she was well worth it. Her cheeks were streaked with salt lines. Her eyes puffy and red around the edges. He had pulled her to him so they could snuggle into the corner of the couch. Her body tucked between the back cushion and Harry's body. Like he didn't want anyone to see her if they entered the room.
“Harry?” Her voice was raw.
“Hmm?” He tucked her hair behind her ear and skimmed his fingertip along the same path repeatedly.
“Will you go on a date with me?” She whispered.
He smiled lazily. His heart exploding in his ribcage. “God, Poppy, I don't know. I have t'check m'schedule.” She smacked his chest with no weight behind it. He kissed the top of her head. “I’d take y’right now. Whenever y’want.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Nothing t’be sorry for.”
"I have issues."
"We can work on them together."
"I don't know if you'll..." She trailed off.
"If I'll what?" He brushed his thumb on her cheek.
She took a deep breath. "I love love, Harry. I love watching people get married. I love when people have babies and grow a family. I want to have babies. I love reading romance novels and watching silly rom-coms where you can predict the ending before the movie even starts."
"Sounds pretty romantic and easy, Poppy," he murmured.
She swallowed continuing. "I will do a lot for you because I believe that's the way love is supposed to be. I want to make your life easier, and I want to do things that make you happy because I think happiness and love are in short supply and I want those books and rom-coms to be real."
Harry nodded. "Well—"
"I've never had that. I had a boyfriend for four years and..." she sniffled. "When we broke up, I said that I wouldn't do that again. I wouldn’t devote myself so completely to someone that wouldn't give me half as much. Then I met my next boyfriend and at first, I thought it was right, finally. It was equal. He loved me the right way, I mean. The way I thought I wanted, deserved... But then it was like he got tired of doing things. I don't know. Maybe my love language is acts of service. I don't know. I’m not making sense, I'm sorry. But..." she swallowed. "I broke it off after only two years that time. I just don't think I can be loved the right way... not forever. I don't know. I sound so selfish, don’t I? I don’t know why you want to go out with me so badly. I want someone to love me the way I love them, and I don’t think that’s...fair."
It was why she always had everything. Why she planned and hosted parties. Why she never drank and always took care of her friends. She loved everyone that was lucky to cross paths with her, with her whole, big, beautiful heart.
Harry tilted her chin up. "M’going to love you the right way,” he promised. “M’going to love you the way y’want because that's what y’deserve. If I love you anything less than you deserve then... well... I don't know what, Poppy. If that’s the case m’probably dead because s’the only possible explanation,” she snorted and tears dripped down her cheeks again but not like the night before. “But it's not going to be a problem, kitten. M’going to love you the way your books love. The way a rom-com loves. M’going to love you the way you love everyone that walks into your life. The way you so selflessly devote your kindness to them. M’going to love you the way you love," he promised. “Because s’an honor to love you,” he assured her. “S’an honor to be loved by you.”
She looked away from his gaze, closed her eyes and pressed her forehead to his chest. His throat was aching again. He was really tired, but he would suffer her wrath and frustration of going on about this later. He knew that she would be beside herself knowing he was sick and dealing with her anyway. But where else would he be? "Harry," she whispered finally. He met her eyes the back of his fingers skimming her cheek.
"What, Poppy?"
"Do you love me already?"
"Of course I do."
She sniffled, her face crumpling with relief. Like all of it had been a trick up until then. "Okay," she whispered. “Can we go home?”
“Course, kitten,” he kissed the top of her head and moved slowly to get up from the sofa. All of his muscles ached from sickness and from the awkward but perfect position of holding her all night in the cramped little space.
He held his hand out for her to take as she stood next. “Harry,” she whispered softly.
“Hmm?” He hummed and looked at her with a soft expression that made her stomach flip, her heart skipped a beat. "Yeah, Poppy?"
“I’m in love with you too.”
--
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bunnys-kisses · 2 days
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hi can I please make an order of crème caramel, berry trifle, mango sorbet and a spicy upside down cake with a side of lemon water served by Max Verstappen please? Sorry it's a bit long tho...
bakery menu
want to submit your own order? then hit up the menu, i'd love to hear your order! and thank you to everyone who submitted orders! i am working through them!!
crème caramel ("oh. you thought you were getting away from me?" ) + berry trifle ("wrong. try again.") + mango sorbet ("you are by far the dumbest thing i've ever fucked. how did they even let you graduate?") + spicy upside down cake ( "let's play a game: don't get caught.") + lemon water (university/college au) served by max verstappen (formula one)!!
cw: smut/pwp, university au, bully!max, mean!max, semi-public sex, library sex, fwb gone horrible, dirty talk/degrading language, obsessive!max, oral sex (max receives), choking/deep throating
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"where are you going, schat?" max loomed over you like a heavy cloud as he placed his hands on your hips. he held you like he owned you, and in all fairness... sometimes it felt like he did.
you thought the one time you'd try to have a one night stand that everything would go swimmingly. but you picked the wrong man on campus.
graduate student, about three years your senior. with hands like bear paws and about the same strength as one in his grip. and he held you in the middle of the library.
"you just came in and now you're turning around in leaving? surely you had something to do here today. it was close to eight in the evening, the library was next to dead. you remained silent for a moment before he added, "oh. you thought you were getting away from me? is that it, you thought you could leave before i found you?"
you swallowed and lied, "i forgot something."
he chuckled as he leaned in a little closer, "was it your panties? because i found them in my car yesterday. pink with flowers? they kept me busy all of last night when you were ignoring my texts." he held onto you a little tighter, "it's not polite to ignore me, liefje."
the issue was that you wanted a one night stand with someone outside of your little english department. so you ended up with a geography graduate student... however, after that night, max became your shadow.
"what did you do to my panties, max?"
he let go of you and turned you in his arms. he smiled at you, the kind of smile that most at the school would trip over themselves to see. but you could see something else in those blue eyes, "don't worry, i washed them when i was done." then leaned in to kiss you on the cheek.
you pulled back a little, but couldn't go far as he had you basically trapped against him. you could call for help, but the student librarian at the front desk was more occupied with her phone.
max pulled your attention back to him as he said, "why don't we study together? think of it like a date."
you'd never date someone like max. not even as his thumbs tried to push up your t-shirt a little, you managed to get away. you swallowed, you could run and hide. but, max had more eyes on the school than cameras. someone would catch a glimpse of you somewhere on campus and max would find you.
max verstappen was denied very little in his life. and he wasn't going to start of trend of not getting his way.
"so why were you running away, my love?" he asked as he pressed himself up against you. his strong arms were around you middle as he pressed you to him. he smiled was threatening and you felt a cold chill down your spine.
"i told you. i forgot something." you tried to use the last bit of fight in you. but those eyes of his were all knowing.
"wrong. try again." he said before he went in and kissed you on the cheek, "i remember our first night together. you made me feel like nothing else could. you made me feel alive. i hate when you run away from me." he kissed the corner of your lip softly, "now, why don't we study tonight."
you looked up at him. he was a bit taller than you and for sure stronger. the gaze in his eyes warmed up when you nodded, accepting his offer for studying.
see, you knew what max needed. he wanted to be closer to you, he wanted to feel you all over. he even wanted to take you out on dates and make you the center of his world. he was obsessed with you, and you just needed to see that he loved you. but that meant less struggling.
he led you into the back of the library, the furthest part with two chairs in a desk. there was no one else around for a good while. most had left for the evening. which left you alone with max.
"liefje." he said as he sat on the chair and unzipped his fly, "come here." it was a siren's call before he sank his teeth into you. before he ripped you to shreds and drag you under the waves.
you knew what you had to do, you were thankful that the pants you wore were comfy because you knew that one round, even in a semi-public space, wouldn't be enough for max. you knew another pair of your panties would end up in his car.
he watched you lower to your knees and licked his lips, you looked like a doll to him. he said quietly, "let's play a game: don't get caught." before he ran his hands through your hair.
your face was up against his cock and you shuddered a little bit. the size of it was impressive and it made your mouth water a little. this was how he trapped you. the allure of his heavy cock in your face.
with a small whine he pushed your face further against his cock and you had no choice but to take it in your mouth. but few pleasantries were made when he got the tip up against your throat. you whined a little bit, it was almost a whorish noise as you relaxed against his grasp.
mad max, mean max, whatever you wanted to call him. you felt almost at home on your knees in front of him. he was your hook up gone wrong. horribly wrong.
his voice was a curl in your brain and made you shift a little bit on the carpeted ground, "you are by far the dumbest thing i've ever fucked. how did they even let you graduate?" he knew you had to take an extra semester because you failed a course. in a slight fairness it was max's fault, he wouldn't let you go write your final exam. too busy bruising that cunt of yours well into the morning.
even if you tried to write the exam all your brain cells were gone due to how hard hew as fucking you. even now, with his cock in your throat, you felt a loss in most brain activity. no higher thinking while he was choking you on his cock.
you felt amazing around his cock, there were few words to describe how it all felt. he could feel the flutter in his chest as he rammed his cock up against your throat. and when you made a choking noise, he told you to "shut up." before he kept battering his cock up against the back of your throat.
you looked up at him, your eyes looked so innocent as he pressed his cock into your throat as deep as it would go. he still had a lot to teach you about deep throating, but for now he'd take a small pleasure in your choked noises.
"such a pretty girl." he said, "you look so good on your knees. is this how you were passing all your courses? pretty blouses and dick sucking lips." he chuckled lowly as he gripped onto your head further.
you whimpered a little bit as you held onto his strong thighs as you worked yourself onto his cock. you felt the buzz in your head as you continued to move your head.
"this is how i like you. i don't get why you don't understand that. most would kill for a chance to be in your spot. but you get it so easily." he said in a low, harsh tone.
you whined a little bit and arched your back. you felt your body splashed with heat. you trembled a little bit with a certain want. max verstappen knew how to play you like a fiddle. he knew how to take you apart and put all your pieces back together as he liked them.
"such a good girl for me. i'm glad i got a hold of you before you became a slut. now you can't cum on anyone's dick but mine." he said harshly.
in the back corner of the library you gave him head. your brain felt unfocused as he bullied the tip up against your pretty throat. he wanted to bruise it so you couldn't talk for a few days.
"no need to speak words, liefje. not when your boyfriend could do all the talking for you." he said and the words marked on your brain and made your core soaked.
"max." you tried to say with his cock in your mouth.
"shush." he said.
you looked at him once more before his grip on you started to tighten even more. he pushed his cock up against your throat once more, you knew it would be bruised come morning.
you whined and relaxed yourself enough for him to finish down your throat. he groaned and held onto you as he finished in your mouth. you tasted the saltiness down your throat. and your mind went little a blurry for a moment.
when you got your mouth off his cock, you rested your face on his thigh and looked up at him. max was almost sweet when he brushed the side of your face.
"you should be studying how to make me feel good. stupid little thing already knows enough about english." he pinched your cheeks, "be my bride."
you pouted a little, your lips glossed with spit and pre cum, "no, max."
he sighed before he gripped your hair again, "enough thinking. get on the table. i'm not done with you." max knew you inside and out, no other man on campus could compare to him. he'll teach you eventually, that his love was the only one you needed.
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