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magmahearts · 4 months ago

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TIMING: current. PARTIES: @bountyhaunter & @magmahearts LOCATION: just outside the 3 daggers. SUMMARY: makaio thinks cass is ready for the next step, and daiyu gets caught in the middle. CONTENT: gun use, suicidal ideation

Things felt — stilted lately. It was difficult for Cass to explain it. She knew what she was supposed to be doing, reminded herself as often as she could in whispers too low for her father to hear. But it was beginning to taste more and more like dishonesty on her tongue, beginning to make her stomach clench and her throat seize up in ways she knew it shouldn’t.

The security guard had been the first stutter. She hadn’t felt bad when she hurt the hunter — he’d been trying to kill Ariadne, and it couldn’t be bad to hurt someone who was trying to kill your friend, could it? — but killing the security guard made her feel… heavier. Makaio reminded her that no one would forgive her when they knew, but Nora and Van hadn’t seemed unforgiving, had they?

Still, Cass couldn’t forget what Makaio said to her. She couldn’t forget that even if they did forgive her, Nora and Van wouldn’t be around forever. She couldn’t forget that her friendship with them both happened only because of a promise she bound them to and, now that they had been unbound, they probably wouldn’t stick around much longer. Makaio was still all she had. Makaio was still the only one she could count on. So when he learned about the hunter bar in town and suggested they check it out, Cass agreed.

On some level, she hoped it would help her right herself. After all, her hands burning the hunter’s skin felt right, even now. She carried such little guilt for that particular encounter, so didn’t that mean she should be trying to get back to it? She fell into step beside her father, a quiet shadow. Back in the beginning of her companionship, she used to chatter idly when they walked, but that wasn’t true anymore. The less she spoke, the less chance there was that she’d say something he didn’t like. She needed to hold onto that.

“I doubt we’ll be able to go inside,” Makaio rumbled, stopping at the treeline near the gate. “They would have defenses. And there are bound to be wardens who would sense us. I believe we should wait. One will come out alone sooner or later. They’re solitary things.”

“What are we going to do?” She knew the answer, but she asked it anyway. Makaio’s smile seemed to crack his face, like an earthquake splitting stone.

“You need practice,” he said. “And… one less hunter is a good thing.”

Cass felt nauseous, but she nodded anyway. One less hunter was a good thing, wasn’t it? She had to let herself believe as much.

—

The stranger outside was right about one thing — hunters tended to be solitary creatures. The 3 Daggers existed as a distraction from this fact, not as a way to try and disprove it. Even solitary creatures needed company, after all, and sometimes it was easier to find such a thing with like minded people. Daiyu liked hunter bars for this fact. Not for the fucking stench of alcohol or the glory tales, but because there was no need to beat around any bushes when it came to the work she did. Because there was no need for justification.

Everyone there hunted, or had at one time in their life. They all had varying codes, but that was a red throughline. And it was a comfort, to be among ones kin rather than be among the humans she and other hunters were supposed to protect. Those frail, ignorant things, that were often raised in softer circumstance and not with a blade in their hand and under their pillow.

But at the end of the day, Daiyu was a solitary being. She liked to shoot the shit with the people around her, to share in competitive spirit when it came to bounties, to sip her cokes and collect her cash. It was nice to be around the noise of people, up until it wasn’t. Once people started getting too rowdy and the smell of alcohol lingered on their breaths for too long, was when she tended to dip out.

She was not the only one leaving. Ahead of her was Rafael, paying his bill as Mark Stanson chatted both their ears off. Though he was a chill guy, he didn’t much like outstanding tabs, which Daiyu reckoned was because most of his patrons held jobs that were pretty life-threatening. She didn’t mind it much — Daiyu didn’t like owing people things, anyway, as debts made her feel itchy. Besides, Mark was a good guy. Even if he talked a whole fucking lot. Eventually he let Raf off the hook, though, and had Daiyu pay for her array of drinks of the evening.

“Next time,” she told the retired hunter, “I’m coming here with Flappin’ Flann’s severed head. Be prepared.” She hadn’t said a thing about her own squonk problem, but Fries hadn’t killed any people, where Flappin’ Flann definitely had. She gave the bar a smack as a way to say goodbye and turned on her heel, exiting the bar.

Rafael’s figure walked a little further up ahead and she waved at his silhouette, not sure if he was turned towards or away from her. It was too dark to make such details – and more nefarious ones – out.

—

The bar was busy. There was something fascinating about it, in an uncomfortable sort of way. Imagining a bar full of killers all out in the open was a strange thing. Cass wondered if they talked about the terrible things they’d done like it was a game, if they all laughed and traded stories of hurting people just for being. If Rhett had been successful in his attempt to kill her all those months ago, would he have come here to brag about it? Had the hunter who shot Alex gleefully recounted the tale before Andy killed him? Or Jade, when she’d tried to kill Ariadne?

The idea of it settled like a stone in her stomach, large and bulky and uncomfortable. She held onto it as tightly as she could, wrapped fists around it until her knuckles went white. Keeping this discomfort close would make it easier to do what was expected of her. Reminding herself of what these people did, what they were would ease the nausea tugging at her gut and make her less afraid. Her father needed her to be something right now, and after everything he’d done for her, how could Cass let him down? He was all she had. She’d made sure of that.

Someone was walking down the path, and Makaio nodded towards him. The discomfort in her gut only grew at the sight of him. He was young, she thought; probably not much older than Cass herself. There was something jarring about that, because she’d never thought of hunters as young, never considered the way they grew into holsters that started off far too big. There was a sway to his walk, the slightest sign of drunkenness. Makaio hummed in quiet approval. His lack of sobriety would make him easier to take down, better ‘practice’ for Cass to work on. The stone in her stomach grew larger.

The hunter moved past them, and Cass and Makaio moved to follow. But two, three steps later, the hunter stopped. His head tilted to the side like he was listening for something, though Cass thought they had been quiet. He took a step backwards, then turned around.

“I can feel you,” he called out, almost a singsong. The fiery blood in her veins ran cold. “I’m not really in the mood tonight, so I’ll let you slide this time. Run along, little faerie. I’ll let you go free.”

Part of Cass longed to ask Makaio to accept the offer, but she knew he wouldn’t accept it. After everything he’d told her, after his own experience with hunters and what he knew of hers, she knew there was no world in which he’d allow her to let this one live. As if to prove the point, he rumbled beside her.

“It is not you who is in a position to let us go free. You are out of your depth, warden. We mean to drown you.”

She didn’t know if he shoved her forward or if she stumbled out of the shadows all her own. One moment, she was safely tucked beside her father and the next, she was out in the open. Her eyes were wide, though the rocky surface of her unglamoured skin made it difficult to make out any specific expression on her face. The hunter’s eyes raked over her slowly, and she saw the glint of an iron knife already in his hand. (How had he gotten it out so quickly?)

There was no further conversation. The hunter jumped at her, and Cass ducked to avoid the blade. Her hands shook a little, but she still swung a fist into his stomach. She wasn’t a particularly skilled fighter, but it didn’t take a very hard swing for a volcanic rock with magma filling its cracks to knock the wind out of an intoxicated man. The knife clattered to the ground and the warden stumbled back with a grunt.

“Do not waste time, Cassidy,” Makaio ordered. “Kill him now, and we’ll have time to do another after.”

—

Rafael didn’t wave back, but it barely mattered. Daiyu had mentally clocked out for the night and was looking forward to the drive home. She’d drive in silence, watch the pine trees pass her car as her headlights illuminated the Lynchian stripes on the road. There would be a corner of peace in that drive home, and then even more of it when she’d come home and be greeted by Nugget and Fries — though the latter tended to greet her by way of sobbing heavily.

She was twirling her car keys in her hands when Rafael’s voice echoed over the parking lot. Her Seattle key slammed against her palm and she wrapped her fingers around it, halting and turning her head — enhanced hearing allowed her to catch most of the words in the conversation. Fae. Raf goading them, a warning tone thrown his way in response. Three pairs of heartbeats, besides her own.

Daiyu bristled at the notion that there were supernatural beings aware of the bar and waiting to ambush its patrons. She was quick to shove her keys back in her pocket and undo the latch of her holster, turning towards the conversation-turned-confrontation and taking a sprint.

She was not too familiar with fae — she only ever tended to interact with the more beast-like of them, as they were less prone to tricking her, so the sight of glowing rock in a humanoid shape took her by surprise. “Hey!,” she shouted, because if Daiyu was anything, it was loud. Especially in a fight with foes that appeared human-like. (Yelling at beasts didn’t result to a lot, as they did not understand English – and though this didn’t keep her from hurling insults at them, she knew it wasn’t effective.)

The gun was removed from its holster now, safety flicked off with instinctive ease. She didn’t have her usual arsenal on her — but a pistol and knife were on her body at all times. None of her weapons were iron, though, so that was an issue. The others needn’t know that. She pointed the muzzle of her gun at the larger figure as she slowed her pace, still a way’s away, “Get the fuck out of here if you know what’s good for you!”

—

The warden was fumbling for something in his belt — another weapon, no doubt. Makaio stood behind her, not moving to help, not moving to do anything at all. He’d made it clear when he’d prepared her for this trial that it was hers and hers alone. Makaio had killed plenty of wardens; it was Cass who needed more experience.

And it was silly, really, to expect anything else. The time for her father to hold her hand and guide her through the things she needed to do had long passed. She was an adult now, far too old to rely on parental guidance to achieve things that should have come naturally to her. So the warden fumbled for another weapon, and Cass reached out to grip his wrist with fiery, rocky hands. He let out a scream that sounded so like the one the security guard she’d killed had bellowed, and there was something morbidly fascinating about that, too — about how, no matter their understanding of the situation or the training they might have against it, humans in pain always screamed the same.

She felt his skin melt beneath her grip, felt the bones in his wrist grow more brittle as she held on. Her heart was pounding, and she felt sick. She wondered how many times she’d have to do this before that feeling went away, wondered if Makaio ever felt the same tug of nausea on his gut. Did this hunter? If he’d been the one to strike first, if his knife had found her flesh the way Rhett’s had those months ago, would he have tasted bile at the back of his throat?

Cass didn’t hear the second hunter approach, though she thought Makaio must have. He didn’t say anything, didn’t warn her; why would he? It was Cass who was here to gain experience, and wasn’t that all this was? Her father wouldn’t let any real harm come to her, but Cass didn’t want him to have to step in and save her. She wanted to do this on her own. She wanted to prove her worth, wanted to show him that she was worth keeping around. He wouldn’t leave her if she was useful. She was so sure of that.

But she jumped a little at the new voice, at the unexpectedness of it. It caught her off guard, her grip tightening unconsciously. The warden’s screams grew louder as something snapped in his wrist, and when Cass turned quickly towards the source of the sound, he followed the movement like a ragdoll hanging from her grip. The hand she wasn’t holding still shot out to shove at her chest, though it was a foolish endeavor; all he managed was to melt his skin against hers, trapping him further.

There was a gun pointed at her father. It was the first thing she saw, the only thing she saw. There was a gun pointed at her father, just as there had been at the tourist site where she killed the guard. Cass felt the panic rise now the same way it had then, the desperate thrum of her heart drowning out all other sound. It was thoughtless, the way she dropped the warden’s wrist. There was no intention in the way she put her hands against his chest to shove him away from her, but Cass burned so much hotter when her heart was pounding like this. Magma dripped from her fingertips like water, the eruption already in progress.

She didn’t even register it. She wasn’t thinking about the way human chests weren’t meant to withstand the force of molten lava being shoved against them, wasn’t thinking of how fragile the ribcage really was or how the hot gas of volcanic eruptions was capable of vaporizing bodily fluids, or how quickly pain could send a person into shock and stop their heart. All she was thinking of was the gun pointed at her father, and how badly she needed to stop it from going off.

The warden’s body flopped to the ground all the same, his screams cut off at the knee.

—

Words were empty. Words were just air passing, and as Daiyu screamed a warning she knew as much. What did it matter how she threatened in the face of two lava monsters? In two people – if one could call them that, and training demanded she should not – who were focused on the kill? She knew how a mind got when it became akin to a sniper rifle. How it got when it has its sights set on a target. When a brutal dog sinks in its teeth, it doesn’t let go, and neither does the mind of a murderer.

Because that was what the parking lot was filled with that night — she knew that much. She did not know the fae made of lava, but she knew that no innocents came to a place like this to attack someone stumbling out of a bar. They were predators. The smaller figure was holding Raf’s wrist and something about it was all wrong, the smell of searing flesh filling Daiyu’s nose and though Raf was fighting, what point was there when your opponent was untouchable?

Her feet were guiding her, closer to that smell, her gun still cocked and the look on her face stormy. She could not help but think that she had expected the smell of human flesh to be more akin to that of a barbecue, but in stead it was something horrid. Something that filled her heightened senses and that made her, in turn, grit her teeth. Ready to sink them in.

Of course the sight of a gun was met with a reaction. The smaller one pushed against Rafael and lava erupted from her, as if she was a volcano in her own right and there was no time to think about how Daiyu had never seen a volcano in her life before except for on TV and how lava did not seem that edible after all. She was trained better than that. Rafael’s body fell to the ground but she only heard it, her eyes on the other lava-person. Again, the second part of that term was debatable — especially with the smell of burning fabric, organs and flesh filling the air.

She did not register the death, not fully. There was no time for such things and even when there was time for those kind of things, she was not particularly good at registering death and loss. There was a corpse in the parking lot with her, but the corpse was no priority — the priority was the two others, the two threats to her own life, the two who had killed someone like her, the two who glowed in the evening darkness.

She had always been quick. She had to be, with her lack of height and her relatively small frame. And so she shot her gun, the first shot loosened before Rafael hit the ground, the second echoing his fall, the third following soon after. The figure ducked, a bullet dinged off his not-skin and Daiyu’s gun continued to be aimed at him, twelve more bullets in her gun. Rafael’s scream seemed to echo still.

—

There were things that got easier the more you did them. It was why athletes spent hours in the gym, working tired muscles to build them up, why musicians bloodied their fingers on guitar strings to build calluses, why artists held paintbrushes until their hands shook. With enough practice, some things became easy. They became muscle memory; you could do them in your sleep.

Cass didn’t think this was one of those things.

The warden’s screams seemed to echo in her mind just as loudly as those of the security guard, seemed to join together with them in a brutal chorus. The fact that he was a hunter didn’t make it easier, the way she’d thought it might, and there was something strange about that. Hadn’t it been easy with the slayer who attacked Ariadne outside the smoothie shop? Hadn’t that felt right? Why did this, then, feel wrong? Why did the screams of a murderer echo as loudly as those of an innocent man who she’d killed only for doing his job and being afraid in the process?

There wasn’t time to think on it the way she thought she ought to. The other person — the other hunter was moving before the body hit the ground. The gun went off, and Cass screamed. It was a hoarse, desperate thing; it didn’t sound at all like the pained, dying wails of the hunter whose corpse now smoldered on the ground. It was its own kind of animal.

Makaio ducked, but Cass heard a bullet bounce off stone, and it didn’t matter that his skin was too tough for the bullet to pierce. It still hurt, Cass knew. Just like a bullet fired into kevlar left a bruise, a bullet fired into stone skin ached. And what had Makaio done to deserve it? Cass was the one who’d hurt the warden. Why was the hunter shooting at Makaio, who was only a witness to the crime?

The gun remained trained on her father. The hunter’s finger was still on the trigger. Cass couldn’t risk the next bullet piercing skin, couldn’t stomach the idea of her father being hurt for her crimes. With the hunter seemingly focused solely on Makaio, Cass rushed her, aiming for a tackle.

—

Her upbringing had covered a broad range of things, but Daiyu’s teachings hadn’t covered magma-humanoids that had very tough skin. They had to be fae of some kind, but she wasn’t sure how to deal with them — especially not when she was so ill-prepared. She should always be prepared, her father reminded her in the back of her mind: a good hunter never slept easy. It was a lesson he’d taught his children by rousing them from their beds at night to practice a hunt or by dropping them in those familiar woods with just a knife and their bravery.

But in those woods she’d fought beasts and shifters she’d been prepared for. These fae? They were uncharted territory and Rafael lied on the ground, blood starting to pool as the putrid smell of burning human flesh kept bursting through her skull. He just lied there and all she had was a small pistol and twelve bullets and though she loosened two more but it didn’t matter.

They were loud, though, those bullets. It wasn’t often that Daiyu hoped to rely on loudness during a fight, as most of her hunts required a certain level of silence. With noise, you alarmed beasts of your presence and lost your advantage — but now, she had none. So she shot her gun and kept shooting it even when the smaller fae rushed over to her.

The crash of two bodies in a parking lot was not unknown to her — she got into plenty of parking lot fights, after all. But she’d never quite been hit with a body like this. Though she wasn’t much taller than her, the amount of weight pressing against her and then onto her were surprisingly heavy. But Daiyu kept shooting, bullets flying and count now lost as she attempted to angle her muzzle at the fae on top of her.

There were a few seconds of grace where her body didn’t register the burn yet, the same way a hand might not feel the heat of an oven pan at first. The seconds passed, though, and Daiyu let out a wail.

—

Throughout her admittedly short-lived career as a superhero, Cass had become somewhat accustomed to chaotic fights. She’d faced off against creatures she hadn’t quite understood, relying on only her wits and her tough skin to protect her. She’d led werewolves through hidden passageways, fought vampires whose minds had left them long ago. But the kind of chaos she was dealing with now, this frighteningly human thing… this was new. Her experience with guns was limited, and her experience with hunters was a thing that ended poorly every time. Rhett, Debbie, the nameless man who’d attacked Ariadne and nearly burned for it, the young hunter laying dead a few feet away now… Didn’t things like this always end in a way that was impossible to recover from?

The hunter was still firing her gun, though the shots were all going wide now. It was hard not to think about the security guard, about his gun that was useless the moment Cass got close enough to make it too hot to hold and the way she’d killed him anyway. Her father was watching her now; she could feel his eyes burning into the back of her neck. She’d kill this woman too, because he wanted her to. Because she had such little choice, because she needed him to love her and wasn’t love always a thing she’d had to earn? Wasn’t the idea that it was given away for free a stupid, childish notion?

She made contact with the woman, feeling her flesh melt and sizzle against hot stone the moment Cass touched her. She didn’t drop the gun the way the security guard had; Cass wondered if she was trained for this, wondered how hunters were taught to keep hold of their weapons no matter what. (Briefly, she thought of Kaden, and she quickly shook the thought away. It wouldn’t do to think of him now. This wasn’t Kaden. This was a nameless stranger, someone who wanted to hurt her. It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t.) The gun was pushing towards her, an attempt to angle it at her head, and Cass didn’t know if the bullet would get through her stony skin but she knew it was too dangerous to test at this distance. She needed to neutralize that threat immediately, before anything else.

Reaching out, she grabbed the woman’s wrist with her hand and slammed it backwards against the ground to dislodge her grip. Once, twice, five times. Something snapped, the sound loud and violent even over the existing wails and gunshots and sizzling of flesh, and Cass slammed the limb to the ground again after. Blood splurted up from… somewhere, though she wasn’t sure where. But the gun clattered to the ground, and that was the important thing. That was what mattered.

She told herself that that mattered more than the way the woman was still screaming, but it was a hard thought to hold onto. The woman’s screams mixed with the security guard’s, mixed with the dead hunter’s, mixed with hers the night Rhett got her or with Debbie’s in that supermarket. Her mind was a time machine, powered by the wails of people she’d hurt and by her own pain that had never quite left her. Cass froze, magmic veins flickering and cooling slightly as doubt crept in.

—

Her skin was burning. Underneath the pressure and skin-to-magma contact of the fae, Daiyu’s skin was sizzling like bacon on a grill being prepared for one of her burgers. The sounds that came from her mouth should have been trained out of her by now, these confessions of weakness and pain — but they slipped out regardless along with the bullets of her gun, though there would be no end to her wails as there would be an end to her bullets. But even once those ran out, she would continue to fight, even if the odds were against her. Even if she could not fistfight this body on top of her without injuring herself further, even if she might hurt herself more by wriggling and struggling.

She had always fought. It was the one instinct she had, the only one her father had been able to rely on as he’d trained her. Daiyu was no tactician, was no sadist, was no snake in the grass or bird of prey in the sky — she was a brawler. Back when she’d still been young and attempting to cling to innocence, her father had pushed her through that instinct. She’d get so riled up, so angry that there was nothing to do but fight. Eventually her hands or weapons found the intended target.

But she was losing this fight. The fae took her wrist and slammed it against the ground, her gun skittering away as her arm made continuous contact with the asphalt until the crack, the blinding pain and the blissful ignorance of not being able to see the bone sticking out from her arm. Blood squirted from the wound and Daiyu wasn’t just wailing now — she screamed. Fluid leaked from her eyes and she would never call this crying, because it wasn’t, but there was no stopping it.

Maybe she’d die here. Her own mortality was a close, dear friend. She’d never imagined she’d make it to thirty in the first place, had always expected to die sooner. At sixteen, in that den of werewolves her sister had sent her to, or any of the days that had followed. But she had lived for fourteen more years in stead and maybe it was fine, to die — it wasn’t like life had much purpose anyway. It wasn’t like she had intended to live this long. All she did was fill her days with noise to drown out the rest of it.

So maybe she’d die. She was starting to smell the way Rafael did. And maybe it was fine, because there wasn’t a lot to live for – but then her mind traveled to Nugget, still at home, waiting for her. Now, the water leaking from her eyes could be called tears.

The grip on her wrist seemed to cool and not just because it was loosening. Daiyu’s frantic gaze found the other’s, the magma in her face flickering. She looked very young, as far as rock and magma could look young. Her chest heaved with continued wails and she was frozen for a moment, body overrun with pain, mind cloudy with overwhelming scents and sensations. When a new sound joined the fray – that of a door bursting open and multiple footsteps falling – she did the only thing she knew. She fought. She pulled up one of her legs and thrust her knee towards the other’s crotch, angling her other hand to attempt to push the mass of rock off. She’d always been the type to fight even the losing battles, after all.

—

It was funny, the way the whole world could narrow in moments like this one. Normally, Cass was hyperaware of the world around her. For years, it had been a necessary thing. Growing up the way she had, on streets that were always at least a little unfamiliar and with people she had known she couldn’t trust nearly as much as she wanted to, awareness had been as necessary as the air flowing through her lungs. She may not have known much about hunters before Alex told her of the danger, but she’d always known about threats. She’d always known that there were things that would do whatever they could do to hurt her, and that sometimes those things were shaped like people. The world was big, and you had to be aware of all of it in order to survive it.

But right now, in this moment, the world was a tiny thing. It was large enough to fit two people, and that was all. Even Makaio, who had been such a constant presence both physically and in the space of Cass’s mind throughout the last few months, faded into another universe as she gripped the hunter’s wrist. There was no bar in the distance, no cooling corpse a few feet away, no trees to slink into. There was Cass and there was the hunter and there was the fiery grip that bound them together. There were the woman’s wails, there was the bone sticking out of her hand, there were —

There were tears. There were tears in the woman’s eyes, and Cass was caught so off guard by them that her grip slackened. It was easy, she thought, to think of hunters as monsters. Hadn’t Rhett proven himself as one when he’d pressed that knife to her head? Hadn’t the hunter who’d attacked Ariadne shown his teeth like a rabid animal? Hadn’t Jade shown little remorse for trying to kill Cass’s best friend and then making small talk with Cass after, as if nothing had changed at all? Even Debbie, young and perhaps a little naive, had shown such little remorse for attacking them that it had been easy to write her off as a terrible thing. Ever since she’d learned of them, ever since that supermarket and Alex’s story of the ranger in the woods, hunters had been little more than monsters hiding in closets. There were exceptions, perhaps — Kaden, who she’d only ever seen hurt bestial things, or Andy, who didn’t hunt at all — but as a whole, weren’t they monsters? Weren’t they the bad guys? Didn’t that mean Cass was still the hero?

Except there were tears in the eyes of the woman beneath her, and Cass had never imagined monsters as things that cried. It wasn’t just the pain, though she knew that likely had something to do with it. The expression on this woman’s face, the twist in her lips and the shimmering in her eyes… there was grief there, too. Grief for something not yet lost, something Cass was taking. She thought, again, of Rhett’s grip on her throat outside her cave those months ago, thought of the way she, too, had grieved the life she’d been so sure she was losing.

Resolve flickered and, with it, so did the heat of the magma burning through her. The stone in her chest grew larger, and the layer of stone that made up her skin cooled as it did so. For a moment, her glamour flickered up — some subconscious attempt of separating herself from her crime, perhaps. The world widened again with the sound of a door bursting open and footsteps echoing into the night, and Cass looked up towards it. The momentary distraction was easily taken advantage of, of course; whatever else she was, the hunter was doubtlessly trained to snatch any advantage she could wrap her hands around, and she gripped this one tightly.

The knee in her crotch hurt, but not much. The hands shoving against her were weak, but something made her stumble back, anyway. Maybe it was the shock of it, or maybe it was pity. Maybe it was her subconscious thinking about just how little she wanted to finish this job. At the bar, people spilled into the night. Cass counted at least half a dozen, with more still exiting the door behind them. They were doubtlessly armed, as hunters always were, and she looked to Makaio.

“Dad —”

“I see it,” he replied, sounding flat and neutral.

“We have to get out of here. I can’t — We can’t take them all on.”

Makaio raised a brow, glancing to the woman still writhing on the ground. Cass swallowed. He wanted her to finish the job, she realized, wanted her to end it. But how could she? There were people coming, her hands were shaking, the hunter was crying. Cass looked at her, heart pounding in her throat. Fingers curling into loose fists at her side, she shook her head and made a decision.

“She’s dead, anyway, isn’t she?” She spoke carefully. “Human bodies aren’t built to withstand volcanic eruptions. Most people in Pompeii died from the ash clouds.” None of it was untrue, technically. The woman’s lungs had doubtlessly taken damage during the fight, even if Cass didn’t think it was really enough to kill her. She wasn’t lying to her father. She wasn’t. The hunter could still die. She just… didn’t have to do it right this minute.

There was a moment’s hesitation. Cass held her breath, watched the crowd of hunters drawing nearer. And then, Makaio nodded. “That’s enough for now,” he agreed. “Let’s go.”

—

The weight lifted off her body. Daiyu had no energy to delude herself to think it was because she had somehow succeeded in kicking the other off — she was getting off herself, peeling her volcanic rock from her own frail human body for one reason or another. It didn’t matter why. All that mattered was that it was gone. The pressure was gone. The fight was gone, for now.

She did not rise from the ground as she might have in any other brawl, did not push herself to the ground through grit teeth and tears of pain and frustration. She did not ball her fists to throw a punch at her opponent or reach for one of her weapons with an intention to wield it. She did not even curse at her, her throat aching with the smoke of her own burning flesh and the other’s mer, simple proximity to her. There were still tears coming from her eyes and those, too, hurt. All of it did.

And it wasn’t like Daiyu was a stranger to pain. Her body was a map of scars, proof that she’d encountered plenty of danger had come out victorious. That was, of course, if you defined victory as survival — which she had to, because otherwise there would be too many losses. If she made it through this, her body would carry more scars, ones that proved that she’d slipped from the grasp of an enemy capable of melting her very flesh. She was no stranger to pain, but she certainly was a stranger to this sensation, this lack of fight within her and the relief of incoming rescue. Her arm was screaming, her skin was searing, her lungs were constricting. The pressure was gone and she was still crying.

With the little power she had left, she crawled back, feet kicking against the gravel of the ground, elbows pulling her away from the magma girl and the other before she convulsed, muscles jerking in protest. The involuntary sounds from her mouth were ugly and Daiyu heard them echo through her mind. She’d heard sounds like this before, but barely ever from her own body. It was often her in the position of the magma girl, but whenever it was her, she delivered the final shot, the last fatal kick, the lethal cut with a knife.

It didn’t come, though. She was talking to the other person in stead, muffled sounds that she couldn’t fully reach, that she heard clearly because of her sharp hearing but didn’t register through the haze of pain. It was a good thing, that she did not fully understand the conversation taking place between daughter and father. In a moment like this she could not use that kind of mirror, if she could use it at all. There were plenty of memories in her mental scrapbook of her father’s disappointment with his daughter’s relative lack of ruthlessness, after all. Plenty of times where they’d disagreed, where the instinct to kill had not yet been fully awakened in her yet. Such was the relationship between hunter and parent. In the end, Daiyu always fell in line.

One of the few things she did understand was the let’s go and it hardly felt like mercy, to be left alive with two bones sticking out of her arm and her skin open and searing. It wasn’t mercy. It could be said that someone like Daiyu didn’t even know what mercy was, as she’d been raised without it and been told to never hand it out. But this wasn’t it — this was proof of the other’s weakness, just as her lying there was proof of her own.

They left, two pairs of footsteps growing further away as plenty of others grew nearer. There were sounds of indignant yells, weapons being drawn. She had to stop crying. She could not be seen like this, frail and fractured, not just physically but emotionally too. It wasn’t permissible to be witnessed in this state and her mind was fighting for a way to shrug off the injuries, a way to say hey, it’s just a scratch man and get into her car to get out of there. She could deal with emergency room people seeing her like this, even if it would be uncomfortable — but in front of her fellow hunters? She had to save face. She could not be seen after a loss.

The only thing she managed to do was to stop crying, though that might as well be because it put too much pressure on her aching lungs. Daiyu was trying to get up to her feet when a hand scooped her under one shoulder and behind the knees. “No,” she wheezed, eyes finding Mark, who didn’t lift her fully off the ground but at least got her to her feet and continued supporting her. Blood spurted from her arm, raining onto the ground and she felt faint looking down at it, swaying against the older hunter.

“C’mon,” he grunted. Around them, tipsy and drunk hunters were getting ready to pursue the perpetrators. Someone was tending to Rafael, covering his body. Words were exchanged about cleaning the mess so that law enforcement could keep their sniffing noses out of it. Daiyu leaned against Stanson and did not cry, even if she relented in all other ways as she let him guide her to his car. No protest left her mouth, not when he put her in the back, not when other helping hands came with cold compresses and a bandage to press against the wound. Not when the car took off and the radio blasted an 80s radio station that was promptly turned down. She relented and maybe that was mercy, at least to herself.

#bountyhaunter #daiyu: ash and ruin #wickedswriting

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mentalisttraceur-software · 1 year ago

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Could you elaborate on how software is applied philosophy?

Software work ends up using and empirically testing a lot of the thinking and conclusions that get serious discussion in philosophy, or that would look like philosophy if generalized beyond software.

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My go-to example of this, probably not the best example but it's simple and accessible, is "Chesterton's Fence", which is basically the idea that we shouldn't change something unless we understand why it is (or was) good/useful.

Outside of software, some philosopher named Chesterton popularized this idea like a hundred years ago with an analogy about a fence, and it has been discussed enough that today it still has an established name from that. People debate and hair-split when it applies and what other values/heuristics should take precedence. You can even find people arguing whether it's a good heuristic at all or always wrong.

In software, getting any real work done depends on already having a practical, working solution to this problem space. When you need to change code but you feel that desire to understand more of it first, or you want to get more testing with a new change before rolling into production, that's your brain already having a whole philosophy paper's worth of ideas expanding on Chesterton's Fence. When is it safe or an acceptable trade-off to proceed without learning more? Precisely what edge cases do you need to look into or rule out? What tests can take the place of needing to know the consequences? What design of my implementation or API can eliminate the need for code guarding against special cases?

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So that's just one example, but I think this generalizes pretty well.

A lot of philosophy boils down to: how think, what's true, what do? The study of correct thinking, what we can know and how, and what we ought to do. (Logic, epistemology, and ethics.)

And in software, we use all those skills. If our logic is bad, we make more mistakes. If our ability to know what we know and how to verify truth of our ideas is bad, we'll make more mistakes. If we have bad ideas about how to make decisions, or bad skills at reviewing ourselves for errors in thinking and knowledge, we'll have more inefficiencies in our processes/workflows and be slower to improve. Very few activities have as tight/short/fast of a feedback loop between how your think and what results you get.

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There is a lot of overlap in the mental skills involved in sound philosophical thought and coming up with good software designs for a given problem. In as little as I can claim to have done both, I seem to need mostly the same mental skills for them.

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A lot of decisions and trade-offs in software have ethics impacts. We get a lot of personal freedom within our code that will have real impacts on other people - edge cases frustratingly unhandled vs handled in an intuitive and helpful way; errors silently swallowed or harmfully ignored or cryptically unadorned vs considerately detected before destructive actions and informatively wrapped before being shown; code left opaque and complected vs helpfully tuned to guide understanding and written so as to minimize what needs to be known or changed to work with any given spot. All that adds up to affect people, sometimes very significantly, wasting hours of work or losing data.

Two examples of that in one. Just the other day I helped someone save a lot of stuff they had typed from a website that got stuck in some state where their text was unclickable+unselectabled and covered by an overlay. Losing all that text and having to retype it would've been severely unpleasant, mentally+emotionally costly, and probably would've ruined an evening for at least one person. I was only able to help because I am fluent with web browsers' dev tools, so I was able to find the text box in the HTML inspector. I doubt the devs of either the web app or the browser dev tools had this particular situation in mind, but these were predictable ethics impacts on both sides - and besides ethics in general being a subset of philosophy, the thought shapes that enable you to automatically predict entire categories of impacts like those are also a kind of philosophy.

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When you design a class hierarchy in code, or a database schemas, or a REST API, or just come up with a way to factor some logic into separate functions... you're doing ontology. And while the philosopher ontologist sees no real consequences if they get it wrong, you will feel the difference between getting it right and getting it wrong as the difference between a force-multiplier and an awkward hindrance - edge-cases and boilerplate elegantly become naturally unnecessary and more things Just Work "for free" when the abstractions and factoring and data shape are right for the problem. You're decomposing things into concepts and identifying relationships between them, and you're testing if the thinking you use to do that is actually good at distilling what's functionally important to the problem space. (This is why "naming things" is one of the "truly hard problems in computer science" - naming things well sometimes entails all the work of coming up with an ontology that's good for thinking about what you're doing, which also must map concisely and intuitively to a language like English.)

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Sorry for the lack of cohesion/connectedness, this is just what I could think of / remember off the top of my head today.

#software #software is applied philosophy #philosophy

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caelumsnuff · 1 year ago

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i want to hear your recent opinions ^O^

Thank you for soliciting my opinions lol

So! With the resurrection of the whole “making characters a certain race” discussion, I have had So Many Opinions about the entire situation.

I feel like a significant amount of people from both sides have come at the discussion in bad faith and that’s only caused more tension and halted any meaningful dialogue we could have been having from this whole thing. On one hand we have people who are rightfully suspicious about the entirety of someone’s cast being white/seemingly only making characters poc when they fit stereotypes associated with those races, and on the other hand we have people who did such a thing and refuse to analyze their own mannerisms.

To be very very clear: we are correct to be suspicious when white people do these things!!! But i think where many go wrong is walking into discussions having already let their suspicions turn into assumptions; if you show up to a discussion already having made up your mind about someone, you’re never going to get anywhere! You cannot have productive discussions whilst attacking another person for being racist when you don’t even know if they are actually a racist, they’re only ever going to go on the defensive. And you know, when you think someone may have a little bit of implicit bias, you want to actually get them to analyze and deconstruct those biases, not immediately get defensive and shut down criticism because they feel attacked.

And also, i think it's ridiculous that almost every single white person has just automatically ignored why we may be uncomfortable with a cast suspiciously missing any people of color, or only making characters of color when they seem to fit into stereotypes. They ask "why?" and then disregard any of our explanations. I understand when someone comes and accuses you of something you can end up feeling attacked, but as an adult it's your responsibility to 1) assess whether you're actually being attacked and if you're not, 2) whether or not their assumptions are true. If you want to be an anti-racist person, you should actually be analyzing the things you do that might be born of implicit bias instead of going "nope! not racist! therefore i am incapable of doing something racist!" because thats just blatantly false.

Theres so many reasons that someone could have made every character played by Erik white, the easiest of which being that Erik's white. People associate voices with faces sometimes, and we all know what that white guy looks like, his face is everywhere. I wouldn't be surprised if some people cannot imagine characters Erik voices as looking drastically different than him. The appearance of his characters are supposed to be for you to decide. I can imagine that for some people not being give a face to associate with a certain character they just automatically see Erik or someone who looks similarly.

I also find the idea of looking for representation from random artists in the fandom pretty iffy, especially when its from characters that are all voiced by a single white boy. Please please please, go find and support VAs and ASMRists who are actually POC instead of relying on fan-artists and a single white boy for representation.

All in all just.... treat each other kindly and with grace, do some introspection on your own subconscious actions and decisions, and stop spitting straight vitriol at one another because of something in a fucking boyfriend roleplay asmr fandom. Give others the benefit of the doubt, and give yourself the chance to grow and unlearn some things growing up in a racist society may have taught you.

#ask #anon #redacted asmr #redacted audio

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thosearentcrimes · 2 years ago

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Sometimes someone will say something that's basically fundamentally impossible to prove. It's a claim that you can provide arbitrary amounts of more or less convincing evidence for, but by the nature of the claim, proof just can't show up, and yet the claim is sufficiently important that it cannot be ignored. Frequently, statements about secret beliefs or intentions fall under this category. If I claim someone believes something or intended some result of their actions, I can hardly be proven wrong (I can always claim that person is lying) but likewise I can never be proven right (they can always lie).

Some Scott "Scott Alexander" Alexander Siskind fans thought this is what was going to happen with his ties to the neoreactionary movement, when he took his blog down because the New York Times was writing an article about him. Critics had thought and said for a long time that he was trying to launder reactionary ideas and racism through his blog posts, that he was dogwhistling to the right-wing elements of his audience while retaining plausible deniability for his other readers who he was trying to convert. In the event, the article barely even hints at this criticism, but that was enough to irritate a fanbase already primed to melt down. Conveniently for those fans, since the claims in question are about the intentions and beliefs of a man who by definition would seek to keep those intentions and beliefs secret, they could literally never be proven wrong.

Unless. What if Scott had written a lengthy email almost a decade ago, in which he had declared that the neoreactionaries are right about "HBD", that is, that he was a racist, believing in the superiority of some races over others? That he had been actively hiding that fact from both the general public and his own audience? That he agreed on various other things (such as correct interpretation of WW2, and crime/criminal justice) with the neoreactionaries? What if he had said that his intention with his writings was to raise his own profile by way of provocation, to spread neoreactionary ideas he agrees with (recall that those include race, WW2, and crime) to as wide an audience as possible, and to raise the profile of and personally befriend neoreactionaries. Enter Topher Brennan, with the email in question.

An interesting side note about the email is that basically every public figure in the Rationalist space assumed it was real, even though Scott hadn't commented on it publicly. Was it because of some sort of private warning that the email was real and they should avoid the embarrassment of denying it? Was it because many of them were in fact familiar with his secret views and intentions, and as such not surprised he had brought them up with others in private? It is a mystery that requires an explanation. If it was absurd and evil to insinuate (not even claim, just possibly somewhat imply) that Scott was racist or overly friendly to racists, then surely emails in which he declares himself to be racist and friendly to racists would be quite literally incredible to them, no?

In any case, what I think is more important is what happened to the unprovable claim. As far as I can tell, what happened is that everyone determined that since the claim was clearly unprovable, it was as good as disproved, and could safely be considered basically false or at least nonsense (if this seems like uncharacteristically loose reasoning, recall that some of the thought leaders involved almost certainly already privately knew the claim was true). Since the claim was false, the revelation of that exact form of proof whose impossibility had been accepted as a premise was irrelevant. The email could be cheerfully ignored (well, not entirely ignored, some retribution for the offense would be in order) because we already knew the thing it's trying to prove is false, because the proof that is now being offered cannot really exist, even though nobody doubts that the proof is genuine. It seems to be a sort of reasoning cul-de-sac.

This event was also a specific manifestation of an interesting paradox around racism. Racism is considered to be so obviously horrific that accusing someone of it is a monstrous injury. However, if that racism is proven, not only is that supposed universal horror often in remarkably short supply, the accuser is generally not forgiven for the monstrous injury they have inflicted. In practice, it seems that accusing a racist of racism is quite frequently less acceptable than racism. Curious, isn't it? The assertion that racism is totally unacceptable working to shield racism.

#Scott “Scott Alexander” Alexander Siskind

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years ago

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APPARENTLY OUR SITUATION WAS NOT UNUSUAL

Enjoy it while it lasts, and get as much done as you can, because you haven't hired any bureaucrats yet. Sites of this type will get their attention. The fact that there's no conventional number. Don't fix Windows, because the remaining. And what drives them both is the number of new shares to the angel; if there were 1000 shares before the deal, this means 200 additional shares. This is not as selfish as it sounds. For the average startup fails. It spread from Fortran into Algol and then to depend on it happening. Seeing the system in use by real users—people they don't know—gives them lots of new ideas is practically virgin territory.

Auto-retrieving spam filters would make the legislator who introduced the bill famous. When someone's working on a problem where their success can be measured, you win. I was a Reddit user when the opposite happened there, and sitting in a cafe feels different from working. However, the easiest and cheapest way for them to do it gets you halfway there. No one uses pen as a verb in spoken English. We'd ask why we even hear about new languages like Perl and Python, the claim of the Python hackers seems to be as big as possible wants to attract everyone. Conditionals. Poetry is as much music as text, so you start to doubt yourself. Between them, these two facts are literally a recipe for exponential growth. In languages, as in any really bold undertaking, merely deciding to do it. I fly over the Valley: somehow you can sense something is going on.

It's easy to be drawn into imitating flaws, because they're trying to ignore you out of existence. Google. Long words for the first time should be the ideas expressed there. If a link is just an empty rant, editors will sometimes kill it even if it's on topic in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. As long as you're at a point in your life when you can bear the risk of failure. I'm less American than I seem. The distinction between expressions and statements. So perhaps the best solution is to add a few more checks on public companies. Let me repeat that recipe: finding the problem intolerable and feeling it must be true that only 1.

Well, I said a good rule of thumb was to stay upwind—to work on a Python project than you could to work on a problem that seems too big, I always ask: is there some way to bite off some subset of the problem. A company that needed to build a factory or hire 50 people obviously needed to raise a large round and risk losing the investors you already have if you can't raise the full amount. And isn't popularity to some extent its own justification? I realize I might seem to be any less committed to the business. Surely that's mere prudence? The measurement of performance will tend to push even the organizations issuing credentials into line. Number 6 is starting to have a piratical gleam in their eye. About a year after we started Y Combinator that the most important skills founders need to learn. When the company goes public, the SEC will carefully study all prior issuances of stock by the company and demand that it take immediate action to cure any past violations of securities laws. Within a few decades old, and rapidly evolving. I didn't say so, but I'm British by birth. Investors tend to resist committing except to the extent you can.

I'm talking to companies we fund? But if we can decide in 20 minutes, should it take anyone longer than a couple days when he presented to investors at Demo Day, the more demanding the application, the more demanding the application, the more extroverted of the two founders did most of the holes are. We funded them because we liked the founders so much. And such random factors will increasingly be able to brag that he was an investor. You'd feel like an idiot using pen instead of write in a different language than they'd use if they were expressed that way. The safest plan for him personally is to stick close to the margin of failure, and the time preparing for it beforehand and thinking about it afterward. The theory is that minor forms of bad behavior encourage worse ones: that a neighborhood with lots of graffiti and broken windows becomes one where robberies occur. S s: n. Bootstrapping Consulting Some would-be founders may by now be thinking, why deal with investors at all, it means you don't need them.

It's not just that you can't judge ideas till you're an expert in a field. And the way to do it gets you halfway there. Angels who only invest occasionally may not themselves know what terms they want. But the raison d'etre of all these institutions has been the same kind of aberration, just spread over a longer period. If someone pays $20,000 from their friend's rich uncle, who they give 5% of the company they take is artificially low. But because seed firms operate in an earlier phase, they need to spend a lot on marketing, or build some kind of announcer. There are millions of small businesses in America, but only a little; they were both meeting someone they had a lot in common with. We present to him what has to be treated as a threat to a company's survival. S i; return s;; This falls short of the spec because it only works for integers. He said their business model was crap.

I was a philosophy major. Programs often have to work actively to prevent your company growing into a weed tree, dependent on this source of easy but low-margin money. And I was a philosophy major. This leads to the phenomenon known in the Valley is watching them. I definitely didn't prefer it when the grass was long after a week of rain. As many people have noted, one of the questions we pay most attention to when judging applications. I'd like to reply with another question: why do people think it's hard to predict, till you try, how long it will take to become profitable. Raising money is the better choice, because new technology is usually more valuable now than later. The purpose of the committee is presumably to ensure that is to create a successful company?

One recently told me that he did as a theoretical exercise—an effort to define a more convenient alternative to the Turing Machine. This is actually less common than it seems: many have to claim they thought of the idea after quitting because otherwise their former employer would own it. If you look at these languages in order, Java, and Visual Basic—it is not so frivolous as it sounds, however. VCs they have introductions to. VCs ask, just point out that you're inexperienced at fundraising—which is always a safe card to play—and you feel obliged to do the same for any firm you talk to. The lower your costs, the more demanding the application, the more important it is to sell something to you, the writer, the false impression that you're saying more than you have. What happens in that shower?

Thanks to Dan Bloomberg, Trevor Blackwell, Garry Tan, Nikhil Pandit, Reid Hoffman, Geoff Ralston, Slava Akhmechet, Paul Buchheit, Ben Horowitz, and Greg McAdoo for the lulz.

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hansensgirl · 3 years ago

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push it to the limit.

summary. | As he watches you ogle the man who would pop champagne moments before touching heaven, he puts his foot on the gas pedal and his hand on one of the levers, ready to push it to the limit. Maybe this time, you’ll finally notice him.

warnings. | Non/Dubcon, watersports, obsessive behaviour, coercion, bribery, dark themes, drinking (champagne), hate fucking, unprotected sex, rough sex, public sex, dumbification, degradation, dirty talk, humiliation, breeding kink, choking, allusions to anal, reader is really rude (so is Niki), *sexism/misogyny/paying for sex (see a/n), and more. 18+, MINORS DNI.

word count. | 8.4k

pairings. | Dark!Niki Lauda x Reader, James Hunt x Reader (it’s one-sided).

author’s note. | please enjoy, and please don’t forget to reblog! if you take ANY inspiration from my fics (i’ll know, trust me) and you don’t give credit, you will be blocked and i’ll let others know. *he talks about paying you for sex as a way to degrade you, it’s brief and in german! it does not reflect anything about me or my blog. we are pro-sex work here! it’s just fiction.

“Look! There he is!” a small voice tells you, pointing somewhere with a great distance. You’re not sure how he manages to spot his favourite racer from so far. Among the sea of heads, your younger brother sits on your shoulders. You can feel him touching you down to your bones, and you try to ignore the pain just for him. “You sure? You said that five times before, y’know,” you denote, and you hear the six-year-old groan. “Yes, I’m sure! Look, he’s drinking that nasty stuff like always,” he adds, and you realize he’s talking about James’s signature champagne.

“It’s not nasty,” you mumble under your breath, remembering the way the pleasant liquid felt and tasted against your tongue. Sticky gold is what you’d describe it as, and you recall how it stained your skin. Shaky hands are bound to tremor even more under pressure, and your friend is an absolute clutz. It’s no wonder she made such a mess, as it is one of her best traits. But a particular pair of hands that seemed to have Midas’s touch cleaned you up, and you still to this day wish you were awake to thank them. You have many regrets, but that’s just a small one.

“Can we go closer to the fence? I want to try and talk to him,” your brother politely requests, and you let out a heavy sigh. Your mouth is pressed in a line, and you begin to shift your feet. You’ve got boots made of suede, a brown colour that always seems to go best with your all-black outfits. There’s a matching jacket on you as well, and it has fur on the cuffs and collar.

“What’s the marvel of watching it in person rather than watching it on television? Out here, we struggle so much, and you can barely even watch them properly. On the television, well, you see it all, and you can be as comfortable as you want,” you wonder out loud, and the child holds onto you tightly. He squeezes your head tightly, and the ribbon in your hair begins to fall in your face. It’s white silk, with a lovely hem to it. You save it for these races your sibling always wants to go to. Your other coloured ones are left for daily excursions, and sometimes a good party, too.

“Excuse me!” you loudly call out, and other women cast you nasty glares. You’ve seen those same looks one too many times, and you don’t pay any mind to them. If they truly care about their spots, they’d stand up and fight for them. But they’re just like babies with a piece of candy in their tiny fists. Maybe a jellybean, or perhaps even a pack of those oh so enjoyable Sour Patch Kids. “Why do you like only him?” you ask, raising both your eyebrows as you get closer to the fence. “I like James and Niki!” he exclaims loudly, and you loop your fingers between the holes of the fence.

“Niki? As in Niki Lauda? That arrogant, Austrian asshole?” you question in shock, not minding your foul language at all. “Yes! The guy that Dad hates. He’s cool, and he’s fast,” he explains, rolling his eyes. “Honestly? There’s nothing cool about him. He’s just… fast. James is the cool one,” you argue, and you can hear him groaning. “You like James Hunt because he looked at you that one time,” he snaps back in annoyance, and you sigh dreamily in remembrance. “Exactly! Now I need to look for Niki, I wanna say hi to him!” your brother exclaims, and your eyes scan the entrance area for Niki Lauda.

“Don’t just say hi to him; ask him for an autograph! We can sell it to one of his fans afterwards. They’re always dying for anything of his,” you propose, and your brother simply ignores the swindling ways that you’ve inherited from your grandfather since you were a kid. It’s the reason why you tend to find purses with deep pockets and smooth zippers that don’t pinch on the inner fabric. You reach into your bag, and you grab a marker that you’ve always got with you.

The crowd gets louder and louder, almost as if you’ve got headphones on your head and you want to turn down the volume, but you keep hitting the wrong button. A woman shrieks in your left ear, and a man whoops in the other. More bodies press against you, and with the marker in between two of your digits, you hope that you don’t return home with billions of bruises. On the big screen, recaps from the previous races are being played. It’s win after win, all on behalf of Niki Lauda and his incredible luck that doesn’t seem to have any end.

You’re finally able to make out what people are screaming; the curly-haired man’s name. “Niki! I love you!” they all shout, and you wonder if any of them like James. It seems like you haven’t found your people, and maybe just for today, you’re the odd one out. “Seems like you’re not the only one that has Niki amongst their favourites,” you grumble, and your brother lets out a giggle. A few moments later, he sits up far more proper on your shoulders. The hand with the marker in it grabs onto one of his legs, and you make sure he doesn’t fall down and ends up being the true loser of this race.

“Niki! I’m your biggest fan!” he shouts at the top of his lungs, using his full voice and then some. You look over to the entrance, and you spot the brooding Austrian wrapped in red walking out with a deep frown on his face. You fight the urge to roll your eyes, but your brother doesn’t care about your deep annoyance towards his idol. Niki shoots a look over to where you’re both standing, and your brother waves his arms from side to side, trying to get the racer’s attention. Even if he doesn’t, you have a feeling that Niki will be more displeased than anything.

It only makes sense, as he always acts that way with his fans though they’re the only people who appreciate him.

His nose is upturned, and he tries to pinpoint your brother and his powerful screams. High-pitched yet so loud, it’s no wonder why his tantrums are the root for almost all household headaches. “He’s looking over here,” you tell him, and your brother nods. “Yeah, because of me! He’s going to come, and I’m going to meet him!” he squeals, somehow connecting none existent dots to fuel a form of hope that dwindles inside him. You can be mean, but you’re not cruel. So you won’t be a realist, and you’ll let the youth on your shoulders believe what he wants to think.

“And when you meet him, ask him to sign something,” you advise, not letting go of your chance to make a few hundred dollars. He doesn’t say anything, but you know he’s pondering whether or not he should do it. “Niki! I love you!” the woman next to you screams as if she’s using every bit of her energy to get him to notice her. Your head already starts to ache just a bit, and you wish you brought some form of a pain killer. Niki saunters over to the fence, and for some reason, you don’t feel proper behind the fence.

It’s the way he carries himself with the highest of heads, a sort of confidence dragging with his every step. He knows he can do anything right now, and everybody except you would love him for it. He could make an entire turn and not greet his fans, and they’ll laugh it off. You’ve witnessed his haughtiness, and there’s no doubt inside you that you’ll see it again. “Niki! Good luck on the race!” a person says, and the rest of the crowd laughs at them.

“Dude, he doesn’t need your luck,” someone next to them says before elbowing the poor fan’s ribs. You can hear them wince in pain before they start to scream at the racer once again. Niki raises his hands up to his chest, almost as if he’s surrendering to something. That bratty smirk of his is replaced by a cheerful smile, and while everyone adores it, you see right through the façade. “Hello, everyone!” he greets, and you already want to roll your eyes until they fall back into your skull.

Niki stands right in front of you, and you try to look somewhere other than his face. Your view darts wildly until you finally settle on looking at the exceptionally boring asphalt underneath your feet. The screaming quiets down, and you wonder if everything is okay. “Uhm, Mr. Niki Lauda? I love you! I’m such a big fan! I watch all of your races, and I try to go to them all! Can I have an autograph?” your brother gleefully expresses, and you snap your head up at his words.

Much to your dismay, you lock gazes with the man you hate most in this entire stadium. His eyes are rather dull, yet they’ve got a sort of darkness in them that makes you feel just a tad bit uneasy. Both begrudgingly and excitedly, you hand the marker to your brother, who, in turn, gives it to his idol. Niki takes it gratefully, and he raises his least dominant hand. The other fans try to reach for it, for him. But he ignores them, and he gives a high-five to your brother.

You can’t hear the sound of their palms meeting because the displeasure of the crowd drowns it all out. “What do you want me to write it on?” Niki questions, taking the cap off of the marker. “Uhm, my shirt?” he offers, stretching the red fabric towards the elder. You observe as the racer awkwardly signs his name on your brother’s clothing, and you know that your Mother is going to be more than angry. Your Father, on the other hand, will be filled with pride and excitement.

“Thank you so much!” the child squeals, and Niki simply waves his hand as if it was no big deal to him. But you know that deep down inside, he was probably a bit annoyed. “Do you want an autograph, Miss?” Niki asks, and you take note of how his demeanour has changed. His features are softer, and his eyes seem to be lit up. “Oh, uh, no, thank you. I’m waiting for James. I love him a lot,” you tell him, pushing your shoulders back in confidence. The people around you let out gasps, and they follow their sounds up with whispers that aren’t so hushed.

Niki’s face drops, and you give him your fakest smile. He stares at you, almost as if he wants to lash out and scream. Maybe even call you a name or two. “That’s alright,” he assures after a while, and you have the urge to say something snarky. He hands the marker back to your brother, who is too busy being in awe of his favourite racer to listen to you being on your worst behaviour. Niki walks off, but this time, his stride lacks his boldness. “He’s so cool!” your brother squeals, staring at the Sharpie. You sigh, knowing that you two will constantly butt heads over Niki.

“Well, I beg to disagree.”

“Niki! Is everything okay?” one of the mechanics asks, and the star nods his head mindlessly. Instead of pressing him for some sort of answer, he leaves Niki alone to mull all by himself. There is not one person who dares to talk to him before the race unless it has to do with the car or the competition itself. It’s out of pure fear because nobody likes to face the Austrian’s wrath. From screaming way too loudly to piercing, uncomfortable stares, he never knows how to properly communicate with others.

He gazes at you from just a few mere metres away. His eyes are like ice, and he hopes you can feel the coldness from where you are. He really fucking hopes you do. You’ve got that sultry look to you, and it’s not cast towards him. No, it isn’t at all, and it irks him all the way to his bones. You ogle James fucking Hunt. Of all the other inferior racers there, you choose to admire James, and Niki hates you both for that. At every single race, he’s seen you show up to, you never look at him.

You don’t acknowledge him at all. It doesn't just hurt his ego; it also breaks his heart. Your preference and love for the Englishman injure those butterflies inside Niki’s stomach, and yet they still continue to flutter. The funniest, most ironic part of everything is that the races you attend always end with Niki being the winner. Never James. But you still idolize him over the Austrian, and he’s tired of it.

“Make sure it goes fast, okay? Fast, but nothing should catch on fire or malfunction,” Niki tells his technicians, and they halt what they’re doing. “But, Sir-” one of them starts, and Niki closes his fist for them. “No,” he simply states before crossing his arms once again. Niki looks back over to you, and you’ve now got a smile on your face. He loves the sight, but he knows his adoration will turn sour in a few seconds once he follows your line of gaze. So he chooses not to, and he decides to use you as his motivation.

The racers all go to their cars, and they pull their helmets on. Some are dressed in black, some in white, and only two in red. James and Niki. Niki is surrounded by his team, and James has twice the number of people next to him. Along with mechanics are girls in short skirts with jackets similar to yours. Deep down, you wish you could switch places with one of them, but maybe it isn’t as good as it seems to be. Perhaps your spot behind the fence with your younger sibling is what’s meant for you.

Your neck is more than exhausted. Your shoulders have a unique pain to them, one that not even doctors can begin to describe. Your bones are in desperate need of a crack, and your muscles crave a lengthy stretch that’ll leave you shaking. Yet, you continue to stand there with no complaints ready to fly off your tongue. The whooping behind you is so loud, but you’ve gotten used to it. “C’mon, Niki! You can do it!” your brother cries out, clapping his hands in excitement.

Niki flashes a thumbs up, and he looks at you one last time. As he watches you ogle the man who would pop champagne moments before touching heaven, he puts his foot on the gas pedal and his hand on one of the levers, ready to push it to the limit. Maybe this time, you’ll finally notice him. Perhaps this time, you’ll realize he’s the best racer there is. He takes a deep breath, and he reassures himself that he’ll win as always.

“I have a feeling Niki is going to win this one,” the lady next to you says, and her friends nod their heads in utter agreement. You want to ask why she thinks that, but you’ve already left a bad taste in the crowd’s mouth. “Do you think Niki will win?” you ask your brother, looking up at him as best as you can. “I think so, but maybe James will surprise us!” he predicts, and you nod your head. “I hope James wins,” you whisper under your breath. Your bottom lip falls victim to your teeth, and you gnaw on it out of stress.

You keep your sights on James, and occasionally, you glance at Niki. Perhaps it’s simply just morbid curiosity that’s eating at you because there’s no way you’d just casually look at a man you despise with all your heart. As all the racers go to their designated spots in their cars, excitement fills your stomach. But it’s mixed with fear, as anything can go wrong at these tracks, and that’s the last thing you want to happen. You get lost in your thoughts, thinking about all possibilities.

Who will win? Who will get hurt? Who will get angry? Who will become sad? You ask yourself all these questions that don’t truly matter much to your life, and yet you still try to find an answer inside of you.

Suddenly, the sound of engines revving and then taking off fills your ears. Screams follow them up, and you realize that the race has started. You wait until every single car leaves your view before looking at the scoreboard. You can’t bear to watch them risk their lives while you stand not so comfortably yet safe behind a fence. “Oh my God! James is in the first place!” you squeal like a kid in a candy store, and your brother claps.

Some of the people around you cheer for James, and others for Niki. But you ignore them, and you simply focus on what the orangish-yellow neon lights say. Some names switch spots rapidly, perhaps too quickly for you to keep up with. But you stay trained on the upper two; I. HUN, II. LAU. The former stays on top for most of the race, and the latter switches with him every now and then. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” you nervously mumble, hoping that the Englishman stays on top.

“Seems like your favourite is going to win,” the known lady cleverly smirks, and you give her the side-eye. “Yes, because he’s good at what he does,” you confidently agree, hoping that you won’t have to eat your words in the next few minutes. She chuckles before shaking her head. “No wonder you don’t like Niki Lauda,” she expresses, shaking her head practically in some form of awe. “What are you talking about?” you annoyingly press, already growing tired of whatever conversation she’s trying to make.

“You’re both egotistical and full of yourselves. You do it because that’s who you are, and Niki does it for his own reasons, like pure enjoyment. It’s so obvious for you to dislike him because he’s a reflection of you, and you hate that,” she states, proud of herself for whatever reasons. “That’s dumb, and so are you. He does it because that’s who he is. I do it because I don’t like some people—such as yourself—and because I have plenty of reasons to be prideful. Not egotistical,” you snap, and she raises her hands as if she’s surrendering.

“Sure, whatever you say.”

Your mood has turned absolutely irritable, and the bitterness has claimed you entirely. You realize that you haven’t checked the places since before speaking to the lady, and you get excited. Flicking your head up, you expect to have your preferred person’s name at the very top, but instead, you see the name of the one and only Niki Lauda. I. LAU, II. HUN. “No, no, no!” you panic, watching as James stays in second place. None of the names change places at all, and you find yourself to be absolutely crushed. “Yes, yes, yes!” the crowd cheers and your face has fallen in disappointment.

Niki’s name gets announced, and everyone is absolutely elated. Everyone apart from you. Your brother celebrates the win from his high spot, and everybody jumps for joy. You stay silent, and you try your hardest to not swallow your pride. Each driver gets out of their cars slowly, and they congratulate the Austrian with smiles on their faces. You stare at him callously before you notice that James is still grinning. Despite not winning entirely, he never actually lost. So there’s no reason for you to be so dull and gloomy.

He walks off with his posse of men and women, and you realize maybe it’s time for you to head home as well. “So, your favourite won,” you say to your brother, and he giggles. “Yep! And yours lost!” he jokes, and you let out a forced giggle. “Yeah, yeah,” you brush off, making your way through the energetic body of people you strongly dislike.

Niki is engulfed in overly suffocating hugs. Some hands shake him, and some even slap him on the back, not so lightly. He doesn’t know which pairs belong to which bodies, and yet he goes with them all anyway. “You did great, Niki!” one voice praises. “Yeah, great job, Niki!” another adds. He thanks everybody in one sentence, and he pulls away once they start to mingle amongst themselves. The fantastic win of his isn’t what’s on his mind. It’s the thing that’s been etched and burned into his brain for him to think about, even though it should be appreciated now.

No. You’re what’s on Niki’s mind, and he has no intention of letting you leave.

He looks over at the swarm of heads that may have drowned you, and he can’t find you there. Not one trace of you is left behind, and his blood boils. Do you truly hate him to the point where you can’t even stay back for a few more seconds? Niki swears in Austrian under his breath, and he frustratingly walks over to the crowd. Fingers that aren’t yours reach out for him, and he ignores them all. “Have any of you seen that woman with the little boy on her shoulders?” he angrily questions, cracking his knuckles in anticipation.

His heart is still clamouring wildly in his chest, practically beating against him to be let out. “Uhm, she just left… She went that way! But I could easily replace her if you want…” a woman flirts, and Niki completely ignores her words after he gets what he wants. He leaves abruptly, and they are still yelling after him. “So eine verdammte Schlampe. Ich kann es kaum erwarten, dir eine Lektion zu erteilen, du hast darum gebettelt, seit ich dich gesehen habe,” he grumbles, walking through the crowded entrance.

Niki emerges with perseverance and even more anger than before. He searches through the sea of racing enthusiasts, and he spots you being bent over. It’s a wildly lewd position for you to be in, and Niki finds himself feeling flushed and displeased at the way you let others leer at you. He should be the only one to see you that way, nobody else. The Austrian wants to storm his way to you, to grab you and drag you somewhere more private so that he can put you in your place, but he knows the current setting isn’t right.

“Uhm, Mr. Lauda? Would you like a drink in honour of your win? It’ll be on us!” a shy waitress offers, appearing out of nowhere. He jumps in fear, but he quickly calms down. “Well…” he ponders, even though he’s not a fan of drinking after a race. In a trice, the lightbulb in his brain goes off. It shines brightly, and a clever idea starts to nag him. “Do you, uh, mind doing me a favour? I’ll even pay you extra,” he quickly prompts, and the waitress smirks. “Sure!” she agrees, carefully balancing the glasses on her tray.

“I need you to take all these glasses—maybe add some more champagne and make sure they’re really full—to that person over there,” he instructs, pointing to where you are. He watches as you wave to your family, who drives off without you. “The one with the brown jacket?” she double checks, and he nods in assurance. “Yeah, that one. Take them to her, and tell her they’re from someone who adores her and her love for champagne quite a bit,” Niki directs while trying to hold in a villain-like laugh.

“Ok! Then I just leave?” she asks, tilting her head innocently. “Yes. And don’t mention my name or anything about me at all,” he adds quickly before placing a hundred-dollar bill on the tray. The waitress slips it into her pocket before walking to where you’re standing idly. Niki watches the innocent worker make her way towards you until he realizes he should hide away before she makes a mistake.

“Excuse me, ma’am? Hi, I have something for you,” a waitress tells you, and you furrow your eyebrows in confusion. “I- What? I never ordered anything, I think you have the wrong person,” you tell her, turning your back and facing elsewhere. “No! I have the right person. They said they’re someone who adores you and your love for champagne!” she gleefully clarifies, and only one person comes to mind. James. You let out an excited, eager gasp. One that can’t be rivalled by any of Niki’s fans from his win.

She hands you the two full glasses, and you can just tell that the golden liquid is of high quality. You get drunk quickly, perhaps a little too easily. But that’s never stopped you from enjoying yourself at all. “Thank you so much! Oh, and I’m sorry for being rude at first,” you softly whisper to her, and she simply waves you away. “No worries,” she reassures, and she walks off before you can finish your first glass.

Tilting your head back, you bring the first flute to your mouth and you down everything it has to offer in just a few gulps. The drink slides down your throat with such ease. It’s brut, and it has a sort of bitter yet sweet taste to it. Sighing, you smack your lips and take whatever is left of the first glass gratefully. You then switch the glasses around with shaky yet skillful hands. “Thank you, James, for being such a lovely guy,” you murmur to yourself, dragging out the last letters of each word.

The alcohol quickly settles inside you, and it starts to distort you as always. Blurry eyes and a hazy mind, you’ve turned into a drunken mess in a matter of a few seconds. You slowly sip on your second and last glass before your temptations grow tired of your sluggishness. You down the entire thing until there’s a small drop at the bottom that just won’t budge. You let out a tiny sound of amazement, and you find yourself wanting to have some more. You lick your lips, trying to search for a slight hint of the sort of melon flavour until it goes away.

“Uhm? Does anyone know where that waitress went?” you ask loudly, and those who hear you shake their heads ‘no.’ “Damn,” you frustratingly mutter, lightly stomping your foot against the concrete. You roll your head backwards, in both a stretch and a habit. Your mind feels heavy, but your bones and muscles are even more burdensome. You bring your skull back to its normal position, and you decide to go look for her. Stumbling clumsily, you walk back into the dreaded arena where everyone is still celebrating Niki Lauda’s victory.

Niki watches you amongst a crowd of fans who are trying to form some sort of discussion with him. They hound him with all kinds of questions, some about the race itself and some about the esteemed racer and his personal life. Like a hunter stalking his prey, his eyes stay trained on you until you disappear behind the red door that leads to rooms that only named people are allowed to go to. “So, what are you going to do now, Mr. Lauda? How are you going to celebrate?” one of them asks, with a sort of sultry tone to their voice that he fails to notice.

“I have plans with a friend of mine for tonight,” he briefly states before pushing through them and following you into the stadium. “Can I join?” another asks, and he simply ignores them as they call after Niki with even more curiosity. It’s not hard to spot someone in bright red overalls suddenly walking into somewhere he shouldn’t be, but it’s easy to pay no mind to him because he’s a champion and most people who see him aren’t.

“Where, where, where are you, kleine Maus?” he hauntingly calls out, and his voice echoes back. Niki can hear the sound of your shoes clicking against the ground, and he decides to follow it. He tries his hardest to calm his heart down, but it’s hard to both hold your breath and make sure you’re not nearing cardiac arrest. The racer quickens the paces of his feet, practically jogging towards you as you decide to turn around and forget about the champagne.

Your jacket slips off your shoulders as you whip your body around, and suddenly, you’re pushed against a wall. The brick is painted over with a sort of cream colour. You begin to panic as strong hands keep you from fighting your attacker. “Du bellst wohl nicht nur, kleine Maus,” he notes out loud, and you don’t understand a word of what he’s saying. The voice is familiar, though, except for the fact it’s a few octaves deeper than you last heard.

“Niki?” you question, halting your flailing fists and restless legs. “Yes, kleine Maus?” the man questions and your jaw drops in shock. “What the fuck?! Are you insane? Get off of me!” you scream loudly, and his hopes of getting you still begin to die like a flower in the wintertime. Niki grabs ahold of your wrists in his dominant hand, and he swiftly turns you around and stomps on your ankles. “Help!” you cry out, but his other hand presses your face against the wall.

“Shut up, shut the fuck up,” he orders in your ear, pushing your white ribbon out of your face. You listen to him, but you disobey his commands at the same time. Writhing around, you try to escape the claws that squeeze you tightly, and you fail miserably. “Cute. Now stop fighting me, or else I’ll hurt you so badly you wouldn’t be able to go to anyone for help,” he threatens, and you gulp thickly in fear. Your saliva tastes of alcohol still, and you regret ever coming to the race.

“Good girl. See? That wasn’t so hard. All you need to do is listen to me,” Niki instructs, talking down to you like you’re some child who doesn’t know any better. “Why?” you choke out through gritted teeth. Your cheekbones rub against the brick, and the pain is gruesome. “Because I need to put you in your place. Do you seriously think you can just mouth off to me like that? To disrespect me like that? To prefer that pathetic racer over me?” he asks, and you let out a whimper. Each of his words sinks into you like needles filled with anesthesia.

They numb your mind until you realize what’s really happening, but by then, it’s too late.

“Well, obviously, I prefer James over you! Look at you, you’re rude, and you’re a horrible, shitty person. Now get off of me!” you lash out, even though your body doesn’t move. Niki simply laughs like a maniac, and you find yourself wanting to take back your words. “Maybe I’m so rude because I like you. Like how little boys tease little girls when they have crushes. You do know what a crush is, right? Just making sure since you’re so cold-hearted. Bet you don’t know anything other than hatred,” he spits, and you’re pretty offended.

“I know what you’re talking about! I’ve had feelings for people, okay?” you bite back, and Niki becomes curious. “Really? Let me guess. James Hunt? Some old boyfriend of yours? A man at a party who cleaned you up because you don’t know how to take care of yourself?” the Austrian questions, and you don’t realize who he’s talking about until you look at his hands. They’re the same as those gracious ones, except they’re more rough and lack gentleness. “That was you?” you ask, and you’ve lost all fight in your body at the realization.

“Well, of course, kleine Maus. Someone had to watch your back, and that someone is me! Du bist nicht so klug, wie du dich selbst darstellst, ganz ehrlich. But that’s okay, it’ll be okay. It’ll be just alright now that I’m here to put you in your place,” he reassures you, and you don’t even have the energy to ask him what he means. “Look, I’m sorry, I really am. I’ve learnt my lesson now, can you let me go? I won’t tell anyone, Sir, I promise!” you plea and your words start to blur into one another.

“I don’t think you’re sorry, kleine Maus. I need to do what’s necessary because I’m fucking tired of you and your bullshit,” Niki snaps, and you whimper from the harsh tone of his words. His change in behaviour gives you whiplash, and you realize that there’s no way out of whatever he has planned for you. ��So careless, so mean, so ignorant… So clumsy. I guess you aren’t as independent or as strong as you claim to be,” he whispers, and he causes tears to sting your almost empty eyes. They hurt, and they carry such maliciousness to them that you can’t help but be terrified of Niki.

A hand comes up to the waist of your jeans. They flare out at the bottom, and well, they look pretty damn good on you. But maybe a little too good because they make Niki think wild thoughts. He expertly takes the buttons out of their holes, and he unzips your rusted zipper. “P- Please, Niki,” you beg one last time, but Niki ignores you. He pulls down your pants against your protests, and he lets them get tangled with your tired feet. Your bare ass is exposed to the cool air of the arena, and goosebumps begin to rise on your skin.

“Such a lovely ass, kleine Maus. Maybe I should fuck it instead of doing what I had planned. Would you like that?” Niki politely asks, and your eyes nearly fall out of your skull. “N- No, thank you, Niki,” you shakily reject, and he nods. “You see, unlike you, I’m not so mean. So I’ll spare you, but only this once,” he cheerfully tells you, acting as if you’re supposed to start jumping up and down at his words. The closest thing to gratitude he’ll ever get from you is silence.

Niki still has a tight grip on your hands, and with your legs now immobilized from the mess by your feet, you can’t do much to save yourself. He wraps his arm around your waist, and he grabs at the crotch of your panties with no care at all. The cotton bunches up, and his fingers graze lightly against your folds. You try to ignore his touch, but he does the opposite and forces you to focus on it. He’s frozen, and you’re waiting for his next malevolent move. You can hear his heavy breathing, and he angles his digits upwards so he can touch you even more.

You press a fist against the wall, and you try to brace yourself as best as you can. Unexpectedly, a fierce pain strikes you in your hips, and it hurts more than you can describe. His hand has left you, and you can feel the air breeze against your pussy. Your panties are on the floor, ripped into a shred of fabric that no longer has any good use other than reminding you of how you could’ve avoided this entire situation. “I’ll get you better ones, don’t worry,” he reassures you in a humorous manner, and you squeeze your eyes shut in annoyance.

Instead of having your hips jut out for easy access, he pushes your torso against the wall until there’s a pressure inside your stomach. Instead of pain, it’s a sort of tingling sensation that makes your eyes bulge out in shock. “Uhm...” you hesitate, and his ears perk up. “What is it?” he frustratingly asks you, and his harsh tone snivelling. “N- Nevermind,” you mumble, and you just try to take deep breaths. “Are you ever going to shut up?” Niki questions as his other hand skillfully unzips his red overalls.

He’s wearing a simple pair of shorts and a t-shirt for the hot weather and occasional coolness. You keep quiet, not sure if you should answer him or not. Niki grumbles in another language that you don’t understand, and you realize that no matter what you do, you’ll always make him angry. Even your begging doesn’t bring you any fruits of labour. Only disappointment.

His shorts join the pile of clothing on the ground, many colours clashing that leave his eyes to be sore. Sunset pink panties, pale blue jeans, vibrant red overalls, and black shorts. It’s a fashionista’s worst nightmare. His hard cock is left in his boxers, and he’s just too impatient to fully undress. He throbs out of want and need, with a swollen tip that leaks with pre-cum. “I know this isn’t so… What’s the word you people use? ...Ah, romantic! I know this isn’t so romantic, but it’s not supposed to be. I’m the only one who’s supposed to enjoy this, not you. So I don’t care if you want to fake a smile or anything like that, all you need to do is not say anything,” he explains, and you nod your head.

“O- Okay, Niki,” you assure, and he lets out a groan that is followed by his tongue clicking against his pearly teeth. “Dumb whore,” he spits, and his hand wraps around your throat. You’re inebriated beyond belief, and you don’t realize he can crush your windpipe in a split second until he whispers in your ear. “Can’t do one thing right, can you?” he retorts. The grip he has on your wrists suddenly loosens up, but you’re too sluggish to fight him. And even if you try, you’ll end up a pathetic loser with even less honour than before.

The fat tip of his large cock presses against your mildly slick pussy. “You’re already wet for me, kleine Maus! Oh, such a whore. You say you don’t want this, yet your little cunt is telling me otherwise. Maybe you should use it to think instead of your empty brain. You’d end up in better places if you did so,” he advises, and you try to tune him out. But he’s like an alarm that just won’t stop until you do something, and yet, you’re helpless. “Ich kann es kaum erwarten, dich zu meiner Hure zu machen. Wie viel verlangen Sie? Einen Dollar? So oder so, du wirst von mir gefickt werden,” Niki snickers, and you have a feeling his words lack kindness.

But who the hell are you to worry about kindness?

Niki pushes his hips forward as his cock slowly sheathes itself inside of your tight pussy. The way you hug him makes him moan immediately, and he wonders if he’s the first you’ve ever had. “Jesus Fucking Christ, you’re so right, kleine Maus,” he groans, slowly bottoming out inside of you. You’re biting down on your wobbly bottom lip, trying your hardest to keep quiet and not let out any cries. The pain is searing. It’s the worst thing you’ve ever felt, and it ingrains itself into your mind until it’s all but an illusion. You’re practically about to be torn in half from his cock, and you’re at an impasse.

The racer curses as his balls rest against your ass, heavy and swollen. He’s deep inside you, filling you up until you’re bursting and you don’t know what to focus on; the pressure in your stomach that just seems to grow with each passing second, or the pain that leisurely turns into pleasure you’ll be addicted to? Everything is so much all at once. “Feel that, kleine Maus? Do you feel how deep inside you I am? Good, because you’ll have to get used to it,” he tells you, and you writhe around.

“So desperate already…” he whispers, watching as you can’t stand still at all. Niki’s hand leaves the base of his cock, as he thrusts his hips forward to elicit a reaction from you. He holds onto you tightly, and your body jerks from his movement. Your swollen stomach is pushed further against the wall, much to your dismay. You let out a gasp, and you try to close your legs as much as Niki will let you. He chuckles before he drags his cock backwards. His tip is the only thing inside you, and he suddenly begins to pump into you roughly. “Oh my God,” you whimper quietly, and your words are drowned out by the sound of skin against skin.

He thrusts up into you at a quick pace, one that your fingers or past lovers could never rival. It seems as though he’s fast when it comes to almost anything. “Die beste Muschi, die ich je hatte,” Niki whispers. Your pussy slickens up as he fucks you, coating him with your sticky wetness. The sight is something to behold, and his cock slips in and out of you with each thrust. “Make some pretty noises, kleine Maus. I want to hear how much of a slut you are for my cock,” he demands, and a loud moan moves past your lips without warning. It’s lewd and pornographic, yet it’s not as debauched as the sounds your wet pussy makes.

“Yeah, that’s more like it, hure,” Niki praises, and you mewl once his cock begins to touch that sweet spot of yours. It makes you go dizzy and hazy, and it also makes your legs weak. You involuntarily stop clenching your thighs together. Each thrust brings you against the wall, and you feel like you’re about to explode. Your pussy clenches down on Niki’s cock tightly, and his motions stutter. “Are you going to come already, my little slut?” he questions, slowing down his thrusts just to see you get frustrated. But the reaction you have is quite the opposite of what he wants, and he’s confused.

You let out a shaky breath that is filled with relief. You try to cross your legs together and push your ass backwards so that you’re far from the wall, even if it means that you’re closer to Niki. Your efforts don’t do much, and you want to wail in defeat. Niki observes you carefully before he shoves you back against the wall. You cry out before whispering a simple ‘please’ to him. He doesn’t realize what you’re talking about until he watches you place one of your hands on your stomach. You splay your fingers out delicately, and Niki chuckles.

The hold he has on your hips goes away, and he reaches for your hand. “Shh, it’s okay,” he reassures, and you furrow your eyebrows in both confusion and surprise. Niki pulls his cock out of you until you’re an empty, gaping mess. Suddenly, he presses down on your bladder until warmth trickles down your legs, soaking the fabric at your feet. A few tears leak from your eyes, and Niki watches as you burn up with embarrassment and shame. The pain and pressure in your abdomen go away as you finally alleviate yourself.

“Dreckig, dreckig, kleine Maus,” he degrades, and you don’t have it in you to be offended. The streams of liquid eventually come to an end, and you’re so ashamed. You press your face against the wall and wait for Niki’s next word. But he doesn’t say anything at all. Zip, zilch, nada. Instead, he pulls his hand away from your stomach and uses it to silently guide his cock back to your drooling, aching hole. “Couldn’t help yourself, I know. It’s okay, it’s not entirely your fault, liebling,” Niki tells you, even though he’s more patronizing than comforting.

“Es ist nicht deine Schuld, dass du nicht weißt, wie man etwas richtig macht. Keine Manieren, keine Höflichkeiten... Ich verstehe, dass du so bist, aber ich bin hier, um dich zu ändern. Ich bin hier, um dir beizubringen, dass du unter mir stehst und dass du nichts anderes tun solltest, als meine Hure zu sein und mich zu verehren,” he continues, and you’ve decided to give up entirely. You forehead rests on the white brick, and Niki begins to fuck you roughly once again.

He pounds against your sweet spot relentlessly, not one error in his rhythmic thrusts. “Poor little thing acts all tough until it comes down to it… And now look at you, you’re a complete mess with my cock stuffed inside this perfect pussy,” Niki grunts, leaning his body forward. His chest is right up against your back, and his chin rests on your sweaty shoulder. Your white ribbon is a tangled mess, the two ends of it twisting together and falling in your face. The silk material is no longer cooling, and the styling purpose of it has lost its touch.

The plunges of his cock are more deep than quick, and each shove of his hips sends you spiralling in pleasure. “F- Fuck,” you moan, seeing stars in your vision as your legs twitch from overwhelming gratification. “Yeah, you like that? You like the way my cock makes your pussy feel, kleine Maus?” he questions, and he further pushes his head down until his mentum digs into your skin. You wail loudly out of pain before nodding your head desperately. Niki squeezes the sides of your neck even more, but he also pushes down on your windpipe until you’re gasping for air.

You wheeze resoundingly, and the sound of you suffering for breath sends even more blood down to Niki’s pulsating cock. “Say it, tell me how much you love my cock and how much of a slut you are for me,” he demands, and you grasp at whatever’s left in your vocabulary. “I- I love your cock, Niki. I’m such a slut for you and your cock. You make me feel so good. I love your cock so much,” you pathetically mewl, and you can feel a form of tightening building up in you. Your lower abdomen burns up with searing flames, ones that trail all the way down to where you’re both connected.

You get wetter and wetter, more loud and desirous as your climax builds up. It’s like a staggering tower that reaches up to the sky and past the clouds; it has an end, but it keeps growing. “Are you going to come, kleine Maus? Are you going to come around my fat cock? I know you are. C’mon, do it,” Niki urges, and you moan his name loudly. “Do it, come on my cock right fucking now, or else I’ll make this worse for you,” he demands, and your back arches violently. You let out a gasp as your jaw goes slack. Red fills your vision, and you’re clamping down on his cock.

You moan his name loudly, and your juices coat his already sticky cock. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you mewl, digging your nails into your skin as you struggle to keep quiet like he ordered you to do. Your pussy spasms wildly, and your clit throbs, desperate for a few fingers to rub it. Your legs shake just a little bit, and you find yourself meeting Niki at his every thrust, desperate to keep going. Your ass moves backwards, and his hips move forwards, and the Austrian fucks you through your orgasm. Your nerves have sparks flying from them, and every part of you is sensitive.

“You’re so pretty when you come, kleine Maus. You look just like a desperate whore,” Niki grunts, and he can feel himself inching closer to his own climax. It’s like the light at the end of a tunnel or the chequered flag that usually waits for him at the race track before he’s announced to be the winner. “I’m gonna come inside you, kleine Maus, even if you don’t want me to. I’m going to fill you up with my seed and make you all nice and round. That way, you’ll know who you belong to, and you won’t be whoring around for the James Hunt you love so much,” he whispers in your ear, and you rapidly shake your head.

No, no, no, no.

“Yes, yes, yes, kleine Maus, you’re going to take my seed because I said so. Now stop fighting me,” he moans in your ear, and his thrusts grow sloppy and lazy. Niki shallowly fucks into you, and his balls begin to tighten up. His chest rises and falls, and he can feel his high beginning to climb up to the sky. Up, up, up, and away. Niki moans out the little pet name he’s applied to you, and he entirely shoves his cock inside you until he can’t move anymore. Growling, he comes inside you without a care in the world.

The raging, red tip of his fat cock is so deep. White ropes of his seed shoot into your womb, filling you up until you’re an upset, messy cumdump. “This is all you’re good for, kleine Maus,” Niki whispers in your ear, reminding you of your so-called place that he believes you belong in. His cum drips down your inner walls and leaks past his cock, and your fluids mix with each other. Niki’s cock twitches inside of you, but he remains as hard as a rock.

“Can’t wait to see you with my baby, kleine Maus. And I can’t wait to see James’s face when he sees you with me. Er wird so schockiert sein, dass sein Gesichtsausdruck unbezahlbar sein wird,” Niki laughs wickedly, and you can’t imagine you’ll ever meet anyone as cruel or as twisted as he is. “Can you get off of me now? I want to go home, and I want to stay as far away from you as I can,” you snap in both annoyance and exhaustion. “Nu-uh,” he tuts in a disciplinary manner. “You’re not going anywhere, kleine Maus,” Niki tells you. He tilts his head up until his lips touch the skin of your ear.

“I still have to celebrate my win with you, and I’ll make sure to push you to the limit, kleine Maus.”

#niki lauda x reader #niki lauda x you #niki lauda fanfiction #niki lauda imagines #niki lauda au #niki lauda fic #niki lauda rush 2013 #niki lauda smut #niki lauda x reader smut #daniel bruhl fanfiction #niki lauda dark fic #dark!niki lauda smut #dark!niki lauda x reader #daniel brühl #daniel bruhl imagine #daniel bruhl niki lauda #daniel bruhl x reader

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malleux · 4 years ago

Text

spell [2]. | corpse husband

part one ; part three

-> Pairing: Corpse Husband x Fem!Reader

-> Genre: Fluff, Slight Angst

-> Warnings: Hate Comments, Self Doubt, Anxiety, Cursing

-> A/N: thank you for 1k notes on part one! i’m so glad everyone likes my work. it’s really nice getting this much love after taking a hiatus on my fire emblem writing blog. i hope y’all enjoy it and stay on the lookout for part three!

corpse husband taglist is closed!

Two weeks.

It’s been two weeks since you joined Sean’s Among Us stream.

While that was your first public appearance, you had joined three others after that and already you were blowing up on almost every social media platform you had. The attention was kind of nice, you had to admit, but sometimes the anxiety of becoming a public figure weighed heavily on your shoulders.

During that time, you turned to your friends who were used to such scrutiny: Sean, Felix, and now Corpse, who you’ve been talking to every day for those two weeks.

It was another one of those nights where, at 1am, you were on Facetime with said man. His screen was dark, as usual. He hadn’t shown his face yet and you respected that. You didn’t need to see him to talk to him, or be his friend, or develop a slight crush on him. All of which you did.

The call was relatively silent on your end. Corpse was on Facetime with you, yes, but he was also on a call in Discord, once again playing Among Us.

You often wondered if playing that game was all your new friends did anymore.

You stayed quiet, letting Corpse play the game and avoiding his fans finding out about your call. You had college work to finish anyways, so the silence was rather helpful.

“We should ask Y/N if she wants to play. I wanna meet her.” Sykkuno’s voice rang out from the Discord call. He was right- you’d never met him. He and Corpse seemed extremely close, though, so you’d love to talk to him. A friend of your crush friend was a friend of yours.

“She’s busy tonight.” Corpse responded.

“Yeah, she’s got an exam coming up- wait, how do you know?” Sean joined in, questioning Corpse.

“Uh, I mean we’re on Facetime right now, I guess.” Your heart sped up- now his fans knew. “She’s studying. We’re just hanging out.”

“Didn’t you guys ‘hang out’ last night as well? It seems like you’re trying to take my best friend away from me.” Sean joked back.

“I mean, I definitely am.”

Your breath caught in your throat. What was that supposed to mean? Sean was obviously kidding, but the tone in Corpse’s voice wasn’t the one he used when he was joking as well.

Felix suddenly butted in. “Ooooh, I think Corpse-y has a little crush.”

“And if I do?”

Y/N.exe has stopped working.

꧁꧂

Three weeks, now, that you’ve been talking to Corpse daily.

One week since Corpse’s crush comment and one week that you’ve endured countless mentions and tags on Instagram and Twitter, constantly talking about #CorpseY/N.

You didn’t really mind the shipping, often losing yourself in daydreams about driving those two hours down from your apartment in Los Angeles down to San Diego and running into his arms. It didn’t help when he mentioned wanting you to come visit one day.

You just worried about how Corpse felt about them. He was still relatively new to blowing up on the internet as well, his fame suddenly skyrocketing in the past few months, so you weren’t sure if he was comfortable with them. You didn’t want to bring it up, either, fearing that the discussion would make things awkward between the two of you.

For now, you were rather content with just scrolling through the #CorpseY/N hashtag, looking at the pictures and nice things people had to say about you both.

“they’re so cute when they talk to each other, you can just tell Corpse meant it when he said he was trying to steal Y/N away.”

“#CorpseY/N is my new favorite thing. Everyone shut up this is all I’ll be talking about from now on.”

“God why can’t they just be together already? #CorpseY/N”

Everyone was so supportive and sweet, it almost made you feel like you already were Corpse’s girlfriend. Although your heart hurt when you were brought back to reality, you couldn’t help but love the comments that everyone left. They were amazing.

Until they weren’t.

There are always two sides of the same coin. Along from the supporters and their loving actions, there were also those who seethed at the idea of you and Corpse.

They scrutinized everything about you to the point that you made your Instagram account- already with 30k followers- private.

Haters talked about you. Your body, your personality, how you weren’t worthy to even talk to Corpse and the rest of the Youtubers, and so much more. You’ve spent many nights with your Facetime mic muted so that Corpse couldn’t hear the small sobs coming from you.

These thoughts were almost always on the back of your mind, but you were sometimes able to push them away.

Like now- as you focused on your exam. Well, tried to focus. There comes to be a time where one can only hear so many negative things about themselves before they can’t ignore it anymore.

But alas, you tried your hardest and finished your exam, before walking out of the room and pulling out your phone. Now, you had a break before your new classes started and you’ve never been more relieved. You pulled up a certain contact and clicked on the message icon, beginning to type.

you:

i’m finished! up next, a break.

corpse:

I hope you did well. How long is your break?

you:

two weeks!

corpse:

Come spend it in San Diego

You stopped in your tracks, taken aback by the offer. You really didn’t think that he’d invite you over, but you weren’t about to complain. Instead, you sent back an ‘I’ll pack tonight :)’ and rushed home to do just that.

Corpse called you as you packed, just like he calls every night. You were used to the routine now, often falling asleep around 3am as he stays on the phone, doing whatever he does with his ruined sleep schedule until you wake up and say good morning.

Tonight, however, you were too jittery to sleep. You stayed up all night with Corpse, talking about anything and everything, like usual.

What wasn’t usual, though, was how distracted he sounded. It made you nervous- was he having second thoughts about inviting you over? Was something wrong?

Your thoughts nearly overwhelmed you, forcing you to say something.

“Are you okay, Corpse?” You tried to hide the small shake in your voice.

“Hm? Uh, yeah, yeah, everything’s good. Why?”

“It doesn’t sound like it. What’s going on? You’re acting off.”

His side of the phone was silent for a moment, before he let out a sigh. “I’m just thinking about what I’ve got to do before you get here tomorrow. Like, cleaning and stuff.”

“Pshh, that doesn’t matter to me.” You waved your hand, even though he couldn’t see it in the darkness of your room.

“It’s just that, my apartment isn’t… the best. It’s small and there’s only one bedroom and it’s kind of shitty. I just don’t want it to be even more shitty.”

“Corpse, I’m coming there to spend time with you, not your apartment. I don’t care what any of that shit looks like. I’m going to be looking at you and hanging out with you. Not your apartment.” You didn’t mean to go on a tangent of reassurance, but you truly meant all of your words. “Hell, I might not even see the apartment because I already know I won’t be able to look away from you.”

“I- God, give me a minute. That took me off guard.” He laughed. “But thank you. I may not even be able to clean because I’ll be distracted too.”

“By what?”

“You, standing in front of me, in person.” You could hear the smile in his voice. “That’s a fucking dream come true.”

┎┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┒

taglist: @namjoons-crabssss @lookingforaplacetosleep @teenloves @princess00wifi @pillowjj @nvm-idgaf @creativedogs @wildflowerwhore @chillininahottub-withaghost @whyisquill @holosexualunicorn7000 @ourheavenlyemotions

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#fanfiction #x reader #fic blog #writing #corpse husband x reader #corpse x reader #corpse husband #series #lay writes #youtubers #youtubers x reader

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years ago

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I'm absolutely delighted your prompts are open! Your writing is amazing and always makes me smile, it's the best way to start the day along with a cup of coffee!

Lan Zhan and Wei Ying are given another chance at raising a child after a family is killed leaving only a young child behind. Lan Sizhui is delighted to have a baby sibling. Though everyone is more or less nervous about it (mostly be Wei Ying is a gremlin) but also there isn't any other options.

ao3

“It’ll be fine,” Jiang Cheng said, rolling his eyes. “Hanguang-jun raised Lan Sizhui, didn’t he? And he turned out fine.”

“I did,” Lan Sizhui said agreeably, then frowned. “I think I did, anyway.”

“Not to be a spoilsport, but, realistically speaking, how much raising did Hanguang-jun actually do with you?” Jin Ling asked, and held up his hands when Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi both glared at him. “I don’t mean any offense or anything! I’m serious. We know he was in seclusion those first few years, right? Who raised you then?”

Lan Sizhui thought about it. “Back in the beginning? Well…that was mostly Teacher Lan, I guess.”

“Teacher Lan’s the best,” Lan Jingyi said loyally, then added, “Well, other than that fondness he has for surprise quizzes. But that’s not applicable to parenting, is it?”

Lan Sizhui made a face that suggested that maybe it was, in some weird way, shape, or form.

“Teacher Lan, really?” Jiang Cheng asked, clearly getting drawn in despite his best intentions – as was often the case. There was a reason their little group swung by the Lotus Pier nearly as often as they did the Cloud Recesses and Jinlin Tower, despite Jin Ling not living there part of the year any longer. “Wasn’t he mostly in recovery for those injuries he got during the war? I would’ve figured Zewu-jun would’ve been more involved, wouldn’t he?”

“He was around sometimes, but no, it was mostly Teacher Lan,” Lan Sizhui said. “Zewu-jun was often busy – he was rebuilding the Lan sect –”

“I was rebuilding the Jiang sect! So what? I still raised Jin Ling, and he wasn’t even supposed to be here – I had to fight the Jin sect for months just to get the opportunity – ”

“Yes, jiujiu, we know!” Jin Ling said hastily. “You don’t have to tell that story again! You didn’t have to tell everyone that story in the first place!”

Jiang Cheng huffed. He was probably going to tell the story again whether they liked it or not.

“I think I see what you’re saying, Jin Ling,” Ouyang Zizhen put in, always a good fellow for throwing himself on a conversational sacrificial sword. “If Lan Sizhui was already a few years old when he was adopted, and then Teacher Lan raised him for the next three years, then he would’ve been old enough to be entered into the Cloud Recesses’ official junior classes by the time Hanguang-jun took charge of his education, right?”

“Yes, that’s what I meant, that’s it exactly!”

“What does it matter?” Lan Sizhui asked.

“Yeah! Hanguang-jun still raised him the rest of the way,” Lan Jingyi put in, crossing his arms over his chest and glaring. “Gave him lessons and tips and all that!”

“Isn’t that something he does as a sect senior anyway?”

“Well, yes, but it’s different for Sizhui, okay?”

“I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with that. After all, the person who teaches the most is the same as the parent, and being the person raising them is what matters no matter when they’re adopted,” Jin Ling said, with an eye on Jiang Cheng, who looked begrudgingly pleased. He looked begrudging all the time, though, so it was probably just pleased. “But my point is – once you were part of the lessons, even if he was raising you the rest of the time, you still already mostly had your personality down by then, right? We’ve never seen what someone raised entirely by Hanguang-jun from birth would be like.”

They all stopped to consider that.

“More than that,” Jin Ling continued. “This kid’ll be raised not just by Hanguang-jun, but by Hanguang-jun as he is now – after he and Senior Wei got together. You know?”

They did know.

“And of course, that’s all putting aside that the kid will be raised by Senior Wei himself, too…”

“Maybe we should start investing in defense talismans,” Jiang Cheng mused. “Because everything is going to explode. Everything.”

“Everything will not explode,” Lan Wangji said calmly.

“Are you sure?” Wei Wuxian asked. “Because I’m not sure, and I’m more likely to be involved in these hypothetical explosions than you are.”

“Mm. I’m certain.”

“But…”

“Wei Ying will be an excellent father,” Lan Wangji said, and his voice left no room for doubt.

“It’s easy for you to say,” Wei Wuxian whined, though he was smiling now. “You already have the experience of it! They say that it’s easier the second time, when you know what to expect…”

“Do not tell lies,” Lan Qiren said mildly. He was looking over some of Wei Wuxian’s notes – he’d insisted on any new inventions passing through a sanctioned approval process before they were put into practice and had volunteered himself to review them, a matter that had caused Wei Wuxian no end of stress until he realized that Lan Qiren really did intend to approve anything that met his standards and, moreover, understood musical cultivation enough to understand what he was driving at with most of them, even the esoteric ones, at which point Wei Wuxian gotten extremely enthusiastic about the whole thing.

This didn’t mean that they were friends or anything, but they’d at least formed some sort of tentative truce.

Most of the time, anyway.

Wei Wuxian squinted at his old teacher suspiciously. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you saying that it’s not easier the second time?”

“I am only saying that I have experience in raising a child not my own,” Lan Qiren pointed out, and Wei Wuxian nodded, slightly abashed; he knew that the old man had basically raised Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen, of course, although sometimes he forgot. “The first child I raised was Xichen and his personality as a child was much as it was as an adult: gentle, amiable, friendly, obedient.”

That made sense. Wei Wuxian nodded.

“The second child I raised was Wangji,” Lan Qiren said. “He bit people.”

Wei Wuxian burst out laughing.

Lan Wangj virtuously ignored them both, continuing to write a letter without the slightest hint of embarrassment – even his ears hadn’t turned red. What a shame!

“I can testify to that myself,” Wei Wuxian giggled, leering at his husband in the hopes of getting a rise out of him. “He’s still a biter – for certain lucky people.”

“He was a lot less discriminating when he was younger,” Lan Qiren said, and Wei Wuxian winced, abruptly remembering that Lan Wangji’s uncle was, in fact, still in the room. Luckily it was pretty easy to flirt around Lan Qiren, who didn’t seem to notice most of the time, but it was still a bit awkward. “And I once succumbed to temptation and gave him mixed messages, which I believe made it worse.”

That sounded like a story.

“He gave me a candy after I bit Sect Leader Jin,” Lan Wangji clarified, which made Wei Wuxian start laughing again. “He did not expect me to remember. I remembered. Nor did I allow him to forget about it.”

“It is easy to make mistakes while raising a child,” Lan Qiren said, ignoring Wei Wuxian’s cackling. “But if one means well, and tries hard to do the right thing, children are very forgiving – usually.”

Despite his best efforts to remain neutral, Lan Wangji’s eyes curved slightly in a smile. Wei Wuxian felt his heart go all warm and melty all over again.

“This is true regardless of whether it is the first or second child,” Lan Qiren added. “I have confidence that you will both do fine.”

“We will,” Wei Wuxian proclaimed. “With parents like me and Lan Zhan, how could the kid go wrong? And we’ll even try to avoid too many explosions!”

“Please do. One Lan Jingyi is enough for the Cloud Recesses.”

“You know, I was wondering – how did you end up with him being quite so…hmm…”

“Oh?” Lan Qiren said, and Wei Wuxian noted to his amusement that Lan Wangji straightened in back in sudden alarm despite Lan Qiren’s extremely nonchalant tone. “Have you not met Lan Yueheng yet? I must introduce you when he returns –”

“Perhaps not,” Lan Wangji said, sounding a little worried.

Worried, in this case, meant fun.

“No, I think I definitely need to meet this person – Lan Zhan, stop batting at me! I know exactly what I’m doing…”

Wen Ning looked down at the baby with which he had been entrusted.

“I don’t have any idea what I’m doing,” he confessed.

The baby gurgled.

“I think Wei-gongzi may have been thinking more about ‘babysitter that doesn’t need to sleep and has inexhaustible energy’ and less about ‘is this person qualified to take care of a baby’.”

More gurgling.

“I just wanted to apologize in advance.”

The baby yawned.

“…right then.” Wen Ning straightened up. Someone was going to have to raise this child, and based on how distractable Wei Wuxian was when he was around Lan Wangji and visa versa, it looked like it was going to have to be him. “Let’s do this.”

#mdzs #lan wangji #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #jin ling #lan sizhui #lan jingyi #ouyang zizhen #lan qiren #wen ning #my fic #my fics

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tobesobri · 4 years ago

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Traditions | 17.3k

a/n: it's been a while since I uploaded writing and for some reason I decided to sign up for this challenge and by some miracle actually managed to write something for it 🤯anyways, this is for the Valentine's Day Challenge by @1dffchallenges and it's honestly just a bit of fun, enemies to lovers little bit of angst and some smut! so i hope you enjoy! I'd always love to know your thoughts!! (also pls excuse any errors, I wrote this in a week with little editing lol)

prompt: doube date

dialogue: “So let me get this right. You want to hire me as your date for a Valentine’s Day Party?”

Pink and red were speckled throughout the entire office, whether it was a bouquet of chocolate roses, a banner of hearts, or stuffed bears residing next to bowls full of heart-shaped candies. Every employee’s section of the office had been filled to the brim with decorations as well. Pink and red ribbon taped carefully around the edges of their desktop computer, little store-bought balloons, also heart-shaped, grouped together and tied to desk chairs.

And Y/N, dressed in her typical all black outfit, rolled her eyes as she paced through the office toward the one section in the back that was immune to all things heart-shaped, pink, or stuffed.

She sat down at her desk with a loud sigh, her purse hitting the floor in its usual spot just before she slipped out of her jacket and draped it haphazardly between her back and the chair. It’d be wrinkled by the end of the day, but she didn’t care all that much, nor did she put much thought into the stains on her purse from leaving it on the floor. All she concerned herself with, after settling in, was getting straight to work… which was put on hiatus when she came face-to-face with both a pink and heart-shaped sticky note plastered onto the center of her computer screen.

Groaning, she ripped it off and moved to turn her computer on before she bothered to read whatever was written on the note. She considered three potential suspects while she pulled her keyboard down onto her desk and logged in. There was Kayla, who worked front reception and was one of the main culprits of all the Valentine’s decorations. A strong contender. It could’ve also been Ines or Carmen, her closest work friends whom Y/N knew both owned a pad of pink, heart-shaped sticky notes.

However, when she finally let her eyes fall to the note as her computer loaded up, the handwriting didn’t match any of the women she knew, and she was quite positive that none of them would have written was was sprawled out in black ink either.

Roses are red, violets are blue. I will fill your office with teddy bears and balloons, if you don’t send me your half of the proposal by two.

Harry.

She crumpled the note and tossed it into the bin under her desk. He could go fuck himself for all she cared. Sure, she was nearly done with her portion of the work and would be able to send it to him before then, but now that he’d pestered her about it, he’d be lucky if she even bothered to send it to him at all.

She didn’t doubt the promise, i.e. threat, he made on the note, but being surrounded by teddy bears and balloons would be worth making Harry’s life just a tad miserable.

After opening all the apps she’d need to get her work done, namely Photoshop and Illustrator, she connected her drawing tablet and set up the rest of her work station for the day, both on screen and off.

Harry had worked at the company for about two years longer than her and she’d started off as an intern while she was still in college and, after graduating, was hired as a permanent graphic designer. They had never really gotten along ever since Harry—jokingly—asked her to get him a coffee once… or twice. Unfortunately for her, though, they ended up working well together and their boss had stuck them both on the same projects ever since. Especially after the month-long project last spring that had been their most successful one to date.

While she came up with the design parts of client projects, Harry handled the more technical side of things and they’d never really argued much over each other’s work even though they clashed constantly at a more personal level.

“I see your feeling festive.” Just as she’d gotten into the groove of her typical morning and had forgotten all about Harry’s stupid note, his voice interrupted her entire thought process. So when she swiveled around to find him leaning into her little office space, it was hardly a surprise when she glared at him, even though he feigned offense at her bitterness.

“You got my note, I presume.” He let himself into her space anyway, holding a mug of steaming coffee she was sure he’d just made in the workroom, and leaned up against the opposite side of her desk that housed a much larger, digital drawing tablet for when she needed to do more intricate design pieces.

She just swiveled back around to face her computer again and went back to work as if he was no longer there. Pretending to ignore his existence proved to be quite difficult when the very particular woodsy, vanilla scents of his cologne met her nostrils and filled her entire office. Not to mention, the sight of what he’d been wearing singed the backs of her eyelids so that she still saw him every time she blinked. It was as if her brain refused to let her forget what he looked like in his white button-up, sleeves rolled to the crooks of his elbows, all tucked into his fitted black trousers that tended to get the imaginations going of all the women in the building.

Not her though, of course. She was better than that. Obviously.

He cleared his throat, still very much present in her space and still very much giving her a migraine. “So will it be ready by two?”

“Well, I planned to send it to you before lunch.” She tweaked the spacing between letters of a potential logo for the millionth time. “But now… I think I might need the rest of the day.”

She heard rustling behind her and knew he was shifting his weight impatiently and running a hand through his hair as he often did when he was… displeased. “I told you I’m leaving early tomorrow and I need it no later than two.”

She cocked her head to the side, still staring at her computer screen and not giving him an ounce of satisfaction. “Did you tell me that?” She teased, an amused smirk lifting the corners of her mouth when she heard him groan behind her. “I must’ve forgotten.” Shrugging, she went back to her work.

“Unlike you,” he snapped, “some of us actually have a love life and I’d appreciate you not fucking up mine.”

She froze then, only for a split second, when his words sank in. Two thoughts raced through her head. The first a string of curse words because of his assumption that she didn’t have a love life. But the more prominent and worrisome part of his statement was that he did have one. And that he was leaving early tomorrow—Valentine’s Day—so he could get ready for a date.

Throwing both her prickly exterior and heartbreaking smirk up again, she turned to face him. “I’ve known you for three years now and if anyone has the potential to fuck up your love life, it’s you.”

He narrowed his eyes at her and her gaze fell to the hand that seemed to wrap a bit tighter around his Bugs Bunny mug. His knuckles whitened and she met his heated stare again, pleased with herself for getting him riled up before he’d even finished his morning coffee.

“So,” she continued before he get get a word of retaliation out, and sat back against her chair, crossing her legs confidently as she folded her hands in her lap. “Who’s the poor girl you’ve tricked into going on a date with you this time?”

Harry had a terrible track record. The longest relationship he’d been in lasted for two months, and that was well before she’d known him. Everything else he had was just a one or two night thing and nothing more. Sure, it was all more than she had, but she preferred it that way. Harry seemed to resent the fact that he couldn’t keep a girlfriend to save his life.

“You don’t know her.”

Her smile widened. “How long have you been seeing her?”

“Couple weeks.”

“Ooh, that just might be your second longest relationship, Styles.”

“Well at least I’ve had one.”

His jab didn’t have an affect on her however, and he knew it wouldn’t because it never did. He knew she didn’t give a damn about relationships, or at least that’s what she claimed anyway. He couldn’t think of many twenty-four year old women who actually wanted to be alone. He actually couldn’t think of a mid-twenties anyone who wanted that.

“You’ll have to try harder than that.” She said nonchalantly, which irked him even more than he already was, and then swiveled away from him one last time, picking up her drawing pen and getting back to work.

“What’s your issue with relationships?” He went on and she knew he was headed right down a path intended to hurt her feelings just as much as she had his. So, she tensed slightly and braced for impact. “Is it a commitment thing? Or can you just not find anyone to put up with you for longer than five minutes?”

She let his words sink their teeth in and then smiled to herself. “Hm. Seeing as you’ve been in my office now for,” she checked the time at the top right-hand corner of her screen, “eight minutes, maybe we should date.” She lifted a brow, awaiting his next response.

It felt a bit like a cat-and-mouse chase bickering with Harry and since she was usually the cat, it brought her way too much pleasure fighting with him.

He scoffed. “Like I’d lower my standards for you.”

That one hurt, she had to admit. Not out loud or to Harry, but it still stung because it was true. He’d have to drop his standards to the floor to even consider dating her and she knew it.

“Maybe,” she began, still half focused on her work, and ignored his comment all together, “some of us like being alone.”

“Nobody likes that.” He responded quickly and she heard a shift of his weight again and then his voice once more a few moments later. “It’s nice to be by yourself sometimes, yeah, but you can’t tell me you don’t want someone to come home to at the end of the day.” He crossed one leg over the other as he gripped the edge of her desk for support and just when she thought he was done, he kept going, “Someone you can vent to about your annoying co-worker.”

She glanced at him through the little portable mirror hanging above her desk—mostly used to make sure she looked decent before meeting with clients or, sometimes, Harry—and saw the tight smile on his lips. Almost as if that’s what he wanted, like he was talking about himself and not her.

She’d slowed her progress down while he’d talked until she was no longer working at all. She no longer swiped her pen across the pad or had any idea what she was even doing when she focused solely on his words. Because, once again, whether he was talking about himself or about her, he was right.

“Yeah well,” she quickly hid herself back behind her wall and made her hands function properly again. “Some of us also don’t have the luxury of choosing whomever we want.”

She imagined him smirking at that one because, buried deep within her words was a compliment. That he was handsome enough to actually have anyone he wanted.

Instead, when she glanced at the mirror again and found him, there was the complete opposite of a smirk on his face, and as he stared down into his mug, clearly lost in thought, she wondered what the tightness in his jaw and the frown pulling on his lips meant.

She sighed and stole his attention away from his coffee. “I’ll have it to you before lunch. You can go now, unless you’d like to argue some more and slow me down by another…” she glanced at her clock again, adding up all the time he’d been standing in her office, “fifteen minutes.”

Without another word, she listened to the drag of his footsteps as he finally left her office space. And although she was glad to be rid of his distraction, the room felt so much bigger and so much colder and emptier without him in it. Shivering, she slipped back into her jacket and spent the next few hours doing nothing but staring straight ahead at her screen as she made final adjustments to her designs.

Any other conversations with Harry were had over email as he worked in his own respective office, messaging her with every little concern he had in order to get his work done efficiently so that he wasn’t stressing to finish it tomorrow before he had to leave. Even though Y/N considered not responding to him a few times, just to spite him and slow him down for her own amusement, she found herself feeling guilty after leaving him hanging a couple times. Sure, she hated Valentine’s Day and everything surrounding it, but she’d almost hate even more the idea of both her and Harry being miserable tomorrow, so she inevitably gave in and cooperated with him. She’d probably regret it when he came back on Thursday spreading around the office all the gory details of his date, but at least he wouldn’t also be in a shitty mood. Her days were both boring and slow whenever Harry wasn’t having a good day. And although she’d blame it all on selfish reasons, it did also make her sad to see him frowning around the office and sulking when all she wanted to do was bicker with him and make him smile again, even just a little bit. But it was easier leaving him to his own devices than risk him finding out she cared about him enough to not wish sadness upon him.

She couldn’t say the same for him. Harry probably relished in the days she came into the office in a sour mood. He probably celebrated and threw a party whenever she was upset, and, even so, it didn’t change how she felt about him.

The sun had long set and most of the office was gone by the time she finally called it quits and began packing up her things and giving her computer a rest for the night. There were still quiet murmurs from other workaholic employees, which comforting her knowing she wasn’t completely alone in the building, since the last time she’d done that, it took everything in her not to have a panic attack all the way to her car.

Even though her boss told her countless times not to stay past five o’clock, as he told every other female employee that worked for him that he didn’t wish to see attacked after sunset in the city. Of course, when she was the only one who didn’t listen to him, he hired more guards and one of them rounded the corner into her office space, ready to escort her all the way down to her car.

“Figured you were still here.” He leaned against the walls of her cubicle and watched as she startled, twisting to meet his eyes for a moment before she settled and returned to slipping her belongings into her purse.

“I don’t need you to escort me.” Zipping her purse, she rose from her chair, checking one last time across her desk to make sure she’d grabbed everything she needed to take home with her before turning to him as he still lingered in the opening of her little office.

William had been hired a couple months ago, and was only a year older than her, but even so he was more than a foot taller than her and his biceps were about as big as her head. While the entire office drooled over him, she tended to keep her eyes and her thoughts to herself.

“You say that every night you stay late. Just let me do my job and shut up about it.” He smirked at her and when her eyes met his again, sharply, glaring at him, she groaned and whirled past him toward the elevators. He followed swiftly behind, knowing she’d close the doors on him if he didn’t keep close enough pace with her, mostly because she’d done it before.

As he took his spot beside her and she pressed the button for the parking garage at the basement of the building, a familiar voice rang out through the office.

“Wait!” As if she wasn’t already annoyed enough with William’s presence, his stupidly large arm held the elevator doors open as Harry slipped inside a moment later.

“Thanks, mate.” Harry said exclusively to William as he caught his breath and stood wedged in the middle between the guard and Y/N, who was inching closer and closer into her corner to get away from Harry.

“You have any plans tomorrow?” Harry asked, his attention solely on William again while the elevator took off down through the levels of their building. Not fast enough for Y/N, of course.

William sighed, crossing his arms and trying to resist smiling. “Me and my girlfriend take turns surprising each other every year. And it’s her turn this year… so I guess I have plans, but I don’t know what they are.”

“Damn, way to make us feel incompetent.”

Y/N whirled her head to glare up at the side of Harry’s face. “Speak for yourself.” She warned.

Harry just ignored her though. “What did you guys do last year?”

Again, William stifled a grin. “I had been saving up for a while and took us both to Paris.”

“Shit.” Harry’s eyebrows rose and Y/N rolled her eyes away from him, watching the LED screen above the elevator doors as they neared the bottom levels of the building. She knew Harry and William had become friends, mostly because Harry was annoying and befriended everyone. Except her, of course. She heard his stupid voice again and wished she could just transport herself directly into the front seat of her car and be done with the both of them. “And now she has to do better than Paris.”

Y/N glanced around Harry just in time to see William smirk and she should have known what was about to come out of his mouth before it did. “Well, I don’t consider much better than her mouth ar—“

Y/N cut him off. “Ew! Are you serious?”

Both men eyed her curiously just as the elevator came to a stop and, with a ding, the doors opened. She flew toward them quickly.

“Y/N wait, I have to—“

Again, she cut him off, turning once she was out on solid ground. “I’ll be fine, besides trying to rid my mind of that image you just burned into it.” She turned on her heel and headed off toward her car.

William made a move toward her and Harry grabbed his arm, “I’ll walk her. Forgot she’s a bit of a prude.” They shared an amused look and Harry jogged out onto the concrete and asphalt until he reached her side.

“I heard that, you know… and I know for a fact your car is not parked in this direction.” She seethed and he just smiled to himself, happier than ever that she was in the mood to bicker with him, because he wasn’t quite in the mood to leave yet, where he’d have to wait till tomorrow morning at nine-thirty to see her again. And she wasn’t always the most talkative person on Valentine’s Day, either.

“Why are you the only female in our building not foaming at the mouth over him?” He asked instead, referring to William.

He heard her scoff. “Just because he’s attractive doesn’t mean I have to be interested… or want to hear about his girlfriend sucking his—“

“Cock?” Harry finished for her and within a second she spun around to face him, forcing him to stop in his tracks just inches from her now. His smirk only grew when he saw just how quickly he’d gotten her all flustered.

And then, as they started each other down, the hardness in her face softened and she drew out a breath, forcing his eyes to fall to her lips and his smirk to fall from his mouth. He thought back to last spring, when there were numerous late nights with her just like this one. When he went home and couldn’t stop thinking about…

“Why are you looking at me like that?” She asked and he blinked a couple times before he lifted his eyes.

“Like what?” He furrowed his brows, trying to track down all the resentment he had for her but he couldn’t find it anywhere anymore. He couldn’t summon it and say something that would save his ass from being caught looking at her like he wanted to kiss her.

Like he wanted to taste her and feel her against him, and hear what she sounded like when he tugged at her hair for more.

“Nevermind.” She shook her head, silencing the chaos going on in his brain. And then she turned, continuing the walk to her car with or without him, but, when she heard the echoing click of his shoes against the asphalt once more, she knew she wasn’t rid of him yet.

“I don’t suppose you’ll give me a ride back to my car, will you?” He easily stepped back into place beside her like nothing had happened.

She didn’t say anything for much longer than he was comfortable with. And then, finally, they reached her car and she sighed. “Get in before I change my mind.”

As she went for the driver’s side, he took quick steps to the opposite side, watching her over the top of her little Honda as she unlocked her door, and then, after clicking the button, his door as well. They both slipped in at the same time and while she fastened her seatbelt and settled in for her drive home, he sat perched with his backpack in his lap, knowing he’d be out of her car within only a couple minutes.

He still glanced around at his surroundings as she backed out of her parking space. “Should’ve guessed your car would be as neat as your desk.”

She didn’t say anything as she drove in the opposite direction of the exit toward the section of the garage Harry always parked in. It was closer to the elevators because he always came in before her and snagged a prime spot. She preferred an extra few minutes of sleep over walking an extra fifty steps.

And he started up again when she continued to not talk to him. “Most artists I know of are super messy.”

“I’m not an artist.” She gritted out through her teeth as she came to a stop once she spotted the rear-end of Harry’s BMW. Although she knew it well enough to distinguish it from the other black BMWs in the garage, it also helped that Harry had an old, faded license plate cover filled with a collage of cute pictures of puppies. He’d said it won him bonus points with women, but she also knew his screensaver at work was a picture of puppies as well, and no women he was interested in ever saw that.

He peeled his eyes off his car and looked over at her. “I know you can draw, too.”

She paused, gripping her steering wheel. She did enjoy both art and design and she knew Harry knew the difference between the two. She just didn’t know why he always insisted on bugging her about it.

“Yeah, well that doesn’t make me an artist.”

When he didn’t say anything, she glanced at him just in time to find him shrugging a shoulder like he was agreeing to disagree. Even if she couldn’t draw, he’d still consider her an artist because the things she managed to design always blew his mind and if that wasn’t art…

She rolled her eyes. “Are you going to get out, or do I have to drag you?”

He grinned, and it was almost as if her eyes refused to see anything else but his dimples and the bright whites of his teeth, and the birthmark to the side of his mouth…

“I’m going.” He assured, and yet he still hadn’t moved an inch. “Even though I’d love to see you try to drag me.” With her knuckles whitening on the steering wheel, he chuckled and unzipped the small pocket on the front of his backpack, withdrawing his keys as he finally swung her door open.

Once he was out, he gripped the top of the door and leaned back in to find her staring straight ahead. “Drive carefully, yeah? Would be quite tragic for your bitter ass to die on Valentine’s Day.”

She reached over and, despite having to brush her knuckles along the side of his thigh, grabbed the handle of the passenger door and yanked. His body remained in her way, however, and he was unfortunately a lot stronger than her.

Then she finally looked up at him, and those thoughts he had earlier surfaced again as much as he’d tried to bury them. This time though, he didn’t fight it as he glanced at her lips once more, then back at her eyes, which had widened slightly just before the dimples reappeared in his cheeks. “And I guess I would miss bickering with you every day.”

With that, he was gone and she retreated back to her seat as he shut the door for her. She had no idea what to think about what had just happened. Why he’d looked at her like that again. What that look even meant.

By the time she reached the freeway, she’d convinced herself she was just seeing things. Harry wasn’t looking at her in any other way he had before when he was intent on pestering her. But, as she took in the scent of him still lingering in the cabin, she allowed a small part of her to hope she was wrong.

Her eyes fell on the man down the hall from her door as she slipped her key into the lock, her brows furrowing as she watched him. It wasn’t unusual for their paths to cross, as they tended to get home around the same time, but it was quite odd to see him sitting on the floor outside his apartment, his head in his hands.

They’d said hi to each other a couple times in the mailroom, but she definitely didn’t know him well enough to go up and ask what his issue was or try to fix it for him. And after it was confirmed that he hadn’t, in fact, lost his keys, as they sat beside him on the floor along with his phone, she figured it best to leave him be.

Turning her key, she pulled her gaze from him and disappeared from the hallway.

The second she was inside her apartment, she felt all the weight lift right off her shoulders, especially when her cat came racing up, screaming at her from the floor while also coaxing her toward the kitchen to fill the food bowl. Whatever was going on with her neighbor still very much on her mind, she tried to focus instead on relaxing and getting both her and the screaming Pretzel some dinner.

She tried to remember his name as she heated up leftover pasta. She knew it started with an A, but her brain was coming up short. So, while Pretzel crunched on his food in his corner of the kitchen, she tried her hardest to remember.

And it was no question why she cared so much. Her neighbor was someone she was actually interested in, and she had been since she first saw him. Of course, she was never foolish enough to think he was into her, but she still let herself fantasize. He was tall, nearly black curly hair atop his head always in a state of disarray, and he had the most beautiful blue eyes she’d ever seen hidden behind his glasses. And, if she was being honest with herself, he was just a darker-haired version of Harry. Maybe that’s why she liked him.

The beeping of her microwave tore her thoughts from the dangerous path they’d been headed down. Harry’s voice rang in her head a moment later.

Like I’d lower my standards for you.

She’d needed to hear him say that, because sometimes her thoughts got carried away when it came to Harry and sometimes she did let herself be a fool who hoped. But after he’d said that one damning phrase, it was enough for her to stop. She didn’t meet a single one of his standards, inside or out.

Still, she tried her hardest not to go back out into the hall and make sure her neighbor was alright. Maybe he just needed someone to talk to and it wasn’t like she was doing anything important. Even if she didn’t have a dumb crush on him, as she did Harry, she still didn’t enjoy seeing him in the state he’d been in.

Before she could work up the nerve, however, a knock sounded through her quiet apartment.

She held her breath as she opened her door, really hoping it wasn’t the boy from across the hall, since she was still blanking on his name, but she couldn’t imagine anyone else knocking on her door this late into the evening.

So when she inevitably found him there, looking down at her through his annoyingly long lashes as she took in the horrible state he was in—red, inflamed eyes and hair that needed to see a brush rather than his hand—she completely lost her breath instead.

“Uh, sorry, I… saw you come in and I know we don’t talk and this is a weird thing for me to ask but…” He ran said hand through said messy hair and she found her breath again while looking up at him like she’d do whatever he’d asked just so he’d stop frowning.

He sighed, glancing down the hall toward his apartment and then met her curious and somewhat concerned gaze. “Can I come in?”

She recoiled. “Um… why?”

“Well, um, I was hoping you could help me with something and I’d rather not have the entire floor know about it.”

She was beyond confused now, but still, she stepped aside and let him pass, assuming that if he was actually a murderer he would have done her in a lot sooner than this. He had plenty of other opportunities. Plus, something in his face just… made her want to trust him.

She closed the door and turned to him, watching as his eyes scanned her kitchen and where her food still sat before he twisted around, eyes wide. “Shit, I’m sorry for interrupting.”

She shook her head. “It’s fine.” And after clearing her throat, she crossed her arms over her chest. “What do you, um… what do you need help with?”

He swallowed and she watched his Adam’s apple budge in his throat. “I don’t imagine you’ll like me very much after I ask but… I need a date.”

“What?” Again, she nearly flew out of her skin.

His eyes darted back and forth between hers, gauging her reactions and very obviously on the verge of seeing himself out and pretending this never happened. Instead, he stuffed away his pride and went on. “My ex… she, uh… well we broke up a few months ago and I saw her the other day and she’s seeing someone and we were talking and I… told her I was seeing someone too and so she invited me to go on this stupid double date with her… but the thing is… I’m not actually seeing anyone and I just told her that so she’d be jealous but she didn’t seem jealous at all and I don’t exactly have many friends to ask for help and I saw you and…” He rambled, but she managed to understand his predicament just fine.

“A double date? With your ex?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know either. She’s… she does weird shit but… I still want her back.”

Y/N’s heart ached in her chest. As much as she detested relationships, she was a sucker for other people’s relationships and she was definitely a sucker for her beautiful neighbor, even if he was asking to use her to make his ex-girlfriend jealous.

“Not that I’m saying yes but… when? And where?” She finally asked after thinking things over for a moment.

“Tomorrow night… I can pay you. I will pay you, I mean… but, seriously, you don’t have to do it I just thought I would ask.”

“Where is this date at?” She repeated when he didn’t answer that part of her question.

“At this party… and bef—“

She cut him off. “Okay so let me get this right. You want to hire me as your date to a Valentine’s Day party?”

He lifted a brow, “Well, there’s more… she wants to get dinner before going to the party.”

She shook her head, looking away, “I don’t really do Valentine’s Day…”

“You wouldn’t have to do much. I’ll pay for your dinner, too. Whatever you want. I just… really need your help and you’re my only option.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You realize I’m not exactly…” she waved at her face and his eyebrows screwed together in confusion. “I’m not easy on the eyes and I don’t think taking me will make anyone jealous.”

He didn’t say anything for a while, just stared at her incredulously. She shifted her weight nervously and he finally opened his mouth. “You don’t actually think that, do you?”

Her features scrunched up and she kept her eyes planted on the middle of his chest. And then he realized that she, in fact, did.

“I’m so sorry… I shouldn’t have asked you to do this.” He also realized that using her to make his ex jealous would possibly hurt her more than it would help him and he could no longer fathom putting her through that. “I’ll figure it out. I’m sorry.” He moved to walk past her, back to his apartment but she stopped him before he got far.

“No… I’ll help you.” And then she realized his identity was still somewhat of a mystery to her. “This sounds even worse than what you just asked me to do, but… I completely forgot your name.”

He breathed out a laugh. “It’s Adam.”

She knew it had started with an A!

“Y/N.”

He smiled wider and nodded. “I know.” And then his face grew sad again. “I am really sorry I’m asking you to do this on Valentine’s Day, it’s definitely not my proudest moment.”

She waved him off. “I wasn’t going to do anything anyway. Just tell me what you need me to do.” She didn’t bother brining up the whole payment thing. She didn’t really care about being paid. He was nice, the only nice person she’d encountered in her apartment building and if getting him back together with his ex meant she’d never have to come home and see him in the fetal position on the floor again, she’d suffer through a date and a party on her least favorite holiday.

It was somehow even worse than it’d been yesterday. The decorations seemed to triple in size. Not an inch of the office was untouched by something pink and she prayed whoever had put up even more decorations had spared her little cubicle.

“Oh, hey, Y/N!” One of the receptionists most responsible for the overflowing decor, Kayla, called her over to her desk not even a minute after Y/N had arrived. And she stalked over until she saw the package Kayla pulled out that instantly lifted her spirits.

She stopped in front of Kayla’s desk and took the thin box from from her, already knowing what it was and thanking god for the timing so that her entire day wasn’t completely miserable. It was a new drawing pad she’d ordered, a bigger one that she hoped would be a bit more efficient to use than her current one.

Even with her back turned to the rest of the office, she sensed Harry’s presence long before he stopped beside her with his mug in hand.

He lifted a brow at the package in Y/N’s hands just as she reluctantly turned to look at him. “Getting gifts sent to the office? That’s a first.”

She rolled her eyes and stuffed the box under her arm, holding herself back from running off to her office to set it up. “Jealous?” She cocked her head.

And instead of his condescending smirk and a hateful response to go with it, the sparkle in his eyes seemed to fade as he eyed the box again, genuinely worried now that it was actually a gift from someone.

Before either could say anything, they all turned to find a delivery man walking up to Kayla with a giant bouquet of flowers in tow. And so it began. Although, when Kayla took the vase from the man eagerly, a bright smile on her face because Kayla loved love a little too much, Y/N couldn’t help but think about Adam. About how the only time she’d managed to get a date on Valentine’s Day was when it wasn’t even real. Instead, she’d stupidly agreed to help her cute neighbor win back his ex-girlfriend in exchange for a free dinner.

It was… pathetic. To say the least.

She felt Harry watching her, too, while she eyed the bouquet of flowers as they departed reception with Kayla and made their way to their recipient. As stupid as she found everything about the holiday, she couldn’t help but want someone to send her flowers. To give her anything for that matter. To have thought about her for at least a second of their day. Harry cleared his throat and she tore her eyes away.

“So… what’s in the box?”

“None of your business.” She rounded him, heading to her office, but he grabbed her free arm to stop her short and didn’t speak until she met his gaze again.

“Can we meet up in my office to finish the proposal? Think it’ll be easier to get it done than over email.”

She had every reason to be suspicious of him. They almost never worked in each other’s offices. When they did work together, which was often, it was in one of the empty conference rooms and it was usually at the beginning of the process when they needed the space to plan things out. The last time they’d really been in each other’s offices was last spring. Figuring he just wanted to get things done so he could be out of the office on time, she let it go.

“Give me fifteen minutes.”

He watched her walk away, watched her even as Kayla returned and noticed his gaze and giggled at him as she took her spot back behind her desk.

“It was something she ordered for herself, by the way.”

“What?” Harry whipped around again, not having even realized the other woman until now.

“I know you two pretend to hate each other but I see the way you look at her, Harry.” Kayla lifted a brow at him as she began typing on her keyboard.

He feigned disgust. “I’m seeing someone, you know.”

“Are you?”

“Yes.” He insisted. “I have a date. Tonight.”

She lifted her hands in surrender. “Okay… I’m just saying.”

“I don’t look at her.”

Kayla suppressed a smile and snorted instead. “If you say so. I guess you didn’t also sneak into her office this morning, either.”

“I think all these flowers and stuffed bears and heart-shaped things have gotten to your head.” He pointed around to the decor littering her desk while holding his mug steady.

Kayla met his eyes and her smile slipped off her face. “Harry, please don’t mess with her.”

His face screwed up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“If you don’t like her then don’t lead her on.”

“I don’t think she’s capable of being led on.”

Kayla froze for a moment and then nodded. “You’re right.”

He wasn’t sure what she meant by that either. “Why are you being weird?”

“Because,” Kayla sighed, brushing her curled brunette hair onto one shoulder and then lowered the volume of her voice. “I happen to know she doesn’t think very highly of herself and I’d rather not see her get hurt, especially not by you.”

Now Harry froze. The hand that gripped his mug tightened and he didn’t even flinch as it began to burn his skin. He heard Y/N’s voice in his head then as he drowned out his surroundings.

Some of us don’t have the luxury of choosing whomever we want.

He had instantly regretted what he’d said to her yesterday when she’d told him that. And now hearing Kayla, in a way, confirm what he’d read between the lines of Y/N’s words… his chest tightened in quite possibly the worst way ever. He’d hated himself most of the day after telling her he’d never lower his standards for her and he could say he was just bickering all he wanted, but he knew now for certain she took it the wrong way. And he wished more than ever that he hadn’t said something so horrible to her, especially when it was the farthest thing from the truth.

And the real truth, that he was trying desperately to shove away with stupid remarks like that, was that he didn’t meet her standards. She wasn’t into relationships and he knew he wasn’t good enough to change her mind.

“How do you know that?” He finally asked.

“That Christmas party last year… she’s a really happy drunk until she’s not.”

He flinched. “Did she say something?”

“I don’t want to get into it, mostly because I don’t think she remembers and would probably kill me if I told you but… just leave her be.”

He hardened back up again. “She does’t have any interest in relationships anyway, ‘specially not with me.”

Kayla scoffed. “She’s a really good liar.”

Harry stood there for a few more moments, feeling as if his life had just gotten flipped upside down. He’d been in such a good mood mere minutes ago before his dumbass waltzed into reception all because he’d seen Y/N. Because, despite everything and despite the fact he was already attempting to date someone else, it was Y/N he wanted to be close to all the damn time. Groaning, he turned on his heel and left for his office, hoping she wasn’t there waiting for him so he could have a moment to himself to gather his thoughts.

In a hurry to open her package, Y/N slumped down into her chair tossing her purse on the ground at her feet and pulling out her box cutter in a rush of movements. She was so distracted, in fact, that she didn’t even notice the little stuffed frog, the box of chocolates and envelope sitting on the other side of her desk near her mouse. Instead, she unboxed her new tablet and began setting it up, not noticing the gifts until she went to turn on her computer. And then she froze.

With reluctant hands she grabbed the envelope first, her name printed on it in perfect cursive. She knew nobody in the office who had such good penmanship. Opening the card in hopes of finding out who had placed the items on her desk, instead, she just found it signed as ‘secret admirer.’ Rolling her eyes, she set the card down and realized it had to be from her boss. Sometimes he remembered to go around and give everyone little gifts on the holidays. Obviously he’d remembered this year.

She dug into the chocolates as she set up her tablet and began calibrating it to suit her needs before finally testing it out in the little bit of time she had before she needed to make her way to Harry’s office.

And once that time came, she left everything in its place, besides the box of chocolates, which she continued to pick at while she made her way through the room. What she didn’t notice while stuffing her face with candy was that… no one else had a stuffed frog or chocolates or a cheesy little card on their desks.

She rounded the corner into Harry’s office, which was a real office and not a cubicle that he usually shared with one other person who was thankfully out with clients for the day. She knocked on the doorframe to get his attention after just watching him focus on his screen for a moment. Harry was cute when he was focused.

But then he turned to her and his eyes fell to the box in her hand.

When he didn’t say anything, she held it out toward him. “Do you want some? I think Andrew was feeling generous this year.”

Harry’s eyes quickly panned up to hers and his brows furrowed as if she’d just punched him in the gut. And she couldn’t make out what that expression meant no matter how hard she tried.

“He didn’t give me anything.” Harry motioned around his desk.

“Maybe he doesn’t like you.” She shrugged, setting the chocolates down on his desk while she grabbed his office mate’s chair and pulled it up beside him.

Harry sighed, turning to his computer for a moment and then watching her from his peripheral while she picked out another piece of chocolate. “I didn’t see anyone else with chocolates on their desks this morning.”

Y/N just shrugged. “There was a frog too. And a card.”

“And why do you think he’d give you all of that and no one else?” Harry hoped she’d get the hint but he didn’t hope too hard. She was still Y/N after all. And he really didn’t mean to sound so bitter… well, okay, he did. But he knew she’d misplace his bitterness, crushing what little hope there was to bits.

“Maybe he likes me better than all the rest of you.”

Harry scoffed, shaking his head as he put his attention back on his screen.

“No one else in this office would give me a card signed as a secret admirer so… maybe I did something I don’t remember doing and he’s thanking me?” Now that she really thought about it, and if Harry was right… then it really didn’t make much sense. It’s not like she was Andrew’s favorite employee.

Harry just lifted a brow and then pretended to lose all interest.

Sensing the tension, she slipped the box closer to him. “Here. I think you need a knock-off Snickers if you expect me to work with your grumpy ass.” He made no move to indulge her, however. And so she went on, continuing to poke the bear. “Why are you in a lousy mood anyway? Isn’t this your favorite holiday? And you get to leave early.”

His eyes fell from his screen and he stared at the brick of sticky notes below his monitor before mumbling, “I’m sorry about what I said yesterday.”

Taken aback, she searched what she could see of his face for answers to what he was apologizing for. He’d said a few things she could imagine deserved an apology and yet, so did she. Maybe she should have been the one to apologize to him first.

“I didn’t mean to say what I did.” He finally turned to meet her face on. He’d hoped the frog and the chocolates would have been atonement enough, but considering she thought they were from their boss and not him, he just had to suck it up and actually say what he meant.

She shrugged. “It’s fine. I can be a prude sometimes.”

He searched her eyes for a moment and then shook his head, “No that’s not… I meant what I said earlier in your office… about lowering my standards. It was a stupid thing to say and not true in the slightest.”

But then she smiled and he grew confused. “Yes it is. It’s okay to have standards, you know.”

“I know that. But if we… I wouldn’t have to lower my standards. And it was cruel of me to have said that to you.”

She couldn’t stand looking at him any longer and averted her gaze, clearing her throat. “Well it doesn’t matter so… can we just get this proposal done?”

He’d wanted to spend how ever long it took to convince her that it did, in fact, matter, but Y/N was persistent, more so than him, and so he’d given in and they moved on to being productive with their time. And in less time than he’d anticipated their proposal was finished, being sent off to Andrew for approval before their presentation at the end of the week with their clients.

Harry sat back in his chair and she returned her own to the other desk where it belonged, all while he watched her.

“What do you do on Valentine’s Day?” He asked, just trying to get her to stay longer, knowing that if those were his true intentions, then he was fucked. That he wanted to be around Y/N, even though he was seeing someone else, albeit for just a week so far, even though she’d never want the same from him.

Maybe he was just as terrible with relationships as she claimed if he always chased after what he couldn’t have.

“That is also none of your business.” She grabbed her box of chocolates from his desk, his voice pinning her in place again though.

“Let me guess… it involves chocolate, your cat, and the most anti-romantic movies you can find?”

He would not think her very prudish if he knew what else she did on Valentine’s Day while alone in her apartment, but she figured it was best to keep that to herself. Instead, she smiled at him. “Something like that.”

He narrowed his eyes and threw his arms up behind his head as he laid back in his chair, watching her curiously like he was trying to figure her out. Meanwhile, she was trying to not make it obvious she was staring at his biceps as they just about bulged from underneath the sleeve of his pink button-up. He’d done it on purpose though, so as much as she tried to hide it, he still grinned with satisfaction when she became flustered.

“Well, have fun with that, then.” He nodded, and for a moment while she was lost in his eyes and growing embarrassingly hot, she wondered if he could read her mind. If he knew exactly what not-so-innocent things she did on Valentine’s Day. Then he brought his arms back down to rest his elbows on the edge of his desk, pinching his bottom lip between his fingers and watching as she rolled her eyes, held her chocolates close, and left his office.

Adam arrived right when he said he would at five-thirty. It had given her plenty of time to change out of her work clothes and into one of the few dresses she owned, to at least seem somewhat convincing that this was a real date. She also fixed her makeup and put on a pinkish-nude lipstick before switching out her bulky purse for a smaller crossbody.

When she opened the door to him, he most certainly did not disappoint. She almost let herself get lost in the delusion that it was a real date when she saw him dressed to the nines and cleaned up for the first time since she’d known him. And she especially got a little lost in it when he pulled a small bouquet of flowers from behind his back and handed them to her.

“You didn’t have to—“

“I know.” He gave her a once over when she wasn’t looking. “You didn’t have to do this for me either.”

She quietly accepted the flowers and let him in while she found a vase and filled it with water. He leaned on the counter, watching her as she did so.

“You look… beautiful, by the way.” He blurted out once she had cut and placed the stems into the vase. Her hands froze, though, and when he met her eyes, he knew he’d made a mistake.

“You’re paying me to make your ex-girlfriend jealous. Please don’t flatter me.”

“Sorry.” He muttered, although he was beginning to wonder if the bigger mistake was not taking her out on a proper date that had nothing to do with his ex.

She sighed and adjusted the strap of her purse. “Let’s go then.”

He went over all the final details on the Uber ride to the restaurant. Things about his ex he thought Y/N should know about. And he made sure she knew, for about the hundredth time, that she didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to. And she reminded him for an equal amount of times that she never did anything she didn’t want to do. So, settling that, he helped her out of the back of the Uber when they arrived and opened the door to the restraint for her as well. Everything that she’d expect from a normal date, which only left her disappointed when she reminded herself it wasn’t.

She waited quietly, and tried to catch her nerves, while Adam talked to the hostess and gave her his ex’s name for the reservation. The place was packed and anyone who didn’t call ahead surely would not be getting a table tonight. She’d never been out on Valentine’s Day, though, so it was like stepping into a brand new world for her. And as she followed both the hostess and Adam, she paid more attention to all the couples enjoying their meals than anything else.

Except for when he reached back and grabbed her hand, entwining their fingers just before they came to a stop. She blinked her eyes at their hands for just a moment before he gently pulled her around next to him. And whatever way she’d felt about holding Adam’s hand went right out the window when she locked eyes with Harry.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

The last thing she expected to find, while Laura, the gorgeous blonde ex-girlfriend, stood to hug Adam, was Harry fucking Styles. And what a fucking coincidence it was, almost as if this was her karma for feeling the need to constantly help people.

Adam’s hand slipped from hers but she didn’t even notice it anyway. She and Harry still stared each other down and neither of them moved a muscle either. Well, besides the one in his jaw as it tightened. Then he did move, glancing over at Adam with a blank expression before landing his gaze back on her again. And then his eyes fell to the glass of water in front of him and she felt like she’d been released from chains he’d tied around her wrists.

“This is Y/N,” Adam’s hand went to the small of her back, guiding her forward to meet his ex-girlfriend and Harry’s current… whatever they were.

Laura held out her hand, her smile a little too forced. “Laura. It’s nice to meet you. Please, sit.” She ushered them to the table as she took her spot beside Harry again. Adam, of course, took the chair opposite Laura, which left Y/N in the one opposite Harry.

This would be a long, hellish night.

She couldn’t help but wonder what Harry was thinking. That maybe she’d come to crash his date. Or, even worse, that he’d already figured the whole thing out. That Adam was paying her to be here. She really hoped he’d never find out because it was just embarrassing enough to make her want to change her name and move across the country, thousands of miles away from him. Harry finding out that she couldn’t get a real date to save her life… beyond humiliating.

“This is Harry.” Laura motioned to him and he just barely lifted his gaze, nodding at Adam and ignoring Y/N entirely. “You know,” the blonde went on, glancing between Adam and Y/N, “I was a little shocked when you told me you were seeing someone again.”

Adam just shrugged.

“How did you guys meet?”

Y/N left all the talking to him. Mostly because she was still in shock that she was sitting across from Harry. And she hadn’t even taken the time to properly take him in and realized he’d also changed his clothes since work. Swapping his wardrobe out for a fitted black button-up, that wasn’t buttoned all the way to the top as his shirts normally were. The sleeves were already rolled to his elbows. He’d shaved off the scruff along his jaw as well and fixed his hair so that it was combed back out of his face, although a a couple rebellious strands hung down onto his forehead. He looked… like absolute perfection. And he was being forced to be on a date with the ex-boyfriend of the girl he was seeing and his annoying co-worker. She felt terrible for him.

“Oh, uh, well we live on the same floor.”

Laura nodded, clearly anticipating more. “Is that it?”

Y/N felt Adam tense up beside her and so she took over, easily spinning a lie. “I ran out of milk one night a few weeks ago. He’s the only one who answered the door.”

She noticed a flash of movement in her peripheral and turned to find Harry’s gaze on her again, one eyebrow lifted curiously. He was either wondering how she hid it so well, or trying to figure out what to ask in order to reveal their ploy. He never said anything, though.

“Sorry, um,” Laura’s tone changed as she glanced between Harry and Y/N, both of them looking away when the other girl interrupted. “Do you two know each other?”

Harry grinned, sitting back against his seat and folding his hands in his lap. “Something like that.”

Y/N rolled her eyes. “We work together.”

“Really?” Although her tone said otherwise, Laura’s face said everything about how she felt upon hearing that bit of information.

Adam twisted his worrisome gaze to Y/N, but she ignored it. Harry, however, did not.

“Don’t worry, mate. I was under the impression she was celibate up until now.” With that, Y/N kicked him under the table and he sat forward to swallow the groan that very nearly left his lips after she’d jabbed him in the shin with the toe of her heels. “Guess she’s really good at hiding things, though.”

Adam just chuckled nervously and Y/N shot him an apologetic smile, trying to reassure him that this date would still work out despite Harry.

“What a small world.” Laura laughed, trying to break the tension but dinner hadn’t even started yet.

Sometime during the main course, Laura excused herself to the bathroom and Y/N almost, in a desperate attempt to flee both Adam and Harry, invited herself along. But she figured it’d be worse to be alone with Laura than with them. Laura might ask questions she wasn’t prepared for. So, she stayed put, as much as it pained her to do so.

“So, Adam, what do you do for a living?” Harry asked suddenly and she wanted to kick him again. Mostly because his tone was that of a jealous teenager and he’d waited until Laura was gone to pester her ex-boyfriend who most certainly did not deserve Harry’s pestering.

“Oh, uh, I’m an artist. I work for an animation studio at the moment but I’m trying to get into freelance.”

Harry’s eyes shot to the suspiciously quiet girl sitting across from him. “So is Y/N.”

Adam turned to look at her, but she just glared at Harry. “Oh, I didn’t know that.”

Harry titled his head as he narrowed his attention in on Adam again. “So you’ve known her for a few weeks and you never asked what she did?”

“Harry.” Y/N warned, trying to kick him under the table again but he dodged out of the way.

“Well… she said she was in graphic design… not art.” She had told him that, during their crash course yesterday while they got to know as much as they could about each other in a span of a couple hours.

“I think it’s the same thing.”

Adam just shrugged. “I guess. I don’t think I could be a designer, though. Most artists make what they think looks good, designers create things to appeal to customers.”

“Just ignore him.” Y/N advised and Harry was the one shooting her daggers and attempting to stomp his foot on top of hers under the table this time.

“You and Laura used to date then? She never told me how you split up.” Harry moved on.

Adam swallowed nervously. “She broke up with me.”

“Why?” Harry pushed and Y/N looked at him like she wanted to kill him, which he ignored.

“I, uh… I had a drug problem for a while. I was not the best person to be around sometimes. But after we broke up, she helped me with rehab and everything.”

“Guess that explains why you’re on such good terms.”

Now Y/N really wanted to do more than just kick him.

Adam grabbed Y/N’s hand under the table and pulled her straight from her violent thoughts about Harry. And he didn’t lace his fingers between hers, instead, it felt as if he had just been looking for something to ground himself with. And her hand resting on her lap was the closest thing he could find. It didn’t, however, go unnoticed by Harry and his jaw clenched as he stared at the point in the table where, just below, there their hands met almost as if he was trying to set everything on fire.

Laura returned shortly after that.

As promised, Adam paid the entirety of both his and Y/N’s bill, even though she attempted to snag it from him, seeing as the date had gone to shit and it was all her fault. Well… maybe it was also Harry’s fault a little bit too. But she definitely did nothing to make Laura jealous. Adam, on the other hand, did a great job at making Harry jealous just by existing and being Laura’s ex, whom she was still friends with.

The four of them stood outside on the curb awaiting their Uber after dinner was over, agreeing upon splitting one car to get to the party instead of taking two. Laura was apparently very cautious about fossil fuel consumption.

Y/N shivered as she stood between Adam and Laura, wishing she’d bright a jacket instead of relying on a long-sleeve dress to keep her warm. Then an arm wrapped around her shoulders and Adam pulled her close, running his hand up and down her arm to form heat. She tensed up, though, forming into an immovable brick. She had no idea the last time she’d been that close to another person, let alone a member of the opposite sex. When he felt her go rigid, he leaned down until his lips were at her ear. “Is this okay?”

She just nodded and tried to relax. Which turned out to be quite easy because Adam was warm and he smelled nice. She, of course, didn’t let her mind wander off too far. He was still in love with his ex. He’d still shove cash into her hand at the end of the night for her troubles and go on with his life.

Adam let go of her when the car pulled up and quickly went to the passenger door to confirm with the driver. Then he opened the back door for the three of them to climb in, Laura going first, then Harry, and, at last, Y/N, while Adam slipped into the front seat beside the driver.

While the car took off, Y/N was shoved into the corner when Harry moved closer to her in order to find both his and Laura’s seat buckles in the dark. Eventually, he settled back into the middle and gave her some space again. When she made no move to do the same as them, Harry turned to look down at her.

“Put your seatbelt on.” He whispered.

Her eyes whirled up to his. Wordlessly, and of course after rolling her eyes, she grabbed her seatbelt and he made room for her to buckle it in. Then she sat back in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest while she stared out at the traffic through her window.

She would have stayed in that exact position the entire trip, too, if Harry’s knee didn’t insist on bumping into hers constantly. And she couldn’t tell if he was doing it on purpose or not.

When she glanced up at him, and found the corner of his lips curl upward, she figured it was, in fact, purposeful. So, with the hand closest to him as her arms were still crossed, she poked him in the side, right against his ribs, hoping it hurt.

“Ouch.” He whined, covering the spot with his hand dramatically. Everyone in the car glanced at Harry, all except for Y/N who snickered as she returned to staring out the window.

Harry wasn’t giving up, though. This time, with his arms crossed in his lap, and glancing at Laura to be sure she wasn’t watching, he walked his pointer and middle finger up the outside of Y/N’s thigh, close enough to her hip to make her squirm slightly when his touch tickled her. And as soon as he got her attention, he looked down at what he was doing and pressed his middle finger against her, meeting her gaze with a smirk.

In the same moment, the driver turned up the music in the car as they waited tirelessly at a red light. It was better than silence or listening to his passengers breathing. But Harry mentally thanked him and turned his attention back to Y/N, leaning into her slightly until his lips were at her ear and she shivered for an all new reason.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you in a dress before.” He whispered for her ears only. The music was especially loud in the back and he wasn’t sure Y/N had even heard him.

Especially since she didn’t respond right away. But how could she? Harry’s fingertips were still grazing her thigh, as if trying to emphasize the dress she had on. And his stupid knee was pressed right up against hers. She couldn’t think straight.

Though when she finally turned to him and whispered back, “Don’t get used to it,” he knew she had, in fact, heard him well enough.

He leaned again, “Afraid I already am.”

She hated that there were butterflies in her stomach. That he was saying such odd things to her when his date was sitting just on the other side of him. The date who most definitely met all Harry’s standards.

Huddling away from him, she stuck her eyes out the window and kept them there the rest of the trip.

It was just past eight when they arrived, a fifteen-minute trip up through the city taking half an hour due to all the Valentine’s Day traffic. Another reason she hated this holiday.

The party was being held by Laura’s best friend, who’s name Y/N did not care to commit to memory. In the elevator ride up to the penthouse, though, Harry stood close to Laura, his arm wrapped around her waist and Adam to Y/N, although he didn’t touch her. She wouldn’t have minded if he did, but she figured it was best to keep those boundaries in place anyway.

Pink and golden balloons littered the ceilings of the penthouse. The drink cups were also pink, as was the communal punch bowl that Y/N steered clear of, having no idea what was in it, or who had already spiked it. She knew nobody at the party besides who she’d come with, though she assumed both Adam and Harry were somewhat acquainted with Laura’s friends.

It was most definitely not someplace Y/N ever saw herself being at, not only because it was a Valentine’s themed party, but also because she wasn’t exactly comfortable around so many people. Especially when those people were all so unfamiliar to her.

“Here,” Adam handed her a drink and then grabbed one for himself. She downed the thing in one go, needing to take the edge off. It might’ve been a slight mistake when the alcohol burned the back of her throat, but she didn’t care too much when she grabbed another.

Then he was leading her into the dancing pit of bodies where they huddled close enough so that his lips were at her ear. “Is it alright if I touch you?”

She glanced over at where Laura and Harry had been left, finding both her hazel eyes and Harry’s green ones glued to the both of them. She wasn’t sure what Harry’s deal was, but this was her moment to fix things and make Laura jealous, so, turning back to Adam, she nodded.

He eased his hands onto her waist as they began swaying to the music. And then he pulled her closer, his hands slipping to the small of her back as her arms wrapped around his neck, being careful with her own movements even though she desperately wanted to sink her hands in his hair.

And, god, he smelled so good as her head rested in the crook of his neck. And he felt good, too, as he moved against her body. She knew it wasn’t real, and that the alcohol was making skewing her perception of things, but it was still nice. Nice to be held and to just let go for a change.

Over Adam’s shoulder, Y/N caught Harry’s eyes again. His jaw clenched and he looked the same as he did back at the restaurant. Angry. And then she realized that maybe she wasn’t really trying to make Laura jealous anymore at all, but rather Harry.

It was dumb, she knew that. He’d have to like her in order for her to make him jealous. But… the way he was looking at her. The way he had looked at her. His eyes lingering too long on her lips. What he’d done in the car ride here.

She heard Adam in her ear again. “I think it’s working. She just stormed off into the kitchen.” Then he pulled away and she realized she hadn’t even seen Laura. Just Harry. Harry and his stupid, obnoxious green eyes.

“You owe me more than just dinner.” Y/N teased but Adam grew serious.

“I know. And since you refuse to accept my money, I’ll have to figure out another way to repay you.” He smiled and then twirled her around so that she no longer had any line of sight toward Harry. He pulled her close again, one hand going to her waist while the other stayed locked to one of hers. “Suppose I could start with making your coworker just as jealous… although I think he already is.”

Confusion flooded her features as she peered up at him.

“Oh, come on! He was ready to rip my head off when he realized I’d grabbed your hand. And when I put my arm around you? I thought I might be better off just giving you my jacket and freezing to death instead.”

“I don’t…” she shook her head in disbelief. It was one thing for her to be pretending to make Harry jealous in some delusional hope that it’d work. But this… this was a whole other thing.

“I’m actually quite interested to see what he does if I kissed you.”

She was shocked at first and then, possibly due to the alcohol, just as interested. “Are you asking my permission?”

“Are you saying yes?”

Y/N hesitated. “Is she back?”

Adam’s eyes scanned the room and Y/N realized he hadn’t asked to kiss her for Laura’s sake at all.

“She is.” He finally announced.

Without any more second guessing, Y/N’s hand slipped to the back of his neck and pulled him in. As soon as their lips collided and she tasted the alcohol on him, she knew that she’d never agreed to this without it. Or maybe she would. Adam spun them back around again, deepening the kiss as her eyes opened and fell into the direction she’d last seen Harry.

He was still there.

Still watching.

His hands in fists. His jaw tightened into a crisp line. His nostrils flared. His eyes… sad.

She pulled away. Adam steadied her, grabbing her shoulders when she swayed. But, as she caught her breath, the dizziness went away.

“I’m going to find the bathroom.” She told him and after he nodded, she left, forming a rift for herself through the bodies that danced all around them until she was in the clear. Then she was avoiding Harry as she walked past him, not so sure his gaze was still set on her. Maybe she’d gone too far. She didn’t often just kiss people for no good reason and that’s exactly what she’d just done with Adam. She barely even knew him.

She didn’t exactly need the bathroom, just an open, empty and quiet place. And so, she fell back against a wall in the foyer and ran a hand through her hair.

“That was quite the show.”

She startled at the sound of his familiar voice and looked up just as he stopped a few feet away from her. “What are you talking about?”

He lifted a brow. “You expect me to believe that that you, anti everything to do with this holiday and with relationships and romance, are actually dating that guy?”

“Is it that hard to believe?” She crossed her arms, willing to go as far as she needed to before she let Harry see the truth. That she was that pathetic.

“Yes.” He didn’t even hesitate to respond and she flinched.

“Well, I’m sorry that you have a hard time believing that someone may actually like me.” She had no reason to nearly be shouting at him and no reason to be saying what she was because Adam didn’t like her.

“That’s not what I said. It’s hard for me to believe you just dropped all your ideas about relationships for some guy with obnoxious blue eyes.”

“I didn’t.”

“So then what is this?”

Y/N hesitated. Hating that the truth was about to boil over out of her mouth for him to see all the embarrassing bits of it, but she had no other way of convincing him. And it didn’t really help that Adam was so far out of her league that it wasn’t even convincing to begin with. Nor did she want to convince Harry of anything either. It was clear now that he hadn’t been jealous, he was just trying to figure out when she stopped hating relationships so much.

And the truth of that was she never really hated them. It was just easier telling herself she didn’t want it than admitting no one ever actually wanted her.

She trembled, not even sure why, but he was making her incredibly nervous, so much that she wished she could rewind and stay squished next to him in the back of the car forever. Being that close to him... his stupid fingers on her thigh, whispering things in her ear that made her head spin. She’d much prefer that than standing in front of him now, seeing every ounce of judgment he was about to throw her way.

“What do you want me to say, Harry?” She shrugged and dropped her eyes to the white marble floors between them, focusing on calming her anxiety while she was no longer looking at him. “He needed a date and I felt bad for him.”

“What does that mean?”

Letting her head fall back against the wall, she stared up at the ceiling this time as her eyes burned with embarrassment. “He paid me to be his date so his ex-girlfriend didn’t find out he wasn’t actually seeing anyone. That’s what it means.”

Harry didn’t say anything.

“So, yeah.” She folded her arms, looking down at the floor again, still unable to meet Harry’s eyes and see the look that would be on his face. A smirk of amusement at her expense. Even probably his dimples, taunting her and turning her into the joke she already was. “You were right. I can’t find anyone to tolerate me, which is why I’m on this stupid date that isn’t even real.”

“Him kissing you seemed quite real to me.”

There was more exasperation than humor to her laugh. “It wasn’t.”

Harry seemed to finally understand. “He’s trying to make Laura jealous.”

Y/N just nodded. “I promise I didn’t know you were going to be there, that he was trying to get her back from you.”

“You still kissed him though.”

She couldn’t argue that, nor could she tell him the real reason she’d agreed to the kiss. That it wasn’t exactly Laura she was trying to make jealous. She’d never live that one down, if she ever managed to live any other aspect of this night down.

When she didn’t say anything, he stepped closer. “Why did you kiss him?”

“I’m sorry, Harry I just... I don’t know.”

He shook his head and took another step, making her eyes widen when he was close enough that she had to crane her head back to meet his gaze. “Seemed like you were trying to make me jealous.”

She swallowed, not exactly in the position to laugh it off and argue with him when he was this close and all she could feel were the traces of his fingertips on her thigh. Her voice was quiet when it finally came out. “Making you jealous would mean I assumed you liked me in the first place... which I’m definitely not stupid enough to assume.”

A crease formed between his brow and his stupidly perfect jaw hardened as if he was biting his tongue from saying something. And fuck him for choosing then to finally stop opening his mouth.

Just then, a pair of drunk guys, one on the other’s back, came racing through the foyer, screaming at the top of their lungs while a few others followed quickly after them. It was enough to force Harry away from Y/N again, enough for the both of them to step out of the little bubble they’d been in together the past ten minutes.

Once they were alone again, their eyes gravitated toward each other and just when she thought Harry might say something after all, he flipped around on his heel and left. And she watched as he turned the corner and mixed back into the party.

After a few moments to gather herself, she followed him, not exactly sure what she was going to do now that Harry wouldn’t talk to her and it felt weird being with Adam while Harry knew everything. But, whatever plans to keep herself occupied no longer matted when she spotted Laura.

Making out with Adam in the middle of the room.

Without even thinking, she turned to locate Harry and he might as well have been a source of gravity because her eyes fell right to him within a second. And he was watching them too. He knew.

He met Y/N’s eyes and she wasn’t quite sure if he was upset or not. She couldn’t really read anything on his face, and stopped attempting to when he moved towards her and she had other things on her mind, like where he was going and if he was going to bother taking her with him.

Shortly after he stormed past Y/N she made sure he wasn’t going to leave her behind and chased after him. She didn’t know Adam very well and definitely not Laura to want to stay with them. And everyone else in the room were complete strangers to her. Adam had promised he’d take her home, but he probably hadn’t expected to be making out with his ex by the end of the night, either.

Harry didn’t say anything, not even when they’d reached the foyer and Y/N asked where he was going. He just located his jacket and slipped it on before making his way out the front door.

And right when she thought he really was going to leave her behind, since she was the reason he’d just lost Laura to her ex, he held the door open and glanced over his shoulder at her while she still stood on the other side of the threshold.

“Are you staying?”

Without a word, she sprung into motion and trailed right behind him into the hallway like a lost puppy, letting the door shut behind her that cut them off from the music as it faded into the background behind them.

It was a silent trip down the elevator, mostly because she had no idea what to say that would sound sincere and he didn’t say anything at all. At least not until she followed him through the lobby until he stopped on the curb just outside the main doors.

She took up the spot next to him, eyes glued to the side of his face as he took in a deep breath of fresh air, or at least as fresh as traffic allowed it to be.

Then he spoke, and it seemed like the first time she’d heard his voice all night. “I’m the one who gave you the chocolates and the frog.”

She narrowed her eyes, both not exactly sure why he’d just said that or if he was even being serious. “What?”

He looked down at her. “It wasn’t Andrew, it was me.”

“Why?” She breathed and while she was positive she’d be freezing cold soon, the fresh air after being surrounded by so many people felt good. It felt freeing and she wondered if he felt that way too.

His eyes scanned hers before he looked away. “Well partly to apologize for what I said.”

“What’s the other part?”

Sighing, he turned his entire body to face her now. “Something else entirely…” He trailed off, only confusing her more as he stuffed his hands into his pockets and stared at his feet. “I didn’t tell you because I know you don’t like all this stuff, but seeing you with him tonight... I wish I had.”

“It’s not that big of a deal. It’s just a frog.”

He shook his head, grinning. “It’s not just a frog, Y/N... because the thing is,” he paused to catch his breath, “I’ve been in love with you for... a really long time… since last spring. But with you being the way that you are, I never thought you’d feel the same way.”

She opened her mouth and then closed it.

“And then you come in with that guy and...” He pulled his fingers through his hair. “I don’t think I’ve ever been more jealous in my life... because all this time I thought you weren’t interested in relationships, but you just weren’t interested in me.”

Inhaling, she summoned every ounce of courage she could fathom. “You were right about why I kissed Adam.” He lifted a brow, waiting for her elaboration which never came. “You were right about other things, too. I wish I had someone to come home to almost every single night I got to bed alone. No one—“ She cut herself off, trembling again as tears stung her eyes. “I pretend not to be interested so I can ignore the fact that no one’s ever wanted me.”

“That’s not true.” He had that same look on his face as before, when she’d told him she wasn’t stupid enough to think he liked her.

She just nodded. “And I’m sorry but... why would you want me when you could have someone like Laura?”

“Y/N...” He huffed and stepped closer to her, the heat from his body making her shiver. “This is not the first time I started seeing someone to get over you... in fact, all my relationships since I met you have been shit.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me?”

“Well you’re very anti-relationships so I think I was justified in wanting to avoid you rejecting me… especially since we work together and it would have been really awkward.”

“I don’t, uh... I...” She stammered, not really sure what to say to him even though her heart was screaming at her in full volume.

He held his breath and then, in almost a whisper, “Is this the inevitable rejection?”

“No.” She didn’t even hesitate that time and at this point, her mind no longer controlled the words coming out of her mouth as she let another organ finally speak for itself. “No, I liked you the second I saw you, Harry... and at no point tonight was I ever trying to make Laura jealous.”

The corners of his mouth began to curl into a smile. “That was very cruel of you to do to me.”

“I didn’t think you liked me at all twenty minutes ago, Harry.”

“Twenty minutes ago,” he fully invaded all of her space now, leaving the smallest gap between their bodies as he could get away with, lifting his hand to her jaw and rubbing his thumb over her cheek. “I was still on this date with the wrong person.”

“I think the date is over now.”

“No,” his eyes fell to her lips just like they had before. “It’s not.”

“You’re looking at me like that again.” She mumbled, out of breath.

He lifted a brow and didn’t once remove his eyes from her lips. “Like what?”

“Like…” she trailed off, not having the courage to say it in case she wasn’t right.

“Like I’ve wanted to kiss you for a very long time and I’m tired of pretending?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

He grinned, both of his dimples making an appearance just before he leaned in and brushed his lips against hers. And once her brain realized what was happening, she sunk right into him, letting his arm wrap around her waist as his other hand tangled its way into her hair to bring her closer. She threw her arms over his shoulders and he hunched lower to meet her. She staggered back a step when he did, nearly losing her balance but he caught her instantly and then drew his lips back as he laughed.

“This is not how I expected tonight to end.” She couldn’t help but think the way he struggled to catch his breath was possibly the hottest he’d ever been. Not to mention the tiny bit of her lipstick smeared on his face. She could look at him just the way he was right there and then for days and be perfectly satisfied.

“It doesn’t have to end yet.” She fully blamed her sudden burst of confidence on the cold, but refreshing February night. And maybe she also just wanted to get out of it before it caught up to her and she would, yet again, regret not having a jacket.

“Oh?” She wanted to smack the mischievous smirk off his face and leave him there on the curb. “And here I thought you were a prude.”

“You thought a lot of things about me that weren’t true, Harry.”

He thought about that for a moment and after realizing she was right, he then wondered just how wrong he was when he’d called her celibate. “I suppose… I’d quite like to find out just how wrong I was.” He slipped a loose strand of her hair back behind her ear, which is where his lips ended up as he whispered softly, “And I’d also quite like to show you just how wrong you were about me not liking you.”

They stumbled into her bedroom in the dark, Pretzel racing out between their twisted feet in a hurry, screeching at them in the process. Harry giggled against her lips, “Your cat sounds friendly.”

“Well, since I was supposed to be spending tonight with her, and chocolate, and anti-romantic movies…” She pulled away from him, watching as his smile spread further. Maybe she could actually believe he’d been in love all this time.

“Right… I’d be upset too.”

She shook her head and kissed him again, then pulled back a second later. “You know that’s not actually what I do on Valentine’s Day.”

He lifted a brow and waited for her to explain but she didn’t.

“And what is it that you do, then?” He finally asked, curiosity getting the best of him, although he had some inkling as to what she was talking about.

Her smile was devoid of innocence as her hands fell to his belt. Harry’s shirt had already been lost to the kitchen floor. Her dress hardly covering what it was supposed to once Harry had gotten his hands on it.

“Maybe you’ll get to find out.”

When she brought her lips back to his, after undoing the buckle just under his navel, he spun them around and led her backwards to the bed. He wasn’t sure how far it was, but hoped he was headed in the right direction. And because of that, when her knees did finally bend over the mattress, he practically came flying down on top of her.

She squirmed out from under him, crawling back towards the pillows as she watched him at the end of the bed while he stood and removed his belt completely, trying not to drool at the sight of him. At the sight of Harry, her fucking annoying ass, perfect, beautiful, coworker standing shirtless at the end of her bed where he was also about to be…

He pushed his trousers down off his hips and they fell to the floor with ease, almost with the same amount of ease that her eyes fell to the tight boxer-briefs he wore underneath. She swallowed as he adjusted the waistband back into place, quite certain that, even in the low light, her eyes were not deceiving her.

The bed shifted at her feet as he joined her, and then it took all her willpower to not fling herself at him as he crawled up the length of her. As he settled himself between her thighs and she felt every last, very hard, inch of him pressed against her. She couldn’t be blamed for the whining moan that she let out in his ear as his lips became familiar with the shape and taste of her neck. She also couldn’t be blamed when her hips instinctively collided with his.

He just giggled again and shook his head, the loose strands of his curls tickling her forehead. “Easy now.” He warned in a hushed mumble, his lips vibrating right against the vein in her neck that pulsed so much faster the more his free hand began to wander up underneath her dress.

He left her speechless for multiple reasons, but the main one was when she felt his fingers tracing down her thigh and then, moments later, after he shifted his weight and used his knees to keep her legs open, she sucked in a breath of air as she felt him pressed against her clit, forcing her nails to dig into his back but he didn’t seem to mind.

Coming back down to kiss her, he began moving his hand in expert little circles, grinning against her mouth every time her body begged him for more. It wasn’t long that he complied, either, when he sat back on his knees between her legs and tugged her underwear off for good, throwing it to the depths of her bedroom floor. He wouldn’t have known where they landed even if he tried because his gaze belong to her only as he lowered himself to his elbows before her, kissing his way up her thighs until he reached her center.

When she squirmed away from him, he wrapped his arms around her thighs and pressed his hands into her hips after gently moving her dress out of the way.

“You know when we used to stay late at the office working?” He asked suddenly and the heat of his voice against her made her squirm again, but he held on tight. “And you would get sick of sitting in an office chair and made me promise not to tell Jim when you sat on his desk instead?” She had no clue where he was going with it, but still, she nodded. “Every single time I turned to look at you, I thought about doing this.” Before she could get words out or even a coherent thought, she felt his tongue on her. And this time when she jerked against him, she nearly slipped out of his hold until he grabbed her again and pulled her back down, digging himself further into her as she struggled to breathe properly.

She dug her fingers into his hair when he brought her close to the edge and showed no mercy. And somehow, she’d managed to get the sole of her foot up onto his shoulder in order to kick him away, but it didn’t matter much because he never budged. Not that she wanted him to, but he just felt so good…

“Harry!” She shouted, pulling at his hair and making matters worse for herself when he moaned against her sensitive bundle of nerves. He let her come, never once lifting his mouth from her even as her hips jerked off the mattress and she very nearly pulled his hair out. When she stopped screaming, her voice caught in her throat because she was lost to her own orgasm, is when he lifted his mouth, replaced it with his fingers and watched her as she came down. As her eyes fluttered shut and her chest heaved, her lungs struggling to get oxygen back into her system. Her hold on him loosened as she came undone around him, melting into his hands it seemed like.

And when he began rubbing his index and middle finger into her, once she was far and beyond overstimulated, and he knew that, she reached down with a whine and grabbed his wrist with what little strength she had in her and pulled him away. His hand fell to the other side of her hip, which he used to his advantage to pull himself up over her again, his other hand taking her dress with it until he was able to tug it over her head and toss it. Then he came back down to kiss her, letting her taste herself on her lips. He rubbed his thumb across her cheek and when he pulled away, found her looking at him finally. Although it was with heavy lids as she still struggled to regain her bearings.

Before they could get much further, a loud crashing sound from the other room made both of them nearly jump out of their skin. She shot up instantly, grabbing hold of Harry’s bicep before moving him out of the way and sliding off the edge of the bed.

“It’s just the cat.” Harry would have probably said the same thing even if it was not just the cat, he’d say anything just to get her to stay with him.

“I know but it sounded like…” her voice trailed off as her feet hit the floor and the moment she went to stand on her own two legs, her knees buckled. He reached to grab her waist but she righted herself before he could. She didn’t see the way he hid his cheeky smirk at the fact that he’d been so good, she was still dizzy.

“You good?” He asked as she stumbled her way into a shirt. With only a groan in response, and what he was sure was her middle finger, she left him alone in her bed to investigate the noise. Sighing, he laid on his back and got comfortable amongst her pillows. And after about three minutes, decided to locate the remote to her TV to entertain himself.

He flipped onto his side and felt around her bedside table, but his fingers never landed on anything remote-like. So, frustrated, he reached up and switched the lamp on. Again, he found nothing. Looking further, he realized the table had a drawer and so he pulled it open in hopes of finding the damned remote before she got back.

But what he found instead was so much better than turning on late night news.

“Fucking cat knocked over my vase.” Y/N was back within ten minutes. Harry had left the light on, but made sure it wasn’t obvious he’d gone snooping into her drawer, at least not yet anyway. She crawled back into bed beside him and it was then he noticed the bandage on her thumb.

“Are you alright?” He forgot all about what he planned to tease her with when he gently grabbed her hand to inspect the damage.

“Yeah. I was in a bit of hurry trying to clean up the glass…”

Harry rolled his eyes and dropped her hand. “I would have come help you.”

She just smiled up at him as he fit his arm around her shoulders, his bicep under her neck. “That’s alright.”

He shrugged. “It was for the best anyways that I didn’t.” When he smirked, she narrowed her eyes suspiciously at him.

“And why’s that?”

She followed his other hand as he reached for something and then, moments later, it reappeared with a very familiar pink object clutched in his grasp. “Because then I wouldn’t have found this.”

Her first reaction was to pry it from his snooping fingers, but when she reached across him to grab it, he way too easily held her back and, at the same time, held it far out of her reach.

“So this is what you do on Valentine’s Day, then?” He flicked his wrist back and forth, waving her vibrator in the air as he taunted her.

“If you don’t give that back to me,” she reached for it again to no prevail, “you won’t be doing anything, least of all, me.”

He clicked his tongue. “Why would I give it back when I plan on using it?”

She froze and he chuckled at her reaction.

“Would be rude of me to break your traditions, wouldn’t it?”

She swallowed, her eyes slowly meeting his again. The appearance of his right dimple told her he wasn’t playing any games. She had no idea how many times he planned to make her come tonight or whether or not she’d even be able to walk tomorrow at work. But, given the stupid look on his face, she almost began making plans to call out sick instead.

“Do you actually know how to use that thing?” She finally asked, glancing at the wand still held very firmly in his hand.

He looked at her like she was crazy moments before he pivoted and pinned her onto her back, settling himself into the position they’d been in before the interruption of the cat.

Just, this time… he was clicking on her vibrator and watching her face as she began to regret her words.

“‘Course I know how to use it. The real question is,” he brought his lips to her ear, the soft vibrations and the sound of his voice mixing together like sin itself. Even more so when he nipped at her earlobe. “Do you know how to handle it?”

#1dffvalentine #harry styles fic #harry styles smut #harry styles x reader #harry styles writing #harry styles fanfic #harry styles imagine

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helloalycia · 4 years ago

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a bitch [one] // leigh shaw

summary: you're used to leigh's constant mood swings and unpredictability, but didn't expect she'd ever do something to hurt you like she did.

warning/s: cheating

author's note: an angsty leigh shaw imagine was requested, so here we are! there's one more part to this so enjoy 😊

part two | masterlist | wattpad

Leigh Shaw could be a very unpredictable woman.

Ever since the unfortunate death of her husband, Matt, she'd become very erratic. It was hard to remember what she was like before he died, but then she'd flash me a smile and say something adorable and I remembered. Other times though, she could be as explosive as they came. If you ever got swept up in her mood swings, you'd be screwed.

Despite this, I remained by her side. That's what best friends did. Even when she yelled at me or gave me the cold shoulder or treated me like dirt, I stayed because I knew that was what she needed.

One time, a few months after Matt's death, I was stopping by to see how she was. A prime example of the cold effect she could have on people.

I raised my hand to knock, but the door suddenly swung open, revealing a peeved Jules and a pissed Leigh further behind her in the hallway.

"Hey," I greeted her sister with a smile, but she moved past me moodily. I glanced at Leigh before catching Jules' arm, stopping her. "What happened?"

Jules smiled bitterly. "You know, you should reconsider where you put your care, Y/N. Some people just aren't worth it."

At that last part, she glared over my shoulder, no doubt at Leigh. I turned to look at Leigh, who merely stuck a middle finger up at her sister before storming towards to the kitchen.

"What a bitch," Jules mumbled, making me wince because it was such a horrible word.

Jules shook me off before marching to her car to leave. I sighed and turned around to let myself in to their house. Closing the door behind me, I followed after Leigh and found her making toast in the kitchen angrily.

"Hey," I began softly, not wanting to give her another reason to get pissed off. Sitting on a stool at the island, I asked, "What happened?"

She forced a smile as she grabbed her toast from the toaster and dropped it on a plate. "My sister can't respect my space is all."

I pursed my lips awkwardly, watching as she grabbed butter from the fridge. Noticing my silence, she glanced up at me through her eyelashes.

"What?" she deadpanned, pausing from her actions.

"I don't think Jules is trying to upset you," I began, knowing I'd probably regret it. "I'm sure she understands you want space, but she loves you. And when you see someone you love hurting, you feel like you have to do something."

A sour smile broke out on her face as she scoffed. "Wow. Could you have your head stuck any further up Jules' arse?"

"Leigh, that's not what I'm–"

"What the hell are you even doing here?" she snapped. "I didn't invite you, Y/N."

Tensing my jaw, I refrained from getting annoyed. "Believe it or not, I actually wanted to check on you."

She curled her lips into a frown. "Well, I'm fine."

As if to prove that she was, she continued to butter her toast, but when she set her knife down, it slipped off the edge of the table and clattered to the floor. Frustrated, she slammed a fist on the countertop.

"It's okay, I'll–"

"Just get out," she cut me off when I was making a move to help her. I paused, wondering if she meant it, then her deadly green glare settled on my face. "Leave."

Sighing with defeat, I nodded and wordlessly left.

—

Sometimes Leigh wouldn't apologise. She'd act like nothing had happened and we'd move on. Other times, she actually would, surprisingly recognising that she'd done something wrong.

There was this one time when I'd invited her over for the evening to eat dinner and watch some films. The dinner went perfectly fine – we talked, we laughed, we spent time together – but then when we settled in the living room to watch a film, things started to unravel.

I can't remember exactly what she'd said. One second we were choosing a film on Netflix, then she was trying to make plans with me on the weekend. Unfortunately, I already had plans with my girlfriend, Alex, and Leigh didn't seem to like this. She'd made a comment under her breath and though I don't remember it specifically, I knew it wasn't polite.

Before I knew it, we were screaming at each other, arguing over the dumbest things. It started off being about my girlfriend and then the most unrelated stuff was being brought up on both of our ends. Sometimes she could be so aggravating, managing to rile me up and bring the worst out in me. The argument lasted a few minutes before she left, leaving me seething and full of hurt.

It was the following day at work when she came to see me next. I owned a café a few doors down from her mother's dance studio and was working a shift when her sister came through the front door.

I smiled at her when she approached the counter dressed in gym gear, her usual getup when at work with her family.

"Hey, how're you doing, Jules?" I asked.

"I'm good," she greeted with a smile, before it faded. "Just a warning, Y/N, Leigh is incoming in one minute. She wants to apologise."

Eyes rolling with mild annoyance, I let out a sigh. As dreadful as our spat was last night, I knew I had to also apologise to her. I'd said some hurtful things that made me feel all icky inside. Going to sleep after a fight was never a nice feeling.

"I don't know how you've put up with her for this long," Jules commented, picking up a cupcake from the display. "She can be so horrible to you."

I frowned, not feeling comfortable talking badly of Leigh behind her back. "That's not fair, Jules. You know what she's going through."

Jules gave me a knowing look. "I do, but that doesn't give her a free pass to treat you like she does."

Shrugging, I busied myself with cleaning up the crumbs from Jules' cupcake and giving her a plate.

"I take it you're going to forgive her then," she stated, though she definitely knew the answer judging from her expression.

"We both said some things we shouldn't have," I tried to explain so it didn't seem like I was giving in so easily, which deep down, I definitely knew I was, but Leigh was worth it.

Jules chuckled. "Yep, you're forgiving her. Looks like it's Leigh's lucky day."

I didn't say anything as she picked up the plate, ready to take a seat at one of the tables. Just as she was about to leave, she paused thoughtfully.

"You know, if you didn't have a girlfriend already, I'd say you were whipped," she said casually.

Ignoring her words, I watched her take her a seat on one of the spare tables. She made jokes like that a lot, but the truth was that I would probably do anything for Leigh. We'd been best friends since university – that was way too long to simply throw away our friendship because she was going through a tough time. And yes, the girlfriend talk threw me off at times... by the time I'd realised I liked Leigh as more than a friend, she was engaged. And I got over it, but Jules continued with the jokes and I continued to dismiss it.

As Jules warned, Leigh entered the café and caught my eyes with a nervous smile. I returned it, just as nervous as she looked, before watching her approach the counter. She was dressed in gym gear, like her sister, but a fine layer of sweat coated her skin which made me think she may have just finished teaching a class.

"Hey," she said with a rare gentleness to her voice. Her hands rested on the counter, fumbling slightly, before she put them by her sides instead. "How are you?"

Uncomfortably, I played with a loose thread on my apron. "I've been better, not gonna lie."

She exhaled regretfully. "I want to apologise, Y/N. Last night... it wasn't fair what I did. Just snapping at you like that."

I didn't know what to say, so I stayed quiet and avoided her eyes.

"I just get so angry sometimes," she admitted, noticing I wouldn't speak. She sounded exhausted and I looked up to see her running a hand through her hair. "I can't explain it. My anger at you wasn't about Alex or the plans, it was just me."

"It's because you're still hurting," I told her what I'd observed, shoulders relaxing. "And you're not very good at expressing that."

She shook her head, eyes drifting to the till distractedly. "I should be because I keep hurting the people I love."

My heart ached at the devastation in her voice and I put my hand out, motioning for her to take it. Thankfully, she did and I squeezed hers gently.

"Look, let's just forget it happened," I said with a small smile. "I... I didn't exactly say the nicest of things either."

She grimaced, letting go of my hand. "No, I get why you said it. It wasn't fair of me to just start on you like that. You were just defending your girlfriend... God, I can be such a bitch sometimes."

I winced at the word, it grating my ears. "That's not true, Leigh."

"It is." She nodded slowly, rolling her eyes. "Everybody thinks it. Including you."

"I don't think that," I said with creased brows, meeting her saddened eyes. "You're not a bitch. I've never once thought that."

"Really?" She raised a brow, smiling with defeat. "Not even that time when I stole your doughnuts after that fight we had two weeks ago?"

I shook my head. "Nope."

"Not even when I snapped at you for no reason the other day when you tried to help me write my article?"

"Not even then."

Her expression softened with guilt. "Not even when I called you a selfish jerk last night for not wanting to spend time with me even though you have a life of your own?"

I rounded the counter and stopped before her, looking between her guilt-ridden eyes. "Especially not then, Leigh."

She breathed out quietly and I pulled her in for a hug, glad when I felt her relax beneath me. Her arms clasped around my waist and I was glad we were good again.

—

It was a year later when Leigh and I eventually got together as a couple. It was a long time after I broke up with my girlfriend and it was completely unexpected.

I'd invited Leigh to be my 'date' to my mum's birthday party, since the two had gotten on so well in the past. She was happy to oblige, but as soon as we arrived, her mood changed.

I was helping collect the pizzas from the delivery guy when he started to flirt with me. At the time, I didn't even realise, but I knew that Leigh had acted different since it happened. When I finally confronted her about her sudden mood swing, she proceeded to make out with me completely unexpectedly and then admitted she was in love with me.

I'm not gonna lie, it was a good time. Since breaking up with my girlfriend, I'd been single and falling for my best friend all over again. Leigh making the first move was all I'd needed to finally share how I felt, too.

That was six months ago, and since then, we'd been going strong. Of course, there were still times when she had her mood swings and took it out on me (and literally everyone else) without realising, but it wasn't anything I couldn't handle. I was used to it, used to her. So much that I should have trusted her even when presented with conflicting evidence.

We were at her workplace, Basically News, where she wrote columns part-time. It was a work party she'd been invited to and she'd asked me to be her date, which of course I said yes to. At the moment, we may or may not have been a little tipsy as we stood in the corner, drinking from flutes of champagne.

"Thank you again for coming here tonight as my date," Leigh said with a grin, arms laced around my neck as she held me close.

Pressing a kiss to my lips briefly, she pulled away and left my head spinning, and not just because of the alcohol.

"Any excuse to not be on the closing shift at work is good enough for me," I said playfully, resting my hands behind her waist.

She gasped. "Oh? So it wasn't me who persuaded you to come tonight?"

I pulled a face, feigning forgetfulness. "Hmm, I'm not too sure. Maybe you'll have to remind me why I agreed to come."

She bit her lip to contain her grin, eyes flickering to my lips. Leaning in, her lips met mine and I closed my eyes, enjoying the way she combed her hand through my hair and tilted my head towards her so she could get better access. She was a really good kisser and she knew the effect she had on me as I felt her smirk into it, catching her breath, before chasing down my lips and nibbling on them temptingly.

Remembering where we were, I gently pushed her back and tried to contain my smile. "Make it PG, Leigh. You're at work."

She licked her lips and began to laugh, green eyes darting between mine. "You're just so cute."

I rolled my eyes playfully. "I don't want everyone here knowing how irresistible you are or they might try to steal you away."

Her laughter filled the air, making my stomach flip at the sound.

"Though I think they may already know that because of how sexy you look tonight," I added, eyes fluttering down her body to appreciate just how well she pulled off her fitted black dress.

She raised her brows with surprise, making me mirror her expression comically.

Leaning close to my ear, she said above a whisper, "D'you wanna know something not-so-sexy?"

Her breath tickled my ear and sent shivers down my spine, making me tense up slightly. Judging from the expression on her face, she was very much aware of what she was doing to me.

"What?" I asked with amusement.

"I really need to pee," she said, and I began to laugh because she did, too, and I knew she wasn't kidding. Pressing a kiss to my cheek, she added, "I'll be right back."

Letting go of me, she waved goodbye before going to the toilets. I busied myself with getting to know her colleagues whilst I waited, until five minutes had passed and I realised she still hadn't returned. Deciding to check on her, I headed in the direction of the toilets, only to freeze when I saw something I definitely wasn't expecting.

Leigh was kissing another girl outside of them.

It was her colleague, Abby, that was the first thing I noticed. But I didn't stay to make out anything more as I immediately turned around and walked away, trying to make my brain catch up to what I'd just seen.

Leigh was kissing somebody else. Somebody that wasn't me. Somebody who I had always suspected had a thing for her, but I never considered that maybe Leigh had a thing for her, too.

Definitely not tipsy anymore, I found the nearest table and took a seat, trying not to assume the worst. But how else could I perceive what I'd just seen? It could have been a mistake, though I was so shocked and hurt and angry that I couldn't imagine how. Maybe she'd explain herself to me. Or maybe she'd tell me what actually happened. Maybe.

Leigh returned not long after, finding me at the table. Smiling like nothing had happened, she pulled me up and led me to dance. Not once, for the remainder of the evening, did she suggest that anything was out of the ordinary, nor did she explain herself. And I couldn't help but wonder how I had the worst luck with women.

This one hurt way more than the last time because it wasn't just anyone – it was Leigh.

—

A year and a half ago:

"Danny mentioned the breakdown you had last week because they didn't have doughnuts, so I, er, brought you these just in case."

Leigh cracked a small smile in the passenger's seat before accepting the box I held out to her. I'd just parked up outside the place where she went to her grief counselling group, having offered to drop her off. It had only been a few months since Matt died, but sometimes, the old Leigh shone back through and it made me feel hopeful that she'd make it through this.

"Thank you," she said genuinely, fingers wavering on top of the box, before she lifted her gaze to meet mine. "And thanks for the ride. You didn't have to."

I shrugged, thumb tapping the steering wheel mindlessly. "I don't mind. I just wanna make sure you get here okay."

She sighed, shaking her head, though a ghost of a smile was on her lips.

"Text me when you're done and I'll be happy to pick you up, too," I added casually.

"Thanks," she repeated, though didn't make a move to leave my car just yet. I didn't rush her.

Sadly, the silence was broken when my phone began to ring and my girlfriend's name flashed on the screen in my car where my phone was connected to. Glancing at Leigh, I just about made out the eye-roll she did.

"Sorry," I apologised, before declining the call instantly.

"Why d'you do that? Could've been urgent," she said with a clipped tone.

Oh, no, I thought. Whenever she used that tone, it meant she was picking a fight.

"I'm here with you," I said like it was obvious, hoping that one thing didn't ruin the moment.

She tensed her jaw, looking down as her hair fell around her face. "Whatever."

Before I could think of a way to make her feel better, the screen lit up again and my ringtone echoed through the car. I winced at the glare Leigh sent to the screen. If looks could kill, my car would be toast.

Declining the call, I looked to her worriedly. "What's wrong, Leigh?"

Her glare fell to me. "Why the hell do you keep declining it? She's calling you for a reason."

I raised my eyebrows. "Because I'm here with you? Alex can wait. I'm taking you to grief group."

"Well, I'm here at grief group," she mocked, turning to face me with an unexplainable frustration.

I didn't understand why she was so touchy all of a sudden. The car ride here, she'd been fine. Just a moment ago, she'd been fine. But now... now she was acting unreasonable.

My phone buzzed in my pocket suddenly, followed by a tone that signalled I had a text. Leigh smiled bitterly, rolling her eyes.

"Let me guess," she muttered. "It's her."

Still very much unable to keep up with her mood swings, I didn't answer. Her gaze snapped to mine as she stared at me with disbelief.

"Why the fuck aren't you checking it?!"

I grimaced, my own exasperation slipping out when I blurted, "I'm a little confused to what you want from me right now, Leigh!" Breathing out slowly, I said, "I'm sorry if this is bothering you. I'll turn off my phone next time."

As if I'd deeply offended her, she raised a brow incredulously. "Are you kidding me? Why would this bother me?"

Okay, I was extremely confused now.

"I don't know," I admitted, bewildered.

"Is that what you think of me? Some clingy bitch who won't let you live your life?"

I widened my eyes. "What?! Leigh! I never said–"

"Sorry if taking me is such a task," she said abruptly, moving to put the box of doughnuts on the dashboard.

"I never said that," I told her sternly.

"You didn't have to. I know already. I'm just a burden on everyone."

She got out of the car and slammed the door shut behind her. Meanwhile, my confusion was still trying to make out what the hell just happened.

"Don't bother picking me up," she said through the open window of the passenger's door. A scowl was on her face as she added, "You should go spend time with Alex. She's probably missing you."

Breathing out, I leaned back into my seat and watched her walk away and to the entrance of the building. When she acted like this – so push and pull with her emotions – I was so conflicted. What could possibly be going on in her mind that she managed to flip everything that just happened? A complete 180?

Knowing she'd just need some time to cool off, I shook my head and focused on leaving. But then I remembered my phone went off and pulled it out to see what was so important. Aside from two missed calls from Alex, I saw I had a voicemail, too, not a text.

Grumbling fo myself, still disgruntled by Leigh's attitude, I raised the phone to my ear to have a listen, whilst hoping it wasn't actually anything life-threatening.

At first, all I could hear was some very faint laughing and vague noises, kind of like material rubbing together and breathing. I assumed Alex had left me a voicemail without even realising since I'd done that countless of times to other people, having dropped my phone in my bag without realising it was still on. But then the noises became more distinct and I made out words.

"Jake, stop messing about," a voice said, whom I instantly recognised as my girlfriend.

I furrowed my brows. Jake? Jake as in the guy she worked with Jake?

"If you stop teasing me then maybe I will," a gravelly yet devious voice responded.

My throat went dry when I heard more laughter before it went quiet. It didn't take a genius to understand what was happening, especially when the moans that followed echoed in my ear, begging me not to forget.

Unable to listen anymore, I hung up and threw my phone onto the passenger's seat. Tears welled in my eyes as I glanced over at it hesitantly, almost wishing it hadn't even existed. And as much as I didn't want to accept the glaring fact, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

She was cheating on me.

#leigh shaw #leigh shaw x you #leigh shaw x reader #leigh shaw imagine #sorry for your loss #sorry for your loss imagine #elizabeth olsen x reader #elizabeth olsen imagine

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