#don't get me started on the little lake in the secret woods.

[sharky857]

Welp. It is only a 10% chance for cloth, but it does happen after many tries! Bunnies are far more quick though.

I have you know that my relationship with RNG is... peculiar.

Like, so far the only thing I've seen dropped from random, running animals are pinecones from squirrels scuttling on the pine trees. Only once I saw a rabbit dropping something, and even then it was a blackberry. 😅

[justalonelyslytherin]

My Kingdom, Your Kingdom | One

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Pairing: secret king!Steve Rogers x heir apparent!female Reader

Summary: Steve, Sam, and Bucky start off their vacation in the remote lake town with an adventurous evening stumbling over three lost girls in the woods.

Warnings: Reader is mentioned once or twice having brunette hair for the convenience of setting her apart from her sisters, no otherwise description of her appearance, wandering in the dark in the forest, mentions of wild/dangerous animals and killers/assassins

Wordcount: 3.2k

If you enjoyed reading this, please consider leaving a comment or reblogging. I don't allow for my content to be copied, translated, or reposted on other websites/apps. Please don't steal my work.

A/N: The first chapter is a little bit different, almost exclusively in Steve's pov. We'll switch towards a Y/N focused pov starting in chapter 2, with the sprinkle of Steve's pov here and there. the beautiful Dividers are by the lovely @/firefly-graphics

Taglist: open, will be tagged in the comments

“Everything is handled. Although I can’t promise it will stay that way for long. Enjoy your getaway while you still can.”

“Thank you Hill.” Steve ended the call, slowly lowering his arm and shoving his phone into the pocket of his pants. With a sigh, he leaned back in the car seat and looked out of the window.

“Vacation,” Sam huffed in an amused tone, eyes focused on the road he was driving on as he barely shook his head. “Can’t remember the last time I took one.” 

Steve smiled, “Me neither.”

Bucky in the passenger's seat snorted loudly. “Time you got one.”

That Steve could only agree with. And it was exactly why they were on their way. They’d been on the road for a couple of hours already, making the track from one end of the country to the other one. There was only one place Steve could imagine spending a wintery holiday just before Christmas. It was a small and quiet town, nestled between the shallow foothills of the mountains and surrounded by a bunch of smaller lakes not far away from the border. Not many people chose to visit it. 

“How long until we are there?” Bucky groaned as he shifted in his seat and stretched his arms high above his head. As high as the ceiling of the car allowed him to. Steve could hear his longest friends' joints creak through the motion.

“Not long,” Sam grumbled, glaring at the brunette before he glanced back at the road again.

“We are almost there,” Steve agreed, eyeing the familiar scenery. It warmed his heart as he spied the hints of the lake peeking through the trees. Shortly after the road curved to the left, following the outline of the lake as the town came into view.

“Wow,” Sam, whose first time it was there, exclaimed in awe. Both Bucky and Steve were equally mesmerized however much quieter. They had traveled there many times, yet the first view of the town never wasn't magnificent.

Driving through the town many heads turned as the townspeople watched them pass by. “Turn left here,” Bucky’s gruff direction came as they had passed almost entirely through the town, the Townsquare and most houses already behind them.

“Here?” Sam asked doubtfully as he eyed the small dirt road that was easy to miss. The snow covering it made the street blend into the surrounding trees so well, one might miss it entirely not knowing of its existence.

“Yes,” Steve agreed, his heart jumping in his throat as they pulled into the inconspicuous road, “just follow it.”

Leading away from the town for a good 10 minutes it felt as if their car was swallowed by nature. The road took a couple of winding turns until after the last one the trees to either side of the road parted and revealed a big plot of land. In the middle of it sat a cozy, sleepy cabin. Three stories high and big enough to house an entire little village of its own, Steve instantly felt at home.

As the car came to a halt before the double-door garage, he couldn’t get out fast enough. While Bucky went on to open the garage, Steve stepped through the snow and rounded on the cabin. Standing before it he craned his neck. Memories flooded his mind as the smile on his lips grew with each passing moment.

“I thought you said the cabin hadn’t been used in a while.” Bucky took his stand beside his friend, glancing up at the cabin too.

“I asked someone in the village to set it up for us a couple of days ago. Everything is defrosted and we got a stocked pantry and fireplace.” Grinning, Bucky looked over at Steve.

“Now that sounds like a proper vacation, even for us!” Both of them laughed as Steve shoved his friend by the shoulder.

“You could have had a proper vacation even before. No one will recognize me here.”

“Not with that mug, no.” Bucky agreed and eyed the dark hair on the blonde’s lower face. Before Steve could say something, a shout came from the garage.

“Some help maybe?” Sam had already started to open the trunk and empty out their bags. In unison, Steve and Bucky walked over to help bring their bags into the cabin.

“A fire, then a nap and food, how does that sound?”

"Ha! It's cold!” Sam shuddered as he stepped onto the veranda, closing the glass doors with his elbow as his hands were filled with three beers. Steve and Bucky, who were already sitting on two chairs with a small fire lit in a brazier out of metal and stone, chuckled at their friends' antics.

“I told you to wear a damn coat,” Bucky teased him, earning a glare. Sam gave one of the three bottles of beer to Steve and held the other one above Bucky’s head, just out of his reach.

“Yeah and next time you can get yourself your own beer, Barnes.” 

Steve rolled his eyes at his friend's quarrel. He was used to them being at each other’s throats. He also knew that it was mostly for show and deep down they both cared deeply for one another. They just were too stubborn to acknowledge it. 

Nursing his beer the blonde leaned further back in this chair and spread his knees out. The residual snow, after they’d cleared most of it off, crunched beneath his feet.

“Man, this is serene. I could get used to this view and the quietness up here.” Sam sighed as he dropped into his own chair. Two hums followed his words, agreeing with them. 

“Just laying back and doing nothing,” Steve mumbled as he glanced towards the treeline. It had gotten dark about half an hour ago, even if it wasn’t that late yet. The sun set quickly around here.

“Oh come on, you’d be bored by midday.” Bucky scoffed and looked at the blonde as he rolled his eyes. “And then Sam and I would have to hunt you down and stop you from getting into trouble.”

“Not like we don’t have to do that on the regular already.”

Steve wanted to protest, in fact, he had already opened his mouth to give them a piece of his mind when they heard a crack not far away from the forest.

“You heard that?” Sam asked as all three of them watched the darkened scenery with watchful eyes. Then another noise came from within the woods. This time, not a crack, it sounded much more…human.

Steve put his beer on the ground and stood up. Stepping onto the edge of the veranda he strained his ears. “It sounded like a person,” he mumbled. There was no third noise which seemed strange to him and without further thought, he decided to investigate.

“Steve…Hey! Steve!” Bucky shouted after him as the blonde already bounded down the steps into the garden and strode towards the edge of the woods.

“For fucks sake,” he grumbled as he looked over at Sam. Putting down his beer with enough force to crack the bottle he jumped over the railing to follow the blonde. Sam scrambled into the house to get his coat and ran after the both of them.

“You can’t just walk into the goddamn woods in the dark Rogers!”

“Without us even less Punk!”

Steve however kept marching on, paying the two of them no mind. He had a mission now. Whatever had caused the noise in the woods it must be special. The woods around the cabin were always quiet. The occasional birds or deer could be heard or seen in the mornings but they made many different sounds. Something in his gut told him to investigate the noise and Steve never went against his gut feeling.

The path he chose through the trees was unsteady and went every which way there was the most space to get to where the noise had come from. Steve stopped as he heard twigs breaking. Looking back Bucky and Sam were standing still too, Bucky shrugged his shoulders. It hadn’t been one of them then. Another crack made Steve look into the dim maze of trees until he spotted something light peeking out between them. With newfound vigor, he stepped forward when a hand landed on his shoulder. Glancing behind, Bucky glared at him and shook his head. 

Sam walked past, taking the lead. Only when he was several meters in front of them did Bucky retract his hand, “Don’t be stupid punk. I won’t hear the end of it if you manage to get yourself killed on your vacation.” 

Before Steve could answer that he wouldn’t get himself killed, shouts sounded from further ahead. Steve could distinctly hear Sam’s shout of “Whoa!” mixed with a second voice.

“Sam!” he shouted and sprinted forward as he saw his friend go down. Skidding to a halt in what was a small clearing in the snow-covered forest Steve and Bucky didn’t trust their eyes. Sam was sitting on the ground, clearly surprised but fine at first glance. Before him stood a young blonde woman who seemed as surprised to see them as they were seeing her. Her arms were still stretched out from whatever movement she had done to send Sam onto his ass.

“What the hell?!” came his exclamation as he fought to get up from the slippery ground. Steve held out a hand to his friend, pulling Sam up. Bucky meanwhile didn’t take his eyes off the strange young woman.

“Who are you?” he asked gruffly and sternly. Before the blonde could answer, more cracking of twigs resounded before two figures barged out of the trees behind her.

“Yelena! Are you okay!” The taller one of the two new women asked, her brows drawn down in concern, eyes flitting over the frame of the blonde one. 

“What were you thinking walking off?” The redhead asked her, arms crossed before her chest and scoffing. It was only after that they noticed Steve, Sam, and Bucky just a short distance behind Yelena.

Steve’s heart made a leap as the eyes of the brunette landed on him. She was pretty, he noted, very pretty. Her gaze was electrifying, rendering him unmovable as her eyes fixated on him. She moved slowly, carefully gauging their reaction, to step between the blonde and them. 

“Who are you?” Her silky smooth voice caused a shiver to ripple down his back. Steve quietly gasped at the sensation, at the way her voice seemed to penetrate every pore of his being. 

Had it not been for both Bucky and Sam scoffing and guffawing Steve would have been stuck in his daze forever. Now however his eyes jumped to his friends, who were ready to step forward and chew these girls up. He held a hand out, stopping them. Bucky shot him a disbelieving look followed by an eye roll. Subtly he crossed his arms and flexed his muscles. Steve couldn’t blame either Sam or Bucky for reacting in this way, protecting him was an automatic response neither could shake off.

“I’m Steve. This is Sam and Bucky.” Steve pointed at himself and then at the two others before he trailed off, once more getting caught in the beauty of the young woman standing before him. She looked reluctant and cautious. The unsteady flicker of her eyes between all three of them clearly showed how uneasy she was to have met them in the middle of the forest in the dark, how distrusting she was of them. In Steve it only caused curiosity to sprout. What were they doing here this late? 

“I’m Y/N. My sister's Natasha–” she pointed at the redhead, “–and Yelena,” then at the blonde she was shielding.

Only after she gave him a timid nod, he thought to elaborate. Swallowing, he mumbled, “We, uhm, we heard some noises and wanted to investigate when we came upon..” 

Yelena, who he was sheepishly pointing at, cut him off, “When they scared the living daylights out of me. I thought they were wild animals trying to attack me.” Bucky snorted amused at that.

“There are no wild animals here. At least none that are dangerous. They don’t venture that close to the cabin or the village.”

“So we are close to a village?” Natasha spoke up, her voice sounding hopeful. Confused, Steve eyed the three girls closely, they looked exhausted and frozen. He noticed the way all three of them were trembling and shifting from one foot to the other. Y/N’s hands were shaking as she curled them into fists and unfurled them over and over again. She tried to hide it, shoving her hands behind her back after she caught him looking. 

“You are lost, aren’t you?” he asked them, glancing up at her eyes once more. There was a spark in them, the brief flitting of a look that reminded him of a spooked and cornered animal. It was gone in the blink of an eye, so fast Steve thought he might have imagined it. What he didn’t imagine was the way she shifted and bit her lip, glancing back at her sisters.

Both Natasha and Yelena were tense, glancing at each other. They opened their mouths at the same time, forming the first letter of what Steve suspected would have been an unconvincing ‘no’ had Y/N not spoken up first. 

“Yes,” she answered timidly, still not entirely sure if she could trust these three strange men, “We were on our way when our car broke down.”

“And you decided to walk aimlessly through the woods instead of calling a tow service or even a taxi?” Sam asked in utter disbelief. It was very cold up here, especially without the sun the temperatures quickly turned deadly. The three girls kept silent, pressing their lips together and furrowing their brows.

“You have a phone, do you?” Bucky asked them and the girls reacted the same way. “You don’t have a phone?” He asked once more, surprise evident on his face as they nodded.

“Could you point us to the village perhaps?” Natasha asked, clearly uncomfortable and done with the questioning. 

“Sure. It’s another 4 miles in that direction.” Sam was very frank and dry in his answer, uncrossing his arms before his chest and pointing his finger deeper into the forest.

“Sam.” Steve chided, frowning at him. Neither Sam nor Bucky seemed concerned or apologetic about their blasé manner, Steve however didn’t feel right treating the girls that way. Sending them on their way back into the forest when it was only going to be darker and colder into the night even if the way to the village wasn’t that long left a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. 

While Natasha and Yelena turned around, ready to head back deeper into the forest, and Sam and Bucky also turned around to make the short track back to the property, Y/N and Steve remained motionless. Eyes on eyes, they hesitated. Steve wasn’t sure if it was his concern for their well-being or the pull of something else that was radiating between her and him. He didn’t want to let her go. Everything in him shouted to stop her and to have some more time together, get to know her. 

What he couldn’t know, Y/N felt the same. She was intrigued by the blonde man with sparkling blue eyes, which when she looked into gave her the feeling of safety. It felt like she had known him for an eternity instead of less than thirty minutes.

Her mind had been running ever since they mentioned a phone. Before she had never thought about it but now the realization settled heavily in the pit of her stomach. They didn’t have a phone, they didn’t have money. They had nothing on them besides the clothes they were wearing. Even if they found the village, how were they supposed to pay for a room in an inn? 

Steve sensed her hesitation on top of the pull and it seemed the others had by now too.

“Y/N?” Natasha asked, having turned back around.

“Nat, we don’t have any money with us. How are we supposed to pay for a room? For anything?” They couldn’t even get the car fixed and turn back around. They were stranded. Utterly screwed up. Natasha remained silent, looking directly at her older sister.

“Well, shit.”

“You don’t have anything with you?” Y/N looked back at Steve and hesitantly nodded. He wondered just who these girls were to be stranded this far out in the country, so close to the border, with nothing in their possession. Bucky and Sam’s eyes were practically burning into the back of his head, both of them knowing exactly what Steve was about to do but neither agreeing in the slightest. 

Before he could speak up, he was pulled back by his neck. Bucky looked at him furiously, before he turned to the girls. “Give us a moment,” he told them gruffly pulling Steve further backward. A short distance away from them they huddled together.

“You can’t be offering what I think you’ll be,” Sam spoke up first.

“Yeah punk. We don’t know them. It’s not safe.” 

“What if they are unhinged hitchhiker killers? Or assassins sent by the North? Repay a debt or some of that crap?”

Steve looked back at the girls. They were standing huddled together, rubbing and blowing on their hands for warmth. He could still see them trembling, even from afar. They didn’t look like killers to him, they looked like three lost girls who desperately needed a warm place and some kind strangers to help them. His and Y/N’s eyes met as she glanced up. There was that pull again, only furthering his sure feeling that they weren't a danger.

“Look at them, Buck. They are cold and you heard them. They have nowhere to stay. We can’t let them wander in the cold throughout the night. They'd be dead before they reach the town.”

Bucky groaned loudly, “Fine punk. But they stay downstairs in the wing furthest away from your room. One of us takes the room before you and the other the room in front of the stairs at the beginning of the hallway.” Steve could live with these conditions. 

“And tomorrow morning we’ll drive them into the town and get them a hotel room,” Sam added. Steve was fine with that too and if he secretly planned to use his rank to meddle with it, then they didn’t need to know it.

For now, he turned around and strode over to the three girls. They turned towards him, three pairs of eyes curiously looking up at him, one of those which lit a fire in his stomach and made his heart do backflips.

“We are staying in a cabin just at the edge of the forest. It’s much closer than the village and we don’t charge anything. So if you’d like, you can stay the night and we’ll show you the way to the village in the morning. Work something out?” 

They looked at each other, eyes jumping back and forth, brows and mouths furrowing and curling. It reminded Steve of the silent conversations he would have with Bucky when they were in meetings or during formal functions. As Y/N turned back towards him, he held his breath in anticipation.

“We’d like to. Thank you.”

[timelordhonour]

Unveiling Secrets

Story link

Regina, Maleficent, and Cruella stood in awe as the wood engulfed August, while Missy returned from the console with a mischievous grin. Soon, August's groans filled the air, and the wood retreated, revealing him as a man once more.

"Oh, temporary indeed!" Cruella laughed. "You do love your little tricks, don't you?"

"He may have shed his puppet form," Missy remarked, her voice dripping with a mix of delight and madness. "But the crucial point is that his innate lie detector is fully functional again."

"I'm afraid I haven't the foggiest notion of what you're on about," August replied, wincing as a sharp pain pricked the tip of his nose. The women observed as his nose began to grow.

"Now you're getting the picture," Missy said, seizing August and dragging him toward the doors of her TARDIS. Stepping into the living room of Mr Gold's cabin, she beckoned the three women to follow. With a mischievous glint in her eye, Missy turned to them. "Could one of you darlings be a dear and set that fireplace ablaze?"

Maleficent conjured a fireball in her palm and hurled it into the hearth.

"Marvellous," Missy chuckled. "Now, August, I must offer my apologies. This next lie is going to hurt." She yanked him up by his collar, dragging him closer to the fire, ensuring the tip of his nose hovered just above the flames. Ignoring August's pained grunts, she interrogated him further. "The Author, dear. What do you know?"

"I've already told you everything," August replied, his nose growing again, inching dangerously close to the fire.

"Have you now?" Missy questioned, then she leaned closer to his ear. "Where is he?"

"I don't know," August responded, his nose lengthening further.

"You're not catching on, are you?" Missy taunted. "I require this answer. Tell me where the Author is. Tell me, right now!"

August sighed, relenting. "All right," he conceded. "I'll tell you what you want to know. The Sorcerer, uh, trapped the Author behind a door."

"The Sorcerer? A door?" Cruella chimed in. "He's speaking in riddles."

Missy fell silent. The Sorcerer? Could it be the Sorcerer's hat? The very hat that had once entrapped her?

August stole a glance at Missy. "You've heard of the Sorcerer, haven't you? It's written all over your face. You know I'm telling the truth," he asserted, then shifted his gaze to Regina. "And Regina knows about the door too. I know my father gave you my belongings. There was a page I tore from the book—a sketch of the door."

Missy furrowed her brow at the revelation. "Regina?" she inquired.

"They were just fragments," Regina responded.

"Well, then you shouldn't have any qualms about sharing them with us now."

"I would, if I hadn't already given them to Henry."

Missy nodded slowly, turning back to August. "Can you recall what the door looked like?"

"Um," August hesitated, straining to remember. "It was crafted from wood. Elaborate carvings on the frame. Gleaming with golden accents."

"Where can we find this door?"

"All I know is," August replied, "it's somewhere in Storybrooke."

Missy chuckled, patting his back as she forcefully pushed August back into the chair. "Wasn't so hard, was it?"

“This Sorcerer has a mansion by the lake,” Regina commented. “Maybe we could start there?”

Missy's eyes sparkled with delight as she responded to Regina's suggestion. "Well done, you! We shall embark on our quest for this elusive door at this Sorcerer's magnificent abode." She turned her attention to Maleficent. "Maleficent, my dear? Are you joining us?"

Regina looked at August. “I’ll stay here and watch the puppet.”

"No, no, no, dear. That duty belongs to Cruella," Missy declared firmly. "You, my dear, are the sole possessor of the knowledge encapsulated in that drawing of the door. Hence, you must aid us in our search."

[captn1999]

Darley Clatter Voicelines

First Encounter: Alright, ready to welcome me! Prepare your softest brush, smoothest silk, flaxseed oil or something more expensive, and… Hey, is that a carrot? Ohh! For me? Thank you!

Suitcase Climate: Darley Clatter is ready, is ready, is ready!

To the Future: Run, chase liberty. Now I am racing on the ground. In the future, I will be dashing in the sky!

Idle: Ho, ho ho! From now on, this is the racecourse of Darley Clatter!

Greetings: You are granted an audience with the Darley Arabian.

Morning: Let the morning sunlight shine on my mane. It deserves that… I mean the sunlight.

Bond: Morning: Darley sometimes gets up late. There's nothing to be blamed.

Night: Please offer me a bed with a soft mattress, goose down duvet, rabbit fur cover, delicate sewing patterns, and designer perfume sprayed.

Bond: Night: That is awesome! You must really be looking forward to spending a wonderful evening with Darley! Oh the story, about the golden carrot in the lake, you have my permission to tell it one more time.

Hat and Hair: Oh … I can't deny you are really good at patting. Sleeves and Hands: Faster than the wind! I am undoubtedly the fastest runner!

Clothing and Torso: Take a look at my beautiful muscles! I don't need to explain how fabulous I am. Hey, watch out! Rub me in the direction my mane grows.

Hobby: The breeze that combs my mane, the golden carrot, and my little Lilian... Oh, you don't know her? She is my lady... Ahem, my maid!

Praise: Oh yes! The great Lord of the Wooden Rocking Horse, is me, who grants you the right to ride on my back!

Intimacy: Adorable? Ahh? You don't even have a taste! Chitchat Ⅰ: Mass production? Oh my god! The great... great Darley Arabian is the one and only!!

Chitchat Ⅱ: Hey, hey! Come over here. I have a secret to share. I am the legendary Darley Arabian... Why are you laughing? Come on! This is not funny at all!

Monologue: All the horses shall race freely, no matter made of wood or iron, glass or flesh and blood. As long as they possess the soul of a real horse, they are qualified to race.

Deployment: Enter the starting gate!

Pre-Battle: Race, race, race! Select Incantation Ⅰ: Oh yeah!

Select Incantation Ⅱ: Proposal accepted! Select 3-star Incantation: Right, that's exactly what I live for. Select Ultimate: Darley Arabian! It's time!

Cast Arcane Skill Ⅰ: Neeeigh!

Cast Arcane Skill Ⅰ: Ha ha!

Cast Arcane Skill Ⅱ: Don't panic, don't panic!

Cast Arcane Skill Ⅱ: Darley is here!

Summon Ultimate: The endowments from the great Arabian!

Incoming Ⅰ: Neigh!

Incoming Ⅱ: Oh no! Battle Victory: Hey, anyone there? I need to get my hoofs... oops, I mean wheels cleaned.

Insight: Darley Arabian does not need a clean body. The mud is the glory!

[bmaxwell]

Alan Wake II

2010's Alan Wake would be high in the running for my most disappointing game ever. The open world tale of a frustrated writer whose stories start bleeding into reality released five years after it was announced (considered a VERY long development period at the time). The setup, vibes, and look of the game landed for me, but the gameplay killed it. It felt like the devs kept throwing combat encounters at me so I wouldn't get bored. I came back to the game several times over the years and bounced off each time.

This process was repeated with Remedy's 2019 release Control. Fascinating fiction, writing, style, and world building with rotten combat and an obtuse map. So any sane person would not fall for it yet again with Alan Wake II. Certainly not as a full price release. Thankfully this time it was different.

Well, different enough.

The way Remedy designs action and traversal in their games just fundamentally does not mesh with me. It's the inverse of the old Blizzard secret sauce. I don't think they are Bad at it since I'm in a minority with that opinion, but as much as I am drawn into the world, the part where I am pressing buttons often yanks me back out. Thankfully Alan Wake II is heavy on the story and aesthetics and lighter on the action.

Remedy's worldbuilding is second to none. I immediately fell in love with the cast and the "every person in this town is just a little bit off" presentation. Saga Anderson and her partner Max Payne Sam Lake Alex Casey as FBI agents investigating a disappearance in this fucked up little Twin Peaks town is just what my wife and I needed for a few weeks in November.

The game opens on a grizzly murder in the woods followed by a weird interaction in the local diner and it just spirals out from there. There's a cult of people in deer masks, dead naked dudes walking out of Cauldron Lake, a defunct coffee-themed amusement park, and the Koskela Brothers with their wonderful commercials. And good old Ahti. It's a rich tapestry of weirdness and I love it.

Like with 2019's excellent 13 Sentinels, early on I decided to just go along for the ride wherever the writers wanted to take me rather than try to hyper analyze it all. Alan Wake is trapped in the lake and he has to write himself out but there's a bad version of him named Mr Scratch who is already out causing trouble and wait now the real Alan is out too? Also Alan made his fame writing a fictional detective named Alex Casey and one of the agents investigating him is also named Alex Casey? And Thomas Zane and Barbara Jagger and and and...

Alan has written Saga Anderson into his story as the hero in an attempt to free himself from the Dark Place* and in the process has endangered her and those close to her. Maybe? Everything that happens has to be filtered through your "This might not be real" filter. Eventually Alan escapes the Dark Place and the game has you switch between playing as Alan and Saga in an attempt to unravel all the strange happenings in the town of Bright Falls.

Along your journey you will encounter a murderer's row of memorable weirdoes:

Saga's FBI partner Alex Casey. Alex Casey is also the name of the protagonist in Alan Wake's bestselling series of books. Total coincidence.

Rose. She works in the Oh Deer! diner in town. The first time you meet her, she addresses you by name as if she's known you for years and gives her condolences for the passing of your daughter last year. The one you just talked to on the phone.

Jaarko and Illmo Koskela. These guys run a wildlife tour in the area as well as the Coffee World amusement park. Their live action commercials are a highlight of the game.

Tor and Odin Anderson. These two old guys live in the local retirement home, but they used to be in a band called The Old Gods of Asgard.

Thomas Zane. He apparently disappeared into the lake decades ago much like Alan. He made a short little arthouse film that I watched in the game.

Ahti. The cryptic janitor from Control appears in this game as well. I love him.

Warlin Door. He's the late-night talk show host frequently interviewing a confused Alan Wake. He's definitely a key player in the story and I still am not 100% sure how.

The confidence they show in wedging live action sequences and frequent references to their past work into their video game is the work of a development team at the height of its power. Two musical numbers stand out in the game: "Herald of Darkness" which everyone knows and was performed live at the 2023 game awards, and "Dark Ocean Summoning" which was less acclaimed but awfully damn cool.

A lot of the videogame-y parts didn't land for me. I didn't enjoy the combat, I found much of the Alan gameplay tedious, and the Mind Place / Storyboard elements are better on paper than in practice. No matter, the game's highs are so high, and the things it gets right work so well that I can overlook its shortcomings. I'll take ambitious and flawed over safe and rote any day.

I'm invested in this story and this world now. I'm onboard for the ongoing mysteries surrounding Saga's origins and her daughter, Alan's madness and Alice's...well, Alice's whole deal. Alan Wake 3, the inevitable Alan Wake 2 DLC, Control 2...I'm in for whatever's next.

*Alan is not an especially strong writer.

[heresathreebee]

Steve Harrington & Eddie Munson | Stranger Things 4 ||  Double Penetration // Stripping

Eddie Lives AU/Post-Season 4; 3.6k words; Swearing, Steve and Reader Established Relationship, Everybody Is Bisexual, Mutual Pining, Polyamory (male + male + female), Teasing/ Flirting, Camping Trip (80s horror movie reference), Partial Roleplay (Daddy Eddie, Mommy Reader, Baby Steve), Semi-Public Threesome, Oral Sex (male receiving), Spanking, Spitting, Tears, Edging, Overstimulation, Double Penetration, Assumed Contraception (Reader Is On The Pill), Double Creampie

Previous | Masterlist | Next: Leonard Bast Spanking

You and Steve wanted to celebrate. It was both your 6th anniversary of dating and you had managed to defeat a really awful professor to get your degree. You both explained as much to Eddie in the garage he started working at. 

"A doctorate degree!," Steve yelled excitedly over the machinery whirring, "she's a freaking doctor now!" 

"Well, not in medicine, don't confuse him…" 

Eddie Munson threw off his safety glasses and pursed his lips. "...that doesn't explain why you want me to go camping with you." 

You and Steve exchanged a secretive glance. "It'll be more fun with you there–" "We just really want you to come!" 

The metalhead was still suspicious but on the day the lovebirds were packing he showed up with booze and reefer. "Just the important things," he explained. 

You rolled your eyes and laughed. "The tent and the water might disagree with you, but we're glad to have you nonetheless." 

Eddie's hunch about something fishy going on never left him, and there were a dozen small things that occurred that only made him feel stronger in his resolve. The whisper session at the gas station, the flicking glances along the drive, the sneaky lip locking that ceased the second they thought he was looking.

You two were dating. Eddie knew this, and yet you were acting secretive about it. Why? You and Steve couldn't possibly know that a tiny needle of jealous desire jabbed him every time he saw you engage in physical affection. He was so good at hiding it and had been doing so successfully for years. 

"Why Camp Crystal Lake?"

You were driving this last leg of the journey and quickly flicked a confused glance his way before returning your eyes to the road. Eddie was sat in the middle of the bench seat of your hatchback between you and your boyfriend, his right arm slung lazily over the back of it behind Steve and the other propping his head up to look at you. He had already tried several times to grill the truth out of Steve, but he wouldn't break. It was time to try again with you, though he had less hope of success.

"Why. Are we going. To Camp Crystal Lake?," he asked again, mockingly slow. "we passed by at least half a dozen perfectly good camping sites full of kids and rednecks. There's even one local to Hawkins so why... are we driving seven hours north to camp out in butt fuck nowhere?"

You shrugged your shoulders in amusement. "For privacy. Crystal Lake's been closed since '81. No rules, no nosy cops: just us, some abandoned supplies, and the woods."

"Sick," Eddie said. "You know if you wanted to be fucked in the woods or by a lake, we have those at home too. Remember Lover's Lake?"

You rolled your eyes and batted his chest. "I'm not worried about me getting caught, idiot."

Eddie looks for an explanation from Steve but he was literally turning his back to him and pretending (poorly) not to be hiding from the whole conversation. Checking with you, he saw you look annoyed by Steve's reaction and making meaningful eye contact with Eddie- meaning which he did not yet understand.

"So you are hoping to get fucked!," Eddie brings it back to his first point of protest about coming on your vacation. "Tough that, bringing me along as a third wheel. A little cruel, actually. What am I supposed to do, sit there and watch?"

"Eddie," you take your foot off the gas and pin him with a hard stare. "We want you here to do way more than watch. Hey, can you pass something off to Steve for me?"

"Uh? Sure." Then you slapped him hard on the chest, almost winding him. "Ouch!"

You gesture vaguely in Steve's direction, expecting him to follow through. And he does, pushing Steve by his back so hard his head almost went through the window.

"What?!" Steve loses control of the volume of his voice and when he turns around, his face is scarlet. Confusion only worsens as Eddie looked at his friend who was sweating profusely, way more than is normal for a breezy Indiana summer with all the hatchback's windows cranked down.

Eddie feels a touch creeping up his left thigh and looks down at it, frozen. Lust strikes through his groin at the sight of your hand settling inches from his cock, and then he notices Steve's own longing gaze as he sees it as well. Not jealous, not heartbroken. Longing. Lustful. Like she's touching him by extension... or like he wants to mirror her action. 

Oh, things are starting to click together. Things Eddie has suspected but never had the nerve to confirm at the risk of alienating his friendships. Unconsciously, his thighs spread and a knee bumps up against Steve's, who doesn't budge from his position.

"It's going to take an hour to set up camp," you informed the group as you turned off the barely populated highway down a gravel road with thousands of thick pines lining the way. "I think it's time we were honest about our intentions, yeah?"

Steve's eyes become wide as saucers and he tries to turn away but Eddie's hand catches his jaw roughly and drags him back, forcing him to look in his eyes. The boy is looking thoroughly humiliated but not unhappy with the current position. A hundred images flash in Eddie's mind of King Steve, who Eddie had always presumed was a top or at least the dominant type, bending to your will (and especially your touch) like a rubber ball that bounces right back into its proper shape once the pressure lifts.

"Stevie," Eddie sings. "Go on. Tell Daddy what you're hiding."

Sweet, pretty, perfect Steve whimpers and leans into Eddie's hold. Beneath his rough hand, he feels the submissive man swallow and it goes straight to his head. Were all Eddie’s dreams really about to come true? 

“We,” Steve gulps again. “We uh, wanted you to come along because we. Like. You.” 

Just then, you made a right hand turn onto a dirt path that took the trio further into the trees, hidden from all the rest of the world. Eddie nodded his head but it wasn’t enough. He pulled the cowering man into his side by the waist and leaned so close to his face that their lips almost touched. Steve’s eyelids fluttered, his body finally beginning to relax as he realized he wasn’t going to ruin his friendship. 

“I want to hear you say it,” Eddie purrs, and stops you from doing it for him. “I need to hear him say it. Come on, pretty boy, let me hear those magic words and everything you want can be yours.” 

“We want to fuck you…” he whispers and brushes his slender lips against Eddie’s, begging. “Y-you don’t have to do anything you don't want to, just… we want you to be with us on another level." 

Eddie squeezes Steve's hip. "Now see I always hoped you'd be naked on your knees when you asked me to fuck you, Stevie, but this is good, too." 

The brakes of the car whined as you slowed to a stop. You unbuckle yourself and turn to the sexually charged eye fuck fest going on in the passenger seat. You tap Eddie’s shoulder and he glares at you expectantly, while still holding your boyfriend hostage at his side. 

“We’re here. Place is deserted but just to be safe, I’m going to check the perimeter so to speak. Why don’t you let my baby show you how he uses his mouth?” 

Eddie smirks impishly at your suggestion. “What a killer idea!”

…

Well it’s a good thing this place really was abandoned because Eddie and Steve were loud as fuck. Or maybe they were doing it for your benefit. All in all, it feels good to hear your plan coming together so beautifully. 

You trek back to the car where you left them and found Eddie holding Steve’s head and using your boyfriend’s throat to fuck himself. It made your heart beat harder and you stumbled a bit over a rock– Steve was new to all this, you’ve never been so rough with him before this way. But all the tension in your body eases the minute Eddie spots you and releases Steve with a devilish grin. He even holds Steve’s head back and turns his chin so you can see the blissful, drunk state he was in. 

“Baby’s doing so well!,” he shouts his praise as you neared the still open car door. “I see you taught him a few tricks, and they were cute, but I’m showing him what he can really do.” 

Steve coughs and your eyes fall back to the slobbery, flushed cock he was just choking on. You feel Eddie’s hands creeping up your thigh and try to find a few words to say that would clue him into your preferred role. Suddenly, he smacks your ass and makes a lewd comment about bending you over the hood. 

You act fast, closing your hand around his throat and leaning in so close that your noses brush. “Ah, ah, Daddy. Be careful who you’re manhandling, because one of us bites.” 

Eddie’s brown eyes glisten with mischief and he parts his pillowy lips, asking permission for a kiss. You dig your teeth into his plump bottom one and soothe the sting with a gentle lick before forcing his mouth open and shoving your way inside. Eddie accepts, meanwhile Steve works hand and tongue over Eddie's thick, veiny muscle and watches reverently. 

After a breathless minute, Eddie has to shove you away and directs your hand to tangle into Steve’s hair together. “OK, Baby. Show Mommy how you get the cream out. And make sure you don’t swallow.” 

Confused, you look at Eddie who simply smiles, then Steve’s back to work bobbing his head and reaching down to fondle the nest of black hair covering his tightening sack. Eddie’s little gasps are quieter than before, he doesn’t need to show off or project now that you’re right here in each other’s ears. He must have been edging himself because it doesn’t take long before he tenses up and Steve stops bobbing to hold the spitting head in his mouth. 

Your throat goes dry at the sight of the throbbing, twitching thing pumping what seemed like gallons of cum out, so much that Steve chokes and some dribbles out despite his best efforts. You pet Eddie’s damp curls off of his forehead and hum in praise. He must have been saving it all up for a while. 

Steve pulls off with puffed cheeks and you try to climb into the car, only to find yourself shrieking as Eddie grabs you and throws you over his exposed lap. His softening cock leaves a slimy wet trail on your lower belly and you fight to get back up, only to be trapped in submission by a strong hand at your throat and a warning slap on your thigh. Somehow he’s got you flipped around– head hanging out of the vehicle where you were just standing and back vulnerable. You can feel the outer seam of Steve’s jeans on your inner thigh. 

“Eddie! Hey!” 

You can’t do much to stop him as he throws up your dress and rips your underwear down to your knees, stretching them to the point of ruin. Steve can’t do anything but mutter in alarm and shrug indecisively behind your head. Eddie lands a harsh smack to your bare backside and delights in the wondrous jiggle of your flesh. He turns to Steve and asks, “still got your mouthful? Good.” 

His next command sends a jolt of electricity to your core and shocks you into silence. “Let Mommy feel what a good mess you made then.” 

You wait with baited breath wondering what the hell they were going to do next when you feel two warm, familiar hands caressing their way up your hips. Your whole body shivers in surprise when you feel a mixture of saliva and cum spilling over your ass and pouring down the arch of your spine, then trailing back and slipping down the crevice of your intimate parts. 

Steve’s gentle hand comes between your legs and his fingers start to massage the mess over your throbbing clit in tight circles. Your head bows and pussy drips, adding to the mixture your own feral juices. Sex has never been this intimate before. 

Eddie hums his approval. “Good boy. Now I have another job for you. It’s gonna be hard work, but I promise we’ll make it worth your while in the end. You ready, baby?”

Steve nods his head enthusiastically. 

…

Total bullshit, that’s what this was. An undeserved punishment, Steve felt, and after all the good work he did earlier? It was unfair. 

“Keep going, Baby! You’re halfway there!” 

Steve bites his tongue to stop from yelling at Eddie to shut up. The smarmy bastard had you laid out on a picnic blanket and was fucking you raw, speeding up when ever he felt you get close to coming and slowing down everytime he came close to coming. You were a blubbering, shaking mess under the evil metalhead, and if Steve was counting right, on your way to a second screaming orgasm. Eddie switched positions whenever he felt like it, careful not to break you and keep you just on the edge of overstimulation at all times and making Steve watch. It looked exhausting. 

“Tent’s not gonna build itself, buttercup,” Eddie laughed and slowed down his thrusts once again leaning down to whisper sweetly at you. “How are we doing, Mommy, huh? How many petit la morts do we have including all the little tiny ones?”

Tears stream down your face but you haven’t given your safeword yet. “S…seven. I-I think. Two big ones…”

“Two big–” Eddie sits up and starts to pound into you roughly. Your moans reach a fever pitch and you scream, convulsing again under his watch and he pulls out to finger you gently down from your high. “There, now it’s three.” 

Steve has already sweated through his shirt and discarded his belt a long time ago. He won’t take his pants off for fear of breaking your one rule– coming without permission. It was getting tough to see through the haze of lust clouding his mind and fury that the tent poles he has left won’t go together like they’re supposed to. 

“Mommy says you’ve got them backwards,” Eddie yells. He’s flipping you back onto your stomach and letting you rest. He hasn’t come since earlier in the car and Steve has gotten to come once. He’s being patronizing on purpose as he says slowly, “flip. The one. In your right. Hand.” 

Steve begrudgingly does as he’s told and what do you know? Click! He scrambles to slide the canvas over the metal frame and finish setting up, shucking his shirt and glaring against the mid-evening sun as it dips behind the trees. He comes back to find Eddie gently cradling your limp body in his arms like one of those religious marble sculptures you studied in school. 

Steve stands nervously as he takes off his pants, shoes, socks, and boxers, keeping an eye on you. “Are you sure she’s ok?” 

In answer, you open your eyes and give him a weak thumbs up. He at least knows what you are feeling right now– worn and drained but torn between wanting to please the other and continue or call it quits. Steve himself has been scolded by you on more than one occasion not to overextend himself. He’s never seen before the limits of how much you can take. 

“Ok. I’m done.” Steve kneels carefully on the blanket and waits, his neglected cock standing proud and tall before him. Eddie’s eyes roam over his naked body appreciatively. “What’s next?” 

Eddie hugs you close to his chest like he hadn’t spent an hour fucking the life out of you. He’s sore too, but he hides it well. “I think you deserve a reward. Something good that you’ve never been given before. Something having one partner can’t quite accomplish on their own.” 

Some type of discussion or understanding must have happened earlier while Steve was unaware, because at that moment, you shift yourself and need no verbal instruction from Eddie on how to move. Steve watches rapturously as you both sit up and Eddie shoves his cock into you (with a slightly pained grunt and a gasp from both of you), then he hooks his arms under your knees and lifts you into an unusual and open position. 

Only then does Steve realize it’s not your abused pussy that’s stuffed right now. 

“I-I… y-you…” 

Eddie grunts. “Come help me fuck your Mommy, babe. She could use a couple of nice warm loads in her holes, don’t you agree?” 

Hesitantly, Steve crawls over, watching you both tumble onto your backs and hold your hands out to him. Eddie’s cock is naturally thick, it’s a wonder you didn’t call a timeout already. Eddie’s endless patience wears off and he yanks Steve over you, rocking his hips so he’s fucking your rarely used hole. Steve watches again, entranced by the way Eddie's fills you from this close up position he’s never been able to see. 

“I-I don’t understand what you want me to do…?” 

Your hands cradle his face sweetly. “Sweetie? Fuck me.” Panic flashes in his eyes that you try to soothe. “I can take it. I can take you both. You’ll fit, I promise.” 

“All you need to do is come,” you coo and guide his lips to yours. 

Finally, Steve grasps the root of his shaft and brushes his tip on your sex. You hiss through your teeth and clamp down hard, causing Eddie to groan as you squeeze him tight. Steve doubles back and finds the little bottle of lube he’s been hiding in his pocket since the trip started and works it as much as he can over his shaft, which twitches with his touch. 

“Come on Stevie,” Eddie moans, “Mommy’s waiting for you.” 

Steve shifts your legs into a better position to take him so you won’t be so tight around your entrance. He lines himself up and pushes, wincing as your sore parts flutter and spasm and squeeze around his initial breech. He pushes in as deep as he’ll go and sighs, surprised at a strange tingly feeling he gets thanks to an unusual pressure. 

“What… what the hell is that?” 

Eddie grins and turns your fucked out face to his. “Do you wanna tell him, or should I?” 

Steve can’t help but thrust shallowly, so desperate to finish after being forced to hold back for so long. The tingling in his gut gets stronger, like touching himself for the first time ever. His mouth gapes open as your sleepy eyes find his and let him use your body for his pleasure. 

“That’s Eddie, Baby.” 

He doesn’t understand until he does. Eddie had held perfectly still while Steve inserted himself, but now that he’s caught onto Steve’s rhythm, he starts to move perfectly off beat, gliding in and out of your holes like the the up beats in four-four time. And Steve feels something moving, something caressing his cock from tip to shaft with every down stroke, then back up with every pull out. That’s Eddie, baby, his brain echoes endlessly. 

“Eddie, Eddie,” Steve’s brain starts to short circuit and his hips stutter, drool gathering on his lower lip and beginning to leak out. “Oh god, I can feel you, Eddie. I can feel you moving in her. Oh fuck, I didn’t know… I didn’t know you could take so much and feel so fucking good… oh fuck, I don’t wanna come– I don’t want this to end!” 

“You have to come, Baby,” you plead. “You have to come inside me and fill me up.”

“Mommy needs a break, Baby boy,” Eddie adds, thrusting his hips faster. “She’s already taking so much that tomorrow, it’s just gonna be you and me and a bag of ice for her to sit on.” 

Steve’s too far gone to laugh and feels his balls tightening painfully. He rests his head on your chest and feels you card your fingers through his hair, encouraging him to finish so you can all eat and get some much needed sleep. He hears Eddie whisper something in your ear and one of your hands trails down the curve of his spine, past dozens of adorable freckles and between the valley of his cheeks. You stuff two fingers in his hole and curl them like a hook as he suddenly cums hard. 

“Atta boy, Harrington!” Eddie rocks his hips faster, pinned down by the combined weight of his lovers. “I’m gonna get you a fucking cigar for that one!” 

As Steve’s cries die down, you feel Eddie’s shifting cock stop and fill you with more hot liquid. Your thighs are on fire from holding this position and you let Steve slide off to the side before rolling the other way off of Eddie, sprawling on your stomach and sighing at the feeling of cool air on your raw, chafed parts.  

After a minute, Eddie’s arms wrap around the both of you and pulls you closer, but you’re all much too tired to do anything else. His thumb strokes over your sweaty foreheads and he chuckles into the fresh air as night begins to fall. 

“I was being serious about that ice though, babe. Anybody want a snack?”

Previous | Masterlist | Next: Leonard Bast Spanking

This fic was rewritten and finished 10 minutes before I posted it so I am losing my mind

[sunshine-in-a-bottle]

I think someone should give c!Dream new eggs to protect. I think this would fix him

(I have given him new eggs. They are called hermits and they will love him very much.)

.

.

.

Pearl wanders through the woods of this server, another place to build, another game to play, and its beautiful out. Light dapples the trees as she wanders and wonders what this world will become when they are done with it. Explosions, traps, delight in the hunt when the hunt truly starts, and when its over Scott will smile at her. They are still friends. They are all still friends.

The woods grow darker as Pearl slips deeper into their shadows, leaves hiding away the light. She thinks idly of the monsters the hide there, but they are irrelevant in her search for the borders of their arena. If she is hit it will not be the end of the world. This is only game, after all, and while she wants to win, its pointless to succeed if she never gets to enjoy herself.

She finds the border. Of course she does. The barrier is solid red against the green of the forest. It warns her not to get too close, but she presses her palm against it and watches the light ripple from her touch.

She looks away from it for only a moment, and nearly flinches back at the figure sitting on the other side.

"Oh! Sorry about that. Didn't realize this place wasn't empty."

This is not a player she recognizes, but he must be a player, because he is green. Green as life itself, his cloak tattered and dirty but still so bright. His hair looks a bit matted, like he didn't have the energy to wash it, but its swept back enough that the green of existence is in his iris.

He blinks at her. He does not try to get up from where he sits, half concealed in the underbrush. Instead his nose scrunches in confusion. Its incredibly endearing.

"Now how'd you get all the way over there?" She teases. She remembers the broken barrier from another session, so really, it isn't surprising at all that this would happen again. The green life opens his mouth, but he doesn't speak. A forked tongue flicks out, once, twice, before he closes his mouth and lets a hint of fang peek out.

"You're a snake hybrid, then? Very cool," she tells him, because it is. When he tilts his head at her, she taps her skull and grins. "I'm something of a celestial body myself, you know how it is."

Well, he probably doesn't, but he slowly begins to uncoil from his spot on the forest floor, lifting himself up with a strange grace she's never seen before. It might be a snake thing, or a him thing. Its quite neat, either way.

"I know its probably tempting to try and hide over there the entire game, like a little secret base, but I think Grian would call it improper conduct. Not very fun, yeah?" Pearl makes note to scold Grian for not telling people when he brought in new players. It was quite like him to only give them half the info. "Since you probably don't know very many people your first time around, you can stick by me. I won my last game, so you're getting a bit of an advantage here."

And yeah, maybe its a little cheeky, but his mouth quirks up in a soft smile. "... I suppose I am."

His voice is rough, low and careful. He shuffles a bit closer, enough for the light to hit silver scars as they spiderwebbed across his face. Something must have hit the poor guy in the face outside of the games, but no matter. Pearl was here to protect him now, and she would do a very good job.

"Have you met anyone here yet? I'm Pearl, by the way, it's nice to meet you!"

She extends her hand. On the other side of the barrier, he hesitates before reaching through to shake it. The red gives way to him like his hand is emerging from a lake. (Rippling, Rippling, what's that old story of the lady of the lake-?)

"I'm Dream," He says, and she steps back to pull him through. The name is familiar, but most of the names here were familiar before they were friends.

"Very nice. I think we'll have a good time. I don't know all the rules this time around, but I'm sure someone else will." His eyes were red rimmed, she noted with alarm, but he didn't seem like he was going to cry. Just wary and puzzled, towering over her but not intimidating. Just a man. A tall, sad, snake man.

(Is that what she looked like when Scott left her last game? A green life shouldn't look so withdrawn.)

"... well, what do you know?" Dream asks. She doesn't let go, pulling him along back the way she came.

'Scott will like this one,' she thinks to herself as she explains the rules. He's ever so polite, never interrupting for a moment. Its calming, and while she might already be gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss again with Cleo and Scott, she would be willing to find a new name for them all when she brought him into their little group.

[cmrosens]

Best cosmic horror / eldritch horror movies??

ANNIHILATION (2018) was so good, I loved the Shimmer and the concept and the vibe, so interesting - a much better Colour Out Of Space film than COLOUR OUT OF SPACE (Nick Cage). But the body horror did get to me in COOS, I was eating my lunch while watching.

Error.

THE THING is obvs great, and IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS and PRINCE OF DARKNESS. Love the John Carpenter trilogy. I can't decide which of the 3 I like best.

Some others that I keep thinking about:

JUG FACE - you never see the monster but it lives in a pit, cw for graphic miscarriage and incest among other things

THE CALL GIRL OF CTHULHU - I did laugh, I'm easily pleased

THE RITUAL - I wasn't sure about the Sami-coded cult (was it?? That felt ...off to me) but I loved the creature design and the atmosphere

SATOR - slowburn and more demonic entity, I wasn't sure about this film or if I liked it, but I keep thinking about it.

THE HALLOW - Irish eco-horror, so much parasitic fungi body horror and the fae creature design was great. Yes, I'm counting the fae as eldritch, that's where the word comes from! Not humans, not angels or fallen angels, but a secret third thing...

THE LURKING FEAR - 90s creature feature based on a HP Lovecraft short story, similar themes of heredity and concealed monstrosity as The Shadow Over Innsmouth, but this is about underground things.

HP LOVECRAFT'S THE DARK SLEEP - not great, actually pretty bad, but again the concept is something I keep thinking about.

THE DUNWICH HORROR (1970) - I haven't seen the 90s one, but I didn't mind the 1970 one. You can always trust the 70s to sex things up for no reason, and I quite liked it.

THE VOID - I do like this, it's got a lot of things going on in a besieged hospital

SACRIFICE - Norwegian cult and pregnancy horror, heredity and gods in the fjords etc, gave me big Ramsey Campbell The Inhabitant of the Lake vibes

I quite liked the Full Moon mini series THE RESONATOR even though ep 5 is missing and I'm not the biggest fan of The Reanimator as a story as I hate zombies and brain stuff. I have seen THE REANIMATOR though and it was fine.

UNDERWATER - loved this one, it starts off very The Shadow over Innsmouth and then segues into The Call of Cthulhu. Plus Kristen Stewart was good in it, I thought! I enjoyed it a lot.

HELLRAISER - I'm counting the whole franchise and the new film in this. All of it.

THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN - Yeah, I do think this counts, so little is explained (good) and it's a cultish conspiracy in NYC. Vinnie Jones has the best role. I liked the short story too!

STRANGER THINGS - yeah, I'd say this counts? Kinda?

NOBODY SLEEPS IN THE WOODS TONIGHT 1+2 - The sequel took me places I didn't want to go, but this is a solid Polish body horror concept. It's body horror and mutations caused by a meteor thing. I wouldn't rewatch them, I don't think, but it kept me on my toes.

MONSTERS (2010) - survival romcom? It was cute and I liked the alien thingys. I don't know if it really counts, it's dispassionate aliens invading accidentally creating an 'infected zone', which was similar to ANNIHILATION. I haven't seen the sequel yet.

APOSTLE - I might include this as there's some unexplained stuff going on with this island, and the whole 'prisoner of the landscape' thing that appears in Welsh Gothic fiction as a trope. In this case, if you've seen it, you'll know what I'm referring to.

THE CABIN IN THE WOODS - loved this the second time around. Saw it in the cinema and due to circumstances wasn't into it. Saw it again and realised it was more my thing than I remembered.

BLACK SPOT - This is a French series, folk horror, eldritch weird stuff in the forest, eco-horror, slowburn. Worth it, I thought.

REQUIEM - I think this does count, also a series, Welsh Gothic themes abound, it's classed as supernatural but it's much, much weirder than ghosts. Plus a lot of the Welsh Gothic themes - prisoner of the landscape (which also contains the haunted history and secrets relevant to the present), cultural disinheritance, music as language, etc, all pull through to create that folk horror/eldritch horror atmosphere. It also has weird cult playing with forces beyond their control.

SOCIETY - No idea where else to put this, but even though it's a cosy 80s teen body horror shocker, the themes are reminiscent of THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN (same basic concept in fact in terms of conspiracy and cult and so on) but with added overt class discourse. I do love this film.

LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM - based on the Bram Stoker story but has Lovecraftian overtones, and then goes full on Hammer Horror THE REPTILE which doesn't belong in this list. LAIR is - not good. Hugh Grant and Peter Capaldi carry the film and are so young, and it's not their best work ever. I made it 1min 30secs in twice and turned it off, but third time lucky. Now I can say I've seen it to the end. There was no prize.

THE STRANGENESS - abandoned gold mine and mysterious, people-eating slime creature that dwells within. Kind of "In The Mountains of Madness" but ... not.

THE WRONG HOUSE - This is weird, timey-wimey but not, inexplicable nightmare that's a lot more than a haunted or sentient house. It's the horror of being stuck somewhere that won't let you leave, and there are no rules, no explanations, and no way to figure it out.

DON'T BLINK - an extinction event that also goes completely unexplained, very weird, very unsettling concept. Life forms of all kinds just... stop existing when you stop looking at them.

THE CIRCLE (2017) - a stone circle on a remote Scottish island, a monster thousands of years old, a mystery that a group of archaeologist students try and solve (it doesn't end well).

I haven't seen a load of obvious ones, but would like some recs on which are worth watching? Anything with the above vibes (including the comedies) welcome!

[flawedamythyst]

25 and 54, Winterhawk?

25. Fairy Tale AU and 54. Secret Relationship

(This one got long, for some reason, so be prepared if you click the Read More.)

Excellent, okay, so we've got Prince Clint, second son of the King and Queen in a traditional fairytale-type kingdom. He's very much treated as 'spare' by the family, and spends a lot of time just wandering around the palace grounds and nearby forest. One night he's out later than normal, after dark, when he runs into a smoking hot guy. He strikes up conversation because, seriously, why wouldn't he want to get to know this guy?

The guy introduces himself as Bucky but is super-vague about the rest of his life. They wander about the woods for a few hours chatting, and then make plans to meet again the next night. Bucky shows Clint some exciting natural feature, like a waterfall or a particularly nice flower or something, and it's all very meetcute.

They start meeting every night, Clint creeping out of the palace as soon as it gets dark and then back in just before dawn, and taking advantage of the 'all royalty are lazy wastrels' thing in order to then sleep until noon.

He falls in love fairly quickly and doesn't bother hiding it. Bucky is a bit resistant and Clint tells him, "It's fine if you don't like me like that, I'm happy to just be friends."

There's a sad, heartbroken tone to his voice though and Bucky can't resist making him smile instead by leaning in to kiss him.

They make out for most of that night, and then again the next night, and then Clint announces that he's not fucking Bucky in the woods but he does want to fuck him.

He sneaks him into his palace bedroom and they fuck, and then lie in Clint's bed staring at each other with heart eyes and gently stroking each other's hair, you know, all that lovely romantic crap.

Bucky creeps out just before dawn, and then is back the next night as soon as the sun has set, and they find a new pattern of fucking every night instead of wandering the woods. I mean, they still go out for walks if Bucky has something interesting to show Clint in the woods but really there's just a lot of fucking.

Clint starts arranging for there to be food as well, and Bucky is a bit OTT on enjoying it, not to mention having a real bed with soft blankets and all that stuff, which makes Clint wonder all over again who he really is and what he actually does during the day.

He asks about it and presses a bit much and Bucky gets a bit snappy and tells him if he doesn't stop asking he'll leave, and then doesn't come back the next night. Clint goes looking for him the night after, and when he finds him staring sadly into a lake near where they first kissed, he tells him that he won't ask anything, he just wants Bucky in his life as much as he can have him because he loves him.

Bucky gives him a sad little look and then tells Clint that all he can give him is his nights, and Clint agrees to that.

Time passes. Clint's older brother gets married and has a kid, and suddenly he's even more spare than he was before. His dad decides that it's time to use him as a diplomatic bargaining piece and starts talking to neighbouring kingdoms about a marriage.

Clint tries to get out of it but no one is interested in his opinion except Bucky, who hears him out about it all, holds him close, and doesn't say much.

It gets decreed that Clint is going to marry a princess from the next kingdom over, Natasha.

"I don't want to marry her," Clint tells Bucky, "I just want to be with you. I don't want to have to hide my lover from my wife."

"You won't have to," says Bucky, in a heavy voice. "I can't be part of something like that, sneaking around behind her back. She doesn't deserve that. After your wedding I'll leave, and you'll never see me again."

Which really fucking upsets Clint, because that's the last thing he wants. He tries to find a way out of it, without luck, and then, desperately, suggests to Bucky that they just run away together.

"We can go to the next kingdom, no one will recognise me there. I'm not an important royal, after all. We could get married, Bucky, and start a new life together. I'm pretty good with a bow, I could become a huntsman or something."

Bucky looks as if his heart is breaking as he shakes his head. "I can't," he says. "I told you before, Clint. I can only give you my nights. We can't get married."

So, all in all, by the time Princess Natasha turns up for the wedding, Clint is not in a good place. He's scrupulously polite about it, because it's not her fault, but she realises pretty quickly that he's not into this whole thing.

She takes him off for a walk in the woods, where they can actually talk without being surrounded by courtiers, and comes clean about also not really being interested in marriage.

"It needs to be done though, we need to secure the alliance between our countries," she said. "How about we just agree to be good friends? It's not as if we really need to produce kids, so we don't need to have anything other than a platonic partnership."

Clint is happier with that, but not overjoyed, because he doesn't want to spend his life with a friendship instead of a real marriage, and he knows Bucky won't care if it's only platonic, he'll still leave as soon as the wedding happens.

"It's a shame, really," says Natasha, "you're just my brother's type. You should be marrying him. That would have worked better."

Clint gives him a funny look because her brother is King Steve and there's no way he's eligible for marrying a king. Natasha rolls her eyes and says, "No, my middle brother, Prince James. He went missing three years ago, otherwise he'd be here in my place."

And maybe once Clint would have been interested in hearing more about Prince James, but right now, all he can think about is Bucky, and how he's going to lose him.

They turn around to head back to the palace and get attacked by a bear. A massive black-furred bear that does all the rearing up and roaring and flailing with massive claws and so on. It catches Natasha's dress and rips it.

Clint is impressed with Natasha's presence of mind because she grabs a stick and smacks it around the face, then abandons her impractical princess shoes as they both run for the palace.

There's a huge brouhaha over the incident amongst the courtiers and Clint's dad, the king, announces they'll be organising a hunt the next day to track and kill the bear, because he can't have the wildlife attacking his guests.

That night Bucky doesn't show up at Clint's room for only the second night ever. Clint wants to go look for him but it doesn't seem like the greatest idea when there's a bear out there somewhere. Instead, he just gets panicky that maybe the bear has hurt Bucky, and doesn't sleep at all well.

The next day, Clint gets his bow and saddles his horse and joins the bear hunt. They hunt all day and find very little.

Clint, in time-honoured fairytale fashion, gets separated from the others. Maybe he stops for a nap? IDK, at any rate, by the time he figures out where he is it's time to head back to the castle, as the sun is getting low, but all he can think about is having to sit next to Natasha at dinner and pretend he wants to marry her, and then going back to his room alone and Bucky not being there again.

So he stays out a bit longer and then, of course, comes across the bear. It roars at him, scaring Clint's horse so he falls off, but Clint has his bow and before the bear can charge him he shoots an arrow, catching it in the paw.

The bear shrieks with pain just as the sun goes below the horizon. There's a cloud of green magic and the bear shrinks down and turns into Bucky.

I know. Who saw that coming? Not Clint, that's for certain.

He starts freaking out and then realises that the arrow is now through Bucky's hand. He runs over to look after him and Bucky is just staring at him with sad eyes.

"I never wanted you to know," he says. "I can't- Clint, you deserve so much better than me."

Clint isn't really paying attention because he just shot his boyfriend and is distracted by patching him up.

They go back to the cave Bucky's been sort of living in, both as a bear and when he's not with Clint. Clint bandages him and Bucky tells him his story, which basically comes down to 'evil wizard dude fancied a fuck. Bucky said no. Evil wizard dude cursed him to be a bear during daylight hours.' Fairly standard fairytale stuff.

"How do we break the curse?" Clint asks. "Isn't it usually true love's kiss?"

"I hoped that," says Bucky, "but it can't be, because we've kissed so many times and I'm still like this."

And then there's an emotional bit where Clint realises he's implying Clint is his true love, and confesses his own emotions with tears in his eyes, and they make out for a bit.

They spend a few hours trying to come up with a plan that doesn't end with Clint married to Natasha and Bucky off on his own, without much luck.

It's getting a bit close to dawn, and Bucky tells Clint he needs to go. "You need to be far away when I turn back into a bear," he says. "I have no control over what I do, I'm just a wild animal."

Clint doesn't want to leave him but he also doesn't want to be gutted by a massive bear, so he starts getting ready to go, which mostly involves a lot of goodbye kisses.

When he and Bucky exit the cave though, there's a contingent of the palace guards just passing by. When Clint had failed to come back from the hunt, everyone assumed the bear had attacked him, and they'd all spent the night looking for his corpse.

Clint looks very dishevelled, between being thrown from his horse, ripping up his shirt to bandage Bucky's hand, getting blood down his tunic from doing that, and then making out with him in a cave for a good couple of hours. The guards, who are tired and emotional, assume that Bucky, who looks like a bandit, has been keeping him prisoner.

They immediately attack him and, despite Bucky's best efforts, capture him. Clint tries to explain but no one is in the habit of listening to him, so they just lock Bucky up with massive iron chains and announce this can all be sorted out back at the palace.

(Why do they have massive iron chains with them? Because Plot.)

Bucky is freaking the fuck out because the sun is coming up, and Clint is about to just attack the soldiers and fuck everything, when they run out of time and Bucky turns into a massive angry bear.

This causes some alarm.

Luckily, the chains are strong enough to hold him but now the guards really aren't going to listen to Clint and let him go. Instead, they drag the bear back to the palace, chain him up in the main courtyard, and get the whole court out to stare at him. They explain that they found Clint being held captive by some random dude who then turned into a bear, and everyone is very, 'OMG a demon! We should burn it!'

Clint is not having that. "No, he's my friend," he insists. "I got lost and he let me stay over in his cave, he's a good guy under a curse. He's called Bucky, please, you can't burn him."

Natasha gasps and immediately runs off, and everyone is, 'oh man, now the marriage is going to be off because she found out the prince is friends with a demon, this has just been the worst 24 hours.'

The king starts talking about burning the bear again and sends some servants for wood to build a pyre.

Before they can get too far, Natasha comes running back with a magical doodad. A shiny glass ball filled with red smoke, maybe. She throws it at the bear, shouts a couple of magic words, and there's a burst of magic and the bear turns back into Bucky.

"James!" she says, and runs down to hug him, then give him a slap 'for worrying us' and then hugs him again. Bucky is relatively dazed through this, but eventually finds Clint's eyes and just stares at him, and then up at the sunlight which he hasn't seen with human eyes for 3 years.

Natasha turns back to the king and announces, 'This man is a prince and you need to get these shackles off him right now.' She explains that her brother, Prince James, who went missing three years ago, had been cursed and although they'd found the evil wizard and punished him, they'd not been able to find him and had been looking ever since. Everyone who knew about it carried those magic balls around with them in case they found him, so they could break the curse.

"Wait, it's over?" says Bucky, taking a while to catch up because he was a bear five minutes ago. "I'm free of it?"

"Yes," says Natasha, "you'll only ever be human again now."

Bucky immediately turns to Clint, takes his hands, and asks him to marry him. The king tries to interject that Clint is engaged to Natasha, but Natasha says she has no intentions of marrying the guy her brother is in love with, because it would be way too awkward.

Clint accepts Bucky's proposal, they get married, and everyone lives happily ever after. Clint goes back with Bucky and Natasha to the other kingdom, where it turns out people are actually interested in talking to him, and becomes a vital part of the King Steve's government in some way, and so gets a purpose as well as a husband.

[axelbluesworld]

Alone in the lake

Riley sat on the floor of her room staring at nothing, this whole week had been very stressful, and the worst thing was that Jack had died.

Many times she said that she hated most of the things that Jack did. She hadn't realized then that those little things were the most missed of him.

His irritating laugh, his constant jokes, his jokes and references to old movies, his obsession with rock and his great love for Brus Willis

Her phone rang on the ground for the third time in the last hour, but she didn't bother to pick it up because she knew exactly who the call was from.

Mac had been calling her all day, and all she did was ignore him, she didn't want to talk to him or anyone else unless it was Jack, but he was gone.

She tries to suppress her feelings and let go of the worst pain, which is extremely difficult.

Without realizing it, tears were already falling freely down her cheeks after almost 3 years, and the only time she was able to see him again was from inside a coffin.

Once again, her phone vibrated on the ground, and finally, giving up, she decided to answer.

"What do you want, Mac?" she asked

"I just wants to talk to you Riles, I need to know how you are," Mac said.

"I'm completely fine, you don't have to worry," Riley said calmly.

"Riles ..." before Mac could say anything else, she hung up.

She hit her head against the wall and groaned in annoyance. She wasn't sure who she was upset with, she just knew she was upset.

At that moment she hated the whole world for every second she was away from Jack, she was sad, angry and hurt.

She didn't know how long it had been since she was sitting on the ground and she didn't care at the time.

Suddenly, she heard a sound coming from the hall, immediately became alert and walked to see who it was.

She picked up a baseball bat from her room and walked down the hall. She put the bat down when she saw the person in front of her.

"What are you doing here?" she asked a little annoyed.

"I needed to see you" answered Mac

"How did you get inside?" she demanded

Mac simply smiled and showed her a small hair clip that was now bent over.

"Why don't you imagine it?" She rolled her eyes and went back to her room.

"Where do you think you are going?" Mac said, taking her hand.

"To my room, and if you don't mind, I'd like to be alone," Riley said.

"Riley, I just want to help you" said Mac

"Mac, I really appreciate that you want to help me, but I'm completely fine," Riley said.

"I know you are not, I know you Riles" said Mac

Riley just lowered her head and sighed as she looked at the ground, Mac walked over to her and wrapped her in his arms.

"Talk to me, Riley." said Mac

"It's so hard to get over all of this, he promised me that we would spend all our time together when he comes back and I didn't know at the time that that was the last I would hear from him, I miss him so much," Riley said.

"Riley, I know that losing Jack is one of the hardest things that can happen to us, but I promise you that from now on everything is fine, fine, I will be with you at all times, and we will overcome this pain together" said Mac

"Mac, this is more complicated, Jack was one of the most important people to me, but you've already lost a lot of people, I don't want to bother you with my pain too" said Riley

"Riles, you and I are a bundle, remember? We support each other no matter what, I'll be there for you as you will be here for me, I don't want you to be sad Riley," Mac said.

Riley shed several tears, Mac looked into her eyes and gently wiped away the tears that had stained her cheek. They stayed like this for a couple of minutes, just hugging.

"Let me take you somewhere," Mac said out of nowhere.

"where?" Riley asked

"Don't ask, it's a special place," Mac said.

"It's too late," Riley said when she saw that it was 9 PM.

"Do you have time to sleep," Mac joked.

"Okay, but tell me where will you take me" he asked again.

"I won't tell you," Mac said.

Mac led Riley to his car, and they were both silent for a couple of minutes, Riley watched as Mac turned on the radio and then Wilie Nelson's music began to play.

"Wilie nelson?" Riley asked a little amused.

"Jack liked it, this music makes me remember him," Mac said.

"I remember" she smiled a little but became serious again.

Mac drove in silence for a couple of minutes while Riley just stared out. Riley moved from her place and looked at Mac with a serious expression.

"Why are we leaving town?" asked Riley

"you will see?" He playfully winked at her

"Are you planning to kill me?" Riley asked sarcastically.

"Yeah, where i'm taking you, no one will be able to find your body," Mac joked

Riley shook her head and leaned her arm against the window to look out, they drove about 25 minutes until they finally reached their destination.

The place was a forest quite far from the city and the people themselves, everything around it was very dark, and the only thing that lit up were the lights of Mac's car.

"where we are?" Riley asked when he got out of the car.

"you'll see" said the words from before

Mac took a flashlight from the car and guided her down a path that was there in the woods, Mac held her hand as they walked through that dark place.

After a few minutes they came to a clearing in the middle of that forest, but the clearing was not the only thing there, right there was a small pond that was illuminated by the light of the moon.

"Where are we Mac?" Riley asked him again.

"It's a place that Jack and I found a few years ago, he and I used to come here to get rid of the stress of work," Mac explained.

"So this is where you two disappeared when no one found you," Riley said.

"Jack said he wanted to keep this place a secret from everyone else. He and I were very close, sometimes we just need a place where he and I can be alone," said Mac

"Why did you bring me here?" Riley asked

"Because you need what I needed years ago, a quiet place and someone to help you overcome the pain, I know you are a very strong woman, Riley but I want you to know that sometimes it is okay to cry when you feel sad, Jack was the only person I went to when I felt bad and we both came here and since he left the only person that has been for me has been you and you should know that now I will be the one who is there for you "said Mac

Before Mac could say, anything else, Riley threw herself into his arms to hug him, Mac immediately returned the hug, wrapping his arms around her.

"Thanks Mac, thanks for bringing me here" she said against his neck

"Anytime, Riles" Mac gently kissed her head

They stayed like this for another minute until Mac picked her up off the ground, and she panicked because she knew what she was about to do.

"Mac, put me down, don't you dare do it" Riley yelled, hitting him on the shoulder.

Mac just ignored what she said and took her to the lake and then threw her into the water.

"You are a fool" she yelled annoyed

"But that's how you love me" scoffed Mac

Riley was not happy, and without him being able to do something, she took his legs and made him fall into the water as well.

They spent most of the night in that little pond enjoying a quiet and fun time.

When it was 2 in the morning, they were both in their underwear by the fire that Mac had made to dry their clothes.

Neither of them was bothered by the fact that they were both literally in their underwear, they had seen each other half naked before and there was no one around, so they were fine for the moment.

Riley lay down on the ground to get a perfect view of the stars. She looked at Mac who was looking at her.

"That's a children's story, but right now I want to believe that Jack is up there next to the stars, watching us from above," Riley said without taking her eyes off the stars

“When I was a kid, I believed it, and maybe I still do. So when I was little, I really liked astronomy, I thought my mother was there somewhere, "Mac said.

"Maybe she is, she and Jack must be up there" she said pointing to the stars.

Mac got up from his place and took his clothes since he was close now and started dressing. Riley did the same as well and followed Mac to the water's edge where Mac had sat.

They both stayed a few minutes just looking at the water, the stars and the moon were reflected in it, and it was a spectacular sight.

"I love you," Mac said out of nowhere.

"what?" asked Riley surprised

"I love you, I love you as more than a friend Riles, I know you don't see me the same way, but right now I don't want to keep this to myself" said Mac beside him.

"Seriously?" Riley asked

"Yeah, I've been in love with you for a while, and I never had the guts to tell you," Mac said.

He turned to look into her eyes and Mac put his hands on her cheek and slowly approached her, Riley didn't know how she reacted to everything she had just said, it was what she had wanted for so long and now she could have done it . that, and that made him nervous.

"Can I kiss you even once?" Mac begged inches from his face.

Without thinking twice, she nodded and slowly her lips met his.

It was such a soft, sweet, tender, affectionate, intimate kiss, there were so many emotions in that simple kiss. Riley gently ran her hands through Mac's hair as one of Mac's hands rested on his waist while the other rested on his neck.

They parted when shortness of breath was present, but kept their foreheads together, Riley looked Mac in the eye and leaned in closer to wrap her arms around him for a hug.

"I like you too, I love you too" he said

"in cerium?" asked Mac

"very cerium" said Riley

Mac moved to leave the hug and stand up, reached out to help her up.

"There's something else I want you to see," Mac said.

"What?" she asked

"Come with me" Mac took her hand and led her to a nearby tree.

On the tree were engraved the letters "M + J" and just below were other letters "BFF" she knew what each of the letters that were there meant

He looked at Mac and saw small tears trickle down his cheek. He smiled a little and then saw her.

"Jack wrote this the first time we came to this place, he put the M for Mac and the J for Jack, which are the initials of our name, and then he put the BFF which stands for best friends forever," Mac said.

"Typical Jack," Riley said with a smile.

Mac smiled back, pulled out his knife before crouching in front of the tree. Riley watched him do worse, wasn't sure until he got up.

Mac had engraved the letters "R + M" with a heart next to his initials.

When he stood next to her, she jumped up in his arms and kissed him on the lips. When they walked away, Riley smiled at him and he took her hand to lead her to the water's edge.

"I wish Jack was here" said Riley

"Me too, but now I'm happy because I have you" said Mac

They both enjoyed that moment alone at the lake, they missed Jack, but now they knew that everything was going to be fine because they had each other.

[rosy-wooyoung]

[12:31]

🎄 Day 11 of the Christmas project🎄

pairing : san x fem!reader a/n: ngl i’m quite happy with this one. maybe bc it’s kinda personal? idk

You had just arrived at the cottage you inherited from your grandparents when they passed away, and, after driving for so long, you were happy to finally cut the engine. Months had passed since you last visited this small house filled with beautiful memories, and you had this strange feeling of happiness mixed with nostalgia overrunning in your body. The cottage was a small wooden house at the edge of the forest next to a lake, now frozen, the ground and the naked and lonely looking branches of the trees surrounding it covered in snow. You parked your car in the driveway and slightly shook your best friend's shoulder to wake him from his slumber. After a few minutes of constantly shaking him, San finally stirred up, softly rubbing his eyes as he looked around him.

"Are we already here?" he mumbled and you bitterly chuckled, unbuckling your seat belt and opened the door. "What do you mean already? You've been sleeping since we stopped at the gas station. It's been two hours dude," You poked his ribs before stepping out. San shook his head and got out of the car as well a few seconds later, letting out a sigh before helping you clear the trunk filled with things to get comfortable enough for the long weekend you had planned to stay together. 

The end of the year was coming, so that meant a lot of things to do at work: closing cases, checking details before sending files to your boss, preparing some others for the new year, it was everything but calm when you entered your workspace each morning. Fortunately, you had worked quite hard during the week, so today before lunch, San and you took your leave of work and hurried to your car, getting ready for a few hours of driving to get to this beautiful place where you had just arrived.

"Gosh, I've missed this place so badly," you said as you looked around you, eyes roaming as you observed the trees and your surroundings. You started getting a bit emotional as you recalled the hazy yet wonderful memories you had collected while growing up until it was time for them to leave.  

You remembered spending some of your Summer holidays here with your siblings when your parents grew "tired" of the three of you. They always claimed to need a break from being parents for at least a week, and so did you from them. When you were at your grandparents' house, more fun was allowed than when you were at home. It was an exciting feeling, and you were always looking forward to coming and visiting them at every opportunity you had. You never truly minded because you loved your grandparents and spending time with them. But for your younger siblings, it was a whole other story: they were constantly yelling about missing mom and dad, while you were just loving being there, catching up with your granddad

You had your little secrets with him, things that you hid from your family and your siblings. For example, you and your grandfather would secretly take two easels, always feeling that rush of adrenaline before escaping from the yells of your siblings to find a good spot to start painting for a major part of the day, hidden in the mountains hovering above the cottage. Each time, you came back from your getaway with a brand new piece of art, and a memory to cherish for the years to come. You entered the cottage, and a wave of nostalgia crashed onto you, a sense of comfort wrapping its arms around your shoulders. In the dark, you could still distinguish some of the pieces of art your granddad did when you were together. You opened the shutters and drew out the curtains your grandmother had sewed by herself, making the natural sunlight warm up the place. You then went behind the house and opened the electricity and water conducts while San took care of putting all the things your truck you carry inside the small house.

"It's a gorgeous little place that you hid from me," he teased, and you gently smiled, elbowing him in the ribs as you kept on putting everything in the right place. "It's my sweet escape," you replied as your best friend rested for a few seconds in the middle of the entrance, hands on his hips as he took in the decoration of the place.

When you had some rough times in your life - which happened more often as your grandparents fell sick one after the other -, you came to this little house in secret to unwind and spend some time alone, crying or just chilling. It was a bit like your secret garden, the spot that you had indeed kept hidden from everyone. Even your parents didn't know that you frequently visited here and spend some time in nature. That's why it wasn't as dusty and dirty as one can imagine an abandoned house to look like. Yes, it was a bit straggly, but to your defence, you haven't come to this place in weeks.

As the day went by, it was finally the afternoon, and it had started snowing as soon as you finished setting in the cottage house. You were quite tired from driving for a few hours, only being used to run a few errands for maximum 20 minutes, so you just wanted to chill and maybe take a nap on the burgundy, corduroy couch. San, on the other hand, since had slept a major part of the journey there, was just a human dynamo. Looking around, all smiley and excited as he watched the snow falling from the sky.

"Do you wanna do something outside? We could make a snowman, have a snowball fight or go for a walk?" he suggested as he let himself fall next to you on the couch, tickling your side with his left hand as the other remained against his chest. You stifled a giggle and squirmed, trying to escape from his touch. He stopped for a while, his eyes lingering on you as you were getting your breath back. "And what about going sledging? I just saw that there's a hill on the other side of the lake, we can go there," your best friend offered, but you shook your head with a pout. "San, I'm too tired for all of this," you whispered, and his eyes widened, taken aback that you declined his offer, again, "and where did you even find a sledge?" you added, not even knowing that your grandparents owned one. "There was two in the small storage unit, but don't try to change the subject. Why don't you want to go sledging?" he said while sitting up, laying a hand on your knee, shaking it a bit. "It's the best thing you could do when we have a type of weather like this!" he exclaimed while pointing outside, making you sigh and as you looked out the window. Yes, it was still snowing, and it looked quite consistent enough to sledge on it, but you could see some patches of blue sky appearing here and there, telling you that the good weather wasn't as far as you thought it was.

"Come on, Y/N, just for me," he said as he watched you stifling a yawn, happy that he managed to catch sight of a small nod in your actions. "Really? Let's go then!" he enthusiastically got up, not even waiting for you to run into the bedroom to get dressed. "The things I'd do for him," you whispered to yourself as you tiredly got up from the couch, making your way up the small stairs as well. Once you had slipped on your fleece-lined pants and warm coats, you made your way out the door, San trotting to the small storage unit behind the house to get the sledges. Those were made out of old wood, a thin rope attached to the tip of it. They looked quite old and dusty, but they would do the trick.

"So Y/N, since you're the expert of the region," San teased as he looked over, only to have you staring back at him with a fake bored look, "how can we reach this side of the lake?" he said as he pointed the side opposite the cottage, and you smiled. That is where you used to go painting with your grandfather. "Come on, follow me," you said as you confidently started walking, the memories colliding in your brain as you trusted your guts to get to this side of the lake. In the course of your walk, with San by your side, you told him some of your memories while pointing at different things.

"You see that tree over there?" you gestured to the naked weeping willow a bit further into the stroll, San nodding as his eyes followed your finger, "when it was getting either too hot or too noisy because of my siblings during Summer, I'd take a book and spend the entire afternoon reading underneath that tree," you explained with a soft smile on your face, remembering the great souvenirs as the leaves crunched under your moon boots as you stopped. "And my grandma had a whistle, and she would blow four times when dinner was ready, and I needed to come back," you told your friend, who had a sincere smile on his face. "This is adorable, it sounds like a Studio Ghibli plot," he said while taking your hand, making you walk slightly faster to pass the tree. San knew you well. He knew that if you spent too much time in front of this willow, you'd start getting emotional and probably cry, and that was the last thing he wanted to see.

You silently thanked him with a faint smile as you understood his sudden change of behaviour and you cleared your throat, keeping on telling him happier souvenirs as you finally arrived where San wanted to go. "I can't imagine how beautiful it must look here in Summer," he mumbled as he stared at the cottage on the other side of the lake. "It's even more incredible in fall," you said with a smile, "I came here mid-October and you're just surrounded by yellow and orange trees, you can really feel the fall vibes," you giggled with your friend, letting go of his hand, feeling suddenly nervous. You hadn't even noticed that San had kept your hand in his the entire time, and you were even hotter when you realised that he didn't even look bothered or shy of it.

You took a few pictures of each other going down the sledge, laughing and pushing each other around as the other took an unflattering photo of the other. The powder snow eased your falls every time you pushed the other too hard, sometimes shrieking as you could feel some snow slipping under your clothes and reach your skin. At some point, you were too tired to get up, so you stayed well muffled in your clothes, looking at the sky clearing above your heads. San was also in the snow, ignoring the freezing sensation of water against his neck and the goosebumps travelling his entire body. Instead of staring at the sky as you did, he seized the fact that you were too busy getting lost in your thoughts to stare at you. He loved seeing his best friend at peace like you currently were, it looked like all of your worries had vanished as soon as you pulled up by the house, the stressed Y/N getting replaced by the one that San imagined was the Y/N of your childhood.

The young man shifted in the snow, close enough for his hand to grab yours. As you felt pressure on your glove, you turned your head to the side, looking at him. He was already looking at you with a fond smile decorating his lips, and you raised your eyebrows, silently asking him why he was staring at you like that.

"I wish for this moment to never end," he spoke softly, the density of the snow under you two muffling his words, only for you to hear. "Me neither," you uttered, and San squeezed your hand as an answer, shooting you a wink before looking at the sky like you did just moments ago. He felt your gaze on him, and he started rolling towards you, miscalculating the number of rolls he had to do to come near you, resulting him almost crushing you as he was about to land on his back. You clutched your abdomen, anticipating his weight landing on you, but he swiftly moved around to land on his stomach, his mouth arriving millimetres away from yours.

None of you recoiled, getting lost in the other's eyes. Your breath had quickened up, something going noticed by San. He gulped but kept staring at you, your breaths forming one trail of steam above your heads, unhurriedly vanishing in the atmosphere. San pulled his thoughts and doubts to the side for an instant, his mouth colliding with yours in the gentlest way possible. Despite the dryness of his lips, the kiss released millions of butterflies in your stomach, sending warmth straight to your face. With your mittens slightly covered in snow, you cupped his face, and he groaned into the kiss, the cold against his face attempting to bring him back to reality.

But it wasn't enough to make you two stop kissing each other. You had both been secretly waiting for this for too long, and you didn't want to end the kiss right now. Making the most of it was the key point of the situation, and you let your lips linger on San's as if it was the last time before pulling away. The man gave you mere seconds to catch your breath before pulling you in another kiss, your hearts beating furiously against each other as your tongues danced together, head spinning and getting mushy due to all the emotions you were experiencing.

[feverinfeveroutfic]

chapter thirty-seven: december thirty-first

Over Thanksgiving and over Christmas, Sam spent the days in her apartment alone: Ruben and Esmé had put a great deal of money into repainting the house and thus she couldn't fly out to visit them, and they couldn't do the same for her, either. She vowed to fly out for a visit at least before the school year was over, but at that point, she wished for some solitude. Time away from everything before she faced the world again; at least some time alone before her twenty second birthday. In the meantime, another year about to end and Sam couldn't help but feel that Cliff was being left behind in late September. All things had gone away and yet she still wished for his presence next to her, and yet she still wished for time alone, especially after such a loaded schedule for that fall term.

Christmas Eve alone, but Aurora and Belinda both had offered to bring her over for at least the next day.

“I at least wanna get you something,” Belinda had told her over the phone.

“Of course,” Sam assured her, “I just wanna spend some time alone.”

“You gonna be alright?” Sam thought back to when Belinda made that joke to her, and even though it was water under the bridge at that point, she knew she wanted to make it up to her.

“Yeah. Positive.”

Aurora had gone back out to San Diego to visit her parents for a whole week, and thus Emile was alone for Christmas himself, as far as Sam knew anyways. She wondered what was happening in between them, especially given Aurora never really spoke about it that much to her. But there was more to Belinda that she needed to know about: she only knew her through their classes. Maybe there was something more to her than she had originally believed: maybe there was more to her than meets the eye.

“Bel, I'm going out to Ithaca for New Year's,” she told her.

“Oh?”

“Y-You wanna come?” Sam offered with bit of a stammer.

“Um, sure? I gotta go upstate around then anyway. What's in Ithaca?”

“I was invited to sit in for a recording session for—that band Legacy. You know those guys, Legacy?”

“Vaguely, yes? I remember Marla talking about them a few times before but I can't remember if I actually met them, though.”

“But yeah, I was invited to sit in with them while they record for their very first album.”

“Oh, cool!”

“I don't—really want to go alone, though. I want to spend the holidays alone but I don't want to go to this alone, though. Aurora's out in San Diego right now—”

“And Marla and Charlie are down here in Hell's Kitchen with her parents,” Belinda added.

“—I'm the assistant to Aurora if anyone asks.”

“What about me?”

“I'll think of something for you,” she vowed. “If anyone asks, I'll say that you're a friend of mine and you'll keep it confidential. I mean, I already have told you about it somewhat. I might as well take you with and ask you to keep it under wraps.”

“I won't tell a soul,” Belinda promised. There was a voice in the background, and she hesitated. “I gotta go, Sam. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Bel,” she echoed her, “I'll be going out there on New Year's Eve.”

“I'll see you then!” Belinda vowed. “You live in the Bronx, right?”

“Right up on the northern side of the Bronx—two floors upstairs from Frankie.”

“Oh, I know exactly where that is! I'll see you then. Merry Christmas, Sam.”

“Merry Christmas, Bel.”

They hung up at the same time and Sam ran her fingers through her dark hair. It was her first Christmas alone, and before then it was her first Thanksgiving alone, and yet she wanted it all to herself.

She had posted up a cactus on her coffee table and put a little glittered silver star in the soil, right where it pointed out to the rest of the room. Indeed, when she headed back to her bedroom, and turned off the overhead light, the silver sparkled in the low light. It followed her all the way into her bedroom, and when she lay down in her bed to go to sleep, the glittered light shone through the darkness outside of her room.

Sam closed her eyes and she thought about that mysterious man again with the streak in his hair, and he was the last thing on her mind before she fell asleep. No sooner had she fallen asleep when she woke up that Christmas morning. Christmas morning without anyone around her, but she had wished for it. Some time alone with her journal and her art before she went out to Ithaca with Belinda and Legacy.

Joey still had that canvas in the back seat of his car, or maybe he took it out and stashed it away somewhere in that apartment. She thought about Dan and his record player: she still had yet to play her copy of Spreading the Disease. She had to at the very least listen to it before they began work on their new album, whenever that would come about. As far as she knew, they were to make a new one once they returned home from the tour. But the question that rang through her mind until New Year's Eve itself was that of when.

When were Anthrax to head on into the studio for a new record on their part.

On that cold, snowy day, Belinda showed up to the curb in her little black car: she herself was wrapped up in a heavy black overcoat, and a fitted bright green sweatshirt. Her snake pendant twinkled under the bright white glare of the snow. Sam climbed into the passenger seat next to her, also in her black overcoat, and with those hockey gloves Joey had given her.

“So do you know the way?” Belinda asked her as they got rolling forth on the street.

“I sure do—I went there before last month with Eric and Greg. It's like—tucked away in the trees on one side of town.”

Belinda nodded and then she leaned back in the leopard print driver's seat with both hands on the wheel. Sam nestled down in the warmth of the seat next to her and tucked her hands into her pockets.

It was at that point Belinda started to feel more of a friend to her, as they wound their way through the trees and into the cold and barren upstate region. A blanket of fresh fallen snow covered everything, but she didn't seem too stressed about driving through that strip of bare dark road in that little car. The snow followed them all the way up to the Finger Lakes region, the dark waters of which appeared colder and blacker with the fresh new snow.

Within time, they reached Ithaca and Sam guided Belinda to that studio nestled back in the woods on the other side of town. Legacy's van was already posted up there outside the front ramp and the doorway, and Sam knew they had already made their way inside of there.

Eric bowed out of that door and he hesitated when he saw the car. Sam opened the front door and poked her head out to the frigid cold: he nodded at the sight of her.

“Oh, hey!” he called out to her, and he turned back to the doorway. “Sam's here—”

Belinda climbed out of the car next.

“—and she's brought a friend with her,” he added; their boots crunched over the snow there in the driveway. Belinda gave her blonde hair a slight toss back and Eric raised his eyebrows at her.

“Eric, this is Belinda Grimes,” Sam introduced her, “good friend of Marla and is gradually a good friend of mine.”

“The beautiful Belinda,” Eric declared.

“Or Bel as I go by,” Belinda herself added.

“I didn't want to come here by myself,” Sam explained as she shivered a bit under her coat, “'cause Aurora's back out in California to visit her parents, so I asked her to come along with me. She'll keep it all under wraps, though.”

“My lips are sealed.” Belinda made a twisting gesture over her lips.

“Well, good! Uh, well, c'mon in—it's freezing out here and we're letting all the warm air out.”

Sam and Belinda followed Eric inside of that front room, a narrow sparsely carpeted bright lit space that resembled to a closet than it did a foyer of sorts. To the left stood the actual studio itself: the door to the sound proof room on the other side of the pane of glass. Louie and his smoothed dark hair inside of that room; Greg had already slung his bass over his shoulder, and Eric himself was right in front of them. Nestled back in that hallway off to the left, Sam recognized his aquiline nose and his deep set eyes, but the little pearl of gray had gone away. He had buried it under the jet black curls about the crown of his head, right under those little bangs. Or so she believed: he nudged his bangs back a little bit and there was no sign of it. The grays were gone.

“What happened to the streak?” she asked him and those deep eyes seemed to slice right through her.

“Dyed it,” Alex replied, nonplussed. “I couldn't stand looking at it for any longer.”

“I kinda liked it,” she told him, to which he shrugged his shoulders.

“Yeah, I did, too,” Belinda added, even though she hadn't really met him before.

“It made me look old, though,” he said to them with his eyebrows knitted together. Even with the streak buried under the black dye, he still looked older than he actually was, even being eighteen years old, and with a round full face and smooth skin. He continued to frown at Sam.

“Hang on, Aurora's not here with you?” he asked her in a low voice.

“She's out in California visiting her parents. She should be back—I'm not sure when she'll be back, though. Belinda here'll keep everything that happens in here a secret, though.”

“Okay, okay—besides this is our first real big thing.” Alex fixated on Sam: there was something about those deep eyes, though. Something about them that drew her in: even with that streak hidden away under the black, she found herself wanting to move in closer to him. “If any mistakes happen, you've gotta tell her.”

“That's my job,” she assured him, and he kept his gaze on her for another couple of seconds before he turned away and headed into the sound proof room. Belinda turned to her with a frightened expression on her face.

“What's wrong?” Sam asked her.

“He's so precocious it's scary,” she whispered to Sam.

“That's what I said to Lars,” she confessed to her, also in a whisper. “Lars told me he's just really intelligent is all. Being smart ages you. He's really focused, too—it's kind of chilling, I'll admit it.”

She turned her attention to Eric right behind her, huddled right over a small black table with a big white sheet of paper taped on top. She stood right next to him for a look herself: it was a full schedule of the residencies there in that studio. On New Year's Day, they were to officially begin recording under the chosen name Legacy. Her eyes wandered down the page when she spotted a familiar name in the middle of January.

“Anthrax are gonna be here, too?” She was stunned.

“Yeah.” Eric hesitated and he showed her a baffled look. “Wait a minute. They didn't tell you?”

“No?”

“Well, let's see—it's written in pencil so they must've just allotted the studio time. We're written in pen so it's confirmed that we're here—but them... it looks like their dates were just added.”

“Wow! Another round of sit ins, I suppose?”

“If you'd like. You and Aurora work with the label after all.”

“Hey, Eric,” Louie called from the doorway, and he lifted his head.

“What's up?”

“Did you happen to get a hold of Chuck? Any chance at all?”

Eric shook his head. “He's supposed to be here like any minute, Lou. That's as far as I know.”

“Well, what do you think we should do?”

“Yeah, I don't really wanna be up here for a moot point,” Alex added: even tucked away in the far corner of the room, his voice was enormous, even from behind a sheet of glass and inside of an otherwise sound proof room. It even caught Sam by surprise.

“Well,” Eric started. “We're all here with our instruments, and with Sam and her friend here. Why don't we just jam together?”

“Don't see why not,” Louie replied with a shrug of his shoulders, and Eric padded over to him. He left the door ajar for Sam and Belinda to listen in for themselves. Tucked back in the far side of the room was the drum kit: Alex had taken his seat on a stool on the far side of the room with a little cherry red guitar cradled upon his lap. His jet black hair had more of a shine to it, too, and Sam could only assume he had ran the hair dye all throughout his hair.

“Watch this,” said Eric as he picked up a black flying V guitar which had already been plugged into the amp on the floor next to him. He took out the pick from the strings and he plucked those strings. Sam thought back to when Anthrax performed for her on that first day, but the riff he played made her think if they had played at a much quicker pace than they did in that room. His black hair spread across his face as he played that hard, rapid fire riff: so fast that it sent a chill up Sam's arms.

“Holy shit,” Belinda muttered. He slowed it down by half and not once did he look up at the two girls on the other side of the glass. That sound proof room filled with such a big wall of sound. A big wall of sound made by one man: Sam wanted to pick up a pair of headphones and let them record it right there, but she decided not to, especially when Eric jerked his hand back from the frets as if he had been burned.

“—like guarding a bridge,” Greg was saying.

“Pulled it!” Eric yelped.

“Pulled it out of your pussy,” Louie joked as he picked up his drum sticks.

“Pulled it out of my pussy, right,” Eric retorted with a straight face.

“Your pussy or your ass?”

“Both.”

“Your pussy or your dick?”

“Both. I have both, so—”

Alex then looked over at Sam from clear across the room: his deep set eyes gazed back at her as if he watched her every move. Deep and steely like brand new metal under a sheet of ice. They locked eyes for a moment, but it was long enough for her to think about that piece of rice paper in the bottom of the drawer. All the mentions in front of him sent his back closer towards the wall.

Indeed, he moved his gaze to the wall right behind him: his long lanky fingers moved about the upper part of the guitar neck. His guitar wasn't plugged in but Sam could tell he was playing something hard and fast. The drums tapped on the other side of the room, and Sam turned her attention to the kit there. Louie moved the sticks about for a drum roll, and he moved a little bit on the kick drums, but the cold in the room kept him from moving a lot. He stopped, and he reached down for a massage of his ankles with one hand.

“Got a problem, Lewis?” Greg asked him.

“Ankles are kinda sore.” He lifted his hand and sat upright. He turned his attention to Sam and Belinda for a few seconds, but then he scooped up his sticks again and he tried again with the snare right in front of him. He tried it again, and he stopped again for another ankle massage.

Sam lowered her gaze to his lap and those filmy black gym shorts. He lifted up again.

“Sorry—I've got an erection right now so I can't really do much more than that,” Louie said in a single breath and with a straight face.

“Damn, Lou's hungry right now,” Greg remarked.

“A couple of girls in the next room here,” Eric pointed out with a nod of his head.

“Nah—no, wait.”

Belinda burst out laughing; Sam chuckled a little bit herself but she wondered what Alex was doing right there at the far side of the room. He kept his head down, so his freshly cut bangs accentuated that sharp brow and those deep eyes. He moved his fingers about the neck and he was so tight with it. He moved about in silence, like a ghost, a slender little black haired ghost of a boy. Being smart aged him and yet, even as he was right there on the other side of the room, he still resembled to a young boy. Barely eighteen and he struck her as completely ageless.

She folded her arms over the edge of the panel in front of her. Something about the sheen on his black hair made her think of those ink drawings. Even though his guitar wasn't plugged in, she could hear the music he cranked out for them. A gentle faint plucking against the chatter right next to her. If only she could hear what he was playing for himself, and such that he

“You girls have yet to meet the other bands in this whole grand scheme of things, though,” Eric was telling Belinda. “Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer—everyone is calling them the 'Big Four' because they're kind of the first ones to go to big labels. And then you have us, plus Overkill—Danny Spitz's old band—Exodus, Zetro's new band, and Death Angel—Sam met Death Angel at Cliff's memorial.”

“Not exactly,” Sam confessed, “I saw them but they wanted more lunch than anything.”

That brought a laugh out of both Louie and Greg. “The Big Four.” The name itself made Sam chuckle, but she paid more attention to Alex on the other side of the room. He seemed to be in a world of his own compared to them.

“So all you guys behind them are kind of like the little four,” Belinda told them.

“The little four?” Eric laughed at that.

“Yeah. Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, and Slayer are the big four—you guys, Overkill, Exodus, and Death Angel are the little four. The tier behind them. They're the big head honchos, and you guys are like the little ones holding them up like pillars or something.”

“The tiny four,” Louie quipped.

“The small fries,” Eric added.

“The little itty bitty four,” Belinda laughed.

“The four small dicks,” Greg quipped. “And the big four are the big four dicks.”

“That's a whole lot of dicks,” Eric added. “The big four dicks are the hot ones.”

“Who says the little dicks can't be hot, though?” Sam blurted out, and they all laughed out loud at that: Alex snapped his eyes shut and bowed his head. She had no idea if he was laughing at that but then he shook his hand about. He returned to the frets as if nothing happened.

“How's our lead doing?” Eric asked Alex, who finally raised his head a bit: the bangs still hid his eyes away from view.

“I'm just making it up as I go along,” he said, “I watched a Miles Davis concert on TV a couple of months ago and ever since then, I wanted to do what he was doing there.”

“Electric era or—?”

“Oh, yeah. Well, of course.” Alex gave the ringlets on the side of his head a slight nudge so it revealed his ear and the side of his neck. Something quite graceful about him. But then Belinda turned to Sam again.

“Yeah, he's really precocious.” But Sam frowned at that. So what if he was? The boy knew what he wanted out of laugh and that was to play his guitar and add something to the world. Indeed, Sam thought about her own artistry. To make something herself.

It may have been his jet black hair but she thought of herself as she watched him there. She thought of the first time she saw him up on stage, and how he seemed to paint with his fingers, and the guitar was his canvas. This boy was an artist and his playing there on the other side of the room only doubly confirmed that for her.

Meanwhile, Louie played a few drum grooves for them and he finally overcame the pains in his ankles all the while. Greg followed his lead and lay down a bassline for him: even without Eric and Alex with their guitars, their rhythms alone were enough to prove to both Sam and Belinda that they had such strong power. Sam thought about Chuck's powerful voice, and the night she and Cliff got to see them. It had been a full year since she and Cliff saw them in San Francisco, and she could still imagine Chuck there on stage as if it had just happened.

Within time, Eric joined in with that rapid fire riff and the three of them plowed forth. Alex finally leaned to the side and plugged in his guitar. The two girls on the other side of the glass watched the four young men, four artists in their prime, begin their very first master piece.

Sam recognized the song “Over the Wall” and she attempted to sing Zetro's shrill lyrics even though she only heard the song once before in L'Amour. But Alex's insistence on improvising extended it into this long elaborate jam session. At one point, he stood to his feet and strode about the room. He progressed high and low and every so often, he stepped on one of the pedals there on the floor for a different effect.

“Turning into the Grateful Dead in here,” Louie shouted in between tight drum beats.

They were in there for another half hour, and the three of them followed Alex's lead, until Eric returned to the door with the guitar slung over his back.

“We're gonna be here a while,” he told Sam.

“And Chuck's still not here yet,” she pointed out.

“And Chuck's still not here, right! And it's not like we're recording as of yet, either. I think you girls can go out and stretch your legs for a bit. Get yourselves something to eat. We are in Ithaca, after all. Not like we're going anywhere.”

“True.”

Sam then led Belinda back outside, where the clouds broke enough to show off the pure blue sky, but not enough to warrant sunshine over Finger Lakes. The cold of the snow felt so sharp after being in that warm room for so long; it was right then Sam started to feel hungry.

“There is just shit all to say,” she remarked as she walked to the driveway first. “It all speaks for itself.”

“It really does,” Belinda followed as she rubbed her hands together. “And how exciting, too! We're seeing these bands from the ground up.”

“Well, these guys are coming from the ground up, though. Anthrax has already put out a few albums, and Stormtroopers is kind of a spin off to them—but these guys are brand new, though. We're watching them start out fresh and new. We're watching Alex start out fresh and new.”

“Kind of makes you wish we could see Anthrax from the very beginning.” They stopped outside of her car.

“Well, that's really simple,” Sam explained. “Neither of us were here—well, I wasn't. You grew up down in Hell's Kitchen with Marla, and you guys hadn't met Charlie yet. The two of you grew up thirty minutes away from him and Frankie. So seeing them advanced along a bit, we started ahead in the watch process. So seeing these guys from the very beginning, we kind of have an idea as to what the future holds for them. Or least I do—I don't know about you, Bel.”

“Yeah, I've never really sat in with a band before. Charlie and I did hang out with that guy John—John Tempesta—when Charlie first met Marla, though.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. We were in this place in Brooklyn called the Iridium together and he bought us both a drink. Kind of an interesting night, though. We thought there were creatures coming out of the walls at one point.”

“Oh, my god.” Sam chuckled at that. She peered about the driveway for any signs of life. “I think we can just walk into town. We're literally right here.”

“But we're gonna have to walk through snow, though,” Belinda pointed out.

“Nah, we won't—besides, Bel, you're from New York. You're used to the cold.”

“Yeah, down in the city. Upstate is a whole other world.”

“Well, let's at least take a walk, though. It was getting kind of stuffy in there.”

Belinda let out a long low whistle and then she nodded her head, and she followed Sam to the end of the driveway. They stood there at the edge of the pavement, and there was a small cafe, to the right of them and up the street.

“Hey, there's Joey,” Belinda pointed out, and Sam's heart skipped a few beats. Sure enough, there Joey was on the other side of the pavement: his black curls streamed down his back and over a light red and white striped knit scarf wrapped around his neck, and he wore a fitted black peacoat so he appeared thinner and lankier than before. He waved and showed them a lopsided smile, and then he peered both ways before he crossed the street. Sam turned to Belinda yet again.

“Okay,” she began in a low voice, “if he asks us where we've been or why we're up here right now, tell him we just came here for New Year's.”

“Why?” Belinda frowned at that.

“He—” Sam peered behind her to ensure that Joey was still out of earshot. “He and Alex got into a fight a while back, and he's kind of vindicative about Legacy themselves.”

“Really?” Belinda raised her eyebrows at that.

“Yeah. It was insane, Bel. He and Alex got outside and he pushed him.”

“He pushed him?” Sam set a hand on her to get to keep her voice down. “But what if he asks why we're here by the studio, though? Especially with Anthrax coming here and whatnot.”

“Shit, I forgot about that! Um, let's just tell him that we're here to check the place out. And I'll tell you more about the pushing incident later on, too—” She stopped right in her tracks just as Joey strolled up to them with his hands on the lapels.

“Hey, you!” he greeted Sam.

“Hey, Joey,” she returned the favor.

“And Belinda,” he continued, “you're Belinda, right?”

“Little Bel, that's me,” she retorted. He craned his neck to the building behind them.

“What's all this?”

“Oh, it's the—studio that you and Anthrax are recording at,” Sam replied, and each word that left her lips felt as though she was having to force herself to say it.

“Oh, yeah, I remember this place,” said Joey. “Pyramid.” He stopped and he took another look. “Who else is here?”

“Maintenance,” Belinda filled in with haste and a clearing of her throat.

“Uh, yeah,” Sam added with even more haste, “—we just came over here to check it out. We really only came up here to Ithaca for New Year's.” She rubbed her nose. “What's up with you? What're you doing?”

“I just came here to see the place myself,” he answered as he lunged forward, but Sam and Belinda stepped in front of him.

“I don't think that's a good idea, Joey,” Sam assured him.

“Yeah—the place is kind of a mess,” Belinda joined in.

“Well, I at least wanna see the front door, though. Lived and did stuff in upstate my whole life and would you believe I've never been here before? And besides, why is your car here?”

“It's a good place to park,” Belinda said at a rapid clip. “We're coming right back for it, though. It's nothing to split hairs over.”

“Okay,” Joey said, reluctant and with a befuddled look on his face.

“Um, you wanna get something to eat?” Sam offered him.

“I just ate, thank you, though.”

“Shit—well, it's pretty cold out here—don't ya wanna go into that restaurant there?”

“We can't go in there?”

“It's a mess, Joey!” Sam exclaimed. “An absolute madhouse!”

“Hey, that song was a hit!” he said with a snap of his fingers.

“What song?”

“'Madhouse'! We got asked to make a music video for it—have you seen it?”

“I haven't, no.”

“Don't think I have, either,” Belinda added.

“Oh, man, I gotta show it to you girls. I hope that restaurant does have TVs in it—I'd like to show it to you both.” He wheeled around and stood there at the curb for a second: Sam and Belinda glanced at one another. The latter widened her eyes and let out a quiet sigh; the former opened her mouth but no sound came out. Joey then led them across the dark pavement to the low restaurant there on the other side, hugged by a few evergreen trees and some scraggly barren oak trees.

He held the door for them as they made their way inside. Warm and sweet with that aroma of coffee and fresh food: he led them to the counter where he took the seat closest to the register. Sam sat down at his left while Belinda took the spot to the left of her. Her eyes were still wide with fear.

“That was close,” she mouthed, to which Sam nodded her head. Joey then turned to them once again.

“Did Cliff ever tell you his fascination with pancakes?” he asked Sam in a low voice.

“I don't think he ever did,” she confessed.

“Oh. Well—” Joey pointed to the silvery counter in front of them, and the plate of pancakes slathered in syrup and melted butter which awaited to be taken to a nearby table. “—just looking at that fat stack of pancakes right there in front of us made me think of his obsession with pancakes.” Sam chuckled at that.

She and Belinda both asked for cups of coffee, but neither of them knew what they wanted to eat. It was the first time in a long time Sam had gone some place and she had no idea as to what she wanted. The thought of Cliff obsessing over pancakes made her curious. There was so much to him that she still didn't know about.

Cried all her tears and yet she still missed him. It was almost too much to bear, especially when she thought about Alex in that room. He and Cliff were both artists in their prime. Both artists, both unknowns to her, and yet they both felt so close to her.

“Excuse me,” she finally said at one point: she could feel the firm lump coming to fruition in her throat. She ducked into the hallway around the corner to make it look as though she was headed into the bathrooms. But she lingered there outside of the ladies' room, right next to the door, and the tears made their way forth. She flashed back on the sight of Louie behind that drum kit, and the memory of the five of them in the park so as to honor Cliff: he recognized Zelda almost immediately, even in the tapestry of total darkness, and she could only wonder what was happening between them. He hit those drums rather hard: maybe seeing her there opened something in him. She had no idea.

The mention of Cliff did something to her however. She brought her hands to her face to hide the tears away from prying eyes, but she couldn't cry. No tears to be found in there.

“Sam?” Joey's upstate accent caught her ear and she lifted her head for a look at him there at the far end of the hall. The lopsided grin had given way to a look of concern on his handsome face. He strode closer to her for a better look at her.

“You okay?” he asked her in a gentle voice, to which she bowed her head and kept silent. “Are you alright?”

She still didn't answer.

“That statement was in poor taste, I know,” he said in a near whisper.

“What statement?” she asked him as she raised her gaze to him; he stood right in front of her, and he stood so close to her that she could smell the soft cologne on the side of his neck.

“The whole thing with the pancakes. I just—I know how you miss Cliff so much.”

“I do, I do—but I swear it's not you, though,” she assured him.

“Oh. I just saw you run down here and I could only guess that it was 'cause of that.”

“I just—I have my moments,” she confessed to him. “I have moments where I miss him more than anything in the world.”

She gazed up at him, right into those deep brown eyes. As brown and soft as the earth, the very earth that Cliff had returned to. They locked eyes for a few seconds, but it was enough.

“Joey—” she started.

“What?” He then paused and she pursed her lips together. Her mind went blank, but then he showed her the first bit of that grin yet again.

“Remember when you were in my place and you made that joke about kissin' me?” he recalled in a soft voice.

“How could I forget?”

“Not gonna lie—I think about doin' that.” He raised his eyebrows at her.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Absolutely. All the time.”

“So—what're you saying?”

He nibbled on his bottom lip and he dropped his gaze to her mouth.

“I didn't have someone to kiss under the mistletoe back on Christmas,” he told her in the huskiest voice she ever heard.

“I didn't, either,” she added.

“And I don't have someone to kiss when the ball drops tonight.”

“Who says we have to have a New Year's kiss, though?”

“Good point.” He paused again, and again with a nibble of his bottom lip. “Just an idea.” He nodded his head back for her to go back out to the restaurant. “Run along—I gotta use the little boys' room.” And with that, Sam bowed out in front of him and she rounded the corner: Belinda still stayed seated at the counter and with a cup of coffee in front of her. But on the far side of the room, Sam noticed the four of them clustered into a booth. She kept going towards them.

“Hey! What're you guys doing here?”

“Remember when Greg made a flippant comment about Louie being hungry?” Eric said to her as he looked up at her like a prince.

“Vaguely.”

“Well, as it turns out, the bunch of us are, too.”

“Well, Joey's here with me and Bel, so you might wanna keep things down.” She made a lowering gesture with her hands and brought her voice down a bit.

“Not a problem,” he assured her with a shake of his head. “Alex is a lover not a fighter anyways.”

“I fight when I feel like it,” Alex himself pointed out as he took a sip of ice water. Sam hoped Joey wouldn't see them there as she returned to Belinda at the counter: and even with the pancakes gone, she still couldn't shake the firm feeling from her throat. First New Year's alone and without Cliff.

[heyyyharry]

Chapter 6: Teenagers In Love

(from the My Girl Trilogy: Be My Only)

…in which Harry finds the perfect location for their official date.

Warning: SMUT 😱

AU: actor!Harry, older!Harry, younger!Y/N, (4-year age gap).

Word count: 4.3k

Chapter 5: Her - Harry tries to win Y/N back, but there’s another problem.

Wattpad link

A/N: This chapter is inspired by 17 by Julia Michaels and Teenager In Love by Madison Beer 😄

You make me feel like a teenager in love / Can we stay in this dream like we are 17?

.

.

.

From the passenger seat, Harry watched the giant light orb slowly sink beneath the fiery horizon. His skin was cooled by the wind but his heart was as warm as the color of the sky. Even this beautiful sunset couldn't hold his attention for too long.

He turned right back to Y/N, his lips pressed into a smirk when she stopped humming her favorite song and complained, "quit staring at me, it's creepy," but her nonchalant smile let him know she secretly liked it.

"We're on a date, Bambi. I'm supposed to be staring at you," he said with a hand on her thigh and she instantly smacked it away.

"Don't be handsy while I'm driving," Y/N grumbled.

Harry intended to crack a joke about how extra careful she was, but they were heading toward an intersection so he paused to tell her, "turn left here and keep going straight."

"But this route leads us out of the city."

"Yeah." He calmly nodded despite her confusion. "Didn't I tell you we weren't gonna be in London tonight?"

It took her less than two seconds to figure out what he meant and her eyes grew wider than before. "No. Fucking. Way."

"Yes, baby. We're going home."

The proud look on his face made her chuckle. "I've underestimated you."

"Apology accepted," he said while beaming. "I think it'll be more meaningful if I take you back to where we started. So," he clasped both hands together, "for tonight, I want us to be two normal teenagers going on their normal first date."

"If we're teenagers then how old are we?"

"Seventeen."

"So we're not legal yet?"

"Shit!" He faked a gasp. "I forgot that it's our birthday today! We're eighteen now!"

Y/N cracked up and poked her head out of the window to shout, "TODAY IS OUR BIRTHDAY!" at a random car. The couple was in hysterics when the grumpy driver flipped them off, but they couldn't care less, because there was no one else on this empty highway. Her hair was blowing in the wind, so he reached out and carefully tucked a strand behind her ear. She looked so beautiful right now. And he had never felt more in love.

It was dark when they finally arrived in Holmes Chapel. Having lived in London for too long, Harry was used to the warm glow of streetlights outside his bedroom window, and so he found such darkness strange, yet mesmerizing. The sky was a pure velvety black sprinkled with luminous stars. The moon was full and bright, the most beautiful he had recalled, so maybe it was a sign from the universe welcoming them home. Leaning out of the window, he inhaled the Jasmine-scented air, as the memories of his childhood rushed back like a fast-forwarded film inside his head. When he was a teenager, he used to enjoy driving in the night, he never remembered all the roads in this town, but he wasn't afraid of getting lost because they would always lead him home.

"Are you hungry?" He turned back to her, sounding like a happy little boy as he suggested, "let's go to that famous gastro pub near our school, the one we couldn't afford when we were little, what's its called?"

"Ginger Barrel?"

"Yeah, yeah, that one!" His eyes lit up in excitement. "Is it still there?"

"Yeah." She nodded, flashing him a grin. "I still can't afford it though."

"Tonight you do! I'm your credit card."

Y/N instantly responded with a scoff as she rolled her eyes and pushed his face away. "No, you're not. We'll split the bill."

"I knew you were gonna say that. But you drove me here, so just think of it as me paying for the fuel."

"Fine," she agreed just so he would shut up. "But next time you drive, and I'll buy you dinner."

Just as she finished that sentence, the car lurched forward, stopped in the middle of the street and the motor went off completely. It was ironic how they had just mentioned fueling the vehicle, but one second later it broke down without warning and left them stranded on a back road through the woods.

"Don't worry, it happens a lot," Y/N reassured her startled date as she took a deep breath. "Let's just wait here for a while and it'll work again."

"How long exactly?"

"About...an hour."

"What?!" He gasped. "Bambi, we're in the middle of nowhere!"

"I'm sorry, okay? I don't—" She suddenly paused, her eyes lit up as if she'd just recognized something. She grabbed his shoulder, shaking him slightly. "Hey, do you trust me?"

"Of course, I do," he said, though doubt was clear in his tone.

"Okay, then help me move the car to the side of the road. We're taking a walk."

"Wait, what?"

"Trust me," she reassured him. "I know this town like the back of my hand, I grew up here."

"Ouch!" Harry gripped his chest like he'd just been shot in the heart and her laughter torn down the silence surrounding them. Eventually, he got out of the vehicle and helped her move it to the side of the road. His heart was racing when she took his hand, mostly because he had no idea where she was taking him. His manager, Jeff, would never have allowed him to risk losing his money-making tool — his own life, from walking into the dark woods. However, his heart was speaking for his brain right now, and it told him to follow her wherever she went, so he did, no questions asked.

But Y/N wasn't joking when she said she knew Holmes Chapel like the back of her hand. After only five minutes of walking, they got out of the woods and found themselves in a large meadow. It wasn't the first time he'd been here, because he remembered that lake in which he used to go swimming every summer night. He and Y/N would climb on the giant oak tree and sit on its biggest branch to practice skipping rocks.

"I discovered that shortcut when Celine and I were out here looking for her cat." Y/N tugged at his sleeve, pointing ahead. "Our school is right across those trees. See?"

"Yeah..." He chuckled, their fingers were interlocked as he turned back and looked into her soft eyes. He caressed her cheeks, slowly and tenderly. Her lashes fluttered as she held his gaze and locked her fingers around both of his wrists to keep his hands on her face. Those few quiet seconds were the most relaxing he'd felt in such a long time, as if time had stopped and they were the only ones left on Earth.

"You're so beautiful," he spoke softly, watching her eyes twinkled when she laughed.

"So are you," she said in an undertone and didn't protest when he leaned in, and finally captured her mouth with his own for a slow and chaste kiss, which turned hasty and sensual in a second. He slid his fingers into her hair as her arms snaked around his waist, pulling him in. It was he who withdrew and put a hand on her neck to keep them apart.

"Let's slow down, yeah?" he said, their forehead pressed together. "We've got all night."

She quietly nodded and licked her lip, which made him want to go against his own words and kiss her again. But he managed to fight his own urges to break away from her.

They sat down on the grass by the lake, looking up at the glittering assemblage of stars and allowing their own silence to take over. There was nothing more soothing than the sound of crickets singing in combination with the peaceful rustling of leaves. The soft breezes blew through the trees, brushed against the water's surface and blurred the reflection of the night sky, only for it to go back to complete stillness like an enormous mirror laid on the ground.

In the absence of the rest of the world, Harry and Y/N finally did what they should have done years ago. They talked.

He told her his side of the story which she'd never got to hear, from how he'd come to her place after she'd left, to how her journal entries had helped him see the many things he'd done wrong. He expected her to be angry, but instead, she gave him a smile. "I thought I lost that notebook."

"I was scared you'd hate me if you found out I'd kept it all this time."

"Good thing I already hate you," she replied and laughed along with him. Then she began to talk about herself, about everything, including how she'd discovered her mother's secret, which had helped her mend the relationship with her dad, but also made her give up on her dream of becoming a writer.

"I don't know..." She shrugged while toying with a wildflower at her feet. "My feelings and expectations had caused me so much trouble in the past. I just...don't want to get hurt anymore, so it's better to focus on the present and reality instead of dwelling in the past or the fictional worlds I've created. Without unrealistic expectations, you can never be disappointed, right?"

Harry let his thoughts run for a while before pursing his lips, seemingly disagree. "You are a great writer, Bambi," he blurted. "Everyone needs to read your stories, they're fantastic, even the ones you wrote when you were a little girl. And what's wrong with unrealistic expectations, anyway? For all I know, they're what make the world a less horrible place. Take me for example, I love acting because I get to be someone else, even for just temporary, but it feels nice to pretend you're not you and you're in a different world and have a different personality. Things like those make life much more interesting, don't you agree?"

She said nothing, just staring at him with an ambiguous smile that left him dumbfounded.

"Did I say something wrong?" He asked.

Only now did she shake her head. "No, you're absolutely right." Then she paused for a second. "You sound like my mum, that's all. If she was here, she would say something like that."

"Do you still think about her? I don't see you wearing the necklace I gave you anymore."

"I still do, sometimes, not as often as before, but—Well, I have to let her go at one point, right?" She giggled softly, hugging her knees to her chest and glancing heavenward.

Harry had always thought the sky full of stars in his hometown was the most beautiful work of art, because he grew up dreaming and pondering under that sky. He'd missed it a lot while living in London, where the city lights would drown out even the brightest stars. But now that he was here, engulfed by a luminous galaxy, he realized it wasn't just the night sky in Holmes Chapel that he'd missed; it was also her. And now he didn't have to look at those stars anymore because his entire universe was already right next to him.

"Have you ever gone skinny-dipping?"

Her sudden question caught him off guard, so he stuttered, "uh...no, why?"

Y/N stood up, but before he could ask another question, she pulled her summer dress over her head and tossed it down on the grass. She wasn't wearing a bra so her bare breasts spilled out, leaving him gawking like a fool. He had seen much more, but this sight got his cheeks turning pink. Ignoring the look on his face, Y/N kicked off her shoes and pulled down her panties, letting them fall at her feet as she tip-toed to step out of them. The moonlight made her breasts look smaller, but she was still perfect to him, her naked form had him bewitched. He could clearly see the goosebumps on her arms, the scars on her legs for all those years she'd climbed the tree in their backyard. Her body was like a map of her beautiful childhood memories, which was why he fell in love with it as he'd done with her.

"You coming?"

He blinked rapidly when her voice pulled him back to reality. His eyebrows drew together in concern. "What if someone sees us?"

"No one will, I've done this many times before." Her answer left him in shock. Without waiting for him to follow, she turned and gave him one last look over the shoulder before running toward the lake. He watched her dive in with no splash, like a mermaid under the beautiful moonlight. She was swimming around and dipping her head back in the water to smoothen her sleek hair.

"Come on, Harry, don't be a pussy!" She broke into a fit of laughter.

Harry sighed, rolled his eyes and swiftly stripped himself naked, but he didn't jump right in; he slowly walked into the lake as if to test the water temperature, and Y/N just lost her patient. She swam up to him, grabbed his hand and dragged him underwater. He frantically clawed back to the surface, gasping for air.

"That was mean!"

"Calm down, Styles! Have some fun!" She giggled when he splashed water at her and pulled her to him. Before she could say anything, he shut her up with his lips. His heart was beating so fast that his skin tingled and his stomach was on fire. He thought this might be too much because his cock was firm against her stomach, but Y/N didn't mind, she took the initiative and slipped her tongue between his lips. His arms were tightened around her waist as he swam them over to the edge of the lake, kissing her neck and groaning into her cold skin.

He wasn't in his right mind when he moved his right hand between her thighs and caressed her clit with his thumb. The breathy sound of his name escaped her mouth, her eyes fell shut when he dipped his index finger inside of her. She moaned louder, her face buried in the crook of his neck as she kissed his collarbone. Now she truly felt like a hormonal teenager.

"Fuck...baby..." She gasped and moved his hand away, leaving him frantic. "I want to but...not here."

"Oh...okay." He kissed her again, softly. "But not in a car again please."

"Oh, God. Don't bring that up!"

"Alright, alright, let's get out of here. I know just the place." He laughed and kissed her shoulder when she hid her face into the crook of his neck.

The couple got out of the lake and fumbled their clothes back on. He'd been knuckle-deep inside of her just a minute ago, but now both of them were flustered just from watching each other get dressed. He slipped into his jeans as color burned in his cheeks, thankfully the darkness hid that so well. Walking back to the car, they couldn't keep their hands off each other, one moment their fingers were interlocked, and the next his hands were underneath her dress and they were kissing. He didn't usually do this when he was on a date, but they weren't in London now, they were home. No one was here to spy on them, to judge them, or make them feel uncomfortable. Tonight, it was just them and the moon.

They made out in the front seat for a while until the flashing light of another car tore them apart. She hurriedly climbed to the passenger seat, letting him be the one behind the wheel this time. They both looked like a mess right now, especially Y/N with her hair wet and tangled, her dress riding up, one strap falling past her shoulder. He had to use up all of his self-control to ignore his aching erection and started the engine to get them out of here as fast as he could. That fancy dinner will have to wait, he told himself. As she leaned out of the window and stared at the dark trees sliding past them, he took another turn to enter the highway and kept on driving until their childhood houses came into view.

"Wait, no!" She bounced up in her seat, staring at him with wide eyes. "Why are we here?"

"We're going to my house."

"We're not having sex while your parents are downstairs, Harry!"

The way she reacted got him shaking with laughter. "Relax, kid, they're not home. They're visiting my stepdad's family."

She released a sigh of relief when he pulled over in front of his yard. They got out at the same time. She walked around the car, toward him, her eyes narrowed for she didn't get why he was smiling. He didn't tell her, but the truth was, he found it interesting that she'd never waited for him to open the door for her. He guessed that was just how she was; she preferred doing things by herself.

They walked the steps up to his front door, and Harry was glad he'd brought the spare key just in case they might need to stay the night. Little did he knew, his plan didn't go smoothly as he'd expected. When he pushed the door open, the first thing he saw was his mother in her PJs. Just like the young couple, Anne was in shock. It was only until she saw them holding hands that she cheerfully exclaimed, "you two are finally together!"

Harry chuckled when she rushed toward them and pulled them both into a hug. She didn't even ask why they were home this late at night, all she cared about was them finally being something more than friends. Immediately, Anne pulled away and gripped Y/N's shoulders tightly as she sized her up. "My God, why are you soaked? Was it raining on the way here?"

"It was." Y/N giggled, glancing up at Harry whose face reddened as he scratched the back of his head. "Mum, where's Robin?"

"Oh, he's visiting his family," Anne said, and Harry received a glare from Y/N. The mother still hadn't caught on what was happening so she looked rather excited about seeing her son again, especially when he was with the girl she'd hoped he would end up with.

"You could've told me you were coming! Hurry, go upstairs and change or you'll get sick." Anne didn't wait for a response as she propelled the kids toward the stairs, and they had no choice but to do as she said. Y/N walked in front of Harry, who kept his hands on her hips the entire time, as if she was a toddler and couldn't walk on her own.

His bedroom was at the end of the hallway, right next to Gemma's. The hole in the roof had been fixed, and the room looked as good as the last time he'd seen it before moving to his dorm in London. He had taken most of the stuff with him that day, so now the room only contained a small bed, neatly made, and a small table with two straight-backed chairs. His walls looked empty without those posters that seventeen-year-old him thought were cool. A lot had changed since then.

Y/N made her way to the bed, sat down and signaled him to shut the door. His heart was pounding out of control as he came to sit right by her side. They were kissing again, this time, the kiss was slower, but wet and enthusiastic.

"I slept in this bed once..." She spoke with a brittle voice as his lips pressed against the curve of her jaw. "I was nine, and my parents were out of town..."

"I remember," he said between open-mouthed kisses down her neck. "You made me...sleep...so...far away from you...because you said...boys were gross."

Her chest vibrated with laughter. She cupped his cheeks and lifted his face. "Boys are gross," she repeated, making him laugh.

"Yeah? I guess kissing is gross too? All that saliva and stuff..." He teased before his lips found hers again.

Soon she was lying on her back with him on top. Her dress was on the floor, along with his shirt and jeans. His skin was slick with sweat and she felt so aroused watching the beads roll down the tattoos on his toned chest. Her nipples were hard and begging to be touched, and Harry knew that because his cock was the same. So he sucked on a nipple, causing her back to arch as he gripped her bottom and ground his erection against her glistening folds. She felt so embarrassed that they were doing this with his mother's presence in the house, but lust had taken control over her, and now every single part of her was yearning for him.

He tore his mouth away to look at her, his pupils were huge as he observed her face, stroking her bottom lip with his thumb.

"I love you so much." He breathed. "I wish that I was your first."

"You are," she whispered, and a smile crept up on her face when she saw how dumbfounded he was.

"Tonight, we're each other's first, remember?" She reminded him. Her lips curved into a smile as he muttered "I love you" again and again, before pulling down his boxers in one swift movement. As he reached for his jeans on the floor to get the condoms from his pocket, his cock twitched, it was leaking, and painfully hard, so she couldn't blame him when he nearly fell off the bed trying to open the pack and put the condom on with his trembling hands.

Pushing her thighs apart, he moved between them, then wasted no time to carefully guide himself into her. The fullness and stretch were familiar and strange at the same time. She hadn't had him in a year so it was sore when he entered. He felt even more massive than she remembered. Then he was all the way inside, a heavy groan got stuck in his throats as he pressed his forehead against hers, his mouth hung open and his face twisted.

"God, you're tight," he gasped. "I could just come right now, I'm not joking."

Her laugh jerked as he began to move experimentally, the intense pleasure had them both shudder at the same time. Then he picked up the pace, thrusting a little more rapid. He was so thick and full inside of her that she could feel him all the way in her stomach. She struggled to breathe, yet her hips were bucking to urge him to move faster. And so he did, giving her exactly what she'd asked for.

He slid one hand down to her hip and his head dropped forward as he pounded harder toward orgasm. She could feel the heat spreading all over her body like wildfire, but as her fingers found her clit, he smacked her hand away and replaced it with his own. All she could do was look at him helplessly, her eyelids fluttered but she wanted to watch him come. His mouth was in an 'o' shape as her nails scratched down his back and the overwhelming sensation swept right through them. Y/N bit onto his shoulder to muffle her cries, soon his head fell back, and a growl rumbled in his throat as he chased his release. He flopped down on top of her afterward, her entire body went numb, completely fucked out.

"That was good..." She managed to speak but unable to move a muscle.

"Yeah? That was my first time, I'm a natural."

She playfully hit his shoulder for that joke and both of them dissolved into laughter. Slowly, Harry pulled himself out of her pulsing heat which still fought to keep him inside. He shifted around to make himself comfortable before looking up at her.

"I forgot," he said softly.

"Forgot what?"

"To say I love you during." His answer put a smile on her face. Though her eyes were closed, she could tell he was also smiling at her.

"You don't have to say it every five minutes, H."

"Yeah but..." He pressed a kiss to her flushed cheek. "I love you."

She responded with a giggle and turned her head to look at him again. As she parted her lips to say something, his mother's voice caused them both to flinch. "Hey, you guys want some milk?!"

"No, mum!" He shouted back to her, but there was no answer. The horrified look on his face made Y/N laugh so hard that her stomach was in pain.

"Is she gonna come up here? Because I honestly can't move."

"She might. But don't worry, I already locked the door," he reassured her and laid a kiss on her forehead, pulling her back into his arms.

.

.

.

The sun had come out by the time they made it to London, and Y/N pulled her car to the side of the road to drop him off at work. Their bodies were aching and exhausted from all the love-making and staying up all night just to talk. But that wasn't a big problem now that they were happier than they'd ever been. The memories from last night would be enough to get them through another busy day, until they got to see each other again.

"Will you come over tonight?" She asked as he unbuckled his seatbelt.

"Sure, love." Harry nodded. When he leaned in, however, Y/N instantly put a hand on his chest.

"We can't," she reminded him. They had already risked being seen together, she couldn't let anyone catch them making out in public, especially when things were just looking up. Harry also knew that, still he seemed disappointed. Right before he could leave, however, she held onto his arm.

"Have a nice day," she said with a bashful smile. "I love you."

His expression dulled for a second before his whole face lit up with a massive grin. "Fuck it," he exhaled, grasped her face, and kissed her hard. Y/N’s eyes went round as she pushed him right off, but the man didn't seem to care at all. He told her he loved her before getting out of the car and happily leaping up the steps into the building, while she stayed here, smiling like a fool.

But then that smile was gone. She saw Ruby stepping out of her black Audi and their eyes met for a brief second which felt like a minute. The woman was ice cold as she slammed the door and marched up the steps into the same building.

[minhoslut]

♡ summary: Y/N is a fairy in a world of magic hating humans, who moves into a house with seven young men after being kicked out of her old dorm. She learns about all their secrets while hiding hers for as long as she can. Lots of parties, games, sex and maybe even love.

♡ pairing: ot7 x fem!reader, fem!reader x various idols

♡ chapter:  1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | ? |

♡ series warnings: alcohol consumption, blood mention, drug use, mxm, fxf, threesome, foursome, orgy, swearing, anxiety, depression, past trauma, past abuse

♡ series genre: fluff, smut, slight angst

♡ series rating: R

♡ word count: 3417

♡ posted on: AO3

♡ chapter five: we like to party

♡ A/N: the smut arrives uwu

After breakfast, you decided to go for a run in the forest to help get rid of some of the excited energy you were bursting with. Wearing a dusty rose sports bra with matching capris leggings , you began stretching in the backyard. It was nice to be so close to nature, it made your magic tingle and the instinct to release your wings was strong. You sighed at the thought, it was so fucked that magical creatures couldn’t just be part of society, usually they just lived a little differently, no harm done. Yeah sometimes they did bad things, but so did humans! They are so jealous and scared of things that are different though. You clicked your tongue and took a few deep breaths before heading into the woods.

The birds were calling to each other in the trees, and everything smelled fresh. When you reached the lake with the waterfall you stopped to take a dip, stripping naked and slipping into the cool water. Diving down to the bottom, you laid across the sand and relaxed in the silence. You had always loved being deep underwater, just sitting or lying down and being surrounded by silence. You didn't like being alone though, so when you were younger you would create a water being to talk to and play with. Silently, you wished that you could share things like this with someone, but humans can't hold their breath as long as fairies can so you'd just be outing yourself.

An idea struck you as you looked up at the surface and realized how deep the lake was, a smile crossing your lips. Standing up, you released your wings into the water and sighed in relief. Flying was a no, but at least they could be unfurled. The silver, blue and gold flecks in your wings sparkled in the water, refracting light all around you. They wouldn't get wrecked in the water, despite what some human tales of fairies said, you weren't a butterfly after all.

You fluttered your wings a little bit, creating a small current in the water. It was so freeing to be able to have your wings out, you closed your eyes and flapped your wings hard, making the water rush around you. Jumping up, you burst from the lake and brought your wings back in before falling back into the water. You swam some laps and explored the depths of the lake for a while until you began to get bored. Pulling yourself up on the shore and shaking yourself dry, you redressed and ran back to the house.

~

"Hey Y/N!" Taehyung greeted you from the deck where he was stringing some lights up. "Need any help Tae? Can I call you that?" You asked as you joined him, "For sure as long as I can call you N/N!" He said a grin on his face. You laughed and agreed, holding the nails for him while he hammered the lights to the side of the house. "Do you take these down every week or are they new?" You questioned as you handed him another nail. "We had some up but they kinda got broken... So we just got around to replacing them haha." His answer was vague but you didn't push, not like it mattered much anyway.

"Tae come in for lunch- Y/N you're back! You come too~" Jimin said sweetly, poking his head out the back door. Returning the nails to their bin you wiped your hands on your pants and headed inside, taking a seat at the table next to Jungkook. Jin and Namjoon placed plates of steaming dumplings on the table and everyone sat to enjoy their late lunch together.

"After lunch, Kook and Yoongi, can you guys start setting up the music stuff, and Jin, Hobi and I will do drink/food prep, Y/N, you and Tae continue doing outside! Sound good?" Namjoon said as he began clearing dishes from the table now that everyone was done eating. Various words of agreement were exchanged as you all headed to your assigned areas of setup. You collected the nails once again and followed Tae along the side of the house. When the two of you had finished with the lights you moved onto setting up some chairs and a pong table.

You ran inside to grab some cases of beer to keep by the pong table, bumping into Hoseok as you go. "Sorry~" You called sending him a smile as you went, getting a cute dimple smile in return. Cute dimple. "Tae~ Is this the right stuff?" You asked walking up to him as he set up the triangles of cups. "Yeah, just set it underneath for now." He responded, taking a case from you and shoving it under the table. "What next?" You questioned stretching your arms while Taehyung grabbed his phone out of his pocket to check the time.

"Well it's near dinner so let's see if everyone else is finished with their jobs." He suggested, linking his arm with yours and pulling you inside. "Anybody need help finishing up?" You shouted as you grabbed two glasses and filled them with water from the fridge before handing one to Taehyung. A bunch of no's echoed through the house in response to you, so you began pulling burger buns out and cutting them. "Ooh are you gunna make us burgers?" Taehyung asked coming to sit at the bar, leaning his elbows on the table and propping his head in his hands.

"Yes cute boy, I am! I'm excited for the party so I don't want many dishes~" You told him while you prepped the patties and toppings, cutting various vegetables up and placing them on a plate. He laughed at your nickname for him and rose from his seat to help you by setting the table and lighting the barbeque. Once it was hot enough you put the burgers on and turned on some music while they were cooking. "Are you surprised? It’s like bubblegum pop, because I broke all the rules, because I’m going to show you the real me, really really me, I’m a cherry on top yeah~" You sang along to ITZY  as you flipped the burgers.

The smell of the barbeque lured the six men to the table when they had finished their tasks. "Damn what smells so fuckin' good?" Jungkook said as he entered, "Y/N made burgers~" Taehyung answered from his seat at the table where he was getting his bun ready. "Y/N remind me to wife you up." Jungkook said as he sat down, you laughed at his comment and shook your head, bringing the now cooked patties into the kitchen. "Let's eat!" You said, a smile set upon your lips.

~

When everyone had finished eating, Taehyung cleared away the dishes and everyone split off to their own rooms to get ready. You pulled out various options for tonights outfit, and stripped out of your current clothing, sliding into a silky pink robe with fur trim on its sleeves . Dress, skirt, or pants… You scanned through what you had pulled out and sorted them into groups. A knock at the door pulled you away from the piles of fabric, “Come in~” Namjoon opened the door and stepped in. “Hey Y/N, uh, just wanted to give you the lowdown of the party rules of sorts, but if you’re not ready I can wait-”

You interrupted him with a wave of your hand. “I wouldn’t have let you in if I wanted to wait.” You said smiling at him. “Ok, sure, well, the only real rule is don’t take anyone to someone else's bedroom.” Nodding, you turned back to your clothes, “Joon, can I call you that? Should I wear a skirt, dress or pants?” He came and stood beside you, “Uh, dress? And of course you can, we are friends after all.” Hearing him say that made the smile on your lips blossom into a full grin. "Thanks Joon~ I'll see you in a bit."

Now that you had narrowed it down to dresses thanks to Namjoon, you were able to pick your party look. A longsleeved off the shoulder white top with black trim layered underneath a black dress with two zippers down the whole thing and chain straps attached by a hoop . Popping in some silver hoop earrings and brushing our hair, you moved to the mirror. Lip Gloss, brow gel and a simple cat eye wing and you were set. You surveyed yourself in the full body mirror, checking your outfit and unzipping the bottom half of the dress. "Okay sexy, let's get some!"

~

You bumped into Hoseok first, when you had come down to the second floor. He was wearing a classic white t-shirt tucked into light blue straight leg jeans with a frayed hem, cinched with a black belt and a back crossbody bag with white polka dots across his chest. A simple silver chain hung around his neck and tied everything together. "Hey Hobi! You look really good! Ready to get some chicks?" You ruffled his peachy blonde locks, making Hoseok laugh and shake his head. "May I escort you to the dance hall, princess?" Stifling a laugh, you took his offered arm, "I'll allow it, sir knight."

Jin and Jimin were putting away anything breakable in the living room when you entered with Hoseok. Jin was wearing an oversized white t-shirt tucked into belted black jeans  and Jimin was in a wide neck black tee tucked into black skinny jeans with rips at the knee, a black belt and a silver chain with a long silver tooth on it . "Looking good~ You guys know how to lure in people, huh?" You whistled taking them in. Jimin ran a hand through his black hair and Jin blew a kiss your way. "Says you!" Jungkook said as he and Namjoon entered the room.

Jungkook was fixing the pale pink button-up he had over top of a white tee with a black design on it. His jeans were light blue skinnies with rips at the knees, a black belt holding the in place. Namjoon wearing navy blue slacks with a shimmery peach short-sleeved button-up tucked into them, the top button undone. "Knock out after knock out huh, do they put something in your water here?" You joked, "You've obviously been drinking it too Y/N~" Yoongi teased coming to stand by you, dressed in ripped blue jeans, an oversized tan shirt, and a purple and black flannel overtop.

"Well then, let’s get started!" Jin said clapping his hands and heading to the kitchen, "Shots! To kick off the night and welcome Y/N to our home officially!" Hoseok cheered following after Seokjin. The rest of you also joined them and Jin poured out eight tequila shots, everyone prepped their lemon slices and salted their thumbs. "To Y/N!" Namjoon cheered, the same praise echoed by the six others before you all took your shots.

Soon after your celebratory shot, people began to show up to the house, welcomed by the boys who quickly introduced you to them. The music was turned up and the rooms were quickly filled with people, drinking and laughing. There were so many stunning people in the room, you surveyed them as you sipped your drink, pleasantly buzzed by this point. You noticed Jin speaking with a girl on the deck and began making your way over to them.

The girl has wavy long bleach blonde hair and eyes that were somehow round and sharp all at once. She was wearing a black crop tank top, a pair of black cargo pants and a chunky choker with a big silver hoop on it. There were several chains hanging across her pants, as well as some joining the choker on her neck, and a black belt with silver cut-outs was cinching her waist in. It was a simple but sexy ensemble and you were captivated.

"Hi~" You said coming into their conversation, "Hey Y/N! This is Chungha, Chungha, Y/N." Jin introduced the two of you and excused himself to the washroom. "You look amazing tonight, Chungha! I love the vibe." You said in a flirting tone, touching her wrist softly. "Mm, I could say the same to you Y/N. You're their new roomie, right?" Nodding, you twirled your white hair cutely, "Do you come to these often?" You questioned, "Pretty much every weekend haha. I like coming to dance with people." Dance huh? "I love dancing as well! I'm glad people seem to actually dance at their parties~" You chuckled.

"Well then how about we get on the dance floor?" Chungha grabbed your hand and pulled you into the house, holding your body against hers as you danced together. She kept her hands on your waist, swaying with you and grinding your bodies together. Your hands were around her neck and the distance between you was getting smaller by the second. Someone came up behind you and pressed themselves against your back. Turning, Seokjins deep brown eyes locked with yours and you pulled his arm over your shoulder.

The three of you danced together as you moved lithely between them, passion thick in the air between you. Chungha pulled you into her and kissed you hard, her lips soft and warm, tasted like cherries. A second pair of lips connected with your exposed neck causing a soft moan made its way out of your mouth and into the kiss with Chungha. It was obviously Jin who was kissing your neck, you could feel him holding you closer, his cock pressed against your ass.

Chungha pulled out of your dance floor makeout sesh and took your hand in her right and Seokjins hand in her left. She led you both up the stairs to what you assumed to be Jins room, kissing you again when you had all entered the room. "Are you both ok with this?" She asked between kisses. You looked at Seokjin and nodded, "Yes." You both answered truthfully, excitement and arousal tinging your voices.

"Strip for us baby girl~" Chungha said sitting on the bed and pulling Seokjin down beside her, a delicate hand on the bulge in his pants, giving slight pressure to encourage his arousal further. You unzipped your dress slowly, pulling the zipper all the off and shimmying out, tossing it into a corner. Now you were left standing in your top and a black mesh thong with rhinestone straps,  you kept your eyes on them both as you crossed your arms and peeled the top off of your body, letting your breasts bounce out.

Your nipples hardened at the coolness of the air, and you plopped yourself into Chunghas lap, "Please warm me up~" You breathed, lips almost touching the shell of her ear. "Patience, baby." She flipped you over and left you lying on the bed, "Touch yourself while you watch us." It was more of a demand than anything, but you complied easily, one hand running across the mesh of your panties and one on your sensitive nipple.

Your eyes followed as Chungha stripped Jin naked and began to stroke his now rock hard cock, making lewd sounds tumble from his lips. "Mm, I know you like being watched big boy, should we give her more of a show?" Chungha released Jin and began to take her own clothes off. You arched your back and fondled your boobs as you stared at Chunghas body, clad in a matching lingerie set. It was leopard print bra and thong with two sets of straps to hold it together and the bra which consisted of two strips of the leopard print fabric, barely holding her in. A big silver hoop sat just above her pelvis connected to the straps, and another on her bra between her breasts .

Seokjin let out an audible "fuck" as Chungha knelt in front of him and took the tip of his cock into her mouth. Your eyes never wandered as she slowly engulfed his full length, making him throw his head back and moan deeply. You whined from your spot on the bed, wanting to join in on the fun. Chungha pulled out slowly, letting the head out of her mouth with a wet 'pop.' "Oh? Impatient little slut aren't you~" She purred, still pumping Jins length. releasing it, she stood up and led Jin to the bed, "Lay down Jinnie."

Jin laid on the bed flat and Chungha came up onto the bed to join you both. "Suck his dick, nice and slow for me," She directed you, pushing your head over to his cock, "and Jin, you better make me cum with that smooth-talking mouth of yours." Stripping out of her lingerie, she positioned herself above his mouth. You took his cock in your mouth, tongue flat, and moaned around it as you deepthroated him.

The taste of precum coated your mouth, making you drool even more. Wet, sloppy sounds filled the room and Chunghas breathy moans were like an angels chorus, turning you on even more. Your cunt was begging for attention and your fingers rubbing yourself through your panties just wasn't enough. You bobbed on Jins cock and hollowed your cheeks as you pulled off. Licking around the head, you swirled your tongue and cupped his balls as you did so. Chunghas moans got louder, you lifted your eyes and watched as she rode Jins face through her orgasm.

"Y/N you lie down now and get those panties off." Chungha ordered, moving off of Seokjins mouth. You laid down supine near the edge of the bed, with your knees bent and pulled your thong off. Anticipation was radiating throughout the room, Jin hopped off the bed and stood at your feet. Chungha climbed on top of you, laying down on you and hooking her legs on either side. Your breasts were pushed up against hers, making you moan and she started kissing you again.

You felt the head of Jins dick slide across your dripping folds before pushing it between your and Chunghas soaked cunts. The three of you moaned together as Jin picked up his pace fucking between you both and hitting your clits just right. You kissed along Chunghas neck, her skin soft and warm. She, in turn, sucked hickies along your neck and chest, licking at your nipples as her mouth roamed. "Fuck her." Chungha gave the command and Jin followed, his thick girth was thrust into your tight pussy.

Seokjins name tumbled from your lips in a mantra as he fucked your roughly, all while Chungha continued to suck and nip at your skin. Suddenly, Chungah pulled off of you and moved up to hover above your kiss swollen lips. "Can you do two things at once like a good girl?" She cooed, seduction dripping from her tone. You mewled out a yes and licked across her pretty pussy. You inserted two fingers inter her core and pumped while you sucked on her clit, curling your fingers to hit the right spot. Hearing her moan your name encouraged you further as you tried to stay focused with Jin snapping his hips into you roughly.

"I-I'm close." You heard Seokjin say breathlessly, "It's safe cum inside~" You whined, not wanting him to stop, the knot in your stomach getting close to coming undone. He started rubbing your clit and you arched your back, fucking Chungha harder with your fingers. "Let's cum together, now." Chungha purred and just like that you could feel her thighs shaking around you. Jins hot seed filled you up perfectly, and you were brought to your peak as he continued fucking you through his own orgasm.

Jin pulled out slowly, causing you to moan wantonly as his cum leaked out and mixed with your own. Your lips were glistening covered in Chunghas cum, it tasted amazing. "Mm, thanks you two~ Let's get you cleaned up." Chungha said getting off of you and hopping down off the bed. She pulled her clothes back on and left the room, returning with a warm cloth which she used to wipe you down. You saw Seokjin grabbing new boxers and a big t-shirt, which he handed to you once you were wiped clean. You thanked him as he grabbed his own set and slid under the covers, beckoning you to join him, which you did. Chungha blew you both a kiss as she left, and then everything went fuzzy.

[gardenflowerswriting]

Sleeping World (w/Ubbe)

A/N: Fluffity fluff of Ubbe, gif: vikinghistory

I'm a wandering soul

Lost in a city of homes

The earth is plenty

But the soil is thin

You felt yourself tripping through the woods, giggles escaping your young lips as you tried to find a tree to hind behind. "One. . . Two. . . Three!" You could hear the sixteen year old walking through the crunchy Earth, "Come on Y/N!" Ubbe laughed as he darted to look behind a tree, "if I find you first you're it." You mistakenly agreed to play hide & seek with the Lothbrok brothers, Hvitserk took the daring leap to climb upwards, Sigurd ran towards the river, and Ivar sat unamused as he watched.

"She's in the most obvious stop!" He called, rolling his eyes when Ubbe walked in the other direction.

You felt yourself creeping around the tree as his figure came into your view a few meters away. You couldn't help but giggle at his clueless face. Your hand fell to your lips when his eyes matched with yours, he smiled when you realized your mistake. He ticked his tongue, "can't stay quite."

You started to back away, "Ubbe!" A smile across your lips.

He titled his head, "what?" But before he could finish, you turned around, running through the trees. "Hey! . . I'm gonna get you." You cursed yourself for wearing a dress, but when you turned to look back, your hair flew in your face, creating a sheen as you ran foreword. Then, you could feel your foot get caught under something, throwing you over it into the dirt. Your hands went to your head, and before you could open your eyes, you could see Ubbe make the same mistake you did, "AHH!" He few onto you, making his hands hit the ground by your head.

You could feel him lean onto you body, trying to take the force he just felt, you laughed a little, "Are you okay?"

His eyes looked up to you, a small laugh escaping his breathless lips, "yeah," you placed your hands on his cheeks, not being able to place them anywhere else. He smiled, "Are you?"

"Yeah," it felt strange to have him lay on top of you, but also kinda right? You could feel his eyes on your lips, staring at them as he questioned what he should do. Get up, or stay?

Instead of letting him decided, your hand creeped its way to the back of his neck, bringing him to your lips as his hands went around your curves. Your mother always told you your first kiss was to be special, like loosing your womanhood, it must be with someone you loved. You could feel him role over, bringing you to straddle him on top, feeling his hands wrap around your hips, pushing you down to him.

"See! I told you they were here!" You jumped against Ubbe's chest, causing him to let out a little laugh. Hvitserk, Sigurd, and Ivar all towered above you, seeing Ubbe's hands wrapping around your bottom, holding you close to him. You could see the jealously in all the brothers, being they wanted to be the ones who got to steal those things away from you.

My shallow patience

And my tender skin

Could never free me

Like you did

"Y/N!" Ubbe called you to sit next to him. You smiled, walking toward him and Hvitserk, who sat on the other side.

"No Y/N! Sit over here!" Hvitserk patted the seat next to him. You looked over at Ubbe who had a confused look on his face, but you sat down next to the boy, feeling his eyes on you as you began to eat.

Ubbe leaned foreword, "Y/N, do you wish to go to the lake later tonight?" He asked, ripping off a piece of meat.

It had been a few months since you first kissed Ubbe, and you occasionally stole kisses from each other, trying to be as secretive as you could, but when it came to his brothers, they got the full details of how you were. Hvitserk leaned towards you, "or you could help me, I was gonna make some new axes."

"No you weren't," Sigurd spoke, "he's lying," you looked at the younger brother, "y/n, you could help me, I'm helping Vidar with the trades."

Ubbe interrupted, "you two can back off, I asked her first."

You could feel all their eyes on you, waiting for an answer. "I-I."

"Stop pestering this young girl!" Queen Aslaug  found her way to the table.

"Mother," The three boys muttered.

Aslaug smiled, walking behind Ubbe to rest her hands on his shoulders, "it seems you have some crushes Y/N."

You could feel you cheeks go pink, but Ubbe rolled his eyes, "Mother."

In a glorious moment

You show me beautiful lights

And I want to know all the colours

Emotion in your eyes

"Ubbbe," you whined as he pulled you deeper and deeper into the forest, "where are we even going?"

He looked back at you, "Are you gonna whine all this time? Hm?"

You smiled, yanking him to be close to you, "if you tell me where we are going," you allowed for your hands to tease his skin, dragging behind his neck and hair, you lips being close to his, "I wouldn't whine," you say, smacking his chest.

"You're a tease."

You smiled, "and your the one who fell in love with a tease," you shrugged, "so who is really at fault?"

He smiled, "Come on," picking you up in one smooth movement.

"Ubbe!" You laughed, "Ubbe put me down!"

Though he didn't put you down until his body came to a stop, you were a little greatful. You stared at him, silently asking what he wanted from you. "Look."

He turned you, showing a small bed of furs and mead. You turned back to him, "you did this? . . for me?"

He smiled, shaking his head as he lead your to it, "lay down." And you did, looking up to see the sky of stars that filled the navy blue background. He found a spot to sit behind you, so your body laid in between his legs and your head could rest on his chest.

"Ubbe-this-this is amazing."

You could feel his fingers run through your hair, kissing your forehead, "that is why I wished to show you."

In a night made of diamonds

I don't see anything else

Cause I'm just learning to hold you

Above a sleeping world

"Oh come on, you can do better than that."

You scoffed at Hvitserk as he sloppily took in his soup. They all watched you, seeing as you attempted to toss a pebble into a small cup. "You wouldn't do any better!"

He shook his head, give it here," he took three rocks from your hands and aimed himself. Carefully raising his head as he tossed it in the hallow horn..

When you heard it click against the bottom of the cup, you widened your eyes, "how did you do that?!"

He stood with his hands open, "a magician does not just give the secrets."

You cocked your head, turning to Ubbe, "will you tell me how to do it then?"

He looked to Hvitserk then you, getting up to take some pebbles from Hvitserk, "Come here." He brought you close to his chest as he dropped one in your right hand, "you have to aim with your good eye," you nodded against his chin; he smiled as his hands wrapped in yours, "like. . . this," he used your hand to toss it, and the small grey circle flew into the cup with more force than Hvitserk's did.

You turned around, "what! That was amazing!" Even if you didn't technically make it, you helped.

He smiled at your excitement, shrugging when you kept asking to do it again, "you try it." You may had not noticed it, but every toss you made, Ubbe's smile grew bigger, knowing he did that. His eyes always followed you, it didn't matter what it was, your arms, hair, hips; he was glued to you. He would miss you, raiding was close.

So deep in the journey

I've been longing for you

But all my love could never be enough

"Come on Y/N! You're so slow!" Ivar smacked your shoulder, knowing if his hands dare touched your butt you would drop him.

"I'm sorry, but who offered to carry you?"

"You?" He said without thought.

"Right, so shut up before I drop you," even if he was thirteen, he weighed a lot. You sat him down on a rock to watch as the men returned from the raid.

You watched Ubbe lifting some swords form the boat, before looking over to you, "Y/N!"

You smiled, waiting for him to walk towards you, being you didn't want to leave Ivar, "Ubbe."

He smiled, wrapping his hand around your hip, "will you be at the great hall tonight?"

You smiled, "Yes." His hand traveled lower to your butt as he kissed you. You pressed your hands against his chest, and laughed, "Ubbe!" You looked behind you, "people are watching!"

He pouted, "but I have missed you."

You could hear Ivar gag, "what is wrong with you both? Disgusting."

"When will it matter when I marry you?"

You raised your brows, "marry me?"

He only nodded his head with a sly smirk, "you'll see."

Then my eyes were opened

And I found everything I was looking for

You held your one year old child within your arms, jumping him on your hip. Ubbe couldn't help but smile as you talked to all the other moms of Kattegat, comparing their children to each other. Though you stood out. The way your smile stuck to your lips, and how your hair matched the color of his sons, he could drop dead with happiness.

The curves of your hips only sucked his eyes into your body, and how you adjusted the small boy on them, he wanted to have another, just to see you with a baby again. You smiled down at the pinked cheeks of your son, Utrid. You held his sides as he leaned backward, a smile on his lips as he his slowly leaned to the ground. When you lifted him back up, relentless giggles escaped his lips, "a-a!"

"Again?" You asked, and he nodded his head. You kept playing games with him before you could feel Ubbe come up behind you,

"Shall we go home?" His hands wrapping around the lower side of your hips.

You smiled, leaning your head to the side to rest on his shoulder as Utrid clapped at his father, "he is tired."

Ubbe smiled, shaking the boy's hands, "what? What is it? Do you want daddy to hold you?" Ubbe reaches over you to take him from your hands, letting the boy balance on his shoulders.

You raised your brows, grabbing the small fur of Utrids, "do not drop him."

Ubbe began your walk home, "what would you do if I did?"

You smiled, "murder you."

(You found me out)

(You found me now)

Tags: @naaladareia @readsalot73 @hail-kattegat @ivarslittlebadgirl @tephi101

[the-firebird69]

Portugal. The Man - "Feel It Still" (Official Video) on Vimeo

This is the strange Little shack where Kristen's brother had an argument about triceps and if he's strong or not and the party and he's drinking heavily he slowed down his brother was still drinking he showed him it's pretty strong and they moved the shack from westborough to Douglas and it's his granddaddy's code it's Obama's code and the AI involve is nearby The shack and his Uncle Tom's cabin and that's who he is and he's also a Malcolm x and the AI is not been taken from him so Garth is leaving, heading there no sense is making note that all those cars are from people who went up there trying to live there or fight over staying there or want to be there they want to know where it is and that's not why it was in the past so he says I realize it's a place of death thank you you're welcome and up there with the Douglas police force by them kidnapped and dugging him I mean Dave and him told the police back to the station and they got away from him they fixed the car all night long they blew out the starter by landing rough and Dave and Chris left and they're upset cuz they forgot to do something and Chris said it to him on the way out well I guess you forgot they started laughing and just gave me I still never say that again you looked up and said I won't cuz I am so damn tired sat back and fell asleep and they've got mad and said he's just a kid got home and he said it's when you're here because thanks Dave that was a great time you laugh and and Dave said it's a daily occurrence and our son said damn it went inside with his smile too 85 like hang ten is what the rolling Stones singer said tons of people are going up there now because even though Obama is in the museum somewhere in Boston they say the AI is still out there and it's Tommy after seeking it and this also has something to do with race because it's called Portugal an Obama used to rule Portugal and it's not Spain his papa was willing to you for real he was in power for the long time still was only till recently and Tommy f to go over and that's the cure that's what the race is about and he's helping and don't forget your tin can trick and something will lead a different one with BG okay a funnel.

So they're off but the race was in Portugal and the tie is Obama and a lot of people won't get it and it's also has to do with Douglas out there in the woods and where the ball is it's quite fascinating the trick you'll never get it it's in the lake and that's correct rain in the lake and the sun said he had this really eerie feeling there and it wasn't made yet

And yeah to help you out Mike Bronda the secret. All the other motorcycle companies are Tommy f and he says he got it out there but his Grand nephew here CAA figured it out we heard it figure it out we know about it since why is that such a pain in the ass it doesn't make any sense then smack daddy owns Harley-Davidson Trump used to own that motorcycle and I'm sure they could get him back in once Mack Daddy sees it maybe and then we have our version which is hardly again we still have trouble with this guy Tommy f AKA Al Capone

And our son said that and it's absolutely true he's a huge pain we're going to get to work now this is now breaking the entire event

Thor Freya

It was like this I've seen it before I've seen them happy like this these are huge events and it's the only time they get happy so get used to it he says we're going to have several firstborns the first one boy a firstborn girl the first one second boy the first born second girl her first in law the second one so I'm pleased with what you're saying

Hera

Zues

We're going to roll now and do the job

Olympus